Twisted was wandering through Polaris as she always did. As she always was doing, day after day. Each filled with pent up anger and impatience, a desire for social interaction yet with the knowledge that all the ones she's had end in hostility or violence. She was alone, along in a prison she built herself. Safe to say it wasn't exactly a good time to be Twisted.

Well, walking always helped. And Polaris was where she spent most of her time. The siamese cat paced back and forth along the banks of the river, watching the Spire beyond in the corner of her vision. The snow storms had long passed (unfortunately she wasn't awake at the time) and were instead replaced by brand new tunnels leading... somewhere. She didn't trust them enough to check. The generator was in front, chugging along like it nothing had ever happened.

An idea grew in her mind. What would happen if she tried to mess with those moving parts, or with the wires that stretched up into the ceiling? Well, it'd probably end with her chrysalization, but that was fine by her. Maybe she could get a good laugh at what happens before going under.

And so Twisted stepped atop the ancient machine, black paws struggling to keep a grip on it's vibrating hull.

@Comet

Comet had already explored much of Polaris, but never the generator before. Perhaps it was the fact that it was situated in a less frequented part of the cave, or because it was just weird. Well, today was the day that she would be looking into it. She trotted happily over to the humming machine, and noticed that she was not the only one here today.

There was a cat, who looked like she was trying to climb on top of the generator. That was crazy! Well, Comet did crazy things too, so one couldn't be too surprised. "Hello? What are you doing up there?" And as usual, whenever she met someone new, she sent up some bubbles as a greeting.

@Twisted

Twisted felt a prick of annoyance rise as someone called out to her. Couldn't they see she didn't want to talk? No wait, she did want interaction-- but did she really want that? Gah, why were these feelings so confusing? Either way, the wolf did succeed in halting the siamese's climb, although she was not exactly happy about it.

"What do you want?" she hissed, furrowing her brows down at the pup. The she-wolf sent up magic bubbles, which floated in the air pleasingly-- and which she immediately popped with a swipe of her broken tail. "Stop it with those dumb bubbles. Everyone know magic's useless anyways." Her gaze lifted back to the top of the generator. "And, uh, I dunno. 'Wanna see if I can fff--" 'No, no cursing, remember? Last time it didn't go well.' "--mess some things up. See if I can turn off the lights for a moment."

@Comet

Comet flinched as the cat popped the bubbles with a swipe of her tail. Oops, guess she didn't like bubbles. "Sorry." The pup's ear immediately drooped. "I don't think turning off the lights would be a good idea. You might be hurt going in that thing." It looked like the cat was quite determined to do something with the generator, and reasoning probably wasn't going to help.

"You should come down here, that looks dangerous." There was a lot of moisture in the air, and Comet pushed it together to form rain clouds. Which would hopefully make the generator wet enough that the cat would slip off.

@Twisted

One moment Twisted had turned her back to the wolf and continued her hike up the hull, and the next moment a pitter of rain fell on her nose. Well, that by itself wasn't too concerning. Large rooms like Polaris did have a tendency to form low clouds, and sometimes those clouds let out all their rain. The moisture gathered far too quickly to be natural, droplets seeping from the air itself and forming a cloud just above her. She barely had a moment to mouth "What?" before the drizzle increased to a torrent, clicking the metal until she could no longer get a grip.

"Wh- oof!" Twisted's black paws came out from under her and the cat slid, rather humiliated, down to the wolf. She whipped around to glare at the wolf, convinced that she had somehow done this, and was surprised to see she barely looked fazed at all. That was a genuine rain cloud, how could she--?! No. God no.

"Y-you... you just did Maddy's magic!" She sputtered. It never really crossed her mind before that two gembounds can do the same spell, apparently. "How did you--" her green eyes narrowed accusingly. "Are you affiliated with her?! That stupid cat! Did she send one of her friends just to mess with me?"

@Comet

Apparently rain worked especially well on surfaces like the generator, and before long, the cat slid down to her. "Sorry about that, I didn't want you to get hurt." Comet ignored the obscenities that the cat had muttered earlier about her and her magic. She was determined to help this cat not die.

"Maddy? Who is that?" Confusion filled her face. Perhaps it was a nickname? Oh, Maddy was a cat. Comet only knew too other cats, and only one of them had a name that sounded like Maddy. "Do you mean Madhukar? Oh, I'm not her friend I don't think. We had a small battle and she hurt me really bad. But that's okay! It was an accident." The lightning scars could still be seen across her back if you looked closely enough.

