Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

138. San Fransokyo Shuffle Finale: BOX Battle.

Author's Note:

Music Options:

Target Town from Captain America & The Avengers (Capcom style remix).

Ghost of Culvert from Mad Rat Dead.

NES TMNT area's 1 and 4 music.

Well I'm taking a few days after this.

-Equus, Airship Mauled, Paca family home, Arizona-

I cuddled Paprika and Velvet in bed, holding them both in my hooves, two walls of fluff on both sides of me. Both comfortable and safe.

I idly thought about Pom. Somewhere, somehow, Pom was probably doing something we would have wanted to help with.

Where I would have been having fun, Pom would be fighting for her life hoof and tooth.

“Meep?” Paprika whined.

“It’ll be fine Paps.” I just rolled over and snuggled my face into her fluff, Velvet got clingy and sleepily pulled herself into my back. “Just means I’ll have to push myself three times as hard when the time comes for the Tambelon thing if it happens, can’t very well let Tianhuo go it with just Fizzle as the only other competent one. Also those evil filly scout cookie sellers were way too aggressive for their own good.”

“Meep.” Paprika kissed the top of my head and almost went back to sleepily cuddling me.

“Yes, I know they are fillies and colts, but they shouldn’t be able to cut down a tree by throwing a single normal cookie at it no matter how you look at it!” The stuff that happens around us was just unbelievably ridiculous. “That stuff was not natural! Even if you use magic as an explanation that doesn’t even cover how that was anywhere near the definition of possible.”

“Shut up and let me, the gorgeous one, get my beauty sleep.” Velvet said as she dug her face into my neck.

-Earth, San Fransokyo, Krei Tech Building, Dolly-

“What… the dog… is that?!” Staring in disbelief at the thing that just crushed a tank by landing on it, without damaging itself no less, my body was shivering in fear.

I told myself that there was absolutely no way I was going near that without a good reason.

“In answer to your question that you typed out. It appears to be an incredibly deadly walking fortress. In any case, and before you ask, that that thing really doesn’t have any form of structural weakness whatsoever from what little I can get on it from here. Also I’m having issues with the translation software to understand canids better.” Quickly typing something out to Dormarch, I waited to hear his response. “Fetch devices could somehow understand dogs? I do not know of them, I’ll have to look into that information later… huh? Okay, calling the family.”

I waited for a minute as Pom and the two costumed heroes faced down that thing below.

Come on, some dog better pick up!

“Dolly are you okay, do you need help with something?” My step brother Dylan was on the screen, happy to see captain safety pants being worried about me and that he was the one picking up.

“Yes, get Dawkins!” I stated quickly, before using Dormarch to put the six legged fortress on screen as it started spewing out repaired pill bots. “I need his advice and expertise on how I can help tear ‘that’ apart.”

“Dawkins, Dolly needs our help for something monumentally important!” Dylan shouted off of the screen.

Please hold on until I can figure out a way to lend some help Pom, maybe I could deal with that Hard Light guy that was trying to get Dormarch?

Much easier than a walking fortress at least, didn’t honestly think I was going to get lucky with fighting a large machine a second time and being able to mostly walk it off.

-Krei Tech Courtyard, Pom-

“I’m terrified on a number of levels, are my knees knocking together… ah, yes, they are.” I would like to turn tail and run, but this thing was a threat to everyone from what the ocelot said about it being dangerous to even be within a mile of it. I’m, sadly enough and much to my detriment, still abled bodied enough to put up a fight. “Also our help just flew off and I haven’t been able to outright beat something of this size before. I’m telling you right now that I don’t have super strength and I mostly made that El Fuego guy beat himself, I know what I’m capable of and this thing is definitely not it.”

Bark blast wouldn’t get by the shield legs, much less the armor, if I was going to use Bark Breaker then I needed to be given the time to do it as well at performing it at point blank range for maximum damage. I wanted to limit the power of my attack so I didn’t lose my voice so again, plus I didn’t know where to hit, if it would be safe to even do so or if it would do enough damage.

“Yeah, I think I can understand your healthy amount of fear Leap Lamb.” Honey Lemon held up her purse gun, as the pill robots floated around and were getting ready to attack along with the six legged metal monstrosity we would have deal with.

At least the ocelot and the leopard have fled already and they at least took their injured with them. This left Honey Lemon, Fred-zilla and me to deal with this machine personally.

I already doubted our odds, but I've done more with less.

“So two of big hero six and a super hero are here before me. I, Hard Light, shall have my revenge and prove that the super hero Leap Lamb is nothing special!” The caped lightbulb guy stated.

“I agree, I am nothing special, but I’m s-still g-g-going to do my b-best to protect p-people from this thing!” I was already backing away, but I wasn’t leaving as I didn’t want Honey Lemon and Fred-zilla to face this thing by themselves.

“Enough talk, have fun trying to bring this thing down!” The caped villain hit something on his gauntlet.

The machine started towards us and the pill bots started attacking at the same time. I quickly slashed the skateboard on my right leg back and forth to knock away the numerous nets and tentacles that were being fired or swung at me.

I had to leap back and out of the fray as one of the legs of the B.O.X. thing slammed itself down at me.

Okay, mental note, don’t get distracted as that thing was deceptively faster than it looked for its size.

Even while thinking my mental note I blocked three pairs of beams, knocked back two tentacles and destroyed one of the pill bots with a strongly swung left hoof that sent it flying into the ground where it popped into a pile of parts.

A series of spheres began hitting the machines legs and slowing it down by encasing it in a sticky substance, it seemed the machine was a bit too strong as it managed to pull it’s legs free of the substance after a few tries.

While it was doing that, Fred leapt forward and while blasting away the swarm of pill shaped robot with a massive amount of fire. He stayed near me to helped stop them from ganging up on me for a few seconds with a few well utilized jets of fire, he then went to bravely leap on top of the B.O.X.

Letting Dolly’s Board off of sticking to my wool, I grabbed the strap and lashed it out twice while backing away towards a flag pole. I don’t how many I was taking down or how many the B.O.X. was recuperating.

“AGGHH-g-g-g-g!” Fred-zilla was sent flying off the B.O.X. when it lifted two of its legs up and a powerful arc of lightning passed between the two pointed portions at the back of the thick rectangular shield like legs.

Fred slammed through some windows of the nearby Krei Tech building.

“Fred! Cover me Leap Lamb, I’m going to try and freeze it in place.” Honey started focusing her, was it a weapon, anyway she had it trained on the B.O.X. and each sphere that struck started building up chunks ice on its leg and main body.

It didn’t have a head so I really couldn’t give a direction to say what way it was facing, as I moved forward and launched the board upwards at the pills trying to hit Honey.

I was a bit frantic in trying to keep the nets from tangling around her and was getting tangled up myself. As a pair of nets wrapped around my hind legs and I was almost rendered immobilized when a tentacle grabbed my left leg. I slammed the edge of the board on down on the metal tentacle and managed to cut it off of my leg and then I whipped it upwards and swept it downwards between my hind legs to free myself.

That was when the machine rid itself of all the ice in one maneuver.

All of the pylons on the back of the shields raised slightly and then slammed down to create a shockwave that shattered the ice and sent it flying everywhere.

