I wake up with mounds of soft and warm white fur surrounding me. BLISS.

I just so happened to choose the best spot of them all. Yep right between Saviour and Alpha. I was honestly surprised when she brought me over to sleep next to them. Maybe making sure I feel comfortable on my first night under their protection.

I’m one of the first to wake amongst the Seel population and only the NAVY Seel (Dewgongs) look to be awake from that side of the family.

As the sun rises, the morning rays of light reflect off of the icebergs. Some snow falls from the sky, sparkling like thousands of little stars.

All the light was offset by the inky dark blackness of water lapping against the ice floes, potentially scary to those who are unfortunate to fall into their depths if you were human but to a ‘brave’ Seel like myself, just looks normal. Especially to an experienced worldly expert like myself.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy, nothing to see here folks. What? I’m not shaking like a leaf i’m just excited to to to…. Wake up :)!.

With a fun filled day planned I push out from between the two sleeping Dewgongs and head towards the water, the early bird gets the worm and all that nonsense.

As I make my way towards the water in the distance one of the NAVY Seels comes to greet me. ‘Gong, she states, blocking my view of the ocean with her bulk. I guess now is not the time as she needs to protect the flock.

However having said that, it is very quiet today and I wonder if she can’t just come with me?

‘Seeel?’ How am I supposed to eat and train and level if I can’t hunt?

I know they have something in place for this kind of situation but I really just want to stretch my legs…. Damn no legs no more, tail and flippers.

I’ve only got these babies recently and I really want to see what else they are capable of. I stretch out my tail and give it a little wave to emphasise my point.

I know she is the new Dewgong, mother to goldy. So by this point i’ve totally won her over with my antics. She moves aside to let me hunt and comes to accompany me like the good protector that she is.

We silently slip into the water and she quickly overtakes me and then leads me in a completely different direction, whoops.

Obviously she is more familiar with the area and we skirt around what I can only assume to be unsafe areas, doing my best to commit this route to memory.

We finally reach our destination, a small cove with a Rookery of little penguins.

She gestures for me to wait for her in our little hidden ice alcove.

She zooms towards the colony with grace and determination. The two adult Empoleons alerted to her presence give chase along with some of the larger Prinplup. They recognise her as a threat to their offspring.

She gives me a happy hoot as she races away into the distance, mad goose chase successful, I assume this means it’s go time.

I notice that the Prinplups have gathered most of the Piplups and head further inland where I assume more of the parents are sitting and incubating eggs.

However since there are just so many Piplups, some ignore the call to return and continue to search for food within the water.

I slowly approach the area where they were previously feeding on, a school of fish I’m all too familiar with. Wishiwashi swim around in the waters eating what the penguins stir up. Occasional wingull and pelipper dive bomb the water to snatch up some fish.

The Wishiwashi seems to think it’s worth the risk of losing a few to be able to eat here as the school is quite large, certainly large enough to ‘School’ to defend themselves if a truly large threat shows up like a Wailmer or Sharpedo.

My target today though isn’t fish. It’s chicken, so many aquatic chickens!

I quickly scan the area for a target. I try to spot something close to my level.

I wouldn’t feel bad going for something lvl 1 however I want more experience, a challenge and also I get the feeling that the higher the levels the larger the energy stored inside of their meat and likely the larger the size of the meal.

I spot my target. A lvl 6 piplup. Yes I know he's 2 levels above me BUT it's too good a chance. His HP is well below half, I’m never going to get a better chance than this for some quick levels. PIPLUP - HP 10/53 MP 2/53. ??? moves

So I swallow down my fear and nervousness and strategise. She's coming my way, injured and not as quick as the rest because of it, her graceful movement is hampered.

I'm going to take a stab in the dark and assume she ventured further out than the rest, got attacked and then luckily escaped and headed back to a missing family.

As she searches around, Piplup gets closer and closer to my spot however is unable to locate her family. Since this is the case she then she decides to cut her losses and head to shore.

So the plan is simple I just need to land one solid critical hit and she's done. So with my mind made up I PROPEL PROPEL PROPEL from AMBUSH. I accelerate towards her GO GO GO... at the last half a second she veers to the side as if she had some sort of spidey sense.

MISS.

SHIT.

She doesn't however decide to fight, she tries to escape and heads towards the beach.

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There is NO way I’m going to give up that easily, she's still the perfect target for me to work with. And her passivity is a good thing since I think she could potentially still kick my arse with one or two tricks up her sleeves.

Better end this quickly before her family comes back.

However no matter how hard I try, she just keeps successfully evading and dodging all my attempts to hit her until she finally arrives at the beach and unsteadily walks onto the sand.

Piplup turns around and stares me down, daring me to come out of the water.

I take a moment to look around to ensure there is not an ambush waiting with any of her fellow nearby.

Nothing.

Fuck it, time to take a risk.

I follow her out of the water and onto the land. I can see blood trickling down her legs onto the sand.

If I can just stop her getting back to her family, she will potentially bleed out.

She seems to have no intention of chasing me into the water.

I take a quick second to look around at potential spots where I can hide her away, however is shes still alive she’ll just make noise.

In my moment of reflection she takes advantage of my distraction and strikes.

Here I was so confident in my victory that I fail to realise that YES STUPID she has stopped running and if she moves too much she will bleed out so she probably also knows she needs to end things quickly.

Piplup does a simple thing all movie villains do. She throws fucking sand in my face and blinds me.

