Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

27. Smolder simplifies.

-Equestria, School of Friendship, Yona-

Yona is a great yak, but Yona is not great enough to ignore my friends being missing from my life. It is like there big gaping hole in Yona's heart.

Smolder was always helping Yona and speaks so plainly that Yona can’t misunderstand her, she was tough like yak.

Ocellus also helped a lot with history homework and had a bright friendly smile for everyone. She tries to be logical, but she’s just as emotional as everyone else.

“Do you think Ocellus and Smolder are alright?” Yona asked of Sandbar, he was always so calm and collected.

Sandbar was a little dense, but Yona liked him anyway and he never got upset no matter how many times Yona asked him this question.

“I’m sure they’re fine, how much danger could they really be getting into?” He flipped a page with a hoof and kept studying the book. “Besides, Smolder is really tough and Ocellus can shapeshift to survive anywhere. If they can’t find them, then they’ll try to come back to us and I’m sure they’ll make it somehow. Also there’s the fact that they have each other.”

“Hey guys, the teachers are back, they look like they’ve been put through a wringer.” The blue griffon Gallus popped in to say before immediately leaving.

“Let’s go Sandbar!” Yona stated as Yona wanted to give our teachers a warm welcome back, even if they aren’t coming back with our missing friends.

We arrived at the entrance of the school to see Gallus. Yona began wondering where Silver Stream was, then Yona saw the sea pony pop her head out of the nearby water. She transformed back into a hippogriff as she climbed out of the moat and shook off the excess water.

“What’s going on… oh…” Silverstream turned to look at our slightly battered and bruised teachers, along with Twilight looking like the rest of them.

“Yona thought that alicorns healed more quickly.” Yona stated bluntly as Yona looked over Twilight.

“We do.” Twilight mumbled with an ice pack on her head. “My injuries should have healed by now, I think it’s the stress that’s preventing it. I also might have post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“What kind of amazing creature did you get into a fight with, it looks like you went several rounds with an ursa major or maybe even a tatzlwurm.” Gallus exclaimed while pointing out the injuries that were fairly obvious to us. “Oh and welcome back I guess.”

“Oh a monster didn’t do this to us.” Fluttershy was best teacher of yak and sweetest pegasus in existence, she was the least injured out of all of them. Even if her bruises were fairly visible, she is as tough as our other teachers. “We didn’t really understand what lambkin were like, even when we were warned they were a little… panicky. I never got trampled so hard in my life before, not that I’ve been trampled too many times before that. To think what happened to me was over a tiny grasshopper making a little music.”

“It was just an accident.” Applejack declared looking as bad as everyone else, so much so that even her hat was in a sling. “Well more like series of them that we tried to help with whether we caused them or not, I’m going to go take the rest of the day off… and tomorrow as well.”

Nodding to us, Applejack slowly sauntered off in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres with a slight limp.

“Yeah, Thorax wasn’t lying about the lambkin. It’s kind of funny in its own way.” Pinkie tried to laugh, but she instead winced in pain. “Ow, probably shouldn’t have used that whoopee cushion.”

“Yona thinks this needs more of an explanation.” Yona is knowing that lambkin aren’t intentionally violent, being incidentally violent by accident like yak was more than likely. Lambkin and yaks can be a little bit excitable.

“Yes, well… I never knew that some lambkin reacted to the color burgundy red in such a way.” Rarity mumbled as she trotted towards us and the school. “We all learned a lesson, not everything can be solved with friendship or the usual way we do things. I don’t think that Twilight will give up on changeling and lambkin relations though, come along Yona… I have some things to teach you about hiding injuries with makeup if you’re interested in helping me.”

“Of course Yona is interested in helping!” This sounds like something some female yaks wouldn’t mind, male yaks are likelier to wear their scars proudly. “Do you think Ocellus and Smolder are okay?”

“I’m sure they are quite fine and it’s okay to be worried about them Yona, but we can only hope for the best until they are found. At least they are better off being somewhere other than Tambelon from what Twilight told us about it.” Rarity shuddered slightly. Yona wanted to know more about Tambelon because Yona only know of it as a name and not the story behind it, Yona should look it up. “I’m sure they are okay, from what little Twilight saw the other side had breathable air and magic at least. Otherwise there would have been a dimensional pressure differential that could have torn our whole world apart or at least destroy an entire area. So of course the efforts in finding them requires the utmost of safety precautions, I don’t know how well the research is going, but at least we know that they didn’t end up in Sunset Shimmer’s dimension.”

“Gallus let me give you a bit of a life lesson, never… EVER… prank a lambkin!” Rainbow shouted out as we are both walking away, Yona also heard the thud of a body hitting the ground and decided to ignore it for the time being.

