-Earth, Rooftop, Early Morning, Dormarch-
“Look Ocellus, I’m sure Pom will be… yeah I can’t actually say it. She draws trouble like they were moths and she was a flame.” Yeah, I wasn’t good at the whole physical comforting thing given I don’t have a body. “I may not be well attuned to your odd biology, but you seem to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Is there any way I can assist you and Smolder?”
“I can recognize that well enough Dormarch, but there’s tons of malice in the air and I’m having terrifying flashbacks to the last few times I was incapacitated by such high concentrations of hatred for anything living. Only it’s far worse given this is confirmed as a being from Equus causing me to feel this, I can recognize the feel of the magic of our world even if it is giving off such a racid flavor!” Oh right, Ocellus could taste emotions. I wonder if she could taste mine, not important as she was having a panic attack and the dragon Smolder was helping her through it. “I’m sorry I’m so weak Smolder and that we let Dolly run off to help Pom by herself.”
“Well okay, but I don’t think you are weak. I can somewhat understand why you’re having these reactions. I can’t exactly feel what you can though, if it feels that awful then we’ll wait until it goes away or we need to move.” Smolder glances at me. “If it’s the latter then we’ll head further away, we’ll be keeping Dormarch here safe for Pom too!”
“Thank you, I may not have been in your acquaintance for long, but I am happy that Pom has people that can and will look out for her.” Since I knew Pom hardly has the chance to care for herself at times.
I wondered how Dolly is doing.
-In the streets, Dolly Dalmatian-
I swept my board around the guys left heel and pulled his leg out from under him, making him off balance.
Swinging around for his helmet, I knocked it off entirely to reveal a panicking face. The guy was now on his back and I was swinging the board overhead and down onto his face for a painful sounding impact. Left him with a slightly broke his nose and didn’t even give him any time to take aim at me.
Yanking my board back to me and onto my back, I panted roughly and looked around me. Bullet impacts pockmarked ground and various buildings. Eight unconscious people and them all armed mercenaries, I was a little shocked at how well that went.
One would think a single Dalmatian wouldn’t be able to deal with those odds, but I’ve become awesome and I know it!
I flowed into every attack, my motions getting faster and I could keep up with everything. I had effectively started dodging bullets halfway into that mess and taken down all the mercenaries without accidentally getting any of them killed or getting hurt myself.
Right, not the time to think about that I had to get to Pom now that these bozos were out of the way. I turned and started to head down the street when I was intercepted by another group.
“It should be right… there? A dog… it’s a dog with that kind of magical power?!” The guy in the inky black cloak didn’t look to happy to see me as he turned the corner, much less the fact that I had knocked out several mercenaries in a wild blitz. “Pepper we need to deal with this problem immediately!”
“Right behind you sir!” Neither did his oddly dressed assortment of guys in yellow and red suits wearing what looked like cracked eggshells on their heads.
Didn’t one of the groups go after these guys specifically? At least they didn’t have guns, maybe just some muscles and possibly some brains between all of them.
I quickly leapt to the left avoiding a beam of green energy coming from the thing on the right hand of the main guy with the glowing green eyes. Yeah, not feeling like it would be a good idea to be hit by that without an expert around to save me!
Turning, I brought my board around with my right paw and leapt forward to ride it towards and through alleyway that was to my left. I kicked with my left hind paw as quickly as I could while avoiding the blasts the guy sent after me.
“After that dog!” As the guy shouted this, I felt Pom take a nasty hit and felt the phantom pain of it personally. She really needed someone there with her like yesterday.
I shot out onto another street, after passing through what has to be the most disturbingly clean alleyway in this city, I quickly turned towards the park hoping to head towards the park those swirling clouds where my partner was fighting.
Currently I wasn’t being all too lucky right now, given what I ran into on this street.
“It’s Caper Canine!” Slamming my paws down on the front of the board as I jumped, I dropped behind it and hunkered down. Ugh… more mercenaries coming from a rather familiar looking vehicle! “Leap Lamb has to be somewhere around here!”
Yeah, leading all these mercenaries towards Pom would be bad, I had to find a way to ditch everyone that was after me. Also shouldn’t it be fairly obvious where Pom is to them? I mean the swirling clouds are kind of a dead giveaway.
I started backing away from the APC blocking my path and towards another alleyway to the left keeping my skateboard held up as a shield, surprised they weren’t firing on me yet. That’s when the inky black wearing guy came out onto the street firing another green beam of energy at me from his metal glove that I had to dodge backwards out of the way and closer to the alleyway.
