But it seemed as though the consequences followed her, in a new form. She had escaped any attempt of the opposing team to hinder her for now, and yet guilt remained slithering at a steady pace right behind her heels. Like a Quarry of her own, "consequence" rewrote itself and chased her from behind -- that venomous snake -- even though she now stared at the true Quarry right in front of her. Like a never ending circle, like a wheel within a wheel--

And as she stared back at it, as she sensed its fear and felt it thrumming through her paws and chaining her to the ground, the snake was finally allowed to slither up her spine and coil around her neck. She didn't even notice Kitty. She didn't even notice it getting away. The world seemed to fade to only that fear, and Madhukar was pushed back into the bottomless pit of cycles and despairs.

Until.

A most untimely occurrence for the Quarry. Maybe for Madhukar too. A spot of violent magic from an unknown source hit the back of one of Madhukar's legs, and simultaneously that otherworldly craving for the Hunt slammed into her consciousness like a bag of bricks. An undertaker.

In that moment, Madhukar was nothing more than the wild hounds of the Huntsmen. The individual, in and of itself, was... on holiday.

The risen hunger bade her to chase, the desperate intensity begged her to snarl, and the predator inside gave her the final plea:

UNLEASH.

Thus, this creature did all of those things, one after the other. The pain soon faded from her leg, but in the overwritten code of her mind, it had never really mattered to begin with, so it might as well have never been there at all.

Think "Speak"

Madhukar is attempting to aid the Huntsmen by attempting to unleash a Lightning Storm on the fleeing Quarry.

Aran couldn't tell much of what was going on. Some flash of light, a lot more noise. A lot of things were happening at once and he would have to strain his ears and what was left of his sight to figure it out. What he did know, though, was the feeling that washed over him all of a sudden with what felt like no warning. He could feel it. The thrill of the chase. Except he only watched. The deer didn't move to help or hinder.

He could feel what they were, so much so that he was stunned into place only to be stuck there.

Aran is Observing

Tahi-shei had lived through both sides of this coin -- predator and prey alike. Alpha and Elias. One of those was sewn into his blood, the other one etched into his magic. He was duality, balancing on a knife-point, but now he was neither of those things -- he was option three, the mystery door, the silent observer watching chaos unfold. His eyes were wide and enraptured -- he was a seeker of knowledge, he was a part of this stone. He was a primary source, and nothing more. An anonymous thing in this crowd.

It was almost exhilarating.

[Tahi-shei observes.]

As energy missed her and clipped at her tail, Kitty was finding herself more and more caught up in the energy of the Hunt before she realized, in a last moment of conscious thought, that this was more than just instinct. This was... magic. And then she was gone, a flurry of red that might have been a fox in its own right, her jaws and claws aching to tear and bite and destroy. She was a hunter, desperate for her next meal, every bit as ravenous in her pursuit of it as the Quarry was in its desire to survive. She lunged over rocks and bits of debris after the Quarry, deftly missing bolts of lightning, and though she couldn't actually make the appropriate sound, Kitty very nearly howled with the feral, Dionysian glee of hunting.


[Kitty is hunting.]

Talys stamped his foot angrily as the hunters resolutely ignored him, and was prepared to start yelling again when suddenly, a pulse of energy and a pulse of fear struck through him.

Talys was an apex predator. He was a creature of endurance, built to survive great journeys, to track his prey until it could not run any longer. He had hands to manipulate tools and teeth to bare in a last, desperate defense. But even predators sometimes became prey. The feral anxiety of a man possessed tore through the child's body, and then he was stumbling and running after the desperate hare. Before, he had been on the side of the Quarry because he felt pity for it, but now he was on the side of the Quarry because he was the prey.

Adrenaline and blood roared in his ears, and this promised to be a moment he would not soon be forgetting if ever he managed to reclaim his mind from where it lay discarded and trampled by ethereal horses in the midst of the foxhunt.


[Talys is with the quarry.]

Crumbling ruins crashed into her flanks, bashed against her skull; but, she was undeterred. It was not something taking off a limb or some other essential part of her. Sure, it again tore open the wound blossomed along her jaw, but still—it was no essential nor lethal wound. Draconua wasn't fazed by the stone spike jutting out the earth, either. It was already an old tactic, and she merely clambered around it after crawling from the trap of her own making. Gravity's shifting in the other direction was quite helpful in that regard, despite her immensely heavy and stumbling landing.

