Chapter 42
A Bug’s Peril
High in the sky, the massive fortress awaited its new arrivals.
A sky tram plodded along its cables, carrying Donald, Applejack and their two captors. It didn’t matter how much they had struggled, or how much they called for help. They were now headed to an unknown fate in the flying fortress.
The two prisoners sat restlessly in their seats, agitated by the casual demeanor of the two burly bugs. The ant leaned against a wall, idly awaiting arrival. The stag beetle had picked up a newspaper that some other passenger had left behind, and read about the progress on the railways being built.
Donald whiled away the time by looking out the window, and watched their destination grow ever closer to him.
As for Applejack, she never took her eyes off of the two bugs. Though she had gotten her bucking groove back, it was no match for her opponents, who still overpowered her. During the whole trip, she had been planning revenge on them both. Contemplating the strengths and weaknesses of her bucking technique, and analyzing her opponents for any weak spots. Mostly, it was clouded by the many ways she could think of to execute such retribution.
The stag beetle lowered his newspaper and glanced at Applejack.
“Would you quit staring already? We beat you fair and square,” the stag beetle said.
Applejack said nothing.
“Fine. Be a sore loser. You only got yourself to blame for not being able to buck.”
That struck a nerve like no other for the farmpony. Before her magic was stolen, she had been the best bucker in Equestria. Now without it, what was she? A second-rate bucker. A rank amateur, at best.
Applejack’s mind went back to the scrapyard when she bucked the hammer that was thrown at her. She knew it was no mere fluke that she was able to make a trick shot like she did. If she thought about it, it was the same as when she bucked competitively. The same feeling of drive and perfected technique she had spent days upon days practicing.
Lights turned on in Applejack’s brain. Now that she thought about it, having magic had very little to do with bucking the way that she did. It was the product of her own drive and motivation to be the best bucker there was, and the countless accumulated hours, days, weeks that she spent working her way to that level of skill.
Across from herself, the farmpony saw Donald glowering out the window. They were growing nearer to the flying fortress.
The closer they came, the more it seemed less like a fortress, and more like a small city. Many buildings were seen within it, with many, many creatures roaming about it. Camels and zahaks were seen. But, most of all there were other insects like the ones Applejack and her friends had been fighting against.
Each one of the creatures was climbing into some transport at the edge of the fortress, or loading construction equipment to be shipped away to some other part of the kingdom. And for as far as the eye could see, more of the massive railways stretched out in all directions. Some of them were only just being built. Others stretched far into the horizon, making Donald and Applejack wonder just how far DiMosco intended to reach out and ensnare other kingdoms. With a budget like his, his reach was probably endless.
They needed to escape. Somehow, they needed to find a way to sink DiMosco’s plans, before he corrupted and bled more kingdoms dry.
Looking out the window, Applejack saw that they were now over the fortress, and were about to dock at one of the higher stations. A glance downward, and she saw more of the sky trams below them, ferrying along other passengers to the destinations.
The farmpony glanced to the insects with them. The ant was patiently waiting, completely lax with his hat turned down. The stag beetle was distracted completely by his newspaper.
As surreptitiously as she could, Applejack slid from her seat, across the aisle and sat down next to Donald.
“Pst,” she whispered, as she nudged the duck.
“Hm?” Donald answered.
“Keep them bugs busy. I’m gettin’ us off this slow boat to Tartarus.”
“How?”
“No time to explain. Just keep ‘em away from the door.”
Seeing how close they were to where they were going, Donald simply obliged rather than question Applejack.
The two got up from their seats, and walked down the aisle of the tram. Applejack stopped by the door, while Donald walked ahead between her and the bugs.
Applejack turned around and aimed her hooves at the door.
The ant suddenly snapped to alertness.
“HEY!” he shouted.
With a loud crash, Applejack bucked the doors out of their grooves, making an opening for them to escape.
Both bugs stood up to attack.
Donald was ready for them. He ducked under the ant’s punch and suckerpunched him twice in the gut.
The stag beetle was too large to easily overpower.
Donald grabbed the newspaper the beetle held, and pushed his larger opponent back into the ant.
Taking the paper, the duck rolled it up and blew into one end, inflating it to three times its size. He raised his enlarged newspaper over his head and slammed it down on both bugs at once, stunning them both.
“Ha! The ultimate anti-pest weapon!” Donald said, sheathing his newspaper like it was a rapier.
“We gotta jump!” Applejack said.
“Wak-wak-wak-What!!?”
