Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

103. Great Scott-land!

-Equus, School of Friendship, Yona-

“Have you seen an earth pony named Sandbar by any chance?” The lovable princess Cadence is asking of Yona.

“No, but Yona think he said something about swimming across Ponyville lake to make you lose track of him.” I watch as the princess smiled, then Yona be getting an awful, if wonderful, idea. “Maybe he be getting help from Gallus and Silver Stream who are hanging out around there. Gallus is still having problems expressing his feelings, Yona thinks you could help with that while looking for Sandbar.”

“Thanks!” Cadence ran off leaving me standing there all alone, up until I turned to the nearby bed.

“Is she gone?” Sandbar’s voice sounded out from under the bed.

“Yes, Yona thinks she’s gone now Sandbar.” It was seconds later that Sandbar is giving Yona a big hug, this is making Yona’s entire day.

“Do you think Gallus and Silver stream are going to be okay? Princess Cadence is a little… crazy… at the moment.” Hugging Sandbar again felt right, his face turning red was adorable.

-Earth, lunchtime, Camden Town, Dalmatian Household, Shanty-

“So why do you not seem to be a bit more worried or sad about Dolly being gone?” I be asking this of Dylan as he was the big brother of the family. I do not know what having a brother is like, maybe sisters, but Dylan be a very nice dog. “I’m upset that Pom is being lost, but at least she has your sister as a friend.”

“Oh trust me, we are sad that Dolly is not around and frankly we are worried that she might never come home, but we’re tired of living in fear and want to move forward and think positively. That and my step sister is pretty tough, did you see this video of her cutting the head off that gorilla robot with her skateboard?” Yes, Dylan, I did be seeing that… now I be wanting a skateboard that can possibly be doing that with my fighting style. “Didn’t know she had it in her. I know she can be cunning, but capable in a fight? She usually relied on me more for solving a really bad situation, but over the last week or so Pom agreed to train her and she just had Dolly doing a bunch of average stuff all day every day. Since Pom trained you to fight, maybe you’d know what Pom was trying to accomplish.”

“Pom be trying to teach Dolly that she can be fighting using what she be knowing already, she obviously be using that skateboard to great effect.” The training be effective for me, so it should work for Dolly just as well to figure things out herself.

Three nearly identical dogs be coming up to us and they were looking to Dylan, they all be looking the same with only their collars to tell them apart. At least the Dimi-three be having different amounts of spots and appearances even without their gold chain necklaces to number them.

“Dylan, like, can you tell me where my special fur shampoo is?” One asked in a friendly tone as she approached her big brother. “It isn’t where I last saw it.”

“I need help finding my collars pendant, I lost it!” The second one said impatiently. “Can you help me find it Dylan?”

“I’m good Dylan, I’m playing Nintendogs!” The third was holding a device in her front paws and I be looking at the dog on it she be playfully tossing a tennis ball around for. “The battery should last me a few good hours.”

“Uh… Déjà Vu, you do realize that we are dogs right.” Asked Dylan with a confusing look on his face. “And have a large number of brothers and sisters, which are also dogs that you could spend time with.”

“So?” The third female Dalmatian, Déjà Vu, said as she continued to play with the image of a dog on the device as I sat next to her and watched.

I be easily knowing what Dalmatians looked like, how could I not after spending the night in a house full of them, but I not be as knowledgeable on dogs like Pom is.

“Right, not questioning this further. Come on Destiny, Dallas! Say Shanty, can you make sure Déjà Vu doesn’t get weird by keeping her company…” Leaning a bit closer to me, Dylan whispered. “She kind of has problems with being separated from her sisters or being alone.”

“Dylan!” The two sisters yelled in tandem.

“Okay, okay, where did you last see the shampoo bottle and where did you last put on your collar?” Dylan walked off leaving me alone with the one he called Déjà Vu.

“Uh hi, I’m Déjà Vu, want to watch me play this some more?” She be looking up at me curiously.

