//------------------------------// // 70. Competency Check. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -???, Oleander- “Remind me again how we ended up in this mess Fred?” I stated dryly as I sat at the table and finished eating the meal that was provided to me. “Well it started with that guy Golbez, us incidentally finding that the captain of the guard had been replaced with a demon turtle thing and one thing led to another… THEN WE FOUND OURSELF ON THIS WORLD’S MOON!” It seemed Fred was keeping up with all this better than I was. “So of course we ended up in a castle called Pandaemonium which is situated next to a castle named Castlevania, apparently the lords of the two castles were having a luncheon, AND WE JUST INTERRUPTED THEM… IN POOR TASTE NO LESS!” “We’re right here you know...” The pale and pasty fanged monster stated while taking a sip from his wine glass filled with an ominous red liquid that definitely wasn’t wine. “I will not let myself be beaten by a tiny darkened unicorn, though it will admittedly be less embarrassing then being beaten by that little girl that throws birds at her problems.” “Can we hurry this along, I have an appointment with a group of four warriors of light coming up.” The other one stated hovering menacingly nearby. “Right, which leads us now fighting two deities of evil at once, because why not at this point?” I said blandly as I twirled the key blade floating in my magic and stared down The Emperor and Dracula with Fred by my side. “I’ll show you the true power of darkness, for there is no darkness without the indestructible light of my soul to cast a shadow upon thee!” “Really Ollie, you’re going to annoy me with stupid sounding heroic speeches now?” Stated Fred as blandly. “You know what you did Fred!” After stating this, I summoned Song Ender to assist us and we got to work fighting two great evils at once. “Oh and thanks for the meal, I was quite famished Mr. Impaler.” “I will not treat my guests poorly, even if that meal may be their last!” Dracula stood up and swept his cape out while tossed away his glass. The Emperor roared and his power started flooding the room. -Elhorn, seven hours after the last fight at Gravity Gorge, Frosty Checkpoint, Ocellus- “At least we took care of the evil core, so it should be easy to extract her.” Hunt said with a sour mood. “Sorry that we couldn’t stop your friend from being captured.” Colleen apparently collapsed not too long after the large two headed metal wolf was split in half, unfortunately I was the bearer of bad news considering what I knew. She wasn’t critically injured, but the internal bleeding didn’t help even if it wasn’t bad enough to require surgery. Ligstrun was already in the process of fixing any damage that was done to Colleen’s rocket pack. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that…” Looking towards me questioningly when I spoke up, Hunt eventually gestured for me to continue my line of thought. “It’s still alive or what passes for living as far as machines go.” “How would you know that?” The mercenary retriever rubbed as his head looking a bit perplexed. “You weren’t there to see it get blown in half.” “Whatever you did, it didn’t destroy the core as I can feel when an Evil Core is active nearby, it gave me quite a headache even at the distance it was at… closer up and I’d get a debilitating migraine.” We were all upset to see Colleen brought in injured, apparently she did her best to keep Commander Carbuncle off of Pom. She did it successfully until Carbuncle caught Pom unaware and then carried her off. “I could feel it for a while until sometime after you guys probably left Gravity Gorge. The last I felt of it… it was moving until it was gone.” “It wouldn’t be moving, not under its own power at least with the damage it’s taken.” Informative Hunt, but we needed a plan of action and already had an idea of what to do. “I already sent two of my guys to track down which Wulfgar base Pom is going to be held in, it’s not going to be pleasant extracting from one.” “Shanty, Smolder, we’re personally going after Pom.” The frowning goat nodded to me, as did Smolder without a second thought. “Only we direly need Dodo to transport the supplies down south to Cladinhold, so that’s where he’s going.” “So we be needing to go it on hoof?” Shanty didn’t seem so happy to be separated from Dodo, or the sugary delights he pumps out randomly. Said miraculous metal ostrich managed to somehow pump out a gem encrusted cupcake much to Smolder’s delight as she hasn’t had any of the ‘good stuff’, as she calls it, in a while. It certainly helped with her dietary needs we’ve been somewhat ignoring since this whole world traveling thing started. “We just need to get the supplies to Zephyrus, we can do that quickly enough by going through the southwestern pass.” Nicole Beta joined in on the conversation having looked a little down to hear what happened to Pom being exactly what she wanted to avoid. “I remember you claiming that Shanty is magically linked with Dodo?” “Yeah, as a familiar, Dodo can find Shanty anywhere… which would be useful we split off to go rescue Pom.” I sighed. “I’m going to be absolutely useless if I have to go near an active evil core though.” “Well we can deliver the goods safely to Zephyrus to transport or hold them for us, then we can quickly come back and will try to meet up with you as quickly as possible.” That was a sound idea Nicole Beta. “Whatever