~~"No we're staying until that thing is a puddle. After that we will go home. I am also fairly sure there is no-one here who may be addressed as he that is alright."

Verdy opened her mouth, then shut it again, not only was there nothing she could think of to say but the purple haired commander was finishing yelling at Bubble-boy and laying down on the earth. To her it made sense to start packing up, but she looked at the monster again, just in case he somehow found a second wind and began hurling more little monsters towards them.

He seemed far to busy forming and re-forming, shrinking visibly as clay swished off him in rivulets of runny grey sludge. His focus seemed to be more on keeping himself in a recognizable form than attacking anyone who wasn't immediately drawing his attention.

She glanced towards her green-skinned roommate and accepted the burn cream gratefully. It was cool and soothing, rubbed quickly into the burn and then the bandage wrapped around a few times and her wound was seen to. She stared as Andrea seemed determined to make it so that not an inch of the young unconscious man was exposed. Idly she wondered if the whole battle had gone to her head and she had suddenly developed a phobia of skin. A phobia of clay seemed much more likely and Verdy decided she was merely trying to fix as much as she could. Understandable really.

Verdy rubbed the leftovers from the small packet into the palm of her left hand carefully, but left it uncovered. It would be no good to suddenly need her marbles and not be able to get them because she was bandaged. Better to risk the greasy cream getting on her clothes. It couldn't do them any more harm than the clay which smothered them already. She glanced at the band-aid smothered man as he spoke.

~~"Don't be a douche, Dundee.. It don't fit you..."

She blinked once, then turned her eyes to Alchemist. That twang she couldn't quite place must be an Australian accent, it made sence... kinda. She smiled encouragingly at Andrea. She did a just fine job of patching them up on the fly. Without her they would have been useless much earlier. He was sure to be grateful later, sometime after he realized he wouldn't get an infection, but sometime before he wanted to pull them all off. That many 'short and sharp's would really get painful. Not to mention the bald patches. He would have to soak them off.

She looked around at their bedraggled little group, Bubbles looked sane, but very tired, the young man Andrea called Saph had a slightly wild look in his eyes, like a child startled awake in a strange place, the newcomer, who made a valid point about the others and she took a moment to scan the sky, looked beat, they all did, but something about the way he breathed looked painful, and their captain, the purple haired man who so quickly rushed to the aid of others, he wasn't looking so great and she silently cursed the fact she had eaten most of the Halloween candy before he got to it. Maybe an extra handful of jelly beans might have pulled him through, he looked tired now, like all the energy had seeped out of him into the ground. Her roommate and herself seemed to be relatively unharmed, although she could feel muscles protesting and her body demanding that she rest soon.

They would all sleep well tonight. Or not. The memory of a giant slimy mouth pressed against her own made her shudder and a hint of doubt about nightmares touched her mind. That would be a hard memory to wipe. Maybe she would hit up the kitchen for a hot milky drink before attempting to sleep. A glance towards the monster reassured her that he was not about to leap and attack them, so she dropped to a crouch and surveyed the group. Not too much longer now.

((OOC: How should Cthulhu die? Leave a comment and we'll work out what to do with the epic blob of clay.))

>>"Unless you haven't noticed my gender ambiguous friend, we are currently twenty metres away from that thing at the side of the road. Something you may also wish to note here is the fact the road is the only clean piece of ground around here. Now, you may move, but I'm going to stay where I am thanks."

Wow was the Aussie punk grumpy. Gawain rolled his eyes and sat down, sitting down felt like a good idea, running didn't exactly agree with his lungs right now, or the lungs didn't agree with the ribs, hard to tell from outside.
Wait, what did he just call me?...

>>"Don't be a douche, Dundee.. It don't fit you..."

The cowboy who helped him and the girls earlier was just coming to his senses, with the green gal fretting all over him. She looked like the nurse of the team. The scene looked very familiar to the one a few minutes earlier, with Twyla and her first-aid kit. Maybe it was a girl thing.
Nah, Maya said, it's not a girl thing.

