//------------------------------// // 72. The ‘hard’ part. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Elhorn, Eastern Mountain, Exile- “It seems our friends made it inside, but the soldiers around the base are in high alert… somethings happening in there.” I was here on orders by Cooler to do this to the best of my ability, hopefully the infiltrating team gets their friend and get out while the getting is good. “I’m heading in, keep me covered until I close in with the bases outer wall and don’t follow me.” “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Nice guys like Hunt and his team don’t come around often enough. “I’ll be fine, they have their mission and I have mine. Keep watch for any unusual happenings and if you can find a way to contact and extract the team after they recue or find their friend, then do so immediately.” I hefted my backpack loaded with explosive and made my way over to the mech. “Don’t worry about me, you have permission to forget about me and leave me behind if you have to. I’m a hard act to follow, because I’m getting old and new tricks is all anyone ever sees from me. Just watch me go to work and you might learn something!” We stirred the ants nest, but the ants didn’t want to play. So why not give them something to pay attention to? Instead of whatever has them in a ruckus, they ignore me at their own peril. The sharp shooting guard on the roof was going to wake up eventually, it’s a sad day when we have to involve kids in our fighting… at least those kids were fairly talented. Watching that bug horse one gave me some ideas about how to wield my disguise magic more efficiently. Getting the mech standing, it was time for me to pull a one dog assault. We managed to knock out their lights for a few seconds with two rockets… let’s see if I can disable the whole base now with just a mech and a backpack load of explosive devices. Slowly starting the mech forward, my eyes glanced over the green metal armor on it. These melee mashers have energy reflective armor, powerful short range combat limbs ending in claws, decent running and leaping speed, but these bipedal machines are nothing comparable to how fast a land strider like Dodo’s make can go. At least this thing is freshly tuned and geared up for this. I generously gave the machine an estimate of ten minutes before it blows up out from under me or it is disabled by enemy fire. I liked those odds while carrying a large amount of explosive on my back and still getting into the base without an accidental premature detonation. Heh heh, always good times with me eh… -Inside the eastern mountain facility, BF3, shower room, Pom- So having drilled my way through the ceiling with both my hooves held above my head to slap against the ceiling, I find myself in a room full of female and male wolves that had been peacefully cleansing themselves until now. Since this room was being used by male and female wolves, the things going on in here were surprisingly tame. The back scrubbing was about the only thing that I saw as being even remotely promiscuous about this situation, said scrubbing soon stopped as they all started to turn to stare at me dumbly. At a quick count there were about twenty of them, in close quarters… at least they didn’t have any weapons. I could deal with this scenario, not the worst turnout that could have happened by any stretch of the imagination. All the wolves were a bit lethargic to react to my presence on the ceiling, probably a bit too relaxed from all the bathing. I leapt down slammed both my hooves across the face of a female and then bucked a male wolf in the chest knocking him into a wall, I followed it up by spinning into a left hook that downed another. After I had taken about four more of them down in a flash with two powerful hoof swings and a flurry of increasingly strong jabs, they final started reacting to my presence. If I took care of them quickly enough I can escape and find somewhere to hide and start on finding my way out. I pair of powerful limbs wrapped around my chest and got my front legs as they lifted me up, the wolf on me said something and another went to grab my hind legs. I pulled in and bucked into their belly knocking the air out of them and then thickened the wool around my head to smash the nose of the wolf behind me, even if they had gotten a whiff they wouldn’t be able to sniff me out with a bloodied nose. The grip on my loosened, I dropped between the burly arms of the female that had grabbed me from behind and rolled backwards between her legs as she got bowled over to fall onto of the guy that dove for me. Stomping my right hoof down on his skull, I looked about and leapt for a nearby stall and angled the spraying water into the quickly approaching group of wolves’ faces. Once they were all staggered and sputtering, I inhaled and bark blasted, they all went scattering and flopping all over each other in a painful manner. They may want to hold me prisoner, but I didn’t want to seriously hurt anyone. I looked about and counted out the bodies of the groaning. Oh no, I missed one! I turned and saw a red furred female wolf opening the way out of the room, I dove caught her tail in my teeth and heaved her into the air and onto her back where a bucked her lights out with my rear right leg to forehead. Okay that’s them dealt with… ears twitching. I could hear a group is heading