#. lullabaaye ;

[howdy-cowpoke]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Prickly Pear Acres PARTIES: Denver (farm hand NPC) & Anita (@gossipsnake) SUMMARY: Denver is trying to save some sheep when he gets attacked. Anita comes to help, but the farm hand turns on her after taking too much damage. CONTENT WARNINGS: Gun use

—

It was more than just the flames that had Anita seeing red. For apathetic as the lamia often was, particularly about those she did not know very well, there was nothing that enraged her sense of injustice more than hunters and humans trying to assert dominance over the supernatural world. That had to be what this attack was. There would undoubtedly be time later to figure all of that out, time for thought opposed to action, but right now Anita had tunnel vision. 

When the flames broke out almost everyone dispersed in different directions. Some seemed to be selfishly fleeing while others clearly thought of the animals on the farm before themselves. Anita watched for a moment, her head on a swivel trying to spot both familiar and suspicious faces as the crowd became more and more chaotic. It was the screams, rather than the faces, that drew her attention towards the one barn. As her attention turned she could see that fighting had erupted and without hesitation she took off towards the barn, the panicked baaaas of the sheep inside growing louder as she got closer. 

As she approached the barn, some of the farmers that she had seen at the party were trying desperately to get the animals out, but they were being halted by a group of whom Anita presumed to be hunters. It was a bit hard to tell who was on what side of the fight, but she figured once she shifted it would be easy to tell undead from un-undead. “Puta madre…” she huffed in annoyance as she started to shift into the rattlesnake, “I really liked this dress.” 

—

Leaving his brother (something he did not do lightly, but they had different jobs to accomplish), Denver had made for the barns where he could faintly hear the poor animals in a panic. Assuming this was another round of assholes come to slaughter the creatures, Denver and his co-workers were caught off guard when the people that had set the fire were still there, with weapons, and attacking them. Denver reeled back and out of the way of a large blade that swung in his direction, which was stupid of the person wielding it because they would never be tall enough to get Denver in the head with it. He growled furiously, grabbing them by the head with one hand and throwing them against the side of the barn before pushing his way inside. 

The sheep were climbing all over each other to try and get away from the flames, and some of them had already fallen to the fire. With a twisted knot in his gut, Denver kicked open the first gate, shouting at the animals as they poured out of their long pen and into the walkway, scattering from there. He went to another gate and kicked that one open too, having no time or patience for the latches. Sheep swarmed him, nearly bowling him over in their desperate flight. He didn’t hear the click over the cacophony, and barely registered as a round ripped through his shoulder. He might not even have noticed, if not for the blood that ran down his arm and slicked his hand. Confused, the farm hand turned around to see a stranger aiming a gun at him. The stranger had… weird eyes, and was very obviously not human. She sneered at him, then fired again. Denver took another hit, this time directly in the chest. “Idiot,” he snarled,  ignoring her to instead kick in the final gate, though most of the animals that had been in this pen were already motionless on the ground. He scooped up the one nearest to him as the rest ran past, noting that her sides were still rising and falling. When he turned to leave, that stupid fucking woman was still standing there, looking pissed. Denver returned the expression, the sheep clutched to his broad chest. “You want your head caved in, or what?” he asked bluntly, moving toward her. She took a step back, aimed again, and fired. 

Everything went dark, and the zombie crumpled to the floor of the barn with the sheep still in his arms.  

—

She had heard some other shifters describe the process of turning into their truer form to be painful but that was never how it felt to Anita. Everything about it felt beautiful and comfortable - less like she was transforming into something that was “other” and more like she was shedding away the disguise of the other being. In moments of urgency she didn’t have time to savor the feeling of the soft, pink flesh transforming into the protective greens, browns, and tans of her scales. It was difficult to tell exactly what was going on inside the barn, engulfed in flames that grew by the second. (Farms were sort of a natural fire hazard; all the hay.) It wasn’t long before it was apparent that fire was not the only weapon being employed. The gunshots echoed in the lamia’s head, the sound becoming almost overwhelming by the time she had transformed completely. 

In full form, Anita rushed towards the barn with just enough time to see another shot be fired and one of Monty’s farmhands collapse onto the ground. There was something off about it all, something confirmed when the woman who had fired the gun turned towards her. Instinctively, Anita began to rattle, though she doubted that it struck much fear into the person in front of her. Not human. Curious. “You know, just because you might be the black sheep of your family or whatever, doesn’t mean that you need to be so literal in your rebellion.” 

