My small outburst and the beast part 2

"Victory!" The Great I, announced, perhaps with a slow, appreciative clap that only I could hear. "They actually killed it! The lumbering hippo, the angry pig-boy, the grabby crabs, the surprisingly effective ant, and a lucky shot from the fox-child! A true team effort! I almost feel a flicker of… no, never mind, it was just indigestion. Still, an impressive display of desperate, violent competence! They’ve graduated from 'helpless prey' to 'barely competent survivors who occasionally get lucky'! Progress!"

Then, the adrenaline began to ebb, and the pain asserted itself. Shaky, disbelieving laughs, more hysteria than joy, began to bubble up from a few students. Sarah Lugwid, the Field Mouse, was curled into a tight ball, trembling uncontrollably, while nearby, Jack Sutton, despite the gash on his shoulder, let out a ragged, triumphant roar. Others just stared blankly at the corpse, their minds clearly struggling to process the violence they'd just enacted and endured.

Ms. Linz was the first to break the spell, her voice trembling but firm. "Injured! Anyone seriously hurt? Check on each other!"

A flurry of movement followed. Students rushed to Jack Sutton, whose shoulder gash was still being tended by a pale but determined Rita Causey, her silk now stained dark. Danny North, the Musk Ox, was helped to his feet, his arm raw and bleeding where the creature's barbed tongue had constricted, and his stomach and back bore deep, painful scrapes from the inner jaws. He was shaking violently but alive, thanks to his horns and Coach Roberts' timely intervention.

Timothy Schwartz, the Shrike, was carefully disentangling himself from the upper vines, his wing bent at an unnatural angle, his sharp eyes narrowed in pain. Several other students had cuts, bruises, or were simply overcome by shock and exhaustion.

The "kitchen" area was a disaster, the few foraged supplies scattered and trampled. Their pathetic water-skins had been crushed.

"Oh, the spoils of war!" I chuckled. "A few bumps and bruises, a dislocated wing, some severe psychological trauma… and a giant, dead, probably inedible monster carcass! What will they do with their prize, I wonder? A celebratory barbecue? Or just leave it to rot and attract more interesting scavengers?"

While Ms. Linz, Mr. Decker, and some of the more level-headed students began a crude triage, assessing injuries and trying to offer comfort, another, more pragmatic discussion began amongst some of the others, led by the ever-practical Coach Roberts and a surprisingly focused Mrs. Winifred Weiss.

"That thing," Coach Roberts grunted, nudging the dead monster with his massive hippo-foot, "is meat. A lot of it. We're starving."

"But is it safe?" Mr. Decker questioned, his dolphin-hybrid features etched with concern as he examined the creature's strange, fluid-slicked hide. "We don't know what it is, what it eats, if it's poisonous, or carries diseases. Its biology is entirely unknown."

"Pat? Jack?" Ms. Linz called out. The Bloodhound and Boar, both looking battered, cautiously approached the carcass, sniffing around its perimeter. Pat Duvall shook his head, his long ears drooping. "Smells… wrong. Like nothing I’d ever want to eat. Makes the back of my throat burn just being near it. But hunger’s a powerful persuader, I guess." Jack Sutton just snorted, prodding a limb with a stick. "Tough hide. Might be good for something, even if the meat's bad. Shelter patches? Bindings? Leather armor?"

It was Mrs. Weiss, her Jeweled Wasp, her antenna twitching, who cut through the debate. "We can't stay here," she stated, her voice sharp, brooking no argument. "This battle, no doubt, it'll draw every predator and scavenger for miles. And if the soldiers were close enough to hear that commotion…" She didn't need to finish the sentence. "We take what parts might be useful – hide for shelter or armor, teeth or claws for weapons, if someone can manage it. We find a new shelter, quickly, and we determine if any part of this beast is edible after we're somewhere safer."

Her pragmatic, almost cold assessment, while jarring to some of the more traumatized students like Peter Rabbit, who flinched at her sharp tone, resonated with a grim logic for others. A few of the stronger hybrids, like Carlos Alfonsi, nodded in agreement, their gazes hardening. The victory was fleeting; their danger was constant. The shared terror of the fight had forged a temporary unity, but Mrs. Weiss's decisive, unsentimental approach was already drawing a new line, attracting those who valued brutal efficiency over cautious deliberation.

