Lumia Horne continued her way.
She was not native to Zootopia, and she did not know much of the Vole Gardens. However, she always had a knack for finding her way across places. Going to the place where she needed to go was no biggie.
The fact that she really wanted to check on this bastard who called and threatened her family so she could give him a piece of her mind was a great encouragement for her to go straight to him.
And, right behind Lumia, Judy Hopps was coming, and the bunny was proving that she was no stranger to tailing a mammal without being noticed.
That was one of the occasions where her small size worked on her favor, as someone her size was harder to notice. And she learned a few tips from Nick on how not to be noticed when following someone, which included step as lightly as she could to avoid making noises and to moving quickly to avoid being sighted.
And, of course, always looking for cover.
However, it was getting harder and harder to find cover as she continued her way behind the gazelle, as she was starting to move into an area that is far from the main houses. Luckily, there were enough big rocks and trees in there that Judy was able to find some place to hide as she continued to follow Mrs. Horne.
And there were the pillars, which kind of looked like something one would expect to find in a Greek temple. Quite something strange to find in the middle of a modern city in Animerica. However, Lumia seemed not to care too much about this change in scenery.
She was far more interested on the person who was sitting on top of one of the pillars, looking like he was just chilling in there as he enjoyed the slightly cold autumn day, before he looked down at her.
"Hey." The canine said, and Lumia only looked up at him.
Judy, who was hiding behind one of the pillars, looked over and she saw the canine sitting on top of the big pillar, and she recognized him right away.
That's Sheppard!
The shepherd only continued sitting up there, looking down at Lumia.
"Nice little setup they have here, no?" He said, referring to the pillars "I heard someone say that this was made by the guy who originally built the gated community. He was Greek and wanted something around here that reminded him of his homeland. I heard that he wanted to build his own version of the Pawthenon, a homage to all the Greek gods. But back then there was a certain religious question going on, so he decided to just build the pillars and the altar. Still nice, if you ask me."
The gazelle eventually said:
"Are you the asshole who called me?"
"An asshole, me?" Sheppard said, "Wow, now that's quite rude. This is usually how you start your conversation with people?"
"If they say they are going to kill my son, you can bet it is." Lumia said to him, glaring at the dog with anger as he continued sitting up there. "So, who the heck are you?"
"Name's Sheppard." The dog said to her. "I am a freelancer."
"Is that so?" Lumia said to him, "And what is your deal with me? I don't remember having ever met you."
"Because you haven't." Sheppard said to her. "So, don't you worry, old lady. You are not going senile just yet."
Lumia glared at him. Her muscles tensed as she was called "old lady", and her hooves clenched in fists as she looked up at him.
"You haven't answered the question yet, dog!" Lumia said to him, the expression on her face and the tone of her voice making it clear that she was not up for any games. "What is your deal with me?"
Sheppard looked at her, and then he said:
"My contractor told me to fight you."
Lumia continued to look at him, seeming unimpressed by what the dog just said. Judy, on the other hand, gasped and covered her mouth.
This was bad.
This was very bad.
"Is that so?" Lumia said, with apparent indifference to what the dog just said to her. "Is that why you placed a bounded field on this area?"
Sheppard looked at her.
"You noticed that?" He asked, to what Lumia said:
"A couple yards before I arrived. It is a pretty good job you did with it. It is definitely better than the ones my son makes. That boy cannot make a decent bounded field to save his life."
"I noticed that it serves to block people from the outside from noticing what is happening inside." Lumia said, "But, as soon as I entered, I realized it also serves as a trap. It keeps whoever enters from leaving the delimited area."
Judy's ears perked as she heard that.
Wait, for real? The bunny thought. Was that why she stopped for a moment back then? Wait, was that shiver I felt that? Does this mean we are trapped inside!?
"Did you place that bounded field for me, right?" Lumia said, "You wanted to be sure I would not be able to escape once I arrived. And you also wanted to be sure no one would notice what was happening so no one would come to help me, right?"
The dog looked at her for a few moments before he answered.
"Yes." Sheppard said, "Now, I have to ask you not to take it personally. It is just something I must do." He was getting up, standing atop of the pillar as he looked down at the gazelle with crossed arms. "Also, don't worry. I was told only to give you some beating, but not to kill you. Again, it is nothing personal."
"Is that so?" The gazelle asked, seeming completely relaxed, more like annoyed, as she looked at the dog who just said he was going to beat her up because he was being paid to do so.
"Who put you to this?" Lumia asked, "Who is offering you money to 'give me a beating'. Is it Fawnspire? Is it Boarrick? Warmane?"
She looked very intently at him.
"My mother?"
The dog looked at her with a raised eyebrow at the end.
"No, it can't be my mother." Lumia said a moment later. "If it was, that hag would have told you to kill me, that's for sure."
The dog then said:
"You want so bad to know who hired me?" Sheppard stretched his arm, his circuits activating as he drove magical energy into his hand and materialized something into his paw.
It was not a trident this time. Instead, it looked like a small ball, roughly the same size of the ones used in tennis, but completely black.
"Then you better win." He finished, looking at her with a toothy smirk. "Albeit, that might be a little difficult for an old lady like you."
Then, before another word could be said, Sheppard, like a professional baseball player, threw the ball at Lumia. Some extra magical energy focused on his arm and on his thumb to give some extra momentum to his swing, resulting on the small ball being propelled as fast as a bullet in direction to Lumia.
"No!" Judy said, as Lumia was not the target of a projectile that, as far as Judy knew, would explode as soon as it touched her body.
However, Lumia was ready.
As soon as Sheppard was getting ready to toss the ball, Lumia reacted as well. The circuits of her own arm lighting up as she focused her magic energy into it, and then placing her hoof on the ground by the side of her body.
In a single instant, the ground, made of the same type of stone as the pillars became hotter. So hot, in fact, that the stone melted, turning into red-hot magma.
With a movement of her hoof, Lumia caused the magma to move right before her body. The ball connected with the magma, causing an explosion as the magically charged ball hit the melted rock at thousands of degrees of temperature.
