Hunter's Hunted (Liz, Worms)

Worms sat down on a bench in Central Park. It was dark, and almost no one was around.

>>Okay my friends. It's time to feed.<<

His face twisting up in pain, Worms grunted mutely as his worms crawled out from his stomach, pushing aside his loose T-Shirt at the bottom and spreading out. Worms usually controlled almost their every move, but at times like this, he allowed them to roam free. It was must less stressful on him.

Unscrewing the cap from a bottle of water, Worms took a long drink of water. He closed his eyes, the vibrations his worms felt reading out within his inner eye. He felt his worms' happiness; they enjoyed eating healthy soil like that of Central Park. Worms began to even fall asleep, but just before he entered the dreamland, his eyes snapped open. One of his worms suddenly felt a huge spike in hunger. It had found something tasty.

Worms focused on this worm. The vibrations it felt were familiar; it had found a small living creature. Worms laughed. It was most likely a stray dog. Closing his eyes again, Worms began to try and take a nap, letting his worm enjoy its dinner.

The worm in question slowly burrowed up from underground. It held its excited clickings to itself, slowly sneaking up on his prey. It had found a tasty chicken. A large, scaly chicken. The ooze from its mouth began to flow rapidly, its hungry levels rising. Then, as the chicken-snack leaped for something, the worm used its powerful muscles to leap for it.

Before they had a chance to escape, LizZard heard a whooshing sound and then felt tons of vibrations and heard a loud CLANG! Whatever it was that had attacked her before was back! And right beside her! The joint terror of the joined minds knocked Liz out of control over the reptile. Their legs powered up and LizZard ran past the creature and leaped/fell off the edge of the bench. From there they darted through a few feet of grass and skittered another few feet up a tree, instinctively turning brown.

Finally Liz started calming the duo down. As she began thinking clearly, she beamed feelings of calmness at the lizard, rapidly decreasing its fear. She searched through the anole’s thoughts and found one it associated with comfort and security. She dragged it to the surface and let the anole’s mind wander and relax as it remembered lounging under a heat lamp with a full belly.

Elizabeth herself was harder to calm. She quickly made sure her emotional barriers were up, something that confused her about possessing. Although she could still use her empathy with animals, when in an animal’s body, her secondary powers were…well, a bit limited. But at least she didn’t have to worry about quickly getting overwhelmed or anything.

In the extremely short amount of time it’d taken her to climb the tree, the creature attacking her had let out a frightening…trill? If she’d been human, she would’ve blinked. Trill? What kind of animal trilled? Especially when it saw a tasty-looking lizard like the one Beth was inhabiting? Confused, Elizabeth turned the reptile’s head and stared at what had attacked her.

It was…a dinosaur? But it was the size of a cat. She laughed to herself, in her own thoughts of course, at the creature. It was more like a chicken than a T-Rex! Then she happened to notice its claws. Wicked looking things. LizZard was suddenly reminded of their own mortality when Beth realized that she was a light snack for the monster.

Then movement below the remnant grabbed her attention. It was like watching Tremors. A worm? Is that seriously a worm? With a giant mouth? With TEETH? And it was attacking a freakin’ DINOSAUR?!?! Liz stared for a moment in total disbelief.

Then she realized that something was going on. And she needed to stop it. Freaky little dinosaur that had just attacked her or not, it was probably the last of its kind (or it would’ve been all over the news) and she was practically honor-bound to protect it from this…worm. She focused her feelings and shot them out in a narrow band to hit the two creatures. Peace, tranquility, happiness, calmness, love, and a cocktail off other positive emotions and feelings, as well as laziness.

(ooc: Remember! Liz cannot affect Amber ‘cause she’s a shifter. Worms, it’s up to you to decide if Liz can affect the worm with her empathy, and if so, to what degree.)

A small part of Amber's mind continue to be aware of the fact that her little lizard target had scurried off of the bench she currently stood on and had disappeared up a tree. Maybe her eyes might have even been good enough to actually detect the repitle despite its camoflage but, at that exact moment, she had other things to deal with. Such as the fact that a giant man eating worm was trying to devour her!