We were not only knocked down, but also pelted with the chunks of ice and I took a needle like ice shard to the hip. Otherwise my wool handled the more blunt chunks of ice easily enough. I grimaced and quickly pulled the ice shard out before sliding my hoof over the injury to put a wool bandage on it.

Honey Lemon seemed better off as her armored weathered the concussive force about as well as I did with my wool.

“Ice is not working then how about something that is more likely to stick!” After tapping something out on her purse, Honey was once again firing a barrage of spheres that was coating it with something that looked like green snot, but acted like well chewed bubblegum that stuck to its body as it charged us. It was slowed down immensely.

I was up and blocked beams from hitting Honey with Dolly’s board once again attached to my right legs as Honey continued to hose the B.O.X. with a continuous stream of popping spheres.

I swung the board around and managed to chop apart three tentacles and then I rammed my hoof forward and destroyed one of the annoying pill robots with the front edge of the board.

The B.O.X. tried to make a shockwave, but the snot colored stuff wobbled and stayed in place. I was hopeful for a second, then it did something difference to deal with the sticky substance on it.

Its legs spread out slightly and then the stuff began to bubble, boil and then melt off as pillars of fire erupted at the ends of the legs.

Once the fires died out, I could see a few of those fire pillar spheres had come out of holes in the tips of the legs.

“Okay, let’s see if I can rust you down to size!” Honey wasn’t willing to give up and run as quickly as I wanted to. Honey fired a few shots and the spheres hit the legs and created a few fog like pink clouds for a few seconds.

A number of pill robots starting falling apart by turning into dust or sand before my very eyes as I kept batting away and or smashing the ones attacking us. Fred-zilla soon leapt back into the action and slashed the claws of his suit through a few of them and blasted another few with fire, he took up a defensive position alongside me.

“Okay so that didn’t work… I’m running out of ideas here.” Honey admitted as she fiddled with her purse as the B.O.X. didn’t take any damage from whatever it was she fired at it.

The B.O.X. crouched down and suddenly a swarm of rockets fired up into the air and veered directly for the three of us. I’m going to have nightmares of Axel Gear the next time I slept if I survived this.

“I’ve got this!” Fred-zilla spat a sweeping mass of flames and each rocket blew up before it could reach us, each one heated up the area and destroyed chunks of the ground.

Fred and Honey had to retreat into the streets and I hastily climbed a flag pole as several flame pillars followed the rockets and were coming at us under the cover of Fred’s method of dealing with all the rockets at once.

I made it high enough up the pole to be out of the flames, but the bottom portion of the pole became warped from melting and fell towards the building on the right.

I leapt off and climbed up onto the roof and looked for that Hard Light guy.

Where was he? There! He was standing on top of the highest portion of the center building in the middle of the other circularly built buildings, watching as the machine did all the fighting for him. He didn’t seem like he was very capable in combat himself personally.

If I could deal with him, then maybe we could stop the B.O.X. before it damaged too much more of the surroundings. He seemed to be too focused on Honey and Fred-zilla at the moment, I can’t really think of him as simply Fred because I associate the name Fred with a demon that I may or may not be friends with. Fred was still terrifying to know of.

I started along the rooftop going counterclockwise to get close enough to leap onto the building Hard Light was standing on. Climbing up towards him, I think he had forgotten about me being a part of the scuffle going on down there.

Looking off to the side, I saw that those two looked like they were dealing with the flying pills easily enough, but the B.O.X. itself was quite unstoppable.

Fred-zilla and Honey kept jumping away or bouncing off of blobs their boots generated, Honey even fired several spheres that the machine actively blocked from hitting it, the powerful explosions went off harmlessly against two of its well armored legs without leaving even a dent in them.

Right focus on taking down the controller behind the threat, just like Teatime Clockwork when he attacked Huoshan… only without backup and Dolly was thankfully staying safely out of danger for the time being.

Once I got closer to the cape guy, I reached into my bag still attached to my belly and searched for the tranquilizer dart. I pulled out a rubber duck and shrugged, I didn’t know why that was in my bag so I just put that back as it might be a toy Dolly picked up somewhere.

I eventually pulled out the dart and carefully unraveled the tape that had been put around the tip of it for safety reasons.

“Hahaha, look at it go, those noobs are getting owned by my OP summon.” I just had to jam it into the biped, but where…. the neck or shoulder was obvious. Anywhere there was an artery to pump the rhino level knockout cocktail that was going to be used on me.

I leapt onto his back and then jammed into a spot between his neck and shoulder, then I locked him into position to keep him from struggling.

“What?! No, no, no, no… get off of… what did you just… stick me… ugh… with…” Hard Light’s tried to stab me with a knife made out of energy, but I kept his arms from getting any momentum going with his weapon. I locked him in place and kept him from moving his limbs to attack me. “You… can’t… heroes are not supposed to… cheat… codes… use… wait… if not controlled… what will…”

He finally went limp and when I let him go onto the roof, he flopped onto the ground in boneless heap. I pulled his mask off and looked down at his face. A sloth biped? Huh.

I shoved the mask back over his face and pulled off his strange gauntlet, it didn’t look to be his method of controlling the machine. It did seem to be how he formed that weapon though, as after a second or two fiddling with it, it made a glowing cube. I turned the device off.

Okay, after looking over his body, he didn’t have the controls for the machine on him.

That would mean… oh no...

-Metal Gear B.O.X. operating systems-

System operator Hard Light incapacitated.

Backup system activation in effect, full self-control initiated.

Code: Clandestine.

War mode entering full activation state.

Automated buddy guard defenses will create defensive screen as full self-control loads.

Estimate load time, one minute.

Updating target data list by order of biggest threats to least to Metal Gear B.O.X. unit, all living things in San Fransokyo now classified as threats.

Big Boss Awesome (Not present), Person Designation: Snake (None present), Hard Light (Priority target in area), all members or associates of Big Hero Six, Leap Lamb, military response, mercenaries, interfering biped civilians, biped civilians running away, Caper Canine, animalistic civilians…

-Pom-

I’m feeling the distinct vibe that the machine was now like an evil core… only without the whole presence of one.

It didn’t need anyone to tell it what to do and the guy that could ‘tell it what to do’ is now out cold and impossible to wake up thanks to me.

Judging by the subtle shift in its movements when it stopped cold… it was about to go on a complete rampage wasn’t it?

I think I just made a huge mistake and knocked out the only guy that was actively preventing that from happening. Also, everything that happens from now on will be my fault.

I was just going to have to live with…

“WAH…?!” I grabbed Hard Light and jumped away as a sphere of raw energy fired straight up out of the B.O.X. and then it flew towards us.

It tore a large spherical chunk out of the building where we had been. Most of the materials looked like they evaporated and or melted under the intense energy of that attack.

I sat there looking at the damage with wide eyes and a chill going down my spine, hanging onto the edge of the nearby undamaged portion of roof with one hoof, with Hard Light dangling from my other one.

I looked down and saw a stream of missile coming towards me, wait… they weren’t targeting me as they were flying too low.

Were those rockets targeting Hard Light?!

