10643/Log 10643

Log 10643
Date of Scene:	05 January 2020
Location:	Breakstone Lake - Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Cyclops is not eaten by a gummy bear. Remy, Illyana, Shannon, and Pixie save the children! But not from the earworm!
Cast of Characters:	Cyclops, Nightingale, Pixie, Magik, Gambit

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Cyclops has posed:
It's a very cold evening here on the outskirts of the property, which, of course, doesn't really discourage the X-types at all. Frozen water, snowballs, snowmen, hot chocolate. No Christmas music because Cyclops played Grinch to remind them that the season was over and thus no longer suitable for consumption. He had to put up with enough of that nonsense in December.

He's mostly supervising, watching the younger mutants frolic and do whatever they did for fun while layered in winter clothing. For the moment, neither he nor any of the others were aware of the large truck that had slid off the road in the ice two miles away. Or the strange cargo that has escaped from within it as night falls on Westchester.

Nightingale has posed:
     There is mad giggling in the air, and a familiar, feathery-winged form chasing down a certain pink-haired pixie in mid-air. By the look of things, she is armed with a snowball or three, lobbing one in her compatriot's direction. Why? Snowball fights need no reason--they are fun for their own sake! She's in a white tunic sweater, dark blue jeans, sturdy black leather boots, and her red and white 'Where's Waldo' style beanie hat. Her hair's pulled back in a ponytail, including her little blue braid on the left side of her face. "Run, runner!" she calls out to Megan, laughing, a little callback to one of her favorite movies--Logan's Run.

Pixie has posed:
Megan Gwynn eeeps, darting this way and that as Shannon gains the upper hand in their little snowball fight. Christmas may be over but Megan is still in a merry mood, dressed in a Snow White puffer jacket and bright green toque and scarf. It wasn't quite cold enough for snow pants and her blue denim jeans seem to keep her warm enough with all the running going on. She ducks behind a nearby boulder, turning around to counter at Shannon anyone who is nearby (Probably Illy if she can help it) with a flurry of snowballs.

Magik has posed:
At least two people in the mansion can make a strong cultural argument their Christmas hasn't even shown -up- yet. Which is exactly where there might be presents stuck under a much different tree than the one used by the mansion prior, if it has already been taken down. Considering the smells out of the kitchen have been outright savory with an abundance of cinnamon and honey to leaven the effect of scorched products, is it all bad? Illyana rarely gets affected by the cold of a New York winter; a Siberian born can smirk at the idea of 'chilly' until the polar vortex turns the middle and northern halves of a continent dark violet usually reserved for storm systems.

She tramps through a snowbank, holding a ball in her hand. Normally this would be a harmless sport, but not when the Russian mutant possesses thrillingly frightening accuracy. One of the younger students whips a ball at her and she unfairly opens a portal to send it hurtling at some demon army having a battle in a city of brass and snow. With Megan under assault from Shannon, she shifts her gaze to watch the flying women and narrows her eyes slightly. Moving target. The girl runs.

Cyclops has posed:
Cyclops isn't interested in cultural arguments. Christmas is over because he says it over. If they want strange exotic Christmas traditions, they can have them in their rooms. He takes a long sip of his coffee out of a thermos, wearing one of those Han Solo jackets with the fur-lined hood, his arms crossed over his chest as mirth continues.

Meanwhile, in the nearby trees, forms move closer to the sounds of laughter and entertainment. Large forms. Forms that make wet, gushing sounds as they move, eyes glowing with a low lambent light in the rising darkness of the winter's evening. Faintly, there's a high-pitched and somehow sinister giggle.

"Sooooooooooooooooooo many HUGS!" a screechy voice whispers.

Nightingale has posed:
     Something wasn't quite right. Somewhere, just at the edge of her hearing, there was... something very sinister. Her brows furrow, and Shannon breaks off her icy attack to fly a little bit higher and get a better view of the grounds below. Maybe it was nothing, but strange things can and have happened here. Particularly by the lake and the backyard, where the spell to protect the school had been cast....

