Mobian Daylife #3: Lanolin's Big Breaks

 A day had passed since the attack on the Restoration, and clean-up was well underway, inside and out. The barricade that had been erected around the building had been removed, and the lockdown on the city block had been lifted once the threat of the Kuthul had been removed.
The training room on the bottom floor was still in the process of being repaired, with the old, bent training equipment being carted out and new pieces brought in. There’d be no repairing the old wooden training dummy Laik had donated.
The sheep sighed, pounding the back of her hand against the concrete wall. For a world that had been deemed “safe”, there was far too much crap going on wherever you looked. And that wasn’t including the smaller things the greater population didn’t see.
Sonic and his crew were off once again, investigating another Robotnik plot that was just getting off the ground. The same man who had managed to capture the entire planet in his mits, the same man that Sonic the Hedgehog allowed to go free once again instead of ending it and removing one of Mobius’ biggest threats.
She’d minded her Ps and Qs, but the media was beginning to wake up to the Hedgehog’s blatant acts of stupidity, asking the question of when was enough truly enough? Was the world in a constant state of chaos because Sonic, the world-renowned hero, allowed it to be so? How many lives could have been saved had he just done what needed to be done years ago?
She shook her head, watching the film crew move from point A to point B, filming B-roll footage for the five o’clock news. 
Well, the squid-thing was out of the bag now, thanks to the recent attack. “Here’s one more thing for you to worry about, Mobius.” She said quietly as she stepped back inside the building.

Inside, as usual. Restoration members heading in and out, to and fro, room to room. It looked and operated more like a corporate office than a literal planet restoration group, but that was a result of one Jewel the Beetle’s efforts. Having taken over for Amy Rose as the head of the Restoration, the disorganization that the pink hedgehog struggled so hard to maintain had come flowing back into place practically overnight.
Friendly faces, both familiar and new, waved and made kindly gestures to the tired sheep. Some even stopped to chat with her, or walk alongside her while filling her in on the happenings. Such as the window crews doing repairs on the floors the Kuthul had broken in.
Like the bulk of the Restoration’s workforce, the majority of the new faces here were nothing more than volunteers, offering up their time and money to keep the movement going, recognizing the faces who were doing the real good in the world.
That thought made Lanolin smile just a bit.
“Captain Lanolin, just the person I was looking for. I need you to sign this for me, please.” A wombat with a hard hat and a dirtied pair of gloves yelled, rushing up to the sheep.
“What do we have here?” She asked.
“Repairs and clean-up are done on the basement level. We just needed to be signed off, if you don’t mind.” He received the clipboard with her signature in fluffy handwriting. 
She grimaced at the sight. It had been one of those cutesy things she practiced as a young teen that stuck with her in her adult life. The wombat saluted her, then moved on, followed by a team of wombats of varying sizes, genders and colors.
“So the training room is clear then, huh?” She thought to herself.

The elevator door opened, the damage to the rollers causing the metal to scrape against the concrete walls just a tad as they revealed the familiar hallway. The staircase to the upper floors was to her left. Lanolin had changed from her standard attire into a loose, free-flowing tunic. One she’d gone out and bought following the completion of her basic training with Laik.
“That dang mongrel, I wonder what he’s doing right now…” She wondered to herself as she walked quietly down the hall, passing the showers on her left and right, each smelling of bleach and other cleaning solutions. Many of the tiles had to be replaced from what she could see, and thus those stalls had been quarantined off with yellow tape.
Her footfalls were soft, padded with training slippers that came with her tunic. Her boots tied together and slung over her shoulder with her pack containing the rest of her clothes. She made it to the largest of the two rooms, the one with the raised, cushioned floor. 
Most of the fighting had occurred here during the raid, and everything except for the one vending machine had been damaged in the chaos.
She set her stuff down beside the raised floor, then hopped up with ease. She took several deep breaths, eyes closed as she repeated the warmup Laik had taught her as their sessions progressed.

“He better be okay, this damage was because of him this time,” she reminded herself. Gonk had come looking for Laik specifically, somehow having learned he worked for the Restoration. “He needs to get back here and own up to it.”
Did Infinite have an insider leaking info as well? Was it the same one? That thought only caused her anxiety to spike, her heartbeat to increase.
The line of thinking needed to end.
And it did, replaced by the vision of Laik chasing after that freaking otter into the portal. 
This time, a different feeling clouded her mind. He was off with HER alone, on another planet. 
The otter had a clean rep based on her application; she came from a good family, a rich family at that. She had near-perfect grades across the board growing up. She didn’t seem like the sort to…
Lanolin thrust her right fist forward, clutching her left against her waist. She turned her fist upward, spreading her fingers out. Her eyes closed the entire time. She raised her right leg, balancing on her left, taking deep breaths, in and out. Her chest rises up and down to match her intake and exhale.
She repeated the exercise, swapping legs, balancing for several seconds before repeating it all over again. An exercise that would have gone on for several minutes had the sound of a sneeze and heavy booted footfalls not snapped her out of the zen-like state she’d finally attained.

