Xaviers!

"Even if we had cavalry, they wouldn't get here before this thing has destroyed the hospital," she says, trying to assess what the 'thing' is, flipping through what few sensors the suit has. She considers employing her taser before the calculations tell her that charge-to-mass ratio will make it ineffective. "What is this thing anyway?"

"A cancer, spreading out of control. It will absorb whatever it can get a hang on, and will grow uncontrollably. I have no idea if this was the Brotherhood's plan all along, or if they were meddling with forces they do not understand, but this is really, really, bad.

We could try dumping a shitload of electricity into it and frying it -- wire it into the power grid, or something?"

Bruce pulled himself up with newfound ease and nodded his thanks to Sean.

"Might work. I couldn't generate enough unless I was, like, actual kaiju size."

"A jolt big enough to stunt this thing might kill everyone inside it, depending on conductivity," she says, locking the launcher on the taser to keep the prongs locked on her arm. She charges it and takes an experimental swipe at some of the mass that gets too close.

The electricity has a pronounced effect, much more than what her calculations told her it should. The pseudopod she strikes at seizes up in it's entirety and twitches erratically before shrivelling up and withdrawing into the main mass.

"Bruce! Electricity seems to make it wilt! Lay into it and see how you do," she calls over the radio before she goes to work herself, trying to drive the mass back a bit with the taser.

Sean returns Bruce's nod dispelling the enchantment once Bruce had scrambled to safety. After hearing Natalie tell Bruce over the radio that electricity works Sean gathers energy into a lightning spell and tosses a bit of it at the growing mass to assist with pushing it back.

The lightning bolt strikes at the central mass and for a moment the the section that was hit almost seems to 'cave in', creating a large indentation. And in the chaotically quivering mess of organic material it's easy to miss, but for a moment a regular human hand pushes out of the mass grasping at the air before the whole thing swells again and the hand is swallowed up.

"Up the voltage -- we need to drive it back. Get it to shrink in on itself, and then find some way to contain it."

"One electric wallop, coming right up!" Bruce responded with a crackling voice before generating and releasing a ball of electricity twice the size of his head.

"More voltage, yeah, sure," Sean says grabbing a vial of something silvery from a pocket. He pokes at the wound his arm so he can use blood to kick up the voltage. Sean pours the vial out into a bloody hand as he spits out the chant for a modified version for the lightning spell and reality seems to groan slightly as he gathers energy for his next spell. The next lightning bolt is red leaving reality screeching as dark magic twists and churns.

Bruce's ball of electricity slams into the side of the thing and it shrinks away until Archaea's arm and shoulder become visible, helplessly grasping at the air. Then Sean's bolt strikes and instead of shriveling and shrinking away more the area hit begins to blacken and die, the whole mass flailing in response as numerous pseudopods slam at the walls, knocking Sean to the ground and latching on to Bruce, yanking him down and onto the mass itself.

With a chunk of it dead and crumbling the part that was sticking up above the crumbled floor collapses in a heap, burying Archaea again and partway swallowing up Bruce as he's pulled down along with the squirming mass.

Sean laid on the ground for a moment collecting himself. He'd been hit quite a bit today after all, but fortunately this time he'd at least managed to get a partial shield up instead of getting smeared across the floor.

Jolly good effort there...

Sean thought to himself as he got to his feet again shield staying up this time as he stared down at the creature.

"Well, maybe try zapping it now... I can put a shield around you and the other person," Sean said sounding a bit... tired and leaving out that he could probably shield them both provided they weren't moving too much. He began gathering energy into the enchantment he'd carved into the ring. It began to glow as he tried to shield Bruce and Archaea. Hopefully that protect them while they figured something out? Maybe.

"We fall back. We cordon off the hospital; maybe the entire block. We call in the military," Will said, backing up slowly.

"Leaving someone else to clean up your mess again," Natalie says as she analyzes the electronics in her suit. They're hardened to protect them from random surges and the truly important bits are hidden under armor, but the armor itself is designed to conduct electricity away from the sensitive bits. Maybe if she could intentionally overload the circuits, she could electrify the armor, at least temporarily. The system does the power calculations for her, coming up with unfavorable numbers, but she's hit the 'do crazy shit' stage of her general lack of experience. Her mind flies through the programming, removing safeties and pushing the voltage beyond recommended limits. As bits of the armor begin to crackle and the power drain on her system begins to take its toll, she leaps down through the hole, directly into the mass where she last saw Bruce and Archaea.

"Just shield Archaea from us!" Bruce called out as he charged his entire body and began punching and clawing his way towards Archea.

Bruce has some success, the mass shrinking away from him as he claws at it with electrified hands, but keeping track of where he is or where he's going is hard. The still growing thing closes up around him the moment he turns his attention one direction or another and it's exhausting to keep up the electric charge while also treading water in the squishy molasses of flesh-mountain.

