She Sells Sea Shells: The Fight

[x-invisiblegirl.livejournal.com]

As the statues come to life around them and attack the students the New Mutants fight back, trying desperately to survive the trap they find themselves in.

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Frank's eyes widened for a moment as he stared at the awful things that crawled towards them. Then they shrank into slits. "Oh, fuck this noise," he growled, and dropped into a sprint towards their aggressors. He had had just about enough of this field trip, and now something had provided him the option of beating himself some therapy.

"Frank, don't be stupid..." Hope called as he charged away from her, she herself backing away slowly in a safe place. "You're not going to help that way."  And of course he did not listen. She could only stare as he ran at the creature as fast as he could...

Frank didn't even listen. Instead, he lunged, all fists and fury, and struck one of the creatures violently on the stinger of it's tail. As it recoiled, he lashed out with a kick to one of its claws. For a moment, he felt vengeful and victorious.

Then the creature lashed out with its claw, knocking him flat. He lay on his back, staring up at it with wide eyes, adrenaline giving way to fear...

"Oh da..." Hope barely had the time to start to utter the words before the visualization snapped into place, the wind picking up the leaves in her minds eye, her spirit leaving her body in one fluent train of thought. Violently she suppressed the fear that also has started to surge through her, but that would not do.

Quickly she floated in front of the creature, hoping to draw his attention away from her class mate on the floor.

The creature staggered back, seemingly surprised, but not before it struck Frank across the back of the head with one of its legs. His eyes rolled back into his head.

"Hey! Leave my friends ALONE!" a voice bellowed as a short figure in a sun hat marched over, picked up one of the creatures over her head tossed him into another monster.

Molly had tried to find the others but before she could get too far she heard yelling and fighting. So she came back to help.

One of the monsters attempted to give her a bear hug with its claws but she didn't want a bear hug because it was being mean so she backed up before it could do so and punched it in the face, sending it bouncing of the ceiling with a big thud.  Busy with that monster, she didn't notice one of the monsters coming up from behind her. It struck her in the back, knocking her into the wall and making a big dent.

Dusting herself off, Molly made a face. "You're nicer in the Monsters Inc. movie. What happened?"

Molly! Frank! Behind you! With a strange sound the creature that Molly had smashed into the ceiling charged at both of them. Hope 'dove' forward, floating in front of it. He, ugly thing! Come and try to get me! It made the strange sound again and charged at Hope's floating form.

She looked around her quickly, before deciding to float just in front of the wall. Overhere! She quickly called out. Her eyes widened as it continued charging at her and just moments before it would have gone through her and she floated up and watched it careen against the wall.

Frank's eyes opened again, hazily. He sat up groggily, before seeing where he was and what was happening. That brought on consciousness quickly. He staggered to his feet, and glared at the monsters. He so wanted to run at them again, but that was clearly not a workable strategy. "...we have to go," he said.

"But...but what if they get loose and try to hurt people? We have to stop them!"  Molly said.

The monster heard her voice, louder and squeaker than Frank's, and since it couldn't get at Hope anymore, decided to pounce on Molly, whipping its claws around to try to snip off her head but Molly caught its claws.

"Whoa!" she said. The collision of stone monster plus unsquishableness made cracks start to form in it's claws as a loud thud echoed through the cave and also made little cracks like spiderwebs in the stone floor.

Molly blinked a couple of times, then grinned broadly and grabbed the equally surprised monster by the tail, swinging it around like a baseball bat repeatedly into the wall.

The small purple cat came skidding over to where Frank was, trying to abruptly halt her full-out run and shift into girlform at the same time. She succeeded in shifting on her own, and but only succeeded in coming to a stop with Frank's help... by bowling him over with her six-foot tall human form. "Whoops, sorry!" she muttered sheepishly. "Is everyone okay here?" she asked, frowning as she watched Molly beat the guardian like a dirty rug.

"Fine, bar my dignity," Frank growled through gritted teeth, pushing himself upright again. "What now?"

I am alright, Ms. Smith. Hope floated over, keeping a wary eye on the creature Molly was still beating. Are you sure you are alright, Frank? That was quite a mean fall.

"I'm fine," he reiterated, standing slowly. A pause. "..Thanks." He watched the scorpions warily, stepping back away from them. "Molly!"

The yelling made Molly jump and she accidentally let go of the monster, causing him to slam into the wall.

"What?" she said with confusion. Was she in trouble? It was then she noticed Catseye and waved.

"Oh, Hi! Were we not supposed to beat them up? Cause...they were trying to eat Frank. I think."

Catseye watched the guardian slam into the wall, her eyebrow raised in a bemused look. "Uhh... you can beat them up if they're trying to eat people. That's okay," she told Molly with a reassuring smile. "I'm glad you're all alright." She looked over to see the guardian rallying from its flight into the wall and approach them again. "Uh oh." She shifted into her cougar form and stood between the students and the rock monster. When it got close enough, she lunged at it, except it was made of rock and far too heavy for her to knock down, so she mostly just winded herself as she crashed into it.