Pixie has posed:
Megan Gwynn makes a face as Illy and Shannon avoid her flurry of snowballs. "Heeey! Nofaiiiir!" she makes a face as they both use their powers to their advantage, she'd much rather play the old fashioned way. As Shannon gets a serious look though, she frowns a bit, following her skyward. "What is it? Did you see something?"

Magik has posed:
Hugs -are- sinister. Just ask Illyana, who might view them the same way people view drowning victims leaping up and hauling good seafarers down under the waves. She busily deflects any snow flung her way with a lifted arm, a fine position for her to hear that eerie giggle calling her attention. Turning sharply towards the forest, she tilts her head as though she might pick out the source. "Go back towards the boathouse," the younger students are told in a flat tone brooking little argument. "Good time to build a snow castle, isn't it?" Already headed towards the shore, she frowns, her default expression save of late. "Do you notice anything there?" The snowball resting in her hand remains so, smoothed off to be a beacon of white ice with how well compacted it is. If someone's playing a prank, she is likely to hurl it at them.

Cyclops has posed:
They appear first as silhouettes. Four of them in total. They're not stealthy, nearly ten feet tall, round and bulbous in build. They have themes. One is a bright pink bunny rabbit. Another is a big blue bear. One is a laughing orange kitty cat. One is a snorting purple pig. They totter on thick legs, upright like people, but they are not people. They are transluscent and gelatinous, wide eyed and with stretched faces that were adorable in cartoon form and garishly threatening in jellied flesh.

Some of them might recognize them as characters from a popular cartoon show of a few years ago, the flavorful and funny pals who made everyone feel good with hugs and laughter and lessons on how to be a good friend. But these are not quite them, just something horrifying and evil and cross that has taken their shapes.

The Gummy Baes are here - and they're hungry.

Nightingale has posed:
     Did she see something, Megan asked. Did she see something?! It was a little hard to miss the ten-foot-tall gummi characters from Hell. "Heads up, Pixie, we have company!" A few choice oaths in various languages might be heard coming from her. "Scheisse! Let's get a little distance between us and these things, figure out what the heck they are and where they came from!"

Magik has posed:
They are gigantic, horrible things constructed from a children's cartoon that Illyana has no reason to know or indulge. Not like she spent a whole lot of time glued to a screen growing up. Rotund walking horrors like Glob, but definitely not Glob, give her a look of definite assessment. "Stay back!" she repeats over her shoulder to any of the younger kids who think this could be great to pelt with snowballs or come out and give hugs. Never know. Hugs from a mutated childhood dream are, unfortunately, a stock in trade in her neck of the woods. She flicks her hand sans snowball, placing herself directly between the masses of humanity and the... bear things. "Not for playtime," she says flat out.

Pixie has posed:
Well to be fair, she was standing in the opposite direction, crouching behind a boulder and..."Oooooooh, they're so...Socute! Heey! I love your costumes! Sooo awesome! " She beams and waves at the giant gummies..But hey, isn't it a bit late for Halloween? They're a bit big for normal humans though. Are they Mutants or...Uh....She still has a snowball in her hand though but she's not sure if they wanna play or eat them. "Umm...Hi! My name's Megan..Who are you guys?"

Cyclops has posed:
Cyclops doesn't really hesitate. There are times for negotiations, when a threat should be assessed, when things can be regarded carefully. Giant wobbling slimeballs shaped like cartoon characters? Yeah, he's going to just assume those are hostile.

He lets out a measured blast of optic energy on the pig ("Hey, kids, I'm Perky!"), punching a wide hole in the middle of its belly. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to have had any effect at all on the pig itself, that just continues to lurge forward while giggling maniacally, as do it and the others. One errant student who refused to run is grabbed by the bunny rabbit and summarily absorbed into its gooey interior.

Nightingale has posed:
     Yeah, okay. Cute, yes. Friendly, no. And what the deuce--that rabbit just ate one of her fellow students! She had to get that kid out of there before they suffocated! But, seeing Scott's attack on the gummi bae pig gave her a thought. If she did a dive-bomb run and aimed /just right/, she might be able to fly through a hole that width and drag the kid out with her. It was a bit larger than the rings she regularly flew through in the DR.

