Insanity Reaches a Boiling Point: Pet Rebellion

[NPC]

Arguably a rat was in charge of the whole thing. He seemed to be, at any rate. He was perched atop a series of crates, squeaking to the various other animals and jerking his head and tail in various directions. A blinking, flashing helmet perched upon his little ratty head, and it seemed to hint toward, well, things not normal. Though honestly, the fact that the various animals all appeared to be revolting was probably part of it. Throughout the entire mall, the various creatures were taking over, bothering and overthrowing their human masters wherever possible. For the most part, they appeared to be the creatures from the pet shop: there were countless mice and rats, so many that you had to wonder where the store was keeping them all. A handful of snakes, including a rather large and strangely aggressive snake that looked to be a constrictor of some kind, were slithering about, menacing people as snakes do (and yes, snakes menace). A pack of dogs had banded together and were carousing through the food court with far too much merriment. Birds flew about like mad, mostly invading clothing and jewelry shops, where they made various nests (and the more shiny things they could gather, the better). A few lizards slithered here and there. A tribe of guinea pigs had apparently taken over a hardware store, for some reason. In their defense, they had a boar to help.

What? A boar? Isn't that a zoo animal? Yes, yes it is. In fact, it looked like several animals that belonged in a zoo had infiltrated the pet shop ranks. In addition to the aforementioned boar, there was a tiger that was... sleeping. Sleeping with several other cats in a decidedly non-threatening manner, because, they're, you know, cats. They'd taken over a furniture store, more or less. There was also a smallish group of monkeys that seemed to have decided that the toy store was fun (and they had a dog or two with them, just for kicks and giggles).

But back to the rat: he definitely looked like he was in charge. he kept squeaking and even the various zoo animals seemed to obey his instructions. Now a crocodile (or an alligator, nobody was getting close enough to tell) was joined by several rats and they were all working toward herding several humans into the restrooms, the only section of the mall that the animals weren't interested in. Well, that and the bank.

And where were the suits throughout all this? Hard to say. There appeared to be a few guards here and there, mostly harassed by the animals. Several were unconscious. But the suits themselves? They were no where to be seen. No, if anybody was going to do anything about this, it would have to be the Shifted themselves.

[NPC]

Left unchecked, the pets were succeeding all too well in taking over sections of the mall. The rat was making sure to build up strategic points of defense. He had a plan, and that plan did not involve losing his new kingdom so soon after achieving it. Unfortunately, getting the animals to work together was proving to be a pain in the butt. Like animals were willing enough, but even the rat couldn't quite get, say, the cats and dogs to pull together. He had to settle for grouping as best he could.

The dogs had drifted to begin munching various hamburgers and such from the food court. The birds were now settling down and nesting among jewelry in some of the trendy teenage girl stores. The guinea pigs seemed to have fallen asleep, with the boar acting as their guardian. The crocodile seemed to have completely herded the humans into the restroom, and had taken to just resting before it. A handful of monkeys were scampering about, attending to the croc, making sure he remained moist. One or two dumped some fried fish from the appropriate food court store. Many of them were now equipped with various toys, looking a strange mix of comical and fierce.

Now, the rat just needed to figure out where best to put his seat of power. So many choices lay before him, he was at a loss as to where to go. Odd though, how nobody seemed to be interfering with him yet.

[NPC]

Okay, this was almost turning out to be too easy. The pets were taking over nearly every area of the mall now. The Rat King, who was growing more intelligent with each passing moment, had elected to set himself up in the burger store. This was for two reasons: burgers, and what appeared to be a crown. Sure, it was cardboard, but it would work until the birds figured something out. The rat perched himself atop the soda machine, and issued orders by pointing things out with a straw.

They'd herded pretty well every surviving human into the bank, and were now stationing guards. A pair of dogs that were apparently not well liked walked back and forth in front of the teller stations, and you could see the people crammed into the spaces provided for the employees on the other side. Needless to say, this area was not designed for having so many people crammed into it. It was not faring well.

