Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

75. Never Unscathed.

-Equus, Ponyville, Carousel Boutique, Yona-

Opening the door into the boutique I saw that Rarity was talking to a reindeer, she looked nice at least and had on a really nice green scarf. I liked the color green too, so we already had some things in common and could be good friends!

Sitting on the table sipping from a teacup was ice sprite in a purple top hat, fluffy robe and cool glasses. The teacup was bigger than him and it was adorable that he held it like a soup bowl.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an ice sprite and they always avoided going near yaks.

Maybe it is because of all the stomping we do? Yaks were definitely the best at that, aside from cows like that carpenter Arizona. Arizona actually made a bed that could support my weight and it could survive a class nine magical explosion, it was also comfy too! In fact Arizona’s work was unusually popular with all the special needs applicants to the School of Friendship.

Maybe if we were more careful around them like I am with my best yak companion and familiar for life Spindle, then could we be friends with ice sprites too?

“So I tend to do most things for salt which is a common trade commodity up in Rein, but as for everywhere else… it’s really quite good currency by the cubic meter. I don’t mind bits and if we’re talking Saddle Arabian currencies well… I’d have to go with ‘no’. My cousin Velvet’s adoptive family has one of their members apparently dead set on ruining Saddle Arabia’s economy in the next week or so. Don’t honestly know how Velvet’s adoptive sister is going to achieve that without leaving the borders of Equestria, but Velvet says she’s managed to do worse from halfway around the world before and I believe her warnings to be quite prudent. I’m still open for being paid in good gemstones though, but I think rupees are about to go down heavily in value.” The reindeer was saying this as I walked in and she noticed me immediately, yaks are the best at being noticed. “Oh, a yak! Do you suppose she’d help us with making Yakyakistan more fashionable?”

“Did you say rupees are about to go down in value?!” A brown pony stallion in a green hat and a heart symbol cutie mark with a wagon load of rupees looked horrified as he poked his head through the door, he quickly galloped off. “Epona, we have big a problem!”

I saw an Abyssinian with green hair standing nearby and she was marking something off a checklist with a smirk as she followed after the pony. I turned back to Rarity and the reindeer, they both shrugged.

“She may assist us somewhat if we ask her nicely, this is one of my students from the School of Friendship.” Rarity nodded to me to introduce myself. “If she doesn’t, then I know a yak named Eir that might help. I don’t know where or what kind of place Turtle Toga is, but I’ve been getting plenty of commissions from there.”

“Hello I’m Yona and Yona likes your pretty scarf, it is excellent for yaks!” I said vibrantly.

“Hello Yona, my name is Cashmere…. my surname is now ‘La Perm’ I suppose. Yes Rarity, Kuril forcing me to be a part of her family, but I honestly don’t have any trouble with it.” Cashmere turned to me with a smile. “Also thank you, I do like to accessorize and so does… Mr. Cap? Cap! Where are you? Oh bother, it seems he ran off in hurry.”

We stared at the tea cup spinning in a blur, the tea hovering above it because of said spinning cup and the afterimage of the ice sprite that used to be sitting there. Slowly our eyes drifted to the nearby open window covered in frost.

“Yona thinks she might have scared off Mr. Cap… ice sprites don’t like yaks very much.” I still liked ice sprites though, it would be hard to be friends if he kept running away like that.

“Right… that is a thing. Sorry about Mr. Cap’s reaction to your presence Yona.” Cashmere tilted her head and her ears flicked, she smiled after a moment. “So, are you interested in fashion?”

“Yes, Yona is very interested in fashion!” Fashion was all about having colorful and beautiful stuff to wear, I think Yakyakistan needs more of that!

-Elhorn, the next day, Frosty Checkpoint, Smolder-

“So… things are pretty bad for us huh?” That got me a glance from Shanty as we sat on a bench in the Cooler Faction cave.

“We are being alive, how is that bad?” Shanty stated firmly while crossing her front hooves.

Exile apparently succeeded at destroying the base and the Wulfgar Wolves in the eastern mountains were having problems getting back at on their paws.

“Well if you haven’t noticed, Pom’s cowering and hiding in the wagon. She’s also badly bruised and has rendered herself functionally mute for who knows how long and she was our secondary language translator. Until we meet up with Nicole Beta in Zebulos, we don’t have an active translator as Ocellus is in a coma after nearly starving herself to death… which shouldn’t have been so easy!” Being as upset as I was, I really shouldn’t be taking the news of Ocellus’s current state out on Shanty. “Then there’s you, horrible internal bruising that is causing you to flinch every other minute since the adrenaline wore off and you haven’t gotten any sleep either.”

