"I can't let this go on!" Wilson thought to himself and turned by a tree, using it to cover his back as he ran.
*crack* *crash*
Another tree in the forest was destroyed.
The strong and scrawny bounty hunter was getting closer a lot faster than Wilson expected. At this point, Wilson was very sure that this error in judgement and plan had ruined a lot of Dash's other plans.
"Dash! Dash!" Wilson called into the earpiece. No response was heard. It gave Wilson a horrible premonition.
"Oh dear mother! Please respond! Dash! What about little Sofia? You have answer me. Wake up!" Wilson pleaded and whispered as he ran.
Still no response except that he could hear slight snoring sounds this time. Wilson was beside himself in anger. How could he be sleeping at this time?
"Don't you dare sleep on me, you annoying..." There were no words that sounded appropriate to Wilson, so he paused. Soon enough, he continued to berate Dash.
"How can you sleep on me like this? You piece of sh*t! Wake up! Dash!" He called, his voice raised slightly louder than normal.
Unbeknownst to him, there was a bounty hunter - 'a sonar specialist', as people with sound-related abilities such as she, were famously categorized as- who, through that rise in tone, had pinpointed his location.
Quickly, she changed directions and began running parallel to Wilson. She was not going to run directly towards him but will instead follow the sound of his footsteps until she felt it was time. The other bounty hunters were going to catch up with him soon anyway, so why stress herself when he was not even the main bounty target?
'I will just keep listening in until a footstep different from the rest suddenly appears. I wager that will be the girl herself.' She thought to herself. After running for a while and mastering the unique sound patterns of each and every bounty hunter, she stopped in front of a huge tree and scaled up it to the very top, using its leaves as cover. What she did not know was that within the tree on top of which she stood, slept the girl that was the major bounty target. The thing was that she was more expensive and must be captured and delivered alive and untouched, unlike Dash and Wilson who could and should be executed on sight.
A major flaw in the bounty hunters' plan though was that they did not know about Wilson's existence as he was still fairly down below and inexpensive on the bounty board and they only had knowledge of Dash and Sofia but not once did they expect that Wilson would be there.
Hence most of the hunters ran towards the loud sound of wreckage with the hope to catch up before Wilson who they thought was 'Dash', was killed.
Back to Wilson; he ran up a tree and with luck on his side, evaded the maddened scrawny bulldozer. He spent the next half an hour, recuperating in the safety and camouflage of the very leafy tree he climbed, which was nothing like the other trees Wilson had seen in the forest. It looked in every way, different. Occasionally, bounty hunters would pass underneath and by the tree. Some of them even look up the tree but saw nothing and walked away. Wilson bated his breath and forced his furiously beating heart to calm down. He rested for those thirty minutes until he did not feel safe on the tree anymore. By then, it was broad daylight. The morning sun was already high up in the sky, shining brightly and its heat beating down on everything below. He adjusted his position while doing his best to make as little sound as possible. He even waited until a short, hot breeze blew by before he made a complete change of posture, moving from a half-sitting, half-sleeping position to a crouch. He then tried to look around at the surroundings from his hiding spot way up on the tree. Some trees of similar height and size blocked his view in certain areas but he still saw quite the number of them.
'Still so many of them.' Wilson thought to himself. This was a problem that instantly caused Wilson a headache as by all common sense, he should be safer on the tree, but he knew and was ninety-five percent sure that it was a bad idea to remain on the tree. And so he jumped down from the wide and tall tree and ran for his life, picking the direction that seemed to have the least number of hunters. Especially now that the person whose biological sister he was protecting, was fast asleep. So annoying.
As it turned out, leaving the tree was the right call. A sniper had noticed him and had moved around a little bit to get a good shot at him with his partners making a triangle from the distance. Wilson was in their middle and if he had not gotten down when he did, he would have been only two seconds away from his death.
Wilson's instincts for escaping trouble was seldom wrong. After all, he had had so many experiences that helped train it and also helped him understand his instincts. Right now, he was like a beast in its elements - it's natural habitat. He sensed danger and so, he turned and ran in a random fashion, trusting and relying on his instincts the way the beasts did theirs.
********
Dash slept soundly. It was so long ago since he slept so soundly. For a long time, he had not been able to get a proper sleep; always on edge and with one eye open, metaphorically. He, after all, had to keep both himself and his sister safe. And in the past few days, he had not slept at all. In truth, it took a lot out of him to pretend to be strong around Wilson because he knew that if he showed any weakness, while Wilson might not abandon or turn against him; it will definitely affect morale.
He was already worn out mentally and physically and the scrawny guy just so happened to be the last straw that broke the camel's back.
And so, while Wilson frantically ran around, under the sniffing, 'ready-to-catch-the-mouse' noses of twenty-four bounty hunters, he slept soundly, snoring slightly.
On the screen that Dash used to keep an eye on his little lolita sister, the latter stirred in her sleep. Anaesthesia was wearing off on her and unless Wilson found a way soon or Dash awoke, she would wake up and concurrently alert the woman on the tree she was in and who had the ultrasonic hearing abilities of a bat.