A/N: I don't know who of you remembers TheBluewolf888 and his OC, the Monster Raptor, who appeared in his story last Halloween, „Night Of The Monster Raptor."
Well, Bluewolf has left us to go on, he had passed away a few months ago.
It was Bluewolf's wish that I adopt the Monster Raptor (according to his girlfriend.) I have decided to write on the Monster Raptor's story, as a way of keeping Bluewolf and his OC alive. So here I present the „Return Of The Monster Raptor," in honor of Bluewolf.
He was one of my best friends here.
The Summary of „Night of The Monster Raptor"
„Blood red eyes scanned New York City from the night sky. Their owner soared silently high above the city's skyscrapers and office towers, looking for something to satisfy its predatory hunger. The eyes shifted here and there until their gaze rested upon two human teens walking in a dark, abandoned alley. The predator stared at the unsuspecting kids hungrily before it swooped in for the kill.
The teens, both boys, strolled on leisurely while they talked about the party they went to earlier. They were laughing about a joke they heard when one of them suddenly jerked forward as talons stuck out of his body. His companion could only watch in fear when he was slowly lifted off the ground by the predator. It slashed at the boy's throat with its sharp beak and let go of him. The watching teen immediately ran off for dear life. Seeing that its other prey escaped, the predator went after him.
No matter how fast he ran, the predator flew faster. It suddenly closed in as its razor-like talons thrust into the boy's skull. The boy fell to the ground, dead and blood gushing out of his head. The predator squawked in triumph as it settled itself on the corpse's back and began ripping off and feeding on the fresh meat."
Kowalski is missing. No one has heard from him for the few weeks. Meanwhile, Alexander (13thsense's OC) has moved in with the Penguins, aiding them in with his medical experience.
News of a deadly bird of prey that attacks at night and feasts upon the internal organs of its victim has travelled around the country. He seems to be more intelligent than the usual birds of prey, killing all kinds of animals, including Antonio and Archie, and wounding Fred. Skipper orders all the zoo animals to share their habitants with the animals from the Central Park for refuge. Alexander gives Alice a drug, from which she falls asleep and dozes for a week or so.
Julien, of course, claimed that the Monster Raptor was all his doing.
"No need to fear, my people," he called out, catching everyone's attentions. "This 'Monster Raptor' is obviously a guardian the Sky Spirits have sent for me. My guardian only attacks those who do not worship my kingly kingliness. So, for your own safety, I advice you to kneel, bow down and start adoring me and my awesomeness. My guardian will see this and not attack those who do my command."
Willing to believe anything just to be safe, the animals were about to drop to their knees when Skipper laughed haughtily.
"Seriously, you're all believing in Ringtail and his nutjob explanation?" he questioned, laughing again. "Should I even call it an 'explanation' or a 'joke'? Besides, if what Ringtail says is true, then we should blame him for directing those killings, right?"
The animals seemed to agree and shot glares at the lemurs.
"Okay, okay! The Monster Raptor is no guardian of mine," Julien confessed, close to tears, "I'm just really afraid and I don't want to get eaten and – "
"No one will get eaten. Not on my watch," Skipper said, determined then faced his audience.
The team goes off to search for the Monster Raptor with the help of Kitka, who knows New York better than anyone else. Her friend was also killed, and wishing to avenge her friend, Kitka agrees to help them find the Monster Raptor. However, she also has news of Kowalski, seeing him the other day in an alley, tired and bloody, seeming to be running away from something.
The sun setting, the team and Kitka was still searching for the Monster Raptor, oblivious to the night slowly setting in.
Just then, something stirred behind some garbage bags. It turned to the animals and looked at them with blood red eyes. It then let out a screech and left the ground with one powerful flap of its wings.
"It's the Monster Raptor!" Private squealed.
The hunter now becoming the hunted, the penguins and Alexander barely made it. Kitka had to sacrifice her life for the mission and was buried in the Central Park.
Three days later, Skipper sets up a trap, using Private as the prey, to capture the Monster Raptor. However, the Monster Raptor attacked the Central Park Zoo while they were away. Marlene alarmed Skipper through her walkie-talkie and the team rushed back to see the Monster Raptor attacking Burt. It kept attacking the big elephant until he grew tired and started flapping with his ears to keep himself cool. The Monster Raptor was about to dive for the soft spot behind the big mammal's ear, when Skipper and his team confronted him.
Their fight led them into the Central Park again, from which the penguins emerge with a feather from the Monster Raptor. The predator himself flew off into the night and finds his next vicim: a big rat, also known as the Rat King.
Alexander's experimenting on the feather brought interesting results.
"As I researched on the feather's structure, I found out that it had numerous avian genes in it," the medic informed, pointing a pencil at the pictures.
"To whom do these genes belong to?" Private asked.
