Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

136. San Fransokyo Shuffle: Part 3.

-Equus, Therapy A. Beach, Jade-

“So is it any wonder that I still need therapy?” My time in limbo was quite horrid. “I now owe Jacky at least four favors and most of that wasn’t from the injuries I caused her.”

“So you’ve set it up so that the lambkin and changelings will have to work together?” Yes Celestia, stop grinning like I caught a canary. “Do you wish to finally know what you’re wife has been working on in her spare time, aside from running the world’s biggest bakery conglomerate that Pinkie Pie is utterly jealous of?”

“Hey she’s dating a guy who owns the world’s most infamous running gag factory, she has no reason to be jealous of Grubber’s success as a patisserie or my wife’s success as both the top royal guard and the queen of her own nation.” Not that we would ever take advantage of that fact considering she spends most of her off time as a civilian with her herd. “Also yes, I would like to know that Celestia, but what would you want for the information? To know exactly why we’re involving the Quarrelsome Quartet in this? To know about Twilight’s secret stallion friend that she’s been avoiding telling Cadence about? Do you want to hear about why your sister has a plushy of Anubis she sleeps with and otherwise enshrines?”

“I find myself traumatized once again by hearing that knowledge.” Anubis stated calmly, the god of death was a really cool dude and he just stared flatly at Luna.

“Oh come on, thou art hot!” Luna stated pleasantly.

“I would like to hear most of those things, but I can kind of guess why Luna has a plushy of Anubis.” Celestia stated with an amused tone.

“It’s not for the reasons you’re thinking…” I was receiving panicked looks from Luna. “I’ll withhold the information if Luna tells me what I want to know.”

“Fie, your nature as a silver tongued rogue is as great as ever, your wife is dealing with Grogar cultists, one of which managed to spirit away several beings to other realms beyond our own that not even Yggdrasil could help them from.” The long pause afterwards had Luna worried, she had a right to be worried. “They are two friendship students, a guard from Huoshan who I believe you are acquainted with and an island goat.”

“Who the buck messed with the Sieve Precarious? I have now an unsettled grudge with them now that involves extremely petty kitty measures that their ancestors are going to feel the repercussions of.” I grumbled flatly. “Also, we need better security on magical things, because people like Starswirl 'Uses-other-worlds-as-dumps' The Bearded has caused issues like this in the past. Do I need to remind everyone that Sunset is still cleaning that mess up? There’s still like four hundred odd magical artifacts on the world through that mirror, I’m surprised that she hasn’t run into any of the more lethal ones yet. That’s not even counting the number of magical monsters that he dumped over there either, alongside causing the world to start having magic on its own that will activate all the artifacts eventually due to them saturating it.”

“Yes, we get it Jade, you hate people who make deadly and dangerous magical artifacts as a pastime and people who don’t dispose of them properly.” Celestia said gently while rubbing my back with a wing. “Is it really stressing you out that much that all your daughter’s heads are now breathing fire?”

“Yes, but I can’t say that I’m not proud of the other two heads figuring out how to do it… now I’m terrified of what their magical surges are going to be like when it will likely be three times as powerful as a normal unicorns surges. Imagine Discord, but he could affect the whole planet at once and not a general region.” When I said that, Luna, Celestia, Jackal god Anubis of Death all gained a slight look of horror on their faces.

The Goddess Baast was grinning and her flail tail was wagging at the idea of chaos and hearing Discord’s name.

“That horrifying thought aside, I was wondering why Pom or Tianhuo haven’t come after me to get this back yet.” I pulled a Fabergé Egg, which I stole from the palace in Huoshan, out of my backpack. “I’ve had this thing for the last few months and nobody has come to yell at me angrily, I’m disappointed that I’ve been ignored for that heist and that I am getting more notoriety for wrecking the world’s economy.”

“Wait, why does my sister have a…” Celestia started to say.

“Too late for that, Luna sealed the deal.” I stated calmly. “I still take bribes though, but the weight of the bribe has to match or be better than what Luna gave me. Fizzle’s been keeping that from me for months and now I’m going to have to meow at her incessantly for a week straight to show how upset I am.”

-San Fransokyo, Alleyway, Pom-

“Hey there, we’re sorry about the whole attacking you thing when you first came to San Fransokyo.” The bunny poked both her index digits together looking a bit shy. “So…”

“Sorry can’t stop to talk, we have to get our friend back from a thief with ludicrously sharp blades!” I moved around the rabbit and Dolly followed my lead in ignoring the rabbit as we finished leaving two mercenaries out cold on the ground and one stuck in a wad of goo via some assistance from the pink costume wearing rabbit.

“Wait up, I’m here to help you!” The rabbit stated as she began following us.

