The Great Train Robbery

The giant bear Mor'du gave a savage grin, his one eye gleaming with bloodlust, as he slammed into the locomotive's side, his long clawed paw swiping across the door, ripping it clean open with a roar. He slid his paw into the car, swiping and clawing at Naveen, trying to grab him and rip him apart. Digger was doing pretty much the same thing as she leaped on top of the box-car, crouched and ready to take down the human if he were to slip past Mor'du's paw and escape the car.


"Come out human, your death will be swift," Mor'du rumbled, his hot breath floating through the car as he spoke.

"You MORONS come with me. We have something I need your hands for."

Vakasa frowned for a moment. He was far from a moron, or at least he thought so, but at the moment he was sure as hell not gonna argue with the queen of the Outlands. He glanced at Beast, letting out a short grunt, telling him to follow before scampering over to Zira's side, eager to do her bidding, wanting to be the best use he could.

WHAM! WHAM! The Beast/The Sand-Shark's snout slammed into the side of Casey Jr., trying to topple him onto his side. If that didn't work, his massive jaw would close on one of the wheels wheels with the intent of ripping it off. The Beast had destroyed ships bigger then this stupid ol' train, so this would be a walk in the park.

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Curumo let out a ragged snarl as he nodded his head at Zira's order. He stood in his hind legs, letting out a roar, claws swiping the air as he clawed at the side of the locomotive, the sound of claws on metal ringing through the air. "Come out, Come out little human, I can smell you!" he laughed.

Two horns belonging to the female Carnotaurus slammed into the side of a flatcar, trying to flip it and spill its cargo. The scent of metal hit the female's nostrils and she realized it was full of metal search lights. She sniffed again, and soon located a boxcar full of food and closed her massive jaws around it, but she was forced to shift her efforts to the door since the train car was stoutly constructed, and outweighed her several times over. "Found food," she rumbled, her tail swinging back and forth as she ripped the door free after a few sharp tugs.
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"Perfect, now we won't freckin starve," the large lion grunted as he leaped up onto one of the flatcars, pawing at the ropes that were tying the cargo down with a snort.

The hulking brown furry creature let out a snort, towards the gorilla and followed after him. "What did you call me?" unlike Vakasa, Beast was not going to take being called a moron. But he would let it slide just this one time. "So what can we help you with?" He asked as he walked along side Vakasa as the gorilla followed Zira.
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Valishu's long horn glowed with a eerily glow as he used his magic to help unscrew one of the bolts of the train, he hardly cared what it was, it was the one connecting the motion bracket together. Valishu was no expert with trains by any means.

Lady?

He recognized one of the dogs standing on the right of way outlined in his lamp. This fact only made the pit in his firebox wider as he realized that the spaniel appeared to be bound to the tracks.

Casey's brake shoes bit into his wheels, and he clamped his eyes shut, fully expecting to feel the unpleasant sensation of things live and squishy passing under his wheels. Nothing makes a locomotive squirm then that feeling of flesh being ripped asunder by their iron wheels and rods. However, when he opened his eyes, he found that he was halted, all hissing hot and surrounded in a cloud of his own brake-shoe smoke, a few feet beyond where he saw the canines. yet he felt no sensation of blood and body across his pilot.

"Miss Lady? Wus dat yah lass?"

He hadn't time to figure a response when suddenly he was surrounded by a multitude of figures. It was only then that the situation hit him square in the smoke-box. It was an ambush! Casey tried to back away, but found his drivers pinned firm from his own emergency application. Claws and teeth where set upon him, and he felt a good charge attempt to shove him off the rails. One of his cab windows was pulled from it's frame and hit the ground with a shattering of glass.

"Waaat de bleedin 'ell is dis? Git aff me ye bloody great animal."

