Powerful Friendship, Iron Bond

***Powerful Friendship, Iron Bond*** is a three-part *Ricochet Rabbit and Droop-a-Long* fic set within the *Blazin’ Trails* universe. The fic was written by iheartgod175's friend Vulaan Kulaas, who wrote it for her birthday. It was originally a one-shot before being expanded into three chapters.

## Plot

### Part 1: Breakfast in Bed

Droop-a-Long decides to surprise Ricochet on his day off by making him a large breakfast and serving it to him in bed. While trying to make sure that Ricochet's comfortable, he discovers that the sheriff has a bruised back that he got from getting hurt by an outlaw, but didn't tell Droop-a-Long about. Though Ricochet tries to brush off his injuries, Droop-a-Long refuses to let him go about like this, and Ricochet decides to let Droop-a-Long help him out during his day off.

This was continued in *Ricochet's Day Off*.

### Part 2: Vengeance Will Be Mine

A late night goes wrong when Droop-a-Long finds a feverish Ricochet, crying out for his son. Droop-a-Long tries to help Ricochet get comfortable, but right as he's about to sleep, a group of outlaws break into the office and his older brother, Drag-a-Long Coyote Jr., and his gang enter the room, planning on kidnapping Ricochet. Droop-a-Long struggles to fight back, but due to being sleep deprived he loses the fight and is heavily injured by both Jasper and his brother, who knock him out and run off with Ricochet...

### Part 3: My Brother, My Friend

Droop-a-Long comes to early in the morning, and with the realization that Drag-a-Long and his gang are gone, he picks himself up and hurries after them on horseback, praying that he'll catch them in time. Meanwhile, Ricochet awakes in the back of Drag-a-Long's wagon, learning that he's being taken as a hostage. Despite sassing back to Drag-a-Long a few times, he's worried what Drag-a-Long has in mind for him when he announces that they're heading to Shadybrook.

When Droop-a-Long catches up with them at last, he learns that Drag-a-Long has killed their father, has held his sister hostage alongside Ricochet and has injured them both so they can't escape. Drag-a-Long forces Droop-a-Long to make a choice in killing either Ricochet or Betty, but Droop-a-Long instead shoots his brother, killing him. Droop-a-Long is shattered at having to do so, as despite hating what he did, Drag-a-Long was still his brother. Ricochet, however, stops him from spiraling into depression, telling him that Drag-a-Long would've killed them all even if he had chosen one of them.

A week later after Droop-a-Long buries his father and brother, Ricochet tells Droop-a-Long the reason why he never kills the criminals he catches: When he was fifteen years old, he and his older sister Rose Rabbit were ambushed by a gang while walking to the store. Rose was shot, and Ricochet was beat up by the gang. Infuriated and distraught, Ricochet went after the outlaw who murdered his sister with a rifle and killed him. He came to the realization that taking a life was a serious matter, and from then on, he resolved that when he became sheriff, he'd never kill anyone who angered him or took away his loved ones. Droop-a-Long was shocked that Ricochet had been carrying that secret for years, and apologized for pushing him away the week of his father's and brother's deaths.

## Characters

* **Ricochet Rabbit**
* **Droop-a-Long Coyote**
* **Drag-a-Long Coyote Jr.**
* **Jasper**
* **Drag-a-Long Coyote Sr.**
* **Betty Coyote**
* **Rose Rabbit** (mentioned)
* **Lucky (unnamed and mentioned, first appearance)**

## Trivia

* This is the first special of the *Blazin' Trails* series. As mentioned above, the story was written for iheartgod175’s birthday.
* Several events and characters were pulled from *Blazin' Trails* and were mentioned in this story:
	+ Droop-a-Long snapping and attacking the outlaws from the chapter *Driven to the Edge* comes back as a main plot point, as Jasper, the outlaw who carried out the attack on Ricochet, returns as part of Drag-a-Long's gang.
	+ Ricochet's love of sweets, a major point in *Sugar Junkie*, is briefly mentioned.
* This story makes the first appearances of Lucky (who is unnamed in this story), Droop-a-Long's brother Drag-a-Long Coyote Jr., and Betty Coyote as well as his father Drag-a-Long Coyote Sr.. All four characters later made their way to the *Blazin' Trails* series.
	+ This story also makes the first mention of Ricochet's late sister, Rose Rabbit. His reason for never killing the outlaws he captures eventually migrated over to *Blazin' Trails*.
* Like *If Likin' You Is Wrong and Other Stories*, this story was originally a one-shot before being expanded.
* Before the events of chapters 2 and 3, iheartgod175 wrote a sequel, titled *Ricochet's Day Off*, which follows the same lighthearted tone as the first chapter. Ricochet’s Day Off is intended as a direct sequel to chapter 1 of this special.