Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

174. Krakarov breakdown.

Author's Note:

...

-Equus, Canterlot, Tasty Treat, Tianhuo-

I sat across from my friends, Velvet and Arizona, across the room from us was Paprika acting peculiarly distant from her herd.

“So, why is it that you can’t help me if Pom ends up in Tambelon?” Looking to the four puppies, they were behaving themselves spectacularly. I had just been told something unusual.

“Well Arizona can still help, but Paprika and I are pregnant.” Blinking at what Velvet said, I considered my response carefully.

“Congratulations?” I tried.

“No, not congratulations! The only time I could have gotten pregnant and I was literally the buck for it!” Okay, and… why was Velvet now glaring at Arizona? “How did you manage it Arizona, because I know this is your fault somehow!”

“Uh… I’m just that good?” Arizona stated questioningly looking unsure if she was answering a question. “You know, you could blame Kuril for the experimental potions, she is functionally a witch and could have messed something up.”

“None of what happened that night makes sense biologically, scientifically or even magically and you know it!” Velvet screeched while clutching at her belly.

“Mood swings?” I stated calmly.

“Yep.” Responded Arizona dryly. “I don’t understand what’s up with Paprika though. She’s being so standoffish lately, but Velvet’s being mad at me for something means everything is right with the world at least.”

“I loathe your impossible existence Arizona!” Velvet shouted at her cow with venom, despite this very real anger I noted that she was still sitting right next to her and cuddling her.

Arizona didn’t seem upset with Velvet’s vitriol, she even seemed happy about it. If it were anyone else, there would be a huge case for domestic abuse if any of the three would ever be willing to press charges. That my three friends were still together says a lot about the oddness of their herd.

“Ah, about Paprika, alpacas distance themselves from their lovers when they realize they are pregnant and will refuse all bed based activities.” What I knew of the subject, Arizona might not know. “Otherwise she still loves you greatly to even be this close by.”

Alpacas tended to end up everywhere for the very reason of finding their true loves at first sight and being primarily nomadic helped them a lot in that aspect if they couldn’t find true love among their people. It was not odd to see an alpaca as part of the citizenry of the various places they visited, though I guess Arizona hasn’t been around many alpacas throughout her life.

“Meep!” Paprika apparently agreed with what I just told them from her table where Saffron was serving her food.

-Earth, Russia, Krakarov Volcano Lair, Sly-

Being trapped and gas was not pleasant, but thanks to Dormarch and Bentley’s efforts they quickly shut off the trap when Clockwerk left me slowly suffocating on the floor.

I stood up and broke Carmelita free with a few swings of my cane and we stared at each other in an uneasy silence.

The Heavy Hooter was operational, or it could be the Big Hoot, whatever it is it was active and currently dealing with Leap Lamb’s team and Clockwerk was controlling it from his personal system in his body.

“Maybe we can work together to deal with the bigger problem here?” I tried in the friendliest voice I could muster, I loved Carmelita and there was no way I was going to let her get hurt when I could do something about it. “You might hate me, but I’ve never hated you. We have fun don’t we?”

Carmelita sighed, toggled the switch on her shock pistol to full power and blasted her way out of the glass wall keeping us trapped.

“Come on Cooper, truce until we take the bastard down.” The way her tail moved agitatedly as she stalked off made me blush and smile. “I’ll even give you a ten second head start afterwards ring tail.”

In my distraction as we exited the nearby door to the lair, a robot falcon swooped down and stole my cane.

I am so glad I learned hand to hand combat, because I wasn’t going to be entirely helpless without it. Though I wouldn’t mind begging for a little help from my favorite vixen to get back a treasured family heirloom… the last memory of my parents aside from the remaining portion of the Thievius Racoonis that Clockwerk likely had on him.

-Above Krakarov, Pom-

Why was it always machines? Well at least it’s not something biological, I have enough problems with actually wanting to hurt the mercenaries that harassed me across the planet.

I really didn’t want to kill anyone, no matter how much I might have mauled a few people in the previous world while out my mind.

So here I barely stood about to be shot at with missiles again, while my arrhythmia was acting up pretty badly because I did some ridiculous over the top stunt with Dancing Flame. Dolly’s down, from helping in said stunt. Smolder was behind us and likely going to be too busy to dealing with the six… three falcons, the other three were going after the International Officers below.

Darkwing was the best chance to get Shanty down from here, but he’s also the one that drew attention to us.

I hoped that Dodo okay down on the ground, especially with the volcano notably sinking and lava poking up out of the ground everywhere.

The eight missiles erupted from the beak of the large mechanical owl and curved on a trajectory towards us.

“I’ve got them!” Loudly proclaimed Shanty as she charged forward and up the back to crouch down as the missiles swarmed in.