I got my hind legs up on the edge of the roof and waited, I kicked off before the missiles reached me and the explosions threatened to engulf me and him as I was launched towards the ground. I clutched at the unconscious form as I fell towards where several pill robots were waiting with tentacles and charging beams while aiming upwards.

Fluffing out my wool I avoided several beams crossing beneath us by slowing our fall, narrowly preventing the unconscious Hard Light from being hurt, but they quickly fire again and I let off on my wool to fall below the beams as I couldn’t stall out above them again.

The robots all turned to me as I twisted our bodies and took the brunt of the fall, all the robots spun inwards and lashed out their tentacles.

Only for a familiar high speed figure in yellow and black armor to appear and spin in a perfect circle around us deflecting them all with the discs on her arms. She then rapidly flung the two discs on her arm one at a time, until nine of the machines were blown apart.

She then brought her left arm around to use the edge of the spinning disc, that just reconnected to it, to cut through the last ones tentacle before launching her right disc into it to cut it apart.

“Call me Go-Go, some people might refer to me as Wheel Cat.” She said holding a thumb up at me. She looked down at the unconscious guy I was pushing off of myself. “You got Hard Light? Nice work there Leap Lamb.”

“That’s what he called himself at least, he’s responsible for bringing that thing out!” I pointed at the large six legged machine as it hit Fred-zilla with a quick flick from one its legs knocking him into a wall. “I made a huge mistake when I knocked him out of the fight though.”

Fred-zilla just took that hit for Honey Lemon who was busy focusing her weapon on all the pill robots since she couldn’t do anything against the walking fortress.

“What mistake?” She asked as she rapidly flung her discs at incoming smaller robots.

“He was the only one keeping it in control, now that he’s knocked out…” I trailed off and moved to swing my right leg around into position block a beam blasting at us and then swung it outwards. The edge of the skateboard smashed apart the pill robot that tried to follow up by swinging its tentacle my way or was it trying to get at Hard Light. “It wants to kill him, it’s out of control and it’s all my fault!”

“How could you have known taking him down would have led to…” Go-go was cut off when we noticed a large ball of energy burning straight for us.

A huge sphere landed in front of us and the ball of energy destroyed the sudden gooey barrier between us and it.

“Yay, I’m helping!” Looking over to the smiling face on the front of a vehicle with a cannon sticking out of it, it seemed chipper despite the situation and turned to ram a random vehicle that turned out to be a swarm of pill robots congregating together.

I was thinking of trying to get Hard Light out of the line of fire and out of the area, but if we had went that way we would have been ambushed.

“Of course you are Bunny Battle Bus, Honey Lemon calls her Ms. Shuttle.” Go-go groaned out the names like she wanted to call it something else, possibly something derogatory from the sounds of it. “Also, sorry about the whole attacking you thing and as I was saying you couldn’t have known taking down Hard Light would have led to that six legged fortress going rogue. Our other friends are on their way, get Hard Light onto the Bunny Battle Bus and let us handle things from here. Bunny Battle Bus, I need you to take Hard Light as a prisoner and let Leap Lamb on you as a guest member of our team!”

They were all going to apologize to me at one point or another weren’t they? I’d accept them of course, but I wasn’t going to sit this out as it was almost attacking anyone nearby indiscriminately.

I did need a break though and quickly picked up Hard Light and started dragging him towards the waiting happy faced vehicle.

Go-Go skated towards the fight where Fred-Zilla and Honey Lemon were trying to keep the B.O.X.'s attention off of me or more importantly stop it from trying to kill Hard Light. Which was going to be hard because it was moving in my direction and only Honey Lemon seemed to be capable of slowing it down.

I made it to the intelligent vehicle that immediately opened its door for me and dragged Hard Light inside, the insides looked vaguely cozy.

"Where do I put him?” I asked the intelligent vehicle, again reminded of Nicole Beta when it spoke.

“In the small area in the back lit up by the lights Ms. Lamb!” It chirped merrily. "It'll keep him securely in place even if I have to make any drastic maneuvers to keep him and myself alive, aren't I great?"

I tossed Hard Light into position and what looked like a levitation field popped into existence around him to hold him place, I sat down and started to rest a bit and caught my breath.

I concentrated on Dolly for a moment and she didn't send back feelings of safety and was concentrating on something else. It was a little surprising as concentration wasn’t exactly Dolly’s strongest suit unless it was something that actively interested her.

The Bunny Battle Bus, cute name that, eventually fired again on the six legged fortress when the three heroes were clear of it and it became stuck in that gum like substance. Said substance started bubbling like it had when Honey Lemon had tried the same thing, the three were busy dealing with the flying pill robots.

A large pillar of fire engulfed the area around the B.O.X. in flames that melted the ground underneath it as it cleaned all the stuff off of it in one go.

I sent Dolly a vague thought of getting to safety. She sent back an immediate negative to my idea and a mental image back that she was doing something involving Dormarch currently. Dolly also sent me feelings of already being 'vaguely' safe where she was inside the Krei Tech building at the moment.

I was about to send curious feelings as to what she was doing, but I wouldn’t get the full picture through our bond and would only get a idea of what she was doing anyway. Getting distracted by the Bunny Battle Bus shouting didn’t help either.

“Hold on to the nearest secure thing, we need to move!” The slightly panicked cutesy voice stated, it sounded vaguely like Honey Lemon come to think of it. The vehicle roared to life and I wrapped my hooves around something like she asked and locked myself in place as it started moving in reverse and veered sharply. I saw the flash of a large ball of energy passing by the windows of the vehicle. “Phew, that was a close one, oh those poor buildings being damaged by that machine. At least we’re… wait… no… we’re not safe. We’re about to come under attack by Krei Tech buddy guards… that’s not happy at all, my chemical cannon needs more time to reload after every shot than that!”

I sighed and rolled my eyes.

“Open the door.” I’ve had my breather and now I was going back out there to protect the Bunny Battle Bus.

“Are you sure Leap Lamb?” Ms. Shuttle asked me. “You’re looking a little tired there sweetie.”

“I’ll be fine, I’ve been tired for a long time now. Now let me out so I can protect you and get that cannon ready to slow down that machine.” I stood at the door. “Also we should try to lead it towards the nearby shore if it starts targeting us, so it has less buildings to shoot at or hit.”

“Okay!” She said happily and the door open I immediately leapt out and whipped the skateboard upwards and around by its strap to smash several of the robots. I kick my left hind leg outwards to knocked back a tentacle and slammed the skateboard down on it before pulling it back and attaching it to my right leg.

“I really just want this night to be over with…” I stated as I climbed up the side of the vehicle and slammed my right hoof and board into another flying pill before it could shoot at me. I blocked a beam, smacked away the follow up tentacle with my left leg and then jabbed the skateboard into the robot and kicked it off with my right leg tearing it apart.

Looking over to the three heroes fighting the B.O.X. thing, they weren’t doing too well. At least they had a system of how to minimize damage.

Honey Lemon was dealing with the smaller machines with clouds of that robot dusting stuff.

Fred-Zilla was fighting them small machines and harassing the larger one to keep its attention off of us. He was doing a good job of it too.

Go-Go joined the fray and took down a few of those missiles it fired swiftly while tearing through whatever robots she could.

