//------------------------------// // 166. Leap Lamb and Caper Canine Special Edition: The Cape Crusaders! (Part 4) // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Northern Cape Suzette, outside mountain base, Pom- “Wait… aren’t you done with your escort?” I asked as I waited for Bentley to finish opening us a path forward as he shot down at least twenty robots at the entrance alone and still had another ten or more to deal with. “I wasn’t escorting him, I am escorting you.” Darkwing said as he was checking over a number of canisters and his sole weapon that seemed designed to fire them. The tall duck smirked at me a little and I smiled back at him. Tall considering Scrooge’s family could barely hit three or four feet, whereas Drake Mallard was a head shorter than the seven to eight foot Launchpad. Kit and Sly were looking over their gear as well, I was lucky in the fact that all my gear was my body and a strap of pink cloth binding my forehead just enough to keep me mentally focused. “Go!” Bentley shouted, I was the first to leap into the breach and into a metal hallway followed by Bullethead, Darkwing Duck and with Sly taking up the rear. -Kahn Tower, Dolly- Okay this was getting ridiculous. I mean I thought I knew what I was getting into when I started traveling with Pom, but I was quite wrong. At least things haven’t been boring. I came streaking down and rammed the nose of my board through the heart face and kicked off and spun to swing my boards back end into the face of another one close by. I landed in front of the various holes in the metal shutters and looked around. The building was really starting to look like cheese with how many robots kept putting holes in it by ramming through it and I didn’t envy the guys that had to deal with those things indoors… or the cleanup after this mess. I’m surprised the building was still standing. Being a hero put a lot of pressure on you to perform. You had to be larger than life to survive this stuff and I used talk the talk all the time, now I had to walk it while basically half the size of my step mother against four foot giants that could easily rip my fragile body apart if I wasn’t careful. This was the most effort I’ve put into anything in my life… next to skateboarding of course. I now had to protect several people around me, Shanty, Ocellus and Smolder had already grouped up and were doing well to cover each other’s back though Ocellus seemed to be having trouble with keeping up with the other two going all out on any robot that came at them. She just wasn’t a fighter like the other two, but she was helping all the same. Quiverwing, Launchpad and Molly were the ones having the most problems and the injuries were building up for Launchpad and Molly. Quiverwing was low on ammo… and I’d loathe to do it, but… I might need to fetch the ones she’s already fired from the surrounding downed robots. The building was surrounded by an absurd amount of the lifeless piles of metal, as well as things that were going to be piles of metal by the time I was done with them. I slowly made my way over to Molly and Launchpad giving myself a small break before I dove back in, Quiverwing seems to be able to take care of collecting a few of her bolts at the moment. I was going to have to fetch… and our lives would be on the line if I didn’t eventually get around to doing so. “Hey, I’m with you guys!” I shouted, but of course they couldn’t understand me as rolled up to them and prepared to face some incoming flying robots. “Hopefully she just said something optimistic and uplifting.” Launchpad groaned, he’d taken quite a few hits and kept going. The guy likely had body made of stone after all the crashes he’s survived, but not the stamina. “I’m still going to be Danger Woman when the sun rises.” Molly grunted and propped herself up on the crowbar and held it at the ready with her suit have various bleeds and she was obviously badly bruised from being knocked down so many times. Bears had a habit of being tough. “And Danger Woman never gives up!” “Like Darkwing Duck, he always gets back up!” Launchpad said brightly while holding the spiked metal bat aloft. “Ah, being misunderstood, just like usual!” I stated cheerfully while wagging my tail as I looked up at the robot diving for us and prepared myself for a magically enhance jump. Hopping back, my front paws slammed down on the back end of my board knocking the front end upward, I grabbed the board in my paws and swung it around to throw it while boosting its momentum on release. My board flew true and slammed right into the diving robots face, I took a few hops back and then dashed forward and into the air onto the robot. I kicked off the falling robot adding momentum to it and when it landed on another robot near the doors lightening the ones attacking Molly and Launchpad near the entrance. This forced my skateboard straight through the back of the impaled head to pop it up into the air where I grabbed it with my paws, I hit the street riding it towards three robots to the left of the entrance that were about take out a panther dude. I picked up speed, my body started sparkling with energy as my board accelerated and I went at the robot at the back. I popped up, pulled my board from under me and swung it, I sent the robot flying into the nearby canal while behind me Dodo swept the guy out of