//------------------------------// // 188. Case of the Jitters. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Saint Canard, Theme Park, Pom- We’ve already explained what we knew, which was not much. We didn’t even know exactly what Quackerjack was going to do besides his goal of test dangerous toys on the people that were trapped here, but if the bomb had exploded and taken out Sneeze Master and there may be other sinister reasons. Okay so maybe I had an idea what Negaduck intended if Darkwing came here first. It was fortunate for us that they incidentally captured someone that was a decent bomb experts and didn’t think to really check who he was. “Well the hostages can’t go anywhere with those moles patrolling the streets.” I waved my hoof towards the entrance, the moles seemed to be ignoring the theme park after the explosion. Said explosion tore apart one of the pillars holding up the sun blocking envelope around the city. Said envelope was made of cheap material, but it would apparently at least hold its shape until all the pillars are dealt with. “Any ideas Sneeze Master?” “Well they can easily safely stay here until the situation is handled, there’s food and everything. Otherwise no, I don’t have any ideas.” She sniffled and snorted through her stuffed up beak. “I’m ready to lend some aid, but I don’t know where to be exactly. I’m not a leader, but I’m good at dealing with large crowds though. So the moles and their drill tanks seriously won’t be a problem for my hurricane force sneezes. Although I have to keep my head cold under control or else I’ll actually start sneezing hurricanes and nobody wants that… accidentally wiped out my own team that way once. I’ve got better control of it these days.” The duck with the short brown hair in the pink leotard was looking to me to be the leader wasn’t she… why me? Insert my long mental groan of anguish here. Well you might as well suck it up Pom, you were the designated main super hero in the area… and probably the most level headed person around. Sneeze Master is kind of a sidekick to Rubber Chicken with Glue Gal… I guess. Hearing the crunch of Fall-apart finishing his bomb blasted pizza made me cringe, talk about explosive flavor. “Dormarch, do Maui and Launchpad need any more help?” The three fish tailed Dalmatian held up a digit on his left paw to wait as he was looking off to the side at something and talking without making a noise. “No, they’re good, apparently Ms. Shuttles slightly upgraded Chemical Cannon stopped the Liquidator cold, in a literal sense, but there were some odd reactions to the chemicals used. His body wasn’t acting like water should when it was struck and we’ll get back to you on that once we have more information on that. Otherwise they are still having some trouble with Steel Beaks thugs, but it’s nothing they can’t handle and they are doing well enough on their own.” Okay, Dormarch is confirming that Maui and Launchpad situations wasn’t dire, that doesn’t say much for Darkwing or Quiverwing though. “Also they are apparently doing a buddy cop movie thing at the moment and are trying to rescue Stegmutt before the eggheads can forcefully drown him. We need more time to coordinate, where are all the local police and swat forces? More news, the main hospital is running on borrowed time with its reserve emergency power. Whoever is at the power station at the last uncontested pillar is rerouting energy through various parts of the city, taking energy away from many important key places and is trying to hide where all that power is going to. We need time to find information to even know where you’re needed the most or you will be just fighting blind, which is bad considering all the movements going on in the city.” “Oh, you need Information on what’s happening in Saint Canard? I know perfect pair that can help. There’s also the chance that the other members of TOON Division aside from them are in the city and might know what’s going on too, but I don’t believe any of them have the capacity to do anything about it against these numbers if they’re isolated.” Fall-apart drew our attention to him wearing his ears on his shoulders and his head was tilted to the right at a ninety degree angle. “I at least know where one of them was before I was knocked unconscious. He and his wife are specialists in information gathering and long term stakeouts, which double as real dates for them. The guy I’m talking about is in the area near the hospital or somewhere between here and the power station likely snooping around for ideas on what to do. One of them isn’t good at action and is accident prone, hurt in the line of duty four thousand times and more than half of those injuries were spent in traction afterwards. The other one would be harder to capture, but they’ve got the numbers for it. If the moles or those Egghead thugs have taken the hospital, then Miss Fawn Deer might be in big trouble as she was volunteering there today. So where do we head first Leap Lamb?” Yep, Fall-apart confirmed it, I’m the leader and I had to make a tough decision. I could already feel the gears in my head grinding against each other trying not to stall out with the pressure placed on me. Do we head in the direction of the power station or the hospital? “Can the two information specialists keep their heads down for the time being?” I asked as I considered the hospital a first priority, mostly because I might need it afterwards considering my current state of health isn’t even remotely close to having recovered from the whole thing with Clockwerk. “One can easily, small