《At the Top of the Food-Chain》Chapter 8 - Dog-bird
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AN: Sooo.... This chapter is really late. I wish I had some great excuse, but really it was all do to laziness and procrastination. Sorry for the wait. I will post the next one at the beginning of next week. I promise.
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Once we are out in the fresh air, Daisy starts leading us to the safe house, and quickly gets lost. She says she has only been there twice and that was by car. All the humans start panicking until Collin asks Daisy what kind of buildings we had to pass to get there and what it looked like and a whole bunch of other stuff. I am glad we brought him with us.
I'm not so happy that we brought everyone else along though. They are all afraid of me and probably everything else. Some of them want to go back to the school building. I think they should go back too. They're annoying. Unfortunately, Collin convinces them to stay with us.
Soon we are moving again. This time Collin and Daisy are both leading as they talk. Collin keeps looking back ad forth as he walks
Daisy apparently noticed as well. “Mr. Collin, why do you keep looking around like that?”
Collin looks down at Daisy. “Aren't you worried about monsters attacking us?”
Daisy laughs. “No. We have Rain with us. He's so awesomely strong that all the monsters run away!”
What? Daisy thinks the monsters are running away from me?
Collin doesn't seem to believe her either. “Daisy... Rain is strong but I don't think that would scare all the other monsters away.”
Daisy doesn't listen. “No. They definitely run from him. Everywhere we go there are no monsters, and Rain said that they always run away from where he is.” That is true...but why would they run from me?
“Why would they run from him?” Collin looks back at me. He thinks the same as I do.
Daisy has an answer though. “Rain has supper Spidy-senses. Maybe the monsters can sense him too.”
“Spidy-senses... right...” Collin looks like he finds Daisy amusing. After not coming across monsters for a while, Collin seems to think Daisy is right about me.
We continue forward, the people trailing behind complain and the people in front talk about superheros and monsters. I walk in between learning about humans.
After a while I notice a presence up ahead. It surprises me because I hadn't been trying to search for anything. When I check, there are a lot of large creatures running away, but strangely, there is also one that is not running. And even stranger, I can sense some sort of little...things all bunched up together. Since when can I do that? They aren't making noise and I can't see them.
“Daisy, there is a big creature up ahead.” Everybody stops. The people behind me start panicking. I've had about enough of their whining.
Collin seems to share my annoyance with them. “Everybody calm down and stay quiet. Panicking won't help anything.”
Daisy is less interested in what the other humans are doing and asks me what's going on. “What kind of monster is it? Why isn't it running away?”
“How am I supposed to know? I can't see it. I don't have x-ray vision.”
Collin finally calms the human group down. One of them is trying to wake Andy though. I hope he doesn't succeed.
Collin walks up close to me and whispers. “How far away is it? Since it's not moving away like they normally do, we should find a way around.”
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I'm curious about the little non-moving things. “I want to see what it is. It's still pretty far away. Maybe it will run away when we get closer? The other ones like it already ran away.”
Collin looks surprised. “There's more than one?”
“Yeah. I didn't notice them at first. For some reason, I knew the one that's not running away was there without even trying to hear stuff around me. When I did listen, I could tell that there were some of the same creatures running away.”
Daisy's looks excited. “Rain, your Spidy-senses are awesome.”
Collin looks confused. “I wonder why this one stayed?... But I guess we don't know why they run away in the first place...” He continues to mumble about how strange the situation is.
I ignore him. “Daisy, I don't have Spidy-senses. I'm not Spiderman.”
Daisy puts her hands on my shoulders and looks me in the eyes. “You're right. From now on we'll call them Rain-senses... No! Super-senses!” Daisy gives me a huge toothy grin. She is obviously proud of naming my skill. I could care less. “Ok Rain. What do your super-senses say that monster is doing?”
“It's standing in front of a bunch of little things and growling in our direction.”
Collin, who is apparently done mumbling to himself, re-enters our conversation. “What little things?”
Why does everyone expect me to know everything? “I don't know. I want to go see though.”
