//------------------------------// // 95. Leap Lamb and Caper Canine #1. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Earth, Haiti, Mopsy- “Don’t you have someone else to bother?” I stated as I looked at a recovering Shanty. She just got her ridiculously healthy appetite back, at least Sly was handling the costs of that by dealing with local smuggling rings. Shanty was still weak even after a week. “I already told you why Shanty was out there.” “Fine, just make sure Shanty doesn’t get into any more trouble.” Carmelita has been digging into us and still had no evidence to say I had any involvement with the Cooper Gang or criminal activities otherwise. Aside from the fact that I’m just a dancer from The Prance Dance in Mesa City, She has absolutely nothing on me. Something buzzed and Carmelita pulled out a phone. “If you will excuse me ma’am…” After she left, I put my ear to the door to hear her talking outside. “So Dr. M, an old associate of the previous Cooper Gang is attacking Camden Town in Britain.” Carmelita was taking what sounded like an important call outside the room and she mentioned the previous Cooper Gang, sparking my interest. “Well he has no ties to the current Cooper gang, but we have him on watch as he is wanted internationally. Is that all Judy? Right, the last two of the Fiendish Five are what I’m looking for right now, the current Cooper Gang is targeting them and I don’t have a lead as to where they are heading now as they’ve gone to ground. Can you handle the situation with your shock pistols? A strange sheep bodyguard just went vigilante? Can I get a description of this vigilante? Uh huh… hm… description matches a sheep I’ve seen recently except… she has green eyes. Probably unrelated, but I will check it out.” I back away from the door and headed over to Shanty. “Good news, I think I just heard where Pom is. Bad news, she currently has the attention of the international police and has just been labeled a vigilante.” At least I brought a big smile to Shanty’s sickly face. Any oddities of Shanty being an alien from another world were overlooked by the local doctor and written off as just having a slightly odd animalistic biology. At least the prescribed medication was working and she could be released soon. Carmelita walked in and saw Shanty smiling at me as I held her right hoof. The biped fox gave me a look, then turned around and walked out to give us some privacy. -???- It was an inexorably abnormal day unlike any other in Camden Town. Rarely does anything big happen in the sleepy little region of the world known for its ridiculous amount of friendly Dalmatians that can be seen playfully darting around the park and its remarkably low crime rates. Today was the exception and not the norm, as the villainous Dr. M meticulously set his menacing monstrous mechanical money mugging minions upon the poor citizens of Camden Town. Who would save the day? Why it would be the lamb with powers from worlds unknown that would ‘Leap’ into the fray with her incredible speed, strength and endurance! This lamb was soon joined by a smart Dalmatian that was quite skilled with a skateboard that could ‘Caper’ about through any danger with pure excitement in her eyes and an ever playful heroic heart! This would be a battle that the likes of the sleepy burg of Camden Town has never seen before, that it was hardly believed to have ever even happened in the first place. Despite being labeled as vigilantes, the two would be seen as heroes by the locals and they would be called Leap Lamb and Caper Canine, the unbelievable duo. They would soon be seen heroically doing the impossible around the world… and would join with others individuals like the armored Gizmo Duck, the Terrific Tail Team and the Ballistic Bullethead. Super heroes were on the rise, can you see it honest faithful’s? -Camden Town, outside the bank, Pom- I would keep them all distracted and their attention solely on me, that’s why I took up the pink strip of cloth. I figured it was eye catching and would draw attention while Dolly and Hunter evacuated the bank. So with that in mind, I inhaled sharply and pulled myself over the counter we were taking cover behind. Once my hind legs were propped upon it for a leap, I exhaled and kicked off through the air and grazed the ceiling as I flew forward. Blasts of energy lanced past me from three of the machines that suddenly locked onto my form, all the shots hit the ceiling and narrowly missed hitting me directly. Of the two machines in the front and the one between and behind them, I was aiming at the front one on my right. I raised my right hoof back and then thrust it forward before my body slammed into it, the mandrill shaped machine stumbled back with my hoof going straight through its upper torso and the light in its eyes died. Several blasts of energy surged towards it and me. I quickly kicked off of the machine sideways with my hind legs, leading into a wild windmill spin as the one I had been on was blown apart under the cascade of energy bolts. I kicked my hind legs together and slowed my spin to flip into dropping my left hind leg down in an axe kick into the next mandrill machine that landed between its neck and shoulder. The machine’s upper torso crumpled down into its lower in a shower of sparks, I kicked off of it with my right hind leg and shot