//------------------------------// // 164. Leap Lamb and Caper Canine Special Edition: The Cape Crusaders! (Part 1) // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Cape Suzette, nightfall, outside a power station, Cape Suzette PD Sargent Wally Snapjaw- If anyone told me, Wally Snapjaw, I would be needing my heavy weapons swat gear and as much ammo as I could get for my grenade launcher tonight I might have laughed. Alligators like me tended to get a bad rap because of guys like Trader Moe, I’m lucky to even have this job. These things came out of nowhere and started attacking everything at once, we barely managed to hold the power station and several fires were starting to get out control and the area around Kahn Industries was getting hit far more heavily than we were. We were dealing with four foot tall metal soldiers with heart shaped faces that glowed a dangerous red color, they were all rolling around on two wheels and had deadly extendable arms ending in three grasping claws that changed into various lethal weapons. If that wasn’t bad enough, they can fly for a limited time too until they run out of fuel. There was a whole army of them and we’re were thoroughly underequipped to handle so many of them as bullets didn’t do much unless you could hit them in their glowing heart shaped faces. It was the only part of them that wasn’t as bullet proof, but it still took concentrated fire to what passes for their faces to take even one down. I fired a grenade into a cluster of them dealing some damage, I’m thankful that we had some Shere Kahn’s guys with us as backup to protect our city from these mechanical menaces. One of the machine’s avoided the explosion and had rolled close enough to extend its right claw towards my face, as I hastily tried to reload. I could see my life flashing before my eyes as the claws grew ever closer to puncturing my skull. “Kidnap Ka…” The machine started to say the mantra they’ve all been repeating tirelessly. I was about to become a casualty tonight… “We’ve come to the save day~!” The being that just sang that was a dog, an animal, not a biped or an animalistic that just came rocketing down from the sky. A Dalmatian specifically, but still an animal. Said animal had pushed the robot back in time before it impaled me as she impaled the nose of her skateboard down into the machines neck, she then stood up and stomped down with her left hind leg to flip the board and herself backwards in a stylish manner. That popped the machine’s head off its body with a surprising amount of force despite the dog’s small size and she landed the flip and throwing her paws into the air as she put the skateboard into backwards rolling manual. She then stopped and then pushed it forward. “Come on Leap Lamb Team, let’s go save the day~!” A goat sang as she slammed a flying buck into the face of another robot caving it in. “I’m the Cut-Lass and things will be being okay~!” “We’re the Leap Lamb Team, let’s hop into this fray~!” The dog sang as she veered her skateboard about and somehow kicked it high into the air and flipped before whipping her board forward slam it into another machine sending it back with another broken face that made it topple over lifelessly. “I’m Caper Canine and we’re all on our way~!” That’s when I saw what was quickly becoming a legend and the one the two who came to save us were singing about. I watched Leap Lamb swoop down from the sky wearing an eyepatch over her left eye, pink cloth on her forehead and her left hoof pulled back as she surged forward. Her left hoof slammed into the metal torso of another machine knocking it out of the air and denting it, before landing on her hind hooves. Not even our bullets did that armor and… was she fighting while having just barely healed from injuries? That was one tough piece of mutton! Leap Lamb hopped back, glanced at her two friends and then lunged forward three times, each time stopping for a second to put a hoof through three of those machines faces in quick succession. “Call the news, they’ll want to hear Leap Lamb is on the scene!” I stated jokingly as I finished loading my grenade launcher and fired a shot further down the street from the three that just came storming in from the sky and were holding off these mechanical menaces. Orders were quickly given out, we started to form a better perimeter as Leap Lamb’s Team moved forwards. We wished her and her sidekicks luck, since there were hundreds of these things. -Pom- I leapt and launched a fly buck into one of these machines face knocking it onto its back while destroying it, I kicked off and upwards to throw a flying left uppercut intercepting one diving for Shanty’s back. It flipped backwards and fell to the street lifeless. Don’t know what they were, but they were tough enough that we could only effectively hit them in one place that wasn’t armored and it needed to be hit hard to take them down. We would be working our way to the trouble spot, which seems to be Kahn Industries according to Bentley. Thankfully we all had methods for doing that, Dolly was increasing her momentum for damaging impacts, Shanty’s cutting strikes barely scratched the armor unless she leads a blow straight into the heart that made up these machine’s faces and I had enough wool to protect my hooves while threw heavy jabs. These things did have another weakness, but disabling their wheels didn’t disable their extending arms and only slowed them down a little by making them walk