guy, good friend and quite ridiculously loyal in turn. You’ll never meet a nicer animalistic than Jitters A. Dog.” Fall-apart rearranged his body so that he was looking normal again. Having fully fallen apart on two occasions after the explosion and the fun house arena being filled with wooden shrapnel, that’s not counting how many times he’s had to pick up a lost body part. “His wife Tanya Trunk Dog…. eh… she’s kind of hard to miss and highly noticeable, but she’s big and strong. So she wouldn’t have any problems as long as she doesn’t get shot at too much, her armored clothing was rated to take rocket propelled grenades last I checked and that’s because TOON Division had the budget to only cover one of us and my friend wanted it to be his wife because she’s quite a ‘big’ target, I really didn’t need a bullet or bomb proof vest so Fawn Deer got the one meant for me. Tanya is kind of being paid to be the bodyguard of her husband really. So she’s actually better off being more visible, because most people tend to miss the one who’s better at quietly picking up conversations at a distance.” Hearing that it was a dog, I made an immediate snap decision. “We’ll head to the hospital to meet up and help this Fawn Deer person, hopefully we’ll be able to help barricade and secure it before someone dies, we’ll also need to restore power at the power station. There are more people to worry about in the hospitals direction. After we find some way to stabilize the situation there if it’s going bad, we’ll head off find those two information specialists afterwards for a short while on our way to the power station if we don’t see them.” We had to wait for a large mole patrol to pass and they seemed to be wandering around in random sizes and group numbers, you’ll never know when a larger or smaller group might call in reinforcements. “Okay we need to move while there’s a gap in the patrols, Sneeze Master, Fall-apart, you’re leading us there. I don’t know this city very well and I only got here yesterday. Anything to add Dormarch, Cut-Lass and Caper Canine? You’re input is also important to me.” “Nope, I’m good!” Dolly said while settling her board on her back. “Though I have to say I’m glad the robots in Cape Suzette weren’t armed with guns.” “Nothing I can be thinking of currently.” Shanty added while looking in the direction of the bay bridge, probably thinking about Dodo. “I am being fine.” “No injuries of immediate concern Leap Lamb, though you still need to take it easy with your health.” Dormarch followed up. “Also don’t ask me about Fall-apart, I’m not touching that with a twenty nine and a half foot pole. I think I’d lose some of my binary cells trying.” “You can count on me, I know this city like the back of my hands… huh… never saw that before.” That you were looking at the back of your left hand and say that, well it wasn’t very comforting at all Fall-apart. “Right, this way…” Sneeze Master motioned us forward into the streets, she was carrying one of the antihistamine sprayers on her back to help keep her powers under control. It didn’t look too cumbersome and wouldn’t slow her or us down. -Ten minutes later- Sneeze Master managed to take out a group of ten before they spotted us, antihistamines or any decongestants cancelled the head cold caused by her powers well enough on its own. Quackerjack had them to hold her in his trap, but now it was being used to help her control her near deadly sneezing ability. Let’s just say that ten moles, three of which were heavily muscled and six to seven foot lugs, weren’t getting up anytime soon if the sounds of broken bones was anything to go by. Dormarch confirmed none of them had lethal injuries, just exceedingly painful ones. We also took out a small group of four Egghead soldiers stealthily, Sneeze Master at least had some hand to hand combat from being a journalist and newscaster. I’m just glad she didn’t rely on her sometimes detrimental powers entirely and actually learned backup skills for when a problem was something she couldn’t sneeze at. Afterwards we took down a group of three moles as they were exiting an alleyway we were going for, we got them before they even knew what hit them. Hopefully these skirmishes will stay simple and easy to handle. We were about a block from the hospital and could see that it was currently somewhat under siege. Thankfully it seemed the thugs hadn’t gotten inside yet. There were a two bandaged police officers holding the main doorway in and looked to be patients themselves, but they were woefully outnumbered against the tank like vehicle sitting outside the hospital and dripping soapy bubbles everywhere. Aside from the tank there were quite a number of Eggheads arrayed to siege the doors, but the injured officers holding the chokepoint were seemingly keeping them in check. One officer was a lizard and the other was full grown grizzly with slightly worse injuries than the shoulder wrapping the other one presented. Those were the two I could see at least, if there were only two why didn’t the criminals rush them? “Wait, don’t go that way, there’s a better way to get in without alerting anyone that you’re here!” The quivering and wavering voice wasn’t very loud despite the attempt at shouting and Fall-apart immediately reacted. Fall-apart notably didn’t do any of the fighting, then again he was scrawny and with his powers… yeah his body falling apart at the wrong moment in a fight was a fairly large liability. So he was with us for safe bomb disposal if we needed it, he was a whatever it takes kind of guy when it comes to disarming bombs