Infected With Distraction. [Cordelia]

[xanas]

Xanas hopped around the place, seemingly a gigantic junkyard, with glee. A newly released virus, he had a lot of energy and just couldn't wait to exert some of it on a random shifter or anthro or anything else that he saw around here. The Keepers' instructions were quite simple, and he thought that he could totally handle that. Although he didn't get the fact that they did want him to kill. . . It didn't make sense. If they were so hooked on capturing these things and trapping them in the vast expanse of land that was the Menagerie, then why did they want to destroy them? It would be a waste of their hard work to capture them. Xanas realized that he had stopped his movement to ponder, and almost immediately picked his pace back up, leaping around all over.

He had gotten to the foot of a particularly high pile of metal junk, and he stood before it with his arms completely hung at his sides. Black and white feathers jutted out from the outsides of his forearms in an angle that went toward his body, the place where they emerged from his skin looking very red and irritated. With a look of playful determination, Xan began to scale the mountain of trash, having to crouch over on all fours to get up there. He slipped and fell back a couple of times, but eventually made it to the very top, where he stood straight up and put his hands on his hips in a victory pose. Yeah, he'd just absolutely owned this pile of junk. With his hands placed the way they were on his black polo shirt, he saw a very red spot on his left forearm, and then proceeded to pick out the dark green scales that were beginning to push their way right out of his pale skin. To any other, this would look excruciatingly painful. To him, it was just another distraction.

Xanas would have kept picking at himself until all of the reachable parts were completely free of scales, if he hadn't have seen movement to the right of him. He swiveled around and picked his head up to look at what had moved, and the black and white feathery tuft on the crown of his head had perked up, making his black hair look rather fluffy. Greenish-brown eyes focused in on what looked like a shifter in human form, wandering another pile of useless stuff some ways away. Slit pupils became slightly wider as he crouched down and slid back down the mountain that he'd just climbed, his eyes on the shifter the entire time. This was his very first encounter! He was excited to jump right in.

The SARS virus tried to be as quiet as possible, and he was succeeding, save for the occasional piece of metal that moved underneath his feet. He got to a pretty good spot above the shifter on a larger pile next to the one she was on, and was preparing to jump. A smile of anticipation, and a small giggle escaped from his mouth -he couldn't help it- before he flew down at her, flapping his arms idiotically as though he could fly, and screaming "BOO!" His voice even cracked. He landed somewhat beside her, on his feet at first, but his knees buckled underneath him and he went right into the surface below, hitting his elbows on some hard piece of metal and he grunted in pain and frustration.

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[atrb=background,http://i48.tinypic.com/2czvpsn.jpg] Cordelia strolled lazily between the piles of scrap metal, and trash, and who knows what else that made up the junkyard. She hadn't been through here before, and as she looked around at the piles of junk in their seemingly untouched state, she wondered why there was still so much stuff here. Everyone was always looking for anything they could use as a weapon, or useful item. Well there had to be a bunch of stuff around here that could serve those purposes. And people here certainly had the time to sift through it all. They had all the time in the world. No one was getting out of here any time soon. That was the reason she was here now. She figured that among these piles there had to be some sort of weapon she could use. Sure, she was a really large cat, but she was rather small compared to most people here. As she moved aside the occasional item to see if there was anything underneath, she realized that there was a lot of stuff here that people might want, even if it was dirty or a piece was missing. She saw a few toys, a teddy bear missing an arm and an eye, a jack-in-the-box without a lid - which still played a tinkling melody, she discovered, as she turned the handle in curiosity. She saw sheets of metal and boards of wood, and was amazed that no one had taken them. However, her search for a pocket knife or other small, portable weapon went unrewarded. Maybe people had searched the place out. Cordelia was debating whether to climb one of the small piles of stuff just because, but she heard noise somewhere to her left, and turned to see who else was here. She saw no one however, and continued to meander through the items. As she went along, she heard little noises, small objects moving behind her. Cordelia came to the conclusion that she was being followed by someone. “Or something.” She added to herself as she thought of the creations of the Keepers, the viruses. She hadn't encountered one as of yet, and hoped to keep it that way. But with more being made, she figured she would see one eventually. But whatever was following her probably was not intent on killing her yet, or she would probably already be dead. So she decided to just let it be unless it decided to come out at her. Which it did, shortly enough. Cordelia heard a flapping sound, and her head darted to see its source. As she looked, it was accompanied by a screamed "BOO!". She stepped back a few feet, and in the time it took for him to land rather clumsily next to her, she had decided that she wasn't very impressed with this virus. For it was clear that was what it was, as it had feathers and a tail sprouting from it. She stepped back a little ways further from it with her hands on her hips, frowning at the attempt to scare her. It hadn't exactly worked. While this might not look like a very good virus, he was still a virus, and therefore dangerous. And probably intent on killing her at some time, as that was the point of their creation.

