Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

208. Bakery Break-ery.

-Saint Canard, outside Sickening Sweet Bakery, Pom-

Being a hero should always be a choice, not everyone wants to be a hero. I never got a choice in the matter since Oleander and Fred convinced me to leave the safety of my exile from Meadow Hills.

Had I known it would lead to all of this… well I would still be doing this very same thing because I met Tianhuo.

Inflate wool a split second before hitting the ground, Dormarch jumped off to the side and scrambled out of view of the weasels that were now focused on me.

Mostly because of what I just did.

As soon as my front hooves were planted on the street, I reared my hind legs and bucked the guy that was holding his gun openly.

His gun dropped as I slammed him below the belt and my eyes darted about collecting information. I think I just took out the lead weasel of this small group. He had been ahead of the others, four other weasels to look out for.

Two closest ones first, one on the left, then right.

Hostage, tied up and held by the big heavyset weasel with a large baseball bat. Not a currently a major threat, slow reaction time. Least threatening mentally, but physically very strong and moderately more durable than the others. I’d be far too fast for him.

Green wearing weasel was reaching for a weapon. Likely a gun and given his reaction speed, he is likely second in command of this group and is the most threatening. Has a hidden knife. Knows how to use both weapons with expertise.

A weasel in a straitjacket was already charging forward and lunging for me with knives held in reverse grip to knock me down and stab me repeatedly, eyes showing psychotic glee at having a viable target.

Dangerous, psychotic, yet signs of hidden intelligence behind wild feral movements in the lunge and has the best reaction time. I’m putting him below the green wearing weasel in threat, since he doesn’t seem to be one for guns and more in it for watching the life of his victims flee their eyes.

Last weasel, seemed to have problems with his lungs judging by the troubled breathing. Would not be good at an up close confrontation. Above the big weasel in threat, below the smaller straitjacket wearing weasel.

My hind legs finally came to the ground from the buck, I started to move immediately.

I side step left into the straitjacket weasel’s lunge, crouched down and then jumped straight up when his stomach was directly over me. The weasel went flying out of control given the sudden change in his momentum, he tumbled down the street and scrabbled with the knives to get back on his feet.

The slow weasel hampered by the hostage, brought his baseball bat down and I quickly hopped to the right still facing the direction of the bakery.

In my hop I lifted by back up and shifted my hips so that I landed in a standing crouched position.

Bringing both my hooves together I whipped them around. Into the right side of the green weasels face before he could get his weapon into position.

The gun discharged into the street and then went flying from his grasp.

Banana Boy swooped in and knocked the other gun away from the still awake leader of this group with the bottom tip of his body, then flipped around and slammed into the weasel face first with full force.

This gave me time to swing my hip around and lash out with my left hind leg in snap kick that knocked the green wearing weasel unconscious when my hoof met his chin with a sickening crunch I wasn’t proud of hearing.

My life was very much in danger and holding back in this situation meant danger for the hostage, myself, Banana boy and Dormarch. I was now facing left of the bakery and left myself open for that incoming giggling psycho leaping at my back.

The wheezing weasel was being easily taken down by several blasts from Dormarch’s Retriever Bark. The hostage started struggling in the big weasel’s grip throwing him off balance and almost making him drop them. Banana Boy was soundly dealt with the leader of the group.

The straitjacket wearing weasel landed on my back and tried to drive both his knives into my chest and neck as he wrapped his feet around my belly.

Managing to stay standing, despite a slight stagger, I blocked his knives by grabbing at his wrists with my hooves as I didn’t want to be disemboweled today.

“Die-die!” He said in childish glee and a giggle filled high pitched voice as I struggled to throw him off, I let go of his and went down on all fours before rearing and shaking him from managing to plant one of his knives in me by my jerky movements.

I then started to buck wildly around in a circle wildly like a bull at a rodeo. Honestly don’t know what Arizona sees in rodeos, but apparently it was something.