-Another realm, Oleander and Fred-

“Remind me again, just why exactly are these things called heartless?” Ollie said as she wielded Fred against numerous monsters successfully with a quick swings of his book shaped body.

The things she was fighting could be called shadow monsters, but there were a few key differences between actual shadow monsters and what these things were.

“Apparently this dimension runs on three part systematic symbolism of mind, body and soul.” Fred stated softly, then his book started to glow ominously as his head slowly peaked out of it. “SO LET’S JUST GET TO THE HEART OF THE MATTER OLLIE!”

Fred fully erupted from the book and swatted the monsters away from his Ollie with two wide sweeps of his claws, he was fully charged up and was given the go ahead to fully let loose.

For in the darkness, Fred was a god that would protect his dear squishy unicorn from those entirely unworthy of being in her presence.

-Walu’s Dim Sum, Smolder-

“Thank you for coming.” Nothing wrong with being nice and friendly, though some dragons might call me weak for it and at this point I was almost ready to stop caring about having a tough reputation. Some more people started to enter and I turned to the entrance. “Welcome to… oh, hey guys! Do you want some Dim Sum and tea with the news you brought? Po looks like he really needs a pick me up.”

Po looked fairly upset and I could guess why, the kung fu masters in the prison refused to come out… again.

“They wouldn’t leave the prison…” Po said while tapping his digits together. “Also we may have attracted some unwanted attention.”

“Po got into a fight with the Wolf Boss in the streets, going all the way across the city.” Tigress muttered while rubbing at her forehead. “Some unwanted attention is an understatement, now Shen will be aware that we’re here and far more alert.”

“Hey, that kind of thing could have happened to any of us.” It seemed Po was a bit miffed, I didn’t need to be Ocellus to see where this was going.

“You actually seem to have a rather large grudge against him Po.” After pointing that out with her tail, Viper turned to me with a bright smile. “Table for six please.”

“Right away, Ocellus prepare a table for six and I hope you have some ideas about what we are going to do next.” Since I hadn’t the foggiest, some days it was hard to keep a smile on my face with how distant we were from home.

It was likely going to take the rest of the month of healing for Pom to be capable of fighting in any capacity, even then she’d be entirely reluctant to get into one. That’s not to mention I don’t want to see her doing that shock-ram technique again, it messed her up pretty badly the first time and she was comatose and barely breathing for more than a week afterwards.

Shanty was getting really good at fighting, she was trying to fill a roll to make up for Pom being weak and was pushing herself a bit too hard when it came to fighting the wolves. Said wolves were always armed with a variety of weapons, wearing armor and were constantly stalking the streets for us. Those were the only mercenaries that Shanty had a decent reputation against, all of Shen’s other minor mercenaries were a bit too dangerous for her.

It doesn’t help that every time Ocellus transforms she starts smelling faintly of brimstone, apparently changelings have problems hiding that smell at the best of times and it’s a particular smell that I know other dragons would really like. I would know, I love that tiny smell of home and the reminder that we’ll have a hard time finding our way back. It’s why changelings rarely go after ponies or other people with notable pets, the pets always detected when a changeling tried to replace their owner back when Changelings were still doing their foal-napping thing.

Once the table was prepped we waited for snacks orders, business was booming and we weren’t doing anything as we’ve already served every other table and the only thing that needed to be done is pour some more tea for the guests.

Walu really didn’t really need our help at the moment, Ocellus took their order and Walu would set about preparing it and the tea.

“So we’re not getting help from them and I don’t know if a few good jokes can cheer them up after what they said happened to Thundering Rhino.” Monkey was wilting a bit as he took his seat. “Those weapons are really bad news aren’t they?”

“That’s an understatement, none of you are likely to survive a direct hit from one. So I suggest diving to the side or evading as quickly as possible.” Even I wouldn’t want to be hit by something moving that fast. While I’m quite sure the cannons Shen makes wouldn’t break through my scales, I can’t say I’m entirely sure my insides would be feeling so pleasant after a direct hit. “Of course they’ll have plenty of problems even hitting smaller targets like Viper and Mantis.”

“They’ll also have a hard time hitting Crane while flying too, swiftly moving targets are harder to hit with any accuracy. They have plenty of weaknesses when it comes to hitting small targets.” Ocellus tried not to look at Po as she joined me in waiting at the table for their snacks. “I take it they said no and stayed in the prison?”

“Yes.” Po said while slumping on the table with his head propped up in his right paw.

“That was kind of what we expected to happen.” Muttered Ocellus, and I just nodded along with it.

“So what’s the plan? If you don’t have one, then we’ll just have to come up with our own.” Tigress looked about at the kung fu warriors at the table looking a bit quiet. “With how terrified Storming Ox and Croc were, we’re coming to you three since you know the most about those weapons and have information on Shen’s movements throughout the city. How do we deal with the weapons aside from avoiding them?”