“I be fine.” Shanty stated firmly despite wincing and looking away, I could see the bags under her eyes.

“No, you’re not fine, none of us really are!” I grouched out. I could vaguely hear Dodo warble in an upset tone nearby the wagon. “So stop acting so tough Shanty, we’re a mess. I’m an emotional wreck because Ocellus is out. You somehow survived being slapped by a ton of metal, with nasty bruising being the worst of your injuries. How are we supposed to help Pom with her current psychological trauma and paranoia?! She was stuck with them for several days! Your injuries aren’t too pretty either you know.”

“Is it so hard to be pretending that we got through things unscathed?” Shanty muttered softly as she wilted and I groaned out audibly. “We be needing some optimism here!”

“We know Pom has been helping Ocellus with feeling helpless, she makes you feel needed, but I kind of want a little more attention from her now. Ocellus… she needed me and I kissed her with all I had, the results were rather breath taking in a literal sense and it was awesome. It was a little weird that it drained me emotionally to do it, but I gave every bit of it willingly.” I looked away and rubbed at my right bicep. “While we couldn’t get through the grating when the vents were closed off from the room, we could still see what was happening down there. This world has some terrifying monsters Shanty, Ocellus did all that for you and Pom. Heh, the powers of friendship and love at its strongest. Now if only the power of love would wake Ocellus up…”

“You still be carrying her body out and we know she’s alive, she just… exhausted herself.” Shanty laid down and stared at the carved out ceiling, she grimaced as her back made contact with the bench. “So we be leaving for Zephyrus soon?”

“Any Gedol patrol dumb enough to attack us on the way back with the guy that can wipe out an entire armies and giant deadly machines, single handedly at that, should get their idiotic heads examined.” I glanced at Shanty as she looked at me. “You want optimistic? We have a living legend watching out for us that’s been beyond the sky and ether to fight up in the great big bluish black thing that we usually think Luna is in charge of… only Luna, Celestia and Twilight don’t control the skies here. We know now that there are ways to travel the stars and I don’t mean the constellation beasts, I certainly wouldn’t want to explore the digestive tract of an Ursa Major.”

Shanty snorted loudly and started giggling despite flinch a lot in pain.

“Please don’t be making me laugh… it hurts.” She closed her right eye and stuck her tongue out at me.

“To think Equus seems so small to a lot of dragons. The space beyond our world must be much bigger than we can ever truly imagine. The people of this world all came from a different one entirely, it’s really bizarre to think that such a thing is possible. They didn’t hop through dimensions like we did, they flew far away from their planet and then arrived to settle here on this one.” The things we were doing here, it was a lot to take in and we were trying to pretend we were coping with it well. We weren’t, we were just mostly toughing things out. “Do you think this war will be over soon?”

“It will be if we have anything to say about, I don’t be caring where we end up as long as it is safer than being here for another week.” Shanty closed her other eye and wiggled around a bit. “You are a hot headed, pea brained dragon that looks like a walking tangerine with giant toothpicks sticking out of your head.”

“Oh yeah!? Well you’re a brash, masochistic, little poppet with gluttony issues that will one day change your name to ‘Chunky’.” I stated back lazily.

“Furnace face.” Shanty offered flatly.

“Peewee pirate.” I grinned.

“Flame farter.” Decent one Shanty, but...

-A few days later, Zebulos heading south towards Cladinhold, Pom-

My throat still aches and I was still mute, but at least we were making good time and the only problem seems to be Ocellus. I spent a lot of time silently comforting Smolder these last few days and feeding Ocellus love personally, Shanty was chipping in with hugs and Smolder was the one giving as much love as she could to the comatose changeling.

The four of us were pretty bad off emotionally speaking, but we’d be okay soon enough. Dodo was trying to keep us all in a chipper mood, but we all knew what was coming. As soon as the Sparkrobo was repaired with Ligstrun and Nicole Beta’s help, then the forces against Gedol would all gather for the assault on Devotindos City to stop all the evil core making madness at its source.

Jean was fully recovered and ready for a pitched battle, Colleen would still need a few more days and Bruno was itching to get into a dangerous fight. Don’t know how long it would take to get my voice back, Shanty was walking bruise after the direct slap she took from one of the wolf machines and Ocellus was still worryingly comatose which was depressing Smolder.

Do we join in on the attack or do we just sit it out? We needed to make sure the Sparkrobo made it to the front lines at least, as the White Knight Couriers that may be the last job we needed to do. I’m sure we could ask someone about that with Nicole’s help.