on their only limbs. Dodo, wearing a ridiculous blue cape, a pink cloth wrapped around his head and ‘Team Leap Lamb’ painted on his sides, rammed his way through several of them. How did he get that costume between when we jumped out of the plane and hitting the ground, much less the colorful paint job? “We are all on the move, and there’s no need for us to hold back~!” I sang as I ducked under two extending arms while charging in on all four legs to slamming my right hoof upwards into the machine’s face, I winced slightly in pain. Thankfully the strange heart song dulled it though. “We can all jump forward, and fighting talent is something we certainly don’t lack~!” It’s just strange that Dolly managed to start it, she slammed the bottom of her board against one of the machine’s faces and popped off it as another machine smashed it for her. She grabbed a light pole with a paw spun around and then launched into skating up a nearby wall. “Singing while kicking butt, and we be all having that talented knack~!” Shanty state as she did a backwards flying buck, bounce off the impact that shattered the machine’s face to the nearby into a goat fly that sent one careening into a bunch of others doing some damage. “Now gather up, now we’re showing them how we all attack~!” The three of us sang as Dodo joined us in charging several of these diving machine’s, he leapt high and kicked the two machine’s out of the air. “Now, push right on through them~!” I pivoted clockwise and punched my left hoof through the one on my right and saw a claw coming from one on my left. Shanty swept from my right and slashed her hooves together firing a blast of water through the head of one coming for me on the left. “No you don’t you bucket of bolts~!” Only to have Dolly kick off a wall from above, land on the still extending arm to grind along it, she flipped off the board and then landed on it again before the board could touch the ground after completely sheering off its head. “That’s not something you’re doing~!” “Good going Caper Canine, keep alert for the flyers~!” I stated as I rammed my right leg straight into another machine’s head with a thrust kick then fell backwards to dodge two saws swinging inwards as one machine changed its hands, where were all these things coming from and built these things? “We’ve got Leap Lamb’s back against these dolts~!” Shanty leapt form DoDo’s back as he tore through one with a foot. She leapt off and threw an overhead right hoof into the one I was dodging backwards. “We’ll do this altogether while grooving~!” “Keep your wits Cut-Lass, please try to help with any small fires~!” Two quick high kicks and I’ve downed another two that were in the middle of changing their claws into sparking tuning fork prongs that arced with energy. We were dropped off in the west as Launchpad did his flyover of the city, Darkwing and Quiverwing were dropping directly onto the main headquarters to aid whoever was reported putting up a huge fight there. Cooper and his team were taking the east side, they were to find out where these things originated from, also prevent them from damaging the water plant or ruining food supplies. “Major plan interference detected!” One of the robots shouted from a side street as we continued forward. “Kidnap Kahn…” Someone wanted to Kidnap Kahn? Everyone one of these machine’s have been saying that a lot, with an army like this I would think they would want to destroy the whole city given they were targeting infrastructure. This seemed like a bit much for a kidnapping plan. Shanty whistled and we all leapt onto Dodo as he charged by and towards the east where Kahn Industries was, the nearby robots took the air and started giving chase paying more attention to us than the police and the power station. Dodo was much faster on the ground than they were in the air, but they were keeping up fairly well with the jets coming from the pipes on their backs. I watched as our chasers retracted their claws and nozzles poked out, they started spray liquid that ate at the streets behind us. So far acid sprayers, circular saws and lightning prods, not only tough were these things tough they would also get increasingly lethal towards anyone that tried fighting back. Dodo turned his head around and fired multiple blasts from his beak at them. Of the ten shots and the seven chasing us, only two went down as they efficiently took evasive maneuvers. More of them were coming from all kinds of different angles. “Kidnap Ka… major plan interference detected!” Multiple voices stated as more of these things converged on us, but wouldn’t catch Dodo. Aside from the one that was coming right at us from the front. “I’ve got it!” One of the things flying around wasn’t made entirely of metal, he flew overhead and then in front of us, the figure bursts forward ramming their right fist into the oncoming machine’s face. “Keep going and help Molly, I’ll slow down these MEL’s behind you! Remember to call me Bullethead!” Dodo didn’t have to slow down thanks to the assistance of Kit Cloudkicker flipped around and burst back into the group behind us as we were on approach for Kahn Industries. The building was a mess of fires, holes and attacking robots flying or rolling all over the place. Dodo leapt across the canal and came skidding to a stop in front of the building behind the roughed up golden yellow furred Molly Cunningham. “We’re here to help~!” I sang as the three of us leapt off of Dodo, Molly was