A cloud under the mountain
“Sunset, I gotta say your night-eye spell is really cool,” Gale whispered quietly as the five of them slowly advanced through the dark tunnels beneath the Great Rift, all with their irises slightly colored in a green hue. “How come you know such a spell?”
“Very practical for sneaking out at night,” Sunset replied in a casual whisper.
“Date nights?” Cloud asked with curiosity, her voice barely reaching Sunset’s ears.
“Revenge nights,” Sunset corrected with a small grin.
“You want some tea and biscuits while you’re at it?” Blossomforth snapped quietly at the three women behind her as Silent was scouting a few dozen meters ahead of them.
“Right, sorry!” they all replied sheepishly before advancing in silence.
Thanks to Sunset’s spell, the group of infiltrators could see in the dark tunnels without the need of a torch that would have been a dead giveaway of their positions. They had left Black and Lucky about an hour ago and had gone deep inside the maze of natural caves and Diamond Dogs’ tunnels. Thanks to Silent’s tracking skills, they’ve been following the path most of the runaway dogs from the ambush had taken for a while now, with Sunset marking the right turns to take for the way back up with small, slightly glowing runes carved into the stone with her magic.
After Silent pointed to the right at a three-way intersection, they heard distant barks along with noises of a great commotion further down the tunnel. All five women crouched down to be as silent as possible for the rest of their way. The end of the tunnel glowed in a faint purplish light, much to the five Equestrians’ confusion. The exit was narrowed down compared to the rest of the tunnel: while they could have easily walked side by side, the exit was barely wide enough for two of them to pass.
They took positions at each side of the exit, all with their weapons out. After a nod from Blossomforth, Silent rolled out of the tunnel to hide behind a pile of boulders high enough to cover her, her crossbow ready and loaded in her hands. Their tunnel had led them to the top of a natural spiral staircase with a view on the vast cavern down below. Silent observed the way down, noticing more tunnel accesses on the way down the spiral, but still no sight of guards whatsoever. Then she took a deep breath and peaked over the edge of her cover.
She gasped in shock at the sight of the bottom of the cave. It wasn’t the five-hundreds of frantic Diamond Dogs moving around metallic huts in hurry that caused her shock, nor it was the sixty Equestrian prisoners locked up at the other side of the make-shift village. What made her gasp was the source of that purple light that lit up the all cave.
In the center of the Diamond Dogs settlement, curled up in a ball, laid a gigantic wolf with translucent, purple body along with starry dots everywhere on its skin and a large white star on its forehead. Just the size of the beast was impressive: Even curled in a ball, it was massive enough to cover a surface equivalent to the compound’s main court. Silent’s gaze stopped on the beast’s claws that looked to be the size of an adult man and as sharp as an Istaloñan blade.
“What the heck is that thing?!” Gale whispered in terror, startling Silent who hadn’t noticed her teammates coming closer to the edge of the descent.
“Sweet Faust,” Blossomforth let with her mouth agape.
“I can’t believe it!” Sunset passed her hand in her hair, giving them a sharp but little pull. “A real Celestial beast….”
“A what?” Cloud asked slowly, her purple eyes focused on the massive animal below them.
“An animal supposedly made of stars and the light that comes out of them,” Sunset explained, awed by the gigantic wolf. “One of the most famous sorts on top of that: a Canis Major!!!” she added, her excitement clearly overcoming her worries for remaining stealthy. “One hasn’t been spotted in Equestrian territory in decades!!!”
“How did the Diamond Dogs manage to capture a beast this size?” Gale asked slowly, her brow reflecting her interrogation.
“I’m not sure they captured anything,” Sunset let out softly. “I think they just installed their village here with its consent, since Canës are said to be really friendly to any other canine species. In exchange, they probably have to watch over its cave during its long sleep. Rumor has it that Celestial beasts have a different definition of time compared to us. Their slumber could last for years for all we know...”
“So, they just moved in, built all their huts around it, exploited the veins of the Rift and enslaved people while that thing’s napping?!” Cloud summed up with shock.
“I suppose that’s what happened,” Sunset let out as she looked away from the beast in favor of the running Diamond Dogs below them. “I think they’re packing…”
“Looks like it,” Silent agreed with a nod after peering at them with her pocket telescope.