Magma flew everywhere, while Sheppard looked at her with surprise. Judy was also surprised, as she could only stare, her mind taking a few moments to understand and make sense of what she has just witnessed.
Did she... turned the ground into lava?
Lumia continued to look at the dog with eyes that, in great contrast with the magma that she just used to defend herself from Sheppard's attack, were cold as the coldest tundra.
"You really want a fight, don't you, doggy?" Lumia asked him, and she seemed now more than just annoyed. She looked pissed.
"Well, okay then. Hope you don't get too upset for losing a fight to an old lady." She said, and then, she made another movement, clasping her hooves together. She then said something in a language Judy did not understood, just one very short phrase, before she jammed her two hooves on the ground.
As she did, the ground cracked and erupted, with some parts of it even exploding off, as the rock suddenly was heated to melting point. As Lumia stood again, the ground before her had literally been turned into lava, which glowed to signal how hot it truly was. It bubbled and churned as Lumia stood before it, the lava surrounding her as she continued to look up at the dog, nearly as if she was waiting for his next move.
Crap, how did she do that? Sheppard thought, as he looked at the female gazelle, who was now lifting her arms, her hooves on the sides of her body. As she did, the lava before her moved, lifting from the main mass of the melted ground in five small pillars of magma, with their tips being blobs of melted rock that looked about ready to explode on command.
Shit, Wilde could have told me about that. Sheppard said, looking at that. He never before saw anyone doing something like that that. I mean, it was possible to melt the ground with magecraft, but it usually took several hours just to melt a small portion of it, and that woman, whoever she was, had done it in less than two seconds.
This alone was enough to prove that she was not your average alchemist, like the fox who hired him told him when he called with this new job.
Never mind. He said, now materializing two more objects on both of his paws as he got ready. I'll just fight her the best I can and then I'll turn tail and run if she really turns out to be business. It is not as if I am supposed to defeat her, anyways. He just told me to keep her busy to she would be away from the mansion...
As the two mages got ready to fight, Judy could only look back at the scene with wide eyes.
"Sweet cheese and crackers..."
"Cheese and crackers!" Nick said as he quickly dove out of the way as the furred mannequin tried to swing the blade on its arm on him. Another proof that he had been spending too much time with Judy lately, and she was starting to rub off on him.
However, he barely even minded that, as he was too busy backing away from the mannequin, which was looking back at him with its glowing red eyes, walking at him with slow steps as it was getting ready to strike at him once more with its blade.
Nick did what any reasonable person would do in a situation like that: he turned tail and ran.
What? As if you would not also run for dear life if a mannequin had just tried to murder you!
However, Nick was not able to make all that far, as he came across a second mannequin, identical to the first, as soon as he opened the doors while fleeing.
"Oh, sh-" Nick said, but that turned into a "yip" as he just narrowly dodged a blade from one of those mannequins. Now the only thing on the fox's mind was to run as fast as he could.
However, the mannequins, which now were four in total, were coming right behind him. And they were all emitting a strange sound from them as they walked behind Nick with their slow pace.
Like there was a music box playing inside each one of them, playing an eerie song accompanied by words in a different language.
"What are they singing?" Josh asked, as he looked around, seeing all the mannequins... no. All the puppets that were surrounding him, each one playing that same weird, ominous little music.
"That's French." Marcy said, as she recognized the language coming from them along with the music. There were a lot of them, what meant that the verses they were repeating over and over overlapped with each other, but she was able to catch enough of an individual line to get the gist of it.
"They are saying poetry." Marcy said, "Gloomy poetry."
"Those are curses." Caitlyn concluded, as she looked around that the beings surrounding them. "And it is filling the room. We will be overwhelmed if we don't do something right now. Get ready."
And they did. As all the mages got ready to fight, one of the puppets, the one closets to them, rose its head, its eyes lighting up in red.
"Je vas vois tuer." It came from the puppet, as it suddenly lifted its arm, and then, the arm suddenly extended, shooting forward towards Caitlyn.
Legoshi yipped as the extended arm hit his body. It was not as much for the impact, but more for the feeling like an electric jolt running through his entire body on the second that the arm made contact with him.
"Legoshi!" Melor said, and he immediately attacked, grabbing the outstretched, segmented arm with both of his hands and pulling as hard as he could. The puppet was pulled in direction to the hybrid, who was waiting for it with a magical energy-charged fist, which collided with it so hard that it completely shattered the torso to the puppet.
The music and poetry coming out of it suddenly stopped, as it made a sudden sound akin to a record scratching.
Whatever was producing the sound inside of it got broken to pieces alongside the puppet, which fell into the ground like a broken doll.
"Legoshi, you okay?" Melor said, going for the wolf, and helping him on a sitting position. "Legoshi, are you alright? Does your arm hurt? It looked like it hit you pretty hard... Legoshi?"
The wolf had a haunted expression on his face.
"M-Mom..." Legoshi said, looking at the void. "M-Mom... hit me..."
"Legoshi..." Melor said, as the wolf then looked at the puppet, seeing it broken to pieces.
"Mom..." Legoshi said, as he tried to reach for the broken figure, and that was when Melor decided to snap at him.
"Legoshi!" He said, pulling the wolf by his shirt and giving him a slap to the cheek. "That's not your mother! Snap out of it! That's a puppet!"
Legoshi blinked, looking at his hybrid friend.
Then, they heard more sounds. They turned their heads to see more puppets, each one of them identical to the one that Melor just shattered, walking into the room. Each one of the three figures playing the same music as the first one, repeating cursed poetry in French as they walked in direction to the two of them with steps as slow as those of zombies from old horror movies, and just as terrifying for the average person.
"Oh, great." Melor said, getting up and getting ready to fight. "Okay, never thought I would say this, but summon some bugs to help us out, Legoshi!"
The puppets continued to make their slow advance in direction to their victims. Their steps and the music playing from inside of them.
No sound of buzzing or crawling.
