Cafas, who was apparently in control at the moment, did as he was told and sat as directed, both by the guy from the bus and by shooter girl. He was clothed now in a jacket, which was substantially inferior in strength to his metal coating. Regardless the metal coating had to go, so he made it evaporate in a dense cloud of metal that sank to the ground around him. The congratulations did little to quell his lack of energy though, as did the adrenaline, which was running at what had to be an all time high. He took his time to think before responding to shooter girl, though not more than a few seconds, as they had to take action. He looked at the girl who seemed to be the medic. She had hesitated, so he assumed it was permission to touch him. "Go ahead." He held out his bleeding right hand, having swapped his sword to the left and jammed the unfortunately warped blade into the ground, which was just so much mud. His brain tried working at one hundred miles an hour but fell all over itself. He decided fifty was still good. He felt a tug and sting as the glasses wearing, glove clad medic began to work on his right hand and wrist.

'We need a group assault. Individually we have nothing on it, as a team though.'

The man who had given up his coat for Cafas seemed to have requested Juka hit him with an anvil. This also appeared to be the man who had launched a tree into Cthulhu's face. Then of course there was Juka, the shooter, the knight, the ninja, the medic, up in the air was also that guy who had sounded Irish who he had seen take off in a bird like form. The girl he had taken a cab with was MIA. The fireworks girls were... not where they had been. Instead they were hanging from a tentacley appendage. Not good. Well, time to take up his role as General Cafas. Big voice for a big boy. "You, guy who saved me on the bus, take this, there's nothing to it, just swing it as hard as you can at the tentacle holding those girls. Do it at the thinnest point you can reach. Bring 'em back here." Cafas tugged out the sword and thrust it towards the guy, doing what he could in the time to correct the warping. His energy was a bit low for that it seemed, for he barely got it straight before black crept into the edges of his vision and he saw stars.

'I need energy...'

The sword stuck the ground with a satisfying thump as Cafas blinked his vision better, with no idea how far his blade had travelled. Back to giving orders for him. "Shooter girl, light another branch and wave in our friend in the sky, I could have sworn I saw someone go up before." He raised his voice even louder for Juka to hear. "Juka, go with that guy to rescue the girls, back him up as best you can." Alchemist was out of commands to give for the moment and hoped they could get a full regrouping. He also had the feeling camera lady was still filming rather that helping, which annoyed him, as he could see her from his vantage point of the waist high rock. Still, he had no time to spend energy on women with cameras; he was having trouble remaining upright as it was. He blinked through the rain and spoke in a much calmer tone to the medic. "Don't suppose you have any caffeine pills or high energy snacks in your bag of tricks?"

'Need a full regroup.'

Gawain was not sure what was going on behind him with the bus and the rest of the crew; for all he knew they were all getting clear from the scene before the big bang.
On the other hand, he had a great view of what was in front if him, which in the moment happened to be Twyla, running towards the monster.
Wait.
Towards?!...

"Goddammit girl." Gawain growled as he sped up "Away, I said. Geez."

Even though he was muttering to himself, Twyla seemed to get the idea all by herself: she spun around and ran. Good. That's good.
A tentacle swung past a few feet above his head. Less good.
Towards the girls. Ow sh*t.

>>“Henri, run!”

How stupid does someone have to be to run towards a friggin' monster without being armed?! If Gawain had any blood in his body that didn't work on keeping his his heart rate above fainting, he would have gotten all of that in his head.
You only get this angry when...
I'm so gonna yell at her about this... later...

Next thing he knew, the girls were scooped up by a tentacle, high above his head, and now he had to work really hard not to panic.
Might have been the most frightening moment in his life.
Too high. To fast. Too far. No way he could get up there to help them. No weapons, no useful abilities, no plan. The only thing he could do was stand there and watch, and try to catch them if they fall.
Somewhere behind him the Aussie guy was yelling orders. Someone was on the way to help. But it wasn't Gawain.
You'd better make it.

Booming was not a good thing In fact, booming was most definitely a bad thing as were the explosions that accompanied said booming. Nor, for that matter, was anything that was flaming a good thing. Except for the fact that it was Cthulu itself that was flaming and fire, apparently, was among the few things that actually hurt it. So, as long as everyone stayed away from the flaming Cthulu, flaming could actually be a good thing just this once. But why didn't anyone else seem to realize this oh so obvious fact? Probably because they all wanted to be heroes and they were all just as determined to take responsibility in stopping the creature as he was. Of course Juka couldn't possibly defeat the creature on his own but that didn't mean that he wanted to see anyone get hurt in the attempt. On the contrary, he wished he could save every one of them, if only to make up for his nearly fatal actions only moments before.

