It Takes All Kinds [private]

All the hostages were free and the bandits were tied. Kimi would look them over and took notice that Sugary even handed out the weapons to the others, though she also took note of the one he kept for himself. Kimi would place her hands on her hips and wondered if they really needed her. They had weapons, and the guards here for already tied up. There really wasn't a need for them so long as none of the bandits had gotten past them. Though it may be a good idea after all given that the train was rigged to explode.

She tapped her chin a moment as she thought and then looked back toward's Sugary who urged for her to come with him. "Hm? Oh don't worry about her, she's fine. We've been through far worse than a train robbery." she made a hand wave motion as if to toss the subject aside. "You go on ahead, I'll just stick around here, just in case." Though she was indeed a clone, it would be extremely difficult to tell the difference between the original and the clone, even through senses, which was the power of the shadow clone technique as for every clone that is created it creates a tangible clone that matches perfectly to the original inside and out, and the original's chakra is divided between each of the clone. So while the Original Kimi right now only has half her chakra, this clone has the other half.

"You better hurry up and catch up. She's already cleared the car up ahead for you, and is currently dealing with a group in the car afterwards. So you best hurry, or it'll be a bloodbath."

"... You really are a work of art..." Sugary couldn't help but say it to the double in a low voice, but how could he not admire just how well it acted and responded? It then dawned on him that perhaps it wasn't that the double was merely a weaker copy, but that it held a literal fraction of Kimi's power and will, as by far the only way he could tell them apart well was their demeanor, the rest were a minor few differences. "Wait, but if she's... Then Kimi is weaker now?" He began to worry a bit that perhaps despite the assurance of the copy, the real one might be less capable for fighting. That was, of course, just him assuming the worst and preparing for it because he didn't know any better, while he made his way out to assist just as he promised. "Fine, take care then!"

He'd first cautiously but quickly make his way past the next car as he observed just how was it that Kimi would have dealt with it and any traps as she warned, looking at every single corner without skipping any details. He would then keep to a crouched position with the weapon and his magic at the ready if he made it to the other side without issue to assess what was going on with quick peeks...

Kimi looked at Sugary with confusion when he spoke in a low voice her ears twitching. She only just shrugged her shoulders as Sugary went on ahead and she stayed behind in this car to make sure nothing bad that's to the ponies here.

In the next car over, Sugary would be able to see several trip wire traps laying across the ground. The firing mechanisms, which a couple looked to be simple crossbow firing mechanisms still had their bolts loaded into them, but the triggering mechanism was taken out so it wouldn't fire. What looked to be grenades were comfortable placed in what looked to be a basket composed of what looked to be hardened mud. Around each of the pins was black tape with pieces of wire still attached to them. The rest of the cut wires were all dangling over seats and under them. Some of the paintings were taken off the wall, from the looks of it, it was spring loaded and the painting itself was replaced with what looked to be a spiked backing so that it would act like a crushing spiked wall.

When he made it to the other side and would come to the next car, Sugary could see through the window of the door, Kimi running along the wall of the train avoiding machine gun fire. There were a few guys already on the ground. Though as she ran along the walls and ran along the ceiling and back down the other wall back onto the ground, she had performed a couple hand seals as blurring speeds. "Fuuton!" She took in a deep breath. "Kaikou Jinpuu no jutsu." and her chakra circulated her body, especially around her lungs and as she released her breath this powerful blast of wind show out from her mouth. The bullets that fired the machine gun shots had immediately slowed on their way to her was were forcefully fired back in the direction that they came, hitting the guards that were left.

Sugary didn't take long to become further disturbed, and mildly impressed, at the amount of traps left in place in a single car on top of the explosives already laid out and the bandits than needed to be dealt with. "Sheesh! Who got that much gear into the train without notice!? What else did that crazy mare bring with her!?"