There was too little time to spare. Applejack grabbed Donald’s sleeve in her teeth and pulled him with her out of the sky tram.
Both shouted loudly as they freefell through the air. Applejack held tightly to her hat. Donald pulled his own hat more tightly around his head and flapped his arms, hoping somehow that his nature as a flying waterfowl would kick in. The only thing that came close was the slight resistance that the newspaper he held granted.
The top of another sky tram was coming closer as they plummeted.
The passengers within heard a sudden loud thump on the roof above them, and gasped loudly. Looking up, they saw two dents in the roof. One shaped like a duck. The other, like a pony.
Applejack pulled her face out of her own impression and shook her head. Across from her, Donald lifted his head, but his bill stretched out as if it were pasted to the tram beneath them. With one last pull, the duck pulled his bill free.
“Now what, genius?” Donald said.
“Don’t take that tone with me, Duck! I just saved our hides!” Applejack said.
“Great! Swell! What do we do next!?” Donald fumed, indicating that they were nowhere near the ground, and there were no more safe landings.
“Cool yer tenders! I’m thinkin’ o’ somethin’!”
There was no time to think. DiMosco’s men would likely be after them soon.
Fluttershy was not around to help Donald fly. Looking to the newspaper in his hand, the duck knew he would have to improvise.
“Get on!” Donald said, indicating his back.
“You got a plan?” Applejack asked, as she readly clung to the duck’s back.
“We’re flyin’ outta here!” Donald said, as he spread his arms, pages in each hand.
“What!? Now who’s talkin’--HORSE AAAAPPLLLEEESSSS!!!”
Applejack shouted more loudly than ever when Donald abruptly jumped from the sky tram.
With his papers in hand, Donald started flapping his makeshift wings. With Applejack’s extra weight on his back, getting any resistance to float, so much as flutter, was next to impossible.
The duck flapped his arms harder, losing only minimal velocity as he dropped.
They both jolted hard when Donald landed on a steeply sloped rooftop, and started sliding down the incline.
Both flew off the ledge, releasing one another in midair. Donald grabbed a wire that ran between two buildings. Applejack barely managed to save herself by chomping Donald’s tail feathers.
“WAK!!” the duck shouted, and let go of the cables.
They continued to fall, tumbling their way through the wires that ran between the many buildings in the fortress.
In one of the offices, a black widow idly sat at her switchboard with a phone to her ear.
“I swear, if I go home tonight, and he forgot our anniversary for a third year running, he’s worm food!” the black widow said into her phone.
Outside her window, she saw two creatures climbing down the wires that crossed from her building to the neighboring one.
“Hang on a second. I need to zap a couple of pigeons, before they ruin the wires out here,” the spider said.
She put her phone down, transposed a few wires on her switchboard, and pressed a switch to the side.
“Ya hear somethin’ buzzin’?” Applejack asked.
Both were unceremoniously zapped, as electricity coursed through the wires they held onto. With one strong jolt, they flew from the cables, leaving a trail of smoke behind them.
There was no way for them to see where they were going in that moment. But with a loud crash, they both found themselves meeting solid ground.
“Aw…” Applejack groaned. She picked herself up, and found she had landed on a laminated tile floor. Looking up, she saw that they had been blown through a roof. “Dang...That was some shock…”
When she rubbed her sore head, the farmpony noticed something crucial had disappeared. She didn’t know when. Only that it had to have happened after Donald jumped from the sky tram.
“My hat!!”
Applejack started frantically searching the room for her hat. The one memento of her parents, now lost somewhere.
Donald wobbled to his feet, and was knocked down again by Applejack’s mad search.
“Hey! What’s the big idea!?” the duck fumed.
“My hat’s gone!” Applejack answered, as she lifted Donald up to look beneath him.
“Knock that off! We’ll find it on our way outta here! Before more of those bugs show up!” Donald said, as he climbed down from Applejack’s hoist.
She hated to go, but the farmpony knew that staying around would only make it more likely for them to be caught. Hesitantly she ran to the door with Donald, taking one last look around the room before leaving.
Black exhaust was seeping from every nook and cranny in Alshuhum Qard’s shed.
Big Bad was working double duty to both turn the crank on the machine spewing the exhaust, and blowing it harder through the ventilation tube it was funneled into.
DiMosco watched the shed, listening for any signs of life within. Though he heard much loud chatter, there were no sounds of anyone trying to make an escape.
“Keep it up, Zeke. I’m gonna go have one last talk with our associates,” the magnate said.
“You got it,” Big Bad said, before he blew another black cloud into the vent.