this way, one that’s likely armed. Okay smell, what do I do about my rather specific smell?! Wait the female I just knocked out, she made it to the door and opened it… but would that work? “Sorry about this...” I grimaced and started to roughly rub my body against hers and quickly rolled around on her. I sniffed myself, this should be close enough to mask my scent for a short while. I jumped to the ceiling and clambered through the doorway upside down into a locker room up into the high ceiling above the lockers, the wool covering my hooves didn’t make a sound as I carefully crawled along the ceiling. A gaggle of armed wolves stormed in and looked about at the locker room before quickly moving on to the shower room to find the unconscious ones I’d left behind, they sniffed around and seemed confused. I carefully made my way along the ceiling and crawled out of the doorway they left open behind them into the corridor. They thankfully didn’t feel the sudden urge to look up for me, I was going to be sticking to the ceiling. Now to pick a random direction and hope for the best. -Facility F1, vents near the warehouse, Smolder- “Are those what I think they are Ocellus?” I turned and saw Ocellus whimpering as she rubbed at her head. “Yes, that’s a lot of mechs and mech pilots.” Ocellus wasn’t feeling too good there must be an inactive evil core nearby. “Hey, over here.” Whispered Shanty from down the vent, we quickly crawled over to her. “What do you think is being in this room?” “If that was the warehouse where they keep their mechs, then this must be where they keep their… evil core machine.” Ocellus mumbled and flashed her horn to keep the muffle spell going. We looked down into the huge room that looked like it was part of the basement level below. “I can feel their presence down there somewhere in that darkened room.” “Are you going to be alright Ocellus, you’re looking a little pale.” After I said that, Shanty came back over to us and hugged her. I joined in and Ocellus sighed. “Thank you, both of you.” Ocellus mumbled despite grunting and rubbing at her head. “I’ll be fine, but I think they might know that we’re here and can’t do anything about us without being activated.” “Well let’s just hope they stay inactive, so do we keep going deeper or do we escape and try to warn everyone that...” A loud explosion happened nearby and I was immediately crawling back towards the warehouse to see what was going on, a flash had come with that explosion and I wanted to see what was going on. “Whoa, isn’t that the Exile guy from the Cooler Faction that joined up with Hunt’s team?” Exile had burst into the warehouse and was quickly wrecking machines as pilots scrambled to get into them. “Should we be helping him?” Shanty asked. “From what we’re seeing, it doesn’t look like he needs the help.” I wondered what it would be like to drive one of those mechs, Exile was controlling his machine as if it were a part of himself. That guy was really going to town and wrecking the pilots that did manage to get into their machines to start fighting back, also his machine was taking a lot of fire from behind and the sides as he stormed through the large warehouse causing a large amount of destruction with his machines seemingly flailing limbs. “Whatever he’s doing, I don’t think it’s a good idea to get into the middle of that.” “His machine be looking pretty bad.” Shanty moved forward and I grabbed the back of her neck. “But…” “He’s making a distraction Shanty, also he’s… excited…? Huh, he seems to be having fun for someone who’s in a machine that’s about to go up in flames.” I’m all for sticking to the vents Ocellus, mostly for your sake than any of ours. “Whoa, who’s that guy?” I saw a yellow dog wearing red and black armor jet into the warehouse. “That has to be Commander Carbuncle… hold on yes… they are talking about seeing who will get the last laugh in this… game? What game is he talking about?” As Ocellus asked this a red oval erupted from one of the lower holes in the flying dog’s armor and he kicked it at the machine Exile was in control of. “Of dogs and cats? Oh, like cats and mice except with two predators, I get it!” There was a loud tinkling sound following the kick and Exile stumbled the machine to the side and a large explosion took out a mech pilot sneaking up behind him. He grinned and said something while holding up a single digit with his right paw at Carbuncle. “Yeah, not going to repeat what he just said, but I’ll paraphrase by stating that Exile just insulted him.” We watched as Carbuncle gave off a maniacal laughter and started firing his weapon, the wide spray of projectiles was blocked by the machine bringing up its arms and moving backwards. The husky didn’t look like he was scared at all by getting into a fight with the guy that captured Pom. “We’re here for Pom and he was said to be here to deal with the base. He’s probably causing as much as a distraction as Pom is with having escaped. We need to keep quiet, but we also need to be on the lookout for her if she makes it up here. We don’t want to go deeper in and miss her.” “Then what are you suggesting we do Ozzy?” Tilting my head at her she looked to the ceiling of the vent. “We spread out through the vents and wait for Pom to show up, if one of us sees her we can alert the others.” Ocellus pointed up and down the vents with her left hoof. “We’ve only