"And so, the looting begins!" I commented with relish. "Practicality over sentimentality! The first casualty of survival, after innocence, is usually squeamishness. Will they fashion jaunty hats from its eyeballs? Perhaps not today. But watch, Humanity, how quickly the taboo of desecrating a kill fades when your belly is empty and your life is on the line. The resourcefulness of desperate creatures is always so… inventive. And often, so very, very revealing of their true, base natures."

There was no enthusiasm for the task, only necessity. Coach Roberts, George Handcock, and Jack Sutton, their forms already stained with the creature's dark fluid and their own minor wounds, took the lead in the grisly butchering. Using sharpened rocks and George's claws, Shirou's small but surprisingly effective stone, and perhaps even some of the creature's own dismembered claws or teeth, they began the difficult work of trying to skin tougher sections of its hide. The stench was appalling, a mixture of carrion and something alien and acrid that burned the nostrils.

Students with stronger stomachs or more predatory hybrid natures, like Carlos Alfonsi (Grey Wolf) or even Conrad Castillo (Pit Viper, who observed with an analytical interest before offering a surprisingly effective suggestion on how to sever a particularly tough sinew), assisted.

Rex Bouras (Raccoon), his natural scavenging instincts kicking in despite the creature's unnaturalness, pointed out joints or sections that might be easier to separate. Ann King (Honeybee), though pale, used her chemosensory touch to try and determine if any of the exposed flesh had an overtly toxic feel, though she mostly recoiled and had a squimish face full of nausea as nothing on it tasted toxic.

They worked with a desperate haste. The hide was thick and rubbery, difficult to cut. Some of the creature’s smaller, sharper claws or teeth were broken off and distributed as potential makeshift weapons or tools. The question of the meat remained. Pat Duvall had declared it smelled "wrong," and Mr. Decker (Dolphin) still voiced strong concerns about unknown toxins.

"We can't risk eating it until we know more," Mr. Decker insisted. "But we can preserve some, assess it later, we do in fact get to our next campsite. Even if it is not safe for our consumption we might be able to use it as baits for other animals and beast that we know we can eat already, much like chumming the waters when tralling on the seas." A few of the larger muscle groups were hacked off, wrapped in broad leaves, and designated for "quarantine" and later, cautious testing, should their hunger become truly absolute.

"Resourcefulness born of desperation!" I noted. "They're turning the nightmare into potential supplies! Hide for ponchos, claws for shivs, meat for… well, for a very brave or very foolish future meal. It's almost like they're learning! Don't worry, Humanity, I'm sure they'll find a way to poison themselves with it later. Adds to the drama!"

While the butchering continued, its grim sounds and smells filling their ruined camp, Ms. Linz organized another, equally urgent task. "Mrs. Weiss is right. We need a new shelter, now," she stressed, her voice tight with the effort of projecting calm over her own fear. "This place," she gestured around at the blood-soaked earth and torn vines, "will be a beacon for every scavenger and predator for miles, not to mention the soldiers if they heard that fight."

She turned first to the assembled avian and flying insect hybrids – Fiona Greene, Timothy Schwartz, Jessie Viano, Joe Kerwick, and even Nathan Rudolph, who was still struggling with controlled flight but could manage short, if erratic, hops. "Flyers," she commanded, "I need you in the air. Low, careful, spread out to the east. Look for any kind of defensible cover – caves, deep ravines, anything that can hide over a hundred people and mask our scent. Report back immediately if you find something promising. Avoid any contact, avoid being seen." Their earlier confidence was gone, replaced by a skittish, wary alertness, but they nodded and, one by one, launched themselves into the air, disappearing quickly into the dense canopy.

The rest of the group frantically gathered their few remaining possessions, tended to the injured as best they could with torn cloth and bundled threads of silk. The mood was grim, the earlier adrenaline of the fight replaced by the sickening smell of the butchered monster.