I had an idea what Shanty was going to do, but would she time it correctly and not be knocked off Heavy Hooter? I slowly positioned myself behind Darkwing and watched his back, while Shanty leapt forward directly into the path of the missiles.

“Yarr!!!” She unleashed her seldom seen defensive technique, every missile exploded.

Within the several explosions you could vaguely see an outline of the sphere of raw force surrounding Shanty as all the blasts sent her tumbling backwards through the air and over our heads down the back of the Heavy Hooter.

Her body was relatively unscathed despite being caught in the center of eight explosions, but who am I to talk when I’ve taken far worse.

“I didn’t know she could do that.” Darkwing stated as he watched Shanty back flipped and landed further down around the lower back and went skidding towards the large metal tail feathers, where one of the falcons trying to deal with a flying Smolder veered off and went for her.

“I did, but she better not fall off. That looked like it rattled my favorite kid a bit to do.” The wings of the Heavy Hooter flapped and I watched the eyes ahead started to glow and several more robot falcons took to the air. I turned and saw something else on approach. “Not important Darkwing, focus on the head and get to the jetpack to get Shanty off of here safely!”

Darkwing turned and started towards the glowing eyed head of the Heavy Hooter while fiddling with a canister for his weapon, I however turned to focus on the main reason why we’re here and I wasn’t exactly very confident in facing the thing that made the Heavy Hooter.

My breathing was becoming shorter as I was allowing fear to run rampant through me at the face that scrutinized me with the same level of talent I had when it came to profiling someone.

“So you are one of the insects that took out a large number of my robotic falcons and are bothering my second body. How can something so pathetic do something so incredible?” With a heavy thud I gulped at the large mechanical owl that built this flying tower landed between me and Shanty. This was Clockwerk I presumed, also doing incredible things was part and parcel of being an Equus born native apparently. “I’m sure Cooper has already escaped the trap, somehow, but you don’t have many places to go Leap Lamb. That injury and the fact that you are carrying that helpless mutt on your back makes you incapable of gliding doesn’t it? Also your arrhythmia problems are slowing you down quite a bit, making you quite a delicious prey of choice. This should be quick, then I can deal with Cooper and every other ally of his with every weakest link coming first, your fleshy form is a great weakness as you’ll soon come to learn.”

I heard the death ray fire and saw a few scattered rays coming from behind me as Clockwerk stalked up to me with his glowing red eyes. He was really quite intimidating up close and I can now understand why Sly has nightmares about this guy.

I backed away from the monstrous eye, a whimper escaped my lips and I started quivering at the malice this guy gave off that Ocellus could feel from miles away.

“Am I really that much of a threat that your targeting me first?” I just had to ask, considering he was targeting me exclusively compared to Smolder, Shanty, Darkwing or even the officers on the ground.

“To me… as you currently are… not in the slightest. You did destroy a massive number of my mechanical falcons and I would rather you not recover enough of that strength to be a thorn in my side later, for I’ve big plans for this world!” He spread his wings and several arcing blasts of energy sprayed out at me at slow speeds and sped up as they converged.

I dove between two of the blasts and swung my right hoof around slapped the skateboard into one of the blasts sending it back at him, it did nothing to him aside from disorient him vaguely.

My ears twitched, I turned my head, eyes wide I threw myself to the side as flat as I could. Two missiles slammed into Clockwerk’s body. The explosions did nothing to him and whatever scuff or dent marks it left in his body rippled, popped and faded before my eyes.

“Did they ever warn you that you were fighting an immortal being?” He lunged forward, I silently apologized to Dolly and forcefully rolled to the left as his large scything talons slammed down on where I was. His right talon came at me, I twisted and put my body over the skateboard as they close on me and the board held them back. “Do you think a paltry piece of wood will stop me?”

I could see his claws straining to crush the board as I kept myself safely on top of it, Dolly’s board only flexed a little, but it thankfully wasn’t breaking.

“Let’s see if you’ll survive a dip in the volcano hero!” With a few flaps Clockwerk lifted off the, so far undamaged, Heavy Hooter with me in tow and swung me around twice.

He released and slashed his right wing out, it clipped me across the forehead and most of the impact was taken up by the board. He had sent me flailing towards crater of Krakarov, a splatter of blood dripping blood into my eyes as I fell and my vision went a bit black.

“Pom!” Shanty shouted after me.

-Shanty-

Dodo, Pom be needing help, as much as I be needing it myself.

As my first mate and best friend, do something!

-Dodo-

Dodo was needed?

Yes, Dodo move to help friend!

Not a time to change, will do later when friends not in danger.