your thinking of doing, count me in.” Bruno said as he stalked up to us, his emotions were reading as eager to do something other than sitting around. A sentiment shared by both Smolder and Shanty. “We’re going to split up into two groups Bruno, one group is going to rescue Pom from the Wulfgar controlled region and the other is going to drop off our trade goods in northern Zephyrus.” I really hoped that the guys that captured Pom weren’t going to hurt her, while they wouldn’t kill they could still end up maiming her if they felt like it. “Pom also gets the right to say she told us so when she stated that this kind of stuff would happen to her if we came up here.” “Well I’m in on rescuing her.” Bruno muttered while cross his arms. “It’s where all the danger is going to be at.” “I will be part of the team ensuring the goods reach Zephyrus, ah-choo. I do not like being up here.” Poor Jean, he would feel better once we were no longer needed in these cold mountains. “Can we really move Colleen though?” “I w-w-would rather be on the team getting away from t-t-these miserable m-m-mountains.” Ligstrun was just as miserable as Jean was. “No, Colleen has to stay here until she recovered and rested, she battered Carbuncle and even got a last shot in on him. I say she’s earned some rest and will be safe here at the checkpoint.” Husker Exile approached us and sighing as he shook his head. “If we hurry, then they won’t be able to use Pom for some dumb plan.” “We?” Hunt queried. “Got word from Cooler an hour ago, I’m being assigned as a liaison with The Retrievers to help deal with whatever Wulfgar base your friend was taken to.” As he said this Exile was hefting a backpack onto his back. “Once you’re scouts have found the base, I will be in charge of dealing with the infrastructure of the place while the rest of you are rescuing your friend. Besides, you’re going to need an actual mech pilot. Your guys are relatively decent at moving one around Hunt, but I’m actually trained in piloting a melee masher.” “I’m okay with that, the more help the better.” It seemed Hunt liked that idea. “We’re not exactly doing this all pro bono and your assistance would take a large chunk off the costs of this incoming operation… that and we need more rocket ammunition.” Hunt certainly didn’t feel like he was greedy, he probably wants money for pragmatic reasons as being able to afford food and shelter to his mercenary group. “Right, I guess it’s settled then. Hopefully we can get into Zephyrus without too much trouble.” Nicole Beta sounded like she wanted to get off this mountain, wished I could do the same. Hearing a whine, I turned to look at Shanty running her hoof over Dodo’s head. “It being okay Dodo, we will be fine.” She nuzzled against the warm me face of the ostrich and it nuzzled her back with its beak, it was heartwarming to watch. A goat and her mechanical ostrich, never has adventuring been weirder than what we’re doing. To think I sometimes thought our six teachers were exaggerating about the weird stuff they did… well maybe Rainbow Dash. “Be good for the others until you can be coming back to save us at the last minute okay?” The machine warbled in a slightly chipper tone and blinked a few times while looking at Shanty. “What make you think we’ll need him to save us at the last minute Shanty?” Just had to ask. “It be being a thing with us Ocellus, I picked up on it a while ago.” Shanty started humming happily as she threw on a toque and stuffed her ears up under her hat. “Where we’re going, we’re going to be needing saving as much as doing it!” -Several days later, a fair distance from the Eastern Mountain Base, Smolder- “Are the both of you using me to keep you warm?” It needed to be asked, both Shanty and Ocellus were snuggled up against my body as I wielded the binoculars to look over the place. They both looked away from me and Shanty started whistling a cheery tune. We were small enough as to be unnoticeable, which is why we could get as close as we did to this place. Also it was unlikely that the patrollers would pay attention to our unfamiliar smells if they came across them. “Looks like a factory to me… so what are they making up here? Huh… look at that, a wild pack of metallic ostriches like Dodo.” Ocellus took the binoculars and saw at least ten of the two legged machine’s running by, but they didn’t approach or attack the base. All of them weren’t moving very fast, but if anyone, Yellow Dog or otherwise, were to approach them… well that would be a different story. They would immediately become indistinct blurs that could move at the same top speed as Dodo could, you also wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of a kick from one moving that fast. This world had some amazingly adorable things in it and Dodo counted as one of my favorite things, at least since he figured out how to replicate Equestrian baked goods somehow. Too bad all that adorable stuff was kind of smothered under all the awesome and violent stuff. I kind of liked this world, but I wouldn’t want to live here with evil cores causing Ocellus so much pain. Thinking about it… “How are you feeling Ocellus?” I turned to her and saw her wincing. “Well the evil machine that survived being blow in half is here, it certainly feels familiar at least… but it’s not active. So it’s more of a buzzing in the back of my head that just won’t quit.” There was a grimace on Ocellus’s face. “I think it