Which his air dumped, his compressor has already set about attempting to build pressure again. But it's mission was cut short when he found himself struck well and good in the side. Casey weighed all of a good 40+ tons, and while he was far from shoved off the rails (and his drive wheels where held on with some pretty good sized bolts as any creature that attempted to rip them off would find) the force did snap several copper pipes and send his compressor to the great junkyard in the beyond.

It was when he heard the command to kill his passenger and the sound of the wooden door on one of the boxcars start to be ripped from it's track that he took action. With a great rush of steam, he charged against his own brakes in reverse, attempting to back away. He wanted to open the blow down valve and flood the landscape alongside him with scalding hot steam. But unsure of where Lady was and what he fate had become, he held off. Brake shoes screaming from the force his train slowly inched backwards.

"Fuck yah!" Was all he could bellow. "Fuck yeh all!"

Lady felt the rails under her frame and saw the wheels coming closer and closer. She kicked and squarmed as attempt after attempt to loosen her bonds failed. He mouth hung open and her brown eyes where wide as she found herself caught between shouting at Dixie and the elderly canine to leave her to her fate, and a horrified "deer in headlights" silent scream as the great drive wheels of the Baldwin drew forth on their intent to scatter her furry frame to the ages.

She clamped her eyes shut, and braced for the unpleasant. But the pain that greeted her did not come from the great behemoth. Instead she found a searing pain erupt from her ears, just above the crown of her head. It felt like needles where being driven into the delicate flesh, already still damaged from Zira's claws from the misadventure previously.

The spaniel screamed, feeling herself be pulled by her ears off the right of way, opening her eyes to see the pilot and leading wheels of Casey Jr thunder just a hair from her hind legs. The whole of her body pulled free and tossed next to the tracks. She landed right side up, still bound securely, on her stomach. Her head and chin flat in the dirt. A look of confusion and terror plastered across her muzzle as the train drew to a stop. She had been saved?

Yes...she had been saved! By Dixie out of all chances. She still wasn't free, and if anything her frantic twisting and turning had tightened the binds that where wrapped around her body. She looked over at the diva dog. Mouth slightly open, chest heaving in the earth...completely lost for words. Suddenly remembering her own words to Enzo.

No...they where not all bad, there where good hearts out here. No question about it.

Unfortunately, she was still tied up, and still in Zira's possession. But at least she was alive.

Dampened tan snout gave a harsh snort as Copper tried to clear his nose of the water he’d accidently sucked into it. The hound had gone with the rest of Zira’s troops when they’d left the innermost part of the Outlands headed for the train tracks. Copper hadn’t really had any real intentions of doing anything the old lioness wanted of him, he’d only tagged along because he’d seen Dixie among the group and he’d be damned if he let anything happen to her.

About half way through the trek, Copper’s attention had been distracted by the scent of prey. Even with the rainy season well underway prey was scarce in the Outlands. The barren wasteland was no place for even the termites that lived there, so it was very rare for any other creature to venture within. The Outlanders were the only exceptions. It was hard to follow the trail he’d only caught by chance because of the harsh rain that bore down from the sky. With the everlasting darkness any chance of seeing any overcast was impossible, so there was no way to tell when the storm might let up, and Copper’s nose was next to useless in the rain.

Still, even so, the thought of possible prey was too good a chance to pass up. Copper was crouched slightly, shoulders hunched as his nose was lowered to the wet ground to try and catch any remaining traces of the scent. The hound wasn’t far from the tracks, so when the large steam engine’s whistle was suddenly belted out, the sound was not lost on Copper’s ears. Raising his head, Copper saw the flash of the oil lamp as the train roared across the landscape. As the screech of the locomotive’s breaks cut through the air, any and all thoughts of food left the hound’s mind and they were replaced with just one.

Dixie.

