TAWOG: Instinct

The Slime

The Slime

While it was true that the reason Mayor of Elmore arranged the seminar was to convince the citizens of Elmore to support the notion of capturing the abyssalis cat and capitalizing on it, but in actuality, he had been preparing to do that for some time and had just initiated the seminar as a means to sway his subjects from speaking out against his actions in the future. Now that the abyssalis cat had re-emerged at last this was his opportunity to put Elmore on the map. Paying little heed to occasion tremor and screams of terror, the mayor strolled into his office, sat in his chair and flipped a switch under his desk, the surface of his desk revolving upwards to reveal a TV screen.

It flickered to life and an image appeared. The individual on the screen had the appearance of an anthro hyena. The left side of his face was marred by a long thick scar that cut over his left eye, which was completely pale and limp. He wore a green travelers vest. He looked to be a really shady individual.

“Your honor,” greeted the hyena, his voice a raspy hiss.

“Scavenger,” said the Mayor of Elmore with as much respect as he could for this type of character; which wasn't much. “The time has come. Initiate the plan.”

“Very good, sir,” said Scavenger with a sort of sadistic glee.

—

It was in an abandoned warehouse located somewhere in Elmore that the individual known as Scavenger was currently located, surrounded by other anthro hyenas. He'd been holed up here ever since the mayor requested his services. What would those services be? Scavenger and his cronies were amongst the best poachers in the world, and they specialized in capturing quarries alive to be sold as rare exotic pets. But more was apparently in store for the target they were currently hired to acquire. Looking away from the casual plasma screen TV set up on a wooden crate from which the mayor had been addressing him, Scavenger turned to his fellow poachers.

“Alright amigos, you heard him,” he said, cracking his knuckles. “Time to get to work.”

Out in the big open room of the warehouse, several anthro hyenas pulled on a rope attached to a pulley system which gradually began to lift the lid off of a massive food serving tray the size of a hauling trailer, revealing a massive raw steak as big as a king sized mattress. A huge floor fan as big as a jet turbine was turned on behind it, blowing the pungent smell of raw meat out the open double doors of the warehouse and out into Elmore.

—

Back at City Hall the abyssalis cat had managed to corner a couple of people against the wall of the building and was looking down at them with a hungry expression when he suddenly caught a whiff of something in the air. The scent was overwhelmingly enticing, that of quality meat of a fresh kill. Abandoning the smaller morsels, the abyssalis cat leapt off deeper into Elmore in pursuit of the scent.

He found the source before too long, entering fearlessly into the interior of a large warehouse to find a huge slab of meat and began gorging on it immediately; the massive fan in the back now deactivated, having been turned off when the abyssalis cat had been spotted approaching. Scavenger and the others watched from a catwalk above, several of them moving what appeared to be big cannons into position. Scavenger held his hand up to signal them to get ready, then he thrust it downward, signaling to open fire. His henchmen all shot their cannons at the abyssalis cat, but rather than cannon balls they shot what appeared to be massive water balloons full of some kind of blue substance.

The water balloons impacted the abyssalis cat in the back and sides, bursting open in a cascade of a gelatinous blue liquid that flowed down his body in torrents. The abyssalis cat immediately ceased eating as the fluid flowed down his body, letting out a fierce roar-cry of frustration and surprise. He tried to shake the offending substance off, but now matter how hard he tried it wouldn't come off, sticking to his fur like glue. And to make matters worse, he soon discovered that he could lift his paws, which were now cemented to the ground by the slime, which was now hardening.