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 Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 5:06 pm
Gaius's ears flattened back and he clutched them to his head. He could hear it. He could hear each shift of the bone, each crack as it grew. Panic had overwhelmed his senses now and he stood helpless, wrapped in half-real nightmares. Oz was changing. He was changing. His neck was growing, all over again, the vertebrae aching with remembered trauma.
He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head, trying to will away the living nightmare. Bitter sweat and a piercing saline stench pierced his nose, all mixed with what he could only vaguely tell was fear. His own or that of the people around him, it mattered not.
He couldn't get the sound out of his ears.
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 5:23 pm
Newt couldn't tear his eyes away at the horror of the contorting figure, his throat dancing and his eyes wide and trembling. He couldn't find his voice, ribbiting and croaking and KrrKITing as he trembled on the spot, quaking in his jumper. He couldn't smell very well, nor hear, but he could hear well enough for the occasional gut-wrenching snap and pop nearby of expanding chemical reaction.
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 5:33 pm
Everything was coming to a climax. His neck and shoulders burned with all the new fur. His back was assaulted by metaphorical drills and hammers, chipping away at his very insides. New muscle began to anchor itself. His skin, whilst dark grey, seemed sore from the rapid expansion.
He was 'lucky' this time none of his scars reopened. In fact, the thicker skin fortified them, even the intense scarring on his knee.
Oz grasped his head with disturbingly lengthened hands, feeling every new muscle spasm in his jaw, feeling the bone above his eyes protude from what was once a human profile. A further extrusion was the budding saggital crest, where a silverback's jaw muscles were anchored for strength.
Thick, bloodied drool seeped from a mouth he couldn't control. He shuddered and twitched all over. Surely this was it...
CRACK!
The final change to his spine sent him reeling into a horrifying scream of pain, so primal and inhuman...a deep roar from the very depths of his inner gorilla.
Oz could no longer pass as a human or 'normie.' He was laughably misproportioned, laying weakly on the ground in a twitching mass.
Neither beast nor man.
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 5:45 pm
The man's pained scream snapped through Gaius, eliciting a mirroring one from him, a high whinying shriek, but it was cut off before Oz had finished. Somehow the jolt had knocked Gaius back to some kind of sense, and with adrenaline coursing in his body, everything around him became hyper-clear. Now was the time for decision.
Leaping to Oz's side, Gaius jabbed a finger at Newt. "Take Marshall to the town center and call the labs! Get them down here! NOW!"
Then he turned back to Oz, grabbing one of the rags of the guy's shirt to wipe the blood that was trickling down his face and clotting in his new hair. "Damnit to hell..." he gritted. The guy was practically having a fit. Then he grabbed another piece of cloth and a stick of scrap wood from nearby, wrapping the length of it, and held the thing to the big man's face. "Bite on this Oz, or else you might get your tongue!"
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 5:54 pm
"Ah... krrKIT! I... Ah... KrrKIT!" Newt floundered and flailed, blinking in terror from Gaius to Oz and then to the spot Gaius had been and then back to now Gaius and Oz together, "I... I w-what?" Marshall! Marshall's arm! But that man just- but Marshall's arm- flipper-arm - which ever... With another useless ribbit, he managed to hop to action once Gaius's orders permiated his head, "Ah... c-c-cuh-can you w-w-woo-wuh-wuh-wah-walk?" At least he could form words at all!
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 6:10 pm
Finally, sound and vision returned as the pain ebbed away. But it wasn't functional. He could make out only snippets and syllables of Gaius' commands to the stone-stiff Newt, and the horseman himself was only a fuzzy blob.
His eyes rolled about in his skull as if he was being spun around, unable to focus on anything. Gaius brought the wood to Oz's mouth...but he did nothing. Jaw muscles twitched and pulsed but remained lifeless and limp, drool continuing to slide from his slack jaw.
Movement!
Oz could at leats move his limbs amidst the shivers, but he couldn't do anything productive. When an attempt to bring a bulky arm up to Gaius resulted in searing pain, he simply shut down. He'd had enough and his brain just said no.
He fell into unconsciousness.
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 7:26 pm
Marshall's cries silenced as he watched Oz's change, horrified and disturbed as any of the others. But his arm...There was no ignoring it, really. "Erg...Ow..." Marshall grunted, looking at it. Even under the fluff of feathers, and his cheap cotton shirt, it was obviously swollen. And even brushing it hurt like the dickens.
"s**t...I-I think its broke or...Some thing..." Marshall said, rolling up his sleeve gingerly. Yeah, it was clearly a break.