None of them had so much as scratched the B.O.X. at all, made me wonder what the thing was made of.

“Fire!” That was that ocelot’s voice!

I turned and saw three tanks rolling out from the nearby intersection to unleash a barrage at the B.O.X. and it simply held up two of its legs.

Everyone watched as all three shells hit the shield like legs, bounced off of said shields, did a few flips in the air and landed on the ground looking like circular discs. The armor on the legs didn’t even dent from that.

A second later the ocelot and his people quickly abandoned the tanks before an orb of energy struck the middle one to ultimately decimate it. This also damaged the other two tanks next to it.

B.O.X. then fired a volley of missiles that ultimately ended in the other two tanks being blown apart, it seemingly turned slightly to approach us. I saw several things fly high up in the air and I saw one of those fire pillar bombs against the backdrop of the moon coming our way.

“Move backwards!” I shouted to the vehicle beneath me and she immediately pulled backwards as the bombs hit the street in front of us and created slow moving pillars of fire that came at us. As we continued to move backwards, the B.O.X. started to follow us. “Go towards the shore, now!”

“Right!” The merry voice sounded panicked as she moved backwards, spun around almost in place and then shot forward out of the way of another blazing orb of energy that ripped a large hole into a building behind us as we veered around the corner going along the left side of the Krei Tech building and down the street.

When we turned right we were now on a street that ran alongside the western sea shore, there were a few docks and some warehouse there. I heard something and looked up.

“Look out!” I shouted and the vehicle skidded to a dead stop as B.O.X. slammed down into the street ahead of us. "Back up and veer off to the side, I’ll try to distract it.”

I felt Dolly trying to get my attention, but I was a bit busy at the moment as I leapt forward and onto the leg of the machine and bark blasted a leg joint of one of the neighboring legs. This did a small amount of damage, probably the most damage we’ve actually managed to do all fight.

The machine stopped and suddenly a swarm of pill bots were produced and attacked me, how many of these things did it have left?!

I tried to stay on the leg as I fended off scorching beams, tough nets trying to trap my body and tentacles. Why did these things even need the tentacles?!

We’ve totaled about a hundred of these pill shaped robots and because of Honey Lemon the B.O.X. should have had problems recuperating the numbers it had. That was thankfully correct as the swarm was smaller, but no less dangerous as B.O.X. tried to shake me off of its leg by flailing it wildly with me under constant fire as I tried to stay on the leg by maneuvering around on it.

The number of nets coating this one leg was getting ridiculous. There were still at least more than fifty of those floating pill bots left and they were all coming at me from all sides.

I crawled onto the backside of the leg and another leg angled itself at me and one of those bomb orbs ended up popping out at its opening tip. I quickly leapt to the back of another leg as solid stream of flames flashed by behind me. The heat alone started making me sweat.

Again Dolly tried to get my attention through our bond, but I didn’t exactly have a moment to stop and pay attention to her as helicopters lit up the machine and they started firing at me… not the B.O.X., me specifically.

What is my life that the mercenaries were going to take advantage of this situation to attack me even now?

At least there weren’t civilians in the line of fire and this open area was evacuated of people.

-Dolly-

We had a plan, but it required blowing a hole to the central part of the machine where its computer hardware was. The robot pick up and recuperating mechanisms lead only to the corners and the bottom middle of the machine, all of it heavily armored according to Dormarch. The armor was only at its thinnest at the top, which was saying something when my brother Dawkins was concerned about how heavily protected the thing was.

Dawkins had a very nice idea, but to utilize said idea we’d need to first expose the brain of the machine and to do that you had to get on top of the thing and somehow break through the out armor layer as the mechanical brain beneath was sealed away from being accessible by anyone. Any other method was pointless to try and would take too long.

I typed something out and Dormarch nodded. I placed him down in the vent, having promised I’d come back to retrieve him and moved to go outside when I felt Pom moving away.

I quickly reached a vent and rolled onto my back while propping my front legs against the walls of the vent and kicked the grate off with my hind legs. Pom taught me a lot about kicking while I’m down and I had to admit that was an awesome way to open a vent.

I quickly ran out and saw some broken windows. Wow this place looked a lot like war zone, wouldn’t be far from what Dormarch got when we scanned the walking fortress from up here on the third floor earlier.

I was going to try and get to Hard Light, but Pom already took care of that apparently.

Looking outside I watched as the large six legged thing leapt high over the building and off somewhere downhill towards the sea, where I felt Pom currently was.

Looking down at the three people it left behind, I had to get their attention.

“Arrooo!” I called out making the three look up to me, I pointed downwards with a claw and took a few steps back. I ran forward and jumped from the third floor of the building, hoping they’d catch me or do something to that effect.

The rabbit girl aimed her gun and fired a spray of spheres in tight circle where I was going to land and I hit something pillow soft and rubbery, kind of felt like the trampoline in the back yard back home in Camden Town. So I sprang off it with a stylish twirling back flip and landed in front of them on my paws with my head held high.

I’ve fallen from higher up onto a mattress that wasn’t nearly as soft, probably should have climbed up Big Ben that night… nearly got myself killed, but I did seriously learn how to parkour like a squirrel.

“Hey, awesome move Caper Canine!” Ignoring the Fred-zilla guy, his suit definitely looked like it had seen better days, I turned and started looking around to get my bearings.

“What is it girl?” The rabbit stated trying to figure out what I was looking for.

“How are we supposed to deal with that thing when even tank shells won’t leave a dent in it?” The wheeled biped cat sounded kind of cool and aloof.

“Like you’d understand me if I tried.” After stating that I started running in Pom’s direction, only to be picked up by the cat with the floating wheels and she skated with me in the direction I pointed out. I soon ended up with my paws around her neck as I road her downhill.

“Yeah, you can’t get around very fast without your skateboard can you cool dog?” She muttered as she skated down the street I pointed down, I did give her a nod and she went down that way.

I tried to get Pom’s attention through our bond, but it seemed like she was too busy dodging all kinds of attacks.

Pom was frankly being the most acrobatic I’ve ever seen her with how fast she jumped around like a grasshopper on five energy drinks and some coffee, I think she was using her Fleet Cunning Doe style to maneuver and flip around at odd angles. Even kicked off one of the bots chasing her to escape.

“Whoa…” Looking at the wheel cat staring in amazement at how quickly Pom was evading what was at least thirty or so attacks in all directions at the same time.

It was impressive to be sure and that's when Pom wasn't using Dancing Flame to dodge things, she was doing all that on pure adrenaline at this point.

“Hey, I need her over here now!” I barked as I pointed to her and then me.

“You want me to get you to her?” She asked, I shook my head no and made a baseball strikeout motion with my paws and then twisted my paws around. “You want me to bring her to you?”

I pointed to her and nodded, then she dash off to the side almost throwing me off as a large orb of energy shot past us and nearly hit the bus with a bright pink digital rabbit face on it that looked to be close to tears.

I hopped off and glared at the wheeled cat.

“Right, I’ll get her out of the mess and to you.” As she went to do so two helicopters flew overhead and started firing missiles and guns at Pom who already have enough issues with everything already. “Don’t know what you need her for, but this better be important and not just for food!”

