Felarya Park

Here's my offering, as best as I can do in the moment. Should this thread be moved to stories now?

-------

Simon looked around as the visitors started to mill for the exits. Soon, the aquarium section was emptied. He remained, absent-mindedly sweeping the floor, pushing his round glasses up his nose. He coughed a little. He could see the storm outside but figured he was safe indoors. He didn’t have anywhere to go back to anyways. He lived at the park, in a small shed behind the aquarium facilities. In exchange he cleaned up around the place. He found it an all right deal. Better than most orphans got. It had been a bit lonely at first – these times when all the visitors left. He turned and smiled.

One side of the massive room was made out of glass. It looked into one of the large tanks holding the Felaryans. A face looked out through the glass and smiled at him. A cheery face surrounded by dark purple hair stared at him. He nodded back, smiling. The mermaid was one of the few things he really liked about the job. He spent most of the time cleaning this room.

“How are you doing Ione?” he asked softly. He found it odd that something so human-like was so animal as well. The mermaid grinned again. Whenever he talked she seemed to enjoy it. He couldn’t really do it during operating hours, but in the after crowd cleanup he tended to chat to her. It was one-sided, but he had plenty of worries and little thoughts to give to her.

“I’m sorry, but I might not be able to get the extra fish to you today.”

He’d always felt they didn’t feed the creatures here. They kept them satisfied, true – but he could appreciate a treat now and again, and he expected Ione did as well. When he finished cleaning here he usually went up to the top level, where the top of the tank was. That was where Ione was fed from and where trainers and maintenance people got into her tank. She was just a young mermaid, but already they were considering her for the aquarium shows. He tried to watch the practices as much as possible. It did seem like she enjoyed the jumping and splashing – but he got the feeling she would like to play as she wanted. And her trainer… well, he’d muttered the word “bitch” to describe her under his breath a few times.

He looked out through the glass doors. The weather did seem rather bad. It was usually so nice that they’d closed the park in the past after what he considered to be a light shower.

There was a loud boom. Now that, he had rarely seen. Not at the park. He saw the flash as well. Lightening? He looked back at the tank with sympathy. Ione always seemed troubled when the weather got bad. Times like these he wished he could let her out. This tank wasn’t big enough for her to dive away from her problems. He’d figured it was possible – the tanks took in seawater from a canal that connected to the sea. It would be shallow, but he’d seen Ione drag herself up on the shallow ledge that was between her pool and the walls. She obviously was at least a little amphibious…

Suddenly he heard a noise. He looked around to find the source of the dull tapping. He then started as he looked at the tank. Ione was tapping on the glass with one finger, a look of worry on her face. He moved up and put his hand on the glass. She placed her finger in the same place on the opposite side.

“It’s okay.” He said. “Just a storm. It’ll be over soon.”

He was surprised when she started to move her mouth, bubbles floating up. He quickly put away his things and climbed the stairs up.

Once outside, he was surprised just how windy it was. He steadied himself and walked forwards, shivering as he unlocked the storage bins. He took a truly massive fish in both arms, heaving it into the pool. Ione emerged, gulping it down. He took a seat right by the edge of the pool and looked at her head bobbing in the water.

“I’d go back under.” He said. “You’ll get colder up here.”

She stayed at the top, looking at him. He shivered again.

“Look, maybe I can go find someone to get a covering for the tank. We can turn the heat up a bit too. Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.” He stood up.

“Si-mon.” He paused, and then turned around. “Did you…?”

“Si-mon.” Ione looked at him, saying his name again slowly. She pointed back to where he had been sitting.

“Si-mon.” she repeated. Simon slowly moved back, taking his seat.

“Huh.” He said. “So… you can talk.” Ione looked happy that her mastery of saying his name had caused him to remain. His thoughts were interrupted when there was a sudden spark. The lights around the pool suddenly all went out, leaving him in the dark grey the storm clouds had created. An electrical outage? That was the first…

He suddenly began to think what could be happening.

“Si-mon?” said Ione. He looked, to see that the water level in her tank was lowering some. He had just been considering this early. With the failure – the canal must have opened up fully.

