Blood On The Water

[Nereus]

    The Pridelands was peaceful, for once. It had been since the Freedom Fighters sadly fell apart and fled the pridelands with whatever members were left, and the Blackblood Legion soon took over. It was a dictatorial rule, but a peaceful rule nonetheless. At least, until something took up residence in the watering hole over night. Whatever it was, it had no care for the laws, or at least knew nothing of them, which Nereus had no idea of.

    She only watched in the shadows at first, watching and waiting for the perfect meal to arrive via one of the strange creatures that seemed to live in this rather hot and barrenish sort of land. Then, the perfect targets arrived. It was several young animals, and old ones, and creatures that looked sick or either limped. The perfect targets for consumption without too much risk of getting injured. She carefully swam closer and waited for the perfect moment to strike. Watching, waiting...

    Then she took her chance, and grabbed the head of one of the gazelles. It was the life of an elderly gazelle that lost his life, and the herds panicked and scattered away from the watering hole in alarm while Nereus struggled with her victim. The Gazelle fought but old age and blood loss worked against him and while he grazed the mer creature's side with a horn, he soon was no more and Nereus was triumphed. 

    Blood mixed with the water and stained it a sickly red as Nereus began to tear into her prized meal and the first one in a while. Her side stung greatly as her blood mixed with her now dead prey, but she wasn't too worried. She'd heal from it, and she had had way worse. It would also probably make for a cool scar! Either way, she was content as she tore a piece of flesh away from the gazelle's body and ate it. A good day to be her. 

[Lightning]

The Pridelands, huh. So this is where the Freedom Fighters were before. Well, no wonder they went down so easily. This place was so rural, so isolated, and so hot, the corgi couldn't imagine staying here for an extended period of time.

Lightning unceremoniously plodded along through the savanna, disgruntled that he was here at all. Of course he'd immediately get put into doing the grunt work. They needed animals out to scout for prey, and sent them out into the Pridelands to hunt. Now, Lightning was definitely not a hunting dog... but he was a herding breed. He supposed he could at least try and herd some of the prey animals so the bigger predators could take them down. Only problem was, he had lost his party pretty quickly.

So now what was he supposed to do? Just hunt by himself?

Evidently.

He could smell a body of water close by, and realized that he could try and hunt for fish. That shouldn't be too hard, even for his big-boned, short-legged self. Paws scraped over dirt and patchy grass as he made his way to the watering hole, panting heavily. He was so unaccustomed to the African heat, and he needed to drink. Without really thinking, he dipped his head to the surface of the water and began lapping it up greedily. It was a few seconds before he realized there was something a bit... weird about this water. It tasted sharp. Metallic.

In his moment of pause, he looked over the water, and could see swaths of bright red blood floating in the water. Big ears pulled back in worry. Something was already here.

[Nereus]

    Nereus stopped her chomping on the dead gazelle's leg to look up due to hearing something panting heavily. It took her eyes a second to adjust because of the tense overworld sun but she spotted a stout but square like shape in the distance of where she was eating. Whatever it was, it sent her on edge in an instant. It was probably a smaller predator come to steal a piece or all of her prized meal from her and she wasn't about to let that happen when she still had the strength.

    Nereus hissed loudly and flared the fins on her head out as a warning, before she crawled over the dead gazelle and swam towards Lil' Lightning. She stared at the corgi with slitted eyes, before she spoke towards him.

    "Back off if you want to leave with all of your legs, scavenger!" She hissed towards him, and made a point to show off her many, sharp teeth. "That dead creature is mine, so back off before we both get hurt." She said nothing of her injury, since it could have been used against her.