The wait for the scouts' return was agonizing. Every snap of a twig from the surrounding forest made them jump. After what felt like an eternity, Fiona Greene returned first, landing breathlessly. "There's a series of rockfalls and jumbled boulders about twenty minutes east," she reported. "Might be caves or deep overhangs among them. It's hard to tell from above with the tree cover, but it looks… hidden."

Shortly after, other flyers returned with similar, if less specific, reports of broken, rocky terrain in that same direction.

"Okay," Ms. Linz said, turning to Pat Duvall and Jack Sutton, who were both exhausted and bloodied but alert. "You heard them. Head east towards those rockfalls. Find us a viable path, and assess the immediate safety of any potential shelters you find there. We need a specific location before we move everyone."

The two trackers nodded and slipped away into the forest once more, their task now to find a navigable route to the area the flyers had identified, a hiding place good enough to mask the scent of their recent battle and their own terrified passage.

The wait for their return was even more agonizing. Finally, Pat and Jack reappeared, their expressions unreadable. "Found something," Pat grunted, his voice rough with fatigue. "Fiona was right. Small network of shallow caves, looks more like deep rock overhangs, about twenty minutes east, like she said. Hidden by a rockfall. Not ideal, not deep, but better than this destroyed camp of mud. And it's definitely further from where the soldiers might be looking."

"And further from the soldiers' last known direction," Ms. Linz added, a sliver of relief in her voice. "Alright. We move. Now. Carry what you can of the useful parts of… that," she gestured to the remains of the monster, "and leave the rest. Quickly. And quietly."

The next exodus began, this time burdened by fresh wounds, the grisly spoils of their battle, and the heavy knowledge that their brief, violent victory had only bought them a temporary reprieve, making their current location even more dangerous. They were no longer just fleeing; they were actively trying to erase their presence, a desperate, hunted band plunging deeper into a world that seemed determined to consume them.

Ms. Linz’s final words, "Alright. We move. Now. Carry what you can... and leave the rest. Quickly. And quietly," The brief, almost hysterical relief of having survived the monster attack had evaporated, replaced by the cold, hard reality of their situation: their camp was a blood-soaked, scent-marked beacon, and every passing moment increased the likelihood of attracting something far worse, or the soldiers themselves.

"And so, the caravan of misery prepares to depart once more!" The Great I, announced with a flourish, observing their grim preparations. "Having bravely (and messily) dispatched one local horror, they now flee the consequences of their own violent success! Such is the cycle of survival in these primitive worlds – one step forward, two giant, panicked leaps back into the unknown!"

There was no pretense of order in this packing, only a grim, focused haste. The air thickened further with the metallic tang of the creature's blood and the surprisingly sweet, musky odor of its internal fluids as the strongest students, faces grim and smeared, as they packed the separated parts and material from the beast. A few of its serrated claws and needle-like teeth, broken off during the fight or pried loose, were passed around, their new owners testing their weight as crude, desperate weapons. The most substantial muscle and meat were hastily wrapped in broad, waxy leaves, dripping a dark, unidentifiable liquid, and distributed as ‘quarantined’ rations. George Handcock, Danny North, Arthur Finley, Philip Marks, Sally Sweet, and Phil Sharpe grunted under the weight of these grisly, awkward bundles, their own wounds still throbbing.

The few remaining leaf-and-silk water skins, refilled from the stream before the monster attack, were now even more precious. The tattered remnants of their party clothes, further torn and stained from the fight, offered little comfort or protection. Every student and adult grabbed what little they could personally carry – a sharpened stick, a precious handful of the foraged tubers, their share of the dubious monster meat.

The injured were a primary concern. Timothy Schwartz, the Shrike, his broken wing now crudely splinted by Ms. Linz using branches and silk bindings, leaned heavily on another student, his face tight with suppressed pain. Others with significant cuts or bruises moved with a pained stiffness that made every step an ordeal. Rita Causey, the Bone Collector Caterpillar, felt a deep ache in her spinnerets, having exhausted much of her immediate silk reserves on Jack’s shoulder; she looked pale and drawn, her own protective casing of debris feeling heavier than usual, a stark contrast to the lightness she usually felt when producing her threads.