without someone other than him getting hurt and we might need that expertise real soon. “Jitters!” Fall-apart stated jovially waving to somewhat biped dog in the nearby alleyway, he jumped when called out to and hit the back of his head against the nearby wall. He certainly seemed panicky, alert and wide eyed, reminds me of myself right now really. “Nice to see you buddy, what’s going on over at the hospital?” “I hate my life.” The poor dog muttered while rubbing at the back of his head, I felt as if I had just met another kindred spirit in life. Thankfully he was too smart to be a familiar, I didn’t want to think about the implications of Dolly’s odd bond to me in comparison to her level of intelligence. “Also, a lot.” Yellow fur, short brown ears, red suit with black tie, small red hat, he was really short for a biped and seemed to have a number of animalistic leanings. He read as constantly nervous and panicked when I profiled him, in another life this guy was probably my spirit animal that would run away from me screaming like a true lambkin. I wouldn’t feel like a true lambkin these day, if not for my constant paranoia that Tobias Rieper was around. “Care to be expanding on that?” Shanty said as she continued to watch the hospital front and the tank began firing streams of bubbles and water at the building. The two cops at the doors fired back, but there was a large volume of fire coming from inside that made the charging Eggheads back away from the door. There were several injuries on both side, the Grizzly had to limp off and was changing places with a younger fresher officer that looked to be a biped bat that looked to be shivering and had chemical burns. She still gripped her pistol and stood at the ready, the lizard stayed in position his weapon also at the ready near the entrance and said something to the bat and she said something back. I really should take lip reading courses if I ever make it back home. It looked like a big chicken lady with a red bandana, blue blouse and small jacket was leading the siege on the hospital with… a mop? Now I think I’ve seen the of peak ridiculousness around here, but she seemed to have an air of a leader about her and the eggheads were definitely listening to her as she shouted orders and had them reposition for another assault. “O-of course… the hospital is currently under assault by cleaning master of FOWL, Ammonia Pine. She’s known for chemical warfare and flamethrowers, all to the theme of making things squeaky clean or incinerating them so there’s nothing left to worry about cleaning.” Jitters was a stuttering mess and anxious compared to the easy going Fall-apart, but he was apparently an officer of TOON division. Also Ammonia looked like really bad news. “Aside from Negaduck wanting revenge on Bonkers by having some of his forces attack Fawn Deer here. Ammonia is here to steal supplies, medical, cleaning and otherwise. She’s at her most dangerous when given access to at least a janitors broom closet worth of chemicals and single minute to make something deadly. Thankfully her sister, Ample Grime, is still behind bars in the maximum security prison out of the way or we’d have twice the trouble. In fact I think she intends to take hostages from the hospital to try and barter for their lives, not sure on that yet. Some of the guards of that particular prison have family in there. They haven’t been successful at breaching the doors, all other entrances aside from the one I know about are blocked off and the regular police that were here before this all started have been holding the doors for last two hours. They are being patched up due to injuries and the other officers were already here on leave. Now that the hospital is on emergency power, must be getting quite grim in there. Whatever trouble there is at the power station needs to be fixed in a timely manner before the hospital’s emergency power runs dry.” “Say Jitters, where’s Tanya?” Fall-apart asked while looking around. “She’s currently being held by the Flaps and Tuskernini gangs, I would think they are fighting over who gets to bring her in first. Negaduck has just about every well-known criminal in the city working to his tune and he’s trying to capture every TOON Division member in the city his forces can manage for smaller bounties than yours is worth Leap Lamb. I hope she’s okay, I would try to save my sweet Tanya myself but… I’m not much of a fighter, my body is really frail and I think I’m of more use scouting unfolding situations and informing someone more capable about it. Last I heard she was on the phone near the southern coast side when this all started and they managed to incapacitate both Stegmutt and my wife in quick succession. It was so sudden, they were hit with enough tranquilizers to knock out five elephants… which matters, because my beautiful wife actually is a wonderful elephant.” This tiny guy had an elephant size wife… at least it sounds like a stable marriage? He sounds like I would if someone had Tianhuo and I couldn’t do anything about it. The likelihoods of that actually happening were fairly low given who Tianhuo is, she’d leave all her attackers bruised, burnt and beaten for trying. Also Longma blood could burn hot enough to take care of any toxins and poisons given how they naturally produce their wings of fire, Kirin didn’t quite have that capability even if they can ignite their whole bodies in flames for a few seconds. “Dormarch…” I was about to ask, when he preempted me. “Asking Ocellus to tell Maui and Launchpad to be on the lookout for a…” Dormarch trailed off as