//------------------------------// // Failure to Cooperate // Story: Innavedr // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// "Will you move your flank, kid?!" Josho grunted. "Nnngh!" The lavender unicorn stumbled after the elder enforcer. "The name is Eagle Eye!" "You're gonna be called 'dead meat' in a hot minute if you don't friggin' catch up to me!" Josho shouted. He rounded a wooden supply shack which exploded from rifle shot right next to him. "Gaah!" Both unicorns spun to look. A phalanx of canines were standing on a ridge overlooking cowering slaves. They were in the process of reloading their weapons while their leader pointed a scimitar in the fugitives' direction. "We gotta find s-some cover!" Eagle Eye stammered. "I'd say the same about them!" Josho lifted the bullet-riddled side of the wooden shack with telekinesis. Growling for strength, he yanked the panel clean, heaved it over his shoulder, and bucked it with both rear hooves. "Nnngh!" The wooden splinters flew towards the line of diamond dogs. The Killas gasped and dove aside to dodge the tossed bits. Eagle Eye shook his head. "There're still too many of them—Aaaugh!" he yelped as his bound hoof pulled him violently towards the edge of the quarry. "If I asked for a play-by-play, I would have shoved a megaphone into your mouth!" Josho grumbled. "I see a forest up ahead!" "Yes, and about two dozen dogs!" Eagle Eye had to shout above a rising tumult of barks. "You just let me do the fighting!" Josho shouted as they came upon an even plateau with dogs charging head-first. "You just stand behind me and look pretty!" "I can do both at once!" Eagle Eye telekinetically lifted a pair of pick axes from gasping slaves. As the dogs ran up with their lashes, he gritted his teeth, concentrated, and shoved the tools against each other so harshly that one handle skewered another. He then flung the conjoined axes like a double-bladed boomerang over the heads of the attacking overseers. All of the dogs ducked. The last one was rather slow, and he lost an ear with a spray of blood. As he yelped in anguish, Josho was already galloping murderously into the group. "Aaaaaugh!" Josho head butted one diamond dog, bucked a second, and prepared to smack a third. "Stupid horsssses!" A Killa dove down from a crest of rubble above, flinging the full length of his rope towards Josho's neck. Eagle Eye gasped and concentrated a pulse of mana through his horn. In a flash, the whip froze in mid-air like a petrified snake. The dog tugged and tugged at the anchored lash in frustration. Josho turned, saw the whip, and clasped onto it with his bare teeth. Eagle Eye let go with a gasping breath while Josho yanked at his end of the lash, pulling the diamond dog towards him. The elder enforcer then proceeded to roll the shouting dog over his shoulders and buck him straight into a line of advancing guards. The canines rolled down hill like a hairy set of bowling pins. "Spark alive, I forgot what it felt like to be sober," Josho grunted before tugging a breathless Eagle Eye down a craggy hill of gravel. "Come on!" "Like I h-have a choice!" Eagle chirped. The two slid and tumbled and rolled to a stop. Scampering back onto aching hooves, they galloped down row after row of leather-bound drilling equipment. Canines gathered on the hilltop around them, aiming with a murderous line of rifles. Bullets flew down and shot up dirt, gravel, and packing material. "Yaaaaugh!" Eagle Eye shrieked. "Put a cork in it, lady!" Josho shouted as they came upon a solid line of wooden crates. Sweating like a frenzied hog, Josho gripped Eagle Eye with both forelimbs and flung the petite pony—shrieking—over the wall of wooden boxes. He clambered up the sunlit side of it with bulletholes forming all around him. "Nnnnngh!" Finally, with much burly effort, he tumbled down and landed in a grunt besides Eagle Eye. "Uhm..." Eagle sweated, shivering nervously. "Hush, kid..." Josho grumbled, wiping the sweat from his brow and muzzle. "Just gimme a second to think. I haven't done that since we turned that one dog's eyes to jelly doughnuts." "Uhhhh..." Eagle Eye tugged on Josho's shoulder. "Uhhhhhh..." "Look, will you shut up?! Don't make me hit you like a broken record—" Eagle Eye gulped and pointed ahead. "That's the least of my worries." "Huh?" Josho