towards the last of the trio about to enter the bank while bringing my hooves together and to the left. As I passed the machine I swung forward with both my hooves and sailed down the stairs to the front of the bank where I rolled into the street and onto my hooves. The head of the machine I passed by fell down onto the street nearby and the headless machine at the top of the stairs toppled over. “Impossible… I calculated that there was no one around that was capable of standing up to me here!” Hearing the voice of the guy calling himself Dr. M, I looked up at the airship above me. “No matter… I have more than enough for the likes of you little lamb!” I trotted in place preparing to move as I turned my attention back to the seven mandrill machines that suddenly took aim. I started to charge forward zigzagging between their shots and then I went onto my hind legs in a crouch as I spun clockwise through a series of energy blasts, up until I was in front of one of the machines that had been shooting at me. I readied my left hoof and my wool rippled to cover it. I threw a vicious rising uppercut into the mandrill machine before me, it split entirely in half vertically due to my magic wolf claw. Quickly thrusting both of my front hooves out, I knocked the two sparks halves of the machine into the other six machines, two were taken out by the exploding halves. While the remaining four were still firing at where I was, I darted to the left and wrapped both my hooves around a garbage can to heaved it at one of them while taking the lid off it. The garbage can successfully smashed into the mandrill machine and I blocked incoming energy blasts with the trash can lid and charge forward to tackle another onto its back with the quickly crumpling lid. I jumped and brought the lid down on it and smashed the machine apart. The pieces exploded afterwards, but my wool handled the fast moving bits of metal quite well as the explosion sent me into the air and towards another mandrill machine. I lashed out both my rear hooves and flying bucked a mandrill machine in half, landing on my back I bucked the legs into the other machine making its rifle go flying up and out of its hands. Rolling onto my hooves, I inhaled lightly and then exhaled as I jumped to grab the rifle quite a number of feet above the ground. I slammed the rifle down breaking it in half on the now toppling mandrill machine. “Do you think you’ve won? I still have many more to send at you sheep!” After Dr. M said that, I saw ten more figures jump from the airship and came for a slow land with the jets in their back. One of the mechanical mandrills, as soon as it had landed, blasted forward on its jets while leading with its knee. Bringing up my left leg to block it, I grimaced at ending up in another situation like this. Upon the knee’s impact, my entire body started rippling backwards from the point of impact as I brought my right leg up and back. I thrust my right leg forward into its center mass once all the rippling converged on it and the machine practically evaporated into a shower of metal that took out three of the metal mandrills behind it in volatile explosions. Paprika’s counter technique, it was always useful to remember. Glancing to my right at the bank, I saw Hunter hurrying people away while I had Dr. M’s focus, turning back to my opponents I almost was punched in the face by machine running at me. Shifting to the right slightly, I thrust my left hoof up to wrap around the metal arm and my hoof clenched up under its armpit. Heaving it up, I slammed it down onto its back, a second heave and it slammed face first into the street and with a third heave it was sparking wildly as its broken body went limp in my grasp. I grabbed onto it with my right hoof and spun counterclockwise while heaving it upwards into a hammer throw. The exploding metal mandrill’s body took out another one making it explode and damage the surrounding others. Five more to deal with, I was about to charge forward at them when something slammed into the ground behind me. “So if one of my regulars won’t work, then how about one of my enforcers!” Dr. M crowed. “Crush her!” I looked back at a hulking gorilla like figure burst forward in a shower of flames and brought both its large claws around my body to clamp them together. It lifted me up off the ground and immediately started trying to crush me between its heavily armored body and its barrel sized arms. The mechanical gorilla thing had a hemispherical head and no neck, large body and looked to be quite well armored. Not exactly great odds for me to deal with without the ability to use bark attacks. With my front legs trapped, I kicked my hind legs at its legs and tried to slam the back of my head into its chest to break free, but it wasn’t working and the pressure was increasing by the second. My wool was the only thing fighting off the pressure and if it gave out, well… my bones wouldn’t survive anything my wool couldn’t hold up against. “Hey, drop that ewe!” A lightning blast struck the large gorilla machine barely making it budge, it didn’t even look like that attack even bothered it. It just kept focusing on crushing me. While I struggled in the machines monstrous grip, I turned my head to see a small biped grey rabbit just give the large machine a wide eyed look and she looked down at her