"Hi, I'm Nakida, You're Lira right? The scientists come and talk to you occasionally" they said as casually as possible. Lira couldn't know , Nakida had been listening to the scientists outside bustle in on their right and on theirn left. Nakida looked around with their one good eye and listened as well. The water was a cool refresh8ng temperature, not to warm,not too warm. Much better than the measly small fish pond that Nakida had become accustomed with as a foot and fin dip , it fst too small to fit a whole human or human with fins in. They touched their milky white eye and thought hard and believed it to be their right eye. Whiskt they were floating around ,awaiting for Lira to speak. Nakida observed Lira's appearance for the first time . Lira had a beautiful face with long brown hair, nearly and maybe the same shade as her dark brown eyes.Lira was perhaps a little smaller than Nakida but they couldn't tell as they weren't on the sandy islands that littered this ocean.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nakida observed and their curious instinct told themselves to go explore wherever the path may take the beta fish hybrid. She could see ocean Overo where she looked with the exception of the limos of sand that could be classified as an inhabited sandy island. The smells,sights,feels and sounds just hushed into one huge but slightly overwhelming symphony of. Of .....Serentity? Peace? Those two words had long disappeared, Nakida hadn't felt the feelings for a long time, longer than a year, longer than their stay at the lab. Nakida couldn't say what the feeling was called but d(e knew she felt safer especially with the girl she thought was called Lira.

Flynn nodded , as quickly as he could he changed Enzo, the jaguar-boy's colored dot to bright green and Qua, the macaw to bright red. " Done, Easier to track might change everyone's to not look like the plain white dots, then it would be easier to track ether chil- test subjects" He spoke calmly to Indra, she was chewing her pen like she always did. For concentration maybe. Flynn did not know, he had grow up with sisters although he could clearly tell Indra was different from them, more shy and reserved and more kind. Flynn blinked as he was starting to drift off to sleep, his watch bleeped at him to get moving and because he was opened all the profiles and reading them he needed to cincentrste. He took off the watch and with some force slammed it down onto the hood he had worn. He moved his shoulders and looked over to Indra and then went back , having and ear open for Indra's voice .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flynn moved slightly bashing his head on a shelf that happened to be the same tall height as him. He was around 6 foot and weighed a lot plus he was very muscular thanks to the years of working out and looking handsome and looking not like a weak nerdy geeky failure. He sighed and pushed the shelf roughly back into it's slot. It made a satisfying "click" and he couldn't resist the urge to shiver in delight and satisfaction. He read all of the changes that had gone on, Qua had changed dramatically into a nearly complete form of a red macaw. Fascinating, to say the least Flynn pondered. Many test subjects had developed some animal characteristics such as fins, some had their skin turn into fur like the Jaguar-boy and some , some like the macaw -boy had nearly turned imto a red macaw. This could change everything he thought. He typed away happily changing the colors of the dots.

Azelea | she/they | Experiment | Eurasian Lynx | mentions: scientists (indirectly)

Azelea yawned, stretching. She didn't know how long she had been out. Her torso hurt, and she felt weak, but was decently fine. She got up from where she laid, and wandered off, not knowing where she was right then. She walked on all four limbs, her tail dragging limply. She pounced onto a rock but stumbled, and fell down awkwardly.

She shook herself, annoyed. What's wrong with me? she wondered, nervous and tired. Her head hurt, and she knew if there was something worse than the horned creature, she was dead.

She climbed what was to others a pile of boulders, but to her a staircase with enough leaping, then loked curiously at a rocky protrusion on a cliff-face. She stared at it, tilting her head, not realizing it was a security camera designed to watch the experiments.

She stumbled again, before laying on the rocks. A monitor in her scruff beeped, distracting her.

What the fluff was that? she wondered, before shaking her head and laying down. She was too tired to continue. Why do I have so low energy? she asked herself, closing her eyes. The world dimmed, and she felt herself passing out.