seen one staircase, an elevator and a possibly third entrance into the dark arena with… the evil cores I can feel being in there given it takes up two floors of space this floor and the floor below.” “Right, I’ll watch the elevator then. Shanty stairs or arena?” I sent Shanty a glance and then tilted my head towards Ocellus. “I’ll be taking the arena. The stairs are the furthest away in case…” She looked at Ocellus with a worried gaze. “I’ll be fine… they aren’t active… yet.” Ocellus shook her head and groaned while rubbing her hooves in a tiny circle over her brows. “Let’s just go with that then, yell if either of you see something. If the evil cores become active, then we’ll likely know for certain where Pom is. Let’s move into positions… I wish Exile luck with whatever he’s doing, he helped us get the stuff we needed for a fair trade and he sounds like a generally nice guy that Colleen knew.” We crawled away from the warehouse and pitched battle Exile had going with Carbuncle, that dude was fast and deadly with the numerous explosives his armor spat out. Not mention all the other wolves were slowly wearing down the machine that Exile was driving, the same one Ligstrun put a lot of his effort into fixing up. “I not be knowing him too well, but I be wishing him luck too… I would not be surviving what he is doing in there.” We eventually made it back to the intersection and Shanty stopped to watch the arena. Ocellus kept crawling and I stopped to watch the elevator as she moved further down to see the stairs. We were able to see each other, but we were at least one hundred feet or more apart, most of the ways up were notably at the back of the building. I waved to Shanty in thanks and she waved back, now we just had to wait to see where Pom comes up at, if she does at all. If she doesn’t we’d have to go deeper. -Facility BF2, armory, Pom- Lots of weapons, couldn’t use them without the required digits unless I was willing to manipulate my wool to have some. I would be better off picking up some explosives, provided I could find them and figure out how to use them. This whole place was almost like a maze, but I had found my way up a floor by sniffing various paths that had heavier scents, the more treaded paths led me up a staircase that only went up one floor. They certainly built this place to be hard to escape or invade, lots of holdout spots and places to use disguise magic in to look like a part of the walls in alcoves specifically meant for it. I knew where the wolves were by sight of something being out of place or the walls smelling odd. Clambering down to the floor, I started searching around for anything useful while keeping my ears out for any incoming movement. Most of the weapons were locked up. I could break them out, but the effort wasn’t worth it. As I started setting up the destruction of the room after finding a box loaded with rocket ammunition, I packed up of four of these rockets for my personal use and by sticking them to my belly. Sticking them on my back would be exposing them to projectile fire and I didn’t want to be blown up, I started lining the armory with rockets and looked around for a good way to set them all off. I heard something going up in a loud explosion above me, whatever is going on I had better move quickly. I took one last rocket and looked around the armory. I heard a shout and reflexively flung the rocket with all my strength into the room, turned and bolted out the door between the wolf’s legs as he turned to try and fire his weapon at me. From the sudden explosion behind me, he and several other wolves were knocked into the nearby walls as the armory was lit on fire. I started galloping away and sniffing the air before the smoke distracted me from finding a way up and out. I quickly clambered up onto the ceiling and stayed still for a second or two as a number of wolves turned onto the path from the nearby four way intersection and ran by me in a panic. I carefully crawled towards the intersection and looked around. To my right an elevator? No, they would obviously have control of it and I don’t think I can handle my burgeoning claustrophobia at the moment by getting in one. I made my way forward to the next intersection as the corridor behind me was beginning filling with smoke. I eventually picked up a smell headed in the direction of heavy traffic and clambered up the sloped metal ceiling up to the next floor by staircase where I ran into another intersection, I headed straight following the smell of heavy traffic. When I came to another intersection, I stayed still again as several wolves passed by beneath me and the heavy traffic smell was everywhere and I couldn’t figure a way out from here. The only other ways were right, which smelled heavily of death, and straight ahead… fresh air and a path less traveled? Why didn’t many wolves go this way? It smelled like it led outside. To my left the corridor was guarded heavily by wolves. Deciding to test my luck and crawled straight ahead, the corridor ended in a pair of metal doors. Crawling down to the floor, I detached a rocket from my wool and placed it at the center of the doors on the floor and started moving backwards while making sure no wolves were sneaking up on me from the walls. I hefted a second rocket and looked at the rocket sitting at the base of the doors. -F1 and BF1, vents above the arena, Shanty- “Guys…” I