Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

116. Picking up the facts.

-????, Oleander-

“So you goombas should probably get a unionized to get more health benefits for being stomped on constantly.” The brown two footed creatures gave my speech some thought. “Besides if you could get the koopas in on it with replacing their lost shells as health benefits after being used as projectiles, then you’d be able to get your feet in the door without them getting squashed in the doorway.”

“So… what am I doing here again?” The pink goomba with the blonde ponytail and pith helmet stated while eating some cake.

“YOU’RE HERE TO REPRESENT THE LOGICAL REASON THAT MANDATORY SCHOOLING IS A GOOD THING, also it would help with your people not being constantly found under someone’s feet and flattened.” Fred was actively being nice to the goombas, mostly because they were downtrodden minions and he said it was beneath him to make their situation any worse than it already was what with them being forced to walk left and right all day… including right into pits or nearby sources of lava constantly as ordered to by their boss. “Even if it is funny you keep getting crushed, AMONG MANY OTHER THINGS.”

“I’ve never been crushed, then again I’m friends with the guy that tends to be stomp happy with us goombas. So-… it’s a bit awkward, but they usually do attack us first.” The lazy eyed pink goomba shrugged her mushroom shaped body. She then pulled a book from out of nowhere, without any limbs to do so, and started to read it while nibbling at her cake.

We might have been in a three dimensional world, but we were all made of paper at the moment. It was a little weird, but it really didn’t bother me to come back to this world again. The paper version of Fred was ridiculously adorable, which made Fred relatively cranky.

- Earth, Western Russia, Hippo Taco, Shanty-

“It is so not the same as Hamburger Hippo Mopsy!” Murray argued towards Mopsy, I be happily eating my tacos while sitting on two unconscious guys.

We would be here until Carmelita was within thirty minutes of showing up or the local police finally took action. Bentley be saying that Carmelita picked up our trail after the incident with that Dan Carny guy.

“This restaurant is basically like a stereotypical Russian joke, also they are using the same ingredients you would see in a hamburger hippo and the only difference is that the restaurant is an off brand color from purple or pink!” Mopsy be getting rather heated about this. “The Yellow and Orange hippo wearing a sombrero instead of a burger doesn’t make it that different and it’s owned by the same company!”

“So what if it’s owned by the same company, it’s still a completely and utterly different restaurant and is nothing like Hamburger Hippo!” The argument Murray had going be quite amusing, because we were sitting at a restaurant where the only difference was the color of the building and the place trading burger buns for tortillas.

I idly flicked a hoof at my fries and nacho combo platter, Sly’s invisibility dropped and he pulled his hand away with a grin and a slight wince. He be learning a new trick to be going with the standee thing.

“It’ll take us another week or so to get to the Kunlun Mountains barring unforeseeable circumstances, I hope you don’t mind if we stop to pick up some cold weather gear for Shanty and Mopsy.” Bentley adjusted his glasses and continued to eat his quesadilla.

“Yeah, we should do that before we go any farther… I’m still surprised that the Russian’s didn’t use to believe in serial killers or acknowledged that they existed.” As Sly just said, I be learning a lot about this world and the dangers therein.

“Yeah, they are little better about that these days Sly, but it’s a big country.” Bentley looked to the two guys I was sitting on and shuddered. “Now about some deals I saw on Thief Net that we can use to upgrade the van…”

Thankfully, the food be on the house because we saved the owners.

-Africa, Zootopia, Dolly-

“Houbi!” Jumping at the yell, Mar’s mate Mia was who I saw giggling at me after nearly giving me a heart attack.

Mars had stayed with me while he came up with a plan to get me out of Africa and he told me some interesting things about his people, like how Mia had a shorter tail than him. It was hard to tell when both their tails exceeded more than twenty feet in length.

“Yeah, yeah, very funny, now how am I going to get on a plane and what have I been waiting all this time for?” I was going to be clearly visible while moving Pom on my skateboard. Her legs would drag on the ground, but at least her wool would prevent road rash.

“Houba Dolly! For us to make a distraction so you can get out of Africa, we’ll try to clean up the mercenaries once you’re gone and we’ll alert the authorities.” Mars still had his ever plucky personality as he hugged his mate, they started talking in a series of ‘Houba’ and ‘Houbi’ respectively. “Right, so do you think Maurice is useless as anything other than being a pack mule? Well you’re about to see how wrong you are when my fine large chum makes an elephant of himself, figuratively of course! Got the banana bunch honey?”

“Houbi!” Mia grinned and started twirling the banana bunch at the end of her tail above her head and Maurice took notice as his eyes followed it hypnotically.

“Where’s that Super Duper Hero X guy?” I still think that the snail was the oddest guy I’ve ever met, a snail super hero? What kind of world did I live in where that was actually a real thing? It actually makes Dylan’s dream of getting to be the first dog on Mars a decent possibility.

