//------------------------------// // 167. Leap Lamb and Caper Canine Special Edition: The Cape Crusaders! (Part 5) // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Earth, Cape Suzette, Dr. Axolotl’s hidden base, Pom- My right hoof wrapped in wool slammed home into the robots faces, while my left hoof went to clamp onto the top of its helmet shaped head. After I got my rear hooves in a nice footing on the falling robots chest, I heaved myself upwards while pulling my hoof free. I twisted to start clinging to the ceiling avoiding a nasty electrified tuning fork swinging for my side. That robot was subsequently slammed into by the helmet of Bullethead, said helmet protected Kit’s head as he smashed its face. Another MEL went to attack him with a saw, but was quickly blasted down with a strange wad of gas that took on the shape of a large arrow. Darkwing Duck was already charging forward with his weapon aimed and taking down several robots as I crawled along the ceiling trying not to draw attention to myself. His weapon was unusual and did some strange things with gas I didn’t think were possible, since when could gas turn into a solid force of nature? I continued to crawl along the ceiling down the corridor, looking at the many wires and pipes. I looked behind me at the entrance dropping away, also Sly was following me along the ceiling with his cane in his mouth and clinging to the pipes. Darkwing took the lead, charging forward with Kit following behind, we made a right turn and corridor went off into the distance, possibly to what was beneath the thing poking out of the mountain. The corridor wasn’t empty though as there seemed to be glass windows ahead with conveyor belts and mechanical arms sticking out of the wall. Also multiple MEL’s were flying our way from what was possibly a large room at the end of the corridor. Twenty or so, the first one about to come within range of Darkwing, I quickly ran forward upside down. I kicked off the ceiling and plowed my left hoof into the robot, did a hoof spring and launched a kick into the next one’s face to flip myself upright and land on all fours as it went down. While I was worried about landing on my hooves the next few flying Mel’s jetted forward, only to be intercepted. Kit, the lovable big brown bear, zipped by me and slammed his left fist into the one going for me. Used his fist to change his angle midflight and spiraled to ram his pointy helmet head into the next one. He used the force of the rebound to land on his fit bring both his fist together as if he was going to swing a baseball bat and then jammed his right elbow into a third Mel’s face. These robots were pretty tall, yet we were tearing through them with some relative ease. They thankfully couldn’t compensate for their weak points. “My poppa bear barely managed to handle one of these things, I’m surprised I can even take down as many as I have. He taught me how to brawl and I’ve hardly had reason to use these skills, so I’m a bit rusty.” As Kit talked we backed up from a pair of flailing extending arms with electric forks came him and Darkwing blew it down with a blast of gas. “That robot was remote controlled by the way and just mindlessly plowed through walls to achieve its goals, though I really doubt Dr. Axolotl is directly controlling this many of them at once.” The other incoming flying robots were being shot down by Darkwing covering for Kit and me as I went onto my hind legs to block a pair of claws swiping for me with my wool and then I darted forward and thrust my right hoof in an impressive right jab that sent the robot with a broken heart flying into the one behind it smashing its face well. These heart faced robots weren’t very heavy, despite being made of some kind of metal. It certainly explained why they could fly with those small flame spewing pipes protruding from their backs. “Well Axolotl wouldn’t be controlling them, he’s dead from like a week ago according to what Kahn told me.” Two robots landed and one shot forward and didn’t extend its arms, confusing me long enough that it slapped me in the face staggering me. Caught the blow on my wool at least, even if it rattled me. Kit was instantly on it in a burst with both his fists smashing it before it could get a second hit on me and he ducked under a pair of extending arms from the other machine. “My suit is the only thing protecting me from injury, that and it doesn’t have an infinite amount of fuel. I’ve got like ten to five minutes left in this thing. So glad their faces aren’t using bullet proof glass.” Kit stated as he grabbed the extended arms and heaved the MEL around to hurl it into one of the five oncoming ones behind it. “If Axolotl’s dead, then these robots are following whatever orders he left for them to complete and are likely to not do much more than that. If one of those orders was to ensure the destruction of Cape Suzette…” “Cut the chatter and keep pressing forward, we need to shut down the factory producing these marauding machines!” Darkwing stated as he leapt up and put his right heel of his webbed foot into the next oncoming one on the right. I was already slinging my left hoof forward at the one on the left and the last one took Sly’s cane from above as he wedged his feet into the pipes and swung the cane down to slam the hook into it. “We