Hope winced as she saw the purple cougar land on the floor and looked around her for something she could do. Finally her gaze caught the variety of sharp objects on the floor, like axes and various other weapons. Frank she called out at him. If I try to draw it's attention, do you think you could try to hurt it with one of those? She quickly pointed out the weapons.

Frank glanced at them, then back at the scorpion. "I can try," he responded, darting over to snatch up the nearest sharp implement- a sword. "Alright," he muttered, watching the monsters move, "Let's try that again."

Here we go. Hope dove directly in it's line of vision, waving her hands to get it's attention and then slowly moving backwards. As soon as it's eyes seemed to focus on her, she 'called' out to Frank: Now!

Molly peered down at Catseye to make sure she was alright, then went for the scorpion that Frank and Hope weren't attacking before it could attack anyone else. She stared to punch it over and over again until it was backed into the wall and was covered in cracks. Her eyes glowed all sorts of purple.

Catseye really hoped she wouldn't get into trouble for letting the students fight the monster, but she knew she couldn't do much against the guardians herself, so she was glad they were getting involved. And since Frank and Hope seemed to have the first one in hand, she trotted over to keep an eye on Molly, even though the girl didn't look like she needed any help, either. The cougar made an approving noise at the girl's purple eyes and managed to get a couple lunges in at the monster in between Molly's punches.

Meanwhile, Frank lunged at the scorpion, sword in one hand and an expression of barely contained fury on his face. The creatures rocked back in shock, and Frank hacked away angrily at its carapace, ducking back before it had a chance to attack him again. This time, he got out of range before it could get him.

Hope dove past its eyes again, attempting to provide brief distractions so Frank could hit it. She could not harm it, but she could at least keep the beast from harming her companions some. Does anyone know how we can finish the darn things off?!? She glanced around her, but most of her classmates still seemed to be dealing with their scorpions.

Hope's question seemed to get answered when a heavy crack echoed through the chamber and two scorpions became one scorpion left following some well placed hits on Molly and Catseye's parts. The cracks in the scorpion's hide were too much and it suddenly crumbled in to bits, its tail twitching and falling off.

Molly stepped back, blinking, then glanced over to the remaining scorpion. "Group punching?" she offered.

The purple cougar let out an amused "mrrt!" in agreement with Molly's suggestion and launched herself at the last scorpion, locking her jaws around a thinner part of its stinger and trying to hold it down so that it wouldn't strike anyone while the group punching happened.

Frank signaled his agreement with this plan by darting in past Catseye and bringing his sword down on its tail. There was a crunching noise as the tail came away in the cougar's mouth, and the angry young tree preceded to take his irritation out on what was left of the creature by smashing it to pieces.

"I," he growled, dropping his sword, "am never fucking going on a field trip again." A beat. "Molly, don't ever say what I just said."

Hope eyed the creatures, now back into stone bits. <i>I just wish to go home for now and not think about the next possible field trip.</i> Around her the other creatures were also falling into stone bits and she started looking around for where her body had ended up, there was a bright flash of light and a sudden rumbling.  <i>What in the world was that?</i> Hope exclaimed, looking around her.

Putting her hands on her hips, Molly smiled proudly, luckily not terribly phased by the bad word because she was a bit distracted and didn't actually hear it.

"Dude! That was awesome!" she squeed, then paused when she noticed not everyone else looked that happy. She ducked her head down low.

"Or not. Not awesome at all," she added quickly, making a face to try to act all serious. She glanced back toward the light and the thunder-like stuff going on, then clenched her fists, waiting for the next thing.

Frank glanced up for the source of the light, and immediately snatched up the sword again. "If this is more giant monster scorpions," he growled, "then I swear to God, I am going to kill the fuck out of them. YOU HEAR ME?!" he shouted in the direction of the light, "I'LL KILL THE FUCK OUT OF YOU!"

Inspired by Frank's vehemence, Catseye charged towards the source of the light with a mighty roar, ready to defend the students. Unlike her bowling over of Frank when she'd joined the fight, however, she was able to halt her momentum this time when she realized that it wasn't scorpions at all. She loved her lovely enormous claws and their ability to help her stop skid to a stop right in front of Sam and Korvus entering the chamber through a rising door to come to their aid! Shifting into girlform, she huffed out a grateful breath that she hadn't knocked them over with her cougar form. "Hey guys!" she greeted cheerfully. "The scorpions in this room are destroyed so I'm gonna take the students outside now, alright? Tandy and Sue are in the next room. They had the bad guys on the run when I left them, but maybe go check on them? See you outside! Come on, troops," she murmured to the students. "Why don't we go see who else wants to stop for ice cream on the way home to try and salvage some of this stupid field trip?"

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