Being asked by the mutant who had thrown the rock at Juka to hit him with anvils was just about the last thing that he expected anyone to ask of him. With all of the chaos going on around him and how quickly he needed to act and react in order, not only to defeat Cthulu once and for all but also to potentially save lives, he really didn't have time to consider whether or not he should listen to such a demand. A glance in the man's direction showed eyes that were clear and an expression that seemed to know exactly what he was asking. "I hope you know what you're doing," Juka said. Floating several feet away from the man he sent all four anvils careening into him, one after another, in quick succession, feeling the impact as each one struck the man. He desperately hoped he hadn't just made a huge mistake.

As Juka bobbed back up above the battle itself, he was horrified to spot a tentacle reaching out and chasing a blond haired girl and it appeared the girl was losing the flight. Cthulu, it seemed, had no sense of exhaustion and the girl was, for all the power that mutants had, obviously obviously did. And, just as it looked like the girl was going to escape safely behind a park bench, both she and a second girl were captured by the creature and both were clearly in a panic over it. Juka, having felt a similar tentacle capture him only minutes before, didn't blame them. He only hoped that they reacted better than he did when they were rescued. But before he could see how they were going to react, someone had to rescue them.

"Juka, go with that guy to rescue the girls, back him up as best you can."

Having heard no better suggestion and wanting desperately to be able to do something useful, Juka obeyed. Anvils spinning wildly, he zoomed over to the tentacle that had grabbed the two girls. At that moment he had no thought for himself or his own well being, all he wanted was to save these two and prove that he could still do something, that he wasn't crazy and that there was something worth living for after all. "Let them go you bastard!" he yelled out at the top of his lungs.

Bubble hovering 8 feet above the offending tentacle, 4 anvils came crashing down upon it only to continue their rotation a moment later, after connecting solidly with wet clay. The clay squished and weakened significantly but before he had a chance to continue to assault or properly gauge exactly how much damage he had done, a second tentacle came up and smashed into Juka's bubble, sending him spinning and bruising his side painfully. He struggled to regain control of his bubble and prevent himself crashing into a nearby tree.

>> "Don't suppose you have any caffeine pills or high energy snacks in your bag of tricks?"

She glanced up from her work at him briefly, arching an eyebrow delicately. with a now empty packet of burn cream still clamped between her teeth, he would have to wait a moment before she could reply. With one hand holding the bandages in place, she dove back into her pack and retrieved the two small metal clips meant to hold the wrapping in place. She placed secured them and dropped the packet from her mouth, tucking it back into her pack as she stepped away from the guy a bit.

Now, pills or snacks, the search began. While she doubted what he was looking for would be in her pack, it never hurt to look. Especially if the person in need had recently been set on fire. Her fingers clasped around a small removable bag and she lifted it out, unzipping it to withdraw a few packets of pills.

"Looks like... Aspirin, Tylenol, and..."

She withdrew two small syringes filled halfway with a clear liquid. She scrunched her nose and tilted her head, peeking over the rims of her glasses to look at the name printed on the inside of its plastic outer shell.

"...and...morphine?" She frowned a bit and returned the syringes into the bag, shifting an apologetic gaze back to the purple haired male. She hoped that the pills would work, if he even wanted them at all, because she had never administered a shot before... nor gotten one that she could remember.

She glanced away briefly, and her Attention was captured as the boy in the bubble sped off as he had been told. She watched quietly as he zoomed in to attack, but was swatted away by a clay Tentacle from behind. A sharp gasp slipped past her lips before a her hand flew up to cover her mouth.

"You, guy who saved me on the bus, take this, there's nothing to it, just swing it as hard as you can at the tentacle holding those girls. Do it at the thinnest point you can reach. Bring 'em back here."

Saphirus gave a, "thanks, I'll get it done." to the tired kid, taking up the sword, and looking to it in his hands for a moment before the Aussie turned to go get fixed up. It felt interesting in his hands... Like it's form somehow made sense for him to apply his ability to; though to be honest he still liked the feel of a good crowbar more. He looked back to Juka, nodding to his statement. The Aussie had sure put a lot of faith in him... Saph wondered for a moment if he was going to actually be able to meet his expectations... And then the first anvil slammed into him.

THUD, "@#$@" Thud, "YEAH!" Thud, "THATS THE." Thud "Stuff!" All self doubt in Saph's mind was washed away as the tingling sensation jutted up his arm higher with each strike. His eyes widened more with each blow, not with surprise but with a slightly off putting joy and energy. Was he gonna be able to meet the Aussie's expectations? Your damn right he was! he was gonna freakin BREAK that beast! He smiled widely, clenching the sword tightly in his left hand, looking to his objective, and bolting into action just behind Juka.

