Around the Folf

Nick22 · **Reply #480 on:** July 26, 2018, 10:41:53 PM

remember that we aren't anywhere near Mexico" Rose said " Given the country we are in , and its culture, you aren't going to find any Mexican stuff here,as for burritos, they are similar to tacos, except they completely enclose whatever toppings are in them. beef, chicken, rice, etc. From what i see, these fast food places are mostly ice cream stops, which rather stinks."

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #481 on:** July 27, 2018, 02:13:18 AM

"Aww, bummer. Maybe another day," Emma smiled. "Cause that sounds super delicious. Maybe we should just get Mediterranean, I know this city's full of those."

She checked her watch. "We've still got time before the massage. It's always nice not having to rush while eating. I wonder if Flora and Yurei are eating right now."

--------------------------------------

Flora was marched roughly down the hallway, the guards not even giving her time to make eye contact with anyone walking by.

"Flora?" asked Nash, a human test subject heading for the Circulatory lab. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure, I--" she started, but the guard elbowed her roughly in the side. "No talking, no slowing down," he informed bruskly.

Finally they herded her into the brig and threw her into the first available cell. Flora took several seconds to catch her breath, and only once they'd assumed guard positions outside the brig entrance did she timidly stagger to her feet. Shivering in the drafty cellblock air, Flora debated the merits of once again asking for something of an explanation, before a fiery-haired raccoon scientist named Cherlins suddenly marched into the brig. "You've got a lot of explaining to do!" he snapped, rattling her cage bars and sending her leaping backwards in alarm.

"I will! I'll tell you whatever, I promise!" Flora stammered. “Just tell me what about!”

“You thought you’d deleted the security footage,” he leered. “And nobody would discover that you were the one who freed Experiment L1F3.” He smiled grimly when realization played across her face. “But one of the new test subjects can restore damaged film, and now we’ve got it on video.”

Oh crap… Flora gulped. “I, um…” She took a deep breath. “Okay, yeah, I may have done that…” Her eyes widened and she raised her hands quickly when he drew a silver-barreled taser. “Whoa don’t shoot! I’m sorry!”

“Not yet you’re not!” Cherlins snarled. “Why? Why did you jailbreak the most dangerous experiment Sartonic has ever held? Do you have any idea how valuable she was?”

“Yes, yes, I know…” Flora couldn’t keep her heartrate in check. “I broke all the rules, I don’t really have any excuses. I just thought the way we were treating her was inhumane.”

"We're not paying you to think..." Cherlins growled. “Tell me everything from the moment the two of you left Sartonic, or you die right here, right now.”

“We escaped over the west courtyard wall,” Flora confessed, eyes still locked onto the taser barrel. “We were gonna head deeper into the desert, she promised to take me with her. We headed directly away from the city, hiked for a day. You should be able to follow our path, she kept growing flowers and stuff everywhere she stepped. That night, we slept on some sand dunes, and when I woke up in the morning she was gone.” Flora felt her face redden remembering how L1F3 had abandoned her. “So...I just came back. Pretended I’d spent all that time in my room.”

Cherlins had grown beet red himself. “You are so goddamn stupid!” he screamed in frustration. “We could have furthered humanity and gotten rich at the same time. She could have given us the cure for aging!”

“She wasn’t going to give you anything!” Flora snapped back. “We both know that. You were just going to end up killing her.”

“I guess we’ll never know…” Cherlins shot her in the crotch. Flora’s eyes widened and she screamed as she collapsed to the floor, losing control of all her muscles. “Unfortunately Van Der Merwe says we can’t kill you yet, so we’re just going to leave you here for now.” He didn’t bother to hide the threat in his tone as he deactivated the taser and left her crying and spasming erratically in the fetal position. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Gnashing his teeth furiously, he stomped out of the brig.

Nick22 · **Reply #482 on:** July 28, 2018, 02:30:22 AM

Marita stopped at the nearest fast food join, which was blamed icy Iraqi ice cream. there was a mix of classic flavors,-chocolate, vanilla, twist, met twist oreo twist- with new ones like ' camel's milk, crescent cream. tigris toffee and baghdad berry. " hmm " lets go in girls. they seem have a lot of choices here> Any preference as to flavor Emma?' Marita asked as she stopped the car and got out.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #483 on:** July 28, 2018, 05:28:59 AM

"Baghdad Berry sounds berry delicious!" Emma joked as they walked into the ice cream store. "I've been having cravings for fruit since hitting second trimester, that would hit the spot."