When looking through the window, he was... not too surprised to see Kimi kicking ass as she said she would. "... I feel this is gonna be the mission I heal the most foes in a single day..." As much as he was all for use of supreme force to overcome obstacles, he did worry over whether or not the commotion would prompt the leader to make a run for it and blow everything sky high. Since it couldn't be helped though, he'd just wait for the dust to settle down, and try to shimmy his way into the next train once he was sure the fighting had died down... and hoping no one had actually died yet if it could be avoided as he pointed his weapon at the others constantly while his horn lit up softly in preparation. "... Lotus...? What's your status?"

Kimi stood there gazing towards her opponents as they fell to their reflected bullets. She felt tired, well not exactly tired, but drained. This was an odd sensation for her, especially when she knew for a fact that she had far more chakra than she was feeling right now. A couple of the guard's, that were located on the floor behind Kimi near the door where Sugary was at, was knocked unconsious, though one of them seemed to have their head turned the wrong way.

The guards that were in front of Kimi were all piled ontop of each other against the other door, blocking their way through, but they weren't really moving all that much aside from the occasional sounds of pained moaned and groans from some bullet wounds, and being slammed into the wall from the powerful blast of wind Kimi shot at them.

Their guns laid in a pile on the ground since they dropped it when they flew back and hit the wall. Kimi's left arm twitched lightly at her side as she grabbed it, blood dripping from it. Her ears twitched to Sugary's voice. "I'm fine." she stated through heavy breaths. "Took a little longer then expected, but I'm fine."

Sugary's face took upon a slightly pained look. He wasn't disturbed by the actual gore itself, but the fact lives had been lost with the state a few of them were in. He was no stranger to that result, but he was never quite entirely comfortable with it unless it was an outright monster.

He looked to all the bodies in general and Kimi's condition as closely and simultaneously as he could, aiming the weapon at anyone that moved just a bit too much in one go. "Want me to heal that arm of yours so we can try and finish this in one go? Or are we clear enough to treat a few before we go on as well?" He could tell something was different about the runes the bandits in this room wielded, that there was a chance he could heal some of them without backfiring. But he thought it would be rather unfair to not treat his own ally and traveling companion first. Especially when he asked her to go ahead first.

Kimi shook her head. "I'll be fine. I can take care of my own injuries." she stated as she sighed and went to go sit down on the ground. She looked to be a bit sweaty. She had used several jutsu's on her way up here, quite a few to deactivate the bombs safely, though it was draining her more than it normally should have. She pondered to herself if her transfer over here did something to her chakra system that gave her problems with using her chakra properly. She would end up using either too much or too little each time she used a jutsu and she had been trying to figure out what exactly was that problem.

Though as far as her injury was concerned, she had gotten shot in the arm a few times. Thankfully the bullets went through completely, but it still sucked none the less. Use to it or not, it wasn't fun in the least to be bleeding out like this. "You can tend to them first, they need it more than I do. I tried to hold back, not sure how many survived." she stated as her hand began to glow a heavenly color and she would begin to pass it over her injured arm. It would take a little time, but she was healing her own arm using her bloodline ability of the seishou clan she was born into.

As far as the bandit's were concerned there were a good number of them that were still a live, a small few had unfortunately met their end. But as far as the marking's on their bodies were concerned a magically talent pony could sense that there were magical traces within the ink that covered them, and some of the blood that dripped from them smudged the ink some. As well as them being on each other like a pile, smudged them even more. So it was clear these runic markings could be very easily removed.

Sugary nodded to Kimi, and so he looked to the left, and looked to the right, taking in the weapons and bodies as he could. "Very well. And it's fine..." He certainly didn't ignore the feeling of her use of Chakra on her self, but now was not the time to further admire the subtle nuances of her method of healing and his own.

He placed the weapon he had on the ground a bit away from him for good measure as he began to focus his Mana. Soon his horn and eyes were glowing as a green aura rose from floor around him briefly in a circle while the moisture in the air was at his command, quickly conjuring water in mid-air and sending it over any of the remaining bandits by letting it drop over them all naturally after moving it over them to wash off the rune paintings as well as some of the blood. The more he washed off, the more he had to the chance to then levitate them one by one from the pile as he kept dousing them to tie up the living and placing them down again to slowly make an opening to move further ahead soon.