“Well, for one thing, get the black powder the cannons use wet and they won’t be able to fire. We already caused them to have to make more of the stuff by destroying a good bit of their black powder supplies.” Yeah that was some of our best work so far Ocellus, also don’t forget the sinking of their boats stalling their departure from the city to go around conquering other places. Shen is mad if he thinks he can do that with a limited number of long range munitions. “Aside from that, the weapons are slow and cumbersome to load and aim. Take out the crews that work the cannons and you won’t have to worry about them. They’ve only taught a number of wolves how to do it since they make up a majority of Shen’s forces, take enough of them out and they won’t have anyone to use the cannons aside from Shen himself. As far as things go, the cannons are useful at long ranges. Close up they are more of a liability.”

“They are better at destroying buildings and sieging places, but they don’t make up for fighting against people up close and personal. His mercenary army is really quite organized given how long they've worked for him, but they aren’t exactly the best when someone like Shanty can handle some of the smaller mercenaries. Shanty can’t handle the gorillas or larger mercenaries though.” I motioned for Shanty to come over here, she did so after she finished pouring some tea. “However, Shen is smart enough to have several teams of mercenaries around the cannons. His people will see us coming long before we can get to them, aside from Crane, Ocellus or me. The best way to destroy a lit cannon is to point it downwards before it fires, it will basically destroys itself.”

“That be one way of doing it.” Shanty stated as she looked at the Dim Sum being delivered with begging eyes. “Shen is being very smart, we not be getting much by him easily.”

Tigress sighed loudly and tossed Shanty a fruit dumpling. Our goat gave a happy noise as she started to chew on it after catching it in her mouth. Tigress smiled a bit before turning back to our conversation with a serious face.

“So take out the cannon crews or make the cannons destroy themselves, the only problem is reaching them with so many mercenaries in the way.” Po scratched at his head while looking to the ceiling. “So where are we attacking exactly?”

“It’s pointless to go after the fireworks factory. If we destroy that, then the good legacy of the peacocks goes away. If we attack the Tower of the Sacred Flame, Shen will likely topple the whole thing as he doesn’t care about his ancestral home. The best idea we have is to attack the tower.” Ocellus held up a hoof forestalling any commentary. "The fireworks factory can still be used by the people of Gongmen City. The tower is far less important if it's destroyed, without it Shen can’t use it as his local base of operations. I need to run this by Pom first if we are to get involved personally, so far we’ve been keeping ourselves safe by sticking to doing small things, sticking together and not getting caught by the many small patrols throughout the city. We’re in a portion of the city that, while they aren’t ignoring it, they aren’t nosing around too much.”

“What Ocellus means to say is that we’re trying not to draw attention to our hiding spots and this is the best one that we have as it is secluded and well away from the prying eyes of the mercenary patrols. Enough so that we can work a job openly with only a little worry about the wolves coming in.” Though I’m quite certain they wanted to hunt us down quite badly after all the problems we’ve been causing them. “We need Pom’s opinion on the situation before we can do anything, because she might have some helpful knowledge and we have to keep her in the loop of what’s going on.”

“I be all for hearing how Pom be doing.” Shanty raised her left hoof and waved it draw attention to herself. “Also I be a bit scared of having to face those wolves again, they almost be catching me this time when we sunk their ships. Thankfully only three of them managed to keep track of me.”

I blinked, an idea just occurred to me.

“If you want to make things go far simpler, then have Crane scout out the tower first and draw a map of where all the cannons are currently set up. Moving them around isn’t easy since they weigh so much, it’s pretty much a guarantee that those weapons will all be out in the open.” There was one thing most people tended to do, they overthink things and I was going with the simple strategy of keeping it stupidly simple. “You can split up and take them all out as quickly and as quietly as possible tomorrow night. We kind of overlooked something with mentioning weaknesses of the weapons, there’s the fact that they will have little to no ability to aim those cannons accurately at night unless an area is completely lit up. So take out as many lights as you can while doing that and they definitely won’t want to fire blindly into the dark for fear of hitting their own people. All that would be left once the cannons are down would be the mercenaries, which you can deal with since you apparently fended them off pretty well when they were invading the Artisan District in The Valley of Peace from what we heard. You can catch Shen off guard and he’ll try to flee, if we can capture him and prevent him from running off to the fireworks factory then everything will basically stop from there.”

“That’s a good plan Smolder, it’s really quite simple too.” Ocellus clapped her hooves together with a happy grin. “That takes away most of the problem in dealing with the cannons, so can you wait until tomorrow night? I need to deliver our idea for the attack on Shen’s stronghold to Pom. If she says we can go, then we’ll join in on the raid.”