     "Mr. Summers? Think you could get me an opening in that rabbit so I can pull that kid out of there?"

     Too, there had to be a way to distract the baes from their maniacal mission, whatever that might be. And there was. That way also had bright pink hair, but seemed a bit too friendly with the baes.

     "MEGAN! Those are NOT nice! Get out of there, and give 'em a taste of the pixie dust, anything to buy us some time to take these suckers out!"

Magik has posed:
The rabbit has earned ire of the angel and the pig is under Cyclops' blast. That leaves Illyana to choose her targets accordingly and she goes straight for the tiger. Normally she might favour the thinner version of trouble but not this kind. In lieu of "My X-Men, to me!" there's a different battle-cry of sorts, the standard cast in luminous white-gold light. Black fissures erupt along the surface to bracket the sword simply formed from nothing. She grips the black hilt and stalks forward to intercept the tiger gummy... thing.

"A good idea that you give our friends back, da?" Her stride is fairly cagey, light footed with ease, prepared to avail herself of tumbling or diving under the thing's reach to get in closer and keep a move on.

Pixie has posed:
Megan Gwynn frowns and folds her arms. She was hoping to give em the benefit of doubt because you never knew...It was never wise to shoot first and ask questions later. However that all changes when one of them swallows one of the kids. "Heey! Give him back, you monster!" when Shannon ponders rushing in there she grabs her shoulder, "Don't be crazy! One wrong move and you'll get sucked in too!" Although Cyclops could easily hurt the trapped kid if he blasts a hole in the gummy too. "Illy can you open a portal in the gummy's err...Tummy?" Okay, distraction time...She rushes towards the monsters, then veers up, higher into the sky, fluttering her wings more rapidly until she's a glimmering blur of hot pink as she showers the area around the four gummies with sparkling Pixie dust.

Gambit has posed:
Remy LeBeau had been watching the students frolic from the warm comfort of the boat house. So he's pretty close by when the Gummi's waddle joyiously out of the woods. So when he comes running out of the Boat house to aid Cyclops and the kids, he's not wearing his trademark duster....or shoes... or pants. He's wearing a wife beater and boxers covered in yellow duckies. He did grab his cards at least and launches them in a spread targeting the Pig, Cat, and Bear. Shooting to Scott he yells, "Be careful, even if yah not 'it de boy, yah could kill 'im wit' de shockwave.." The Cajun after all had fished with dynamite before...

Cyclops has posed:
Cyclops agrees that he would probably hurt someone trying to cut open the gummy who's absorbed someone, "Illyana's abilities are better suited to rescue..." he says, trailing off so it doesn't seem like he's forgotten that kid's name. Which he has.

He uses a higher level of attack, blasting the head off of the bunny rabbit and leaving a weird, stumpy, quivering goo in its wake, even as the head splatters in every direction.

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon shakes Megan's hand off and flies back. Waaaaaaaay back. Hopefully well out of the way of that cloud of pixie dust that is just about to hit the gummis, and hopefully incapacitate them. "Heads up!" Okay, she had a lot to learn about different abilities, but there had to be /some/ way to get the kid out of the gummi bunny. Something. Anything. "Illyana? Could definitely use a hand here!" Hopefully she wouldn't be needed in the end, though there were bound to be some bumps and bruises from this mess....

Magik has posed:
"Yes," Illyana replies, though the sword makes a plenty fancy rending device too when called on. She whips around to sweep the Soulsword in a nasty cut, its tongue sending a trail of pale fire in its wake that hopefully treats goo like nothing if the unfortunate gummy-thing is still within her reach. It doesn't matter especially much, since shifting the sword to a guarded position when the blade is taller than she takes only a moment. Remy's blazing cards rip past her in an impressive halo as pink as Pixie's dust, which in turn gives her a moment to shift onto her back foot. A hand reaches out and she flicks a portal just about the size of the child plus a few inches in the middle of that gooey, goopy mass.

