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One minute he was chatting to his group and greeting the figures in the fog, the next it was a net and blackout. Waking up in a cell or a cage that he wouldn't even put his own mice in was rather discomforting.

Joachim was oblivious to the idea of "hunters." The event that had occurred over the winter was at a period that he was not around the school. However the understanding of weapons was a hint enough for the reaper to dislike them, that coupled with the hiss that Merel made he had little interest in making new friends.

Scooting over to Willow he kept his voice low, "Out of a small curiosity and not that I have interest in chatting with them, but what are hunters?"

"BAD." Ulmuka hissed to Joachim. He didn't know for sure all the details but he'd fought them and seen how awful they could be to his fellow students. It seemed that the strix, who had so eagerly ran to talk to them, was learning a little bit from the trials.

He wouldn't be saying anything. He just sat and stared and blinked unevenly at them. The strix had almost forgotten that this had to be part of the trials.

Willow nudged Joachim closer to Merope before speaking since she'd heard both of them ask similar questions. "What I know of them, they are hunters, humans." She paused thinking.

"They often put us in cages, ones that drain our fear. And turn us into weapons..." She paused, "The ones they had were oddly colored though, I don't know what's going on with that."

The tiger's tail flickered, "In the haunted house, I was with a group called team venture, we fought against these hunters." She paused looking around, "They had our friends and other citizens of Halloween locked up in these cages." She was speaking lowly hoping the hunters outside the glass couldn't hear.

"We managed to free them, but they were weak because the cages ate their fear... we don't know how, if Red had lived perhaps we could've gotten some answers. But she had found a way to join their ranks, gained one of their weapons. The weapon, it fused to her." The tigress was watching the mirrored glass closely.

"She died, we don't know why. But they have a leader. One with a scythe. He has to be defeated." She said glancing around having tried to settle in front of her group, as if she was protecting them.

"He's shown up a few times. Once he was bold enough to wear the red cloak. He knew names, and some information about some of us. He perhaps was a teacher at one point, but I don't understand how." The tiger's ears fell back, "There was something else from that house though. Something... more evil, more wicked than this, than any of us could ever be."

Willow gave a small shudder, "It showed my team visions, visions of how they turn our kind into weapons. We cannot let that happen." She glanced back to her now team, "We cannot let them take us, doesn't matter if this is a vision, part of the trial or what."

She glanced around at the rest of them, "This is why I advise not speaking to them. And to do so, is at your own risk. I do not trust them or the soulless one..." She paused looking around, "If this is the trickery of the soulless one it'll be hard to break. The only way we were freed from it was because of the horsemen showing up in the haunted house."

Merope stared, then jerked up as a hissing sound swept into the cage. "Guys! Be car-" Merope began before he clutched his throat, fins flaring wide then sweeping in before he fell over, unconscious.

(( Drawing lots for conversion... ))

Muka kept silent, still staring and grinning. One of the hunters gave him a look but the strix was bad at translating human emotions. A lot of them looked so much alike!

The owl's head tilted and then it suddenly became ver difficult to keep his eyes open.

Very difficult....

What Willow had said did not paint a pretty picture of humans, the story was far worse than what his grandfather had every told him. These humans were even more gruesome then the snot nosed little children. However, Joachim never got a chance to whisper those words as the hissing leaked into the cage taking one last look at his teammates his eyes closed.

He could hear voices, voices of others chatting softly to one another, and then the sound of something crashing into a glass wall, yet sleep seemed rather comfortable. Swinging his hand as if to swat the sound away, it touched a wall sending a jolt through his body.

“Jackda…..” He cried waking up, his eyes widening at the scene as his mind tried to process what was happening. This wasn’t home, this wasn’t his bed and this was still a part of the trial. The reaper shuddered as the crackling noise of something turning on outside of the cage. A light casting down engulfed his body, wrapping it in a blanket of pain. Joachim screamed as his mice scattered from this hidden pockets of his jacket squeaking and attempting to climb the edges of the cylinder only to recoil from the shock. The pain brought him on all fours as he struggled to stay conscious, he could see them his teammates on the other side of the cage. The pain was growing worse, he screamed again his nails digging into the floor, he couldn’t escape.