The psycho on my back started to giggle loudly in enjoyment and tried to slash at me several times, but thankfully my wool held up to the slashes. It would not hold up to a stab from this guy’s rather impressive strength.

I harshly rolled to the left and he tumbled off me, I quickly got to my hooves turning to face him and almost got stabbed in the face as he was on his feet almost faster than I could react. Catching his right arm in the crook of my neck and left shoulder I grabbed his left wrist with my right hoof and twisted inwards to make him drop one of his knives.

Falling backwards I got my right hind leg under him and kick him up into the air slightly. I grabbed his sleeves, which were very unhelpful to him in this situation, and yanked him back down into the ground onto his back behind me as I rolled onto my hooves and quickly smacked him in the face with a left hoof stomp that stunned him.

From there it was a simple act of quickly rolling him up and binding him with his own straitjacket before he could recover and start struggling in earnest.

Looking up from restraining a weasel, there was the shadow of the oafish weasel bringing his bat to bear, only to be hit by something in the back of the head and his swing was stopped halfway through to hitting me as he toppled over.

In his effort to not be hampered by the hostage the big weasel had dropped the hostage. Said hostage was apparently able to swiftly free themselves and bludgeon the larger weasel across the back of the head using the unconscious, and far lighter, green wearing one.

“Can’t believe I let these weasels get the drop on me.” A gruff voice stated while dusting their hands off. It was a dark brown and cream furred biped Badger in a long coat and hat. “Eddie Valiant, TOON Division Snooper.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re upper body strength is impressive?” I stated immediately as Banana Boy came down to hover near us. Dormarch quietly moved to standing to the left of the entrance to the bakery he looked determined.

“Not really, but I can get in a good hit every now and then when I need too.” Eddie seemed fairly nice for his rather scruffy appearance. “Nice job with taking down the weasels, but we still have to deal with the…!”

“What’s going on out…?” The second he saw us, the hyena didn’t even think twice about raising his gun and preparing to fire, even with the chance of the weasels possibly being hit by stray fire from projectile spewing weapon.

Dormarch was quicker on the draw and had hit the Hyena with a Wild Bark from his right just as the weasel started squeezing the trigger. The weasel immediately froze in place as the stunning effect from Dormarch’s attack took an immediate effect. It takes quite a bit of strength to shake it off quickly.

Running forward and doing a hopping and spinning upper left hoof to the hyena’s skull, I make them drop their weapon. I kick it away with one of my hind legs and by that time the hyena managed to regain his motor functions and scramble into the bakery.

Looking into the establishment as went into standing on my hind legs, I saw multiple other hyena’s in the baker. All of them were armed with similar weapons and turning to aim towards me.

“Get down!” I shouted that more for Eddie’s sake than anybody else’s, as I dove to the right putting the bricks below the windows between me and all those guns.

Banana Boy was already up in the air and out of the way given he was capable of flying in any direction at any second, he would be fine. Dormarch already had common sense and was still next to the entrance on the opposite side from me, likely already knowing exactly how many weapons were aiming at the entrance.

Eddie immediately turned and ran while leaning down to scoop up the weapon dropped by the green weasel. He quickly ducked behind the van as a hail of bullets spewed out of the bakery destroying the windows and sending shards of glass everywhere into the street.

“Ugh, hyenas, these laughing boys are the bane of my existence!” Eddie stated loudly, I heard him checking the weapon he acquired. “Well at least my situation could be worse, I could be already inside getting grilled by them and on my way to punch in my ticket to being six feet under!”

“You know these guys?” I asked as the guns slowly stopped firing, but I didn’t hear any movement. I flexed my wool a few times to get all the glass off of me.

“They are the Rotten gang, their leader is responsible for my brother’s death, the very head of these yahoos himself!” Eddie stated as he leaned out and fired a shot and after a yell of agony. Okay so he had a personal vendetta here. In return for dropping one of the guys in the baker he received several hundred shots in return striking out at him from cover. “I am ever glad the weasels shelled out for an armored vehicle! TOON Division really wants these guys brought in, especially for the smuggled weapon shipments this morning… unfortunately they are currently being used against us!”

