“Bigbird.”
“DevienTart OC.” The enormous golden bird shot back without missing a beat.
David’s lips wrinkled up in a snarl and he flattened his ears in response, “Oh that’s low. You take that back!”
“Too far?”, It replied casually as he sat comfortably on a boulder a half dozen feet away from where Claire and David rested nearby. The sound of the river surging along its course was loud, and they assembled only a few dozen feet from the shore in a thick stand of trees at the bird's request.
“It’d be faster to just whip your actual dicks out, unless you two aren’t done flirting yet?” Claire grumbled at their antics as they both turned their gazes towards her.
“Shit-talking is a time-honored tradition.” David replied dismissively, “How am I supposed to believe he’s trustworthy if he won't talk shit?”
“You’re a weirdo, you know that?” The stranger clucked to himself as he began to clean his wings, the feathers making delicate, sharp noises as he straightened his plumage.
“Okay, enough of this. Hi, I’m Claire. This is David. He’s good people and has a talent for working the System thus far.”
The eagles gaze suddenly drilled into David with extreme interest, icy blue eyes looking incredibly out of place on such a large bird. David had to force his hackles down, desperately wishing his mane would stop floofing out every time another predator made eye contact. They carefully arranged their wings and squatted on the rock. He fluffed himself up comfortably, the ruffle moving slowly up his neck to his head where even the feathers on his face poofed up. He looked out over the river towards the sun, clearly checking how much daylight was left David suspected, before bobbing his head.
“Yeah, hey, I’m Kai. You guys pull a runner into the woods after hatching?” He asked bluntly and sat waiting for a response.
“Uh…yeah? After you get an evolution, it’s not so bad in the forest.” David replied with a shrug of his wings, “I will admit I got the shit kicked out of me a few times, my hatchling stage couldn’t fight its way out of a ball of yarn. Luckily I bumped into Claire here.”
Claire nodded a bit, “More like he went hunting around for other people that got lost, he’s nice, don’t let him fool you.”
“It’s good you guys ran into each other out there. We sent Flyers and Trackers looking for people after a couple of days…found most of ‘em too, or what was left anyway.” Kai deadpanned with just a hint of sadness, “Most people have been waiting for the evolution Quest since then. Not many of us risked going out and ended up evolving, but there’s about a dozen, myself included.”
Claire clacked her jaws together thoughtfully and David couldn’t help but silently agree, his ears staying firmly plastered back in agitation. He couldn’t disagree that if it hadn’t been for Claire saving him from the Encounter, and his Control effects on the Slitherwolves they both could have been toast. David could easily imagine what it would be like to suddenly be staring down a large predator, challenging Quest, or a myriad of other things as a lone Hatchling. He plainly saw from the way Claire held herself anxiously that she was having similar thoughts as Kai continued speaking.
“There’s about 36 hours left on the Evolution Quest for most people. I don’t know what you two had planned but if you don't have, uh…” Kai trailed off forgetfully for a brief moment as if considering something, “...Pressing obligations? We could use a little help.”
“Yeah, I dunno. What type of help? Who’s we?”, Claire rumbled distrustfully as she scooched her bulk slightly behind David. He turned and shot her an incredulous look, a little surprised at how suspicious she was of the newcomer before he turned back to Kai.
The bird sighed tiredly, “Look, the simple fact is we need food. We hunted everything in Riverport to extinction, there’s nothing left but us. ‘We’ is probably, I dunno, 150 people or so? There’s probably more hiding around, and we have a speed demon that’s been to Redfield and back, they have forty people or so over there.”
Shit. That’s not as many people as I thought, but it’s still enough to make me uncomfortable. Way more so if they’re all hungry, hey wait a minute!
“Are you saying that everyone’s a predator? I don’t know how else you’d be out of food.” David chittered questioningly back at him.
“What? No, you idiot.” Kai screeched loudly after a long-suffering blink, “How much food do you two need in a day, in pounds? Now imagine there’s sixty or so of you. How long before you hunted it all? Come on man, this is simple stuff at this point.”
“We’ve had the opposite problem, okay? We were, like, thirty miles in the woods. You know how much stuff is out there?” David snapped back reflexively, “I get it, I’m not that dumb.”
Kai ruffled his plumage again and stood, shaking himself with a faint tinkling sound as his feathers lay flat. He looked at David for several seconds before turning his gaze to Claire and considering his words carefully, large sharp talons kneading the earth as he thought.
“How about this then, we have a couple hours before dark and I’m supposed to be hunting. Help me bag something a decent size and come drop it off with me, have a look around, and if you don’t like it just leave.” His icy blue eyes constricted as he focused on the pair of them, “Nobody’s really in charge, and we’re all just doing our best until these fuckers manage to evolve and can take care of themselves. A lot of people still just don’t get it, dude.”
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David turned to look behind him at Claire questioningly as he spoke, “I mean we did come here to see what happened, if it’s weird we bounce?”