might even be two separate cores acting as one complete core… don’t quote me as an expert on anything involving those things. Nicole Beta has been kind of tight lipped about how the cores are made exactly, all she wants to do is destroy every last one of them.” “If something goes active, you’ll be the first one to know and an early warning for us to run in the opposite direction.” As much as I wasn’t sure about being this close to the base, we weren’t even entirely sure if this is where they were keeping Pom. We were on a cliff and far enough away that spotting us wouldn’t be hard to do if you were to get too close. “So how long do we have to wait for Hunt’s team to get back to us again?” “It shouldn’t be too much longer and the reason we’re watching this base is to make sure they don’t move Pom before they can arrive and make a plan.” Ocellus stated despite being highly nervous as she looked through the binoculars. “Looks like they are changing out the guards.” Four mounds of snow in the distance warped as they turned back yellow furred wolves dropped their disguise magic and went back into the base as another four came out and slowly disguised as large rocks. It was kind of fascinating to watch and sure it had the upside of protecting you from injury until it completely wears off, but Ocellus’s people did it better and faster. “When can we be going in to start kicking some flank?” Shanty was honestly surprising us with how patient she was being. It was kind of worrying me as to just why she wasn’t rushing head first into this, but then I remembered the whole Tower of the Sacred Flame thing could have been handled better. “Probably won’t be doing that if we can do this quietly, getting in and out with Pom without anyone knowing we were here would be the far better option.” Ocellus was all for stealth on this one, I wasn’t exactly on Shanty’s level when it came to fighting so I was all for doing this quietly too. While I could go for a greed growth… that would require ocellus to be captured. I was exceptionally greedy about monopolizing her time and she knew how I felt about her. Also I didn’t want to get stupid and get tunnel vision that comes with the side effects of greed growing myself, I’m far smarter than that. I was greedy about my friendships, but again I couldn’t garner enough greed from that as much as the pain from not having all of my friends with me. Greed growth requires pure, unbridled, uncontrolled and downright stupid greed. Stupid, I was not. Spike was a smart dude about this stuff despite growing up in Equestria’s culture, we’ve been doing culture trades between one another for a while now. I appreciated the exchanges between us, mostly the comics, but I was missing all the peaceful stuff of navigating life with its complications compared to all this stuff. Dragon’s couldn’t get by on brawn all the time, Ember knew that and I knew that… I think that’s why she put Pom on guard duty with the delegates in the first place. Ember showed that we could present a friendly face and we were a people that didn’t just bash our skulls against rocks all day… no matter how much fun that is at times when it came to finding gems to eat. “That be looking quite impossible Ocellus.” Shanty gestured at the melee mechs patrolling, the guards at every corner of the fairly large base in the eastern mountains beyond Gravity Gorge. We were approximately north of the desert and Northwest of Hydrigal. “I could climb over the walls, but that be a lot of open space to cover to reach any hiding spots. I think they were being smart about not letting intruders in, or escapees out.” “Yeah, a smash and grab would go horribly the second the local evil core becomes active and we have to actively start carrying Ocellus around Shanty.” Instead of scoffing like I expected, Shanty actually looked to be considering what I just said seriously. “How do we be getting in then? They have the gates and everything guarded too heavily.” Shanty really wanted to rescue Pom, she also wanted to fight. She was resisting the urge to do the latter and the former she was looking for a good idea from us. We didn’t have any. “We… can maybe be stealing a mech from under one of them to cause a distraction, but I know little about actually controlling one.” “Trying to take the leadership lessons to heart I take it?” Ocellus finally stated, as if to answer the question I had about Shanty’s seemingly ridiculous amount of patience for all the trouble Pom went through before being captured alive. “Yes, yes, I know, never be doing anything Chyrsalis would. Unless you be knowing it will work and never be forgetting that missing small details can still be causing big problems.” When did Shanty start doing things with Ocellus? Guess I have been a bit preoccupied with being a living space heater for anyone in the general area around me. Being, quite literally, hot-blooded was a good thing for my friends. “I be working on my temper… as in always be making sure that your opponent loses theirs first! This situation be quite frustrating, but I won’t be blinking first.” Ocellus probably got time with Shanty when I wasn’t going over a list of insults with her or when she wasn’t spending time just being a child she never got to be in Pom’s presence. We all heard a noise and froze, it didn’t come from in front of us or below. It came from… oh it’s Bruno. He started talking to Ocellus. “He says that Hunt’s team is back and