Baa-Ram-Ewe!

-Petopia, damaged Paw-tucket streets, Pom-

The Mega Mechanikat was mostly down, but it was still a concern if Mechanikat could use his magnetism to control it remotely. Thinking of concerns, better get one out of the way.

“Shanty, can you hoof your cane scythe to Dodo and tell him to go check on Marshall?” Not even questioning why, Shanty did so and Dodo went running off. That or she was aware of what I was, Dodo would have been in danger to have around someone with control of magnetism. Don’t want our good buddy to be in danger. “Good, now Mechanikat can’t have a hostage. Hot-Dog, Tusky, Brainy, Mam, move that devastated robot away from the fight when Mechanikat isn’t paying attention and dismantle it safely. In case he thinks to use its broken form if he has enough power to do so with his magnetism.”

As I was giving out order Shanty readied herself by summoning Horizon to generate a bounding bubble and readied herself to fight Mechanikat. Only if he proved to be too much for Smolder.

So far Smolder was doing pretty well with using her combat ribbon to deflect the chunks of metal sent her way and managed to drag Mechanikat into range of her claws. He was using magnetism to fly and had been trying, and failing, to knock Smolder out of the air. Obviously the cyborg cat was not well trained with his new abilities, but they were fairly powerful given how much metal he was manipulating… aside from his own body.

Cyborgs creeped me out on a number of levels, I can’t imagine the process it took the giant metal owl that hunted Sly Cooper’s family to replace every last part of himself.

I wasn’t too worried about Smolder’s safety, she was still a dragon, but I would be worried if something like a building fell on top of her. Dragons could still suffocate or drown, their organs aren’t invulnerable to damage so a powerful enough applied blunt force trauma or shockwaves are still fairly dangerous to them. Mechanikat didn’t seem to have the physical strength to bust her scales, much less harm her physically.

“I am being aware that I should not be taking this fight from her, she be practicing on the side by herself a lot in the days we spent building up for trips between realms in Castle Alexander.” It kind of showed and Shanty apparently helped her with it given I recognized some of the punching and kicking motions. It was some form of adapted aerial fight style of combat to complement her use of the combat ribbon Viper gave her so long ago. Said ribbon was well maintained and well taken care of by Smolder. “Been meaning to ask, do you be missing the Rhongomyniad?”

Seeing Mechanikat was thoroughly distracted and chatting at Smolder as he attacked her, I looked over to see what Dog Star Patrol was doing.

I watched as Brainy, carefully moving pieces into position for Tusky to drill apart with his drill tooth to break down the chunks. Hot Dog was melting through other portions of the Mega Mechanikat and Mammoth Mutt was inflated the size of her front paws to push the removed pieces further away from Mechanikat like a biological bulldozer. Mammoth Mutt was also pushing a lot of snow too, she was fairly strong to move all that, and like a Pokémon her size was deceiving to the sense in many ways.

Tusky and Hot Dog were making quick work of dismantling the rest of the robot and as long as Mechanikat only kept pulling from the head of his machine, he wasn’t going to notice what was happening.

“A part of me does, but I think it was for the best that I didn’t become attached to a divine invulnerable weapon that possibly had mind warping properties given how Artoria acted around it.” Letting it go wasn’t easy, it was only something like semi-intelligent or more reactive to the users will and it did choose me to wield it.

“Why are you letting her fight by herself? Not that she is having any trouble with Mechanikat, an idle curiosity.” I turned to the darkly clad cow with the bat theme.

“Smolder is a dragon and there have been some… cultural issues she’s going through, mostly to do with her pride as a dragon.” It was nice that she was on talking terms with me again.

“She really be liking that you can breathe fire, it be making her feel like she lost a fight to another dragon.” Shanty earned an odd glance from the cow that was fitting that was fitting the aesthetics of Paw-tucket, I’m pretty sure the cow was much bigger outside of this world.

The glance slowly shifted to me and a raised questioning brow soon followed, wonder how this cow would feel around Arizona.

