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Just to throw in another suggestion. If a user of said drug was either to fall pregnant, or use the drug while pregnant, would it encourage a lot more X-gene positive births, as at the time of formation in the womb, the mother was carrying an X-gene? That could cause long-term effects and oppurtunities for secondary (or third or fourthly) characters to have a history written into the MRO universe already.

I'm all for the drug scenario and I'll put my name forward to be kidnnapped too

We meet again in Knock knock knocking

Verdigris hoisted her bag back onto her shoulder and consulted the piece of paper she had scribbled the room number given to her onto. Asking politely to be placed in a specific room, technically with a specific roommate, could work wonders.

She walked up the stairs and down the middle hallway, apparently when you were older than 18 you could sleep in the ‘adults’ corridor. She felt a little awkward, like she had snuck into an ‘R’ rated film underage. Giving herself a tiny shake she continued down the hall. There was nothing here that should be worrisome to her. Nothing to be afraid of. Except that maybe Andrea would not remember her offer to share a room. In which case she would just walk right back down the stairs and ask for a different room number and hope that it was either empty or occupied by someone who was as easy to get along with as the girl with green skin had been.

She stopped in front of a closed door and double checked the number on her page and the door. This was it, the moment of truth. She made a fist around the already crumpled page and knocked solidly once, twice, three times.

"Hello? Anyone home?"

Spercifically 'any green-skinned-first-mate-hopefully-soon-to-be-roomie-home?' but that was far too long winded for the dark haired captain. Also a little awkward for anyone walking by.

((OOC: please ignore any typos/epic fails, PM me if they're aweful or if I'm god-modding and I'll fix, just is late and am falling asleep at the keyboard.))

Verdigris was not a brilliant leader. In fact this was probably the first time that any responsibility had been placed on her shoulders for around three years. It was tough. The others didn’t seem to hear her, or seemed to ignore her, with attacks continuing on the giant beast with little to no direction. Her shout to the boy in the bubble hadn’t seemed to work to cease his attack on the rider boy at all, although he acknowledged her shout by looking around.

Faithful Andrea was still following her and as they reached the line of trees Verdigris turned to her.

“We have to figure out some kind of plan. Pool our resources.”

She paused at the mention of the first aid kid and glanced around, she could see the purple haired boy semi-naked and seemingly coated in roughly welded metal shrapnel from the tearing bus.

“Do you have anything for burns? That may be our biggest issue. That and shrapnel cuts.”

She placed the brazier on a steady patch of earth and threw in some of the dead wood that had been blasted over when the monster had thrown the first tree. Soon the flames leapt up and above the edges of the brazier, working as a beacon to guide the other mutant teens and young people to the clearing so they could re-group and re-assess. She was fairly sure that the clay beast was either deaf or indifferent to the screams of the creatures below it so she called out again.

“Heeeey! To me, we have to fight it together!”

Ineffectual words to those who would not listen, but her voice was backed up by another in her ear.

~~ “Run!”

She was not going to run. She was the beacon. The rally point. She just hoped that others heard the voice and would heed the other instructions yelled through the rainy night.

“Meet up here, by the clearing!”

One more try wouldn’t hurt and perhaps some of the others would hear and join her, at least in the calling for more of the others or formulating a plan of action. The boy with purple hair was stumbling towards him and after a particularly worrying wobble Verdigris rushed over to him, offering an arm for him to lean on for the last hundred meters or so.

“You OK boss? What’s the plan?”

She threw a glance over his exposed flesh and winced at the bruises and a particularly bad gash across the back of his hand. She fought the urge to dry retch and instead waved at Andrea, trying to draw her attention.

“You got a bandage in that bag of tricks?”

She looked at the purple haired boy again, he didn’t look quite right, apart from the metallic coating of course. His wrists looked swollen, and he was walking a little weird.

“Just be careful kay? Don’t bend his wrists too much.”

She pointed to a decorative rock that stood about waist high on her.

“You should sit on that and let Andrea fix you up. Don’t overdo yourself.”

She turned her attention to the young man who had first attended the purple haired boy and who was now joining them at the safety of the clearing. The man was asking, no, demanding, that Bubbles hit him as hard as possible. She knew that sometimes people were affected strangely by battles, but this was a little different. Bubbles seemed to be displaying the turn-on-your-team-mates reaction, which she had heard of, but she had never come across asking-your-team-mates-to-turn-on-you before. The responsibility was weighing hard on her and she turned towards where the fireworks had come from.

“HOY! Come here! We need to stick together!”