the way of an attack and Shanty leapt with an overhead right hoof strike take it down. I was about to go for the third one when a claw passed by my nose. Yelping I dropped back as five more robots landed. I quickly tried to get away. Hmm… the one I knocked into the water was disabled. I had an idea, but I would need some time to do it and with my skateboard I was pretty sure I would survive the... As I was trying to skate for the building my board was ripped out from under me by a claw. “Oof, what just… oh...” My anger wilted when I saw that a robot had managed to separate me from my deck. I started to slowly back away as I saw flamethrowers, electrified tuning forks, spinning saws and extending tentacles come from the four robots that weren’t holding my board. “Uh… got to go!” Shanty, Smolder and Ocellus were distracted by another ten landing, Dodo was getting the panther biped to safety and I just had my favorite object in the world stolen from me by a machine. Quiverwing was busy ducking and weaving through robots extending arms while salvaging her bolts from the ones she’s taken down already. I wish I had Pom’s armored wool right about now, because my body was small and fragile compared to these things even with magic. Okay, think Dolly, what can you do to get the board back? Well for one… run! I turned and darted for the building shutter covered entrance with the five robots following me. Dodging to the left a shocking fork passed by. I leapt over a pair of saws that passed under me and then I ran straight up metal shudder. Avoiding the flames, I dodged around on the wall as the metal tentacles slapped at me or tried to wrap around me and I couldn’t stop moving or else I’d fall off and then I saw the shock forks approaching the metal. My eyes widened at the realization of what was about to happen to me… nope, not getting electrocuted this time! “Nope!” I crouched and pushed off before the fork made contact with the metal electrifying it, my target was the red glowing heart connected to those electric forks. I barreled head first into the robot and my helmet busted its face inwards and I fell on my back as it went down. “Thank goodness for having a helmet… yipe!” I kicked my hind legs up and over my head to roll backwards twice as a pair saws came slamming down from an overhead swing and started eating into the road. I charged and leapt to slam my helmet into the saw one before it could get an angle on me with its saws, only to get slapped by my own skateboard mid leap to be sent flipping sideways and couldn’t focus enough to stop myself before I slammed into a street lamp spine first. “Agh!” I yelped and forcibly stood up, as the flamethrower robot started slowly encroaching on me as I attempted to pick myself up. “Kidnap Kahn… destroy plan interferences!” The same usual droning drivel these robots have been repeating constantly as the flames got closer to me. Everyone was too busy fending for themselves to really come to my aid right now. Using my right paw to grab the light pole slightly higher up than the base I kicked with my left hind leg and I was spinning around the pole horizontally rapidly. Releasing the pole, I went flying towards the flame spewing robot, I kicked off it towards the saw robot while spinning. I dropped myself a few inches in the air and a vertical left armed saw surged over my spinning form and the other swept towards me horizontally for my side when I dodged. Grabbing the robots left arm with my front paws to spin, I put my hind legs into it and used my magic to alter my momentum to spin around it once and then launched upwards with a twirl as the saw passed underneath me. I started spinning as I was coming down with my right paw pulled back. I spun through the two extending arms, avoiding the right saw entirely, the left saw caught me slightly in the left cheek as I finished building up momentum by spinning around before I slapped my right paw forward into the things heart face. Robot’s face imploded and crumpled, sending bits of metal into me as I was knocked back and to the ground to tumble towards the canal bridge we used when we first visited this place. The robot went slamming through a few of its friends Okay, I had enough magical power to use my bare paws if needed, but I really didn’t want to get a piece of metal from one of these things to get stuck in me. I sat up and rolled out of the way of one metal tentacle only to be grabbed by another and crushing force was immediately applied to me as I was held aloft. The second tentacle snaked around me and started squeezing. I could feel my bones creaking as the flame robot was about to burn my alive. “Hold on, I’ll save you!” Ocellus jumped onto it from behind, raised a sharp piece of metal high above her head and she slammed it down into the things heart face disabling it. “Keep struggling until I can reach you!” Behind her a fair distance away was Smolder melting the wheels with bursts of fire and slowed a number of other robots down. My vision was blacking as the tentacles tightened and I saw the robot that stole my skateboard about to swing it for my face. I really didn’t want to ask Pom for help as she was in the thick of things at the robot’s base and she needed all the strength she could get at the moment. “Oh you piece of arro…” About to be killed by my own board, I barely managed to say