At the same time Natalie plunges into the side of the massive growth. Her charge is not as strong as Bruce's, just barely enough to create a very uncomfortable tunnel to plummet through, but this one doesn't close as fast, thanks to Bruce rampaging inside somewhere and pre-occupying most of it's growth. It's claustrophobic to say the least and her sensors are giving erratic readouts of fluctuating density, temperature and other parameters all around her until she manages to zero in on a relatively stable mass of tissue that pops up and soon the growth in front of her parts to reveal Archaea's head and part of her shoulder. She gasps for air and manages to squeak out a weak "Help..." as she slowly begins to sink further into the mass of her own creation, flesh closing over her head as one arm manages to pull free and grasp at Natalie's helmet. If she wasn't a robot-body encased in armor that probably would have been catastrophic. But instead the current running through the armor zaps the grasping hand and it jerks away at the painful bite of electricity.

There's a brief pop-hiss as Natalie engages the safety release on her right gauntlet, letting it and the graviton gun attached to it fall away as her now bare hand makes a grab for Archaea's hand, trying to pull her out of the mess.

The synthetic skin prickles strangely, but Archaea's power doesn't find any real purchase. Pulling her free however proves difficult without any foothold in the fleshy blob and the tunnel left behind by Natalie's descent is slowly closing as limbs and other appendages grow from the walls and reach out for each other.

The other gauntlet release pops and Natalie reaches out with her other hand, "Will! I need a lift!"

"You're crazy, right? Get out of there!"

"I don't have damn rocket boots on this thing and you're the only one who can reach!"

Reluctantly, Will stretched one arm -- and only one arm -- deep down towards Natalie, grabbing her hand.

Will's arm dodges and weaves down past the criss-crossing limbs in the orifice tunnel and finds Natalie's hand. With some effort he manages to pull both Natalie and Archaea out, inverting the tunnel in the process as part of it clings to Archaea before they come loose with a squelching sound that everyone present is going to hear in their nightmares for a while. Natalie and Archaea go tumbling to the ground next to Will, one landing with a loud, the other with a pained thud while the giant flesh-mountain finally gets a chance to calm down.

"Is everyone out of that...that thing yet?"

Archaea coughs and weakly shakes her head.

"The big Shark-Boy..." she says without looking up.

"Fucking hell, I told everyone to get out, but did they listen to me? No!" he groused, looking around the room for...something.

"I think I have enough juice for one more return trip," Natalie says, standing up and trying to find some sign of Bruce. She didn't have much power left, the warnings were telling her that much. Jettisoning her gauntlets had taken some of her batteries with them, so she had even less than she'd started with. The numbers were telling her it was strictly a one-way trip, but she wasn't about to tell anyone else that.

"I can get him out if I can get line of sight," Sean said looking towards the mass.

"Your funeral. I'm going to look around for someway to immobilize this thing for transport."

"I'll get you that line of sight then," she says, taking a quick calculation to judge where Bruce might be before jumping back in feet first.

Guess I have to use the whole vial then...

Sean thought grumpily as Natalie jumped back in.

"Just stay close to him when you do," Sean said into the radio before pulling a vial of a crystalline substance from a pocket. With one hand he uncapped the vial and began chanting the words to the teleportation spell that would hopefully get them out and probably only give them strange visions of another dimension for a few days.

The surface of the Will-thing bulged repeatedly from what was hopefully the blows of a thrashing shark-man, but they were growing weaker.

Natalie plunges back inside as her batteries are swiftly depleting. Fortunately, Bruce has created bit of a hollowed out space into which to plummet just as the charge running through the exterior of her armor peters out. And right on her heels is an erratic spark of magical power tracing a path back out and with a stomach-turning lurch reality folds itself inside out around Natalie and Bruce as Sean's spell transports them back out along the path his spell traced, zipping back into reality next to Will and the Wizard.

And like a puppet with her strings cut, Natalie collapses, suit and all.

Somewhere on Ashlie's monitoring, an error message pops up.

Code: Select all

Telemetry lost.

Short-distance or not teleportation took something out of you and Sean was now very tired. If the creature decided to continue making a big fight out of this he'd probably have one maybe two spells left in him at best. After seeing Natalie's suit collapse he frowned.

"Well, that's less than ideal," Sean said dryly leaning forwards hands on his knees to catch his breath.

Will returned with a whole bundle of pills and things in his arms.

"Get her out of here. Quickly."

"What exactly are you going to do with those?" Sean asked standing up straight.

"Pacify this so it doesn't engulf the hospital, absorbing everyone here into itself and moving on to terrorize Maldon like something out of a shitty B movie?"

"Drugs will work then? Maybe a sleep spell would help?" Sean asked. "Think I've got enough in the tank left for one or maybe two workings."