Animals on the Run

Normally the nun wouldn't be at the zoo, usually because she kept on getting slammed with paperwork... something that she should have been receiving less of since Aiyanna joined the Paragon ranks, but almost in fact seemed to double! The Fox Spirit was proving to be far more elusive in apprehending for an explanation than she would have liked... but for today she had managed to get ahead of the paperwork and had agreed to escort this little girl that was a new addition to the guild to the zoo to see the animals.

Pein, or Chelvaric, whatever he wanted to be called these days had decided to tag along as well. Maybe he was out here to get ideas for a wedding location? That thought gave Kiersa some pause. How would a wedding ceremony work in a zoo? Maybe he wanted it to take part in one of the animal enclosures? Or was it simply because he's part cat and he thought it would be amusing? What if it was some sort of important part of the ritual he had in mind for the wedding with the Guild Master? Too many questions! No answers!

The blonde nun took in a slow breath before she spotted something odd... and then something missing. The odd thing was a man in a white robe going from enclosure to enclosure with a needle in his hands. The act itself wasn't odd, given that he was probably the zoo's veterinarian. No, the odd thing was that it was being done right in front of the public's eyes... surely such procedures were done in the safety section behind each of the animal's pens? Before she could question it further, her young charge had apparently wandered off and so she went off in search for her. She made a pointed attempt to stay away from the part of the zoo that held the arachnids whilst looking for her junior.

When she found the young pink haired girl, the blonde nun gave a sigh of relief. "It's alright... there are quite a few animals here that are quite fascinating, so its only normal. Just let us know in the future just in case okay?" asked Kiersa with a soft smile before she looked over at the feline cyborg. Before she could speak something felt wrong in the air... almost like there was some form of building pressure. The blonde nun turned her head this way and that, concern growing on her face. Even in the turtle enclosure where the animals weren't particularly boistrous, it felt like it was... too quiet?

She put a hand to her forehead and chuckled softly. "Maybe I've been working too hard and am imagining things." muttered Kiersa to herself before her eyes widened sharply at the sound of a distant scream, followed by several more. There was no mistaking that sound... not ever would she forget those kinds of screams... the screams of fear, of terror... screams that only meant that something was horribly wrong. And in a zoo.... The blonde nun sharply turned on her heel and bolted from the turtle enclosure, heading for the source of the screams as fast as she could. Please don't be him, please don't be him, please don't be him... silently prayed Kiersa as she ran.

Word Count: 551/3300

The member 'JaffaArchfiend' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

'Monster Dice' :

Water was Pouring down from the heavens like a overflowing toilet in that one booth on that crazy good festival you went to when you were young. Nothing was being spared by the bombardment of rain drops. Chelvaric was standing in the midst of this fight between nature and the rain. His naked body being dripping from the rain. He was standing in water as high as his waist. It was really cold but he breath in slow and breath out slow. He used a old technique of the hunters to raise your temperature by coming one with your surroundings. Whenever he breath out he could feel the wind go through the sticks of the reed. His hearing became better through his cat ears. He could hear the heart beats of a couple of birds spread out around him. But this wasn’t a cat hunting a bird. No this was a cat hunting a river shark. They were rare sharks that were found near clover town. which was a place he didn’t had gone too yet. Nothing was as good as hunting in a new area. He pushed the daydreaming out of his head and returned to the business of the day. The hunt was very important to him. it made him calm and it worked very stress relieving.