Her eyes fell down to the zombie on the floor for a moment, wondering if he was going to move again. In that time, the non-human asshole took aim at Anita and fired off two consecutive rounds. The shots stung, but with her scales providing protection they did little more than had they hit someone with a bullet proof vest on. Nevertheless, enraged by the act of betrayal, Anita swiftly lunged forward and sunk her fangs into the woman’s thigh, releasing a lethal dose of venom as she punctured the skin. 

As the woman began to fall to the ground, the grip on her gun released, dropping it to the ground. Anita smashed her tail down on top of it, rendering the device useless with one motion. But she hadn’t been the only attacker nor was she the only one with weapons and several of them were starting to approach the barn. 

—

As the world came back into focus, it lacked color and sharpness. Dull grays and browns and reds were all he could make out, the shapes of things sort of blobby and confusing. His thoughts were muddy, not clearing as he pushed the wooly lump off his chest and got slowly to his feet. A sound escaped him—it was one he hadn’t made in a long time, and he didn’t have the processing power to understand what it meant. 

Turning to face the snake-woman, the zombie’s eyes were glazed over and a massive head wound from where the bullet had entered through the cheek and exited out the back was healing itself. The sheep he’d been trying to rescue lay abandoned in the walkway as he started a shambling run toward her, the feeling of being starved overriding anything else that tried to make itself known to him. 

Well, anything except the other meals making their way here. Even in this state, Denver had the sense to spot an easier target and change his trajectory. He wasn’t fully gone, though he had very little say in the matter. So the zombie ran past the party guest and threw himself at the attacker that arrived first, ignoring the knife that slid into his belly and going straight for the throat.

The other two gave Denver a wide berth, focusing their attention on Anita. One wielded a crossbow, and the other… the other was shifting, sprouting feathers as huge wings grew out of their arms and large, taloned feet ripped free from their shoes. They got themselves airborne and aimed those talons at Anita while letting out a loud screech, their partner taking aim with the crossbow and firing off a bolt.

—

For as little as she knew about zombies, Antia knew a fair amount about body language. For as undead as Denver clearly was, the bullet to the brain seemed to impact more than just his frontal lobe. She watched him as close as she could, her attention torn between him and the oncoming group of new assailants. Watched as he struggled to his feet, discarded the creature he had just previously been hellbent on saving, and looked directly at her with a look in his eyes she was all too familiar with. “This evening’s about to get a lot more fucked, isn’t it?” 

In a stroke of luck, however, the zombie shifted his hunger glare from her to those storming into the barn. Anita took a moment to appreciate the simplicity of Denver’s attack style and the beauty of torn arteries spraying flecks of blood as the zombie’s teeth tore through the attackers neck. But the moment of appreciation was cut short when one of the attackers began to shift, into some avian abomination. Not an abomination because of their form, of course. “Why are you fucking with me and not the damn hunters?!” 

The distraction, if that's what it was, worked. Anita’s attention followed the siren as she flew into the air preparing herself for a delicious meal, when she felt an arrow dig in between her scales. The lamia’s head whipped back towards the man with the bow in his hands, hissing as she lunged towards him. Taking advantage of the shift of her primary target, the siren swooped down and dug her talons into the base of Anita’s tail which proved exponentially more painful than the previous soft sting of the arrow. The siren pulled Antia backwards, deeper into the barn that was gradually becoming engulfed in flames. 

—

Mister Crossbow faltered in his bumrush on the lamia when he realized his bolt had done little damage, suddenly not feeling so keen on getting right into the thick of it with her. As the siren took care of that scaly problem, he whipped around to face the zombie that was… ripping out the throat of his companion. Well not companion, he’d hardly known Fred, but he’d been a nice enough guy. Grimacing, the hunter loaded another bolt, thankful that the zombie was at least distracted enough to allow him the time for it. Taking aim, he let it fly and watched the bolt bury itself straight through the zombie’s own neck. Damnit… too low. 

Denver snapped his head up, snarling at Mister Crossbow and abandoning the easy meal that lay dead in front of him. He scrambled to his feet, sprinting at the hunter holding the crossbow and ripping it from his hands as he closed the distance alarmingly quickly. The hunter went down screaming, and Denver could feel himself slipping further from awareness as his body fought to regenerate around the bolt in his neck. Black blood mixed with red as he tore into the man’s chest cavity through his lower abdomen, ripping barehanded through flesh with superhuman strength and pushing through muscle to grab at handfuls of viscera and pull. 