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 8:13 pm
"Guh-guh-gaius s-ss-suh-" It was no use. He couldn't speak when he was like this! With a pointed ribbit, he grabbed Marshall's good hand, leaping forward to drag him away towards the path that lead back to the village, "C-cuh-cuh-co-comeon!"
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 8:23 pm
"Ah, damn..." Gaius tossed aside the wood as Oz went limp, his heart catching in his long throat. However, a quick check of the guy's chest proved he was still breathing. Good.
He looked up to see Newt dragging Marshall away. "Hurry!" he called.
Looking back down at the body beside him, Gaius grimaced. Oz was already big... He couldn't risk moving him, not after that trauma. He cast a glance at Oz's face, but quickly looked away. It hurt to admit... it frightened him. All that hair, the dark skin, flaked and crusted with dry blood, and the slack expression...
He arched his neck down and ran a hand over his face. "Damn, Oz..."
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 8:44 pm
"A-ARGH! DAMNIT NEWT!" Marshall barked, pulling his hand free of his grasp. "If its broken, moving fast is the last thing I want to do! O-Or some thing like that! Just go by yourself, okay?!" Marshall yelled, still holding his arm. Today had gone from great to...Well, a steaming pile of s**t was kind of an understatement.
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 8:46 pm
At the sudden release of the weight he had been pulling along, Newt toppled feet-over-head, but managed to scramble up into a crouch again, "B-buh-buh-but G-g-gaius s-said- krrKIT!"
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 8:51 pm
"Damnit Marshall!" Gaius shouted after the two as they slowed. Pushing himself up from his knealing position, he rounded on them, wings flaring up. "You need to get care from the labs!"
"NEWT!" He turned his attention on the froggy man. "Go ahead to the clinic and get them to call the labs! Marshall, you go after him, they'll give you some pain killer until the labs can pick you up! Now go, Oz needs help!"
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 8:57 pm
Part of Marshall wanted to argue with Gaius, that he didn't need help from the labs. But from the looks of it, the longer Oz was left unattended the worst off he would be, and arguing would do nothing but hold them up.
"Al-Alright!" Marshall nodded to Gaius, before motioning to Newt to (pardon my French) haul a**.
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 9:22 pm
That was all Newt needed. He could hop off easier on his own, anyway, and it was rather impressive just how far and fast the frog could jump befor he dissappeared from sight. He didn't stop untill he came to the village square, heading straight for where he knew was a public intercom to place the call.
The crackling voice of the guard on duty came up with a short but professional, "What do you want?"
"Ch-ch-ch-chuh-cha... he... w-woo-we n-nuh..."
"What? I can't understand you."
"I... I... I'm t-tt-t-t-truh-" Newt swallowed, giving a trembling ribbit.
The guard checked the monitors for the cameras in shot of the incoming intercom caller, and cracked a smile at the jumper. "Oh yeah. It's you."
Throat puffing out in frustration, the frog man gathered his wits, inhaling deeply befor he managed, "W-we've g-got... w-wuh-woo-woo-wounded p-puh-people!"
"What?"
"Wuh-woo-wuh-woo-wounded p-people!!" Newt's eyes were streaming with the effort of forcing his mouth to obey him. "D-down... at... at th-the con-con-con-"
But the guard was already skimming the monitors, and sure enough, there was Marshall and his arm and Oz laying by the islander-dug hole in the ground. "We'll send a jeep down. Should be there in ten minutes."
"H-huh-hurry!!" Newt urged, relieved help was coming at the very least.
The man's patience for Newt's stutter had long worn thin, though, and the call was cut befor he even managed to get the word out.
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Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 8:30 am
Back at the site, Gaius remained at Oz's side, if only to make sure nothing came after him while he was helpless. He'd watched Marshall go off, hoping the boy would get the proper attention he needed... Deep worry lines creased the normally clear face.
At last, after what seemed far too long, a jeep from the labs drove up, expelling several guards. They hustled around Oz, one driving Gaius back with a wave of his gun.
"He's just out of it, nothing too bad," said one of the guards. "He doesn't need to go back with us."
Gaius glowered, opening his mouth to protest that Oz was, in fact, in bad condition after a fit like that. Couldn't they see the blood?! But he was silenced by the guard brandishing a the gun again and was forced to back up another step as the men grunted and huffed as they picked up Oz's massive body and dumped it unceremoniously in the back of the jeep.
"Alright boys, take 'im to his room!" With that, the jeep rumbled off towards the village, leaving Gaius alone on the edge of the construction site.
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