“Well they can’t all keep shooting forever, they have to have a limited amount of ammunition!” I yelled back at Eddie. Otherwise they’d be wasting a lot of ammunition on nothing. They stopped firing and I could hear movement. “Dormarch can you do something?”

“Well I’d survive such an onslaught, but it would be painful to heal back from…” Dormarch was actually considering charging in.

I was considering entering Dancing Flame state and charging the room before he did so.

We were both relieved and slightly spooked that the choice was taken out of our respectively paws or hooves.

“What’s going on here?” We both turned to look as the stegosaurus biped, better known as Stegmutt, stomped straight up to the bakery in plain sight of all the guys holding various projectile weapons. I blinked as I watched as numerous bullets struck him, I could even swear I saw a bullet bounce off one of his eyes making him blink as if it had just irritated him slightly. His eye was perfectly fine afterwards too, I was beginning to wonder if that was a trick of my imagination. “Well you guys are not very nice, you must be the bad guys!”

Stegmutt wasn't the most intelligent individual, but he was really quite tough to stand up to that onslaught.

“Oh they most certainly are, can you take their weapons away from them for us please?” I asked, nodding Stegmutt passed through the door. “We really need to get by them.”

“Well okay, because you asked nicely Miss Leap Lamb!” He said back to me in a cheerful tone as he stomped through the entrance under constant fire.

“Oh dang, it’s a super, break out the grenades and rocket launchers!” What followed was hundreds of bullets, several explosions and constant screaming for a minute or two.

I silently sat there staring at Dormarch and him back at me. We both winced as we heard far more violence going on inside, too afraid to really look and see what was going on.

“Hey, how you doing?” Launchpad stated as he came to a seat next to me as another explosion went off, he patted me on the head softly as I whimpered at the noises coming from beyond the doorway. “Knew you’d be alright… well mostly… I did have some doubt. Glad to see you again.”

“Could be better.” I said in return to the pilot who can run a master class of how to destroy vehicles without anyone getting seriously hurt.

“Hey, whatever is allowing Stegmutt to ignore all that is quickly running out, he might actually need some help… his brain activity is dropping fast.” Announced Dormarch as he looked through the doorway. I carefully followed his lead and looked inside, there was a mess of injured hyenas and looking to Stegmutt, he took an explosion to the chest and then wobbled in place.

“I’m getting... very... sleepy…” Mumbled Stegmutt before another rocket to the belly caused him to fall over onto his back. We just watched as he lay there and began snoring loudly, at least he seemed to be okay and was not injured too badly.

“Guys start tying them up.” I said back to Dormarch and Launchpad as I moved forward.

“Well that’s out of the way…” The hyena with the cane stated as I walked into the destroyed front of the bakery, he was tossing away a rocket launcher. Bodies of hyenas were strewn everywhere and in various states of injury. The last standing hyena turned to me with a hat, glasses and a black cloak. “Ah, I see we have other guests, let make me bake you a rhubarb pie… it’s to die for!”

He swiftly pulled a sword from his cane as he held the cane sheath in his left hand, his right was held forward towards me.

“Can we not?” I asked politely as I stepped over a hyena’s groaning form and looked about the front to a secret villain’s base, still plenty of baked goods that were untouched by the destructive rampage caused by Stegmutt. “Also rhubarb isn’t that poisonous. It can be made relatively safe to eat… unless you’re adding other ingredients."

“Sorry, but I’m not in the habit of going down without a fight despite being a little light on ammunition and if you must know, the secret ingredient is cyanide… for you face Baron Von Rotten!” As he said this he thrust the thin sword at me, I leaned out of the way to the right and nearly got slapped across the head by the cane like sheath when I tried to strike out for the biped’s kidney. Having ducked it and backed off, Von Rotten laughed lightly. “Ah, you’re someone of skill compared to that big oaf that just tore apart our innocent front. This shall be enjoyable.”

