Night had fallen and the herd where doing their best to sleep, but let's just say that it's hard to sleep when there are a bunch of hungry sabers looking at you. Now after hearing about Louis escaping, Roark had decided to change the living arrangements and separated the herd into smaller groups with teams of sabers watching them closely because he thought that having his pack so spread apart would lead to some of them. Manny, Ellie, Sid, Crash, Eddie and Shira were in a group being watch by Zeke, Oscar, Lenny and Rico. Manny was lying down with Ellie, still very worried about their daughter, Sid was worried about Granny, Peaches was worried about Louis and Shira was worried about Diego, basically it there was a lot of worrying going on. The sabers were getting anxious, especially Zeke, but I guess anyone would be if they were a hungry carnivore next to a whole herd of meat.
"Okay I'm starving; can I just have one herbivore?" He asked.
"No, Roark's orders." Rico said.
"Oh come on, at least let me eat a beaver or something, at this point I'll eat anything, I'll even eat a rat if one's available." Zeke ranted.
"Quit your complaining and wait, the second we get Diego you can maul all the little animals you want." Rico said annoyed.
"You know the more we wait, the worse he's going to get." Oscar said.
"Shut up." Rico said.
The herd sat there and watched as the sabers argued. Shira was watching, but then seeing them fight gave her an idea, a very interesting yet crazy idea.
"Hey guys I think I have a plan to get us out of here." She said.
"Really, what is it?" Manny asked.
"Okay, now this may be a crazy idea, but maybe if I distract them, then we can sneak out and find Diego." She said.
"What are you going to do?" Ellie asked.
"I'm going to use a little girl power." She said.
Ellie was little confused at her statement, but before she could say anything, Shira walked over to the feuding sabers.
"Can you honestly just sit there and tell me that being around all this meat is not driving you crazy?" Zeke asked.
"Yes." Rico retorted.
Before Zeke could make a comeback Shira came up to them to put her plan into action.
"Hello boys." She said in a flirtatious tone.
The sabers stopped fighting and looked at her and they weren't really annoyed as surprised by her greeting.
"Look, I know you guys have orders to watch over us, but maybe we can try to reach a compromise?" She asked.
The other three were confused about what was going on, but Rico was the only one talking.
"Listen, this isn't a negotiation, now get back with the others." Rico ordered.
Shira knew that she needed to put in a little more effort in order for her plan to work. So she got a little closer than Rico was comfortable with.
"Please, there has to something I can do change your mind?" She asked.
As she said that she gave a flirtatious look that made Rico sweat. The other three saw this and decided to step in.
"Well…uhh, I." Rico stammered, but was interrupted by Oscar.
"Please excuse my friend here but he seems to be a little tongue tied so if you want to talk to anyone, talk to me." Oscar said with a cocky grin on his face.
"Well you seem like a nice guy to talk to." Shira said.
"Whoa, whoa forget him, talk to me, I can be very pleasant in conversations." Zeke butted in.
"Oh yeah, because everyone wants to hear you go on and on about mauling." Lenny said.
"Hey I believe the lady was talking to me." Rico said.
"Oh you wish buddy." Oscar said.
"You want to start something?!" Rico asked.
"Don't start anything you can't finish!" Oscar threatened.
"Please guys let's not fight." Shira said as innocent as she could but had a sly smile on her face.
"Who's fight, I'm not fighting." Oscar said.
"Yeah because you're a wimp." Rico retorted.
"You are this close to having my claws in your haunches." Oscar said holding two claws close to each other.
As the four sabers started to argue, the others were looking at them very perplexed.
"What the heck is going on?" Manny asked.
"Why are they fighting?" Sid asked.
"And why was Shira flirting with them?" Eddie asked.
"Maybe she's trying to convince them to let us go." Crash said.
"Well it looks like it's not working." Eddie stated.
Ellie looked towards Shira who was standing near the sabers and while they were busy fighting she looked over to the others and then she started nudging her head to the right while looking at Ellie. She was confused at first, but Shira just kept nudging her head with a little more emphasis and then Ellie finally understood.
"She's distracting them." She said.
