Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

180. Interim Interrogation.

-Sobaka, hotel run, Ocellus-

“Blah, blah, blah, so that’s what happened.” Sly said.

“Huh, I see.” I commented dryly while considering everything I heard.

“What? All you said was ‘blah blah blah and so that’s what happened! Are you going to at least explain that the ostrich is still alive?” The fox looked upset, Carmelita was not having a good day. “I’m still iffy on that, it hasn’t moved in hours and it isn’t breathing.”

“I’m pretty sure that whatever makes up Dodo’s core is why he isn’t dead despite ninety percent of his body being destroyed.” I was looking at the pile of blackened with ash melted metal form that used to be Dodo, while he didn’t look healthy I could still vaguely feel a presence in that mass. “His core apparently survived, but his body wasn’t nearly as resilient.”

“Yeah, sorry about not focusing on that sooner, I was more focused on keeping all the biologically injured alive. That Dodo even still has a working power source is nothing short of miraculous.” Dormarch was connected to a scanner and was more worried about the health of our friends. “Even my scans says he should be dead, he even functionally is right now! Okay… so anyway a full explanation of what happened from those who were there to witness what they saw. From the top!”

-One full explanation of Krakarov later-

“Okay so they did little aside from run around, fight a lot of robotic falcons, got injured badly and made some dumb decisions that turned out okay… also I noticed that Caper Canine…” I trailed off. “You know what, as the only active member of Team Leap Lamb left to make decisions, I’m going to open up with real names here given I know Pom doesn’t like the subterfuge or being called a super hero very much even if she’s playing along with it. Dolly here has suffered severe magic backlash and exhaustion, explains what we saw from here earlier. I’ll have to talk with her, she doesn’t have to worry about a horn since her whole body is a magical focus, but she’s going to need to eat a lot and know the dangers of pushing beyond a specific limit as she almost cashed a check that her body couldn’t pay. So Miss Carmelita do you and the other officers want to be let in on everything?”

“Considering the word magic was used and not a hyperbole, yes.” Carmelita she stated tapping a foot and sitting in a nearby chair. “Let’s start with why we can’t get Leap Lamb, Cut-Lass, Optimized Ostrich or even the dragon immediate medical help… also what are their names?”

“Leap Lamb is Pom Lambchop, she’s never lied about her actual name. Cut-Lass is Shanty, no last name. Optimized Ostrich’s name is Dodo, he’s Shanty’s companion. As for the dragon, that’s my girlfriend Smolder, don’t ask about her family name. As for why we can’t take them to a hospital, well how do you think they are going to treat aliens?” There wasn’t as much surprise as I was expecting, it was dull acknowledgement emotionally and they readily believed it. “As for my name, I’m Ocellus. Do you want the easy liar’s route out or do you want the rabbit hole we’ve been digging for ourselves?”

“Everything… please.” Officer Fox has probably seem some weird stuff, as have Officer Wilde and Hopps given their emotional response was more curiosity than disbelief.

“Okay… I’ll reveal my true self, just don’t shoot me.” I transformed into my base form, the response from Carmelita and Judy was tasty affection and Nick had a sense of mirth.

“You’re adorable!” Judy shouted.

“Yeah, my people don’t actually get that reaction much because of being shapeshifting empathic vampire bugs, people find the vampire part creepy when they find out about it. What you are seeing right now is why I can’t go to a hospital, but I heal decently well enough.” There was a bit of incredulousness in the mentioning of the word ‘vampire’. “Before you ask, no I don’t consume blood. I eat and subsist off of love, yes true love is something my people would value above all else since we kind of need that to live.”

“Aww… that sounds so sweet!” Did we need to remind Judy that she still had a fever from the heatstroke?