Forcing the muscles in his legs to kick into overdrive, Copper half ran, half skidded over the bank and down the slope toward the tracks. As his paws slid in the mud, Copper looked up just in time to see a flash of golden fur in the train’s oil lamp before the locomotive thundered past. “Dixie!” he barked out as he bunched up the muscles in his hind legs and leaped the rest of the way down the slope to the side of the tracks. Dropping down into the course grasses that lined the metal railway, Copper half stalked, half trotted to the place he’d last saw Dixie. Rich brown gaze reflected the little light that remained from the steam-engine’s lamp allowing Copper to see a few feet in front of him. He quickly caught sight of Dixie, along with Zira’s spaniel prisoner. Both were panting heavily, but otherwise unharmed. Well, mostly. The hound guessed that the bounds around Lady couldn’t have been very comfortable, but at that moment his mind was elsewhere. Stalking over to where Dixie stood, he set the golden female with a hard stare.

“What the hell were you thinking?! You could have been killed just now!”

A certain vulture was flying out to get something to eat. That was until Clarice looked down on the Outlands and saw a smaller version of something, or rather someone and a portion of her soldiers where standing near a railroad track and there was something tied to the track. What is going on down there? Something else caught the pudgy female's attention, it started to rain, no pour down and in a matter of seconds, Clarice was soaked to the bone. "Oh, there's not going to be any male vultures out now that it's raining!" The female whined and complained to herself. Sighing and seeing whatever might be going on below her might be worth looking at, Clarice shook her head and flapped her wings so that her head was leaning forward, ready to dive down into whatever was happening below.

With a few flaps of her wings, the pudgy female had gained enough enough downwards velocity, she folded her wings and let gravity pull herself closer and closer towards the ground, predictably, at the last moment, Clarice unfolded her wings in time, so she didn't face-plant into the ground. The pudgy vulture flapped her wings and turned around while in the air, now she was flapping her wings behind the Queen. Green eyes widened in interest and in shock as she saw Lady been saved by Dixie from being run over by the giant train that was Casey Jr. Everything in that moment just seemed happened so quickly. Why on earth did she do that exactly?  

"You weak bitch.""SILENCE,""ATTACK the human in the car! You, WOLF, lead the animals to ravage the train. Get anything you can that will HELP us." "You MORONS come with me. We have something I need your hands for."

The tan lioness' voice immediately caught Clarice's attention immediately, as well as the other solider's. Instead of going to the train and ripping it apart for something that would supposedly "help" their army, green eyes stared at the scene going on ahead, Clarice wasn't exactly built or had the strength for ripping parts off a train. These talons are not meant to scratch metal. The pudgy female stopped flapping her wings and lowered herself down onto the ground, not really sure what to do exactly.  

"What did you call me?" "So what can we help you with?"  "Miss Lady? Wus dat yah lass?"  "Waaat de bleedin 'ell is dis? Git aff me ye bloody great animal." "Fuck yah!"  "Fuck yeh all!"

"What horrible language," Clarice murmured to herself, as she noticed how much the giant metal train cursed and swore. Green eyes looked over to Zira, curious to see how the Queen would run the whole operation. I wonder how she's going to use all of those parts and how are they going to help us?     

Dixie moved at just the right time to avoid the elderly dog's attempt to tackle her to safety completely, whether she knew it or not. With only air meeting her lunge, Granny Rose tumbled head over heels into the darkness, landing with a dull thud lost beneath the sound of a train screeching to a halt. Despite being in superb shape for her age, she was still far past her prime, and the landing had winded her.

She lay where she was for a bit, until she got her breath back, then slowly rolled over onto her belly. She frowned a bit as she realized her bonnet had slipped during her tumble, and she raised a paw to set it back in place, taking care to cover the tips of her ear where they'd slipped out. Then she turned back towards the two younger females just in time to see Copper bound towards them. Her eyes narrowed as the dog she'd last seen as an innocent pup scolded Dixie, not liking what she was seeing in the young dog's body language. Just what had Dixie been doing all this time?