She let the girls go first in case they needed more time to decide what flavors to get. Huh, the sky seems a bit darker than it should be, she observed, looking idly out the storefront windows. Considering it's only 2 o'clock...

-----------------------------------

It was a long time before Flora regained enough motor function to crawl pitifully around her cell, and she spent most of it cradling her family jewels and trying frantically to come up with her next move. She'd always avoided Cherlins because she'd heard horror stories from any test subjects that worked with him, and now he was out for her blood. Can Yurei bail me out? she wondered, glancing at the pristine white walls of her cell. Odds are good they planned ahead for ghostform or any other psionic power. But if he can talk his way past security, he could slip me something...

Crawling to the front of the cell, she staggered to her feet using the bars as a crutch. She could see the guards were still standing at attention outside the brig, armed and stonefaced as before.

I don't think I'm going to be able to rely on Yurei this time. She looked around. Her cell contained only a sink, toilet, and cot bolted to the wall. Not a lot to work with...

Nick22 · **Reply #484 on:** August 02, 2018, 08:38:21 PM

Marie went up to the counter to order her ice cream, she settled on a regular hiot fudge sundae with lots of whipped cream. Marita got oreo mint twist, in a dish and covered its in nuts , whipped cream and sprinkles. Rose got Tigris Toffee in a cone. ' anything you ladies want to drink?' Marie asked.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #485 on:** August 03, 2018, 12:57:20 AM

Emma shook her head. "I'm trying to avoid sugary drinks or alcohol. Just drinking water until she's born," she patted her stomach. "Or he? The doctors seemed a bit confused on that part..."

The clerk handed Emma her ice cream and she started enjoying it. "Should we eat while driving to the masseuse, or keep eating here?" she asked. "We've probably got time for both, but we'll be cutting it close if we stay here..."

---------------------

Cherlins glared at the cheerful wolf fixing the potted plant he’d knocked over while walking through the door. “Dr. Kojurro. What the hell are you doing in my office?”

“Walter! It’s been so long, how are you my friend?” Kojurro beamed, showing a wide mouth of teeth. “You’re always so busy working with your experiments in the quarantine section, you’ve haven’t come to any of our department’s good old-fashioned sitdowns in months!”

“I hated those; I just wanted the free beer, but eventually it wasn’t worth listening to everyone’s idiotic banter.” Cherlins narrowed his eyes. “Speaking of which, please leave.”

“Of course, I don’t mean to bother you...” Kojurro turned to leave, and Cherlins had halfway refocused on his paperwork when the wolf abruptly spun around and continued “...BUT there was something Van Der Merwe wanted me to tell you. If I could request just a minute of your time…”

“Van Der Merwe is in Denmark meeting with shareholders,” Cherlins raised an eyebrow. “As you damn well know.”

“Exactly! And that leaves you in charge of the base! And Van Der Merwe explicitly told me to inform you if anything unusual happens in his absence." Kojurro bowed flamboyantly. "And, well, to that effect I must report that we’re getting the strangest weather readings any of us have ever seen.”

“‘Weather’ readings?” Cherlins checked his email, and only then noticed several panicked emails from other personnel at Sartonic. “Strange how? Are we talking humidity, temperature, atmospheric phenomenon?”

“Yes. To all of those.” Kojurro leaned over his desk and pointed to a specific email. “I can’t be any more specific because none of it makes sense. It looks like we’re about to be hit by a tropical storm, a mudslide, a tornado, a heat wave, a cold wave, an earthquake, and a snowstorm. At almost the exact same time.”

Cherlins’ eye twitched. “But--but--we’re in the middle of the desert!” He burst out. “We never get any weather. And it’s meteorologically impossible for all of that to even occur at the same time!”

Kojurro nodded in agreement. “It certainly requires urgent investigation. Hence why we’re all being rather pushy with requesting your orders.”