“It’s a huge hassle to find someone that will love you for who you are, especially when you can always tell when someone doesn’t really love you. I can’t read minds, just the emotions your all feeling and thankfully none of you are disgusted… my people are used to knowing that feeling. Though I’m starting to wonder about the things you’ve seen now. I’m a mostly harmless vampire and Smolder feeds me well enough with pure mutual affection. So let’s keep me in mind moving forward as to why we can’t exactly do hospitals.” Getting us back on track I decided to point to each of my friends. “Pom’s looks like an animalistic sheep of this world, but she’s a lambkin which are more sheep adjacent but not actually a sheep. Ironically they make for great sheep farmers, they are also chronically anxious and easy to panic. Pom is an outlier among her people and not normal by any stretch of the imagination. She can remain functional in other societies in spite of her anxiety problems, not to mention everything else wrong with her. The words ‘sacrificial lamb’ is becoming big problem with her.”

“Oh, don’t get me started on that.” Dormarch had been around long enough to know what Pom was like. She had leadership qualities, they were there, but she was more focused on survival than actually thriving or leading. “Pom is slowly working herself into an early grave with a shovel and asking nicely how deep it needs to be before she can stop, but her resilience is to be admired despite all the stress she puts on her body.”

“Continuing Shanty has a medical record and there were abnormalities in it from what Mopsy told me of her hospital stay, abnormalities that went ignored as Shanty was considered a normal animalistic goat and that their diagnostics equipment needed to be checked over. We can’t have that come up again or someone might strap her to a table to dissect her to figure out what makes her tick, the problem with that is that most of the things we do cannot be studied without a working knowledge of magic which seems to be hoarded knowledge on this world.” The fact that all the officers winced meant that it was bound to happen, I wasn’t about to let Smolder out of my sight with her spinal injury if that were the case. Carmelita looked at the unconscious Shanty with worry. “As for Dodo… we don’t know how he works or even how to rebuild him. He’s a living entity, for as much as living could be defined for him at the moment considering his state. Do you really think a hospital would take him? Much less a veterinarian considering he’s mostly just a highly intelligent animal.”

“All very good points, what about your girlfriend?” Nick pointed to Smolder. “Wouldn’t you want her to be able to move around sooner?”

“Dragon, mystical creature, do I seriously need to explain why it’s a bad idea if people are aware she exists and is in the state she’s currently in? Also there’s the problem with the kind of equipment someone would need to even perform any necessary surgery on her, just because she’s injured doesn’t mean she stopped being a dragon and tough enough to have bullets bounce off her eyeballs. Just an example I assure you.” I knew Smolder was going to make it through this, but it was going to be hard to see her trying to struggle with upholding the strong front she puts up. I could already see it coming. “She’s not going to walk this injury off, much less walk anytime soon, but it’s not currently killing her. I intend to stay by her side the entire time she needs me. She did it for me when I was in a coma and I’m not going to be a bad girlfriend by not returning such a heartfelt favor, plus I’ve become moderately dependent on her being near me. Now any questions?”

“Why weren’t you there? With your girlfriend and Team Leap Lamb I mean.” Judy raised a paw and gave me a slight look of compassion.

“If I went any nearer to Clockwerk, I would have been incapacitated, if not outright killed, by the amount of malice he was putting out before being destroyed. It’s a downside of being able to feel strong emotions such as hatred, anger and pure malice. All of which would have an immense negative effect on my health were I any closer to it and it focused on me specifically.” I looked to Gosalyn, Mopsy and the ever quiet and attentive Maui minding his own business as he watched the proceedings. “That said, Gosalyn is Darkwing’s adoptive daughter whose grandfather was her last known living relative that ended up in the same situation Team Leap Lamb is in. That being lost in dimension not our own. Also she stayed behind to protect me, Mopsy was being the adult for us and Maui showed up sometime afterwards and we didn’t exactly meet him until he came to Sobaka.”

“Speaking of people, what about Caper Canine? You haven’t mentioned her much.” Carmelita noted with a raised right brow.

“She’s from this world. Britain, Camden Town, born and lived the life of an almost average Dalmatian...” Suffice it to say, I think Pom really set the bar for being a power multiplier for canids actively bonded to her. Pom was good with dogs and Dolly was just one dog. The absurd things Dolly has done thus far is all only possible because Pom is a savant when it comes to canines. “Her name is Dolly D. Dalmatian.”

