//------------------------------// // 133. Mercenary Hassle. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Equus, Manehatten, Jade- “Why are we in this situation again?” I asked as I held a crossbow pointed towards my sister’s chest. “Didn’t you say that you had to aim at me or something worse might happen?” Jacky stated with a flat expression on her beak, my parrot sister really needed to lighten up about me aiming a weapon at her. “No, that’s how not to make this situation worse, why are we in this situation specifically?” I gestured with my left paw to our given situation. Celaeno pointing a sword at a stout parrot named Jock’s throat. A pegasus named Shocking Awe was pointing an electrified knife at the unicorn Teatime Clockwork’s throat. Dispel Grace was a breezy sized earth pony using magic to move a large mass of armor and wielding a sword charged with holy magic pointed at our favorite Viking dragon Flamberge’s chest. “Wasn’t it something about neutrality and someone setting off a fire at our meeting?” Teatime stated calmly, then little Silvers my three headed chimera daughters ran up to me and her tail was blasting flames all over the place. “What the devil is that?” “My daughters Silvers you jerk!” I stated with a ferocity while emphasizing the point of my crossbow by poking my sister in the chest with it. “Oh, well… that explains the fire at the meeting, also should you really be poking… I can’t recall her name.” Clockwork look confused for a moment. “Anyway, stand down!” “I agree.” I still kept my crossbow pointed at Jacky though, Silvers looked up at me innocently. I crouched down and rubbed their Pony and Abyssinian heads, the dragon head continued to proudly spew flames all over the place. Thank goodness the unicorn head wasn’t experiencing power surges currently. “Hey, remember my name you jackass!” Jacky shouted at Teatime before turning to a nearby donkey. “Also no apologies!” “Eh, I understand.” The nearby donkey stated while nodding, before trotting off. “Also please stop aiming the crossbow at me Jade.” Jacky stated and I did as she asked and lowered the crossbow, it then went off into her left leg by accident. “I think I hate everything about this situation, also you really owe me a solid now Jaded.” Silvers gurgled cutely and the dragon head tail started giggling at the sight of Aunt Jacky having a crossbow bolt in her leg. Jacky’s under reaction to it and the deadpan look she was sending me was kind of funny. “It was an accident Jacky, but I definitely do owe you one. So anyway, we need your help with something… as loathe as I am to ask for it from the Quarrelsome Quartet.” It said a lot when I accidentally shot Jacky and she didn’t even react to the crossbow bolt entering her leg. I calmly picked up Silvers and cuddled them to my chest and playfully tickled their belly. Jacky’s pain tolerance was even higher than mine and I was a bit jealous of that, even if I wouldn’t wish her curse on anyone. -Earth, California, San Fransokyo, Handful Hotel, middle of the night, ???- Several armed and armored bipeds were at the door to the bedroom in the hotel, one held up three fingers. Said fingers shifted to two and then one, then all the armored bipeds burst into the room firing automatics weapons. They expended about two hundred bullets into the room, out of all that were fired sporadically… none of them had hit anything living. For the Shred Treads mercenaries target was not here, but that was okay, they had armored vehicles hidden at all the entrances and exits to the city. The only way Leap Lamb would leave would be if they killed her or she somehow learned how to fly. They even had SAMs, surface to air missiles, ready for the likelihood she tries to fly her way out in some vehicle. They started checking each and every floor of the hotel and still didn’t find a sign of the mysterious sheep hero. While it may not seem like it by outward appearances, the city was on lockdown. “Hey, where’s the mattress for this bed?” One of the guys asked curiously. -???- “So you want me to steal a piece of tech, acquire some genetics from that dog and possibly the sheep who practically tore El Fuego apart? You want me to possibly do one or all of the above? That is a big ask even for me...” A cat biped in black and dark blue stated as she twirled two energy knives about and looked to her employer with a grin. “Sounds like a challenge, when do I begin? Oh and I want half cash up front for what I’m dealing with here.” “Right now Momokase, it seems there are mercenaries stirring up a fuss in the city this night and Leap Lamb is drawing ample amounts of chaos towards her.” The figure in the shadows stated with a grin “Everyone wants a piece of that ewe and nobody has managed to succeed at that yet. It is very surprising how much trouble the super hero duo draws and yet they still draw breath to this day, they are quite amazing specimens.” “Then I’ll just have to be the first to get my target.” Momokase stated with a grin as she sheathed her weapons and took off to quickly find Leap Lamb. The agreed upon pay for this will be worth it if Momokase could pull it off. -San Fransokyo outskirts, Sabu Taj- All public transportation is about to be ground to a halt, I’ve placed several traps in places I think Leap Lamb could run to, does Leap Lamb seriously think she could outrun me forever? Still, I wonder who hired the Shred Treads to kill her, there’s something disturbing going on here and the fur at the back of my neck is standing