She wasn’t sure if the people had heard, or even if they were still there, but the rain was starting to get in her face and make it hard to see. She tipped her face upwards, the rain and the dark made it impossible to see anything more than silver droplets moments before they crashed into her face but she was sure that the winged-boy and the young girl with him were somewhere up there. She turned her eyes on the purple haired boy again. This was like truth and dare where she had to make up the dare. She hated having to decide what to do.

“What can we do as a whole? Smashing at him individually is doing nothing.” She glanced at the beast that was squishing semi-dry burning clay back into itself. “Almost nothing rather. We need to hit him all together instead of just bashing away. We’re hurting each other more than it!”

She glanced at Bubbles and the purple haired boy. There was no way for them to beak it separately. She just hoped someone else could figure out how to destroy it.

She watched as Andrea leapt and joined her on the relative safety of the tree trunk. She wobbled a little, but seemed able to keep her balance without the assistance or encouragement of Verdigris. Verdy turned her attention to holding the brazier at an angle which didn’t allow the coals to jerk out onto the wet ground. Hearing a sucking, slurping noise she turned in time to see Andrea pulling herself away from a tentacle which was holding her shoe triumphantly.

Andrea approached, wobbling and slipping on mud-covered feet, one now shoeless. She was dripping mud and water but seemed mainly unharmed. Verdigris opened her mouth to ask if she was ok but stopped as another shout rang out.

~~"You, shooter girl, get to the forest and act as a rally point, get everyone to you, I'll be back."

She stared at the boy as he ran towards the giant beast. The drawling accent took a few moments to sink into her brain. Did he just pass command of gathering the troops onto her? So it would seem. His glowing sword made her brazier feel very ineffective so she snatched at a piece of dead wood on a branch nearby. Shoving it into the coals she turned as the boy started screaming. Great. She was taking instruction from someone insanely running towards the giant beast that was trying to kill them all. Just brilliant. She wobbled along the trunk throwing occasional glances towards the purple haired boy as he flailed his way through the rain and clay that tried to strangle his pumping legs.

Verdigris stopped as her way was again blocked by an inconvenient branch. She glanced at the giant beast that now possessed a glowing sword and an axe, swinging them from separate face tentacles sporadically. She watched the glowing shape of sword fling from tentacle to where the purple haired boy perched on top of the giant beast. This was not good. With a flying leap that would put a long jumper to shame the boy was hacking. The boy was cutting. The boy was falling.

“Sh******************t!”

He hit the bus. Hard. Verdigris felt bile rise in the back of her throat at the force of the impact. That would have really, really hurt. He would be right back? Doubtful. Very doubtful.

~~"Looks like your in command now, Aye captain?"

“Aye. That it does.”

Being captain to a ship of dreams and imagination, crewed by herself and her green-skinned roommate was one thing. Grouping together a bunch of frightened mutant children and teenagers was a whole other kettle of fish, so to speak. But that was the final order of the, she searched for a word more powerful than captain for a moment, commodore and she would adhere to his wishes as best she could. She wobbled once before spreading her legs slightly into a more commanding stance, befitting a captain that demanded respect. She took a huge breath and paused as the horse and rider returned to the scene, then again as a firework zoomed past her to explode against the monsters leg. Finally she spied someone who might listen. The bubbler who the commodore had risked, and possibly sacrificed, his life for. Bubbles looked mad, and hurt. He seemed to be intent on doing the rider from the horse some great damage.

“HEY! Bubbles!”

The scream was as loud as she could muster, perhaps she could gain the attention of the rider near him. Even the horse would be welcome. She glanced at the girls by a park bench and upwards in an attempt to see the bird-boy that had flown away from the bus shelter with a younger girl on his back. Her elevation on the horizontal tree trunk meant her voice would probably carry further, and she held the now flaming stick aloft in her right hand, it would work as a beacon in the dim light and falling rain.

“We need to work together, meet up by that tree. If we work as a team we can do it.”

Not one of her more motivational speech, but hopefully anyone who heard her would make for the large oak tree out of the range where Cthulhu’s tentacle-minions squirmed up from the ground. Then perhaps if they pooled their resources, both mutation wise and apparently gunpowder wise, then they had a better chance of doing the beast some damage, without injuring or killing anyone. Else. She glanced to the top of the bus, there seemed to be a man there attempting to rescue the Commodore, so maybe everything would be alright and he would come back and take over the group. He promised he’d be back. She motioned to Andrea.

“C’mon, we have to try and get everyone to that tree so we can figure out what to do.”