need to stick together, we don’t want to be caught alone with more than one of these things.” Sly pulled his cane and feet free and went back to crawling along the pipes above us as we continued forward. Darkwing gunned down a number of the robots with highly accurate shots despite how unwieldy his weapon looked. It didn’t take long before long mechanical arms swung down to block our path a good twenty or so feet later. I also noted something off to the side lighting up. “Pincer!” I duck to the right as glass broke and five robots came at us from the left and right walls. We managed to move close to the center of the corridor. It had plenty of room for maneuver, but we were not going to get by the mechanical arms without destroying them. Sly swung his cane down into the far left robot and dropped from the ceiling, once he planted his feet firmly on the floor he swung his cane upwards and over his head hard. Bringing the robot he hooked into slamming down onto the one directly on my left before it could attack me. I immediately activated my magic claws and scratched the third one up once, dodge a sweeping saw, twice the armor had rents now. Jumping onto the stabbing arm an electric fork at me, I brought both my hooves down shredded its front open and dropped to the floor. Feeling an increase in heat, I looked to my right and then Sly vaulted over me and jammed the bottom of it home the heart before it could light me on fire. I felt heat erupt behind me and I looked to see Darkwing standing in front of us with his cape held up. Four of the robots had been downed behind us and the last one managed to use its flamethrower. Kit quickly waded straight through the fire and leapt to bring both his paws down on its head. “I am so glad my suit is fire proof, I wouldn’t be able to use the rocket pack otherwise.” Kit looked to be sweating and his face was slightly burnt. “Are you okay?” I asked concerned. “You think a little burn is going to stop a great pilot, sky surfer and an all-around, ‘mostly’, decent person like me? I’ll be fine!” He shrugged off with a wave. “This is my first time being a hero though, how am I doing?” Darkwing lunged forward and pulled Kit out of the way of the mechanical arms coming from the wall trying to spear him from behind. “Pretty good, but you have to work on your awareness!” Both Darkwing and Sly said at the same time, they gave each other a look of respect before leaping back as the other mechanical arm swung at them. “Guys, pay more attention please.” I whined as I turned to the mechanical arms and noticed the conveyors on both sides of us moving several more robots into position to attack. “I’ve got the right arm!” “I’ll get the left, you two deal with the other robots coming off this assembly line.” After Sly said that I looked down the corridor at the large open room. Nodding to myself, I leapt onto the right wall as several more robots wheeled their way off the conveyors to be met by Kit and Darkwing fiercely working together. “I might actually have wanted Gizmo Duck’s help with this.” Commented Darkwing dryly twirling his weapon and firing a blast of gas into the face of a robot almost point blank. I turned back to looking forward as I surged forward on the wall towards the mechanical arm that opened its pincer and snapped at me. I hopped further up the wall and fired a bark blast into it damaging it slightly. It turned and… “Agh…” Lightning energy coursed over my body as I fell from the wall. I lashed out and grabbed onto the mechanical arm and pulled myself into wrapping around it. The mechanical arm flailed around trying to hit me with more bolts of energy and then slammed me against the wall, trying to get me to let go. That’s where it made a major mistake, it tried to pull away from me and the wall and it couldn’t move because I glued my back to the wall with my wool. I pulled up my hind legs and stomped down on the mechanical arms joint damaging it, the arms started to get jerky but still couldn’t pull me from the wall. I added the claw effect to my hind legs and stomped my right hind leg, then my left and the mechanical wall arm broke off in my hooves and the remainder flailed about before becoming limp. Looking across from me, Sly dropped to the floor as did the arm and he hefted a bunch of metal bolts in his right hand. He tipped his hat with his cane to two the oncoming MEL’s from further down the corridor as he pocketed them. I looked to Kit and Darkwing, they were doing alright. Darkwing backed up under me still holding the destroyed metal forelimb and preparing to shoot another MEL, when I raised my front hooves and jammed the broken off end of the arm into the face of the MEL attacking him. “You okay? That shock looked like it hurt.” Oh it did Darkwing, but… “Like Kit said, I’ll be fine. Just so long as that didn’t cause me more medical problems.” I detached from the wall and landed next to him when he turned and fired destroying the right MEL and the left MEL was taken down by Sly after it speared a cardboard cutout of him. “Where did the lifelike cardboard cutout of you come from?” Kit said as he started forward and past us. “Thief magic.” Sly snorted twice in a comical pig like fashion. “Now come on, let’s go take this factory down.” “What are you getting out of this exactly?” Darkwing asked the raccoon as