"Well, could you at least teleport us out of here?!"
"For the millionth friggin' time!" Josho growled across the rattling box car as starlight began glistening through the barred windows of the train. "I can't do crap! These scum-suckin' wolves have some sort of crystal or diode emitting a field that cancels out complex magic!"
"They're foxes, not wolves," Eagle Eye said.
"Nnnngh—Why don't you take one as a pet since you're such a spark-dayum expert!" Josho growled. He turned and resumed stabbing at a flimsy wooden panel with a metal cross-beam that he had picked up from a corner of the car's cluttered interior. "The least you could do is try and help me get out of this express trip to crudville!"
"By doing what?" Eagle Eye frowned, having to crowd behind the older stallion's back while Josho hammered away at the panel. "Burrowing a hole through the wall?! As soon as we jump out, we'll be ground to a paste against the mountainside!"
"You're making it sound really, really appealing..."
"And even if we survive, we're further south now than we were before! At this rate, we'll be attacked by a rampaging squadron of flying Searonese mares, much less Xonan invaders!"
"Hey, if you're such a sissy that you'd rather wait here and let the ferrets have their way with you, be my guest!"
"They're foxes—"
"Nnngh!" Josho stood up, levitating the pointed end of the metal bludgeon against Josho's neck. "You're just begging to eat this and crap out bullets, aren't you?!"
Eagle Eye frowned. "Must you solve everything with unmitigated violence?"
"I've a good mind to solve your face with it!"
"What we need to do right now is stay calm and wait things out!" Eagle Eye motioned out the dim, barred windows. "Eventually, this ride will come to a stop, and they'll try selling us off to Xonans! The opportunity to escape will be then! Not now!"
"Since when were you an expert on jumping off a train?!" Josho's eyes narrowed. "You're a gutless wimp. A coward. You would have had a perfect life designing purses and lacy saddles, but instead you chose to become a soldier, not realizing that you couldn't accessorize worth crud once your sword got blood red!"
"I became a mercenary because it was Franzington tradition!" Eagle Eye retorted, glaring up at the larger stallion. "My father, my family, and my neighbors had no expectations of me—but I defied the odds and became an honorable defender of the very land that you were born in! Just why did you become a soldier, Mr. Beer Gut?! Was it because spilling blood gave you jollies, or was it for the free alcohol pried from the innocent hooves of slain Xonan citizens?!"
"That's it!" Josho spun and bucked Eagle Eye across the face.
"Ooof!" Eagle landed on his back. Through dizzied vision, he squinted up to see Josho breaking the metal beam over two of his knees. Suddenly, the larger stallion was planting his weight against Eagle Eye's belly and pressing the sharp end of the shattered bludgeon to the lavender unicorn's limb, just above the magical manacle. "What in Sp-Spark's name are you doing?!"
"I've had about all I can take of your mouth spewing all sorts of dung and roses! I'm cutting the fertilizer at the head by cutting you off at the elbow!"
"You wouldn't dare..."
"You're confusing me with some stallion who gives a crap!" Josho raised the sharp spear up. "Try not to scream so loud. My eardrums need to stay intact if I want the balance to climb my way off this train."
"Nnngh!" With a surprising burst of strength, Eagle Eye flung his lower hooves up in a reverse-somersault, successfully uppercutting Josho across the chin.
Josho stumbled back, jerking to a stop on the end of his hoofcuff's binding. "Gaagh..." He spat blood and glared at Eagle Eye. "How'd you learn to do that?!"
"The hay do you care?!" Eagle Eye hissed back at him. The adrenalized pair squared off in the center of the rattling train car. "I can do a lot more than you'd ever bother to guess! But why should that matter, huh?! You're dead set on cutting me loose like a lizard's tail!"
"At least a lizard wouldn't pout and whine while shedding its skin..."
"See, there you go again!" Eagle Eye's voice cracked. "If you've hated me so much, why did you even bother saving my life on the cliff besides Foxtaur to begin with?!"
"That's something I think about every damn hour of every damn day!"
"I wanted so hard to believe that there was something good about you!" Eagle Eye exclaimed. "Something righteous! Something wholesome! But you're really just nothing but a huge lardy pile of regrets and beard!"
"You forgot 'salt,'" Josho said, pointing with the spear. "Cuz you certainly seem to be swimming in it right now."