"Look at them," The Great I said, my voice dripping with amused pity. "Burdened by their wounds, by the grotesque spoils of their hunt, by the sheer, crushing weight of their fear. Each step is an agony, each breath a reminder of their fragility. They are no longer just fleeing; they are actively trying to erase their presence, a desperate, hunted band plunging deeper into a world that seems utterly determined to consume them, one way or another."

Ms. Linz, Coach Roberts, and the other adults moved among them, their voices low and urgent, trying to keep them focused, trying to prevent panic from taking root again.

"Stay together!" Ms. Linz urged, her own face a mask of exhaustion. "We follow Pat and Jack. No one strays from the path they choose."

"Fast as you can, quiet as you can," Coach Roberts said. "The sooner we're out of this… this place… the better."

With final, haunted glances at the ruined campsite, the scene of their terrifying battle and desperate butchery, the group began to move. They slipped out of the blood-soaked clearing, the stench of the kill clinging to them like a shroud. The first few steps into the undisturbed forest felt like plunging into an ambush; a dislodged stone sent a cascade of pebbles rattling down a small incline, freezing everyone in place, their hearts hammering, expecting the sound to bring soldiers or worse.

Only when Pat Duvall gave a low, reassuring grunt did they resume their cautious advance eastward towards the rockfalls and shallow caves the scouts had identified. The journey was slow, hampered by injuries, the awkwardness of their burdens, and the constant need for stealth. The forest pressed in, a suffocating green labyrinth. For those with enhanced hearing, every rustle of unseen creatures in the undergrowth, every distant bird call, was magnified into a potential threat. For those with sharper vision, shadows beneath the dense canopy seemed deeper, more menacing, concealing unimaginable horrors. The scent of the monster meat they carried, despite being wrapped, was a cloying, constant reminder of their kill, and, they feared, a potential lure for other predators.

The next exodus had begun. The illusion of potential rescue had been thoroughly butchered alongside the monster, replaced by the stark, brutal knowledge of their isolation and the unwavering lethality of their enemies. They were truly on their own now, a tiny, flickering spark of defiance in an overwhelmingly hostile darkness – a spark I, for one, was eager to see extinguished in the most entertaining way possible.

The journey eastward, after fleeing the blood-soaked site of their monster battle, was a blur of stumbling exhaustion and raw-nerved terror. Every snap of a twig sounded like a soldier's tread, every shadow seemed to conceal a lurking predator. The weight of their grisly burdens – the monster hide and meat – and the pain of their injuries made each step an agony. Finally, after what felt like an eternity but was likely only twenty to thirty minutes of desperate, crashing progress, Pat Duvall and Jack Sutton, leading the way, signaled a halt.

They had reached it: a jumble of massive, moss-covered boulders and fallen rock slabs, creating a series of shallow caves and deep, shadowy overhangs at the base of a steep, wooded incline. It wasn't a true cave system, not like the one they'd dreamed of, but a chaotic network of natural shelters, hidden from casual view by a dense screen of ancient trees and tangled undergrowth.

"Behold! Their new palace!" The Great I, announced with a flourish of sarcastic grandeur. "From a thorny ditch to a dripping, bat-dung-scented hole in the ground! Such upward mobility! Will this moldering crevice offer true sanctuary? Or merely a slightly more scenic, echoey tomb for their eventual demise? The suspense is, as always, a delightful seasoning to their suffering."

Ms. Linz, Coach Roberts, and the other adults quickly began to direct the students into the largest and most defensible of the overhangs. It was a cramped, oppressive darkness, the air thick with the smell of damp earth, cold stone, and an unfamiliar, gamey musk that made their stomachs churn. Water dripped steadily from unseen cracks above, each drop echoing in the sudden, heavy silence, a counterpoint to their ragged breathing. But it was a cover. "Get everyone inside, quickly!" Ms. Linz urged, her voice a ragged whisper. "George, Danny, Jack – secure the main entrances as best you can. Block them partially with smaller rocks if you have the strength left. Bird-scouts, find high perches, watch our perimeter. Pat, can you tell if anything… else… lives in here?"