He breathed out and touched out around him. a vibration went through the water and he felt the vibration coming back from something that was coming at high speed at him. it went faster and faster with each passing second. What were seconds felt as minutes tough. chelvaric calmed his heart down to ten beats a minute. As he was like a stone now he focused on the spot where the shark would jump out. As the seconds passed his muscles tightened. All ready for a jump. He gave off the aura of a predator. Nothing would stop him now. This was a fight on dead between him and the fish. All the rest in the world was turned off. when the shark fin appeared on the top of the water he focused greatly on the spot under neat it. focusing on the fin would only get him killed. All the rest in his eye field became black and the shark became sharp. He moved his left arm in front of him and his right hand a little bit behind him. as the shark finally busted through the surface off the water he turned his left arm away from him. making the shark going for that as he passed chelvaric he stabbed with the knife in his right hand through the stomach of the shark tearing it open as the animal flew past him. the intestines fell out on  the water and the blood poured out. After a few seconds the water was all blood red like a girl on her period that was swimming.  He walked over to the body and ripped the heart out of it. while he was biting in the soft muscle flesh the lightning fell down over the water and his face was lightened up in a grimace covered in blood his azure eyes shining from joy. He felt his cat nature flourishing.

Chelvaric hit his head against the cold metal of a cage in front of him. he cursed as he rubbed the bruise on his head from it. He was back out of his thoughts from yesterday and back into reality. When he was walking for a hot cup of soup this morning ,because he caught a cold from standing in the rain nearly naked for three days, while he was walking he had bumped into this small girl he never met with purple hair and with kiersa a fond friend of chelvaric. He still remembered the exam. In some way you could say she was like a mother to him. he wondered if she would want to give him away since he didn’t had any parents left. Well he had his father but he wouldn’t invite a arch demon to his wedding would he now. Not to mention the dude wanted him dead more then you want those mosquitos dead in the summer. Anyway so this girl wanted  to go to the opening of a zoo. The problem was that chelvaric didn’t even know what a zoo was so he didn’t know what to expect. When he found out It were all wild animals captured in cages he was quite energetic to go. But he had it a bit wrong and was more disappointed now. Instead of fight cages it were just prison cages where you stared at them for hours like you try to find the eleven mistakes between a picture and the animal.
In front of him was a once wild tiger. His red fur being interrupted by stripes of pearl white was beautiful to look at. But the once strong muscles had gone away for fats as he wasn’t used to hunting anymore. He sneezed loud as his nose was still drippy. He shook his head and took out a hanker chief blowing hard in it. which made him miss seeing a rather obscure guy in a lab coat giving the tiger a injection.

When he was done cleaning his nose he turned around and walked to kiersa and the pink haired girl whose name he didn’t remember. It seemed kiersa was scolding her a bit for wandering off. “if you want fascinating animals I’ll take you on one of my hunts. Animals are way better in the wild then these house pets. We should give them a mercy dead before they become old and die without ever having felt the thrill of the hunt.”, chelvaric said while he sniffled his nose. this cold was giving him a fever and a bad nose. ugh he felt terrible. If hikari was here he probably would get a good scolding for going out naked to hunt. Well she would have been right about that. he should have put some pants on. His fever dreaming got interrupted as a loud bang brought him back into reality. People were screaming and running around like headless chickens. He looked around completely confused and  not knowing what was going on. Was a terrorist attack happening here. There were loads of people. “kiersa take the purple headed girl and come after me when you’re ready.”, he was about to say to her but she already ahd ran away to somewhere that he didn’t know. He turned heel and walked to the purple haired girl. “hai I am chelvaric just so you remember my name. follow me and the nun to the danger its time you learn how you fight till death or victory comes.”, he said with a stirm voice and ran after the nun.

1138/3300

Valerie had gently placed a small chestnut on to her mouth when she heard screams and noises come from behind her. Initially, she believed it to be just people going crazy over an animal and didn’t even turn around until Kiersa, one of the two that were taking care of her, ran off with a painful expression. She seemed like she just found something out. And when Eclipse did turn to look at the situation, she saw people running around, some selfishly ran away to save themselves while some helped others along the way. In the middle of it all, Valerie just stood stunned until she heard the other person speak behind her. He asked her to follow him so she could learn how to fight to death. What a weird expression to use. Fight to death, why would anyone do that? She had heard so many people use those words on a number of occasions but it never made sense for the music loving girl. You fight to stay alive, don’t you? Then why do you fight to death? What’s the purpose of that? If you can’t fight to save yourself and the people you care for, then, don’t fight. At least, that’s what she thought at that moment.

