All For Love, And All For One

For his part, Casey focused on getting steam pressure to rise again. He kept silent, save for the hissing of his boiler and the chugging of the air compressor. He really should get that thing looked at...the compressor had not shut off since he came to a stop. Meaning he had to have had a massive leak in one of his air lines...in fact.

“Hey! What in the bleedin 'ell are yah doin'?” The locomotive hissed, looking down to realize the ape was, in his ignorance, undoing an air brake line that ran under the Baldwin’s running boards behind the cross-heads and piston rod. Air was hissing madly out of the pipe, and getting louder as the primate did his work. If the air line was breached, his brakes would lock on, and the locomotive would be unable to move.

Slowly the needle of the pressure gauge rose. Casey had just enough steam to start moving again. He opened the cylinder drain cock on the side that the ape was on, and hot water sputtered from the valve. Hopefully detouring the primate from continuing his work. With his compressor compensating for the massive air leak, he could ignore the damage the ape had caused. But for how long, he did not know, nor was hie willing to risk it.

Inside his firebox, his heart burned violently, boiling water into it's life giving form of steam.

Realizing that this was the time to start moving. Casey gave two loud blasts on his whistle, and began tolling his bell. A sign to Lady that now was the time to get herself out of the pit. He couldn't wait much longer. With a hiss of air, his brake beams relaxed, and the drive wheels began to move. The diamond shaped stack erupted with a cloud of thick black smoke, the sound of the exhaust cracking off the termite mounds. Casey begin to close the distance between himself and Scar's Pit. Moving slow enough to hopefully give Lady enough time to recover and get herself out of the hole.

Tramp couldn't help but smirk as he heard the continuing shouts of anger and fighting coming from the pit. He had been cautiously looking out the window, warily watching as the big gorilla looked between the train and pit. While he couldn't see what was going on down there, he could hear perfectly fine. It was obvious that, not only was Lady alive and kicking, she was giving a good account of herself.

And, despite the lioness' command, he had yet to see anyone other than the gorilla actually make an attempt to follow up on those orders. But the big ape seemed to be enough of a danger that Casey noticed what he was up to, and reacted by letting some piping hot water loose from a valve before Tramp could react. But he was ready to move if the hot water failed to dislodge the primate.

As Casey began moving, Tramp braced himself, eying the edge of the pit, where the flatcar met ground level, silently willing Lady to appear with Dani, ready to dismount and run to her aid if need be. On a sudden impulse, he gripped the coal scoop again, and set it with its broad scoop resting against Casey's backhead so it could gain some heat. That should give any Outlanders a nasty surprise if pressed against their hide.

Letting it rest, and heat up, he once more returned to the open door, warily gazing about, then back over his shoulder at the bear stuck in the window. Seeing no possible threat from that side, he turned his attention to the other side, ready to fight off any potential boarders.

Zira's teeth felt about ready to break beneath the power of her clamping jaws as she bit down hard. She was furious. Dying of pain, embarrassment and vanity. Her eyes blazed red, that was all. She saw nothing but that damn dog risking everything to save that whelp of a pup she'd left dying at the bottom of the pit. Berlioz's scratches hurt. Yes they did. But damnit if she was going to let Lady get away just because she was being bitten apart by a cat that should already be dead. Zira wanted so bad to taste that soft purebred flesh between her teeth. Her eyes narrowed as she flashed her burning anger towards the spaniel. The train. All this disrespect and stupidity over...she couldn't possibly imagine a mother's love would go this far. Her claws dug deep into the dirt as she stared blankly off into the distance. A tear of the adult feline claws ripped her from reality.

"RRRRRROOOOOAAAAAR!" Words had finally failed her.That was it. No more orders. Nothing. She was ready to kill.

The female threw up her black claws. No more drama. She sent her claws flying towards Berlioz's back. The goal was either to slit him in half or throw him from her hindquarters.

Lady did not hesitate, the sooty feline was once again buying her time. The railcar's deck was at a steep angle, which while it permitted Lady to slide down into the pit with great ease, made scaling it to the surface a task. One made all the more challenging thanks to the spaniel pup straddling her back. Lady almost crawled, holding her belly low to the deck, scampering along like a rat up a ship's line. Her pads clawing at the wood decking. The rain had made the steel slick, and she could see her reflection in the steel tire plates that ran on each side of the car in twin ribbons. But the gritty and slightly chewed surface of the wooden deck boards provided her the grip she needed. A few times coming close to Stumbling over her own ears. The fur on one side of her head, and one of her ears was matted and sticky with blood. Seeping around her eye and causing it to sting.

