Since leaving and spending a few days in the woods was out of the question right now, Laura did what she usually did when she was having trouble dealing with her emotions. She spent time at the zoo. She didn’t care if she was supposed to be in school or not; she wouldn’t have been able to concentrate long enough to learn anything anyway or would have struck out at her teachers or classmates in anger. Rage had been building up inside of the X-23, and she wanted and needed to find some way to release it before it all became too much. She wanted to find a COS agent and rip them into pieces. So many pieces until all that was left was shreds.
She considered using the Danger Room for a simulation, but being around the base wasn’t a good idea. She knew she’d only be in the way while the others were training or preparing, so here she was at the zoo again. As usual, she’d ended up watching the lions do their liony things. They were a little lazy today, and she was almost jealous. To not realize what was going on outside the zoo walls but to instead yawn, stretch, and sleep in the sun. Laura often wondered if she was part big cat, but watching them here and now, she knew that she would probably never been that relaxed. While she’d gotten much better, she was still too keyed up most days to enjoy sunning like Augustus did on his big rock.
Watching him from above was getting a little boring, but just as she was thinking of finding another exhibit, Laura frowned when she saw the lions sit up and perk their ears. First Augustus and then some of the other lionesses. Standing herself, Laura looked around to see the birds start to scatter and many of the other animals grow quiet. Her claws slowly slid out from her hands, and she was immediately on edge and in a fighting stance.
Seconds later, the first attack sounded. If this had been any other day, she may have not realized what was happening, but after the attacks on the city over the last week, Laura knew exactly what this was. She didn’t know how to get word to others but got her phone out and quickly sent an open message to all of Atlantis. She didn’t bother checking to see who would respond but sprung into action and yelled at a group of people passing by.
“¡Ellos estan viniendo! ¡Largate! ¡Largate!”
She reverted automatically to her native language, but her tone and movements said all that was needed. Next, she was in the lion enclosure and started working to move the animals to safety. “¡Muévete! ¡Augusto, muévete!” The animals were all important to her too, and she had to stay back to make sure they would be okay and protect them if necessary.
Behind her, she could hear more attacks across the zoo and getting closer. The others had to arrive quickly.
It’d been a long nearly two weeks. Alicia had thought about trying to get Laura to go to Mako, but she knew if it had been her she’d want to stay and Alicia knew Laura was strong enough and more than capable to help out.
The zoo was supposed to be safe, when she saw Laura’s message she didn’t even bother waiting to see if anyone was going to be tapped to go or not, she raced out of the house where she was taking a moment of peace, as she rushed past people she apparated to the zoo and figured Laura would be near the lions. She’d landed in the middle, narrowly dodging a blast from a COS agent, shooting a stream of fire back at the agent, she ducked and found Laura exactly where she thought she would.
“Are you okay?” Was the first question out of her mouth, she looked okay, but that didn’t mean she was. “Where did you hear attacks first? Is Augustus okay?”
Laura wasn’t too surprised that Alicia showed up as quickly as she did, but a part of the girl wished that she hadn’t. Alicia, like the majority of the people in Atlantis, were breakable. She wasn’t like her or Logan who could heal away no matter what hit them.
She nodded. Even with her healing, she hadn’t been hit by any of the attacks yet but had mostly concentrated on helping free the animals or get them to safety. She wanted to slice and kill every single one of the agents that dared to attack the zoo. The animals weren’t doing anything to anybody.
“Back there,” Laura said, pointing over towards the aquatic exhibits. “He’s okay, but we have to get the others out too.” Laura could scream, yell, and in some cases carry animals to safety, but Alicia could help with her magic. Open barriers or even float them away. Maybe she was glad to have her show up after all.
It didn’t matter that Laura could heal from pretty much anything out there, Alicia was still worried, especially not knowing what else COS might have that could hurt Laura, or any of them really.
A lot of Alicia wanted to go right for the fight but she knew getting the animals out was a priority and that it would be a good thing for Laura to do. Most of them knew her already which made it easier to start with a basic level of knowledge.
“Okay, let’s start here with the lions and move on to the next enclosure.” Alicia left her side to look for any kind of evacuation protocol but when she found it she found that the system had been damaged. “Shit,” she muttered but didn’t let it stop her.
“Do you think you can get them to start on a path, I can create one that’ll be easy to follow and keep them in line,” she hoped it’d work. She also hoped they’d get a few more people to help.
Laura nodded. She had mostly planned to just yell and scream to get the animals to run the other direction, but this sounded like a better idea so that they wouldn’t scatter away instead. “I can break the gate if it needs breaking,” she said and let part of her claws extend from one of her hands. They’d slash through just about anything.