“We can do that.” Mantis was standing on the table and in the middle of ripping a chunk off a dumpling for himself. “It’s a fairly sound plan. Do you know how Shen fights?”

“Blades or a lance, he also has a lot of knives under his robes.” I shivered at the one time he caught a glimpse of us. “He’s really accurate with throwing those things, could hit a fly midflight in complete darkness.”

“We’ll be careful, Shen can’t be that dangerous right?” Po was trying to be reassuring as he stuffed a dumpling in his mouth, but I wasn’t so sure that success was a guarantee.

-The next day, Pom-

I woke up with a gasp and took a deep breath, sitting up on the cotton bedding roll and looking about the room in a panic. I eventually calmed down when I saw that there was only one other person in the room.

“More nightmares?” A deep, if weak, voice rumbled.

Looking to my right from my sleeping spot, I saw that Thundering Rhino had managed to sit up.

“You shouldn’t be sitting up Mr. Rhino, your injuries still haven’t healed!” I said as I slowly got standing and made my way over to him.

“Are yours… any better?” Freezing as Thundering Rhino looked to me solemnly, I winced loudly. “Thought so… your movements are still too weak… to have completely recovered from your ordeals. Now about those nightmares…”

“I was dreaming that my body gave out on me and my heart exploded in my chest from using that technique I told you about. The dream continued on into the aftermath of what happened to my friends… it wasn’t pretty…” I sat down next to Thundering Rhino while looking at his bandages. “Do you need me to change them out?”

“Yes…” He rumbled a bit more weakly while grunting.

I went to go grab some fresh bandages, water, some healing ointment and a few other odds and ends.

We should be hearing news about what caused that fire in the river. My girls were stalling Shen pretty fiercely, but they couldn’t do it forever and they weren’t supposed to be fighting mercenaries. I really hoped Ocellus doesn’t bring me bad news and that she would even come at all would be a good sign that things were mostly okay.

“This is going to sting…” I said as I started removing the bandages, Thundering Rhino’s wounds from the direct cannon hit were healing pretty well. He may have lost his hammer protecting himself, but he didn’t lose his life… and he won’t if I can help it.

The only response I got was a grunt and a nod of acknowledgment as I unwrapped the bandages from his chest. Thundering Rhino was really tough, but he was almost killed taking a cannon head on. Had we not been there… I don’t want to think about that or the fact the city would be losing a benevolent if slightly grumpy leader.

I looked at the grisly wound in his chest, it was hard to look at without feeling sympathy for him. Having already made some boiling hot water, I dip the rag into it and went over to him to start wiping his wound down. He hissed and I stopped for a moment.

“Do not… worry about me.” How could I not worry when he was hurting? It still had to be done if he was to get any better. “Keep going…”

I continued cleaning the wound with a light scrubbing, the rag had turned brownish red by the time I was done and I got a dryer bit of cloth to start drying the wound. Once the dry cloth was just as dirty, I grabbed a third cloth and applied the ointment to it and started to rub it into the wound while trying to ignore his pained noises.

At least his wounds were looking better. Better than when we had to pry bits of stone and cannonball out of his body after the initial injuries.

We had saved his life, but did he want to be saved was the question I was now wondering about.

“Can you lift your arms?” I asked, he silently shook his head. “Spread them out at least, I’ll try to accommodate you Mr. Rhino.”

“I will survive… for the people of Gongmen…” He managed to get his arms spread out and I started to wrap the bandages around his torso.

Halfway through our silent interaction of me covering his wounds, we both heard a knock at the door.

“Gongmen City delivery service, fresh Dim Sum and supplies for the happy couple.” Ocellus was here with the cover story.

“Come on in, I’m a bit busy.” I said as loudly as I could, I finished tying off Thundering Rhino’s bandages and heard the door sliding open.

I looked over to see the sight of a male rabbit wearing a green robe with a cart load of supplies behind him.

Looking about to see if there were any patrols on this particular street, Ocellus quickly transformed back to her default state and started levitating supplies into the domicile at a rapid pace. She even came inside to see Thunder Rhino.

The Furious Five and Po were here, they also had a good plan and were currently scouting the locations of the cannons for a raid tonight to hopefully capture Shen.

Author's Note:

Thankfully this year is almost over... it's had a lot of lows and hopefully will end on a high note.

In other news, I'm still healthy... aside from a few sniffles due to the cold barometric pressure shift causing a few mild migraines.

Comments

[witnessglitch]

Kingdom hearts yeah!

[talontitanbane]

Looking to my right from my sleeping spot, I saw that Thundering Rhino had managed to sit up.

He lives!