Once he was done with the living, and learned more of who lived and who hadn't, he'd then refocus his efforts. Another circle appeared, this time white, as he then began to send a windy white spell stream between himself, and the remaining tied bandits. He did, of course, know better than to try to fully heal all of them. Even he didn't want them all to be too healthy either, only going to far so as to remove ammo and stop internal bleeding as the spell went on, and only going for as long as Kimi herself would recover as time was not much of a luxury...

Kimi was using this time to recover. She checked in with her clone, mentally, so far things in the back appeared to be normal. The shadow clone had been checking the car trying to see if there was anything that she was missing. So far nothing dangerous was spotted inside the car.

Catching her breath Kimi healed her wounds enough that they would stop bleeding and the bullet wounds closed up. It still ached, but right now she couldn't focus on trying to heal herself more and save her strength. There was still one more car to deal with.

She watched as Sugary tended to the injured and healed them enough that they wouldn't die, though she didn't question it. There were some people like that no matter what world you may end up in. Kimi herself, however, held no problem with killing people that got in her way, especially if they were enemies. She would stand up and flex her arm, clenching her hand open and close to see how it was fairing. "We should get moving, only one car left, right?"

When Sugary was done tending to the survivors and tying them up, he looked around once more as well as to the car he passed by and the weapon pile Kimi had 'collected'. He then conjured a familiar piece of clothing in the form of the white and red robe he had from the day before, and used it to encase all the weapons inside of it, opened the doors to the other car they passed with telekinesis, and levitated the filled up robe towards the car where the double and former tied hostages should be for them to use.

He then walked to and picked up the weapon he got from earlier, and armed himself with it once more before looking at Kimi. "Yeah... Only one more. Think I'll take point this turn... Unless you'd rather I give you cover fire?" And so, he aimed right up front towards the other car as he moved to the door, his eyes just barely above the sight of the weapon itself while his horn remained ready. How he advanced before opening the door himself would depend on Kimi's answer...

Kimi would watch as Sugary levitated the weapons tied within the red robes all that way back to where her other clone was, well at least out the current car. She didn't know the weapons arrived to the car where her clone was until it did.

Her clone would recognize the robe and the information transferred between the clone and the original so the clone understood what was inside of the robe. She would take the robe and lay out the weapons getting count of how many they had. Though she didn't hand them out, preferring now to arm civilians with weapons unlike Sugary did. It could cause much mistakes.

Kimi would listen to Sugary and she stopped flexing her arm and shrugged her shoulders. "Be my guest." She would follow after Sugary. Her eyes darting to look at the tied up bandits for a moment before she would look back ahead as Sugary and her would head to the door.

Sugary acknowledged Kimi's answer, and slowly walked onwards. However, he halted abruptly before going too far ahead, deciding to make use of the fire arm he had for a change, and make a shot through the windows of the doors, and try to wait for any reaction from the other car. If there was no immediate one, he'd try to peek to see if any further traps had been laid out for them in waiting as quickly as he could before advancing into the other car...

When the shot went off there would be no backfire. There was no sound, incorrect there was a sound, the bullet hitting against metal and then bouncing for a moment before hitting something knocking it over and crashing against the ground. It sounded like a vase hitting the floor.

When Sugary opened the door though, he could see a rope slipping free form the door he just opened. Soon after that he would hear a click!

Kimi would stand at the ready as her ears twitched to the sound. She would grab Sugary and pulled him back away from the door just in case. Though just a few moments after that they would both hear the voice of Al.

Sorry to say this dearies, but you won't be seeing me now. I already got what I wanted. If I suspect anything it must be you two. The same two I saw back in Manehattan. Gosh, how I'd love to just load you two full of lead, but right now, I got some place else to be. But you know what, I'll leave you both with a gift. So answer me this, how do you stop a train with no breaks on a trackless rail?"

Out far in the distance they would be able to hear a loud explosion, if either one of them would look out the window ahead of the train, the would see that the bridge of ghastly gorge had been blown out.

