Gardening

I can't move with something shoving my face into the dirt just off the path, but I'm also not keen on staying here. I can't shove it off, my arms are pinned, and one leg can't move, so I just try to wriggle my way to the side and out of the entrapment of some kind of animal, judging by the claws that shove uncomfortably into my shoulders. Despite shifting around as best I can, it has me thoroughly pinned and I can't move an inch. It scares me. I've never been claustrophobic, but anyone with any sense would be terrified of some creature pinning them to the ground. My fight-or-flight reflexes are kicking in, but I can't do any of that right now and all that adrenaline is just surging to the anxiety part of my brain. I tense, expecting for some form of pain, either by being attacked by that animal or by some ally of it- maybe the gardener lady I was just 'speaking' to, perhaps. She seemed nicer than that, but given she's the only other sentient being I've seen, barring the doorman, who to the best of my knowledge is still downstairs. Who can really say, at this point? Everything in this place is messed up.

Something grunts, and the weight on my back is removed. I roll to the side onto my back and try to sit up, wincing a little as my bad leg knocks on the ground lightly. So now I'm up, I can view the whole chaotic scene in front of me. From here, I can see four distinct fights occurring on their own. From left to right- a snake of some description is wrapped around Kara. I'm not sure whether it's intentionally strangling her, but it is either way and she's trying to pull it off. Secondly, Ash is absolutely killing a man I don't recognise, to the point where even as an assassin I'm internally going WTF. That man wants to choose violence? Sure, I'm not getting in his way. You'd have to be mad to try to stop him- like Claw and Shard are, apparently as they try to drag him away from his victim. Thirdly, two pigeons are smashing the shit out of each other, and their names are Steve and Jerry I just decided. Fourthly, the gardener woman is holding a squirming… snow tiger? I can't tell exactly what it is, but it's like some feline, and it's white and stripy and big, so I'm going to take an educated guess and assume it's a snow tiger. Have no idea why or how it's in a tropical garden halfway across the world, so I could be wrong and/or hallucinating. Clearly the gardener lady needs some help, so I roll towards her a bit and poke at the feline with my one remaining crutch, and the thing turns to me, looking in my direction but not looking at me, because it has two old scars showing where its eyes used to be. It hisses at me and slowly walks toward me, and I scuttle backwards in some quite rational terror. It tries to pounce at me, but is pulled short quickly and painfully by the gardener grabbing its tail, looking quite terrified but definitely not giving up. Props to her, for her general ballsiness in this whole wreck. Grabbing a wild animal while it's in attack mode is insanely brave, and she clearly did NOT sign up for this shit. I mean, gardening and tiger wrestling are two very different things in every universe. In the meantime, Ash and his partners are standing away from the mauled body of his latest casualty. The man may be a househusband but he definitely can and will kill people whenever. To be completely honest, he terrifies me a little. Kara is still wrestling with the snake, which definitely is intentionally strangling her. I should probably help, but by the time I even got to her it'd be too late to be of any assistance, as she finally uncoils it and then shockingly gently for something that was just killing her, places it in a nearby tree. I don't get why she would release the snake in order for it to come back and assault us all later, but I'm also absolutely not going to head into the bushes to grab it and bring it back. Death by snake is not my preferred way to go out of this life either. Plus, I can't exactly sneak up on the snake with stupid crutches. Which reminds me- I need to grab the other one so that I can move around, if necessary which it seems is. The gardener lady seems to have… tied the tiger to a tree? How did she get a rope on it? I may have underestimated her greatly. And given she's currently brushing herself in order to get back to pruning the fernery, I think I certainly have. An ally or enemy, I'm not sure, but either way she's more than I initially gave her credit for. I make a mental note that I'll probably forget to find out more about her if I can, after I hopefully make it home. I can't quite understand why Kara and the Amours are here, but not the rest of the Seven Devils, but frankly I'm glad to see anyone and can't afford to be picky about who. Although I was doing just fine by myself until about thirty seconds ago, when I was attacked by the maybe-tiger, whatever it may be. Now standing, I wave to my possible friends and/or enemies. Again, I respect the hell out of all of them and am doing my very best not to get on anyone's bad side. A ding resounds the area, which I think might maybe be the elevator? I wasn't listening before if the elevator dinged when I came up, but it was a distinctly elevator ding. Shoving my way through the undergrowth, I make my way towards the area the noise came from, keeping a lookout for snakes as any sensible person would.