“Innocent?” I said flatly as I took a few steps back to avoid a slash from the sword and jab from the sheath, and tried to hit him with a left straight. He hastily backed away and out of range of my leg. He had better reaction times than most people.

“Well of course my dear, the front was an actual functioning bakery, who cares if there’s a seedy underside if they never see that part and get their treats?” Out of the corner of my eye I could see Launchpad, Dormarch and Eddie clearing up the unconscious hyenas as quickly as they could. “Though you have me at a major loss, can I ask why you decided to suddenly rush down my establishment? How did you find out about this place exactly?”

“Like you don’t know already, where’s the secret entrance to Negaduck’s lair?” The sudden creepy smile I received was worrying and Von Rotten looked to be thinking about something as he attack me.

He slashed forward with the sheath and then tried to stab at me again with his sword and I got back into the counter, I swiped up a pie with my left hoof and threw it right into his face making him gag and stumble back.

I leapt forward and launched a right hind legged kick into his side staggering him further, I heard him grunt in pain as he slowly stood up and slashed out with his sword towards my face. Backing off from him, he finally voiced his thoughts.

“Well now if this is where that lunatic is, then that’s rather funny because he’s actually out done me by hiding under right under my organizations main base and that means… those damn weasels sold me out! Well if you can find whatever secret entrance he’s put into my base then you can have him, I haven’t a clue where it is, but it does answer why we’ve been having problems keeping the power on here as of late.” He thrusts his sword canes sheathe forward and then followed that up with a second thrust of his blade that almost scratched my left shoulder and I narrowly managed a glancing blow to the left side of his face with a right hook. That made him stumble back a bit and he shook his head. “Negaduck is all yours… but do you go for him or do you come after me?! I know when to cut my losses and... run!”

With that he ran and dove through the broken windows with a roll and ran off down the street laughing, avoiding several shots from an angry Eddie who charged out the front door and fired after him.

Baron Von Rotten was about to turn the corner and escape into the streets of Saint Canard. The guy was fast for a biped hyena and he was going to get away, right up until a fully charged stun pistol blast suddenly slammed straight into his chest, knocking him onto his back and electrocuting him violently and making him drop his both his cane and blade.

It was seconds later that skunk in a blue TOON Division uniform was on top of him and cuffing him. Soon Maui appear from around the corner, he looked in my direction and started making his way here.

“Okay, so that’s fully taken care of, but we still need to find the entrance into Negaduck’s base quickly…” The bakery was certainly ruined, but despite the destruction caused by the now sleeping Stegmutt, there wasn’t much going on in the front and the back was loaded with crates full of weapons. “We might still actually have the element of surprise.”

“Very unlikely, concerning that Negaduck was actually working with the weasels but not the hyenas.” Quite aware of that unusual fact Dormarch, but this was the only lead we had into finding Negaduck. “Let’s start scanning around.”

“How are things here?” Maui said and didn’t look surprised to see me, not even a comment on me being dead.

“Not going well to start off, at least we have help.” Timely help at that. “Stegmutt doesn’t look like he’s going to be able to get up anytime soon, he was hit with a lot of explosions.”

“Stegmutt is resilient, but he’s not invincible.” Launchpad stated as he patted the sleeping dinosaur on the head. “So how do we go about finding Negaduck's secret base?”

“This the place where Negaduck is supposed to be? It’s good news that you have someone who can see all, while seeing nothing.” As he said this Maui started twirling and began glowing brightly until he resolved into wearing a black costume and a red cloth blindfold, his beetle blaster pistol had disappeared and he was now holding a wooden staff. Not only did his clothing change, but so too did his voice which became much colder and made a chill go down my spine. “While I am like this please call me Cold Shadow.”