Female Diamond Dogs were leaving their huts with their pups in hurry to a large tunnel opposite of the five infiltrated Jupitarians, while a small portion of the males were escorting them. From what the five could see, their evacuation of their women and children was almost done. The three other Jupitarians took their own pocket telescopes. -Jupitarian corps were often picked for scouting missions and thus their standard pack always included binoculars or a telescope.-
Cloud aimed the lens of her telescope across the ranks of the armed and armored Diamond Dogs that were gathering around the birdcage-like structure in which they had locked up their prisoners. As Cloud scanned amongst the prisoners, wondering how come they were rather nicely lined-up in ranks, she noticed them shaking in terror before two details made her snap her eyes wide open in shock.
“......Oh, no,” Cloud shakingly whispered, her telescope giving her a clear view of a ten year old girl standing on a wet, round boulder with a dirty rope connecting the top of the large cage and her neck. “... Th-they’re about to execute the prisoners!”
“WHAT?!” all four other girls nearly shouted before they pointed their telescope at the cage locking the prisoners up and Sunset snatched Cloud’s.
“T..That doesn’t make any sense!!” Sunset stammered as she saw the ropes around many Equestrian necks.
“Why would they to do that?!” Silent asked frantically, as Gale kept observing the cage’s surroundings.
The redhead’s telescope aimed the center of the circle of Diamond Dogs and the huge one that seemed to bark ferociously at his comrades. Gale signaled at her friends to look at what looked like the pack leader while it was pointing at the closest prisoner, earning a collective cheer of agreement from his underlings. One of the other Diamond Dogs walked in the cage excitedly and positioned himself behind the man his alpha had pointed at.
“No time for discretion anymore!” Cloud snarled angrily before conjuring her large purple wings. “I’m going in! Wait for my signal!”
“Cloud, wait…”
Blossomforth’s sentence wasn’t heard by Cloud, as she had already dived toward the cage and more precisely toward the bipedal Mastiff that rocked the boulder the terrified Equestrian was standing on back and forth with a cruel smirk on his canine head. As Cloud flew down the Diamond Dogs settlement, moisture from the rather humid cave was gathering into whitish columns of steam in the wake of her wings as she drew her sword out of its sheath.
“Shit!” Gale let out in hurry as she stood up along with Blossomforth and Sunset. “She’s gonna get herself killed!”
“She told us to wait for her signal!” Silent reminded, grabbing Blossomforth’s arm.
“What signal?” Blossomforth snapped. “She’s just rushing to her death!!!”
“Hey, look!” Gale nearly shouted, pointing at the trails of fog left by Cloud’s flight.
The trails suddenly retracted on themselves, getting bigger and closer to their conjurer's wings. Cloud’s did a quick roll mid-flight before she stomped with both her feet on the primitive cage’s top. The momentum of her descent allowed her to break through the wooden bars instantly before ending her course on the Mastiff tormenting the prisoners. Before the other Diamond Dogs could blink, the large patch of fog caught up with Cloud and blinded them to anything happening inside the cage.
“What the hell?” the Alpha Diamond Dog let out in shock as they heard the sounds of many ropes being cut.
After that, Cloud charged out of the thick fog, her sword held high above her head. The blade descended on the Alpha’s face before one of its guards blocked it with his shield. Cloud immediately took a long step back with a strong flap of her wings to dodge the bone-made axe swinging where her ribs had been a second earlier.
“It’s the one that brought down the skies!” a small Diamond Dog, apparently one of the ambush survivors, screamed in terror pointing at Cloud as she raised the tip of her sword a bit.
“KILL HER!!!” the Alpha ordered in a thunderous bark, his eyes red of furor focused on Cloud. “Kill my heir’s murderer!”
The Bulldog-like guard barked strongly before lunging into Cloud, swinging his axe in direction of her head with strength. The axe never reached the blonde’s head, for she had stopped the blow by thrusting her blade into the Diamond Dog’s wrist. He let go of his weapon with a pained yelp before a flash of iron touched his throat. While he fell backward, dark blood spilling from his open neck, another Diamond Dog charged the blonde Jupitarian with his comrade on his heels.
***************************
“Are you certain you’ve never held a blade before today, Kid?”
“Yes, Lieutenant Maverick!”
“Well, that’s the third time in a row that you managed to disarm me… Granted, I’m not really serious about swordplay, but it’s impressive nonetheless…. I’ll try to get Crystal to give you lessons once you’re back at the compound. She’s one of the best blades amongst the Jupitarian Corps … Don’t ever tell her I said that!”