His hobble-run had transformed into a hobble-leap, as he pushed force into the ground with each left step, causing him to move three times as fast as normal. He watched as Juka slammed his anvils into the tentacle that held the helpless women, and was then swatted out of the way. Saphirus let out a battle cry as he channeled a good amount force of through his left leg, and leaped, sailing into the air to meet the tentacle, slashing upward at the already dented clay flesh. Using his ability with a sharp edge was so much different than it was with a dull object. Cutting required a lot less force at any one time than crushing did, though it was a constant drain of his energies throughout the process, which took longer than smashing, and thus took about the same amount of energy over all. The blade cut through a little more than half of the tentacle on the way up, and as he flew over it, Saph could see it was already starting to heal. He smiled wildly as he spun his body in the air, and let out another cry, coming down on the other end of the tentacle with his blade.
He used most of his remaining energy to sever it completely, and then expended the last smidgen to kick at the unsevered end to knock it back, and also send himself toward the two victims, aiming not to catch them in their fall, but rather to give them something softer than ground to land on... He smacked head and hand first into the ground, thankfully on his right side so it didn't hurt, and he got some energy from it. After that he had good enough sense to steel himself as he waited for the girls to land on him, knowing it was going to hurt.

Directions, she could take. Demands too, they were a welcome respite from the terror of having to instruct people she had never met to do things she had no idea if they could. For instance, she had no idea what anyone’s power, much less name was besides Andrea, and with a slight amount of hope that it was actually his name, bubble-boy was Juka. Purple-haired boss, in all his burned glory from what she realised had been molten metal, not welded, gave instructions left right and centre, and she was pleased to have a proper purpose.

Grabbing several of the smaller branches she shoved them into the brazier, leaving them to dry out a little before they would catch alight she scanned the leaking sky for any sign of the angel-boy who had flown off with the young blonde girl in front of the bus shelter. Raindrops were falling more heavily on her face than they had been, and she crossed her fingers that her brazier was strong enough to cope. It seemed to be, and she wriggled her fingers in the oversized glove. Thank goodness she was a hoarder.

"Don't suppose you have any caffeine pills or high energy snacks in your bag of tricks?"

She turned, her mouth a little open, to the purple-haired boss. How did he know that her pack held all sorts of- a flicker of relief fluttered through her as she realised he was referring to the same bag of tricks she had a few moments ago. She wrinkled her nose as Andrea searched the medical kit. It seemed that there would be no help in the small pack and she threw her backpack towards the rock where it skidded to a stop by the feet of the purple haired boy. Nothing quite like national dress-up parties to fill up the stock of candy.

“Have a hunt through that, there should be some Halloween leftovers in a zip lock bag somewhere near the middle of the bag. Second pocket from the back.”

If she was recalling correctly, of which she was certain, there would also be a light black jumper and at least one pair of clean underpants. But this was no time to be awkward, or modest about such things.

“Under the jacket, on top of the knickers, don’t worry they’re clean. I don’t know exactly what there is but there should be something that might help. I recommend Jelly Beans.”

She shook the drying timber to encourage the weak flickers of flame to stabilise on the wood so she could wave it. She remembered once her younger brother had tripped on the stair out the front of their house and broken his nose. With the blood pouring out she had phoned the international heath line and pleaded for help. Once the bleeding was stopped with cold face-washers and pinching the kindly woman had suggested giving him something full of sugar to help the blood loss. Jelly Beans had brought the colour back to his cheeks, and her faith in them was never yet to be shaken.

Finally the wood was dry enough to hold the flame and she thrust it into the air. Anyone above was sure to see the waving beacon and land. Hopefully. Sticking the fingers of her other hand into her mouth she whistled as loud as she could into the night air.

“Come down! We need your help!”

She glanced towards the girls clutched in the tentacle and shuddered slightly, but that was not her fight to fight. Her job was to call down the angel from the sky, to help to kill the unkillable demon. She glanced at Andrea.

“I figure if you fix whoever you can, then we’ll decide what to do. If there’s anything any of us can do, we’ll do it, you included.”

She glanced at the small group, smaller now that Bubbles-Juka- and the other man had a purpose in freeing the tentacle-bound pair.

“Name’s Verdigris, I can shoot small stuff from my palm. Dunno if that helps in anyway but there you go. Feel free to yell at me if you need anything I can give.”