“Then keep up!” I shouted back, as I ran down the alleyway and out into the street to several guys beginning to aim their guns at us. “Skateboard!”

Dolly kicked up the skateboard and threw the skateboard forward as she landed on my back, I grabbed it by the strap and did a small hop as I whipped it upwards and hooked the front axle to the horizontal portion of the light pole.

Pulling roughly as I ran forward, I swung upwards as the bullets impacted the streets beneath me and I launched us upwards with a kick of my hind legs. Upon landing on a nearby building with three legs, I tugged the skateboard back into the grasp of my right left leg and held it in front of us as I climbed upwards. The guys quickly turned around and fired on us.

I kept Dolly mostly covered as we moved upwards and thankfully avoided taking any hits myself as the bullets bounced off the skateboard. Where Dolly had problems with bruises from the impacts hitting her board and transferring to her, I had no such problem with holding it up against the small onslaught hitting us.

The guns quickly stopped shooting when the group of mercenaries were taken out from behind by the biped bunny hitting them with those spheres that covered them in a quick hardening sludge like goop that covered their bodies.

I quickly passed the skateboard back into Dolly’s paws as I pulled myself onto the roof. I took a few steps and saw something bright in the sky arcing downwards at a building. I also saw a blue and black suited figure leaping from the building before it was hit with an explosion that did a lot of damage to the roof and blinded us for a few seconds.

The figure I took for Momokase swung away from the building that was now on fire, because I could feel Dormarch was there with her and that he wasn’t happy with his current situation is a grave understatement. She was seemingly flying away from the danger, but it was probably a wire I couldn’t see and one of her knives used as a hook.

The bunny biped landed next to me and I saw the look of horror on her face at the sight of the moderately large explosion.

“Guys, how did a SAM just hit the city? It’s a good thing Surface to Air missiles are not meant for destroying buildings, but that still did some damage and it set a building on fire.” The rabbit asked as she heard the screams of people running from the falling debris in the streets. Others were likely fearful of the sounds of guns being fired by mercenary groups running into one another. “What? Something is acting like beacon and they targeted it to stop the interference? The interference is still there? Okay, reporting on the situation… the emergency services in the city are dealing with sabotaged transport networks and several other problems. I’m currently assisting Leap Lamb, Go-Go have the Bunny Battle Bus take care of the fire with a splash foam bomb.”

“Dormarch...” I stated worriedly, then I shivered and ducked a sniper round that ripped a chunk out of the rooftop door behind me, that had been aimed to hit either me or Dolly and I didn’t need to guess which of us it was for.

“Getting telemetry of the sniper. Needed angle eighty three point seven degrees, highest pressure shot settings, firing wide range paralytic gas bomb on the building in question.” Aiming the purse with a cannon that ended in bunny ears upwards, the rabbit fired a wild sphere into the air and a few seconds later a building in the distance lit up with a bright green, sparkling, neon colored fog. “Basemax confirms target is down and marked for later turn in to the authorities. Are you two okay?”

“We’ll be fine, this isn’t the first time I’ve dodged a sniper bullet, what should I call you?” I stated as I prepared to start leaping across rooftops when I saw another missile arcing up in the distance. Something flared on it and it explode.

“Fred?! Oh right… we built your suit to theoretically take a nuclear explosion point blank… mostly because your clumsy like that Fred and we don’t want giant radiation kaiju accidents. Are you okay at least? Good, please meet up with us soon. The Bunny Battle Bus can help deal with whatever tanks come into the city after it takes care of the fires, but Go-Go can’t leave her entirely unattended by herself.” Pulling her right paw away from her head, she turned to me. “My friends call me Honey Lemon. I really don’t like the name people use as my hero name, but they call me… Bazooka Bunny. I’m a scientist that specializes in chemistry and can generate just about any kind of chemical set up you might need.”

“I thought Caper Canine was bad, but at least I like dancing and I can own the name in causing capers.” Dolly commented dryly.

“Can you make medical chemicals?” It seems I made Honey Lemon brighten up at that.

“I can do long ranged medical chemicals in a supportive role, but it’s going to hit everyone in a given area. I can do more precise things at closer ranges. Also the variety of things I can do is immense depending on the situation.” She seemed happy to tell me what she was capable of. “Oh and my friend Wasabi is very sorry about scaring you, his plasma blade malfunctioned and he didn’t mean for that to happen.”

Another missile struck a few streets down from us.

“Talk later, move now!” I immediately started leaping across the rooftops in the direction of Dormarch.

-Several streets over, Momokase-

Okay, I think I might be cursed and the fact that the dog on the Device was giving me a smug grin. This was actually making me think twice about having taken him from someone who reportedly has super powers. I can at least confirm they had a skateboard that could be nearly or was indestructible.

