Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

94. The origin story of...

-Earth, Calisota, Duckberg, Gyro Gearloose’s Lab, Smolder-

“Oh great the labs sprung a leak again.” The scientist, that could only be Gyro Gearloose, groused out. “Close up the shutters Fenton, I promise we’ll figure out unbreakable glass one of these days.”

“Yeah or we’ll end up making another incredibly profitable lemon.” Fenton stated with almost clear certainty. “Who knew combustible lemon trees would be a hot commodity.”

“That’s a horrible joke and you know it Fenton!” The laboratory girl said as she was busy with a few beakers and some metal. “But yeah, using lemons as a fuel source worked out pretty well.”

I turned to Scrooge McDuck slowly.

“This is safer?” I asked for sake of clarification as a mechanical monster that looked like a cross between a bear and a yeti suddenly sprung out and the guy named Fenton leapt into action.

“Saying the word ‘lemon’ must have set that one off, again… Blathering Blatherskite!” Seconds later Fenton was covered in armor and acting like a super hero.

“Yeah, sorry about the mess.” The large bipedal thestral looking guy said while looking apologetic. “I’m Manny by the way.”

“Eh…” Scrooge tried to give me a reassuring smile. “Yes?”

That sounded more like a question than a real answer, it’ll do.

Find a nice corner to put Ocellus in while I stayed in front of her protectively and waited for lunch, her body would of course be on a pillow.

-Camden Town, days later, park, Pom-

Dolly looked to be having fun on her skateboard, the feisty Dalmatian wasn’t going constantly be bugging me to train her at least. I wasn’t about to tell her I could train her and I didn’t even know where I would begin with her, I didn’t know exactly what our bond was giving her to work with.

Dolly still seemed to be a completely normal baseline dog aside from being bound to me. She seemed to crave being the center of attention on top of doing what she believes to be exciting things. She was already acrobatic before we met, so it didn’t seem she had enhanced reflexes and her strength seemed to be normal for a dog her size.

It worried me that Dolly was getting something far more unique from our bond that could be trouble later on.

Speaking of, I promised to play Poodle Wolf with Dylan later this evening as Dolly doesn’t like that game and would probably stay away from me because of how boring she thought it was.

“My cousin Lena is making me feel like I’m not alone in this world, at least she has her life more in order than I do. I’m here slowly burning myself out trying to keep a company from crashing and burning.” Hunter turned to me after doing something with his device. “You know, you don’t have to watch me this closely. I’m pretty safe here, you can go play with the Dalmatian family if you want.”

I shook my head, I was acting as his bodyguard and I was taking my job seriously. I pointed to him and then myself and the ground beneath my hooves.

“Well okay then, I did hire you to protect me and you’re doing a really good job of it by the way!” Hunter was a little too young to be running a company, even so he was doing fine for the most part even if it was exhausting and stressful for him. “As a guard, people must have felt safe with you around.”

Hunter was giving people jobs, making sure to invest in better things and the like, the most important thing was that he nice to his employees. He was said to be far nicer than Cruella, not hard to do, by the people that saw me and thought me to be a completely necessary expenditure as his bodyguard.

One of the few reasons why Hunter knew how to run a company, despite being as young as he was, is mostly because of how ruthless his Great Aunt Cruella was as business owner. He learned it from her, but was better about how he treated people.

I took a deep sniff of the air, the park was quiet and peaceful…

That did not mean I wasn’t paranoid or anxious after having fought Gabby the other day, Ms. Mcstabberson was talented with bladed weaponry. At least things were on amiable terms between us, she was quite friendly for a mercenary.

“Hey, it’s Mr. Funny Face and Pom!” One of a pair of female Dalmatians ran up to us. Judging by the black fur acting like a sleeping mask on her face, it was Dizzy.

“Hi Mr. Funny Face, Hi Pom!” The other Dalmatian was always seen with her was Dee Dee, the little sister that wanted to be like her older sister Dolly.

“Hey you two, how have things been lately?” Actually putting away his device, hunter acknowledged them by crouching down. “Also can’t you call me by my name, you know ‘Hunter’? Why does Pom get a pass at being called by her name?”

“Because you’re Mr. Funny Face!” Both Dee Dee and Dizzy intoned at the same time like it was the most obvious thing in the world, these two were too innocent for the world.

I wondered if Dolly was anything like them when she was smaller.

“Of course I am.” Hunter mumbled in something between a fond tone and a grumpy acceptance as he patted them on the head, I gave him a light smile. He would have gotten along with the Dalmatian family just fine before I showed up and got him talking to Dylan. “You better not start calling me that when you can talk again.”

Wouldn’t dream of it… Mr. Funny Face.

“We came over to… uh… why did we come over here again Dee Dee?” Asked Dizzy, while looking confused.