“That magic doesn’t belong in this world, no magic does!” Oh great, that guy had to be some kind of magic hating fanatic.
“You tell that dog sir! Wait… did they just call her Caper Canine? Everyone get back!” Pepper the guy’s sidekick and group of people finally noticed the mercenaries with guns and quickly backed away into the alley as bullets struck around the entrance. I took advantage of both groups being distracted and moved down the nearby alleyway, only this was putting me further away from Pom who was taking a beating. “Mr. Blot, Caper Canine is getting away!”
Pounding paws down the alleyway, I came out of the next street and stopped between two cars looking around warily for something else to pop out. Hearing something from my left, I ducked down as the car to my left was blasted apart in an explosion. Thankfully my helmet and skateboard took the brunt of it for me.
“There you are, now give me your power so I can take down Scrooge McDuck!” It was that weird Magica lady that Lena stopped to fight. What happened to Lena? I growled at her as she recognizably smelled vaguely like a De Ville. Oh right, didn’t De Ville’s have cousins called De Spells? “Do you seriously think you can take me with powers you don’t understand you spotted mongrel? I would make better use of it than a simple minded mutt like you!”
Hey, I somewhat resembled that remark! I would like to think I’m intelligent enough if I can outsmart my much smarter brothers, as such there was no way I was leading this witch towards Pom.
Pom was already in enough trouble as it is and Dolly didn’t need to drop more of it right on top of her already battered friend and companion.
I jumped up and swung my skateboard at Magica by the strap, she just hovered out the way with a mocking smile.
“Hmph, is that the best you can really do? Come at me with your pathetic little plank of wood?” Oh it is on lady, nobody disses the board! “For something with magic as powerful as yours felt, you certainly are helpless.”
She fire several blasts of magic, which I quickly dodged around on the street with running leaps.
I started to pull on my magic. If she wanted it so badly, then she could have it they I’m willing to give it to her! I felt that light feeling, I couldn’t do a bark blast or those wolf claws and they seemed energy intensive for Pom to send my way so I would have to do this myself.
“Air… Motion… Flexibility…” Let’s see if I can get some air then!
I crouched down spreading my paws out like Pom does with her most impressive leaps, I leaped. I normally can jump like six feet up, a little more on the skateboard going off a ramp… what I just did felt like me bounding off a trampoline with full force.
“What?! How did that dog disappear?” The strange duck with the staff stated as she looked around on the ground for me. “They can’t have possibly figured out how to turn invisible!”
My leap had sent me rocketing upwards faster than her eyes could follow, I couldn’t keep the sudden grin off my face after I ended up as high up as I did with my flailing paws.
Sure I didn’t know how I was going to take the fall, but I have never jumped so high before on my own strength! How much more height would I get off trampolines or balloon like objects?
I gripped my skateboard and brought it back as I came down at Magica once gravity reasserted itself, while shouting my catchphrase.
“Bow-whaka-wow~!” I swung my skateboard as I came diving at the duck.
“What the… MY RIBS, WHY IS IT ALWAYS MY RIBS?!” Magica screamed after taking the blow to the chest the right side of her chest, I followed that up by slamming her downwards by kicking off her and aimed for a nearby street light. After slamming into the street, she quickly sat up pretty quickly for how painful that looked and aimed her staff my way. “You’ll pay for that!”
I swung my board upwards in my paws and hooked the horizontal bar of a street light. Not only did I swing out of the way of the blast of magic, my body sped up as I spun around the horizontal bar rapidly seeing magical sparkles lighting up all around me.
Upon unhooking my board and launching off the street light high into the air, my body seemed to have a mind of its own by somehow steering around several following magic blasts as I spiraled upwards with my board under me clutched tightly in a hug.
After my upwards momentum ceased, I aiming downwards towards the vertical portion of a light pole nearer to where the duck was, I started my dive through a number of magical bolts rolling left and right through the air with excitement building in my heart as I was actively controlling how I fell.
My actions were becoming recognizable as a flowing… ‘Motion’… a flow motion? Yeah, that sounded like what I was doing as I hooked my board on the vertical section of the street light. Being constantly trailed by glowing sparkles made the world felt warmer and more vibrant, like I was feeling and seeing things for the very first time.
After spinning around street light rapidly several time and then unhooking my board, I continued the rapid spinning motion as I shot towards the duck. Slinging my board out it in a shower of colorful sparkles as I spun like top through the air.