Bubble Queen joined them, and Gawain carefully shuffled out of the way. Just in case she had any fight left in her weird self.
Looked like she didn't.

Chtulhu seemed like he was fighting for his half-life, and losing the battle. It was a good thing to see. Gawain grinned, and suddenly he didn't feel like being pissed at anyone at all.

"All right, my extremely masculine friend, we'll just watch the Elder God melt and wait till the pumpkin carriage pulls up" he nodded to the group leader cheerfully. "Although I'm pretty sure we had more people when we arrived..."

Where or where was the snake tongue lizard? He of course was right in Cthulhu's face...or belly.

Koga was furious! they attacked it with a bus and fire and the thing had simply took it like any good Tokyo sky scrapper sized monster. so they found the weak point, don't bake it dilute it. so they got a fire truck and they were going to drown the bastard. The truck was being eaten and Australia turned off the hose. He was fighting for their lives, slicing at clay tentacles and making them leave shorter than they were leaving then when they showed up. he was doing pretty good for someone that thought they might drop dead from internal bleeding any moment now.

The truck was being devoured by the monsters stomach and as a blast of high pressure water rang out behind him, the others fled, but koga couldn't help but think that the opportunity to keep fighting was to great. he ran while the big oaf was to busy trying not to drown. He climbed down the wall and got inside the passenger side window. From there he rolled the window up as quickly as possible.
the windows were secure and so he smiled his grim smile one more time. He pushed the heater to full blast and climbed into the drivers seat. He disappeared with the big red truck into the beast. He pressed his foot down on the gas pedal and the tires started trying to spin and as the water poured into Cthulhu they gained more ground.

Koga's fierce smile wavered and was replaced with a sad sigh as he realized that though they had probably won. He was going to die with Cthulhu, there was no air left in the cab. he turned his foot side was and clamped it down to the floor board and the pedal would stay down even past the point he was no long unconscious...or even alive.

His eyelids started to drop his breaths were becoming more frantic not to mention the heater was probably starting to kill him with monoxide poisioning. His vision was starting to blur.

The beast is a danger,
ole tentacle head
the dark Cthulhu
his enemies fled

The rain in the gray sky
fell down where He slay
the dark Cthulhu
melting while at play

The kids are mending
The poor Baby quakes
But dark Cthulhu
A puddle He makes

I hate Thee, Cthulhu
deaths kiss from the sky
And fight for your life,
survival is a lie.

Surround me, Cthulhu,
we have won this day
Closed in clay forever
And take my breath away

Bless all the dear children
In The X’s care
And take them to safety
To keep the world fair


Koga’s eyes were fighting to not roll shut as he gasped one of his lasts breaths he fought hard now to suck in every one and his mind raced through all the things that he would never do. He would never save the world, he would never fight crime, he would never have a girlfriend, he would never love, never have children, never get to brag about all the crazy stupid things he did to night. Never know what it was to live in a world free of hate. Never teach the world acceptance. His eyes were tearing up, if from regret or a lack of breath he didn’t know. His lunges hammered and he hoped that they found him while he still had a bit of dignity. It was about that time that he found the oxygen mask and air tank not three feet away….go figure fire men kept extra air around to breath. The mask was secured around his mouth and he let out a slight laugh. Oxygen was the only present he needed this year.

((ooc: Koga-modded with permission. )

The gray clay flailed and writhed. Inconceivable. Drop by drop, fire truck by fire truck, his body—his beautiful, unholy body—was submitting to the forces of nature. No: not even to something so dignified as that. Submitting to a floating bubble man, a pubescent general, girls with firecrackers (and their bruised-rib little pillow-boy), and a lizard ninja.

His death approached. He could feel it, in every pound of gray flesh that traitorously dripped towards the ground. But he would not die alone. His bulk slumped forwards, defiantly sealing the ninja’s grave with a wet tombstone, meters thick and tons heavy. The last remains of his tentacles stood twitching guard over it.