DiMosco casually sauntered up to the shed’s door and knocked with his cane.
“How y’all holdin’ up in there? Gettin’ a bit stuffy in that little hotbox, I bet,” he said.
There came an answer from inside, but it was too choked and sputtered for DiMosco to understand.
“Well, in that case, I’ll tell ya what: come on out o’ there right now, an’ I’ll tell my sniper not to blow y’all away when ya do? But in exchange, I want me that ol’ beater in there. Sound like a fair deal?” the magnate asked.
He waited for an answer. Once more, a strained reply was given. A reply in the camel language that he would never repeat in front of his mother.
“That’s how ya feel about it, huh? Doesn’t worry me none. I just gotta wait another five minutes or so. Less, if Zeke there can blow any harder.”
The prisoners inside the shed heard DiMosco’s laughter again. They knew that they had very little time left, as the noxious fumes poured in.
Fluttershy looked frantically for a way to escape. The skylight was not an option, with the distant assassin watching it closely. The front door was out as well, being guarded by Big Bad and DiMosco.
As she searched for an escape, the beetle in her mane caught sight of the source of the exhaust. Through a crack in the shed, black fumes seeped in. Too high for any of the others to reach, and too narrow for them to do anything about it.
They would have to buy themselves time to formulate a plan
Beneath her hooves, Fluttershy noticed how soft the sand was. Enough to be dug away hopefully enough for ventilation.
“Everypony...This way…” the pegasus coughed.
Hoping she had found some way to escape, or at least some temporary relief, Uncle Scrooge and Alshuhum Qard crawled after her.
Qard’s ailing lungs succumbed to the noxious fumes and started coughing loudly.
Fluttershy helped the elderly zahak to the edge of the shed, where she started digging her hooves into the sand.
Taking her cue, the two elders started digging the grains away from the base of the shed, until they hit the solid dirt underneath the loose sand.
In moments, daylight was seen peering through the bottom of the shed. All three quickly took refuge by the precious leak of fresh air.
They knew they could not stay where they were. Somehow they had to escape, or stop the machine outside. Either way, it seemed impossible for them to do much of anything.
The beetle looked to the source of the exhaust. It did not know what it would do, or how it would do it. But, it knew that somehow it had to save the pegasus who saved its own life before.
Quickly as anything, the tiny insect jumped from Fluttershy’s mane to the leg of the nearby workbench, where it climbed its way up to the table.
As it skittered its way past the various tools and bits and pieces, the beetle collected a few items for when it may have needed them. Having lived its entire life slightly bigger than a mouse, it could never be too careful.
A screw cap was placed atop its head as a makeshift helmet. A tiny coil of copper wire was taken, just in case. And a screw was tucked into the coil of wire, for anything that needed to be prised open.
Now, it was fully equipped. Ready to take on anything that came its way, the beetle began climbing the wall to save its newest friend.
The crack in the shed billowed toxic clouds like the mouth of a beast with halitosis. Knowing full well was going to be a canary in a coal mine, the little bug took a deep breath in and climbed headlong into the source of the mist.
Past the mouth of the ventilation tube, the black clouds mostly floated near the top. With the danger above it, the beetle kept low as it ran along the tube.
The translucent sides of the tube offered little light. What sun shone through was warped and distorted by the sides of the tube, creating harsh glares of light that branched out like the many legs of a spider.
The uneven, coiled form of the tube made keeping pace difficult. But, for the sake of its new friend, the beetle ran boldly on.
In the tube with it, there were more insects and arachnids. Stragglers who had simply made their homes within the tube, and who were now trying to escape from the black cloud above them.
The beetle lurched suddenly forward, and found itself looking out of a hole in the tube to the ground below.
It teetered precariously on the edge, trying not to fall out to the difficult terrain outside the tunnel.
It was pushed back to standing by a larger beetle, which evacuated through the hole.
All around, the other bugs were escaping through other small holes in the tubing.
One group of ants worked together by climbing atop one another into the shape of a saw. With a few quick strokes, they cut a hole large enough for their whole colony to jump through in one swift motion.
The beetle dove forward and swam its way through the escaping ants. With a graceful jump, it leapt from the ant colony to the back of a larger insect.
Before the larger bug went too far, the beetle jumped forth and landed on the back of a long caterpillar. The beetle ran along the length of the longer bug, and was slowly pulled back toward one of the escape hatches. To the left and to the right, there was no room to safely land in the pandemonium.
The beetle ran faster, but was not fast enough to escape the length of the caterpillar, and was taken closer to one of the holes.
