[001] Introduction [ISO], inmates

[Icarus Gulch]

Icarus Gulch stood by the greenhouse looking very harassed. His encounter with Elijah Inness and the crazed devil's snare only a few days ago had left him rather tired. Not to mention given him a couple of deep gashes over his back. Since then the greenhouse was still impossibly full of various plants, wondrous, dangerous and downright lethal, but now the more mobile plants seemed to have learned their lesson. The big bad devil's snare had its ass fried in a shower of flames and that's really all there was to it. After a little stroll into the greenhouse he'd found a large bunch of Chinese Chomping Cabbages. They were mildly dangerous and he really just didn't have the energy to be going around planting cabbages, so he magicked them into a bunch of charmed crates (four to a crate) and he set them all outside to wait for the students.

A large patch of tilled earth had appeared overnight by Greenhouse Four and it was ready to receive some special attention in the form of cabbages. Icarus leaned against a crate and waited for the inmates to show up for their morning class.

[Zana Block]

Blinking a lot in the light, Zana came bounding out from the prison and toward the greenhouse. She wasn’t eager to be in class. She was just happy to be outside. Icarus Gulch she didn’t recognize but she greeted him tartly nonetheless, she assumed he must be the instructor since he had to be about a gazillion years old. To twelve year olds, anything over 13 was a gazillion. ”’Noon, Professor.” Or was it marshal? Whatever.

She had her hair tied back but still unbrushed. She never brushed it, well, only rarely for the best occasions. Today was not one of these times. The little wolflet sniffed the air and then stared at the cabbages, wishing she’d thought to take off her shoes. Maybe she’d try later. ”Are we planting those?” Eww, cabbages. Zana hated those next to spinach, broccoli, carrots, cucumbers..anything green, really.

[Serpens Venere]

Serpens dragged his feet over to the Taming Class. He didn't particularly want to come, but there was no way he was getting on the wrong side of the Warden, she scared him a little. Though he would never admit this to anybody, even he didn't acknowledge it to be honest. Serpens rubbed a hand over his forearm, trying to evoke some warmth under his scaly skin. He hated being outside when it was even a little cold. It made him sleepy and irritable. He kept his head bent and sloped twoards the Greenhouse.

He only looked up when he caught sight of a pair of legs that most definitely did not belong to the burly instructor. Serpens didn't recognise the girl, who couldn't be anymore than twelve. Serpens' lips curled back instinctively as he looked at her, his fangs sliding over his bottom lip. He did so hate children. He sped up his pace, fueled by anger, and shoved roughly past the girl, his forked tongue flicking out habitually as he did so. The air around her tasted of fresh blood and fur. A werewolf then. Interesting.

Serpes skidded to a halt in front of the crates, and peered inside curiously. He had a weird urge to poke one, and was going to reach out when he was interrupted by the werewolf saying,”Are we planting those?”

Serpens hissed in annoyance and jerked his body abck from the crate. He sauntered back next to the girl, and there he stood, arms crossed over his chest, glaring sullenly at a spot somewhere near the Professor's chest.

[Icarus Gulch]

((ooc: bold means you're shouting at Furiae, I think... though I may be wrong))

Gulch lit a cigarette. A drag or two later, the inmates started to arrive. They were a motley crew. Well, the usual strange conglomeration of weirdos that one might expect at a prison. Especially disturbing were a couple of half-breeds. Or- was that a halfbreed? He was quite sure about the weird kid with the scales. Gulch wasn't very well educated and would not have guessed on that one's heritage. The other one... the wolfy one... he couldn't quite pin his finger on it, but he guess she might be entirely human. Eh. Who knew around here?

"Are we planting those?"

Slightly irritated by the creepy wolf-child, Gulch only gave her an annoyed look. It wasn't time for questions yet. Really, there wasn't ever a good time for questions. He would give them all the information they'd need once the rest of the inmates showed up. If she kept this "asking questions" thing up she might just regret it. Icarus Gulch was not beyond striking a child.