And now various representatives of the groups were returning to report to the Rat King. Actually, let's go with Duke. He really had more of a Dukedom, and he reported to someone anyway. So the Rat Duke reigned over the Dukedom of the mall. Or, was well on his way to ruling. Semantics, really.

[Deleted]

One of the entrance doors to the mall creaked and swung open slowly as a young woman with long pink hair and a yellow sundress peeked inside. She entered very cautiously and glanced around the unfamiliar building with a slight nervousness, as if expecting to be reprimanded for entering. This store wasn’t like any shop or market she had been to in Ponyville; it was much larger and full of so many different shops inside. The strange sights were a bit overwhelming to Fluttershy, as it only reminded her of how far she seemed from the comforts of her own home. She wished that she were in the small marketplace she had grown to like; with ponies selling all sorts of trinkets and food from their carts and wooden stands. It was a lot less… flashy and huge.

As the former-pegasi mare walked forward, she staggered a little every so often in her gait, and had to catch herself from losing balance and falling over by leaning against one of the outer walls to a shop. She had only just arrived here at Tenebrae, and wasn’t very used to moving around with her human body. In fact, she had half stumbled, half crawled all of the way here from the house she was assigned, while trying to figure out where her original home in Ponyville was.

“Oh dear… wh- what’s going on?” Fluttershy just now noticed that she could see creatures moving every which way, and hear the calls and chattering from some of them. She shrank down to the ground into a crouch as she looked around the corner, and saw the animals running amuck while pushing people towards an entrance labeled “Bank”. “Um, excuse me… animals?” She whispered at the nearest creatures, hoping to catch their attention. “That’s not very nice what you are doing… umm…”

[Kori Ander]

Kori had a danger sense. Well, actually, that wasn't one of her powers. Tamarenaens weren't people bitten by radioactive spiders after all. Though you did have to wonder how it was that someone bit by a radioactive spider would get that ability as opposed to so many others that could happen. Kori supposed it was all rather moot anyway. Someone who got bit by anything here was likely just to bleed. and if you got bitten by anything radioactive, well, chances were you were looking at a wicked case of radiation sickness.

Joy.

But back to the danger sense thing. Kori totally thought something was up with the mall. She was doing her usual thing, which involved mostly aimlessly skipping through town and pretending like she didn't have homework that she might or might not have actually done, when she thought she heard a ruckus. Technically, she thought she heard the foreign cry of monkeys, a sound that someone living with Beast Boy got quite used to. Wondering if perhaps one of her friends had actually transferred over, Kori turned her route and headed straight for the mall.

So it was that a tall, leggy redhead pushed open the doors of the mall, which the animals were guarding but had left open for some reason, and strolled right in, calling out a merry "Beast Boy!" as she did.

Kori got about five feet. Then she paused. Then she looked around, her eyes going steadily wider. She saw the pink-haired girl attempting to talk to the animals and... oh boy. This was... Kori could only blink, uncertain as to what, if anything, she should be doing now. She braced herself, looking from girl to animal, figuring that if nothing else, Kori could provide backup, right?

[Stephen Schmeling]

My, what a fantastic center for resource gathering was the human institution known as a "mall" was.  What made it better was the you didn't necessarily need to be in possession of currency to have a grand time harvesting.  If one was immoral and sly enough, stealing was a good pastime to take part in.  This was precisely the reason Stephen was drawn to the place.  He was, after all, a former Decepticon.  He was looking for some ill-gotten goods in order to construct some advanced technology that helped him feel more "comfortable".  Also, he wanted to explore some possible sources for nourishment, seeing has he had a surprisingly difficult time remembering he needed food regularly and not just after strenuous activity.  Steph had especially grown close to a bright purple caffeinated energy drink that vaguely looked like Energon (and got him hyper as hell).