on end. Just how many people were after this one hard to kill super sheep? “Something big is happening tonight I can just feel it.” I stated as me and my two teams spread out into the city, having already and quite narrowly gotten past the Shred Treads heavy armaments. They made it impossible to approach them for sabotage efforts given their placements. Very smart mercenaries and they all knew each other, I wouldn’t be able to disguise my way past them either. Where in the world did they get those tanks and how did they move them into position this quietly? That Tobias Rieper, otherwise known as Agent Forty Seven, was also in the area was making me very wary that an assassin was targeting not only my target, but me as well. It didn’t matter who got in my way, Leap Lamb wasn’t escaping me this time and I would get that device from her. We would be keeping the helicopters in reserve for emergencies, but the Shred Treads were not to be underestimated in being able to shoot them down with those SAM launchers. At least scouting those out wasn’t too hard to do. -Handful Hotel, Tobias Rieper- It seems I didn’t need to protect Leap Lamb, but capturing her or Caper Canine when I didn’t know where she was is going to be an issue. Also Sabu Taj was in San Fransokyo, I would have my work cut out for me as she likely knew of my presence and my target as well. “I believe the target is still in the area, but it is unknown where she is currently. The Shred Tread’s mercenary snipers haven’t seen her hopping around roof tops, the exits to the city are covered and they are searching throughout this building for Leap Lamb’s presence. The only way out is by boat and the docks are being quietly held by them. This city is quickly becoming a powder keg and that’s not even factoring in what Big Hero Six might do once things kick off between all the factions I was currently aware of.” Yet I couldn’t help but feel that something was amiss with how Leap Lamb knew they were going to find her hotel room. Was she that paranoid? Sure she appeared on the news, but knowing which hotel she was staying at would have taken some time and Leap Lamb would have had to at least relax her guard a little bit. Perhaps she was chronically paranoid, a dangerous and warranted combination for someone with her abilities. “I will continued scouting the area for her presence, however I am taking a risk with all the forces converging on this city. Not to mention the local gangs are starting to take notice and might try to edge in on Leap Lamb for money.” “Stay on the situation and keep me informed forty seven, be careful.” I stepped out of the elevator and walked past several concealed mercenaries watching the lobby entrance of the building, I doubt they’d know who I am… not many people do unless they have good intelligence like Sabu generally does. They’d continue to watch the entrances, not that it would do them much good. Leap Lamb seems to be currently operating at a heightened level of skill as far as stealth and laying low are concerned. This could actually take a while or it would all unravel at once, only time would tell and Leap Lamb didn’t have all the time in the world. -Pom- After a wonderful late lunch, Baymax had pulled the stitches from my chest and helped Dolly with hers as well. Her nose was looking better and would only need to be lightly bandaged now, but her tail still needed the same amount of bandaging and a lighter form of splint. The healthcare provider was surprised that Dolly had recovered so well from such nasty injuries, but I’m chalking that up to magic never letting beauty tarnish. Just about everyone on Equus had some level of beauty in some form or another. Not that I find myself often looking at anyone other than Tianhuo… or thinking about her… or loving her warm scaled form… I think I’m blushing now. It was the sound of people stomping out of the elevator and following gunfire that had woken me up, the elevator was next to where the room I paid for was. I made sure to get a room next to the elevator specifically for this reason. It wasn’t long afterwards that the various mercenaries started searching the hotel for me, which was one faction and the other was the biped dog in the suit that got on the elevator and just left. I poke my head from the hatch in the top of the elevator and quietly pulled back to close it up after the elevator doors started to shut. Okay that biped dog in the nice suit with the strange tattoo on the back of his head was someone I definitely needed to watch out for, he was a second faction after me. I got his scent, I also knew what he looked like and would remember his voice. Remembering those three things were of importance in a situation where people were out to kill me. At least I knew two groups were out to get me, maybe even three or four at this rate. From what I profiled off of the guy that just left the elevator, he carried himself as an extremely dangerous individual without fear. “Wake up Dolly, on my back and then you can get back to sleep.” Yawning and blinking at me in a half dazed state, Dolly crawled onto my back from the mattress and snuggled into me to continue sleeping as I glued her and her board in place within my wool. I also put Dolly's helmet on her head. I quietly climbed up the elevator cables and away from the comfortable mattress I had placed precariously on top of the elevator. Stopping halfway up the shaft I pulled out Dormarch. “Dormarch, it’s as we suspected.” “Well that’s going to make