The jaws of the first timberwolf snapped shut... and Crimson fell through it.
"Oooh!" He landed hard on his haunches.
Not wasting the time to wince, Crimson rolled to the side. He just barely avoided a slamming set of paws trampling overhead. The earth tore up on either side of him. He looked in time to see a second timberwolf lunging in mid-sprint to bite his head off.
With red telekinesis, Crimson yanked his heavy hammer free, twirled about, and flew skyward in a vicious uppercut. "Haaaugh!"
The timberwolf's skull split apart. Its body shattered into wooden bits, crumbling on either side of teetering stallion. He stabilized his vibrating weapon in time to face an onslaught of rushing fangs, fangs, and more fangs.
A shield flew over his mane and ricocheted across the sea of rushing monsters. They fumbled in their charge, giving Crimson time to breathe.
The muscular stallion looked over his shoulder.
The shield bounced back into Eagle Eye's telekinetic grip. Sweating, the smaller unicorn shouted, "Okay! Enough awesomeness! Let's jet!"
"You moron!" Rainbow Dash's voice cracked overhead, followed by her diving figure. "There's never enough!" She swooped Crimson's body up in her forelimbs.
"Whoah!" Crimson grunted, not used to being carried.
Rainbow Dash was evidently not used to it either—namely his weight. "Goddess! Did you eat the other half of Foxtaur before we came here?!" She hissed through a straining face.
"Let me down! I can gallop on my own!"
"Uhhhh..." Rainbow Dash glanced behind her to see wave after wave of panicked animalia charging after her. The forest shook all around them. "Yeah, that's not happening." She barked beyond Crimson's horn. "Hey squirt! Grab ahold!"
Eagle Eye nodded. Gulping, he sheathed his sword and shield, ran up a log, jumped, and clamped his teeth over Crimson's dangling hammer.
"Nnnngh!" Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth, channeling as much energy as she could muster into her blurring wings. She carried the combined weight of the two stallions eastward, through the waving foliage, towards the distant images of their other four companions fleeing the crest of the violent stampede. "This would help if you both weren't so full of muscles and testosterone!"
"Just lift us past that nearby thicket!" Crimson pointed.
"Deff-doff-derrhonne?" Eagle Eye mumbled into his mouthed grip. The free of them bumped into an errant tree branch, and the petite stallion lost his grip. "Gaaaah!"
"EE!" Crimson shouted.
Rainbow Dash flashed a nervous glance down.
Eagle Eye fell, bounced off two branches, and landed in a cluster of bushes below. "Ooomf!" He struggled to get up, his hooves caught in several brambles as the line of roaring timberwolves bore down on him.
"Miss Dash—!" Crimson began.
"Way ahead of you!" She spun once, twice, and flung him earthward. "Lay it down!"
With a warcry, Crimson plunged himself hammer-first, sailing towards the converging skulls of the rampaging monsters. A dull wave of thunder emanated from the point of impact, carrying along with it a scattering sea of branches, limbs, and enchanted twigs. The sundered timberwolves were already reforming, but Crimson wasn't wasting anytime. He spun in a circle, heaving the hammer with all his might, forming a barrier of defense around Eagle Eye.
One slightly smaller timberwolf broke through the mighty stallion's defense and lunged at his back.
Gasping, Eagle Eye finally ripped three of the brambles, unsheathed his sword, and sliced the wooden creature's front paws off. The monster collapsed into a cloud of mulch beneath the two as the lavender unicorn spun and deflected a paw swipe from another cretin. "Unngh!"
"We gotta regroup with the others!" Crimson shouted. "None of us will be safe at Site Beta unless we make it there together!"
"Crimson! I'm so sorry about this—" Eagle Eye managed while fending off more attacks with his shield.
"Knock it off!" Crimson shouted. "You would have done the same for me—" An immensely large timberwolf slid towards the group, digging up earth with its gaping maw. "Awwww crud."
Eagle Eye clenched his eyes and blenched behind Crimson and his hammer.
There was a rush of wind. Rainbow Dash flew down directly in front of them, stood on her hind quarters, and braced her pendant with two hooves. Concentrating, she summoned a bright red glow from her ruby pendant, utterly blinding the charging canine.
With a pitiful whine, the large timberwolf halted its sprint and reared back, blinded from the burst of luminescent glory. It barely had a chance to recover when a loud voice shouted from above.
"Haaaaugh!" Zenith came hurtling down, pole-arm first. He skewered the head of the creature and perched atop the timberwolf's skull, shoving its muzzle down towards the floor of Foxtaur. "Now, Phoenix!"
The mustached pony galloped out from a cluster of trees. Hopping over smaller creatures of the stampede, he spun around and launched his spiked mace with a burst of telekinesis.
The metal weapon soared through the throat of the monster. Its wooden skull hung precariously to the side. As Phoenix's weapon retracted, Zenith yanked his polearm loose and dove off the thing's lopsided cranium. "Do the honors, Captain, my Captain!"
Sneering, Crimson broke into a trot that broke into a gallop that broke into a charge. "Haaaaugh!" His hammer sent a wave of fury surging down the body of the beast, loosening its wooden frame all across its spine. The last of the timberwolves was defeated, ushering silence across that particular part of the forest for a brief beat in time.
"Sit boy!" Phoenix chirped, shouldering his mace. "Good dog! Heheheh—Gulp!" He hissed into the strangling hooves of an enraged pegasus.
"What are you doing here?!"
"Saving y-your sorry wings!" the mustached stallion uttered.
"Where's Belle and Pilate?!"
"Relax," Zenith said, cautiously eyeing the trembling forest around them. "They're safe behind a boulder facing away from the charge. Now's as good a time as ever to join them."
"More like twenty seconds before now," Crimson uttered, still panting from the fight. He pointed at the floor as the many enchanted twigs and branches of the shattered timberwolves began to float together, forming as one. "We can't stop all this from coming together! And once it does..."
"...it's gonna be really friggin' huge," Rainbow Dash said, wincing. Her wings were already twitching. "Okay, guys! Let's reunite with my friends and make it to your snazzy place of hiding before—"
"Wait!" Eagle Eye shouted above the tumult.
Everypony looked at him.
He bit his lip before uttering, "Has anypony noticed that the shelling has stopped?"
The group froze in place.
Forlornly, Rainbow Dash glanced skyward. Through the break in the forest canopy, the first of many glinting metal aircraft shimmered in the afternoon light.