“Of course, Lieutenant!”
***************************
“...Wow!” Gale let out in amazement as a paw holding a sword separating from its canine owner before Cloud slashed his stomach open before parrying another blow.
“She’s not gonna make it!” Sunset growled as she started running down the spiral descent, while Cloud kept on parrying and lethally counter-attacking every Diamond Dog that attacked her. “There’s just too many of them!” she added as more dogs ganged up on Cloud.
“Gale, let’s go!” Blossomforth shouted as she took off, quickly imitated by the redhaired soldier. “Cover her, Silent!” she ordered, causing the grey-haired to shoulder her weapon.
“Oka…. Girls, wait!” Silent lifted her hand suddenly to stop the two Jupitarians. “Look over there!”
***************************
“Are you certain I’m ready, Lieutenant?”
“It depends… Do you feel ready?”
“I guess.”
“There’s no guessing, Kid! Do YOU feel ready for the maneuvers?”
“...N-not really.”
“That’s all good! It means you’ll be careful during them. The Guard doesn’t need hotheads who’ll jeopardize missions because they’re too cocky!”
“....huh… I thought you said to never doubt about…”
“I told you to never doubt about your talent, Kid. Being nervous before your first assignment isn’t quite the same as that.”
“Did you feel the same on your first mission?”
“Nope! Me and my team were so full of ourselves, so confident in our own skills that we rushed into things like wild animals… In the end we succeeded without casualties, but thinking back, we were lucky to have made it alive.”
“... Really?”
“Yep! Skills are important of course, but in the end they are more often not what determines the success of a mission. That…”
“OUCH!!!”
“...Is what wins battles and bring success to a mission. Fight with your head before your fists or sword. Always think before acting. Not too long, because time is a luxury we rarely can afford during a mission. I know you’re capable of that, Kid. That’s why I think you’re ready!... And stop holding your forehead like that.”
“....You hit hard!”
“I swear, you sound like a child who waits for his mother to kiss his booboo better. You better stop because it’s not going to happen.”
“......It would've been nice!”
“Did you say something, Kid?”
“No, Ma’am!”
***************************
The squadron’s eyes focused on the faint fog that traced a path through the settlement. The haze didn’t seem to get noticed by the remaining Diamond Dogs who were charging toward Cloud, all weapons out. It didn’t reach higher than one’s knee and snaked through the village until it managed to accomplish its purpose: Connecting the cage and the start of the natural spiral staircase Sunset was running down.
“...She’s drawing a path for the prisoners!” Silent explained as the haze separated into two thin lines slowly spacing themselves up to three meters wide.
“Silent!” Gale called when she noticed a bipedal, brown Mastiff swinging a large battle axe to Cloud’s exposed back as she had locked blades with a smaller Diamond Dog.
“Shit!” the grey-haired cursed under her breath before aiming in Cloud’s direction while Gale and Blossomforth started their descent again.
She couldn’t get her aim steady before the blade was about to rip through the back of Cloud’s leather armor.
***************************
“You’re doing any progress about that cloud-shard, Kid?”
“I think I’m onto something, Lieutenant… I’ll try to show it to you before the maneuvers!”
“Why not showing it now?”
“It’s not ready yet, but I think you’ll like it… I got inspired by that trick you showed me.”
“I’ve shown you many tricks, Kid.”
“Then it will be a surprise for you.”
“Fiiiiiine! Be all secretive, Kid, but I hope for you it’s worthy to be called a surprise!”
“You won’t be disappointed, Lieutenant!”
***************************
The primitive axe that tried to reach for Cloud’s spine was snapped in two pieces by a clean cut that made the axe owner share its fate. Cloud slashed her front opponent before spinning on her feet, causing the five Diamond Dogs that were about to attack her to fall backwards with deep cuts on their chests, arms, or faces. At that, Sunset, Gale and Blossomforth stopped dead in their tracks while Silent blinked in shock at the sight of the blonde’s wings.
“I wanted to show this to Spitfire first, but I suppose testing these on the field beforehand is a good thing,” Cloud commented as the Diamond Dogs stared in awe and dread at her wings.
Her purple appendages were fully spread on her back with a shining, haze surrounding the edge of each feather and the wing-bone. Despite their nature, those haze-made blades covering many parts of Cloud’s wings looked as sharp and solid as the actual sword she was holding in her left hand.