As she fell asleep, the monitor in her scruff beeped, sending a signal to the scientists, unknown to Azelea. The creature, which had turned out to be a goat, had wounded her, and created a slight 'hiccup' in her. The monitor was to signal that she had to be removed for examination and possibly medical care, though it is uncertain. What is certain is that she was unable to fight as well as she had been designed to, and was unlikely to survive much longer without help. It turns out that the scientists keeping her locked up had dulled her abilities to the point of not being able to properly defend herself, and the scientists would lose a valuble test subject without them finding a solution.

Lira | she/her | Experiment | Harbor Seal | M: Nakida, Flynn + Indra (ind)

So, it's name was Nakida. Nakida seemed nice enough, and was from the same place as Lira, apparently.
"Yeah, I'm Lira." Lira rose up and floated on her back, giving her legs a break for a minute. "The scientists would come to my room sometimes and teach me things. I like Flynn, but Indra can be mean. Your fins are purple, right? That's one of the things they taught me. They say I have dueteranopia, some sort of color blindness." Lira wrinkled her nose at having to try to correctly pronounce dueteranopia.
Lira couldn't explain it, but she didn't feel at all threatened by Nakida. Usually, Lira was shy around others, but not next to Nakida. Maybe it was because Nakida was like Lira, and had gone through the same stuff.
Lira felt a vibration under the water, and when she turned her head to see what it was, she spotted a huge turtle. Overly excited and curious, Lira forgot how a real human would respond, and dove in a maneuver that should be impossible for a human, her knees bending up towards the sun to help her dive. But, Lira was much more focused on swimming next to the turtle to realize her mistake.

...

Indra | she/her | Scientist | Human | M: Flynn, Azelea

I watched as, one by one, the dots on her screens changed colors. That would be Flynn's work. I had to admit, it made the test subjects easier to track. Not that I would ever say that out loud.
Then the warning bells went off. With a push of a button, I brought up the closest camera to where the sensor was going off. Then I put the sensor up on the big screen.
"Scratch off any observations we've made on subject 3-2, it's compromised." Then into an intercom, "Send in an extraction team. I want as little interaction as possible. Get in, get out, patch up the subject, then return it to the experiment." Hopefully, this won't screw up the entire experiment. I pull back my hair in a tight bun, then massage my temples. "Not even one day in. We haven't really even started yet." At least there were no other interfering test subjects. A simple catch and release. But it was still annoying.

Flynn was humming away, changing the colors when suddenly a Red Cross appeared on a grey dot . He was about to say that the Eurasian Lynx needed extraction for medical. Eager to study it more. " Maybe I should go along, It would be more data for us to collect." He half asked Indra half knew he would go anyway. He was hoping to oversee the extraction , making sure everything was done gently and quickly so not to upset and distract the test experiments. He looked at Indra with almost puppy eyes , beggin her to allow her to go with her team as it was her team that she had just commanded. He quickly checked the other dots but so far they were clear except for lynx experiment who needed medical help.

Nakida listened to Lira's voice and when the other experiment had stopped talking. They were in awe and attempted to say the meant Lira was color blind of some kind and sort. " So Duo-terra....no..pia?" They slowly said the word and then smiled with glee at the long word they had said, " You are correct, my fins are purple and white ,I'm actually blind as well in my right eye...pitch black don't know what happened...." Nakida trailed off , muttering at the end as they watched Lira disappear chasing what looked like a giant turtle or soemthing. Nakida hoped she would be safe and sound during these strange times. Nakida had no memory of the past year as it had been concealed and rushed through with test , tests and more tests. Before that, Nakida had no recollection of what she had been or who she had been for that matter.

Azelea | she/they | Experiment | Eurasian Lynx | mentions: evacuation team (indirectly)

Azelea stirred, still mostly asleep but waking up a bit. She repositioned, hurting and tired. When she moved, her chest hurt intensely, as well as her sides. She curled up again, just wanting to rest but hurting too bad. She heard the strange beeping and turned her head around, a bit more than a normal human should be able to, but couldn't locate the source of the noise, so she simply ingored it. She was dizzy and lightheaded, which was annoying--she hated not being able to think clearly. Her vision was messed up, too, and she was short or breath. Her abdomin and chest hurt worse than she could remember it hurting, and it was obvious she was disoriented. She felt extremely sick, and just wanted to black out so she wouldn't feel the pain. She had no idea how long she'd been out--she couldn't see the position of the sun with her messed up vision, and even if she could have, she didn't remember the position it had been when she fell asleep.