"That's just what I'd like to know," she huffed as she padded over, eying Dixie like she'd just done something monumentally stupid. Maybe she had a good cause to, but she'd certainly gone about it in a boneheaded manner. The tow of them together could've moved Lady off the tracks easier together, if the diva dog had actually asked for help instead of trying to go solo. "I think you owe me an explanation. In fact, I think you both do," she stated firmly, turning her gaze briefly towards Copper, looking him up and down, taking note of his many scars. "You've certainly managed to make a good impression of a chew-toy out of yourself."

"But first thing's first. Zira's got more'n enough willin' paws to get what she wants without us," she growled. The last thing they needed now was for Dixie to decide to try to get Lady's bonds loose. Zira might tolerate Dixie's removing Lady from the tracks, but if she were to be seen attempting to set a prisoner free completely, Heaven alone knew what the psycho would do. So, to forestall the possibility of any more shenanigans, she attempted to seize Dixie by the ear with her teeth so she could force-march her somewhere so they could have a serious conversation.

The young man had barley recovered from the emergency stop, having been tossed off his feet and sent to the hard wooden floor shoulder first. He sat up to his knees and ran a hand across the errant shoulder blade, checking it to make sure that he received nothing worse then a bit of bruising. Hissing between clinched teeth, he reached down for his pork-pie hat. The article of clothing having been knocked off his head and sent with the rest of the crates and bits and bobs across the car. However, his lone recovery was interrupted when the side door of the boxcar was ripped from it's track and sent to the side in a clattering and splintering of wood.

"Come out human, your death will be swift,"

Huh?

Naveen quickly backed into the far reaches of the car. Grabbing an oil lamp from it's bracket on the wall, he quickly knocked the cap off and with a firm toss of his hand, flung the lamp at the door. It bounced off the door frame and landed outside the car. With a shatter of glass and a scattering it's contents across the earth came a great "Whoosh" as the burning wick set the puddle of kerosine alight. Suddenly and with great speed, a massive fireball lit the darkness as the ground alongside the boxcar was suddenly splashed with burning kerosine.

Fire licked the ground alongside the train, and cast the whole scene in bright glows of orange and yellow. A large puddle more then a ring suddenly coming to life right where the bear and other AVs where standing. Naveen kept to his corner inside the car as the inferno licked through the door, preventing his escape out that side of the boxcar. In the chaos of the sudden inflammation, he felt the train shake as the slack was bunched up, Casey attempting to back away against his own brakes.

"I am SURROUNDED by idiots."

She couldn't help but echo Scar as the animals blundered forward. She shot a dark look towards Beast. She'd caught the prickle of anger at the title of moron. Her ear flicked. "If you can't take the heat stay out of the outlands," she said materafactly, "Now COME. I have use for you and your thumbs." Her claws extended as she took off running, racing towards the tracks and the train.

The spaniel said the contraption would be on the top of the car... She had to grab this thing. Had to have her outlands lit. Had to let her people shine and thrive. Her lips curled back, fangs showing themselves. She scrambled up the side of Casey's face. She stuck a claw in the train's face, threatening to scratch him clearly if he wasn't answering.

"You! Train! Where is you...steam...thingamajiger...the spaniel said you possessed one! If you give it up I will let you go! If not I can't guarantee what will happen!"

Casey stopped shoving angst his steadily ransacked cars, and for a few seconds stared dumbfounded at the lioness who had pounced upon his pilot beam, dragging her clews before his face. One eyebrow raised, perplexed. She did realize he was made of iron. While her claws would certainly scrape across the features of his smoke-box, and perhaps she could poke out one of his lamp iron eyes, there was little more in the way of permanent damage she could preform. He had already faced her once before, and while she was a threat to be reckoned with, he felt he could take her on his won.

However, it wasn't Zira's threat that made the locomotive cease his fighting. But rather the group of dogs by the side of the tracks. They where the three that had been standing in between the rails upon his approach. The reason he had gone into emergency and stopped out here in the first place. Two where engaged in a heated conversation, and they where steadily backing away out of his vision and into the dark. Away from the chaos of the attempted robbery.