“That was awesome, but what does that do for us?” Launchpad tilted his head and looked around.

“Well I’m going to ignore that just happened, because we just got my brother’s killer.” Eddie stalked out into the street and waved a hand to the skunk, he waved back excitedly. “Keeping looking around for that entrance, I’ll talk to Skunky for you and will hold the front here, now go find that mad duck that caused all of this.”

“It does more than you would think Launchpad.” Cold Shadow finally answered.

“He just let himself be possessed…” Curiously, despite recognizing it as being something like a nightmare parasite, it seemed like that this form of possession was benign and on purpose.

“Maui is more in control than I am, he can return to himself whenever he feels the need to. We both have our skills.” After Cold Shadow said this we all started looking around the bakery.

There was trouble one of the bathrooms, but Launchpad knocked out the hyena quickly before any trouble started.

Dormarch helpfully told us there were two hyenas in the back afterwards.

The locked backroom had two hyena’s who hadn’t gotten the memo that the bakery had come under assault, they were swiftly beaten down by Cold Shadow with several impossibly fast staff strikes before they could even get their digits on the triggers of their weapons.

We found the illegal weapons delivered to the north docks that Jitters had lost track of, but there were a few crates that were suspiciously empty.

Dormarch hadn’t been able to detect much else as he followed me around like the puppy he was, giving me worried looks and was quite alert for any danger.

“Nothing?” I said after we had searched every possible room and moved back to the front.

“Hold… not nothing." We gave Cold Shadow a confused look. "I think I may have found the entrance.”

I glanced at Eddie who was talking to the skunk outside and then back to the counter with Dormarch moving to see what had Cold Shadow’s attention… despite the fact that he currently couldn’t see anything and was moving around as if he could.

“I’m not detecting anything.” Dormarch responded while climbing up onto my back to look around at the ventilation above us.

“You wouldn’t… there is a mystical barrier in place here. A severe price was paid... in blood.” Slapping one end of his staff into the floor, a familiar style of blood circle appeared with different symbols on it. “It is good fortune I am present.”

“Despite the fact that she is gone, it seems Splatter Phoenix is still causing us problems.” Dormarch stated dryly. “So do I need to call in our expert to disarm…”

With a swift swipe of his staff, Cold Shadow made the blood circle evaporate and we could see a lever that wasn’t there before.

“No need to call for outside help or expertise, it is easily dealt with.” Cold Shadow took a step back and motioned to Launchpad to pull the lever. “If you will do the honors.”

Launchpad, upon pulling the lever that almost blended in with the area around the counter. He fell backwards and the entire lightly damaged armored counter lifted upwards to the ceiling revealing a narrow staircase downwards.

“Come on!” One sniff was all I needed, just knowing that those poor injured puppies were down here.

Author's Note:

So... Negaduck...

How dangerous can he be exactly when faced with a mystical ninja combined with a half-boiled detective, a friendly sidekick pilot, a lamenting leaping lambkin and a physically manifested dangerous digital dog? Not to mention the two TOON Division officers watching the entrance of the bakery provided Negaduck even needs to go back that way and doesn't have another escape route already planned out.

Well Negaduck was never easy to deal with no matter who you are or what powers you may be.

Despite being a mostly normal biped duck and having him slightly outnumbered, Negaduck was always a powerful and dangerous mastermind.

Thus one wonders what this huge set up was all leading up to. What exactly Negaduck is going to do?

Short Answer: Pure Violence.

I've been fairly distracted from writing lately, but I'm living well.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

I take it Negaduck is a fan of Grimms Excessively Dangerous Dungeon Traps?

[prism heart]

Sounds like your Negaduck is almost as dangerous as the one in Tatsurou's story.

[Shadowshame]

You know if Nega duck was originally an actor then he must have been a poor one if the only role he could have was that of darkwing duck especially if he so easily lost his mind due to someone actually becoming the hero he played.