The enemies on the moon were remarkably stronger than all of the others we have fought so far.
Oh, and the maze of this whole 'moon castle lair' is also way more complicated than back in Nihco's cave, and has two quite dumb signs that regard a 9 looking like an 8, and a 3 looking like a 4… I may not be the best at maths, but I do know that none of these numbers look a lot like each other, especially not when handwritten by me.
Anyhoo, the enemies that were present here were a ton… Fobbies (even if Ness commented that for some reason, those are not as cute and round as the ones that he saw in Lumine Hall), Blood Doves that were experts in both giving the four of us colds and subsequently leaving cold remedies behind after defeat (they really are beneficial, in this case), Blitzenkreigs, MLAs, Great Waffles, Sir Tendas, Flying Rats, Lucifer Trees, Dante's Fridges, and Starmen Funk (Starman Funks? Oh well…), the latter being the most annoying enemy ever in presence.
Those Starmen Funk look really innocent, cool and all, but watch out when they use some weird sorcery that 'civilises' you: it happened to me quite often that I felt 'mature' and suddenly started attacking my companions against my will and natural reactions. (I even punched Dog in that status, and he thought it was because his Vampire Fleas didn't work on that weird cyborg! But it really wasn't, honestly.)
So we just tried to either evade those annoying cyborgs, or still battle a few, but with Ness paralysing them with his PSI for the sake of me not wanting to be 'civilised' again from that one point on.
Blood Doves were the most often fought enemies around, as well as the Dante's Fridges, and even if they could be annoying with giving us colds and trying to steal our items respectively, we still often succeeded in defeating them easily.
Also, my companions are now kind of jealous of me that my strength is seemingly greater than theirs ever since arriving on the moon and fighting the enemies there.
"Do you have a fever, or something?" I asked Ness.
"No, not at all" he replied. "I can just sense it in the way that you often pummel those enemies in a big ol' smash-y style!"
"Then, have I grown extra muscles?" I unbuttoned my blouse and showed my companions one of my bare arms while occasionally bending it.
"Doesn't look like it to me."
"I cannot judge that from you only showing that one arm once" Dog chuckled, "so yeah, try again later when we gained more strength. Either later today, or even tomorrow."
"Alrighty." I put my arm back into my sleeve and buttoned my blouse back up.
"Hey, Dog" Sherm said, "you may not be able to judge those muscles with your bare eye, but I most likely can by literally feeling them. Arn, would you please briefly hold me again?"
I did as Sherm asked.
"Yeah, they have indeed become stronger and a bit bigger than back when we first met."
"That was only a few hours ago" I chuckled, "sounds a bit like a tall tale to me!"
"Yeah, but in a world like this, it's still able to occur without the use of anything in the way of those nasty steroids, which is only good."
"Interesting." I crouched to put the teenage tangerine back onto the ground. "Any of you feeling hungry now? Because I am."
Ness, Dog and Sherm nodded.
"Then, let's rest up and make a little campfire near the closest bench."
We went our way back through the maze and put our backpacks on that bench.
Out of my backpack, I first took a few old newspapers and a lighter, and made a makeshift campfire that way.
"Why are you using newspapers for that?" Dog asked.
"They're nearly the same material as firewood" I said with a wink, "or, well, wood overall."
"Ah, right, forgot that…"
Next up, I unfolded my trusty sturdy metal tripod above the fire, put a pot onto it, and filled the pot up with some hot water from my thermos and an entire family box of instant mac 'n cheese.
"Ooh, yum!" Ness exclaimed.
"The freshly made equivalent is a lot better" I said, "but since we're camping out there with no professional kitchen nearby, we'll just have to do it like this."
"That's absolutely right."
"Wait" Dog said, "some random thought suddenly popped up just now…" He sat down and crossed his legs. "Say, Sherm, you told me that you knew a dog exactly like me, right?"
"That's right" Sherm replied, "I saw him about a year a… go?" He frowned as if thinking of something very important. "Wait a second… any chance you were camping out with some others on Oho Oasis last year?"
"Yeah, how do you kn- a-ha, so you were that one anthropomorphic tangerine that kept on admiring us, and especially me? How come you never told us your name back then?"
"Good question, but honestly, I don't know. But man, what a coincidence indeed, that we apparently know each other for a way longer time than we both thought!"
"Even if we never knew each other's names until this noon, yes."
"Oho Oasis was quite a nice spot to be at, even if we had to be wary of heavy thunderstorms at a certain week."
"Oh, man, heavy thunderstorms… especially I was scared of those, so we eventually had to settle at a village inn for the rest of the week!"
"Ah, so that's where you all went? Not that I stayed on Oho Oasis because I was concerned about losing you guys or anything, nah, I was in Little Fungitown instead."
Dog and Sherm kept on reminiscing to their apparent indirect first meeting while I occasionally stirred the pot of mac 'n cheese with my trusty wooden spoon.
Ness got small, disposable plastic bowls and spoons out of his backpack and handed a few to each of us.
