Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh My! (Open)

‘I seem to constantly find myself in Central Park,’ Sterling sighed internally. But then the places for her to go while Dragon-Fly was still undergoing repairs was rather limited. And as much as she wanted to curl into a ball until her body stopped aching, her injured limbs also needed exercise to keep strong. She decided to consider the walks therapeutic if nothing else. They also helped her clear her mind.

She didn’t really want to be around people (or anything that would talk to her really) at the moment. Her mind fluttered about as she struggled to readjust her understanding of herself as she now stood, existing under the title of “mutant”. She had no idea where the discovery would lead her, if it would affect her at all… or her search for her father…

‘Could he have been one too?’ she mused to herself, continuing her slow, thoughtful walk down the jogging path she was currently traversing, ‘It would explain a lot.’

With a sigh, she stretched her arms over her head, wincing when she felt something pull in her side.

‘I’m probably going to need to go in for my own ‘repairs’ if this doesn’t get better soon,’ she mused.

She had just decided to head back to her hotel when a strange commotion from just around a bend in the path caught her attention. Curious, but ever wary, she approached, hanging back in case the situation wasn’t favorable. However her reluctance was pointless as what she saw practically made her mind freeze in incomprehension.

A group of what looked like animal people (she had trouble pulling her eyes away from their swishing tails and flicking ears) were attempting to wrestle an ostrich under control.

“I told you this was a bad idea,” One hissed (actually hissed) at another, her ears folded back on her head.

The other made a face, his tail tucked, “This was the best spot available to us at the time!”

“But now what are we going to do with them?” Asked another.

“Um….”

The sound of a sudden roar caused Sterling to jump and the animal-people to loose their grasp on the already panicked bird.

“Crap! It’s getting away!”

Sterling barely had time to doge the frightened animal as it scrambled past her. Unfortunately, its escape path drew the other’s attention to Sterling’s presence.

“HUMAN!” one of them shouted, pointing at her. Sterling could only gawk, completely at loss as to what she should do.

“Um, “ she started, but was cut off by one of the animal-people with a long curly tail.

“You wont take them back, you heartless human! We, of the UMHAPI, will fight against the tyrannies of netting and bars! Animals were meant to roam the world freely! They were not intended for your voyeuristic pleasures!”

Sterling had no idea what to say to this. She opened her mouth several times to respond but the only intelligible thing she could get out was an utterly bewildered, “What??”

As the group angrily stared her down, it suddenly dawned on Sterling who these people must be. “Wait, you, your mutants, aren’t you?”

Before anyone could respond, a brown blur crashed through some brush between Sterling and the group of mutants. She only had a moment to recognize the animal as deer-like before another brown blur streaked out after it, slamming on top of it.

Sterling hastily ducked behind a tree trying to comprehend the existence of African wildlife in central park. She peered back around the tree and winced as the lion easily broke the neck of the gazelle. The group of mutants was nowhere in sight. Taking a cue from their example, Sterling decided that Central Park was NOT were she wanted to be right now. She quickly made her way back up the path and found her way to the street, but not before encountering several Zebra, a goat and what appeared to be a Polar Bear (who was thankfully much too disoriented to take too much interest in her).

“What the crap!!” She thought out-loud, as she burst threw the trees onto the street now completely confused, ‘What is going on??”

She looked up just in time to carefully back away from the scene of carnage on the road. An angry rhino thrashed its head, upturning a parked car. Several elephants trumpeted and stampeded down the street as a practical Noah’s ark-load of animals dashed around them. Sterling had seen nothing like it. Car alarms blared, drivers swerved away from the animals, and the animals tore up anything in their path.

Just then a haggard looking cop jogged up to her and, panting, told her she needed to get off the street.

“What’s going on?” she asked the man.

“It’s the UMHAPI,” he stated, sagging as he spoke, as if the acronym itself were a weight on his back. “They’ve been a pain for a long time. Staging protests, picketing, zoos, circuses, animal shelters and pet stores, but this time they have FINALY gone too far!”

Sterling sidestepped a terrified peacock. “Unhappy?” she asked confused.

“No, UMHAPI. Union of Mutants and Humans for Animal Protection and Integration. They are an…. “animal liberations” group and have been terrorizing the city for the past couple of weeks with extreme threats and demands. They some how managed to release all the animals from the Bronx zoo and have lead them to Central Park were they are apparently intending to let the animals go free.”

As the man was speaking Sterling noticed many of people on the street were not actually running from the animals, but with them. Some were wearing detailed animal costumes, some wore nothing but had painted their naked bodies to resemble some such animal and still others were obviously animal mutants. They all leapt and dashed dangerously around and through the large stampede of animals, singing and dancing as they went. Some were carrying signs with odd slogans, and some had musical instruments and none of them seemed to be aware of the danger they were in or causing.

The cop sighed again and ran off after a cat mutant who turned tail and fled with the cop right behind her.

‘Humm,’ Sterling thought, unsure whither to be terrified or amused. ‘Looks like they are heading for the Central Park Zoo…’

Against her better judgment, Sterling decided to follow the unusual progression.