Shoving her way past the inconvenient branch she half ran- half scuttled her way to the oak tree, flaming branch still held aloft as a guidance to any who heard her call and would join her to rally up and figure out a plan. She never was the greatest at plans. She shuddered as a drip sploshed on her neck, it sent chills down her spine.

~”Hey, Verdigris!”

She glanced up from the coals in time to see her green roomie sprinting across the expanse between tree and bus shelter waving before she slammed into the side of the bus shelter. Verdigris winced, but Andrea was seemingly unharmed. Fingers emerged around the plastic and metal corner, followed by a green face sporting the ever-present sunglasses. Verdigris was happy to see that the girl was unhurt, but nervous that that state could be easily changed in their current situation. She had no reason to feel responsible for the other young woman, yet as the friendship grew so did her desire to protect her. It was probably a reflex reaction from leaving her family and friends behind three years ago.

~”…but you know what I mean.”

Yes, yes she did. It was good to have a familiar face amongst the terror and imminent death raging around them. Strangely comforting to think that if something horrible did happen that at least you would have someone to talk to on the walk to the afterlife, or as you floated as incorporal beings, or whatever happened when you ceased being, if indeed anything happened at all. The green girl opened her mouth, which was either smudged with slight grass stains or reacting differently in this light giving off shimmering lighter patches. A shout from somewhere over there and the mouth popped closed. Verdigris stepped forward to see the shouter and could see the vague shape of the boy with purple hair holding the still-glowing sword he had driven, red hot into the monster.

"Should we meet up with them?"

Verdigris pondered this for a moment. A very short moment. This was the guy who figured out that heat would dry the beast out and, although it was now starting to look more and more like it was going to rain, she felt like she should trust his judgement. At the very least he could hold some direction as to something more productive she could do, for some reason the coals which were fired so eagerly from her palms seemed to do little more than dry the area they hit for a moment before it was circulated through and moistened again by the wet air and the rest of the clay surrounding it. It was really too cold and damp an evening to hope that evaporation would help them. Even if the boy with purple hair could do nothing else than call them together then at least they could figure out what they had between them.

“I think that would be a good idea, they might be able to give us some directio-”

The beast was howling, a bloodcurdling cry that made no sense as it had no voice box. Verdigris grabbed the wire handle to the brazier in an attempt to rescue the coals as the ground shook. All of a sudden the rain didn’t matter, the fact that they were merely mortals, trying to fight off a giant animated statue of a god, faded into the back of her mind. Cthulhu was reaching, tentacles were rising from the wet ground and flailing, searching for wayward limbs to seize.

Verdigris was not a fan of girls who screamed. Girls who squealed at spiders or mice or slugs or other such minor irritants were far beneath her on the evolutionary chain. This, however, was no mouse. No creepy crawly easily squashed by a shoe. This was a beast intent on killing as many of them as it possibly could. This was worth dropping all inhibitions and screaming for. She shrieked and leapt onto the small seat in the bus shelter throwing her right hand out to pull Andrea onto the safety of the slight elevation. This was the most deadly game of ‘lava’ ever. Instead of teasing and ridicule if you fell from your perch, actual death awaited in the form of writhing deadly clay.

She motioned frantically to Andrea. The small building provided next to no protection and they needed to get away from the tentacles which grabbed and squirmed searching for ankles to wrap around and drag into the clutches of the beast. Verdigris jumped from the bus seat to the trunk of a huge tree which had been tossed and discarded. The trunk ran from the bus shelter towards where the boy with purple hair had been had been gesturing as he called out. Wobbling dangerously for a moment Verdigris flung her hands out to the sides, the brazier rocking and swaying as she attempted to right herself. A coal plopped from the box to the ground where it sizzled out on the damp earth. A final wobble and the centre of gravity was located. Now to tightrope walk amid rain and flailing clay to an area where she might be safe.

A loud horn blasted and a bus came ramming up the curb and towards the clay beast. The trunk shuddered at the crash as the bus hit the giant god but stilled itself before she was bucked off, grabbing a branch which was now standing upright she carefully squeezed herself around it and continued the dangerous walk, the brazier still glowing merrily in her hand. At least now the beast’s attention was elsewhere. With her left hand clenched around the wire that held the brazier she had no way to guarantee or predict what might come out of her right palm should she try to fire at any tentacles that approached. Now was not a time for pebbles or loose change. The coals hissed and sizzled as drips of muddy water flinging through the air touched the orange embers. The ground beneath the tree trunk swirled with tentacles, she wibbled, wobbled, righted herself and continued to walk the trunk to the area specified. Nothing quite like a fight on Christmas Eve.