//------------------------------// // 106. Super Duper Hero X? // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Equus, Canterlot, Tianhuo- “I ask, because it could be a problem rescuing the others going forward.” I ran my right hoof over Blighter, the mass of pink that tried to keep me in good spirits. “Okay, that is a problem, but I’m sure if they found a way home separately and end up separated, then there isn’t much we can do about them showing up in Tambelon one at a time separately should we go along with the plan to rescue them. Making one trip into Tambelon is dangerous, I’m wary of having to do multiple to save them as it will give Grogar more chances to escape.” Twilight sighed loudly and took a sip of tea. “I trust that they will all try to get home together. They wouldn’t try one at a time, I believe in my students to not leave anyone behind as I believe in your significant other to protect them.” “I still worry.” I said honestly. “I have a lot more to worry about, I have an entire country to run, a cat name Jaded that causes as much havoc as Discord the lord of Chaos does, lambkin and changelings still don’t like each other and the world’s economy seriously needs help!” Princess Twilight was stressed. “There’s only so much I can get done in a given week… Spike…” “Yes?” Her dragon companion sat up. “Send a message to Celestia and Luna, I… I need their help.” Twilight seemed upset about bothering the semi-retired princesses. It was when one needed help the most that one should ask. “About time, I thought you were going to keep dragging your hooves on it!” Spike seemed to smile as he started writing something down on a parchment. “You have to remember that they are your friends too Twilight.” “You are stressed, have you thought about taking a spa day to relax?” I asked because she could brush her mane a bit. “That obvious huh?” Getting a nod, Twilight groaned loudly. “Even Cadence is taking a break in Ponyville… maybe I should join her?” “It wouldn’t hurt Twilight, both Starlight and Sunburst are quite stressed from trying to run the school and help with an idea of how to rescue the lost.” Fizzle, The Storm Queen, looked about. “They could even use a… party…” “Did someone say party?” Gah, where in the world did the pink one come from?! “Your gal pal, Pinkie Pie, is always ready for you Twilight. Just tell me where and the severity of the party you want.” “Severity?” I queried slowly, also… why was that fluffy demon, Paprika Paca, here? “She’s not kidding.” Twilight stated promptly. “Low key, severity four point five.” “Okay/Meep!” Both Pinkie and the demon alpaca stated at the same time. “I’ve been teaching Paprika how to be a party planner!” Twilight’s pupils just shrunk and her eyes widened, I was right there with her in looking horrified. -Earth, Africa, Dolly- “So this Norman guy has trained animals to track babies back to the herd before and you were testing my character?” All this hero stuff was new to me, my skateboard needed some maintenance and I wasn’t even sure how I got away from the camp without setting off a trap that would have killed me. “Houba, I can tell you’re a good person.” Mars turned to his mate. “Right Mia?” “Houbi!” Mia stated while nodding. “See, she agrees. What about you Maurice?” Mars looked to Maurice who was just eating bananas from bunches held up by the end of his freakishly long tail. Looking at it made me think it would drag along the ground, but instead it stayed up in the air and Mars was lifting its weight with his small body and the bunch of bananas with relative ease. “Yeah, he’s not much of a talker or a thinker, but my big buddy has saved me quite a few times… most of them incidentally.” I turned and stopped, looking in the direction of their camp in the distance. “So, how are we going to get close with all the traps in the way? I don’t even know how I avoided all the traps they laid down getting out in a rush.” I looked around, the space between us and the camp looked completely clear. “I think I can smell some of them… but they are really well hidden.” “Knowing Norman like I do, he’s probably saturated the entire area with enough traps that I should be able to do something about it… Houba-ba-baba-Houba?” After Mars relinquished the banana bunch in his tail to Mia, who notably had the shorter tail, he took a few steps forward. “Thank you Mia, Ba-houba!” “Houbi.” Mia said with a smile while nodding, she backed up as Mars made a cracking noise with the four digits of his hands. Mars gestured for me to move back. Once we were far enough away, I watched as Mars lifted his tail straight up to the sky… then he swung the entire mass of his tail forward with a quick spin. It unleashed a small tornado from the force of the swing along and my jaw dropped. What happened next was Mars tail quickly coiling or kinking up and out of the path of numerous traps going off, all while he made commentary about it. “Let’s see, four layered metal bite traps for elephants, toxic dart traps for rhinos, metal wire shrinking nets that rip smaller animals like a panther to shreds if you get caught up in them, flamethrowers…” A burst of heat rose up from in front of us, then I watched as a series of rockets blew holes in the grass and stone in front of us. “Time delay rocket launchers… that’s new. Norman must be getting extra military