Cherlins read the document over again. “Don’t do anything,” he finally decided. “Sartonic is more than built to withstand any and all of these. I’ll have the maintenance crew reinforce windows, but otherwise I’d rather we focus our energies on finding out what’s causing this extreme weather to manifest.”

He hit the button to summon Sartonic’s elite security guards. “Because whatever it is, we need to capture it.”

Nick22 · **Reply #486 on:** August 06, 2018, 04:29:28 PM

We can eat on the way' Rose said, as she headed out of the restaurant carrying a tray full of large sodas and a large cup of water for Emma. ' Alright , girls we have about 20 minutes or so to eat our lunch ' Marie said looking at the clock on the dashboard and taking a soda, she had eaten about a quarter of her ice cream.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #487 on:** August 08, 2018, 12:38:18 AM

Emma nodded, eating her ice cream as they returned to the car and pulled out of the parking lot. "Could you roll your windows up?" she asked the driver as they hit regular cruising speed and raindrops started soaking the upholstery. "This is just bizarre, getting rain at this time of year. But it might actually improve the massage, honestly. Rain makes such a peaceful, relaxing sound when it patters against glass."

-----------------------------

Flora bit her lip as her claw scraped against something metal for the umpteenth time. She was trying to pick the jail lock like she'd seen Emilena do, but it was proving just as impossible as she'd expected.

"What the hell are you doing?" Cherlins glared as he appeared from the other side of the brig. Apparently there was a second entrance.

"Nothing!" she stammered, leaping backwards and covering her crotch defensively.

"M-hmm." Cherlins folded his arms. "I came for the complete list of Experiment L1F3's powers."

"Uhh, mostly just plant-growing stuff..." Flora curled into the furthest corner of the cell. "And making things older or younger. Oh, and growing all those vine-tentacles. Also she turned my nipples into flowers that one time, but somehow they got better--"

"What about weather alteration?" he interrupted. "Especially once you two were outside the lab."

Flora thought. "I don't remember anything like that. Why?"

"There's a..." Cherlins paused to think of the right word, "...very unusual tropical storm coming our way. Our sensors are detecting her psionic signature from it."

Flora's hair stood on end. "She's coming back?" She leaped up. "Let me talk to her! I might be able to get her to stand down."

Cherlins laughed. "Stand down? We don't give a crap about her standing down. Sartonic isn't worried about some measly storms. But..." He held a pen and short written agreement through the bars. "If you promise not to run away, we could use you as bait. You help us draw her out, and then we can re-capture her."

Flora's eyes widened. "I..." she took a deep breath. "Will I be fully pardoned?"

Cherlins narrowed his eyes. "Only on successful recapture of the specimen."

Flora gulped. "...Okay." She raised her hands to take the contract, then squawked in alarm when he took the opportunity to tase her in the nuts again. His laughter was still ringing in her ears as he walked out of the brig.

Nick22 · **Reply #488 on:** August 08, 2018, 03:43:41 PM

Marita pressed a button which rolled up both the front and back windows ' This is strange. Deserts usually dont get major storms, but this one looks like its gonna be a whopper ' Marita said ' We;d better get to massage place and pronto. Dont want to be caught on the road if part of it floods. ' So everyone eat your ice cream, quickly, theres a bag by Maries feet for garbage." Marita said, she had eaten most of her ice cream already. marie took a sip from her sida. Outside the rain began falling harder and harder.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #489 on:** August 08, 2018, 09:54:58 PM

Emma finished her ice cream and tossed the cup in the designated bag as they pulled into the massage parlor parking lot, right on time. "I'll go let the masseuse know--oop!" She gasped in surprise as she stepped out of the car door and slipped on the slick ground, but caught herself in time. Within seconds her skirt and leg were soaked with ice-cold pelting rain. "I'm okay! Good lord..." She covered her face and stumbled to the door.

Natalie Parker looked up from the receptionist's table as Emma entered. One look at her belly told her that this was the client. "Miss Maple! Welcome!" She hurriedly grabbed the girl a towel.

"Where on earth did this storm come from?" Emma wondered aloud. "It was bright and sunny this morning!"

