trans_9 | Survivalist Plot: And Now We Just Try to Survive

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Survivalist Plot: And Now We Just Try to Survive

In the middle of one of Stacy's nights, a distress beacon comes in. A desperate S.O.S. shows up on the screens. Source: one of Stacy's mission shuttles, the one that went to the small colony planet 'Eden' to answer a distress call.

|| Crematia, Goliath and Jorge. Please report to the Observation Deck for a rescue mission. ||

The rescue crew has little time to react and prepare. Within a matter of minutes, the available hands on deck are equipped and stuffed into an unarmed shuttle, then sent down to the planet surface. The shuttle lands a few hundred yards from the radio tower, the source of the beacon. The original crew is still inside the tower.

And between the tower and the shuttle, fifty strange, malformed beasts loll about in the baking desert sun. They're the pinkish color and texture of uncooked plucked chickens, the size of bears and armed with mouths large enough to fit a dog in. Drool dribbles from their fangs in thick ropes. Their hands are unsettlingly humanoid, with six long fingers that taper into a needle point. They don't look even a little concerned about the shuttle.

[OOC: I will be traveling tomorrow, so please feel free to NPC your own monsters and cause carnage. This is your chance to get your character mutilated, or have them save the day with a heroic gesture! Threadjacking and teaming up is encouraged! The monsters are intelligent enough to learn from imitation, but otherwise just lunge at you and bite you. They can also mimic sounds, but they are no longer flammable. Alas. If you want me to NPC for you, drop me a line or tell me in the subject title.]

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[Go wild.]

Crematia normally would have gone into her perfect form and just kill them all, but she holds herself back. She wants to know of these creatures.

So as a human in a glimmering green gown, she strolls up to the monsters, unafraid.

It's not Goliath's style to attack creatures that haven't already attacked him first, so he follows the woman with his eye on the lolling beasts.

That baking sun is doing his night vision no favors, but he doesn't raise a wing to shade himself. To do so might be interpreted, too early, as an aggressive gesture.

The monsters aren't afraid of her, either. For the most part they look as if they're ignoring her. One of the smallest ones lopes up to her with a lopsided gait and sniffs, deciding whether to attack her now or leave her to the pack leader.

They are, however, intimidated by Goliath. One of the largest ones circles around him, trying to get behind him, then lunges to take a bite of the strange winged man's ankles. Another leaps for Goliath's jugular, fast as a leopard.

She ignored the little beast, interested in the larger ones circling around this strange gargoyle. When they leap, Crematia of course did a little hop away from the three beasts, wanting to see how all of them fight.

Goliath had done a fair job of pretending not to notice the large creature as it put itself in a position to stalk him. He knew the routines of territorial pack predators. He was one. He had been waiting to see which of the alpha warriors would challenge him, and how.

He sidestepped the bite to his ankles and grabbed the lunging beast out of midair, digging his claws into its flesh as he threw it into the other beast before it could launch its next attack. He threw a kick at the downed pair, not relishing the idea of killing them, but knowing that there was a chance if he decisively defeated one of the pack alphas and another that had challenged him openly early on, he might spare himself and the rest of the rescue crew trouble from the rest.

It was a slim chance, but still a chance.

Unfortunately, since they now all read Goliath as a threat, their intention is to take him down as quickly as possible. The two on the ground scramble to get out of the way in vain, and are stampeded by the others as they rush to either get at Goliath or get away from him. At least six try to leap on Goliath at the same time, and a few others go for his tail.

Swarm tactics. They're what's in style.

In the chaos, the littler one tracking Crematia around decides to take a violent course of action, and charges at her.

Before the small whelp could sink its fangs into the woman, she suddenly expanded in size, wings growing out of her back and red scales covering her pale skin.

In the woman's place is a large, monstrous red dragon roaring a challenge. So massive was she that she stepped on both the little beast and a nearby larger one.

"I never thought there were so many..."

Clef watches out the window with trepidation as the shuttle lands. He was afraid of this - some large number of monsters between them and their rescuers. Still, this is better than not being rescued - right? Theoretically they're almost there.

Not that it'll matter, if they die on the way there.

He turns to look at the others, and Maxine is the first face his eyes fall on. They've made a good team, thus far, and done a lot. Now they just have to do one more thing, and suddenly he's not so sure they'll both make it. He's more afraid that she'll die than anything else - he's old and hasn't feared his own death in a long, long time.

"Maxine? How are you feeling? Do you think you can fight?"