Amber hadn't realized just how much she hated and feared worms until that moment. There was nothing quite like the appearance of a worm that was 2-3 times her size (or maybe more!) to convince someone that worms were very very bad! Not only bad, but terrifying! What had she done to deserve a creature like that trying to make her its snack? Nothing, that's what. Its not like it was immoral to try and hunt a lizard, it was only a lizard, after all, and a tiny dinosaur eating an even tinier lizard was the natural way of things.

The worms maws snapped so close to Amber that she even felt worm spittle drop onto her back, something that would have been disgusting if she was not so entirely terrified. She trilled again, wishing she could run up the tree like the little lizard had. Instead it was going to be a matter of out running and out maneuvering her hunter and ran she did, darting towards a bush located under the tree. Oh, how dearly she hoped that worms were not very fast ore manuverable, otherwise she was about to become lunch.

The worm paused. What was this? It wasn't Worms himself. He was sleeping. Highly confused and overcome with a sudden calmness, the worm stopped chasing Amber and just clicked.

Worms eyes snapped open. His friend was in trouble.

>>Where are you my friend? We're coming.<<

Worms summoned the other four worms to him, and began to walk briskly towards the fifth worm.

Liz crossed over to another tree from two branches that nearly touched. Even with her goal and mind, she couldn’t help but marvel at the little creature she was inhabiting. It was just a little ol’ thing, but it felt as fast as a rocket, could climb practically anything, could change colors, and had a pretty red dewlap. Its mind was fascinating as well. It was so focused, so clear-cut. It knew what it wanted and oriented itself to go after it. It was cool and logical: it was the mind of a predator.

It was that part of the mind that made Liz remember to keep tabs on the worm and the dino. As she got closer to the main trunk of the tree, Liz focused on the worm’s feelings, demanding that they keep her in the loop. In return, she felt a spike of confusion. That was odd. The feeling began confusing her as well, and not just through her empathy. Is this creature supposed to feel hunger or whatever all the time or something? I really need to figure out how my power works. She sent another wave of emotion at the beast, this time one of security, hoping that that would negate the confusion. The tricky thing about feelings: there wasn’t always an opposite to any particular one.

Liz cut the concentration and directed her attention to the dino. She decided that she needed to figure out its emotional status and see how best to approach it. About midway down the tree, Liz stopped in confusion. That’s funny, she thought. Maybe she’d lost it? It was very possible. When she was climbing on the branches above, she couldn’t concentrate on the ground much. And with the speed she’d seen the dinosaur use; she didn’t doubt that it could’ve ran away.

But then Chicken-Rex hopped out of a bush at the base of the tree. Liz stopped again, after only a few inches of progression. Okay, maybe I just need to see specific creatures to target them. That made sense, kind of. Again, she focused. And again, she got nothing. She switched her attention to the worm-thing and shortly received feelings. But she didn’t get any from the dinosaur. Slightly creeped out by the fact, Liz cautiously climbed down the tree, watching as the dinosaur slowly retreated from the worm.

Amber continued her slow and quiet flight from the evil worm creature, splitting her attention between the monster that tried to eat her and her final goal. Her robes weren't hidden that far away, in a grove of trees just out of sight. All she had to do was get to them, shift back (or maybe to something scarier) and she'd be home free. Should be simple. In theory. If the worm decided not to pursue her. Fat chance of that happening.

Another glance at the mutant worm and Amber almost had a heart attack when she realized that one worm had suddenly multiplied into four and, not only that, but three of them were currently wrapped around a strange and sinister man. Just when she thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, they somehow did. Now, either the man had sent his worm out to kill her or he somehow didn't know that the worm had tried to kill her. In the former case, she was probably about to die a swift and painful death, so she prayed for it to be the latter case.

Amber continued inching away from the man and his worms, still hoping to somehow manage to flee for her life. She chirped at him, hoping that the pleading tone in her chirping might appeal to his heart and he wouldn't have his little pets try to eat her. Not being eaten sounded like a most excellent plan.