“Sure!” I answered. “I not be really knowing much about dogs, which be Pom’s area of expertise. I be knowing a lot about pirates though.”

“Maybe I can help you learn a thing or two!” Déjà Vu’s tail started wagging. “You can tell me all about pirates where you’re from in return, pirates are cool!”

We would be being good friends.

-Scotland, outside a golf course, Smolder-

“I am so glad that you weren’t awake to witness it Ocellus.” Muttering this into my claws, I looked up at the still twisted hulk of what was once a flying vehicle as I walked up to it. “For once I was actually terrified for my life even if dragons are made of far sterner stuff, I was far more terrified for yours. Apparently these ducks are so used to it, it’s almost like they live in that town of Airship Mauled where airships crash into any nearby visiting gods on a daily basis.”

Ocellus smiled and wiggled around a bit in my grip, she was getting closer to waking up and I could wait for as long as it took. It was easy to tell how bad the magical backlash she took from taking over those Evil Core machines was.

How anyone, aside from me, survived the airplane crash the other day was beyond me. Scrooge and his family just calmly offloaded the sky pirates onto the nearby authorities and set up camp in a place called Moorshire. The golf course nearby was a place some of them have been to before.

Now we were stuck in Scotland until Launchpad can somehow miraculously turn that twisted mound of deadly sharp bits of metal sticking out everywhere back into a flying vehicle. Apparently this place was famous for its magical fauna so I wouldn’t stand out too much, but I was still staying out of view of the public unless I covered my wings. I was doing that with my satchel covering my back.

I passed for a young lizard biped or animalistic, but there were no winged lizards quite like me around here. Also some parts of the world seems to be in denial about acknowledging the fact that magic and monsters exist, Scotland wasn’t one of those places given how Castle Mcduck apparently has a demon dog. There are banshees in the lowlands and I’ve been warned by Webby about avoiding creatures that insist you go near water or climb onto their backs.

Launchpad’s very existence was definitely a sign that the guy had to have magic of some kind, because to crash that badly without anyone getting seriously injured more than a single mild bruise was nothing short of miraculous. That this kind of thing happens continuously with him is even more ridiculous, but confirmed by everyone currently with us as being his thing.

“Oh hey there Smolder, I’m still trying to figure out where to begin with this…” Launchpad was a duck with a big chin and was really tall in an aviators jacket, I’m pretty sure this guy could crash an airship with all the magical safeties on, on a top of the line model no less, set entirely to full power. “Did you need something?”

“Just wondering how long fixing the plane will take, also how long does usually fixing something like…” Affixing my eyes to the thing currently resembling a sea urchin or doing a very impressive impression of it and was not so much a flying vehicle for a moment, I just turned back to Launchpad’s earnest smile. “That?”

“Oh this, it doesn’t look too bad, a roll of duct tape, some rubber bands and a bit of elbow grease and I can have the Sun Chaser flying in six hours tops.” Something fell off the mangled mass of metal and Launchpad scrutinized it a bit. “Make that three day and twelve hours, two days and six if I can find a good enough sledge hammer.”

“So… are you well trained mechanic?” I asked, because getting ‘that’ back in flying condition within even a week was pushing my suspension of disbelief to absurd degrees, that’s even with being a dragon from an entirely different planet and dimension.

“Huh, oh no, but I make do though!” Launchpad chuckled and rubbed at his head, my right eye twitched a bit. “Don’t know why people ask me that so much, it’s not like you need a degree to put things back the way they were. Now if only I could remember where the rotating things went again…”

He was serious… he was actually serious! At least he was a decent friend even if his intelligence left something to be desired.

Leaving Launchpad to it, I wandered over to the Moorshire golf course. Launchpad’s ability to crash apparently had a knack for hitting the same place more than once. So we weren’t far from Glasgow or Dismal Downs where Castle Mcduck was, which is where Scrooge, Webby, Huey, Dewey and Louie were heading.

Lena and Violet were still here at the golf course to look out for me and Ozzy, I approached the tents the two were relaxing around.

