Someone else might have been fooled by the illusion, but not Pluto. The silence that followed the tiger's arrival wasn't respect, but a timer that ticked down towards doom. Pluto could see the movements in the beasts' heat signatures, the coiling in their muscles like overwound springs. And these springs, were preparing for a coordinated attack.
Pluto knew that if that happened, they wouldn't be main power players anymore, for unfortunate victims caught in the crossfire. Without warning, he took out an oversized dagger – a weapon that had gotten half-broken in his fight with the rhino– and hurled it at the tiger with everything he had left.
Saul's eyes widened, but asking Pluto why would take longer than snuffing his life out would. Pluto's strike hadn't just been a throw, but lighting a bonfire on a bomb. The tiger boomed forward as if it was skipping frames in reality, instigated by Pluto's seemingly witless act. In the same motion, he spun back and grabbed Saul, prompting him to sprint towards the exit too.
In an instant, the collosal tree exploded with the brutality of hundreds of predators clashing into the tiger with thousands of tonnes of force. The kinetic shockwave that followed almost tipped him off his feet, spreading out into the ancient threads of the tree. The sound of carnage chased them as they dove out from the hollow boughs of the giant green and into the darkness. The dim ember radiance of their fire grew smaller and smaller, like an actively cropping photo.
Despite his horrible state of body and worse of mind, Pluto found him moving with surreal speed. Per standards of the forest quality, he was quite average, but in the regular world, he was a lesson on extraordinary anatomy. Saul moved in and grabbed Pluto's shoulder, his eyes flickering for a bit with the fear of what the corrupted mark could do to him upon contact. He shrugged it off– it hadn't killed Pluto, so it definitely wouldn't kill him.
He exhaled deeply, then let his eyes fall closed. And then the world vanished. Pluto had experienced Saul's teleportation before, but then he had been unaware and almost dying. Now, he felt every bit of sensory detail as he body was pulled into a void, disassembling and reassembling in a heartbeat. One moment he had been plunged half-step into a muddy puddle, and the next, he was twenty metres ahead, running over a field of disheartened twigs. His mind choked for a moment under the influence of two environments, trying to together a new one from the pieces it cut. Vertigo knocked into him like a speeding train. He suddenly felt pity for Saul, now knowing what he had to endure each time he used his ability in battle so casually.
They kept running, the realisation that the feud wouldn't last for long fueling their strides. The predators had been after the tiger in the first place, and they had only changed focus to it out of momentary spite. They would still chase the pulse sooner or later. But with the eel's guidance, they would at least gain good ground. It tugged on Pluto's arm, using the radar it had always since they had began their forest journey. Cooler means danger, warmer safe. Of course Pluto knew their was something deeper going on, this was his best interpretation.
Saul followed Pluto without question, put his trust in Pluto's perception. Pluto had already proven himself once, so there was no need for Saul to hesitate. In the distance, sounds filtered through, vaguely resembling something more deteriorate than war. Something of a much much larger scale than their own. Pluto saw the heat signatures blurry, and among them, was one strangely familiar. And no matter how he tried, it was still lost on him.
But he shrugged it off eventually. Right now, concentration was key. A few hundred metres behind them, the faint rustle intensified into a cryptic chorus, signalling that the dispute was over and the predators had returned to their original attraction.
Through the locks of mist, Pluto caught sight of the tiger's sprinting figure, its heat pattern brighter than the rest. To be fair, some didn't even have heat patterns. It attacked the stampeding hoard, receiving bombardment but lashing it out in equal measure. Still, the on-the-go scuffles slowed its pace down. It was extremely powerful, but not invincible.
They pushed faster through the mist, trees passing by in a slideshow manner. The eel's prompts were now severely warped; jagged and quick, so much as to make Pluto second-guess his reads of it. Nevertheless, it was all that kept a line of distance between them and their hunters.
Pluto felt reality around Saul bend again. But unlike before, this wasn't the forest reacting to him, but his own scarce spirit seeping out into the air. He was preparing for a huge jump, one that would put enough distance between them and the apparitions of hatred for a few moments to catch their breaths.
And buy some more minutes of suffering life.