"Tick...tock." and then the recording ended. In front of them both would be a swivel chair with a crudely drawn face of a mare sticking it's tongue out and holding a middle finger up at them. and resting upon the swivel chair along with the recorder was what looked to be a broken lever. Possibly the breaks?

(("Stalking Menace"))

Sugary didn't resist as Kimi pulled him back with her, though he was certainly fumbling with the weapon he had a bit as he wasn't used to being dragged about with a firearm. When he heard the recording though, he became very vexed about the way things were turning out, especially so when he saw that Al had not only figured out it was them on the train, but had also left a rather rude puppet with them.

And that was on top of the fact that the bridge had gone out as well as he gasped, got up, and looked outside. "No, no, no, no, NO!! Urgh!!" He was now struggling with several decisions as he looked from his position to the car and engine up ahead of him while his grip tightened. Between the likelyhood of more traps still, and the fact time was not a luxury even more so, he did his best to calculate the best possible approach for such a situation. He did his best to recall runaway train situations and how they could be solved in an emergency, however few they were. He recalled about an old report of a train nearly crashing into a makeshift town before freedom fighters at the time managed to get it to stop. He probably had no brakes to work with for sure, and he wasn't about to waste precious time figuring out if he should force the stop himself or not.

He opted to do it himself as he placed the weapon on the ground, greatly focusing his Mana for a rapid charge as he spoke to Kimi while his horn began to glow blue and his right hand seemed to glow along with it. "... Lotus, I'm gonna cut us off from the engine car to start losing momentum! We might have a chance if we try stopping it all ourselves! Can I count on your power to help!?" Kimi only had mere moments to answer before he went ahead and carried out his plan. If she didn't have a better idea, he'd stop the cars the hard way...

Kimi was surprised at Sugary was and normally in a situation like this she would have done something grand and big to knock the trail off it's tracks, but did she have enough chakra for such a thing? Well that didn't matter now, the important thing was to stop this train and to make sure all the passengers are safe.

She looked to Sugary who began to surge with his mana. "I don't think you have a choice in the matter." she answered as she relayed the information to her clone who nodded her head.

"Very well everyone. Thing's are going to get rocky, please keep low and stay away from the windows. Taijuu Kage bunshin no jutsu!" the clone would form a handsign and suddenly a massive amount of clones began to poof into existence, and shot through the car moving to where all the other passengers were located, duplicating herself as much as she could.

Kimi would focus her attention. "The passengers are being protected, just tell me what you need done and I'll do it."

Sugary began to feel a lot of Kimi all over the train very soon, though he did not bother to look back as to how as he was only focused on one single thing he needed to cut for now. Nonetheless, he was grateful for the why as she gave him some much needed reassurance. "Perfect... When I slice, I'll need those tracks full of mud. Lot's of mud!" He then smiled, resigned to cutting away the source of their problems to deal with the rest more easily, suddenly letting out a battle cry in a single word as if to invoke the might to cut even through fate. "ZANTETZUKEN!!" And so a blade of highly pressured water and raw Mana manifested from his had at that moment as he leaned forward, and viciously cut away at the steel through a mixture of rapid erosion and raw force of willpower.

Once that severing was done, and he did away with the blade as the engine car began to move ahead on its own, he kept his Mana flowing as he conjured more and more water rapidly from mid-air ahead of him, bracing himself as he spread his legs to hold his position behind the door frame as well as forcefully pulling soil from the ground as they rapidly passed by it, mixed it into the water, compressed it, and began to flood the rails and car underneath to really slow down the remaining cars, if Kimi wasn't already ahead of him on that. Either way, he'd help, as there was no time to second guess decisions now...

Kimi would nod her head. "Mud, huh?" Well that shouldn't be a problem. She would wait for her opportunity, summoning as much of her chakra as she could. Letting it circulate through her body. She watched Sugary as she was summoning her chakra preparing for her technique. Though that move 'Zentetsuken' was rather impressive, though there wasn't anytime to just sit and be mesmerized by it.