A smaller tentacle reached up to touch them. Paperclip strand wrapped gently around wet clay. Octosaurus Rex almost seemed to stand vigil for a moment, over the death of its many-armed brethren. Then its grip tightened. Wire cut into wet clay as easily as distain into a dying elder god. The octoclip sunk below Cthulhu’s flesh.

Long moments passed.

In the street, the firefighters stood aghast at good chunk of their yearly budget, lost. The police, more calloused towards such things, kept directing traffic away from the site of the victorious battle. Overhead, the sky continued its pittering onslaught.

Cthulhu’s flesh bulged from within.

A paperclip tentacle sliced through the growing boil, and wrapped onto the splintered stump of a nearby tree. It pull, pull—(paused irritably to readjust its grip, then)—pulled[/b] itself from the elder god’s melting carcass. Gray clay coated it, and the ninja-shaped passenger wrapped in its arms. Air tank and all.

Across the street, Maxine zoomed in for a dramatic close-up. Good boy, Rex.

God rest ye merry fighters, let nothing you dismay,
Remember Cthulhu our Blighter was smote on Christmas Day;
To save us all from his power when the X-Men were away.

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy;
O tidings of comfort and joy.

The insufferable little creatures wriggled around on the ground to lick each other's wounds. Cthulhu could have cared less, but not by a very large margin; he had other things to deal with at the moment, namely an inordinate amount of liquid falling from the sky and filling up his makeshift body from the inside.

He had thought it would be fun to answer the summons of the little children, to wreak a little havoc on a poor unsuspecting world. He hadn't realized at the time the limitations of the physical body he had been offered. His spirit was strong, but without his own magnificent physical self, he had less control over the physical elements of this puny little world. It was annoying and quickly becoming not worth the fight. Even his efforts to take the puny little life form that had forced the water bearing vehicle down his throat had failed due to the limitations of the hydrous aluminum silicate.

Even his small traitorous bent wire brethren was was able to defeat the grey muck that he was quickly becoming.

Cthulhu bellowed something that was both incomprehensible to earthly ears and much too rude to translate then abandoned the clay altogether, letting it slump into a shapeless pile of sludge.

Back in his own body, on his own world again, he brooded.

Earth. It was more formidable than he had thought. The climate and even the inhabitants had actually challenged him, which hadn't happened in as long as he could remember.

Earth. He had resolved to put the incident out of his mind, but still caught himself wondering what would have happened if he had been cloaked in his own radiant form rather than the inferior earth-mineral one. Would it still have been a challenge?

Earth. He'd have to go back there someday. Crushing and killing was more fun when it was a challenge, and the little blue and green planet had definitely offered a challenge.

Earth. Soon.

Cthluhu smiled inwardly and returned to a well earned sleep. His dreams were dark, as always.

Away from this world, a dark cave for his bed
Cthulhu lies dreaming of an Earth cold and dead
The darkness of space looked down where he lay
The Old One, Cthulhu, defeated this day

He roared and he groaned about his defeat
He left behind his clay body and then did retreat
But back on his planet he made a dark plan
Some day he'd return to complete what he began

Beware, all ye earthlings rejoicing this night
You're injured and tired, but survived the plight
Rest and get healthy, before fate does turn
prepare yourself well for Cthulhu's return...

Saphirus stumbled back a little bit at the force of Cthuhlu's roar, steadying himself, and then stepping forward once more, replying under his breath, "F$%# you too, buddy." He then watched it melt away, slumping into an unrecognizable mound of clay. He pushed himself off of the tree he had been resting on, and moved closer, stumbling into the next closest one, and leaning on it. "Musta been something I said..." The older mutant took a deep breath, and righted himself the best he could, limping toward the pile of goo.

He was looking for something.