"Legoshi, any time now!" Melor said, as they started coming closer, and he could feel his skin crawling as he activated his own magic circuits and got ready to fight.
"I... can't..." The wolf said, "I can't..."
"Legoshi, that's not your mother!" Melor said as he turned to him. "None of them are! So, quit wimping around and just start fighting them!"
"No! I literally can't!" Legoshi said to the hybrid, as the puppets kept coming closer. "I can't active my magic circuits!"
"What do you mean by 'you can't use magecraft'!?" Adrian demanded as he and the other two hid behind the younger horse, who was looking at his own hooves as he desperately tried turning his circuits on.
"I just can't!" Angus said, "That furry doll did something to me when it hit me with its hand! It scrambled my magic circuits!"
"That can even happen!?" Adrian asked, and the answer did not come from Angus, but from Tyson.
"It certainly can!" The tiger said, as he was fighting the puppets that tried to attack them. The artificial creatures attacked them with their bladed arms, while the tiger fought them with his mantis-like blades of water. "It you deliver a powerful shock into a mages circuits, it can short then out and leave then unusable for hours! But those are often easy to fix, you just need to focus for a couple minutes and you can re-wire your circuits and be good as new! That is, except if you are a newbie with little actual experience."
"Like Angus, right?" Adrian said, glaring at his own son, who glared back at him as he told his father where he could go.
"Hey, you are good at this stuff, right!? Help me out!" Angus asked of the tiger.
"Just give me a minute!" The tiger said, as he continued to fight the puppets, hitting one of them with one of his blades and cutting it's head off, causing it to move erratically, before he sliced through its torso and caused it to fall.
He did the same thing with the other two, eventually being done with it and then turning his attention to the horse.
"And, here is an advice, if you want people to help you, try asking 'please'." He said as he walked to the horse, and he was about to start working on him, when they heard that poetry once more.
They all looked at the entrance, to see two more puppets making their way to them.
"Ah! There's more!" Cavirus said.
"Think there are more of them somewhere on the house?" Meowman asked, and that question hit Tyson.
"Maria..."
Gazelle and Simon Blackson were both running as fast as their legs could carry them. As they did, they looked behind, seeing the wolf mannequins who they were trying to out run.
They started trying to run from them as soon as they saw the blades. They thought it would be easy, considering that they were slow. However, the mannequins then changed, as they went from a two-legged stance to a four-legged, and now they were running like feral wolves after them.
As they did, their backs opened, revealing a second pair of arms coming out of them, which now had blades of their own, and that the two running prey were sure that would try stabbing and slashing at them as soon as they were within range, as the entities proved to be much faster now that they had changed to being four-legged.
"W-why they are chasing after us!?" Blackson asked, as he and gazelle continued to run after them. "What do they want!?"
Eliot's head perked as he thought he heard someone screaming.
For a moment, he got worried, but then he realized it was not the voice of anyone he knew. He was pretty sure that none of his friends screamed like a little girl. Not even Benji.
So, he was able to ignore it and focus on his mission.
However, he did get worried when he heard the distant sound of gunshots. However, even then, he tried to focus on his mission and continued what he was doing.
As it turns out, Cornelius was right. It was much easier to sneak into the house while everyone was busy with those creepy, life-sized female wolf dolls.
This way, it would be much easier to get into Ben's twin's room and find the thing that Tasman wanted.
That is, as soon as he managed to figure out where it was.
Maybe this Josh guy had the same smell as Ben, since they were twins and all? Maybe he would be able to follow the smell until he found it.
Meanwhile, as this was happening at the mansion, Lumia was in the middle of a brawl with Sheppard.
The shepherd tossed one of the objects on his hand, a ball, slightly bigger than the one he already threw, into the gazelle.
Lumia's answer was to swing her hand and cause one of the masses of lava to shot forward.
The two projectiles met in mid-air, producing a loud explosion that would have called the attention of the mammals living on the nearby houses, was not for the bounded field around the area keeping what was happening inside from being perceived from the outside.
Sheppard didn't wasted time, and he started to toss ball after ball on the gazelle, as he materialized them on his paws and tossed them forward one after the other in rapid succession. Meanwhile, Lumia kept sending shots of lava in direction to these balls, colliding with them in midair and exploding as the two mammals continued to toss projectiles back and forth at each other.
Shit! At this rate we will be at it until one of us runs out of magical energy! Sheppard thought. I gotta put an end to this now!
Sheppard then did a daring trick: he materialized two balls on each one of his paws, and then, with a strong gesture of his two arms, he tossed all four balls on Lumia at once, and they flew to her like missiles.
However, the gazelle was not impressed at all. She did her own gesture with her two arms, and then five balls of lava came out of the melted ground before her. Four of them collided with balls, exploding them into nothing, while the fifth one flew right to the pillar Sheppard was standing.
It was not aimed at Sheppard, mind you. It was aimed at the pillar itself, and it exploded as it hit the thing, causing the whole pillar to come down.
Startled, Sheppard only had time to jump out of it and into the ground before the thing came crashing down and broke upon impact with the marble floor.
"Dammit!" Sheppard said, as he looked back at the gazelle, as he once more materialized something on his paw and threw at her.
However, this time it was not a ball, but a trident.
Lumia saw it coming, and then she made a sudden movement with her arm. This caused A wall of magma to raise. Then, as suddenly as the rock had heated enough to turn into magma, the magma cooled down instantly, hardening into a volcanic rock that blocked the trident, stopping it on it's tracks as it got stuck on the shiny, obsidian-like wall of stone.
The tips of it went all the way through, and Lumia looked at them with indifference, before she calmly walked from behind the wall of solidified magma, so she could look at Sheppard, as the dog looked back at her.
"Who the hell are you, lady?" The dog asked, looking at her in surprise at the amount of skill she had. Wilde had not told him anything about her being this skilled. If he had, Sheppard would certainly have prepared better, maybe even came up with a plan.