Speaking of Nicole Beta, she was a bit antsy since I managed to express to her that I’ve seen Mobius and the fact that she was underselling how bad things were getting. I at least knew why she was nervous about the planet she was created on, Elhorn wasn’t as bad as Mobius currently was.

As for the person I wanted to interact with the most, Sparkster was someone I was quite interested in learning more about. He wasn’t very relaxed, in fact he was quite tense about the upcoming assault.

He was the one with the task of dealing with the dark magic wielding Emperor Gedol and Axel Gear. Not only that, he would be entering the death zone in Devotindos known as ‘The Factory’ by himself. Zephyrus and Zebulos soldiers had easier jobs of handling the smaller factories throughout the city.

Equus was a mostly peaceful world where large wars were seldom seen, this world wasn’t so lucky and Sparkster was a shell shocked veteran of running head long into danger with this world’s most dangerous piece of equipment strapped to his back. I knew that feeling of doing my best for others very well.

Sparkster was under pressure to do his best and to succeed in toppling the head of the Gedol Empire, because if he didn’t… nobody else might be able to do it without a grievous loss of life. Axel Gear was bad enough, how much worse was Emperor Gedol that the dark rocket knight worked for him?

As for other forces that would be helping in the fight, it is said Eginasem would be attacking the opposite side of the city even if they weren’t going to enter it personally. The frogs were possibly going to help, they definitely already sent supplies through Gedol lines to Zebulos and Zephyrus at great risk to themselves.

Yellow Dog was still in a less than civil war, but there were rumors that the Cooler Faction was willing to send some aid to the front against Gedol.

This was the stuff that we were informed of when passing through Zephyrus. We hadn’t even reached Cladinhold as we cross the plains, but we can see the forces gearing up to march against Gedol from here.

It was a massive undertaking, Gedol had spread pretty far and had had the upper claw at the beginning of the war. Now that was clearly changing and they were being pushed back even with Axel Gear aiding their cause.

I looked to Sparkster as he sat staring out the front of the wagon as we were on approach for the city where Sparkrobo was waiting.

Looking to Colleen, I worried about her health, but she was still wearing a rocket pack and I didn’t know what Sparkster thought of it. I wished I could ask… maybe I could use a piece of paper to write something on so Smolder or Shanty could ask for me.

I stood up drawing the attention of everyone, we had all been quiet and there wasn’t much excitement, aside from Bruno who was prepared for the onslaught.

I carefully made my way up to the unarmored Sparkster, I looked him in the eyes and he stared back curiously. I put my left hoof on his right shoulder and then wrapped my right hoof around his back and hugged him gently, he needed some comforting. I gave him a squeeze and then patted his back before letting him go to head back to my seat.

-Sparkster-

That… I… turning to look at Nicole Beta, the machine with the history of our world.

I didn’t know what to think and she was the only one that could currently translate for them. I have a history with machines, mostly destroying them, but this one machine knew the story of how Elhorn got started and it was a bit of a shock to learn we weren’t native to this world.

“Tell her… thank you for the hug. I’m not going to be receiving much comfort for what I have to do soon.” I noted that the one called Pom had gotten some parchment and was writing something down.

“Of course.” Nicole stated before turning to the odd four that came to the aid of many in their hour of need, she said something in a weirdly musical tone to the four. I saw the white fluffy one smile a bit as she continued writing, though she could not speak that didn’t mean she didn’t have a voice in the language of her body.

The White Knight Couriers, the one courier group that survived a direct confrontation with Axel Gear and that was actually saying something about them. A courier group made up of a pig, a dog, a lizard, an intelligent machine not bent on destroying us all and four other strangers along with their strangely affectionate land strider that produced baked goods.

I had long thought cooperation between the various peoples of this world impossible. This group held off Axel Gear and even if they didn’t beat him and struggled throughout the battle, their survival was a huge blow to Axel’s pride that had other soldiers of the Zephyrus and Zebulos alliance rallying to fight all that much harder.

This team was an inspiration to many as their adventures sounded bizarre and incredible, it started with the core four who arrived in flash of light in time to save a village in Zephyrus from being burned down and fended off a small contingent of Gedol raiders.

They helped freed the captured raccoons from a train carrying them to slavery, played a key part in the battle of Cladinhold with holding off an evil core long enough for a pincer attack to fail spectacularly, attacked Gedol supply lines and faced a literal demon that overtook Hydrigal. They even learned of things going on within Yellow Dog and brought back both news, aid and even supplies to repair my Sparkrobo after its harrowing battle with Axel Gears mech when I went for the first magical sword that I needed.