“Is it always this hectic around them?” I asked as I gently placed Ocellus on a sleeping bag.

“Oh it’s usually worse, things have been a bit quieter since we dealt with that FOWL organization.” Lena confirmed, once again bringing up that weird organization. “At least we’re not dealing with werewolves.”

“I have never been to Scotland before, what are the chances we can see the loch ness monster?” Violet asked with her beak not poking into a book for once. “Before you ask Smolder, Nessy is a large aquatic creature that is rumored to be living in Loch Ness. It is a said to be rare see it at all personally, also people seem to find it impossible to get a decent photograph of its majestic nature. Others say it’s a giant eel or a creature of an amphibian nature.”

“I think we have a pretty good chance of meeting her…” Lena said looking up at a shadow being cast over us, the long necked creatures with four large flippers and a thick tail at the end of a round body slowly dragged itself over to us and leaned its head down to sniff me.

“Zounds, this was an incredibly fast meeting… why is it whenever Bigfoot or Nessie are seen like this there is never any cameras around?” Checking her pockets frantically, Violet eventually pulled out her phone. “The batteries dead.”

“Mine too, forgot to charge it… you were using yours to look up local cuisine and facts about Scotland all night weren’t you?” Lena gestured lazily at the large creature just playfully nuzzling me. “Guess Nessie is getting away with this sighting today, I mean how often do you see something like her crawling around on land?”

“Oh hey Nessy, I got twelve peanut butter and banana sandwiches for you.” Launchpad came over after having pulled out a large bag with sandwiches and dumped them out onto a plate. “I did promise you the next time I was in the area!”

“I’m surprised, you know Nessie personally Launchpad?” Queried a curious Violet who, alongside Lena and me, watched as Launchpad started tossing sandwiches into her open mouth.

“Oh yeah, we’re good friends, accidentally crashed a taco cart into her once, helped nurse her back to health after that and I apologized profusely for the incident.” Well Launchpad, you are just proving yourself to be the weirdest guy I have ever met in my entire life. That wasn’t a bad thing. “Guess Nessie here just took a liking to me.”

“How do you…” I started to ask when Lena cut me off.

“For the sake of all our sanity’s, don’t ask how Launchpad crashed a taco cart.” Stated Lena with a disturbed glance at Launchpad.

“Well the taco cart was evil and wanted to slaughter some organization called Cerberus, it was yelling something about an AI named EDI and getting revenge on a shepherd. It was pretty upset about being created to only sell burritos and tacos, I don’t know why that would be… burritos and tacos are great! If I could just make burritos and tacos all day, I’d be happy just from the smell alone… it also complained about that too come to think of it, despite it not having a nose.” Launchpad sounded like he was winding up to a long winded story. “So anyway, it was flying at the time and I was in Ireland after being abducted by aliens…”

“No, stop, I agree with my adoptive elder sister Lena, we don’t need to know anything in great detail Launchpad.” Violet shook her head and was being blunter than a baseball bat. "You crashed it, that’s all we really need to know. Please get back to rebuilding the plane Mr. McQuack.”

“Well okay then, nice to see you again Nessie!” Launchpad received a giant lick from Nessie and she licked the four of us before dragging herself towards the nearest source of water, she had thankfully been gentle with licking Ocellus. “She’s quite majestic isn’t she? Well, back to work!”

“So it’s not just the family?” I asked as I turned to my best friends of this world.

“They may be part of a large localized conjoined weirdness magnet that most of their family inherited, of which you were drawn to as well.” Violet nodded to herself and then stated. “That doesn’t mean that weird stuff exclusively happens to them, though it is basically a once a week thing for them to end up in strange situations. You and Ocellus are the tamest thing to ever happen to them according to our mutual friend and expert Webby, who is well versed in the subject of adventure with her family and the weirdness it brings into all our lives.”

Ocellus wiggled a bit and managed to roll over on the sleeping bag, a bright smile on her face. Nessy freely gave her a solid mass of love and I think that sped up her recovery. You could wake up from that coma any day now Ocellus, though carrying you around was gives me a decent workout.