“Smolder under mind control at the time, a really nasty guy that could throw thousands of weapons at us constantly forced her into a greed growth state which couldn’t have been pleasant on her mentality when I beat her in that state. Smolder was about the size of what someone would commonly expect from the word ‘dragon’ if you have mythologies about those.” Yeah, I was trying not to go back to the thoughts about how Longma had a really strange relationship with dragons. “I’m Pom Pawdore Lambchop, a Chrysomallus, canine magnet, trouble finder and apparently multiple dimensional hopper… one step away from home after quite a trying journey and living with a slow constant existential threat to my life in the form of my wool slowly turning gold. This is Shanty, one of my charges, apparently she’s a Capricornus and rated to handle depths of up to several hundred meters straight down without a submarine.”

“Sacrificial sheep huh?” The cow muttered under her breathe. “I’m Bat-cow, I was involved in a mind control drug incident involving diseases and bacteria that went weird. Nothing terrible came of it, but I became a cow with a detectives level of intelligence… something similar happened with Detective Chimp who drank from the fountain of youth. I’m starting to believe the detective thing is what happens whenever one comes under or near the totem of ‘the bat’, given the whole sonar thing taken to a more conceptual conclusion of finding what hides in the dark.”

“Nice to meet you again.” I said pleasantly, she gave me a surprised look. “Nose like a dog, sense of hearing like a dog and frankly I’ve become much more canine like given I have fangs now as the side effects of leaning into what my prior bonds left me with… really makes me a lambkin in wolfs clothing.”

“Not sheep? I’m getting a distinct feeling that you are not a sheep.” Yeah, that’s something to wonder about Bat-cow, almost everyone who looks at me can tell I’m more sheep adjacent than actual sheep.

“A kin to sheep are the lambkin, my people run a successful textile industry.” I know that still weirds people out who hear it, but Bat-cow didn’t even show signs of that being odd.

“Race wide anxiety problems?” It didn’t take Bat-cow seconds to utter that in a questioning tone, as if she could figure out what lambkin were normally like just by having me present.

“Yes, I’m believe myself to be a fairly high functioning member of my species, which is far more unfortunate than you would believe.” I continued to watch Smolder manage to get in a few good hits on Mechanikat.

“I can believe a lot. Also durable alien metals, unlike anything you’ve ever seen.” Bat-cow answered my unasked question, she was really good.

“Dolly’s skateboard, practically indestructible to physical damage, but that’s thanks to electrum varnish being a good magic conductor and constantly in contact with being who have magic.” I glanced at Tusky’s tooth still shredding through the Mega Mechanikat robot. “Tusky was also said to have a tooth made of the strongest stuff in the universe, how does that work?”

“Dur-namel is created by the chemical processes in the bodies of the alien species Tusky comes from, basically his body produces the stuff that turns it into an indestructible tooth his people use for drilling through ice, stone, metal and more to create burrow holes on the ice planet he hails from. The rest of his teeth are nearly as tough, to the point that his people eat bones as a snack.” Well that was interesting fact ‘Bat-cow’, AKA Udder Chaos of the Thunder Clouds. “If Tusky’s people don’t work on their body as well as their tooth, they’ll find themselves spinning after getting it stuck in something, happens fairly often from what I hear. Their bodies are not made of the same stuff as their enhanced teeth, but their bones sure are as durable.”

“Any members of the Dog Star Patrol that I haven’t heard of?” I asked as I watched Smolder elegantly got her ribbon wrapped around Mechanikat while planting her feet on his back and then pulled with the ribbon gripped tightly in both her claws. Yep, Smolder was making him punch himself multiple times. “I’m talking lesser known members. Tail Terrier, Tusky Husky, Mammoth Mutt, Hot Dog, Bull Dog, Paw Pooch, Brainy Barker, Super Dog Krypto and Ace the Bat Hound are some of the names I’ve already heard.”

“Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself!” Smolder was really enjoying her fight, also Mechanikat really didn’t read as major threat. At least not in the same way that Snooky did and it was understandable that Dolly really laid into him with her paws.