“Wha-What trickery is this?!” the Alpha stuttered, pointing his shaking and dirty finger at Cloud’s wings.
“That’s my first original Shape,” Cloud replied slowly. “By condensing the humidity in the air, I can form a cloud which I can manipulate, compress and harden to the point it forms something akin to steel,” she explained slowly as a large patch of fog condensed itself in her right hand, forming a simplistic blade with no feature. “After that, I’ve simply equipped my wings with those Nimbo-gladii.” [from cloud & sword in Latin] “... I think I’m going to call that shape the Wing-blades!”
Cloud took stance with her two swords in hands, pointing the left one to the Diamond Dog Alpha’s face while she flared her wings wide open, forming a nearly full circle of purple feathers and whitish blades. The Alpha growled threateningly, pulling his own sword from his loincloth belt. At this gesture, all the dogs took one step toward Cloud who leaned more on her right leg, ready to jump.
“SUNSET! LIGHT UP THE PATH!!!” Cloud suddenly shouted loudly, her order resonating through the immense cave and leaving its gigantic resident still sound asleep.
“....... Kinda lame for a signal,” Sunset whispered for herself after she reached the end of the spiral staircase.
The gemstone at the end of her staff glowed so brightly as she gave it a few spins that it caused the Diamond Dogs at the rear to look in her direction. The fact they turned around made them notice the two hazy trails that went through their settlement from the cage. Before anyone could react, Sunset slammed her staff on the ground, her eyes glowing green-blue as she unleashed her spell.
Two pillars of bright, teal fire bursted from her staff before they followed Cloud’s haze-made trails. The pillars then formed two meters tall, scorching walls that coursed through the settlements to the cage. Many Diamond Dogs jumped away from the haze they hadn’t noticed before, but not all of them got this chance. While those who had been in the way were rolling around to extinguish the fire that had caught their furs, some were lucky enough to stand between the two trails of haze.
Once the walls of fire reached where the cage’s door was, the first prisoners started rush through it, running like hell behind the relative cover offered by the walls of fire. The Alpha ordered his dogs to not let any prisoners escape before Cloud lunged in his direction, all blades out for canine blood. The fastest, soon-former slave stopped dead in his track when, after a curve, he found himself face to maw with a half a dozen of Diamond Dogs warriors trapped in the corridor of fire.
“You’re not going anywhere, horse-man!” one of them growled in a low, guttural voice that terrified the Equestrian.
A sharp whistle was heard above the sound of the raging fires around them before a crossbow bolt pierced the closest Diamond Dog’s head. All heads turned from where the bolt came from, seeing two armored Jupitarians, one holding a spear, the other a large, two-handed axe, flying down to the group of slavers.
“Oh, yes, they’re going!” Gale shouted as she separated the head of a surprised Diamond Dog from his body. “Stupid dogs!” she added before catapulting another one of her opponents into the wall of flame with a strong flap of her wings.
For her part, Blossomforth had batted one of the two remaining Diamond Dogs unconscious before she impaled the second one in the chest with her spear. She freed her weapon with one strong stomp in the dying Dog’s stomach, sending him falling back into the green, magic fire.
“Keep moving! The exit is up there!” Blossomforth shouted to the awed slaves, pointing at the top of the spiral staircase where Silent was shooting down another Diamond Dog.
The closest Equestrians nodded briefly before rushing forward, some of them pulling or carrying the more exhausted ones. Gale started hovering above the fiery corridor to watch over the sixty slaves’ advance while Blossomforth flew to help Cloud against the Alpha and his pack members. The officer in training landed feet first on the shoulders of a Diamond Dog that was about to try to strike Cloud in the back.
“How nice of you to join me, Blossom,” Cloud commented as Blossomforth stood back to back with her.
“Next time you get an idea like that, Kicker, tell me about it so that I can’t approve of it!” Blossomforth bantered slowly, while focusing an intense whirlwind around the blade of her spear.
“Come on, it’s going as smoothly as my plans to bed you,” Cloud joked with a warm chuckle as the Diamond Dogs regrouped around them.
“So, we’re doomed to fail! That’s reassuring!” Blossomforth rolled her eyes with a small grin.
“That’s what you’re saying now!” Cloud replied with a knowing smile before both of them charged into the mass of Diamond Dogs before them.