The wheeled Cat shot off for the machine to go get Pom.

The helicopters quickly changed targets to start shooting down the missiles coming at them with their guns and their own missiles started damage the legs minimally as they were used to shield the machine from the rocket impacts.

At least the helicopters were doing damage, as minimal as it was to those heavily armored shield leg things.

I saw the wheeled cat zip around and by the machine, she then went onto all four wheels. She did a flip began picking up speed coming back my way to shoot up one of the legs to grab Pom before the machine could hit her with a massive ball of energy that shot off into the sky and she launched a disc at a helicopter missile before it hit them and landed to come speeding for me.

The cat quickly skidded to a stop next to me, then then calmly placed a nervous and shivering Pom on the ground. I noticed that one of her disc looked to be missing, I pointed a claw at it and the bipedal cat hit a button on her wrist and a spare disc popped off her back.

-Pom-

“Here you go, I seriously hope that was worth losing a combat disc for.” The cat stated as she turned back to watch the helicopters continuing their attack despite me no longer being there. "Who am I kidding, I just saved the sheep from that mess."

“What is it Dolly? If you haven’t noticed we have a bit of a…” A flash and a helicopter exploded, spun out of control several times and then crashed into a building. The mercenaries on said helicopter leaped out and repelled to the ground and started running before the helicopter fell out of the building and exploded. The entire building soon collapsed. “Nnhnnn… situation.”

“Hiro, Baymax and Wasabi are finally inbound, about damn time, where have they been during all of this?!” Grunted Wheel Cat or Go-Go, I’m thinking Go-Go because she likes to do as her name says. “We need all the help we can get with this thing! What I wouldn’t do to have the Kentucky Kaiju on our side right now. Don't let Fred-zilla know I said that.”

“Yeah, Dormarch and my family came up with a decent plan of action on how to take that thing down! The weakest point in its armor is at the top center of the machine, but beneath that is a layer of armor protecting the mechanical brain of the whole thing. It should be weaker than the top layer.” Was this going where anyone would think it was Dolly? “Can you get off a uh… what was it called again… that breaker attack thing? Can't you do that on it?”

“Yes, I can do a bark breaker, but I’d need some time to build up for the attack. By that I mean I need to find the right kind of frequency for it to actually deal damage… after what I saw happen to Fred-zilla, that’s going to be a bit of a problem especially if the B.O.X. is constantly assaulting me. Not to mention I have to do it right or else I’ll waste a lot of energy trying.” I looked over to see the other helicopter was smoking now and starting to retreat, the B.O.X. wouldn’t have a distraction soon and we need to hurry up our conversation. “It doesn’t look like it will hold still long enough for us to achieve the damage needed to deal with it.”

“Aside from what I just told you about the armor, there was something about nano-machines making the armor as tough as it is... a lot of the stuff Dawkins and Dormarch said about that went way too far over my head.” Dolly rubbed her face with her paws. “I’m am not a science geek or a genius like they, I’m a sports dog at best and I don’t even like playing fetch. Look just find a way to immobilize that thing and then break it's armor up.”

“Are you… talking to the dog?” We both looked to Wheel Cat, she was obviously hearing only my side of the conversation.

“Yes, I am. If there was one super power I’m certain that I did have that anyone might ask about that I’m trying to keep a lid on, then it’s my ability to communicate with canids. Also it’s not as interesting as it might seem from my perspective on things, because you’re not really missing much… just that dogs are far more intelligent than you’d think.” I felt my bond to Dormarch still being in the area of the Krei Tech building. “Speaking of canids, is Dormarch alright Dolly?”

“Yeah, he’ll be fine where he is, I can pick him up later.” Dolly answered swiftly, before saluting. “Now what do you need me to do Pom? I can stick with the vehicle, I can go retrieve Dormarch and stay out of the action or…”

“You can come with me if you want to, but it’ll be dangerous Dolly.” Who was I to stop someone else from living the dream in a world where dreams 'can' come true? Dolly may as well stick with me, it’ll be safer where I can keep an eye on her.

“Give me my skateboard, danger doesn’t scare me in the slightest!” Within a few seconds Dolly yelped as an explosion was heard and we saw the large six legged machine thundering towards us as the last helicopter fell into the city. “Let me rephrase that, give me back my skateboard so I’m mildly safer because I’m totally terrified of that thing.”

I dropped the skateboard into her waiting paws and turned to glance at the machine that wasn’t slowing down. I galloped down the street towards where the Bunny Battle Bus seemed to be waiting patiently for us, managing to keep pace with both Dolly and Go-Go.

“Bunny Battle Bus, fire a Mucus Marsh!” Hearing that from an approaching Honey Lemon with Fred-zilla following, the Bunny Battle Bus raised its cannon and fired.

The machine slowed to a stop five feet from us, it had been more than two blocks away ten seconds ago, only it was now stuck in a gum like substance.

I immediately turned around and ran towards the machine.

“What are you doing?!” Go-Go shouted after me.

“My best, because Caper Canine brought me a good plan and I’m going to follow up on the information that was given to me!” I crouched down and leapt high up over the machine and landed on the portion of it that wasn’t covered in the sticky gum like substance.

I was surrounded by those pill bots, but they were soon dealt with by those clouds of machine wrecking chemicals Honey Lemon was firing at them.

Okay, concentrate, open my mouth and get a frequency going…

“Rrrrrrrr…. yip!” The armor wrenched and warped, but it didn’t crack. Didn’t hurt my throat too badly either, but I needed to do that a second time to make it viable enough to really start damaging it.

I'm already consider this thing might be worse than two headed robotic orthros.

Only I didn’t have that time as the gum like goo started bubbling around me, I was about to be hit with an explosion of fire.

“Grab on!” I looked up and was surprised by who I saw, I hopped and my hoof was grabbed the claws of Momokase as we swung away from a massive column of flames that was slowly melting the machine free of the goo encasing its legs.

Momokase yanked her knife free of the wall she had swung down to me from and caught it by the handle.

“What were you doing on that thing?” Momokase asked me looking… worried? Strange. “That thing is made of stuff tougher than my graphene blades, I would know I threw one at it while it was leaping this way and that did nothing to its armor. My blades are made to be absurdly sharp, enough so that they can cut just about anything.”

“Some damage to actually end this fight, I managed to warp some of the armor on it, but it’s still too tough! I need to get in a second attack so I can break up the armor on top of it. That will open it up for attack and then we can doing some damage to the weak point below that and finally put it out of commission.” Said machine I was talking about, B.O.X., was currently in the midst of freeing its legs. “I think we need to move further away!”

“Agreed.” We both ran as the massive blob of mucus like substance exploded going everywhere causing some buildings to catch on fire. That's a problem for later when we weren't dealing with a large mechanical issue.

“Why did you help me?” She’s the one who attacked me and stole Dormarch in the first place that led to all of this.

“I owe you a debt for saving me from the mercenaries and that missile.” Given that she said it in a solemn tone, it sounded like she was willing to aid in our fight against B.O.X. that hasn’t been going all too well thus far. “Sure you may have made me take a bullet, but a bullet in the shoulder is better than one through the back.”