we followed after him towards the large open room. “Practice for my fight with Clockwerk, the giant mechanical owl that killed my parents in cold blood, burned down my home, left me an orphan and haunts my nightmares.” Stated Sly with a slight hint of sadness. “Also, I’m doing this because I’m a genuinely nice guy Darkwing. Do you actually think my gang wouldn’t be out there fighting these robots if they weren’t good people? Much less covering the entrance?” “Speaking of entrance, more robots are coming up from behind as we enter the… oh… well…” We all burst into the well-lit factory at the same time. We just came upon the sight of robots that were in the process of building more of themselves. One robot in particular looked down at us, it was colored bright red. “Destroy Bullethead... destroy interferences to plans… conquer plan ineffective, activating plan B…” The eerie blood red glow of the robot’s heart face as it hit something on a control panel above us before flew into the air and landed on the floor in less than five seconds was pretty fast, given it was at least four floors up. There were a good fifty of the robots scattered around the factory. “All units return to base, must ensure total destruction of Cape Suzette. Estimated time to firing ten minutes.” “Sly, there’s a lot of energy funneling into that mountain with the weapon on it from the various power stations in the city the robots have managed to infiltrate, you guys have got to hurry!” Bentley could be heard shouting from his binoculars. “We’ll hold the entrance as best we can, because whatever you just did is drawing all the robots in Cape Suzette this way!” “Kidnap Kahn… kidnap Kahn…” All the robots around the room intoned in the same mechanical droning voice and it didn’t help that there were more already coming up behind us off the conveyors we passed. “Kit get up there!” He tried to do so as soon as I shouted and was intercepted by the RED MEL, the thing was fast and slammed Kit back into the floor in front of us. “We’re being surrounded!” Darkwing shouted as he aimed his weapon back the way we came and several robots dropped to the floor from above and other flew. We were surrounded by at least seventy or possibly more if the unfinished ones could even active. “Everyone scatter and find a way to stop that thing!” I turned around and hopped on the wall next to the entrance and ran up it. Darkwing was already firing at any nearby robot he could while running for the nearest set of stairs. Cooper was climbing up a nearby steam pipe. Kit was trying to avoid or get away from the RED MEL which was targeting him specifically, that thing was fast and I was glad I wasn’t its primary target. Continuing to climb up, I hopped to the left as pair of extending claws dug a chunk out of the wall where I had been and I continued running up it until a wall of flames made me jump onto the third floor scaffolding. Looking to Sly he made it onto the second floor and the catwalks connecting the various sections. Darkwing was trying to deal with the various robots flying at him. “Eep!” I ducked as a pairs of saws whipped over my head sparking against the railing, I quickly ran away from it and towards one that held its electric forks up and then tried to thrust them both at me. I leapt up. My front hooves thankfully grazed the catwalks above me, I swung to kick my rear legs forward taking out the MEL and then had to let go and drop down back onto the catwalk when a blast of flames threatened to light me on fire. “How are we going to get up there while under attack?” “I’ve got that handled, just keep them distracted!” Sly shouted as he swung by on a wire knocking down the robot with a swift strike to the chest of the robot behind, it would soon pick itself up. He grabbed the railing and had to let go to land on the catwalks below. I ducked, stumbling forward and under the robot that just burst through where we both had been. “I’ll get there, I’m the stealth expert after all.” “If he doesn’t, then we’ll manage this somehow, just keep moving!” Darkwing shouted up to me, he fired his gun and a huge explosion of energy took down a number of MEL’s on the floor below as I made my way forward and would try to get across the massive room using the wall. “Not like I can do anything else, also I have to remind you that I’m running low on fuel!” Kit stated as he shot by with the RED MEL almost being able to match him in speed, but not maneuverability. “I do not want to run out with this guy on me!” I was busy making my way towards corner of the catwalks trying to avoid robots trying to ram me off of them by flying straight into me. “Being a hero was not one of my dreams when I was growing up!” I exclaimed as a portion of the catwalks I was rammed and there was a loud whining noise, I leapt off and towards the left corner from the entrance as the robot behind me exploded. “Oh great, now they might blow themselves up trying to stop us!” I moved out of the corner and started running along the left wall and up for the ceiling with flying robots trying to swipe me off. “At least you don’t have one specifically out to kill you!” Kit shouted as he landed and the RED MEL did so as well as it wheeled after his running form on a walkway above me. Instead of heading for the console like Sly. I ran up along the wall, leapt