"Sherm, do you have anything to eat for yourself?" he asked, "or would you like a bit of the macaroni soon?"
"Aw, apples, forgot." The teenage tangerine got a small bag of… compost… out of his inventory? Ah, right, he's a tangerine, so that's kinda logical somewhere.
A few minutes later, we were all dining, and much against my, Ness's and Dog's expectations, Sherm eventually wanted a little bite of the mac 'n cheese as well, so I gave him his way.
"Alright, Sherm" I said, while trying to hold back my laughter and sending my spoon towards his mouth. "Open up the tunnel, here co-"
"Arn, you know that I hate being babied, so please, no!"
That sentence was the one that made me, Ness and Dog laugh hard.
"I just wish your tongue was long enough to lick it out of the bowl!" Dog grinned.
"Wait, my tongue is kinda long!"
In response to that, I put the spoon's contents back into the bowl and put it on the ground sideways, in front of Sherm, who immediately tried to lick the food out, but to barely any avail.
"It's not long enough, you silly goose!" he said to Dog. "Alright, you win this one, but that's only because all dogs have long tongues."
The anthropomorphic mutt simply chuckled.
I picked the bowl back up and gave Sherm the rest of the spoonful of mac 'n cheese anyway, and he looked like he instantly lit up once he had a good taste.
"Tastes amazingly good for artificial stuff, as well as the fact that I usually never eat foods like this!"
"Thanks, they're my most mediocre – and only – cooking skills I happen to possess."
We all laughed about the statement.
Soon after, Ness took a huge bag of marshmallows, a massive chocolate bar and graham crackers out of his backpack, while I still fed the very few leftover mac 'n cheese to Sherm.
"S'mores, anyone?" the hatted teenager said as he showed all of the foods to the rest of us.
"Only one for me, please" Sherm said after swallowing his last mouthful.
"Ooh, yes!" I said. "And so it happens that I adore s'mores as one of the few sweet foods!"
Over the eventually smouldering remains of the campfire, we roasted a whopping three-fourth of the bag of marshmallows, the most of them not even being made into the s'mores, eventually, because when roasted on their own, they also taste quite good.
After our dinner break, we went back to fighting enemies.
For the first time, a Great Waffle managed to use Brainshock successfully, and made Ness feel strange, which has similar, albeit consistent, traits of being 'civilised'.
In that process, he often accidentally hit Sherm, rather than the enemy.
"What the actual [too obscene word to write here], man?! Get back to normal right this instant!" is how Sherm would often react, even if he knew that Ness didn't even do this on purpose.
But soon after, the baseball-loving teenager would often smack himself back to normal with his bat, and say: "Wow, that was weird."
Once our enemy really didn't turn out as great as it thought, we stood eye-in-eye with a Sir Tenda.
"I can somewhat feel he has a special item behind his back…" Dog said.
"Then pick his pockets" I jokingly stated.
"Not a bad idea: to sneakily take that possible item away!"
While Ness, Sherm and I prepared our next attacks, Dog sneakily and swiftly searched the Tenda with his hands, and indeed found an item in its inventory.
It was a hat, but not just a hat.
"Sherm, good news: the aura that this hat emits means that this item may really be destined for you."
"Hooray!" Ness, Sherm and I cheered in unison, as Dog put the hat onto the tangerine's head.
"Wow, I can indeed feel something awaken inside of me…!"
At the same time, the Sir Tenda attacked our fruity friend harshly, yet it didn't seem to hurt as much, because the Hat of Kings turned out to increase his defence somewhat.
Even so, Ness was the one to home-run the enemy out of our way, as well as quite a lot of our next enemies, including another Starman Funk that 'civilised' Sherm within no time.
"Wait, why is that effect hat floating?" Dog noticed, comparing the situation to back when I, myself, had this exact same effect hat under the 'mature' status.
"I dunno" Sherm replied, "but like I already said, in a world like this, all sorts of strange things happen." He subsequently used PSI Ice to cold-clock the enemy hard.
But it didn't take off into the sunset after its last guitar riff just yet until I smacked it hard with my weapon ski.
On the spot where the cyborg was, a pocket guitar was there, and Sherm picked it up with his mouth.
"I kine oph wondah whaf fith doeth…"* He put it into his inventory.
And just as we were about to look for another bench for the sake of our fruity friend, another Great Waffle was there, but this time, it was easily owned, with the partial thanks going to Dog's Vampire Fleas that enthusiastically devoured it in between the baseball bat knocks and PSI influences.
And then there was another Blitzenkreig, who consistently (or so Dog said) played a haunted melody that appeared to have kept me asleep for the longest time out of our team. Doesn't help with the fact that naturally, I am already a heavy sleeper myself. But okay, a few physical attacks and the enemy was stone that turned itself to gravel. Literally.
At the end of the path, we healed up, saved, and went to another path, that was some sort of a hallway, containing yet another chamber that was optional according to the sign, but not according to the four of us.
*A/N: Since Sherm held on to the pocket guitar with his mouth, he couldn't say "I kind of wonder what this does..." intelligibly enough. :P