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 Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 7:13 pm
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Apsalar looked up at John when he sighed. She waited patiently through the silence, but she knew John would know better than to think she had forgotten her question. She was just waiting for him to find the answer, as he always did eventually.
When he met her eyes, Apsalar took the cues of his body language and the words that didn't always need to be spoken to be understood. Since the words weren't coming, she listened to what he didn't say.
And she smiled a little.
Maybe she didn't understand all the words, but the pack didn't need them. Not always.
"I believe you," was all she said in reply as she reached up to take his hand and stand up, but her expression gave him the rest of the story. Friendly concern. Worry. Hope. A little bit of fear. A little bit of something else - something so elusive that it didn't quite have a name yet, not even to Apsalar. Trust.
Most of all, there was trust.
Fanning out her dark wings briefly to get the dust and the sand off them, she glanced out at the water. How much longer could they stay here?
Closing her wings again and slinging her hoodie absent-mindedly over her arm, she let go of John's hand gently and looked up at the stars. Apsalar had never tried to reach those stars. She'd been told that it wasn't possible - that her wings would never carry her in flight. Though it had always made her sad, she'd believed it.
Now she wondered a little.
"John? What does it feel like to fly?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 9:04 pm
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Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2011 10:33 am
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Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 1:53 pm
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"What does it feel like to fly?" John repeated, looking over Apsalar again and wondering about her question. For a moment, he felt torn and guilty. Of course she didn't have those memories of falling, flying, soaring diving, the wind against your face and past your ears, in your feathers... John did. He knew what that freedom was like. He knew, from years stuck inside a cage, he knew what confinement meant, what it was like to be taunted by freedom.
But he had also known total freedom, to be unhindered by obstacles and breathe only the freshest, topmost layer of oxygen. Apsalar, like so many of his other packmates, did not. And yet, she had wings. This was the cause for his guilt; she had wings, and still had not flown.
"Flying is..." he began, thinking about all the things it was, and not knowing how to put them into words. Again, his eyes showed her what exactly it was like. Absolute freedom. An amount of risk and adrenaline when diving.
Pure joy.
"It's..." he searched in his mind, eyes drifting to the corners of his eyes as he sought for the perfect word and, eventually, found it. A somewhat puzzled smile lifted the corners of his mouth. He had surprised himself that it was so simple and so perfect. "Freedom." He nodded to himself, smile growing broader as he locked eyes with Apsalar and repeated it. "Flying is freedom."
A wild notion appeared to him then, like a bomb in his brain: all of a sudden. He imagined himself helping Apsalar fly. No, that wasn't right. Apsalar was flying, soaring beside him.
He looked at her, then tilted his head. Would she be able to? "Wanna give it a try?" he asked, surprised that the words had come so easily. He didn't want to get her hopes up, but he was already hoping enough for her and him both.
------
There wasn't anything wrong with Neo that Sam could see. Until, that was, he started growing again. Sam stood up suddenly, crouched into a position like that of a cat, and bared his teeth--purely instinctual. The mastiff DNA inside of him reacted to a potential threat, seeing his friends and family--Yani--in danger by this boy.
His practical mind, however, fought for clarity. Yani's hand was still on his son's shoulder. Obviously, the scientist didn't think he was in danger, and he was usually correct. Adding to the confusion was the face that Neo was still immature, a kid, a youngling, which was someone that Sam felt naturally inclined to protect. Hearing a child's voice in the body of a rapidly maturing teenager set Sam's senses reporting varying information to a confused cortex.
In his moments of indecision, Sam's hair deepened from the blue color it had worn and turned, instead, to a deep black color, as though it had been dyed recently.
Yani moved between Sam and his son, a very uncharacteristic move from the usually-cool, detached scientist. He seemed about to say something, but he noted Sam's indecision and instead switched his focus to Bucadu, knowing she was the one to worry about if even Sam seemed to be losing focus.
In the corners of his eyes, he could see TAIS's motion-activated tranquilizer guns moving with the technological grace of snakes against the wall, a few aiming at Sam, a few aiming at Bucadu, just in case. He knew from having installed them himself that the tranquilizers would kill anyone else but Sam and his twin, and possible Hiccadu in the unlikely event that they missed.
------
Aiyana was stirring. Doctors swarmed around her bed, taking her pulse, measuring her breathing and her blood pressure. Though Yani hadn't said a word about her since his son had been born, they assumed it was more than their jobs were worth to allow her to die.
