Click
The shutter of a camera clicks, as a man in his thirties takes a picture with a small digital camera.
Its lens is wide, almost bigger than the device itself, giving it a goofy look.
Click
“Just like that, can you look at the camera and give me a big smile” He asks the subject of his shot expectantly.
His muse, as big as a bear, bares its blue long teeth at the photographer.
“Ah there you go, good job”
Click
“Thank you, that should do it”
He thanks the dark gray creature, its head resembling that of a fox in its shape.
It is held inside a large rectangular cage, a white tinted force field forming the walls and covering the roof.
As the cameraman turns to leave, the fox like creature growls.
Its two, long but thin, ears press against its head’s thick and long fur, an incredibly thick mane starts from its head and covers its entire back.
He hears the growl and turns back around to face the creature:
“Whoa, what did I do to you? No hard feelings okay, you’ll be going to a good home I’m, sure”
Ashen Sextuple Foxbear [https://i.imgur.com/WdPXQr9.png]
The foxbear stares at the man for a moment with its faded gray eyes before blowing steaming air through its large snout and settling down laying on the steel floor, snuggling on top of its six legs.
The man takes out a small device from his pocket and turns it on.
Its screen lights up and he opens a program, within it a file titled:
“Pictures for auction #459”
“Alright, picture taken of ‘Ashen Sextuple Foxbear’ “
He swipes a finger over the name on the screen, drawing a line over it.
So what’s next...
He swipes downwards and checks his next assignment on his work list.
A... Thyrchid?
A what?
I’ve never even heard of such an animal.
Though I am a fan of the name already, heaps better than the nonsense they usually assign to new species.
Gah, it just makes me cringe thinking of the infamous Triple rainbow mosquitollibri of sucking.
They say the name was the dying man’s wish who captured a whole swarm of them, before he died of blood loss, at least according to the legend.
Who’s gonna believe that? They just wanted to mess with us with that name for sure...
The man shakes his head and returns his wandering thoughts back on track.
Anyway, this is gonna be exciting, I’ll get to witness an entirely new species!
Been a while since last time, this one being a lot more mysteriously named than the Sabertiger.
Lets see where this Thyrchid’s cage is at…
He presses the species' name on screen, a large map of the area appears, innumerable cages littered around in some sort of formation inside a large building.
The map zooms in right next to him and shows the Thyrchid’s location to be the second cage on his right.
What? Next to the Solarophone? But that cage is empty?
He lifts his gaze from the screen and surveys the supposed cage of this new species and spots a purple mass laying on the floor.
Oh I must have missed it, as it’s just laying there motionless…
Is it okay?
He approaches the cage and looks at the Thyrchid from up close, his blonde locks almost getting fried by the force field.
This quite large, vaguely humanoid, insect-animal thing just lays there, a heap of arthropod limbs, bone like appendages and blades.
He squints at the creature trying to make heads or tails of it.
What even is that?
I hope it’s not dead...
A metal frame surrounds the cage’s force field, generating it and making the cage easily movable by machinery, its top and bottom covered by a steel slab.
At the cage’s frame at an easily accessible height, there is an electrical box like hunk of metal, two large buttons adorn it.
The red one says “release” and a white one has just a lightning icon on it.
Sorry about this, but maybe this will spark some life in you.
He plants a palm on the large white button, it presses down gently and rises back up.
A white electrical charge shoots out from the force field with a crackle, it arcs down from the ceiling and zaps the violet pile.
The Thyrchid inside twitches from the electrical strike, its body slowly increasing in movement.
Amethyst is roused from her unconsciousness.
Where am I? She opens her eyes to unknown surroundings.
She teeters up, taking support from her blades against the steel floor.
Ouch
She inspects her body for damage but her armor seems to be intact, apart from her previously injured left shoulder, despite the soreness all over.
She almost falls back down as a wave of weakness washes over her.
I’m so hungry...
Click
A camera’s flash lights up Amethyst’s body, her crystals and blades reflect the light back harshly.
Oops, well that’s a ruined picture, didn’t realize they’d be so reflective.
The photographer thinks and turns the flash back off from the touch display of his camera.
Amethyst brought a bladed hand to protect her eyes from this sudden flash of bright light, from behind it she looks through the world with purple tinted colors.
She is in a cage, that’s inside of a dimly lit building, the ceiling is high up with large lamps hanging from it.
She looks to her left and right.
What’s going on? So many different creatures… trapped?
Her antennae spin around in a circle: she hears the cries of scared animals, the sad wail and anguish.
The roars of defiance and grunts of dissatisfaction, echoing from all around her.
But right there in front of her is a man, holding a strange device.
Click
She expects another flash, but as it does not arrive, she lowers her hand from covering her face.
Wasting no time, she instead strikes the force field with her blades.
The white wall sparks but her blades do not penetrate this thin, seemingly solid wall.