But before she could even reply him with her name, he was running past her and deeper into the zoo as well. Her lips formed a thin line after a puff of breath escaped her. Putting the small bag of chestnuts she had gotten away, Valerie followed the two blondes, but instead of running, she walked, carefully moving past the running people that seemed to have no sense of direction. She could hear the words ‘elephant’, ‘gorillas’ and ‘wolves’ but no one finished the sentence they started. Instead, most of them just screamed and shouted, running towards a shelter the zoo officials were pointing them towards. While they appeared calm, she could see the thin sweat running down their foreheads. Something happened that even they were unprepared for; she concluded and finally got to the center of the zoo where she found animals running rampage over the area.

Somehow, they didn’t even look like normal animals. Instead, all of them were....mutated? Was that the word? They looked much fiercer now than they did before and all of these were wild animals. More importantly, in the middle of it all, other cages were being broken and other animals were escaping too. However, the normal ones cowered in sight of the mutated ones and ran away with yelps or soft cries. Not all of the people were safe either. Since it was grand opening and especially since it was free, she had made note that a lot of families had came there to spend a day as a family. With children beside them, they were having a hard time trying to get away.

She, especially, noticed a lady who was pulling on her kid. It was the one that was jumping on her feet a while ago and he seemed to be struck by fear. He didn’t move, didn’t blink and didn’t utter a single word or cry out of fear. Instead, his eyes simply reflected the large wolf towering over him with his mouth wide open in awe, amazement or fear, she wasn’t sure. But before the wolf pounced on him and even before she knew it, Eclipse’s feet were moving on their own and she grabbed both the mother and son before harshly pulling them along with her as she dodged to the side. She threw the two a few feet away when she lost her footing and fell down, but before the wolf could react, Valerie was cart wheeling back to her feet.

Without giving Valerie much of a surprise, it seemed that the cause of everything was the man in a lab coat whom she saw earlier. Well, at least she now knew why he had been suspiciously going from one cage to the other with his face hidden. Once his plan turned out to be a success, he came out from the hiding and started filling the zoo with his loud, obnoxious and maniacal laughter. He was saying something about taking over the world; the usual stuff that people of his mental health liked to talk about. But the laughter was turning from just maniacal to extremely annoying. She had never heard one like that before...

“Savages,” she spoke with a flat tone, raising both her hands up in the air as if to summon something. But instead of forming any magic circle, she started tapping her feet on the ground, repeatedly, soon turning it into a definite rhythm and when the wolf lunged at her again, Eclipse twirled and made a jump, widening her legs in the sky to form a pirouette and landed back on the ground as gracefully as a swan. “Let me teach you the power of music and melodies,” she continued with a small twirl.

Soon, almost out of nowhere, a small tune started playing, it took up a few beats and then the sound of violins started accompanying it. Before anyone could tell what was happening, music was heard in the background with the sound of drums accompanied with violins creating an epic theme fit for any battle. As the animals looked bewildered and whined at the irritating sound next to their ears, Valerie laughed and started tapping her feet on the ground again.

“I wasn’t planning on doing this...but music is always good for a fight, now isn’t it?” she turned to her seniors and grinned. While she knew she could do almost nothing in this fight to aid them, she was determined to not be so useless. The least she could do was give them some music and put them under the mood to fight, correct? Her smile widened at the music picked up in volume, now covering the entire zoo. Most importantly, it also muted the sound of someone’s maniacal laughter.



2012/3300

The blonde nun always wondered what went through the cyborg feline males mind sometimes when it came to other living things. When she came to the source of the screams though she pushed Chelvaric, Pein, whatever he wanted to be called these days, she put his words from her mind for the time being as she surveyed the situation, letting out a slight sigh of relief. "It's not him... just mutated animals running amok." she said, before blinking and smacking her forehead. "It's mutated animals running amok." repeated the blonde nun with a shake of her head before she looked around, nodding as the little girl did her part.