“Ione, just… just stay there.” He would feel horrible if she ran away, especially after she had just learned to talk. “Ione – stay. I’m just going to go get someone really quick. He stood up, just as the winds picked up. He held his glasses to his face, almost being pushed back. He heard a creak as the Plexiglas barriers between Ione and the empty seats buckled over. It had never seemed necessary to strengthen it that much. He held himself steady. He looked. He couldn’t see Ione. Had she already left?

“Ione?” he called, moving closer to the edge, trying to find her. He would have called again, but a gust of end at the edge caused him to slip and he tumbled head first into the tank. Unable to swim, he thrashed as he sank downward, not able to see anything clearly.

I'm really liking this story, it's such a great concept and delivery, is this going to be moved to stories or submitted to DA or what?




I would contribute to it but I don't really have enough time for story writting right now x___x..

Nice addition! I hope Simon will be ok.

Who wants to go next?

Maybe it should be moved to "stories", yes.

Natsume: If everyone agrees, perhaps we could put it on DA as a joint work.

this is n excellent story, i would join if i could write.. lol.. but enjoy reading it too..

ohhh very nice continuation here !
You really put an interesting setting. you two got me really hooked to this story !

Is anyone else going to contribute? We should get a few people signed up so we can start rolling stories. Don't be shy - it doesn't have to be long or epic

Jætte_Troll wrote:

Is anyone else going to contribute? We should get a few people signed up so we can start rolling stories. Don't be shy - it doesn't have to be long or epic

Hey, I think I got an opening of time here soon, and an idea... Since it seems that the Nekos are native to felarya it would make sense to have a jungle like section for them to stay like a colony? Like the Compies in the JP books they could be allowed to jump fence to fence with a power outage, yet still being kept in larger numbers... heh even though I'm sure that nekos would exist on some other dimension.... somewhere.... lol... or.. do you think that it might be too innhuman considering how close to human the nekos are? o-o..

Natsume wrote:

Jætte_Troll wrote:

Is anyone else going to contribute? We should get a few people signed up so we can start rolling stories. Don't be shy - it doesn't have to be long or epic

Hey, I think I got an opening of time here soon, and an idea... Since it seems that the Nekos are native to felarya it would make sense to have a jungle like section for them to stay like a colony? Like the Compies in the JP books they could be allowed to jump fence to fence with a power outage, yet still being kept in larger numbers... heh even though I'm sure that nekos would exist on some other dimension.... somewhere.... lol... or.. do you think that it might be too innhuman considering how close to human the nekos are? o-o..

You'll probably have humans, nekos and elves visiting. Best to keep to 'taurs, not demihumans.

/Fish/ wrote:

Natsume wrote:

Jætte_Troll wrote:

Is anyone else going to contribute? We should get a few people signed up so we can start rolling stories. Don't be shy - it doesn't have to be long or epic

Hey, I think I got an opening of time here soon, and an idea... Since it seems that the Nekos are native to felarya it would make sense to have a jungle like section for them to stay like a colony? Like the Compies in the JP books they could be allowed to jump fence to fence with a power outage, yet still being kept in larger numbers... heh even though I'm sure that nekos would exist on some other dimension.... somewhere.... lol... or.. do you think that it might be too innhuman considering how close to human the nekos are? o-o..

You'll probably have humans, nekos and elves visiting. Best to keep to 'taurs, not demihumans.

good point good point.. Since I am extrememly lazy right now.. What was one of the smaller 'taur type creature? I have inspiration to write something involving a smaller race where more than one could be used in a pen.. heh as I write this I'm thinking of playing JPOG (Jurassic Park Operation Genisis) And recreating the event 'cept with dinos XDD

Natsume wrote:

good point good point.. Since I am extrememly lazy right now.. What was one of the smaller 'taur type creature? I have inspiration to write something involving a smaller race where more than one could be used in a pen.. heh as I write this I'm thinking of playing JPOG (Jurassic Park Operation Genisis) And recreating the event 'cept with dinos XDD

There are small nagas. Small dridders. Small squamataurs. Smallish merfolk. Domesticated dryads. Seagull harpies. Those are all some examples of the smaller taurs.