"Sorry, Tim," or whatever his name was, but the immediate result is that the boy disappears without some interposing force preventing it. And yes, he gets a brief vacation in Hell-adjacent spaces by himself before reappearing outside the student dorms in the school.

Pixie has posed:
Megan Gwynn blinks slowly as she pauses a moment to see if her dust affected the gummies at all. With any luck, they're at least momentarily confused or slowed down by the dust, although their sugary metabolisms probably probably processed the chemicals in her dust more rapidly. "Ugh, how do we slow 'em down? Maybe Illy has the right idea.." but she doesn't have a huge, freaking sword, although her dagger is pretty big..With a yell she summons it and rushes at the nearest one,hurling it at its arm..

Gambit has posed:
Remy LeBeau dressed in what will deffinately not be ever refered to as his "Combat Uniform" nods as he watches Illy pull poor Tim...or is that Jake? No Jake is the one with the chipped tooth. Maybe that's Tom... Anyway he watches as the Russian girl pulls hin free and then sends a full trio of cards into the Rabbit's guts. These are cards charged to slaughter. Normally he abides the X-Men's no killing rule, but that thing tried to eat Tim...or is that Preston?

Nightingale has posed:
     Shannon knew that Illyana was good with those portals, but really had no idea just /how/ good till she saw the rescue from Hell. Or to Hell. Whichever. Either way, it worked--it got Timmy out of danger, and with probably only mild nightmares to show for it. At least he'd be alive to have them.

     And then there was Remy's attack. Oh, she knew him to be protective of the students and his friends, but up till then had never really seen him whale on an opponent. One right after another, the cards find their mark. Silly rabbit. These card tricks are /not/ for kids!

     Too, she appreciated anew Scott's deadly aim with his eye beams, and his cool judgement under fire. However much the other students might make fun of him for being so straightlaced, she'd learned to respect his skill; there was a great deal she could learn there.

     Pixie, she knew would do well. She'd seen her before in the warehouse incident, holding her own under fire and doing remarkably well. She joins the other girl up in the air, out of range of the pixie dust. "Weird. What do you think, one more blast? I'll give you an assist with my wings to make damn sure the dust hits those gummi monstrosities this time."

Magik has posed:
Unless poor Timmy was stuck there for a week, the guest of purple demons eager to hear about how he was eaten and survived the experience! Cannibalism for power, maybe Timmy has his own abilities? They will no doubt be thronging around Illyana's feet begging to find out if they can absorb more power from one another. Maybe there will be a joke of demon pie that no one at -all- wants to try.

Illyana takes only a moment to form a portal for herself to fall backwards into, reappearing on the other side of the gummy horror. She emerges in an oval of golden light swinging that sword with demonic ferocity, the golden Soulsword as much a cleaver as any axe. It works with devastating effect against oddities, and if not so much humans, do gummy bears count? Failing that, she still has enough force going behind her to topple the average tree, especially with the psychokinetic force of Remy's cards helping her.

If anyone hears her, it's through gritted teeth that she snarls, "Get. Off. My. Lawn." Each word is punctuated by a slash of the blade, the connecting cuts done at speed with her golden hair flying out behind her and her boots steady on the snow.

Gambit has posed:
Remy LeBeau aims his next flurry of cards at the knees of one of the bear Gummy, hoping to imobilize it. It doesn't seem that they feel pain, but blowing off large chunks of something is frequently a good stratagy for defeatin it The bad part is how much damage the things seem able to tank. The worse part is Remy is quickly exhausting his single deck of cards... but the /absolute/ worst part is he's going to have that damn theme song in his head /all/ day.

Nightingale has posed:
     Thankfully, there was little need for Shannon's gift for a healer--but plenty of need for everyone's help in cleaning the mess up. They were very fortunate that nobody was injured, and the only real casualties were Timmy's wits--as in frightened out of--Remy's deck of cards, and anything within blast distance of exploding gummi baes. Well, perhaps there was one other victim as well--everyone's sanity, as that theme song played on repeat in their minds.

     Still, two questions remained. Where had they come from, and would there be more to follow? Hopefully, the world would never find out....