Pat Duvall, his bloodhound nose twitching, sniffed cautiously around the dark recesses of the largest overhang. "Old scents," he reported, his voice low. "Small animals, mostly. Nothing big, nothing recent. Smells… deserted. For now."

The students and remaining adults stumbled into the dark, dropping their burdens, collapsing against the cold stone walls. The relief of being out of the open forest, of having solid rock around them, was immense, but it was a relief tinged with deep apprehension. This place felt old, forgotten, and not entirely welcoming.

Sarah Lugwid, her mouse-like nose twitching, pressed herself against a damp wall, her eyes wide as she tried to pierce the gloom. "It... it smells like old bones in here," she whispered, her voice barely audible, causing a fresh wave of shivers to run through those nearby.

The first priority was the injured. Timothy Schwartz, the Shrike, was gently helped to a relatively flat spot, his broken wing cradled carefully. Rita Causey, her own silk production still depleted, examined Jack Sutton’s hastily bandaged shoulder with concern. Danny North, his arm and his stomach still raw opened from the monster's tongue and outer jaws, gritted his teeth against the pain. Others nursed cuts, sprains, and the deep exhaustion that was a wound in itself.

"Tending the wounded!" I observed. "Such touching, futile gestures! A strip of dirty cloth here, a comforting lie there. It won't stop the infections, of course. Or the soldiers. Or the next delightful monstrosity this world decides to throw at them. But it makes for good character moments, doesn't it, Humanity?"

Once the most pressing injuries were attended to, a grim inventory of their remaining resources was taken. The monster meat, wrapped in leaves, was piled in a deeper recess of the largest overhang they now occupied, its strange, musky scent already beginning to permeate the damp air of their cramped stone shelter. Rex Bouras, the Raccoon-hybrid, eyed the leaf-wrapped bundles with a professional curiosity that warred with visible apprehension, his nose twitching. "Well," he muttered to Ann King, "at least it's not wiggling anymore." Their water skins were nearly empty again after the arduous trek. The few foraged tubers and berries looked even more pathetic in this new, dim light.

"We'll need to find water again, soon," Mr. Decker, the Dolphin, stated, his own skin looking dangerously dry. "And this meat… we need to decide if we're going to risk cooking it, and how. The smoke will be a problem."

The mood was grim. They had found shelter, yes. But it was a dark, damp, and potentially dangerous shelter. They had food, of a sort, but it was questionable and would require a risky fire. And the soldiers, they knew, were still out there, hunting them. The brief, violent victory against the forest monster had bought them time, but it had solved none of their fundamental problems. They were still trapped, still hunted, still teetering on the brink.

As the last of the weak daylight faded from the narrow entrance of their rocky overhang, a deeper, more oppressive gloom settled within their new shelter. The air was cold, damp, and heavy with the musky scent of the monster meat piled in a designated corner, a constant, unsettling reminder of their brutal victory and their desperate, gnawing hunger. Water, carefully rationed from the nearby stream they'd found, was a temporary comfort, but the lack of substantial food was an immediate, aching concern that dominated every thought.

"Night falls once more on our intrepid band of… survivors?" The Great I, mused, observing their miserable attempts to settle in from my far more comfortable dimension. "They've traded a thorny ditch for a damp rock crevice. Such progress! The ambiance here is decidedly 'early tomb,' wouldn't you say, Humanity? Cold, dark, and smelling faintly of despair, desperation, and questionable butchery. Home sweet home!"

The discussion Mr. Decker had started earlier about the monster meat and the risks of consuming it resumed with a desperate urgency, fueled by the cramping emptiness in their stomachs.

"We have to eat something substantial," Jack Sutton, the Boar, stated bluntly, his voice a low growl, his small, fierce eyes fixed on the leaf-wrapped bundles of flesh. "Those few berries and roots we found won't keep over a hundred of us going for long. And the fish in that stream out there? Barely minnows, as Pat said. Not worth the energy to catch for a mouthful. I haven't even smelled or seen any of those horned rabbits or weird ground spiders in this immediate area since the fight."