The whole thing about the slamming a dumpster lid on Snooky’s spine and Dolly possibly going out of her way to break all of the cats legs. Normally I would be upset with going overboard on violence, but a cat that can create surface to space projectile weapons out of the limited levels of technology that Paw-tucket had was someone to be absolutely wary of. Needless to say I think it definitely warrants that kind of caution and violence that Dolly took with outright mangling Snooky while trying to pretend those were accidents.

Apparently in less than a week or two here Snooky created two bases, a scavenging and combat robot, and a weapon to destroy a something in orbit with a limited numbers of uses and was the creator behind all the cat-bots that we destroyed. Mind you one of those bases was a cat-bot factory, large and underwater… that he built in less than a few days since we arrived. Plus all the stuff Brainy Barker showed me in her sleep about what he did to his brothers and sister who were far nicer than Snooky… also said family was under galactic protective services because of Snooky’s demented actions. On top of all that the stuff he does normally was something to fear as a menace to any society he’s seen near and I think the only reason he worked for Mechanikat was the paycheck considering one of the stories even had Snooky turning on Mechanikat with a fully robotic copy of Mechanikat.

So yeah, I’m dropping that line of thought that Dolly went too far with Snooky… more like she didn’t go far enough and that’s a terrifying thought in and of itself.

“Chameleon Chollie, he’s a nice shapeshifter like your friend Ocellus. Prophetic Pup comes from the same region of space Brainy Barker does, his head is slightly larger and orb like… helps with the clairvoyant abilities, not a combat specialist and more of a very useful early warning system.” Here Bat-cow paused. “There has been several dogs with the title ‘Wonder Dog’, at least most of them die of old age and others become legendary in some ways. The current one has all the similar powers to krypto, not nearly as strong, but not nearly as many weaknesses either. There’s Streaky the super cat he once fended off an entire contingent of red lanterns on his own, they are a bunch of rage fueled jerks, never seen a cat braver or more actively heroic than that one. Some honorable mentions go to Beam Beagle, who died in the line of duty lighting the way for future Dog Star Patrollers. Shiba See-through who has been missing in action since that one incident with a nasty piece of work named Brainiac whose ship incidentally crashed into a planet of invisible beings. Barrier Basenji was very unusual one coming from a species of canine made of rock that can manipulate minerals in a form of geomancy. However if you want to know less dog members, you can’t go weirder than Gleek space monkey… who’s power is to summon a single bucket that can’t be permanently destroyed in any way, also has a stretching prehensile tail. Same region of space that Tail Terrier comes from apparently.”

“Fascinating.” I commented with a hint of awe hearing about so many dogs with weird abilities. If I was just traveling around in space… how many of these dogs would I have following me around now?

“We even have a few auxiliary members, like Hope Corgi… a blue lantern that soon disappeared after talking to some strange dark hero unicorn with a demon named Fred.” Wait… did she just say what I thought she said?

“Oh I know who Fred is, hope he had nothing to do with that corgi being missing… must be Oleander looking for me.” If anyone had dimensional hopping abilities, it would be Oleander. I wonder what she’s doing right now other than possibly looking for me. “Fred is kept in check by the unicorn named Oleander, Oleander is quite friendly… and is possibly dating that demon.”

“Curious…” Bat-cow narrowed her eyes at me. “Then there’s the series of Proty the Protean, a living self-replicating blob creature from the Herculoids Cluster of space, said to be related to Gleep and Gloop, the living blob guardians of a highly sought after planet named Amzot Quasar. Nobody quite knows why the planet was so highly sought after, just that it was under constant attack from a wild variety of weird beings for an equally wide variety of reasons.”

“How are things going Char Lizard?” I called out as I turned from my conversation to see Mechanikat had several rents in his metal and she burning away at several metal barriers. Mechanikat looked a bit battered and was totally afraid of Smolder now.

“I’m working on it Leap Lamb!” Smolder called back and continued to spit fireballs at the swirling barrier of metal around Mechanikat.

“Excuse me, but can I throw a bat-a-rang to speed this up?” Bat-cow was asking Smolder for permission to intervene.

“Sure, if you can take him out of the air.” Smolder grumbled as she was working through the swirling masses of metal, at this point Dog Star Patrol had already cleared out the giant robot parts and moved them far enough away that Mechanikat wouldn’t know where they are to even use them.