"I am Lumia Horne, of the Horne clan. A working wife and mother." Lumia said to him with a glacial look, before slamming both her hooves on the ground.
Immediately after, she lifted her hooves from the ground, as it heated and melted into burning lave. Then, with a sleight of each one of her hooves, the lava she just created moved under her command, dancing on the air and then taking on a specific form, before cooling and hardening again.
As the lava finished cooling off, Lumia grabbed them with her hooves. The handles were still hot, but she didn't mind at all. She swung the newly created weapons that she made, and the blades of the hand-axes were still glowing with heat as she wielded them on her hooves, ready to use them to attack the dog.
Sheppard, on his end, growled at the gazelle.
Oh, the hell with it! He thought, as he also placed both of his paws forward.
As he did, magical energy came out of his palms, forming a word hoovering over them.
ZERSCHLAGEN
The word shifted and changed on his paws, until he grasped it and split it apart, leaving one half on each one of his paws. This light shifted and changed, turning into a pair of maces, both of which seemed crude, but very sturdy.
As soon as the two mammals had their weapons, they charge at each other, and that was when they fight began.
They were both capable fighters, as it was clear on the way they moved and how they would both strike and parry. Neither of them was new to direct fight, and both could hold their own. In fact, the battle they were having as something akin to a scene of a kung fu movie, with the gazelle attacking with her reinforced lava axes while the dog attacked her back with maces that were, quite literally, materializations of the very concept of smashing.
Each impact sent sparks flying, and it caused the two fighters to stumble back, before they both recovered and went into offensive once more.
Although they were both great fighters, the gazelle was the best one.
It was clear that she knew how to fight better than him, as she not only swung her axes with terrifying speed, power and accuracy, but she also delivered powerful kicks to him whenever he lowered his guard. Only two of said kicks made contact, but it was enough to make him feel like he had been hit by a rhino. And, on more than one occasion, she slammed him in the forehead with a headbutt that only didn't knock him out by a miracle.
It was clear who among the two mages had the advantage in this combat.
Actually, one could even think that she was playing with the dog, with how easy she dodged his blows, one of which created a small crater as it hit the ground and shattered it, only for the dog to receive a hard kick on the chest that sent him flying several feet back, and he was gasping as he steadied himself. One of the maces escaped from his paw and clattered to the ground, vanishing in glowing blue particles soon after, as the magecraft that kept it existing ended after the dog let go of it.
Lumia Horne looked at the dog, and she had an expression on her face that was a mix of anger and boredom. She seemed more annoyed at him than anything.
As if he was only a nuisance to her right now.
She gave a few steps in direction to the dog when, suddenly, her expression changed. She then started coughing violently.
Sheppard looked up, and he saw the gazelle doubling over in a coughing fit.
Then the blood came, flying out of her mouth and onto the ground as she continued to cough it up.
Sheppard blinked as he looked at her.
That was his chance!
Growling, he charged at her, materializing something else on his hand. This time, there was the word "durchbohren", which then turned into a trident on his paw, which he was soon using to strike.
Luckily, Lumia saw him coming and managed to dodge out of the way. However, one of the tips of the trident grazed at her skin, opening a pretty big gash that immediately started to bleed.
Then it came the mace on Sheppard's other paw. Lumia only had time to pour her magical energy on her arm to harden it as much as possible, using it as a shield as she blocked the blow with her bare arm.
She was sent back flying several feet back, landing heavily on the ground.
Both of her arms were hurting. One because of the cut she just suffered, and the other one because of the impact. The bruise was quickly forming, and it felt like something had cracked. The arm was not broken, but she was sure she suffered at least a fracture in it with how strong that blow was.
Had she not prepared for the blow, she was pretty sure her arm would have shattered.
And, to make matters all the worse, the impact with the ground had worsened her cough, and now she was coughing out even more blood, which she had to spit out on the ground because the taste of it, as an herbivore animal, was utterly revolting to her.
And Sheppard was not willing to give har any leverage or even room to breathe. He rushed to her and he placed a foot on her face, forcing her into the ground as he stood over her.
"Not so cocky now, are you, Horne?" Sheppard said to her as he continued to press his foot down on her face, and the gazelle continued to cough. "Should have stayed home knitting, old lady!"
The gazelle growled and called him a name, and this only served to make the dog madder. He moved the trident, pointing its bigger tip right to her cheek, and moving it slightly, opening a small cut on her face that was soon starting to bleed.
He looked ready to do a lot more to her as well...
However, that was when Judy, who had been hiding until now, finally decided that enough was enough, and she jumped on the gazelle's defense.
"Get away from her!" Judy said, as she jumped right when Sheppard looked her way, and she then landed on his face with a double kick.
That was enough to throw the dog off balance and make him stumble back. That was when Judy continued her relentless attack.
What? That bunny took down a rhino during her training on the academy! Think she can't take on a dog? Even if it is a mage? Of course she can!
Sheppard tried to hit her, but the bunny proved to be faster than he ever anticipated, as she dived out of the way and then used her hands to propel herself against Sheppard's chin, kicking him with her two feet again. Then, as she was going down, she stomped on his face as hard as she cold, causing him to stumble back even more and even making him drop both his weapons.
Judy, however, would not relent, and she jumped once more. This time, she grabbed Sheppard's wrist, twisting it using her whole body and causing the dog to cry out in pain, and causing his body to spin round from the momentum until he eventually slammed down with his chest on the ground, and the bunny was pulling his arm behind his back.
As Judy held the dog down, Lumia looked up, and she saw what the little bunny was doing.
Sheppard, however, would not be taking this laying down.
He materialized another trident on his free paw and tried to use it to hit the bunny. He could not, since she was literally standing on his back. However, seeing that pointy thing coming at her suddenly startled the bunny enough to make her lose her grip on Sheppard's wrist and allow him to throw her off his back.
"Why, you little-" Sheppard said as he looked at the bunny. However, he didn't had time to finish that sentence, for that was when he received a fist to the face, courtesy of Lumia, who had gotten up and rushed to him with surprising speed.
