//------------------------------// // 39. Mounting Menace. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Equestria, Canterlot Castle, Fizzle- “I was wondering how long it would take you to notice that you were paying me to be stationed at home with my conjoined children.” I stated bluntly. “They are completely adorable.” “Another loophole I take it?” Twilight Sparkle stated flatly, she got back from her trip to the first realm the lost ended up in. A Skunk had apparently apologized profusely for where they ended up, mostly because he didn’t believe that the dragon named Dragon wouldn’t do something nice. “Is Equestria’s law system literally made of cheese!?” “I’ll have you know that cheese is a solid foundation for just about any snack. Not that the cows are complaining about lighter taxation you put in motion.” I stated plainly, while idly nibbling at a slice of cheesecake. “It’s hard to keep my kitty from digging into the Gouda stuff.” “Please Fizzle, no puns.” Twilight seem fairly beleaguered by the trying to find the lost, Pom was also my friend too, not to mention what she's still attempting to do with the Lambkin and Changelings. “I get enough of that from Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich when they come up here to visit me on their dates and party everything into the ground. I’ve had to force them to stick to a budget that only they can personally fund on their visits… apparently they can fund a lot off of favors alone. It’s really terrifying how much sway those two hold over the entire nation of Equestria.” “Party animals do make a lot of friends. Remind me, what loophole was it that allowed Gummy to become the official new principal of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns again?” I seriously needed to have a talk with my significant others about any recent ludicrous antics. At least they are keeping me on the tips of my hooves when I needed something fun to chew over, never a dull moment there. “Speaking of, he’s still the principal of the school and somehow manages to do all the paperwork and keep up with it despite being in Ponyville ninety percent of the time.” What Twilight wasn’t talking about, was that Pinkie somehow taught her familiar to do accountant work. Nobody actually sees him doing it, but it still gets done when Gummy is locked in a room with paperwork that’s impossible for anyone to break into. Anyone aside from my kitty if she weren’t busy at least. “I thought getting you to put your hoof down on the loophole abuse would stop it, but then Pinkie Pie started doing it too for her ‘legal’ definition of fun.” “What was it you said about puns?” I smirked and barely released a snort. “I assure you that one was completely unavoidable.” Twilight said bluntly, but she still smiled about it. “In others news my kitty has been sniffing around.” I did not want to be separated from any of my herd by a dimension. “She knows something is up and I’m trying to keep her out of the situation with hunting the Grogar Cultists.” “Can you keep her distracted at the very least?” Twilight visibly paled remembering what she heard about what happened in Manehatten. The statue of harmony, Liberty, has never been quite the same since then. -Hills outside of ‘???’, four days after arrival, Pom-. Changelings had the unique ability to learn spoken languages at an incredible speed, given they can use emotions to derive meaning from words. It was also an inbuilt feature into Changeling biology so they could infiltrate any form of society, in this case it was Ocellus learning to read and speak the language over the last four days. The end results was that Ocellus could vaguely start asking questions, but not understand all the answers that were given. Ocellus would have their spoken language down within another week at least, but she required a larger sampling size than just the farmers at the end of a valley. Understanding the written language would take longer, but we didn’t need to know that to read the map we’ve been given by the locals. Changelings had that ability and yet they ultimately had problems with learning anything about the culture of the places they infiltrated. The culture blind effect was something that Smolder and I were around to help with, as some things tended to go completely over Ocellus’s head or get lost in her translating efforts. I was currently exercising my body, I did flying cartwheels known as the Wild Windmill technique. I tumbled in the grass, I rolled left and right and I leapt as high as I could. The last thing I tested was my horizontal Wild Windmill technique, which turned my body into something akin to a horizontally thrown throwing star. This was good for long distance jumping over large open gaps. I was lightweight enough that I could almost keep myself flying horizontally as long as I had put a strong enough spin on my body after launching myself out of a one hoof pivot. Once my spin slows down, I’d lose all momentum and would fall straight down. I could even supplement my distance by inflating my fluff at the top of my forehead. Landing softly in the grass I looked over to where Shanty was playing with her familiar, that machine had me wary of it. It was a familiar even if it was manufactured wingless metal ostrich that, somehow, counted as living in so far as it could even make the bond. It had to have some form of rudimentary intelligence to even get that far. I hope Shanty remembers what I told her about familiars, it’s a two way street. You