the word ‘arrogant’ about the robot, when it was an emotionless machine that likely didn’t have much personality. I was cut off when something in my magic pinged urgently in my head. It was a weird feeling, like something was calling out to me loudly. “Arrow, sparrow, marrow? Ngh… come on… narrow it down…” If was a little weird to be focusing on something else when my body was being crushed by the force of a hydraulic press, the only thing keeping me alive at the moment was my ability to slow down the inward crushing momentum with my magic. I didn’t know what I was trying to do, but my magic was becoming far more insistent, which was weird because this wasn’t Pom sending me strength. This was coming from within me, maybe it was me, something to do with air? Was this… coming from my own heart? To protect… to move… to act… to flow… dynamic… “Destroy plan interferences.” The board was swung for my neck, my blackening vision was getting worse when it finally came to me. “Aero!” What felt like a massive drain on my magic happened, but the results were… exactly what I thought would happen really. A massive swirl of green glowing wind exploded from my body, I was launched upwards out of the tentacles grasp and my board was ripped from the claws of the other robot. I grabbed it and hugged it to myself as the two robots below were knocked back. I knew what would happen as soon as I invoked it… because it was me that was directing it to happen, I think I just imposed my will on the world itself. My family was never going to stop it with the ‘breaking wind’ jokes after this, but I wasn’t going to complain as I wasn’t violently turned into a tube of doggy toothpaste. As I came down, the swirling winds slowed my fall to being as gentle as a feather before petering out as I landed. I closed my eyes and started inhaling slowly through my nose, I could smell the spring breeze, feel it blowing at the tips of my ears peeking out from under my helmet. I felt like I was at Camden Park despite it being miles away and soon sighed in exhaustion as the feelings of ninety nine Dalmatian puppies were gathered together like a controlled tornado to head home, because whatever I just did drained me a lot to just to do even once and I didn’t currently have the power to do it again quite yet. It was kind of like the feeling when I leapt into Lena’s magic and somehow used it to accelerate myself into Hollow Heart, anything after that was just instinct. I opened my eyes and started panting. I looked up to see Ocellus was dealing with the robot in front of me and behind me I could feel a shift in the air. I flowed around the tentacle slapping the ground as I twisted and lunged upwards to spear my skateboard into the robot, beyond the extended tentacles from the already extended arms. I ripped it out spun away and landed on my hind legs before flopping onto my butt. “Are you okay Dolly?” Ocellus said to me in a whisper, as she came to crouch down next to me. I looked at her and blinked. “Right, can’t understand you, but you will understand this, that was amazing! Where did you learn to do that?” I tilted my head up at her and smirked, she rubbed my head. “You okay to get back into it?” Ocellus asked, I nodded with a sharpened gaze while standing up as three robots came at us. They never got the chance to attack even as Ocellus fully turned, readying to greet them with the bit of metal she had been using as a shiv. “The Murray is here!” Because a large seven or so foot pink hippo belly flopped onto one of them from a nearby building having leapt off it from across the canal. The four foot robot he landed on was crushed like a beer can into being barely a foot in height. Before the other two could react he rolled forward onto his feet and laid out the other two with a single punch from each fist breaking the two remaining glowing red hearts. “Oh yeah, I’m making this my debut night and no robot is going to stop this pain train! You two okay?” “Yeah, we’re good!” I barked while wagging my tail. “I’m okay… I’m just not cut out for fighting.” Ocellus stated while holding her makeshift weapon in front of her. “Heh, all of you Dalmatians are so adorable, also I think Bentley wants to spend more time with your brother Dawkins.” Murray was a heroic figure that changed the mood around him just by being large and in charge. His bright attitude and his sudden appearance made the surrounding security forces rally. “Let’s start by helping out my little food buddy!” Shanty was Launching a blast of water at an airborne robot and was surrounded by seven active ones. Smolder seemed to have the ones she was fighting with taken care of. She ducked under a saw leapt and fire a blast of water at one spewing flames her way and then bucked high into electric fork wielding one as it hit her. Despite being shocked, Shanty didn’t do much more then grit her teeth and kept going with a smile. Murray immediately charged the closest two, I was behind him on my skateboard and pointed to Ocellus and at the one she should handle. She veered left and I went right into the middle of three. I kicked my skateboard up into my waiting front paws as I landed on my hind legs, I raised my left hind leg and kicked with it to begin spinning. “Aero!” My board lit up and I spun creating a swarm of flashing lights as the three robots armor was swiftly shredded by