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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:19:38 GMT -6
With a sigh, as quiet as the exhale could be, Alma pushed the carrier before her like a shield, listening for the usual cacophony she had come to expect from the Twins. If there was no crackle, there would be the clacking sound of their jaws as both fought to be the head that directly faced her. But, perhaps due to the lack of muddy meat sticks to fight for the first choice of, the two heads remained silent as the carrier came to a stop just before the cage door.
Alma glanced around the corner at the voltitan, keeping the rest of her body hunched behind the carrier the best she could. The creature was facing her with both heads, but they lay limply on the cold metal of the cage, the stained metal beneath their heads flickering as though a pink-purple flame burned within it. They moved slightly, nostrils flaring and shrinking in the odd light, but the blue of their eyes was hidden. ((Twins-2.0 Alma-263.0))
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:20:05 GMT -6
Alma almost laughed. But she could not waste such luck, choking the sound before it could even start.
She pushed the carrier flush to the cage, slow and careful, not letting the carrier shift the cage as they collided. The cage latches on both were unhooked and pushed aside with the same level of care, both gates pulled up with a squeak, oh how she cursed herself for not oiling the cages prior to the hatching, to combine the two spaces. The voltitan slept through it all, as unmoving as the dead, remaining as such as she reached for the pair of feeding poles. Gripping one per hand, knuckles white as she nudged the wheel lock of the carrier with her foot, she moved behind the sleeping voltitan. Both tips slid smoothly through the gaps in the bars, tapping against the bars as she tried to hold them steady.
There was a sudden stillness from the voltitan then, and her own breath caught in her throat.
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:20:18 GMT -6
Alma drove both sticks into the shell of the voltitan, shrieking as the familiar crackle of electricity and something worse, oh Order, she could see the flames wrapping around the poles, burning up towards her with purple-pink flames, pushing as hard as she could towards the box.
The voltitan tried to fight her. They tried to turn towards the poles, both heads twisting the shortest path they could to get at the poles, but they could not split apart, could not make up their minds which direction to turn. Had they been older, they might have resisted her push anyways, with their massive weight is nothing else. As it was, they slid into the carrier with a crackle of energy that leapt and was caught by the cage, tiny claws sliding across the metal with barely a fight.
Then they were in, and Alma yanked back the poles, letting them fall behind her as she lunged for the carrier’s gate, the voltitan seemingly having reached a decision as they turned around in the enclosed space.
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:20:28 GMT -6
The gate slammed into place as the first of the cold blue eyes spun into view, the mechanism locked and Alma scrambling back as the second pair joined the first. The first head glared at the cage bars as the second head clicked against it, offering the perfect target for it to vent it’s frustrations upon. Both clacked and the body spun and twisted as they tried to bite one another, succeeding only in bashing the sides of their heads together as their jaws remained unable to latch on any delicate flesh.
The colors that sizzled across their shell leapt towards the gate and fizzled out the instant before it might have touched the metal. Alma watched them fight for a few more minutes, a small smirk spreading across her face as the carrier showed no signs of warping under the effects of the colors, the crackle-pop of them never striking a tile or even reaching the old cage’s bars.
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:20:47 GMT -6
Alma moved to the side of the cage while the two heads continued expressing their displeasure at the new cage, looking at the outermost layer for any signs of bubbling or discoloration. Satisfied that there was none, she left the two heads to argue as she gathered up what supplies she figured she might need. Meat bits, more rubber-coated poles, and many other objects were packed away quickly, Alma pausing in her work only twice to check that the Twins were still locked away.
When all of the gear was ready, Alma slung it over her back, tightening the strap to prevent the heavy bag from wobbling and getting in her way. After a quick jog satisfied her that nothing was going to fall out, she returned to the bickering magestorm voltitan and, remaining out of sight, tipped the container up onto its wheels. The clacking and crackles increased as she pushed it before her, taking it far from her kennel.
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:21:01 GMT -6
Securing the cart was easy enough, the driver accepting the usual small amount of credits before letting her load the carrier onto the wooden boards. He had not spared it more than a quick look, clearly, Alma thought, unaware of the threat such a beast was. After all, not all the sweat beading on her skin while pushing the carrier onboard was from the weight of it and the gear.
The noises in the carrier diminished as the ride continued, breaking out again only when the cart went over a particularly rough bump. Alma kept the mouth of the carrier pointed firmly at a knotted slat of wood that made part of the cart’s wall throughout, trusting that being able to see the metal gate would not help her if the beast managed to break through.
But there was no snap of brittle metal to be heard, only the clacking of toothless mouths, and they reached the park without incident. ((Twins-3.0/5.0))
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:21:11 GMT -6
Alma had spent the cart ride alternating between looking over the plastic scroll called a WATT and checking the wood facing the cage for any sign of warpage. After the third time of doing the latter, her head craning to the side as she half-rose into a crouch, the driver had looked back at her with a scowl, his eyes narrowing as they drifted from her to the carrier and back. From that point on, Alma kept her butt firmly planted on the wooden seat,or as firmly as the bumps in the road would allow her. She settled on a quick flick of the eyes to see what she could see of the wood behind the carrier, and snorting to herself as she read the information about the voltitan yet again.
“‘Thank the gods’ indeed,” she muttered, wondering if the writer had been some poor soul worried about what WELP was creating, or some cheeky scientist patting themselves on the back.
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:21:27 GMT -6
At least the burning hatred the two heads had for each other might limit how many grew to adulthood, and those secured by other collectors might be kept behind strong bars for an eternity.
