//------------------------------// // 146. Deadly Pom-monition. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Earth, Calisota Duckberg, McDuck Manor, early evening, Pom- This place was impressive, I’ll give it that and I had my first meeting with Scrooge McDuck, who was giving us all an odd look of scrutiny as we came in through the front door. “Er… hi dad.” Oh how Webby at least tried to keep a straight face, didn’t work as everyone else in her family immediately said hello to ‘Uncle Scrooge’. “Okay, what happened?” It didn’t take long for Scrooge to ask. Everyone pointed at Dolly who looked around and then she put a paw on her chest like she was offended that they thought she was a troublemaker. Scrooge was a bit surprised by how expressive Dolly was, especially that he could see her now brightly smiling face afterwards. Apparently Dolly was the troublemaker according to the rest of her family, with me I was the trouble bringer in this relationship and she was helpfully sticking to my side. No amount of begging was going to stop Dolly from being my partner now, not after whatever was going on with her. Dolly had been oddly quiet on the trip to the manor on the hill. Nobody knew what it meant for Dolly to be capable of pulling her magic to the forefront yet, but I’m sure she’d figure it out. Outwardly nothing was different about Dolly or what I could perceive of her through our bond. The bond itself felt a little unusual, but nothing wrong and I still had no clue why I had passed out. “Well a slight magical explosion might have happened. No one was hurt, but we still don’t understand the full repercussions of what happened and it was a little terrifying in how it tore through the wards Lena and Violet made like paper tissues.” Webby was poking at the floor with the tips of her webbed feet looking a bit sheepish. “Oh and this is Pom, she’s Ocellus and Smolder’s caretaker and this is her companion Dolly Danger Dalmatian. They are also known as Leap Lamb and Caper Canine.” “Hello sir, nice to meet you.” I stated pleasantly as a feathered hand and hoof shook. “I really don’t like being seen as a hero, it kind of implies that it is what will kill me eventually. I take it my two girls didn’t cause you too much trouble?” “Aye lass, you’re charges were on their proper behavior, at least while I could house them here.” He seemed like a nice old guy, older than he looked and I’ve never been near a duck that felt so ancient. “Staying the night with us?” “I don’t want to impose.” I answered waving a hoof, I had plenty of money. Caper Canine was a popular toy, not that my toy sales weren’t doing that bad either. “Pom Lambchop, a guard of the mystical city of Huoshan and the head of their canine division. We are currently lost on an interdimensional roller coaster my friends and I seriously wish we could all get off of.” “Nonsense, you wouldn’t be imposing at all. Ocellus and Smolder have been darling, not often I can say that magical creatures haven’t actively brought me any kind of trouble for once.” Scrooge scratched at the bottom of his beak with a finger as he looked me over. “Also you are no normal animalistic sheep, I know that much.” “I’m a lambkin, akin to lambs and close enough so without actually being one.” Wool gathering time I guess, I didn’t have any pressing matters aside from Dormarch connecting me to Dawkins and Bentley for a conference call. Dormarch said to give it an hour or two, because Dawkins needed to recharge the Dalmatian family’s communal device. “People like me still get called Sheeple because we still use the terms like ram and ewe for genders, it doesn’t help that my people tend to be sheep farmers adding more confusion to the mix as we can bleat like actual sheep. You will never have meet a more anxious or easily frightened people, I’m… mostly better than ninety percent of my population. Not saying much when my race in particular is always heavily medicated by requirement… well the adults are anyway. We tend lose our sense of wonder for the world real fast around the age of five.” “Well that’s all very interesting and I’m sure we’ll have plenty to talk about over dinner. Now to lay a few things out. First you, the dog, Dolly was it? I can see that you’re clearly intelligent, so I’m going to have to ask you to do your business outside or use one of the toilets, can you do that?” Scrooge, getting a nod and affirmative bark from Dolly, smiled and patted her on the head. “Good, then we’ll have no problems housing you for the night. As for you Pom, keep an eye out on the kids and ‘try’ to keep them out of any more trouble. You seem like the honest and trustworthy sort, so I just have to warn you and Dolly here that I keep a lot of dangerous magical artifacts in the house from time to time. So it’s not a good idea to touch anything unless you know it’s safe. Also do not bother our ghost butler. He’s happy to be of service if you need anything though, as will my housekeeper and friend Beakley. Now if you’ll excuse me I have business to attend to.” “Okay, it was nice meeting you sir.” I waved and then turned around to ask anyone if they wanted to do something. Everyone except Smolder had apparently run off. “So… want to spend time together?” “Sure.” At least Smolder was willing to keep me company, don’t