Guiding Light

"Yeah, no, you're leavin' the baggage here, too," she warned, taking a step forward and raising her left paw higher. "I know enough about what's goin' on here to know he's not yours. Do not test me."

"Is that so?" the coyote replies, "I neither need nor want your permission to do so."

He turns to face her.

"But if you think you can stop me, then by all means... try." he adds.

The hedgehog's brow furrowed a little at the coyote's reply. Rather than frown, though, a smirk spread out across her muzzle. She crouched down a bit.

"Oh ho ho, I haven't gotten to do this in ages," she commented, flexing her fingers.

With her left paw still raised up, it was her right that suddenly came forth, shooting off what appeared to be a fast-moving bolt of flames. It traveled almost like an arrow fired from a bow. The first was followed by a second from her left paw, then another from her right and finally a fourth from her left. They were narrow plumes of fire, intended to burn fur and clothing. The first two were aimed at the coyote's upper torso, but the the other two were aimed more off to either side of him in case he tried to dodge to one side or other. Her paws were no longer ignited once she'd stopped the attack.

The coyote crosses his arms over his chest. The arrows strike his forearms and the flames blossom outwards igniting his clothing and fur. The coyote lets out a yell as he swings his arms outward, releasing a small blast in front of him. It barely disturbed Wolf who was lying at his feet but it was sufficient to blow out the flames on him before they could do much damage. The coyote glares back at the hedgehog.

The hedgehog stared back. She didn't appear overly concerned by this development. Her paws were held up near her middle again and this time began to unleash smaller fireballs, one after another. These all floated up above her head, starting to circle like some sort of ridiculous, fiery halo. Once there were six of them, she stopped. Her left paw remained lifted up a bit, fingers flexing just slightly as the fireballs rotated overhead.

Her right paw then drew back and she launched the same flaming arrow attack as before, launching another two, this time a little lower down the coyote's torso. As soon as those had been fired off, her left paw gestured forward and the fireballs also suddenly took off from overhead. They spread out in an arc before starting to close in around the coyote from multiple directions.

From the looks of it, this hedgehog wasn't exactly fighting to accomplish anything. It seemed more as though she was just testing out the coyote's responses.

The coyote leaps forward over Wolf holding one paw in front of him. Before he lands and before the fire arrows can reach him, the coyote releases another blast from his paw. The displaced air from the blast snuffs out the fire arrows or at least knocks them away from him. The blast also pushes him back, farther from the hedgehog than his jump would have originally done so.

As the coyote jumped forward, the hedgehog stepped back, maintaining distance between them for now. But, rather than start another attack, she lowered her paws to her hips.

"So, I have to wonder, though, just what you want with this scruffy-lookin' kid," she commented, "You've obviously been gettin' your ass handed to you a good bit today so it must be somethin' important. Good money, maybe?"

"Believe whatever you want. It won't be any concern of yours in a while anyway." the coyote replies.

He rushes towards the hedgehog, one arm in front of him to guard, the other arm drawn back in preparation to strike.

"So true," the hedgehog agreed.

She crouched a little when the coyote darted forward, but instead of facing him, she leapt up into the air and towards the roof of the motel. From her new perch, she hurled another couple of fireballs at the coyote, but her aim was fairly sloppy in her haste.

"C'mon now," she said smugly, "Who d'ya think is more tired and gonna run outta energy first?"

The coyote looks up as the hedgehog jumps away from him and easily lands on the roof. He jumps back and clear of her sloppy counter attack. He looks up at her again.

"You, obviously." he replies.

The hedgehog snorted softly in amusement. Her head tilted slightly. "We'll see about that," she said.

Her fingers flexed a couple of times, then she sharply raised both paws. There was just a short moment's warning of heat before flames suddenly rose up from seemingly from the ground behind and underneath the coyote.

The coyote is caught off guard by this attack and he is engulfed in the flames before he can react. It takes him several seconds to stagger out of the flames. Much of his clothing and even his fur has caught fire. He drops to the ground as he screams in pain, rolling and writhing around to try and extinguish the flames and disappearing from the hedgehog's line of sight behind some vehicles still parked in the lot.

The hedgehog let out a breath as the coyote fell to the ground. She glanced over towards the downed wolf, then back towards where she'd last seen the coyote. After a testing clench of her fist, she began to walk along the rooftop, looking to get her opponent back in sight. It would probably be a good idea to end things soon.

The coyote had fallen silent below. He had disappeared behind a truck in the lot, but from where the hedgehog was, she'd be able to see smoke rising up from where he'd presumably come to rest.

The hedgehog continued to make her way along the roof, still on guard in case her suspicions turned out to not be correct. She sure wasn't about to jump down there blindly and then get ambushed.

Once the hedgehog gets to the point where she can see down beside the truck, she'd see the coyote sprawled out on the ground, body smouldering still. Even from where she was, she'd likely be able to see that the coyote had been burned rather badly by her attack. His clothing was charred from the flames and showed burn marks all over it. Patches of the coyote's fur showed the same damage. There were even portions of the coyote's body where the fur had been burned away entirely and the skin beneath was blackened.

The hedgehog squinted at the sight. Maaaybe she overdid it a bit. Then again, no one told him to beat on her daughter and then not accept her generous offer of letting him leave...

Letting out a breath through her nose, the hedgehog moved back over to the edge of the roof. She hopped down onto the ground with a soft grunt, then looked back at the wolf lying out in the parking lot. She only just now noticed a raccoon as well. Oops. She started off towards the wolf first, figuring she could check on him and start sorting out who went where.

Wolf was still sprawled out on the ground, almost where he'd been dropped by the coyote. The blasts the coyote had used against the hedgehog had caused Wolf to have been pushed back a bit further away.

The raccoon groans a bit, shifting slightly on the ground. It seemed he was coming to his senses after getting blasted away from the door earlier.

The hedgehog's ears turned towards the raccoon as he began to stir. She paused briefly as she looked over at him.

'Good, no one's dead then,' she thought.

She continued on over to the wolf, kneeling down beside him and starting to check him over for any severe injuries. She also set one paw lightly against his shoulder, testing for a response to touch.

Wolf doesn't react to her touch. Getting tossed around and dropped had knocked him right out. Other than that he seemed to be fine. There were no serious injuries to him.

It took the hedgehog under a minute to examine Wolf. When he didn't wake up at her touch, she shifted her stance slightly, grabbing hold of the canine around his middle with one paw and getting her other arm around underneath him. Without so much as a grunt, she lifted him up off the ground and put him over her left shoulder with unusual ease. It was like she was picking up a small child, despite his being almost as tall as she was. She continued to support him with her left arm as she rose back up to her feet.

Her gaze then traveled back over to the raccoon and she started off towards him to check on his condition as well.

Wolf dangles limply over the hedgehog's shoulder as she starts walking over to the raccoon.

The raccoon groans on the ground, wincing as he shifts slightly. He didn't look like he was going to get back up any time soon.

The hedgehog came to a stop a short distance from the raccoon, casting a shadow over him, or his face at least, in doing so. "Hey, you alright down there?" she asked. She adjusted her hold on Wolf, then slowly began to kneel down beside the raccoon, looking over him for any obvious injuries as well.

"Ugh..." the raccoon replies initially, "I think... alright is a relative thing... What happened?"

He slowly glances up at the hedgehog.

"Not a clue," the hedgehog admitted, shrugging her shoulders as best she could with her current load. "My kid called me here 'cause she was in trouble. How're you involved?"