“Momokase what are you doing here?” Go-Go looked at her sourly, I can tell there was a history there when it came to the thief.

“Honestly… I’m here to help… or at least I’ll be trying to do something conducive to bringing that thing down.” Momokase answered before the B.O.X. freed itself. “No time to think about whether or not I’m lying, move!”

The B.O.X. stomped towards us while firing a swarm of missiles our way and Momokase threw a claw full of blades to tear through them and cause a chain reaction of explosions. She also hit a few of the remaining pill bots, at least the ones that Honey Lemon hadn’t been busy evaporating consistently since she started targeting them like she had a personal vendetta.

“I’m almost out of ammunition here and there’s still about thirty buddy guards left!” Honey Lemon fired a burst of that sticky mucus substance at the legs and ground as she bounded in a large circle around the B.O.X. avoiding it creating another powerful ball of energy and firing it at her.

“How long will it take you to reload the cannon?!” I shouted to the Bunny Battle Bus as she was trying to stay out of the B.O.X.’s range.

“I still need a minute or two…” Whimpered the vehicle as she backed away from B.O.X. in fear, it seemed to be quite dead set on killing Hard Light and it was going after the one who was currently holding him.

“If you need time, then we’ll make it happen, incoming!” Shouted a purple figure riding an armored Baymax as they came roaring in and slammed into the side of the machine making it stumble as soon as it freed its six legs from the minor amount of goo Honey Lemon slowed it down with. I also saw that raven guy hopping off of Baymax’s back screaming and went into roll once hit the ground before lighting the energy blades on his gauntlet while shivering. “Skymax is going to drop an ammo pack for you Bazooka Bunny!”

“Can I please get a different codename? I’m not normally violent and it was just the one time, really!” Honey Lemon whined matching the vehicles whimper from earlier as she popped up in the air and fired a single sphere at the top of the machine, the explosion was decent but did little overall damage. “Nope the armor is not weak enough to be damaged yet, but whatever you did had some effect on its structural integrity Leap Lamb. We need to freeze it again and get you into position to damage the armor more. Then we have to hit it with something heavy.”

“Plasma Paladin the armor on that is far too tough for your plasma blades so don’t even try!” Fred-zilla had taken a pounding throughout all of this and he was still able to shoot down half of the next missile swarm that it the B.O.X. fired at us.

Plasma Paladin himself, the guy with the energy blades, started firing energy blades from his gauntlets and took care of the other half of the incoming missiles.

“Then I’m covering the battle bus, I don’t want to be near that thing on foot and I’m the slowest of us!” The energy bladed guy turned off his gauntlets and ran to the bus. “Also I don’t want to be near Caper Canine, I’m allergic to dogs!”

“I have a few ideas of how to damage it further after I deal with the armor on top of it, but I might need Bazooka Bunny’s help when we get to that point.” As I said this Baymax avoided the chasing pill robots and fired his fist at the B.O.X. to little effect as it just kept charging at us.

Honey Lemon fired another spray of sticky substances at the ground until something began clicking in her purse with the elongated tube sticking out of it.

“Hold your breath!” Honey Lemon quickly grabbed a sphere off of her bandolier as the barely slowed B.O.X. raised its front two legs as it charged us, she threw it down and the machine brought its two legs down on us.

I Inhaled and did as she said while closing my eyes, opening them I blinked a few times.

We were inside a large bouncy blob and were surrounded with a large amount of thick oily fluids, it popped outwards and violently flipped B.O.X. onto its back where it flailed its legs.

I took a gasp of air and stared at the comical sight.

“Good Job Bazooka Bunny!” Go-Go stated as she skated past a weakening number of pill bots and slung her two discs at them and did some more damage to their dwindling numbers. "Everyone start wailing on the buddy guards, we need them out of this fight like yesterday!"

I also saw Dolly getting into the action with slinging her skateboard around by the strap, managing to bring a few down. She was defending herself fairly well when they started firing beams at her and she was swift enough to roll out of the way of the nets.

Momokase also took care of a few others by dicing them so badly that it would be pretty hard for B.O.X. to fix them.

“That won’t stop it for long, I’m thinking of going straight for my Bunny Battle Shield when I get my reload!” I’m getting the idea that Honey Lemon had a theme and that it somehow always consisted of rainbows and sunshine.

Despite that Honey Lemon was fairly effective in dealing with large problems given she likely made the chemical cannon thing that Ms. Shuttle uses.

I was staying out of the fighting unless approached or attacked, I was an important factor in breaking through the armor on that thing. I was the only one that could do that and I was staying on the backline watching as the local heroes took a pounding from all sides by the remaining pill robots that had become more sporadic in their movements.

I really didn't like being so important as to have to wait for my opportunity to act.

“With the way things have been going, we might even need one of those a SAM launchers!” Fred-zilla stated as the B.O.X. started the process of flipping itself back over.

“We took care of all of them though.” Plasma Paladin stated from next to the bus as he fired plasma blades from a distance into the swarm of smaller robots still harassing us.

“Well except for the one where I knocked out all of the people and jumped on one of the rockets heading back into the city.” Oh so he basically blew that missile up while he on it so people didn’t get hurt, Fred-zilla was proving to be one of the most on point heroes here and he was taking a beating to prove a point that he wanted to help people regardless of his health. I could actually relate to that and how he must currently feel.

One of the flying machines that were called Skymax flew overhead and dropped something onto the ground that Honey Lemon immediately went to pick up. It was a backpack covered with stickers, rainbows and glitter. I was already backing up from the B.O.X. as it finally managed to lift itself into be flipped back upright.

“Yes, my ammo is finally here!” At least it picked a good time to get here, because the B.O.X. was almost up even with Baymax ramming into it to try and keep it down.

“Guys I’m going to try and lock that thing down with magnet discs to give you more time, then Baymax and I are heading out to the remaining SAM launcher.” As he said this the purple armored hero started firing discs everywhere at the ground around the machine as Baymax flew backwards and the B.O.X. finally righted itself. “Tell us when to shoot after we get there!”

“I will calculate the shots remaining in the SAM and will fire them using triangulation from our friends combats visors.” Baymax intoned calmly as he flew upwards. “First we will need Leap Lamb to finish using her method to crack the armor on top of it.”

The B.O.X. slammed all its legs on the ground sent up a dust cloud that nearly knocked us all over, Dolly simply planted her board in some dirt nearby to stay in place.

Only a second later did B.O.X surge forward, only to be stopped a large number of energy strings erupting into existence around all of its legs to hold it in place. Since it couldn’t lift its legs off the ground it tried to shockwave with pylons, but it failed to dislodge the energy strings pinning it in place or even knock away the discs that were causing them.

With that Baymax and the kid on his back took off towards the direction Fred-zilla had originally come from after blowing up that missile.

“Why aren’t you going now?” Momokase asked from beside me, B.O.X. answered the question for me by firing some of the flame pillar bombs that destroyed a few of the discs and started freeing up its legs.

“Still too dangerous to get near, we need it completely immobilized before I can do another attempt to break its armor.” I answered while look to her on my right and then I looked over to the ocean to see the moon disappearing over the horizon and the sun was peeking over the horizon on my right.

