//------------------------------// // 230. Filled with happiness and fears. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Equus, Ponyville, Gallus- “Okay, I have to ask, how did sending Garble a mattress destabilize the economy again?” I grumbled flatly. “I just don’t know what went wrong.” Derpy stated with a platter of muffins placed before us. “So when does the muffin cult gather this week?” “Nobody does, but I have an idea that Equestria needs Smolder and Ocellus back before things will stabilize.” Jaded was trying to solve world problems. If we needed her as a mathematician, then we were doomed. “Also I believe it’s the last day of the week before the weekend my Muffin Queen.” “All hail the queen of muffins, for the muffins are delicious!” I said alongside Sandbar, Silver Stream, Yona and Jaded, then we too up our muffins and started eating after Derpy got first dibs. “So… what does Hard Flank and Maries think of your cultist activities?” “They mostly don’t care as long as blood isn’t involved and accidental necromancy doesn’t come up… again.” Jaded stated while waving a paw around lazily before biting into a raspberry cheese muffin with a bright grin. “Also you do realize I can tell Fizzle you’re still calling her Hard Flank behind her back.” “I paid for the muffins.” That was probably my saving grace. “Good enough to save you from a harder training session this time Gallus. Don’t look so upset, I’m not going to bother you when you’re on the job after you get it.” Having Jaded as a sister was never going to be a normal endeavor when I wanted to join the royal guard. “So anyone want to help me continue my one cat war against Luna?” “Wait… ‘accidental necromancy’… and did you say ‘again’ after that!?” Sandbar stated while looking at Jaded in a horrified manner. “It involved my father, incidentally I appreciate Anubis more as a god and owe him for fixing things after that particularly happy father daughter bonding session.” Oh right, Jaded’s father was a unicorn and she was technically half pony despite looking all Abyssinian… her pony side really didn’t show very much. Imagining Jaded as a unicorn made me shudder with horror. “Also I got to hug a ghost until I was covered in ectoplasm, so that was a fun thing.” -Saturn Asteroid Base, Smolder- So here we are… rocketing through space being dragged along by a dog powered skateboard towards the entrance that looked like an airship hangar with a good twenty or so Hunter Drones shooting at the ship we left behind. Behind us Ron and Kim were utilizing their rocket skates to move through space while carrying Nosedive. I wasn’t giving Rufus much thought, because the little guy really hasn’t done much… aside from proving that animals can vocalize on a biped level outside of Dolly’s ability to sing and eat a lot of cheese. Dolly was incredibly good at giving us momentum in space, better than the rocket skates in maneuverability, but not speed as those four passed through the barrier and landed in the large open massive football stadium like space that was well lit. Probably meant to house The Raptor when it wasn’t parked on the side of the asteroid. Dolly swerved us to be close to the floor when we came in and that’s when gravity hit. I spread my wings and glided to a landing, Shanty dropped into a roll after letting go of the skateboards strap and Dolly just skidded to an immediate stop as soon as her board touch the floor. Kim, Ron and Nosedive were already on the assault and we had about three pathways out of this place. Ron was covered in some kind of gorilla shaped aura, Kim was wielding a laser weapon and Nosedive was going full duel puck pistols as the hangar was quickly becoming crowded. A few shots from the Hunter Drones flew our way, but they were taken care of quickly before they could get anything more than a near miss. The smaller versions were slowly flooding in, but there wasn’t any bigger ones yet. “Pick an entrance, any entrance and we’ll go that way, remember we’re not here to get bogged down in the fighting!” It almost looked to me like Dolly was about to jump straight into the fray board first, but then she looked towards me and whined. “Dormarch and Ocellus come first Dolly!” After a moment, Dolly finally nodded in acceptance as Shanty ran to the side to avoid several blasts of energy aimed our way. They were really unusually highly inaccurate, despite the volume of fire they were putting out and couldn’t hit the broad side of a…?! Out of thirty missed shots in our given direction, I just took one to the chest. The timing on that was ridiculous. Oh I’m perfectly fine. Laser beams, are mostly heat and energy. Really the bigger Hunter Drones were an actual threat to me mostly through raw physical force my insides probably shouldn’t take. The smaller ones could actually detain me, but they’d find containing a dragon that can melt most things with their halitosis a real problem. “Yeah, let’s move before they actually hit someone that can’t take it like Shanty!” I started flying towards the nearest entrance on the far left with a few Hunter Drones pouring out of it. “Hey, I not being that bad!” Shanty started galloping behind me as she hopped and slid through a number of shots following after me. Dolly was sticking beside her and blocking any beam from hit her with the bottom of her board with a hop or a well-timed kick flip, the dog had style and attitude… reminded me way too much of Rainbow Dash sometimes in some ways. Didn’t know where this