But when he, ahem, oh-so-subtly poked his head in from the main entrance doors, he found himself greeted with a pungent smell and grating noise.  Stephen's craned neck recoiled quickly.  For a large amount of time, he could only bring himself to cock one brow in confusion.  What where these supposedly non-sentient animals going mucking about?  Surely, humans weren't that stupid as to just allow this to happen.  And here he thought he was going to have an easy day of acquiring various needed items.

Soon, though, the metaphorical wheels in his head began turning.  These creatures were quite distracting.  Who's to say he can't sneak around and have a try at looting?  Most morals do - but evil space robots generally have a lack of those. Figuring he was in for a cake walk, Steph's crooked teeth appeared in a very unfriendly smile.

"Hmmm.  Interesting," His voice trilled.

Steph bent his back so that he nearly crawled as he made an attempt to sneak off to one far side of the walls.  His pale eyes briefly found the pink-haired girl who tried to actually speak to the stupid, savage vermin - and this one clueless chick who appeared to just be standing there.  He couldn't contain a shrill chuckle at the sheer lack of logic.

[NPC]

Nearly all the animals stopped. Most of them openly stared at the pink haired one. In point of fact, most of them simply couldn't help it. There was something about the pink haired one that demanded their attention, and, to a certain degree, their affection. A good third of the gathered animals instantly wanted to run up to the pink haired creature and demonstrate their affection in a very physical manner. One eager (read: stupid) dog even bounded a few steps forward, until the Rat Duke squeaked quite loudly, turning and waving his scepter (where'd he get a scepter? Duke just took over a mall; he totally has a scepter by now). The Duke would have no defections.

The redhead, on the other hand, they could figure out. She was another stupid, scrawny human who looked to be putting up something of a fight. The few mall security guards had tried that too. A few of the larger snakes had taken care of them. In fact, one or two snakes were currently wrapped about the chubbier of the mall security, not in the slightest bit reenacting scenes from practically every child's cartoon in existence (which was a good deal more horrifying in real life).

But even the animals that weren't openly in thrall to Fluttershy or distracted by Kori were feeling slightly confused. Did they obey the Duke or yield to the pink one or just flat out try something?

The Duke squeaked, gesturing frantically. One of the larger dogs stepped forward, bowing his head slightly so that the Duke could clamber aboard. Thus situated, the Duke approached Fluttershy. His beady eyes were latched onto hers, daring her to attempt to challenge his authority. In point of fact, you could even say he was starting to stare just a little.

[Deleted]

Fluttershy jumped in surprise at the sudden call out from behind her and ducked her head slightly as she peered cautiously back over her shoulder. She scooted a tiny step forward, almost as if preparing to flee, when she noticed the tall red-haired girl enter. She wanted to duck around the corner to be sure that the stranger didn’t see her, but right now she felt like the animals needed her attention, and she didn’t want to startle the critters.

The pink-haired girl turned her attention back to the animals. She smiled softly as she saw that some of them had stopped to look back at her. At least they seemed to be listening. Maybe now they would stop causing so much trouble? “Now, settle down critters…” She spoke up quietly. Then her eyes shifted as she noticed the rat that was squeaking away at them before he prepared his approach. She didn’t understand his speech, but she could gather that he didn’t look very happy at all and seemed to be conversing demandingly with the other critters. She shuffled her foot a little and stared calmly back at the rat, not seeming too phased by the intensity of his beady glare. She was a bit used to seeing it coming from a small creature, as she met the same look quite often from her temperamental pet bunny, Angel. It was probably the only stare she could meet somewhat naturally.

“Now Mr. Rat, what you are doing isn’t very nice,” Fluttershy repeated again in her hushed tone as she peered up at him, “Everyone needs to settle down now and stop causing so much trouble- if that’s ok. Some critter could get hurt running around like this! Oh dear, we wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt!"