honestly know why Ocellus ran off and I could feel Dolly running around looking at things with curiosity. “So you look slightly like death warmed over.” “Smolder, my life over the last few months has been a very exhausting form of Tartarus, also I’ve recently found out that anxiety medication has little effect on me because my anxiety is just that bad. I’m surprised I haven’t had a psychotic snap yet from all the pressure.” I laid down on the couch in the living room and Smolder took a seat nearby. “I’m not a longma, I cannot be consistently stoic no matter what I’m doing. I’m not a dragon and I don’t want to pretend to stay strong in spite of hardships. I’m way over my head in this world and I want the dangers to stop coming at me constantly.” “Want hardships, imagine sleeping on piles of gold without a pillow for your head. It leaves such a crick in the neck if you do it wrong, Scrooge would know about it as he seems like a professional when it comes to swimming in money.” At least Smolder might take this with some seriousness. “We dragons don’t do merchants or commerce very well. We can certainly afford pillows easily enough, but Dragons are about as greedy as griffons are at times with our hoards. That doesn’t mean I have to live up to the stereotype of what’s expected. You know what, I’m pretty sure that someone out there is currently having it much worse than you are Pom.” “Please don’t joke about that, I think I might be seriously becoming a death seeker.” Leaning back, I looked to the ceiling. I soon felt Smolder’s warm body cuddling up to me and she was giving me a hug. “Sorry, but you are being a really good rock to us Pom, you can’t be that bad with how happy you were to see us.” Smolder mumbled quietly. “No, I’m stuck under the rock. It’s crushing me into the hard place, grinding away at my sanity that I still somehow have.” Slowly closing my eyes, I let Smolder’s body heat lull me slowly into relaxing. Dolly sent me a feeling that was questioning, I sent her back a general feeling of being alright. “I’m just keeping the rock from crushing anyone else I care about.” “Can you not talk about martyring yourself like that? It’s disturbing enough to know you are being depressive… and that’s probably why Ocellus went to spend time with the others come to think of it.” After a minute of silently just laying with me, Dolly padded on into the room crawled up on the couch to cuddle up to me as well. “That bad huh?” I just closed my eyes and let out a really drawn out sigh. I could vaguely feel Dolly nodding to Smolder, she didn’t even need to say anything as they both could guess how I was feeling at the moment. I’m still blaming myself for Ms. Shuttle getting hurt by Mr. Tobias Rieper. “Really Pom?” Ocellus grumbled as she came in and joined the cuddle pile in a grumpy manner. “Despite how bad your negativity is for me… that you can even make it fill more than an entire room in this mansion is disturbing. Still, I’m not going to turn away from a friend when they need me even if it is going to hurt me… this is what you do for us all the time and we need to return the favor more. You do make us feel safe Pom, but when you are like we’ll help you however we can and comforting you is the way we can do it.” It was quiet until Smolder broke the silence five minutes later “So… me and Ocellus are thinking of getting into a relationship, we’re still a little up in the air.” Smolder mumbled. “She looks kind of cute while being all grumpy.” “That’s sounds nice, are you sure you two can keep up with being friends despite how difficult a good stronger relationship is to hold onto?” My voice was a little hollow. “We'll manage, so what’s got you in a mood Pom?” Ocellus said as she squeezed me tightly. “I have a feeling that things aren’t going to be quiet as they are in this moment, I’m feeling guilt for things I had no control over aside from being partly responsible for them happening in the first place by existing and the whole Leap Lamb thing isn’t something I’m doing because I want to be a super hero. It’s been pretty bad for my health overall having a bleating heart like I do.” I felt movement and Dolly gently licked my cheek and she pressed up against me. She didn’t say anything, but she was trying to cheer me up all the same like Ocellus and Smolder. “I very well know I can’t get any peace with the way things are, I bet something big will happen tomorrow and I’ll be in the path of it all like usual and you might get hurt if I do nothing. I just want some quiet, stable time to just frolic in some flowers and be at peace, I can’t exactly do that with all those mercenaries hunting me. In fact, I’m putting all of you and everyone else who live here in danger just by being here. It’s just like in Gongmen City when I couldn’t do much and was helpless, I feel useless and all these thoughts are crushing down on me. I’m am so very tired girls, this world has a lot good people and good things, but I’m attracting all sorts of wrong attention.” “I wish I could give you a hug too Pom.” Dormarch’s innocent sounding voice was rather strained, but the bond between us stayed the same enigma it was when it first started. “Maybe you need a nap?” “I could go for a nap.” I heard the Louie stated as he came in. “Hey Uncle Donald, I need some help with