and rammed my right shoulder into the RED MEL sending us both falling towards the floor before it could hit Kit with a pair of spinning saws. With a quick burst the machine turned towards me and slashed at me, I inflated my wool to slow my fall and the robot hit the floor on its back and was up on its wheels in less than a second. Both its arms extended upwards at me at an incredible speed one a spinning saw I avoided and the other, an electrified fork, jammed into my chest partially piercing my wool and shocking me violently. The pain and my screams ended quickly, I found myself on the floor and groggily stood up and had two splotches on my chest from where I had been stabbed. “Come on, get up Leap Lamb!” Kit propped me up, but soon had to let go and burst forward towards the RED MEL. “Right when things are down to the wire, do everything you can and spin it!” Kit was spinning as he rammed into the RED MEL knocking it back and lightly damaging its armored chest. I coughed a bit and started inhaling to speed up my perception and pick up on what was happening around me. The red robot was moving much faster now, I also noted that there were less robots active around me, because Darkwing and now Kit were both tearing into them to protect me. They were both trying to keep up with the RED MEL that was, notably enough with my current perception, speeding up. Sly was almost to the console. After Darkwing just blasted a robot and imperceptibly the red one sped up and managed to lightly slash up Darkwing’s leg with a saw, He fired a point blank shot of gas into the RED MEL’s face and it barely cracked the glass. Kit destroyed another robot and the RED MEL got even faster. I exhaled slowly, but didn’t move from my spot. I only did half the Dancing Flame so I should be fine, but my breathing was sounding pretty rough. “It’s getting faster the less active robots there are.” I tried to shout, but my shout sounded pretty weak. “There’s nothing to control up here, it destroyed the panel!” Sly shouted, as my eyes were squarly on the RED MEL. “We need to take out the red robot.” I gasped and wheezed, then I managed to shout out. “It’s controlling all the other robots, it has to be!” The RED MEL turned its head to me ignore a clear chance to kill Kit or ‘Bullethead’ as he was going by. It immediately came for me bringing its arms back and swung them forward. That and several other MELs were also getting faster, fast enough to put them between Kit and me. The RED MEL reached me and swung its saw forward only to be block by the wide barrel of Darkwing’s weapon. I lunged forward and punched its heart shaped face with my left hoof and cracked it. I bark blasted it, it cracked even more and pushed it back further making it miss hitting Darkwing who was busy blowing Robots out of the air or disabling them by firing a fiery looking gas that melted their wheels. “Haaaa-yip.” Bark Breaker and the glass heart shattered revealing a manic looking mechanical eye looking about wildly as if dealing with multiple things, it focused on me for a few second before continuing to look around at a pace as it grabbed a gas canister Darkwing fired at it out of the air and then threw it into Sly before he could bring his cane down on it. It spread its arms and spun towards me while extending the claws out at me, I held up my front legs and then bunkered in place. The blow of the claws hitting my left leg rocked my body, but I stayed rooted in place. It transformed the claw into an electric fork, retracted slightly then immediately extended it for me. Its right arm was hooked and pulled off course, it lashed out its other one at Sly and speared him, a second later it was revealed that it had only speared an insanely realistic cardboard cutout. In its confusion, Kit managed to wrap his arms around it from behind. “Got you, I’ve been saving what I have left just for this!” Kit hit something and he rocketed into the air spiraling pillar of flames. We all heard the sound of something and the mountain shake, as Kit came spiraling down to crush the robot face first into the floor with a fountain of fire coming off his back that quickly sputtered out. He groaned, slowly sat up and then looked at the upside down trash can in the making. He grinned broadly and raised his arms up. “Oh yeah, that’s how you do a Dynamo Plunge, full power!” All the robots around had stopped moving and the lights in their faces died out as soon as Kit had destroyed that one in particular. “Bentley, what just happened, did the weapon fire?” Sly asked as he held up his binoculars. “How many people are dead?” “Sly… we have a problem… a big one… you guys might want to come out here and see for yourself. You might have dealt with the robots, but it seems they still managed to achieve their objective.” Bentley sounded calm. “Also cut the power to the facility on your way out, the weapon is charging up for another shot and we can’t have it accelerating things to be much worse.” -Ten minutes later- We all looked up to the sky and saw what Mopsy and Bentley were staring at. “Can we get everyone away in time?” I asked immediately. “No, far too many people. The robots did their calculations for entry, this will completely decimate Cape Suzette entirely.” Bentley stated looking at the ground. “We have maybe two hours, even less possibly.”