For the next minute, Lumia and Judy fought the dog like a team, using their own styles of fighting in synch and handing the dog his own tail in a silver platter until he was stumbling down and looked like he could hardly stand anymore.
That was when Lumia, with gestures of her hands, made her axes fly back to her hooves. She held them, and spun then around, sending magical energy into them and heating them up again, causing most of them to turn back into molted lava, with only a small portion of the handles, where she was holding them, remaining solid and cool.
Sheppard looked at her for a moment, and then, Lumia tossed one of the lava axes.
It flew right past Sheppard's head and hit a pillar behind him, causing a surprisingly strong explosion that brought the whole thing down.
Sheppard looked over his shoulder to see the fallen pillar, and then back at Lumia, who was still holding the other axe on her hoof, showing it to Sheppard as if she was saying "I can throw this one too, and this time I will aim at you".
"Oh, fuck this shit!" Sheppard said, as he turned around and fled as fast as he could.
"Hey!" Judy said, starting to run after him, but she stopped once she heard a fit of coughing.
Lumia had dropped the axe, which melted into lava as the gazelle coughed as if she was nearly retching out her own insides. The amount of blood coming from her mouth certainly gave that impression.
Seeing someone like that, in need for assistance, and no one to ask to help, Judy decided to forget all about Sheppard and focus on her. She was much more worthy of his attention than him.
Judy was checking on the gazelle, who continued to cough up blood, and was starting to get pale, and she knew now that she had to take her back to the mansion as fast as possible.
Back into the mansion, everyone was trying to deal with the threat presented to them.
Including Gosha and Yahya.
"We still form a good team, don 't we?" Yahya asked as he and Gosha stood back to back (or almost) as they were facing the nearly ten puppets that were surrounding them, each one looking like a female wolf and each one with blades coming out of both their arms. With a few more of them broken and scattered on the ground as the result of the fight.
Yahya was no stranger to have to fight multiple enemies. He had the advantage of being born with a unique positioning of his eyes on his skull, allowing him a nearly all-around vision, which was very good for situations like that. However, that blind spot of his' proved to be a problem, once an enemy could hide there and sneak up on him.
Unless he had someone to cover for him by staying on this blind spot and protect that one vulnerable area for him.
All his life, there was only one mammal in whom Yahya ever trusted to cover his blind spot, and that mammal was Gosha Drachenwolf.
And there they were again, fighting as a team as the puppets continued to surround them, with one of them stretching its arm and then propelling it forward like a long, segmented cord.
"Gosha! On your left! Duck!"
The wolf did as he was told, and he ducked out of the way just as the arm with a blade passed dangerously close to his head, and the two friends moved, nearly as if they were a single entity, with Yahya grabbing the segmented arm and pulling on it, for Gosha to meet the creature it belonged to with a powerful spinning kick, which shattered the head and torso of the puppet in one single blow.
As the broken mannequin falls into the ground, the two friends resume on their stance, as they look at all the remaining ones.
"Like in the old times, huh?" Yahya asked, and Gosha nodded, before he told Yahya to duck. They both crouched right as a mannequin tried to attack them, passing over both of their heads with its bladed arms.
Yahya gave an upwards kick so hard that it sent the puppet slamming into the ceiling, before it fell back into the ground, the music and poetry coming from it now sounding broken, before it stopped completely, as whatever was inside of it making the sound was now broken.
Other puppets tried to attack them, some of them going on the four-legged pose, which Yahya and Gosha both already notices vastly increased their mobility, while attacking them with the extra bladed arms that stretched out of their backs. The two friends, with a synchrony that they both still somehow had even after five decades apart, managed to fight back at the puppets, breaking them with their blows and causing them to fight back, while they covered each other's weak spots as they continued to fight.
Yahya said then he swayed slightly, feeling dizzy.
"Yahya, you okay?" The wolf who was back-to-back with him asked, as the horse placed a hoof on his head.
"Yes... just... a little light headed."
Gosha tensed as he heard that. He knew what was happening, and he knew that he needed to do something about it now.
He reached on the pocked of his jacket, pulling two items, and he handed one to Yahya.
"Put this over your mouth and nose and don't take it off until I say it is safe." Gosha said, "Please, trust me, Yay."
Yay.
That was an old nickname that Gosha gave him.
He was still the only mammal on the world who ever called him that.
Being called like that again after so many years caused a feeling to come over Yahya. He took the item from Gosha, and saw it was a handkerchief. It looked ordinary, other from the fact it had a small symbol, glowing green, on the bottom of it.
"Put it now, Yahya!" Gosha said, urgency on his voice, as he saw the remaining puppets starting to slowly move in direction to them.
Following suit, Yahya placed the tissue over his muzzle, and he was now breathing through it. Once he confirmed he was, Gosha then put the second item to use:
It was a pipe, like those on the old movies, made using the likeness of a dragon, with the tail being the tip that connected to the mouth while the head was that of a dragon with a slightly open mouth.
Taking it to his lips, Gosha focused.
Then, smoke started coming out of the pipe by the opposite end.
For the outside looker, it seemed that the wolf was smoking. However, this was no ordinary smoke. This smoke was thick, and of a sickly green coloration.
One of the puppets came to close, and Gosha immediately turned his attention to it. The smoke came out in a huge amount, nearly a spray of the green fumes right into the puppet's face.
The artificial entity stopped. It stood where it was for a few moments, as the music inside of it started to falter, then, it fell to the ground.
Yahya looked over his shoulder, and he could see that the face of the entity was slightly melted. The false fur and skin were gone, revealing, without a doubt, that the entity he was looking at was not a real mammal.
And Gosha was not done yet. He continued to blow out smoke through the pipe. As he did, the green fumes moved across the room.
However, they did not spread at random, as one would expect smoke to do. Instead, the smoke moved around then, nearly as if it had a mind of its own, as it moved right into each one of the puppets, going straight for their faces as they stood in there.