In all honesty-- Maxine is scared. For herself, for Clef, for everyone else. She doesn't want to die there, and she wants everyone else to get hurt even less. She's already seen a few deaths since arriving here, and she wishes it could have turned out so differently.

But, in spite of her exhaustion, and her hunger, she knows she has to fight. She's fought before, she's faced terrible things before-- the least she can do now is do it again, for her friends. They're almost there, right?

She's holding the puppy they had found, gently, but she nods her head, in her best impression of determination.

"I-- I think so," she says. "It'll be easier now that I have my powers back."

The creatures can smell fear, and encouraged by their returned strength, seem almost lazy as they wait for people to start making a run for it. One of them stares through the window at Maxine with those grotesque half-blind eyes and mimics the dog's barking noise.

And, the next minute, there will be the loud sound of gunfire, bullets starting to rain down on the beast staring in at the window.

The source? A 7'8" SPARTAN-II, carrying a rather large gun. His aim? To decimate the monsters hanging around to open a clear path.

That seems helpful. At least it helps lift Clef's spirits enough that he doesn't automatically think they'll all die if they go outside. He turns to Maxine.

"You have wind magic, correct? Do you think we could make some kind of cyclone strong enough to keep the creatures from getting too close?"

Maxine honestly feels sick to her stomach when she sees the monster out there, making those noises and looking at her with those eyes. But she has to be strong. She has to be strong and not think about it.

It takes her a very long time to tear her eyes away from the window, even while the very creature staring at her is gunned down and left with a corpse.

She holds her puppy close, looking up at Clef. "I-- I think so," she says. "I don't know if I can do it as strong as normal, but I can still make a cyclone." Cautiously, she concentrates, and the wind starts picking up-- but she's sure she should wait on Clef's cue, or at least to hear if he has a plan. She can't think right then.

The monsters go haywire at the sudden attack and whip themselves up into a frenzy. Some of them fall from the rifle shots, but others seem to take their injuries in stride as they lunge for Jorge. Others, confused by the changes in winds, starts walking in tight circles and looking for the source of their concern.

The armoured supersoldier is pretty damn mobile, even when carrying a gun that looks very heavy. He moves around a lot to dodge the lunging of the monsters, opening fire whenever he can get a clear shot, to rain down bullets on the next monstrosity.

He gets a few hits, alarm bells blaring in his helmet as his suit's shield takes some serious damage. This causes him to break off his attack and dodge until the shield recharges...

To Hell with this. She's getting out of here and she's taking Howie with her. He might be dead, but she's pretty sure he wouldn't want his body left here to rot in the sun. Hell, she's going soft, isn't she?

Well. She'd do the same for Ter. So she hefts Howard's body over one shoulder, even if it means she'll be slower. She still has her axe in one hand and she's still going to make those assholes hurt. Going to make them bleed. So. Just like she's done dozens of times before, she steps out into the sunlight, covered in grime and dust and gore. And makes her move, booted feet pounding across the packed earth, spurts of dust swirling around her.

Howie isn't that heavy. He was always kind of small and now that he's gone, he feels lighter somehow. But that's probably what's left of her brain playing tricks on her.

Time to get stuck in. Only a couple hundred more yards to go.

The monsters recognize this one. The smell of their own's blood is still on her axe. And she's carrying fresh meat, meat barely gone cold. It's too much to resist.

They begin to flank her, trapping her in a circle and standing their ground. Without the strange atmosphere tampering with their powers, they are confident and coordinated as hyenas. The biggest one sets itself in front of Karis, standing a few feet away, waiting for her to make the first move.

"To Hell with all of you," Karis mutters under her breath. She's ready to go down fighting if she needs to. She's ready to die. Always has been. Part of her hoped that she'd finally end up dead in battle, but she's always come through. One way or another. Not that she's going to question luck. So she does what she does best.

She feints at the one in front, then immediately turns buries her blade into one of the creatures that thinks it might catch her. And then everything starts going to shit.

The axe doesn't cleave straight through the one to her side with the same ease as it did earlier on the mission - their skins are stronger now, what with the dampening node removed. But it does cut a deep and bloody gash into it, leaving this unfortunate creature to bleed out slowly rather than dying instantly. Another monster leaps on its dying comrade and pulls it away from the battlefield, intending to eat the fresh meat itself.