Why answer to prey's cries, when one can join in the baying of the spectral Hounds? Her thoughts mirrored that of the cat, conjuring Thor's might and sending it to the earth. Unravel the spring, let it snap back, unleash. A peal of lightning smashed into stone, and she answered it with a rattling roar of her own: deep-chested, terrifying, otherworldly. The thin band of restraint keeping her from the chance of expending the magic required to live had left with conscious thought; every thrumming pulse of His magic poured out into the world.

Her oilstone throbbed with the impulse.

Forks of black lightning rippled out from her being, arcing straight for the tumultuous storm above. It joined the system in a thunderous cacophony: bolts crashing down like falling stars. Chaos made manifest with no single target. Why bother controlling it? Let it rain.

Wicked delight drowned out all the feeling of exhaustion. She grinned ear-to-ear as she gallivanted through the ruins, into the flood of Hunter and Hunted, greyed teeth all on full display. Right in the thick of it, she'd let it all out, given time. This was familiar; this was what she knew. A hundred writhing bodies with one singular goal: destruction.Draconua is attempting to "aid the Huntsmen" by adding some lightning strikes to Madhukar's storm c:

Still, she hobbled.

That monstrous thing could ignore her all it wanted, but inevitably, Hargrave thought, she'd manage to make her move. Making an attack on the intangible had yielded no results; and, the others had seemingly been too afraid to target the largest of those pursuing the Quarry. They erred on the side of merely distracting it or any of the other hunters. In a way—despite her "noble" tendencies—it annoyed her. Why would they not aim to incapacitate, when averting one's eyes was merely a temporary solution?

In that brief moment the group spent suspended in the air by some unseen force, the gray hare narrowed her eyes at the behemoth—Draconua—and bared her full teeth. The heat of corruption simmered beneath her skin and her hackles rose.

Then, it exploded outwards in an inglorious show. Fire burst out across her fur, singing it black in an instant. Her throat strained and tore with the sheer exertion of her shrieking yelp. Gravity took hold again, and she did not catch herself on the landing. She flopped to one side, smothering the flames haphazardly on that and then rolling to the other. Flesh sizzled and popped, musculature dehydrated and nearly cooked to a point of being unusable.

Being swept up in the Hunt's energies had her curling up where she'd landed, as if that were an adequate hiding spot for a prey item. The sweet allure of sleep—that kind of sleep—began to overtake her, but she endured for whatever reason.

Here... she'd hide here...

... in the middle of this alleyway.
Hargrave is attempting to aid the quarry by immolating Draconua. burning.

Late to the party, was she?

Sharp had gotten lost a little back chasing the spectres, to the point she didn't realize the hunt moved into Orion until long after they came. The lizard scrambled in with breathy calls of "I'm here!" and "Wait, where did everyone go?" before she caught sight of the raging magical storm happening through the alleyways. Wisps and fire and crashing walls intertwined with misty spectres, gembounds twisting about in the fog, the entire world a cacophony of noise and sights. A bit frightening, to say the least, but the sungazer managed to scurry behind a fallen brick and watch in (relative) safety.

Oh, and Comet was watching too! Hi, Comet!

A storm brewed ahead, smoke billowed from an alleyway, and a monstrous shape barged through ahead. Black-violet bolts arced down and struck randomly, one hitting near enough to Sharp for her to shriek. This would normally be the moment she took her leave, but there was something so exhilarating about watching it go down that she found herself glued. The hunt controlled her like a dictator controls their men. No longer was Sharp any individual gembound-- she was one and all with the Hunt.

In other words: this was rad.

© ©

Comet watched, watched the quarry run, and the hunters chase. They were coming, closer now, and she could feel the energy, the thrill of the entire thing pass through her. It felt like she was part of this, this chase, as if she had always been. There was nothing that could quite describe what she was feeling right now, and she doubted anything ever could. But she would not interfere, she was to watch, and not to join in.

[Comet is observing]

He'd been waiting. For a while, it seemed he was waiting, watching, lurking for the final kill. There was a clue as to where this thunt would end- where he'd find the bird in the first place, where he and his brother had searched for the rewards.

He waited for the prey.

A scampering noise- that of a nearby living gembound- drew his head up, his single ear flicking and eye bright. It was time. Heaving himself to his feet, Sword took off, streaking with conserved energy as he integrated into the hunt. This-- Felt good. A toothy grin had developed onto his face as his sharp hooves clattered on the floor.

This was right. He was with his fellow huntsman, and he was surging forward, running alongside the braying and barking of his fellow hounds. It took a few tries to navigate through the landscape, but soon he was slipping between buildings and pouring out to join the pack, teeth bared as he soared through the dark cave.

This was the way of the Hunt. He was part of the Hunt. And he lived for it.

Sword is aiding the huntsmen.