Comet brushed right past the accusing tone. "Do you know how to do magic too?" She sent up some more bubbles so the cat would hopefully not look so angry. Perhaps the first time that she had popped them with her tail had been an accident.

@Twisted

Twisted kept her eyes firmly on the white wolf, even as she shook the raindrops out of her fur. She did not trust this pup, no matter how benign her face was. After a moment of rapidly licking the moisture out of her fur and listening to her words, she turned to respond.

"Of course I mean Madhukar! That little, good for nothing... huh?" Ah, so Madhukar tried to hurt this one? Sure enough, her green eyes could make out the faint scars along her back. So much for her being all high-and-mighty. "Well, I think you'll be glad to know I beat her up real good before. You know that scar on her face? I gave it to her. 'Did put up a nasty fight, though." To this day the insides of her throat still hurt from that electroball.

"And magic? Ha!" Twisted laughed. "Everybody with a brain knows that stuff's useless." Without a moment of hesitation she unsheathed a paw and swiped at the bubbles, popping a good number of them. "It only benefits the cool guys, while the rest of us are left with almost nothing. Just look at this--!

Twisted halfheartedly tried to do the only magic she could: summoning a couple dumb mushrooms. Nothing happened at first, but then a searing pain started in her outstretched paw as creeping fungi began growing out of it. She hissed, surprised, and tried to tear out the buds with her teeth. Rivulets of blood ran from the stunted roots. "See?!" she spat out the truffle in her mouth. "It just harms anyone that it doesn't decide to give a 'special talent' to. Absolutely unfair, absolutely oppressive, and I'm absolutely gonna be unable to walk on this paw for a while."

@Comet

"Oh, you did?" Comet didn't hold any grudges against Madhukar or anything, and she didn't approve of any animal beating up another, even if the cat had hurt her before. "You probably shouldn't beat people up for no reason." She immediately started to dislike this cat, who seemed to enjoy hurting others.

"Oh, I didn't know only some animals had magic." Comet was getting confused about this whole thing, and was about to make more bubbles when she remembered that this cat didn't like bubbles for some reason. Suddenly the cat cast a spell that backfired, and mushrooms grew on her paw. She flinched as they were ripped off, the blood trickling onto the ground.

"Well maybe some animals are just better at other things. Have you tried... physical fighting?" It was certainly and impressive feat to beat up Madhukar who was really good at magic. That had to take some skill. The pup felt lucky that she was good at magic, now she couldn't imagine life without it!

@Twisted

Still bleeding from her paw, Twisted watched the wolf pup talk. And caves, she was such a pacifist. Talking about "not beating up people for no reason" and other nonsense. She didn't like pacifists. Life was about the battle! It was a cat-eat-cat world out here! Still, she managed to keep her mouth shut until the pup was done with his comments.

"Of course I've tried physical fighting, that's how I beat people." She skipped right past her words on beating people up. It was a cat-eat-cat world out here, and the thought of someone openly challenging that was confusing. "And, well, most of us have that dumb sparkly magic, it's what makes us 'alive' or whatever. Just it simply only does useful stuff for a few of us, and then they use it to stomp all over everyone else! Doing such horrible things like shooting electricity up your throat or rupturing your eardrums just for spitting at them!"


Well, safe to say Twisted was twisting the truth a bit. And being oddly specific. But chances were this one random pup wouldn't figure out how it really went down, so no need to worry, right? "But yeah, I do physical. And I'm good at it. N' I can prove it if you want, see how good your rainstorms face against sharp claws." Not an aggressive offer, but the pride was dripping from her voice. The Cat, unfortunately, wasn't aware of how powerful this Comet really was.

@Comet

"Oh?" Comet didn't like the sound of this already. The part about shooting electricity and rupturing eardrums sounded really similar to what had happened when she had fought with Madhukar. But earlier, the cat had said that she had beat up Madhukar, but was it possible then, that she was hiding when another fight had happened? And the results were reversed?

"Um, yeah I believe that you're quite good at fighting. I don't think you need to prove it, I believe you." Comet was trying to avoid fighting here, but the prideful tone of her voice really irked her. So, the pup didn't exactly walk away, instead, she sat there. And made some bubbles.

@Twisted