-Zootopia, Canal District Airport 3:15 AM, Dolly-
“Oh my dog, Pom’s in trouble…” I dragged my paws down my face.
I resisted the urge to run out there easily enough. I could figure out a way home if Pom doesn’t make it, but I wouldn’t be entirely happy about it. Not after she helped my ‘fam’ with their trauma. She was feeling cold, so I had an idea of where she was currently.
“Eh, I wouldn’t worry too much.” Giving Mars a look, he smiled at me. I wish I had his confidence and chipper disposition. “There’s a reason why the predators around Africa were steering completely clear of you two. Pom is something like an alpha and one that they don’t want to mess with. She may be panicky and fearful, but even I’m frightened of Pom and that’s even knowing I could easily take her down in a fight.”
Giving it some thought, I decided to call in some support.
“Mayday, mayday, this is Dolly Dalmatian! Friend in danger, to the east… possibly… where was it again… possibly in Tundra Town, look for suspicious activity!” I howled out on the world wide woof and received several dogs replying to my call, I smiled. I was able to help! The world wide woof here was responsive at this hour. “Friend has white wool, blue eyes and is basically a quadrupedal animalistic sheep! Help indirectly unless otherwise necessary, also she can speak dog! You can confirm with her if sighted!”
Pom had a little less than three hours to cross miles of either the Rainforest or Meadow district to get here.
-Tundra Town District, Crevasse Street Entrance coming from Flurry Street, Pom-
I flew off an icy ramp and into the spider webbed maze of icy walls called Crevasse Street and slammed into the floor chin first to end up spinning up the left wall on my belly and was summarily launched upwards.
In the air I got my hooves back underneath me and slid back down. It wasn’t a cave system because you could still see the sky in above, but it did have lots of jagged icicles in various places.
The pathways looked to have be kept clear for the safety of visitors, I was heading north towards Glacier Falls.
From there I was heading straight west to Rainbow Falls, if it was anything like the Equestria Rainbow Falls it would be beautiful, but I would be running full tilt to the west for the airport in the Canal district. I really wouldn’t have time to stop and gawk, as I was skidding along the frozen ground through the crevasse and passed by a rail station off to the side.
I ignored the rail station and was readying my right hoof to go down an entirely different branch of the crevasse. I hoped I didn’t need to climb out of here to get my bearings. Those helicopters couldn’t get me down here as it was too narrow down here for them.
Maybe I had lost them? Whoever they were they really wanted to get Dormarch, possibly wanted me dead too.
Feeling a twitch, I reacted. Planting my hoof on the ground, a hole opened in the icy floor of the crevasse as I pivoted out the way of another projectile and went into a spin. I continued my spin until I was facing forward and started to skate forward by pushing with my hind legs and balancing on my front hooves.
I veered into the left branching pathway.
-Air above Crevasse Street’s entrance, Sabu Taj-
“Damn it, can’t get another shot from this angle!” Putting the sniper rifle down, I turned to the pilot. Leap Lamb is either very lucky or she has a sixth sense for when she’s about to die. I had already sabotaged most of the transit systems around Zootopia before setting out to hunt down the target, but it seems little miss ‘Dodges-Freaking-Bullets’ is too good for that. That was the closest shot I had taken yet and she still dodged it! She couldn’t be lucky like that forever. “Beta and Gamma teams, go to the far side of Crevasse Street and block her off! I’m taking personal charge of running down the target or flushing her out towards you.”
I checked over my gun, assault weapon and ammunition. I also made sure the high explosive grenades and radio were secured to my belt and the sound dampening devices were already in my ears. My clothing and armored vest were settled correctly and the last thing to do was check my jet assisted snowboard over for any imperfections, all prepped and checked.
“Move into position, I’m ready to drop.” Once we were in said position, I pushed off into the air spinning until I hit the ground and bent my knees to absorb the impact. While I was doing this, I slapped the board with my right hand and it let off a short forward burst into the crevasse after our quarry. I may have missed the opportunity to be paid for getting Kahn, but killing Leap Lamb would definitely get me some lucrative contracts as a bonus on top of getting the device from her. “This is Prowler, moving to chase the target down. No explosives, too much attention is already being drawn to this quickly growing cluster already. Why did that bastard Shere Kahn have to give it to such hard to kill target?!”
Everybody had phones and cameras these days, so some nocturnal animalistic had probably caught an image of our activities after blowing that snowball apart. Not my problem at the moment, these mercenaries were a dime a dozen and who cared if they were caught with military grade weapons?
Moving down the left path, the burst from the board was easing up and I was sliding along on the momentum alone and narrowing my eyes for any sight of her before it slowed down. There was no way she could keep dodging me forever!