getting to The Lucky Cat Café for breakfast a bit of a workout huh?” Be glad that understood the reasoning behind the sarcasm Dormarch, I thankfully got in enough hours of both sleep and rest in to not be cranky about this with him. “Okay, so what’s the plan Pom?” I carefully strapped Dormarch to my left leg as I hung onto the cables with my hind legs, I was trying not to look down. I could barely see in the light Dormarch was projecting. I moved my bag and glued it to the wool on my stomach. If there was one fluffmancer ability that I’m glad to have gotten down, it’s sticking things to my wool and vice versa. It certainly has more utility than thickening the wool around my hooves to protect them while enhancing all the blows I performed. Like what I did with El Fuego’s mechanical armor. “Don’t exactly have one yet. All exits to the city are being watched, people are actively looking for me and among those I can currently trust outside of us to be able to help me is Baymax.” Even if Baymax was the large red armored guy, he just wanted to help people. He didn’t have an aggressive bone in his body, unlike the kid in the family that made him a hero called Hiro. Baymax does not have the heart to cripple or injure, but he can definitely respectably defend and protect readily enough as much as disable villains with minimal force. “So I’m going to wiggle my way out of this building and get to a place where nobody would expect me to go.” “And where would that be?” Dormarch asked rubbing his head with a paw. “Big Hero Six are affectionately known by the public to show up wherever trouble does. Of course they kind of jumped the gun with us, but they wouldn’t be wrong in thinking we’re trouble. These mercenaries could possibly start taking hostages to lure us out or do even worse, like start bombarding the city until we give ourselves up.” I had to think on this one, because really, there were a lot of people out to get me if every way out of the city was really being watched. There’s the people inside the city hunting for me to. They’d expect me to go to places where I can readily leap and bound around… they were watching the rooftops and likely know most of what I was capable of now. Except for gliding, I have never actually been caught gliding on the news. “We’re going underground.” I stated simply. There was no basement, but the hotel did have what was called a parking garage connected to it and I could get there from the vents. They couldn’t watch every single place at all times and going underground would be the safest option for us. “Can you access this… wire fiber thing and look up city blueprints for tunnels and aqueduct networks? I’m even willing to brave some sewers provided I can keep myself out of whatever sludge is in them.” I had already bought enough water and food before turning in at the hotel, where I promptly placed the mattress from my room on the roof of the elevator to sleep soundly without interruption other than the ups and downs of the elevator. So we’d be able to lay low safely enough, but actually escaping the city was going to require a ridiculous plan. A plan like what someone of Jaded ‘Freaking’ La Perm’s caliber could come up with. I'm not that good. “It actually stands for… never mind, accessing nearest wireless network and trying to keep this access quiet… stay still.” Computers were not my area of expertise. It would never be honestly, but Dormarch had quite a bit of knowledge on a number of things and would make up for my lacking when it came to technology. “Huh, the technology in this city is cutting edge, at least as close as Kahn Industries and Mcduck Enterprises are. There are key differences though in the various focuses. Krei Tech Industries and the now closed down biotech company Sycorax have both received a large amounts backlash for various incidents.” “Can you stick to the important stuff Dormarch?” I asked quietly. “This is important, especially for you Pom! Krei Tech has once created an interdimensional portal, and it shares alarming similarities to the working portal experiments of the now criminal mastermind Taurus Bulba in the Saint Canard incident within this years’ time. Also Kahn Industries may be possibly taking a crack at it as well despite the prior two causing dimensional instabilities." Domarch would be worried about the place that made him, but these are definitely the thing I did want to know. "This might be why your group was separated upon arrival in this world.” This is what I had asked Dormarch to be on the lookout for since I acquired him, a surefire way home for me and my lost companions! “Dormarch… who would I have to get into contact with to get information on all of this?” I asked slowly and with wide begging eyes as I looked to Dormarch on the screen and he looked worried, but he still produced a picture. “We’d need to get into contact with one Professor Abigail Callaghan, a major proponent of alternate dimensional studies and someone who obviously wants to go to infinity and beyond.” He waved a paw at the image of an animalistic brown fox. “Ahem, in the most literal sense possible of course, there has been issues with animalistic prejudice in the science community and she’s an avid proponent against such things. She may be willing to humor us, but her father might come after us… Yokai, AKA Robert Callaghan who is said to be the possible killer of one Tadashi Hamada and the cause of the second portal incident at Krei Tech Industries.” “Do we have an idea of where this