weapon with a frown. While that was happening a fox fired his weapon on the other machines, the blast of energy ripped one of them apart. “We’ve certainly got the hustle, but I don’t think our shock pistols were meant for something that large Jude…” The fox intoned as he aimed at the other mandrill machines and the pressure continued mounting on me. “We have to help her Nick, it’s crushing her to death!” The rabbit said motioning to me while looking to the fox. “Can you imagine how much pressure that thing must be putting on her?” “Maybe we should ask why it hasn’t already managed to pulp her yet after we deal with these other machines.” The fox said as he took aim, the rabbit did so as well. “We’ve just been authorized to run our shock pistols hot here Carrots, the police around here don’t have the weapons for this kind of thing!” The four mandrill machines started moving towards these two, they didn’t look nearly as tough as I was… that and they didn’t have magical wool. I increased my struggling and was quickly losing air in my lungs, I couldn’t let them get hurt trying to fight these things. -Dolly- Oh dog, that’s not good! Pom is in trouble and those two strange biped police officers can’t help her. What do I do, what do I do?! Dylan has always shown that he was much smarter in these situations than I am… and far braver. Every time I pranked my brother or someone messes with our family, he was the one that always stepped up a paw to protect and or save the family. What has Pom been training me for these last few days if I couldn’t help her like I really wanted to? I mean… it almost look like she didn’t need my help with how fast and strong she was up until now. I’m just a small dog, what can I do against something that large? “Come on, Dolly let’s go, Pom can probably get out of that on her own!” I looked from Hunter shouting out towards me from around the corner of the building. “No can do, I have to help her Somehow!” I shouted back. I was near the top of the steps next to the mandrill machine she tore the head off of and looked at the broken weapon on the ground. “Go on and get out of here Hunter!” Couldn’t use this… though I really wanted one now… the two officers were having a lot of trouble with the four machines that Pom can shred… I looked at my skateboard, the helmet on my head and that metal bar in the middle of the steps leading downwards and the location of the large machine slowly killing Pom. I think… is this what it’s like when a lightbulb goes off in your head? Could I… no… no second guessing myself, Pom needs me right now! I quickly skated into the bank and skidded to bring my board around and pointed at the steps, I started pushing with my left hind leg to build up speed for what would need to do. I hopped the skateboard up, twisted it so that the middle would have me shred down rail. I narrowed my eyes at my target as I kick my right legs to launch off the end of the rail and went sailing towards it. “BOW-WAKA-WOW!” I did a half-ollie to flip my board upside down and ahead of me as I shot upwards and towards the large machine. I grabbed the back end of my board with my front paws and put everything I had into swinging it around in a sharp circle. Once I was on the other side of the machine, I let go of my board with a twist to flip it back upright. I grabbed the nose of my board with my front paws and planted my rear paws in time to land on the tail end of my board and skid to quick stop. I looked back at that hulking thing. Slowly the machine arms fell limp and Pom dropped onto the ground gasping, she looked up at the machine as the hemisphere head slid downwards and then fell onto the ground next to her. The machine started to teeter forward and she dove forward into a roll away as the machine collapsed onto its own head and then it exploded. “Bow-waka-whoa… did I just actually… awesome!” I thrust my paws into the air and pumped them. Wait… no… I couldn’t celebrate when there were still more machines to deal with! Pom and I turned to see the rabbit biped police officer got kicked onto her back and her pistol went sliding away from her. Pom immediately went to her aid, no second thoughts, no second guessing herself as she shoulder checked the machine away from the rabbit and struck at it with her hooves. The fox biped was handling himself well by dodging out of the way of the robot attempting to punch, kick and or knee him with a blast of jets from the box on its back. The rabbit was going for her pistol and another machine went flying forward knee first for her. I didn’t even noticed when I started moving, I kicked my board off the ground and blocked the knee with the bottom of my board. I did a flip off its knee and pulled on my strap to slap it across the face with my board and again to bring it back under myself. After successfully landing and having halted that machine’s momentum, I growled at it while staying in front of the police office. The rabbit turned and fired her pistol into it chest creating a large hole in it, it toppled backwards. “This is Interpol Officer Judy Hopps, are there any mounted police currently missing a horse?” As the biped grey rabbit in the blue uniform stated that into her radio, it had me wondering what she was talking about. The only two horses I knew around here were… I turned watched as Pearl bucked a mandrill