Hop Lively

[Coffee]

One silky ear poked out into the air from deep inside the hedge maze. Coffee was listening. Thirty seconds passed and then he heard it. A slight rustling sound. Birds, he thought. East. He wasn't sure how many there would be. Getting that down would take some more work but that was the purpose of this morning's exercises. Liv's animals had shown him weaknesses he didn't know he had the other day and he was going to shore them up. Besides now that Rogue had forbidden him from carrying weapons his paw combat skills were all the more important. She'd said nothing about mirrors though, so he still had a few throwing mirrors in his pockets and was stashing others throughout the mansion and the grounds. But today's exercises were to be mirror free. Big hard, he thought.

At that moment three bird appeared. Two of them dived at the rabbit's head while the third circled around chirping loudly. Squirrels descended from all sides. Somehow Coffee had missed them. He should of heard or smelled them. How, how? he thought confused. But there was no time. He did a backflip over a hedge row to avoid the birds just to find four squirrels sitting there waiting for him. With another powerful leap he escaped all but one of them, which tagged him on his hind quarters. He sighed. No good. More sparrows were dive bombing him now. He quickly batted at one with his paw but missed. Another pecked his head, scoring another point for his adversaries. Such small combatants would never see a fight in Mojo's rings because they were too small to be seen well by the crowds in the stands or tracked easily on camera. As such Coffee was not well prepared for them.

The rabbit hopped quickly through the maze with the birds and squirrels on his tail. Pool, he thought. He'd lead them to the pool. The birds would have to slow down so as not to dive straight into the water and that would make them easier to tag. Squirrels were poor swimmers and so he'd be able to fight one set of enemies at a time. Now he just had to get there.

[Puppy~Love]

Roaming outside she could hear the different sounds of nature as it happened. The twittering of birds and chittering of squirrels drew her attention toward the hedge maze, and as she came closer she heard that it was covering up the patting sound of… Lurai smelled the rabbit. Lunch on legs was most probably either playing with the forest animals or getting attacked by them, from what she could hear from the noises mixing together. A toothy, dangerous grin came on her face as she slowed down her pace, coming into the hedge made stealthily. She listened quietly, crouching as she honed in on the sounds that mattered- FOOD.

As she knew that hedge maze like she knew how to skin an animal, she could hear exactly where the rabbit was; she only needed get there. The noises of the forest animals flying around and jumping everywhere helped cover her own quiet pitter-patter as she moved over the grass, taking the sharp turns with ease and avoiding the dead ends. The noises got louder quickly, and she knew she was close.

Coming around the last bend she knew she had to get by, Lurai saw lunch on legs and, ignoring the other animals around, pounced with her claws out, unable to help growling with glee at the idea of eating dead rabbit for a late second lunch.

[Coffee]

The wolf had done a good job of stalking him. He hadn't caught her scent or heard her foot steps. If she hadn't growled Coffee might have been trapped. You win, win, he conceded to the forest animals in a high pitched squeak as he flipped over backwards over a row of hedges and out of the wolf child's grasp. What do? Fight wolf kit, Scott no like. He swallowed a chuckle and dove into the underbrush since there was no time to slow down. If the child was playing she had picked the worst possible time given the headmaster's admonishment not to train with the children.

On the other hand, if she was trying to kill him than she was putting him in an impossible situation. All his training was in how to kill. He didn't really know how to fight while leaving an enemy alive or at least not severely wounded. That had given him some trouble with Liv and Jax in their training session and if this wolf child was trying to eat him he wasn't going to risk defeat by holding back. Yet somehow he doubted that the X-Men would consider self defense a valid excuse for killing one of their students. He had seen the way she and the other wolf looked at him so he wouldn't take any risks. A more sinister thought also ran through his head. Teachers try kill me. Rogue? Scott? They would be foolish to send a student, but then their soft methods of training their young already showed they were not terribly bright.

House, he thought. No kill in house. Zigging and zagging out of the underbrush Coffee made his way toward the mansion. Get mirror, many mirror, he thought, as he realized he hadn't hidden any on this part of the grounds. They were all back toward the woods. A good spot for them when he was training but too far to outrun the wolf kid.

[Puppy~Love]

She landed on just grass as the dumb rabbit flipped away, having learned of her attack as she couldn’t help letting out that growl. That was something, Lurai realized, she needed to work on to completely nail the idea and act of stealth. It was one thing when she was in the forest hunting normal animals. It was another when hunting the rabbit. The rabbit, she had come to know, had fighting skills and was trained for things like this, so it was essential that she be the picture of quiet prowling and successful hunting if she wanted to have dead rabbit for a late lunch.

Lurai recovered quickly, following around the hedge maze path to where the rabbit had probably landed after flipping away. She dashed forward, practically fishtailing around the turns as she aimed to get to the other side where the rabbit was supposed to be. His scent was slightly choppy from flipping around, but Lurai could pick up the general idea that he was hauling ass back to the mansion.

Changing her direction to head in the same direction and follow the rabbit’s scent trail, she snarled as she ran after him. She snarled again, but stopped halfway, cutting her sound off as she remembered that the rabbit had to be treated differently than normal food. Noiselessness will get this rabbit. Quiet. Must resist the urge to make noise, Lurai reminded herself, the aggressive hunter in her kicking in while she tried to instill the reminder to be quiet in all meanings of the word. Her hands and feet moved soundlessly over the grass, and she was stealthy once again. But, when she reached the opening of the hedge maze, the rabbit was not to be seen. She stopped for a moment, her sharp eyes narrowed and scanning the area while her ears listened hard for the most subtle sound, and her nose determining which way Lunch had went. Rabbit is better than I thought. It will be a savory victory once I kill him.