ORIGIN

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Oh... oh, her wing hurt.

She tilted her head to the side with a squish, staring at the way her wing was bunched up, crumpled far too many times, and felt her stomach roll, beginning to shiver.

But she had to get up, get out of the way at the least, and flailed, crying out in pain as she jostled her wing, getting to her talons and looking around, trying to find somewhere to hide, wanting to take flight and get away but her feathers were too heavy with much even if she could fly, even if her wing wasn't bent and shattered and wrong and broken.

Speech. Thought.

Dread slowly circled, blinking and coughing away the last of the mites. Had Legion thought to infect him, perhaps things might have gone differently; as it was, he hadn't, and Dread's flame had purged whatever had come in contact with him rather quickly. He didn't even think of it, in truth; his mind was all annoyance and anger.

He banked back, wings flaring, rising on the heat of his own fire and coasting out over the trees. He could still see the flashes below--fire there, too, from at least two sources. Dragon was yelling about a tree, but Dread, from here, could not see--and a brief bank and circle told him he'd be unable to do so from the canopy.

Frustrating, yes; but that was the price of size--his broad wings simply could not maneuver him down through their trunks.

The dragon was forced to fly some hundred yards back toward the Heart, and then swing back around, into a clearing and low; he came in for a heavy, mud-splashing landing just behind the attacking group.

He was vulnerable, here, and his fins bristled, his neck arching back--but the attackers seemed to be utterly swarming the few defenders. He wasn't sure if more defenders were still coming; they'd taken them all by surprise, after all. But for now, he focused forward.

He could see the tree. And after Legion's assault directly on his face, he was angry.

Dread drew himself up, shriek-roaring a challenge (to the tree, because how dare it); and then he inhaled, deeply. The blast of flame was too short--too small, ugh--and it nowhere reached the tree. And his neck was arched some ten feet up, so it didn't hit anyone, either.

Useless!

He bellowed another challenge, made angrier now by the defiance of the tree, and resolved to kill it. Soon.

He was unaware of the alligator snickering at him some twenty yards away.

Temperantia could finally see Mother's nest. They were able to navigate through the dark, through the noises and cries that surrounded them. They would soon be safe, able to rescue Mother. They began to speak within their link, and an unearthly howl answered them. From no gembound, but Mother herself. She was always filled with love--this anger, this sorrow. It was foreign to them. They didn't know how to react. They felt Mothers pure anguish, and it became theirs. They knew their siblings felt the same. They wanted to reassure Mother that they would remember her, they would never betray their family.

They were conflicted about leaving Mother, it wasn't just. It wasn't right. They should at least grab a piece of her before leaving. The whole situation felt wrong...unjust. They took too long to make the choice. A nearby gembound shouted, ordering the assailants nearby to attack. They were going to destroy her tree, they realized. Temperantia projected the message to their siblings. The battlefield lit up with the glow and heat of fire, and shocked Temperantia out of their thoughts. Two of their siblings, Howl and Shoko was going to tunnel H, they would follow. There was safety in the family.

Temperantia is attempting to escape via tunnel H

Pride staggered back, flames rushing toward him. Silver eyes sprang wide and he flashed his mind for his magicka, reaching for a shield-

-and as the first heat of Azrael's searing flames reached him, threatening to scorch his coat, bright and fierce against his eyes, his magicka responded. The stag scrambled backward in the mud, his shimmering shield protecting him from the worst of it, but it was still as standing not too far off a bonfire: very unpleasantly hot, and blinding.

He lost precious seconds in defending himself, the magical barrier falling away once the flames had dissipated.

Giggle eyed Azrael critically, through the dark and the flame, through the chaos around her. Adrenaline still trembled through her, and the thud of her own heart seemed to drown out most of the roar of battle. She, unlike some, had never been in a big fight; she had not been there to battle Aquarian, or Raheerah, or any of the other scuffles that had occurred throughout the cave. Not that she had not experienced horrors, of course--but this was... overwhelming.

She could feel one eye twitching, her black lips curling into a grimace, as she sought her next target: the demon appeared to have been purged, at least, though she would need to ensure that later. For now, the urgency of combat had her seeking another goal.

She had to make a split-second decision; to attempt to cleanse one of the smaller, nimbler creatures, or the big bear-beast that the rest were struggling with. If I don't cleanse him, they'll kill him. And isn't that--what's his name. Leon? she thought, distractedly, her mind reaching back into long-ago meetings in the quiet, dripping dark of Pisces, and for a fight in a tunnel--she had been in one, she realized, when she was young; a brief scuffle, the hyena cub darting out of the dark to bloom fungus across the great bear's back, fungus that had driven off his attackers-...

She wasn't sure if it was him. She couldn't remember Leon's stone, and she hadn't seen him in an age. Still, this bear was the biggest left of them, and if she could cleanse this one, there was little left to do but clean up the remains.

rain stock: D Sharon Pruitt wiki commons; hyena Benjamin Hollis on flickr

He aimed a great paw for one of the creatures biting at him--as it fell away--but jaws fastened in his flesh.

Sergei turned, bellowing, aiming the strike instead for the toxic-eyed, spined beast whose fangs had found their target. Claws and heavy paw swiped, but whether they hit or not, they struck the mud a moment later... and stumbled. The bear went down, a heap of grunting, heavy fur, someone still attached to him.

It felt as though someone had frozen his muscles, slowed him to a crawl, and everything around him felt... fuzzy; the battle came in blurred, gradual flashes and distant, unimportant, muffled roars.

His bulk settled in the mud, and he was about to succumb to the strange sensation of paralysis when a new pain tore through him.