/Fish/ wrote:

Natsume wrote:

good point good point.. Since I am extrememly lazy right now.. What was one of the smaller 'taur type creature? I have inspiration to write something involving a smaller race where more than one could be used in a pen.. heh as I write this I'm thinking of playing JPOG (Jurassic Park Operation Genisis) And recreating the event 'cept with dinos XDD

There are small nagas. Small dridders. Small squamataurs. Smallish merfolk. Domesticated dryads. Seagull harpies. Those are all some examples of the smaller taurs.

hmm.. I could probably do something with the Domesticated Dryads, heh would prbsly confuse tons of people that view them, to suddenly see what looks like trees just start moving o_o..... ya know what.. imma do that o_o... -has officially chosen to do my bit of Felarya park based on Domestic dryads x3-

Just to confirm, I don't see nekos as being exhibits in the Park.

Good luck with the next chapter!

I may have a contribution for this - it's an interesting idea.

I didn't see giant mantoids listed as one of the captive creatures in the park, but that's probably what I'll use.

would i be allowed to make an rp of this ?

also i have a contributain to make to it soon its a realy good idea and i like the story so far.

timing2 wrote:

I may have a contribution for this - it's an interesting idea.

I didn't see giant mantoids listed as one of the captive creatures in the park, but that's probably what I'll use.

That's fine. There's sure to be some. I'll look forward to your addition.

Natsume, are you doing part 3, then?

GiantessFanXXX wrote:

would i be allowed to make an rp of this ?

I'm not sure what you mean. You're welcome to write a chapter. Do you mean you'd also like to rp it with people, seperately? If so, no problem.

Ha, funnily enough I had an idea just like this a while back. It's good to see I'm not the only one that found it interesting.

You could have the smaller / average sized domesticated Dryads working as living guideposts of a sort.

"Welcome to Felarya Park, do you require directions? The dinning area? Head down to the left and keep on the path. Thank you, and have a nice day."

Would also work if there was a Dryad 'network' to provide park information, such as the names of specific Predators nearby.

I figured I would go ahead and post this since it doesn't move the plot forward and deals with yet another section of the island, isolated from the previous two stories. The story is too big to fit into a single post, so I'll continue it in the next two.

Quick summary: Corporate sponsors meddle with the park in an attempt to create a "main attraction" (thus the pun of the title) in order to generate more profit. Things don't go quite as planned.


A Failed Exhibit

It all began when a park-led, corporate-funded expedition captured an extremely rare giant orchid mantoid. The beautiful creatures were incredibly elusive and as rare as red diamonds. The team in question had caught a prime specimen, just after she was hatched. It was a brilliant stroke of luck. The mission plan had originally sought to acquire the more common variety of mantoid, and more than one at that, but the team called off the search as soon as they captured the orchid mantoid. It was considered a resounding success, the catch of a lifetime.

She was named Xulia, in honor of Joseph and Maria’s daughter Julia, who had died at birth. The married couple had led the team that captured Xulia. Julia was the daughter of one of the directors of the corporation sponsoring the mantoid exhibit in the park. Both she and her husband had been highly placed employees in the corporation’s expeditionary section before volunteering to lead the park’s mantoid acquisition team.

At infancy, Xulia was not much larger than a human child. Her delicate pink rose-petal coloration and exquisite human figure were, even at that early age, a remarkable sight to behold. She was privately viewed by several top-level directors and they gave the go ahead to set up a special exhibit just for her once it was learned she would reach almost two hundred feet in length at adulthood. It was an expensive proposition, but after several selective screenings, the analysts projected a massive profit increase based on viewer reaction scores. She was going to be the main star for a brand new exhibit.

The plan had been elegantly simple. Once in the park, she would be placed in isolation, kept away from any other social contact except those of her human trainers. Even that contact was to be severely limited. The goal was for her to remain as close to natural as possible, within certain limitations. Concessions were made to a few executives who complained such a plan would result in the loss of potential profits. To appease them, she was to be taught simple tricks – things that would make her appear cute and cuddly, almost like a circus animal – the kind the corporation’s marketers could make a video of to show remote audiences. That type of exposure would bring in loads of advertising money.

That was where Maria’s connections came into play. As expedition leaders, they had been very successful. Both had taken a strong liking to the little mantoid from first sight. After a long talk one night, they decided they wanted to be a part of her future at the park. Because of their reputation, and their positions within the corporation, they were able to insert themselves as project co-leads. It irritated some park staff, who saw it as corporate meddling, but they were silenced by management who did not wish to see the massive corporate donations dry up. Following board approval, the husband and wife duo were allowed to handpick a special team from the existing staff for the assignment.

