[PRP] My dear innocent ones (Gators)

[Revolutionary Roniel]

For a moment, Teo didn't even realize what was attacking him. He only knew that suddenly there was another creature in the water beside him, scratching at him and snapping with sharp teeth. When his sister closed her mouth around his prey, that's when he realized what was happening. She was stealing from him!

He let out a strangled roar of pure anger, partially choked off when he accidentally breathed in water. To make matters worse, the raccoon was still very much alive. It delivered a powerful bite to his snout as he tried to regain it.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Was the raccoon all fur? Nateica thought she had a good grip on it, but she could feel it twisting in her teeth. She didn't dare try to get a better grip on it while her brother was fighting her.

The water was a riot of bubbles as the two of them clashed. The water was barely deep enough for her to touch the bottom and she used that to try to bound away. However, that was when her grip failed. The raccoon went spiraling out of her grasp and splashed in the water near the shore. To her anger, she realized it might still be able to get away!  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

"You idiot!" bellowed Teo. The raccoon was almost at shore! After all his careful efforts, his sister was making him lose his prey. He felt anger boiling within him, anger hotter than he had ever felt before. He was not born a kind creature, but he could feel his demons now screaming. The ferocity of his emotions almost hurt him. They made his skin crawl, they-

Something was happening to him.

He couldn't see exactly what was happening, but he knew from the look on his sister's face that it was something bizarre. He felt a tugging in his mouth, like his jaws were getting longer. Something even stranger was happening to his legs. He kicked in the water and it felt like his legs were getting shorter, and yet somehow it was easier to float. The burning feeling surged through him, consuming him as he transformed into his true form for the first time.

When the burning lessened he was in alligator form, demonic red eyes now staring out from scaly sockets. He made a roaring sound that he had heard from other alligators but never himself and launched towards the hapless raccoon. It didn't stand a chance against his new prowess.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Nateica was prepared for a fight. She saw that look in her brother's eyes and knew it was time to kill or be killed. Though she was just a child she was already prepared to face a mortal battle Somehow she knew this is what she was born for. She wanted to kill her brother and delight in the sport. Only... he wasn't attacking her. Before her very eyes he was changing.

Her jaw dropped open in visceral shock as she witnessed his transformation. This was something that couldn't happen and yet she couldn't deny her vision. Teo was transforming into an alligator. He wasn't an adult alligator, no, he was smaller and lankier like their adopted siblings. Still, he was a beast now and charged after the raccoon like he had been born into that body instead of one of a horse. A single high pitched sound came from the back of Nateica's throat. It wasn't anger that filled her now but jealousy, pure and simple.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

The raccoon was in his long alligator mouth now, pierced by sharp alligator teeth. Teo whipped his head back and forth and heard something snap. The raccoon was now limp, dead meat. He rumbled in delight as that taste filled him, that sensation. He was so engrossed in his reverie that he forgot his sister was even there and didn't see her as her eyes seared in his direction. He had his food and all was right in the world. Now, he'd eat.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Nateica's whine turned into a shriek. How could her brother be gifted with this transformation and not her? Her equine body was not as suited for hunting in the swamp as an alligator was. She wanted to be an alligator, a real one, and not the strange long-legged chimera she knew herself to be.

She couldn't stand watching him any longer. She turned and splashed noisily through the water, tears squeezing from her eyes. She couldn't stand it. Even if she killed him, she always would know that he had been able to transform when she hadn't. She snapped at the small creatures that bounded out of her way but was too haphazard and noisy to have a chance at catching them. She wanted to kill something, death to ease her pain. She knew she couldn't rest until she'd destroyed a life to punish the world for the hurt she was feeling.

And that was when she came upon one of her adopted siblings, a kind young yearling that had tried to befriend her and failed, someone that she had often called "sister."

The poor young alligator never would understand why her "sister" killed her that day.

~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Revolutionary Roniel]

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" bellowed Cualli.

Blood was on her lips, so much blood. Her rival lay half-submerged in the water before her. Her belly was ripped open, right through the scutes and into the softness underneath. Nateica sneered. The dumb lizard should have known better. She had started to build a nest in the place that Nateica had clearly set aside for her own. She didn't have a mate, of course. Soquili were inferior and she could not make hatchlings with an alligator. Still, she had decided she would construct a nest anyways that year. Instinct drove her to the act, even if she had no maternal instincts whatsoever. She wanted children as a form of jealousy and greed, not affection.

So the gator female had deserved to die. Like her, it was a young gator. She was laying her first eggs when Nateica had descended upon her, the very picture of unforgiveness with teeth. Now Nateica stood before her adopted father, hearing his rage and pain and reveling in it.

"I have rid our tribe of an idiot," she rumbled. "Does this not please you, my father?" She said this with irony and malice dripping from every word. Cualli, along with Zyanya, had raised her and her brother. That did not mean she cared for him.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

"You murdered her in cold blood while she was laying!" Cualli's accusation was a scream of uncomprehending rage.

Teocipactli watched. He was in the deeper water, webbed feet touching ground and with his scaled neck and head protruding out of the water. It was not the posture of a true alligator, but it was the one he was most comfortable in while in his soquili form. He would have preferred to be in what he considered his true alligator form, but he didn't take that around those other than his sister when he could help it. His and Nateica's ability to transform was something that the others spoke of in whispers, but no one entirely believed it. They did not yet realize what sort of superior beings swam among them. Soon, they would.

