The Forgotten Zodiac

"Nope. They should be... yes, time's started again," Lyre nodded, looking down at Cancer as he unfroze.

Kazue and the others, of course, had no idea of what had just transpired. Rin went back to hiding behind Ophile, and Igneous to flinging his daggar at the snakes.

Cancer woke up and immediately pulled at the ropes, slowly realizing what had happen. Sadly for him, Libra was good at tying knots; and, before Cancer could yell, the other Zodiac had a piece of rope between his teeth.

No one seemed to notice Cancer's disappearance, and few of them noticed that time had been frozen at all. Serpens was much too focused on Leo to care. "Brat," He hissed angrily, recoiling away from the kick. "You're the only reason I haven't tried this before!" He spat in rage. His eyes fell on Cyan; he lunged towards the weaker Zodiac, fangs bared.

"Living Illusion!" Quint's voice came swiftly, his hand gripping Quinn's hand tightly. A huge white shield appeared in front of Cyan. Serpens smashed into it nose-first, not expecting the defensive move. He roared, rearing back and smashing into the shield again, apparently attempting to break it.

Cyan flinched and covered his head with his arms when the snake lunged at him, then slowly glanced around when nothing hurt him. He quickly glanced up at Serpens, then spotted the shield that Quint had cast over him. His black and gold eyes scanned around the shield, then he nodded to himself and cast out his powers onto Serpens, using the safety of the shield to protect himself. Waves of turquoise tendrils appeared in the air and wrapped around Serpens, then flung him powerfully up into the air.

Leo watched in amusement, tilting his head back to watch the snake rise. “Awesome.” he said, grinning.

Kazue tilted his head back and watched Cyan take care of Serpens. "...cool," He said under his breath.

Serpens screeched as he was thrown in the air. He came crashing back to the ground with a painful sounding crack. He hissed and squirmed for a moment before falling still. "I...hate you...so much...first you c-completely forget about me...then you two fr-freaks show up..." He set his eyes on Franz, who was sitting up now, watching with a blank stare. Serpens started squirming again, trying to reach his vessel.

The snakes had stopped when Serpens had fallen. Quint nudged one with a shoe nervously as Ophile padded back towards them, limping slightly. He had been bitten, though he didn't want to admit it.

((I've told you all what the 'demon' is, right? Because Ophile will still be sensing Libra if Demon is near.))

Isabella had managed to avoid any serious damage, though, through what luck, she wasn't sure. The encounter with Libra had left her dazed physically and, to a lesser degree, emotionally. The immortal pulled herself up to her feet slowly, moving toward a place where there were fewer snakes on the ground in case they suddenly lunged forward. "I-I thought you were going to kill us?" She taunted; the girl being completely unable to resist such a jab, even in her weakened state.

Kazue was for some reason suddenly compelled to grab onto the snake. "Hey, leave him alone!" he said as the serpent approached Franz.

Cyan watched them all through his gold and black eyes, then saw Ophile and noticed that the wolf was limping. The Capricorn Zodiac turned to Leo and quickly nudged him, getting his attention. Once he had it, Cyan hurriedly made several gestures and odd sounds at him, continually glancing over at the creature. When he was finished, Leo nodded and said "Sure, but hold on a second. We don't know if it's safe or not."

Cyan consented, but was then restless, shifting from foot to foot and watching Ophile the whole time.

Ophile sat back, licking his wound. He felt a bit woozy...but he gave himself a good shake, looking up as Quinn stood. "Maybe we...we should...do something?" He bit his lip. "Hey, uh...Franz!"

Franz looked up at the sound of his name. Serpens, who was still desperately trying to reach his pet, snarled with rage at Isabella's comment. He ignored Kazue.

Quint guessed what Quinn was doing. "Franz! Come here!" He called. Franz, surprisingly, stood and walked over to them silently. He looked a little confused, but Serpens hadn't given him any orders, so he didn't know who he should be going towards. He just knew that he had been called.