“Eh, don’t worry about him, he’s quite capable of taking care of himself and he was just passing through. He’s not part of our team, but he’s welcome to help us again at any time. Now get ready, you see that cargo they’re loading onto that plane over there?” I didn’t ask Mars how he and his mate Mia ended up in Africa as its guardians, but I’m fairly certain it involved an incident with an airplane now given how he was looking at it with familiarity. “I and Maurice will cause a distraction, while Mia helps you load Pom onto that one. Got it, good, houba houba!”

Mia threw the banana bunch and Maurice went after it through some sliding doors that were opening, a panic was caused and Mars went running off after him to draw more attention away from us by playfully messing with people.

“Houbi.” Mia stated and started to help me push the skateboard until we managed to get onto the conveyor belt loading up cargo.

“Tell Mars and Maurice thanks for the help and you too!” I received a few pats on the head from Mia after she lifted Pom, skateboard and all, up off the conveyor belt and into the cargo hold of the plane.

“Houbi-bi-bi!” She said in a friendly tone before darting off after her mate and Maurice drew the baggage guy’s attention off of me as I carefully maneuvered Pom into an out of sight corner where we wouldn’t be caught.

It’s a good thing Pom was so lightweight or I don’t think I could have moved her around on my board.

-Elsewhere at this time, California, dog-

I fell into a strange container and got sealed in surrounded by weird puffy stuff.

I tried to break free, but for some reason my super strength was failing me and I was trapped.

This must be the Green Eyed Man’s doing!

So tired… should have… taken my nap like Penny asked me too…

In fact… I think I’ll do that now.

-New York, Time Square, 9:39 AM, Smolder-

Okay the investigation has hit a slight snag, but Ocellus and I were still sitting on the bench together while currently entertaining Einstein and Rita with petting or some light affectionate scratching.

Francis and Dodger were around, likely asking for information from other animals to help the investigation further. At least we now knew all the names of Fagin’s Street Dogs.

What was that snag? Well, it was the fact that some guy named Rat Capone may be involved and he was a pretty dangerous guy at the ‘animal’ level. He has a cousin that came at the Rescue Rangers with a tank once, and not one of those fun Equestrian party tanks either.

Foxglove came in for a landing on the back of the bench and tried to be as inconspicuous as a bat outside during the daytime could be.

“So we’re not sure how Rat Capone factors into all of this, but we did find a tail from Sugar Ray Lizard in the same apartment that Tito said he smelled Georgette in. The problem comes in when we try to factor in the fact that the drugged carob bon-bon Georgette nibbled on had a delayed reaction and Rat Capone’s gang was nowhere near the scene of the crime where Georgette was last seen before being grabbed when those drugs kicked in.” Foxglove was kept us up to date with the clues the Rescue Rangers were gathering. “In fact, they were seen on the other side of the city by some trusted friends of ours when Georgette was taken. Which means it’s unlikely that they are directly involved in the dog nabbing and could be a part of a completely different incident entirely to the ones we’re working on. New York is crazy like that even at the best of times, there’s always more than one story going on here. We’re to look around and make sure that we didn’t miss anything, while everyone else goes after Rat Capone… Dale didn’t want me anywhere near him, it’s nice that he’s actually being quite protective of me. Still no sign of a ransom being asked for Georgette, but that’s practically the main motive as to why someone would take her.”

So the rest of the Rescue Rangers and Tito were going to search for Rat Capone’s gang while we did our own thing with the rest of Fagin’s Street Dogs. I was getting a bit hungry and Ocellus looked like she could use a drink.

“Say, how about I hit up Huey for some food and get you a drink?” Because I knew for certain that I should never take a loan from Louie and the less said about how much I tolerated Dewey the better.

“Oh come on Smolder, Dewey’s not that bad, he’s kind of like Silver Stream.” Would like to see you survive an hour with his attention grabbing antics Ocellus, that guy was needy.

“Silver Stream may be a bit ditzy, but she’s nowhere nearly on the same level as Dewey!” It wasn’t hard to guess that I knew Ocellus knows how I felt about all of our friends, she even knew my feelings about her and we’re never going to stop dancing around the issue that she kissed me before unleashing a can of magical butt kicking all over those Yellow Dog guys. “Also are we going to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” Nice try Ocellus, but we really needed to talk about now when we were not distracted by a large number of friendly Dalmatians.

“That you used me as a living magic battery? I know that the situation was dire and that you were hurt doing it, but still could you at least apologize for it?” Not that I was going to ever complain about the kiss, but I still wanted an apology. Ocellus looked away shyly with a frown. “That’s not exactly how I wanted things to go between us you know.”

“I’m sorry Smolder… you and I both know that Pom and Shanty wouldn’t have been able to destroy those machines.” Not liking to be angry at Ocellus, I gave her a reassuring hug. “Still I appreciate you sticking with me while I was in a coma.”