A grim, focused look came to his face as he got ever closer to the former monster. It got harder and herder as he went, as the mud was starting to get deep. The sound of his foot steps slowly transformed from a 'slosh slosh' to a 'shluck shluck' until every single step was laborious. "come on, now..." With way too much effort, he found his way to some of the harder clay, which meant he only sunk down to the ankles once more. He pulled himself up, and looked around.. "Don't be hidin from me..." He was about to give up when he saw a familiar figure sticking out of the mud a good thirty feet from him. A smile came to the older mutant's face. He rushed forward, grinning widely as he pushed through the deep mud with renewed energy and excitement. "there you are! I was worried sick about you!" He reached down into the mud, and pulled with all of his might.

A crow bar slowly came out. "Don't you go runnin off of me again, you and I gotta stick together." He looked like he was about to give the damn thing a hug... He just might, considering he was exhausted enough to speak to it like it was alive. He wiped it clean the best he could, and then started to lay into his knee with it like he had when he first started this fight... After he lost count of hits, he launched himself through the air, but quickly realized that mud wasn't as solid as normal ground, so energy transferred into it was going to be dispersed in a much wider fashion.. in short, he was launched only about half as high as he wanted, and ended up belly flopping in shallow mud.

He would have cursed, but his mouth was full of former Cthuhlu. He pulled himself up slowly, sitting there for a second, and then spitting out a mouthful of soggy muck. "...Well, That's embarrasing..." He shoved the straight half of his crow bar into the ground, and pulled himself up, deciding to crawl the rest of the way, covered from head to toe in deep brown clay. once he found himself clear of the mud fields, he turned onto his back, and lay down, breathing heavily.

Cthulhu roared. It sounded more like a gurgle though. With a final effort of defiance he saw the entire clay body go completely lifeless. Not a tentacle stirred. In the middle of it sat the idling fire truck, lights still going round and round. Cafas laughed from his now propped up position. His arms felt like lead weights, but that wasn't really that detrimental to him. After all, lead was metal. Using the last reserves of energy he had Alchemist got to his feet and stumbled forward a little. Yup, he'd live. Looking at the sad lump of clay he wondered how it was they had been so lucky as to have a rainy night. Watching the guy who had given him his jacket belly flop into the mud he smiled and went in search of his own lost item. Sloshing through the outer mud he finally felt his foot contact something rather more solid than the clay that was seeping into his boots. Bending down he grabbed it and wrenched it from the gross goo. The axe came free with a sucking sound reminiscent of... Pulling an axe from wet clay.

'You thought you'd gotten away didn't you.'

He sloshed back out, not in the direction of his comrades, rather in the direction of the police roadblock. "Fights over guys, thanks for the roadblock. Hey I got a bunch of badly beaten up kids and assorted others who need a lift home. Could you guys take us to the Xavier Mansion?" He smiled and for his effort got a nod and four cop cars starting up and driving up to where the group, or majority of it, were waiting. He himself approached the camera girl. "Miss I hate to bug you but we need the tape or memory card, whichever that records onto. It's nothing personal but we'd like to avoid anti mutant editing." As he said this he tried to indicate to a couple of the others that he wanted them to come and help him.

'Don't make a scene.'

Theos... It was horrific, almost worse than its previous roars. Andrea shivered despite herself. On the bright side, it was over- hopefully. Turning hope filled eyes to Verdi first, she grinned and got to her feet shakily. Everyone within her sight looked alive, if barely. Her eyes shifted to Verdi, then to Saph as he made his way into the pile of wet, slushy mud. It warmed her heart to see that he was up and on his feet again, acting like his old self, aside from her whack job of a patch up.... She wasn't so happy to see him stumbling around however, nor was she happy to see him splat face down into the mud after a failed jump.