Thanks heavens she had a bit faster healing capacities than ordinary people.
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Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 10:18 pm
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Apsalar listened while he spoke, her eyes faraway. Freedom. This, what they had, was not freedom. She had thought that for a while, but now she knew differently. Freedom was not only being free in your body, able to go where and do what you liked, though that was a part of it. It was also being free in your mind. Not having to look over your shoulder, not having to fear that one day someone was coming because you hadn't been quick enough, stealthy enough, careful enough. They had escaped from the slaughterhouse, but they would never know freedom. Not until the day Yani Vent died and took his miserable son - and his computer - with him.
But despite her sorrowful thoughts, she'd watched his eyes. She listened to the words, but she watched the eyes because the eyes and the face and the body told her more than the words ever could.
When he asked the question, she was still a little startled. "I...Fly?" She looked behind her quickly, as though thinking he might have been talking to someone else - even though there was no one else he could possibly have been talking to. She looked back at him, wrapping her hoodie around her arm as the hem of the brown top fluttered gently in the slight wind rising from the ocean.
Her eyes were full of grief and a long-hidden pain. "When I was still very young, they told me that I could not," she said softly. "Well, they did not tell me. They told him in front of me. They said I would never fly, that I would never be capable of it no matter how much they made me exercise the wings. So they stopped allowing me to try." She looked past him, out towards the horizon. "They never said why not."
The dark vulture wings opened again as she stretched them to feel the wind. When she finally turned to look back into his eyes, there was a stubborn set to her mouth that suggested she had started to hope. "But they were wrong about so much else, they could be wrong about this." She took a slow breath.
"I want to try."
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2011 8:10 pm
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Now they were at the point where John wasn't quite sure how to proceed. Then the idea occurred to him.
He rustled his feathers a bit to make sure his wings had room to spread and wouldn't get caught on his shirt, then held them out behind him, slightly extended so the wind didn't drag him along the shore. "It's going to be a bit harder with all the wind," he commented, frowning. "But first try to... Ever flown a kite? The fabric with the string attached?" he asked her while gesturing with his hands, searching his memory for times when he'd seen her doing so. There were kites in the beach house, but no memories came to mind. "Try to catch the wind in your wings, like a kite or a sail." He held his wings out, feeling the wind cut past or through his feathers before, as he adjusted to the wind's direction, the wind blew them back which such force that he toppled over onto the sand.
He landed on his back, hair full of sand, and stayed there, dazed for a while. Before he realized it, laughter began shaking his body, gradually growing louder. He hadn't done any of that in days. It felt amazing. He quieted down and started to stand, then looked at Apsalar and, for no apparent reason, started laughing again. His shoulders shook, and he doubled over, clutching his sides. Between breaths, you could almost make out the few words he spoke. "Maybe... not... that much," he panted, still caught in a fit of giggling.
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 12:28 pm
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((I'm alive, I promise. I just forget is all. >.>))
Bucadu's face was hard - hard and cruel with a visible scowl on her pretty little face. She didn't move from where she sat on her knees next to Sam, and the gears in her head were impossible to see move as her gaze switched from Neo, to Sam, up to Yani, then back to Neo again.
"I'm mad because you're just one more thing for Grand-dad Yani to devote his attention to instead of me!" She snapped. If Yani hadn't known Bucadu was an insanely jealous creature, he surely would now. She wasn't threatened by the boy's constantly changing shape - the unstable nature that he carried. Her own safety didn't matter. Sam was with her - right next to her. No matter what happened, he would be there. "Look at you - you're just a baby! You can't protect him! Can't protect yourself! Until you learn how you're useless! Why does Grand-dad Yani even like you?! Why is he even proud of you?!" Because that's what it was, wasn't it? That swelling in Yani's chest whenever he spoke of Neo? That little sparkle in his eyes whenever he told others of his 'son'? He never looked like that when he talked about her! He never did that when he told people about her!
She was beginning to cry with frustration and jealousy and her lack of understanding. Her tears were black, dripping with a poisonous acidic that - while not affecting her - would burn holes in concrete. They made black streaks - like war paint - line her face.
"What's so special about YOU?" She demanded furiously, waving her arms about. She knew she was angry, was upset. But she had no idea what to do with this nervous, insane energy.
Her form seemed to blur, shifting for a moment, before reverting back to her clearly human shape. Her true form was fighting to get out, but Bucadu's natural conscience was fighting it back.
