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 Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 5:09 pm
A sentient... vibrational frequency? Really? It was no wonder that Professor Nebilim was happy to be away from such a strange, superstitious world, though Jabril could not but feel an unexpected stab of envy. Surely a place where even the common idiot on the street knew and respected quantum physics couldn't be so bad. Maybe in a place like that he might actually get some respect for his work.
"Could do tha', yeh." Ordinarily he'd be more hesitant about showing someone the way to his home, but... it was alright if Nebilim was only using him for his facilities. With someone like this, he didn't think he minded.
"I say we leave th'others. We kill em all, and we'll na ha' any more t'cut up later."
He padded over to pick up the fox that Nebilim had killed earlier, then looked up at her to nod that they should go.
- - -
The trip back to Jabril's happy little home took nearly an hour of climbing up slippery shale slopes and following established deer trails. Thankfully Nebilim was spared his usual babbling, or the obligation to make any conversation at all, by the fact that his jaws were full with two limp furry bodies. As they drew closer to Jabril's laboratory the forest went quiet, devoid of the comforting white noise created by the local wildlife. There was a strange tang of blood and metal in the air, and most right-thinking birds and animals had already fled.
Jabril and Nebilim were not far from the entrance to the lair when a large, filthy brown form barreled out of the trees to tackle Jabril to the ground.
"Daddy!" His attacker exclaimed, before licking his face with her long, forked tongue. "Daddy brought ssssnacksss!!!"
The teenaged Nightmares tails wagged happily back and forth. She might almost have been cute, if it were not for the blood spattered on her muzzle and forepaws.
Jabril spat his cargo out onto the ground.
"Na snacks, wee project. This is fer yuir Da's cuttin's, yeh?" He sighed and pushed himself back up onto his feet, unconsciously adopting his mother's nagging tone.
"Now how did ye get out o'yuir chains? Da had ye muzzled fer a reason when 'e left this mornin'."
"Acssssid relfuxssss." Godiva beamed proudly. She spat some of her industrial-grade stomach acid onto the ground for demonstration. It hissed and ate through a small rock.
"Well tha's very clever, but do'nae think yuir guin' t'get out o' yuir groundin' cos o' tha. I ha' plenty o' extra chains that yuir Grandmum left, an' ye ha' t'sere our yuir full time until ye r'member tha' Da's pipettes are nae candy."
"Daddy issss not boss of me." Godiva sulked, hunching up her shoulder. "Isss teen can. Can do what she likesss. Pipettes is good snackssss. Wantssss to go see Grandda."
Jabril's brow furrowed. had he been a human, he would have been standing with his hands on his hips, but as it was all he could do was fan out his tails and give Godiva a stern look that she would never see.
"Yuir Da is the boss of ye until 'e loses 'is tranq gun. Dye want th'tranq gun again?"
Godiva looked mutinous.
"... no."
She huffed, fluffed her tails, and then clawed her way over to Nebilim.
"Hungry." Godiva demanded, in a fit of adolescent pique. "Give sssnacks. If Daddy loved me, would have brought ssssnacks."
Jabril pressed a paw to his forehead.
"Oh, fer the love o'- ye c'n eat th'rocks, Godiva. Do'nae bother Nebilim. She's a Pr'fess'r."
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Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 5:36 pm
Nebilim raised one eyebrow at the magnificent specimen. Her estimation of Jabril went up a grudging notch. "What a fascinating creature you are. Such powerful bile; your stomach must be iron-clad to hold that without eating all the way through your body at once." She paced a half-circle around Godiva, then glanced over to Jabril. "She's magnificent - wherever did you find her? Give her the kill. I did indeed bring a snack; she's quite perceptive, if demanding."
It couldn't hurt to ingratiate herself to the nightmare specimen. Another good reason to keep close to the odd young scientist she had found. This was turning into a fascinating day.
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Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 5:50 pm
Jabril relented and tossed Godiva the dead fox corpse, which she wolfed down head first. Her powerful jaws had no trouble crushing the poor thing's skull, and she made obscene crunching noises as she chomped down on its spine.
"Moun'ain spirits," he told Nebilim. Evidently he didn't feel the need to elaborate.
Godiva finished her impromptu meal and pawed at Nebilim for more, her filthy making a blood-stain all down the side of the professor's body-suit.