"Saph!" She would have cursed, but her tongue was too busy clicking on the roof of her mouth. Andrea leveled her gaze his way, her feet itching to move towards him and make sure he was alright... but she kind of figured he would live. He was strong,. Instead, with a wobbly sigh, she turned to Verdi. "That man is going to be the death of himself, I think. maybe I should go over there and plaster a few more bandages on him to make a point." Orange eyes lifted as the forms of police officers and fire men, as well as a few good Samaritans flooded into the immediate area. She turned back to Verdi with raised eyebrows, "...I hadn't even noticed a crowd!" Her own lack of awareness both frightened and saddened her... but it would have to wait. She glanced back at Verdi, from her burns to her over all muddy self and recalled what she had asked earlier, 'Are we going home now?'

"Would you like me to find us a right home Verdi? I could see if one of the police officers could escort us?" Her eyes lifted in hopes of finding what she sought, an officer or someone with a car who would take them home, but they ended up landing on something else.

"Hey... who is the...erm...Cafas?...That is his name, yes?" She recalled hearing it somewhere... maybe. or she might just be making it up. "Who is he talking to, and what is he doing?" She pointed in the direction she was looking,. Her curiosity and worry spiking.

Andrea smiled her signature, tusk filled, grin and wobbled to her feet. Verdy wiped her face with the back of her very muddy sleeve and moved to stand next to her friend. Following the sunglasses, in lieu of eyes, she watched as the young man with a- crowbar?- splatted into the mud.

~"Saph!"

She glanced from her friend to the mud covered man. A tiny smirk. Talk about over protective. Her face was back to it’s mud covered neutrality before Andrea looked at her and she nodded her sympathies.

~"That man is going to be the death of himself, I think. maybe I should go over there and plaster a few more bandages on him to make a point."

Verdy smirked, she doubted if there were anymore plasters left in the box the way Andrea had covered the young man with them over every scrape and scratch. She glanced back to her friend.

“If you plaster him anymore he won’t be able to move. And I don’t think that I could carry him.”

She nodded her agreement, the group of people had hung off as long as there was work to be done, but surged forward now the danger was over. She felt her friend’s eyes on her and gave a weary smile, it was one of those nights that the excitement was just too much, there was really no hope for sleep. It had been many years since a Christmas eve had had this effect on her.

~"Would you like me to find us a right home Verdi? I could see if one of the police officers could escort us?"

Verdy stretched her neck and sighed, maybe it was time to go home, just as soon as everyone was safe. She followed her friends eyes as her voice changed. Their captain was talking to a stranger, she hadn’t noticed her during the fight and she felt a twinge of fear. Who was this person that made their captain beckon like he was. She clenched her fists once and took a deep breath. Their captain needed them. Home could wait.

“Lets go find out huh?”

With a wipe of her palms across her jeans, muddy and wet, she started off towards the purple hair captain and the clean young woman. Automatically her fingers wound their way into her pocket and grasped her marbles. Hope it doesn’t come to that.

Don’t make a scene. Wouldn’t want that.

“Eee-hee,” Maxine smiled a sheepish smile in the face of her mutant confronter. Two mutant confronters: one of the girls had come over now, too. She popped the end of her camera open. The thin memory stick fell into her palm. “Yeeeah. Sorry abo—”

Like hell she was. Mid-word, the red-head bolted. Don’t make a scene? Maxine was building her career off of making a scene.

Fact: Since she was thirteen, Maxine had woken up every morning at five. (Octoclips: the world’s most ruthless alarm clocks.)

Fact: Since she was fifteen, she’d been using that ungodly early time slot to go for a daily run.

Maxine was in better shape than the average New Yorker. Maxine was well rested. Maxine hadn’t just put all her energy into an epic battle against the forces of Cthulhu destruction. Besides a bit of pins-and-needles in her right arm—holding a camera steady for long stretches can do that to a girl—she was as fresh as a daisy.

A screaming, blood-curdling, damsel-in-distress daisy.

“Heeeelp!” She wailed, as she raced directly towards the police barricade. Her back was to the clay-covered do-gooders. Chances were good they wouldn’t see her next little move: she tucked the data stick away somewhere nice and safe, and replaced it in her hand with a similarly sized object: the camera’s lithium battery. In her closed fist, it would be hard to tell the difference between the two. She kept running.