Still smoking, he signaled the inmates to give him their attention. "Alright, you little criminals, listen up. I'm sure you thought that with the change in Administration everything would be cushy and easy. I'm afraid you are terribly mistaken. Here at Furiae we believe in 'Quid pro quo.' Who can tell me what that means?" Before anyone could answer, he said "It means 'Something for something.' So if you're going to be clothed and fed by the Warden, you better learn to earn your keep. Which begs the question- what are these? " He motioned at the crates with his cigarette. Inside, cabbages the size of beach balls were snarling and baring their horribly jagged teeth.

Gulch threw four shovels into the group of inmates. "That's all the shovels we got," he lied. "Someone better grab one because I'm about to let these suckers loose. When I do, knock them unconscious with the shovel, and then just toss them over on that square of dirt" he pointed to that patch of dirt by the greenhouse "over there. If you get hurt during the procedure, I suggest you deal with it."

And with that warning, Gulch produced his wand, which he waved carelessly, and the four crates fell to pieces, allowing all twelve of the cabbages loose into the crowd of inmates.

[Zana Block]

((ooc i was under the impression it was just how some people pick their talk text, like some people use italics and some people use colors and stuff))

Before the hopping cabbages had gotten loose from their crates, Zana made sure to grab one of the shovels. She wasn't going to be one of the ones left without one! She had never seen a lettuce head with teeth and growls but didn't plan on being left out of knocking the crap out of them. One of the heads came bounding her way and she laid it low with a solid thunk. It made her shovel shake and the leafy monster fell, dazed.

Zana didn't have a lot of time to crow over her victory though, because two more were headed her way. "Oh no you don't! the girl growled, planting her feet into the dirt to get a good stance and swinging wildly. Not like she was a baseball player or whatever, thanks a lot marshal. She hit the next and grazed the third, leaving it to bounce one more time enough to fly right into her face. Zana dropped her shovel with a shriek, resorting to wrestling and beating the toothy vegetable away from her with her little fists. It got in a good chomp, maybe two, before she'd hit it down enough to stomp it flat. The marshal didn't mind if the cabbages were destroyed, right?

Coffcoff.

The girl picked, out of her three hurt ones, the poor stomped cabbage to go and plant, dropping it into the dirt where it lay there sadly. She stared at it for a moment with wide eyes before tentatively going back for the next.

[Harper Pollock]

Harper and her sister had walked to class together today. They did that back at school occasionally, too, but never enough to make it a precedent. Funny, they hadn’t even discussed it before departing together for the greenhouse – probably because they didn’t have any other options for company at the moment. If their academic subjects weren’t familiar, at least one other classmate could be.

Fallon had always been better at herblore and whatnot, but Harper relied on reference guides more than she probably should have. She didn’t have any of her reference guides here – or any of her books, or notes, or anything – and she felt kind of out of her element. She could reason through stuff like a pro, but she wasn’t good at bullshitting her way through classes. She wasn’t good at bullshitting, period. She was good at what she was good at and she didn’t pretend- which was probably why when this… marshall?…professor?…Gulch-person?… explained what they were going to be doing, she suddenly perked up. Dexterity was definitely something she possessed. The second the shovels left his hands, and before they’d even thudded against the ground, Harper was running for one. Self-preservation was a skill everyone possessed, but survival of the fittest still reigned supreme. She didn’t grab one shovel – she grabbed two. She knew better than to throw one of them at Fallon, because she knew she couldn’t catch. Instead, she kept up her sprint and hand delivered it, jumping about three feet in the air over one of the stupid cabbage monsters and almost rolling her ankle – sonofabitch. Now she had a task and a vengeance.

So… field hockey, field hockey – what did she know about field hockey? Or lacrosse? Well, she knew you had to be aggressive, which she was anyway, so instead of running from the douchey salad balls from hell, she chased after them with a vengeance. Could they be herded? She knew they were chasing her so she couldn’t stop and experiment. Instead, she swung back – a decent golf swing – and sent a neat row of suckers (who were pursuing some guy) to hell. Bitches.

“Fal, clean up the trash,” she barked at her sister, leaving the unconscious whatchamacallits to the less coordinated sibling (though, in all fairness, Fallon was pretty talented when it came to beating the shit out of things – otherwise she wouldn’t be at Furiae).