There was a short pause before she grudgingly nodded and stood, scaly hide looming up in the air behind David as Kai spooked a bit. David noticed with satisfaction that he’d startled the moment Claire’s eyes had locked onto him, feeling a bit vindicated it wasn’t just him that thought it was terrifying sometimes. Claire turned without a word and stomped out of the stand of trees, swinging her bony snout into the air and sniffing deeply several times before exhaling a long rattling breath. David motioned for Kai to follow and hopped out of the sparse grass into the air, gliding towards where the scaly behemoth stood along the riverbank.
“There’s something upstream, that way.” Claire pointed with her snout, “Fetch. I’ll start heading that way.”
“You two have a system to find each other?” Kai asked curiously as he spread his wings, “Roars or something?”
David shot Claire a quick look that she noticed at the last second and slammed her jaws shut instead of replying. There was no way he had the Pack system unlocked if he was asking that, and David wasn’t about to tell him about it until they knew more about the situation.
“Bat stuff, it’s my special. Ubersound, or however you say it.” David quipped before he launched himself into the air with a few flaps of his leathery wings.
Kai shrugged and followed him up, his wingbeats oddly musical as David realized his own were nearly silent by comparison. He barely caught the sound of Claire muttering about ‘Ubersound’ and ‘dumbshits’ as he powered away through the air, grinning hugely to himself at her muttering. David wasn’t sure he wanted to hang around and help but he had to admit he was curious, and he angled his wings into the wind, drawing even with the huge eaglelike bird as he stared intently down at the ground ahead of them.
“Any differences between the city and the forest I should know about?”
Kai replied just loud enough to be heard after thinking about it for a few minutes in silence, “Less dangerous, most of the Quests are easy. I got a few levels there before I headed out farther. Did a few Hunt quests and got my evolution, we’re set up at Woodland Park.”
Well, that part kinda makes sense. The park is like, right on the edge of town by the river, there’s that giant ass warehouse the city uses for all the holiday stuff right there too. Wouldn’t it just be easier to bring people out here and do quests with them than bringing food back?
Just as David was about to voice his opinion Kai folded his wings and dived, whistling through the air and crashing through the sparse tree line like a falling bomb. David shot a glance back at Claire, who was lagging several minutes behind by foot before snarling and diving after him. He slithered smoothly through the hole Kai had simply smashed through the branches and braked hard, Echolocations soaking into the entire area ahead of him as he surveyed the scene. Kai was dumber than he was, obviously, and David was forced to admit that the second he finally got a good reading on the situation.
The enormous golden bird was latched firmly to the back of something that looked like a crossbreed between a bear and a wild boar. It was hunchbacked in the extreme, with long curling tusks that emerged from its stubby jaws. Kai had sunk his talons into the meat of its shoulders and was holding on for dear life like a bull rider, the monster bucking and whirling in an attempt to throw him off.
“LITTLE FUCKING HELP MAYBE?” He screeched up at David as they whirled past beneath him while he hovered there in shock.
Is this what it’s like when I just do stuff? No, I make plans. Time to do that I guess…uh…usually, I have more time. Okay, you’re a Controller, let's get this under fucking control. Don’t overthink it.
David folded up his wings and allowed himself to drop, bouncing with a loud snarl as he hit the ground a bit harder than he intended to in his haste.
–You have taken 1 Impact Damage–
David darted after the idiot and his steed as they careened through the undergrowth away from the river. Kai wrenched his talons and clamped his beak on the beast's ear, twisting hard and forcing it to turn back towards David with a furious roar. David crouched low in the brush as the monster surged towards him, waiting until the very last second before leaping forward. He extended his wings threateningly and hissed with every ounce of malevolence he could muster as he activated Glare.
–Unnerving Mutagen level up!–
–Gained 3xp!–
–Glare level up!–
–Gained 3xp!–
The creature bawled in shock and tried desperately to abort the charge, wrenching his gaze free of David’s eye contact and attempting to turn at a sharp angle. Its feet tangled rapidly as it failed to keep its balance with the violent passenger tearing into its back and it hit the ground hard. David surged across the ground, leaping into the air and flapping once to build speed before the sound of crunching foliage made his right ear swivel involuntarily mid-leap. He slammed his wings back as hard as he could and darted forward, feeling a slight tug on the fur of his back as he blew past the second bear monster that plowed through the thick stand of trees, roaring furiously.
David had a brief impression of Kai standing across from the first beast, wings extended slightly as he stalked towards it, beak and talons smeared with blood. Then it was gone as he quickly banked right, coming in fast with frantic wingbeats as he rifled straight towards the new enemy before it had time to orient itself.
–Health: 89/90–
–Stamina: 165/215–
Nocturnal Strike activated with a thought, squeezing just a bit of extra speed out of the attack run as David struck the beast squarely in its unprotected side, the sheer velocity of the impact blasting loose a huge cloud of Gloom before he dug in. David just barely made out the sound of something odd over the volume of the creature's bone-shaking roar of aggression in response to his attack before he buried his fangs into the dense muscle of its neck.
Is that fucking asshole bird laughing?