On the other side of the settlement, Sunset wobbled on her legs for a brief instant. Maintaining the two walls of fire that went through the full length of the underground village was taking its toll on her mind. On normal circumstances, it would have been an easy feat for her, but Sunset hadn’t completely recovered from the group teleportation from earlier. She rubbed her eyes for a brief instant, only to see a large, rocky mace coming to her face.
The crimson haired Titanian jumped backward to dodge the hammerhead by a whisker. During her jump, her right heel hit a rock and made her roll on her back, breaking her focus even more than the attempt on her life. Because of that, the twin line of fires started to lose their intensity and size before Sunset stood back on her feet and raised her glowing staff as high as she could.
Her magic gemstone shone brighter as the walls took back their initial height and intensity, a detail that didn’t go unnoticed by the black Diamond dog before her. He let out a loud and sharp bark, causing a few of his companions to jump from their hiding places as the first slaves got out of the magic-made corridor to start their ascension behind Sunset.
“After them!” the one who had attacked Sunset ordered vigorously. “No Horse-people escapes today!” he added sternly as three of his fellow Diamond Dogs lunged forward.
Sunset knew that she wasn’t in a state where she could cast another spell, otherwise the walls of fire would collapse, thus allowing the Dogs to simply run after the soon-to-be former slaves. She didn’t think she could extend them to the point where they would block all the natural staircase. Resolute, she untied one of the straps that held the leather piece that wrapped the lower half of her staff.
As the straps came loose, Sunset put herself in front of the Diamond Dog ahead of the others and batted her staff in direction of his head. The Bulldog she stroke blocked her attack by biting lower the end of her staff, his teeth sinking deep into the leather that covered it.
“Thanks for holding my sheath!” Sunset whispered with a tiny smirk.
The Titanian pulled her her staff out of her opponent’s maw, leaving her leather sheath in it and revealing the silvery blade that took half of her staff’s length. The Dog-man barely had the time to blink before a long cut gashed his face, sending him backwards with a small whimper. One of the two following him jumped on Sunset with a feral bark, only to be impaled on her blade-staff, though the momentum of his charge made him fall over her.
“Shit!” Sunset muttered as only her upper-body wasn’t blocked by the dead Diamond Dog.
From the corner of her eye, she spotted Gale shoulder striking the third running Diamond Dog. The winged redhead then started to cut her way through the group of Diamond Dogs with wide swings of her axe as they tried to reach for the escapees behind her. Noticing that all the sixty prisoners had started to run up to Silent, who was still shooting at the Diamond Dogs after their prisoners as fast as she could, Sunset tried to focus on forming another wall that would block the width of the natural staircase instead of the long ones that cut through the settlement.
Her focus was broken by something strongly yanking her hair to pull her out from under her kill. With teary eyes, Sunset looked up only to see the same Diamond Dog as before putting his left rear paw on her chest. As she let out a choked cry for help that wasn’t heard over the nearby fightings and the dying fires, the Diamond Dog brought the axe he had apparently traded for his large hammer.
“With you gone, nothing will stop us from getting our prisoners back,” He explained in his guttural voice, lifting his axe above his head. “No more fire now!”
Shit… My chest hurts too much… I can’t focus my mag….
The axe blade came swiftly down Sunset’s right shoulder before she could blink. She saw a flash of black fur along with a skull white blur before feeling the skin of her collarbone being shaved bloody toward her neck.
...I can’t die here!... I have a mission......I can’t die before it’s accomplished!.... I can’t die now… Not like this.... Sunset closed her tearful eyes with, wishing it would somehow make Death not claim her live.
CLANG
Sunset snapped her teal eyes wide open when she felt the cut on her shoulder stopped from expanding to see that her wish had been fulfilled as a vapory, white blade was blocking the handle of the bone-made axe. Sunset looked at the person holding the haze-made sword, her eyes meeting a purple, hateful gaze directed at the black Dog.
“...Kicker,” Sunset let out softly in relief.
“No one messes with any of my teammates’ perfectly smooth and gorgeous skin!” Cloud growled, not unlike the bipedal curs around her, her wing-blades flaring wide in anger at the Diamond Dog responsible for the bloody cut on Sunset’s shoulder. “That’s a job for my teeth and lips only!”