Serpens gave up after that, resigned to just lie there without any hope of reaching Franz now. He had underestimated the Zodiacs, once again. With his back broken like this, it was all he could do anymore but to lie there and moan. Which, he did. No point in doing much else, since he was about to be killed by the lot of them.

Leo watched, a bit entertained by everything that was going on.

Cyan left his side and carefully walked towards Ophile, deeming the wolf safe to be around. He was ignoring almost everything else around him, as if the wolf was the only thing on his mind at the moment. He carefully bent down next to the wolf and chirped something at him, gesturing at the animal's leg. He made a motion of the wolf giving him his leg, sounding almost like a bird with the noises he was making.

Kazue kept his hold on Serpens, making sure the snake couldn't escape or harm any of the others. Rin went over to Ophile. She smiled at Cyan. "Haven't seen you for a while," she greeted.

Cyan blinked slight and shied away from Rin a bit, almost a little distrustfully. He remained close to Ophile, however. He clearly wanted to help the wolf, but his fear of the other Zodiacs was a bit odd.

Leo came over and patted him on the head, then said "Good to see you, Rin!"

The demon stepped over to Kazue and cocked his head, then spoke in a quiet and slightly hoarse voice. "Do you want that killed?" He asked, that clearly meaning Serpens. "I can dispose of it if you don't feel like killing it."

Tyler stood up and ran along behind Rin, then looked over at Quint and Quinn. Unlike everyone else, the five year old noticed that Cancer was gone immediately. He immediately ran over to Quinn and pulled on his shirt, just once to get his attention. "Where's your monster-pet?"

Ophile stared at Cyan, shaking his head. "I don't quite understand." He said, tilting his head to the side. "You...want to see my leg?" He held out his paw to Cyan, though carefully, not wanting it to hurt more. Which, it did hurt, extremely so.

Quinn looked down at Tyler, blinking. He looked around, realizing it rather quickly. "Ophile, do you sense Cancer?"

Ophile turned his head to Quinn. "No. I don't. Most odd...Lyre is gone as well. Libra is still here, but those two..."

Serpens snapped at the demon, annoyed. "And what will you do with Franz, huh? Kill him mercilessly, because you don't care about humans? I care. He was much worse off without me, you know!"

Cyan was completely tuned out of the conversation. Once Ophile held out his leg, Cyan gently took it in his hands and concentrated. The turquoise strands appeared and trailed around the wolf's leg, seeping into the wound. All of the pain went away a few moments later, and the wound followed. It healed slowly, but completely. Once he was done, Cyan pulled back and took cover behind Leo. He really was very shy.

Kazue looked over to the demon, then nodded slightly. "Ah, sure. Get rid of some trouble," he said, moving back slightly. "Off with him, then."

Rin looked around. "Cancer?" she called.

((Bun? No objections to the killings?))

The demon reached out for Serpens, but pulled back when he heard the conversation about Libra. "Wrong. Libra's gone and getting farther away with every second. You're sensing me, mutt."

((None.))

Serpens recoiled, snarling at the demonic-thing. "Puny little brat..." He growled, flicking the end of his tail at the demon in an attempt to ward him off.

Ophile snorted at the mutt comment, but he said nothing of the subject. "Good to know." He turned away unhappily. He looked up at where Cyan was and sighed. "Thank you," He said, dipping his head slightly. "I likely would have died from that if the poison had been allowed to continue through my system. You saved me."

"This is bad," Quinn murmured, picking up his blankets and pulling them around himself again. "Do you think they took him? But...where? And why?"

"It's not good to ask questions," Franz stated flatly. "Serpens will get upset. He doesn't like questions, not at all."

Kazue held Serpens in place for a moment, then glanced up at Franz. "Well, Serpens will be gone in a minute, so we can ask all the questions we feel like," the Zodiac said. He glanced back to the Demon. "Would you get on with it? I hate snakes."

Rin called out suddenly. "Wait, what if killing him will hurt Franz?" she asked. "Isn't that possible? You have to check for these things before you go killing willy-nilly, Kazue!" she said. She looked to Franz for an answer to her question.