J-3 lunged into motion. Explosive energy abruptly coursing through every muscle. A blade had landed at their feet, and was more than enough to snap them into ferocious movement.

They leapt to the side, dodging the barreling shape of the first mole-beast. They flicked their attention, watching as a second, more like a centipede, erupted forth and began to waylay their assoc— Allies.
The first mole beast gave a discordant rumble, as if it had too many throats to growl with. 

Maire, the Blonde one, [The-Queen-Of-Blades] shouted. And J-3 began to [i]MOVE.[/i]
It returned to the earth, and as J-3 sprinted after [The-Queen-Of-Blades] and [The-Scamperer], so too did the Centipede pursue.

J-3 felt an adrenaline pulse, along with a shuddering gasp that left them breathless. [MANA] seeped it’s last way out; burned off in the form of [HAZE] as they used the last of the meager energy they had left.

They had settled into a stride beside Rat, trying to guide him in a straight path as the earth behind them continually erupted and shifted. The centipede was moving not unlike a massive whale; parts of it were exposed through churning earth.

J-3 looked to [The-Queen-Of-Blades]. They blinked once, peering through eyes that rapidly became sightless… Blinked twice. Heard with ears that swiftly became deaf, the sound of one of the beasts leaping forth through the earth. The second, hissing mutated shrieking-wail…

They felt heat, pressure, the sound of Rat screaming for his life… They felt a maw close around their meat-form.

Silence.

Silence for a long moment. 

Then, in the black, as they began to slip into hibernation… [MANA].
And not [MANA] like what came from the plant life that barely counted as sustenance, but like that of a [AWAKENED] origin.

J-3 [color=Red][b][Hungered].[/b][/color]

Tendrils of ink exploded in all directions, deep in the gullet of the beast. Soft tissue and muscle subsumed in less-than-seconds. A root system of ink spread through the flesh, subsuming and consuming and amalgamating everything as it spread towards the hard wall of a carapace.



Rat screamed anew, scrambling faster as the centipede-like beast surfaced, choking and gagging violently.
It twitched, once, twice, then toppled. Convulsing as if electrocuted. 
The first mole-monster kept its pursuit, ignoring the falling corpse. The corpse that continued to twitch for seconds more… Then, as the earth around it began to churn anew with the arrivals of more monsters, the carapace shuddered.
Something under the surface of the chitinous plating moved. Pushed once.

Then, with a spray of pitch ichor, a winged shape exploded into the air. 

Maire found herself swiftly joined by what appeared to be a wyvern-like creation. Six leathery wings beat against the air, a vipers head sat on a neck over six feet in length. Muscle and sinew flexed underneath an armor coating of scales and snapping turtle-like shell.  A torso that was as broad and thickly muscled as a bull pumped air like a bellows. Four legs were tucked against the torso, ending not in feet, claws, or paws, but in protrusions in the shape of spikes.

A tail trailed behind, thick as the neck, and ending in a wickedly sharp sickle-claw.

J-3 screamed their arrival, and fell upon the beast that harried Rat. They intended to savage it while on the move if they could.