Despite the rather life-threatening circumstances, Sunset couldn’t prevent the red to come to her cheeks before the blonde kicked the Diamond Dog off of her. He took a few steps back because of it, and then charged wildly at her, swinging his weapon to her chest. Cloud flexed her body backwards so that the axe passed a few centimeters above her chestplate. During her dodge, her left blade found its way to the Dog’s elbow.
A furred, black forepaw holding a bone-made axe fell on the ground as its former owner howled in pain. Cloud didn’t stop there and buried one of her haze-made sword deep into his chest, making his howl stop suddenly. The blonde let go of her conjured weapon and went back to pull the Titanian off the ground.
“You okay?” Cloud asked with worry as she spotted traces of tears in Sunset’s eyes.
“I...I’ve been better,” Sunset confessed as she glanced at her bloody shoulder with a wince. “What about the Al…”
Sunset’s question was interrupted by her suddenly shoving Cloud out of the way before her blade-staff appeared in her hand after a bright flash of green-blue light. With a strong shout and a matching swing of it, Sunset beheaded the one-armed Diamond Dog that had found the strength to grab his hammer back and went to bringing down on Cloud’s back despite his lethal wound.
“Phew,” Cloud whistled in amazement. “Thanks!”
“You’re welcome,” Sunset replied with a brief sigh.
“Girls!” Blossomforth yelled as she flew above them in hurry, a great of the Diamond Dogs pack behind her. “Take the high ground to cover their escape!” she added, pointing at the sixty Equestrians that had already half of the distance that separated the tunnel the five infiltrators had taken to come in and the settlement.
Cloud nodded firmly before Blossomforth flew to Gale’s aide to allow the redhead to retreat with them. The blonde suddenly picked Sunset up and took off with a strong flap of her wings, ignoring her package’s surprised squeal. They flew above the start of the spirally way up, seeing Gale burying her axe head deep into a Diamond Dog’s stomach before letting go of its handle to grab the dog’s weapon and taking off herself.
“Souvenir!” Gale explained with a small smirk when she noticed Blossomforth’s cocked eyebrow thrown in her direction.
Sunset’s eyes and gemstone glowed green-blue for a brief instant as they flew up, causing a large and high wall of fire to block the entire way. The Dogs immediately stopped their pursuit as the magical teal fire rumbled wildly before them. The last Equestrians of the column of former prisoners cheered loudly as they looked back for a few seconds.
“Nice spell, Sunset!” Cloud commented with a large smile.
“You should see me when I’m not in a near-magically-exhausted state,” Sunset sleepily replied, her head tilting over Cloud’s shoulder. “I don’t think I can cast any strong spell at the moment...”
“We’re going to need you to light up some torches to go through the tunnels,” Cloud explained as they flew to Silent while Gale and Blossomforth flew over the end of the escapees line. “Think you got enough juice for that left?”
“Do we even have enough torches for all of them?” Sunset asked, pointing casually at the runaways below them.
“Good question!” Cloud stated as she landed next to Silent who was staring angrily at her now empty quiver. “Silent, do we have some torches?” she asked before putting Sunset on the ground.
“I prepared a few before we went underground!” Silent replied before searching in the small back pack she had taken with her, pulling eight thick sticks with the tip enrobed by bands of fabric and a bottle of burning oil.
Once Silent had oiled the fabric and lit up the torches, Sunset briefly stopped the first escapees that reached them to give one for each group of six or seven people and to explain them about the runes they had engraved at each intersection to find their way out. While they all nodded in understanding, all didn’t hide their enthusiasm when Silent volunteered to lead them through the dedale of tunnels. The width of the entrance caused them to enter one by one, which delayed the evacuation a lot.
As Sunset and Blossomforth watched over the evacuation, Cloud and Gale kept peeking down below every now and then to see that the Dogs were still cursing at the wall of fire cast by the latter that was blocking the path. They tensed a little bit when a dozen of them ran toward the fire, large buckets of water in their forepaws, only to relax when the water turned into vapor without diminishing the fire intensity.
About two thirds of the former prisoners had gone through the tunnel when a loud, heavy growl came from down below. All Equestrian stopped what they were doing and looked back to the Diamond Dogs settlement as the entire cave shook because of two heavy stomps. The Canis Major had just opened his bright, yellow eyes after moving his two forepaws and shaking his head awake, slightly sneezing in discomfort. The giant beast yawned long and loud before looked down on where his head had been laying a few minutes ago. There stood the Alpha Diamond Dog, blood seeping through the many cuts all over his body, a large assemblage of what looked like citronella leaves in his right hand while his left covered his own muzzle.