Abigail Callaghan currently is?” Please, please tell me she wasn’t in this city and was somewhere in the countryside. “Somewhere in San Fransokyo City, still recovering from the after effects of being stuck in stasis for a long period and is quietly working as an assistant teacher to one Dr. Wendy Wower. I know where Dr. Wower is as she has a fairly popular children’s entertainment show, but I have absolutely no clue how to find Abigail Callaghan otherwise. As for Mcduck Industries... they technically had a portal, but it was created by a villain who used to be on the board of directors that wanted to erase adventurous people from existence, so I really doubt you’d want to actually find that guy in particular.” At least that rekindled my hope Dormarch, at least you did that much for me. “Please approach Abigail with caution and don’t treat her roughly, she’s recovering from the first known and survived hyper sleep in our dimension. From what I can see in the news report… she didn’t age a day until she came out of the strange dimension she had been trapped in.” “You’re my good boy Dormarch.” I stated with praise and Dormarch smiled up at me wagging his tails and putting his images paws against the screen before licking at it. “Still though, where does Dr. Wower work?” “That’s a bit of a rub… we have to get across the entire city to make contact with Dr. Wower. She is also known to have been in contact with Big Hero Six who have been involved with every large scale incident within this city. She also has some association with Tadashi Hamada. There is one last thing I would like to note.” I tilted my head and Dormarch brought up the blueprints and the ductwork leading into the lower areas of the parking garage and a quick accessway to the derelict subway system. “I have found a safe path out of the building and have discreetly disconnected from the internet, as your Personal Exploration Terminal I will try to lead you out of the city or to Dr. Wower to attempt contact with Abigail Callaghan. If anyone did manage to trace my intrusion, then they would see us as being in Peru at this very moment. I am not holding my breath on that though, please move quickly.” “A very good boy!” I looked at the screen and nodded, I looked around for the ventilation duct that Dormarch was directing me to. When I heard the thud of the mattress falling off the elevator. “Right, time to move!” -Shred Tread Mercenaries- “What was that noise?” One guy asked. “It sounded like it came from the elevator shaft.” A woman with several hidden guns under her nightlife style dress stated. It wouldn’t be long before they found the mattress and Pom’s smell on it. Once they confirmed that Leap Lamb had used the mattress to sleep on the hotels elevator they started searching the hotels ductwork for her. They found traces of her smell in the parking garage, the Shred Tread Mercenaries started quickly sweeping the streets. By then Pom was already in the abandoned subway system and trying to decide between finding Dr. Wower or escaping the city. -Abandoned subway, Pom- “Is there a way to get Dr. Wower’s contact number like the one Dolly uses to call her families device in Britain without endangering her?” I was quite desperate to meet Abigail Callaghan now, Ocellus and Smolder could wait a little longer for me to come to Duckberg. Shanty might not be able to wait as long. “Also contact Dolly’s family, I need to get a message to Ocellus and Smolder.” One of my ears twitch as I heard something or someone coming. “Domarch dim the light and be quiet, map of the subway system as it currently is and all viable exits.” Dormarch nodded and the screen turned into pink dot with ‘Pom’ hovering above it, a pulse showed several grey dots on approach with questions marks on it. After a minute or two, I heard some voices. “What makes Sabu think she’d come down here?” One of the men asked. “Easy place to get lost and nobody would expect someone who can leap such distances to take shelter underground, plus it’s the one part of the city that none of the other mercenaries are checking.” A woman this time stated as their lights shined left and right. “It will take hours to search every nook and cranny of these tunnels though.” “There's nothing down here, except maybe rats.” One of the other guys stated. “There’s all kinds of corners she can be in, especially in this city. All this activity is riling up the local gangs.” “We can be sure Big Hero Six is going to take notice of all this eventually.” They passed by the intersection below me and I crawled along the ceiling into a different pathway base on the Dormarch's directions to viable exits. “Don’t think they’ve ever really fought people with guns or combat training before, just technology going out of control.” “Still, we shouldn’t underestimate them or Leap Lamb.” A Doberman biped stated. -At home above the Lucky Cat Café, Hiro- “Something is going on and I bet it has to do with Leap Lamb.” I looked out the window wondering what was happening in the city. “Do you have anything Baymax?” “Hiro, it is not very safe to be out tonight.” Baymax stated calmly. “A wide area scan from Basemax is showing signs of a number of armed individuals having set up sniper rifles around the city.” "What?!" I sat up and looked to Baymax. "There are also tanks alongside artillery units for shooting down aerial targets present outside of San Fransokyo." Baymax stated calmly before blinking. "An impending disaster is imminent... I will contact our friends."