“I wished we could have done something like that under better circumstances Ocellus, but you know I’m never going to abandon you at this rate.” I stood up and motioned to the Rita and Einstein. “Come on guys, lunch is on us. Get Dodger and Francis and we’ll get some food.”

The two dogs looked excited to hear that.

“Ocellus… do you think actually dating would make things weird between us?” It was a concern of mine.

“You mean aside from the fact that it feels like we were already dating before?” Ocellus rolled her disguised eyes.

I snorted and smiled at her and gave her a light shove and she shoved me back with some giggles.

“Best friends always Ocellus.” We’d work these things out eventually, there was no need to overdramatize our lives like Rarity tends to do.

-An hour later, Ocellus-

We knew the rules of what not to feed a dog. They were basically no overly fatty or fried substances, nothing with chocolate and nothing with theobromine. Delilah back in Camden Town made completely sure that we didn’t hurt her puppies by accident, she and Doug were still fretting about their daughter Dolly when we left Camden Town for New York.

“So dogs are kind of a thing with you guys.” Huey Duck stated as he fed Rita.

“No, they are more Pom’s thing, but that doesn’t mean we won’t befriend intelligent animals.” I stated as we brought up all the facts of the case with Huey to keep him in the loop as to what we were getting up to. “The Rescue Rangers are really nice, like this street gang of dogs.”

“Well it’s not that hard to believe animals having gangs or organizations beneath notice of bipeds or even animalistic people, Zootopia is one of the few places in the world that has the largest population of rodent sized animalistic in Little Rodentia.” Huey was enjoying the presence of our friends personally and respecting them in how they want to be treated. “It’s like people ignore the intelligence of animals a lot of the time… or the fact that they are sometimes seen wearing tiny clothing. I don’t believe there really is that much of a difference between the three levels of beings on our world aside from the ability to communicate. Animalistic tend to get looked down on for looking or acting more like animals as a preference sometimes, but I’m of the mind that we were all no smarter than normal animals at one point. My family is adapted to such weirdness, so we see this stuff a lot easier than most. People also write off acts of magic as science or technology running amuck more often than they really should, but the skepticism is understandable.”

“So any ideas on how to help the case the Rangers have going? From what Foxglove said they are currently investigating Rat Capone in the locations he’s known to frequent… which includes sewers.” I am so glad that I don’t have to go into those. I may not have much of a sense of taste for regular food, but my sense of smell certainly works just fine. “We’ve given you all the facts as we know them.”

“Hm… was that carob treat that the Sky Rise Bandit dropped drugged?” The three duck brothers were cool with me, Huey especially because he could be as socially lost as I was at time and he was really smart.

It was only Smolder who had a problem with Dewey. I thought Dewey was kind of funny personally, and all he wanted was some attention sent his way.

“No, but it does give us an idea as to the fact that Georgette was there.” Foxglove answered. “I still can’t think of a motive other than ransom.”

“Right, so where does Georgette live, where was the bon-bon found and how far do you think someone could have possibly gotten with a poodle of her size?” It was here that Huey pulled out a map, we started pointing out each location.

“Wait, you understand me?” It sounded like Foxglove was a bit mystified that we weren’t the only ones who could hear her soft and gentle voice. “My name is Foxglove, nice to meet you.”

“We’ve been near enough magical artifacts that I’m surprised we can’t do magic ourselves, we’ve been affected by all kinds of strange magic and I’m surprised it that it hasn’t left us with more detrimental or helpful side effects.” Something seemed to be upsetting Huey about the subject from what I could feel, he marked down the three locations where Georgette had been. Where she was feasibly nabbed, her smell in the apartment in Time Square and her home on Fifth Avenue. “I’m… not exactly a big fan of magic. I prefer science and things I can understand, but magic is near impossible to understand by its very nature.”

“Well at least there are some forms of magic that are very understandable.” I stated with a grin.

“Like what?” Huey tilted his head to me as Rita cuddled up to him, he had three spots marked out on a map of New York and three circles drawn around all three points. He looked to be thinking and marked an X on the map.

“The Magic of Friendship, Love and Family are all are very common forms of magic back where we’re from.” A giggle escaped my lips as the Great Dane named Einstein licked my face.

“Okay, so maybe there is some magic that is easily understandable.” Huey motioned to all of us to gather around. “I think you should check this place out between all three points and spiral outwards from there. The chances of finding clues are better when you have three points of interest and a spot where they all intersect.”

“The theatre? Why does that sound so…” Foxglove put her wing to her mouth looking thoughtful. “Oh no… I think I know who has Georgette now! Oh no, this is bad, this is really bad!”

“Who has her Foxglove?” Huey asked.