"Nnngh—Shut up!" Eagle Eye stomped his hooves. "You really wanna do this?! Give me the metal so I can cut your leg off! You need it less than I do! Heck, a three-legged stallion would teeter around less than you on a sober day!"
"Even drunk with three legs, I'll have more friends and family who'll love me than you, filly fru fru pants!"
"That's it!" Eagle Eye charged forward. "Raaaugh!"
"Ooof!" Josho took the spearing lunge to the chest. The stallions rolled across the box car, exchanging hoof-punches and headbutts. Eventually, Josho grunted and kicked Eagle Eye off of him.
The petite unicorn flew through a wooden crate, smashing it into splinters and stumbling to the side.
Josho ran along the length of the purple energy binding them. He gripped the metal shard in his mouth and prepared to lunge it through Eagle Eye's ribcage.
Just then, Eagle burst out of the fresh pile of debris. The crate had been full of kitchen utensils, and he was employing his telekinesis in lifting a pot lid and a rolling pin. When Josho ended his charge, Eagle blocked with the improvised shield and slammed the sword-like lid across the stallion's face.
"Skkkt!" Josho hissed bloodily. He took a second rolling pin to the face, but ducked in time to avoid the pot lid flying towards his skull like as pinning disc. Snarling, he fired a shot of magic at Eagle Eye's hooves.
"Whoah!" Eagle Eye gasped as he was flung towards the ceiling. "Unngh!" He slammed against the insides of the box car repeatedly from Josho's merciless grip. At one point, he twirled and flung the rolling pin down like a missile.
It ricocheted off of Josho's horn, forcing him to stumble back. "Ow ow ow ow—Dang it!"
Eagle Eye landed, spun, hoof-planted on his upper limbs, and bucked Josho upside the chin with his lower hooves.
"Gaaah!" Josho fell back and crashed through a wooden desk, filling the air with a blizzard of shredded papers.
"Nnnnnnngh!" Eagle Eye charged furiously across the box car towards him.
Josho pivoted and kicked a rolling chair at the unicorn.
"Aaaackies!" Eagle Eye tripped clumsily over the object, landing in Josho's gripping forelimbs.
With a snarl, Josho body slammed Eagle into the ground once... twice... and pressed his weight down on top of him. "Heh... nice try, but you fight like a friggin' mare..."
Eagle Eye grunted. "Speak for yourself." And he reverse-kicked two hooves murderously hard in between Josho's lower legs.
"Snkkkt-Yeaaaaaaaugh!" Josho fell down like a slab of meat, spasming in agony.
Eagle Eye tried standing up—but ultimately stumbled down as well.
Both stallions sat on the rubble-strewn floor of the rattling box car, serenaded by the sounds of their pained breaths. Eventually, it was Eagle Eye who pulled himself successfully up. He trotted over towards where the metal shard had been dropped by Josho.
Josho had finally managed to lose the tears of pain from his eyes. Uncrossing his lower legs, he rolled onto his back and looked up... only to have a sharp chunk of metal pressed up against his throat. His eyes twitched in terror.
Eagle Eye glared down at him, levitating the dangerous object up against the stallion's jugular. "It would be so easy... so dang easy to just skewer you like a fish and end my troubles right here and now," he sneered. After a shuddering breath, though, he added, "But then a whole wave of new troubles would begin. Believe it or not, I'm a soldier. And, like a soldier, I do my best when I'm following orders. There's nothing in life that I hate more than being alone. Back home, in Franzington?" He winced, but ultimately stammered, "I was more alone than ever. So, I joined Crimson's company, and I had purpose. But Crimson is... is d-dead now, and so is every pony I ever cared for. What am I to do with my purpose, then? Let it j-just go to waste?"
Josho gazed up at him. Silent. Sober.
"I don't want this..." Eagle Eye murmured, his eyes close to tears. "I never asked for any of it. I just... nnngh... I just want to get out of here. I want to run away from all this war and headache and heartache and... and find the home that's waiting for me, so I won't be alone anymore! And I'm not gonna get any of that done if one of us bites the dust!"
Clenching his eyes shut, the petite stallion snarled and spun about.