"I understand the hunger, Jack, believe me, we all do," Mr. Decker, the Dolphin teacher, countered, his scientific mind battling his own body's primal needs. His dolphin-smooth skin looked dull in the dim light from a few hoarded, faintly glowing crystals. "But this creature... its biology is completely alien. Even if it's not strictly poisonous in the way some Earth reptiles or amphibians are, which are still edible if prepared correctly, there could be parasites we can't see, unknown bacteria our bodies have no defense against, or complex proteins and compounds that our digestive systems simply can't process. We have no idea what it ate, or what might be living in it."

"So, what? We just let it rot while we starve, we have already eaten animal meat before, the horned rabbit, those monster boars, some spiders, and those beetle larvae?" Mrs. Winifred Weiss, the Jeweled Wasp, interjected, her voice sharp and impatient, her eyes glinting. Her antennae twitched. "We have a potential mountain of food here. Pat said it didn't scream 'instant death' by scent alone, just 'unappetizingly'. Ann?" She turned to Ann King, the Honeybee hybrid, who was nervously fiddling with one of her feathery antennae. "You have those... tasting hands, you said. Can you tell us anything more direct about the raw flesh? Before we risk a fire?"

Ann King, looking pale but resolute in the dim, crystal-lit gloom, approached one of the smaller, cleaner-looking pieces of monster meat that had been set aside. With a visible swallow, she gently, hesitantly, touched a freshly cut surface with her fingertip, her antennae quivering, her expression intensely focused. The others watched in silence. After a moment, she shook her head slightly. "It doesn't… taste like immediate poison on the surface," she reported, her voice a little shaky. "It's… strange. Very ironic, a bit like organ meat, but with an odd, sharp aftertaste I can't quite place. Nothing that screams 'danger' like those bitter leaves Pat warned us about, but… it’s not pleasant raw. And I can't tell what's inside it just by touching."

"So, not instantly lethal, and no obvious surface toxins," Mrs. Weiss pressed, a grim satisfaction in her tone. "Good. That's a start. We cook it. Thoroughly. Then, we test it properly, in small, controlled batches. It's a risk, yes, but it's a calculated one against certain starvation while those soldiers are out there, and while this forest offers us nothing but scraps." Her gaze challenged Mr. Decker and Ms. Linz.

A tense, uneasy agreement was reached. The potential reward – a substantial meal for everyone – outweighed the unknown risks for the desperate majority. A tiny, almost smokeless fire was painstakingly built deep within one of the overhangs, using the driest twigs they could find. Several students found a large, flat slab of rock near the stream, washed it thoroughly, and with considerable effort, propped it over the carefully prepared fire pit like a makeshift skillet.

The cooking club members, led by a grim-faced Rex Bouras (Raccoon) and a still-pale Ann King (Honeybee), approached the task with a mixture of dread and focus, their earlier enthusiasm for culinary experimentation gone. Thin slices of the strange, pale monster meat were laid upon the heating rock. The smell of it sizzling was strange, intensely gamey, and deeply unsettling to many, yet it also made their empty stomachs clench with a primal, undeniable hunger.

"The grand culinary experiment!" I commented with relish, leaning forward as if to get a better sniff. "Will it be a life-saving feast of exotic 'gator-like' protein? Or a prelude to mass food poisoning and agonizing death by alien parasite? Such delightful stakes! And look at them, huddled around their pathetic little fire, their monstrous new faces illuminated by the flickering light, like some primitive tribe contemplating a forbidden idol, hoping it doesn't demand their entrails in return for its bounty. The hunger is clearly overriding their caution. Predictable, but always effective."

While the meat cooked, the psychological toll of their situation continued to mount. The new shelter, while offering more rock cover than the thicket, felt exposed in its own way. The sounds of the night forest were closer here, less muffled by thorns. Every snap of a twig, every distant cry, sent fresh waves of anxiety through the group.

Conrad Castillo, the Pit Viper, sat apart, his lean, scaled form almost invisible in a shadowed alcove. He watched the nervous huddle around the fire, the way some students flinched at every forest sound, the hushed, fearful whispers. His slitted eyes, gleaming faintly, missed nothing. He noted who seemed to be cracking under the pressure, who was showing unexpected resilience, and especially who was challenging the established, and in his view, increasingly ineffective, leadership. His own hunger persisted, a cold, patient ache, but his interest in the group's crumbling dynamics was sharp and analytical. He saw their fear not as a shared burden, but as further proof of their inherent weakness, a stark contrast to his own mind since the beginning.

