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 Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 5:12 pm
Melvin was checking through his phone, sending a few texts as he left his room to head back to the labs. Cutting across the grounds, he took the short moments between buildings to put his phone away and regard the vast area that made Deus island. In any other setting, it would have been a vacation spot where lavish hotels and restaurants would be placed along with rows of lounge chairs along the beach. Instead, Melvin was starting to see it more as a depressing hell to which the only escape was leave.
Yawning, he took a handkerchief that he just got back from the techs and cleaned his glasses before putting them back on. Once he did, he stopped and stared.
Was that.......
Melvin took off his glasses to check for smudges, saw there were none, and put it back on to look at the rooster that was strutting about the grounds.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 5:17 pm
This being a chicken thing was getting old pretty fast. It hadn't been so bad at the start, it was kind of cool being so fast and close to the ground. And he had wings. Wings were awesome.
This had spawned the bright idea of trying to use said wings.
Leaping from the first floor had resulted in a desperate flapping descent that meant he didn't end up a chicken shaped smear on the ground but also meant that he had no way back up. He trotted dazedly out onto the grass trying to ignore the urge to scrape and peck at the ground for bugs - ******** disgusting habit - and instead turned crazy avian eyes on the buildings around him. It was hard to orient yourself this small with prey instincts and the awareness you were probably on a timer for your life. The labs were a priority to get to, and he folded his wings indignantly and set off at a hobble, completely oblivious of Melvin, even as he strutted past him.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 5:43 pm
Melvin had a moment just looking at the strange chicken, and then he looked around to see if there were others. Maybe he'd spot a cow, a few goats, and one man chewing on a string of wheat while playing a banjo (who wasn't Jerry).
Seeing nothing, Melvin remembered that actual animals couldn't live here, and looked back at the chicken that was strutting it's way past. This was a minipet, and considering he never saw one like this before, a rarer one that wasn't in the labs.
Taking off his jacket, he moved slowly after the chicken before he tossed it over the bird, hoping the heavy weight would keep it in place. This was no place for minipets.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 5:51 pm
Suddenly it was dark.
Everything in Rep's tiny minipet brain said this was A Very Bad Thing. So he did the only logical thing in response to this state of affairs, and something that it seemed this kind of minipet was particularly good at. He went absolutely ballistic, squawking and flapping like crazy, lashing out with the sharp spurs on his heels and his claws all the while yelling that he wasn't a minipet he was actually a ******** human. This might have helped him if it wasn't in a language entirely incomprehensible to humans. He even started crowing for help for all the use it was.
He was captured.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 5:59 pm
"Oh damn, you're loud." Melvin said, kneeling down to grabs the jacket and tuck it to wrap around the bird tightly. When he felt he got the wings close to the main body and found out which side was the head, he worked an opening to let the head through to see but not enough so that Melvin would get an eye pecked out.
Holding the bundle under one arm but holding it with both hands, he looked at the thing. "Just chill out, you dumb chicken." If that thing crapped in his jacket, he would be beyond pissed. "It's either this or you turn into a puddle. I've seen what you guys look like as mush. It's a pain to mop up." How Melvin knew this, it was best not to ask.
The life tech started to head to the labs.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 6:11 pm
As soon as he could see again Rep's first instinct was to make a run for it, this didn't go according to plan, his feet were still trapped, as were his arms - wings. ********, it was really hard to think through the insane terror of this damn brain. He had liked being a cat a whole lot better. Somehow he managed to calm down once he realised he was entirely trapped and even politely stopped trying to peck his captor's shirt.
Steering things a bit better he tilted his head to get a better look at who the hell had grabbed him and almost fell off the edge into panic mode all over again.
Oh ******** it was Melvin. Of all the hunters in the facility it had to be Goldilocks, lord of the dissection table. He was dead. After all this, his final moments would be in the hands of a speccy nerd he spent a good portion of his time trying to wind up.
"Bawk bawk. Bawkbawk BawKAWK AWK AWRK." he said. It was meant to be, listen man, it's me Rep, take me somewhere safe you daft b*****d, preferably with something alcoholic to drink.
He had a feeling it wasn't going to get through, and indignantly fluffed up his hackle feathers - carried around like a fancy lapdog, this was the ******** worst.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 6:24 pm
As the minipet continued to make noise, Melvin tilted his head away from the noise and nodded. "Yes. Yes. It is daylight out. I know. I have eyes." It certainly sounded sorta like a rooster, and decided he'd need a tank with a bit more sound buffers than the rest. Of course he was going to make this minipet his, seeing as he caught it and someone was dumb enough to either loose it or not have a leash on it. Finder's Keepers. Minipets were valuable in the labs after all.