About midway up the climb, she looked back over her shoulder. Spanner still in her maw, her eyes land on Berlioz, and she saw Zira poised to tare into him. There was no way the feline could survive such an attack on his own.

He had been there for her daughter, and defended her when no one else would. Her experience with felines had been for the most part negative. Aunt Sara's Siamese terrors where her only rule-stick to judge by. However, if it wasn't for the mangy looking feline, Lady would have died at no less then two moments. The canine did not so much as pause as she half stepped, and in a jerking motion that caused her to both rise up on her hind-legs, and almost fall off the flatcar, she let go of the spanner. Her body tumbling back, and practically landing on her side under the combined downward force of both her and Danielle's canine bodies. She came very close to taking a fall from the car's deck.

This motion put a spin into the cast steel tool, and it twirled as it flew in a graceful arch. The cocker didn't stick around to see it land, rather she bounded up the car deck, her eyes peering over the edge of the upper end of the flatcar. She prayed it would give the feline enough of a chance at the bridge to freedom. But she did not stick around to see the results.

The spanner however soared through the air, right at the back of Zira's head.

He was dead.

It all seemed to happen at once - Shenzi was lunging for him, Zira's claws were swiping in for the killing blow, Dani's mom was doing her own bit - and so in the midst of what seemed less like a fight and more like a mass of chaos and confusion, Berlioz did the only thing he could. He retracted his claws, releasing Zira's hindquarters and dropping him unceremoniously to the railcar's surface. He landed on his paws more by fluke than by design, tripped on the uneven decking, and fell flat on his face for a moment.

The adolescent didn't stay down, however. In an ideal world, perhaps, Shenzi and Zira's attacks would have found each other when he had removed himself from between them; but Berlioz doubted he had that kind of luck on his side anymore. He didn't even see whether Lady's spanner had found itself a target or not. What he did know was that both the hyena and the lioness were out for his blood, and frankly he didn't stand a chance of fighting back.

Ducking between Zira's paws, desperately hoping one of them wasn't going to take a swipe at him in passing, Berlioz sprinted as best he could after Lady. Malnourished and dehydrated, he staggered drunkenly as he tried to catch up with her, once or twice almost losing his balance altogether. Still, to stop would be to be to die; and so each time, Berlioz dug his claws into the wood to keep himself upright, and then doggedly continued after Danielle's rescuer.

He wasn't going to make it. The flatcar was longer than it should have been, he didn't seem to be making any progress at all; Lady appeared impossibly far ahead of him, and Berlioz would swear he could feel his pursuers' hot breath on his neck; though he dared not look around to see if they really were that close.

All he could do was keep going. And hope that maybe, somehow, by some miracle, he and Danielle and her mother might make it out of this horrible nightmare of a battle intact.

Lucky for Berlioz, Lady, and Danielle, that miracle was sootily clanking his way around the perimeter of the pit. Casey through thick black clouds of exhaust into the air over his shoulder, the ground around him was soggy from his own self induced rain shower, which thankfully had dispersed just as quickly as it had started.

He moved very slowly, just about at a walking pace for someone with wide strides. He didn't want to stop and give anyone a chance to board, but he didn't want to whip by so quickly that Lady did not have a chance to scurry on board herself. He blew his whistle several times in quick succession, a “call to attention” with taps. He did not have enough steam to word anyone off, and keep moving...she he hoped that scoop Tramp had placed against the back head would be cheery red hot come anyone unfriendly sticking their head through the gangway. He still believed he had someone clawing at one of his windows.

The Baldwin rolled alongside the edge of the pit, and passed the upturned end of the flatcar. It was the first time Casey had actually gotten to look at the darn thing since he kicked it. A smug smirk crossed his smokebox. He had placed it almost perfectly into the hole. He did not think he could have done better.

However, his eyes where more interested in what was scrambling up the flatcar deck. He could just see Lady, with a pup on her back, scaling the upended railcar. She was very close to the top. He also noted a black feline, who looked like he had done a jig through hell, not that far behind the bloodied spaniel.

“C'mon lass. Times a'wastin!”

Griffin lets out a whooping cackle as he bolts from underneath Nelleke and towards the pit and the car that Lady was currently trying to scamble up."heh heh heh" the bone eater laughs before lunging at Lady mouth open ready to attempt to clamp down on her pretty little face and rip a chunk off.

"Magnus get your fat-ass head out of that train window!" Digger snarls racing towards the two bears the one who was still no doubt stuck in the train window. She glances at Curumo as if asking what the plan was to help the grizzly bear out of the window. With a sigh Digger grabs hold of Magnus's thick leg and pulls.