"The weatherman's been wondering too," Natalie nodded to the silent television in the waiting room, where a panel of meteorologists was discussing the breaking weather alert. "Luckily the rain won't bother you in here." She smiled. "Head into the back. You get yourself dried off, feel free to remove as many clothes as you feel comfortable, and lay facedown on the massage bed." According to the booking, her handlers would be covering payment and negotiating the details of the transaction. "I'll be with you shortly."

The two Great Danes were parking the car. Natalie waited patiently for them to arrive; to avoid being stiffed, she usually requested that new customers paid half in advance.

--------------------------------------

Cherlins looked out the window at the darkened stormclouds closing in on the base.

"Sir," reported Kojurro, "every window in the base has been reinforced, as ordered."

"And not a moment too soon..." Cherlins murmured. He stood up and closed the blinds. "All personnel have been locked safely indoors. Now we just wait this out."

"Should we plant Flora in the courtyard?" Kojurro asked. "We're running out of time to use her as bait before the storm hits."

Cherlins shook his head. "First I want L1F3 to realize how fruitless her little storm is." His eyes steeled. "Get her really desperate and frustrated. Then she'll be ready to walk into any trap we set."

Kojurro nodded. "Assuming her storm is really as weak as you claim...she is the first experiment to escape from Sartonic in over fifty years."

"This time she won't have help on the inside," Cherlins growled. "I swear if that folf tries anything, I'll shoot her myself."

Kojurro gulped.

Nick22 · **Reply #490 on:** August 12, 2018, 09:32:05 PM

Marita and rose entered next folowed by Marie, the rain was starting to come down harder and harder, even though they had parked close to the fromnt door they still r4ecieved a drenching. marie tossed their garbage away in a bin close to the front door and Marita approached the front desk ' Hi! We're the Miss Maple Group. I'm Marita, I'm here to pay for the massage " She said to Natalie who was standing behind the counter ' Now you said half in advance, right, lets see, that would be 600 creds. " Marita said pulling out her creds card.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #491 on:** August 15, 2018, 06:10:03 AM

Natalie Parker to put a CLOSED sign on the door. "Absolutely not letting any walk-ins today," she quipped, locking the door. "They'd be insane to go outside in this weather anyway."

She smiled at the pair. "600 is fine, of course, with the other 600 upon completion. Pleased to meet you, Marita. I'm Natalie." Wiping rainwater from her shoulder, she activated the cash register and cleared the purchase.

"You know," she smiled. "With this weather, you might be stuck here a while. If either of you wants a massage once I'm done with Emma, I'll drop the price down to 950 per person." That was only slightly cheaper than her normal rainy day discount anyway, and it would make her trip to the office today slightly more worth it. "Heck, for only 700 flat I'll give you two an open massage room and you can take turns on each other."

-------------------------------------

The wind whipped the trees in the courtyard violently, uprooting several of the smaller saplings. The wind howled with anger as rain battered the beleaguered station.

Cherlins stood in the main lobby, watching the tempest outside through reinforced glass double-doors.

Kojurro walked up behind him. "Things are holding. For now..."

"What do you mean, 'for now'?" Cherlins asked, not breaking eye contact with the storm. "We should be able to hold this out indefinitely."

"Well, uh, the lightning seems to know all the right places to strike. We've lost our auxiliary generator, and the storm has completely disrupted outside communications. We can't contact anybody."

"We shouldn't need to contact anybody, goddammit!" Cherlins balled his fists and whipped around to glare at his fellow scientist. "Why are you all treating this storm like it's anything but our best opportunity to recapture--?"

His tirade was cutoff when the lights in the room suddenly flickered on and off. "What the hell?"

Kojurro quickly tuned his radio. "Ummm, not getting signal." He gulped. "I'll go check main power. The storm shouldn't even get that far."

"Yes, go do that." Cherlins sighed as Kojurro and returned his gaze to the windows.

And then it hit him in the cheek. A single solemn drop of water. The smallest of cracks had formed in the largest skylight in the lobby.

Nick22 · **Reply #492 on:** August 19, 2018, 01:23:52 AM

We;'ll take the 700 and give each other massages ' Marita said handing Natalie her creds card ' Which room would you say is the best for massages , of the ones you have?" she asked. Rose and Marie sat down in a couple chairs near the doior trying to dry off as much as possible.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #493 on:** August 20, 2018, 11:51:07 PM

Natalie threw Marita a keycard and a bottle of oil. "Take the one down the left corridor. There'll be towels and extra lotion in the cupboard to the right of the door. And make sure you clean up after yourselves." She headed for the hallway to the back rooms. "Since y'all paid for a full four hours, I don't think you have to worry about finishing before I'm done with Emma..."