Twyla had landed on something semi-squishy and it turned out to be Herni’s back. She tried to scramble off of her but only managed to stumble over near the remaining fireworks. The other girl got up and handed her the grey backpack. Before they could regroup themselves and run in the opposite direction there was something cold and hard wrapping itself around their midriffs that smashed the girls together and lifted them off the ground. Now, there are two general responses to being lifted in the air by a giant clay tentacle. You can either: A) Scream like a little girl and wait for someone to rescue you, or you can: B) calmly turn to you clay-mate and say: “Henri, can you get to your lighter with that hair?” This was actually rather difficult to say, considering the fact that the hair in question was hitting her in the face and the mouth when she began to speak.

Twyla Ashby chose option B when she herself was hoisted into the air by the monster she had attempted to outrun along with the girl who she’d attempted to warn about the danger. Needless to say, her original plan had backfired on the whole and now she and Rapunzel were in a bit of a precarious spot. One that in her mind, was easily remedied if you were willing to suffer a bit of a fall. It seemed totally inappropriate for the situation but she was totally calm. She had something in her left hand that could be their ticket out of the clutches of Cthulhu and that made her brave. It was stupid and risky, but she’d try it anyway.

If she looked down, Twyla would have noted that their location was becoming steadily higher–a hammer in the cogs of her very stupid and risky plan. But she didn’t look down, didn’t want to watch as the ground slowly got farther and farther away. Little did she know that she and Rapunzel were about to become a lot less damsel in distress and a lot more Humpty-Dumpty.

Great fall here we come.

“Because if you’ve got the fire, baby, I’m your--” ‘Blonde’ would have been the word after ‘your’ but Twyla’s train of thought was cut off as the feeling of rising was suddenly reversed and the tight grip of the tentacle loosened and then was no more. Twyla lost her grip on the firework and her backpack a second before she realized she was falling towards the ground at an alarming rate.A ‘bit of a fall’ this was not. Not even close to a ‘bit of a fall’. It was more like a fricken' HUGE fall. In that split second she realized that her plan had been stupid and would have resulted in them breaking some bones. Thankfully she hadn’t been able to implement it.

Wait. Why were they falling again?

The problem was that now she was falling anyway, which meant she was about to experience quite a bit of pain. Steeling herself, Twyla tried to curl up but the fall was too fast and she landed with arms and legs splayed out in all directions. The wind was knocked out of her and there was a sharp pain in one of her wrists but Twyla wasn’t dead...or totally broken...she didn’t feel like a ragdoll at all and she was lying on something rather warm. None of this made sense to the dazed girl. The situation was curious, very curious.

When her breath returned to her, Twyla slowly pulled herself up with her weight on the good wrist and opened one of her brown eyes. She had landed on a person. “Hi.” She said sheepishly to the male beneath her.

And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men–let Humpty-Dumpty land on them.

((ooc: So sorry about my last mistake, I'm a skimmer ......Humpty-Dumpty isn't very Christmas-y but I felt the need to pop that in there.))

Henrietta heard Twyla begin to say something, but all of the sudden she felt as if she were falling. If she would've had enough time, Rapunzel may have screamed. Scratch that, most definintely would have screamed. To her own relief, she didn't get that time. The last thing she wanted was to seem like a wuss infront of all of her fellow students and grown mutants. As she started her fall, one thing crossed her mind. What are we gonna land on? Henri would soon get her answer.

At the end of the fall, she landed on something that felt softer than normal ground. Much softer than dirt. Parts of it were softer, anyway. Other parts felt bony. She began to sigh with relief, she was alive!, but the intake of air made her cough. After a second, she realized it wasn't the sigh that made the coughing, it was the fact that she had landed on top of two other people. Her stomach was what broke the fall and it felt like she was squishing into one of them. One was Twyla, the other...Well, she wasn't sure who he was, but he was there. Breaking falls for teenage girls that fell out of the sky.

Henrietta felt dazed and her stomach hurt. She rolled off the pair and onto the ground. The brunette figured she should let the other mutants up since they probably were in pain too. Sitting up, she made a bit of a groaning noise. Rapunzel was of course very happy she hadn't gone "splat!" all over the cold, snowy dirt. That was always something to be thankful for. Henri couldn't help but grin and said aloud to herself, "It's a Christmas miracle!"

Gawain couldn't take his eyes off the girls waaaay up there in Chtulhu's grip; even though he couldn't do anything about it, he was just frozen on the spot.
Help arrived just in time; the guy who was too old to be a student but apparently possessed some awesome super strength, cut the tentacle. With a sword. Just when you'd have thought the fight cannot get any weirder.
And down came the wet clay, two girls and all.