Once I was on the next street I saw her near the end of it and unslung my assault weapon and fired a burst making her roll behind a trash can in the narrow street.
Several bullets struck the trash can rocking it a bit and I blinked in disbelief at not hearing a sweet cry of pain, trash bags and plastic wasn’t about to stop an assault weapon. So what was making that clanging noise?
I stopped firing and she opened the trash can I fired at the lid to find out after blowing it off that she was already ducking down and then something was thrown at me. I dove to the side and took a light blow to my right though to find out... it was a lead brick?
Rolling out of the way over another chucked brick. I quickly worked to get myself back up on my board and watch as Leap Lamb, looking quite fearful, got behind the garbage can and bucked it over. A cascade of lead bricks poured out of it sending the bricks sliding down the street towards me.
“Are you kidding me? Who in the hell would load a plastic garbage can full of lead bricks?!” While I was distracted by that I noticed that Leap Lamb was on the run and fired a burst after her as she turned the corner. My bullets missed her rear hooves by a few inches and embedded themselves into the ice.
I freed my left foot from the and kicked at the ground to go skidding and did another small burst to sweep a board up and around the pile of sliding lead bricks and swept down to veer to the right. I wasn’t going to use any booster fuel when I was this close to my target.
Turning right into the next street I saw her already halfway down it and this one was quite a long street, I fired a burst and watched as she leapt to the right wall. I traced my bullets along after her and she shot over the stream with a sideways flip to the left wall and my clip ran dry before I could bring it back her way.
She used the momentum of sliding down the wall to speed up and was three fourths of the way down the street and I kicked the ground to pick up speed as I ejected my empty clip and loaded in a fresh one.
By the time I brought my gun up she was already planting her hoof in the ice and swinging down the left passage before I could squeeze off a burst after her. I would rather save ammunition on cleaner shots, it would be hard to even get one of those at this rate.
Speeding up to keep up with Leap Lamb, I turned the corner and blinked, I didn’t see her anywhere. A bit of ice fell from the nearby left wall. I looked up to see Leap Lamb cringing.
She sprung from the wall as I brought up my gun and fired off a short burst, adjusted my aim and fired again at where she would be on the right wall. Instead she stopped short of the right wall, in the middle of the air no less, and fell straight down.
“What the...?!” How did she just do that? No matter, I fired a third burst and she leapt away to the end of the street avoiding the bullets shooting by underneath her, she was already heading right down the next branch.
Continuing to push the snowboard forward after her, I now knew why the name Leap Lamb was accurate descriptor of her abilities as she kicked off the wall leading into a right branch.
Her being able to come to a dead stop in midair was clearly impossible, unless the info we have on her abilities was drastically underestimated. She wouldn’t be dodging bullets if she was possibly invulnerable to them and then there’s the fact that she handled several tons of pressure, but there were several unusual factors about that information.
Like Caper Canine coming to her… wait… where’s that dog?! Something wasn’t right here if her sidekick wasn’t around, what were they planning or up to?
“Be aware, sidekick Caper Canine is not currently in the combat zone!” I called out as I caught up to her again and she was skating down the next road, I fired and watched as she grabbed a mailbox and swung out of the way of my fire and my clip ran dry before I could sweep it after her.
“What’s a little dog like that going to do in this situation?” My helicopter pilot does realize that the Dalmatian I’m warning everyone about in question took off the head of a large robot that tried to crush Leap Lamb with at least a solid ton of force… with what looked to be a normal skateboard.
“That dog took down several deadly robots armed with only a skateboard, I’d say that dog is far more intelligent than they appear.” I loaded my clip, unslung my pistol and took careful aim with both my weapons. “Also I would like to point out that, aside from the wheels being a bit roughed up, the skateboard didn’t take any damage from the event or the several things that the dog used that board on afterwards!”
“Copy, spreading the word.” My pilot stated calmly. “All units, be on the lookout for Leap Lamb’s sidekick Caper Canine. Take that dog seriously, we do not know their full capabilities either! What’s your situation Prowler?”
“Leap Lamb is still evading me and will soon be out of Crevasse Street, ‘if’ I can’t hit her.” I fired the assault with my right hand once I caught up to her after going down a different street and she dodged the spray with a rolling sideways leap with her front legs covering her face. She made it through all of bullets that seemingly miraculously missed her. “Dodge this!”
I fired the hand gun and the watched as I saw movement coming from the wool on the top of her head and a second spark hitting the ice wall on the right, did that bullet just ricochet of her wool?! I took noticed of several bullets from my assault weapon earlier were in the ground, had they ricocheted off of her spinning body?!