Lady had just emerged from the pit, scampering to the very edge of the flatcar. Ahead of her was the end, jutting off a few feet above the edge of the pit. She felt a smile spread across her muzzle as she saw Casey coming around the edge of the pit. The cocker stopped and caught her breath, now above Zira and her gang, and took a few deep inhalations next to the handbrake wheel, which rose from the end of the car on a stem. The stem was bent slightly from the force of the earlier crash.

She looked at the locomotive, and was just about to hop down from the flatcar and start after it. She looked behind her to see the sooty feline still working his way up. For a second she found that it would have been so easy to leave him behind. Casey was right there, she could even see Tramp in the cab.

But no, she would not leave him.

But that split second pause was all she needed to suddenly find the hyena lunging for her, aiming to take her soft little muzzle. Lady dropped to the car deck and roughly half slid, half tumbled backwards, so that Griffin would only find a set of floorboards in his face. She slid in an arc across the deck, almost loosing Dani in the tumble. Somewhere, she heard a loud “crack.” resembling in her mind to gunfire.,

Was someone shooting at them?

The cocker came to a stop next to Berlioz. Her chest heaving both from the continuing adrenaline, and from the extrusion of stopping both her and her pup from falling back into the waiting jaws of Zira and her army.

She relized she must have looked frightful, with her fur stick and turning a shade of crimson, and the pup, who she wasn't even sure was still alive draped across her back. She didn't have time to wait for the feline. She lowered her head and gave him a not-so gentile nudge forward, to push him ahead of her. It wasn't that far. In fact one good shove could send him off the end of the car and to the earth next to it.

Freedom was just a few deck boards, and an AAR regulated knuckle coupling away.

“C'mon. That train, if you want Dani to live, we must be on it.”

However, unknown to Lady, Griffin, Shinzi, Zira and all around them. Below them, under the car's deck. A time bomb was ticking. The car was wedged into the bottom of the pit on one end, but was dangling precariously at the top on the other. The wheel-set at the bottom had dropped off it's mounting pin, and lay under the car's wreckage.

The wheel-set at the top however, while dug into the earth nest to the edge of the pit, had also sheered it's mounting pin, and the deck was only being held on by the three iron pipes that carried air between the wheel-set’s brakes, and the car's brake system. When Griffin had landed on the car in order to snap Lady's face, the force of his landing caused one of those pipes to snap. The sound of the pipe splitting being what the spaniel mistook for a gunshot

With a pined groan, the other two pipes took the strain. But it would not be long before they too went, and the flat car rolled over, falling completely into the pit.

Vakasa leaped back from the steam, lips curled, showing off his teeth. Oh, how he was pissed! Spanner still in hand, the gorilla quickly followed alongside the train as he moved towards the pit, hearing the struggle of Digger attempting to pull Magnus out of the window. A sharp bang sounded through the air and Vakasa ducked on instinct "Gunfire?" he mumbled in confusinn, then turned to look at the pit and watch as the car itself dropped into the pit completely. "Zira? Shenzi?" he barked. Holy shit, were they still in there?! Vakasa quickly moved towards the pit, ready to help, and turned, looking at Griffin. "Get anything?" he asked.

Waffle had his feet placed firmly on the ground for about a minuet or two after he returned to the surface.  The male hyena turned his head when he heard the stirring of the machine behind him.  He backed away a few meters before stopping and watching the train move a little bit.  Well, what the hell was everyone expecting him to do?  It wasn't like he had a machine gun or something to punch holes in the machine and save the day; that's be pretty friggin sweet though.  Hyenas with machine guns had to become a thing.  Waffle quickly whipped around once something loud popped in his ears.  His tail fluffed up and he jumped about ten feet into the air before landing perfectly on his feet.  Moving in time, he managed to watch as the car he recently exited rolled down into the big ditch.  Waffle craned his neck as he gawked.

"What the what?" he asked no one in particular.

~*~

Waffle didn't have long to gawk before something larger than him shoved him down.  Haki made her not-so-triumphant return after a long while of being unable to locate the king.  The movement of the train had initially spurred her to abandon her quest.  Haki didn't have very many options.  So far, her relay mission was gaining the Outlanders nothing.  If she returned to the action, there would probably be little she could do, but she had to do something.  Haki managed to reach the scene just as the car tumbled in.  After throwing Waffle to the ground and out of her way, Haki loomed over the edge.  Bright gold eyes of the big female glared down for several seconds, scanning for any signs of life.

"I'll destroy that filthy canine," Haki breathed spitefully.

Tramp watched intently as the big gorilla was forced to back off as Casey released another spurt of hot steam, and smirked as the ape bared his teeth in anger. But his eyes narrowed when the gorilla moved towards the edge of the pit just as another hyena lunged towards Lady...and Dani. They were both in sight, and he could tell that Lady was struggling under their daughter's weight.