surplus this year after I destroyed those ten jeeps and five transport trucks last year.” Mars scrutinized the ground in front of himself and flicked his tail forward and it cracked like a whip, several blasts of gas went off. We were safely outside the blast zone. “Houba… Cruella Company Canine Counter, that’s some nasty fast acting powerful stuff there.” That was Mars just confirming what I thought I knew about the gas. I should be more surprised than I am about what its called. “Stupidly powerful tranquilizer, but thankfully no permanent side effects as far as anyone knows. That stuff is under heavy scrutiny… and illegal from what I remember. Yep, we can definitely take Norman and his new buddy Quint to task over this.” Mia put her right hand on my chin and lazily pushed my jaw back into place with a broad smile on her face. She motioned me forward and then set off slowly letting Mars lead us into the camp, she was using the banana bunch to lure Maurice into following us. So far this Mars guy could use his tail like a whip and generate small tornados with a single swing, what else could he do with it? He was obviously physically strong enough to match a gorilla given how much his tail must be in general… and the monkey dog things was close to being my size! It made me feel like I wasn’t anywhere close enough to being able to survive all the crazy stuff Pom can, Mars just showed he was incredible for his size and… I was a dog with a skateboard, one that needed to be cleaned and repaired. When am I going to figure out how to use some crazy awesome powers with the magic I’m told I have? “Right let’s get a move on.” Mars motioned us forward. “I seriously doubt that they missed all the explosions going off.” -Pom- Being held prisoner… again… at least I got some rest, didn’t sleep to well last night with having to worry about possible predators. Those two guy didn’t even know I could do bark blasts and they still muzzled me, they also made sure I couldn’t get any leverage with my legs to warrant an escape. I still hadn’t mentioned bark blasts to Dolly. Once she did know that I could do something like that, then she would stop at nothing to learn how to do it from me. Sure she was friendly, but she wasn’t exactly what I would call responsible enough to teach her something like that. Sure Dolly would probably be capable of it because she can bark really loud and was used to shouting all her siblings into motion, but I had more pressing matters at the moment. My legs were bound just loose enough that fluffing my wool wouldn’t break it, but it the bindings were tight enough that I couldn’t wiggle out of them. I couldn’t get am good angle to claw at my bindings with my hooves. I heard several explosions going off in the distance that made me freeze up, I can only hope Dolly had a plan this time and didn’t just get hurt. “Either they are here or that sidekick has come back for her companion.” The buff crow called Norman turned to Quint. “Get ready, if it’s the guardians of the African jungles, then they will be hard to shoot once they close in, as they are both nimble and dangerous. Do not underestimate them Quint.” “I, Trap Master Quint, will not fail to notice their approach!” Aside from the tents and camping gear, it wasn’t easy approach them without notice. The only reason why we did the first time, is because he was the only in the camp and he relaxed his guard. Now he just seemed all too alert. Understand that Dolly had a soft spot for children, given how many brothers and sisters she has, and that she wanted to help that baby elephant, she really should have been on the lookout for traps like I was. I had barely noticed the trap before it went off after Dolly got the door open and the elephant rushed out to safety, now I’m in that very cage and it wasn’t exactly clean in here. “Hello there, you look like you could use a little help there Leap Lamb and us heroes should stick together.” Blinking, I turned and saw something come into the cage with me and just stared at it. I soon nodded and hoped they would be quick about getting my hooves free. “Well let me deal with those bindings so you can get yourself out of there. Oh, I forgot to introduce myself, I’m Super Duper Hero X.” I didn’t know anything about this Super Duper Hero X guy, but I could at least trust him to be friendly judging by his appearance. -Dolly- “Get your friend quickly, I’m going to draw their fire.” Watching as Mars coiled up his tail, he launched himself skyward on it like a spring and landed in the camp. “Houba!” Two gunshots rang out and they had both missed, as Mars was nearly as fast as Pom was when moving at full tilt. He was drawing their attention and I quickly ran forward and for the cage as Mia tossed the banana bunch by Quint, making Maurice plow straight through him to get the bananas. “Pom, I found some help are you ok… Agh!” Several cages sprang up out of the ground around Mia, Maurice and me. “Oh come on, you couldn’t have possibly predicted where we’d be that accurately!” “Give up Marsupilami, I’ve capture your friends and Caper Canine!” Norman was talking to Mars and he didn’t look to happy to see us in cages. I glared at him and started using every cuss word my dad used around me accidentally, I touched one of the bars and yelped as I got shocked badly. “How the dog did you know where