“So anything we should watch out for while we’re here and not going to Castle McDuck?” This was a quiet place and I could maybe get into some golfing or playing with the golf carts. “Also what are the chances we can find something interesting to do with one of those golf carts?”

“Now you’re talking my language here Smol.” There was a smirk on Lena’s face as she crossed her arms.

We heard a snort sound and a slight giggle. I turned to look at Ocellus for a few moments, but she didn’t wake. Just hearing her make a noise was nice.

“I concur, we can get up to some safe mischief. Provided we don’t run into trouble immediately.” Giving Violet a look, I sighed angrily.

“Violet, given how your friend’s family works and it being a proven fact in my world, why would you ever want to tempt fate like that?” Honestly, given how often it happens, I think it’s a force of habit by everyone in every world at this point.

“It’s not like that superstition has any founding in…” Violet was about to start defending herself when two voices interrupted.

“Hey Bramble, do you remember that guy?” Turning to look at the pair of what looked vaguely like Equus earth ponies, there was something off about them… aside from being .

“Sure do Briar, someone finally won the druid cup and he was there to commentate on it… not that they would actually get a live news feed in the druid golfing maze.” The second pony creature stated. “Ah golf the only thing we love more than that is…”

“Bramble! Hey there, would you like to go near the lake or you know hop on our backs for a ride. I’m Briar and that’s Bramble.” Briar was the pink one and Bramble was purple, they also sounded somewhat familiar and they looked like twins with the same hairstyle and appearance aside from their colors. “Yeah, you might even get to meet the loch ness monster if you come with us!”

“I stand completely corrected.” Violet dully stated. “Right, I shall endeavor to never tempt fate again. Though it is fairly hard to do from what sources tell me about impulsiveness being inherent to most beings.”

“Why do I get a vibe that is saying don’t trust them at all?” The two pony beings both glared at me. Yep, that vibe was getting stronger. “Also we already saw Nessie, she was pretty nice.”

“Oh darn and we just missed her!” Bramble sound particular sarcastic as she said that.

“That’s because they’re kelpies Smolder, they can mimic voices and tend to drag people to a watery graves… they are trying to kill us and are not being very subtle about it.” They both glared at Violet even hard than they did at me. “They can’t really do much unless you willing hop on their backs or follow them to water on purpose, they are always noted for their dripping wet manes, being found near water and causing brutal drownings.”

“So they only look adorable and yet are trying to kill us… that’s pretty metal of them!” Lena stated with a bit of adoration. “Do you have kelpies where you’re from Smolder?”

“Kelpies back on Equus aren’t nearly that pudgy, they are more skeletal and freaky. They almost look like they are able to pass for normal ponies back home. These two look like they been hitting the chocolate… and hard.” That got me even worse glaring from the two than what Violet was getting. “Should I give them a proper sendoff to leave us alone?”

“Not quite yet, there are some things I want to know from them. Why all the drowning specifically?” The two looked at Violet curiously. “I mean do you actually eat the bodies or do you just drown them for fun? Do you have to drown them to eat, why can’t you just attack us outright right now?”

“A little of column A, a little of column B and as for column C well… it is kind of hardwired into us to try and trick or coerce someone into it.” Bramble said with a bright and seemingly friendly smile. “You’re probably better off not knowing the full extent of things we do to idiots…”

“Yep, that’s about the size of it… so can we cut out the middle part and get to drowning you now?” Briar stated in a cheerful fashion that I found quite disturbing.

“No thanks, I’m not feeling particularly suicidal today.” Violet responded with a flat look on her face.

“Touch my sister or friends and I’ll render your magical butts into a fine paste.” Lena started glowing blue and floating.

“Are you sure we can’t interest you in a nice watery grave?” Briar asked innocently. “It’s an exciting way to die, really!”

I just sent them a flat look and blasted out a burst of flames at the two of them making them run off.