"What?" Manny asked.
"She's distracting them so we can sneak away." She explained.
Manny looked at Shira and realized that Ellie was right; the sabers were so busy fighting with each other that they aren't paying attention to them.
"You're right, ok let's move." Manny said.
The group then slowly started to sneak away from the sabers, the moved real carefully so that they don't draw attention to themselves. Sid was up front and was moving as quietly as he could, he turned his head around and saw that the sabers were still fighting which made him smile.
"Looks and those stupid cats, they think they're so tough and smart but they don't know that they just got fooled by a bunch of herbivores." He whispered.
Unfortunately he turned around and in front of him were a set of eyes that he was all too familiar with. Roark was standing right in front of him growling which made Sid stop in his tracks.
"Going somewhere?" Roark asked with a growl.
Sid screamed at the top of his lungs and the others were shocked to see Roark standing there. Roark looked at them, and then at the others fighting and got really annoyed.
"Stop Fighting!" He roared.
The four stopped instantly and got a little scared at Roark's expression.
"Why are you idiots fighting when I specifically told you to watch them?" He asked threateningly.
The four looked at each other trying to come up with an answer.
"Well!" Roark shouted which made everyone flinch.
"Well sir we were talking and the female saber wanted to negotiate about releasing the hostages." Rico tried to explain clearly terrified.
"You morons can't you see that she was distracting you so that the others could sneak away." Roark explained.
They didn't respond they just looked around to avoid having to look at his angry face.
"Evidently not." He said.
He turned his attention away from them and focused on the group of herbivores trying to get away.
"Now all of you get back there and stay put or otherwise we'll be serving up the kids for breakfast." He threatened.
Manny and Ellie were shocked at his statement and knew that as long as he had their daughter, than he had all the leverage. So they slowly stepped back to their original spot.
"And you four keep watch, any more screw ups and these herbivores aren't going to be the only slabs of dead meat around here, understand." He threatened.
They nodded their heads saying that they understood and went back to their posts. Shira went to join to join the others but she was intercepted by Roark.
"And as for you I must say it was very clever using flattery as a weapon to distract them." He said.
"It's one of my many talents." She said.
"But if you think that your little schemes are going to save you and your friends, you are sadly mistaken." He said.
Shira looked away for a second, but then she looked back at Roark with defiance in her eyes.
"You know your plan won't work, Diego will realize what's going on and he's going to take you down." She said.
"Oh well see about that kitty." He said.
Shira almost jumped at him when he said that, she doesn't let anyone call her that except Diego, because when he does it she knows he's just teasing her and he also says it with a hint of sweetness in his voice, although she wouldn't admit that to him. But she restrained herself because she was outnumbered, outmatched and they were holding the others hostage. She growled at Roark and walked past him towards her friends, but before she got far, he called out.
"And one more thing, if you wanted any form of attention from a male, you should have talked to me, because I would have loved to give it to you." He said with a smirk.
His remark sent chills down shira's spine and she walked back to the others.
"Sorry you guys." She said.
"Hey don't beat yourself up." Ellie said.
"Yeah you did your best." Manny said.
"Umm guys, what do we do now?" Sid asked.
"I don't know." Manny said.
Meanwhile just outside the valley, Diego, Louis and Granny had made it and were behind some trees. Diego was surveying the area and he didn't like the situation, there were many sabers on patrol, he turned back to Louis and Granny.
"How is it?" Louis asked.
"Not good." Diego said.
"Well what do we do?" Louis asked.
"I'm not sure." He said.
They both just thought for a second, but then Diego got an idea.
"Wait, you said these guys were waiting for me?" He asked.
"Yeah, they believe that you're coming back in the morning." Louis explained.
"Well maybe, just maybe we can use that to our advantage." Diego said.
"You're making less sense than I do." Granny said.
"Listen, I have plan that just might work, but Louis we're going to need a lot of a digging." He said.
"What did you have in mind?" Louis asked.
They all huddled together as Diego told them about his plan that may end up saving the entire herd, all the while Diego was thinking to himself.
"Hang on Shira, I'm coming."