“Wait… she was living in Camden Town before all of you showed up? What was weird about her before she joined Pom or Leap Lamb?” The answer to Carmelita’s questions didn’t come from me. “I seriously doubt she was just a completely average dog, even before meeting Leap Lamb.”

“I think that has to do with our research trip to Camden Town, a lot of weirdness was going on in the area. The name Cruella De Ville comes up a lot in reference to thousands of illegal activities that are covered up to ridiculous extremes.” Hearing the words Cruella De Ville from the rabbit’s mouth apparently woke up Dolly and the nightmarish amount of fear I felt quickly bled off into blind rage as she looked about dazedly. That too bled off as she sat up and then began grasping her head with her paws, magic exhaustion always left someone with quite a migraine. “There were numerous incidents with Dalmatians, a lot of them with one batch of a hundred and one that were moved to farm near what is colloquially known as ‘Hell Hall Manor’ by absolutely everyone in Britain. Then there was a recent issue with her nearly getting a second batch of one hundred and one Dalmatians… I assume that Dolly is one of them?”

“Yeah, also her ninety eight brothers and sisters are very nice, despite the lack of biped or animalistic to look out for them.” There was some concern from mentioning that, but I decided to assuage their worries. “Their parents run a very nice household bursting with love, I couldn’t starve there if I tried not to eat any love. Also some of the Dalmatians there are directly descended from the incidents with the first one hundred and one Dalmatians.”

“Wait… all those dogs wouldn’t happen to be living on one zero one Dalmatian Street would they?” Nick asked seriously.

“I really like them, those puppies were all adorable and their parents were quite friendly when we visited them looking for Pom or Smolder and Ocellus!” Murray was now pointing out that they had visited and Carmelita sat up. “We were on our best behavior there, honest!”

“When did this happen exactly?” Carmelita was glancing between him and her two friends and comrades with a stink eye.

I gave a general explanation of how we got here, how we ended up in separate locations and the friends we made along the way. Also Cooper Gang’s run in with Sabu Taj came up and Carmelita’s ears were quite erect during the mention of that name and her tail shifted about in as agitated a manner as she felt.

“You missed the Cooper Gang hanging out at a giant dog house?” Carmelita muttered in disbelief. “You even missed this guy, this bright pink and big lug right here, walking out of a store near the hotel in broad daylight?!”

“To be fair, we were busy with a lot of other things and tired, like the numerous assassination plots against one duck boy. The robotic mandrills and the crashed airship. Trying to find out how Ugly Ursula escaped custody… magic is a good explanation now.” Pausing Nick considering something with a bit of shock. “Wow Pom really has a horrible life, now that I start thinking about all the trouble she attracts.”

“Okay, that way lies madness and there’s a house full of dogs that are getting away with no one looking out for them.” Carmelita grumbled quietly.

“They have a near immortal magical zombie chicken we freed from MS. Ruby that was apparently an excellent friend of their ancestors, one of their number is fairly capable engineer, their matriarch is a talented licensed nurse, their father is a known firefighter and they have several methods of earning a lot of money. Such as the three divas dogs that do commercials for things like Just Plain Nuts and Jump Jet Pizza, they have all they could almost ever want.” There was some recognition to Bentley’s words, this made both Nick and Judy pull out their devices and soon they had images of three identical dogs on them that were Destiny, Dallas and Deja-vu. “That they’ve been taking care of themselves for so long says a lot about how much help they don’t need, they are paying for things themselves legally by earning the money and are happily getting away with being seen as just animals. I’ve been spending a lot of time in communication with the engineer of the Dalmatian family, he just needs a little training and help from time to time. Also he needs to stay away from anything rocket powered...”

“I can’t exactly arrest animals now can I?” That the thought likely crossed Carmelita’s mind considering what I felt made Dolly’s reaction pretty clear. She at some point had gathered her wits and when she heard the comment she started growling quite loudly at Carmelita. “I’m not going to break up your family… please tell me there’s at least some form of police for animals.”