Standing at the entrance was one of the heavy soldiers who had been employed by the Restoration for extra protection during ventures into more dangerous lands. A border collie by the name of Tex. 
He’d been there the night the building fell under attack and single-handedly taken down an entire group of Kuthul on his own.
“Hey, Captain Lanolin, what are you doing all alone down here?” He barked, and she ignored him. “Need a sparring partner?”
The sneeze, it hadn’t come from that direction—
“Didn’t you hear me? I asked if you needed a—“
“No, but thank you for asking anyway.” She said, cutting him off before attempting to resume her warmup.
“Aw, c’mon, that ain’t no way to be. You can’t improve your skills by training alone all the time.” The green collie looked around the room, confirming his statement. “So what do you say? You and me, hand to hand.”
“Get lost, Tex. I’m not in the mood.”
“Quit being like that, baby. Look at you, your form is all out of whack. Who trained you anyway?” He barked, tossing his heavy boots to the side and hopping up onto the platform beside her.

Tex was known through the various combat-ready squads within the Restoration for his brutal brawling style of combat. Even Knuckles the Echidna had complimented the dog on his fighting spirit. The collie’s pretty boy good looks, combined with the toned definition of his muscles, made him pretty popular amongst men and women looking for a partner, even Whisper had admitted to being particularly intrigued by the dog’s physique.
Whisper of all people.
But Lanolin wasn’t interested. His personality made anything potentially redeemable about his looks worthless in her eyes.
“Aw, come on, what is this crap you’re doing? It looks like that lame-o performative dance garbage you see kids doing nowadays. Here, little lamb, let me teach you how to—“
Without warning, the sheep lashed out, grabbing the collie by the wrist and pulling him forward, sticking out her leg to trip the unsuspecting dog. On the ground, she twisted his arm and then attempted a quick strike to his face, her knuckles mere centimeters away from bruising those good looks of his.
“Aye, aye, aye! I was just trying to teach you how to actually fight, but if that’s how you want to be, then let’s just have a sparring match so you can take out some of that frustration, little lamb.” The smooth-talking tone of his supposed natural speaking voice had dissolved away, peeling back some of the facade the dog put on for the crowds.
Lanolin stepped away, unbuttoning her tunic and tossing it to the floor. “Stop calling me ‘little lamb,’ you irritating curr.” 
Tex climbed to his feet, not hiding the fact that his eyes were dancing over the sheep’s exposed upper torso. Her large and prominent chest was kept firmly in place by the black sports bra she’d bought in Southtown the day she gave herself a small makeover. 
“Hey, baby, no reason to start calling names. I’m just offering compliments and trying to help you out. But if you want to fight, I’ll show you how real men fight and make you forget all about that crap that wolf taught you.”
She gritted her teeth. It hadn’t been a secret that she was taking lessons in Wing Chun from Laik following their own adventure off-world. What she didn’t appreciate was, well, everything that had just been vomited out of that awful mouth of his.

He had a foot on the sheep, height-wise and easily weighed more than twice as much as the her as well. The perfect opponent to try out what she’d learned. Laik wasn’t here to see this, but she’d be sure to tell him all about it.
The collie put up his dukes, taking the aggressive, snorting stance of a boxer about to go all in on his foe. An act of intimidation that Lanolin wouldn’t fall for. She’d looked actual eldritch horrors in the eye before. This collie and his act of bluster and showmanship were nothing in comparison… even if his muscles did look kinda nice.
Lanolin fell into her favorite stance. Right arm straight up, palm open and lying face up. Left arm out, fingers in a fist. She raised her right leg and rested the bottom of her slippered foot against her left knee.
The stance was open, free-flowing, Wing Chun personified in a single pose. 
“Tch!” Tex growled again as he closed in, throwing the first punch, which she easily deflected with a quick swipe. She threw her other hand forward, colliding with the collie’s chest with a thud that sent him stumbling back. 
“You like that, baby? The feel of my rock-hard chest? Now lemme’ feel yours—“
Before he could react, Lanolin lunged forward, landing two quick jabs to his gut, then delivering a swift slap across his face and causing him to stumble. He reached for his face, fearing harm had come to his features, overriding what should have been a natural instinctive reaction to fight back.

She stuck her leg between his, pulling back and hooking him in the back of his knee, causing him to drop. He shouted in exaggerated pain as he went down, then was silenced a second later by a quick but controlled kick to the other side of his face.
The large collie hit the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust into the air upon impact!
Lanolin bounced away, taking steps back to allow her foe to regain his composure. “I’m sorry, what was that you were saying? Something about a ‘real man’?” 
Achoo!
Her ear flopped, twitching at the sound of the extra voice. Had that come from the vent?
Tex took advantage of the sheep’s distraction and came at her with rage in his eyes. Landing a blow to her gut that had, unfortunately, failed to knock the wind out of her sails.
Using the momentum from the blow, she jumped into the air to give her and her opponent some distance. Sparing just an ounce of Boost, she shot forward, connecting her fist to his jaw as her momentum vanished. He stood his ground against the blow, but again, as she expected, he reached to protect his face. Repeating the same chain of moves as before, this time actually kicking the side of his leg and dislocating the collie’s knee from the joint, she delivered a lightning fast volley of punches, starting at the dog’s chest, moving up to his face as he fell to the ground in agony.
Each strike to his face had been delivered in the name of every man and woman this collie had ever assaulted or made feel uncomfortable. 
Damaging his leg had probably been a step too far, but he started it.

Ignoring the downed and screaming opponent, Lanolin’s gaze fell upon the large vent at the top of the room. The same one that cooled or heated this part of the building. Was there…
“Ah, crap!” A voice said, followed by the sound of footsteps fading into the distance.
Lanolin abandoned the platform, rushing toward the phone to call for backup and have a stretcher sent down.
She’d possibly broken two things at once today. That stupid man’s leg and the case of the intel leaks!