After luckily managed to escape from the Herd's capture, Peaches moved to the hills of the Herd Valley for an easy shortcut to the center. The hills area were extremely coarse, with harsh climates and rough edges on the tracks, the skies were overall cloudy and snowstorms were 24/7. She had quite a hard time navigating through.
Suddenly the mammoth just screeched and screamed at nothing. It turned its head down to the ground as it tried to resist something in its mind. Perhaps the real Peaches woke up herself again? The mammoth even struggled to maintain balance while standing, something seems to be happening inside it, as the icicle on its back fiercely glared out beams of light.
It lasted for a few minutes, until the mammoth stopped itself from struggling.
"Hahah...HaheheHAHAHAHAAHA!"
It then looked up to the sky and hysterically laughed with a creepy ghost-like sharp tone like a deranged creature (somewhat like the ligerings in the voice of sirens). It's eyes are no longer dead-open like the last times, but now it can blink and it has directions and emotions. The icicle violently misted out frost breeze on her back, and then just got on the move again to Herd Valley.
-•-
"In order to keep all of you safe, We might have to put this place on clampdown. You might wanna start hiding in your homes and tightly block all entrances, prepare for the worst and hope for the best." Manny calmly announced after explaining everything to the animals, as they looked around and talked to each other, feeling concerned about the situation.
"What happens if you guys don't make it out alive?!"
"I don't want to die, I still have my kids to take care of!"
"There's gotta be a way for us to like run away or something!"
As the animals gave out their thoughts to the Herd. Manny had one final thing to say about it.
"I know you guys are worried, and you all wanted to survive, even us…"
He took a deep breath before giving out his speech.
"You can do one thing for us, help us set up an ambush on her when she comes. If this works to plan, we might save her and defeat the spirit all at once. What do you say?"
The animals looked around once again, but this time something seemed to be sparking on the animals that made them smile a bit. They looked at the Herd in belief as they shouted "YES!"
"We can all help you stop this catastrophe!"
"We are all into this,"
"Okay, maybe we can help before hiding…" the animals proudly made their decisions to help the Herd.
The Hyrax's leader, Fuzzy, made a dance to Sid as a way to say "YES" and they once again used berries as war paint.
"Alright then, we might need to start working now, time is running out pretty fast!"
The animals cooperatively work together to set up the place they would be luring Peaches into, they chopped trees, tied vines, and made hiding spots for the animals and setups for ambush, as Roshan led the building team, Manny and Julian gathered resources for the buildings and setups. While gathering wood, Manny noticed a little squirrel under his foot, begging for something as it tried to catch its breath.
It was Scrat, he was begging Manny for him to take the acorn on top of the mammoth down to him. Upon seeing the simple request that the saber-toothed squirrel asked for, he used his trunk to take the acorn down and gave it to Scrat.
Scrat was so happy that he finally earned it, and Manny earned the trust from the little squirrel.
Buck, Crash and Eddie checks for anomalies in the weather, the temperature and the scenery for any clues about Peaches. Diego and Shira were assigned as scouts, while Ellie and Sid advised people to keep calm. They were working well together, everything went well to schedule and within no time they finished everything for preparation.
"Well done guys, we appreciate your help!" as Ellie gave them a thanks on supporting them.
"Now leave the rest on us, we have important things to do." Manny exclaimed, he looked around everyone in the crowd of animals for the last time before going into position. Everyone wished them good luck on this last resort plan.
"I hope you're all stacked on food!" Sid gave the animals his last advice, like everyone else.
"Sid, you know you don't want to get them all worried" Ellie told Sid to actually say something posititve to uplift the animal's mental state,
Listened to the Herd. Everyone eventually went on lockdown, keeping their home, whether it's a cave, or a nest, protected carefully as secure as possible. While the Herd prepared for the encounter, hoping that it's the last one.
They ended up resting at their own designated spots as night falls, eating, training, or simply just playing for a better mood were the things that they did last night as they try not to pressure themselves. Buck was sharpening his knife, silently whispering something to Rudy. Crash and Eddie practice their sword skills. Roshan was checking his tools and items. Julian was laying down somewhere comfortable alone looking up to the starry sky, he really missed Peaches after days without her. Manny and Ellie talked about things before the faithful day tomorrow.
"I really hope things will be over soon." Manny murmured as they sat near the fire camp. Thinking about the possibilities tomorrow.
"I don't want our daughter to fall into the hands of that thing! It's too dangerous to even exist."
"Well, Manny, If we managed to end things either in a good way or a bad way, just remember that we did our best, and we had a very good run for years and seasons, as a herd together with the ones we cared and loved for." Ellie tried to motivate Manny. He just smiled as they looked at each other and locked trunks together.
"Tomorrow is going to be a rough, long day. We should get some sleep." Manny told his wife to keep themselves ready for things tomorrow.
Scrat, after trusting Manny from his deed, decided to just set his acorn near him and slept beside the Herd.
-•-
Peaches made it close to the center of the valley, as she wandered into the place where Ellie once set their wedding anniversary with her daughter. Peached just looked around and continued to slowly walk. This place seemed familiar to her in a special way.
She suddenly heard a noise from the bushes.
Curious, she came to check what's inside, while her surroundings were completely dead quiet. She started to take notice of what was going on. She turned around, and saw vines coming from multiple directions.
The vines pinned Peaches down as the Herd charges out, She screeched and screamed at them, as icicle instantly launched in countless directions. She was directly in the ambush planned by the Herd.
"I got it! I got it!"
Sid managed to climb up her back, but before he could even put his hands onto the icicle, Peaches broke from her bonds and knocked the sloth off, she summoned her spear and her thrust barely missed the sabers running around her, this made the sabers retreat, pulling Sid away as the possum brothers charged up, with their swords drawn they blocked the incoming icicles at them by parrying. Roshan firmly loaded his bow from the bushes. Julian had a hard time moving closer to her because the incoming barrage of icicles went all out on his shield.
"Whoever pulls that icicle out gets to be 'big' brother!" Eddie mocked Crash as they swiftly dashed into Peaches, with the only objective to pull the icicle out from their beloved niece.
"Hey, you got a head start, that's not fair!" Crash immediately came up with reasons to prove that it's unfair to do so.
Peaches stomped down, creating a cluster of ice which knocked one possum down, as Crash mocked his fallen brother he boosted himself up from the cluster high into the air, freeing himself from the line of firing icicles. Thought that he was clear, he dove down straight down into the icicle, in order to remove it.
That was what he thought, until a hidden glowing icicle appeared behind Peaches that he didn't notice came through him, hitting him in the abdomen, and pinned him into the tree next to her.
"CRASH!" Eddie called his name in horror after noticing him being pinned straight into a tree, everyone turned their eyes on the possum. He was bleeding, and his eyes started to dilate a little. His breathing was getting harder, as he struggled around.
Everyone was shocked, Peaches just came near and gently lifted the dying possum with her trunk, as it looked at her with its eyes covered in fear and pain. She just giggled at it, and replied with a ghostly disturbing tone, which to the Herd's surprise, she had never did that before.
"Hello, little guy…" She looked at it with muderous intentions, as a clear grin was clearly forming on her face.
Something was off the plan after the Herd heard what she just said.
"Wait, you can talk?!" Manny asked in disbelief when Buck immediately added in bad news for the team.
"NO! WE ARE LATE!" Buck shouted, as he knew that they may already lost before they even fought.
END OF PART 7