wielding a metal pole and her daredevil costume was ripped up and she had several nasty wounds in her sides and shoulder already. She was barely holding the front of the building with help from Kahn’s security teams before we got here. I launched forward shoulder checked one away from Molly, I then stomped down on it and leapt back before a flying robot could hit me with some acid. “Come Leap Lamb Team, we’ll make these machines pay~!” “Yeah they need an off switch I’d say, for all the trauma they’ve likely caused today~!” Dolly followed up as leapt and glided forward before spinning around a whipping her board down at the robots on the ground. She took out a few as she dodged through their extending arms and jumped off ones head to gain some extra height while launching more attacks and she quickly started to glide back our way in retreat as four extending arms tried to grappled her from above. “Wing team enters the fray, Quiverwing is here to play~!” Gosalyn swung by on a rope attached to one of her crossbows as the other put a bolt through the eye of a flying robot. She landing on a ledge and had finished loading another bolt that went through another one of the thirty or so flying robots occupying the surrounding Kahn Industries security teams, the panthers were pretty good shots despite not having great weapons for dealing with these things. “Thank goodness we’re making some headway, is Darkwing not here to my dismay~?” I asked in a questioning tone as I and Molly double team three machines. Molly jammed one in the face with the pole. I quickly ran up the pole and jammed my left hind leg into the one on the left and, after pulling it free, I sharply did a dive roll off the pole to the right and slammed my right hoof forward taking out the third while avoiding a pair of humming, glowing, tuning forks to the face. I hit the ground rolling and got standing quickly enough to buck behind me taking another one out. “Terror, that flaps in the night~!” Shouted Darkwing with a good singing voice for that awesome crescendo of what was his catchphrase as he pointed finger to the sky after he flared out his cape. He had appearing among a large number of the robots in a puff of purple smoke doing that flourish, confusing everyone as to how he got there. He ducked and no less than twenty extending arms crossed over his head going in various directions. This destroyed all the robots circling him at the same time, he grinned smugly as he rolled out from the arms falling limply to the ground and then he lost that grin as he quickly scrambled away from more incoming from the air. There were just so many of them! We decided to stop singing for the moment and keep fighting, since quite a large number of these robots were converging on us. I lost count after a hundred and that was while I was ramming my hoof into the faces of as many of them as I could while backing up towards the front of the building avoiding the robot’s arms bending every which way and their clawed hands changing into a variety of weapons including flamethrowers, the odd whirling floor scrubbers or even gain extra length with electric whips like the ones those pill robots in San Fransokyo used. These armored things were just full of volatile tricks, I looked over my shoulder and saw Dolly had climbed the building and was giving Quiverwing more time to reload between shots by lending her gliding support. Shanty was helping out several of the panthers trying to deal with these things in a timely manner, some of them were even just jamming the ends of their weapon into the glowing hearts of the robots and firing point blank to bring them down even if it meant damaging their weapons. We were all being pushed hard and we could use more help, but where would we get… Kit ‘Bullethead’ Cloudkicker rammed helmet first through the crowd of the robots on the ground in front of us distracting them as several other robots chased after his quick flying form. Where was I needed the most in all of this? Thinking this as I jumped and lashed out my right hind leg to take down another one, Molly surged forward and jammed the metal pole into the one behind that and quickly let the pole go as another robot electrified it with a pair of tuning forks. She still held up her fists, not willing to back down. Yeah, I should probably cover Molly in this instance. I moved in front of her and put up my hooves as several flying robots swarmed together and came at us all at once only to be blown apart by numerous projectiles. Looking up I saw the four Jungle Ace’s flying by us in biplanes spraying projectiles into the robots as they passed, they quickly flew away as a few robots turned their attentions on them and rocketed into the air. I looked at Molly and she smiled at me with a wink while holding up two digits. A second later things got even better for us when Mopsy drove up in the Cooper Gang’s van, Bentley was sitting in a large gun jutting out from the top of the vehicle. Said gun was quickly aimed and started mowing down a number of the robots under sustained fire from the corner of the build to my left. I was actually a fairly relieved to have as much help as I was getting with the problem this time. “I don’t know if I can actually save the day, or even promise that everything will be okay… so just to be clear I really should come quite clean, I’m not nearly as great as some people might say~. I came to help you against my very own will, I had thought seriously about