A soft, familiar sound met his ears and the zombie lifted his head again. His blackened gaze scanned the horizon, finding the struggling, crying form of the sheep he’d initially carried out of there. Get up. Get up, he screamed at himself in his head, remembering Anita. Remembering… she’d been… helping. She was… there was one more. Somewhere. He looked into the flames and smoke, and saw two strange silhouettes inside the barn. Get up. Help her. With a gurgling groan, the zombie pushed himself to his feet once more and shuffled forward, his hand clumsily gripping the bolt in his neck and yanking it free as he moved. Bird. Bird. Kill. His thoughts were diminished to single word commands now, but he tried to keep repeating them in his head and keep himself on task. Kill. Bird. Eat. 

Stumbling into the barn, the heat of the fire would have been uncomfortable at best if he still had any nerves to feel it. The siren was screeching and squawking, diving at Anita with talons and teeth bared. Denver ambled over to them, swatting at the ‘bird’ when she passed by low to the ground, teeth gnashing hungrily. 

—

There were many factors causing the hot rage coursing through Anita as the siren, momentarily, had gotten the drop on her. The main cause was in knowing a shifter, even a lowly one like a siren, was working alongside humans to attack this farm. They were a pathetic disgrace to the shifting community and in Anita’s eyes she deserved a slow and painful death for the betrayal alone. But the feathered fucker was quick, and she had the unfortunate flight advantage. Grounding the front portion of her body as much as she could, Anita pulled her tail (which had been partially raised off the ground by the siren’s grip) down. She kept repeating the movement, the two engaged in a strange game of tug-o-war where Anita was both the rope and the competitor. 

The momentum of her tail eventually allowed her to pull the siren down closer to the flames causing some of her feathers to begin smoldering. It was enough to break herself loose of the talon’s grip on her as Antia quickly coiled her tail beneath her as a foundation and used her length to gain a bit of a height advantage. She tried to reach up and bite the bird but the siren’s reflexes were, evidently, just as good as her own. So a strange dance began, as the snake and the bird fought to get the upper hand. 

Anita kept trying to latch onto her so that she could throw her into the flames. The siren kept trying to lunge down at Anita, her talons scraping across the lamia’s scales but unable to get another grip on her. She heard screaming coming from behind her and hoped that the idiot who had shot her earlier was being absolutely ravaged by the seemingly increasingly unhinged zombie running all over the place. 

It seemed her hopes had come true, as Denver’s attention returned to her and the siren. Thankfully, he seemed ready for a main course of poultry as he chomped forward towards the bird.The fire kept growing and looking up, Anita saw the roof was beginning to lose its integrity. She refused to let this species traitor get away. They needed to clip the siren’s wings somehow, needed to ground her so that she could not keep flying just out of reach. She spotted a heap of hay bales, only beginning to catch fire, and climbed on top of them to get as much height as she could. When the siren dipped low again, instead of simply dodging the attack, Anita propelled herself forward and collided with the other woman mid-air - sending them both barreling towards the ground. 

—

There wasn’t much the zombie could do but swat uselessly at the air as the siren dove this way and that — it was clear that the man who had been a powerhouse during the game of tug-of-war only a couple hours or so earlier was no longer present in his own mind. He’d fought to maintain some kind of control with everything he had, but his wounds were too grievous, his body too stressed from healing. The man who had never left his brother’s side until tonight, who had been there beside Dallas through every peak and low valley in their lives, who had held his baby nephew with a wide, bright smile on his face for the first time since they’d both been children, was gone. And while there was still time for him to come back, still time for him to eat and heal and return to himself, return to his sibling and be that comforting presence that Dallas had always needed after losing his wife and child, that time was running out. 

The fire engulfed the barn. Denver swiped at the air, watching numbly as Anita climbed to a higher vantage point and took the siren down. There were no sides anymore, only food. Hunger drove him forward, and his hands fell upon the wrong body — the one covered in scales rather than feathers. 

—

The body-slam did a number on the siren, but was certainly not enough on its own to kill her. It got Anita where she needed to be though: on top. The weight of the mojave rattlesnake was keeping its feathered foe pinned down, about to go in for the final blow, when she felt something clawing at her tail. “Can’t fucking catch a break,” she mumbled. The fire had engulfed the building and at this point there was nobody left inside worth saving other than herself. 

Anita bit down, clamping her fangs down around the neck of the siren before ripping her head off and swallowing it whole. The zombie was a far less concerning problem, yet he proved determined. Even as she got up and began to move towards the exit that was the least on fire, she could feel gnawing against her scales. Like a dog shaking off a pesty flea, Anita whipped her tail back and forth in a quick motion. She didn’t need to look back to know that Denver had been catapulted back into the barn, where the flames quickly began to char his frozen flesh.