Mechanikat turned and looked for said robot and tried look for the robots parts, the only parts available were the broken chunks of metal from the Mega Mechanikat’s head that he had already been using.

“I’m only going to need the one.” Bat-cow stated as she reached into a utility belt and pulled out an object that she flicked and it turned into the throwing projectile she held between her cloven hoofed toes on her left leg. “Trajectory, spinning speed of the barrier, crazy cyborg cat placement in the next twenty seconds judging from the actions of Smolder… the likely position of the magnetic power module would be…”

With a swift swing of her left she sent it flying, not at Mechanikat but high up into the wall of a nearby building rebounding it towards Mechanikat’s face over the spinning barrier that was oriented mostly in Smolder’s direction.

Shanty and I watched Mechanikat tried to block the thrown weapon with the full might of his magnetic powers directly, only for it to fail entirely and the bat-a-rang struck true on his body and dug deep into it to hit something.

Mechanikat soon was covered in electricity and falling towards the ground face first in visible amounts of pain. He was falling towards a section of ground that Hot Dog had cleared up of the snow earlier

“AGH?!” Mechanikat struck the ground with a very painful sounding thud and this drove the bat shaped throwing weapon deeper into himself, he continued flailing violently. He eventually got up onto one of his knees growling towards Bat-cow who just stared at him flatly. “My magnificent magnetism, how did you manage to circumvent it, why couldn’t I stop that thing from hitting me?!”

“It’s true that a bat-a-rang are usually and generally made of metal, but that one in particular was painted to look like metal… it’s actually made of wood.” Bat-cow paused for a second. “Also you lit it on fire… would it help to inform you it has a secondary function as an explosive incendiary device?”

“Wha… AAHHHH put me out, put me out!” We both watched as Mechanikat ran around with a flaming bat-a-rang sticking out of the left side of his hip. The explosion was underwhelming, but now Mechanikat was on fire… and not in a good way.

“Why would you have a wooden bat-a-rang? Also why Bat-a-rang and not Chirop-shuriken?” When most of them were previously metal, I just had to know.

“Have you seen the lives of the Bat Family that I’m a part of? It’s standard issue to have at least one at this point, especially the highly flammable ones that light on fire on impact in case of plant monsters. In fact, just assume I’m prepared for a whole myriad of weird stuff to happen at any given time.” Sounds like a paranoid lifestyle… of which Bat-cow can make me entirely relate to. “Even Ace’s comrade ‘Robbie the Robin’ knows to carry at least two lightweight small ceramic knives within his feathers as protection when he goes out. Protected his wings from being shot out at least more than once.”

“You will pay for that Bat-cow, for I… GRK?!” A scorched Mechanikat forgot that Bat-cow asked for permission to intervene, never did Bat-cow state that she was taking over Smolder’s fight from her.

“Thanks!” Smolder had her combat ribbon wrapped tightly around his mechanical neck and for the umpteenth time in last hour he was slammed into the ground face down, by an impressive show of strength from Smolder.

“Since they can actually boomerang back into my hooves or swerve in the air if thrown right, shuriken are more about throwing straight and rarely curving where you want them to go depending on how you throw them. Also Bat-a-rang is easier word for it and less of a hassle, it’s on brand too and there’s no need for puns.” Okay, that’s somewhat fair Bat-cow. “Bad enough we have villains named Cat, Penguin, Ivy, Clay and the like which are descriptive for their very natures.”

“You know, I thought a super villain would be more dangerous.” Roxy stated as she recorded Smolder wailing on Mechanikat with her paw pad. Without his magnetism module, Mechanikat wasn’t really putting up much of fight other than to show that he was quite durable. “Sure, he looked impressive at first, had minions, a whole army and all that, but… this is kind of just getting sad.”

“By the way Marshal and Chase are being okay, Skye and Everest are being there too.” Good to confirm that Paw Patrol is okay Shanty, nice to know that Dodo made it to them alright too.

“Hey, get back here!” Smolder shouted drawing our attentions to Mechanikat on the run and she flew after him spewing fireballs and his cape flapping behind him as he dashed off.