“Whoa whoa easy now, that won’t do you any good, you’ll only hurt yourself”
To the man’s surprise the Tyrchid stops its assault of the impenetrable wall, like it had understood him.
Amethyst eyes up this human with a cold stare of her hybrid eyes, his long hair, this peculiar device on his neck.
Some sort of black suit accompanied by a flat hat of the same color on his head.
A strangely well dressed man in a shady place like this, her head echoes.
She shakes that foreign thought away and makes her own conclusion.
A thoroughly insignificant and unarmed man.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“What a majestic pose and that thousand yard stare, if looks could kill…”
The man’s face sinks behind his camera.
Click
Amethyst’s crystals light up, soon followed by her blades engulfed in flame.
“Wow!” The man goes wide eyed.
What a display! is it trying to intimidate me?
Click Click Click, the man lets the shutter sing, with each click the arc of the Tyrchid’s flaming swing proceeds forwards.
ZWAP
Searing elbow blades strike against the force field, Amethyst strains and pushes against it with both arms, the wall starting to bend.
The cameraman is startled by the noise and looks up from the camera, retreating a step backwards.
“H-hey cut that out, I keep telling you it won’t work!”
The force field wall bends more.
Does it not get electrocuted through its blades?
How can it keep this up?
Amethyst looks straight at the man with all of her eyes as she presses against the wall harder.
Her mandibles appear from inside of her mouth.
“Let me out” She buzzes with an echoed voice.
I-it spoke??
Amethyst slashes at the wall again and again with her blades, but it does not give in more than the slight bending.
Her blades go out as she gives up.
“I- I can’t just let you out even if you are… sapient” He speaks carefully, his astonishment not yet passed.
“Why?” Her mandibles grasp around restless on the outskirts of her mouth.
“Because you are now property of ‘Intergalactic Resources and Wildlife Ventures’, I can’t just free you and not face punishment myself, you know?”
“No I don’t know, just let me out” Amethyst answers unwavering.
“I… I’ll try to figure something out, I’ll talk to management. I mean they probably don’t want charges on slave trading, since you can talk and everything.
It’s very much against the intergalactic law after all”
Not like most of this is by the book anyway, but charges are much higher for that than illegal animal trading.
“Just wait here and I’ll be back soon, I promise” The photographer says with a smile directed at the creature and is turning to leave.
“No” Defiantly, Amethyst locks eyes with the man's copper brown orbs before he turns around.
“No?” The man repeats in surprise and stops on his tracks mid step, meeting the Tyrchid's gaze.
Amethyst heats up her blades once more and backpedals to a corner of the cage.
The floor is made up of material she is intimately familiar at this point.
Steel.
With her curved hand blades ablaze, she stabs the floor, still looking straight at the man, it easily sinks in.
She then breaks their stare and starts walking around the cage cutting the metal as she goes.
“Wait wait wait, stop!”
Amethyst ignores the man’s panicked plea.
She reaches the first corner and turns, looking to cut a square shape out of the floor, about half of the total volume of it, big enough for her to fit in.
What do I do? Do I report this? Sound the alarm?
The photographer’s eyes fall on the white lightning button.
Amethyst turns the second corner, a trail of bubbling steel left on her wake.
I’ll just zap her so I won’t get docked pay, yes just… press the button.
Wait...
Her?
When did I… start thinking of it as a person?
Aghh what do I do? What do I do! He holds and shakes his indecisive head.
Amethyst reaches the third corner, just one more line to cut.
I… that’s literal torture then right?
I just can’t… treat it as an animal… anymore.
Though I did electrocute her once already…
The reality of his situation dawns on him.
Oh god, is she going to kill me for that???
With shaky eyes and a trembling face he looks up from his hands and sees Amethyst just finishing the final line, the cutting complete.
“You won’t k-kill me when you get out, r-right?”
Amethyst shoots him a cold gaze. Her lips curl upwards into a slight smirk for a moment before she returns her attention to the steaming steel square.
SHE’S TOTALLY GONNA KILL ME!
Amethyst turns off her blades and nudges them through the gap and under the steel plate, with one hand she flips it up, it strikes against the force field and starts producing a loud sizzling sound.
There is now a square hole on the floor of the cage, she also cut up the floor of this compound at the same time, the cement below filled with gashes of various depths.
The photographer staggers backwards but trips on his own feet in his panic, falling on his rear. He scrambles further away on his butt before getting up and running.
Amethyst steps inside the square onto the factory floor and feels woozy.
Ahh, my head, I really need some food…
She slips her both, extinguished blades, under the cage’s floor from the left side and pulls upwards hard.
The photographer couldn't just completely run away and miss the antics of this new mysterious creature, he took to hiding behind a cage, 50 meters or so away, intently perusing the movements of the Tyrchid.
The cage starts rising up as Amethyst lifts, higher and higher, she ducks and flips the cage over her head.