Some of the lions were acting skittish from all the extra noise while others looked prone to attack more quickly. She wasn’t worried if they attacked her since she’d head quickly, but it would be easier if they didn’t.
It wasn’t so much of a line as it was a cluster of lions moving down a path, but at least they were up and moving by the time they got going. Once a few of them started moving, the rest followed suit.
There was so much running through Alicia’s mind as she watched the Lions start to follow the path, she knew they could really use some help but she didn’t have time to look down at her device to indicate where they were.
“Laura, when I count to three duck,” Alicia said quickly. She watched carefully as a COS agent was trying to sneak around the back.
“One, two,” slight pause. “Three.” Alicia aimed her wand and quickly shot of a blasting spell sending the agent flying but she didn’t have time to see if they really were out as she worked to get the path back and running. Her eyes darting quickly to make sure Laura was okay.
Ducking on the count of three, Laura looked back to see the agent flying and narrowed her eyes, half wanting to go after him and make she he didn’t get back up again. A roar from one of the lions brought her back to reality, though, and she was back working to make sure they could get to safety.
The path was made, and once they got up to the gate, she used her claws and sliced through some of the metal with a large enough space that the lions run through and find cover.
“The elephants and giraffes can get through too once we open up the barrier between there and here.”
Alicia had been about ready to do something else but she watched, a little amused watching Laura slice through it. She really needed to get the kid into more training. A lot more training.
That thought moved to the back of her mind as she heard Laura speak about the other larger African animals. Her mind wandered to what they would do once they got the animals out but reminded herself to think one problem at a time.
“Are all the lions out?” She didn’t know all the lions like Laura did and was planning to create a barrier around the area to make it look like there were still animals in there once they were all out.
“They’re out,” Laura confirmed. She’d been able to count them as they ran out. Thankfully, they’d all mostly had run out together in a couple of small groups rather than scattered all across the enclosure.
She started jogging next to Alicia over to the habitat with the larger animals. They were nearly there when an explosion sounded causing her to duck out of instinct. The sound still wasn’t very close by but it was closer than the first one. They had to get the rest of the animals out.
Grabbing Alicia’s hand, Laura pulled her over to one of the hidden doors that would take them inside behind and out of the actual enclosure. “This connects to the other one. It’s a short cut,” she said and didn’t hesitate to jab her claws into the door lock and forcing it to open. “And we can open the gate from in there.”
Almost stumbling as Laua pulled her towards the door she was really glad she had good balance. Following through she was impressed at Laura’s knowledge of the place, she was also wondering where back up was. She knew herself and Laura could do a lot but she knew it’d be better if they had a couple more people.
Nodding, Alicia made note around of her of the best places to lead the animals. She briefly wished Scuba was with them to help herd the animals. A few good herding dogs right now would be a good deal of help.
“After we get these all out, what’s the next enclosement over?” She asked before focusing on building the safe path for the animals just as she had with the lions.
“Monkeys.” Monkeys, chimps, gorillas, and others. They might be a little harder to convince to get out, plus they could hide up in the trees. Laura could climb, but monkeys climbed a lot faster. She didn’t think about that yet though but instead as they reached the other side of the African exhibit, she yelled and ran at two of the giraffes and tried to herd them towards the exit.
Once back over to Alicia, she looked to see how many elephants were around and if any had already started trying to run. Some were running, but they just needed to start going in the right direction.
“Can you get them to run back over here?” She asked Alicia. A distraction, hex, or something to spook them into coming this way.
“Monkeys,” Alicia repeated and blinked, that was going to be fun. She did think they’d be smart enough to know getting out was a good plan.
Her worries changed though as she watched massive animals start to move erratically, running elephants weren’t exactly the safest thing in the world to be around. She heard Laura and nodded setting off a sound to help move them in the right direction.
“Watch out for their feet,” she warned, they were running close together and she could see the fear in some of their eyes.
“We need more hands,” she said as she turned looking around for other people. It was at that moment that she saw Erik and Okoye on a rhino headed towards them. She didn’t know Okoye that well, but when she locked eyes with Erik she gave him a small smirk.
Working to get elephants out of the way was a lot different than the lions. They were bigger, but Laura’s connection to them was a lot different too. Alicia’s spell seemed to be working for the most part, but turning back she saw Erik floating in and Okoye riding on the back of Gugu towards them for back up, and she smiled. Erik could do other kinds of magic to help convince them to get to safety, and Okoye was good with animals too, especially since she had Gugu with her too.
As one of the giraffes started to go off in the wrong direction, she ran forward and spooked it back onto the path while Alicia, Erik, and Okoye joined in too. They’d make sure all of the animals got back to safety, and if there were any agents in sight once they were finished, well, Laura and her claws knew exactly how to deal with them.