would lead, but we had to start somewhere right? “It’s on the nose, but I’m going to dive right into the action woo!” A dozen high velocity exploding pucks flew by us and tore the Hunter Drones near our chosen entrance to pieces, Nosedive shot by on skates and was dealt with a few of the Hunter Drones down the hallway before we got there before veering back around to help Kim and Ron. “Score some for me! Try not to get hurt worse so we have to come and save you okay? I want to share some cupcakes and party with you later!” “Do all elements of laughter love cupcakes?” Thinking about it as I mumbled this under my breath, I knew Silver Stream loved cupcakes more than anyone else in our group of friends. When we rescued Ocellus I would bring up the question as to whether or not Laughter always came with sugar highs and weirdness. As we charged down the hall, there were three branching paths ahead and any downward direction would work honestly. When we got to the intersections there were Hunter Drones coming from the front and right. Left had some, but there were only about two or three compared to the twenty or thirty from each route heading for the hangar. “Left!” I turned left interposed myself in the path of the shots for Shanty from the three drones, Shanty quickly scrabbled forward up the right wall around them as Dolly took up the rear and was on her hind legs blocking a torrent of energy aimed at our backsides with her board as she hopped backwards rapidly altering her momentum to avoid taking shots in the back as she passed by the robots that turned after us. “Keep moving!” We turned the corner heading to the right and came to a moderately sized room. Apparently the Saurians liked the color red and the scale pattern designs with the jutting walls that gave it a dragon motif, otherwise the décor was unappealingly bland color wise and overall flat. I wouldn’t want to be conquered by these guys from the way the Mighty Ducks tell it. Didn’t know what the room was for, but we quickly ran into one of the four Saurians seemingly coming out of hiding from one of the recesses in the wall. The guy was being far too obvious about it too. I mean… what idiot among our teams would actually believe Pom was here in the condition she was in? Dolly smiled and started up to the fake Pom with a wagging tail and a happy demeanor. I felt a tug on my shoulder and saw Shanty waving her hoof behind us at the incoming Hunter Drones that had stalled off and seemed to be waiting to charge us. I nodded in understanding. I tugged the two pieces of oxy-chew gum from my ribbon and tossed them to her. She stuffed them under her bandana and I was now ready to use my combat ribbon. “Hello there Caper Canine, I have something important to tell you!” The fake Pom acted in a panic, when she got close enough went to back hoof Dolly with her left leg, only for Dolly to use her back left paw to enter a clockwise pivot that threw the fake off balance when they missed. “Surp-wha?!” Dolly let the fake have it with the flat of her skateboard to the right side of the head as she continued her pivot onto her hind legs. The fake Pom was bodily slapped against the right wall in a painful manner. The form shifted to that of the scrawniest Saurian we had yet to actually meet with weird eyes. So this was Chameleon, he chose a really poor target in Dolly because she seemed utterly outraged and angry now that someone would try to use Pom against her again. -Dolly- “If you think I was going to fall for that then you better make ‘Haste’ b…” A red glow surrounded me and seeped into my very being, a wicked grin crossed my face. “Because I’m barking mad!” I could almost feel an invisible clock above my head and the slow moving clock hands suddenly started moving at twice their normal speed. -Smolder- “That be looking like… oh yeah, he’s being doomed.” Doomed is right as he pulled a weapon and fired at Dolly nearly point blank as she approached. The shot seemingly passed through her body, only it faded from existence and he was slammed into the ceiling by a golf swing to the chin when Dolly flicked into existence. Dolly wasn’t holding back on the momentum bashing because I think I heard the guy’s skull crack against the ceiling. I quickly pushed Shanty as Dolly suddenly gaining super speed had distracted her, a shot harmlessly struck me across my right shoulder as I lashed out with the ribbon. The second shot the robot fired went up straight into one of the necks of its compatriots taking off its head when I pulled its legs out from under it. Shanty was already performing a launching cartwheel into a powerful flying buck into the third one’s face shattering it with a powerful full bodied blow. Dolly flashed into existence and tore apart the one I downed with pure force by riding the nose of her board down through its chest, before she launched back in the direction of Chameleon groaning and standing up with a single slap of her right rear paw that sent her spinning through the air. “Wa… agh.” I think the Chameleon barely dodged the leftward swing that may or may not have taken off his face and bugged out eyes if it had actually connected. He stumbled back in a frightened panic and I looked over his scraggly clothed green form. Okay I can see where the Hunter Drone designs came from, they resembled Chameleon’s normal form far too much for it to have been an accident or maybe it was an accident and just incidental? The poor guy probably wasn’t treated very well