“Police horses, they do community work to keep animals from stirring up too much trouble and handle animal level crimes.” Bentley answered with a smile. “The police horse named Pearl keeps a tight hoof on the animals around Camden Town.”

“That… actually makes too much sense, considering what we saw when we were fighting the robot mandrills.” Snickered Nick as he grinned. “That Pearl knows how to buck down crime.”

“Are there any other animals that are that highly organized?” Knowing Carmelita was being sarcastic, I couldn’t help myself.

“The Rescue Rangers and the organization that branched off from them called the Rescue Aid Society, both are run by friendly mice. We met a talking bat in New York and we missed meeting Pom there when Dolly distracted one Norton Nimnul.” I had a slight smile on my face. “The mice are the ones that set up the power plant to fail and they tend to use albatrosses for long distance travel.”

“Well that explains all the unsolved cases in New York where it seems like there was a huge rodent problem before a bunch of criminals get caught. Also Norton Nimnul’s ravings about rodents are now apparently not the ravings of a rabid lunatic.” Judy grumbled with her paws crossed over her chest. “Anything else?”

“...” I didn’t answer that but...

“Seriously?” Sitting up Carmelita groaned. “Okay what is it?”

“Bark Brigade. Dog’s worldwide howl and bark loudly to communicate long distances with one another… they called it Twilight Bark and was mostly used for gossip. It’s how the first one hundred and one Dalmatians survived the incident that started their family. It has since become the World Wide Woof, bark chains can cover a large area where dogs are common. So they actually have a society hidden beneath everyone’s underbellies” Bentley was relaxed and settled into the chair after having done some light medical aid on the others while we talked. “It’s actually kind of comical how much animals can actually sneak by under the radar when there’s a language barrier in the way.”

“What about all the meat animalistic and bipeds eat?” Carmelita asked all of the sudden.

“Survival of the fittest I’m afraid.” Intoned Bentley. “So as long we don’t know them personally... no hard feelings I guess.”

“Are you going to stop eating chicken just because of our run in with Ms. Ruby?” After an amount of thought to Murray pointing it out, Carmelita clapped her hands together.

“Nope, I’ll still eat chicken, I’m just going to ignore everything I’ve heard today that implies eating something intelligent is a common factor in our world.” Carmelita said with a bright toothy smile that had me worried.

“Every…” Nick started.

“Everything, even the Cooper Gangs involvement in the Krakarov becoming a massive sinkhole!” Carmelita responded vigorously with the same stretched peppy smile, her emotions were a bit more frightening than her showing teeth. “Who would believe us if we told them anyway? Aliens, monsters, magic, I’m pretty sure all government officials are keeping that well under wraps and already know all about. They’d tell us to be quite and to let the Cooper Gang go, because of course they would!”

“You’ve gone into complete denial mode haven’t you Montoya?” Stated Judy flatly.

“I just love the taste of chicken too much damn it!” Carmelita shouted to the ceiling. “… at least tell me fish aren’t intelligent.”

“Uh… the talking bat… she mentioned the Rescue Ranger stopping an octopus from trying to break a dam with a reverse submarine and wanted to destroy all surface dwelling beings with an army of fish?” I stated sheepishly. “There’s also the witch that rides a vacuum cleaner around that the bat was being an accomplice to for a number of high profile thefts, before turning her life around and becoming a part of what is basically an animal version of the police force that stopped the witch. Mind you they stopped a full grown biped with magic, so… yeah... things happen.”

“Yeah, no, I didn’t hear any that.” Carmelita stated immediately her ears lying flat against her head. “What were we talking about again? Oh right, what kind of occupation did your caretaker Pom have when she wasn’t a super hero for our world?”