After some convincing, Daisy, Collin, and I go ahead to look at the creature. When we are close Collin suggests we climb up a building using it's fire escape to get a better look. We climb the building and walk over to the side the creature is on.
The creature is down below, and surprisingly it is looking up at us. All around it, there are cars and bones and other things smashed together into a nest shape. The cement road beneath the nest is torn up and scraped to its edges. The buildings closest to the nest are collapsed.
The creature itself is huge. It's head reaches halfway up this five story apartment building we are standing on. It's eyes are dark brown, almost black. It has black fur covering it's face and droopy ears. Around it's head is a main of tan feathers with black stripes. Those feathers are also on the backs of its four legs and the tip of it's long skinny tail. Its muscular body is covered in black fur, but it's belly is covered in fluffy black feathers. The creature growls at us and shows us it's huge white, pointy teeth. It's long nails kneed the bone covered dirt beneath it.
I look over and see both Daisy and Collin staring down at it with terrified expressions. Daisy mumbles “Dog...-bird?” The creature gives us a viscous bark. This thing is scary. We should head back soon, but first I need to figure out what those little things that I can sense are.
I look around the large nest. It is big enough for about ten of these dog-bird creatures to fit in. I feel for the little things. They are underneath the back legs of the dog-bird. I can't see them from here. I move farther away from Daisy and Collin, until I am at the corner of the roof. The creature is still staring at me. It is also still in the way.
Collin moves back from the edge of the roof and whispers over to me. “Rain, we should go. It looks like it's protecting it's nest. It might attack us if we don't leave.” He pulls Daisy with him, back to the fire escape. I still want to know what those things are.
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Daisy yells over to me. “Rain, come on!” The dog-bird must of thought she was yelling at it, because it bounds toward the building and starts climbing it's side. The whole building shakes as it's paws slam down and it's claws latch into the roof.
AH! I can see the little things. They are tannish brown eggs with black spots.
Daisy screams. The dog -bird lifts one of it's paws and swings it at me, but before it reaches, part of the building beneath it collapses. The building beneath me shakes. The dog-bird roars.
I run over to the fire escape. Collin has Daisy over his shoulder and is descending the fire escape as fast as he can. Daisy yells back up at me. “Rain! I know you can win! Beat that monster down!” She gives me a thumbs up.
I have no intention of fighting that thing! Daisy is crazy. There is no way I can beat that dog-bird.
The dog-bird roars and pulls itself back up onto the building. The roof cracks and shrieks from the weight. This is bad. “Collin run!” The roof beneath me begins to crack even more. I turn to descend the fire escape, but it's too late.
I scream as I fall through what's left of the building. My arm hits something as I fall and It makes a horrible cracking noise. I try my best to curl into a ball, before slamming into the chunks of cement and metal poles of the rubble. IT HURTS! The pain is overwhelming. I can't think straight. I hear a growl overhead. My body is getting colder. I look down and see blood streaming over the slabs of cement and into the cracks between them. I try to get up, but there are metal poles sticking though my chest and left leg.
I move my hand up behind me to try and feel the pole coming out of my back. Suddenly my arm hurts even more then the rest of my body. The dog-bird's teeth sink into my shoulder and it pulls and shakes it's head. “AAAAAAHHHHH!!” I let out a scream. With each shake of it's head, this creature is tearing off my arm and pulling me toward it. The metal poles in my body are slowly tearing through my flesh. My whole world turns to pain. My left arm is torn off.
I've had enough of this.
This stupid creature attacked me for no reason. It is trying to kill me. I snarl and let my body go numb. There is no reason I should have to feel this pain. I reach underneath me to my chest and grasp the metal pole impaling me. *CREAK* *SNAP* I break the pole.
I stand up, letting the pole in my leg tear all the way through. I wrench the bloody pole out of my chest and fling it to the ground. The whole it leaves behind drips crimson blood. I don't bother to close it.