looked up. He blinked. Over three dozen tents stretched before the group, and half-sleeping canines were crawling out of them. An entire camp full of confused, angry Killas glared at the two fugitives. They stood up from tables full of roasted meat and reached for their weapons. "Oh well..." Josho grumbled. "I always wanted an epic way to die." "Wait! I know!" Eagle Eye gasped. Josho rolled his eyes. "I just didn't think I'd have a talking cherry on top..." Eagle Eye tugged on his forelimb. "Use your teleport ability!" "Kid, I don't even know if that works with these cuffs on—" The first of many diamond dogs cocked his weapon and aimed at the bigger pony's forehead. "Looks like we've gottttt ourselves a bigger lunch, boyssss!" "Look! I know you can do it!" Eagle Eye shrieked, wringing Josho's neck. "I promise that I will allow you to call me any manner of fruit if you just get us out of here—" Josho was already shouting for concentrtion. "Raaaaaaaauuugh—" His horn glowed like a shooting star and— The diamond dogs stumbled back, whining in pain from the blinding sight. In the meanwhile... Josho's horn stopped glowing. He blinked, seeing nothing but forest canopy above him. "Huh." He glanced down at his hoof, only to see a purple-glowing manacle around it. "Well, fish barf. I guess that's gonna be hard to get off—Daah!" He yelped as he was suddenly tugged back. The enforcer realized that he was lying on a thick branch extending outward from the tree. Something with a decent amount of weight was pulling him hard against the body of the branch from below. "What in Spark's name?" Josho struggled, twitched, and finally looked down. "Nnnnngh—" Eagle Eye was dangling by his bound hoof, floating thirty feet above open forest. He looked up with frightened, violet eyes. "A little help here!" He squirmed and wriggled. "Just stop moving—Stop swinging!" Josho shouted—then gasped as he rolled off the branch. "Aaaack!" Eagle Eye plummeted under the shadow of Josho. The two fell like twin anvils towards the forest below. "Kid!" Josho grunted, flailing upside down. "Blast the ground! Quick!" "Oh jeez oh jeez oh jeez—!" Eagle Eye somehow managed to fire a charge of mana earthward. The soil bubbled briefly with energy, then exploded upward. A column of dirt and leaves caught the stallions' descent, and what was once a suicidal plummet turned into a ridiculously annoying tumble. "Ooof!" Josho grunted, landing first. "Mmmmmf!" Eagle Eye landed against him, chest to chest. It took the better part of five and a half milliseconds for Josho to fling the lavender body off of him. "Yeeugh! Not in a million years, slick!" "As if, you huge bucket of... of..." Eagle Eye scooted away from him with a red face and spat, "Poo!" "Pfft. That the best you got, kid?" "Better than the best you've got! The heck was that all about?!" Eagle Eye barked. "You almost got us killed!" "Oh, I'm sorry. Maybe you'd rather be back in the quarry kicking rocks until you become puppy chow!" "Did you even have a plan beside using me as a living lance?!" Eagle Eye ran a hoof up to his mane. "Unnngh... I'm gonna be washing blood out of my hair for days!" "You want blood in your teeth, that can be arranged." "We're totally doomed, y'know," Eagle Eye said, hopping up to his lithe hooves. "There's only two of us and—like—a gazillion of them!" "Will you relax?!" Josho stumbled up to an aching stand. "Unngh... Look, we're only two slaves. It's not like they're gonna send all of their dogs out for just two lucky punks." "Lucky?!" Eagle Eye's face was pale with worry. "They've got a huge armored tank!" "Yeah, on treads." Josho smirked wryly. "Don't you see? This is the best scenario possible. The one vehicle they got is as slow as a snail—" Just then, the earth shook. Both stallions' ears twitched. As a veritable earthquake roared through the ground, they glanced up. From a hilltop overlooking the lower forest, a line of trees exploded. The Killas' enormous tank plowed through wave after wave of vegetation. It's immense rusted body blotted out the sun, for it was bearing down ravenously on the two equines. Josho gulped. "Dog gone it..." "Come on!" Eagle Eye shrieked, tugging on Josho's shoulder. The two stallions turned and ran. The forest and the tank and the thunder of a sundered continent all fell on top of them.