Faster the little bug’s legs skittered, until the caterpillar nearly dragged it out of the tubing.
The end of the caterpillar was nearing.
The beetle jumped, and hoped it was close enough to be spared from falling.
The caterpillar’s rear segment whipped and batted the beetle further down the darkness of the tube.
It was a hard landing for the beetle. The ridged, grooved contours of the tube made the little bug bounce up and down with each impact. It tried to steer its way from the various holes that were still present.
There came a point where the tube dipped downward. The beetle was sent free falling down into the depths of the tubing.
The beetle rolled to a stop. There were no more bugs around, and the tube was vibrating beneath its tiny feet. Ahead, the roar of a motor was heard. And it was getting louder.
The shaking ground of the tube was growing too unstable for the beetle to continue on. Through a crack in the tubing, the little bug could see the source of the incredible tremors. It took the screw from the coil of wire, and began prising the crack wider with the tiny tool.
More daylight was seen as the little bug pushed and pulled the crack apart. Suddenly, its progress was stalled by the crack reaching the limit of its range.
It knew its friend had little time left. It would have to expedite the opening of the crack.
Taking its own shell from its back, the beetle took the two halves in its front legs. It snipped them twice to check their function. Once it was satisfactory, the little bug set to work shearing a longer tear in the tubing.
Once at a satisfactory length, the beetle prised the crack open, stuck the screw into the ground beneath it, tied the length of wire around the screw, and rappelled down the coppery line.
There it was. The side of the sputtering machine faced the beetle like the face of a monster from the deepest depths of the desert. Every seam was crudely placed together, and billowed black clouds from every opening its loose nuts and bolts allowed. Next to it, Big Bad continued to work his crank, keeping life running into the foul contraption.
DiMosco happened to glance at the beetle, and curiously watched the bug as it dangled like a pendulum from its wire.
The little bug swung on its line, getting closer to the side of the machine with each swing.
There was a tiny ledge for it to land on.
The beetle reached its leg out, and just managed to hook onto the edge. It balanced itself to solid ground and whipped its line.
The copper wire arched along its own length, and dislodged the screw from its base.
Always one to swat the tiniest pest, DiMosco stepped closer to the machine and readied his cane to strike.
The beetle spooled up the line, wrapped it around itself. Taking the screw, it started to pull open one of the seams on the machine.
DiMosco wound up his wrist to strike.
The beetle prised the machine open, and crawled into its devilish depths, just as DiMosco’s cane struck the metal sides.
A tremor rang through the side of the machine, making the beetle jolt forward. When the jolt ended, the beetle found it could not stop shaking.
The inside of the machine was even more treacherous than outside. Everything seemed to exist to end its tiny life in the fastest, most painful way possible.
Steeling its resolve, the beetle began walking across the length of a shaking tube with a bubbling liquid within it.
Every step was precarious. On all sides of the beetle, there were fans spinning around, threatening to shred the little bug after one missed step. It tried not to look down, but the breeze of the fan was enough to keep danger in its mind every second.
The beetle managed to get to the safety of a metal plate. Though full of holes, the plate offered adequate footing. Until a new one suddenly opened up.
From the newly opened hole, a tiny burst of flame shot up, startling the beetle. As if a hatch were suddenly shut, the flame stopped. But, another soon spewed from a new opening. This one nearer to the little bug.
The beetle ran across the metal plate, stepping to avoid every burst of fire.
A towering flame shot up before it, as if it were a predatory arachnid from the dunes.
The beetle took its screw and swung at the flame, cutting it down a size.
The flame opened its fiery mandibles, ready to chomp its prey.
Taking no chances with a delay, the beetle jumped over its blazing foe. Right over the side of the metal plate.
Faced with the spinning fan, the beetle tossed its length of wire to catch onto a cranking lever.
The wire spooled itself around the turning lever, reeling the beetle up just as it nearly touched the blades of the exhaust fan.
Salvation was within reach. The little bug reached up and grabbed onto another metal plate, where it was glad to see there was no more fire.
The beetle jumped aside, just as a metal arm swiped at it. It jumped to the other side, when another arm attacked. And backward toward the edge when a third struck.
As it teetered on the edge, the beetle saw it was now faced with three metal arms. All three crudely hinged together by scraps and nails and bolts. And they were all undulating up and down, striking at the beetle one after the other.
Balancing itself before it was pushed off, the beetle took its own shell from its back and held it before itself. It took its screw and fiercely brandished its tiny weapon.
