Near Miss, Long Shot and Spleens spent around half an hour dismantling the Flim Flam Brothers' fake toll booth and pegasus nets before tossing the whole lot down the fifth gorge and continuing on their way. "Of all the ways to scam ponies, why would they choose one that forces them to create a huge static setup that would leave them so vulnerable to discovery?" Long asked.

"We just know that they're scammers, nopony said anything about them being good scammers," Spleens replied as she helped Long Shot into the caravan's harness.

The three of them made several kilotrots of progress, passing into a forest before darkness fell and they stopped for the night at a roadside campsite complete with a fire pit and a picnic table. Once she had detached herself from the caravan's harness, Long trotted over to her friends, "I wanna big fire tonight, I'll be right back."

By the time Long Shot had finished collecting firewood, Near Miss and Spleens had gotten all the cookware out and were trying to decide on what to make. Once she had dumped the firewood into the fire pit, Long landed next to Near and prodded her in the ribs, nodding towards the wood in the fire pit until Near got the message and started the fire with some sparks from her horn. Once the fire was going nicely Long, tired from pulling the caravan all day, curled up next to the fire while she waited for dinner to be cooked.

While Long had been messing with the fire, Near and Spleens had decided on spaghetti for dinner, and were almost done making it when Long Shot jumped to her feet, wings flared and fangs bared, before pouncing into a nearby bush with a loud hiss. After a few seconds of fighting sounds and the bush shaking violently, Near and Spleens heard submissive yowling and saw a pony sized dark feline shape fleeing into the night.

"Booh Yeah!!" Shouted Long as she emerged from the bush, spitting something out as she shook bits of bush out of her fur. "That's why you don't ambush a Bat Bitch."

By this point, Near and Spleens were both staring at their lunar pegasus friend, mouths agape, understanding little of what had just happened. Near was the first to find her voice, "The hell just happened?"

"I heard something sneaking up on me," Long replied before suddenly flaring her wings out, "So I pounced on it. It turned out to be a panther, presumably trying to eat one or all of us. I didn't really wanna kill it, so I just bit the tip of its ear off and that was enough to make it choose to have something else for dinner."

"But how did you hear it sneaking up on you?" Spleens asked, "Panthers are apex predators."

"I don't know what kind of apex they were hunting," Long replied, eliciting eye rolls from both Near and Spleens, "But they were way too loud to have any chance of sneaking up on a lunar pegasus. I heard them ten trots away, and just waited until they were in striking range."

"Thank you for saving us Long Shot!" Spleens shouted before feeling bathed in Long's delicious ego, of which she happily took her fill.

"Yeah, thanks," Near said less enthusiastically as she paused in her eating, "Food's ready."

Author's Note

Comments really help me know what you all think, and how to get better, so if you have thoughts, please comment.