She would, as soon as Sugary turned off the dangerous energy blade, Step a bit around him and slightly in front. Her chakra surged to her feet to lock her into place and her hands came together as she performed a series of handsigns and shot by like a blur. "Doton! Deido Sattou Nami no Jutsu!"

Taking a deep breath like before, her chest began to expand to abnormal proportions as her chakra surged into her chest and converted to the earth element. As if releasing the breath she took it, the moment her mouth opened up, a massive rush of mud rushed out of her mouth like a broken dam.

Initially, Sugary didn't think there was any problem with having to share space so closely to Kimi as she probably needed the same vantage he had. What he really didn't expect that almost threw him off his focus was the fact her torso expanded quite abruptly right by him to the point he thought she was about to Self-destruct. "W-Wait, what are yo- What!?!?" But the expansion alone was hardly as startling as the fact she was literally spewing mud out of herself. "Where the heck is she getting all that from!? Ah, now's not the time!!" Perplexed or not, he kept all the mud, his and hers, flowing right under the train constantly with his magic for consistent results. He didn't even care if the train engine was close to dropping itself, all that matter was to stop all the other cars once and for all...

Through some quick thinking, and a bit of luck the mud would eventually come to do what Sugary had intended for it to do. With the mud being kept in place to slow down the train, the mud got into the trains wheels and flooded it's underside. While there wasn't much tracks left, the train eventually came to a halt, slowing down and get stuck in the mud as the mud was hardening pretty quickly. Of course the train had tore through most of it, but in the end, it came to a halt. It was a pretty close call too.

They were safe, though the only problem now is the bridge was out and they were on the wrong side of the gorge. Once Kimi noticed that there was no more need of anymore mud, she would stop spraying out mud and she'd wipe her lip. Her chest had reverted back to normal. She took a moment to spit out any residue mud left in her mouth. She would take a couple steps back before she would fall into a sitting position and was breathing heavily as she was quite exhausted.

Sugary's heart was pounding ever faster the more the train moved, but soon he let out deep sigh of relief as the cars then noticeably lost further and further momentum to where the mud naturally halted the entire thing as well as could be expected as there was no engine fighting against it. It seemed he had made the best possible choice after all. "That was a bit too close... I just hope they don't expect me to pay for any of this..." They had enough problems as it were; Paying for a mangled train engine would just be traumatizing by now.

He looked to Kimi as she spat out the last of her mud, still heavily curious as to how she managed to summon mud the way she did, and then quickly looked to the others in the car before he kneeled by her side as she stumbled as he tried to hold her straight up by the good shoulder she hadn't healed recently. "Whoa there...! You gonna be okay, Lotus?" He even mildly waved his hand before her to see how responsive she was being. He wasn't too worried yet, thinking she probably did the equivalent of breathing air out constantly, and just needed a break.

The passengers were safe, the bandits that were still alive were safe. Sugary and Kimi did a good job in preventing the train from falling into the gorge. It was quite the close call as Sugary and Kimi could easily see the gorge right in front of them. There was a few couple feet of tracks ahead of them, but a massive gap was there was the tracks had been destroyed by bombs.

Kimi would blink slowly as Sugary had tried to keep her straight up and she would push his waving hand. "I'm fine...just need a break."

All the clones she made were busy making sure all the passengers were safe, and then guiding them to get off the train. As they were busy getting the passengers off the train, off in the distance the Royal guards could be faintly seen flying in large groups.

Sugary looked around, and between all of Kimi's clones working busily, the close call and sight of the crevasse nearby, the dead and tied up bandits, the passengers moving about, and the sight of guards made him feel a tad overwhelmed as he winded down from all the action from earlier. So he decided to just follow Kimi's lead, and sit down by her side looking in the opposite direction while they were in each others field of view. "... Yeah... A break sounds nice... Let me know when you wanna move out then..." And so he simply left it at that for now, looking rather thoughtful as to what to do next while sitting quietly.

Kimi only just nodded her head as she sat there gathering her breathing and whatever strength she had left. We can..." she gave a yawn. ...head out soon..." her voice sounded tired as well. Though as she sat there her consciousness left her. The soldiery pill's finally loosing it's effect on her. As she entered into unconsciousness, the shadow clones one by one began to poof away.