This was actually kind of exhilarating – it felt more dangerous than quidditch, except without the thrill of flight. Sentient balls – who would’ve thunk it? Brilliant. She approached one ahead of her with the shovel scoop-side up, scooped the stupid cabbage into the basket, and proceeded to flip the shovel and bounce the thing into the ground.

She was being chased, however, and knew that she needed a new strategy – she proceeded to run like hell, in circles, trying to throw the tagalongs. Tricky, tricky.

[Serpens Venere]

Serpens gave a wide grin as Gulch dropped the shovels. Hitting things? Now this he was good at. So long as the marshal didn't mind things being shredded into little pieces, all was good. He strode forward confidently and stamped down on the end of a shovel, sending the handle into his grip. He curled his long fingers around the handle and twirled the weapon abesnt-mindedly as he searched for a target. There were plenty of man-eating cabbages milling around, chasing the girls. It would just be his luck that he was the only guy in the lesson. One of the twins was chasing the vegtables and attcking them viciously with two shovels. Serpens felt an involuntary smile curve up over his lips. He could certainly get along with that girl.

While he had been pondering his classmates, a cabbage had made a bid to chew off his ankle. "Son of a-" yelled Serpens as he prised the sadistic vegetable off of his leg with his shovel, causing it to rip a chunk out of his leg in the process. Serpens hissed and his expression went stony, a psychotic grin fixed in place and making up the only emotion he was showing. Casually, he flicked the plant in the general direction of the vegetable patch, sending it whizzing very close to the instructor. Head weaving from side to side like a cobra, he waded into the mass of cabbages. One he sliced neatly over the top leaves, causing it to shriek. Smiling almost gently at its pain, Serpens scooped it up and vaulted it over one of the twins' heads to land, writihing, in the tilled soil. Eyes darting and forked tongue tasting the air, he wasn't taken by surprise when Pollock sped past him, cabbages following her like ducklings.

Sighing like he was bothered by the prospect of further violence, he sidestepped behind the girl and into the path of the vegetables. Grinning, he swung his shovel gracefully, clearing a path lined with unconscious balls of hell. whistling, he wandered around gathering them in his arms, then staggered to the patch to deposit his catch. Catching the girl's eyes, he winked playfully and saluted. Damn, he was in a good mood. Not being kind. Just in a good mood.

[Fallon Pollock]

Fallon realized immediately what Harper was trying to do, and was so, so very thankful. It seemed like when they were in the womb, Harper had gotten all of the athletic genes, leaving Fallon essentially poor and defenseless in situations like these. She accepted the shovel passed to her greedily and desperately, because if one of those evil lettuce heads came anywhere near her, she was just going to sit down on the ground and bawl as her legs were slowly devoured. She may have known quite a bit about plants, but none of the plants she’d taken care of, running the gamut from poisonous to prickly, had ever chased her, growled at her, or attempted to eat her.

It took her a second to realize what Harper had meant by “clean up the trash” – oh, so she was supposed to come collect the dead ones? Were they even dead? She supposed she could handle dead ones if need be, given that that’s what the plants she was used to taking care of were typically like. Very tentatively, shovel in her hands (she was holding it over her shoulder like a baseball bat, as though that would actually help her in some way), Fallon made her way to the scene of the crime. She scooped the first one up with the shovel, not wanting to touch it just in case it wasn’t completely out, and attempted to make her way over to the plot of dirt where she could do her thing. She eyed the snake kid walking by carrying a whole bundle, and then looked down to her single, measly cabbage in the shovel and grunted. It was a brilliant, evolutionary step in the development of Fallon Pollock – she actually realized that she was being wimpy. On her second trip she stuck the shovel under her arm and gathered a mess of unconscious cabbages in her arms. She was waddling a bit in her attempt to secure them all.

It wasn’t until she was very, very close to the tilled land that she saw one of them twitch. With a sudden ear splitting shriek she dropped all of them to the ground, where they fell and went rolling around. The shovel, which was also being supported by the arms that went flailing, went flying, bounced just once, and whacked her in the head, eliciting another shocked shriek. It almost looked deliberate – and considering it was Fallon we were talking about, it wasn’t entirely unlikely. Her hands rushed to her head and she rubbed the tender spot, pouting all the while. Why couldn’t they just plant pretty flowers? There wasn’t so much heartache involved in working with plants that didn’t have razors for teeth.