All of this made it very hard for her to think clearly, but she tried to get up. She stumbled, but knew that it had to be getting late, and she didn't want to be caught out in the open at night--especially if there were more of the horned creatures. She finally ended up crawling a bit, which luckily made decent progress, and eventually found a cave to hide in.

She knew she would need food eventually, but she didn't feel like searching, so instead she just found the smoothest, most comfortable area of rock and curled up.

She felt so useless, and hated the feeling, but knew she didn't have the energy to do much. The pain in her abdomin was increasing, making her dizzier than before, and she was so tired...

She planned to stay in the cave until she was feeling better, then she would find food. She knew that she would need food soon if she was to heal quickly, but knew she wasn't able to hunt or search much longer.

Little did she know that an evacuation team was being sent for her--she honestly thought that she had finally escaped. She had been locked in a dark room for too long, and the scent of fresh air drifting in from the cave entrance soothed her.

Finally, she fell into a dreamless sleep, finally unaware of the pain. She didn't know she was still being tracked, nor did she know that she wasn't the only experiment. She was just peacefully and blissfully uaware of this, as she slept until the evacuation team came.

╭⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻╮

Qua (Kyu-a) | They/Them | experiment | Red Macaw | Enzo

╰⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻╯

Qua furrowed their eyebrows as the catperson claimed they had no intention of attacking them. Their brain seemed human enough- less killer-wildcat, more rational-person. Qua decided there wasn’t anything to risk in trusting them.

"My names Enzo, been in this hell hole 8 years, what about you?"

Qua’s expression remained still as they processed this sentence. Wait… eight years?? Qua just barely remembered being here for twenty minutes. Qua went back on their old thought- they had a lot to risk. What if catboy decided that Qua, still in a new environment, and with no visible weapons other then (basically) knives on their feet, would make a great punching bag? Or clawing-bag, or whatever.

“My name is… is…”

A name. Qua didn’t remember what theirs was. Make one up! Make one up! Their mind panicked. They’d make one up and stick with that one.

Wait. I called myself something once, didn’t I?

It was like… Quinn or something.

Or was it... Quack? No, no, quack isn’t a name. Plus, I’m a parrot-thing, not a duck-thing. Huh, Quack as a name…

“Qua-”Qua started, then bit down on her tongue. Great. “Well, my name is spelt kind of like Qua, but it’s pronounced Kyu-a,” They improvised quickly. “I… don’t remember how long I’ve been here… I might have had a concussion or something, seeing as I can’t recall past twenty minutes ago,”

Qua folded their wings, but got ready to open them in case it was necessary.

“But I’ve probably been here, like… nine or ten years. I have… …multiple ways to protect myself.” A blatant lie. Qua was good at those. This time was an exception to that.

Qua was ready to slap themselves. They could do better than that, surely.

Indra | she/her | scientist | human | M: Flynn, experiments

Why was Flynn so predictable? I knew from the moment Flynn asked to go with my extraction team that he wouldn't take no for an answer. Still, it was sweet that Flynn thought to ask permission first. Like a schoolboy, or an overeager dog. Now that I was thinking about it, Flynn had many dog-like qualities. Had he always been like this, or did something happen to change his personality? Perhaps it was a side effect of being so close to the test subjects all of the time. Flynn spent more time with the subjects then anyone else, so it made sense. "Fine, go," I give a lazy gesture with my hand, "Most of the crew are half-wits anyway." I stood and pushed my glasses up my nose, giving my best no-nonsense look. "But I want absolutely no interaction. Am I clear?" I wasn't the head scientist, I don't think we even had one of those here, but I liked to pretend I was. Besides, almost everyone listens to me anyway, why not aim high and see where it takes me?
On a spare price of paper, I jotted down some notes, these about Flynn. I have decided to keep a closer eye on my associates.