I looked to a slightly crying and hopeful looking, violently quivering, Jitters. “Large pink elephant, she should still be wearing her protection. A RIP-K9, Rocket Impact Protection grade Kevlar Nine armor, it’s kind of hard to remove. They got her in the trunk a few dozen times with the tranquilizers from what little I saw on her phones recording before I lost contact and she warned me to go into hiding. She managed to stay standing long enough for that… for me… if we had been together at least we would have been captured together.” Jitters stated sadly while taking his hat from his head and then pulling a badge out of his pocket and putting it on his hat and slapping it back on his head. “I was a little more northwest of here at the time, trying to figure out what some goons were smuggling into the city. They weren’t armed with weapons until things started going down. They had an ambush prepared for me and everything, my wife prevented me from being captured at least thanks to her warning. I came here afterwards to reconvene with Miss Deer and found Ammonia Pine parked out front of the hospital and assaulting it. Officer Jitters Accident Dog at your service ma’am, as much of a service as someone as useless as me can be in these trying times.” “Anyone can be useful with the right motivation, like being able to show us that other entrance into the hospital you were telling us about?” I queried. “Yeah, hurry on that, because we don’t know how much those injured police officers covering the entrance have left in them. They already look like they are willing to give their lives to protect the people in there from those Egghead thugs.” Dormarch seemed pretty adamant about… oh right… that… it just occurs to me now that Dormarch didn’t want a repeat of what his predecessor caused. No wonder he suddenly seemed a bit riled up about this situation. “We need to help those officers Pom!” “Well the entrance is unconventional… but I’m sure they won’t shoot at you, hopefully I can dodge the bullets this time.” Jitters sounded like he’s done something like this before, he motioned us down the alleyway and towards a nearby manhole cover. We went past it and into and into a local hotel across the street, we took an elevator down to a floor that didn’t exist and then we made our way through a long corridor to a door locked by a keypad that Jitters had the code for and then we were in an elevator. “We have some fun spy games in the information portion of Toon Division when we’re not on duty, it proving to be helpful on this occasion at least.” Jitters poked his head out of the elevator which I noted only had one floor listed. “The problem is, this elevator works only one way.” “Are you serious?” Well the doors were already closed behind us and seemed to be seamlessly hidden in the wall, I had only one thought on the matter. “Well that’s somewhat impressive architect at least.” “Now that I have you inside, we need to alert someone to our presence before anyone gets any wrong ideas.” Listening to Jitters looking out the doorway with an extreme amount of nervousness, I calmly picked Fall-apart’s head off his body and rolled into the hallway. The sound of someone rushing down the hallway could be heard. “Wait, let me get a ‘head’ of you… don’t shoot!” Fall-apart stated in a comical tone, I rolled my eyes. “Guys this is Miss Fawn Deer.” “Fall-apart, oh thank goodness that we at least have some help! Here I thought they might have breached the hospital in some other way.” The biped deer let out a drawn out breath and her body was shuddering as she clutched at the pistol like it was a life preserver while out at sea. What she was holding was what I was coming to quickly recognize as a shock pistol, however this one didn’t seem to have a death or injury setting on it. Must be a weaker version of the same weapon that Fox, Hopps and Wilde were using, just made for local cops. She took notice of us and froze like a deer that had lights shined in her eyes, she blinked and shook her head. “Who are they?!” “We’re the cavalry, my precious Tanya has been captured!” Jitters whined and I carefully pulled him into a hug and he started sobbing into my wool at my neck. I quietly patted him on the back and made sure his tears weren’t getting on my special bell. “I’ll give you a quick rundown.” I said before taking a long drawn out breath. “I’m Leap Lamb, not super strong, but fast and agile, however I can’t do things at full capacity or it’ll exacerbate my previous injuries and conditions. Cut-Lass, sharp as a scalpel mentally, hooves cut like swords and has limited water manipulation abilities. Caper Canine, fast, capable of manipulating momentum on touch and has a blast proof skateboard that can double as a shield against bullets. I’m sure you know Jitters and Fall-apart, oh and that is Sneeze Master.” “Sneeze Master, oh I love your work as a reporter Ms. Duckbill!” After getting gleeful for a second, Fawn’s mood immediately crashed. She turned to us. “Fawn Deer, TOON Division secretary and medical specialist, the chemical burns those officers are recieving are getting worse.” “I would like to offer up my assistance as a medical scanner.” Stated Dormarch with a strong urge coming off him from our bond. Our bond still wasn’t as strong as it could be, mostly because I wasn’t interacting with him physically, at least we connected emotionally. “Good, if you’re accurate at diagnosing problems." On second glance, the red-headed Fawn looked worn out. "We need that right now to make salves for the conflicting types of chemical burns Ammonia is dealing.”