we’re ready to start planning for a way to get in and out. The first thing he wants to know is how well our watch has gone and if we have any ideas for how to do this.” Ocellus was our translator, but maybe she should have went to the southwest and we should have had Nicole Beta translate for us instead. Aside from that idle thought, I gave Ocellus a hug and she smiled brightly despite shivering a bit from the cold. “I’ll report what we’ve seen so far about the base, aside from not many coming or going into it.” -Ten minutes later and a ridge away- We were soon gathered a lot further away, Bruno’s girth was helping him here as the cold didn’t bother him in the slightest. He was ready to dive on into a fight and seemed to be somewhat worried about Colleen when Ocellus brought her up. Colleen couldn’t be moved and was staying at the Frosty Checkpoint until she eventually recovered. At least Colleen had been coherent enough to tell us about Commander Carbuncle’s capabilities before we left. Fast flying, endless explosives and a weapon that fired incredibly fast. Hunt was talking animatedly with Ocellus as Bruno stood off to the side with us. Bruno was frowning as he looked at Shanty and me, he grunted and shook his head when he noticed me looking his way. “Okay, so we may have an idea of how to get inside. The plan relies on the three of us getting in and scouting the base while they make a distraction. We haven’t hashed out those details yet, but we’ll get to that in a moment.” Sighing, Ocellus put her hooves to her face and slowly dragged them both downwards. “There’s a way to get inside the facility through the tops of the buildings, I hate to say this but… we’re pulling another Gongmen City ‘job’ girls. Only without Pom’s ridiculously useful input on the situation this time. This might take us a little while longer than the last few times we’ve done this as we have to confirm Pom’s presence and or figure out what’s going on here. So we need a way to get everyone inside safely to likely fighting a running battle on our way out.” “Why not be masking their scents and be stealing their uniforms?” Shanty just reminded us about the rotten eggs thing we pulled with Boss Wolf and his army when we sunk those ships. “Won’t work, the guards here know each other on sight, they are actually very well trained and there aren't any slackers I can take advantage of.” If Ocellus was correct, then the wolves in this facility were ridiculously capable, I would believe that to be on the threat of death given the things I’ve seen. “Commander Carbuncle is considered one of Wulfgar’s best for a fairly obvious reason, getting results is a thing with this guy. This whole place on lockdown and he’s the head honcho in this region… did I use honcho correctly Smolder? Never mind. If Pom is in there, then we’d have to circumnavigate this place… blind... to find her.” -Several levels down inside the mountains unground facility, Pom- The last few days have been taking a toll on my psyche, because I think I’m seeing male wolves in tutus now. No…. wait… those guys are real… Whatever the armored Yellow Dog that captured me was about, he certainly had a lot of swagger while apparently running a ballet troupe inside of my holding cell. I have no idea what that was all about, but being here and being treated like a common animal was… not as bad as it could be. They at least gave me food I could eat safely and the water was okay, but I wasn’t given much room to move about though. The tutu wearing wolves were about as real as the guy with guns in every corner of the room with their ears perked up. I was trapped behind a spherical energy barrier that went up to the ceiling and they were still keeping me heavily watched, even if I had yet figured out how to get out of the bubble they put me inside of. I doubt even hawks had this kind of attention span on their prey, because that wasn’t all they had to keep me here as they had one of those sharped clawed green mechs in here. You know, in case… somehow… I got out of the bubble, by the four guards and tried for the door and managed to not get lost on the way out. In a base probably loaded with shoot firsts and ask questions if I’m not outright dead afterward. They, notably enough, really weren’t really leaving anything to chance involving me here. I just know that Shanty, Smolder and Ocellus wouldn’t leave me behind… seriously doubted Dodo would either as he’s grown on me. Colleen would definitely come for me, as would Jean and Bruno. This just left me wondering… what was taking them so long? Was I that well protected wherever I was? Well yes, I guess… considering this room with the solid metal walls. This led me to another thought. Why did they try so hard to capture me? Am I really that irresistible to canines? If I ever got out here, then I am definitely not coming back to Yellow Dog. The potatoes here tasted nice though, oddly reminiscent of glazed cucumbers and tomatoes really, but I would rather be sure about where my water came from than trust any of these guys. So here I sat waiting for rescue, or for whatever these Yellow Dog guys were going to do with me after going through all that trouble of capturing me. Well, aside from entertaining me with what has to be the absolute worst ballet routine I will ever possibly see in my life, but my goodness were they trying. I glanced at the ceiling and finally noted something fairly important about my cell.