[xanas]

The virus was sprawled over the junk in front of the female shifter, who didn't appear scared in the least. He layed there, idle for a second, all except for a fluffy tail that flicked back and forth behind him. After a few seconds, Xanas looked up and met the lighter green eyes of the unimpressed shifter with his own still-widened slit pupils. It was more of a glance to see that she was still there. Maybe she would've gone by now. But she hadn't, so Xanas muttered, "Gimme a sec'," and proceeded to try to get up. At one point, his hand slipped on an unstable piece of metal and he face planted into another one, a cry of "OW!" coming from the pile of metal beneath the shifter. Once he got halfway up, he jumped up with his fists on his hips like he was some kind of super hero.

Xan's brow was furrowed over his eyes in an expression that said 'I'm important' and he took a deep breath that puffed up his chest, to make him look bigger. Truth was, this shifter was actually three inches taller than him. But that wouldn't stop the virus, oh no. "Ahahaha~!" Xanas let out a dramatically evil laugh. His voice sounded like he was a thirteen year-old boy going through voice changes. "That's right, shifter," he waggled his head to emphasize his words, "I'm a virus! You should be afraid!" He cast his feathered arms up into the air. "Because I'm going to infect you like the people with authority back at the labs-" he jabbed a thumb toward an imaginary place behind him, "- told me to."

Xanas smiled a huge grin of perfectly filed-to-a-point teeth, and the feather tuft on the back of his head lowered itself, to give the virus a more menacing look. But then all of a sudden, he lost that look. "I tell ya, those scientists. Man." Xanas's silver and white speckled black hair fell in front of his face as he looked down at the feathers on his calves. "Truth be told, you're actually the first shifter I've ever seen." He looked back up at the Fulsi with honest eyes. "I don't really get this, but look, now I'm rambling." A mischievous smile made its way across his face again. "Let's get down to business."

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[atrb=background,http://i48.tinypic.com/2czvpsn.jpg] Cordelia couldn't resist a muffled giggle at the virus, who was currently failing at getting up. Yeah, this virus probably wasn't going to be too hard to fend off. She couldn't help letting out a small laugh at the dramatic pose struck by this odd creature as he righted himself. He tried to make himself look more intimidating, even letting out an evil laugh that wasn't the most believable thing she'd ever heard. She didn't know if he actually believed he was being scary, or whether he was just acting childish. She would bet on the latter though, as she was more amused than anything at the moment. As he went on with his little schpiel about how he was gonna infect her and all that, she was just thinking stuff along the lines of "Riiiight. Sure ya are." Then he started distracting himself, rambling on about different stuff. Cordelia raised her eyebrows at this, getting an idea. He was intent on infecting her, but it couldn't be all that hard to distract him and prevent that. There was so much junk laying around. So all she had to do was catch his interest with some random item that would amuse him long enough for her to get the heck out of there. Her eyes darted around looking for something which could do that. "Let's get down to business." She stepped back again cautiously, wondering what 'business' that may be. She spied a tiny pile of toys a little ways away, and began inching inconspicuously toward it. While she did that, she figured she might get him talking again. "Soo. . . What virus did they give you that you plan to infect me with?"

[xanas]

Xanas's evil look faded and fell quickly as words came out of the shifters mouth. He saw her moving away, but he just inched along with her, as if they were walking together and having a casual conversation. She'd already laughed at him, but he had gotten that a lot back at the lab. Wasn't he supposed to be scary. . ? Soo. . . What virus did they give you that you plan to infect me with? The virus's slit pupils returned to their normal state of relative thinness, and he let out another dramatic laugh along the lines of an 'ohoho.' "Only the most awesomest virus ever, you know!" he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and the Fulsi Hunter should already have known. "Those other viruses may be a lot bigger than me," he was nodding to himself the entire time, "But they're all bark and no bite!" His voice cracked horribly on the word 'bite,' when he went up into a higher pitch to emphasize it.

Xan cleared his throat. "I'm gonna be givin' you the SARS." his eyes widened like the name of the virus was the name of the scariest monster in any movie in the history of the world. "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, that is." he added in a matter-of-factly tone. "And I really have no idea what three fourths of those words mean, but I know that it's really bad, and you'll die." He nodded slightly like he was telling the shifter some kind of interesting story. He suddenly felt something tingly on his leg, and he glanced down to see the beginning of some scales growing over the skin on his shin. He crouched down quickly, and picked out the baby scales, effectively causing his leg to bleed. His blood was not crimson colored, however, it was more of a blackish ebony.

He stood straight up again so fast that it would make a normal person's head hurt. "But I got distracted." Xan said, putting his hand out as if he were apologizing. "Now let's do it." Another one of his wicked smiles, and he cracked his knuckles in front of him. He bit quickly at two or three of his black claws before raising the hand, ready to slash right across the Fulsi's lower neck.