For answers, she turned to Yani.
"I thought you loved me!" She exclaimed. "I thought you loved us!" Sam and her. Of course he would be included. He was a part of her. They were one. "Are you not satisfied?!" She demanded of Yani. "Are we not good enough?!"
Somebody had better do something to quell her rapidly-growing rage - and fast.
-----
Hiccadu, from a window, dully watched John and Apsalar try to fly on the beach. This life of isolation and secrets was getting annoying.
And because not a single Chimera in the party thought of her as a friend or even trusted her, she was constantly alone. That thorn in their sides that everyone wanted to get rid of but no one could. She rolled her eyes.
Well, I'm happy to at least be a nuisance in my time here.
She didn't understand it. TAIS had every opportunity to go to the beach house and recapture all of them. Why hadn't she done so already?!
Rolling her eyes again, she looked upwards towards the sky.
Maybe she's got better things to do.
Maybe she's forgotten me.
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 1:00 pm
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Little Neo started to cringe in fear, his development rapidly increasing in speed. Right before their eyes, he grew larger and older looking, and the whole time he was scared, crying and scared; shaking. The sounds of bones breaking, or more accurately, growing, sounded forth. Neo cried and covered his head to try and hide from Bucadu, but it wasn't enough. He started muttering...his voice cracking as it matured and deepened little by little. As his voice matured it got louder. And soon his muttering became coherent words that would no doubt surprise Yani. "Mommy...I want my mommy....protect me mommy....mommy...I want to be with you again....Mommy. I want my mommy..." and he just kept repeating the words. He croched down and covered his head. His clothes straining to stay together as his growth stretched them. in a few short moments he finished growing, but not entirely. the sounds of bones cracking kept being heard, and suddenly two gashs on his back opened and two incredibly large bat like wings extended out of them. He stayed right where he was and kept muttering over and over again that he wanted his mother; begging her to protect him, begging for her to be there.
Then he stopped shaking and glared right at Bucadu right directly in her eyes, and while crying answered, "I don't know...I Don't know! And I Don't want to know! Why do you have to be so mean!?" and then neo covered his head again and his wings wrapped around him. He was trying to hide from her.
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 9:06 pm
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Yani listened to this exhalation of rage with a passive expression, but he feared for his son's safety now. It seemed Neo was growing quickly indeed, almost too rapidly to be healthy, but he didn't have the experience or the mindset to be able to protect himself, as Bucadu had said. Bucadu had been built for aggression and power, and Sam had been built to stop it (although that was looking rather unlikely at the present). Neo was only a day or so old, despite his appearance.
But, because Yani could do nothing but try to quell his creation's anger, he stood and listened. He didn't answer Bucadu's questions, because he knew they were rhetorical and any answer would only fuel her rage.
------
Awake in her hospital bed, Aiyana felt something stirring deep within her, an instinct she hadn't previously possessed. Where is Neo...?
------
John helped Apsalar keep her wings steady as she fought to exercise her muscles in the fast wind of the open shore.
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 9:53 pm
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((OOC: Sorry. Was lazy.))
Apsalar gave him a funny look. She had never flown a kite. She didn't even think she knew what a kite was. But she got the general idea from the way he gestured with his hands. She opened her wings again - and promptly snapped them shut when she watched John go tumbling into the sand. "John?" she asked, horrified, as she hurried to see if he was all right.
But when he started giggling, she paused, confused, and looked at him for a minute. That might have had something to do with his second fit of laughter, though Apsalar had no idea of that. All she could tell was that it didn't seem that he was hurt.
Cautiously, she approached him. Once he got up again, she turned towards the wind and opened her wings. Moved them up and down the way that she had seen John do. It was hard - the wind was pushing her around a lot, and making her wings move against the wind was--
"Ah!"
The wind caught under her wings. They flapped a few times in frantic confusion, but that didn't help to slow her down - in fact, it seemed to encourage the wind to catch her more firmly and yank her up off her feet and into the air.
"Wait, I--!"
She didn't know what to do. Struggling to keep from panicking as the wind pulled her along like an excited child dragging a favourite stuffed toy, she looked to John for help.
Then she looked down and realized that she was being dragged towards the water.
Oh s**t--
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Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 8:45 pm
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"OH!" Bucadu exclaimed, stomping her foot. "Will you stop crying already?! You're not helping the situation at all!" She lifted up her foot. "You big fat baby!"