Like the first, each one of them stopped as the green smoke forced itself on their bodies, melting their outside parts before it found it's way inside, where it found the source of the music and did what it was supposed to do, making the music stop, and then making the puppets fall into the ground.
All the while, Yahya looked around, pressing the cloth to his mouth as he looked at this. His eyes were starting to sting a bit, and he could feel a crawling feeling on his skin...
After the last of the puppets fell, Gosha removed the pipe from his mouth and then grabbed Yahya by the arm, pulling him in direction to the door as quickly as possible and out of that room with smoke.
"Yahya, you okay?" Gosha asked him. "Are you alright? Did the smoke affected you?"
"My eyes are stinging..." Yahya said, "And my skin feels strange..."
Hearing this, Gosha immediately searched on his pockets, before producing a small vial filled with blue tablets.
"Chew on two of those!" Gosha said, "Now! They will neutralize the venom!"
Yahya barely had time to think about the word "venom", before he placed two of the things on his mouth and chewed on them. They liberated a fluid on his tongue, bitter like hell, but that Yahya swallowed immediately.
It just took a few seconds for his eyes to stop hurting and for the crawling feeling on his skin to vanish completely. He was feeling much better, and Gosha seemed relieved over this.
"You are fine..." Gosha said, "We are both fine..."
"Not yet..." Yahya said, as he pulled a radio from his own pocket, and started to talk into it. "Lambson, give me a report! Have you managed to fight off the puppets on your end?"
"No sir!" The voice on the other end came. "Those things are too resilient! The small calibers hardly even tickle them!"
"Then use the higher ones!" Yahya said to him. "They are still on the storage back on the security rooms, right?"
"No, they are not, sir!" the mammal on the radio said back, "Adrian made us get rid of them because he said that those things around the house made him uncomfortable. Something about them being a damage risk to his collection."
"Dammit, Adrian!" Yahya cursed, as he did, the mammal on the other end of the radio let out a curse, and he heard the muffled sound of gunshots and screaming from the mammals he knew were his team.
They sounded like they needed help.
"How many of those things are around the mansion?" Yahya asked, half to himself, half to the wolf standing by his side.
"Too many..." Gosha said back to him. "We gotta do something!"
That didn't even need to be said. The two of them would definitely do something about this whole situation. There were a lot of people in the mansion who were probably in trouble as well. Including their own loved ones.
And both were thinking that, if they got their hands on the mammal responsible for this, they would teach them a lesson they would never forget.
Eliot was able to force himself to focus on his mission despite the distant sounds of battle on the mansion.
He was able to convince himself that no one would really get hurt, because that was what Cornelius Wilde promised him. He wanted to believe what he said because this made him feel better about this whole situation.
He focused and he sniffed. He found a smell that was very similar to Benji, but sharper, and with an undertone of cigar smoke. This was the smell he followed until a room that he believed should be the one where his cheetah friend's twin was staying.
He then searched through the room, and he eventually find what he was looking for.
It was hidden in a box filled with... adult toys.
Eliot blushed a little as he rummaged through the items on the box, some of them letting out a smell that made it clear they had been "used" recently. However, the wolf focused only on the one thing he was looking for.
That one, glowing thing that seemed nearly like it was inviting him to grab it and take it with him, even though he had no idea of what it really was.
All he knew was that it would help him get his Chloe back. And that was enough for the wolf.
He grasped it, feeling how warm it was, and feeling like it was nearly pulsating on his hand. He pushed aside any thoughts on the matter and just picked the replacement.
After all, for this to work, they could not realize that the object in question was missing.
For that, Cornelius gave him something to him that he said would be able to pass by the object. It shone just like it, and it produced the same sensation if you looked at it, although Eliot had the slight impression that it was weaker on both.
However, if it prevented anyone from noticing the thing was missing until after Eliot had gave it to Tasman and got his pregnant wife back, it was fine to him.
Once the dummy was on the box, Eliot locked it again and placed it exactly where he found, before he made his way back so he could leave from the same place he came into, with the object safely tucked in his pocket.
"Keep running, Legoshi!" Melor said as he pulled the wolf by his paw, and the slower pred tried his best to keep up with his hybrid friend. Meanwhile, the puppets behind them continued to follow them on all fours.
They have been trying to run from them for a while now, as the four creatures followed them at high speed. They tried to run as fast as they could, but those things were too fast for them.
Melor tried to fight them, but he ended up with a few cuts from their blades, and he had to dodge their attacks with their arms, otherwise he would end up unable to use his magic circuits, just like Legoshi.
Having to defend the wolf from their attacks also proved to make fighting them even more difficult, and this caused the hybrid to have to resort to running away, at least so they could gather their thoughts and then come up with a way to counter. He assumed it would be easy to outrun those things, seeing how slow they were. However, he was not ready to have them change like that and start running after them with their multiple limbs.
They looked so much like insects now, crawling around at such a speed...
"Melon!" Legoshi said, as one of the puppets took a great jump and dove right at them, blades ready to deliver an attack.
The wolf reacted by pure instinct. He could not use complex magecraft with his magic circuits scrambled, but he was still able to use his magical energy.
He just poured it out, creating a barrier in front of himself and Melor. It was like using raw matter to build an improvised wall. It was very primitive, and barely even magecraft at all, but it was enough to slow down the puppet enough, as it collided with the magic energy that Legoshi barricaded in front of them like a car colliding with water-filled barrels on the road.
It was still able to thrust one of the blades forward, and this one hit the wolf right on the chest.
As they both stumbled forward, Melor was dizzy. However, as he caught the scent of blood on his sensitive feline nose, his eyes widened, and he looked to the side, seeing the wolf fallen into the ground, with red starting to stain his shirt.
"Legoshi..." Melor said, as he looked at the wolf in shock for a few seconds.
Then, his shock was replaced by a burning, bubbling emotion that started into his core and spread outwards, like a volcano erupting.
The hybrid's body started shivering, which turned into trembling, and then evolved into a full-blown epileptic attack as his body convulsed. His form changed, as muscles bulged out and bone popped into a new shape. His shirt, which fit nicely around his thin torso fit for an herbivore, ripped as the muscle swelled under it.