He saw Peter, the Rabbit-hybrid, jump and let out a small whimper as a rock dislodged from the overhang above, clattering nearby. Conrad let out a soft, dry hiss, a sigh of contempt. A student huddled near him, one of the less remarkable insectoid transformations with large, skittish eyes, flinched at Conrad's sound.

"Pathetic, isn't it?" Conrad murmured, his voice a low, sibilant whisper that barely carried, not looking directly at the insectoid student but knowing he was being heard. "This constant... cowering. Some embrace the change and find strength in it. Others merely find new ways to be afraid." He paused, then added, his voice dropping further, "One wonders if this 'group' is a strength, or merely a collection of liabilities slowing down those who are truly... adapting." He let the words hang, a subtle test, a quiet invitation for a like-minded response, before turning his gaze back to the fire, his expression unreadable.

Kent Adler, the Green Crab, his earlier fear now thoroughly supplanted by a sullen resentment and the sharp aggression of an empty belly, tried to shove a smaller, weeping Porcupine-hybrid student out of a relatively dry spot against the cave wall. "Move it, quill-butt!" Kent rasped, his claws clicking menacingly. "Some of us need space. This is my spot." The porcupine-girl just curled tighter, quills rattling softly. "I said MOVE!" Kent snapped, raising a claw.

Before he could bring it down, George Handcock's massive, furred arm shot out, grabbing Kent's carapace. "Adler," George growled, his voice a low rumble of warning, "find another spot. Or I'll make one for you, outside. With the bugs." Kent twisted, trying to pull free, his stalked eyes glaring.

"She was in my way! This whole cave stinks, and I'm not sleeping in a puddle!"

"Then find a dry rock like everyone else who isn't actively trying to start trouble," George said, his grip tightening slightly. "Now. Back off."

Kent let out a frustrated hiss, but the sheer bulk and quiet menace of the Bear-hybrid was too much. He scuttled away, muttering about "pushy furballs" and "stupid spike-rats."

The night wore on, a long stretch of fear, hunger, and the unsettling aroma of strange meat cooking on the hot rock slab, treating it like a skillet. Finally, the first, tiny, cautiously tasted morsels of the thoroughly cooked monster flesh were distributed to a few volunteers – Coach Roberts, his hippo was robust; Jack Sutton, who’d already tasted its blood in his mouth during the fight; and Philip Marks and Sally Sweet, the Ant-hybrids, whose strong taste sense might detect immediate harm.

The rest of the group watched them with a mixture of desperate hope and morbid apprehension, every eye fixed on the volunteers as they chewed slowly, their expressions unreadable in the firelight. Seconds stretched into an eternity. Would they collapse? Writhe in agony? Or declare it safe? The fate of their immediate survival hung on this grim taste test.

Then, Coach Roberts grunted, a sound of surprise. "Huh. Not bad." Jack Sutton nodded, already reaching for another piece. Sally Sweet, after a moment of careful chewing, her ant-antennae twitching, looked up. "It's… it's actually okay!" she exclaimed, her voice filled with disbelief and relief. "A bit tough, but… it tastes like a mix of alligator and chicken! Grilled on this rock, it's… it's good!"

A wave of incredulous, then joyous, then almost hysterical relief swept through the cavern. It was edible! They wouldn't starve tonight! The tension that had gripped them for days seemed to snap.

Someone let out a whoop, which was quickly stifled. Others started laughing, tears streaming down their transformed faces. A few of the more energetic students, their hunger momentarily forgotten in the euphoria, actually started a clumsy, impromptu dance around the fire, their strange new limbs moving with a wild, uncoordinated joy.

Even the usually reserved Mr. Decker managed a wide, dolphin-like grin. They had faced a monster and not only survived but were about to feast on their kill. For this one night, in this dark, damp cave, they had a reason to celebrate.