get something and they get something, it’s impossible to take and never give as the bond enforces the connections unless snapped like mine currently are and I wanted all of those bonds back. I knew this, since I missed all of my beasties being connected to me on a different level like Tianhuo. A bit more exercise and then Ocellus would tell us what she managed to get, we needed some kind magical artifact or someone with enough magical prowess to get us off this world. If it’s anything like us appearing in Valley’s, it’ll be a theme to find a new way to get out of this world. I didn’t regret that we ended up here or helped the villagers, but maybe someone else could have saved them? That hope died four days after being here and no signs of any saviors coming to make sure the village was okay, I was worried about what would happen to it when we eventually left these greener pastures. -One hour later- We were all gathered together to go over a few things, Ocellus spread the map we had over a table with her magic. “Okay so we have collated all our information together.” Ocellus started off. “First realm had low technology and mostly slapped together wood stuff, the world had instinctual martial prowess. Second realm had ancient levels technology, given they have rocketry and was starting to get into cannons and fighting ability was more studied than instinctual. This realm…” Ocellus took a long hard look at Dodo, the friendly mechanical ostrich thing. “Medieval level aesthetics at the least, but this world obviously has technology that's well beyond what Equestria is actually capable of. That’s from just me studying Dodo alone… it makes little sense and it’s beyond me why something technological like him exists in this world.” If Ocellus had upset Dodo in any way, he certainly wasn’t reacting to it. “From what I could barely get from Melphina, the lady mouse we saved upon arriving here, this technological advantage is normal for whoever is currently in control of Empire territories. Yet this somehow implies that they’ve held off an invasion of advanced technology previously.” “Are you suggesting that the rodents have some form of magic to use as an equalizer?” It’s where my mind would go with technology as dangerous as Dodo still was. Apparently there was worse forms of technology than even him out there and I was loath to do any looking around in case we have to fight it. “Yes, the villagers around here actually have something akin to earth pony magic, instinctual use, but no purposeful use like prehensile hair or increased strength. It is not earth pony magic though, it’s a form of magic native to them and the lands they are working upon.” So even if Ocellus couldn’t hold a full conversation with the locals, we had still learned quite a lot in such a short amount of time. “Which brings us to the regions on the map.” Smolder looked at the map for a moment and looked like she wanted to say something, we turned towards her and waited. “That’s the empires territory right?” Smolder pointed out three friendly kingdoms as far as the childish drawings alluded to. Melphina was trying to give us information in a much more understandable manner. One of the friendly kingdoms was directly to our south and another was to the north east. We’re between both at what was quickly becoming the borders that this Empire was invading. Melphina knew we couldn’t read her language so she went with something we were more likely to understand. She drew several rather cartoonish drawings to give us as much information as she could. Among the three friendly territories, there were as many as three to five decidedly unfriendly territories around the main Empire territory. It had a familiar skull drawn on it. The drawings showed the lizards taking up most of the Empire territory and gained the technology therein, the drawing showed a rodent knights in armor wielding their swords against a dangerous looking depiction of some random form of machinery. Said drawing shows the knights actually winning against the machine with just swords. What kind of world did we end up in where swords were enough to beat something like Dodo? At least we knew that dark magic was a thing here, or else my fleece wouldn’t have had the adverse reaction to one the swords that those lizards had wielded against us. If there’s dark magic, then there surely is a form of magic that could counter it in effect and deal with war machines as complicated as or more so than Dodo currently is. “So where we be going?” Shanty asked after our moment of silence. “We’ll be heading here.” I pointed out a nearby southern mountain ridge, there was a trail leading up to the mountain to where some raccoons lived. Melphina drew us some pictures of us bringing supplies to the village up the mountain to said raccoons and a little arrow where the pathway could be found. “Melphina has given us some directions to where we can head next, do we take the supplies there?” “Don’t see why we can’t, we got nothing else better to do and it beats sitting around here.” Smolder was a bit bored of doing ribbon dances for the people, even if it was becoming one of her favorite things to do. -Another hour later- Dodo was hooked up to a carriage. Melphina looked worried as she held her child close to herself, but was still waving goodbye to us as along with several other villagers Ocellus tried to speak to as we set out at a slow pace. It was hard to keep Dodo from going too fast, he apparently liked speed and getting