-Sly-

“Come on Carmelita, this place is coming down around us!” The volcano was practically falling apart now and Bentley says the Big Hoot had hit something and now the volcano lair was breaking apart and the geothermal energy plant was going to blow sooner rather than later.

“You go ahead, I see someone that needs my help.” I was about to go back when the path was sealed off between us, right back to the van and we’ll find a quick way to help Carmelita out of the volcano.

“Sly, Dormarch is taking remote control of our Trojan Falcon robot to lend some aerial support up there and I’m still trying to figure out a plan to blow that flying tower out of the air.” Already working on it Bentley. “This is a bit much even for me to think of something we can do with our limited resources Sly! Please hurry back with Inspector Carmelita, we need to regroup.”

“Yeah, about that…” I said as I saw Carmelita hopping from structure to structure over rising lava… or was it just that the entire lair was sinking into the ground? She was heading up towards the top of the volcano, what was she do… oh god, Pom?! “Bring the van around we need to start doing damage and fast.”

-Pom, a few minutes earlier-

I am so glad that Clockwerk didn’t get my eyes, I swiped my left hoof across my forehead and my wool tamped down over the gash staunching the bleeding. My left leg came away streaked with red and if that wasn’t a horrifying thought as to what was causing me to be even more lightheaded, I was practically thrown towards the volcano.

Clockwerk hadn’t been wrong, I couldn’t glide with my injuries and the blood loss was going to get me worse than my arrhythmia currently was. Luckily I could still survive this situation, but I was going to need to abuse my connection to Dolly to the fullest.

I pulled Dolly from my back and concentrated. I forced my magic into her body and like a conduit that our familiar bond was, I forced her ability to control momentum back into myself and my falling slowed dramatically but not nearly enough to steer away from the volcano in time.

Using the time I gained for myself, I thought about what to do next as I tied it around Dolly’s waist with one hoof while trying to maintain physical contact with her body to keep the momentum control going.

Glancing to the side, I saw Dodo racing up the side of the volcano. I could get Dolly to safety easily enough, but it would require that Dodo catch her.

“Grab her.” I mouthed to Dodo who was looking directly at me and then forced some of our downwards momentum to make me and Dolly spin. Once I built up enough momentum, I released Dolly in a hammer throw with as much boosted momentum as I could give her unconscious form.

I sent her flying towards the edge of the volcano’s opening and immediately started falling like a rock again after having lost direct contact with Dolly, I had unfortunately passed a slight point of no return.

Dodo made it to the edge in time to narrowly miss grabbing Dolly herself, but his beak snapped onto her board securely and he safely and quickly put her in his back.

Dolly’s life secured, I now had to worry about my own and inflated the wool that wasn’t covering painful scarring injuries. I really couldn’t do more than inflating the wool on my legs, slowed me down a great deal as I spread them out, but it was quickly getting unbearably hot.

I closed my eyes and started to sweat while trying to spread my wool out, my injuries were primarily keeping the masses wool on my body in two necessary spots making it hard to create something to catch the rising heat.

I heard something crash and I felt something painfully slap into my chest with the force of bucking earth pony.

While getting the air knocked out of me was painful, I instinctively grappled onto whatever it was I just hit while having my heart jump up my throat. I carefully open my eyes and found my front legs wrapped around a bit of long piping stretching out over the boiling magma below.

Was the volcano sinking or was the magma rising? Neither was a good prospect to everyone that didn’t have a method of flight around here.

“Hey, Leap Lamb right? Merde, we do not have much time here!” Upon looking to the left, there was a blue hair female fox grunting as she held up a bent piece of piping from a nearby walkway. “Come on, crawl along the pipe over to me while I hold it in place for you, hurry!”

I struggled to get grip on my fear and started to carefully start to pull myself along the pipe hanging off the wall towards the fox. I was just about there when I noticed something.

“Look… out…” Gasping this out, the fox that must have been Carmelita noticed me looking at the monster that was sneaking up on her, she let go of the pipe turned and fired her shock pistol.

The magma slug blew apart before it could seriously harm her, the unfortunate problem was that the piping dropped on the railing and almost snapped in half.

“What, no! Are you okay?” Carmelita asked with a worried tone of whether I had lost grip on the pipe from that. I seriously doubted there was anything that could get me to let go of the pipe right now except for grabbing onto the hanging walkway.

“No…” My weak reply made her look over the solid catwalk and down at me from the dangling almost snapped off pipe she put away her weapon and grabbed onto it with both hands to hold the swaying bit of metal steady.

“You can make it, just climb up to me.” Despite you saying that Carmelita, a part of me really didn’t want to make it. "I will not let you fall!"

I was so tired of it all, I could just let go and it’d be so quick… but Tianhuo didn’t marry a quitter. She married a coward and cowards were very good at wanting to live!