It crashes into the cage to the left of hers, the much smaller enclosure, housing a small yellow cat inside.
Not a totally ordinary cat, from the base of its neck rises a circular collar attached to its body, it is cone shaped, like an old school gramophone’s tube.
Though it seems to be made of some sort of fabric or skin, instead of metal.
Solarophone Cat [https://i.imgur.com/7c6CRRF.png]
The falling cage crashes on top of the smaller steel structure, bending it harshly, shutting the force field down.
The cat shrieks a terribly loud cry and shoots out of the cage just before it collapses completely.
Its two peacock like tails, but fluffy and furry instead of feathery, flutter as it runs
The cat in its panic desires to get higher, it jumps on the electrical box of the next cage, pressing the release button with its back leg as it pulls itself up, shutting the force field down.
The cat jumps again, onto the cage’s steel roof, then to the next one, continuing its jumping until it disappears from view into the depths of the large hall.
The Ashen sextuple foxbear walks proudly and gracefully out of the cage. Its hungry eyes scan its surroundings.
Oh shit this is bad, Foxbears love to hunt, it will definitely smell me and run me down if I leg it!
The photographer takes a page out of the Solarophone cat’s book and starts climbing up on top of the cage he was hiding behind using the electrical box as a foothold.
The cage is home to the Giant Viridian Centizard, a native species to this planet.
He reaches up and steps onto the electrical box, it shifts slightly under his weight.
The photographer pushes himself up, the box comes loose under his shoe just as he gets up.
Oops.
The force field shuts down and the centipede like lizard slithers out of the cage, its innumerable legs tapping against the cement as it skitters along the ground.
Hopefully all of them will ignore me now, I’m high enough that I won’t be easy to get to...
He looks at the ongoing chaos, the cat is gone, the foxbear is prowling around growling and glaring at other animals inside the cages nearby.
The centizard just disappeared altogether, a surprisingly fast species that one.
Meanwhile, the Tyrchid has spread out its wings.
It can fly? Damn, I wish I could fly away from this situation right now…
A purple goop starts to ooze from its wing bones to fill the gaps of its bony wings.
What a novel way to fly.
Are its wing’s not symmetrical?
Oh no, that one bone must be broken.
The Tyrchid’s right wing’s second last bone is snapped from the tip and pushes out a thick purple liquid.
That looks bad.
The Tyrchid’s purple substance seems to harden on the intact parts of the wings as they start to gleam in the hall's dim light.
The gap of the last two bones missing the film completely, the damaged bone still just pushing the substance out from its damaged end.
It flaps its wings hard, the Tyrchid takes off, but leans heavily on the right and almost crashes right back down.
The strong flap of its wings throws some of the thick liquid on the ground.
It ignites as it strikes the ground, though the fire does not spread due to it striking the concrete floor.
The photographer glances to see where the foxbear is, he witnesses it spit a green blob from its mouth at an animal in a cage.
It sploshes against the force field, but also splashes a heavy layer on the electrical box that starts smoking and smoldering.
An over all, much smaller creature, but much taller, Giraffeduck trembles inside the especially high cage.
The acid burns through the steel box and the force field goes out.
The Giraffeduck bolts into a quick run on its four small flippers.
It squawks and honks as it waddles away in a panic, its long neck being a hindrance to its speed, the foxbear dashes right after it excited for the hunt.
The Giraffeduck is much more agile however, it turns tight corners, its long neck bending at each curve balancing it, the foxbear instead crashes into boxes and other cages spread around the facility as it enjoys the thrill of the hunt.
Some more animals are let loose as a result.
It’s complete chaos here.
He takes out his communication device and taps through some interfaces.
Yes, I would like to make a safety report.
“What kind of emergency is befalling the Viridian Mecula's facility?” a text on the screen asks.
Options listed below are:
1. Intergalactic police
2. Spreading fire
3. Loose Animal(s)
4. A general safety and health hazard
5. Other serious harm to life or property
He quickly taps 3, 4 and 5 and scrolls down.
Please give detailed information below, your GPS location will be saved upon submission.
The screen asks, with an empty text box.
A sound like fire approaches from the sky and a fiery glob of purple falls down landing into a stack of boxes, igniting them immediately.
He calmly scrolls up on the form and presses 2 for fire as well, before returning to the bottom and hitting submit.
The screen reads:
Thank you for submitting your report.
Stand by.
Immediately red lights light up and a wail of sirens start.
The photographer takes a deep sigh and just lays on top of the cage’s steel roof on his stomach, his camera on his side.
I think I get the naming convention now, I must apologize for ridiculing you before.
Therefore I would like to propose a name change, from now on that purple insect of mayhem should be known as ‘Tyrchid, the violet blades of chaos and inferno”
Why? Boss, just look around and tell me that isn’t an appropriate name.
Thank you for your understanding, I will cherish this promotion.
He finishes the imaginary conversation in his head.
…
Now somebody please come help me!