Yes, she was certainly one to talk.
She gave Neo's wings - and thus Neo - a solid kick, the force enough to knock the young, rapidly growing child clear onto his back.
"I hate you! What good will you do your family, crying and bawling like that?! You worthless little brat!" Then she looked upwards at Yani, and scowled at him. Then, with striking clarity, she stated, "Grandfather, I think I hate you. It's stupid to have children you don't want."
Angrily, with a whirl of her braided pigtails, she stormed off, faint clouds of purple toxic gas issuing from her pores and rising up into the air to eventually gather at the peak of the clear dome above them.
She didn't wait for Sam to follow her. She knew he always did - that's why he was made for. That's what both of them were made for.
Still crying with black tears streaking down her face, she made her way sulkily across the green lawn.
------
Hiccadu, as she watched the lesson, saw Apsalar begin to get dragged out to see. She half-leaped up from where she lounged against the counter, but stopped herself.
Wait. Wait and see what he does.
She hated water. But she knew that if John couldn't save her, she would probably have to.
Idiot, trying to teach her to fly in such strong winds like these.
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Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 12:32 pm
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Neo was quiet for a moment as he lay there, shocked that she had kicked him. Then he slowly started crying again and climbed to his feet. He stood, hunched over; crying, his wings drooping against the ground. Then he lifted his wings and retracted them. "I'm NOT Worthless...I'm just different from you." then he stood up straight and raised his arms above his head, fists clenched, and slammed his fists down on the concrete floor; crouching in the process. The spots when his hands collided with the floor cracked instantly and at the same time dented in slightly, the cracks spreading out for about 2ft in each direction. "I'm Not Worthless!!!" Neo wasn't even mad yet. He was just upset. He wasn't nearly as strong as he was going to be, nor did he know how to access that strength. All he knew at that moment was that he had to prove himself, and that somewhere, his mother was near. He needed her.
A few miles from the Beach house, Hound stood as tall as he could and let out the loudest deepest bellow he could muster, but it was filled with his pain and anger. Then he fell to his knees.
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Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2011 1:36 pm
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((I completely understand. I didn't give you much to work with sweatdrop ))
John saw the error in his plan much too late, and now he could see that her wings didn't want to close. Getting a little wet wasn't the problem. The problem was that feathers were very absorbent, water was heavy, and wings were meant to get wet. Apsalar could very easily freeze if she got soaked, or drown under the weight of the water, combined with panic and unhelpful flailing.
He didn't see all the dangers at once though. For him, he was just glad Apsalar had been able to keep her wings out and the wind hadn't blown them back yet. At least her wings muscles were still fairly exercised.
The strong wind gave John an idea. He jumped into the gust and felt himself being lifted up, but angled his feathers enough that it kept him close enough to the ground. Keeping the right balance of air in his wings was hard. Too much, and he would easily be blown back into the clouds. Too little, and he'd crash onto the sand or water. But it was also a crucial part of what he was attempting.
Trying to avoid the possibility of getting hit with one of Apsalar's wings, and still trying to reach her before the water did, John stretched out a hand to grab hers and yelled something indistinct over the wind and waves.
In the nighttime and excitement, he didn't notice the abrupt change of weather, nor the slightest feeling of static electricity in his feathers.
------
Sam turned his back on a livid Yani in order to follow his sister out of the compound, but saw a brief streak of gold fly, with a solid impact, into Bucadu. A moment later, the streak slowed down a little to reveal the small, lithe form of a black woman, crouched in a graceful, intimidating manner. She was beautiful, and Sam was about to warn her not to attack his sister, as she didn't take offenses lightly, but the cat creature spoke first.
"Don't you dare lay a hand on my child!" The last few words sounded like a growl, and she streaked forward again, swiping clawed fingers at Bucadu as she quickly stepped past. Sam, more or less rooted to the spot by her foolishness, watched the scene, hair changing from deepest black to a bright green.
Aiyana's wounds were far from healed, but in the adrenaline rush that she had been given to protect her child, she could not feel any pain. The doctors that had let her escape her hospital bed would be severely punished if anything happened to either her or Bucadu.
Yani was watching the scene from Sam's side, having already noted with some surprise and awe the power that his son had just displayed in a characteristic temper tantrum.
(("Howl", or "Hound"?))