“Almost done loading the chemicals.” Announced the Bunny Battle Bus sweetly with a giggle as the B.O.X. machine continued to free up its legs with those flame bombs. “Hold it back for another thirty seconds please!”

“Incoming missiles, several volleys at once, intercept those missiles before they hit the bus!” Go-Go shouted as she threw her two discs taking out two of the missiles and then veered into punching a pill robot before it could lash her with its metal tentacle. “We must be really pushing it hard if it’s getting this desperate! It’s also finally almost out of buddy guards to fight with!”

“Of course!” Momokase threw two claws worth of blades slicing at least ten in half and not missing with any of her thrown blades despite having throwing them all at once in what looked like a haphazard fashion.

I should probably introduce Momokase about Gabby McStabberson, they’d probably get along real swell.

Right focus, there were still twenty or so missiles left coming at us.

“Fred-zilla to the rescue!” Fred-zilla leapt up and blasted at least seven of the missiles out of the air with a big ball of fire.

“This is awesome stuff we’re doing here, Bow-Whaka-Wow!” Dolly popped up onto a car and ramped off it and spiraled into several of the missiles, taking down another four with her board slamming into each one. She at least landed upright and only looked slightly dizzy and lightly scorched. “Oh yeah, I’m awesome, even nailed the landing and didn’t get too badly hurt either!”

The missiles had to get by me now and I unleashed a bark blast to destroy at least five.

The remaining missiles flew by me and hit something with dull thuds, I turned to look at the shadow figure looming over me. Once the smoke cleared up it revealed a giant smiling pink blob shaped like a toy rabbit encasing Honey Lemon.

Said hero grinned and made the thing flex.

“Here’s the Battle Bunny Shield!” The blob, following Honey Lemon’s motions, ran forward bounding a good distance with each step and then punched the B.O.X. with its left fist making it stumble backwards.

“I still don’t know how she learned to do that… but apparently it’s scientifically possible given that she does it.” Go-Go mumbled as she came to a stop next to me and watched as the B.O.X. tried to melt Honey Lemon’s shield, she bounced over it and the flames coming of two of it's legs and attacked it from behind. “Ready to do whatever it was you did to the armor previously… also barking energy blasts, really?”

“You have your themes, I have mine.” I stated dully. “I, Leap Lamb, am a dog sheep. I could herd dogs for a living and yet I find myself constantly stuck in bizarre situations like this one when I'd rather be cuddling a pile of dogs and special someone.”

“Loaded, ready to fire on command!” The Bunny Battle Bus stated with a cheerful chirp.

“Everyone move out of the way!” I shouted and did so myself and got ready to leap onto the machine personally. “Fire when clear, but remember not to cover the top of it.”

“Okay, calculating that into my projected firing solution.” The bus smiled at me and then narrowed its eyes on B.O.X. as the she moved forward. Honey Lemon was maneuvering her adorable looking bunny blob around B.O.X. while bashing it whenever she could get a chance. She was shaking it up well enough, but the damage was fairly minimal. “Tres... Dos... Uno... firing Mucus Marsh chemical combination!”

The cannon raised from the Bunny Battle Bus and fired a huge wad of the gum like substance nailed the machine, the top was left exposed and I ran forward and leapt up.

I was about to land on B.O.X. only to be yanked upwards by one of my hind legs, I looked up at my left hind leg and found one of the pills bots had clamped a tentacle around it and tried to lift me away. I flailed and tried to kick at it with my right hind leg.

“Hold on I got your back!” I looked to the Plasma Paladin Guy aiming his arm and he fired two bolts of energy from his blade that nailed the machine and the tentacle, dropping me on top of the B.O.X.

I moved over to the warp section of the armor and started up, I put my face close to the metal by crouching down.

“Rrruuuuu-YIP!” The armor all along the main body became horribly cracked, almost shattering under my hooves and those cracks even formed along a small portion of the B.O.X.'s legs.

“Whoa, what in the world did she just do!” Plasma Paladin stated with awe as he fired more bolts at the other robots trying to attack me or hit me with a net.

“Something totally amazing my friend, something totally amazing!” Fred-zilla cheered as he hopped back and forth waving at me like a cheerleader. “You’re an awesome super hero Leap Lamb!”

Okay my throat hurt a bit, but I still had room to dig up some chunks of armor physically while I can before it freed itself. I raised both my hooves above my head and slammed them down breaking off chunks of warped and brittle metal revealing the layer underneath slightly.

I jumped up and slammed my hooves down breaking away more of its armored plating and the machine wobbled a bit. The gum like goo started bubbling.

“Coming on through Leap Lamb!” Not getting a chance to respond to Honey Lemon’s distorted voice, her blob thing picked me up and we leapt away before another inferno started around the machine.

This time the inferno caused a bit of problem for B.O.X., especially when large patches of its own armor blew off due to the flames erupting straight through the cracks and warped portions I had caused to appear. This also damaged its legs and made it flop onto the ground as they all spread outwards.

“Baymax, fire now if you and Mental Magnet have control of the SAM, we’ll get clear!” Go-Go stated loudly as she and everyone moved back, in the distance a rocket flew into the sky with the rising of the sun and arced for our general vicinity.

Within seconds the B.O.X. managed to get its legs under it one at a time, only to be hit by the SAM missile and its legs flopped outwards onto the ground again.

“Did we get it?” Fred-zilla asked, the damaged B.O.X. slowly started standing again despite the heavy damage to the second armor layer beneath the top. “Oh come on!”

It started limping forwards towards the Bunny Battle Bus, but the damage the B.O.X had sustained made it look like it was just about done with.

“Can you fire another one, it’s not down yet!” Go-Go shouted into her helmet. “Last one?! WHAT DO MEAN THAT WAS THE LAST ONE?! Huh... oh... yeah, I can see why now.”

The machine erupted with missiles, Honey dropped me and moved forward to take all of the missiles onto her controllable blob. Afterwards the bunny blob looked chewed up and was falling apart, Honey Pulled herself free of the mass and out of the back to drop onto the ground. She came back over to me looking a little dizzy.

“How do we finish it off? The Bunny Battle Shield used up all the chemicals I need to make explosions.” Not going to dignify that statement with a response Honey Lemon. She then looked at me as I crossed my legs and gave her a flat look that she was using chemicals that could blow her up. “What’s in your bag? My visor is seeing trace chemicals of… yes can you get whatever rubber object you have in your bag out?”

I looked confused and pulled out the only thing I could think of, the rubber duck.

“Hey that’s the abandoned rubber duck I found before we ended up at that trailer park!” Dolly skated over to us slowly and stopped to prop up her board and looked at it, then me and finally Honey Lemon. "Well if she absolutely needs it..."

We had all taken quite a beating, mostly Fred-zilla, or were tired from exerting ourselves. I just calmly put the rubber duck into Honey Lemon’s waiting paw.

“Don’t honestly know where it came from, but Caper Canine found it.” Though I wonder why Honey Lemon would want the rubber duck, it was actually questionable.

Honey Lemon studied the duck for a moment and seemed to be looking at something I wasn't seeing through her visor.