"According to my observations, the most likely owners of these genes are the harpy eagle, the great horned owl, the peregrine falcon, the augur buzzard and…"
Alexander swallowed the lump in his throat.
"…a penguin."
The team, unsure if Kowalski had anything to do with this, agreed that the mystery must be solved once and for all and set out to finish the Monster Raptor off. Either way, it was obvious that humans had mixed these genes as the DNA was not natural.
They leave to their quest, coming across the carcass of the Rat King. Setting it on fire, they continue and find the Monster Raptor feeding on a dead dog. The Monster Raptor carries Skipper off, injuring him. In the midst of his flight, Skipper jabs the Monster Raptor into a wound Alexander created earlier and they both fall into the dumps.
Skipper climbed out of the pile, his back and belly decorated with cuts from the predator's talons and their tight grip. He laid himself on the ground and panted heavily. Just then, the Monster Raptor erupted from the pile and neared him, but then collapsed. The fall from high up in the sky left its right wing and left leg broken, restricting it from both flight and the ability to walk. Still, it stood up and glared at the penguin lain below it. Skipper looked into its terrible red eyes and closed his, waiting for the final blow to come. But it never did.
Puzzled, he sat up and saw the Monster Raptor on the ground, shrieking out in agony. Skipper looked at the sky above and saw it lightening up. Dawn was coming. He turned back to the predator just in time to see the most bewildering transformation in his entire life.
The Monster Raptor began to shrink. Its ruffled feathers became tidy. Its talons reduced in size and sharpness and its wings shriveled into flat, streamlined flippers. Its hooked beak straightened and its crest fell flat on its now dome-like head. Its cries deepened in tone and its eyes turned from a piercing blood red to a calm ocean blue.
Skipper gazed at the unconscious figure on the ground in front of him. No longer was it the Monster Raptor he feared and planned to capture. Instead, it was the one he and his team had been searching for almost a month already. Its beak, feet and white feathers were blotted with blood and the crimson fluid oozed from its chest's right side.
The others came and also stared at what was once the vicious predator. In shock, Skipper could only mutter one single word. A name, actually, that meant more to him now that he had found its owner, but in a horrible and unexpected way.
"Kowalski."
The team brought the injured penguin back to their Headquarters, but after Kowalski awoke, he was scared of hurting them. Kowalski explained what happened that he had been captured by Officer X and experimented on and tortured by humans in white labcoats. Then they had injected a glowing liquid into him and eloctrucated him, hoping to activate the chemcial. When nothing happened, they shocked him over and over again.
Then…
"Night came and that's when it really happened. Pain like none I have ever experienced before spread throughout my body. It was worse than the torment the humans gave me. I felt my form change but my mind was filled with darkness. I didn't know what I was doing until the next day."
He breathed in deeply, clutching the right side of his chest as he did so.
"I woke up next thing in the morning with a dead human by my side, practically torn open and missing his insides. I was befuddled, especially when I found my wounds to be healed and my beak, feet and chest feathers stained with blood. I cautiously went to the open window of an apartment nearby and listened to the news on the TV. The reporter said of a warehouse filled with slain humans whose bodies were ripped up and partially eaten. Then, I remembered that it was I who killed all those humans. That the blood on my beak, feet and feathers was theirs. I ran away, knowing that I could possibly endanger you guys and everyone around me. But I couldn't get away from the fact that every night, after the sun sets, I turn into a hideous, barbaric monster that preys on every being of flesh and blood, young or old, animal or human, killing it mercilessly then devouring its insides like a primitive carnivore."
Kowalski looked down again, sighing sadly and tears streaming down his face.
Kowalski decides that the only way to stop the monster inside of him was to kill himself. He asks each of the members of the team, including Alexander, who refused to kill a „friend," but in reality was interested in the sadistic nature of the Monster Raptor. Kowalski runs away again, but is stopped by Julien, who wants him to fix his blender. The sun sets and Julien realizes that Kowalski is the Monster Raptor. Kowalski as the Monster Raptor attacks Skipper and is about to eat him when Kowalski tries to strike some deal with the Monster Raptor inside of him.
"Excuse, Mr. Monster Raptor, I would like to make a request – "
"If it's letting go of my supper, don't even think about it," it snapped at me in a harsh, cold voice.
"Please, if you let my friends go I can find you something better to eat," I kept on begging.
To my surprise, the Raptor threw its head back and laughed bitterly. Its cackle was as frigid as its voice and it sent chills down my spine.
"You? Find me better food?" it questioned as it guffawed even more. "You don't know how long I've wanted to devour your flightless friends and that walking handbag with a brain and claws! I want revenge for making me postpone my feast on the elephant!"
"I guarantee that they would bother you no more," I assured, "just don't take them as your prey."