The project had been given top priority, with access to the best equipment and no expense spared. A whole section of the island was set aside for Xulia’s early growth and development. The zone was designated off-limits to all but essential personnel. Specialists from all over had been brought in to set up a massive tropical paradise for her to live in. Great care was taken to allow proper viewing from the various platforms that were eventually to be used by tourists who came to see Xulia. It was not an easy task to make an artificial jungle while at the same time allowing enough open space for people to see the mantoid clearly. She was to be the star attraction, so her visibility was of paramount importance.

What none of them ever anticipated was Xulia’s incredible, insatiable curiosity. From the earliest moments, the cheerful mantoid would not behave properly. She broke everything and tried to escape repeatedly. By the half-year mark, the security systems had been overhauled four times and she still found ways to thwart them. Punishments for her backfired spectacularly. Where most animals would shrink away from pain, she would become highly agitated and try multiple ways to get around being punished while still achieving her goals. She was extremely intelligent and highly adept at working through problems. Patient and sneaky, she sometimes got her way without the humans even realizing it.

At the same time, Xulia’s growth rate was nothing short of miraculous. Within the first four months, she was already one hundred feet long from the tips of her antennae to the end of her abdomen. At the conclusion of the first year, she had added fifty feet to that and showed no signs of stopping. As she grew, the insect portion of her body changed coloration slightly, with the tips of her claws and edges of her abdominal segmentation taking on a darker blood red appearance. Her legs thickened noticeably, forming wickedly sharp spikes, which were also blood red, along the lower sections.

The body facing side of her vestigial wings took on a strikingly bright scarlet hue, with an amazing eye pattern reminiscent of a peacock. Xulia would sometimes perform a threat display, raising her body and extending her large wings while rearing backwards. The result appeared to mimic a giant, gaping red maw with two glaring black eyes. The trainers tried desperately to find some way to trigger that particular response, as it would have been a great crowd pleaser. However, for some unknown reason, she actively refused to be goaded into doing it on cue, preferring instead to startle the humans. In fact, her entire behavior pattern was not conducive to tourism. It was most distressing.

Her human portion, which sat gracefully atop her mantis-like insect body, matured from child-like sleekness to lush womanhood. This went over well with the public relations team, who planned to create a predator pinup calendar for sale once the exhibition went live. Xulia was a front-runner to grace the cover of the calendar.

Like her insect limbs, her human arms likewise grew sharp spikes along the inner forearms. One thing did not change – her hair. As predicted by Maria, Xulia’s hair maintained its lovely white color, with just a faint pinkish hue. At least one executive tried to suggest her hair be dyed to a more appealing color, as this would tie in with brand advertising money, but the proposal was shot down angrily by Maria.

It was known that in the wild, her species could survive as herbivores, but word came from on high that the prime attraction had to be a carnivore, at least to the public. Who would pay to see a giant bug eat a giant banana? Therefore, in addition to boatloads of fruits and vegetables, her keepers also brought in a steady supply of live animals. An elaborate system had to be developed from scratch to deliver the animals to her enclosure while maintaining the integrity of both her confinement and the safety of the humans around it.

Xulia ate the creatures given to her the same as she did the fruits, swallowing them whole and unchewed. The fact that she did this so easily, without prodding, caused some debate among the team. The reality was, they could never fully suppress her predatory instincts. Part of those instincts told her to swallow her prey whole and alive. The humans at first were greatly disturbed by this, but over time grew used to seeing her happily catching and gulping down her squealing meals. There was even a betting pool covering how long it would take her to catch the various animals that were fed to her.

In an attempt to cope with her non-tourist friendly behavior, additional specialists were brought in. They devised several methods in an attempt to deal with the recalcitrant insect, but none worked. Finally, they resorted to using sedatives as well as other drugs, but the dosages required reduced her to a lethargic sloth-like state that was deemed unacceptable. She was tractable then, but incapable of any great feats of agility or strength. Nobody would to come to the park to see a giant sleeping insect, regardless of her great beauty or supposed fierceness. It would become a joke.

