ORIGIN

Somewhere in Orion, there was a cat — a cat who had not been seen or heard from in a very, very long time. Ji’bassa had been so long without contact with Greater Gembounds that he had completely forgotten what it was like to be civilized. He wasn’t necessarily a bad Gembound now — only he’d forgotten how to speak, how to have a regular old conversation, how to turn off his fight-or-flight response. He avoided Greater Gembounds at all costs, because he did not trust them. He came out of hiding only when no one was around. He was relatively skinny, seeing as there wasn’t all that much to eat in Orion, and he’d never been anywhere else in all his 16 cycles.

In fact, right now he was downright starving. He used his senses of smell and hearing to detect a possible Lesser Gembound creature to eat, having lost his Magical abilities a long time ago and no longer able to sense others’ heartbeats. Soon enough he smelled a mouse den, set up in the crumbling walls of one of the buildings, and went to investigate. The mice all sensed him coming and scrambled to the far reaches of their den, but the wall that protected them was no longer structurally sound and he pawed his way through the cement dust and caused all of the mice to scatter outwards.

Bassa growled and turned quickly before they all ran too far away, leaping towards one of the little creatures. He landed on it with his front paws, though not hard enough to kill it, and tore it in half with his teeth, cutting short its sharp squeal of pain. He swallowed the pieces whole without chewing and immediately sought out more of the stupid creatures, intent on eating all of them! The sounds of the screaming mice were causing quite a racket, probably alerting one raven that Ji’bassa was as yet unaware of.

Words: 325 @Albeon

The metallic scent and taste of blood was everywhere, and there was a white mist overtaking his vision. Everyone always describes a rage as having a red mist, but no. Bassa was seeing white dots in his vision, probably from breathing harder and running. And then he heard a flap of wings behind and above him and he turned his head in time to see the talons of some kind of black bird coming down towards him. He deftly avoided the sharp pointy things and hissed at the bird. He’d never seen a bird like it before, which meant it had to be a Greater Gembound. This filled the cat with a fear he had never felt before. Fear and anger. He’d been avoiding contact with others for long that suddenly being thrust into this confrontation ruined his whole day.

As the bird came swooping down towards him, he reached out and attempted to snag the bird with his claws, hoping to slam it into the ground so he could fight it easier.

Words: 173 @Albeon

Round: 1/5
Attack: Attempt to snag bird with claws and slam it into the ground
Defenses: none
Injuries: none

Having completely missed the raven by some inches, Ji’bassa, who could now not even remember his own name, was promptly pissed. He’d been trying to eat and now this stupid bird was ruining everything! How had he somehow missed the fact that he hadn’t been alone in this space? He’d so deftly avoided contact with others for so long that the fact that he’d not only been spotted, but also downright attacked surprised, enraged, and rather embarrassed him. Now he was all for murdering the bird. Unfortunately it was now out of his reach. He was unaware of the failed spell attempt chokehold, and was now trying to figure out how the hell to hurt the bird or knock out of the air —

What if he threw something at it? But what? He looked around frantically. He couldn’t throw a rock. He had no thumbs to grab rocks with. He only had claws, and they could only snag onto soft things… What about a mouse? Yeah! He quickly sought out a mouse he’d killed right before the bird had showed up and snagged it with a claw, and then turned quickly and flung it as hard as he could up towards the bird. This would probably never work in a million years but he needed a way to level the playing field here and this was the best he could come up with.

Words: 233 @Albeon

Round: 2/5
Attack: Attempt to knock bird out of the air with a dead mouse XD no seriously
Defenses: none
Injuries: none

The cat stared in amazement when the mouse actually, somehow, slammed into the bird, and it fell to the ground. In fact, he was so distracted by the fact that that had somehow worked that he allowed the bird the chance to regain its composure and cast a spell. And suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Well, he could, kind of, as the spell wasn't very strong. But still, his windpipe seemed to be a little bit crushed, and it took more effort to get a breath in. Therefore, he was almost unable to concentrate. He had no idea that the bird was causing his suffocation, so he fought through his shortness of breath and lunged at it, trying to tackle it to the ground so that it could not get away again!

Words: 131 @Albeon

Round: 3/5
Attack: Attempt to lunge at bird, knocking it over and pinning it underneath him.
Defenses: none
Injuries: Slow suffocation, shortness of breath

Ugh! Fighting this bird was nothing like fighting Lesser Gembounds! Of course, being a domestic cat meant the biggest thing he’d ever fought was a cave rat, but still. They were way easier to catch because they were stupid. The bird, on the other hand, had easily evaded Bassa’s attempt to knock him down and now he was in the air again! The cat let out a yowl of frustration and was about to jump up into the air to catch it, but then he heard a voice in his head.

Speak. What is the problem here?

The cat recoiled, allowing the bird to gain more altitude. He was severely confused, having never had something like that happen before! He shunned the voice, it having been far too long for him to even remember what words meant. He hadn’t spoken in 15 cycles, over a year’s time, and he’d been but a child the last time he’d uttered words. He had no idea what had even just happened, let alone realized the words were the raven’s.

Suddenly coming back to himself, and now more determined than ever to kill this annoying thing, he launched himself into the air with his back leg muscles, and attempted to clap his paws together around the bird to drag it back to the ground. Again. He had to stop letting it escape!

Words: 228 @Albeon

Round: 4/5
Attack: Attempt to lunge upwards at bird and grab it to drag it back down to the ground
Defenses: none
Injuries: Slow suffocation, shortness of breath, severe confusion from Telepathy spell