Extra spots appeared all over his coat of fur, all over his back and the sides of his body, and up his neck and all over the side of his face. His three-fingered hooves morphed into four-fingered paws, with claws unsheathing, and the same thing happened to his feet. His tail elongated, turning feline-like.
The whole process should have taken around seven seconds, and by the end of it, Melor coughed out blood, which splattered the ground, before he let out a feral yell.
The roar of a leopard.
He then turned his attention to the puppets, one of which had gotten up on two legs and was no looking at him.
It stretched its arm, and it extended in direction to him. Melor, with the reflexes of a big feline, dodged out of the way, and he grabbed the outstretched arm so hard it caused it to crack. With another roar, he swung it, causing the puppet it was connected to swing as well, and Melor used it as a giant flail to attack the other three.
Two of them ducked out of the way, but Melor managed to hit the other one. This caused both puppets to shatter, and then Melor turned his attention to the remaining two, and he charged at them while roaring.
The following battle was fierce, with Melor skillfully dodging the blows of the two puppets while striking back with his own claws, reinforced with magical energy and slicing through the reinforced shells of the puppets, and even ripping pieces of them with each swing of his claws.
As he did, the music coming out sounded even louder, and a shroud of dark energy came out, spreading like smoke coming out of a pipe. However, Melor was able to ignore this mass of curses and continued to fight
The hybrid was showing that he was truly not a weakling. As the battle got harder, he also grasped two pairs of statues on the room, using his magecraft to alter then like he altered his own body, causing the rock that formed them to shift into another kind of metal, shaping it like a pair of swords which he then reinforced and used to fight the puppets even more efficiently.
However, those puppets proved to be too much of a challenge for him.
For they were able to come up with a plan to get him to do as they wanted him to.
One of them charged at Legoshi, and Melon, seeing this, roared as he leapt into the puppets, swinging his swords and slicing the extra bladed arms of the puppet clean off.
In doing so, he turned his back to the other puppet, who shifted back to a two-legged position and stretched its arm to him, hitting him right in the middle of his back.
The shock of the impact on his spine, combined with the shock of the puppet's specific magecraft shorting out his magic circuits, was enough to send the hybrid to the ground, his whole body stiff and he was now unable to stand.
The puppets were both standing now, and they revealed the blades on their arms as they slowly walked towards the two fallen mammals, the music playing from their bodies only adding to the somber feeling of this situation.
Melor let out a curse as he tried to get up, only for a foot to press down on his back, keeping his chest pressed against the ground.
He could feel the cold touch of blade on the back of his neck.
That was when the doors of the room were blasted off their ridges by a gust of wind. One so powerful it also blew away the puppets, causing them to fly back before they anchored themselves in place by sinking their blades into the ground.
Melor and Legoshi, due to being laying on the ground, were not blew away, and Melor looked up to see the familiar figure of his father stumbling and tumbling (literally) into the room through the open door to the hallway, entering the room performing movements that a person could only assume were part of a complicated dance.
With each movement of his arms, legs, and even of his tail, the wind around him moved nearly as if it was dancing along with him in some overly-complicated tango.
The puppets, which had recovered, were now both looking at him, their blades raised and ready to strike. But Tibor was faster.
"Die." Was the only thing the leopard said, before making a complex movement with both arms. The following gust of wind was so strong and focused, that it completely shattered the torsos of the two puppets, destroying them beyond repair.
Tibor looked at the puppets for a moment, before turning his gaze to the two mammals on the floor.
"They got Legoshi!" Melor said with urgency, and Tibor looked at the fallen wolf, rushing in his direction as soon as he saw the blood.
Carefully, he flipped the wolf so his chest was up, and he then placed a paw on his chest, activating his magic circuits as he cast a healing spell.
"Tigereye! Shouldn't this thing have healed me already!?" Angus demanded from the tiger, who was currently busy fighting two puppets in order to keep them from reaching Gazelle, as she and Blackson were both hiding behind him as he fought them with the same water mantis-sickles he used to fight the one of a while back.
And the "this" Angus was referring to was a blob of water that looked like a circular jellyfish that was attached to Angus' chest, which was glowing slightly as it had several little tendrils latching to the horse's skin.
Angus could feel it pouring magical energy into him and working on fixing his scrambled circuits.
But it was taking too much time, on his opinion.
Tyson had improvised that thing with the water from a bottle, saying that it would do the trick. He could do it himself, but he was too focused on finding Gazelle.
He found her and Blackson as they were running from a few puppets, who Tyson immediately put himself to fight.
And they were not alone.
Marcy and Josh also managed to find their way to that room, and they were now helping them fight the remaining puppets, which just kept coming their way.
"How do they keep coming!?" Cavirus asked, as he and the others who could not fight hid behind the mages, who continued to fight. "How do they know where we are!?"
"They must have an internal tracking system!" Marcy said, as she fired arrows made of magical energy from her fingers. They didn't do much damage, but they were focused enough to throw the puppets off their balance. "Like an inner compass that allows them to find sources of mana! They are probably using it to home on anyone with enough magic energy!"
"Like us!" Josh said, as he delivered three powerful punches to a puppet, shattering its head, then it's arm and finally it's torso.
Their mother was also into the fight. The long tissues that formed her shirt were attacking the puppets, as they wrapped around them and tossed them around. However, that was not her only trick, as she was able to breathe a pinkish smoke at the puppets, which everyone soon realized was a highly-corrosive acid vapor, as it quickly ate through the mannequin-like attackers as they kept coming.
All in all, the mages of the room were pretty busy keeping the puppets at bay, what was rendered difficult because, as more puppets came, the room seemed like it was getting with a heavier air.
The curses generated by whatever was powering the puppets were accumulating, and soon they would be overwhelmed.
That was when a door on the other side of the room opened. Everyone turned to look, and they saw Benjamin, followed by Gabe and Penny.