Maybe now was the time that Nateica and their "father" would finally tear into each other. He hissed with pleasure at the idea. If the two fought to the death, that would only leave one alive for him to loathe with every fiber of his being. If one died, maybe he could kill the survivor while they were still weakened.

Teocipactli smiled cruelly. He'd killed members of their tribe as well. Just yesterday he had seized upon the throat of a tribemate while wearing his true skin. The fool had been utterly taken by surprise and the look on his face as he realized his fate had been a delight to Teocipactli's soul. He was a young adult now, but he was adult. He could no longer be contained by this petty tribe and he knew it.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

"You're right, I did," hissed Nateica in response to her father's accusations. She tilted her head. One of her pinkish eyes grazed the ground. She stirred the tossed up earth with a foot and uncovered something, a milky oblong sphere.

"But look, she managed a few eggs before I stopped her." Nateica's expression contorted with true wickedness. "It's a pity their mother isn't here to protect them." She stomped downwards and there was a sickening crack.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Teocipactli's eyes widened as he heard the defenseless eggs smash under the foot of his sister. Something took hold of him then. He had planned on sitting back and watching the carnage, but he knew that was not possible. The bloodlust was upon him. It filled him so entirely and he knew he could hide no longer.

He transformed, rearing up in terrible alligator form above the water for one long instant before splashing back underneath the surface.

Cualli was overcome by horror at the wrongness of what he had just witnessed. His daughter was a murderer. His son was a demon. Both were monsters and he knew with a suddenness that it had taken him too long to accept this.

"Gods protect us," he whispered, knowing fully well that they would not.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Nateica's pinkish eyes locked onto the alligator form of her brother jetting through the water in her direction. He was attacking! The thought filled her with rage. This was a moment between herself, her enemy, and her pathetic weakling of a father. Teocipactli had disrupted her hunts so many times and now he would disrupt this one too.

"Stay back!" she snarled at his oncoming form. She placed one foot possessively on the body of the female gator she had slaughtered. She planned to eat her kill and instinctively wanted to keep her brother from it.

That's when she noticed the position of Cualli beside her. He was full of an anger that she had never seen before. He was staring at her brother too and diving into the water to meet him. They were going to fight! "Ha! Kill each other!" she crowed, delighted. Maybe they both would die bleeding in the swamp!  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Teocipactli was a dark torpedo in the murky swamp water. He could taste the blood of the female his sister had killed, but taste wasn't enough. He wanted to feel flesh rip. He wanted to tear away limbs and turn the water red with carnage. He hadn't had an aim when he transformed, but now he did. Now he saw that his adoptive father had singled him out as an enemy. He didn't hesitate an instant before crashing into him.

They both snapped at each other. Their jaws were their most powerful weapons. Teo thought he had his father's tail but then it whipped away, faster than he knew the old lizard was capable of. They both raised heads out of the water, preparing for the next strike.

"How dare you?" bellowed his father. "How could you, after all we have done for you?"

Teocipactli didn't deign to answer. Instead, he clamped his teeth on his father's ridged back. He could feel the hard armor there but bit down as hard as he could. Every armor had its breaking point.

"Your mother stood up for you all these years," yelled Cualli, no less fierce even for the biting. "She believed in both of you!"

And Teocipactli knew it was true. That idiot of a mother of theirs had never really believed that they were behind all of the deaths they had amassed in their youth. Even when the evidence was staring her straight in the face she always had trusted.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Nateica paced back and forth like a ravenous wolf. She was torn. She wanted to join the fight herself and rip them both to shreds but she also wanted the pleasure of seeing them inflicting pain on each other. She stared, wanting there to be more hurting. They weren't destroying each other fast enough! She wanted bones to break. She wanted to hear the howls of their pain reverberating in her skull. This wasn't enough for her.

She stepped into the water and underwent her own transformation. She knew she wouldn't stand a chance against two alligators in her soquili form. Her legs were too long, too easy to grab. Alligators were true masters of death in the water.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Teocipactli tried to roll his father but couldn't control his thrashing bulk. Frustrated, he was forced to release his grip. He glared and expected his father to shout more condemnations, but instead his teeth seized around Teocipactli's own neck.

He let out a strangled cry. Now it was his turn to thrash and try to get loose. His scales weren't as strong on the underside of his neck and he wondered how much his neck could take before it snapped. He had underestimated his father's skill, and now he paid for it.

He felt himself getting dragged under the water. The water was his home as well, but the water was where one took an animal to kill it. He braced his tail against the bottom. He had to do as much as he could to prevent his father from death rolling him.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Nateica saw her father and brother grappling. The water churned white from their thrashing bodies, though she could see red starting to shade the foam pink. Blood in the water. She was ready to kill but wasn't sure which one to attack. There was her brother, who had thwarted her and competed with her for her whole life. Then there was her father, who had lectured her and tried to punish her for indulging in her natural instincts.

She squinted through the water. Her brother looked pinned to the bottom, her father on top. That made her decision easy. She couldn't reach her brother, so her father was the target.

She caught him from behind, a surprise attack. She bit him around the sides of his neck and heaved backwards. The blood in the water thickened.