[Henry Charmant]

Henry had actually already been shopping at the mall when the chaos struck. He was so surprised by the revolt animals, as well as being caught up in the crowd, that he was herded into the bathrooms with the rest of the people in the mall. And it was not actually that comfortable, especially for the people who really did have to use the bathroom. It was made even worse by the fact that in the confusion the whole "men" and "women" thing got sort of mixed up. Henry, for one, felt extremely uncomfortable being this close to some of the girls of the mall. But when he tried to step outside, a large crocodile was blocking his way. And large, of course, meant 12 feet long with a mouth the length of his arm.

Still, he hovered around the doorway, and at one point he saw the crocodile turn, seemingly drawn by something else going on in the mall. As soon as the creature began to step away, Henry was out, creeping along the wall behind it and trying to get away. He prayed for the croc not to notice him--he wasn't sure he could stand to go back into that bathroom.

He did finally manage to sneak by the animal and get into the rest of the mall, only to find that it was still complete chaos there. He did spy some people at the far end, one of whom actually looked familiar. He waved to Kori, not sure if she could actually see him. Then he spied a man sneaking along the walls, presumably to keep away from the animals. Henry kept an eye on the man to see if he would do anything, then turned his attention back to the pink-haired girl who had a lot of the animals' attention. Right then, though, she appeared to be caught in a staring contest with a rat.

Wait, a rat? Could it be an evil magician changed into a rat? Maybe it was in charge of everything. Hadn't Hiro said something about a giant rat knowing ninja skills and training a group of people to fight? Well this rat wasn't giant, but maybe it had some strange skills of its own. The girl might need help.

He dipped into a nearby store to try to find a bag with which to capture the rat, but instead came face to face with a giant gorilla.

To his utter and eternal shame, he screamed like a small child and ran out of the store, tripping over a series of small animals and falling flat on his face in the middle of the mall.

[Kori Ander]

Kori still felt very much confused and very much stuck in between a rock and a hard place. Most of the animals seemed either distracted by Kori herself or in thrall to the pink haired girl. Kori looked again to the shy one, who had stepped forward and begun talking to the animals in a quiet, pleading voice. It sounded like the pink haired one was working at solving things peacefully, which would settle Kori just fine. The alien princess wasn't exactly looking forward to tussling with this many animals, especially with her powers not fully returned to her.

"Are they doing the listening?" asked Kori, turning to look at the pink haired girl. "It appears as though you are doing something to confuse and befuddle them. Perhaps we can be doing---"

And then Henry appeared, screaming and tripping, right in the middle of the mall. Kori whirled, turning to look at her friend, her eyes wide. Reflex took over and the long-legged girl began sprinting, her naturally light gait making bounding over the animals much easier. The pink haired girl might be able to talk the animals down, get things settled, but Kori was not about to let her friend come to harm, not while she still possessed some fight. She just had to bound over a few animals and make her way to him, no problem, surely, none at all.

[NPC]

And lo, many of the animals did look guilty. There was a lot of shifting feet and anxious gazes. Especially among the dogs, several of whom had started whining. As for the Duke, he suddenly was feeling rather uncomfortable being so near the source of all this. It really didn't make any sense either: she just seemed to be a normal person, nothing special about her. after all, most of the animals couldn't see Fluttershy's violet hair. They did see the angry, skinny, confused girl beside her, but they could keep ignoring her.

What they couldn't ignore was the sudden girlish screaming and the boy tripping over several of them. The carefully arranged order established by Duke and Fluttershy suddenly crumbled in that instant. It certainly wasn't helped by the gorilla roaring and chasing after Henry as though the boy had insulted his dignity or something.

The Duke suddenly found himself in quite the precarious position. While the animals were definitely not normal by Earth standards, they were still animals. Animals panic, and the animals were doing so now. That including the dog that the Duke was gripping tight to, squeaking at the top of his lungs. He waved frantically at the two girls, though it was hard to say if he was blaming them or begging them from help. It was hard to communicate when you were gripping a bucking dog, after all.