"Smellssss like chickenssss. More snaaacks?"
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Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 5:57 pm
"Interesting. Do you suppose they have more?" Nebilim gave Godiva a thoughtful, toothy smile. She did not flinch at the creature's pawing or mess. "No. Only one snack from me, for now. Perhaps more later, if you are good." She filed away the pipette comment for future reference.
Then Nebilim glanced back at Jabril. "I'm sure you've tested her thoroughly. I'm quite interested in that data, especially the mechanisms by which she produces and contains that stomach acid. Are there more like her? Splendid. You raised her, then?"
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Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 7:45 pm
"'Er egg was a distraction. I told ye I met th' Mountain Spirits back a' midwin'er. They were squabblin' wi' some oe're spirits. Wi' th'stiched eyes, like m'specimen 'ere. Angelics against Nightmares, yeh? S'all rubbish if ye ask me, catchin' us with goals and research in betwixt their racial daftness."
Said specimen was quite used to being called one. It didn't seem to bother her. Having been rejected by Nebilim, she wandered off to gnaw on a dead log.
"This 'un got thrown out t'distract 'em from their objective, yeh? Someone[/a] 'ad t'take 'er in when they were done. Ye wouldnae b'lieve th'trouble o' gettin' tha' acid out 'o 'er stomach fer tests. I've seen other's o' 'er kind, but they all ha' different skills, an'-""
"Issss BORED, Daddy."
Having finished with her crunchy wooden treat, Godiva wandered over to give Daddy a very filthy snuggle. She did love her Daddy. He just needed to stop treating her like a little kit!
"Visitssss Granpassss."
Jabril nearly groaned. Godiva should still be chained up and grounded, but if she were around while he was trying to show Professor Nebilim the lab, he'd never get any work done.
"Fine, fine. But yuir Gramma will be there wit' ye, so do'nae think ye an' Grandda can go eatin' oe're Kitsusagi wi'out me knowin."
"Grandpa is bessst fun."
Godiva tried to take a bit out of Daddy's ear, but he ducked away too fast. Boo! Grandpa Everard ate parts of his family all the time, because he loved them. Godiva felt that Daddy was being very stingy and that both she and Everard should get a share of him if they wanted.
"Ge' on, then. An' watch ye do'nae eat anythin' wi' a virus. An' do'nae let me Da take ye anywhere cold, t'is wet out an' yui'll catch cold. An' do'nae talk t'strangers unless ye want t'kill them. An' stay careful ye do'nae spit up on yuir fur!"
Having run out of things to nag about, Jabril swatted Godiva off with a flick of his tail. There. Now that she was gone, he would once more look like a cool renegade scientist instead of a harassed single father. Which he was not. He simply new the value of good experimental stock.
Jabril back at Nebilim.
"Do ye want t'share yuir notes wi' me as well? A bit o' a trade?"
He was impressed with Nebilim, and more than a little flustered, but that didn't mean that Jabril was completely stupid. He wasn't about to give away his original research for nothing.
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Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:43 pm
"I keep them all up here." Nebilim tapped the side of her head with one paw. "You'll have to provide the raw materials, I'm afraid... but naturally, an exchange would be in order..." She stepped up to the lab door with her ears pricked in curiosity. "It looks like an excellent facility. I haven't had access to a proper laboratory in this place; truly, I wasn't sure the required technology existed. Most of this place is all trees and rocks." She snorted.
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Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:23 pm
I-impressive? Really?
Jobril stared at Nebilim for one very surprised moment, his tails swishing and his eyes full of stars, before he silently led her through the entrance to the cave and into anteroom of his little lair.
The chamber was hewn from the rough stone of the mountain, carved floors coexisting with what must have been the contours of a natural cave. There were tables, and storage bins, and a mound of pillows in one corner that looked as though they'd been stolen from someone's couch. The whole place was stuffed with stacks of paper, tall scrolls, dusty old books, and chipped chalk boards scrawled over with half-finished diagrams. It looked as though the debris hadn't been sorted in years, though there surely must be some method to Jabril's filing madness.