Although I’m blinded I sure as shit know what happens next in EVERY SINGLE action hero movie. I refuse to go down and pick a direction and jump to the side.

I hear the sound of something wet and heavy impacting upon the sand and then a *HISS*. Yep I just dodged a bullet or some form of projectile, definetely sounds like some type of acid.

I quickly roll back towards the water and rinse my eyes off (Yes in salt water) lucky in the fact that I’m no longer human.

When I return to the beach I can see she is still in the same spot not moving a muscle.

Ready to try again to stop the big bad villain.

Mwahahaha nah mate you ain’t going to beat me. And now I know what to do too!!!!

It's only logical that if she can't dodge and refuses to move and can one hit me up close that my options are limited. I just need to not get close. So i'm going to throw her trick right back in her face (literally) with a little extra on top.

So I gather pebbles around the beach keeping an eye on my quarry. Once I have a few mounds set up I take aim and flick dirt and pebbles at her.

MISS.

She just looks annoyed but she already knew to shut her eyes from the sand.

I dodge a few more flicks of sand from her legs towards me but she has no MP left so whatever her acid attack was, it isn’t coming back until she gets another 2 points of MP.

Theoretically, that's 10 minutes for me to break through her defense. And 10 minutes is probably all I have before her family comes back from the goose chase as I doubt the Dewgong can take on 2 Emploeons and a handful of Prinplups.

So I try again.

Still not feeling much pressure.

I hope it works this time. I line up my shot and flick the pebbles a little harder, again she shuts her eyes however I can see the impact has pushed her a little.

Yes ALMOST!

I've got many more mounds to work with.

She has no clue what I’m doing since she shuts her eyes each time I attack however it doesn't matter to me.

I take aim and as she shuts her eyes, instead of flicking with my flipper, I get down quickly and smash the mound of pebbles with a PROPEL.

*DING - You have learned ROCK BULLET LVL 1(ROCK Bullet, fires projectiles at great speed at a target to do damage, types of damage dealt depends on the medium used to attack the target).

Ohhh interesting and so overpowered, but expensive as heck -10 MP!

Given the description of the skill, in theory I could light something on fire and then fling it like a catapult to burn. Hmm maybe just one large rock when I’m stronger and not afraid of breaking my own tail in the process.

Yeah I can work with this.

I look to where the Piplup stands.... stood.

Oh shit she is riddled with little holes. That worked far better than I had hoped, she's knocked down and from what I can see is almost dead.

Piplup HP 2/53 MP 1/53.

Fine, let’s do this.

I'm not falling for anything stupid, let’s hit her again.

I line up a shot and FIRE. At the last second, the piplup swivels. Piplup looks straight at me knowing she's going to die and does the only indecent thing she can think of.

She fires her acid shot. ... ... SHIT her MP is 2/53 again. It lands right on me and hurts like you couldn't even believe..... unless you have been burnt by acid before and then it hurts exactly as you can believe!

FUCK.

All thoughts of victory leave my mind as my BODY LITERALLY BURNS.

I roll on the sand as I make my way back towards the water. Immersing myself in the water reduces the burn and washes off the majority of the acid.

I'm hurt but at least I won't get further injured.

I'm lucky I didn't get the poison status effect, as I have no antidote so that would mean death.

DING - You have beaten Lvl 6 Piplup - EXP awarded. DING you have levelled. DING you have gained a passive skill - Poison tolerance LVL1. A skill for those dumb enough to be hurt by poison but smart enough to survive being hurt by poison.

DING - You have levelled from Lvl 3>5

For defeating a foe far harder than yourself, you gain bonus HP and MP for your levels (x2)

I grab the body and move as fast as I can back towards the concealed hidey hole.

I just hope nobody like a SHARPEDO with some sort of blood tracking sense is in the area. Although the crack is too small for them to fit into I don't like the idea of being trapped in ice.... again.

Time to chow down and wait for Dewgong to come back.

STATUS

[SEEL - LVL 5]

[Water/???]

[HP 45/70 MP 40/70]

Lvl Move Use Cost 3 SWIM ... to swim.. idiot Uses 0 MP, requires some energy to use 3 Bite Om nom nom Empowered required 2 mp, unempowered 0 1 Struggle Fight for your lifeee, wiggle like a epileptic Uses 0 MP however causes recoil damage 3 Headbutt Now that's using your head! Uses 0 MP however causes recoil damage 4 Propel Use your primary appendage to give yourself forward momentum 1 MP per use 1 Tourniquet Apply pressure to a site to cut off circulation No Mp per use however loss of use of the limb bound until tourniquet is removed 1 EVIL EYE Glare at a creature had enough and lowers the target's crit rate, whilst making them more suscetible to critical hits. 1 MP per use 1 REST Recover HP at the expense of giving yourself the condition ASLEEP Uses fat reserves/energy 1 AMBUSH Sneak up on unsuspecting foes - if ambush is successful you will attack first and always score a critical hit. Uses 0 MP however requires skill, patience and practice to successfully pull off 5 DIG Use watever is at your disposal to .. dig Uses 0 MP, requires some energy to use 1 ROCK BULLET Fire projectiles at great speed at a target to do damage, types of damage dealt depends on the medium used to attack the target 10 MP per use, Recoil damage to anatomy used depending on object hit and velocity used.

Level PASSIVE Description 1 Poison tolerance A skill for those dumb enough to be hurt by poison but smart enough to survive being hurt by poison