My first strike was her legs, toppling her into a strike to the belly putting her back on her feet and then my skateboard hit the other side of her chest with a painful crack. Finally, when I slowed down, one last twirl on my right hind leg had me sending my board ramming its way up into the underside of her beak launching her into the air.
I surprised myself by following her with a leap and smashing my board across her face with two rapid spins in the same direction I’ve been twirling, first downward and then upwards angles. My last move had me rapidly somersaulting as the duck dropped to the street, my somersaults brought my board in close as my strap stretched around me.
With one heave my board unwrapped, rose high up and came slicing down on the duck who managed to block with her staff and quickly followed that by knocking me away with a blast of magic.
Catching my blocked board, I flipped backwards and with a shower of sparkles my momentum eased up as I flailed my legs. For a second I became as floaty as Pom does when she inflates her wool and then I softly touched down on the ground standing on my hind legs.
“It seems I’ve spoken too soon about you being anything more than just a plain nuisance…” The duck grunted as she propped herself up and then started encompassing herself in a glowing aura of energy, her eyes shined brightly as she held up her staff and I readied myself for whatever she was going to do. “It seem I will have to… AGH MY RIBS, WHY!”
“I would just like to say that I appreciate dogs.” The green hoodie wearing biped duck kid, Louie, just jumped off a car and dropped kicked Magica into the ground. He pulled out a can of Pep and started to drink from it. “The really cools one especially, with sick tricks like those who would want to hurt her?”
Magica tried to raises her staff to blast him only to have it yanked out of her hands by having a yo-yo quickly wrapping around it.
“That’s my boys!” The female duck in the aviator’s cap, Della I think, shouted encouragingly as she and Huey ran up.
“Go on to the park Caper Canine, we’ll keep her away from you!” Giving Huey a bark in a questioning tone. “Lena has got a little sidetracked from Magica thanks to all the mercenaries in the area, she’ll meet you there to handle the magical monster issue!”
I threw Huey a salute and then boarded my board going towards the park, I looked back and saw Magica’s hand glow and she pulled the staff back into it as she started to fight back against the group.
It might have been my imagination, but I think someone in their team was missing.
-Rooftop water tower, Webby-
“So you’re a clone too?” Sure the guy I was talking to was obviously bad news to be around, but I had a feeling he meant me no harm. “That’s so neat!”
“Yes, but unlike you, I was trained to kill.” If this was who I thought it was, then I wanted his autograph. For he was the legendary ‘Agent 47’, going by the codename of Tobias Rieper the world’s most dangerous assassin and he’s here in Duckberg.
To think this day is already starting out to be incredible and only getting better!
“Hey, I was trained for spy work by my Granny since I was little! Sure I’m not entirely into the bloodier stuff, but I’d like to think that I can hold my own.” The guy just grunted and kept looking down the scope at something. “Who are you watching?”
“Sabu Taj.” He calmly stated.
“Wasn’t she practically named for her expertise in sabotage and avoiding assa… oh… Ooh this day is getting far wilder than any we’ve been having for a while now!” I was sitting next to Mr. Rieper and I had a serious question for him. “Would you ever take a contract out on my father?”
“Knowing who that is and the repercussions of trying, no. Before you ask, I doubt I’d want to take one out on you either, even my agency knows better than to try and touch Scrooge McDuck or his family. Not after the time he bankrupted three competing assassin agencies at the same time when they tried. He could financially buy us out before we could even get a person close to killing him.” He seemed pretty nice despite how calm he was. “Shouldn’t you be helping your family?”
“I am, by making sure an assassin isn’t aiming at them… say… can I have your autograph?” Please say yes! I give him my most eager expression.
“…” He silently turned away from his sniper rifle to stare at me. I continued to look into his cold, dead, heartless eyes with an excited grin. “Okay.”
“Yipee!” I shouted while thrusting my fists into the air and then I reached into my backpack to bring out a notebook and pen. He looked into it and raised a brow.
“Hmm… very profound collection of names you have here Ms. Vanderquack McDuck. Whatever future you have ahead of you, it will be quite bright. Provided you survive your father’s habits.” He then took my pen and signed it. “Now be a good little spy and don’t get into too much trouble without backup, also don’t sneak up on me without getting caught again. I have a reputation to uphold after all.”
-Dolly-
A few alleyways later and I was one block away when I ran into another problem, I was behind the tire of a car looking at the thugs in my way. I can already see the trees of the park, could even smell them from here too!
It was that Ocelot with four guys, the same guy with the tanks back in San Fransokyo was halting my progress and I was annoyed.
Did I have to circle around the park entirely to reach it and Pom?! You better hold on for just a little bit longer Pom, I’m almost there!