It didn’t take much to connect the overall problem to this device. I barely avoided the third missile and the dumpster I took cover behind had taken the brunt of the blast for me, it was halfway destroyed.

“You should really give me back to my owner.” The device stated calmly. How many mercenaries were after me right now because of it!? “We’ll all be much safer when you do.”

“Not a chance, I can still make it to the drop off.” I stated with a little less than one hundred percent certainty. I ran down an alleyway in the hopes to put buildings between me and the people launching missiles at me.

I could safely cut bullets in half with my weapons held in the right positions before they are fired, but missiles were beyond my talents to handle efficiently.

Turning left in a junction in the alleyway, the device just had to make a commentary on my chances.

“With every mercenary in the city that was chasing Leap Lamb in your way?” The dog with the fish tails stated as it played minesweeper, he… it… it was an ‘it’ and not a real being… was doing really poorly at the game. “I highly doubt it, Leap Lamb is coming for me and she won’t fail to get me back. I’m betting our lives on it.”

Here I thought AI were supposed to be intelligent... why did people want this idiot so badly again? I don’t think I ever got an explanation as to what was going to be done with him… it… it is kind of hard to see this thing as just a piece of hardware.

A missile struck the buildings around me, I had about two or three minutes before the next one was fired, I charged out into the streets and would be aiming for another alleyway.

Halfway across the street two parked cars suddenly exploded and were flying towards me. I quickly reached up to my shoulders and pulled out my two half broken blades and quickly swung them both outwards, I cut the two cars that were exploded at me completely in half.

The four pieces slammed into each other as I crouched down and I was sitting there safely between all of them shivering.

“I seriously thought that would work… have the helicopters ready to take to the air, let’s see her get out of the backup plan. I don’t care who you are, just hand over the device and you’ll be allowed to leave moderately crippled.” Glaring at the leopard that stalked out with an assault rifle hanging from her shoulder, a pistol on her hip and a sniper rifle on her back. She was also holding a detonator in her left claw… I looked at the four chunks of car surrounding me and noticed several flashing lights. I froze up, the first explosions were to crush me between them. There was a second set of bombs on the cars if I survived the first set going off. “Otherwise I blow these and take whatever is left of the device. I have several people who have been quite insistent about my taking it intact, but at this rate… I’ve stopped caring if I take the device whole. Even then I need to kill Leap Lamb afterwards and what better way to get her to come to me than having what she wants back?”

“She’s definitely not kidding.” The device stated flatly with clear surprise and worry in his… its… voice.

In front of me a team of mercenaries were aiming at me with their guns and there was a group coming out of the alleyway down the street behind me.

Four colorful spheres struck the blinking lights in rapid succession and the leopard reflexively hit the detonator four pops and the explosions fizzled out in the gunk covering them, I immediately started running since little miss Bazooka Bunny was here and she had just saved my backside by somehow cancelling out all the explosive devices.

The surprise made those aiming their guns at me miss, as I slipped into an alleyway.

“After her!” The leopard shouted before looking up and away at something.

-Pom-

I narrowed my eyes at the leopard and she did the same right back to me before giving chase to Momokase with her group. I moved along the rooftops with Lemon Honey following me.

That was definitely the leopard I called Baa-Ram-Ewe on, even if my memory was a bit hazy on the incident. She was definitely my enemy and she was still chasing after Dormarch.

“Pom, I know this is a bad time, but how are we going to get Dormarch out of this without getting killed?” I slid to a stop as Dolly pointed at something with a paw, I looked and so did Honey Lemon when we stopped as we saw a tank rolling down the street nearby.

Good question Dolly, but now wasn’t the time to focus on that as I leapt to another roof and then jumped onto and ran up the side of a taller building. Once I got to the top, Bazooka Bunny was already bouncing up using her chemical boots to generated substances that allow her to jump incredibly high and take long falls without injury.

“Okay… that is going to be a huge problem.” I saw Momokase being held up by a tank and two jeeps sitting behind a male biped ocelot twirling a gun. He seemed familiar somehow, there’s still that tank on another street that we saw.

“Isn’t it weird enough that she’s vaguely heading towards Krei Tech?” Mumbled Honey Lemon at my side. “Who are these guys with all this military equipment and how did they get into the city without raising a fuss? You’d think our government was ignoring all of this happening. Yes, I know the police are not going to be very helpful against military grade stuff Wasabi.”

-On a different rooftop, Tobias Rieper AKA Agent Forty Seven-

“It seems Revolver Ocelot has found the device, but he doesn’t seem to be after it specifically.” The tanks were a bit much, but they were becoming targets if I wanted to take Leap Lamb alive since the guy named Revolver wanted her dead. “I believe he is the brother to the daylight robber Leap Lamb took down in Zootopia, which was his sister Derringer Ocelot.”