Unwilling and unable to simply stand by and watch, Tramp seized the handle of the now-piping hot coal scoop, and dropped down to the ground beside Casey, prowling beneath the locomotive as he padded quietly up behind the ape. He glanced around for a bit, surprised to find there wasn't much of a crowd around. He could see the bear's feet, braced atop another, smaller bear, but that was about it.

As he moved forward, his eyes narrowed even further as yet another hyena padded towards the out's edge. But, undeterred, he continued forward grimly, ready to risk everything if it meant giving Lady the chance to get aboard Casey with their daughter.

He slid smoothly out from beneath Casey, despite his injured leg, and raced forward to swing the blazing hot coal scoop towards the ape's foot, then at Haki's hindquarters, hoping to at least distract them both.

"Zira? Shenzi?".
Everything had stopped. The flat car had collapsed. If that didn't kill the cat, the spaniel and her barely living pup, she didn't know what will. Miraculously, the matriarch began to dig her way out of the mess of wood, metal and some pipes. The rubble scratched at her skin, making some wounds and piercing though the burns, but she didn't stop. She was almost through. Now she was really out for blood, and she was pretty sure Zira would love to feed the heroes to Scar. Shenzi wanted the cat. But she didn't know if he was alive or dead. If he was she would eat him, if he wasn't she'd slaughter him.


"I'll destroy that filthy canine," Haki's voice was music to Shenzi's ears. "Haki! Get the others and tell to get their damn asses down here and help! The queen's under here as well! If they don't listen, make them listen, I don't care how you do it, but get us outta here!". She wasn't going to give up yet. And not to some damn spaniel and her pup. She wanted her dead. Now. She wanted her too watch her daughter die. Along with Berlioz. She was definitely going to kill him.

(ooc: sorry if this has been so long)

Lady felt the flatcar shudder as the weight suddenly shifted across the two remaining air lines. She had been crawling, almost on her belly, nudging Berlioz ahead of her. When she felt the car shift, she stood up, and grabbed the feline by the scruff of his neck, pulling him off his feet. In retrospect, she reflected almost humorously...they should have sent the Tramp in. He had a longer neck then her.

The spaniel looked over the side of the car, at that small spot of equilibrium where she was out of the pit, but not several feet in the air at the end of the flatcar's upturned deck. Lady practically dropped Berlioz over the side of the car, before taking the plunge herself, not so much leaping as tumbling. Landing almost on-top of the sooty feline.

She nabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and did her best to get away from the flatcar as the two pipes underneath gave way, twin cracks echoing through the air. Stumbling under the weight of both the feline and her own pup, Lady made her way to the Tramp, with his coal scoop, her back to the pit.

“Twamp, take Dani, we 'ave to get hem on tha twain!” Her voice was distorted around the ragged feline's scruff. She leaned forward a bit, to let the Tramp have access to Dani's limp form.

She did not see the car beginning to collapse. She only heard the unearthly death rattle, and felt the shaking ground, as the car began it's journey into the pit. She whipped her head around to bare witness to the car's final moments.

But collapse it did. One could even see the broken air lines, made of iron, catapulting into the air like spears as they snapped free. As the two brake lines snapped, the car was no longer being supported at the top of the pit. The deck, now separated from the wheel-set rolled violently to the side, before sliding completely into the pit, accompanied by the orchestra of protesting iron and crunching wood. A massive cloud of dust being tossed up as it descended like a sinking ocean liner into the earth.

The car slid sideways along the side of the pit like the falling needle of a metronome. Grinding it's bottom along the earthen and rock wall, creating a small landslide in it's wake. It began to shed debris as it fell, everything from sheering rivets and massive splinters of decking, to rocks and clods of dirt it clawed out of the earth. Landing on it's side at the very bottom of the hole, a wave of dust, dirt and debris spread out in a cloud around the railcar's fallen corpse. Trapping anyone who was unfortunate enough to not have climbed to the top.

This left only the one wheel-set laying dug into the earth at the top of the pit. Next to where Lady and Tramp stood. Lady shivering slightly from the sudden sight.

He slid smoothly out from beneath Casey, despite his injured leg, and raced forward to swing the blazing hot coal scoop towards the ape's foot, then at Haki's hindquarters, hoping to at least distract them both.

"Shenzi, move your ass and-UGH!" Vakasa jerked to the side at the sharp burning pain in his foot, his orange eyes blazing with anger as he spied Tramp with the shovel in his mouth, now taking a swing at Haki. "You son of a-" he cut off the curse as he made a lunge for Tramp, now having to hold his hurt foot in the air for relief.