-----------------------------

Emma found herself in a small room very similar to the one Marita, Rose, and Marie will soon be seeing. She blushed as she remembered what Natalie said about removing her clothes. Deciding to keep her underwear on, she slipped onto the bed and nervously lay down face first.

-----------------------------

Cherlins bolted for the exit to the lobby as glass shattered from the skylights and frigid, pelting rain started pummelling the linoleum floor. The raccoon dove through the double-doors startling the maintenance worker performing routine checks. "Get this door sealed!" Cherlins commanded urgently, as the door waved erratically in the tornado winds.

-----------------------------

Elsewhere, Kojurro was tiptoeing through the maintenance corridors. Most people were holing it out in their apartments, and he didn't hear anything except the pitter-patter of rain. He reached the primary power supply and quickly scanned the room. Everything seemed okay--

He suddenly leaped backwards as a heavy spark emanated from the primary generator. "What?" he muttered, drawing a flashlight as the room was plunged into blackness.

Another flash sent him covering his eyes. quickly donning rubber gloves and removing his labcoat, so that only his rubber-soled shoes would touch the sides, Kojurro leaped onto the generator and slowly climbed up the side.

His first sign of trouble was when driplets of water kept hitting him in the face. "We're far too deep for the storm to reach down here..." he pondered to himself. "What's else is around here anyway?"

His nose hit the ceiling far sooner than it should have. This close, he could see the ceiling was almost bowed with how much weight it was under.

He hit the radio. "Rico!" he asked the security guard on camera duty. "What room is right above the primary generator?"

"Mmm, let's see. Uhhh...a locker room." Kojurro heard fingers typing on keys. "Oh, my god! There was a rupture in the ceiling! That room is literally filled with water!"

Kojurro realized was Life's plan was at the same moment an earthquake sent the entire foundation rumbling. Jumping with ninjalike reflexes, Kojurro barely absorbed the damage of a huge fiberglass ceiling tile smashing into his face as an entire locker room's worth of water collapsed on top of Sartonic's primary generator.

---------------------

Flora yelped in surprise as the room shook from a freak earthquake. What the hell is happening out there? she wondered, leaping to her feet as a massive crack in the floor sent her bed tumbling into the earth. Scrambling for the far wall, Flora tumbled to her knees as another shock wave rocked the entire room.

She could hear screams from elsewhere in the labs. It was becoming all too clear that Cherlins had under-estimated the effectiveness of Life's hybrid storm...

Nick22 · **Reply #494 on:** August 29, 2018, 08:03:34 PM

I'll Give rose a masage first , then Marie ' Marita said as the three of them gheaded t the room, listed o the keycard Natalie had goven them. Marie carried the large bottle of lotion in her claws as they reached the room. The Room door slid open with the use of a key and the heavy smell of incense wafter out , hitting their nostrils.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #495 on:** September 06, 2018, 12:39:53 AM

Emma looked at the bed and gulped. She'd never had a professional massage before, was she really supposed to remove all her clothes? She decided to keep her underwear on just for decencies' sake.

She had finally laid down facefirst on the massage table when she heard Natalie enter the word. "Oh my. Dear, you're supposed to put the towel on over your legs," she chuckled.

Emma peeped in surprise. "Sorry!" she tried to stammer, but the massage table pillow did a good job making it unintelligible.

"Not to worry," Natalie couldn't keep a playful tone out of her words as she draped the towel over her patient's backside and lathered her hands in warm oils. "You're in good hands. Just close your eyes, and let your cares drift away..."

--------------------------

Kojurro's vision slowly returned as he vaguely heard someone shouting his name. Groaning, he rolled out, and somebody started helping him to his feet.

"Doctor!" the technician repeated, splashing him in the face. "Wake up! We've got to leave this section!"

Kojurro stumbled to his feet. "Ugh..." His head was killing him. "What happened?"