Also, screaming.

As to exactly where that ‘safe place’ was, gents: the ladies know. And if you know what’s good for you, you keep your hands out of there. Running wasn’t all she had up her sleeve. Or, to be specific: in her purse. Above her ear. And in quite a few sources, all around her. Hello, modern New York. You're just what the office supply mancer ordered.

There are lots of different ways of relaxation; Gawain was familiar with many of them. Sleeping, chilling, reading a good book, listening to music, watching tv...
But right now he was pretty sure sitting on the ground watching Chtulhu melt away beat all the rest.
The team was battered and bruised and more than a bit disoriented. The grumpy pink-haired guy seemed to take the role of the leader - who asked him anyway?... - and the rest were occupied with pulling themselves together. Putting on bandages and fishing around in the now harmless mud for lost object.
Gawain sighed a contented smile and slowly got to his feet. Last thing he needed was to freeze his @ss off on the street after the fight was over.
He greeted Maxine with a grin. A very special grin, designed for ladies he had danced with.
"Hey there, M...."

>>"Miss I hate to bug you but we need the tape or memory card, whichever that records onto. It's nothing personal but we'd like to avoid anti mutant editing."

The grin wavered. Pinky cut in once again. All right, so he made a good point, that video had a lot of embarrassing stuff on it, but that was still no way to talk to a lady, and...
Spoilsport.

>>“Heeeelp!”

Ouch. Aural damage. Gawain had no idea Maxine could scream like that. Pushing all following thoughts back into the gutter he rolled his eyes and bolted towards the nearest car. "I've got that."
He could hear the gasps of surprise around him as his palm hit the side window on the car, and the next minute he was slipping in and out of mirrors and various reflecting surfaces - mainly shop- and car windows along the street. It took a lot of concentration to keep going in that crazy bee line, and toss the hurting ribs on the mix, but it was still good speed, and Maxine's screaming was pretty easy to follow.
Once he was sure he was ahead of her just the right distance, Gawain skipped into the next car window, then out onto the street. It was less graceful than he'd planned; one knee and one palm hit the ground, and the ribs were complaining against the breathing process in general. Pushing himself to his feet, he ran the few steps to the middle of the street, looking up at Maxine running towards him.
Sh*** it's not gonna work.

Leaning forward he had to rest one hand on his knee, as he held up his other hand, signaling her to stop.
Let's hope she can.
Because three ladies falling all over him in one hour would be too much.
Even for a knight.

Cafas tried to run after her, he really did. However when one's limbs only move because of adrenaline it is hard for said one to keep up with fleeing reporters. However, he had a plan. It was devious, it was underhanded and it was mean but he had a police roadblock with a crazed girl running towards it. That video was not going anywhere. Cafas took as big a breath as he could while running and yelled past the girl, and now, boy that was trying to stop her. "Officers, stop her, she made that thing. She's gonna get away, arrest her!" Yup, cheating was the best tactic. Meanwhile his limbs began to work faster as the sugar rush from before kicked into overdrive. He felt great. He may be barely dressed, covered in bruises and cuts and slightly mad looking, but he had sugar on his side. He picked up his pace just that one little bit.

'If they don't stop her then we are going to need some seriously fast or uninjured people to chase her down. Or ones running off sugar like me.'

Cops reinforced the barricade they were still holding down, likely due to the totally devastated street. They faced inward and got ready. He even saw a couple pull out batons. He thought guns would have worked better. Oh well. It didn't look good for the guy in front of him. Alchemist, despite his happy energy supplies, was still falling behind. He wished sugar energy worked half as well as carbs. He broke into an all out sprint just to maintain his distance, stumbling slightly. Damn that giant clay monstrosity. He could already feel energy sapping from him as he pumped his legs and arms as well as he could. It was looking bad for him. He needed that memory stick card though they all did, if that got on the news, it would be truly devastating for mutant relations with humans.

