The Run

The darkness of the world became apparent, as Akula woke up from what seemed to be an unscheduled sleep. Slowly opening his red eyes, he could make out two other Equines sitting just ahead of him. And come to think of it, there seemed to be some sort of dashboard in front of the pony on the left.

Somehow, Akula had passed out in a car. But that wasn't right. The last time he remembered being conscious, he wasn't anywhere near a car.

It was at that moment that he realized that something was wrong. And it just got worse when he realized that he could not move his front hooves. It was at this moment that he saw that both of his hooves were duct taped to the passenger chair in front of him. And then, he was able to make out who was in the car with him.

As it turned out, his two closest friends were unconscious in the front two seats. The daughter of Lightning Dust, Viral Velocity was taped to the glove box in front of her, as she rested her eyes against her will. And the British Speedfreak, Danger Dean was also there, taped to the steering wheel of the car.

Akula also had the sensation that they were floating in the air. Something was horribly wrong. This was later confirmed when Akula looked out his side window. And he was horrified. The car that he and his friends were trapped in was being held up by a crane, dangling over a car crusher in a massive junkyard.

There was no time for the changeling to figure out why they were in the position they were in. Immediately, his instincts kicked in and he stared to find a way to get free from his bonds. He quickly found the solution. Whoever had trapped them in the car had seemed to forgotten one thing. Unreformed changelings had sharp fangs, which could easily cut through anything...

...and duct tape was easy to cut through.

It was clear what needed to be done. Without a second thought, he sunk his fangs into the tape covering his left hoof. Within seconds, his blood-stained sharp teeth tore through the tape, freeing his hoof easily. He repeated the process with his other hoof and freed it as well.

Once he was free, Akula then grabbed onto Viral and began to shake her violently. "Wake up, V! C'mon! Wake up!" He silently cried out, increasing the violence of his shaking. This is where V began to stir, as her orange eyes slowly opened with a groan escaping her muzzle.

"Uhhhhggg... what happened," V groaned out, as she quickly came to senses. But when she did, she flew into a panic. "Wha... Where am I?! What's happening?!"

"Settle, V. I know just as much as you do. Let's just get out of here first," Akula stated, as he forced himself into the front of the car. Seeing where V's hooves were taped, he immediately bit down into the tape that bound Viral's left hood to the glovebox. And just as quickly, he tore through the tape and freed his friend. Using this freed appendage, Viral then managed to pull herself free of the tape.

Finally, the last pony that needed to awoken was Dean. So, Viral did what she did best... and slapped Dean hard in the face.

The impact instantly snapped Dean out of his unconscious state with a loud yelp. "Gah!!!! Jeez, OWWWW!!!! What the hell?!" He cried out, as he soon realized where he was, "Oh, great..."

"Don't worry, Dean. Just let me squeeze in," Akula stated, attempting to reach his fangs to the tape that bound Speedfreak to the wheel. But as Akula stretched forward to bite into Dean's tape, all of a sudden, the crane then dropped the car into the crusher.

The vehicle crashed down into the crusher, which then was activated. The massive metal walls of the device began to close in, beginning to squeeze the metal panels of the car as the trio sat in the car. And if there was one thing that the two pegasi and the changeling didn't want to die to, it was a crusher.

The walls beginning to close in immediately prompted Akula to bite into Dean's tape and tear his left hoof free. And now that that was free, Dean began to pull on the final bit of tape as the changeling began to punch his way through the sunroof. It didn't take long for the male pegasus to free himself, now all the three needed was to get out of the vehicle. It wouldn't take long, as a massive blow from Akula then cracked through the sunroof and pulled himself out.

"Come on!" Akula cried out to his friends, leaning back into the car with his hoof, intent on pulling them out. Viral was the first one out, closely followed by Dean. Now that they were out of the car, they needed to get out of the crusher. But that wasn't much of a problem. For some reason, whoever had out them in that situation had forgotten to bind both Dean's and Viral's wings. So, they just used their wings to make an extended jump out of the crusher, as Akula simply climbed his way out.

Now free of meeting a horrible death by being squished to a pulp, they needed to get out of the junkyard. Thankfully, it appeared that there was a plan. As two stallions in fancy suits watched the compactor do its work, believing that the trio were dead, they failed to check up on the two cars that brought them here.

And the white Audi RS 4 that was seemingly parked on its lonesome seemed like the perfect escape vehicle. With relative quickness, the three made their way towards the car with the intent of hijacking it.

However, as they got ever closer to the car, their stealthiness was unsuccessful, as one of the stallions saw them going for the RS4 out of the very corner of his eye. "What the buck? They're out of the car!" he cried out, pointing at the three they were trying to kill.

"Grab 'em! GRAB 'EM!!!!!" The other stallion boomed, as the pair rushed to catch their targets.

This sudden screaming pushed the three to run faster. A millisecond later, they reached their destination. Dean took the initiative and hopped into the driver's seat. As Dean attempted to start the car, Viral joined him in the passenger seat, with Akula diving through the rear-right window and onto the back seats.

With those two mobster-looking ponies approaching, Dean then tried to start the car. However, the engine would budge in the first two times that he tried it. But on the third attempt, success. The V8 engine roared to life and Dean slammed on the gas. The wheels began to kick up the dirt, before the all-wheel drive system kicked in and the car took off down the dirt road leading out of the yard.

"Buck me, that was too close!" Viral exclaimed, falling back into her seat. "That was like some mobster shit, trying to kill us in the compactor!"