getting one of our guests comfy! You know, a decent massage could do her some wonders.” A very garbled voice followed in response afterwards. I didn’t move or try to get up, but I did feel my position slowly become more comfortable. I felt a pair of hand gently rubbing my shoulders and soon move on to my forehead. This felt nice. -One nap later- I sat up and realized I was surrounded by a pile of slightly snoozing bodies, I still felt the weight of that rock on my back even if it had lessened a bit. “Are you currently awake Pom?” Dormarch spoke to the mostly silent room with everyone snuggled around me and Dolly comfortably resting her head on my belly as I lifted my head to see her clinging to me. “The conference should be held at the soonest convenience as Dawkins sent a message that he’s ready at your convenience, you’ve been approximately out cold for about an hour. Long enough for a nap I think, it is nearing dinner time.” “I would like to do it now, but I would have to extricate myself from them first.” Not really wanting to bother the snuggle pile we had going on a pile of cushions on the living room floor, I just stayed where I was. “You’re far too nice Pom, I wonder how you ended up with someone as dangerous as me?” Carefully pulling Dormarch out to hold him within my sight without moving too much, I looked up at him. “I haven’t the foggiest why people would want me so badly or what makes me so special, but I’m glad I’m in your hooves at least.” “You’re not dangerous Dormarch, not directly anyway.” My device born companion turned his back to me with his head lowered. I sent a feeling of safety to him and he flinched and looked around before meeting my eyes. “We’ll figure it out eventually, it’ll come out one way or another why people want to take you so badly. We almost lost you once, we’re not going to lose you now.” The less said about possibly losing me first the better. “What… was that?” Dormarch asked looking at me curiously. “Also your mood seems to have improved drastically.” “Don’t worry about it too much Dormarch .” I sent Dormarch a feeling of contentment and his image relaxed to match the feelings I sent to him. “Make the call, I’m not moving from my spot.” Did I ever actually explain that I have a familiar bond with him? I'm sure I only told Dolly that. I don’t know if I’m going to tell Ocellus or Smolder about, but it would come up at some point. I didn't want to let those two out of my sight as they had been in danger without me, especially Ocellus who had been unable to defend herself from what I was told at lunch. Smolder could hold her own well enough and can survive a lot of things. It must have taken a moment for Dormarch to come to grips with receiving feelings, because he hesitated for a few moments and finally Dawkins appeared on the screen along with Bentley of the Cooper Gang and… Shanty! “Shanty are you okay? Are those scorch marks? Have you learned any new tricks? Have you been sleeping well? How much rum have you drunken young lady?! Please at least tell me you’re eating enough and staying well fed!” Whatever vestiges of my depression was blown away when I worried more about a smiling Shanty in a matter seconds than I did the crushing weight of the difficulties surrounding me. “I be doing good Pom, I just be wanting to say that I will be seeing you soon before I go eat! These thieves are being the nicest I’ve ever met. Heh, if anything I am more worried about you.” Shanty wiped her hoof at her nose and she sniffled a bit. “Oh and this is Mopsy, she be a lot like you… only less stressed out. Also yes, I be learning lots of things!” “Things are okay over here Pom, Shanty has told me a lot about you. Nice to see someone who shares my good looks and is a friendly face.” Mopsy seemed confident and she looked nice, the wool flowed over her right eye majestically. I could at least feel happy that Shanty had good people looking out for her, then I saw Shanty imbibing a bottle of rum in the background and my gaze when flat. “Let me guess, she’s drinking rum behind my back?” “Yes… and it’s as annoying as you think it is to deny her any of that stuff, there is no stopping her.” We both sighed and I kind of thought it neat that Mopsy and I shared a wavelength and had similar voices. I was just distracting myself with the peace of the moment, my paranoia was running on full burn and I knew something was coming for me. Now if only I knew what it was that had me so very on edge like I was, I could almost feel it in the air and it wasn’t close to attacking me tonight, but maybe tomorrow? Why was I so sure it was tomorrow that I should try to stay away from everyone else, including Dormarch? Something about this world… was it a premonition or is my paranoia finally getting to me? Well it wasn’t so much paranoia when things were actually out to get you, but I’m still fairly paranoid about the when of it all. I had to get a lot of sleep tonight, I was going to need as much rest as I can get for tomorrow. “Ahem, let’s get back on track ladies!” The turtle, Bentley, stated as he moved the two out of frame and turned to me. “We can’t in good conscious let Shanty come with us when we go to face a really deadly criminal, so we’re going to meet in a quiet place where you can have a vacation and meet up with Shanty. However you’re going to have to ditch those mercenaries before you fly out to the place I have in mind.” “Goodness knows I need a vacation…” The thing about me was that I was very willing to listen to Bentley’s idea, provided that I would even get a chance to enjoy said vacation with the kind of circumstances I've been surrounded by. “So where are we meeting up?” “We’ll meet up in Cape Suzette, take a week of rest in Duckberg and then fly out here as quietly as you can.” As Bentley stated this an image of the city came up on the screen, a city built along the walls of the insides of the mountains that surrounded it. A person can easily get lost in a metropolis like that easily enough. “Get in contact when you’re flying out and when you reach the city to meet up with us.” I wish I could rest easy here, but I know that dreams as lofty as tranquility were not anywhere in my future. “Okay, we’ll be able to manage that.” At least I’ll try, who knows what tomorrow would bring and why I was so terrified of the very idea of it. “We can get a ride from the people we’re currently staying with.” I turned Dormarch and showed them a Smolder cuddling Ocellus and then turned it back to myself. “Ocellus and Smolder are okay, be safe Shanty and please don’t get into any trouble between now and when we meet up.” I’ll be doing enough of that on my own. After a rather nice dinner with the family of ducks, I promptly went to bed. -In the middle of the night- “No… no… stay back… AGH?!” I sat up in a cold sweat and looked outside the nearby window at the moonlight shining down upon me. Various shadows had been clawing at me, all wanting a piece of me until they left nothing behind. Dolly stirred next to me and I slowly caressed her back to sleep, she smiled and soon went back to snuggling up against me. My dreams were haunted with bullets, explosions, giant machines with two heads, chainsaws, lizards having parts of themselves ripped out to be replaced with machinery and shadow monsters vying to be the winner that would reach and consume me first in a gladiatorial setting. Offal, bones and other grisly imaginary sights had taken their toll on my mind and eventually woke me up. There was one shadow of me in my nightmare saying that I truly loved the attention of being a hero and that I should revel in it as I partook of the sweet cup of violence. It bade me to spill the blood of my enemies with a mouth full of unnatural fangs, to give up being the meek lambkin I was and to give into the hidden bloodthirst of my currently well controlled feral side. The shadow obviously wanted me to become a monster and it promised me power for doing so, it might even be all too easy for someone else to give into such an idea were it not me it was being presented to. I was actually rather thankful my nightmares were going easy on me for once. I reached over to my bag on the nightstand and pulled Dormarch out and carefully removed my soundless bell from my neck. Dormarch yawned on the screen and looked confused when I took off the one thing I wore constantly. “Dormarch, can you quietly wake me up around four?” While I noticed he seemed fairly concerned, I had something I really need to take care of in the city of Duckberg and I had a pretty good idea what. “Of course, Pom.” Dormarch looked like he wanted to say something, but held what passed for his tongue. “Is that all.” “For now... yes.” I looked at Dolly and smiled a little. I was going to do something I normally wouldn’t, I’d go to face the threats head on. I was giving myself a reason to come back, my bell was going to be here after all. -Dolly- I yawned and stretched out, I smelled the air and looked to see a bowl of dog food sitting on the nightstand beside the bed. “Morning Pom… Pom?” I looked to see her bell was on the nightstand. Dormarch’s screen lit up, he looked a little wary. “She... went out to get some fresh air.” Dormarch sounded pretty cagey about something, I took up the bowl of food and started eating my kibble. “Finish you’re breakfast, because I have a message for you from Pom for when you do so.” Feeling around for Pom, she was somewhere in the city, she had walked a fair distance away. Also there was this ominous feeling in the air. I looked outside at the heavy cloud cover as it twisted in the sky, it seemed like it was going to be pretty dark out today with a fairly good possibility of it raining. Finishing the kibble Pom left for me, I looked to Dormarch. “What’s the message?” Something in me started to feeling desperation, Pom would not leave her bell behind. “Gather as much help as you can and survive the chaos.” That ominous message made me grab my board and start skating around the mansion barking up a storm like the one that was gathering outside. -Pom- No sunlight was getting through those clouds and the way they swirled seemed familiar to me as I sat there in the park on a bench underneath a tree. Nearby the shadows started swirling and gathering, eventually coalescing into an easily recognizable monstrous form. Meeting the red eyes, while being rightfully terrified of what I had been waiting for, there was no way I could realistically ever take him on alone. Several shadows peeled off him, taking the shapes of my closest friends, my god-puppies and... me. Gulping, I stand up.