"Keep that up, but change it every so often so they don't get used to it. Animals have a far sharper sense of hearing than humans do." she said before wincing at this next suggestion of hers. "See if you can't work in some of the higher pitches, like the sounds dog whistles make. Try to corral them with the sound so we can contain the amount of damage being wrought around here." suggested the Paragon of Selflessness before she regarded Chelvapein as she was going to mentally call him until she'd sorted out what name he was meant to be using these days.

"You and I will try to take down the animals as quickly as possible, ideally without killing any of them." she said, the last five words with some sternness to them. "Despite what's been done to them they are still innocent in all this. How would you react if you found your body suddenly being altered against your will, and by the looks of things, rather painfully?" she asked of the cyborg before looking ahead at the situation. There was at least one mutated elephant running around, with a small pack of wolves and a couple of gorillas. "Your faster than me, so you take the wolves, I'll handle the elephant. Then we'll meet up for the gorillas." she said before taking in a slow breath and pulling back her sleeve to reveal a small bracelet.

"Garb me in Berenices' Hair! Coma Berenices!" she called out, a shining light surrounding her as her clothing transformed into a new set of robes along with armour across her body. Her hair flowed backwards and self-tied itself into a series of knots, the Sabertooth guild emblem shimmering into existence in the bottom corner of her new robes, almost like she was a living flag for the guild. She looked towards the mutated elephant rampaging around the area. "Stigmata of Flight!" she invoked, golden wings of light bursting forth into existence from her back as she took flight into the sky, blood slowly staining the back of her robes even as her legs hung lifeless beneath her.

Once she'd reached a decent height, approximately one hundred metres and was directly over the elephant, she began to drop like a stone as she dispersed the wings from her person. No doubt she looked absolutely insane for what she was doing, the wind whipping past her person, but at the ten metre mark she yelled out but three words. "Capricorn! Saturn Strike!" Her fist flashed forward towards the back of the mutated elephant, and it seemed that the sigil for Capricorn's constellation flashed around her for a moment. There was a shuddering snap noise and the mutated beast roared out in pain, the blonde nun rising to her feet as she stood on the elephant's back.

This was going to take a little while, thought the blonde nun to herself with a frown. Capricorn's Saturn Strike ability was the strongest one she had access to out of all her Celestial Spirits, but it hadn't been enough to bring down the elephant in the single blow as she'd hoped for. She shook her head and sighed before spreading her hands to her side. "Stigmata of Damocles! Double!" the Sabertooth Paragon invoked, twin blades of divine light erupting from her wrists, the same wrists that now began to bleed out slowly, the blood dripping down through the joints in her armour.

Kiersa would then proceed to literally punch into the mutated Elephant from her vantage point atop the beast, trying to aim for where the muscles that connected to the beasts motor functions should have been... although with the level of mutation it had suffered through, it was amazing that the beast was even capable of coherent movement to begin with. The blonde nun grimaced at the work before eventually the beast fell to the ground bloody and exhausted.

Word Count: 764
Total: 1315/3300 :(

Valerie just plopped down on a bench with a sigh. What started out as a seemingly normal day had turned into something which was never predicted by Valerie herself and that was saying something since Valerie had the ability and genius enough to figure these kinds of things out. But, in the end, she realized that her calculations for that day had gone horribly wrong at the most horrible places. When she woke up that morning and found her two seniors at the guildhall, she simply had the dumb idea to socialize and get to know one of the guild’s ace and guild master’s lover. Alternatively, she also wanted to look into their past at some point and gather more data about them as she had been doing with most people she met. While it wasn’t for anything harmful, her own personal way of data collection made it easier for her to understand someone and then use that little bit of understanding to predict them. So far, she had not done that with these two and some other people that she does not often see around in the guild. But her plans for that day turned into something else entirely because of one mad scientist and one of his experiments at taking over the world.