They were doing things well above and beyond what a normal courier team could have ever been expected to do. This group of heroes were battered, beaten and weary, but they were not broken by everything world has brought against them.

They were never unscathed by their trials, but they were certainly doing as much as I was and their reputation was getting to be about as good as mine was. The world chewed them up and they kept going, it was even an inspiration to one who was vaunted by so many as unstoppable.

I wasn’t unstoppable, I was tired and beleaguered beyond belief, but like them I pressed forward into an uncertain future.

Colleen was the one they are calling the rookie rocket knight, the next hope if I were to fall in the coming battle.

There was Jean the duelist who smiles in the face of danger and the one who unlocked the history of our world.

Bruno the berserker who had a sweet tooth and martial prowess was renowned even as far back as the pig wars five years ago as he aided Zebulos then as a true ally against his own mind controlled people. He was a key part in holding off the main Gedol assault force in Cladinhold while the rest of the couriers held fended off the evil core.

These were the native people that made up the bodyguards of The White Knight Couriers unit.

The others however, Ocellus the miracle maker, Smolder the flame dancer, Shanty the blade hoofed and Pom the eponymous White Knight herself who was the only being in the history of Elhorn to personally bring down an evil core machine without a weapon and with little aid.

They were all outsiders far from home and proving their mettle in helping the world at the cost of their health and sanity. These heroes needed all three princesses to continue their journey to get back home and I would soon be an important factor in that should I succeed in rescuing Princess Cherry from the clutches of Gedol.

Ligstrun the defector, the one Gedol soldier that caused a number of others to defect against the empire with his bravery in the face of being hunted down by Axel Gear. He told the story of how Pom brought down the evil core unit down with magical barks and her pure strength alone, he had been there to witness it and tried to help, he wasn’t much of a fighter and didn’t really do much more than a distraction that nearly got himself killed.

I doubt I would ever be able to accomplish such a feat of taking down an evil core personally without a blade in hand, even if the evil core Pom took down was one of the smallest ones to ever exist.

Even now tales of Ocellus gaining control of an evil core machine that had been split into two separate machines sounds downright impossible, if I had not been there in time to see it for myself and vouch for the validity of it actually happening.

The mental strain of using such a powerful magic had almost killed her from what I could see, I seriously doubted dark magic was involved as it wiped away all the malice and evil from the machines to leave them wild.

I lived in a time of impossible feats of strength and bravery, I sometimes thought I was the only one that faced such hardships as the last rocket knight… fortunately that title is no longer true.

I’m not the last rocket knight, since Colleen has found her own way to being a rocket knight and I was willing to welcome her among my number as a hero and comrade as long as she stayed true to keeping the world safe.

She was a survivor of Yellow Dogs rocket knight project two and a half years ago and had a chip in her shoulder about Axel Gear. She could not face him on equal grounds… not yet anyway, but I could give her a few tips from what I’ve learned, even if she is not using the same kind of rocket pack that I am.

-Zebulos and Zepyhrus Battleground Camp, west of Devotindos City, Pom-

My discussion with Sparkster was a bit convoluted, but I felt better that I had to communicated with him through a sheet of paper read by smolder to Nicole who translated to Sparkster and back to me.

I was nervous, I was going to be a symbol for people to rally behind. I did not like that one bit that I was being called The White Knight and they actually needed me on the front line.

The White Knight Couriers only had one job for this battle, break a hole through the front line and blow a hole in the wall big enough for Sparkster to rush through in the Sparkrobo. He’d deal with Axel Gear and Emperor Gedol from there, everyone else would be busy dealing with the front lines and the city itself.

Smolder was sitting the battle out with Ocellus, as was Nicole who was going to be volunteering as a backline battlefield medic. Nicole earned some fearful looks, but was allowed to be a medic once she proved her knowledge and capability to assist.

Shanty should have sat this out too… but she begged me to take part in this as she didn’t want me to go into it as the only being from Equus alone. Her bruising and swelling had gone down and she was getting tougher, I seriously didn’t want her following me into battle behind my back anyway.

I wrote down that she was allowed to do so, so long as she stayed next to me the entire time we’re doing this and she agreed that she wouldn’t separate from me unless she was forced to.

Ligstrun was surprisingly taking part in the fight, he was going to be piloting a Zebulos Guardian Mech and was proudly wearing Zebulos colors. I wished him well against the Devotindos pig mechs, those things looked dangerous even at this distance.

Jean, Bruno and Colleen were going to be with Shanty and I in the breakthrough unit. Our job was to protect Dodo and the wagon until we could get the explosives to the wall. Once we blew the wall, we were free to quickly leave the battlefield afterwards.