“Uh… oh right, we came to ask about you to play with us!” Dee Dee seemed excited about it, then she seemed to seem a little less excited for some reason. “Maybe learn how to smell like Diesel does today!”

“You mean like being perpetually covered in stinky mud?” A grinning Dizzy asked, seeming to find the idea funny. “Diesel’s a champion at that with all the digging he does!”

“No, smelling with our noses Dizzy!” Dee Dee started giggling in a silly way.

“Oh okay, that’s fun too!” Dizzy turned to me looking a little bit upset. I tilted my head and gave her a curious glance. “Do you… do you know when… you’ll be taking our big sister away?”

“Is it going to be like how our last mommy was taken away?” Dee Dee seemed worried about her big sister and from what I knew of this family, they likely remembered that their previous mother before Delilah.

It was undoubtedly a very touchy subject that I was not going to dig into.

“No, Pom isn’t trying to keep her away… forever… like that.” Hunter looked sad. “It won’t turn out like that… well at least we hope it won’t.”

We all shared some loss here. The loss of parents in our lives, my only living relatives were my grandpa and my brother. My brother at least made a token effort before I suddenly uprooted myself.

I crouched down and brought both of Dolly’s sisters into a hug, they nuzzled into my neck. I wish I could comfort them with my voice and I tried to speak, my throat just made a croaking noise.

Oh good, I could now vaguely make noise again, I give it another month with how pained my throat still was. I’m going to be much more careful about fully charging bark attacks, especially a bark breaker as being mute is not fun.

“That sounded like a frog!” A giggling Dizzy cheered up instantly, but Dee Dee just gave me sad eyes.

I gently started petting Dee Dee, she eventually smiled and started wagging her tail.

Soon both Dizzy and Dee Dee ran a small circle around me and looked at me pleadingly to follow them.

I motioned to Hunter to follow us, I didn’t want him being too far away from me. I may be willing to shirk my duties slightly, but I was still responsible for keeping Hunter safe.

“Right, I’ll be right next to you, but I swear your paranoia is a bit much… or not enough because people really are out to get me…” Hunter glanced around carefully and then followed after us as we went towards a patch of flowers. “The international police being around scared off most of those crazies who don’t want to be struck down by those shock pistols. That octopus duck was said to just be a science experiment gone wrong. What is it with people writing off magic with science being the first explanation that comes to mind?”

I shrugged as I didn’t have a clue, magic was a well known quantity in the worlds I’ve been through as much as it was back on Equus. Though sufficiently advanced science could match magic.

I took a sniff of one of those flowers, primrose… good for colds and smelled like my first home.

Dee Dee took to sniffing a stick and Dizzy was doing the same to an acorn. Dee Dee made her way over to me and smelled the flower I did and seemed to appreciate it. We spent a time smelling random things we found around the area.

“Pom… you’d bring Dolly back to us if you could right?” Nodding to Dee Dee, I put my hoof against her chest and Hunter got the gist of what I was trying to get across. “Huh?”

“I think Pom is trying to tell you that Dolly will always be in your heart Dee Dee, does anyone in your family actually think Pom is trying to take Dolly on purpose?” At least I had a translator for my silent actions, Hunter was a smart kid. “It’s more that Dolly wants to go with Pom when she has to leave, Pom does want to find her lost friends and go home eventually.”

“Maybe we can find a way to come see Pom’s home to visit Dolly when they eventually get there!” Dizzy shouted, but then looked thoughtful. “Dee Dee, smelling stuff is fun, but shouldn’t we be spending as much time with Dolly as we can? Pom, Dylan and everyone are trying to do their best to get Dolly to stay with us, but I don’t think it’s working very well.”

“Yeah, Dolly gives off the vibe that she wants some excitement and it seems Pom runs into that fairly often.” At least someone understood why I had anxiety problems, misery loves company and we all had differing levels of that Hunter. “Why Pom here even recently fought someone who was sent to hurt me, but she kept me safe. She’s my hero, so that would mean Dolly is trying to be like her sidekick.”

“Does that mean you are a super hero Pom?” Dee Dee asked, as she propped her paws on my left leg. I sighed and got out my notepad, making her hop in excitement. “Those can do almost anything!”

I passed what I wrote down to Hunter.

“She doesn’t think of herself as a hero, especially not with the given the current circumstances around your sister. Though she does know some real cool heroes where she’s from.” Yeah, and they were all my best friends Hunter.

“With how fast you can move and how nice you are to sleep on… it’s like you’re a super sheep! Except not… because you don’t smell like a sheep… you smell more like…” Here Dizzy came up and started sniffing me. “You smell like a whole bunch of weird dogs!”

“Speaking of, how weird is your pack of dogs back home?” Hunter asked me and the two puppies sat down with big eyes. “Do you have any fun stories to share about that?”