I look over the the snarling dog-bird. It has once again placed itself between me and the eggs. My left arm has been discarded at it's feet. I can almost taste it's fear in the air. The stupid beast still hasn't run away? I will give it a reason to run. I will give it a reason to fear me. No. I will kill it. I will not let it live after all the pain it has caused me.
I launch myself forward, up towards it's face. It has no time to react. I land crouched on its nose and slam my fist through its left eye. The beast screams and whips its head back and forth, trying to get me off it's face. I press my arm farther into it's eye socket. It screams again and rams its face into some rubble. I loose my grip on it's face and fall off into the rubble. I need both arms for this.
The dog-bird wipes its paw across it's face before looking around for me. It spots me laying in the rubble and swings its claws down toward me. I roll to the side just as I am about to be hit. The beast growls and continues to try and catch me with it's claws. I dodge all of it's attacks.
As I dodge, I regrow my arm. It regrows in lairs. First the bones grow. Then the muscles, tendons and veins wrap around them. They are followed by fat and skin and fingernails. The whole process takes seconds to complete.
Now that I have both arms, this will be easy. I dodge another swing from the dog-bird. A grin splits my face as I launch my self forward. This time I position myself on the top of its head. I strengthen my fingers on both hands and pierce the dog-bird's skull. It screams in defiance and starts shaking it's head again. It's too late. I win. I smash my arms downward into the beast's brain. It immediately falls down limp.
I pull my arms from it's head and walk down it's body. I look down at the eggs it had been protecting. I smash them. “RAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” I yell and and scream in anger. I stomp on them till they are mush. I stomp and stomp. I snarl at the mush, and keep stomping. The ground dents under my powerful blows. I will smash these stupid things until there's nothing left!
A weak voice calls out from the side of the nest. “Rain...?”
I snap my head toward the voice. Standing at the top of the piles of junk, Daisy and Collin look down at me with looks of absolute terror. Daisy falls to her butt and starts whimpering weakly. She stares at me with her eyes wide. Collin it standing beside her like a pillar of stone. The front of his pants are wet with piss.
I glare at them for a moment, before realizing what I must look like to them. My face is crunched into and expression of rage. Beside me is the dead body of a huge monster. There is a gaping whole in my chest. My arms are covered in blood and brain matter. My flesh on my left leg is completely torn to the bone and hanging by a small strip of skin.
I take a deep breath. This isn't fun. I don't want them to fear me. Humans make lots of fun things, but if they fear me, they will probably try to hurt me. Though I doubt either Collin or Daisy could actually hurt me.
I take another deep breath and fix my body. I walk over toward Daisy and Collin. They both weakly move away from me. Now that I'm closer, I can tell Collin also shit himself. It stinks. When I wrinkle my nose at the smell, both of them give out weak whimpers of fear. This is getting kind of annoying.
I smile at Daisy. “Look Daisy, I beat the bad dog-bird.” I point to the dead beast.
Collin falls down and starts laughing. At first its a quiet laugh. Then it turns into a loud hysterical cackling and coughing. Daisy looks at him with wide, confused eyes. Then she looks back at me. I am still smiling.
She looks over to the dead monster. Then back at me. She she still looks a bit worried and makes smacking noises as she tries to moisten her mouth. “Uh..um...” her breaths turn uneven. “ Goo...good job...”
What's wrong with her? “You're the who told me to beat up bad guys. Why are you acting so scared? You already knew I was strong.” My words seem to calm her down a bit. Her breathing becomes a bit more even.
“You..you're right. I already knew you were strong. I shouldn't be scared. We're friends, and Rain is a superhero.” She seems to be talking more to herself then me. Well whatever. She seems to be getting better.
I look over to the laughing lunatic Collin. “Collin.” He flinches and stops laughing. “You stink.” He sniffs and looks down at himself. He looks embarrassed now. At least he stopped his laughing. It was making me uncomfortable.
I look down at my sticky hands. *sigh* I need to clean up and find new clothes again. I look over toward Daisy. She is still pretty clean. She even still has her backpack...
I grab my head between my hands “AAAAHHHH!!!” Daisy and Collin jump at my sudden scream. “MY TOYS!”
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