But that third dog, he recognized. Lady, the cocker spaniel mother he had long since befriended. How she got into this mess he had not a single clue. But there she was, tied up no less. Laying on her stomach in the dirt, chin flat against the earth, a defeated and forlorn look upon her maw. She had been the other obstruction.

Casey jr. frowned. His sharp mind quickly coming to the conclusion that somehow, Mrs. Lady had become a prisoner.

All movement ceased, other then the fire that was burning track-side back by the boxcars, further down the train. The iron hose huffed, his eyes narrowed and his mouth curled into a angry glare. As long as Lady's fate rested on his decision, he had no problem giving up the dynamo.

“Fin' lass....it's yers. It's de device located behind me steam dome. Yer better 'av an electrician, damn tin' is busted.” he snorted in a hiss of steam. Rain falling across his iron hide and dripping from his headlamp/hat. “Oi 'ope yah burn yah paws on me boiler gittin it down, fer what yah dune to Miss Lady!”

*Just for the sake of the RP, the dynamo is about three feet wide and is the size of a backpack. It's barrel shaped in nature and has a long thin exhaust pipe. It weighs around 20 pounds

"Casey," Vakasa greeted, standing somewhat behind and off to the side of Zira, along with Beast. Vakasa remembered many a train ride with the steam engine, but at the moment he hardly missed them at all. But back to the task at hand. "Do I need a wrench to get it off?" The gorilla had no damn clue what he was doing, he was just thankful he had hands to work with, and was therefor useful in Zira's eyes.

Lady's eyes darted side to side as she cast her gaze to the group around her. Dixie, Copper and Granny's attention had been drawn elsewhere, Zira was busying herself around Casey's dynamo, and the rest of the AVs where looting the train. For the first time since this misadventure began, she was left unguarded and alone.

This was getting to be too much. A mixture of fright and adrenaline made her decide to take this moments to try and make her chance at freedom. With a soft grunt, and the kick of one of her bound hind-legs, she rolled herself over onto her back. Her fur was plastered with mud, both front and back, and her long ears stuck to the sides of her head and to her shoulders. While she wasn't as prissy about her appearance as her daughters, she still had standards. The feeling of muck and the unkempt condition of her fur caused her to groan in displeasure.

Still, it was the ropes that bound her fast. She rolled her stomach, attempting to squirm out from under the binds that wrapped around her torso. Sliding her hind legs against each other in a likewise attempt to kick off the bondage around her ankles. Unfortunately, between the mud and rain, it felt as if the cords only tightened. Making her escape futile. The cocker spaniel was well and truly trapped.

She changed tactic, and tucked her head down to her neck, the first cord ran just above her chest and below her shoulder. If she strained her neck hard enough, and perhaps with a roll of her stomach and the flick of her hind legs, she might just be capable of snapping the cord with her jaws. Lady opened her maw wide, and clicked her teeth as she snapped her jaws around thin air. Her little canine heart raced as she made another attempt. Still, between the angle of her head and neck, and the iron collar still fastened securely around her delicate throat, she just could not slip the cord between her jaws.

With a huff of air, she leaned her head back down into the mud, and lay still. Feeling the rain fall around and across her. Her chest heaved as she breathed. Then, with one good yip from her snout, she bent her body backwards, and then gave a last ditch curl. This time, between her momentum, and perhaps a little sliding of the cords from her squirming, she was able to snap her jaws, and close them around the top most cord.

However, instead of breaking around her teeth, all she succeeded in doing was tightening her bondage in a very rough and unpleasant manner. Her eyes bugged as she suddenly found her whole torso constricted. The fur jutting in tufts from between the cords. Her paws splayed and eyes watered at the force. She couldn't breath, and even grinding her teeth she found the wet rope was almost impossible to snap! With a depressed whimper, Lady was forced to let go and flop onto her back.

"No...." was all she could whimper. Feeling a wave of sadness wash over her. Her one window of possible escape had slammed shut.