Gawain braced himself for the impact; firs it was the guy who landed on his face next to him, maybe thinking the same way he did, trying to break the girls' fall before they break something else.
And then came Twyla and Rapunzel.

Ooomph.

The teenage guy part of Sir Gawain's brain had some vague line about angels falling from Heaven, but as soon as they landed on him, the idea was knocked out of him together with all the air in his lungs and half of his consciousness. For several seconds, it was all black, and very painful; then the darkness lit up with dozens of dancing little spots and lights. Gawain drew a breath. Then he wished he didn't.

>>"Hi."

What was that again about the angels?...
Opening his eyes, Gawain stared right into Bubblegum's face.
There are some situations that would be very romantic if only you were not fighting for breath and your mouth didn't taste suspiciously like blood. Whatever he was trying to say came out as a cough. A very painful one.

One half of the weight rolled off them.
>>"It's a Christmas miracle!"
No it's me being heroic and stupid beyond measure, thank ya very much.

Gritting his teeth Gawain sat up, pushing Twyla into a sitting position with him.
"Are ya..." end of shallow breath, cough "... all right?"

They were all covered in wet clay and dizzy from the fall and the impact, but as long as they could talk it was worth it. Gawain looked around to see where the other guy ended up.
"We need to get ya outta here..." he muttered, one hand on his side.

Ouch.

As Juka spun chaotically towards an offending tree, he struggled desperately to regain control of his bubble. He definately did not want to collide with that tree. Colliding with the rather large tree would definately equate to even more pain than he was all ready in and Juka had learned, both from his encounter with Aura not so long ago and from what had occured this day so far, that he definately did not like pain. In fact, he might even go so far as to say that he hated pain. It was therefore with more than a little relief that, at the last possible moment, his bubble halted its insane ride towards the tree and he stood there floating, a mere foot away from the threatening plant. He breathed a sigh of relief, allowing himself a moment to savour the fact that he had somehow managed to save his own life. Or at least sae his own life from countless bruises, cuts and other unpleasntries.

Unfortunately Juka only allowed himself a moment to recover from his near disaster and to calm his nerves. The threat, the giant Cthulu, was still out there and there were still people in danger from it. Hell, he was still in danger from it and as much as he wanted to try and save the innocents and prevent the other brave mutants from getting hurt, he also wanted to save and protect himself. Which meant, of course, defeating the monster. His attention returned to the battle at hand just in time to see the man he had hit with his anvils leap and free the two girls from the tentacle that had trapped them. At least he knew that he hadn't accidentally broken the man.

By this point Juka realized that there wasn't much actual damage he could do with his anvils. The creature seemed to recover from just about any attack against him. At least bladed attacks temporarily disabled tentacles but his blunt anvils couldn't even do that much. Which, if he wanted to be useful, left him with two options: either distract it by causing its tentacles to come after him while others did the real damage, or find a better weapon. And since he really didn't relish the thought of madly dodging numerous clay tentacles and didn't have any other weapons to speak of, he opted for option number three.

Scanning the ground far below him, Juka spoted a woman holding a flaming torch who was calling the others down and apparently needed help. Unsure who she was or what help she might need, Juka thought it best to obey her call. Either she would have some sort of instructions that he might be able to follow in order to be of more use to the battle or he could always float right up and into the path of danger in order to distract the beast enough for others to do some real damage. He desperately hoped she might have a better suggestion than that. "What can I do?" he asked.

Saphirus slowly climbed up from his laying position after realizing that no one was going to land on him. The older mutant spat out a dirt clod as he dug his new sword(Finders, keepers!) into the grown, and pushed himself up until he was standing. Saph paused for a second, and then looked over to the poor kid who had been landed on. For a moment, he had been looking in a concerned manner, but it quickly turned into a frank, but not fully serious look of seriousness toward Gawain. "Nuff flirtin, kid... Get to safety, allayou." He was sure the boy was gonna feel that later, but what was childhood without a few bruised ribs?

Saphirus wasn't fully aware of how incredibly messed up he looked, but he had a good idea... He imagined he looked really muddy on one side, and somewhat like a cat's scratch post on the other. His clothes were peppered with holes on the right side from the shrapnel of the bus explosion, and torn in many places from everything else, showing many cuts and scrapes on his left side, and some even on his right. He smiled a bit, reaching up a hand to scrape some clay from his face, and fling it to the ground. He then pulled up the sword from its temporary earthen resting place, surveying the area quickly. His eyes were still wide and full of energy from the prior dose, even though he had spent most of it.... The way he saw it, he had about the amount of energy gathered from his weight dropped from fifteen feet... enough to do some real damage to a normal energy, but against this thing, it wasn't even close to enough.