The metal arms did not seem to care one bit for the diminutive dragon slayer. They continued to attack in tandem, first one, then the next, then the last.
The beetle bounded between each attack, swinging its screw at the seemingly impervious hide of the metal beast.
An arm struck, knocking the beetle away. The only thing that saved it from injury was the screw cap atop its head.
The beetle parried one arm with its shield, then struck with its little blade.
The first arm lowered to attack.
The beetle jumped to grapple the mighty metal beast, and clung tightly as it was hoisted into the air and lowered down.
It would avoid attack from the top of the arm. The little bug took its screw and started jabbing it into the part where the metal arm bent, and felt the beast rattle in pain. It knew it had found the monster’s weakness.
The beetle started mercilessly attacking the hinge, feeling something loosen with each strike. Finally, something fell loose.
A pin that was holding the hinge rattled to the floor of the metal plate, then bounced down into the fan.
The blades of the fan spun violently and knocked the pin about the inside of the machine, slightly dislodging other parts.
Outside, DiMosco noticed something was wrong. The machine was not spewing as much exhaust as it should have.
“What’cha doin’ there, wolf? I ain’t payin’ ya ten cents an hour to lollygag!” the magnate said.
“I’m crankin’ just the same as I been doin’! This little jury rigged jalopy’s just chokin’ a bit!” Big Bad said.
“Then give it some more gusto, an’ get this thing belchin’ harder!!!”
Big Bad did as he was told, and started cranking harder on his lever.
The two remaining arms started attacking more quickly. One after the other, they stuck like a pair of stomping feet. With their more rapid movement came also more unstable, unpredictable strikes.
The beetle had to hop like a flea to keep from being crushed.
One of the arms lashed out and swung at its tiny opponent.
Holding its shield, the beetle blocked the blow, and was nearly crushed under the force.
It rolled to the side to avoid being crushed completely. It parried with its screw to deflect the next blow.
The little bug stood and jumped forth at the next attacking arm with its shield in front of it.
The two met in mid-air, as the beetle swung at the arm’s hinge.
Two strikes were landed, before the beetle was knocked down by the arm’s undulation.
The arm came down again, ready to smash the little bug.
Boldy wielding its screw, the beetle sat up and swung once more at the arm’s joint, where another pin was knocked loose.
With a defeated groan, the entire arm fell apart, with only the tiny stub in the side of the machine still moving up and down.
Big Bad was growing frustrated by his malfunctioning motor. He huffed. He puffed. And--
“RAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!!!”
He growled so fiercely that the whole machine shook like a very small piglet. As the glutton growled he cranked harder and faster than before, becoming a black blur after only three turns.
Through its shaking, the machine roared in turn, billowing out a cloud of darkness that threatened to block the sun should it escape from the vents.
The black cloud blew its way into the shed, where it filled the tiny room like a flood of water.
By their tiny vent, the three trapped prisoners coughed violently. Between the two ailing elders, Fluttershy frantically tried to dig a larger vent. The ground beneath the sand was cold and hard. More of the pegasus’s hooves seemed to be scraped away than the dirt itself. But, she had to go on. If only to prolong the lives of her elderly friends.
The beetle was pushed to the edge of its tiny platform.
The final mechanical arm rapidly undulated up and down, side to side.
A great gust arose from the bottom of the machine, as the fan blew with the force of a tiny gale.
Fire sprouted up higher than ever from the combustors. Each one seemed to take the shape of some terrifying devil bug, each more fierce than the last.
The whole machine shook violently, as if an earthquake had struck within the contraption itself.
It was the gale from the fan below that blew the beetle back onto the platform. There, it tried its best to defeat the final arm of the metal beast.
With its shell and its screw, the beetle tried to combat its opponent, which was on its last leg. However, with its defeat near, the machine had grown violent and frenzied.
The metal arm had grown too fast and too erratic to predict. Over and over, the beetle was bludgeoned without any chance to counter.
The platform it was standing on started to wobble, until one of the screws holding it into place started to loosen. Soon, it fell free, and slanted downward.
In its rage, the beetle saw the machine was undoing itself from its own fury. Remembering what had happened when the first pin dropped to the fan below, the little bug took the screw cap from its head, and tossed it to the spinning blades.
The screw cap hit the fan blades, and was shot through the machine. One tube was knocked loose from its socket, and spilled its contents into the combustor. The fuel blazed brightly, feeding the flames until every one of the infernal flames morphed into the fiercest insect from the depths of Duzakh.
It was time to retreat.
The beetle put its shell back on and slid down the sloped platform, just as the final arm broke itself apart.