among his peers in any case, then again that’s what the Mighty Ducks said the Saurians are like and the guy just set off Dolly into being barking mad. Literally as she suddenly changed targets from him to the poor five Hunter Drones that surged in through the back entrance to the room. Two swings and a single downwards slash with the edge of her board took out one in a battering downwards assault mashed them into the floor before they could even begin aiming at her. The one on the far right started to getting battered down next, by the time it was finished crumpling into pieces another drone was about to meet the same fate of an angrily barking Dolly. I don’t know what her tirade was, but she obviously wasn’t singing even if I could feel a heart song playing. “Little doggy, I think you have bit off more than you can chew!” Chameleon grew massive and muscular in seconds and took a left swing at a surprised Dolly as she finished off the fifth Hunter Drone with a head smashing overhead sickening crunch noise and the tearing of materials shearing apart. I quickly slapped my ribbon forward and around the right side of Chameleons neck and to wrap around his left wrist as he slung his fist for Dolly. With a yank I had him slamming himself in the face forcing him to shrink down to his regular form and stagger back towards us dizzily. Dolly shot forward on her skateboard and took his right leg out from under him with a quick drifting motion forcing him to fall onto his face as bolts of energy surged up from behind us. She launched into the air and slammed her skateboard halfway into one of the Hunter Drones chest before ripping it out in a shower of materials. Shanty was dealing with another one of the seven robots with an awesome backflip buck, I decided to add a blast of flames that blew one apart. I fired another blast and that one blew apart too. Dolly was quickly bashing the others down, one enough so that Shanty slung both her front hooves a managed to cut through the battered material that looked almost like metal and take up the clawed leg of the robot as a weapon. When swung by Shanty, the bladed toes created damaging cutting arcs that took down the last Hunter Drone. Were these things weak to fire? I didn’t think the fireballs I spat were too hot… maybe it’s a design feature? Dragaunus was able to control fire as a pyrokinetic. “Oh come on, one of you can breathe fire too?!” Chameleon probably hadn’t learned yet that he should run even if he was being reinforced by another group of Hunter Drones from the back of the room. “… say are you some kind of Saurian by any chance?” “No.” Though there might be some similarities to dragons, I was from a different world entirely. “Too bad!” He fired and stretched out my right wing to catch the shots aimed for Shanty, wings were some of the weakest parts of a dragon… but no less heat resistant for it. That didn’t even sting and I raised my right eyebrow at him delicately. Was seriously trying to hurt my friends? “Oh come on, impervious to energy weapons too, aren’t you a little too small to be capable of that?!” Obviously the guy hadn’t see me taking several shots before this without so much as flinching. Dolly shot by and started to rip into those Hunter Drones at high speed too, it looked like it was taking a lot effort to add momentum to every blow to be devastating. “Caper Canine… can you add wind to the edge of your board and cut them apart to make it easier on yourself?” I asked as I flicked my ribbon and Chameleon and ripped his weapon out of his grasp and into my claws, then I saw something unusual. One of the Hunter Drone robots, seeing that it couldn’t damage Caper Canine with its energy shots physically lashed at the board with its claws and a shower of blue orbs erupted out of the impact and flowed into Dolly. What in the world?! While I was wondering about that I took aim and blasted the Hunter Drone on the right with Chameleon’s weapon. Chameleon just stood there looking at his empty digits grasping at the air in shock as Shanty was slashing up a hunter drone with the stolen robot leg that now looked like a demented two bladed scythe in her grip. “Uh… I think I left something in the oven! Lord Dragaunus I need a recall, I’m under heavy assault!” He cried out into his wrist communicator thing. I fired a shot that he ducked. “At least send one of the heavy drones to help me!” “The Ducks are attacking The Raptor, how can you be…” Dragaunus’s voice sounded quite upset. “The base has been invaded by allies of the ducks, why else would they have more than one ship attacking!” Speaking of the second ship Chameleon… I heard Launchpad was piloting it. I actually trusted Launchpad with take-off, I trusted him mid-flight, what I didn’t trust was him to actually land something in one piece unless he’s actively trying to crash whatever he’s piloting. Still, I trusted that everyone with him would live through any experience since he was that reliable. Dolly was in the middle of flipping through the air towards me as several more drones converged on us from both sides of the room. She let loose a loud bark and her left paw began swirling with a vibrant green energy, the edges of her skateboard started glowing with the sound of a gentle breeze coming of it. Grabbing it by the strap with the same paw Dolly lashed out and tore apart every Hunter Drone that had come in behind me in seconds and Dolly caught the board with her right. The glowing edge of the skateboard didn’t seem