Dress boy. He needed to find dress boy. His eyes darted around for a moment, and then he caught sight of the floating kid, taking a step in his direction, but being interrupted by a large tentacle snatching him up. It took a moment for him to realize exactly what was happening, and then another second to start cursing angrily at the fact that it was."F#$%IN' W$%^E ! LEMME THE $#@# GO YOU DISGUSTING #^&@ing PILE OF-AHH!" Apparently Cthuhlu wasn't happy with the loss of a mouth tentacle, and he showed it by flinging poor Saph like he was a toy the monster no longer cared to play with. He sailed through the air, trying his best to spin so that his right side would be what hit whatever he hit. Luckily enough, it was. He crashed into the top of a tree as fast as he ever reckoned he had crashed into anything before... Cept for that one time... and the time before that... He felt the buzzing of energy up his arm, and tried to focus on that instead of the pain he felt as he fell down the length of the tree, getting stopped momentarily by what felt like every branch on the way down, and cursing every time.

He felt like he had been falling for a half an hour by the time he reached the bottom of the tree, wracking the jewels on the last branch, which he landed on like a cowboy jumping on a horse, but with pain. He yelped as he fell over, and down to the ground, laying there for a moment on account of the ouchies before he looked up and saw that he was only a few yards from Juka and Verdy... Least the beast had thrown him in the right direction...

He looked down to his arm, and it dawned on him that his sword was missing. A frown made its way onto his face as he sat up slowly, wincing at every ache and pain along the way... He was just wondering where the blade had gone to when it fell from the air, landing with the point in the ground right between his legs."... Well, that coulda bin very bad..." He decided to try not to think about it as he used the blade to put himself up again for the second time in what felt like forever, but was really only a minute.

Cafas politely turned down the painkillers, which would not possibly help his energy levels, but was interested in the bag thrust towards him. apparently what he needed was on top of some underpants. Delightful. The girl chose that moment to speak and distracted him completely. "Alchemist, I control the properties of metals, and I'll think about it, this is a bit out of my usual day to day life, you know?" C.J. surveyed the scene. The girls had been saved by some effective, if lacking in technique, crude and rather painful to watch sword work. That was good to know. The girls had landed on the knight and Juka had gone flying. well, it seemed they had received more injuries than Cthulhu.

'Ha! That was funny. That older guy needs training though.'

Cafas, now fully bandaged thanks to the field nurse, stood on his not so good feeling legs. They were rather shaky and he did not appreciate it. What he appreciated less was seeing people other than him shoving his sword into the dirt. Had they any idea how long he spent sharpening that? ANY!?! He marched his shaky way over towards the charitable one. He paused along the way to observe him fly through the air. How funny. his trip down the tree didn't go unnoticed either. On the bright side both girls were saved and he was much closer. Then his sword fell blade first into some more dirt. He could almost feel tears of frustration spring to his eyes, that blade took hours to properly maintain. Juka was also now asking for Verdigris' direction, as it would appear her name was. "To start with Juka, sit down, take a break for a minute while the others gather." Cafas now walked the lessened distance to coat man.

'I ought to kill him for this... But I wont.'

The man pushed Cafas' sword further into the ground when he pushed himself up with it. The protective side of Alchemist winced, the other side concurred completely. Once the man was standing C.J. gripped the hilt and yanked it sharply out of the ground. He slid it through his belt, not feeling bothered with it's correct housing and nodded to the man. "Nice work, I ought to make you a blade of your own." \

'Yes, along with getting an anvil of Juka.'

Alchemist hobbled back toward the camp before seeing the pack Verdigris had thrust at him. The next thing he saw, lit by the flaming branch, was his (rather battered looking) shield. That was a pleasant surprise, although the fact Cthulhu had managed to throw it several hundred metres scared him. With both hands bound he was having trouble with gripping things and so chose to kick the shield back to his seat once he had hobbled over to it. He was beginning to feel light headed from all the standing up and so he sat back on his rock and retrieved the back of confectionary from the Girl's bag. It was indeed on top of a pair of undies. If he had of had the energy he would have blushed, as it was, he just tucked into the sweets. The Jelly beans were good. He felt energy returning in that sort of tingly way energy does. He thought he heard his teeth crying, but that was probably his imagination.

'Oh sugar, how I love thee.'