"So, no more of this stupid nonsense! If you wanted a stallion to kill, you should have been bound to somepony else!" He flung the metal shard at the nearest window. "Raaaugh!"
There was a loud crack, echoing throughout the box car.
Josho sat up with a gasp.
Eagle Eye froze in place, twitching.
The rusted bars to the window had shattered from the shard's impact. The metal pipes dangled, dangled, then fell free, exposing a flimsy pane of glass that was all that stood between the box car's interior and freedom.
Eagle Eye blinked. He glanced down at Josho.
Josho glanced up at Eagle Eye.
After a few seconds of silence, Josho hopped up and tossed a chair through the window, smashing it. With cold mountain air wafting in, he and Eagle Eye fought and scrambled for room to wriggle out of the confining train car.
"Move it! I'm going first!"
"No, me!"
"I'm stronger! I'll climb to the roof faster!"
"You're fat! I'd be surprised if you'd even fit through the thing!"
Heh. EE and Josho are best foils.
Eagle, Why U No try that sooner?
Reminds me of the story where, a man is trapped in a concrete room, and told to try and escape. He chips at the wall, and fails. The door was unlocked.
I think the transition between "EE talking about why he became a soldier" and "EE doing anything else" is pretty clumsy. You can feel the change in gear, and it comes across as a little rehearsed.
Aside from that, fun chapter.
So not only is Josho drunk, obese, incompetent, undisciplined, irritating and severely lacking in hygiene, he got beaten in a fight by Eagle Eye.
His excuse for not being able to teleport is a complex magic-deterring system placed by the foxes, since they both had telekinesis... I think he's just really bad at what he does.
Will these two ever get along?
NOW KISS.
I'm betting these to get together in the end.
That and Gold Petals x Rainbow Dash OTP!!!!!!
I'm sorry, this was a good chapter but I got bored after it ensed ....
I... for some reason, I read that wrong. I really have to get my mind out of the gutter.
These two are easily my favorite characters now. Aside from Rainbow Dash, of course.
this story is so confusing.
i am not sure of which possibility i like more; escape or Xona.
2578175
Xona won't know what hit them.
Neither will the mountainside.
That was just the best thing, the end to this chapter here. It's just so perfect, how Josho and Eagle Eye don't get along
hmmm EE i see that your takeing lessons in awesome lead by sifu rainbow dash
love this chapter so funny
I NEED MOAR
2578046
And that's why we love it.
2578357
I'm imagining them both wedged in the windowframe after they tried to get through at the same time, desperately waving their legs in the air to get some purchase and squeeze themselves out of there.
Aren't they going to hurt themselves on the glass shards that remain?
2577626
I'm glad I'm not the only one who wants to see Gold Petals again. OTP FTW.
Oh, when is Josho just going to give in and fall in love with him? XD Joking, but really sometimes I do wonder.
Best frenemies.
Twist : The broken bludgeon was never sharp enough to cut the manacle, but enough to cut through flesh.
Lets play a game.
Dohoho. I dunno how well falling out of a moving train after getting beaten up will go, but I get the feeling that it won't feel too great. And while having a couple foxes come after you is less deadly than having an entire country of Amazon women raised in blood do the same, having bound legs is also not the same as having (broken) wings, a flight suit, an overpowered ship, several allies, and a way to render most enemy weapons useless.
I kinda want to see more ponies meeting ponies they think are dead. It's interesting.
It's all fun and games until somepony "accidently" shoves a little too hard, and the other stallion falls to his doom...
I never freaking get tired of seeing these two go at it. And now we get a fight scene - one that reminds me of Raising Arizona, when Nicholas Cage and John Goodman beat the hell out of each other in the trailer. And then, on the heels of such glorious displays of hilarious equine pummeling: feels. Delicious, delicious feels.
Now that they're escaped, I wonder what their next step will be. You KNOW they're going to run into Dash & Co. at some point. The prospect of finally seeing a bit of Xona (now or somewhere down the road) excites me, so I certainly wouldn't complain if that came into the equation.
In other news: Where the heck is Pilate (the zebra)?!
blog.daveg.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Adam_Jensen.jpg
Would? - Alice In Chains
2579831
Beat me to the Deus Ex reference.