“Please note, I’m now assuming nothing less than a direct hit will actually hurt Leap Lamb.” I stated in a dull monotone as Leap Lamb rounded the next corner. “Indirect or grazing shots are entirely ineffective. She’s coming your way, immediately aim to kill, I don’t even care if you hit me! Just shoot her!”
I locked my left foot into the snowboard and unlocked my right foot to slam my heel down on the booster. I turned the corner and saw Leap Lamb performing halfpipe maneuvers on her hooves doing something akin to slalom movements as she kept going high and higher up the walls.
Icicles were raining down around her as the fire from the end of the Crevasse Street came into sight, where two helicopters were waiting to catch her in their crossfire. That’s when Leap Lamb seem to be inhaling sharply as she neared one of the exits to Crevasse Street, she then did something curious.
She crouched down while standing on rear hooves as she swerved through all the oncoming fire from me and the guys at the exit, she raised her front hooves above her head and contortioned her body slightly into a twisting motion to start slowly spinning like a top.
What was she… what happened next made me wonder why she was even bothering to run, but then I figured that doing the sort of thing I witnessed next was extremely tiring.
She slid up the right wall and came down, I saw her take a shot to her right side around her chest and grinned as I finally caught sight of her bleeding. Someone managed to hit the so called ‘super hero’. I was right, direct hits were the answer to the absurdity this creature was pulling off.
It was a second after that I was witness to flying spiraling drill, aside from the seemingly light blood loss of the hit, curiously no more blood spilled from the spiraling shape of drill that took out the landing struts on the underside of the helicopter on the right and bounced off a nearby building and plowed through the glass of the one on the left from my perspective as it turned to the left face the other helicopter.
That helicopter spun out and quickly went for a safe landing and I watched as the spiraling drill shaped blur shot off into an alleyway after bouncing off the ice walls of the crevasse. I sped past my men and skidded to a stop to unload the rest of my shots into the alleyway… only nothing was there.
“Where the…?” I know I saw her spinning slow down, how did she get out of the alleyway?
I heard howling of various dogs as I looked at the unconscious people in Beta Team's helicopter.
“Caper Canine!” I screeched. “Helicopter Alpha this is Prowler, follow the beacon and come in for a rope pickup on my position now! Beta’s helicopter was downed by Leap Lamb and Gamma is going to be disabled because it lost its landing struts!”
“She downed a helicopter?" Alpha was clearly in shock, I too was feeling a bit numb. "Holy crap, what are we actually hunting here?!”
“Ma’am this is Gamma Team's helicopter, the fuel line was destroyed by the impact… you’re underestimating the problems I’m having here, I’m going to have about two minutes before this thing falls out of the air.” My left eye twitched violently. “Going for emergency landing into some snow, dropping off all other Gamma members before I do so!”
Several of Gamma Team repelled down to us and then the helicopter took off and then its blades stopped spinning not even thirty seconds later and it crashed into the middle of the streets of Southern Glacier Falls.
The blades exploded, but the helicopter’s cockpit was intact, so the pilot was possibly alive at least. Didn’t care if he died really.
“ARGH!” Leap Lamb, you will not escape me! “I’m going to use my snowboards remaining booster fuel to pick up Leap Lamb’s trail, you better pick me up Alpha! Someone nailed Leap Lamb, she’s injured and she couldn’t have gotten too far with a hole in her chest!”
-Five minutes later, 4:24 AM, Pom-
Oh goddesses the pain, I’ve been shot again! I think I might have blacked out for a second… why wasn’t I dead and Dormarch taken?
Wait, was I… moving? I sat up and blinked, I was on a quickly a sled and dog was sitting next to me.
“Dolly Dalmatian said you were able to speak to dog’s yah? Can you confirm what I’m about to say?” The husky asked with a thick accent. “My cousin Hansel is knowing her. She good skateboarder from Camden Town, but isn’t into poetry and dislikes Poodlewolf too much. That’s about as much as he knows about her, they good friend’s yah?”
“Yes, she’s quite amazing on it.” I stated in weak yips and growls, while holding back screaming in agony. The husky noticed my pain and put a medical kit before me.
“Confirmed, she is friend, also she is being a very injured Leap Lamb!” The husky shouted to the team of sled dogs pulling us away, they were excited to be helping me. “We head up Glacier Falls and help you go west to Dolly in Canal district yah? I am being cold weather rescue dog, I am also decent medic… but do not be expecting biped level help at this time. My name is Leven and we not be stopping for crazy people in helicopters yah.”
“Yah!” The dogs pulling the sled stated in agreement.