Eventually they had no choice but to introduce live human trainers to her, and that perhaps was their greatest mistake. It was also, apparently, what Xulia had been planning all along. Once Xulia had the little creatures running around outside her area interacting with her, she focused her undivided attention on them. She also began to cooperate with them.

Talking was forbidden around her, yet she constantly managed to pick up new phrases, which she used with great glee. It infuriated her trainers, who tried to punish her for those transgressions. That only instigated further rebellion on her part. After listening to her meaningless gibberish for the umpteenth time, Joseph called a meeting of the team and it was decided she would be taught the basics of language. The executives were not informed of this decision.

Joseph and Maria both began spending a great deal of time in a special cage that was extended up into the enclosure for them to be close to Xulia without fear of injury. For her part, Xulia took enormous delight in showing the little humans her antics up close. For such a large creature, she was quite agile and playful. She was also surprisingly gentle while near the cage. Day by day, she learned to speak. Within a month, she was proficient enough to carry on a simple conversation, though her extremely limited experience reduced her vocabulary considerably. If there were any doubt as to her intelligence, it was erased when she began correcting the humans when they used improper grammar around her after the second month of language training.

Joseph and Maria both unconsciously began treating her as her namesake, often allowing her to refer to Maria as mommy without admonishment. The first time she said the word in jest, it sounded so natural neither made comment. After that, she ceased being an exhibit, and became instead something of a coworker and even friend to them. Several on the team commented on this, but Joseph insisted it was helping them progress to the final goal of showing her off as Felarya Park’s crowning jewel – their finest exhibit – for a large admittance fee, of course.

Then the fateful day rolled around. An unannounced visit by five top-level directors from the corporate sponsor surprised everyone. They saw what had been done with Xulia, heard her speaking fluently and declared the whole exhibit a disaster. Visitors were meant to see tame, unthinking beasts, not intelligent, speaking creatures. It was specifically against park regulations for the exhibited creatures to speak. The public relations department would be working overtime to quell protests and inevitably, questions about how much influence corporations had would arise. There would be questions raised, probes would be launched, and in end, they might have to deal with a full-scale investigation. That was to be avoided at all costs.

Joseph tried to convince them it was likely Xulia would agree to cooperate – she would not speak while the exhibit was in progress. She was intelligent enough to realize her situation, he argued. Maria threw her weight behind that of her husband. They did not succeed in convincing the directors. However, rather than cancelling the entire project, which would have been a horrendous waste of money, the directors decided some changes were necessary.

Several key personnel were replaced, extra security was added, and a new project lead was brought in. Joseph and Maria were both still involved, but they were no longer in charge. Much to their consternation and despite vociferous objections, a military-grade poison gas kill system was installed which could be used in the event it became necessary to terminate the exhibit’s inhabitant. Rumor had spread that Xulia had only stopped testing the security systems because she could now talk with her human trainers. If she should decide to begin again, they would have to be prepared.

The new man in charge, a military commander by the name of Gower Cuthwill, refused to listen to any advice from his subordinates. Joseph tried in vain to explain that Xulia was not an animal, she was smarter than most of the humans who were there to train her. He told Gower she was gentle and easy going, had no fear of humans, had shown no hostility whatsoever towards them. He then calmly explained she would see through to what they were attempting to do and her reaction could not be predicted. Gower went forward with the plans anyway, and so the kill system was installed. Maria tried to go over his head, but this did not work either.

Their vivid description of her extreme strength and agility actually worsened the situation, because Gower ordered a special team of highly trained soldiers to be ready at a moment’s notice should the need arise. They had standing orders to keep men posted at all times, and should the security seals on the enclosure be breached for any reason, they were to use any means necessary to terminate the giant mantoid. Joseph and Maria were completely floored by this announcement and even more astonished when the corporation’s directors approved.

Throughout this, Xulia’s training continued. Joseph and Maria tried to stay heavily involved, and because of their positions, they were able to maintain daily contact with her. Xulia knew something was wrong once the new men and equipment were brought in. She started acting more and more nervous. Joseph and Maria tried to reassure her, but she could tell they were worried. That bothered her more than anything.

The date of her first semi-public unveiling arrived all too soon. Joseph and Maria attempted to postpone the event, but too many plans had been set into motion. The corporation could not afford a costly delay. Her opening performance was limited to a closed group of highly placed individuals within the corporation, along with their families and close friends.