to set up these electrified cages in the first place?!” There was no way that either Quint or Norman could have known where we would have been coming into this to have prepared a trap for exactly where we would be. -Norman- Caper Canine seemed upset that I could predict where she and her companions would be, our trapping skills are being quite underestimated here. Having set up forty seven cages in advance in the right places made it all worthwhile. The spotted dog’s skin would probably make a good neck tie or bandana when I eventually mounted her head on a wall. Her barking sounded rabid and I pointed my gun at the Marsupilami’s captured mate and not only did Mars freeze up, so did Caper Canine. Mars glared at me and looked to Quint doing the same thing with his stupid gorilla companion. “Well it seems like you’ve gotten better Norman, but I’m not giving up quite yet.” Mars declared, we had both his mate and his friend at gunpoint what other option did he possibly think he had that would get him out of this situation? “There’s a trap about five feet behind you, move to it and we might let your mate and best friend live for another five minutes to say your good byes.” I had to give it to Quint, the man really knew how to help set up traps. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, it wouldn’t be heroic of me to let you get away with hurting the guardians of the African jungles like that.” A suave voice stated and I immediately brought my gun around to point it at a snail wearing a cape. I blinked once, then twice at what I was seeing. “What in the…” My mind could hardly contemplate the costume snail that I was seeing before me. “Hello there is me…” He started to say, I was surprised to see a talking snail or that a snail could talk for that matter. Mars was understandable, at least he actually learned to talk just to annoy me. “Super Duper Hero X!” Quint shouted and took his gun off of the gorilla. “My mortal nemesis!” “Your mortal nemesis… is a tiny snail Quint?” Was there a gas leak going on, how can a snail be a threat to anyone? At least the Marsupilami had something approaching super strength for how hard they can hit at their size with those tails of theirs. “At least my nemeses are an actual threat!” “Yes I, Hero Hunter Quint, have been trying to kill that snail for years, but something always gets in the way!” Why didn’t Quint just sprinkle salt all over his shell? “I’ve tried salt, ballistic missiles, machines guns, a plane crash, flamethrowers, electrified nets, bombs of all kinds, even the most insidious incendiaries and yet… it all always fails!” “I would prefer that we solves this situation peacefully, with a little music and...” The snail, with a surprising speed for it, hopped to the side in a blur and avoided Quint’s gunshot. “No, no singing from you, it always attracts those damned meerkat and warthog!” Quint shouted as he reloaded. Wait… if neither of us were aiming at the hostages then… a white blur struck me across the right side of my face. I almost blacked out from the pain of the blow, I stayed standing on my talons and my tail feathers went straight when I realized that my weapon had been stolen from my grasp by Leap Lamb. I watched as the super powered individual spun around and smashed my gun against the ground, rendering it entirely useless. No matter I still had my knives. Not that I thought I could take an actual super hero with them, but it should be enough to survive if I get away. “Good leaping Leap Lamb, I’ll take care of Quint you help the guardians deal with Norman and freeing the hostages.” The snail was going to deal with a bipedal crow that was ten times his size? “Come on Quint! If you won’t let me sing, then I might have to get a bit aggressive and I really don’t like hurting people physically unless I have to.” I couldn’t watch what happened as Leap Lamb started to approach me and I felt Mars tail wrapped around my left leg. “I got this guy, go deal with those electrified cages somehow.” Mars leapt at me and his tail was immediately around my waist before I could pull the knife from its sheath. I grabbed at his tail with my talons and they didn’t penetrate the skin beyond the fur of my worst nemesis, the Marsupilami named Mars. -Pom- I was quickly at the cage with Dolly in it and I wrapped my hooves with my wool as I grabbed the bars and pulled. I managed to rip the cages door off its hinges with relative ease, my wool was a good insulator. “Pom… am I useless to you in a fight?” Dolly asked as she hopped out of the cage. “I mean you tried to teach me all that stuff and I really haven’t been the most helpful dog around… I… I’m so sorry I got you trapped by these Quint and Norman guys!” “Don’t worry about it Dolly, you went and got help at least. Plus you saved a baby elephant today.” I wasn’t about to scold Dolly for trying to do the right thing and she was willing to apologize. “Now go help Super Duper Hero X while I get these other two cages open.” -Dolly- “Right!” I would have taken at least a little yelling for messing up, am I really that homesick for Dylan’s scolding voice shouting at me for skiving off to have fun? Life was short, and there was a whole world out there! I turned and went towards the snail and saw that he had, somehow, managed to disarm Quint of his gun when I wasn’t looking and somehow tied it