“Story?” An excited Dee Dee stated.

“Please?” Dizzy followed up.

“Story?!” A Dalmatian pup asked, this caused a ripple effect of puppies saying ‘story’ and running to park themselves in front of me.

Suddenly just about every dog in the park converged on us with the Puppy Pack looking to me for a story. The other dogs were Roxy the Rottweiler, a Pomeranian, a Husky, a Poodle, a Daschund and a few others like that start to crowd around me including that fox called Fergus.

I huffed and started writing.

“Hey, what’s going on over here?” Dolly skated over and stopped to kick her skateboard into an upright position. “Okay, what did Pom do to get everyone so excited Hunter?”

“Well Dizzy and Dee Dee want to know more about the dogs that were in Pom’s life before she ended up arriving here in Camden Town.” Eventually Hunter received the notepad from me and started reading.

-An hour later-

My choices of beasties to talk about started with my timber wolf friend being a canine made of living sticks. The Cu Sith, a dog that barks when there’s danger definitely needs to be avoided. The Grimm dog that, much like Dante, is able to predict incoming disaster. A three headed Cerberus, but not The Cerberus, that can breathe fire and I had to make the distinction about the differences between The Cerberus and a Cerberus. I explained the most about my god puppies as their beloved Baa-Baa and the Canis Major simply called Big Mama.

I ended up teaching them about a lot about the assortment of mythological canine beasties I might eventually end up meeting until I heard stomachs grumbling.

“Lunchtime, time go home for food and snacks everyone!” Dolly shouted and acted like she wasn’t sending me glances, all the puppies whined audibly. “Hey don’t be like that, you can play with Pom later. Go on and get them home Dyl, I’ll catch up bro!”

As she approached me Dolly nuzzled and cuddled both Dee Dee and Dizzy lovingly, before pushing them off after Dylan and the rest of the Puppy Pack.

“Okay, we really need to talk.” Gee, you think Dolly? She was still wearing her helmet and carried her skateboard under her right leg as she approached me.

“Which is going to be hard, because she can’t exactly talk back.” Hunter stated bluntly with his arms crossed.

“So that’s the reason your familiar with this kind of bond? What we have has to be at least a little bit special right?” Rolling my eyes at Dolly, I nodded. Our bond was certainly something else and actually becoming friends with Dolly was going to make worse. “All those dogs with unique abilities and I still feel… mostly like a normal dog really. I mean they all sound incredible like that Fu Dog. Not going to lie, I was expecting more out of this bond and before you ask, I’m still not breaking it. You can do whatever you want to me, I’m sticking by your side like glue as I know you won’t hurt my ‘fam’ in an effort to break this thing.”

I wrote something down and passed it to Hunter.

“Even at the expense of possibly never seeing your family again?” Hunter read out loud for me. “Your brothers, sisters and parents love you, am I really worth all the oncoming sorrow?”

“Yeah… that’s a problem...” Dolly rubbed the back of her head with a paw before her eyes snapped to the noise of approaching hooves.

The horse that approached snorted and start making neighing noises at Dolly.

“No Pearl, I’m not bothering them, right guys?” Moving over to Dolly, I patted her on the head while looking the horse in the eyes.

The horse nodded and then went about her business with a highly distracted police officer on her back with his eyes glued to his device. Yeah, I’m kind of glad the international police were here if the local police weren’t paying attention to their surroundings. I wouldn’t be surprised if Pearl did all the work for that guy.

“I think I’m glad that I don’t understand horses.” It seemed Hunter didn’t want to get on Pearl’s bad side. “Pearl seems a bit intense.”

I’m surprised that I didn’t understand a lick of that considering I come from a world with ponies.

“Trust me, you’re really not missing much Hunter.” Shaking her head with her paws crossed over her chest, Dolly turned her attention back to me. “Look, I get it, I really do Pom. I know you want to protect me, so can you please stop it with the passive aggressive stuff already? I know I’m not exactly the most patient dog in the world, goodness knows I’ve tested Dylan’s patience far more then at least a hundred times a week, but I’m willing to try and learn whatever you’ll teach me.”

I sighed, Dolly really did want this, goodness knows why. I glanced off to the side and pointed out the husky known as Hansel who was reciting poetry and gestured back at Dolly.

“There are plenty of other dogs out there and… I haven’t exactly had the greatest luck with Hansel. I’m not into poetry or Poodle Wolf and he is so very oblivious to the feelings of others at times. Mostly mine… he’s good looking at least, but that doesn’t mean I’m shallow or can’t have options.” I don’t know Dolly, you certainly seemed shallow to me if you’re going for just looks. She put a paw over her face and rubbed at her forehead. “Look, wherever we’re going with this thing, I want you to know that I’m not just doing this just because you’re incredibly interesting.”