The one in front stumbles over its oversized hands and crashes into Karis' knees as it falls. Another leaps at Karis from behind, smart enough to try and disarm her - in this case, literally. Its jaws wrap around the arm holding the axe and its neck wrenches, trying to rip Karis apart like a particularly stinky pulled pork sandwich. Another comes from behind and closes its mouth around Howard's corpse's foot, trying to tug away a quick prize.

"No! Not yet, you son of a-" Karis cursing turns into an incoherent howl. She's tugged off balance by the wrench on her arm - but she's still holding together. The magic that makes sure she lives is a bit stronger than that. She lashes out with a booted foot, driving it into the creature. She tugs on Howard's body, clinging to it gamely as she tries to elbow the creature tearing at her arm.

She's not giving up anytime soon.

The kick hits the creature clear in the underbelly, and when Karis retracts her foot from the wound she's inflicted, entrails come with it. The creature retreats, but the blow is clearly fatal, and its brethren are already descending on it. The elbow hits the other one in the face, and it breaks its hold on her arm with a hiss.

The one tugging Howard's body backs up in a panic, surprised that Karis is fighting so viciously for something that's already dead, then decides to go after the guts-covered foot. Both the surviving monsters on top of Karis attack her right leg, ripping and tearing at her thigh.

That attack seems to be more effective. Especially since both of them are going after her. Something gives way and she staggers, forced to drop Howard's body. She goes down on top of it and then whips her axe around at one of the things tearing her leg off. The damage is done, though. That leg looks like hamburger meat. Or worse.

Well, today started out great. Ended shitty.

The axe hits one in the face, but not enough to kill so much as maim. The monster gives a human shriek that it must have copied from one of its earlier victims and attacks Karis with its claws, stabbing and slicing through the back around her defunct kidneys. The other continues to worry the leg, and finally, with a snap that sounds so mundanely like dried wood that the reality is much more sickening, rips the whole thing off.

Tomorrow is another day, Karis! You might want to start looking into hoverchairs.

"I'm gonna kill you-" is all that Kari manages before she swings the axe again at the one tearing at her torso. Shit, she liked those kidneys, even if they didn't work. She buries it in its skull, then yanks it back, dragging herself with one arm as she tries to make sure nothing is getting after her from behind.

Well, business as usual. Except for the whole missing leg thing.

OH SHIT KARIS IT'S YOUR LUCKY DAY because the other monsters are jealous of the one with a zombie drumstick and want some thigh of their own.

Two more descend on her (and a third on the one Karis just lobotomized - cannibalism ain't just for the undead) and attack, in tandem, her foot and her knee. Her foot doesn't taste very good, because of the boot, but that doesn't seem to be a huge deterrent.

Karis snarls in defiance as they descend on her and immediately she lashes out with her axe, kicking at them, trying to force them back. She didn't feel the pain except as a ghost, a faint ache, a dull wrenching. But she still fought. Having only one leg makes it a bit problematic though. "Get the Hell off of me, you-"

More pointless cursing. This was going to get worse before it got better.

This removal's a bit uglier sounding than the first one - rather than a crack, there's a sound like wet canvas being torn as the creatures take Karis' leg and part of her pelvis and drag it away.

"I hope you choke and die!" Karis screams after them, taking one more futile swipe with her axe. Then she slumps back on Howard's corpse, staring at the sky.

Shit.

That didn't go as planned. She could probably drag herself to the shuttle, but that would mean leaving Howie for the corpse-eaters and like hell she's going to do that anytime soon.

Backup arrived as the creatures were distracted by Karis' leg. They were soon distracted from that when Goliath threw another of their number at them, ripping the leg back in the sudden confusion.

The sight of Karis already half-dismembered but still (it seemed) alive was shocking, but none of them had the time to afford shock. He set her leg down and picked her up instead. The body beneath her would need carrying as well, and if he was to bring her leg back with her and locate the other, he would need at least one hand free.

"Can you hang on to me by your own power?"

That might be difficult. Her other leg was already hamburger meat (or close to it) and being torn apart by a couple of the creatures a couple dozen yards away. Karis glares up at Goliath for a moment and then nods.

"Of course I can! I'm not some mewling weakling. Gimme your damn hand."

She stretched out a clawed limb.

Goliath grabbed her hand and swung her onto his back, tucking his wings around the remains of her torso to help hold her in place as she grabbed his neck. He reached down to grab the other body, with only the briefest pause as he recognized the young human he'd found robbing his castle. The one he'd only so recently failed to defend.