“It seems that he wants to kill the person who incarcerated his sister. So far he seems to be failing at taking down Leap Lamb and has wasted a lot of money and people in his efforts. It seems to have become a sunk cost fallacy, he’s also an opportunistic thief if his people’s actions during the notable train incident is anything to go by.” The voice in his ear stated. “Not a top class mercenary by any stretch of the imagination, but has been said to be impossibly lucky to not be dead at this point given how many peoples he’s crossed. He is relatively decent with a short to medium range weapons. However he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a sniper rifle if the barrel was pressed against the walls of it… from the inside.”

“That does take quite a bit of talent, of a certain sort that I usually take complete advantage of.” I took aim and would decide when to interfere, I saw a white blur of movement flash past my scope. Leap Lamb was about to get into the situation to retrieve her device and I believe one of the local heroes is assisting her and her canine companion. “It looks like things are about to devolve into a big mess… it’ll happen soon if another SAM fires onto this situation.”

“Stay out of it for now, but Sabu Taj is an open target of opportunity.” That made my next option vaguely easier at least. “If you can find a good moment to take her down and make it look like an accident, then do so.”

Speaking of the sabotage expert, she was right behind the local thief and now she was sandwiched between two mercenary groups. Sabu’s group had guys with rocket launchers on hand and the threat of the SAM Launchers was the only reason why they weren’t fielding their helicopters currently.

Now that I was thinking about it, I angled my scope to one of the waiting helicopters and fired a penetrating explosive round. The impressive explosion sent several people sprawling. They unfortunately lived, like what Sabu was calling team Gamma. Of course, exactly like that team, they weren’t walking away from things with their current injuries.

I quickly dove off the side of the building and repelled down to a lower one as a blast of bright, glittering, neon green gas hit my previous position and lit up the night slightly.

The accuracy of that shot alone had me wary of the local heroes who were geared for most of the things I could do to them.

This would prove to be… slightly problematic.

-Pom-

“Someone was sniping up there, but they weren’t aiming at us.” Honey Lemon informed me as she turned back to the tense ‘Mexicolt Standoff’ currently happening in the streets. Momokase’s grip on her broken blades tightened as she looked around at the guys behind her and in front of her. “Basemax confirms, they blew up a helicopter with… wait why would a helicopter be loaded with rockets and… the sniper destroyed a mercenary helicopter. How many mercenary groups are involved in this?”

“Several and they are not working on the same page with one another.” I answered as I crouched down and hopped to another building. “Stay up here I’m going to get closer and find out why they haven’t shot Momokase yet. Do you want off Dolly?”

“No way, this situation is tense and I have your back, quite literally, here.” Dolly didn’t seem to be taking the dangers of this situation seriously as I climbed along the side of a build to get a better vantage point to hear why they weren’t shooting at one another. “Plus it’s where all the action is at, woo!”

“So you don’t want the device?” The leopard stated her tail twitch as she held her rifle at the ready in her left hand and a grenade in the other.

“Oh I think I might be taking it anyway, I just want to kill Leap Lamb first.” The ocelot stated with a sneer.

“Get in line, because I’m going to be the one to kill her.” The leopard didn’t seem worried about the tank or the two vehicles with smaller guns pointed at her guys.

“Oh and what makes you think you have the upper paw here?” At the ocelot’s question, the leopard pulled out a device and planted her thumb over it.

I looked up and saw a missile coming down in the middle of this situation. This is where several things started happening in quick succession, I was one of the things to happen.

“Fire!” The ocelot shouted immediately and the tank obliged, despite the fact that it was currently aimed at Momokase.

So let’s see if I can get this right in my head…

I was kicking off the building into the middle of what was a death zone for us.

I was going to save the thief holding the broken blades that stole Dormarch.

The leopard was hitting a big red button on the device she held with a grin.

Her rocket weapon guys were in the process of aiming and firing on the two vehicles other than the tank.

Said tank was firing a shot directly at Momokase before it exploded. She was already holding her blade in the path of the tank shell.

A missile was coming down on all of us and would hit in three seconds.

The notable thing, and what really irked me about all this, was the white robot that just stole Dormarch from Momokase.

Comments

[Herald of Opera]

a male biped ocelot twirling a gun

Metal Gear?! (Yeah, I realized it before you made it explicit okay?)

[spyrofan354]

Where is the photo in the story from

[Shadowshame]

Well I just realised that you managed to mix metal gear into this story.

[Darkonshadows]

11001055

Them's Fighting Herds, a fighting game made from a fan project that was going to make a My Little Pony fighting game. They got some help with the character designs after a cease and desist to make a different game entirely.

It is specifically the Huoshan stage with Pom as the pictured character.