IX: Rats in a Cage
Remind me not to breathe when the air smells funny. It was bizarre, the type of stuff these life forms could come up with. There was rodent features with his silver shiny thing that kept hurting and knocking her out. He'd hit her with it one last time then she'd woken up here. Wherever here was. And those foul smelling things...she was pretty sure they were responsible for the air smelling strange before she randomly fell asleep. She hadn't even been tired.
She was in a box, not of clear stuff this time. All but one side was solid. She compressed herself into very skinny and slithered out through the metal grate on the non-solid side of the box, returning to her preferred shape on the other side. Obviously they hadn't learned from last time then. Sentient but apparently lacking in intelligence.
No one was around. Cautiously, she raised her head and sniffed the air. Aside from smelling stale with an odd undertone, it didn't smell like it was the type that would put her to sleep again. Ahead of her there was a rectangle of yellow light. From that direction, she could vaguely hear sounds of a battle, and only just caught the whiff of the sickly sweet taint of blood.
Remaining on all fours, lengthy tail held out behind for balance, she bounded soundlessly towards the rectangle of light. The sounds of fighting intensified, seperating itself out into a panaroma of noise as opposed to a single rabble. She could hear shouting, snarling, growling...cheering?
Nightshade paused at the entryway, peering out into what lay beyond. The arena made itself immediately apparent. She was only vaguely aware of the disgusting scent of many foul smelling things behind shiny clear stuff. She could see three rodent things in the middle of the arena, two male, one female. Surrounding them, occasionally lunging in, were three decent size creatures, one bipedal, one quadroped and one with no legs that just slithered around. One of the rodent things looked injured, only barely keeping his feet. The other two hovered protectively around him. One was bleeding from one arm quite profusely, the other didn't look like it had been battered about too much, yet.
Nightshade's brain twigged. She was running low on energy.
It wasn't without a severe amount of effort but Rimfire still managed to make the aerial backflip look like even a Plutarkian could manage it as he leaped out of the way of the charging horned quadroped. Quartz more staggered out of the way, driving one of the sharpened metal rods they'd found laying around into the beast's side as it thundered past. It was a typical tank type beast, fast when it got moving but nothing in the way of turning circle.
Rimfire landed on his feet, dropping quickly to one knee. The still healing wounds on his back flared agonisingly. He only barely had the energy to flick his hair out of his eyes. Quartz rolled into a crouch, conserving energy, waiting for the beast to swing around again.
The ever-energetic Benihana was running rings around the giant bipedal thing, but it was obvious as she stumbled and then tripped, catching herself, picking herself up, running on, that she wouldn't last much longer either. The thing was starting to match her speed, wheeling around faster, anticipating more accuately where she was going to be. It's sizeable teeth had come dangerously close to her on more than one occasion.
I won't die here, Rimfire thought fiercely, gritting his teeth, I won't die here, I won't... Something slammed into his side. His numerous cuts and gashes sent jarring pain signals to his brain all at once as he hit the ground and rolled, tangled up in whatever had hit him. The rolling lasted a couple of seconds and then he was flat on his back on the ground. Opening his eyes, he got a brief impression of four muscular limbs and a well toned torso before the blue-black-purple thing sprang off him. Quickly he rolled himself into a crouch, turning in the direction the creature had leaped in.
He saw the dint in the ground where he'd been kneeling not seconds before, and the evil eyes of the snake creature glaring hungrily at him. He blinked as the snake suddenly reacted violently, arcing back as a blue thing attached to its head. It released a high pitched scream, thrashing its large head, before dropping to the ground and thrashing its entire body. Rimfire leaped back out of the way of the thick coils, landing beside Quartz.
"What the fuck is that?" he gasped, looking around for Benihana at the same time. She dropped in on the other side of Quartz.
"What the fuck is that?" she managed, as the snake continued thrashing. Its scales had gone a powerful, vibrant colour, almost radiating its own light. Attracted by the violent motions, the other two giant critters turned and lumbered purposefully towards the thrashing snake.
"No fricken idea," stated Quartz, taking advantage of the break to try to regulate his breathing. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was aware of most of the Plutarkians leaping to their feet in surprise probably, craning against the glass, staring in shock at the transpiring events. He smirked as he almost hoped the glass would shatter under their collective bulbousness and drop them into the arena.
The snake's colours faded as abruptly as they'd brightened. Its frenetic twitching went from violent immediately down to nothing. Much like a rope dropped from a great height, it dropped to the ground, unmoving.
The purple-blue thing dropped from its head, landing delicately in the sand on all four paws. It looked very feline, with giant, interestingly shaped ears, very unpractical looking waist-length dreadlocks and a tail that was way too long. It rested on its hind legs, cleaning its face with one almost hand-like paw, unaware of or ignoring the other two critters as they approached.
The bipedal one lunged, its giant maw opened. It could fit the entirety of the lanky cat thing into its mouth. The blue creature had other ideas. Looking up in a mildly annoyed manner, it flicked its tail once and then moved to one side.
The eyes of the three mice widened in shock, and for the most part the Plutarkians were stunned into silence. The forelimbs of the cat creature seemed to melt and liquidise, rippling instantaneously into a long, pointy lance-type limb and another slightly curved blade with a serrated edge. As it neatly sidestepped, the creature drove the long pointed blade into the shoulder of the bipedal monster dragging it a bit and making it stagger sideways in an arc towards her. It practically ran itself into the curved, serrated blade which she drew sharply across its throat. Dark, foul smelling blood spurted immediately from severed arterial veins. The cat sprang backwards to avoid being showered by the disgusting vitae.
The bipedal monster gurgled unpleasantly, stumbling along the ground until it crashed onto its front. It twitched a couple of times, blood puddling into the sand beneath it, and then lay still. The remaining beast lumbered towards the recently downed one and began tearing into it. The sounds of large bones being crushed soon filled the arena.
The cat thing, the weapons now reformed into paws, landed beside the Martian trio. It delicately shook off its front two paws as it landed, looking as disgusted as something with oversized eyes that looked like they were embedded sapphires could look. It turned to them, briefly flashing a pair of elongated canines. "Krrryow?" it purred.
Benihana tensed.
"Wait." Quartz caught her elbow, locking eyes with the cat thing at the same time. It - she - cocked her head to one side, one giant ear twitching, before suddenly twirling around, her long tail streaming out behind her, and bounding on all fours towards the exit. The three mice staggered to their feet and stumbled after her.