Kowalski and the Monster Raptor agree that the team will stay save if they don't meddle into any affairs anymore. Then Kowalski (inclusive the Monster Raptor) leaves the zoo, forever, as he thought.
The next morning Kowalski wakes up to find himself among carcasses of pigeons and sadly moves on. He is captured by Officer X, who hands the penguin over to a man in a torn, bloody lab coat. Officer X had a hunch that this man was going to do something bad to him, however, he drove away leaving the uncouncious Kowalski at the mercy of the man.
When Kowalski awoke, he found himself in shackles above the ground. The man, who was one of the scientists experimenting on him, whipped him and screamed at him how Kowalski ruined his life and shall pay.
He plunged the syringe's needle into the side of Kowalski's neck and injected the fluid. As he got away, the penguin began to shudder and transform into the Monster Raptor. It thrashed here and there, not minding the pain the chains around its wings were unleashing. The man whipped its back once more, making the bird shriek in agony. He lashed at it again several times, each screech getting louder and more blood splattering onto the floor.
"Yes! That's it! Cry out for mercy, you bloodthirsty fiend! For you shall get none!" the man cackled sadistically, flogging his whip again and again.
He paused for a break then turned his gaze onto his prisoner. The Monster Raptor's back had cuts here and there and some of its feathers were stripped off, revealing swollen and torn skin. Blood flowed freely from the wounds and left a red mess on the floor. The Raptor was panting heavily and its eyelids drooped over its eyes loosely. One more slash from the whip could knock it out cold or might even kill it, if strong enough.
The man raised his whip, prepared to lay the final blow when he suddenly fell to the ground, unconscious. The Monster Raptor felt the chains that held it up loosening and it was soon on the floor, bathing in a pool of its own blood. It saw blurs of black and white around it before everything suddenly turned black.
Kowalski, now the Monster Raptor again, wakes up to find the team trying to find a antidote for him to turn Kowalski back into the old Kowalski. Alexander manages to mix the chemcials injected formerly into Kowalski to create that antidote, but to their horror, the Monster Raptor/Kowalski (right now, Kowalski is in the form of the Monster Raptor) shivered violently then was still.
"He was a comrade like no other," Private declared through sobs, "he was like a brother…to me…to all of us…"
"Yeah," Alexander concurred sullenly, "he was the only one I could talk to about science. And I often come to him for advice and details and things like that. He will always be remembered…"
"Aye," we chimed together.
Rustling and struggling interrupted the moment. We turned to its source and found the human, wide awake and angry. He grabbed his whip and began thrashing here and there.
"You insolent creatures! You've disrupted my plans!" he exclaimed as we dodged his slashes. "You'll pay for that!"
Meanwhile, Kowalski wakes up to find himself in a sort of white, misty space between life and death. He consults with the Monster Raptor and, touched by the way the team stood up for their friend even after the Monster Raptor's promise of death, the Monster Raptor decides to retreat into Kowalski.
"I'm leaving," it replied serenely, "I can't terrorize a place where there are animals who care about their teammates so much that they make me nearly lose my edge. It's just sickening."
I snorted. The Raptor sounded like Rico when it comes to stuff like caring and love.
"I'll find a nice, quiet spot in the depths of your mind," it added then turned away and waved a wing at me. "Consider yourself free now, Kowalski."
Kowalski regains counciousness and sees Skipper about to be killed. Still in his Monster Raptor form, he attacks the scientist, knocking him out cold. The penguins tie the man up and return home to the zoo, where the zoo residents greet him warmly, forgiving him for his horrible deeds. Kowalski is left with a terrible councious, though, and can't forgive himself. Private, wanting to help him, uses amnesia to help him forget. Kowalski wakes up the next day and remembers nothing.
Kowalski woke up. He felt strange and light-headed. He noticed that his torso was wrapped in bandages. He hopped out of his bunk just as Skipper, Private, Rico and Alexander came in.
"Morning, Kowalski!"Skipper greeted. "So, how ya feelin'?"
"To be honest with you, I can't remember anything before this," the penguin admitted as he shook his head. "What happened? Why am I in bandages?"
"Uh…you were captured by Blowhole! Yeah, that's it," Private answered from out of the blue. "And he…um…tortured you…a bit."
"The torture I can remember. But how come I can't recall being incarcerated?" Kowalski asked.
Private shifted uneasily.
"Um…extreme…brain trauma?"
"I guess that settles it," Kowalski said with a shrug. "If you need me, I'll be in my lab."
When he was gone, everybody turned to Private.
"Private, what did you do with Kowalski to make him forget everything?" Skipper inquired.
"Oh, nothing," the young penguin replied with a giggle then took a quick glance at the ketchup bottle on the table. "It's a little secret of mine."
Alice finally wakes up after her long nap and everything in the zoo goes back to normal.
But what if the Monster Raptor were to return?