What’s worse than fighting a dragon? Running from a fight after starting one with said dragon, Smolder is now going to run Mechanikat down and won’t let him out of her sight at all.

“Running is the better part of villainous valor, I know when I’ve lost the day!” It seems like Mechanikat was not only failing as a villain, he was also a coward as he ran down the street as fast as his mechanical legs could take him.

He was likely heading towards his space ship and I tapped Dormarch in my bond with him.

Yes, the ship taking team had full control of the ship and there were no more cat-bots to be a problem. He had no place to escape to. All we had to do was…

I sighed audibly.

Run him down.

Thankfully Mechanikat wasn’t nearly as fast, annoying or anywhere nearly as crazy as Jaded La Perm was.

-Equus, Saddle Arabia at this time, Saddle Arabian Delegate Amira-

“Okay, where’s the problem this time?” I grumbled as I came to the wall the guard pointed up at the sky and I wondered what was going on. Then a small white thing landed on the tip of my nose. “What the? Is this snow?”

“That’s impossible in Saddle Arabia.” Yeah, no duh Sheer Luck, we’re in the middle of a desert! “It’s an attack by Mirage herself, I just know it!

“Honestly now?” I said with a groan.

“Ma’am look out there, here!” The second guard, Avid Sight pointed me to look in a direction.

I looked through the scope and blinked… I was taken entirely aback by what I saw.

“How?” I asked in bland disbelief as I saw a giant slowly melting iceberg currently sliding towards the city… it was the size of the city no less.

“It must be going at least five miles an hour, we’re doomed!” The first guard said gripping at his head with his hooves.

“Get yourself together stallion, we survived her mutant parasprite infestation and the ‘everything is now made of wood with bright neon green paint’ incident, we’ll survive Jaded La Perm sending an iceberg at us!” He shook his companion angrily, more snow started falling from the sky. “You hear that, we’ll survive you, you depraved raspberry tiger tail eating cat!”

Honestly… I’m far more impressed than afraid. How does Jaded even do these things or finds the time to pull them off when Saddle Arabia almost had her watched constantly! She is the most scrutinized Abyssinian in the world, it is almost like she can’t sneeze without something innocuous she does becoming some sort of plot to destroy the name of Saddle Arabia.

I saw something moving near the iceberg and looked through the scope at it.

Is that a… a Zamponi?! It looks like it’s running by itself, but there’s nobody on it… wait… it can’t be, no…. anything but her Zamponi specifically!

“Excuse me gentle stallions, I’m going on vacation, it seems Jaded ‘Mirage’ La Perm’s Zamponi is now attacking Saddle Arabia… of its own initiative!” That was mind melting, I just couldn’t take it. There was some kind of humorous horror to it, one that I couldn’t currently appreciate.

-Petopia, Paw-tucket, streets, Pom-

“Mechanikat’s escaping after him!” I called out to the various Dog Star Patrol members who were coming back from wherever they squirreled away the materials and they were immediately converging on Mechanikat. “Roxy, put out an APB, every pet is to keep track of Mechanikat’s positon and make sure he can’t hide! I’m not letting him ruin the rest of my time here by running around being a nuisance.”

Mechanikat was surprisingly agile for having such a stiff looking mechanical body, he was avoiding Shanty’s bounding bubble effectively as he ran down the street. This included the tendrils she was sending out of the bubble to try and snag him. He had a wrist mounted flamethrower and that wasn’t going to last him forever, but it did boil the water into steam and helped him keep ahead of the goat.

Mammoth Mutt, bounded down the street as a massive rolling ball past Mechanikat and then she inflated even further to block Mechanikat’s path by filling up an entire intersection with her torso. It was odd seeing her tiny head, legs and tail on the body.

He turned into an alleyway and was chased down it by Hot Dog on the ground, who would be immune to the flamethrower other than being blinded by it. Smolder and Brainy Barker followed by flying over the alleyway.

My little dragon was clearly angry at this turn of events, given she was blasting fire at Mechanikat’s backside.

It was only a matter of time before we caught him, how long could Mechanikat actually take to catch really?