“We would make it quick and painless, honest!” Bramble said poking head up from a bush, I tagged her in the face with a fireball. She shrieked and fell backwards, Briar came back and started to drag her away. “Alright, alright, we get it, we’ll just find some other poor dumb creature to drown!”

The two pony like creatures ran off into the woods nearby.

“What next a banshee?” Lena queried lazily, a large black dog shot out of the bushes.

It trotted up to us and sniffed me, then rolled onto its back and started panting happily while looking to me with its glowing green eyes.

“No a demon dog apparently… how long has this golf course been open for again? The strange phenomena around here is pretty thick. Almost enough so that if I were to stab the fog around here with a knife, then it would probably ask me for a formal apology.” Violet looked about with exasperation, before carefully rubbing the giant dogs belly affectionately. I wondered if this was how big Canis Majors back on Equus could get. “The normal golf course seriously needs a barrier against dangerous magical entities if there are this many in the given area.”

“Less than one year, plus I just noticed where they put all the ‘beware of kelpies’ signs around here.” Lena pointed to a nearby billboard with both Briar and Brambles appearances on it. There were warnings to not go near large bodies of water with them or even be near them.

“Well… that’s vibrant and noticeable…” I sat down next to Ocellus. “So got anything to eat?”

Violet silently passed me a bag full of granola and I dug in while ignoring the demon dog whining for affection, I sighed and started to scratch his chin and his tail started wagging cheerfully.

“Do you think this is Castle McDuck's demon dog?” Lena finally asked as she tossed a snack into the demons mouth and it happily chewed on it.

“Could be, we’ll find out in a while if he sticks around long enough.” The demon dog barked and nuzzled Violet. “He seems fairly benign for a demon.”

“The only demon that might be benign, I’ve heard a few interesting stories about the demon Pom calls Fred.” It wasn’t hard for me to believe Pom when she said Fred was the most affable nice, yet terrifying, demon she’s ever met, aside from Mr. Beezy the giant fly that just exploded all over the place.

“What kind of name is Fred for a demon?” Lena muttered. “Sounds kind of lame.”

“A pretty good one, as the demon is actually terrifying from the way Pom talks about him.” I considered what I heard about him and nodded to myself. “If he can get away with having a normal name like Fred and still have a dangerous enough reputation, then is it really lame? If anything, he actually makes hearing the name ‘Fred’ scary.”

“Are you sure we can’t interest you in a nice water noose?" Bramble asked as she and Briar were spying on us from the bushes. "Maybe a little nibble at your necks as water floods into your body and you struggle violently while the bubbles slowly float to the surface?”

“Hey demon dog.” Addressing the large and dangerous canine near me, the dog sat up and looked to me. “Be a good boy and sic ’em!”

The demon dog leapt at the two kelpies and they were soon pushed out of sight, then we heard screaming.

“Oh my badness, its beating me halfway to death with my own skull!" Briar screamed. "I didn’t even know this was physically possible!”

“Devils, why is it using my own spine like a soup ladle?!” Bramble screeched.

“That was cruel of you…” Violet tutted loudly at me. “That poor demon dog.”

Author's Note:

The continuation of Smolder and Ocellus's slice of life, when compared to Shanty's crime epic and Pom's wild adventures.

Comments

[Herald of Opera]

For those playing at home, Cerberus wasn't even founded until 2157. Even without namedropping EDI, time travel was clearly involved ("Shepard" is a common enough surname in our time that it could just as easily have been an ancestor if that were the only issue).

EDIT: Also, Cerberus making a homicidal taco cart AI is a Mass Effect meme regarding their incompetence.

[Shadowshame]

Let me guess is Duckula showing up here and yes that is an actual show

[Darkonshadows]

10892241

Duckula the vegetarian vampire? The one where all his servants can't seem to catch a break, because he's a destitute Castlevania spoof?

I might just go with Dracula Duck to keep it in universe, he's the final boss of the NES Ducktales game. He might even be related to the McDucks and Duck family.... distantly.