A couple of the passengers were shocked by this. It would be a short while before the guard's would arrive. Whether they stayed or left depended on whether Sugary wanted to deal with the Guard's or not.

(("A horse with no name."))

"Yeah... Hm...? Lotus...?" Sugary looked upon Kimi as she passed out where she sat as her clones disappeared left and right. He could tell the energy dwelling inside of her seemingly subdued considerably. At first he was concerned, but then he remembered what she told him about the pills. "Oh, damn...! Right... She must've burned up what was left in the fight..."

Now he had one more thing to consider: Would he stay or would he go? He looked to the crevasse again, and then stood up to look at the guards coming as well as Kimi. "A Merc... A Ninja... Yeah, no way am I gonna stick around to explain things. Even if I lie, what then...?" Again he looked to the other side, and decided to steel his resolve and take a gamble as he was on a race against time as it was. "Alright, Lotus... We're heading out then..." said he softly as he gently picked her up over his shoulders, supporting her whole body as he walked a few cars back, kicking the fire arm he had earlier down the crevasse.

He'd first pick up his robe used to hold the various weapons along the way and put it on quickly with the aid of magic so as to not have to let go of Kimi and keep moving, then he only went back further enough to go to the closest dining car, grab a few bottles of water that he could find, and store them in his Inventory before walking out the opposite side where the guards were coming from; By this point, he'd have Kimi piggyback riding him on the used, but most comfortable robe he had as he walked towards the crevasse. His horn began to shine vividly again as he conjured the robe's cape, and wrapped it over her and himself to keep the rays of the sun off of her as he walked faster and faster. For one such as him, even without his Great Wooden Wings, no destination would be unreachable forever.

By the time he reached the edge of the crevasse, jumped high and far above it. Of course, even he could only jump so far all on his own, but fortunately for him, he still had plenty of Mana and the wind behind his back as he cast a pair of spells. One would materialize briefly in the form of a white magic cloud beneath his hooves, defying gravity with self-levitation; The second spell would be a strong gust of wind behind them to really make use of their momentum and dart over the crevasse... Meanwhile, the little bow wearing filly with the close company of her consoling mother shook, shivered, and sniffled while failing to hold back teary eyes at the experience that tarnished her innocence. Then something in the distance caught her eye which to her looked like a large white bird taking flight freely. The image of it seemed to soothe her troubled heart a bit, but she quickly went back to hugging her mother close before she saw much of it. How much would her view on life change from this day?

Sugary had no intention of flying all the way even with the Float spell he used as chances were the next destination would be too far for him to maintain flight without really putting a strain on his Mana reserves and merely waste himself dry pointlessly; And so he landed on the other side of the crevasse and kept running with a mix of his magic and his own two legs with fast trotting and leaps and bounds forward for momentum. He didn't always travel far with an Airship, so he would test his stamina on land once more with Kimi on his back, following the rails to what would hopefully lead them towards a next worthy stop. He lacked the raw speed of a Ninja such as Kimi still, but he could try and keep a consistent pace at the very least...

Kimi would no doubt not fight this off as she had no means too. She was unconscious. The time Sugary had taken to get the supplies her needed and head out would only mean time wasted before the Royal Guards would come and arrive.

Closer and closer they would arrive, and just as soon as they arrived, Sugary had left. fortunately for him, the Royal guard's didn't see Sugary and Kimi as their focus was on the passengers. To which they would immediately secure and check to make sure there were no injuries. None of the passengers had been armed because Kimi had taken the guns away from the few that had, so those weapons were just lain about inside the train.

A couple groups of guards would swarm the train itself and enter inside of it coming to find the mess that was within and the tied up guards.

They would also proceed to ask the passengers questions about what happened on the train and who stopped the train.

Kimi would not wake up to Sugary's movements at all. Though he could feel that she was still breathing at least. Her large bust smushed against his back, her breath against his neck. Knocked out she was, anytime soon she would not wake.