to hurt her, she seemed proud of the accomplishment as she turned towards me. On the other side of the room Shanty was letting loose with a whirlwind of slashes from the scything leg and was tearing them to pieces slowly. “Try and hold them off until Wraith can get me what I want or he has to recall back to The Raptor, if he can’t recall to the raptor with the prisoner then this will all have been for nothing!” Too late for that Dragaunus, it already was all for nothing, Ocellus saw to that! “With what, they took my weapon and are shooting the incoming Hunter Drones with it!” Chameleon whined as I did just that. “You are useless, I’ll recall you when you’re failure is ultimately complete!” The sound of the communications device cutting off was music to my ears as I gunned down a few hunter drones on the far side of the room while trying not to aim near Chameleon or Shanty. “Ooh, tough break buddy!” I said as fired the stolen weapon again taking out another hunter drone. Dolly was barking as she slashed a number of the hunter Drones to the right with a single swing, they were pushed back to the left by Shanty with an equally forceful slash from her makeshift weapon. Once all the robots were gather in one big clump, they both did a front flip and brought their respective weapons down. When the two cutting blades of force crossed each other, they immediately grew stronger and sent the thousands of shredded parts of Hunter Drones down the hallway at the back of the room that tore apart even more Hunter Drones that were coming to Chameleons aid. In all I think they just took down a solid fifty together doing that. At this point the red glow around Dolly died out and she suddenly looked tired, but she was still very much angry at Chameleon given the glare despite the cool down panting she had going. Chameleon quickly grew to his muscular form and before he could capitalize on Dolly being tired he backed off when Shanty swung for his face cutting two lines across his cheek and making him back off. He turned and surged towards me, thinking he’d have a better chance, I lashed out with my right and tugged at his right leg making him fall and smash the back of his head against the floor and he came skidding towards me and shrunk down to his scrawny form. “Don’t make any funny moves or you’ll look less funny than you already do!” I hopped up onto his chest and aimed the gun down at his face. “L-l-lord… D-d-d-ragaunus…” Weakly whimpered Chameleon, suddenly he glowed and disappeared out from under me while falling unconscious. I dropped to the floor and looked to the other two, after moment Dolly seemed to have caught her breath and stood straight up and barked while pointing down the hallway. She steered her skateboard around and made a come on gesture. “Hmph, you may have bested Chameleon, but I still have Siege and Wraith and enough Heavy Hunter Drones to bury all of you and make a fricassee of those pesky ducks!” We looked around for where Dragaunus’s voice was coming from. “Hehehe, you’re only delaying the inevitable. You can’t possibly keep up that show of power for very long against so many numbers, you’ll all tire eventually and this is one fight I’m not running from!” “Let’s move!” I wrapped my combat ribbon around my neck and started to move down the hallway littered with broken robots chunks leading with Chameleon’s weapon in my grasp. Passing by a hallway or two, with me gunning down any Hunter Drone that crossed our paths to give Dolly and Shanty a rest, we eventually stopped when a door opened up ahead of us and Dolly launched forward. Her board was still glowing green around its edges and whipped it around as she skid across the floor on her hind paws. The five Hunter Drones that stepped out were downed by the attack with their legs damaged and Shanty performed a leaping roll through the air to start slashing through their faces, arms and chests with a swift twisting motions of a farmer reaping wheat. “I be liking this thing, I always be needing a leg up in a fight!” Shanty hefted her weapon onto her right shoulder as she walked forward to look into the room on her three legs. “Hmm… that be a long way down…” In fact the robots had stepped out of a long shaft leading downwards. “Come on!” Shanty leapt forward and slammed the toes into the wall and started skidding down the shaft. “Shanty wait!” Wondering how the Hunter Drones even walked out of this shaft, I received my answer a second later when Shanty went launching upwards and was nearly smashed against the ceiling in a glowing blue field. She managed to use the leg weapon to hook her way out of the shaft. “That almost be making me a pancake… but we be needing to get down there!” Shanty stated while pointing a hoof at the shaft. “Hold on a second…” Dormarch’s voice sounded out, the blue field of energy turned bright green. “Okay, now it should be safe, quickly jump into the gravity shaft. I can’t stall the Saurian super computer systems from regaining control for long.” Dolly barked something happily with a wagging tail. “Yes, yes, I’m fine Dolly, now get in before the computers regain access to this system and prevents you from getting down there to Ocellus!” Dormarch opened the path forward for us, so who was I to argue the safety of it? Pom trusted him, as did all of my friends and I really did want to reach Ocellus some time today. We collectively leapt into the field and started moving downwards at a decent controlled speed that wasn’t quite falling.