Well it would be pretty troubling for me if I had to do this alone, I could hardly run with my leg being so stiff and wool controlled. Also Dormarch doesn’t want me doing anything too strenuous. I noted Bat-cow was walking alongside me.

“Can Mammoth Mutt only do limited parts of her body?” I didn’t feel the need to exert myself to catch Mechanikat, I didn’t feel that drive to help because Mechanikat wasn’t an active threat.

“Yes, apparently she’s not nearly as capable as most of her species in doing a full body growth. She also has a sad history, she used to be called Mammoth Miss… her boyfriend was the original Mammoth Mutt and she took on his Star Dog Patrol name in remembrance after he perished.” Really Bat-cow, she seemed somewhat cheerful small pink alien dog to me. “There have been some hints that Snooky was involved with that incident that led to the original Mammoth Mutt’s death. Given Snooky has a penchant for missiles and was in the area.”

Mammoth Mutt shrunk down a bit and continued to give chase by rolling after where Mechanikat generally was, looking at where Brainy Barker was in the air and the birds.

“Should I be surprised?” It didn’t surprise me that that tiny looking alien cat that looked so cute had blood on his claws, not after he apparently tried to end Chase after getting a hold of him.

“Snooky is a psycho cat, don’t feel sorry for what Dolly did to him, that was quite deserved… as long as she did no permanent harm and only does permanent when she has no other choice.” Sounded like Bat-cow was referencing a creed of the bat family. I’m sure I was analyzing her as much as she was me, what we saw in each other was at least a kinship of understanding. “Still despite the loss, I’m surprise that Mam hasn’t let it change her chipper disposition.”

“Any other horrible backstories?” I asked as we continued walking in the direction Roxy was leading us as she kept an eye on her paw pad.

“Hot Dog nearly got the entirety of the current Dog Star Patrol killed with by letting his temper get the better of them a few times. He became much better after that incident and is a well-recognized leader among the alien canines he runs around with.” Wow, it seems like Bat-cow knows a lot about them. “He is far more concentrated on not letting his emotions get away from him and doing what is right.”

“So what do you want to know, since you’re sharing so much?” There has to be something I know that Bat-cow wants an answer to. “You’re obviously talking me around to something.”

“What exactly was your job back where you come from?” Bat-cow stated sternly.

“I’m one of the Huoshan Guard a nice place built into the side of a dragon’s body that turned into a volcano, well technically a guard as I’m sure I’m going to be hoofed a notice of my firing if I survive my journey. I was going to be a reservist and I was given a peculiar position… as head of the Huoshan Canine Division. I was really quite good at it too since I can speak and understand dogs. My duties certainly didn’t involve travel through various worlds, but I have been protecting my girls while try to put out fires with everything I have. It’s been a rough year for me.” I grumbled as we walked along. “You see I have the inability to turn away from people who need help, it started with canines and living alone in a small pack. Then two friends came asking around and I couldn’t help them, then Oleander showed up and she asked me to help her… it’s part of the whole willing to sacrifice myself for others in danger, in a very literal sense. The gold wool on my body is a pretty good indicator for how close to never coming back from this trip I am. Might not even survive to see the girls I’m protecting grow up. My lifespan is practically days whereas they have many years ahead of them by comparison, good trade right? At least I’ll be able to see my god puppies and Tianhuo… don’t know how my puppies will feel when they will know I’m dying and they can’t do anything about it.”

“So you’re a hero.” Bat-cow stated simply.

“Never wanted to be one, can’t even deny being one anymore.” I grumbled as I continued walking forward as several figures crashed into each other as Mechanikat managed to avoid them, his mechanical body certainly gave him boundless agility. “Martyrdom is not something I want.”

“It’s that ingrained?” Bat-cow asked while narrowing her eyes at me.

“Ask my familiar Dolly, she was using my body during a situation where ‘it’ was made aware of someone being in danger and would not move away from the fight even when I was unconscious.” A very dangerous thing I’ve had to live with, I didn’t want to see people in danger and I wanted to be a coward. However if I see it, there’s only one direction I can naturally go in… where I can do the most good to help.

“My gods…” Bat-cow’s eyes widened as it sunk in just how messed up I was. “Even every member of the bat family can escape to fight another day to save those of the future.”

“It’s just another day where someone could be killed because you weren’t strong enough to do something, do the people always try to blame the hero for trying their best? Or do they blame the villain for putting them in the situation where they will fail? What circumstances do some people live under beyond their control? I was safer camping out in the wilds, but I’ve helped so many people since I left my solitude.” Where does it all end really? My suffering that is. “Being a hero is thankless.”

“It can be, but there’s always those who will acknowledge your efforts, you helped teach the people of Paw-tucket defend themselves instead of thinking them already too helpless to defend themselves at all. You surprised even me with that Ferris wheel attack that took out most of the weapon on the Mega Mechanikat mark three.” Wait, Bat-cow, are you seriously telling me he’s had two other giant robots?! “I would welcome you to Gotham City, but you’d likely die in half a day if not from exhaustion then from your inability to look away and someone finally gets lucky in taking you out.”

“Give someone food they’ll survive the day, teach them how to forage for their food under any circumstance and they’ll survive the rest of their life. I can’t be here to protect the pets of Paw-tucket forever.” The chase was getting really heated now, Hot Dog and Smolder might be sharing a brain from what I’m seeing of how they are successfully corralling Mechanikat two blocks over from us.

A number of derby pets were even now encircling Mechanikat, they’d soon have him pinned down.

“I’ll pray for your continued success in surviving Pom.” Bat-cow stated solemnly. Mechanikat was running out of space to run and his feet started to ignite.

I watched as Bat-cow quietly threw a bat-a-rang, it didn’t seem to aimed anywhere particularly at Mechanikat. I wonder how long it took Bat-cow to learn to throw those things so accurately and with an unnerving sense of timing bordering on insane.

“This was supposed to be a vacation before I threw myself into Tartarus.” I calmly stated as I watched one of Mechanikat’s rocket shoes take a bat-a-rang by flying directly into its path and Smolder, who had gotten a hold of him, gained enough leverage from his lack of thrust to promptly face plant him into the ground thanks to Bat-cow’s assistance.

Mechanikat was knocked out and Smolder was happy that she helped catch the villain.

“Then it would be a good time to get back to it Pom.” Bat-cow stated. “Let Dog Star Patrol handle it from here.”

“If anyone needs me, tell them… I’m going to find a quiet place to continue healing.” I got a nod and turned around to start walking away as Mechanikat’s various mechanical gadgets built into his body were disabled by Brainy Barker and he was incarcerated. “I’ve got Sitrus Berries to eat, I’ll be back at the tent this evening.”

“Pom… there is nothing wrong with being a hero, especially not the kind who would teach an entire world to fend for themselves. You teach others very well I might add, I don’t think Shanty would be as amazing a person without you.” Bat-cow then used a grappling hook to practically fly up to the edge of a building where she watched Mechanikat’s downed form like a hawk.

With that I went to go meditate, breathe some fire and practice some skills I was going to need after this vacation was over with and I had to fight a demon goat.

-Ten minutes of limping, later-

“I wanted to be alone…” I stated as Dolly came to sit next to me and entered a meditative pose without saying a word, she had a smile on her face as she beamed up at me with a wagging tail. I sighed and we both started to peacefully meditate together without a word.

We sat in a cave behind a waterfall, silently listening to the rushing water together. Soon a third form joined us at my left, a soft nuzzle and a sound of a third being entering meditation.

Neither of them acknowledged my complaints, neither of them even said anything, they just sat with me and started to focus inwards on themselves while being at my side until the bitter end.

I inhaled and slowly exhaled some flames into the waterfall, creating a mass of steam that warmed our bodies up. Yet I couldn’t escape the cold chill of my golden wool.

Breathing fire wasn't easy, becoming partly canine definitely wasn't easy, trying to remain true to myself... clearly that was impossible even if I was still somewhat a nervous wreck.

I relaxed and hoped for a few days of peace and quiet after this hullabaloo. I could use some exercise later by helping everyone rebuild to the best of my abilities.

Tambelon loomed over our future.