Dean immediately froze his expression upon hearing the mare say that. "Well..." Dean began, "That's because it was,"

"Dean's right. I recognized those stallions," Akula added, "They're apart of the most powerful gang in Equestria. I should know, I've had to deal with these creatures before,"

"Well, that's just bucking great. Why are they chasing us?!" V exclaimed, slowly turning to Dean for an answer. "Dean? What did you do to piss these ponies off?"

Dean swallowed and initially didn't answer. But after a few seconds of silence, he then gulped down some of his saliva and then sheepishly explained, "Well, I may or may not had made bedroom eyes at the boss' daughter,"

Well, now they knew why the Mob was after them. But neither of them were happy about it. "YOU DID WHAT???!!!!!" Viral exclaimed, seriously pissed off with her fellow pegasus.

"Dean, for buck's sake!! What did I tell you about your sexual impulses?!" Akula snapped, handing V her MP7 (which he had found in the back-seat of the car with their other weapons).

"I couldn't help it!!! She was tantalizing, okay?!" Dean fired back.

Of course, when Dean fired back with his 'justified' reason, V then cried out for him to watch the road. Two black Porsche Cayenne Turbos emerged out of a side-street just ahead of them. Thankfully, Dean was quick to react to the new threat as he threw the wheel to the left to avoid shunting one of the Porsches and get past the fast left that greeted them once they had gotten past the Mob cars.

This turn was quickly followed by another left turn, before the Audi busted through the front gates of the yard and emerged onto the main road, both SUVs still in hot pursuit. But as the raced down the street, the trio caught a shock as the back window was suddenly ruptured by a hail of gunfire, sending shards of glass onto the backseat and shocking all of the three.

Akula and Dean recovered quickly, only to hear pained groaning coming from in the car. As it turned out, Viral had been hit in the shoulder by one of the bullets and was now in serious pain. Of course, that was the same mistake that these gangsters had made earlier, attempting to kill Akula's friends.

And of course the changeling had an objection to that.

Grabbing his AK-47 from the seat and cocking the rifle, he turned back through the broken window, his attention focused on the stallion sticking out of the sunroof of the nearest Cayenne, struggling to reload his MAC-11. Akula took a breath and fired a quick burst, which hit home. The stallion was hit multiple times in the chest, as he lifelessly fell back into the SUV.

But Akula wasn't done. He then turned his attention to the pony in the front passenger seat, who had seen his gangmate fall back into the vehicle and was readying a revolver to take over from his subordinate. However, Akula squeezed of a few rounds at him, which punched through the windscreen and killed the pony instantly. The first Cayenne's driver, now seeing the seats and dashboard slick with blood, gunned it towards the much smaller Audi, intent on ramming it off the road. But as he pulled alongside, Akula fired upon the driver as he came into view through the other side window.

This time, the Demon Lord was unsuccessful in killing the pony, but he did manage to injurie him quite substantially. Dean took this opportunity to side swipe the first Cayenne, sending the SUV into a wall and causing it to flip and crash, taking the first pursuer out of the chase for good.

Seeing the Porsche crash into the wall, Akula put down his AK and moved forward to see how badly V had been hit. Thankfully, the bullet only grazed her and she only suffered a flesh wound. Akula cast a quick healing spell on his friend and grabbed his gun again. Dean then threw the car around a quick left, down a side street, before getting on the brakes for a tight right corner. But the lighter RS 4 could handle the turn, while the heavier Cayenne began to be left behind.

But as the trio approached a junction, another black Porsche then slid out of the junction, a gunpony firing wildly with a submachine gun out of the sunroof. However, the spastic gunfire never hit the Audi, and instead hit a nearby pile of red barrels on a semi trailer, causing them to go boom. And the second SUV, unsighted, then drove right into semi, mashing the front into the wrecked trailer, totaling itself in the process.

Two down, but one to go.

But the final Porsche would not be shaken. Mainly because, only a long straight separated the trio from freedom. And the final car was hot on them. Multiple rounds from the wilding gunning pony in the final car slammed into the body of the Audi, but given the fact that the gunpony was just firing wildly, none of the bullets actually hit any vital targets. All the while, Akula and Viral returned fire as best as they could, only having a limited firing arc on the SUV.

But bigger problems lay just ahead, as the sound of a train's horn filled the air. Dean knew that the noise did not mean good things. A single looked confirmed what he was thinking, a lone train approaching the train crossing just ahead of them rapidly. Immediately, Dean put his hoof to the floor, as far as it would go. Viral felt the sudden increase of power being put on the engine, and she then saw why.

"Drive, Dean! DRIVE!!!!!" She screamed, as the train began to close in.

It was clear that the train was coming in hot and was well past the point of stopping safely. And it was clear that the train was coming in much quicker than the Audi. Dean knew that the train would make it to the crossing before he did, and began to move over to the right.

It was going to be very close.

Dean saw the front light of the train reach the intersection as he closed in. Then, the actual train entered sight and made a mad dash for the crossing. But Dean was also closing in.

Just as the train began to cross, Dean rammed through the boom gates and made it onto the tracks, as the train closed in. But thankfully, Dean was going quickly enough to make it through the crossing, just inches away from getting sideswiped by the train.

But, they made it. And even better, the close shave caused the final Cayenne to come to a stop to avoid hitting the speeding train, allowing the trio to make their getaway.

Seeing the Cayenne stop at the tracks, immediately drew some loud whooping from all three of the friends. Dean added a few honks to the horn as they raced into the distance.