At the final gathering, before the show was to begin, Joseph tried to explain to Gower that Xulia was in no state to proceed. She was too uneasy with all the new equipment because she knew it was there to harm her. She had begun to distrust some of the humans because of the soldiers she saw. Gower accused him of attempting to sabotage the exhibit and nearly had him thrown out. Maria prevented this, but just barely. Even Gower was not stupid enough to have security lay a hand on her. The show went on as planned. It was an utter disaster.

Part 2 of the story...


The Storm Hits

Joseph was disgusted with himself and the entire project. He slammed the door to his office shut and slumped behind his desk after having been dressed down by no less than the president of the corporation himself. Gower had been gloating in the background the entire time. What should have been the crowning jewel of the entire park had degenerated into a public relations disaster. And it was all coming to rest firmly on his shoulders. No, that was not entirely true; his wife was also involved, which only made the situation worse.

She was the daughter of one of the directors who ran the corporation, and thus had enormous protection. Being her husband gave him some measure of the same, but the bottom line was money. If they could pull in more visitors, the bean counters were happy. If not, then they came down on management like a ton of bricks. There were no friends where profit was concerned. Many people had been counting on Xulia as a huge moneymaker and now those same highly influential people were incensed. He could not blame them for being disappointed, but he could blame Gower and the rest of the fools who let money rule everything. They ignored his warnings. Fuming about it would do no good, so he stood shakily, trying to quell his raging emotions.

Maria opened the door and came in, her face a mask of rage mirroring his.

He looked up at her questioningly. “Don’t tell me they went after you too?”

She quietly closed the door and walked over to him. “No, but I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

Running his hands through his thinning hair, he replied, “Not as sorry as I am for Xulia. She’s the victim in all this. I’m regretting the day we ever set eyes on her.”

“What do you think they’ll do?”

“Gower may want to terminate the whole thing, but I cannot believe they’d be willing to toss all the money they’ve spent so far. No, they’ll come up with some asinine way of using and abusing her for profit.”

Maria walked up to him for a hug. “We should go to her. She must be miserable now.”

“I’m not sure they’ll allow it.”

Her eyes sparked. “They’ll allow it. Come on.”

She took his hand in hers and they left the office. Outside, the ominous sound of distant thunder could be heard.

Meanwhile, Xulia was sitting quietly in her enclosure, looking up at the strange black clouds that were moving against the wind. It looked as though they were moving in from all directions to cover the island. That was a very odd thing for clouds to do.

She was watching the few remaining humans up on the security platform as they milled about. She did not like the newcomers at all. They were not like the other humans she dealt with on a daily basis. The humans were also peering up at the sky.

They had wanted her to perform, but she refused. Instead, she had thrown a fit and trashed a large section of the beautiful jungle. She regretted doing that now, but at the time she had been extremely angry.

Just then, from out of one of the lower clouds came a massive bolt of lightning. It flickered briefly, an intensely bright beacon against the overwhelming darkness. The bolt struck the ground somewhere near the central part of the island, and seconds later a deafening boom washed over her enclosure. The ground shook with the power of the blast and several of the humans cried out in fear. Many of them began making their way hurriedly down from the platform. She heard sirens in the distance.

Shortly after the lighting strike, the lights that sat atop the giant electrified posts that ringed the concrete barriers of her enclosure changed color from green to red and began flashing. She heard a buzzing sound coming from within the compound where all the humans were congregated. That was something she had seen only a few times before. Testing her theory, she plucked a small bush from the ground, leaving the dirt clod around its roots intact. She chose her target and used her considerable strength to heft the missile towards one of the towers. The fence sparked against the bush, burning it, but the intensity was greatly reduced from what it should be. Xulia smiled.

Lifting her bulk, she swiveled to take in all of her surroundings. There were no humans present now. The ever-watchful cameras were still there, of course. Some of them were no longer rotating as they normally did.

Another bolt of lightning struck, this time much closer than before. The lights that bathed the security platform went dead, as did most of the lights in the surrounding buildings. The black clouds overhead were still gathering, and now she felt a very odd tingling sensation around her body. She did not like it. Moving under one of the rocky overhangs, she looked up fearfully at the bizarre storm.