[Stephen Schmeling]

Stephen had continued making his marry way close to one wall and found himself placed in front of a vending machine.  The crook jerked his head around his shoulder.  When he turned back, he figured he could try to steal some of the machine's contents - after all, the animals were doing wonders for him by providing a distraction.  The scrawny man made a fist and pulled it behind his body.  Still getting used to the fact that he was a human, he figured no harm would come to him from the glass he would shatter.  Luckily for his hand, he was immediately given seconds thoughts when a few little white mice make themselves visible from within the glass.  The dirty creatures suddenly made the prospect of nabbing a few free snacks for his home stash unappealing.

While the pale-eyed man was dropping his arm, he found himself startled by an uproar from behind him.  He jumped around to find that the animals were all seemingly at random put into a panic.  As he quickly scanned over the situation, he spotted the black-haired boy apparently having tripped over himself.  A girl with orange hair was running toward him, apparently to help, but Steph doubted that her sudden movements would do the startled creatures any help.  With the chaos, it was difficult to even pick out the bright pink haired woman and the king rodent.  A cold tenseness hit the former-Decepticon's body as he saw a chunk of the stampede coming at him.  Stephen remembered his several bad encounters with animals and shifted his legs back fearfully.  He didn't back up much before his heeled shoe jammed into an unfortunate python.  Understandably angry at being stepped on, the serpent bored its teeth into the skinny man's leg.  A high-pitched death cry erupted from his throat as he started into a run himself.  The snake refused to let him go and remained coiled around his limb as he haphazardly dodged around a number of panic-stricken animals.

"Get this thing off meeeee!" He yowled.

Stephen had run himself further away from his wall of safety in close to the center before nearly collapsing over of stone sitting bench.  Panting, his eyes flashed up, seeing the others.  What confused him was some sort of rodent riding atop a canine like a rodeo star.  He could only offer the most bemused of stares before forcing himself to stand, keeping his constricted leg off the floor.

[Deleted]

“Yes, all I’m doing is talking to the little critters. Sometimes it just takes a little listening and understanding, that’s all,” Fluttershy whispered softly in reply to Kori, but then whipped around in fright at the sound of the sudden screaming echoing throughout the mall. She glanced just in time to see a strange man trip and face plant right onto the hard floor. The tall girl had rushed past her to help before she could even blink and process what had happened.

“Oh dear! Are you ok? Are you hurt-“ Fluttershy forgot the rat for a moment and struggled to quicken her pace on her new limbs as she anxiously began to make her way over to help. Just then though, the deafening noise of chattering and roaring broke out, causing her to shrink and look around wildly. All around it was a blur of pelts, tails, wings and claws. Feathers and fur were flying everywhere and numerous tiny critters kept running past and weaving around her feet in flashes. “Oh no! Excuse me, Mister Bird? Oh, Mister Ferret... cats and rabbits, and lizards- whatever is the matter?” Fluttershy whipped her head from one darting critter to another, looking up at the soaring birds and then down at the panicking lizards in confusion. Who was she supposed to help first?! There were way too many critters here for her to help at one time, and the strange man was also injured, and….

Fluttershy looked up in shock as another man began shouting, and could only just see him through the writhing mess of creatures and hobbling on one leg. She caught a glimpse of the coiled snake on his leg for a second before he made his way down onto a bench. “Oh no! Mister Snake, please let the man go…!” She pleaded from where she stood, trying unsuccessfully to make her way through the throng. Then there was the rat, squeaking as it was holding onto a bucking dog for dear life. Confused and torn, Fluttershy took one step towards the man on the bench, then another step towards the rat, while also casting a frantic gaze at the man who had fallen. Animals chattered and screamed, scurried past her and knocked her off of her feet. The screeches were becoming loud, obnoxious, frightening, and all she could think about was what she was supposed to do to help. How was she supposed to help? There was so much noise, so much going on… and… and…

