That was it; they had to go through a passage in the Gryffonian Death-Ridge Mountain; the news hung heavy in the air, a penetrating silence that pierced everyone’s mind like a red-hot knife heated in a fire. Said mountain was a long way away, hung east of the town; around 30 klicks away in military terms; the mountain was black basalt and looked to the entire world as if it was some shadow of a great beast.
Their carriage was fairly good; reinforced ironwood and steel by make, it was one of the sturdiest transport pieces on the market; it’d take at least two gigantic boulders to drop on it before denting in the least; the only problem was that it was so heavy and moved at the speed of a slow cloud-folk flying; basically, 30mph.
A bolt of lightning struck down as fast as an eye blink; it illuminated the inside of the carriage, lighting it up like a split second light-bulb flash; shadows were thrown across the faces of the carriages occupants, making them seem oddly creepy.
They were on their way up the wide and sprawling mountain path, choosing to go at a slower speed so they did not tip over the edge of the rocky road. They had about 5 meters between the edge and their cart, so there really was nothing to worry about.
Another bump rocked the cart as it trundled over a small rock, a heavy ‘THUD’ and a collective moan coming from all the people inside the giant carriage. The responses went something like this;
“AH!!!” Octavia screamed, jumping up from her seat; she was asleep and having just woken up with a start, she was naturally scared. Vinyl said nothing, asleep with Dubstep in her ears; as mentioned earlier in the story, it would probably take a firework to wake her up (possibly a large group of fireworks, actually).
“Bloody damn bumps on the road!” Fenrir yelled at the exact same time, waking up with a start; his eyes had shot open and if you looked at him, he looked quite comical, his beard a little frazzled and his eyes as wide as dinner plates.
Hammerfist grunted a little, muttering something like ‘deal with it’ under his breath as he shrugged his massive muscled shoulders, the mountains of fur and muscle rolling forward and backward a little. On the other hand, Trixie yelped a quick sentence (something along the lines of ‘Sonofabitchonaspeedboat!’). She tumbled to the floor of the carriage, and grunted, slowly getting up off of the floor as she rubbed dust off of her cloak, hat and skin.
Pipsqueak murmured in his sleep, slowly shifting a little; much like Vinyl, it would take quite a few fireworks to wake him up. Celia jumped, holding onto Fenrir’s hand about a second later, her grip only a little tight; a crimson blush spread across the sea pirate’s face, like a small ripple of a red-crimson wave; for the record, he didn’t relinquish his grasp of her hand, simply allowed her to hold on for as long as she needed to. As soon as she noticed what she was doing, she also blushed a deep crimson, her hand retreating rather quickly back to her lap; she quickly looked away from him and tried to occupy her mind.
Hammerfist chuckled after witnessing this and mentioned “You two should totally get together. And kiss; that kind of thing.” He grinned, showing pearly white teeth as his voice rumbled throughout the carriage. Fenrir and Celia blushed even further (as if that was actually possible) and silence reigned in the cabin for a fair amount of time.
The cabin continued to rumble over the ground on the mountain path, and multiple conversations started. Some of them were like this;
“So, anyone wanna play I spy?” Trixie piped up, bored as hell and wanting some sort of amusement.
“Ok.... I spy with my little eye... something beginning with R.” Octavia chuckled; Hammerfist was quick to reply.
“Rock.” He laughed a little and a small chorus of laughs rang throughout the carriage.
“Ok...” Hammerfist chuckled and continued “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with B.” This time, Trixie was the first to reply, a smile on her face as she did so.
“Boulder” She giggled and the silliness of the situation dawned on them as they began to laugh a little more.
Other conversations however, went like this;
“So, Fenrir, how much do you like Celia? Honestly, now.” Octavia smiled, her palm resting on her cheek as she leaned on her arm, the carriage continuing to trundle along.
“...” Fenrir refused to answer, blushing and looking away; Celia did the exact same when Octavia asked.
All of a sudden, a sudden heavy thud rocked the carriage once more as it was rocked by about 50 or so heavily armoured Brigands pushing and shoving at it; they had approached the carriage silently and had begun shoving it.
Everyone got up, alarmed and another shove rocked the carriage, knocking it over onto its side; Hammerfist flung the door open and yelled back at his comrades.
“There’s too many of them!” He bellowed, worried; what would happen to them. The brigands swarmed over the carriage and attacked them; the occupants of it were trying to hold out against the trained brigands (possibly they were warriors of the army gone rogue) but things were going in the thieves and murderers’ favour.
“ZERO, PLEASE, WAKE UP!!! I NEED YOU!” She cried, yelling at him, shaking him, trying anything to wake him up. The brigands were starting to swarm the carriage, Hammerfist and the rest of the occupants (sans Pipsqueak, who was hiding in a compartment of the carriage, a bolt hole of sorts); there was around 40 of them left, ten having been killed already.
//: PAREMETER [WAKEUP START] BEGINNING :// ...
//: AI CORE STARTING UP... ://
//: INSTANT BATTLE MODE PARAMETER READYING ://
//: BEGINNING WEAPONS READY PROGRAMME... ://
:// READY; START? ://