When Gawain opened his eyes she thought he was going to say something–what came out of his mouth was a cough. Which of course made sense, she was lying on his chest after all...his chest that she had just landed on from the height of a waving tentacle. Why was he standing underneath the tentacle anyway? Having experienced the wrath of one of the flailing limbs Twyla was pretty sure that was a bad plan. She’d ask him about it later, now there were more important things to worry about...like getting off of his chest before she suffocated him.

Apparently Gawain was thinking along the same lines because after he coughed he pulled both of them up into sitting positions. Twyla winced slightly as her left wrist was jarred. and her eyes watered but she didn’t even look at it to see the extent of the damage. The boy next to her spoke in a labored breath and he coughed in the middle of his sentence. “I’m fine.” She said curtly as her right hand prodded the wrist balefully (which she still hadn’t bothered to look at). How dare it hurt when she had other things on her mind. “You aren’t though. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to stand under the arms of clay monsters?” There was a ghost of humor in there somewhere but it was covered up by concern for the kid next to her and the girl who was still lying on her back. When she glanced at Henri she also noted another person, a man, who was also lying in the dirt in their proximity. He looked pretty banged up–add one more to that list of worry.

Henrietta was talking, although if Twyla hadn’t know her she would have assumed she had a concussion based on what she said, and that was always a good sign and it didn’t look like she was bleeding profusely from something which was yet another good sign. Man-in-Dirt looked pretty torn up, which of course was never good. And Gawain was full of concern for everyone but himself even though he looked like he’d done something to his ribs...more like she’d done something to his ribs. “Or, we could get you out of here–removing ourselves from the situation in the process. But first...” Twyla stood up shakily using only her right hand and made her way towards where her backpack had fallen. Everything was strewn about it but thankfully her first aid kit was still intact–not that it would do much good to any of them, but it was a comfort thing. She scooped it up and held it against her chest like a teddy bear and turned back to the group.

Dirt-Broken-Man had stood up and she was about to ask him if he was alright when he was abducted by a tentacle. She watched as he was flung about and then launched towards the other end of the park. Blinking a few times she pulled herself back to the task at hand. Hopefully the man would be alright, but there was nothing she could do for him at that moment. Turning to Henri’s spot on the ground she asked: “Can you get up, Henri?”

“How about you?” She walked back over to where Gawain was sitting on the snow. For whatever reason her wrist was really starting to sting. Twyla finally stole a glance at her left arm and noted with only a little horror that she was bleeding for a few gashes on her arm and that her wrist was bent at a funny angle. Open wounds=stinging...riiight. Bending down the girl opened up her kit and after mercilessly popping her wrist back into place (which resulted in major eye watering and a bit tongue) she pulled out a disinfectant wipe and started to clean out the three cuts that weren't nearly as bad as they looked.

Twyla’s lack of major aversion to blood and her somewhat high pain tolerance were due to her upbringing (and the pain tolerance was linked with gymnastics, she was used to being bruised and broken). More than once she’d seen a cow that had hurt itself in some way and more often than not she’d been present to help her parents nurse the wounds before the vet could be called. She’d also seen her fair share of ‘people’ accidents on the farm–Twyla herself had cut open her knee when she was five after tripping on the handle of a pitchfork and then landing on it’s spike. There were worse things than a little bit of her blood and some (possibly) broken bones in Twyla’s opinion. Like, for instance someone else’s blood or broken bones. Concern was etched into her face when she looked back up at her two friends and searched for anymore visible signs of hurts.

Glancing around, Henrietta saw that Twyla’s wrist seemed injured and that the boy who let them fall on top of them seemed to be hurt badly. She felt bad that the boy caught them when he looked so badly injured. Lying in the snow, she squeezed her eyes shut. She felt tired and her stomach hurt. The brunette knew she had to get up or at least try, especially since Twyla had asked if she could. Trying to talk loud enough for her friend to hear, she replied with a “yeah, I think so.”

Now that she said she could, she had to actually do it. Rapunzel tried sitting up, but her torso hurt way too much for that. She was debating the best way to get up and came upon the decision that rolling onto her stomach and pushing herself up may be the best way. Slowly and gently, she shifted her body so she was face down on the ground. Putting her hands firmly on the ground, she pushed up. Once on her knees, the rest came a bit easier. She fell back so she was sitting on her butt. Henrietta almost laughed when she realized that it had taken her so long to get into a simple sitting position. Not a laugh of humor, but one of disgust.

Henri remained sitting on the ground until she was fairly sure there was no way she was getting any farther without help. She couldn’t make herself stand up and use her abdominals. They felt like they were bruised a fair amount. She decided her problem could wait. The boy was worse and Twyla was helping him. Knowing how pathetic she must look, she almost began to cry. No one would’ve been able to tell, but her eyes started to water as if tears were coming. Pushing them back, Henrietta tried to get up again. She would not be weak. She refused to be.

