//------------------------------// // 148. Delaying Distractions. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -A short time ago, McDuck Manor, Dolly- “Okay, we need to go after Pom, like right now!” Agreeing with Smolder after Dormarch translated for me what exactly was wrong, I wondered why we weren’t getting out there already. I could feel Pom is terrified and in incredible danger. “Why are we still here?” “For one, the sun is blocked out by an immense amount of magic and whatever is causing it isn’t going to be very friendly.” Lena patted me on the head. “Like powerful demon levels of not friendly, Violet will be using magic to scout out some problems from here and will figure out a way for us to deal with them if we need help. I’m thinking it’s something shadow magic related, it reeks like I did of the stuff when I was first created and it feels like the magic is not of this world… kind of more like you two.” “It’s something from Equus?!” Frowning Ocellus looked to Smolder, I was a little uneasy about the looks they were giving each other. “Smolder do you know of any villains, monsters or disgruntled unicorns that can pull something like this off? I’m hoping it’s not King Sombra or any Umbrum, an Umbrum would easily kill me in the state I’m in.” “Why exactly are we sitting around?” Once my translation carried through, the oldest duck biped in the room turned to me with a friendly smile. “Dolly, in a crisis, it’s always a good idea to ask for as much help as possible when possible.” Apparently Scrooge didn’t look concerned in the slightest that something big was going on. “Given our track record for trouble, its best that we do this now rather than later. Things have a tendency to go from bad to worse around us at the drop of a hat… mostly mine.” “That’s why we’re calling in backup to where Pom currently is, the park we were at earlier right?” Louie stated as he tapped away at his device and got a response. “Goldie is around and will be trying to head that way, she sent me something about spotting a dangerous backstabbing mercenary she’s familiar with that might need her full attention. She said she’s going to find out what they are up to, might be some of the same guys that are hunting Pom down.” “Why do you have Goldie’s number?” Scrooge asked while narrowing his eyes. “At least inform her that I’ll try to meet up with her when I head out.” “Eh, so what if I like spending time with her on our off days from adventuring when she’s around.” Louie stated with a smile. “I called Boyd, he’s flying towards the disturbance and is on the lookout for trouble.” Huey stated as he and Louie looked to Dewey. “Wait… he says it’s not reading like a time-nado in energy at least, but he’s just spotted Phantom Blot and the eggheads heading our way. He’s going to try and delay them from the air.” “I called Fenton and Gandra… they slept in the lab again. They’ll be on their way soon with Big Hero Six’s Ms. Shuttle. Gyro said whatever is causing those is clouds is making them cover all of Duckberg. The cloud cover is going to ruin communications, something about increasingly worsening atmospheric interference. We better make all the calls to action while we can.” Followed Dewey, he then got wide eyed as he heard something on his device. “Magica De Spell is active in the area, Gandra just spotted her looking around for something and she’s coming in from the opposite direction of the Phantom Blot right towards us!” “I got in touch with our contacts in Saint Canard…” The big old lady Beakley stated with a bit of worry. “Darkwing Duck and Quiverwing Quack are currently trailing some mercenaries heading towards the middle of those swirling clouds, they recently ran into said mercenaries that were snooping around Saint Canard and were heavily armed and have military grade combat vehicles. Said vehicles have just entered the city from the outskirts. I just informed them what the mercenaries might be after, we have a quite a crisis building, it’s not world destroying yet, but it is getting there.” “Well this is going to be a right mess! May, June, Beakley and Donald will intercept the Phantom Blot. Boys, Webby, your with Della and will try to intercept Magica from achieving whatever goal she’s up to. Everyone try to get Blot and his goons to deal with Magica for us. Smolder, Ocellus and Dolly, you three are to head off with Launchpad and Lena towards where Pom is as quickly as possible and find out what’s going on at ground zero.” That sounded like the most dangerous thing to do Scrooge, which was where I was going to go anyway. “Don’t get me wrong. I know how ridiculous it sounds to have you running towards what is probably the most dangerous sounding thing around at the moment, but it generally has worked out for us more often than not before. Duckworth, watch the mansion and protect our guest.” “Of course sir.” The ghost dog biped said when he appeared while bowing to Scrooge. Huh, I thought he was kidding about the ghost butler thing… that’s cool. You know, it says a lot about my life as it is now that I can find a real ghost to be something of a relatively uninteresting sight. “We’ll get right on it Mr. McD, come on, let’s go Team Launchpad!” About time, the bulky looking Launchpad gut started leading the way out the door. Only to be stopped by a ridiculous sight. “Hey Mr. McD, are the sharks with helicopter backpacks and lasers strapped to their heads part of our plans?” “Glomgold.” All the other ducks said at once while running their hands down their beaks in a single simultaneous motion. I don’t know who that is, but they certainly were using cartoonish ideas in real life levels of insanity when they were wielding flying sharks with lasers beams firing everywhere. I would be more scared if they weren’t horrible inaccurate and the aquatic creatures were nowhere near close enough to the ground to bite at us. There was someone riding on one of the sharks and laughing madly, probably the Glomgold guy. “Just ignore him and get going Launchpad before…” Scrooge said as some shorter heavyset duck dropped to the ground on his face, he hopped up and was about to say something when a second group of weaponized animals appeared. “Hey, guess what, I got an idea to strap weapons to animals and have them flying around all over the place as an army to… oh come on, I thought I was being original for once!” The grey parrot biped that just showed up on a balance scooter had brought a bunch drones carrying squirrels that looked to be armed with flamethrowers. Said flamethrowers were firing off as randomly as the lasers and the squirrels seemed to be having fun with their drones. One of the sharks flew at one of the drones and bit a squirrel off of it and then the two groups started actively fighting one another, there were more squirrels than sharks, but the sharks had the size and hunger advantage, also who knew that burnt shark could smell so good? That’s when the guy looked my way and notice Dormarch in the strap to my skateboard. “Oh hey, isn’t that that device from Khan Industries?! I want that, give it here like a good doggy… agh!” Lena rolled her eyes and blasted the parrot guy off his scooter with a beam of magic and he went flying straight into the mess of flying sharks and squirrels in front of the mansion, he was subsequently hit by numerous lasers from all directions and narrowly missed being burned by several of his own squirrels. “I’d have thought those lasers would be more effective than that, I need to talk to Emil Eagle about this and making them properly lethal!” The short stumpy duck pulled out a phone and turned away from us and all that was going on around him without a care in the world that he could possibly get hurt. “Hey Emil, yeah it’s Glommy, your lasers aren’t nearly lethal enough. Yes they burn, but they just don’t have the puncturing power that I wanted so that this would end in Scrooge’s demise.” “I think they’re painful enough already!” The parrot guy said as he was finally lit ablaze by one his drone riding squirrels and started to run around screaming in an annoyingly high pitched tone that hurt my ears. “Look ignore those two and move, we’ll deal with their obvious insanity problems later!” Huey yelled and we did that just that and ran past all the chaos without getting hit once by any of the sharks, lasers or aerosol flame sprayers. Huh…. Aerosol? Why is that word sticking around in my head? No, stop getting distracted by all the insane stuff going on, I needed to go save Pom! Note to self, ask my sister Da Vinci if she ever used her spray paint as a weapon… “Pom’s in serious danger, let’s move it!” For them it would be their first time, I’ve saved Pom’s backside several times already. I’m not about to fail her this time when she was fighting for her life or that’s the feeling I’m getting from her right now. “She said we need to rescue Pom immediately!” As Dormarch spoke for me, I ran forward across the grass pulled my skateboard from my back and leapt through the open gate to hit the street. I was going to head towards the park and nothing could get in my way. I wasn’t going to slow down for anyone or anything. I was ignoring everything else as I blitzed my way down the street bouncing off awnings, grinding along bike railings, ramping off the slopes of car roofs and somehow I was getting into a really good groove of moving from point to point as I continued forward picking up speed. It was like I could already feel the path before me. “Huh, what is it Boyd?” Pulling out her phone, Lena was right next to me and easily keeping up with my frantic pace after she had magically changed her clothing into some kind of blue and white super hero suit. She was flying with me as we sped towards the park together. “What? Blot’s group is changing course, but why would they… then Blot is either targeting me or… our newest friends. At least Smolder and Ocellus can fly. That Blot guy must really have it out for them, only this time Ocellus is awake. Donald’s group will handle interception, don’t worry about it bot boy.” “Yes, but do you think you can handle me Lena?” Hearing that voice coming at us from above, I skidded to a stop as a blast of magic slammed into the street in front of me and Lena darted to the side in the air dodging a beam of magic firing her way. There weren’t many people out and about this morning and traffic seemed light, but that was understandable if the people of Duckberg were used to disasters like this and were actively hiding from it. The hovering duck that attacked us held a staff with a purple gem and she was looking towards me with a nasty expression and what few people that were still out suddenly disappeared into the nearest buildings in fear. “So that is the cause of that magical disturbance, not an artifact but a… a lowly dog and a Dalmatian at that? A mutt has the kind of power that someone such as me felt it? What could a lowly beast have done to have caused such a reaction that those involved in the world of magic felt it from miles away? Don’t know why our De Ville cousins always have so much trouble with you spotted mongrels, but I assure you I won’t be having any!” I growled at the hovering duck and was about to give her a skateboard upside the head, when Lena moved between us. I already knew De’ Spell’s were related to De Ville’s, but just hearing her voice set off some instincts in me that she needed to go down and hard. She felt like Cruella De Ville when she attacked my family, only she looked much younger. “Magica, leave Dolly alone or you’ll have to answer to me.” Lena had her arms crossed and she was glaring up at the staff wielding duck. “In fact, I’m just going to make sure you’ll have to go through me first to even get a chance of hurting her.” “Hmm… let me think about that… how about… no!” The duck slung her staff forward and Lena blocked a beam of magical energy for me with a sweep of her left hand creating a shield. “If the magical power I felt is what I think it is, then I want that little fountain of power all to myself so I can get Scrooge’s number one dime, then the world! Also maybe my brother… but who cares about him at this point?” “Not going to happen, Dolly go!” Didn’t need to tell me twice Lena, I lunged my board forward down the street and continued making my way towards the park. Ocellus and Smolder had to be flying in the air somewhere nearby to either watch out for me or be ahead of me and getting to the park quicker, so I didn’t worry about them if that Blot guy was after them. As for that Launchpad guy… well he was going to be a bit slow with keeping up if he was just doing a lot of running. After turning two street corners, I quickly kicked my board upwards, dropped behind it and braced myself as I pressed the nose of it into the street. Bullets filled the air in front of me and struck my board with multiple impacts that threatened to knock me over, I eventually found my balance and held up to the onslaught. “Boss, I’ve confirmed that Caper Canine has the device!” One of the mercenary guys in the group ahead of me shouted. “I still want an eyeball out for Leap Lamb’s whereabouts, one is never without the other for too long!” A snow leopard shouted as she aimed a gun my and fired a shot that deflected off my helmet and knocked my head back. I stumbled several steps and managed to keep my skateboard in front of my body and taking bullets for me. Okay, my neck seriously hurts now and I wasn’t ever going to appreciate the person that just gave me whiplash, at least I learned that my helmet was bullet proof. “We need to keep Caper Canine pinned, we cannot let her or this opportunity for bait to lure Leap Lamb to us get away! Someone circle around and get the dog from the side or behind.” I peeked around my board and quickly pulled back avoiding a bullet that struck my board harmlessly, I just saw some guys running down an alleyway to my left. Had I not being wearing this helmet, I think the shot the leopard just fired would have taken off the top of my skull completely. “Dolly, that snow leopard with the mercenaries, she’s the one that almost succeeded in killing Pom back in Zootopia and Ms. Shuttle said she attacked her again in San Fransokyo!” Thanks for the information Dormarch. “We need to lose them like yesterday.” “Well what do you expect me to do Dormarch? They have guns and I’m not exactly in a good position to get by or even at them.” I could hold up to gunfire for a while, but not forever and I don’t do well under pressure. “I’m effectively pinned here.” At least I was doing much better than I thought I was, all the training Pom was giving me between these bouts of insanity would help with surviving stuff like this. When I tried to slowly move, they pounded my skateboard with bullets. I couldn’t brace against my board forever and they would have someone on me from the side soon too. “Hold on, give me a second to think of something… hey watch out for the nearby rooftops, someone’s up there Dolly!” Doing as Dormarch said I poked my head out and scanned the nearby rooftops. I think I saw a silhouette of a duck doing something up there and quickly pulled my head back to feel a bullet whizzed by my right ear. “Don’t let her move from that spot, she’s far more dangerous than she actually looks!” Really don’t know what that leopard’s problem was. A few seconds later something exploded and a bright flash shined from around my skateboard, when I looked the mercenaries were all disoriented and some were even knocked over. A blonde haired duck rappelled off the nearby building and looked like she was running around and… stealing their wallets? She also kicked the leopard in the crotch while she was down as she stole some of her grenades, said leopard had taken the brunt of the blast and I think the duck was a friend. “Is this all the money you mercenaries have, seriously? You’d seriously think at least some of you would have something worth stealing on you.” The duck commented as she pulled the money from their wallets and pocketed it. She leapt up and kicked the gun out of the leopard’s left hand as she sat up. “How have you been since you left me for dead in Morocco and holding the bag Sabu?” “Golden Oldie, you should be dead!” The leopard growled out from the ground while rubbing at her eyes with her right hand. “Dolly, focus, into that alleyway on your right!” Dormarch shouted at me. Right not looking a gift Pearl in the mouth if I ever saw her again. So shaking my head and ignoring the thoughts about my favorite horse officer I liked to annoy, I moved as the mercenaries were distracted by the thieving biped duck. I made my way forward and weaved to the right between two parked cars, onto the sidewalk and into an alleyway, I heard a frustrated scream behind me as a few bullets cracked the walls of the alleyway behind me. Once I rushed out of the Alleyway, I planned to skate away as fast as I could from the situation, only I didn’t get a chance to as I felt something roughly grab my board. I looked up as I was lifted into the air and blinked at the sight of what could only be a harpy trying to wrestle my skateboard from my paws. Huh, they certainly looked different from ones in my dorky brother Dylan’s Poodle Wolf game and it was far cooler to meet one in person anyway, provided it didn’t eat me. Is Duckberg always this crazy or is it just my luck when I’m trying to save Pom again? Speaking of Pom, she was currently quite in a bit of pain, a burning sensation and under some light? “Hey, you, beak face, let go of my board or else!” The biped looking bird monster just cackled at me and tried to shake me loose, my strap kept me in the game as I dangled high over the street. A fireball hit the tip of the birds left wing, making it let go of my skateboard and subsequently me. I fell into a pair of waiting claws. I was about to struggle when I noticed it was Smolder and what I think might to be Ocellus. “Hey, we got your back Dolly, don’t panic!” Smolder said with a bright smile and the match blue variation of her on my other side. “Man the harpies in this world look really strange.” Glad I wasn’t the only one that thought the harpies were weird. “Right, it seems like we’re in for a pretty bad day today Smolder.” Ocellus mumbled while not being as positive given she was looking at the grey sky. “Stop, I don’t want to go near that kind of malice again!” Ocellus looked a bit ill as we landed on a nearby roof and she curled up as soon as she let go of me. Smolder squeezed her shoulder as she whimpered and hugged herself while shivering violently. “There are things over there and I don’t feel like getting any closer to them!” It seemed like Ocellus was having a panic attack. I moved over and started to comfort her with a hug, a loving nuzzle and a few licks. Her breathing calmed down a little bit, that always worked with my smaller brothers and sisters. “Thank you…” “No problem.” I grinned and Dormarch stated it for me even if he didn’t have to, I’m pretty sure Ocellus would have gotten the gist of it anyway. I got up and made my way over to the roofs edge and then looked at the park in the distance that seemed fairly dark, where were all the lights? I felt Pom in extreme pain and an image of getting crushed by a… whoa what is that thing?! I immediately sent her some energy from my side of our bond and we saw a bright light erupt in the park in the distance from about two blocks away. She could already use my magic better than I could, then again I really haven’t been using magic for most of my life so I really shouldn’t be making that comparison. How much more trouble could I run into in two blocks? I really should not have had that thought… this is the luck of my friends we’re talking about here and they have been through a lot on finding their way home. “Should I go ahead?” I turned to Smolder who was currently comforting Ocellus. “Yeah, this going to take a bit, I think Ocellus may be experiencing some form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Thinking about what Dormarch said, I barked at Smolder and pulled him off my strap to toss him to Smolder. She caught Dormarch and gave me a curious look. “I think Dolly wants me to help Ocellus with her trauma.” “I can’t stop here, because I… whoa! Pom… doesn’t that hurt?!” I voiced to the air as I felt what Pom just did to herself. “What did Pom do this time?” Smolder held her cowering friend and Dormarch looking worried. “She just lit herself on fire, at least her front hooves, the flames are hovering more around her ankles of her rear hooves and she’s fighting off these shadowy things.” Okay, I didn’t know Pom was nearly that nuts. “Yep, she’s gone the way of a true lambkin in being afraid of their surroundings, I think whatever it is from Equus that she’s fighting must have pushed her to do it.” Ocellus mumbled between her bouts of whining and crying. “Yeah, but she’s acting calmer than that… what am I standing around here for!” I leapt over the side of the building and used my skateboard to grapple a light pole to swing forward into doing a flip, upon landing I was once again accosted by mercenaries. “We found her, but she doesn’t have the device anymore!” Groaning and rolling my eyes at the mercenary, I whipped my board into his chest after a leap. “Gah!” Following that up by spinning around while grabbing and holding my board up to block a spray of bullets, I charged the next guy by running up the first guys legs and leaping off his shoulder. -The World- It was all so entertaining.