machines legs out from under it and then broke its skull in a second buck that sent it flying into another one and they both blew apart. “Whoa awesome job Pearl, never actually saw you in action like this before!” I said skating up next to her. “Dolly, you may have helped that officer in danger, but you should get out of here!” She neighed at me in an upset tone. “This is too dangerous for a rookie and its official police business!” “Hey, didn’t I just prove that I can absolutely take care of myself Pearl!” I barked back at her as I watched Pom and the fox deal with the last machine. “Also aren’t mechanical biped mandrills a bit much for your job?” “You think you’re all so special, none of you can ever truly match someone of my intellect!” This Dr. M guy was seriously getting on my nerves. We all stayed still as his airship flew overhead. “Though I seriously should have gone with the mutants…” Twenty mandrill bots just dropped along the street facing towards the five of us, ten machines flew out from the side of the ship and they came to a hover facing us with several more of those mandrill robots controlling them. -Pom- Okay how many of these things did this guy have? I looked at one of the flying machines and then up to the airship, the only way to stop this was to get at him directly, since the guy obviously had a lot of them up there. I looked at nearby lamp pole as several of the fly vehicles swooped down and started spraying the streets with rapid fire energy blasts. I ran towards the nearest light pole. I leapt half way up it, kicked off and grabbed the horizontal portion of the light pole with my front hooves. Kicking my rear hooves forward and back several times to build momentum as I started to rotate around the horizontal bar like a gymnast. I released it to launch myself upwards into a backwards flip while moving forward and managed to land on the front of one of the flying vehicles that quickly clamped onto with my front hooves. I clambered up the front of the hovering machine, before it could shoot my rear legs dangling in front of its weapons, and shifted my head out of the way of the metal mandrill’s right fist as it tried to knock me off. I hit with its head my right hoof and clambered up some more to smash it with a hard left, the mechanical mandrill fell off to the street. A panicked looking Dolly passed by below and performed a spinning bounce off its head with her board, smashing that machines head inwards, while being chased by another hovering machine firing after her. I clambered up into the hovering vehicle and looked at the controls, I put my hooves on it and pulled back… maybe it worked like an Equestrian gyrocopter or airship? I went shooting down the street and two hovering vehicles started to give chase to me, I eventually figured out how to steer left and right. Still didn’t know about up and down, this thing wasn’t exactly intuitive to control! I pushed forward on the controls of this flying circular platform and it slowed down. Maybe I twist the left handle? I sharply nosedived and almost struck the street, thankfully it was twisting the right handle that evened me out. I twisted the right handle more to turn back skywards, I looked at what triggered the weapons on this thing and sighed… hooves were just not made for manipulating things easily. I turned back around towards the airship, I felt the vehicle shake and looked back to see smoke pouring out the backside of it. It just took a hit and the chasers were still rapidly firing at me. I didn’t really need this flying machine to reach the airship, I just needed to get higher up! Sharply twisted the right handle and the vehicle almost went completely vertical and started twirling for the sky, I really missed those halcyon days where I could scream. -Dolly- I slammed into the legs of machine on my board, it toppled face first into the street and ceased moving. Looking up, I saw Pom flying high into the sky with two of those flying machines on her backside. Where was Pom… oh she was heading for the airship! I yelped when I heard something crash into the street and come sliding for me, I quickly skated out of the way. I looked back to see the biped fox turn his aim from being upwards to the mandrill machines coming at us on the ground. “Never mind the horse, I think it’s actually doing much better work than its rider actual would have!” The rabbit stated as she hopped out of the way of being kicked by another machine and blew its head off as she put away her radio. “Ugh, where’s the good help when you need it!” “You called?” Her fox friend ducked under a flying knee, turned around and shot the mechanical mandrill in the back with his pistol. It blew apart when he hit the box thing on its back. I barked and moved up next to the rabbit while pointing my nose up to the flying machines and to where Pom was heading towards the airship with smoke pouring out the backside of the one she snatched. “At least the dog has the right idea, we need to deal with these flying vehicles Wilde!” As the rabbit said this, several of these robot mandrills came at us all at once. Only Pearl bowled straight through them all and only a few got back up. “Good horse, remind me to get you some apples for this later!” After hearing an explosion, I looked up. I knew Pom was an alien, but I didn’t know she could do that!