“DON’T TELL THEM ANY……!!!” He screamed pressing the palms of his hands on the wall of the cylinder cage however jolts of electricity was enough cause his body to collapse on the floor of the cage. Taking one last look Joachim huddled wrapping his hands around the familiar black body of Merel gritting his teeth as the pain intensified, his body shaking and convulsing, shifting in its form.

Then it all snapped, there was still pain, pain that was worse than the cage but it started to evaporate, as his body grew lighter. He could see figures looking in horror but their expressions were unfamiliar, and the memory of why escaped him. There was relief in his world of blackness that he retreated to. No worry, nor care, even the once familiar desire to sleep seemed to disappear other than the feeling of hunger gnawing in his stomach.
Wrapping his fingers around the ebony fur of a mouse that squeaked in his hands happily, he waited in the darkness chatting to her this hunger growing.

Muka blinked awake at his companions. Where was Joachim? Perhaps he was slow on the uptake but his head swiveled to watch his friend trapped in a different container. It was different, strange, and not like anything he'd ever seen before.

Willow seemed to grow more agitated and Muka was definitely angry, his normal smile flipped upside down into an angry grimace, but he was not as affected at the tiger-ghoul. "Joachim!" he screeched to his friend but the call was lost between the machinery and space between them. When the hunter hit the switch all the strix could do was watch. He watched Joachim scream in pain, howl to them in his last moments not to tell them anything. The owl wished he could save the mice or at least take their little bodies and give them a proper rest. Joachim would have wanted that much.

The owl blinked slowly away as his friend's form twisted and disappeared, turning into some sort of black weapon. He closed his eyes unevenly and took a breath. Being slightly detached from emotions had it's benefits in times like this.

"Not talking." He hissed it low, to his teammates. "Remember. The trials. This could be a test." A gruesome test, but a challenge none the less. "A challenge of death. What would they want us to do? Expect from us?" His eyes open and he pinned each of them with his golden eyes. "Even if it is not, our information may endanger other students. I will respect my brother Mr. Joachim's wishes and his memory."

Muka closed his eyes again.

Willow heard something about NO talking and Trials ...... "This.... this isn't the trials." She said softly, hallow even.

No this was beyond the torture of the trails. This was a deeply rooted evil that none of her current teammates didn't understand. The tiger was staring at the glass, transparent, nothingness of a wall keeping her in a see-through cell. Her tail flickered as she seemed to be thinking.

Slowly her fur began to bristle, followed by bearing her teeth. "THESE ARE NO TRIALS." The tiger began to ram the glass again using her full weight throwing her shoulder and whole body into the walls that surrounded her. Anything that could be broken or moved, that was her goal. Suddenly, someone said something that made her pause. The ones that were tending to them were wanted elsewhere. Her eyes narrowed, as she started to head towards another wall trying to break out. There was a pause when the cage door opened.

"Where's the hunter with the scythe?" She asked before she noticed the guns. She growled fixing to attack the hunter when.

BAM

The tiger had lurched forward to bite him......

-------

....The cages, everyone was back laughing at her. Their hands, grabbing, pulling. Every attempt she growled and started biting attempting to scratch their smiles off their faces.

All of them, all of them were weapons. Bul, Demi, Cady, Bea, Muka, Joachim, Merope, Amarus... all of them, everyone she knew. The tears streaming down her face. You're useless. You always were... Desperation was showing as she ripped at the shadows claws reaching through nothing, falling deeper into the nightmare. Laughter and catcalls. Insults, everything was overwhelming. Nothing she did stopped it.

"She's no use to us." Came an unfamiliar voice, staring at the unknown stranger standing beside the hooded figure with the scythe. A gun was pulled, the words of a former teacher, former peers, and others, We are halloween and cannot die echoed through the tiger's mind. The single shot hit her, leaving the tiger to give a roar of pain....

----

The roar sounded further from her than anything ever sounded, for a split second it was as if something was ripping her soul from her and she fell she felt nothing... eyes glassing over as the shot ripped between her eyes. She began to dissipate, her eyes glassing over, a thought passed, in her last few seconds, maybe we can die....