Suddenly, a bolt struck the retaining wall that sat between the main observation deck and the small cave she sometimes slept in. She fell to the ground from the pressure of the blast, screaming out in fear.

When her eyes cleared of the afterimage, she saw the discharge had sheared partially through the massive concrete wall and a section of the building to which it was attached. Bits and pieces of shattered concrete had shredded the nearby foliage. The building partially collapsed from the structural damage, and that in turn brought down a huge section of the giant electrified fence. She pulled herself into a tight ball, pushing back under the safety of the small cave beneath the overhang, unwilling to risk the wrath of the storm despite the possibility of freedom.

And finally part 3 of the story...

Saving A Life

Joseph and Maria were running with great haste through the underground tunnel that connected Xulia’s exhibit area with their offices. They had heard the evacuation announcement, but unlike most everyone else, they were heading towards the exhibit. The alarms had been tripped, which meant both the primary and backup systems had failed. That should not have been possible, except under extraordinary circumstances.

Maria blew past one security checkpoint without pausing. The guards were smart enough to recognize her and not brave enough to insist she follow protocol. There was something to be said for having a reputation as queen bitch of the park.

They reached the special room that Gower had created as the entry point for Xulia’s exhibit. Two of his personal goons were there, looking worriedly at a computer terminal.

Joseph ran up to them. “What’s going on? Why aren’t we in lockdown?”

“The servos won’t engage; there’s not enough power. Oh, and the backup system is offline too.”

Maria said, “This is bad. You have to go in and do it manually.”

“Ah, pardon me ma’am, but hell no. That ain’t my job. You can fire me but I won’t go in there.” The guard looked at her with a devil-may care smile.

She started to respond, then smiled. “That’s fine, my husband and I can take care of it.”

“Now wait a minute, no one outside of security is allowed in there under lockdown.”

Joseph walked directly in front of the guard, who did not seem very impressed. “You just said we aren’t in lockdown, so why is it we aren’t allowed in exactly?”

The other guard said, “He’s got a point, I saw we let them through. It’s no skin off our back if they get toasted.”

“Fine, fine, whatever you say. Both you nut cases need to show me your damn badges.”

Maria growled. “I can’t believe the assholes Gower hires. Do you people grow under rocks or something?”

The couple showed their identification, which the guards made a great show of checking. Twice during the ordeal, the lights of the underground facility flickered. Joseph looked at his wife with concern. She nodded back, thinking the same thing. They had to hurry.

Once the guards were satisfied that their identification cards were in order, the husband and wife literally ran through the metal entrance doors. They continued through a narrow service tunnel. They conveyor pads were not moving, so it took longer than normal to reach the far end. When they did, Joseph was startled to see Gower already in the maintenance area, which doubled as another security checkpoint. He appeared to be alone.

“Gower, what are you doing here?”

“I might ask you the same thing. We’re under power outage conditions and that means neither of you should be here now. I’m going to ask you to leave.” Gower pointed back the way they came.

Joseph noticed something on the terminal in front of Gower. Keeping his expression neutral, he turned as if he were heading back, pulling a protesting Maria along with him. Gower smirked, looking back to his terminal. As soon as he did, Joseph bolted straight at him. The two collided with a thud against the wall, struggling against one another.

Maria screamed when she saw Gower go for his handgun and ran to help her husband. She picked up a long metal pole, a spare conductor rod for the electrical fence, and swung at Gower’s back with a two-handed grip.

Gower yelped in pain and fell. Joseph let go of the man’s hands long enough to clock him hard in the face. It was not the most effective of blows, but it got the job done.

Maria did not hesitate, striking Gower again with the heavy rod to make sure he stayed down. He groaned in agony, hands grasping against the floor.

Joseph calmly pulled Gower’s gun from its holster, noticing a set of handcuffs in the process. He retrieved those and pulled the feebly protesting man over to a heavy rack of computer gear. Testing it for sturdiness, he cuffed Gower’s hands around the base of one unit. He took the man’s radio from his belt, and walked over to the terminal.

Nodding, he said, “That’s what I thought. The son of a bitch engaged the kill system. Either that or it happened automatically. You can see here the main perimeter fence is down and the wall is partially breached. I don’t know if it’s enough for Xulia to get out.”

Maria gasped, “What?”