Nothing about the place was particularly high-tech. Jabril'd had his father's help hollowing it out, and most of the objects inside were stolen from the HQ or borrowed from his dimension-hopping brother. But the biologist didn't need computers and scanners to do the work he loved. To his mind, the very best study was done with a simple knife, sharp claws, some cloth to staunch bleeding, and a head full of knowledge. Gizmos would only take him farther away from the beating pulse of his calling.
"Mind ye do'nae snag yuir wings, yeh? We'll be usin' a room in back."
Nebilim might have seen shapes slither and skitter amongst Jabril's towers of paper, but they vanished too quickly for her to make out their forms.
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Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:31 pm
Nebilim surveyed Jabril's domain thoughtfully. It lacked the clean and sterile lines she preferred, but there was a refreshing rawness to the whole affair - a delightful meld of the feral and the scientific. "I see you don't hold to putting wires and gears between your paws and your work," she purred. "The layout here is a bit... hmm, shall we say bachelor - but then, you have no compatriots in study that need catering to?" She tilted one ear for his answer to the question.
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Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 11:01 pm
The pair passed another couple of rooms on their way to the back chamber of the complex. One darkened chamber played host to some ominous shuffling sounds. Another housed what appeared to be some broken metal bars and a gigantic teddy-bear. It took a few moments for the eyes to adjust to the light inside the caverns. The place was lit with a series of jury-rigged kerosene lamps.
Soon enough they reached Jabril's pride and joy, the home of his heart, his laboratory.
There were no tables, because tables were too high for their kind. Instead there was a stainless-steel slab set just above the floor, with metal bolts for tying restraints to driven into the ground beside it. Tall shelves along the north wall housed his collection of organs in jars, and a bunsen burner and some chemistry equipment were stored nearby. In contrast to the antechamber, this room was meticulously clean and orderly.
"There's Swaxy down in th'Realm. She's working on somethin' wi' ebola, I think. An' m'Mum an m'sister Signal are in the business too. S'a family thing, yeh? Met a lad named Jack Spicer a wee bit back, who said 'e was a genius, but I think 'e's all talk an' no science. Fr'm wha' I can' tell, 'e spends most o' 'is time playin' wifey to 'is boyfriend. Tha's about it. Most kitsu cannae be bothered."
Truth be told, if there were more scientists running around the Mountain, Jabril was unlikely to know about them. He kept to his work and to himself. Most other kitsu tended to... misunderstand him.
Jabril set his fox on the ground, and gestured towards the metal slab with a toss of his head.
"Ladies first." He smiled. "Y'need a scalpel?"
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Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 11:14 pm
"Interesting... very interesting." Not much competition there, then, but family... mum, huh. "Then all the more room for us to be the ones who show them the way, isn't there?" She put a delicate inflection on the us, very deliberate; the pronoun was specifically chosen. And she smiled broadly at the room they entered. Now this was much more like it. "Excellent."
Nebilim laid her fox down on the slab. It was still asleep, but that wouldn't last long, especially once she began her work. She undid the knots of the vine and re-twined them around the restraints. It would do, for now.
"No. No scalpel, not for now. I will show you fonons. The First. Darkness. Shadow." She stared down at the fox, an odd light in her eyes, her predatory grin stretching across her face, and held one claw out. A curl of tingling matter, Darkness expressed, drifted from that claw into the fox, who yipped suddenly and then arched its back as darkness flowed out to meet it. "Just a bit, I see... The Second. Earth. Gnome."
The display continued until the fox was shaking wildly, its eyes rolled back in its head; not a single bit of blood or physical injury was visible, but it was clear something very bad had happened to it.
"And the Seventh. Memory. Lorelei." She spat the name.
The fox spasmed, then went entirely limp.
"I cannot properly use the Seventh. Those who are Seventh Fonists can use the element to heal, bringing flesh to remember the time when it was whole. Alas... my fumbling only eradicates the subject's memory, I fear. Such a terrible loss." Her tone of voice, however, was pleased. She ran one claw lightly down the prone fox's belly, tickling.
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Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 7:35 am
Jabril struggled to translate what he had just witnessed into a mental construct that he could understand. It looked like magic, or even alchemy, but that was impossible. There was no magic. Magic was a construct, a sham, and excuse, and he refused to believe that something so fascinating could be associated with it.
By all rights Jabril should have felt very small. This femme was armed with a death touch and knowledge of the the structures that underlay the universe. He had some knives and some chemicals and a cavern system full of surgically-altered freaks. But he was too focussed on the work to feel self-conscious.