Speaking of the mad scientist, Valerie’s eyes scanned the area, finding wolves, gorillas and elephants scattered around the place. It finally landed on the familiar white lab coat that she found earlier. The same person that has caused the complete trouble was now standing to a corner, still laughing his heart out. His eyes gleamed with pride for his own work and the empty syringe’s needle let the sunlight run over it like a drop of glistening water. He kept tapping his feet in excitement and as the song Valerie played reached a higher rhythm, he was moving to it too. Seeing this made Eclipse genuinely smirk. So he thought his plan was flawless, didn’t he? She wondered, her chin rising as she glanced down at him from the corner of her eyes. She would have to teach him a lesson herself, Valerie decided before getting up, narrowly avoiding something that came her way which crashed into a pole behind her. When she heard the sound of something breaking, her attention went over to her seniors and the ones who were really fighting the battle. Compared to them, Valerie realized with resentment that she was doing nothing except provide them with some music to set the mood.

For a while, she watched them fight. Kiersa’s dress that flew with the wind, the strength of Capricorn, the agile movements of Chelvaric; they filled the seventeen year old girl with a feeling she had never felt for something or someone in her whole life: Pride. Seeing the two of them move with all their strength, fight with all their strength, and generally give it their all made her feel a warm sensation which she could not completely understand. Had she ever felt like that before? Everything and everyone at Arcadia was a disappointment to Eclipse. Selfish angels, cruel, ignorant gods and people that danced in their palms with no idea of what they were doing. No, she had absolutely nothing or no one to be proud of at Arcadia. There, everyone lived for themselves, fought for themselves and desperately dragged each other for their own selfish selves. No-one saw that the angels were deceiving them and that the Gods have started to amuse themselves with what the angels created. That chaotic world where no one belonged to anyone could never be compared to the guild she now resided in. The change of atmosphere, she didn’t know how to take it but the refreshing change was welcomed. And now, it had even started creating warm feelings inside her that she only got while listening to music. Was that the power of Sabertooth? To change even a complex person such as herself to feel emotions she would usually ignore?

She vaguely felt the corners of her lips lift, forming a small, unnoticeable smile that she hid further by lowering her head. Amidst the crashing sound of magic hitting the hard armor of mutated animals, Valerie slowly walked over to the scientists who had his eyes fixed on the Gorillas. The grin on his lips were incomparable to the small smile on Valerie since it had that ghastly feeling of ambition and greed combined with a deep desire to see everyone hurt. The vices had distorted his face to something inhuman in Valerie’s eyes; something like a real demon. When was the last time she had seen someone like him? Flashes of images rushed into her mind of that person that stood over the tower of Arcadia with his black wings spread above it. The spitting image of Satan himself that she saw in him that day was the same that she now found in this man. Though the person in her memories commanded far greater power, the evil desires stayed unchanged. She could see the same spell in this person’s eyes that she saw then and without another thought, Valerie pulled him by the collar of his lab coat and harshly pushed him back to the railings of some animal’s cage. With a painful oomf, his eyes closed tightly to welcome the pain and then immediately opened it, registering the person in front of him only a few seconds later. Initially, his eyes widened in surprise and then fear rushed in like the cold into his eyes, took over and he began shaking in her hands. “L-Let go of me!” he shouted, blinking towards the mutated animals hopefully. But they were in a battle of their own battle and had no time to spare their creator any help.