“We need to find out where Canina La Fur currently is right now, she’s in serious danger!” Foxglove seemed panicked about something as she zipped around us until I grabbed her with my right claw carefully and brought her to my face.

“Foxglove, breathe.” I inhaled slowly and exhaled slowly, eventually Foxglove started to calm down. “Now who has Georgette and who is Canina La Fur and what does that have to do with all of this?”

“You don’t know who Canina La Fur is?! Oh… right… lost interdimensional aliens, I had almost forgotten about that.” Dewey stated as he came up to us looking confused before we reminded him where we came from with flat stares. “Canina is like one of the best show dogs in the entire world next to Bolt, she has been at it for years and years with movies, live broadways shows and commercials! Why she’s one of the most spectacularly well known dogs in the entire world that knows how to tap dance, she’s done all kinds of charities and did one really impressive musical number with the Chorus Penguins that she trained herself! She is one of the most well-known dogs on sight alone in the world! If she’s in danger then we just absolutely have to help you guys with this… mostly so I can get her paw print autograph...”

“Well of course you would know about, you still sing to all those catchy Kanine Krunchy commercials she’s done after the last great dog actor Patch the Dalmatian worked alongside Thunderbolt on his show. Wait… would that mean we met Patch’s descendants back in Camden Town? Huh, small world, considering that that family has three new actors in Triple D.” Louie mumbled as he came over to see what got Dewey so excited and there was a strange stumpy looking gnome guy with him. “The only reason why I know about Canina is because of that Pep commercial that I can never get out of my head aside from the one Gene the Genie did. Don’t ask about Gene; he was a rather weird one, even for us.”

“Yeah that and Canina is at the center of all this if I’m right and I seriously hope I’m not!” Foxglove exclaimed waving her wings to get our attention. “We really need to find Canina and protect her or get to the theatre to find out if Georgette is being held there!”

“You heard the bat, let’s move Ocellus!” Smolder started pushing me in a random direction. “Wait… which way is this theatre again or do we even know where this Canina La Fur currently is?”

“Oh oh, I do!” Dewey stated waving his device around showing a moving picture of Canina. “Apparently someone’s did a biography on Canina’s life and she’s currently at a book signing near the theatre!”

“Then come on, let’s get moving!” We rushed after Huey as he motioned us onward.

As we ran I looked to Foxglove looking up at me.

“Who do you think has Georgette?” I asked as we made our way down the crowded streets full of colorful people with feathers and fur.

“A disguise artist dog who has a penchant for sabotage and a real chip in her shoulder about Canina La Fur, I think she nabbed Georgette and intends to imitate her to get close enough to Canina in an attempt to somehow kill her.” It sound like Foxglove knew something about what we were dealing with here. “I’ve heard about her, but I didn’t think she would go after Canina again after the last time the Rescue Rangers dealt with her! I believe the culprit of this case is ‘Zsa Zsa the Lethal Labrador’, at least ‘Lethal Labrador’ was what Chip named the case file on her. She’s really good at mimicking other dog’s appearances, especially and notably enough, poodles! That’s why Georgette disappeared, she’s going to mimic Georgette to try and kill Canina and possibly ruin Georgettes career at the same time!”

“Do you think she’s already killed Georgette?” Smolder asked looking a bit green.

“I would like to believe better of some people, but Zsa Zsa was a particularly nasty dog according to the Rescue Rangers before I joined them. Apparently she took something Canina said the wrong way and then jumped right into immediately trying to kill her and make it look like an accident, that or stealing Canina’s life by taking on her appearance.” Foxglove looked upset and felt a slight bit hopeful. “I don’t think she’s killed georgette yet, but that’s just my optimistic side talking. Francis, Einstein, can you two search the theatre for Georgette while we go to Canina’s book signing?”

The two dogs barked and started to run off faster.

Dodger and Rita stuck with us.

-Five minutes later, Smolder-

We saw a large gathering of people, judging by the merchandise, that were fans of Canina La Fur. I saw something that was about to become a huge problem for everyone around, because a billboard started to teeter and tilt forward dangerously on the roof above.

That would soon quickly fall towards the crowd.

“I’ve got the billboard, Ocellus let Foxglove go and she’ll go scout out who just knocked it over!” Thankfully my demands to let Foxglove go were met swiftly by Ocellus as I inhaled and blasted the biggest fireball I could at the billboard.

I didn’t care who saw me doing this, because I was actively doing this to save people's lives!

Author's Note:

Zsa Zsa's previous murder attempts include: Crushing, electrocution, throwing someone off a cliff in a wheeled object/vehicle (Otherwise known as the Charlie Barkin's treatment) and a red-neck with a gun.

Comments

[Darkonshadows]

10935355

Yeah, that would have be neat.

Rush.exe or otherwise called 'Rush (Program)' was going to be in Megaman Legends 2, but was scrapped for the battle network series.