This whole section is flooding!" the technician helped Kojurro walk. Behind them, the massive puddle from the now-ruined power generator was pushing them out of the room. "But careful touching any water; I saw two electrified puddles while making my way out."

Two floors later, Kojurro bid the technician adieu and met Cherlins outside the lobby. "Walter. What are you...?"

Cherlins was overseeing two workers soldering the door shut. "Lobby has been compromised," Cherlins reported grimly. "News on the primary power supply?"

"It's completely dead." Both men stopped talking as the lights flickered. "Walter, I think it's clear we don't have this storm under control. It's only going to get worse."

"To hell it is!" Cherlins growled. "We change plans, she'll think she has the advantage. We can't back down now."

"What? Are you insane? She's has the advantage!" Kojurro protested. "If we don't convince her to parlay, her storm is going to kill everyone in this base!"

"Your opinion has been noted and logged," Cherlins replied coldly. "but I'll be the judge of that. Now leave."

"You're making a mistake, Walter," Kojurro warned, but the raccoon angrily waved him out of the room, refusing to hear another word.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #496 on:** September 19, 2018, 06:58:01 PM

There were two guards blocking the hallway to the infirmary. They were Cherlins' most loyal of guards, and Kojurro knew it. They weren't going to listen to reason, so they needed to be eliminated.

"You ready, Nash?" he muttered into his satellite brick phone.

"I, uh, think so..." his partner in crime answered nervously. "I'm in position to extract her at least, if the guards weren't there."

"Well, I'm going to give you that shot. Start the countdown." Kojurro walked around the corner and revealed himself. "Evening, gentlemen," he curtsied to the guards.

They moved to block his path. "Nobody's allowed in the infirmary," the smaller one grunted.

"I am but a scientist," Kojurro pointed out. "What could I possibly get up to? I just need a moment to speak to the prisoner."

"Too bad." the larger guard folded his arms.

Kojurro sighed. "Very well." With lightning-fast reflexes, he drew a katana from under his labcoat and brandished it.

Both guards quickly drew their firearms. "The hell is that?" the smaller one snapped.

"This?" Kojurro grinned wickedly. "This is an Heirloom Kibagami katana. Its shattered blade was obtained through hard diplomacy with the American border patrol, and its handle through blackmailing a pair of old friends who never wanted to see me again. I reforged it through a painstaking process that required the most delicate and powerful smithing machines Sartonic could buy!"

He pressed a button on the sword's hilt, causing it to instantly shatter. "Whoops. Note to self; next time I reforge the Kibigami katana, avoid the vibrate function."

Both guards opened fire, and Kojurro sprinted as fast as he could back down the hallway, dodging bullets with the reflexes of a ninja.

----------------

The storm raged on. Critical systems were shutting down one by one. At one point, the lights flickered off in Flora's jail cell, and they never came back on.

Flora sighed. She'd spent most of her hours fitfully sleeping in the furthest corner from the no-longer flushing toilet and wondering if anybody was ever going to rescue her or bring her clothes or food. She had no idea what was happening outside beyond what little she could see of the hallway, but she could tell things were bad.

"Flora!"

She suddenly sat up in alarm as someone burst into the hallway. "Stay away from the door," Nash warned, pouring some sort of substance on the lock and handle. Lighting a match and tossing it at the coated metal, both averted their eyes as the entire chunk of door superheated and melted into slag.

"Nash, what are you doing here?" Flora asked, wasting no time in hopping gingerly over the molten puddle and escaping her imprisonment.

"Things are bad out here, Flora. But it's only going to get worse." Nash handed her a hooded bathrobe and peeked outside for sign of Kojurro. "Put this on and try to keep your identity hidden. Most of the faculty are siding with Cherlins, but Kojurro thinks you might be the key to convincing Life to stand down."

"Wait, that psycho plant lizard? She's back?" Flora felt her fur stand on then. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Convince her to spare our lives. If anyone has a chance at swaying her, it's you." Nash activated the flashlight on his cell phone and led the way out of the infirmary.

