The great bear had only felt pain like this once in his past--when the white bear had attacked him, and rent his flesh down to the muscle.

And he'd never felt fear like this before.

He stumbled down, his great, shaggy bulk briefly blocking the tunnel, an ursine moan of fear escaping him. He cowered, childlike, against the rock wall, the rotten chunk of fungus tumbling from his jaws. Horror gripped him, and he shook his head to and fro, to and fro-... The voices were gone.

The link was gone.

His family was gone.

That strange sense of dying, of being torn apart--even that had been suddenly wrenched away, and the big bear blinked small, dark eyes in frightened confusion.

He looked around. His gaze fell on Azrael, and he pushed up, picking the fungus back up in his jaws. He said something--muffled, around the clot in his mouth--and made to follow the other. Though that familial link was gone, he'd assumed (wrongly, of course) that his brother-of-sorts could still understand him. The linsang, too, was still scurrying along, and so Sergei followed them both, his furred ears pinned, fear driving him onward.

What he'd said--had he been understood--had been wretched, a child's pleading.

"Do not leave me alone."

exit Sergei

Fear, pain, thrilled through their own swarm. Their shape grew blurred, indistinct, each mite losing track of its position as the hive-mind as a whole was abruptly lost.

Humming, buzzing, shifting in a swirl, they took a moment to rearrange--to reorient.

The others are gone.

Assessing. -Efficiency returned to peak levels. Alternative minds no longer slowing decision-making processes.

The swarm slowly reformed, considering, the creature-shape that it created looking blank-eyed and lost. Goal reassessment.

A decision was quickly reached. "We will follow, to Cetus," they hummed--and the cloud of mites, each carrying a tiny speck of fungus, followed the others further down the tunnel... and, hopefully, to safety.

exit Legion

Archimedes was wholly, blissfully unaware of the goings-on in the hive, and beyond. He sat up on his hind feet and turned, peering at the entrance, watching the clusters of harmless fungus at the exterior--those that had disguised Mother beyond--blackening and bubbling. Were they all just killed-?

Astraea's voice pulled him back to reality and he turned, dropping back to all fours, peering up. Forepaws briefly flicked through whiskers and away, as if to rid the rat of the putrescent stink he'd now abandoned.

"Four-... five? Six? I did not know them all. Two bears, one brown, one white. A... purple thing, with fins. It was ranting about serving the Masters," he added. He did not say which side it had been ranting on--there was much he did not say. He wanted to learn more, first, before he gave any truly identifying characteristics. There were more than two bears in the cave--that much, he knew. "An insectoid thing, and a fish-creature. I didn't ask their names. We were brother, sister." His voice quavered, and he stared off. "There were others, at the start-... but those that wished to leave were--wiped. Their memory. Our own was tampered with." He hesitated, and then looked to Astraea. "We thought she was--our mother. She said that she was Mother. What was she-? It? Where did it--come from?" And then, as if awakening from a nightmare--"Who are you?"

Lamia was already about halfway across the lagoon when it happened. It struck her - horror, terror, a rending, breaking of connection with the family. Agonizing pain made her halt in her swim as death fell over her like a blanket. Her eyes widened with shock and she almost turned around to swim back, to help Mother because she was being destroyed! Whoever had stood outside of the cave was killing her!

But it was too late. A moment later, the connection was shattered and it was like her tail had been hacked off suddenly. She suddenly felt vulnerable, disconnected, only a piece of a whole left completely alone. She was frozen in place, a vibrating moan of despair ringing out through the depths of the lagoon. It wouldn't reach the surface - she had, at least, enough tact to keep it quiet, but it was haunting all the same and it was a release of her sorrow. The others, at least, at each other as a physical presence as they escaped. But she had no one, only the shards of Mother left in her arms.

With a heavy heart, she turned, carrying her burden with her as she headed for Cetus. It was colder, it was smaller, farther out of the reach. It would be easier to grow Mother there - and that was where the fox was waiting.

*exit

He at first calmed when the fox began to speak, but then many things happened, too swiftly for Azrael to follow. In the next moment, it seemed, they were fleeing. Unfamiliar terror seized a hold of him through his connection and he whipped around towards the tunnel entrance, lip curling with disbelief. And, for a moment, he was wholly unsure.

It was now that Azrael undestood he had a very important decision to make. Betray Mother, accept the Master's offer, and stay safe, or leave with the others and keep Mother alive, but most likely be hunted by the one outside of the cave? His eyes widened with realization when the answer did not come easy. He actually had to think about this.

But there wasn't any time to think! The question was simple - betray and be safe, fight for his family, or run with the rest? That question was easy to answer. His lip curled and he stepped forward, baring his arms, ready to take down the creature that dared to try and destroy this family, destroy this sense of purpose that had driven him the last few cycles, destroy the Mother that had inspired him to grow!

But he stopped because the insect-creature was calling to him. Asking for help. And as he turned to watch them run, desperately escaping with as much of Mother as they could carry, a more gentler, thoughtful nature began to emerge under brutality. Instead of solving this with violence...perhaps there was a better way. A safer, smarter way to fight back. He would probably die if he tried to fight, but if he ran with the others, grabbed Mother and brought her elsewhere, he would have another chance.

He didn't have time to mull it over. Swallowing his pride, he turned away from the entrance and lunged forward, ripping out large chunk's of Mother's body with a whispered apology, and turning towards the tunnel, racing away after the others just as the terror seized his mind.