For a moment, the scene seemed frozen, until Ben said:
"Are we interrupting something?"
Then one of the puppets turned to him.
"Je viens por toi."
And the puppet tried to strike Ben with a stretching arm, only for Gabe to push it back with his horns, reinforced by magecraft. It felt like parrying a missile, but the deer held on.
"Ben!" Penny said, in shock. Meanwhile, Angus could finally feel that his magic circuits were working again.
Finally! The horse thought, as he grabbed the thing on his chest and pulled it off. He poured his own magical energy into it, causing it to change its shape, and then, he tossed it.
What once was a water jellyfish was now a water disc, with the water in it in so much pressure that it could slice through steel. So, it was no surprise that it was able to slice through the heads of two puppets easily as it moved according to Angus' commands.
However, it seemed that losing the heads was just a minor inconvenient for those puppets, as they simply continued moving as normal, and doing what they were doing.
Well, not for long, if Penny had any say in this.
The female cheetah removed her glasses and, when she opened her eyes again, they were glowing in a pink coloration.
Suddenly, she could see something she didn't saw before.
She could see the points where everything around her, from the tables and the furniture to the mammals inside of the room, and even the puppets, was the most fragile.
Then, looking at one of the puppets, she said a single word while focusing on all those fragility points:
"Break."
The puppet shattered into a million parts, breaking like a porcelain doll hit by a bulldozer, its shredded pieces clattering into the ground.
"Break." Penny repeated. Her magecraft moved forward into the room, aimed like a missile into the puppet she was looking at. Aimed right on all its weak spots, producing the same effect as the previous one.
"Break." She said, and a third puppet broken.
"Break." A fourth one. This one looked ready to attack Marcy.
"Break!" She said, and this time she broke two at once, the ones who were fighting Tyson.
Then, she widened her vision. Changing her stance ever so slightly so she could have a view of the entire room and everything in it, and then she focused her prana, causing it to vibrate on the very same frequency of all of the puppets in there, all the while she focused all of the brunch of what she was about to do on the spots she could see with her mystic eyes where they were the most fragile.
And then, she released it.
"Breaaaaaaak!"
This was nearly a feral yell as she released a powerful charge on all those puppets.
They were all broken to pieces. Reduced to smithereens by the power of what Penny just did.
She was left panting, and her eyes were burning slightly, but she did managed to defeat all of the puppets.
The room was silent as Ben held his sister, helping her steady herself after such a great effort.
"Dang..." Was all that Angus could say to what he just witnessed.
"Yup, that's our Penny." Josh said with a smirk, as everyone recovered from what just happened.
Meanwhile, Ben looked at the room, counting the people who were in there.
And noticing the ones who were not.
"Has anyone seem Nick?"
Dammit! How do those things keep finding me!? Was all that Nick could thing as he continued to run as fast as his legs could carry him. He had been trying to lose those things since they changed into that four-legged stance and started to chase after him like freaky horror movie monsters.
Nick had tried nearly everything he could to get them off his tail, but it was as if they knew exactly where he was going, and the fox was starting to get tired from running so much.
He even tried to be smart, by trying to get them to jump on him and jumping out of the way hoping they would break. However, all he managed to do was get them to break a few vases they landed upon, except for a single vase, which miraculously didn't break, despite one of the mannequins landing right into it.
Nick had to run immediately after. However, just two rooms later, he gave a misstep, and now he was on the ground, with the mannequins finally catching up to him and surrounding him.
Nick looked up at the faces of a beautiful female wolf looking down on him, as all the mannequins were identical. Nick would even be able to enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by beautiful faces, was not for the fact they were attached to things with blades that were trying to kill him.
"So... any chance I can get you guys to let me go if I promise to get you a job on the front of a store a friend of mine owns?" Nick asked, not expecting to have any answer from the things, and he got none. They only kept looking down at him, one of them tilting its head slightly as it looked at the fox with those cold, glassy eyes.
Then, a blur came out of nowhere and landed on the mannequin, snarling and growling.
Nick looked in shock as the mannequin was tore apart by this figure, who continued to growl and snarl as it turned to look at the other ones, and Nick too could get a good look at him.
Nick had always been a perceptive mammal. He needed to develop this skill to survive on the street, and it came still in handy on his work as a cop, where he needed to perceive things and, more often than not, give a description of a suspect to his fellow cops.
"Big" would be the first thing that Nick would say when describing this guy for someone to make a drawing of their mug. Not big like a horse, but certainly big by canine standards. He certainly had developed muscles, despite being slender like a swimmer, as Nick could notice since the only thing he was wearing were a pair of old tattered shorts. His fur was matted, but it was still possible to say it was white. For a moment, Nick thought the guy was a wolf, but he realized that his muzzle was shorter, telling him that he was of some dog breed, but which one, Nick could not tell. He could, however, tell that the dog had big fangs, as he snarled at his and the mannequin's direction, staring at them with a hatred on his golden eyes that sent shivers down Nicks spine.
The mannequins looked at him for a second, before they lifted their arms to him and stretched them forward to hit him.
The dog didn't move as the hands of the mannequins hit his body. He didn't try to dodge out of their way, and neither did he flinched. In fact, as they hit his body, Nick had the impression that the dog didn't budged a single millimeter, almost as if he could hardly even feel the blows.
Then, on the next second, the dog attacked.
It all happened to fast that Nick hardly even had time to register what happened.
The next thing he knew was that the mannequins had all been broken to pieces, and he looked to see that the dog was shaking his head as he had the arm of one of the broken mannequins on his mouth. Nick could only look at him as he continued to do that, before he stopped.
Then, he started sniffing the air.
He kept sniffing, and he looked like he was sniffing something that he recognized, as he was moving in direction to one of the doors.
"Hey." Nick said, as he finally found his voice again. The dog looked at him, and their eyes looked for a while.
Then the dog barked at him, before he rushed out of there so fast that Nick took a moment to realize that he dashed off.
The only thought on Nick's mind at that moment was:
What the heck just happened?