“Shit!” Blossomforth cursed, a pinch of terror in her voice, as the former slaves pressed on the entrance with more vigor than before. “You should have killed the Alpha when you had the chance, Cloud!”
“And let Sunset die?” Cloud snapped with a dark glare. “Don’t worry, Blossom. That tunnel is way too narrow for an animal its size to go through and the Diamond Dogs are still blocked by Sunset’s magic!”
The Celestial animal lowered its head to bring it back to the Alpha Diamond Dog’s level, causing it to throw his citronella fan away and to bark loudly at the gigantic dog. The Canis let out what sounded like a tired growl before it moved its tail away from his side, cautiously avoiding the primitive huts around him. Doing so revealed a rather shocking surprise for the Equestrians that watched the scene. About a dozen of much smaller Celestial wolves were lying against the gigantic one. The Canis Major nuzzled one awake, which led the others to wake up when it started to stand up to nuzzle its mother back.
“... We got to get out of here now!” Sunset let out in panic as still ten prisoners had to enter in the tunnel. “Hurry up!!!” she ordered loudly.
“Why the rush? Even, if they’re tall enough to jump over the wall of fire and smaller than their Mother, they’re still too big to follow us in here!” Gale pointed at the narrow entrance of their escape route.
“Still, I’m not staying in the same cave as eleven house-sized dogs and their castle-sized mother!” Sunset shouted vigorously before a violent shake interrupted her. “
The cave trembled a little when the Canis Major and its pups, who were still twice the size of the tallest huts around them, took a few steps toward the spiral ascent and its fiery barrier. The Canis Major glanced at the teal fire for a brief moment before bringing its massive paw on the ground just before it.
The quake that followed this stomp echoed through all the cave, causing a few cracks to appear above the tunnel’s entrance as the Equestrians still present lost their footing. Cloud and Blossomforth looked at the end of the spirally descent, both slowly gasping in shock when they saw the wall of fire had been blown out by the creature’s mere step. Like a sole entity, all the Canës and the Diamond Dogs started their ascension, all barking and growling like a pack of rabid curs. At each long stride of the Canës, the stone around them shook like during an earthquake.
“MOVE! MOVE!” Blossomforth ordered as the cracks above the tunnel became more threatening due to the oversized dogs’ charge.
The last civilian entered the tunnel as small rocks fell from the ceiling. He didn’t wait for the four guards behind him and ran like Tartarus was onto him, shouting at his predecessors to run faster. Sunset and Gale moved inside it, followed by Blossomforth and then Cloud, who looked back one last time. She noticed that many Diamond Dogs ran into other tunnels along their ascension with the smaller Canës while the Diamond Dog Alpha pointed his claw at her with a furious glare.
“BRING THE YELLOW HAIRED ONE ALIVE!” The Alpha’s thunderous bark could be heard over the cavalcade of his pack members and the massives star-made dogs. “I’ll KILL HER MYSELF!”
“That’s one grudgeful doggy,” Cloud remarked as she stepped inside the tunnel after Blossomforth.
She gathered nearby moisture into a large, steam-build claw before burying it into the cracks on the ceiling. Cloud ran to the intersection with another tunnel a few meters away, before tearing the ceiling apart. The cave-in that followed completely blocked the entrance of the tunnel before any Diamond Dog or Celestial one could reach it.
“That should block them a little bit...,” Cloud let out to Blossomforth as both looked at the pile of rocks that blocked their pursuers.
Accompanied by a feral and loud howling, the rocks blocking the tunnel were smashed to dust as a Canis Minor’s head bursted through it. The tunnel being too small for a creature its size didn’t seem to faze it that much, as the walls were crushed by the simple sheer power of the Canis Minor’s advance. It was like a very effective boring machine.
“....Or not at all!” Cloud added with dread as many Diamond Dogs charged into the tunnels from between their huge cousin’s legs before they started running through the tunnels.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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4819137
that kinda slipped through the net of pre-reading...
I'll admit, as soon as the star wolf stood up and revealed its cubs... my first reaction was "PUPPIES!" I really hope there's an army waiting outside the tunnel or things will get ugly very quickly.
4820579 for some reason i had hoped they would get help from a diamond dog equestrian hybrid named: Blood Traitor (don't know why)
Flashy signals are not efficient, simple works well enough.