He had escaped, but just barely, the feeling of death and horror overcoming his entire existence for just a moment. He swallowed a roar of despair as the connection was rent away and broken in an instant, focusing instead of carrying what remained and following the others. Still, tears stung at the eyes on his head and his jaw ached. He wanted to bite into something and rip it to pieces - preferably the one that had destroyed Mother. He wanted to quell these feelings with violence...but now was not the time.

He instead let his fury fuel his limbs as he raced on with the others, vowing to get his revenge one day.

*exit

BLACK OPAL
honestly i thought that i would be dead by now

The Opal never stopped swimming, even when Mother's terror and agony tore through him like the claws and beaks of a thousand vultures. He leapt over the rocks and small waterfalls upstream like a fish, towards Tunnel M, though his mind was still reeling. It was ripped from him, the connection he shared with Mother and the others, the sense of oneness. It was like a part of him had been severed.

The black opal bit down harder on the clump of fungi. A different kind of pain wracked his body, one he had not felt in a long, long time. It from the heart and made the chest feel as heavy as boulder and put stones in the throat. It was worse than anything Hydra threw at him and the reason he distanced himself before. The opal had no tears to shed, they were beat out of him long ago, but it did not make his grief any easier.

He hoped the others were not slain like Mother. The thought of Astraea's wrath and fungus eating away at their flesh while alive made him ill. If they died, hoped it had not been like that at all.

But he was not dead. Not yet.

As long he kept his piece of Mother safe, she would live on. The Masters would not win.

He slipped out the stream onto the gravel and bounded towards the yawning tunnel. His eyestalk swiveled behind him. So far, he had not been followed.

There was only one place he thought safe, one place Astraea and most of the other Masters might have trouble getting too. The one place he could regrow Mother in peace.

The isles of Fornax.

*exit Opal

For a moment, his teeth gritted. Not a single name, after all of that? "How long was it here?" he asked, his tone cold. Was this tiny beast holding out on him?

For a moment, inspecting it, he wondered too if the rat was one of the cave rats, somehow become sentient. But it bore the wretchedly soft, warm brown plainness of the rest of the foreign accidents throughout the cave. "Is that truly everything that you know?" he asked, carefully. He had cleansed this one. Would it still dare lie to him-? "If I find out that there is information that you have withheld..."

Astraea did not bother to finish his sentence. It hung there, a threat in its own right, as he towered above Archimedes.

Archimedes stared back up, unblinking.

His mind was moving fast. Had he known who Astraea was, he might have felt more fear; but as it was, the deer had ignored his request for a name. And I never gave my own, he realized. Granted, he'd be easily-recognizable should he be spotted again, but by name-? Quick to seize on an opportunity, he decided to press the topic of Astraea's identity. Perhaps if he pushed the stranger, he could change the topic fast enough.

"I didn't ask. We were 'brother,' 'sister.' I think one of them--a small one--was called Shiny, through our link, but it is no longer with us," he added. "And it didn't seem very intelligent. What is your name? Who are you, with this--power to find this out, to rescue us?" he pressed, hoping that a dash of flattery and a bucket-full of insistence would be enough to irritate the deer away from his own identity.

Shiny had been Huckleberry's familiar; not even smart enough, had its memory not been wiped, to truly give them away. Archimedes held no real loyalty to the rest, but nor was he one to burn bridges--not bridges that might, later on, be useful to him.

Is it trying to... flatter me? Astraea stared down with hardening red eyes. Its attempts to distract him were perhaps overly obvious to one so old.

"You'll come with me," he decided. There was no need to do this here--not in Pisces. Not near that lagoon.

He turned, and began to pace off, turning to ensure that the rat was following him. Only when they neared the exit did he speak further. "Tell me your name. And tell me where they fled to; your descriptions are vague. For your sake I hope that isn't deliberate."

Archimedes' attempt at misdirection had perhaps been recognized for what it was--but more than that, had backfired. The stag now seemed exceedingly interested in the rat's identity.

Damn.

It seemed he had some work to do on his whole "lying and misdirection" endeavors. Perhaps being part of a hive-mind had been detrimental to that sort of thing.

The rat followed dutifully, well aware that the magical power in this stranger would likely stop him in his tracks should he attempt to flee. At least, that was his assumption. He made a decision, then and there: he'd say that Mother had told them to scatter, but if Astraea did not seem to immediately believe it, he'd tack on that he'd 'felt' many of them fleeing toward Cetus.

He'd have to study him closely to be able to tell. He didn't want to burn those bridges--they might be useful for keeping him alive, later on--but he needed to stay alive in the here-and-now to ever make use of them.

Sympathies didn't really factor in.

So he sat up, running paws through his whiskers, and he answered. He did his best to seem earnest, maintaining eye-contact, keeping a natural tone of voice, and all of that.

"Archimedes. Nice to meet you, one-who-won't-give-your-own-name," he added pointedly, with dark humor. Had he known who Astraea was, perhaps he'd not have been so flippant. "The--voice. The one who called itself 'mother.' It told us to gather pieces of it, and to scatter. To plant new nests around the caves," he explained.

There--perhaps a partial truth was better than an outright lie. And it made sense; he only hoped that Astraea believed it. He watched closely, ready to add on should the stag not seem to be buying it.