turning away~. There’s so much to protect in this city here, so let make one simple thing quite clear… I promise if there’s one thing that I’ll do… it’s that…~” I inhaled through my nose starting a build up for a Dancing Flame. Dormarch warned me it was causing me issues, but I needed a boost and doing it was kind of addictive. I exhale sharply and spoke what was in my heart verbatim, as I stared down the number of advancing robots. “I will save this city and that it will see another dawn too~!” Blurred, I ran to the nearest robot and started blowing them apart in single hits while moving so fast that the robots couldn’t keep up with my speed. My hoof thrusts became as spears as I began wiped out an entire wave of robots. Every robot that had not been in the path was now looking towards me and ignored their opponents. Shanty, like the pirate she was, took immediate advantage by down three of them when they weren’t paying attention. Then an idea came to mind and I decided to utilize it here and now. “Thousand spear!” I created a person technique on the spot, I’m thrusting my left hoof so rapidly that I’m basically pulling an Arizona with making physics cry as I caused pinpoints jets of air pressure fly off my hoof by pushing it through the same space multiple times in less than a second faster than a jackhammer. The effect was what looked like white spears bursting from my hoof. I could only feasibly do this while I’m running a Dancing Flame like right now, but it proved to be very effective technique. Not quite like a Fiery Flurry, that was an all-out attack and I really wasn’t about to light myself on fire again so soon. This, this was a far more focused and concentrated attack to a fine point on where I was jabbing to create the effect for a massive output of force. Maybe I could combine it with the magic claws and fire later… if I combined it with a Fiery Flurry and focused the entire flurry down to a single point instead of spreading out the damage over an entire person or object... Well I had ideas now and while I still don’t like fighting, I certainly liked thinking up options depending a situation that might require it. I wasn’t going to be able to bark blast all of these robots much less bark breaker them. So I needed to create a fresh technique of my own, with a little help from just knowing Arizona. Her mach-it-launcher technique is done with raw muscle, I did mine with boosted speed. It wasn’t nearly enough there were still eighty or more coming behind what I wiped out, not that Bentley’s gun wasn’t working out in our favor. We had to find out where these things were coming from and stop them at the source! I stumbled back and hopped backward twice before sitting down, I needed to rest after doing that and my heart was pumping quite furiously in my chest. Yeah, pushed a bit too hard there… worth it though to give everyone a small breather. I closed my eyes and concentrated on getting my breathing under control “Pom… take better care of yourself…” Dormarch muttered quietly from inside Dodo’s back as the ostrich passed by crushing the head of a robot into its torso with a stomp, it still made my ears twitch. Dormarch still cared enough to reprimand me for pushing my health, I giggled a little and Molly took up a position in front of me with crowbar. Where did she get that from? “Sorry, but I couldn’t land the plane in the city like you asked and I also landed it next to water. Nope not happening!” Launchpad yelled as he swung a spiked metal bat brutally taking the head off of a robot, that pilot really had some muscle on him. “None of you are bothering LL! I might not be the smartest guy in the world, but even I can tell she needs a break and you’re not getting close to her until she’s done resting! ” Launchpad, you are a true friend and are a great person with that boast… crashing problems aside. “Danger Woman working with Leap Lamb, this is bound to be an amazing and long night!” Molly said gleefully as she swept around an extending claws took out the heart on the robot with golf swing. -Equus, World Summit, Jade- “Why does Goddess Luna have two swords, three spears, a knife and a number of arrows and crossbow bolts sticking out of her back?” Really, the Griffonstone delegate just noticed that? We’ve been in this meeting for more than hour! “My wife just has a few grievances with Luna, it’s nothing too serious to worry about. Though Luna was the one responsible for ruining our honeymoon, so really… I should actually be helping her come to think of it.” My petty kitty ire just went up a notch, I never did get revenge on Luna for ruining it for me did I? I guess I was too depressed at the time to mark her down for a painful petty kitty express. “Luna… you better be capable of bribing me with something good, or else you’re going to have a bad time. Also don’t think just because you’re a goddess that I can’t eventually break you!” “I am so glad that that was not directed at my country just now, because that caused shivers down my spine.” Amira quivered while wrapping her hooves around herself. “Oh, do you’re worst!” Luna… that was the absolute dumbest thing you could have said to me of all people. Challenge accepted, every favor I can pull on… you think Nightmare Moon was bad? Oh no... I’m doing far worse than that Luna! "Luna, I may have a grievance with you, but even you can't possibly be that suicidally stupid." Fizzle gave me a frightened look, I gave her a warm and loving smile.