Using the strength borne from a hysterically large amount of fear, in a quick burst of motion I clambered up the pipe like a spider monkey on coffee and clung to Carmelita like a limpet. She held me tight, my body really shouldn't handle adrenaline right now.

“It’s okay, you can stop crying now. I’ve got you mon ami.” Carmelita was a comforting figure I needed right now, crawling around to her back I clamped down on her as hard as I was willing to.

“Run…” She tilted her head at too look me in the eyes curiously and I pointed at the various magma slugs coming out of the volcanoes walls above the walkway.

“Merde!” Carmelita muttered before pulling her shock pistol out and she started to run along the walkway as fast as she could go with my seventy or so pound mass on her back.

She managed to make it to the next section as a magma slug dropped on something important and the previous section of the catwalk snapped and fell away into the magma.

“I’ll get us out of this, don’t you worry.” Not nearly as confident as you were, also our friends were out there fighting a monster I really didn’t want to meet with face to face again.

A roar sounded and we turned to look at massive snake like mass of lava rising up as Carmelita made it to a section where the walls connected to a partially and currently collapsing spiraling staircase leading upwards along the insides of Krakarov.

An increasingly excessive number of magma monsters were focusing intently on just moving closer to us.

“You’re a super hero right?” Carmelita stated slowly.

“Never called myself a hero, just like helping… can’t fight…. Two bad injuries, arrhythmia worsening, making it harder to breathe, the heat’s not helping and I exhausted myself outside pulling off a miracle. Can’t do that twice within a twelve hour period.” Though admittedly I could still do a few things, my whispered and hastening breathing should be quite noticeable. “I can still do a few things, but I’d rather save my strength.”

“Oh great, this is going to be a thing.” She pulled out her shock pistol and readied it as more magma slugs appeared and started to crawl along the walls towards us. The large magma snake was also making its way over to where we were.

-Above the volcano, Remote Control Trojan Falcon (Dormarch)-

“Are you seeing this Bentley?” I asked as the falcon I was remote pilot flew around watching as sections of Krakarov were breaking apart and sinking.

“I see it, we’re already driving the van to a safer place. Who do you currently have visuals on?” Sweeping the falcons vision around, I circled and tried to stay away from the vicious dogfight Darkwing was going through with Shanty hanging from the back of the jetpack. “We’re already close to picking up Officer Hopps here and we’re preparing to fire on all the dangerous problems up there.”

“Relaying information now. Darkwing has the jetpack and Shanty is on it while he’s flying it.” The other robots falcons weren’t giving Darkwing much room to maneuver, but at least the jetpack had powerful weapons as it sprayed shot after shot into the robotic falcons that got too close.

If they could attack either Darkwing or the Jetpack, they suddenly were missing a piece of either wing with a crescent sweep of one of Shanty’s hooves. None of the explosive shots were doing anything to Clockwerk himself.

Smolder was trying her best to keep the falcons off of them, but the major problem was that Clockwerk himself was on the offensive along with his tower firing death rays, missiles, plasma blasts and the occasional lightning bolt.

As for Dodo, what was he looking at and stamping his feet in place about? Looking into the volcano I saw a huge magma monster that resembled a snake rear up and roar. It’s a good thing my life was not tied to the robotic falcon, because I wouldn’t want to be near that thing like Pom and Carmelita currently were.

Pom and Carmelita?! They were quickly moving upwards through the collapsing portions of the lair.

“Geothermal plant is melting down, Pom being carried by Carmelita and they are trying to outpace the local, highly lethal, wildlife.” Why was there a giant snake made of magma in this volcano? “It has to be asked… Bentley are there any myths or legends about giant snakes or serpents purely made out of magma?”

“Closest thing I can come up with would be a Salamander, except those traditionally have legs.” Not really helping ease the worries about that thing Bentley, especially not when my partner was currently being chased by it!

-Shanty-

So I be avoiding Clockwerk ripping me to shreds, I almost be falling off one of the large metal tail feathers of the Heavy Hooter until Darkwing be calling out to me to jump and be catching me on the jetpack as he flew by.

Now I be enjoying the ride of my life and the only reason why I wasn’t worried about Pom is because Dodo be sending me an image of Pom being carried by Carmelita, the nice lady that be saving my life from a poor end for a pirate.

“Pom’s mostly fine, but she really be needing help in the volcano!” I ducked out of the way of a bright glowing sphere of energy that almost be taking my head off.

“Yeah, I think we all need help here, because no matter how much I shoot him Clockwerk just doesn’t seem to be taking any damage.” Yes, that is being a very bad thing Darkwing. “We can’t keep this up forever, we'll run out of ammo and eventually fuel too.”