Entering the labs, Melvin moved easily through the normal hustle and bustle of techs holding papers, binders, tanks, and some rather wild minipets who were trying to set some papers on fire while another dumped their coffee on the blaze and asked a trainee for a new cup of Joe. Ducking behind a counter to avoid getting a few hunters to ask him to refill the printer, he slipped behind another hunter as cover, got slapped on the a** by a whistling lab tech with dreads, and after shooting a glare, slipped to a side hallway and into a lab.
"I'm going to put fear candies in his coffee one day." He muttered before moving past a wall of tanks. Most were marked with little cards stating who belonged to who and regarding what project, and Melvin stopped at his own specimens to see how they were doing. Fine and perky as usual, and he turned to a center tank used for holding minipets during examinations.
Popping the lid off, he unwrapped his jacket and let the bird fall in before shutting the lid. It provided the perfect conditions to keep the creature stable.
"There. You can calm and have a rest in there." He told it, talking to his specimens like he always did before looking at his jacket and setting it aside. He'd clean it later before he even dared wear it.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 6:47 pm
Rep wasn't used to being in the life labs, when he swung by to feed Massacre it was generally as brief and painless as he could humanly make it and with as little contact with the resident pondlife techs as possible. It was strange to see it buzzing with activity without the suspicious eyes that followed him around normally and muttered sarcastic comments he couldn't entirely make out. Life kept its business close to its chest, even in the minipets department. At least Melvin seemed to still get harassed even in his natural environment, that was some sort of small karmic relief in the situation he was in, he might not be able to peck Melvin in the face but he could at least enjoy other people humiliating him on his behalf.
The tanks flickered past and Rep had a sinking feeling of where he was headed, dunked unceremoniously into one and shut in before he could leap to freedom.
Captive in this little enclosure his brain again went off down two separate roads. The minipet instincts said that escape was futile, that he should huddle, preen his feathers and wait for a chance to get out, maybe peck the glass a little. The human part of him though, the Rep part of him, had a serious issue with confinement of any sort, a deep seated anger and frustration with captivity.
It was the Rep side of him that had him all out attacking the glass with everything he had, claws, beak, spurs, a bristling mad ball of feathers, squawking and spitting and crowing his indignance at this state of affairs. It was to no avail and he knew it, but he was pissed.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:17 pm
Teeth clenched, Melvin leaned in to throw his weight on top of the lid, making sure to clip the other additional latches now that it seemed this guy wasn't going to behave and breathed out before watching the minipet all but attach his tank. Sighing, he dragged a hand through his bangs and held them back, looking around. "If you keep this up, you'll wind up hurting yourself." Yes, he talked to himself when he was alone in the labs.
Giving a long "hmmm" of thought, he glanced at the tanks. "Could give you a buddy..." He looked at the tank. "...but you'd probably peck it's eyes out." Looking around, he removed his hand from his head and went over to a runiced fridge where he pulled off a container and a clipboard. He wrote his name and how many he was taking before removing 2 treats and opening a tiny latch on the side of the tank before dropping the two treats in. "There. Now call down."
He put the treats back and closed it before going to a shelf where several binders in various states of abuse and organization were kept. Pulling out a white one, he went over, sat down, and opened it before leaning over and turning on the side device connected to the tank. "Let's see......"
The runic device hummed to life and beeped a few times, lighting up a blue light under Rep. "...what you're all about." There was a small smile and general gleam that wasn't just the runic glow shining off his blue eyes.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:34 pm
Rep fell back only when he ran out of energy to assault the side of the tank with, ruffled and panting. In a last ditch effort he fluffed his neck feathers at Melvin and pawed the ground with his claws, dropping his wings low to the ground. The intention was to challenge him to a man to man fight, force him to back down or go spur to spur, before he very dazedly realised that didn't actually work on people and relaxed again, looking a little sheepish about the whole charade.
At the prospect of a buddy, he fully agreed with Melvin's guess at what he'd do to a tank mate. Blood was a viable medium for writing messages to the outside world and right now he was pretty damn desperate. When the treats were dropped in, he shuffled over and eyed them.
And eyed them.
In two pecks they were gone.