Nick22 · **Reply #497 on:** September 28, 2018, 01:18:03 AM

Marita was slowly working up and down Rose's back, and trying to ignores the tensing Noises Rose was making. You've got a lot of knots in your llower back; Marita norted. ' yeah, comes from sitting a lot, and stress. Which is what this trip was supposed to re;ieve. " This trip is mostly about Emma having some fun, before she has her baby. After that, its all diapers, little sleep and rest." Marita said.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #498 on:** November 06, 2018, 12:51:53 AM

Nash and Flora didn't get far before reaching the gym. The room was completely dark, so both were sprinting at full speed not bothering to stay silent, when a zippo lighter turned on and both gasped in surprise. "Who's there?" a voice snarled.

"It's just me!" Nash stammered. "Nash Browns and, uh," he glanced at Flora, "Taga!"

"Taga?" the person stepped forward. Flora recognized a bull from the cleaning staff. "What the hell is she doing out of the quarantine cells?"

"She was evacuated, because of all the flooding!" Nash answered, grabbing Flora's arm and trying to keep her out of the faint light. "But she remembered something important she left in her cell, we're trying to retrieve it."

"You can't," another voice said, one Flora recognized as an older female bobcat whose name escaped her. "The roofs are collapsed up ahead. The hallways are too dangerous to continue."

Several more figures stepped into the light. Nash and Flora slowly stepped backward. "Welp, uh," Nash gulped. "Thanks for the heads up. I'll just, return her to the fortified apartments then..."

"Good call," the bull nodded sagely.

Nash exhaled in relief as they quickly backpedaled. "My bad," he whispered. "We still might be able--"

Suddenly Flora felt someone grab her bathrobe's hood, dragging her backwards. She felt a pair of hands grasp her robe and abandoned it with a terrified squeal. "That's what I thought!" The bull roared. "It's the rogue test subject!"

Flora sprinted into the darkness as the bobcat tackled Nash to the ground. A serpentine test subject came flying out of the darkness and wrapped itself around her head, but she wrestled free and threw him into an ab machine. A woman wielding a pair of weights cut off her escape, so she vaulted over the treadmills and stumbled for the locker room.

She slammed the door shut as somebody smashed heavily into it. The locker room was pitch black and Flora decided to keep it that way, though she paid for this decision when she slipped on a puddle and smacked her shin painfully on a changing bench. Knowing she only had a few seconds, she turned on every shower and climbed under one.

The door swung open and her assailants poured into the room. "Lights are down!" the bull announced to his posse angrily. "Spread out! She can't have gone far!"

"Why's it so...wet?" asked the serpent, checking the floor. "Is this area flooded?"

The bobcat checked in Flora's shower, so Flora pushed her and sent her smashing into the ceramic wall with a strangled cry. Hosing the bull down with the prehensile showerhead, she crawled for the door as the water drenched his Zippo and plunged everyone into darkness. Several bodies stumbled over her in the ruckus, but they slipped off her slick fur.

Flora was hyperventilating with panic when she slid back into the gym. "Nash!" she whispered desperately. "Nash?"

Her ally was nowhere to be seen, and she didn't have time to find him. Sprinting as carefully as she could through the gym, she reached the far exit and flung the door open.

A hallway full of hissing, sparking wires greeted her.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #499 on:** November 13, 2018, 09:09:24 PM

At the massage parlor, a falling tree suddenly smashed through the front window. The burglar alarm went off, but the storm was far too intense to expect the police to arrive. Not to mention the waiting room was flooding dangerously fast...

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Flora heard her pursuers bearing down on her. "Don't even think about it!" The bull warned, realizing she was considering charging into a hallway full of live wires. "You'll never reach the other side alive!"

Flora took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and sprinted forward. Almost immediately she felt sparks whip across her legs, leaving blackened burns in her fur. Something snapped her in the chest, sending her fur standing on end. She swatted her arms desperately as the wires left scalding stripes across her body.

She barely made it halfway down the hallway before collapsing from multiple electric shocks. Her pursuers stood stunned, not daring to follow.

Just when Flora was sure she was going to die, the wires all turned off and fell to the floor lifeless. Weakly, she opened her eyes to see her pursuers fleeing. Wha...? Why are they...?

She heard another set of footsteps. Softer ones, coming from the flooded underbelly of the base. With all of her remaining strength, Flora rolled over to see a plantlike serpentine figure observing her with an unfathomable expression.

Life had found her.