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2011 12:11 am
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((It's not concrete they're standing on. It's grass. Nice try though, Colossus.))
This was incredibly bad for Airyana. Bucada had barely managed to control her temper enough to not spew out enough toxins to paralyze the hearts of everyone with a radius of several yards, but feeling her back crack in several places (though pleasant) was not what she wanted to experience at the moment.
The plumes of toxins increased around Bucadu, and she began to sweat, beads of black gathering at the crest of her forehead. Pupils flashing back and forth between slits and normality as her teeth painfully lengthened and sharpened, she picked herself up from where she had tumbled and slowly stood.
Her fingernails sharpened into talons, and slowly she rose to greet Aiyana's next attack.
The claws sliced open Bucadu's side, and she bled not red blood, but purple ooze that hissed as it hit the air, issuing smoke as it began to eat at her clothing.
Bucadu was a living, breathing radioactive vat of poison.
Her vocal chords no longer completely human, she let out a massive, bellowing roar.
"It's gonna be YOUR fault if someone dies today!" She howled at the provocation, turning to face Aiyana again and almost flying towards her, instinctively falling onto all fours. A thick smog of purple toxin floated aimlessly in her wake.
Cat people. She hated cat people.
"I was perfectly fine with walking away!" She cried, leaping at Aiyana, seeking to both crush and poison her. If Aiyana managed to dodge, Bucadu would give chase, overtaken by one of the wild, insane bouts of rage she had become so famous for. Her rage would cause streaks of death throughout the grass of the courtyard wherever she ran. "But YOU had to go ahead and be a ******** mother! Well, let's SEE how far that gets you!"
A haze of poison would slowly overtake the entire courtyard of Aiyana kept managing to run. And if Bucadu didn't manage to catch her first, the poison would. That was one thing that made Bucadu so lethal.
Only Sam was immune to her poisons. The scientists of Yani's lab were working on either an antidote or vaccine from his blood, but all tests thus far had proven immensely unsuccessful.
However, for everyone else other than Sam, if the hunter couldn't catch the prey, her exhaust would.
Aiyana had made a poor, poor mistake.
------
Hiccadu watched with growing dread, sniffing the wind and feeling something almost sizzling in the air. Going into the living room to the television, she turned on the news for the weather.
The signal was gone. The static didn't reassure her at all.
Unmindful of the cold, almost chilling winds, she left the beach house and waddled through the sand.
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Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2011 7:40 pm
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((We did specify that they were in the inner courtyard, and I believed I described it several times.))
Yani knew he had, at best, several seconds before Bucadu's lethal fumes killed him, his son, and all the other chimerae in the courtyard. He quickly grabbed Neo's arm and gathered his thoughts, noting Neo's apparent need for his mother and Bucadu's aim to kill her. He resisted efforts by gas-masked, flesh-and-blood security officers to shuttle him safely indoors in order to give Sam his second command.
"Sam CI:" He gave the official name, which Sam had been genetically hard-wired and conditioned to respond to. "Protect Aiyana, restrain and calm Bucadu."
Sam reacted immediately, his hair growing again into a deep blue and antitoxins flooding his bloodstream as he moved towards the fight, his body making the total unconscious effort to obey. They had tried the same tactic with Bucadu, but with limited success. She was simply too strong of a personality to be controlled with total predictability.
And though scientists never mentioned this to Yani, they feared she would one day corrupt the CI and they would have to remake him.
Aiyana paused and yowled, pained. Where her claws had met Bucadu's blood, white steam poured forth. The blood was purple, thick, and boiling away the top layer of her nails and the skin around them. It distracted her enough that she didn't see Bucadu until she was a mere foot away from crushing her.
Fortunately enough for her, Sam stepped in between the two at the last minute, arms outstretched as if he were going to embrace his twin. He stood over Aiyana, tall, blue-haired, and absorbed the impact without even a shudder. Normally, he would have instinctively back-tracked quite a bit, giving more time for deceleration and preventing breaking either himself or Bucadu. As it was, he was ordered to protect Aiyana and consequently, heard a few ribs crack in his chest. This in itself was amazing; not only were his bones flexible and maneuverable, but they were also almost impossibly strong and hard to break. A testament to his twin's strength, undoubtedly.
He ignored the pain, tunnel visioned, and twisted Bucadu around in order to loop his arms under hers and press his hands against the back of her head, kneeling slightly to accommodate her crouched frame.
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