He felt a little better, at least until he spotted Melvin was still messing around outside the tank. The floor lit up and he panicked. It looked like a microwave. He didn't want to end up as someone's lunch, death wasn't on his agenda that day. He'd just wanted to go get some treasure with Harrison.
It was Harrison and Jordan he was yelling for as he promptly started to run in terrified flapping circles, shedding white, ginger and red feathers all over the place, but what it sounded like to the outside world was just very dissonant croaky squawking.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:53 pm
And that's when the rooster really flipped his lid. Usually it wasn't so bad. The minipets freaked out, but after a moment settled down to see everything was fine. The bird brain was not having it that way, and Melvin rose, setting a red pen, Saliva's de-summoned form, down on his binder to set a hand on the lid. Looking in, he saw all manner of feathers being thrown here and there. "Calm the ******** down, you -"
The door jerked open showing a very thin-lipped, rigid woman in a lab coat covered in some sort of green slime. "What is going on here? We are trying to work." She huffed, and looked at the distressed minipet. "If you can't handle the specimens properly then go on some other duty." Looking at him with a more critical gaze, she added. "Aren't....you one of the trainees who fixes the copier?"
He looked wided-eyed at her, holding the tank lid in place. "Nope." He was not going to get stuck on office duty right now.
Before she had time to call his bluff, her jacket seemed to be sizzling holes through the fabric and she rushed off to handle it.
Sighing, Melvin turned off the machine and looked at the rooster. "I thought you were just a tame one that got loose. I hate taming wild minipets." He whined, reaching for his jacket. He already had to tame a few of his own damn specimens. Why couldn't he just have it easy.
Taking the container from the fridge again, he grabbed some treats before popping the lid and scooping Rep into the jacket again. Once he had this one tamed, THEN he could collect data without it flipping it's s**t.
He bundled the rooster and set it on his lap.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 8:00 pm
It took a minute for Rep to realise the machine was off, even after the blue faded, so worked up into an absolute panic that he kept running in dizzying circles right up until he had the jacket tossed over him and was picked up. He was too exhausted to protest much as he found himself set in Melvin's lap.
He looked scruffy and frankly miserable as he made dissatisfied crooning clucking sounds to himself.
He made no efforts to peck Melvin though, it seemed like he was out of fight for the time being, there was only so much rage a tiny minipet body could sustain.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 8:13 pm
With the minipet quiet, he let a bit more of it's head free to look around and watched it before reaching into his pocket and offering it another treat. "Trying to destroy tanks takes a lot out of you. I'll have to remember to tucker you out first."
Reaching over, he freed a long feather that had been loose on Rep and held it up. "Well, we can test this." He set it on the binder and slowly kicked the chair to roll on it's wheels and reached for a thick reference book that sat on another shelf and rolled back to the counter he had his things with and set it down. Taking the feather, he then rolled again, watching Rep to make sure he didn't move about.
In front of a large, white machine, Melvin grabbed a small, glass tray from a shelf beside it and set the feather in it, doing all this with one hand as the other held Rep in place on his lap, and then poured a clear liquid over it. Done, he slid the tray into the machine and closed it before turning it on and working a few buttons.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 8:26 pm
Rep at least didn't judge Melvin for talking to minipets, he spoke to Massacre all the time when he was on his own with him. Instead he merely grew irritable at not being able to talk back. It felt like being ignored, and that had always been his pet hate. There was nothing he could do about it though other than simply watch as Melvin tested the feather, he had to wonder what the machine would say, what he even was right now.
He stopped trying to escape and instead turned his attention on the machine. Now he wasn't actually in it, it was a lot more interesting.
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 8:33 pm
Interesting is exactly what Melvin could call it, and he waited for a moment as he tapped a few selections on the screen before it hummed to life and started to process the material, breaking it down to figure out it's fear content.
As he waited, he hummed to himself. "Forgotten children hm-hm-hm a new faith
Hm-Hm-Hm - lust controlled by hate
Hm-Hm-Hm search for your shattered sanity
Souls of damnation in their own reality." He drummed the beat against his knee as he leaned back and waited. There was no one ever here to hear him hum heavy metal to himself which made it one of the few perks of being alone in the labs most of the time.
Just as he was about to continue, the machine stopped and then hummed again, processing another cycle.
Looking down, he noticed the rooster wasn't moving. He loosened his grip just so, wondering if it would freak out and attack him. "Are you going to tear my face off?" He asked, looking at the bird. "Mmaaayybeee ....no?"
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