There was nothing new on the sheet as far as she could tell, no ‘this is how to properly handle a magestorm without being mutated’ nor a sentence mentioning the sort of environment they preferred. She would just have to assume it liked something like the base breed did, muddy riverbanks rather than the burning lava or deep seas of the other common breeds. At least she knew they liked meat, slathered with mud and seasoned with soft grasses, and that they would not grow up to be terribly malformed as long as their diet contained a lot of it.
It was going to make training a little more of a pain though. Two heads did not mean twice the hunger, but it did make them prone to bickering should one head receive more than the other.
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:21:42 GMT -6
Alma would have to be careful with how she rewarded them with treats to avoid stuffing them before they could be taught…well, she had not decided exactly what to teach them yet. The point still stood, and she was hopeful the pink slurry she had taken from the kennel supplies would be easy enough to divide up. Feeding them until they would not move could only work while they were small, their adult size some nebulous thing that suggested she would quickly run out of credits and time if she had to feed them into somnolence every time they started being rowdy.
She had decided on training some form of attack as the cart pulled up in front of the park, something to both waste their energy and direct it so that they might not send it after other targets. Alma was not keen on ever being a target of chaotic lightning after all.
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:21:54 GMT -6
Of course, that was assuming said lightning could be directed. She already had one creature who could not help but hit everything near him, including himself, with an impressive burst of lightning whenever he tried to use it. Alma decided to do her best to keep a good distance from Twins until she determined they could properly aim.
Unloading the two-headed beast was just as easy as loading them had been, though Alma felt lighter as she looked at the looming gateway of the park. As she had hoped, there were few other trainers in sight, the decree that the mines, mansion, and several other zones had been determined to be safe for training having drawn away many folks. Why train your beast in the park when you could be sure of securing some baubles at the same time?
Unless, Alma glanced back down at the clacking box with a sigh, your beast to be trained could not be trusted in one of those places. Unless you needed somewhere relatively quiet, where a magical shift of rooms or a curious feral beast might drive your pet into a rage.
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:22:04 GMT -6
Maybe she could take Twins to the river some day in the next month, once she did not need to fear their attention. Or the mansion perhaps, with the magic of the building providing a fine counter for any single beast the labs could dream up.
For now, she tipped the driver of the cart for the quick if not perfectly smooth ride, the clinking of credits settling the look of vague annoyance back into casual disinterest. She was hopeful not to need a cart on the way back to the kennels, but it would not do for the driver to spread rumors to the others that might see their rates raise.
Wheeling the container past the gates and down the path, she was glad to see that the park really did appear to be empty as she walked down the path nearest to the wall. Eventually, they came across a fenced lot, the patch of land looking as though someone had grabbed a tranquil stream and dropped it in the park. ((Alma-264.0))
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:22:15 GMT -6
Not a picturesque stream, not the placid glass-smooth waters edged with reeds that were the subject of paintings, but one that had clearly seen a lot of use despite the fence surrounding the plot. The banks were little more than mud, with a hint of straight shoots of green stabbing up between from where their upper halves lay trampled in the mud. The water itself looked cleaner, but Alma could see little of it beyond the glare of sunlight that bounced around the churning water as it slid under one end of the fence to flow across another plot.
The mud shimmered too under the morning light, and the still shiny globs of mud tracked across the green carpet of grass suggested there had been another using this particular plot, so recently that Alma was surprised to have seen no one on the way to it.
But the gate was not locked, there was no sign of the previous occupant, and the clacking of Twins only seemed to grow more frantic as she stood there.
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:22:26 GMT -6
“Howdy! Anyone here?”
The clacking calmed, and Alma had the distinct feeling that Twins had somehow failed to connect her with their current predicament, from the moment they had been shoved into the carrier to the bumpy trip in the cart, to even now as she had been rolling them around the mostly-smooth path for several minutes, until she had opened her mouth and started yelling.
“Well,” it did not matter so much now to keep quiet as a crackle of thwarted energy erupted from inside the carrier, “guess we’ll just be coming on in.” The noises from inside the carrier began to build, and she could feel Twins moving around inside, thumping their stubby legs as they attempted to crawl up to the gate and fix their twin glares upon her. Alma laughed loudly, eyes wide as she fumbled for the latch. She barely noticed the softness of the mud under her gloves as she slid it free, and pulled the carrier and supplies in after her.
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:22:39 GMT -6
Then they were all in, the gate clanging shut behind her and the latch sliding back into place as Alma continued to babble. “Now, if someone is in here, just let us know, and we’ll go right out. We ain’t the sort to steal a spot.” Still no response, her grin large as her eyes looked for a reason to find a new spot. But there was nothing, not even a far off cry of some other beast being trained in the early morning. Nothing beyond her voice and that of the voltitan.
“Guess this will do, huh, Twins? The scroll said yer lot tend to like water.” And maybe that would calm down both heads long enough for her to teach them that there were much better things out there than killing her, or twisting her into a gibbering wreck that no quick revival would ever manage to fix. “Then again, yer still a babe.”
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Post by Alma on Jul 31, 2022 20:22:49 GMT -6
Which could be a good thing, as in the magic rippling along their shell like rainbow-hued water being weaker for their youth. Or it could be much worse, the magic completely uncontrollable and unrestricted as it flooded anyone who so much as stood near it.
She set the carrier down onto its side slowly, as if her carefulness now could soothe the rampage happening inside of it. Alma left them to snap and crackle, trusting in the carrier’s expensive properties to keep the beast from popping free, hoping they might be slightly calmer if she left them alone long enough. She set down her sack of equipment by the metal gate, pulling out each object to inspect it for any flaws that might render it useless. As she had seen while packing them, all of the gear appeared to be in good order, a fact she informed Twins of with a forced shout of joy.
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