Good stuff. I love your fight scenes, ):(. Despite what everybody is saying about Josho getting his ass kicked, he gave as good as he got, and at the end, the only reason Eagle Eye got the upper hand probably has to do with two things: Age and Endurance. Eagle Eye is definitely younger than Josho, and Eagle Eye is also in better shape than Josho is. Josho had been sitting on his ass, wasting away and drinking, until he encountered Dash and Company. Josho has experience on his side, which kept this fight so close, but he's still older and still a bit out of shape. Eagle Eye and Josho went down at the same time, but Eagle Eye recovered faster—end of story.
I think that the two are rather evenly matched, honestly. Eagle Eye has youth, good training, and a lot of will power, and Josho has experience and a canny tactics. Whenever they stop kicking the crap out of each other and really start working together, well... I'd hate to be anything standing between them and their objectives.
Ladies, quit your childish fighting and work together
Well, it was going to happen eventually...
Gotta love EE and Josho's silliness.
I find the interaction between these two characters very interesting, and I am yet to work out how much they actually care for each other.
I'm now waiting for these foxes to work out that they've left, I seem to get the feeling that they could well hinder their plans....
In any case, doesn't feel like there's a lot to predict now, looking forward to the next chapter as always.
Onwards!
You do know that it's a metal beam, right? As in hard, malleable metal?
It's kinda difficult to imagine that the foxes have an anti-magic beacon that somehow doesn't cancel out telekinesis. I hope Josho was wrong, and it's actually a Faraday cage, but for magic, or something similar. Maybe the walls are lined with thin metal wires attached to a mana crystal? The resulting magic current and field would distort any magic trying to pass through the cage, hence preventing teleportation.
Oh, and good character interaction. I love these two.
It's really cool to see Eagle Eye showing off some legitimate fighting skills.
As... petite as he may seem, to put it nicely, he's a mercenary. If he was totally incompetent in a fight, he'd probably be dead.
2577508
No, probably not.
... Ha. Those two should just screw and get it over with.
2579789 In a zeppelin... Remember? All the past like 25 chapters happened within a couple hours, max.
2582661
I know, I know. I just miss our favorite zebra.
IM BACK!
I know how much you guys missed my generic two word comments
Good chapter
No, Josho! Don't do it! There are still so many things to live vor!
This entire chapter is The Emperor's New Groove reborn. This part here:
isn't that a direct quote from the movie?
2577473 Telekinesis is no complex magic.
2579179 Cutting Eagle Eye's leg off was Josho's plan in the first place.
2580065 Don't underestimate EE. He has stood his ground against Ledomare's finest. He is nimble, agile and quick like a snake. As we saw, he can handle his telekinesis with the precision of a scalpel - on two objects at once, mind you. That boy is dangerous.
Ceterum censeo Searinem delendam esse, and that someone needs to get the talking llama to Yzma.
IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
This is a good chapter for character development. We get to see a bit more of EE's psychology here and we also get to see him finally show us that he's a good soldier. I like that. EE has always deserved respect and now he gets it! These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
These two put the truth to the saying "There's a fine line between love and hate." Or maybe its, "There's a fine line between cellmates who begrudgingly put up with each other and enemies that pummel the tar out of themselves while roughhousing on a moving train commandeered by sentient foxes." I always get those two mixed up.
As much backstory as we've gotten on EE, we haven't learned much about Josho. Maybe there isn't much to know (or maybe its been revealed in a previous chapter and I've just forgotten) but it makes me wonder. Not everyone can have a lost and tragic past, right? Ah, who am I kidding, we all know who's writing this thing Anywho, loved the character development/derailment. These two remind me a bit of Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan in Shanghai Noon: "You said 'wet shirt don't break', not 'piss shirt bend bar!'"
2640846
That was the best scene in that movie.
2577440 lenk pls
That was so hilarious Every chapter with Josho and EE is hilarious.
-Spirit
EE, I love you. EE for best OC character aside from Belle and Gold Petals.
They needed that fight. otherwise, theyd explode. more literaly than this.
/:
When EE started the kitchen battle:
Ah, my favorite ponies to friend ship. Once again proving that they are the best couple.
Nothing like a good fight to clear the air.
They finally had peace... and it lasted all of five seconds.
You tell him, Eagle Eye.
I'm imagining the look on that little Fox's face when he comes in to see what a mess they made.
Whoo boy would he be red then!