'I'm too old for this...'

Following Verdi closely, her bare feet squishing loudly underfoot. She was curious, worried, and now slightly afraid due to her companions reaction. Just what was going on now? She stayed her tongue and continued forward, until before her eyes all hell broke loose- seemingly.

First it was the red headed girl screaming and bolting from the spot, then it was the Unnamed boy the Alchemist had referred to as a 'gender ambiguous friend' bolting after and displaying a pretty impressive power while doing so. Andrea tried to keep track of him, but when her eyes threatened to cross from darting around to much, she gave up and turned them to watch as Cafas bolted after the girl as well.

Now she was really confused. Wasn't all of the fighting over? They weren't going to hurt the girl, were they? With a frightened glance at Verdi, she sped up her pace into a run (if you could call it a run) and attempted to catch up with the Alchemist. He at least would have some answers, right?

~“Heeeelp!”

Verdy started a little as the girl started screaming then darted forward as she began to run away. Something was wrong, something was way wrong, and judging from the hunk of plastic and metal clutched in her hands, it was wrong on tape. Crap. Captain Alchemist and the gender-ambiguous horse rider gave chase, but there was only so much running battered bodies can take. She frowned, the girl had something, something the captain needed or wanted. Besides that, she ignored the women’s rule of screaming ‘fire’ not help in a situation. Marbles gripped tightly in her hand she lifted her other palm up and frowned a little. She wasn’t used to aiming at people, much less running people, but how hard could it be?

‘thuck’

She saw the rider leap into the reflection on a car window Duco hopping, cool., the marble fell way short. Aiming higher this time she let another leave her palm, flash of blue in the streetlights. Closer. She watched, slowing a little, as police gathered into a bundle. Who’s side were they on? Theirs or the runners? She supposed it didn’t really matter either way. Police were dreadfully fond of forms and statements, and would no doubt detain the young woman for questioning.

One more time now, slow her down so the police can grab her with ease. Aiming around knee hight in the hope it would hit the red-head in the foot she let loose a black marble, one of her best. If it made it to the girls foot it would pierce the sole of her shoe and hopefully knock her foot off track enough to make her fall over. If she smashed her video camera on the way down and the tape was ruined, all the better. Even if the marble didn’t hit the woman’s foot it was in close enough proximity to her feet that she could still step on it and slip. Especially with so much water and slippery clay all over the place. With a deep breath she slithered to a stop, to wait and see the fruit of her handiwork. No pun intended.

Cthulu was dying! Oh happy day! Juka would have danced and sung right then and there if he wasn't in so very much pain. He wanted to get up and make his joy at the death of the monster apparant for all to see. He wanted to get up onto a stage and perform in a way that he had never performed before and shout and sing and dance his joy for all to see and adore. But the problem with that was twofold: first he was still stuck in his bubble but that, in and of itself, wasn't realy much of a problem. The real problem was that he hurt. Every inch of his body seemed to be a mass of bruises and pain. No, there would be no singing or dancing for Juka this day and perhaps not for many days to come. The world would be bereft of his multitudes of talents, at least for a little while.

After going through his mental celebrations, Juka became aware of two things. The first was that the dying Cthulu was a truly disgusting and horrible sight and he found himself thankful for his bubble that prevented any of that icky icky clay from getting onto his nice clean dress. The second was that just about everyone else seemed as brusied and exhausted as he was and some seemed to be in a worse state than he was in. Despite himself, he found himself feeling a little bit sorry for the many dirty and battered heroes.

Juka heard the call for help but just couldn't bring himself to move from his place, lying floating prone just above the ground. Cthulu was dead and that meant that whatever threat remained was someone else's problem. He should do something, he really should. He should at least rise himself to look and see why there was yelling and what was going on. But all he really wanted to do was lie there and sleep. Unfortunately sleep wasn't going to come (damned annoying bubble) so he settled for lying there. If there was a real threat someone would surely tell him, right?