“STOP!” Fluttershy suddenly yelled out. Well, it wasn’t that loud of a yell in reality, but compared to her normal whispered voice, it was shockingly loud. The former pegasi hardly ever risen her voice above a whisper, but when she did you knew it took a lot of frustration and pressure to cause it. The girl blinked, as if surprised by her own volume, and then ducked her head a little again as she looked around and tried to correct herself, “I-I mean, please… if that’s ok…”

[Kori Ander]

So. Many. Animals. Kori was working her way toward Henry, her first instinct driving her toward her squirming, screaming, flailing friend. Yet it felt like she'd barely started when the pets had started baying and nearly swarming. To make matters worse, Kori could hear the pink haired girl behind her. The superhero twisted mid-run, turning to see the pink haired girl dangerously close to being overwhelmed. Kori tried to take a few steps closer to Fluttershy, before feeling several animals running by her legs.

This was definitely not working. Which frustrated Kori. She let out something that sounded halfway between a growl and a yell, flailing and attempting to get animals off her. This mostly involved kicking and punching at random, but Kori did have some upper body strength. Actually, given the burst of righteous fury, she had quite a lot. She was even making progress, nearly to where poor Henry had stumbled out into the midst of the fury.

However, the sudden cry from the meek girl made Kori freeze. She instinctively halted at the word stop, even pausing mid-punch. Given that Fate controls the animals, it's safe to assume that an animal was frozen mid leap toward the punch, causing both to sort of look at Fluttershy in something akin to awe and amazement. At least Kori had managed to clear a decent amount of animals, so even if this whole yelling thing didn't hold, Kori and Henry should be safe.

That was assuming Henry didn't do anything phenomenally stupid.

[NPC]

Well, on the bright side, Henry hadn't done anything phenomenally stupid.

The animals mostly reacted to Fluttershy. It was mostly instead of entirely because it turns out that rampaging animals have this tendency to make a lot of noise. So only those closest to Fluttershy actually heard it. This did mean that, as the clever writer of Kori's post hinted, the animals attacking the alien princess stopped mid punch. Most of the animals around Kori, and Henry by extension, suddenly looked a little stupefied, and slightly ashamed of themselves. There was sort of this aura of "how dare we misbehave in front of this lovely girl" thing floating in the air, and it hit those close to Fluttershy hard.

One would almost think that the girl with the special ability to influence animals might have been able to fix the whole problem. You know, if they'd all heard her. And the rat wasn't under the influences of a helmet. Oh, he did stop. He pulled his canine mount to a halt and stared at the pink-haired one with something akin to wonder and amazement. His animal instinct, that thing that couldn't help but react to someone with a talent for animals, kicked in. He too felt the intense shame of his wrongdoing. For, you know, about three seconds. Then he was shrieking something that probably amounted to the animal version of "attack the pink one!" It certainly made the dog he was riding lunge, and it made the snake tighten its grip (and no, we can't explain how the snake heard the rat but not Fluttershy; blame the science). Just as the dog lunged, however...



The cavalry arrived. A lanky man leaped into action, snagging Fluttershy's arm and pulling at her. The hope was to catch her off guard and drag her out of the way, though if the girl was foolish, she still might get caught. No sooner had he pulled then the man in the green suit flicked his hand. What looked like a sword smacked into his palm. Another flick, and the rat-and-dog went flying sideways, the rat skittering. The lanky man, dressed impeccably in a classy green suit and shades, turned to Fluttershy.

"Are you alright, miss?" he asked. His voice was business-like, confident, but not without something akin to care. even as he asked, he gestured, and several more suits, these wearing the standard black, filtered into the mall, having finally gotten through the barricades. Several brandished nets, others tasers, and still others wielded what really looked like mace. They were filtering through, trying to fight their way through things. There wasn't any reason to stop the animals that Fluttershy or Kori got to. In point of fact, several animals were now gathering near Fluttershy and the lanky man, as if seeking sanctuary near them.

Except the snake. It was just biting the heck out of Stephen. Outright nomming by this point, really.