into a pretzel. How the dog did a snail with no limbs disarm someone and twist the gun into a pretzel, the guy had at least five feet on him in height and several hundred pounds of muscle? “You’re a worthy foe Super Duper Hero X, but now that I have you in my clutches, it is time to end you once and for all for I, Hero Hunter Quint… agh!” Doing what came naturally too me, I instinctively bit Quint on his left calf. He dropped the snail from his left claw and narrowly avoided stabbing himself with the knife held in his right. “Why you!” I hopped backwards as he kicked his leg at me and I started growling at him. The snail took a hold of one of his toe claws on his left leg in his teeth and I had to watch as the tiny thing started slamming several hundred pounds of crow all over the place. “What?” I swear my life was never going to be the same after meeting Pom, I could maybe understand Mars having incredible super strength to work a tail as long as the one he had… but a snail?! I think my brain broke somewhere along the line, was I actually watching a snail slam a six foot slab of muscle all over the place using his teeth? The snail eventually finished the constant battering, by spinning around and tossing Quint into a cage. “Now that’s how you eat crow Mr. Quint.” Super Duper Hero X stated in a congenial tone. I looked over to see how Pom was doing and she already freed Mia and Maurice from their cages, Maurice was still sitting in his eating bananas. For a gorilla, Maurice certainly wasn’t very useful as Mars claimed him to be. Looking over to Mars, I saw the literal tail end of his fight. His tail was balled up and he was swinging it around into Norman’s gut, sending the muscular crow guy flying into the same cage as Quint was in. “Houba, that was fun, how about we tie these guys up and make Maurice carry us to civilization with all the evidence of their illegal activities?” Was he even that strong Mars? -An hour later- “Okay, I didn’t believe Maurice was nearly this strong.” We were sitting on top of the cage with the criminals thoroughly immobilized by ropes and the various traps that were stuffed into the cage. “It’s nice to know we have a ride back to civilization at least.” Mia was driving Maurice towards civilization with another bunch of bananas and Super Duper Hero X finally told us his real name since he trusted us with his secret. Not that the snail had much of a secret in the first place, he was a snail that wore a costume. Why are there so many snails that are named Speedy, that Speedy here knew fifty different other snails named Speedy was mind boggling. At least he had a nice singing voice. “You know, without their weapons or traps they really aren’t that dangerous.” Pom stated while looking at the two captives in the cage below, they glared back up at us. I’m still a bit confused as to how Mars and Speedy learned to talk to where Pom could understand them, because she doesn’t understand any other animals other than dogs unless they could speak like an animalistic. Mia could only speak her and Mars language, Speedy only knew how to talk and didn’t even know how to speak snail… which begs the question of how he knew fifty snails that were all named Speedy. Our world, as I was now finding out, was likely invented by a madman with way too much time on their paws. “So… uh…” I turned to Pom and rubbed my paw along my right ear. “Should I have listened to you or ignored you and do what I did anyway?” “You were just following your heart, you’re used to being a caretaker… so you have a soft spot for children, but you still should have been more careful. What if that gas had been lethal?” Pom shivered and hugged me against her wool. “I believe you’re a good dog, if a bit hasty to learn things before you’ve learned the basics. I also can’t exactly blame you for wanting to help.” “Why would I need to learn anymore basics, I'm great already!” I tried to think on it, but I was having trouble trying to figure out what she’s been teaching me. “All you’ve been teaching me is the stuff what dogs are usually trained to do, you haven’t taught me any actual fighting moves.” “So you’re not a prodigy like Shanty then, but you’re an active learner.” Pom had garnered my attention and I raised my left ear in attention at her. “Look I need to know something, how long did it take you to learn how to ride a skateboard as effectively as you do?” “A long time, I kept face planting… a lot. I got hurt in so many ways trying so many things until I eventually got it down.” All that pain and suffering led to me being completely radical skater dog. Still haven’t won a competition because I keep face planting or flopping. “Which makes me glad my adoptive mom is a therapy dog.” “And that’s why I haven’t taught you anything beyond what we’re working on.” Pom nodded as sagely as Rafiki did when I asked him questions and that guy could speak a lot of nonsensical gibberish. “At least you’re capable of learning what I ‘can’ teach you, the question is if you will actually when I try. You tend to tune me out quickly when you're not actively doing something and interested in what I'm trying to teach you. You already have a strong base in acrobatics and speed, but that doesn't help when I tried to teach you something advanced and you just ignored me.” "I did what now?" I was busy eating a banana.