“If I said police officer, would you have an aneurysm?” I gained a very flat look for that. “Well she is a guard to a city. She technically patrols a beat, but she’s mostly about community service from what we know about her and she’s head of their canine division. Also her training dogs might be why said division is so successful in keeping the crime rates in her city low, she considered herself the weakest member of her police force.”

“Sounds like a very nice sheep.” Carmelita responded cordially. “How was she the weakest exactly considering everything we know Leap Lamb to be capable of? Including firing blasts of energy from her mouth!”

“Everyone else in her police force is a longma, basically a dragon pony, while not as resilient as a full dragon they could take a much worse beating than Pom can in general if she didn’t have her fluffmancer abilities. They can fly, control fire and all know how to take someone down with three legs tied behind their backs through insane discipline practices.” Now we were going conversational and ignoring the elephant entirely and treating it like it was nothing. Wow Carmelita’s emotions were really well controlled now, how does someone just flip a switch like that? “They don’t even need any firefighters in that city, the police force can just draw the flames away from anything that catches fire. Nice place for Kirins to visit from what I heard.”

“I’m going to stop interrogating you now.” Sighed Carmelita with a hand on her face. “I have no reason to arrest any of you and I never had any reason to believe you were illegally landing on our world from space… because there are currently no laws against that or policing interstellar entities that might be living among us.”

“We’re technically dimensional entities, we don’t have spaceships where we come from. We lack technological advancements because free access to magic more than likely slows those down technological progress immensely.” I was beginning to wonder if it was something I said when Carmelita slammed her face into her palms and made a loud keening noise. “It’s just something I’ve taken notice in this world.”

“Wow you broke her… I wanted to do that…” Cooper whined loudly.

“Ring tail, shut up.” A cringing Carmelita stated with less venom than expected and some affection.

That was confusing as all get out to feel, when she sounded like she loathed him. Was this… was this an Arizona and Velvet thing?

“Uh… why did you say that while feeling…” I stopped when I received a scathing glare from Carmelita, I could feel the heat coming off it. “Question withdrawn, I’m now turning back into a horned lizard now.”

“So… the rest of us can still freely go to a hospital, you know… with no complications. Just thought I should put that out there.” They did just that, leaving Mopsy, Maui and me with the rest of the injured that couldn’t go.

-Equus???, Oleander-

We got a positive signal and Buttina brought the Centennial Eagle around for a landing, when we got out we saw an orphanage.

Walking in I saw the most adorable heart stopping sight ever, Fred as an demonic children’s book with an equally young Oleander. I walked up to the younger me and opened my mouth.

“Don’t bother, I know I’m cute. And I’ll still be cute when I’m older too, also awesome and beautiful!” Such a precious little thing the younger me was. “So, what are you here for?”

“Is there a goat, a sheep, a dragon or a changeling here?” I was being completely upfront with myself.

“Two out of four, this way.” I was lead into a room where I saw a baby pom, I think I immediately contracted diabetes on the spot.

“Don’t worry about the diabetes Ollie, I’LL DEAL WITH THAT BEFORE WE LEAVE!” Ah Fred, I knew you cared. "I contracted them too... EMBARASSING FOR A DEMON OF MY STATURE..."

Picking up the baby from where she lay, we saw a damaged goat holding a bottle. The small smiling Pom waved her tiny hooves at it.

"Being a nursing goat isn't being bad sometimes..." She mumbled as she brought the bottle to the baby's mouth and she started to suckle on it. "So what's with the older Oleander, it better not be the evil clones."

"No, that's next week." The younger me intoned. "This is a dimensional and time disreperancy."

"Have room for a depressed emo Pom?" Asking for dimensional friends.

Author's Note:

The problem with depressed emo Pom is that it's hard to tell which one Oleander is talking about.

Also Ocellus telling the truth so hard that the Interpol Officers just throw their hands up and call it a day.

Comments

[prism heart]

The sad thing is I can almost picture the "I am so done with this day" face on Carmelita.
There, there Carmelita, everything will get better....eventually.

[Shadowshame]

11170072
There was no sarcasm there I’m being serious that hit me in the feels