“Ooh… who would fill a rubber duck with highly explosives chemicals like this, they must be a diabolical mastermind!” Wait, what did Honey Lemon just say was in the duck, that I’ve been carrying around for while, just now? “Anyway… firing into the hole!”

Kicking her boots together Honey Lemon launched high into the air loading the rubber duck into her purse and then she fired it downwards at an angle.

“Squeak.” The rubber duck slammed home into the top of the B.O.X. and became lodged in it, it even made a cute squeaking noise.

Honey landed on her bouncy blob and dropped to the ground afterwards.

“Funny you think that would have done…” Fred-zilla started to say as he walked towards the suddenly very still B.O.X.

"Fred you might want to..." Plasma Paladin seemed as wary as I was to approach.

-Agent Forty Seven-

“So that’s where it went, good a time as any to do this.” I pulled out my unused detonator and pressed it while looking at where the rubber duck was now through the binoculars.

-Pom-

"Quack." The sudden explosion was massive and frighteningly disturbing coming from a little rubber duck.

The B.O.X. practically blew apart, its legs fell off and dissolved into piles of popping pieces of flames after the middle of the machine was obliterated. There was hardly much left of it after that explosion.

I just slowly turned to Fred-zilla sliding slowly next to me, he pointed a claw to the sky.

“I’m… okay…. ish…” Fred-zilla’s arm flopped onto the ground, he may not be the brightest member of the team of heroes, but he was certainly seemed like the most resilient and willing. I silently wished him luck with his future endeavors of helping people, he was a really nice guy.

I looked to the sun rising in the distance.

“Let’s… quickly go get breakfast. I need to be out of town before the mercenaries try to regroup.” I looked to Momokase. “What did you need my and Dolly’s blood for again?”

“Doesn’t matter, my client is being arrested. He reneged on our deal by sending the bots after your device and probably had a buyer that wanted your genetics and was using me as a retriever, maybe to make a clone because you are both adorable and a badass.” Momokase then started to saunter off. “Now if you’ll excuse me… I really need to go sleep this whole mess, and this bullet wound in my arm, off.”

“I’ll go get Dormarch.” Dolly stated as she skated away uphill to do just that.

I sighed and flopped onto my butt looking at the wreckage, the burning buildings and some buildings were collapsing nearby by.

“Was that thing mostly made up of nano-machines working around a centralized computer core with a specific fixed form blueprint? Whoever designed that thing was a genius.” Apparently Mental Magnet had returned with Baymax and the armored balloon robot waddled over to me. I didn’t understand a word of what he was saying. “No wonder that thing was so resilient to damage, but the nano-machines were highly limited in their functions in holding a structure to form… they really couldn’t do much without a computer acting as a central network and without the whole thing just fell apart.”

“You are experiencing heightened stress levels.” Stated a kindly Baymax he looked down at me. Sighing audibly, I fell onto my back. “May I apply aid your wounds Pom?”

“Yes, please do. I’m exhausted, irritable and the only thing that can make it better is if I had a bath and found a place with good strawberry waffles with a ridiculously decadent cream sauce.” I undid the wool bandage and let him get to work on it.

“I believe Cass Hamada can accommodate you, as will I.” The robot knelt down and gently started tend to me.

-Several hours later, Lucky Cat Café-

My throat was still somewhat miserable and I needed to leave town before those mercenary groups managed to somehow scrounge up enough courage to come after me again after that whole debacle.

“Ma’am… thank you for some of the best strawberry waffles I have ever taste.” I stated with a distinct bright eyed honesty that nobody could replicate. “I have to go now, while this city has been fun. I draw the line at dealing with the number of rabid lunatics that seem to be common around here.”

Lots of mercenaries got arrested, the most important ones got away, Momokase was seen helping Big Hero 6 so she might be turning a new leaf if the news was to be believed and I needed a incredibly large break from doing heroic stuff.

“I understand, I live here after all and Krei Tech does have a habit of letting technology run wild, sorry to hear you got caught up in that stuff. Your welcome to come back to the Lucky Cat Cafe anytime Pom!” Cass was a bright beacon of goodness in this dark and dreary world. “I’ll always be willing to serve you and you’re adorable little dog too.”

Dolly and I looked at the footage of the rubber duck going up in a huge explosion and destroyed the machine. I silently paid for Cass Hamada’s service and left the business. Time to walk out of the city and to our destination, which might take us the rest of the day.

“Hey, wait up, do you need a ride to Duckberg?” Turning to see Honey Lemon and her friends, notably the one they called Wasabi was staying well away from Dolly for allergy reasons, they all pointed to Ms. Shuttle smiling happily at me. “Because Ms. Shuttle is offering to take you there.”

“Thank you…” I needed some sleep after all of that, scrubbing myself and Dolly down, letting Baymax tend to us and in general just having an exceedingly bad night where no less than three groups tried to kill me.

“Again, we are so very sorry to have bothered you and caused all of this Leap Lamb.” Hiro stated while looking both sheepish and apologetic.

“Your forgiven, but only because your Aunt Cass makes really good waffles.” I slowly slunk my way onto the bus while smiling at the laughter that followed. Dolly idly stretched followed me onboard afterwards, her board on her back and her helmet secure on her head.

“Make sure they both get to Duckberg without anything disturbing them Ms. Shuttle.” Honey was really too sugary sweet.

“I can do that easily, I’ll be back before you know it!” The warmly smiling vehicle was as cheerful as ever. "I was designed with being a people person transport in mind!"

"Can you do us a favor before we go? Can you get us in touch with Abigail Callaghan or at least tell her we're going to need her help eventually? I have it on good authority that Wendy Wower should know where she is and that you know her personally." They all gave me curious look, but agreed to look into getting Abigails attention for me.

The bus took off and we would have a quiet ride to Duckberg.

-Go-Go-

“Okay, so Leap Lamb can talk to canids, can bark blasts of energy and can leap really high… so do you think we can mash enough of our brains together to make a translation device for animals?” I asked flatly.

“Oh oh, what about a near unbreakable combat twirling sign with a bungee cord?” Fred-meleon will never change, always a hero fanatic and got to meet some real super powered individuals. At least Caper Canine’s gear was improbably durable, so that somewhat counts. “After seeing what Caper Canine and Leap Lamb can do with that skateboard, I really want to up my game and I did really well against Yokai.”

"The fact that Fred wants to make his hero thing even more complicated aside, I'll talk to Wower and ask her if she knows what's up with Abigail Callaghan... we haven't exactly been keeping tabs on her." I had to think about what Leap Lamb could need of the fox animalistic that Hiro rescued, it was probably nothing bad.

-Elsewhere, Shanty-

“Get back here ringtail, and give me back my under… wait a minute, what are you doing here?” Ms. Fox be stopping and looking to me sitting here eating dumplings at a food stand.

“Shouldn’t you be chasing after that guy?” I be just relaxing after a night time raid to open up routes into several places we needed to be later tonight. We were about to bust apart a fireworks factory and would later fight Panda King himself. It would be fun and we'd be taking out a hug jerk that be burning down Sly's home. “He is being very fast and is getting further away.”

Shaking her head, the nice lady continued to chase after Sly as I dunked my vegetable dumpling into some soy sauce and popped it into my mouth.