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[atrb=background,http://i48.tinypic.com/2czvpsn.jpg] Cordelia frowned as the virus moved with her, but it wasn't really of any consequence. He jumped in to an answer to her question quite readily, which reinforced her conclusion that he would be really easy to distract. But he did seem to be able to come back to his original purpose pretty quickly, so that wasn't good. As he rambled on about how great his virus was, she groaned internally. She knew about SARS. It wasn't a pretty virus. So she really hoped her plan would work and she could get out of there unscathed. He sounded so childlike in the way that he talked about the virus he had, and she was kind of surprised the Keepers had let him roam around like that instead of making him more fearsome, and less distractable. Then he bent down to pick at something on his leg, and Cordelia grimaced in mild disgust as he picked off scales and black blood flowed from where they had been. Did all viruses do something like that? Then he straightened up and returned to trying to infect her. He made it sound like it was something she was just going to let happen. Could he really be so childish as to think she was just going to let him infect her with a deadly virus? But no matter. She had reached the little pile, and swiftly bent down to pick up the toy on top, which she saw was a small music box. She assumed that this virus hadn't seen toys before, she hadn't seen any in the menagerie until now. She held it up in front of him. "Hey, look at this. It makes noise." Cordelia wound the handle in the back, and it started spinning and playing a tinkling little tune she didn't recognize. She hoped it would work.

[xanas]

Xanas was interrupted from his slashing of the shifter's neck by her quick movement to pick something up from the ground and bring it back up to hold it in front of her. The virus's hand went down to his side again, as the feathers on the crown of his head perked up in a star-like form that made a halo around the back of his head. His eyebrows were raised in curiosity, and he altogether looked pretty comical. From what he could see, it was a small metal box, that looked like it had once been brightly colored, but was now faded and rusted. Xan was just going to ask what it was that she had in her hand, but all he got out was a soft "Wha-" and his hand pointed at it before the shifter explained that it made noise. His facial expression looked like a small child getting a birthday present.

As soon as the virus heard the out of tune, tinkling melody that the small box played when the shifter turned a small handle on the side of it, his face lit up and his mouth dropped open. "Oh my gosh! Lemme see!" The last sentence was more of an order than a request, and his voice took on a more bratty quality. Xan stepped forward swiftly and snatched the small box right out of the shifters hands with one of his own clawed ones. He held it in front of his face to find the handle, then turn it. He continued to turn the handle for a few seconds with a black look on his pale face before he started to spin it at an extremely fast pace, making the melody go faster and faster. "This is pretty cool. What makes it do that?" he inquired without looking up at the shifter. Instead, he proceeded to turn the box over in his hands, looking for a way to pry it open.

When the virus couldn't find a place to open it, he frowned. Crouching down to the ground once more, he hit the poor box against a piece of hard metal on the ground one, twice, each time making a sharp tinging sound emanate from the box. When it still didn't provide a place where he could pry it open, Xanas stood up and chucked the small box a few feet away, straight at a bigger sheet of metal that was on the side of one of the large piles. The box was thrown with such force, that it shattered upon impact with the other junk. Xanas didn't want it anymore. He didn't care. He'd moved on, and he was glad the the little metal box that had provided him a few moments of frustration had met its demise. He turned again to the shifter with the frown on his face, and the tuft of feathers on his head slicked back. "Just stop distracting me." he said seriously.

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[atrb=background,http://i48.tinypic.com/2czvpsn.jpg] Cordelia grinned victoriously as her ruse worked, and the virus snatched the little box out of her hand as soon as he heard the chiming little tune. She started to back away as stealthily as she could, hoping to be out of sight before he realized what she was doing. She had made it a small distance, when he asked how it made the noise. She stopped, but luckily he hadn't looked up at her yet. "Um, I don't know. . ." She answered, still tiptoeing backwards. Cordelia froze and her eyes grew wide when the virus started banging the little toy on something at his feet. Ok, so he got frustrated easily. Nice to know. But then he just got rid of it, remembering once again what his grand plan was. "Just stop distracting me." Well, he sounded serious. Cordelia wasn't sure if giving him something interesting would work again, so decided to resort to just running for her life. "Right. . . Buh-bye." With that, she shifted to her snow leopard form, and ran. Cordelia knew that this virus was probably faster than her, and it wouldn't be very long at all before he caught up to her, but she was hoping that maybe, just maybe, he would be clumsy enough to buy her enough time to get out of there. She didn't look around to find out if he was though. If there was one thing she had learned from horror movies - other than don't investigate any noise or movement - it was to NOT look back to see if you were being followed. That just got you eaten. Or killed. Whichever the situation called for.