My magic was draining mentally, but the trail of violet sparkles I gave off while moving was really cool and moving around wasn’t physically taxing as long as I was actively using magic.
I still had no idea about what the ‘flexibility’ meant for me other than having been taught parkour by a squirrel, don’t think that idea was quite right or what I’m looking for. Air and Motion seem fairly obvious to me, but flexibility wasn’t as obvious.
My bond with Pom was starting to get a little worrying with how much pain she is currently experiencing, I expected more from someone who lit herself on fire unless she has become numb to most of it. I’m still a bit iffy on the reason she would do that, but it must have been necessary and I was going to see why soon enough.
“Hey, need some help Caper Canine?” Almost jumping at the sound of the voice behind me, I turned while putting my paw on the skateboard to see… a young duck in a Robin Hood get up? Red hair in a ponytail, green cap, mask and clothing, a quiver and wielding a crossbow. “Name’s Quiverwing Quack. I’m here to help and if you see someone calling himself Darkwing Duck, he’s actually better at fighting crime than he initially acts. He has a tendency to make bad first impressions, heard your friend is the person we have to thank for a lead on getting my grandpa back. Leap Lamb I believe she goes by?”
I pointed a paw around the street and towards the park and then up at the swirling clouds.
“In the middle of all this huh? Yeah, it’s a wonder they haven’t attacked her yet since they were looking around for her in Saint Canard, something big is going on here if they are ignoring something that obvious…” The duck pulled a bolt from her quiver and loaded her crossbow. She pulled out another crossbow that was already loaded with something unusual one the end of the bolt. “Do you think you can take one of those guys if I take down three of them?”
I nodded, that wouldn’t be too hard.
“Right, go after I fire my second bolt.” She moved pasted me and fire the second crossbow first and smoke filled the area, she swiftly raised and fired her other crossbow and I heard some shouts. “Don’t worry about me I’ve got this!”
I moved around the car and charged forward towards the blinded group and leapt high up into the air, let’s see if I can pull off another dynamic move! I flipped and started riding my skateboard down towards one of the shadows with one paw raised in the air showing two digits.
“We have three down sir, oh what the?! Look… agh!” My skateboard slammed into the mercenary guy’s helmet and I bounced off avoiding a loud bang, which made me wince as something brushed across the fur on my back before I hit the street heading straight for the park.
“That was, Caper Can… ugh!” The Ocelot guy behind me grunted as the smoke disappeared, he had a crossbow bolt in his leg putting him on the ground with the four other guys, he turned to shoot at Quiverwing.
Said duck quickly rolled behind the car I had been taking covered behind the car and it received several bullet holes.
I ignored them and finally made it into the edges of the park, I followed my bond straight towards Pom as I hopped up and put my skateboard on my back to begin running through the grass.
I stopped when I saw a poor tree had been burnt down to a stump, yet it wasn’t blackened. How had fire left behind white soot and what weird thing was Pom dealing with?
Picking up the pace, I jumped and swung off a branch with magical sparkles trailing behind me as I launched forward like a rocket. I grabbed another branch and continued doing this several times to get to where Pom was faster.
It wasn’t too long before I was passing by six shadowy things, one of which looked like Pom. This is when I finally saw Pom standing up to a bat winged monster zooming straight for her and she didn’t look very good.
I leapt up to a tree branch and launched forward at the guy going right for Pom, I launched my rear legs for the white glowing claw marks on the right side of his face and slammed into the guy. This pushed him off to the side of Pom and I slammed my skateboard into him knocking him into the ground.
After doing that I was promptly slapped in the face with a pie and flopped onto the ground myself in complete disbelief, I think some of it got under my helmet. This was going to be annoying to clean out of my fur later, at least it was lemon meringue that was lighter on the meringue.
“Er… whoops, sorry citizen. I, GIZMO DUCK, apologize for hitting you with that pie!" The ridiculous armored duck on a unicycle looked sheepish as he poked his fingers together. "I meant to hit that other guy!”
Next to him was a similarly armored chicken biped, calmly dragging her hands down her face and groaning audibly.
“Are you okay, hold on and let me clean you off!” Pom had stumbled her way over to my side.
Was Pom seriously asking me if I was okay when she looked completely dead on her badly burnt hooves, while also possibly bleeding out with one limp leg?
“Of course I’m okay Pom, it was just a pie and you are the one that needs to be worried about!” I snapped at her angrily, before realizing the bat winged monster was coming at Pom’s back.
Pushing Pom down, I lunged forward.