OOC://@Arctic: Thanks! The link works
BIC://"Um, okay," Oliver responded and saw Shiba run off rather quickly. He turned on his heels and continued down the street towards home. Again, hands in his pockets, the nineteen year-old trudged down the street; he noticed that it was slowly starting to get dark and, since he had a small detour speaking with Shiba, he wasn't going to make it home before dark. And when it was dark, bad things could happen, especially considering the fact that he lived on the "wrong end of town."
"Sh*t..." Oliver hurried underneath a recently-lit streetlamp and realized that there were
no other people on the street. "Just my luck," he muttered and looked around for a makeshift weapon. He spotted a large stick and grabbed it. Again, Oliver began to walk at a quickened pace, the stick hanging low.
The teen rounded the corner that his complex was located on and he heaved a sigh of relief. Dropping the stick, Oliver reached into his back pocket to retrieve his door keys when he heard the
click-clank! of something metal and hard being knocked over a few feet to his left. Oliver whirled around, keys hanging loosely in his hand, and saw that a stack of old paint cans were rolling across his line of vision.
'It's...just some stray dog,' he thought, but was a bit reluctant to tear his gaze away from the toppled cans and head for his third-floor room.
Flint coked his head at Shiba's sudden actions and watched her run around a corner.
'Uh-oh. She might be morphin' again,' the Irish dog thought and glanced out of the corner of his eye to see that kid named Oliver walk off. Flint snorted at him. Good riddance. He didn't really feel
that comfortable around the kid anyway; he just wanted to show the younger male that he wasn't thinking about hurting him...and that you should never sneak up on a deep-in-thought Irishman-turned-dog.
The dog's ears caught the slight noise of claws tapping on concert and he lazily looked up to see a now-wolf mix Shiba peeking from around the corner, tail wagging fiercely. "iya, Claw. See yisser body decided ter change on 'tis own. Again," Flint pointed out. He knew Shiba was able to change on her own will, but he had never seen her do that. She had always been forced into a morph by her body acting on its own.
"You'll git de 'ang av it someday, lassy. Let's go see if we can fend de others nigh." With that said, the Irish water spaniel stood up, stretching out his muscles again and bounded down the street.
He only stopped short of his turn toward downtown, he was heading to the group's hideout, when he noticed that Shiba had stopped running. The dog turned to her and was about to open his mouth to ask her why she was no longer trying to keep up with him when he saw her sniffing the air. Flint took this as a hint and held his nose to the sky, too; he caught the faint scent of gun powder and...another human. He didn't recognize the scent. Suddenly, Shiba was off like a shot. " 'ey! Shiba! wait up, lassy!" the Irishman called and ran after her.
"Good," was Ariel's one-worded response before she pulled off, heading downtown. Tracking down mutants she -and no other hunter for that matter- was able to find, dealing with who she called the "Rookie" and the "Pest" for only just a few seconds, and having to deal with her boss's lecture on how very important capturing the humans-turned-animals were...she
really need a break from this job. Ariel came to a rest at the stop light and irritably tapped her fingers against the steering wheel.
The lady took out her phone and eyed it with anticipation;
'Should I call him or not?' she asked herself. She knew he'd be peeved if she rang him up, he already had to deal with the same circumstances as she did, but Ariel needed help. And going back to base empty-handed wasn't going to help her situation at all.
With a sigh, she dialed the number, put the cell phone to her ear, and waited for the gruff voice that she knew would be filled with malice to sound on the other side. "Hello?" There it was. Ariel shifted in her seat and gave the car some gas once the light turned green. "It's me. I need some help finding those mutants I was assigned." There was a snort on the other end -
"That's your problem- and the hunter frowned. "Seriously, Benjamin. I'll split the pay with you if I have to."
'Gotta move now.' Lee looked down at the passing citizens of the city she was stranded in, but the mutant knew that some of them were not ordinary citizens -or citizens at all for that matter. She saw the hunter who had tried to capture her at the restaurant earlier that day down on the street along with two others: another man and a woman. The woman, she had seen her before, but not the man; he was a new face. But the thing that stood out to the kestrel more was the pistol he had hidden in his inside jacket pocket. Lee scoffed him; she was a bird of prey after all. She could
clearly see his right hand holding at the pistol grip.
Keeping to her first thought, the kestrel took to the skies as silent as a ghost. The hunters down below hadn't even noticed the bird fly off. The kestrel noticed that it was getting a bit late, and this unnerved her. She had never spent a night alone, not after she was turned into a mutant. Lee was used to changing into her bird form and snuggling up close to stay warm in Isaac's white fur at night.
'Speaking of which,' Lee thought to herself as she soared through the air,
'Where is he? And Flint?'She looked down at the magnetized lights and roads of the crowded city and spotted a car jerk to a stop. From what she could tell, the vehicle was a Mustang.
'Hm. Nice ride.' Then something else caught the bird's attention: there was a white being down there in front of the car...,
'Moki!?'Lee squawked loudly, trying to catch her friend's attention. A man step out of the car and he wielded a gun. A hunter. Another new face the kestrel could not recognize.
'Moki! Get out of the way!' Lee cried out again, signaling her thoughts toward the wolf mutant. The hunter shot at Moki, but luckily he missed. Lee swooped down without hesitation, all talons and pointed beak, as he small frame smacked into the man's chest. Out of the corner of her eye, the kestrel saw a growling canine to her right. She didn't recognize her at first, but Lee hoped she was there to help.
He couldn't help but feel that something was very
wrong while he walked through the park. Isaac had been searching for what felt like hours -but it had only been about thirty to forty-five minutes. That was long enough.
'They should have caught my thoughts by now...'It was dark now, and the mutant decided that he should head back to the gang's hideout by the river. At least there, no one would be able to find them. The blond took a quick glance around the part of the park he was in. No one in sight. "Good."
Bowing down on his hands and knees, Isaac slowly morphed into his tiger form. Yes, people would be a little freaked out seeing a white Bengal tiger walking freely around the place, but four legs were better than two in methods of faster transportation. It took about five minutes for Isaac to fully morph into a tiger; the man scoffed and flicked the tip of his long, stripped tail in the air.
'It really does suck having to be the biggest mutant here, taking so much time to transform and all.' Isaac then bounded down the paved path that lead out of the park.