Shanty enthusiastic about going fast. Aside from that we would quickly make it up the ridge to where the raccoon village in the mountains was said to be. -Melphina- I wished those heroes luck, they were going to need it with the Empire pressuring into our territory and attacking everyone who couldn’t defend themselves. My child was going to miss the Kin of Lambs, she was a gentle hearted being who certainly had a soft spot for children despite being able to battle so fiercely and had powers unlike any I’ve ever seen. There was nothing like those four heroes in this world really, the last war was five years ago and now things were mounting up all over again. I was sending them up to the mountains to check the village that was a little out of the way. That shouldn’t be too much trouble right? They did not understand us much, but that they made the effort lightened my heart as I saw them all off on their inevitable adventures that may shake this world. -Southeast mountainous region, Pom- The fact that we didn’t run into trouble with any lizards along the way made me feel safe… at least up until the sight we came upon up the mountain. Things weren’t anywhere close to being pleasant in this region. The town we came upon was all but destroyed and there were… train tracks? Wasn’t this world supposed to have medieval levels of technology? Apparently the Empire made a mess of the local technology levels quite badly. Given there were train tracks here, this implied that trains existed in this world in spite of its medieval setting and I was getting a sinking feeling that there were things even worse than trains going on here. The sight of so many destroyed buildings wasn’t the worst part of all this, that was the raccoon children coming out of their hiding places from the destroyed buildings and looking at us with fear. That fear soon dissolved when Ocellus carefully approached one of them to try and talk in a highly stilted form of their language. They understood that we meant no harm, they were highly wary of Dodo though given his origin, the child raccoon that looked to be male was pointing out something over at the nearby cliff. Leaving Dodo behind with Shanty and Smolder, Ocellus and I moved over to the cliff at the crying child’s insistence once he figured out we weren’t with the people who destroyed the town. Quite a few other children gathered here and they were worried as they all came up to us to look over the side of the cliff too. I was going to ignore the unmoving forms lying all about the village for the moment, quite a few of the raccoons looked to have gone down fighting and took quite of the few invading offenders with them. There were only three destroyed machines present though, they weren’t metal ostrich’s. They were four wheeled vehicles with what looked like spinning maces as weapons. This village certainly put up more of a struggle than that Empire had been expecting. “This couldn’t have happened more than thirty minutes ago.” Stated Ocellus. Yet the buildings didn’t look like they were burned down, no they were trashed by something fairly large and mobile. Was this caused by a bigger machine of the Empire perhaps? I shuddered to think what could have caused this kind of damage. I idly noted that most of the buildings that were destroyed were nearest to the train tracks and looked over the cliff, the child was pointing something out with hope in his eyes. I could see a train slowly moving away in the distance. “Ocellus… what is he saying?” I stated while a burning candle igniting in my heart, I think I got the gist of what this attack was already about. I considered the distant train covered by at least four mechanical two legged things that were decidedly not ostrich’s in appearance, there were also numerous weird looking floating metal orbs with spikes hovering around it. They were in the process of leaving the area. Ocellus turned to the child and made various squeaking sounds in the local language as far as she had learned it, the child hopped up and down and pointed at the distant train while saying something hurriedly. “Something, fight, something… big… monster… train… taken glaives? No… as... ‘Slaves’!” Ocellus turned to me with panic and worry. “They’ve taken most of the adults in this village alive and they are on that train to be used as slave labor!” My eyes widened and I then felt that little candle ignite into a bonfire, I was tamping down on calling out my war cry. I was shivering, the fear and kindness in my heart were battling with one another. I couldn’t look away when people needed my help, but the Empire obviously had weapons that were beyond the fou-five of us. There was no way we could… Wait, why was I backing up? No…. you don’t know how to do that yet Pom… what are you thinking?! You don’t have the strength to take them on, no matter how angry you are! “Ocellus, tell Shanty to unhook the carriage from Dodo and then come catch up with me.” I said slowly as the fire to do the right thing and save those people was getting that much hotter within me. I did know that I couldn’t fight those machines with my bare hooves right?! No… but I could definitely fight their pilots. I could barely handle Dodo and there were four or more like him guarding that slow moving train. Said train hasn’t built up speed yet and I could feasibly catch up to it before it could get too far, though my method for doing so was entirely untested. My reason was starting to win out, I knew couldn’t win a straight fight