There was no time for such thoughts. Howard's small body fit easily in one of his arms, and with Karis' other leg a lost cause, he grabbed the remaining one and charged the creatures, roaring to scatter the cowardly.

Cedric's always been a bit of a pushover in dueling practise. Something always holds him back: he's too afraid to hurt his opponent, he worries it might not be fair, or there might be a risk the damage isn't fixable. He's always been as confident as ever casting the spells in the classroom, but put him on a dueling carpet and he goes down like a heavy boulder.

Not this time.

He's lost all sense of restraint with this battle. He's facing off against the monsters that murdered his best friend, and there's no room for mercy here. Cedric's eyes flash, seeming to betray the dangerous creativity with magic he feels right now.

Naturally, his first instinct is a fiery explosion.

"Confringo!" he hollers. The targets should burst into flames and explode, but...

The monsters sense something in this one. Cedric isn't running, and escape doesn't seem to be the first thing on his mind. They read that as prey. As such, they're surprised when Cedric responds to their circling him with a loud noise and fire. They don't burst into flames, but it does hurt. The squeal and the ones caught in the flame fall back and to the ground in their death throes.

The others take this as an attack. Two of them, one to each side of Cedric, rush in at him, teeth bared and needle claws prepared to impale him.

Bring it on, he thinks. All the better that he take them out, all else be damned.

He leaps back and casts a Hurling Hex, attempting to knock one off course and into the other. That's followed by "Deprimo!", an attempt to flatten them with a ghostly downward pressure.

The horde's much bigger than their little group is. He has to keep it coming.

The Hurling Hex finds its target, sending those two sprawling and squished, but the others see this attack and come at Cedric with a unified force. One of the largest ones leaps straight at Cedric's chest - the force alone, if it hits, will be like being hit by a car. Now that they see that Cedric's attacking them with lethal force, they're not toying with him, either.

Oh hell. Cedric instinctively casts a shield charm, creating an invisible wall in front of him. That won't buy much time, though---next plan of attack!

He pointed his wand at the ground and hollered. "Defodio!"

It created a gaping chasm in the ground in front of him, hopefully right under a few monsters' feet.

The monster bounces off harmlessly, but some of the others fall into the hole in the ground. As before, they are not strong enough to pull themselves back up, but that doesn't help Cedric when he's surrounded on all four sides.

Cedric's attempts to keep them at bay are getting desperate. No one's coming to help him, he's probably all but dead, but he wants to take as many of the monsters with him as he possibly can.

He turns their legs to jelly and keeps bouncing them on barriers, but it can't last forever. There will be a bigger group, and then...

..well. He clutches his wand tightly, gathering up the courage for the spell it will take to win.

The monsters have managed to isolate Cedric from the others, and now a group of them rushes at him, attacking from the front and from behind. They smell fear. They relish in it.

The moment's come. Cedric chooses one of his attackers from the front to focus on, the last face he will ever see. It's a representative of everything they've suffered through, all the unfairness of the world, all the days they won't see. The light at the end of the tunnel's gone, only oblivion awaits.

But hey---he evaded it for a few months. And he wouldn't be hurting so much right now if all that time and what he'd seen hadn't meant something to him. It really did: he'd found new friends (Kaya, Clef, Fuu, Maxine, Sirius, Remus, Atom...Howard), a new mission, and learned new skills. It could've been great. But they have to fight the rest of this mission without them now. He hopes they win.

"Bombarda Maxima!"

In the split-second before the explosive force turns his body into particles scattered across the field, he has one last thought:

This is for you. I'm sorry.

When the second passes, all that remains of Cedric Diggory is an indiscriminate bloody pile, mixed in with the ugly piles of the nearby monsters. Somehow, though, a thin wand rests atop the pile, unblemished---apparently protected by the last of its owner's magic.

Cedric, unfortunately, will never know the extent of the damage he did to the creatures. While many are ripped to shreds instantly by the blast, the concussive force fells many of those still intact, and even further away the remaining creatures lose their keen hearing to the noise. Many retreat right then, unwilling to fight such dangerous foes while deafened.

The tide has been more than turned. Cedric's life may have just bought his crewmates'.

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Survivalist Plot: And Now We Just Try to Survive

IN WHICH PEOPLE ATTACK MONSTERS AND THERE IS CHAOS

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CLEF AND MAXINE (Inside → Outside → GIANT THUNDERSTORM)

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING

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SORRY I'M SO LATE

♥?

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KARIS AND NPC

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CEDRIC AND NPC

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