"So- s'genetic, yeh? Would ha' t'be. Genetic ability t'alter th' resonance o' matter, leadin' t'manipulation o' the m'lecular state."
The male was pacing, though he hardly seemed to realize it. Thinking always made him more active rather than less.
"Darkness - absence o' electromagnetic radiation on th'visible light wavelength. Earth - a shift in atomic structure? Mem'ry - an' ability t'reverse th' movement o' particles to a previous state. Tha's all kindsa real 'eavy quantum stuff. Tha's-"
Jabril paused, feeling somewhat abashed. It was strange to feel so breathless.
"Yuir an impressive woman, Pr'fessor Nebilim."
He sniffed at the corpse.
"Wha' killed it?"
If she'd let him, he'd cut it open after she left.
((Trying to write this science terminology in an "accent" makes my brain hurt. XD; If there's ever a point where you can't tell what the hell I was trying to type, please let me know!
Disclaimer: I have not taken physics for several years. Jabril's science blather is only my sad Wikipedia skills at work.))
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Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 10:03 am
((Disclaimer: I have never taken physics, so I will NEVER NOTICE your shortcomings. XD; ))
Nebilim nodded her approval. "Refreshing. I knew only one person before now that actually tried to apply such scientific logic to fonons, rather than superstitious hogwash." Jade. Such a charming child. She waved one paw idly at the fox. "It forgot how to breathe. Such a shame, isn't it? I cannot use the Seventh, and I can only barely control Rem and Shadow. They are my weakest, as my own form contains very little of them. What you have just seen is the extent of my... delicate manipulation skills. I could do more, but that would likely obliterate your beautiful examination table." She snorted and raised one paw to claw through the vine restraints, no longer needed.
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Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:29 am
"Stopped breathin', ye say? Le's ha' a look a' 'er, then."
This talk of obliterating his examination table was just as noteworthy as the fox's death, but Jabril was not about to be intimidated by violence when there was research afoot. Swax, Setsu, Su... nearly every femme Jabril had ever met was more than capable of turning him into a smear on the mountainside. He was used to it. Perhaps the whole thing was a cruel quirk of his pheromones.
Jabril produced a knife from the inside of his sleeve, and set about slitting the corpse's throat to get a better look at the effect that Nebilim had caused. Surgery seemed to turned him into an entirely different kitsu. His movements were swift, precise, and sure. He did not leap at tangents, and he abandoned nervous energy in favor of deep concentration and a steady paw.
The fox's esophagus was efficiently stripped bare to the bones, and he spent several moments prodding at the tissue of his throat, before he got to to work on removing the lungs. Blood pooled at the edges of the examination table and caught on the tips of his claws, but Jabril did not mind. He only had eyes for darting scalpel.
"Hmm. Inflammation, but na' any true trauma t'the tissue." One of his tails curled absently. "Pr'aps tha's right. Did ye' alter 'er mind, then? Or jus' make th' pain so bleedin' awful she gave up?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 3:25 pm
Nebilim rolled her eyes. Hadn't he been listening to a word she said? "Attempting to manipulate the Seventh Fonon when you don't have the inborn ability to do so can cause some nasty side effects. The specimen simply forgot how to breathe, as I said. So yes, you would call that altering the mind." Her tails swished impatiently.
Still, he did have a good eye for dissection, she had to admit, especially with paws. Exceptional fine motor control, considering...
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Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 4:42 pm
Jabril held his tongue. It wouldn't do to point out that Nebilim had said she wasn't competent with this 'seventh fonon', and that for all he'd known, her attempt to use it had caused a completely unrelated physical reaction.
"Well, tha's tha', then." He tapped his scalpel against his cheek, out of habit . Manipulating the tool with paws was difficult but not impossible. Once you had it slipped firmly between your digits, it was all in the wrist.
"Ye wan' it fer a snack, then? If ye do'nae, I'll save it fer G'diva. Does'nae matter if it's c'ntaminated with 'er."
She was an excellent waste disposal system, and he knew she'd enjoy the treat. The fox's blood would be only slightly congealed by the time she got home, if he administered a coagulant. Its steaming carcass looked awfully appetizing in the lamp-light.
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