whimpered, Exile be being blown up. “Exile… he… the machine be exploding and…” “It’s okay Shanty.” Ocellus came down the vent to me immediately with Smolder following. “We’re going to be fine… also Exile isn’t dead. I can still feel him from here.” “He… he’s alive? I didn’t see him though!” I almost be shouting as Ocellus lit her horn and we all glowed. “Do you think anyone be hearing that?” “Exile can apparently do disguise magic Shanty, he’s probably hiding among the rubble in the destruction of his machine. Wait a moment is that…” It was stated with such a certainty by Ocellus, that I believed her and sighed with relief. An explosion happened nearby and we all moved to look into the arena. “I can feel Pom down there, I’d recognize that level of anxiety anywhere also… evil… core… I think… becoming… aghhh…” “Active.” Smolder stated as she be picking up Ocellus and hugging her tightly as she clutched at her head in agony. “Shanty get down there!” “Don’t need to be telling me twice!” I slashed my hooves at the grating, not caring about whether they found the damage or not and clambered out onto the ceiling just in time for blinding lights to fill the room. -Carbuncle, mech warehouse and repair, minutes earlier- I didn’t see a body… the bastard got away when his machine exploded. I’ll ensure he meets a quick demise when I find him. “Sir, there’s a fire in the armory, likely the prisoners doing and we still can’t find them!” Sighing loudly at my grunt telling me of problems, I turned to him standing in salute and whimpering slightly. “Then put it out you imbeciles, cover all exits to the base, shut down the elevator and be visible around the stairways leading up from the basement floor one. We’re going to coral my prize right towards my recovery project.” I started to make my way towards the observation room for the arena, if my prize is as smart as I think she is… she’s going to be a bit chewed up soon enough. I decided to shoot one last order. “Also be on the lookout for Husker Exile, he must not be allowed to disable this base! Shoot him at your first opportunity, do not even let him talk or do anything if you spot him!” “Of course sir!” I left the wolf too their duty of guarding the warehouse. -Exile, a few seconds later- Checking my surroundings as my fur changed back to its original color, my uniform changed to what I was wearing before and my backpack full of explosives reappeared. The magic ended and I finally dropped my salute, I carefully started backing up towards a doorway further in while the various wolves of the Wulfgar Faction were watching the entrances to the warehouse. While I still couldn’t move while using disguise magic, that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a nice talk with Commander Carbuncle. Word spread fast while we were fighting and I got one guy after my machine went up like fireworks, he was to report that to Carbuncle and my loud infiltration worked like a charm. So the escapee has damaged the armory and was causing chaos. Good enough for me to slip right on through under Carbuncle’s nose while he’s distracted. Heh heh heh… there’s plenty of reasons why Cooler trusts me with these kind of solo operations. Who needs an army when just one person in the wrong place can bring down their whole parts manufacturing factory yeah? I’m getting older, but I’ve always got new tricks! -Arena entrance, Pom- I slowly moved forward into the darkness and saw four dark red eyes lit up… oh no… it couldn’t be! They couldn’t have fixed it already! That’s when the large room lit up, the dirt flooring, a few patches of grass and... not what I thought when I thought I’d be seeing that metal orthros again. I heard a voice and looked at where it was coming from, it was him! He was inside a lit room high up and looking down on me, he was grinning and stated something. The metallic orthros had been split in half, now those halves had been repaired and were two separate large mechanical wolf entities. Each had a single wing of large rockets and the insides of their halved tails also bore dangerous jagged edges. The repaired portions of their bodies were noticeably a strange metallic blue, the metal was not made of the same material as the rest of them. I doubted the new legs were made of metal that was any weaker than what they could previously handle. They both stomped forward at me and roared. I turned to run only for a pair of heavy metal doors to slam shut over the entrance I had made. I looked around the room and saw any other possible entrances being covered by similar heavy metal doors. I could vaguely see that Yellow Dog, he simply smirked while crossing his arms and stared down at me. “Pom, don’t worry I am being here to help!” That you were here Shanty made me worry all the more as you came sliding down the wall to take up a position next to me. “Shanty… do you realize what you just got yourself into?!” I asked slowly with wide eyes. “No, but I can’t be getting out now anyway.” Shanty pointed towards the shutters that had closed over the ceiling vents. “Smolder and Ocellus be up there.” At least I had two rockets on me, seriously doubted they’d actually do much to these two machines. -Boss Battle: Orthros Omega Twins, Resurrected Terrible Twosome!- "Shanty, we can't attack them directly..." It just became my top priority to keep Shanty alive through this fight somehow.