Blinding, agonizing; it was searingly sharp, like a fire through every muscle. He would have screamed, but his body could not move, and so all the bear could manage was a pained and keening moan.

And then, suddenly, the Hive was gone.

Their voices, gone.

Mother, gone.

Sergei lay confused, motionless, paralyzed and unable to make sense of this... his mind too muddled to feel even relief as the pain faded, and the white fungus crawled away into the swamp.

Sergei aiming one last punch at Alpha

As the seconds ticked by, Azrael felt his hold on Mother slipping. At first he panicked as the fungal influence began to recede and the voices and sensations in his head started to disappear, flicker away, lights in the darkness extinguished one by one. NO, he roared through the link before, with a snapping finality, he was left alone.

It was shocking, being suddenly cut away from the family. He had been with them for cycles, even since he was young. Before he could fully string whole sentences together, before he knew what a lot of words meant, before his thoughts were at last their own and not those of a beast. He was frozen stiff-still in the middle of the battle. Chaos raged around him, screams and roars pounding at his ears, but, to him, it was dead quiet. Without the voices of the family, without the presence of Mother in his head...dead quiet.

It was surreal, it wasn't right...but then hard, cold reality began to seep into his mind. Cruel realization that he was alone now. He was cut off from the rest of the only family he'd known for a very long time. It almost made him physically sick to no longer have that influence steering his mind right. Without the orderly hivemind that Mother had imposed on him. But now that it was gone...it only took a second for the beast she had suppressed to reemerge.

And that beast boiled up like lava in his veins, rage incarnate, blazing, furious wrath that consumed Azrael in an instant. With the blast of reality came the realization that he had been used like a doll, his brain toyed and manipulated for Mother's whims. Without the link, there was no longer that artificial sense of love. It lingered in his brain, like the afterthoughts of a ghost, but they were weak and baseless and he crushed them in an instant.

His pride had been wounded - no, obliterated, a seventh of his personality destroyed by this...this...thing and Azrael burst free from the last traces of the hive only moments after the cutoff had occurred, ripping free the remainders of his shackles as his vision tunneled through his anger.He didn't need to think things over or sort through his thoughts. There was only one that mattered to him right now. I'm going to DESTROY HER.

Rising up back to his feet, he threw back his head and let his anger be known in a terrible, earth-shattering roar. He said nothing, did not turn to anyone to explain the situation, did not care that someone had already set the tree ablaze. He did not care if he was stepping into that flame himself as he lowered his head and turned himself around so that he was facing the entrance. He only needed a sidestep before he could see it, just a bit, that pulsing writhing fungus that he now hated with every fiber of his being.

He sucked in a deep breath and when he opened his jaws, a powerful torrent of fire roared into existance, straight into the den where Mother was being held, more powerful then any spell he had cast before, every ounce of his rage blazing along with tongues of flames, tail lashing furiously behind him. His arms were open, hands clenched against his anger, but the eyes in his skull watched everything with a dark hunger. He wanted to watch it burn.

She ran, and she ran, and she ran.

Her muscles screamed, but her Family needed her, so she ran, and she ran, and she ran. Dug in her hooves until she threw up grass and dirt, her family was being shattered, Mother was telling them that they were to flee but she needed to make sure they got away safely, so she ran, and she ran, and she ran.

And found an unexpected obstacle, a monster of a fellow stag full of monstrous fungi, and there was a sickening pulling sensation, pain as Mother was pulled from her, and she screamed, reared in a futile attempt to escape the pain, but it was useless as she collapsed onto her side, eyes wide, flashing whites as she thrashed on the ground weakly, trying to gather herself but too confused, floating, astray, without her Family in her head.

"This nest is lost. Flee... if you can flee. Save yourself. Come no closer."

No, Mother - we'll save you! We'll save you! We'llsaveyouwe'llsaveyouwe'llsave-- he begged through the link, old - sickeningly - familiar hints of mania creeping in as Mother's hold slipped, as lights winked out from their family. We are strong, we are family, we are one. At this point, it was an age-old adage Howl'd lived by, sworn by where the rest of him simply dissolved into... nothing. Sweet, sweet nothing.

Something deep within him told him that he didn't want to let go of her. Even if his other siblings turned their backs on him, he'd come crawling back into her love and adoration and perfection.

Howl grit his teeth together through the misery of a few broken fingers, and looked around wild-eyed. He could - he could hide deeper in Cetus. Slip through the mud for a bit, hide until all of this blew over, stay with her...

He simpered through the mud, skin crawling with the sensation, moving Mother higher up on his body so she could cling to his back and be carried safely.

Howl attempts to flee deeper into Cetus.

The panda continued sprinting, away from the fighting, away from the screaming and roaring and the blazing fire, terror pulsing through her veins. But she wasn't as scared as she should be because she could not even imagine what a life without Mother would be like. She couldn't remember the few minutes of life she'd had before Mother had embraced her.

She kept going, running towards where she knew the exit was when she felt, in the few lights left within her mind, one of them veer away from the exit, going deeper into Cetus, mania creeping through the link. She knew that light - her brother's light, the one who had given Mother to her at hatch. She trusted Howl more then anyone else in the hive and if he was turning away...then there was a reason.

Go alone or follow him? The answer was clear to her.

She stopped in her tracks and turned, racing as fast as she could on her stubby legs after Howl, hoping that he had some kind of plan in mind, hoping that he knew a way out of this mess.

Shoko is attempting to follow Howl

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Hera

Dread

Temperantia

Pride

Giggle

Sergei

Azrael

Artume

Howl

Shoko