It was falling toward the burning mandibles of the fiery bug below.
Reaching up, the beetle caught the broken metal arm, just as it jammed on two metal hinges.
The fire was creeping closer, and the beetle could see the hunger of the devil bug within.
Quickly and clumsily, the little bug climbed to the top of the arm and ran along its length, as the fire trailed behind it.
Through the shaking parts of the machine the beetle ran, with the fire close behind it. A piece of machinery fell from above, and split the fiery bug in half. It was not a moment later that it reformed and pursued the beetle.
It felt the heat growing more intense behind it. Then, more flames sprouted before it.
The beetle cut through them with its screw, and jumped to the platform where it had arrived. As quick as it could, it started using its screw to prise the outer shell open again.
With another violent shake, the entire panel before the beetle fell off. Now with a clear escape, the beetle twisted the wire around its screw and threw it up to the tubing. The screw embedded into the tubing, and the beetle climbed up the length.
DiMosco and Big Bad tried frantically to keep the machine together. But, it was no good. The entire contraption began bouncing and bucking, as parts of it shot out of its top and sides like live ammunition. Black clouds spewed out of its sides, sending its foul exhaust into DiMosco and Big Bad’s faces. With one last choke, the machine shook itself apart, laying in a heap of its own parts.
“Ain’t this a fine how do ya do!? What in the blazes happened here, Zeke!?” DiMosco shouted, as he fanned the clouds away with his hat.
“Musta been a...bug in the works…” Big Bad wheezed.
And they would never know how right the glutton was, as the tiny dragonslayer ran back through the tubing to check on its friend.
Time passed, and in the shed the air was growing clearer. After the sounds of the machine stopped, Fluttershy cautiously sniffed beyond the vent at the ground. The smell of the exhaust was less pervasive now, making her think that it was soon safe to breathe freely. But the labored coughing of the others made her realize it would not be soon enough.
Sniper or no, Fluttershy had to create greater ventilation. She inhaled deeply from the floor, and ran to the workbench. She climbed up to the table, just as the beetle arrived through the crack where the tubing was placed. Without Fluttershy even noticing, it jumped back into her mane, where it rested against her ear, relieved that its adventure was over.
The pegasus had just pushed the skylight open, when a bullet shot out and shattered the opaque glass.
“EEP!!!” Fluttershy gasped, as she fell over backwards from the bench.
The beetle held tightly as they both went falling back to the sand.
Fluttershy picked herself up, and saw the haze slowly drifting up through the broken skylight. Without any more exhaust to replace it, the shed was soon becoming a mostly hospitable environment once more.
Uncle Scrooge coughed again and leaned his back against the wall. Next to him, Qard struggled to stand up, using the metal support pole next to himself to rise.
Leaning on the side of his flying machine, the elderly zahak hobbled his way to the front of the shed, where he slumped his side against the door.
“I know you’re listening, fly!” he said through the sheet of metal. “Try as you will, there’s nothing you can do to eliminate us! We are the spirits that cannot be broken! You’ll have to take your business to some other enterprising soul to corrupt!”
The only answer was something slamming against the side of the shed. Then again and again.
One last time, DiMosco clubbed the side of the shed with his cane, hoping in vain that something would give for his limited strength.
He stopped and glowered at the shed, when he happened to notice the tiny dents he had made. Perhaps not his cane, but something larger would suffice.
“Wolf!” the magnate growled, “Get the boys on the line! I want ‘em all here right away! Tell ‘em to bring all the demolition gear they got, besides explosives! I wanna see crowbars, prybars, buzzsaws, hacksaws, sledgehammers, baseball bats, brass knuckles! Right down to a can opener an’ a corkscrew! We’re tearin’ this shed apart piece by piece! An’ we’re killin’ anything inside that breathes!”
“An’ I get the leftovers?” Big Bad asked.
“Yer gonna be leftovers, if ya don’t move it!!” DiMosco threatened.
Not one to disobey a temper like DiMosco’s, Big Bad hurried away to the nearest communication point to relay the message.
Inside the shed, Fluttershy trembled. They had just so narrowly evaded danger, and it seemed now that the next was unavoidable.
Between two ailing elders and a timid pegasus, there was no way they would be able to handle an entire gang of thugs.
Uncle Scrooge looked to the one hope of escape they had left, and used his cane to climb to his feet.
“Open the side of that aeroplane, lass,” the tycoon said to Fluttershy.
“Why?” Fluttershy wondered.
“We’re gonna fly out o’ here.”