“Give me the antidote,” Valerie spoke in a low tone, dragging her hand back from the back of his coat’s collar towards his throat. Seconds later, they closed in and following the sound of something breaking, his hands came immediately over Valerie’s own. They scratched at her fingers that only wound tighter around his neck. Her red eyes narrowed at the struggling man, instantly halting his movements with fear. “Th-the an-antidote…I d-don’t h-ha-have i-it,” his broken sentence made her raise an eyebrow at him. Then, without a word, she dropped the man to the ground before pulling the lab coat off of him. But he struggled, desperately pulled the coat back and almost looked like he was going to die if he handed it over to her, which only made Valerie kick his stomach and pull on the coat harder. Once it reached her hands, she immediately searched the pockets. In the third one, she felt the shape of something like a small medicine bottle and pulled it out. A white serum glared back at her with sunlight streaming through it. “You didn’t have the antidote?” She asked menacingly, making the man cower back even further. “Please don’t!” he started, latching on to her leg. “Please! This is my life’s work! I have worked so hard for it! To destroy all those hypocrites that dubbed my work useless only to use it for themselves! I can’t forgive them! I need that serum to teach them a lesson! Please!” he pleaded with her again and again as a shadow of disgust slowly dawned over Valerie. She did not know what to tell him but his attitude was only sickening. To get back at the people who wronged him by killing other innocent lives? Where was the moral in that? And the light in his eyes that she saw before was nothing that can be justified with those words. There was genuine sadism in them and his words now held none. Picking him up, she pulled him towards the others. “I got the antidote,” she spoke as she pushed her hand out to give it to one of her seniors.
3339/3300 - Complete

The blonde nun sighed as she looked out across the wanton destruction that was being laid waste all around them. All these poor animals rampaging throughout the zoo, their minds and bodies twisted beyond all their recognition... all because of one man's vendetta against the scientific community and others. It was dark moments like this that made her question how it could all come to this. Her fingers rubbed over the ring on her hand, and she took in a slow breath to calm and compose her nerves.

The light would always find a way and prevail. No matter how many challenges, tribulations or depravities the darkness and evil threw at them, they would defeat it. Although, she winced at how some went about doing so, case in point being Chelvaric's means of disposing of their unfortunate enemies. Thankfully there weren't any civilians in the vicinity of his massive attack, or else that would have impacted negatively on all of them, not only as representatives of Sabertooth, but also as mages themselves.

The blonde nun looked to the girl and nodded her head as she accepted the antidote. "Let's get this spread to the animals as quickly as possible, before any more casualties are incurred." said the Sabertooth's Paragon of Selflessness as she peered at the vial in her hand. She looked around at the surrounding area, grimacing slightly. "There's not enough here for all the animals, and I'm not sure what would be the right dosage for each of them..." she said before looking at it once more. The blonde nun sighed before she popped open the lid. "Nothing for it... this is going to hurt, a lot." she said with a grimace. She looked to her two companions.

"I'm going to need you two to guard me... and if need be restrain me. I'm not sure what the result of this is going to be... I'm going to try and use a mass healing spell I know to spread this antidote to all the animals in the zoo." the blonde Paragon explained before she frowned. "But, to use my healing magic, I take a portion of what's hurting the patient unto myself... and since they were all mutated by this man's virus..." explained Kiersa before she downed the antidote. "The effects will only be temporary, but I will be unable to take any action afterwards whilst I recover. I'm sorry in advance if either of you are hurt." she said before she went down on her knees and clasped her hands together.

Her whole body began to glow with a yellow holy light that then started to pulse out around the area, each pulse spreading out wider and wider throughout the zoo. Kiersa's eyes began to bleed out as her magic got to its work... so far so normal for her magic... but then the affliction began to take effect on her body. An earth-rending cry split from her lips as her whole body began to shudder in intense pain, her insides feeling like they were on fire and freezing all at the same time. Her bones began to extend and protrude from her flesh, ripping through her clothes in various places, her nails stretching out into talons, even as her slim frame began to twist and expand as her muscles grew larger and twisted.

Her head tilted back as she continued to scream in pain, the mutations torturing her body even as the animals all around them slowly returned to their original normal selves. And yet still she persisted in casting her healing spell, its energies spreading out across the zoo, taking the wounds from the injured civilians, and giving them to the blonde screaming nun as well. All across her grossly mutating body cuts and burns and gashes began to form, her screams soon becoming silent as her throat wore itself out from the sheer pain of it all. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and soon she fell to the floor completely unconscious, her spell ending with her descent into darkness.

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Word Count: 679

Total: 1994/3300