With a grimace, she plucked the nearby cabbages one by one and threw them on the plot, not caring to do a neat job. Once it was done she walked off to the side, leaving her shovel abandoned on the ground. She crossed her arms over her chest and watched. There weren’t that many cabbages to start off, and she thought she’d more than done her fair share of the work.

[Harper Pollock]

Harper ducked as a cabbage was launched above her head, still in a dead sprint with a shovel in her hands. Running in a zig zag formation at that speed was tricky, and she was running out of places to go that wouldn’t send her running straight through the neat little row of angry cabbage fuckers that were trailing behind her. She was trying her darnedest to think of a strategy for getting rid of the mob, but the only thing that came to mind was pulling out a fork and making a salad. She was a good runner, but nobody sprinted for quite as long as she had been, and she was beginning to lose steam. Just when she thought she was going to have to stop and let the damned things eat her, she heard the tell tale sound of a whole row of cabbages being sent to hell in one fell swoop. That, it seemed, was her cue to finally stop running. She slowed to a job, then stopped entirely, grabbing her side for dear life where a cramp was creeping into her ribs and adding just a little extra agony to her day. She was panting desperately when she turned around to see who’d managed to take care of her evil little posse of stalkers.

“Hey, thanks,” she called to the saluting snake-boy, still breathing heavily, giving him a one handed wave of appreciation and half of a smirk-like grin. “There are only a few left. Do you wanna-“ she started, still to winded to get her words out very quickly. She panted, catching her breath, and indicated her shovel. “I’ll get half, you get the other half?” she finally managed, finally standing upright, her breathing nearly back to normal. “Kill the little bitches and call it a day? It’ll be quicker,” she said, returning his salute and jogging in the direction of the rogue cabbages on her half of the area, a glint in her eye.

[Serpens Venere]

Serpens felt rather pleased with himself as he caught sight of the single cabbage that one of the twins was carrying. It seemed as if her sister had got bored of taking down that set of plants, and had told her to clean them up. Well, the rate she was going, they'd be there all night. Serpens had passed her with his bundle of freshly hit-with-a-shovel cabbages, which seemed to have inspired her to pick up loads at a time. Good. Serpens loved to inspire people to do stupid things. It really made his day. With that in mind, he had knocked out her twins little stalkers and settled back to watch the show.

Serpens nearly killed her after that shriek, though. He cheered up when she managed to hit herself in the head with a shovel. It looked so fake, like a bad comedy show. Still, it was probably going to be the best thing to come out of this lesson. He laughed out loud and smirked at the girl, who was now standing out of the way, pouting. The other twin, though not as funny, was much more pleasing to the ear. Serpens didn't turn around as she spoke to him. It was generally accepted at Furiae not to talk to the boy who kind of wants to bite you. In fact, this little cabbage demonstration was really getting on his nerves. The snake half of his brain was beating against the inside of his skull, screaming 'Bite them, you idiot!'. The human half was sipping a cup of tea and saying reasonably, 'Don't do that, you'll get your clothes dirty.'

Serpens was so preoccupied with his voices that wouldn't shut up, that he did not really acknowledge the twin he'd saved talking to him. He wondered for a moment if he could be bothered to ask her first name. But he decided against it, becuase he'd never tell them apart anyway. He tuned in long wnough to catch,

“Kill the little bitches and call it a day? It’ll be quicker,”

Serpens span to face, his bitten leg protesting at the movement. "First to finish gets some sort of shit prize," he grinned almost playfully, and began stalking towards his prey. He knew his opponent was moving faster, but he had a feeling that any fast movement would end with him on the ground and various people laughing at him. so he thought he preferred this method. The cabbages, which apparently had some sort of vegetable-sense, realised he was there and began rolling towards him, teeth gnashing. Serpens twirled his shovel pensievely, but when the first cabbage came to him, he sliced the metal implement downwards and cut the vegetable neatly in half. It made a sort of high-pitched keening and shivered, before laying still. Its brethren seemed undeterred by its murder, however, and just kept coming. Serpens cursed, because he felt the situation deserved it, and continued hacking up the little menaces.