me spinning like a top near each of them in a tight circle, with one final swing to stop my twirling I decimated a further five in a blast of directed wind. I quickly cut my magic usage. Less magic was used when I infused my board with it, but still left me quite drained. I think I was the among the few to get a robot kill that didn’t involve breaking their faces. My panting was getting bad, I needed to take a small break and sit. Whatever I had left in the tank had to be saved for my momentum controlling magic, because we still had at least fifty or more these things to destroy! At least the big guy was taking most of the heat and he was a force of nature, to think Murray only recently became the Cooper Gang’s muscle when he was just originally the getaway driver. Okay, Quiverwing was taking too much time gathering bolts and dodging lethal robots and putting herself in danger to do it too, I guess it was time to face my brother DJ’s music and actually bite the bullet. Time to play fetch, UGH! The only dog that could get me to do that anymore is my baby sister Dorothy, but this situation requires sacrifices. “Dodo, if you can understand me, cover me!” I barked out and that attracted the metal ostrich’s attention from eating a chunk of another robot, he nodded to me and made those strange wobbling mechanical noises that sounded like synth music. I surged forward towards a bunch of destroyed robots on my skateboard, passing by the entrance and started snatching bolts from destroyed bots with my right paw and holding them with my left. I ducked under a swinging saw, leapt over a stream of flames and while pulling three more bolts free of the destroyed machines. I launched myself up to the wall right of the entrance to the building we were fighting around and rode it for a few second before kicking off and sweeping past several robots while grabbing bolts rapidly. After I had gotten ten bolts from destroyed robots, I turned around and went straight for Quiverwing. I popped up and dropped them in her quiver as I passed by behind her. “Thanks!” Quiverwing stated as she fired a bolt precisely into the center of a flying robots glowing heart. It dropped straight to the ground lifeless. “Didn’t think I would go through all my bolts so fast. Can you please grab twenty more, if you even can?” If I even can? I scoffed loudly at the challenge and threw a salute her way. I wonder if Pom was doing any better than we... The world started shaking and we all looked towards the large thing that came out of the top of the mountains and it started to do something as it started glowing brightly. I almost took an electrified fork to the chin in my inattention, thankfully Dodo stomped down on the robot’s arm before that happened. “Thanks Dodo!” We really couldn’t focus on that right now and could only hope Pom’s group would stop whatever that was in time. -Equus, Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Kuril- It was a lazy evening and I was snuggling my favorite thestral when a group came in looking bedraggled, one of them was one of my kittens. “Sorry Blade, but I have to see what has my kitten and his friends so ruffled.” I had to see the disappointed look on my thestral’s face as she made a slight whining noise while burying her face in my shoulder, tickling my nose with her mane. At least as much noise as she could without breaking all the glass within a mile of herself by trying to talk. “Go prep for anything, it looks like Sandbar, Gallus, Yona and Silver Stream have had a rough… wait two Silver Streams? Just get the kitchen ready.” Blade was up and flapping her way to put on an apron, my best assistant chef with an expertise in slicing up things. Her prep work has become quite excellent. “Hey my blue kitten, what happened?” I asked as I walked up with a notepad in paw. “Remind us to never go on adventures with Oleander ever again unless we have to, last we heard she was getting involved with some guy named Jack and the demon Aku. It was cool, but things got really, really violent.” Grumbled Gallus grumpily before reaching back and pulling a throwing star out of his butt. Note to self, call in Dr. Bones in to check them over before they leave or eat. “Also we met alternate versions of ourselves, one of me was definitively overcompensating for something.” “Who’s you’re friend there?” I pointed at what could only be the brown haired and green furred sister of Silver Stream. “Uh… Blonde Stream, what are you doing here?” Sandbar looked panicked as did Yona a second later when she noticed that their booth had a fifth member in it. “Is that a trick question? Oh shoot, I’m not good at these… uh… purple… I want to go with purple… no red!” Blonde Stream sounded utterly airheaded and far less intelligent then Silver Stream was. Was this hippogriff drunk? “Overcompensating for something Gallus was cute at least.” Even Silver Stream looked pained by hearing what looked like her sister talk. “Did Blonde Stream really just follow us home like a lost puppy?” “I’m beginning wonder if her own dimension kicked her out…” Gallus muttered dryly as I hugged him, he didn’t shove me off… win for adoptive cat mom. “Mom can we order… no wait, I didn’t mean to call you that!” My smile lit up the room. "You're mom seems happy Gallus." Sandbar stated pleasantly. "Kitten-" I drew out so slowly and agonizingly. "hug!"