“We don’t have any time, let’s move!” Not waiting to see if Maria was following, he took off running down the corridor that led to the main observation area. There was a slight incline to the walkway, as the tunnel transitioned above ground.

Skidding across the glossy floor of the observation area, Joseph saw all the monitors were dead. No equipment was functioning, not even units that were supposed to have their own internal backup. What kind of storm was this?

He ran over to the manual bypass lever that would shut down the kill system. He had insisted the device be placed here, in case the system was activated accidently. Gower had protested, but eventually gave in when Maria threatened to take her complain to the directors. Unclasping the metal lock, he yanked hard on the lever. It sheared off completely. With a dumbfounded expression, he pulled the lid off the mechanism and saw with a sinking feeling that it was completely bogus. The gears were not engaged to anything, which meant Gower had deliberately deceived them.

Maria saw this and her eyes widened. “Oh no.”

Joseph looked up at her helplessly for a moment, then his expression hardened. “We can still stop it.”

“Joseph, don’t you dare. Nobody has ever been in there with her unprotected. You don’t know how she’ll react or what she’ll do. She’s not human – she’s a natural predator, remember that!”

“We can’t just sit back and let her die. My god Maria, we named her after our own daughter.”

Maria’s eyes darted over the room, trying to find some way around their dilemma. Unfortunately, Joseph was right, and they had no time to debate. “Ok, you’re right. But I’m the one who’s going in there, not you. She knows both of us, but she thinks of me as her mother. You agree?”

Nodding, he said, “We’ll both go. She’s always seen us together. I honestly think we’ll be fine. She won’t hurt us.”

“No, she won’t.” Maria reached out to hold her husband’s hand.

Clasping his wife’s hand briefly, Joseph walked over to the entrance to the observation room to seal the door shut. He manually locked it so no one could enter, even with the proper key. They both walked down the stairs to the small tunnel that went down and then out under Xulia’s enclosure. The metal reinforced concrete gave their footfalls a strange, metallic echoing sound. Normally there would be sounds of ventilation, but with the power outage, all was deathly quiet.

They came at last to a large opened bulkhead. Beyond it, the staircase led them to a final access door that slid open via retractable doors. Since there was no power, Joseph and Maria had to manually operate the hydraulic wheel. As the doors opened, the sounds of the growing storm outside could be heard. Weird flashes of lightning were slashing across the almost pure black sky.

Joseph pulled himself up into the open space of the cage, helping Maria afterward. They did not see Xulia anywhere in the enclosure.

“Ready?” she asked.

He smiled. “I was born ready.”

It took both of them to release the manual lock at the base of the door. Pressing in and twisting simultaneously they heard an ominous click and one small section of the sturdy metal cage fell away. Without waiting, Maria and Joseph ran through the opening, heading towards the far side of the enclosure to try to stop the gas canisters from releasing their deadly contents.

Xulia watched from her cover as the humans opened the metal cage they used when talking with her. She knew these two humans. They had never before opened the cage. They looked around briefly but did not notice her. She watched with mounting excitement as they moved through the dense foliage along the ground towards the opposite side of her enclosure. She felt a strangely unpleasant feeling pass through her as she watched the little humans scampering away.

Stepping out from her hiding place, she began her pursuit...

Fantastic addition timing2!^^

I really like Xulia, she's one clever girl.

Moving this to stories now, and I'll be working on my own addition.

Malahite wrote:

You could have the smaller / average sized domesticated Dryads working as living guideposts of a sort.

"Welcome to Felarya Park, do you require directions? The dinning area? Head down to the left and keep on the path. Thank you, and have a nice day."

Would also work if there was a Dryad 'network' to provide park information, such as the names of specific Predators nearby.

I very much like that idea. Good thinking.

timing2, that's a great addition indeed! As always, your characters really come to life.

Wow what a great addition !
It' very well written and Xulia seem like a really interesting character ^_^

I really love a lot where this Felarya park idea is going

Just FYI, there is an actual "orchid mantis" which I based Xulia on: Orchid Mantis

Really nice! I've taken some time and consideration to my addition of Felarya park.. I think I have the plot decided now I just need names, oh and I really like that idea of the Domestic Dryads greeting the people as they walked through the gates? mind if I introduce this in my addition?