Dolly looked me in the eyes and I looked back at her, this bond between us was ultimately weird at the moment and I didn’t like it. A moment passed as we felt each other out and Dolly eventually continued.

“I… I’m usually not good at thinking of the big picture, or worrying about my future too much for that matter. I like the idea of being a police dog, a fire dog or even a pro at skateboarding. I had ideas about what I wanted to do eventually, mostly because our family isn’t going to stick together forever. Dante has made me realize that most of us will want to eventually go our own ways and live our own lives.” Dolly looked away from me. “I’m… at that point… and being a bit selfish I’ll admit, but this is the one time where being selfish should be a good thing! You need help and this is like the job of a lifetime, no other dog would seriously pass this up so easily. I know you like me, I can vaguely get why you don’t want me with you and I know that there are tons of problems that comes with this. Just… let me see where this can all go!”

I let out a sigh and finally nodded, she could finally feel me stop pushing her away and she immediately latched herself onto my chest with her paws as her tail wagged a mile a minute.

“Okay, what do I do first?” Looking down at Dolly, I just knew I would eventually come to regret this judging from the excited wide eyed enthusiasm she had going.

-A few days later, Dalmatian home, dining room, morning, Dolly-

So Pom was forcing me to spend more time with my little sisters, I didn’t mind that one bit as they were great training assistants as was any other pup Pom could possibly need on a moment’s notice.

Dylan was oddly silent about this stuff and didn’t say much about any of it, but he did give me sad looks.

Mom and dad weren’t going to let me go traveling with Pom unless she acknowledges that I had learned enough to do so.

My body and mind were becoming quite sore from all the stuff Pom was putting me through, it wasn’t just exercise or a montage in any martial arts movie I’ve ever seen. I didn’t even know my mind could be sore until now!

At first, it all seemed like bizarrely normal stuff and I was beginning to have my suspicions, then things ramped up a few days ago.

It was when I was setting the breakfast table today that I got a warning from my brother Dante.

“Today is going to be a bit hectic for you, it was nice knowing you sis. Take your skateboard, a strap for it and a helmet, you’ll need them. I want you to know that you’ve been a good big sister and we’ll miss you.” Uh, did Dante predict something involving me today? Given what we know about Dante’s prediction now being magical… and he was now hugging me tightly. Aw yeah, I’m seeing some action today! “Please be careful out there Dolly. Thankfully enough, Pom is going to be sorely underestimated.”

It was this interaction with my brother that let me know that I should really be near Pom today, Dante had to know that telling me about this was going to make me follow her around.

“Say, can I come with you to work today?” I asked of Pom as she came in and she just stared at me with a quirked eye. “Oh sure, I know it might be boring, but something interesting could actually happen!”

Pom’s current job as a bodyguard wasn’t glamorous. Like how my dad worked at the fire house in preparing for all kinds of situation, it will get interesting today because Dante dropped me that warning in advance.

It looked like she had to think about this for a while, but Pom eventually gave me the go ahead as Dante kept sending me worried looks as breakfast was ready.

“That said, Breakfast!” No one was in the splash zone of the Puppy Pack flowing into the room today to nibble down some kibble.

Delilah eventually came up to me. My step mother wasn’t the touchy feely kind of dog like dad was, but she still gave me a hug, my dad eventually did the same thing after breakfast.

I was soon dog piled soon after our parents left for work by the rest of my family, including a crying Dylan, and then I was on my way to see what had Dante was so worried about today.

-Before noon, bank, Pom-

Dolly seemed to be alert today and Dante told me to protect her if she got in over her head, he mentioned seeing beings of metal to me and I was just as alert.

When a dog had Grimm based prediction abilities, you absolutely listened to what they say!

Said prediction came to fruition as Hunter finished his transactions and several mandrill shaped bipedal machines dropped from the sky. They used jets from their back to slowly land in front of the bank and they began blasting out the banks windows with energy weapons.

“Everyone, this is Dr. M, please hand over your valuables and all the money in the bank and the casualties will be 'somewhat' minimal.” This Dr. M has a mechanical army and gave off Teatime Clockwork vibes, I disliked him already. “Anyone that acts otherwise will be made an example of.”

To think I thought I could actually avoid fighting machines...

Wrapping a hoof around Dolly before she could charge out there, we stayed behind cover.

Dolly gave me a look that screamed 'do something' and I already was, I was planning to help all the civilians. This meant distracting the armed mechanical mandrills slowly approaching the bank.

Jotting some instructions down for Dolly and Hunter to read, I snatched up a strip of pink cloth from the floor and quickly wrapped it around my forehead.

Here... I go...

Author's Note:

Home flooded again... but at least it wasn't nearly as bad as last time this happened. Mild power outages aside.