with those machines by myself. I didn’t have the abilities that my friends back home did. I looked at the broken kids that managed to hide from the attack and a grim frown settled on my lips. I slowly back up some more and dragged a hoof against the ground, my spirit was burning to fight those monsters and that wasn’t me. I was not someone who went looking for fights, I was a protector of the people in Huoshan… my heart wanted me to be a protector of people in general and I wasn’t quite strong enough to do that. Not yet I wasn’t… but that didn’t mean I couldn’t fight well above my weight. “Pom… what are you thinking?” Ocellus asked slowly. “I’ve never actually seen you truly angry before… and it’s starting to scare me. I mean you seem afraid of wanting to face them, but you also seem… eager to go after them. These mixed emotions are hurting my head.” “How can you not be angry Ocellus? They tore apart this whole village and left orphans in their wake if the adults are not returned!” We were the only ones in position to go after them, I didn’t see hide nor hair of those knights of this realm that Melphina drew for us. “There’s no one here that can take care of them other than us and I will not let this stand!” The fact that I even raised my voice at all was a surprise to me as much as it was to Ocellus. “Sorry Ocellus, but I have to say what’s in my heart.” I was going to do it and I was willing to mean it too, I was going to wage war against this Empire. I hoped they could all hear my war cry across the whole valley. I’m quite ready to begin embracing my black sheep nature. “BAA-RAM-EWE, TO MY FLEECE, HEART, HOME AND FAMILY, NO MATTER WHERE WE LAMBKIN GO, WE’LL ALWAYS HOLD DEAR AND TRUE… LAMBKIN BE TRUE!!” I had lifted up on my hind legs to scream this to the sky, the kids had backed away from me in fright and the world seemed to hear my declaration. I charged forwards towards the edge of the cliff and I went into a cartwheel and launch myself high over the edge into a swan dive. “Pom!” Ocellus and two other voices cried as my dive began. Air streaked by me, my ears strained in the wind as my body picked up speed. I could survive this fall, but I wasn’t going to simply stop myself from hitting the ground this time… oh no, I was going to excel and succeed where I didn’t in The Valley of Peace. I brought my front legs to my sides and concentrated, to connect the wool, to stretch it, to spread it out and maybe… I could achieve what Paprika said I could feasibly do within my given talents. The bottom of the mountain was quickly coming up on me and the train was by the base of it slowly trundling away and soon might even pick up speed, I was not letting them escape me. My front legs were stuck fast at my sides and I pulled and willed my wool to take shape, I was forcing myself to do so before I hit the ground. Putting my rear legs together, I was soon forcing the needed shape throughout my entire body. I was falling at full velocity and I wasn’t going to fail here, not when those people needed me! That’s right… all those people needed me... as Pom, a true member of the Huoshan Guard! Something snapped in my mind, my wool or fluff rippled around my body from head to the tip of my rear hooves. I felt a large change had just taken place as my wool fell slightly over my eyes in a protective manner as I willed protection for my eyes for what I was about to do and my fluff listened, my wool had shaped itself to my every need. Paprika was right about this. My fluffmancer talents were minor at best, but it was my raw willpower that truly made them work to their fullest. I needed to go faster to catch the train... and so I would. Suddenly pulling my front legs away from my sides and at the same time my hind legs spread out as well. With a sudden snap the world blurred around me as I felt myself rebound, I was no longer falling down and something bursts behind me as I shot upwards. Thankfully my ears, not to mention my entire head, was protected by my thickened fluff as I shot forward for the train. I would bring back their parents alive and I would bring that train to a stop, I declared war on the entirety of the Empire even if I couldn’t win such an impossible fight! -Smolder- “Holy dragon spit, did Pom just break the sound barrier!” One second Pom looked like she was falling to her doom the next she shot off nearly as fast as Rainbow Dash does. We heard how she survived the fall off of the Jade Palace mountain into the chasm, this was different. This was more impressive, it looks like she just bounced off of the sound barrier and… she was flying? “No... she bounced off it… then it broke.” Even Ocellus seemed a bit dazed at how fast Pom was going now. Being a white blur streaking right after that train. “How... did that make her pick up speed?” “What are you two waiting for, we be needing to catch up with Pom to help her!” Shanty shouted from Dodo’s seat as Dodo quickly strode forward while looking at the train tracks curiously. We couldn’t fly that fast, but Dodo hadn’t shown us his full speed yet. We’ve gone so many miles and it was barely noon, catching up with Dodo shouldn’t be a problem. We better catch up before Pom got hurt, it was both frightening and awe inspiring to see her just go off like that. “Hold up!” Ocellus turned and said several odd things to the children, afterwards they seemed hopeful as she and I hopped into the seat in Dodo's back. The last I saw of them, the children were running off for the discarded wagon.