“Just… help me… rainbow…” I clutched at the right side of my chest and pulled my mentally created wool bandaged away.
“Pom, you’re bleeding!” I carefully pull Dormarch from being glued to my stomach by my wool and smiled at his image weakly. “Bullet lodged in chest… stuck in a rib, did not go through ribs… your ribs are cracked. You need to have that bullet removed immediately or cessation of life is imminent! Your every breathe is hurting you…”
“It’s… okay…” My body was small any amount of blood loss was extremely bad.
“No, it’s not okay, you’re dying!” At least as young as he is, he understood the concept of death. That’s exactly what I named him after. Rider of the clouds, ‘Death’s Door’.
“Not…” Ugh, bodily functions shutting down, everything was getting cold until I felt something stick into me and pull out. I felt something pour onto my agonizing wound and made it even worse, I screamed out and felt something pour down my throat warming up and making cough at the awful taste.
“Sorry, bedside manner of Leven is bad, but get bullet out yah?” I was being operated on by a husky, what is my life? “Alcohol help destroy chance of infection, being very excruciating. Not first time being hit like this Leven is taking you? I pour medicine in throat, help wake up patient yah.”
“No, been shot in the leg before… not in the torso.” I groused out between clenched teeth.
“Did that dog just pull the bullet out of you with tweezers? I didn’t think dogs were that smart…” They are around me Dormarch. “Hey you, husky she needs a hospital or a biped that can… huh, how are you doing that with your wool?”
I managed to move my right leg and covered the wound with my wool and my wool stitched itself over the injury sealing it off.
“Don’t… worry… about me…” Things were fading out, I was trying to stay awake as I flopped onto my back. “Will… have... worse…”
“Aside from the bullet wound, you have nasty internal bruising from the heavy impacts with the two helicopters… also your pierced straight through the bullet proof glass on one of them and you’re still exhausted from swimming in those freezing cold waters. What are you Pom, that you are even still functioning and awake? You’re practically a miracle after being shot by an automatic weapon without being immediately ripped in half.” Dormarch, now was not the time to learn more about me. I heard the sound of helicopter coming and saw it steering its way towards us and saw a figure climbing a rope up to it. “I do not believe for a moment that normal animalistic sheep have these kinds of incredible functions.”
I didn’t respond and flicked my ears as I heard running water, I turned my head looked at Glacier Falls as we were heading uphill towards the cavern underneath them… the falling water was beautiful and glittering in the faint sunlight poking over the horizon. Wish I had a camera.
“Muh…sh…” I sat up and grabbed hold of the front of the sled and tried to stay conscious.
“You be hearing her, crazy people be coming after us now yah!” The husky’s pulling the sled picked up speed at Leven’s words and we were passing under the falls. “We be passing you off to the dogs in the Rainforest district, they will be seeing you through the Rainbow Falls.”
“How… move…” My breathing was becoming much rougher, I place Dormach back in my wool.
We were past the falls and the huskies were putting their backs into it, but I doubt they’d outrun that helicopter.
“Do not be worrying!” Leven stated and nuzzled me and whined as he looked up at the approaching helicopter in the distance. “Rest friend, rest good. What is not good is that yah?”
We passed by the falls and were on a ridge heading west.
-Sabu Taj-
I pulled myself up into the helicopter and took up the sniper rifle, I only had about three shots left. Didn’t buy nearly enough ammunition for all of this!
I pulled the scope up and aimed it at the tracks in the snow I had been following and trailed it up to see a dog sitting with her and barking as she wrapped bandages around her torso.
Caper Canine apparently had the ability to control dogs or something close to that to have an entire team of husky’s this organized. There was more to the ‘Caper’ in ‘Canine Caper’ than we originally could have imagined.
I slowly took aim and squeezed the trigger, the shot flew true, but Leap Lamb rolling out the way and a chunk was taken out of the sled instead.
Two rounds left, all I needed was one direct shot!
Loading another shot, the sled started moving erratically. If I couldn’t hit you Leap Lamb, then would you take one for the husky?
Squeezing the trigger, I noticed Leap Lamb shiver and she throws herself into the path of the bullet and it struck her in the belly sparking a bit as she was knocked back first into the dog.
I grinned viciously, only to blink afterwards when I saw what I had actually hit.
The bullet embedded in the device's handle.
Some of that impact at least transferred, there was no way Leap Lamb was capable of dodging my next shot! She was too weak to do anything.
This last round… something was going to die or so help me!
Take aim, calmed my breathing, put Leap Lamb’s face in the center of my scope and saw her glaring directly at me.
The trigger squeezed eloquently.
A ball of energy ripped from Leap Lamb's mouth evaporating the bullet.
What...
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