Placing her hands behind her for support, she pushed herself upright. She stood and let out a small cry. Even though she didn't have a fowl mouth, she almost swore. Instead of continuing to complain about the pain, she bit her lower lip. She walked, hunched over with her hand on her torso, to Twyla and the hurt boy. Even though she herself was hurt, she wanted to help somehow, especially since the guy seemed worse off. She wanted to be of some use. Turning to Twyla she asked, “Anything I can do?”

Koga had resisted the initial call to arms at the tree line much like Cafas originally did, he ran toward the monster but instead of staying on the ground Koga had decided to climb the beast once more, the front side was cooking even as he was climbing its back. Why did he resist the call? because Cthulhu was claiming two of their own, two females and it didn't look like they were going to be doing much about it...at least it looked that way originally...He figured if nothing else he could help them out once they got to Cthulhu's head. When the girls had been released onto the knight he was relieved. but he still had work to do... on closer inspection, the failed attempt to dry out the monster wasn't failing as much as they had all assumed.

The dry clay that Claythulhu was pulling into its self wasn't moistening....so that being the case eventually, someday...it wouldn't have fresh clay to pull in, so it very well might simply be a matter of distracting the damnable creature until it took too much dry clay into its self. it was already slowing a little bit. Koga climb up the monsters back and waited toward its left wing...it was a thin spot in the design, an exquisite flaw. As the beast jostled about, Koga realized that he had been in one of the safest spots he could possibly be in, not a single tentacle had come at him. He rested for a moment waiting and hoping it turned just a little bit more.

The beast did as he hoped as it batted Juka out of the sky, and then even more as Saph did his beast to cut the tentacles from its face. Koga held steady his Katana, and then placed a foot on top of the blade using the suction he could on the back of the blade. Koga began to press on the top of the base of the left wing and pushed as hard as he could, He then let his weight and gravity do most of the work, slowly but surely the wing was hacked from the body and fell into the massive fire, that was the wreckage formally know as pile of carts and the right half of the bus. The wicked flames licked at the wing and the fuel took to the new offering with glee.

Cthulhu danced about angrily,as its wing hit the ground. Finally the beast took notice of Koga, it wasn't a good thing. the pair of tentacles swatted at its back recklessly, one was on fire and was spreading bits of flame. Koga struck out a hand and ran rapidly across its back.

He would never play with play doh again...he would forever hate the smell of cooking flame broiled clay. Tentacle strike after tentacle strike landed across cthulhu's back like hammer blows to the nail of a head, how he desperately didn't want to be the nail. He scrambled to the other wing and ran across the moving appendage and once he ran out of wing he clung there at the tip. Its wing began to flap, and he was pretty sure this was where his career was going to end.

absentmindedly he grinned as the burning clay wing did what he hoped it would. It was bait and Cthulhu couldn't resist regaining the lost appendage and so it walked into the massive fire, and started to try take in the rapidly drying clay. It was as he stared at the flames licking atthe mostrosity's feet and as the fuel and the fire got absorbed into the monster, that he was sure that they had this thing defeated...maybe it wasn't dead but it was the start of a victory.

He had thoughts of victory as he lost his grip and was flung across the park, the last thing he remembered thinking before his mind simply panicked was the fact that both Slate and Sebastian were probably in Romania and there was no being sewn back up from death readily available to him....they could use a healer about then.

The lizards body slammed threw a glass window in one of the buildings across the street from the park...his shocked and unconscious body pulled it self into a tight circle as it still flew. His body then bounced. If the gods were watching the fight this day they had deigned to favor the young ninja. It was a mattress store and while he would be feeling the impact of the mattress for weeks to come. He was miraculously alive. He rolled, moaning like he was going to die,the moan was all outward. the air had been knocked out of and then some. He wanted to simply lay there,did he have a choice,could he move? He earned the right to lay there didn't he?

His lungs refused to not breathe...his limbs twitched to his command. and he rolled to his knees and stayed there...god he was broken...he was broken but couldn't stay still. he wanted so badly to crawl to the window, continue his fight against the beast...but for now he would have to lay there and hope not too much permanent damage was done to him.

He looked at the ceiling and hoped they all had the same blessing he did.


Bad tidings we bring from all the x men;

Bad tidings for Cthulhu and central park right here.

Oh, bring us a burning monster;

Oh, bring us a burning monster;

Oh, bring us a burning monster with a cry of its fear:

We won't go until we get one;

We won't go until we get one;

We won't go until we get one, so scream it out here: