Post by Tic-Tac on Aug 18, 2019 2:17:07 GMT -5
All it took was half a glance. A fleeting, flittering glimpse of the discolored eye crafted from the puffy presence of a doughy bruise and Lucky had marched himself out of the barn and away from the television with a purpose, much to Cadpig's chagrin.
"Lucky! LUCKY! H-hey! No! Lucky! Down boy! Lucky!" called a squeaky voice that bounced harmlessly off of Lucky's determination.
"Lucky! Wait up! Wait! Lucky! Oh, Papa, this is bad!" Another voice. Another plea for mercy. Lucky didn't care and Lucky did not stop. His resolute stride towards justice knew no such obstacles as to be impeded by his siblings calls for him to 'calm down' or to 'wait a second. No. He would not stop until he had a culprit in his paws and nothing was going to prevent that; certainly not the fluttery burst of brown feathers of a chicken that suddenly dropped in front of him.
"Lucky! Please! B-b-breathe! This isn't gonna help anything!" Spot begged, doing her best to firmly standing her ground in front of the angry puppy. While the skinny little spokes Spot called legs were not nearly heavy enough to keep him from pushing her out of his way, Lucky drew in a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. He could hear the others crowding around him. Cadpig and Rolly. He was surrounded.
"Luck-" Cadpig began, but Lucky already knew what she was going to say. Violence didn't solve anything. The best solution was to go to mom and dad. He shouldn't head to the tool shed while he was mad. He gave a snort and cut her off.
"You saw Dipstick's face!" He snapped. Cadpig winced but nodded her head.
"I-I did, yeah, bu-" She began. Lucky cut her off again.
"And you think that's okay?! You think it's okay for Dipstick to take a beating like that!? Somebody's been hitting him, and we ALL know who it is!!" Lucky growled. Cadpig forced her self to choke down a breath of the stale barn air, squeezed her eyes shut, and shook her head, already anticipating Lucky's response to her own.
"No. We don't," She said softly. Lucky raised an eyebrow.
"What?" he asked incredulously as if his little sister had finally absolutely lost her mind. Cadpig took another deep breath and drew closer, resting a tiny paw atop Lucky's shoulder.
"We don't know what happened," She said softly. Lucky threw his head back with an angry snort.
"We know EXACTLY what happened. That little psychopath did this! We KNOW he did this! What other options are there!?" Lucky growled, throwing open a small side door of the barn before stepping out into dazzling sunlight. Cadpig sighed. This was going to be harder than she anticipated. Actually. No. In retrospect, this was precisely as hard as she had anticipated. She let her gaze play across the yard towards the destination Lucky was surely headed: The toolshed.
Most puppies on the farm stayed away from the tool shed. Not due to any amount of danger the tiny shack represented, but simply because it was far from the warmth and comfort of the barn and its amenities. Tic-Tac, however, was not most puppies. Tac was so far removed from 'most puppies' he could be his own species. A single dalmatian puppy claimed the toolshed for himself, and spent the majority of his time within the claustrophobic confines. Tic-Tac dearly, commonly referred to as 'Tac' was for all intents and purposes, Cadpig had discovered, a genius. No. No. Genius was not the right term. Tac put the term 'genius' to shame and made it cry itself to sleep. If asked, Cadpig would be hard-pressed to name any other puppy, or, perhaps, any other creature smarter than Tic-Tac, and knowing someone like that was really quite amazing except for one tiny problematic detail:
Tac was not a nice puppy.
Oh, he played the role of one, and he was quite good at doing so. He had a debonair grin and a cuddly, non-threatening look to him thanks to his stature as a runt (only a few scant inches larger than Cadpig herself). But that's where the ruse ended, and Tac's sinister nature had begun. He'd lost everything when he was kidnapped from his home by Cruella's thugs, forced to watch his mother die in the process, and now sought nothing more than to destroy the farm he'd been forced to live on. Entirely too many times he'd managed to come within a stone's throw of obliterating the farm had it not been due to the intervention of Lucky. He and Tac developed an odd rivalry over the years, to such a point that facilitating his death had become an obsession of sorts for Tac.
Lucky took this in stride, claiming that as long as Tac was after him, the farm would be safe, and so, he often foolishly attempted to bait Tac into 'trying something', convinced that his inexplicable luck would keep him safe from Tac's vile schemes. For the most part, every few months or so, Tac would show up with some mad attempt to destroy the farm and Lucky would narrowly figure out a way to bring about tomorrow. Tac would return to his shed defeated and the cycle would begin again.
This morning had been one of those 'lulls' in their cycle of violence when Dipstick had come trembling into the barn with a puffy black eye and Lucky's fur heckled into 'rage' mode. It the reason Cadpig was earnestly trying to talk her brother out of storming into Tac's shed for a beating. When it came to physical combat, Lucky had a good twenty pounds of muscle over Tac, but Tac always had an edge to him. The bright blue collar he had wrapped around his throat was a shock collar, designed to be used along with those brutal barbaric invisible fences humans liked to feel superior with. Tac had reverse-engineered his collar to function like a taser, but neither of those were the reason Cadpig was desperately trying to stop Lucky from reaching Tac's shed. Tac was not a very social puppy. Not in the slightest. He could put on a show, of course, but in so far as she was aware, Tac did not like other puppies. There were always exceptions of course. Crosswise one of the puppies who ended up living with them after they were freed from Cruella. Cadpig wasn't entirely sure how it happened, but Crosswise somehow ended up being what seemed like Tic-Tac's willing guinea pig for scientific experiments. A hench pup of sorts, or an Igor to his mad laboratory days. Then there was Aria. A chubby puppy who had a voice like an angel and a bite like a shark. She was tough, angry, and seemed to be constantly bickering with the mad scientist, and yet spent her time in the tool shed alongside him. But it was Dipstick that was the largest exception to the rules. Tic-Tac and Dipstick were friends. That was the only way Cadpig could describe it, odd as it was, even if she had no idea how such a thing could occur. The two of them were polar opposites, Tac short, Dipstick large. One exceptionally smart, the other a few cards short of a deck. In fact, every now and then she had a sneaking suspicion the two might have been even more than 'friends' but as far as Cadpig could discern, Tac would never, EVER hit Dipstick. If anything, Tac was protective of him and it was that very fact that was setting off Cadpig's panic meter in full.
It was Lucky's hatred for Tac that had him convinced Tac was the culprit while Cadpig wasn't even sure Tac knew about the situation. If he were unaware of things, and Lucky appeared demanding answers, things would start escalating quickly. Tac could go on a revenge spree hunting down the culprit with disastrous consequences, maiming pup after pup until he found who he was looking for. Cadpig couldn't let that happen, which meant she had to keep Lucky from charging in recklessly. She was certain Tac didn't hurt Dipstick. It didn't fit in with everything she knew about him. There was something else going on, and she needed to keep Lucky distracted until she could find out what it was...
(Forgive this for cutting off the way it does. Tired pup tonight)
"Lucky! LUCKY! H-hey! No! Lucky! Down boy! Lucky!" called a squeaky voice that bounced harmlessly off of Lucky's determination.
"Lucky! Wait up! Wait! Lucky! Oh, Papa, this is bad!" Another voice. Another plea for mercy. Lucky didn't care and Lucky did not stop. His resolute stride towards justice knew no such obstacles as to be impeded by his siblings calls for him to 'calm down' or to 'wait a second. No. He would not stop until he had a culprit in his paws and nothing was going to prevent that; certainly not the fluttery burst of brown feathers of a chicken that suddenly dropped in front of him.
"Lucky! Please! B-b-breathe! This isn't gonna help anything!" Spot begged, doing her best to firmly standing her ground in front of the angry puppy. While the skinny little spokes Spot called legs were not nearly heavy enough to keep him from pushing her out of his way, Lucky drew in a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. He could hear the others crowding around him. Cadpig and Rolly. He was surrounded.
"Luck-" Cadpig began, but Lucky already knew what she was going to say. Violence didn't solve anything. The best solution was to go to mom and dad. He shouldn't head to the tool shed while he was mad. He gave a snort and cut her off.
"You saw Dipstick's face!" He snapped. Cadpig winced but nodded her head.
"I-I did, yeah, bu-" She began. Lucky cut her off again.
"And you think that's okay?! You think it's okay for Dipstick to take a beating like that!? Somebody's been hitting him, and we ALL know who it is!!" Lucky growled. Cadpig forced her self to choke down a breath of the stale barn air, squeezed her eyes shut, and shook her head, already anticipating Lucky's response to her own.
"No. We don't," She said softly. Lucky raised an eyebrow.
"What?" he asked incredulously as if his little sister had finally absolutely lost her mind. Cadpig took another deep breath and drew closer, resting a tiny paw atop Lucky's shoulder.
"We don't know what happened," She said softly. Lucky threw his head back with an angry snort.
"We know EXACTLY what happened. That little psychopath did this! We KNOW he did this! What other options are there!?" Lucky growled, throwing open a small side door of the barn before stepping out into dazzling sunlight. Cadpig sighed. This was going to be harder than she anticipated. Actually. No. In retrospect, this was precisely as hard as she had anticipated. She let her gaze play across the yard towards the destination Lucky was surely headed: The toolshed.
Most puppies on the farm stayed away from the tool shed. Not due to any amount of danger the tiny shack represented, but simply because it was far from the warmth and comfort of the barn and its amenities. Tic-Tac, however, was not most puppies. Tac was so far removed from 'most puppies' he could be his own species. A single dalmatian puppy claimed the toolshed for himself, and spent the majority of his time within the claustrophobic confines. Tic-Tac dearly, commonly referred to as 'Tac' was for all intents and purposes, Cadpig had discovered, a genius. No. No. Genius was not the right term. Tac put the term 'genius' to shame and made it cry itself to sleep. If asked, Cadpig would be hard-pressed to name any other puppy, or, perhaps, any other creature smarter than Tic-Tac, and knowing someone like that was really quite amazing except for one tiny problematic detail:
Tac was not a nice puppy.
Oh, he played the role of one, and he was quite good at doing so. He had a debonair grin and a cuddly, non-threatening look to him thanks to his stature as a runt (only a few scant inches larger than Cadpig herself). But that's where the ruse ended, and Tac's sinister nature had begun. He'd lost everything when he was kidnapped from his home by Cruella's thugs, forced to watch his mother die in the process, and now sought nothing more than to destroy the farm he'd been forced to live on. Entirely too many times he'd managed to come within a stone's throw of obliterating the farm had it not been due to the intervention of Lucky. He and Tac developed an odd rivalry over the years, to such a point that facilitating his death had become an obsession of sorts for Tac.
Lucky took this in stride, claiming that as long as Tac was after him, the farm would be safe, and so, he often foolishly attempted to bait Tac into 'trying something', convinced that his inexplicable luck would keep him safe from Tac's vile schemes. For the most part, every few months or so, Tac would show up with some mad attempt to destroy the farm and Lucky would narrowly figure out a way to bring about tomorrow. Tac would return to his shed defeated and the cycle would begin again.
This morning had been one of those 'lulls' in their cycle of violence when Dipstick had come trembling into the barn with a puffy black eye and Lucky's fur heckled into 'rage' mode. It the reason Cadpig was earnestly trying to talk her brother out of storming into Tac's shed for a beating. When it came to physical combat, Lucky had a good twenty pounds of muscle over Tac, but Tac always had an edge to him. The bright blue collar he had wrapped around his throat was a shock collar, designed to be used along with those brutal barbaric invisible fences humans liked to feel superior with. Tac had reverse-engineered his collar to function like a taser, but neither of those were the reason Cadpig was desperately trying to stop Lucky from reaching Tac's shed. Tac was not a very social puppy. Not in the slightest. He could put on a show, of course, but in so far as she was aware, Tac did not like other puppies. There were always exceptions of course. Crosswise one of the puppies who ended up living with them after they were freed from Cruella. Cadpig wasn't entirely sure how it happened, but Crosswise somehow ended up being what seemed like Tic-Tac's willing guinea pig for scientific experiments. A hench pup of sorts, or an Igor to his mad laboratory days. Then there was Aria. A chubby puppy who had a voice like an angel and a bite like a shark. She was tough, angry, and seemed to be constantly bickering with the mad scientist, and yet spent her time in the tool shed alongside him. But it was Dipstick that was the largest exception to the rules. Tic-Tac and Dipstick were friends. That was the only way Cadpig could describe it, odd as it was, even if she had no idea how such a thing could occur. The two of them were polar opposites, Tac short, Dipstick large. One exceptionally smart, the other a few cards short of a deck. In fact, every now and then she had a sneaking suspicion the two might have been even more than 'friends' but as far as Cadpig could discern, Tac would never, EVER hit Dipstick. If anything, Tac was protective of him and it was that very fact that was setting off Cadpig's panic meter in full.
It was Lucky's hatred for Tac that had him convinced Tac was the culprit while Cadpig wasn't even sure Tac knew about the situation. If he were unaware of things, and Lucky appeared demanding answers, things would start escalating quickly. Tac could go on a revenge spree hunting down the culprit with disastrous consequences, maiming pup after pup until he found who he was looking for. Cadpig couldn't let that happen, which meant she had to keep Lucky from charging in recklessly. She was certain Tac didn't hurt Dipstick. It didn't fit in with everything she knew about him. There was something else going on, and she needed to keep Lucky distracted until she could find out what it was...
(Forgive this for cutting off the way it does. Tired pup tonight)