Demon Bear: No time for Paws
May. 11th, 2018 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsNica, Miles, and Xavin arrive at the school to pick up the other four, however; their meeting doesn't go as planned.
"So my advisor says if I'm gonna keep taking Korean then I might as well get a minor in it, too, since it's only a few other classes and some of them fill gen ed." Miles spun his key ring around his finger as he, Nica, and Xavin crossed the Bayville student parking lot to the school building, where some of their fellow Gen X'ers were waiting for them. "So that and a stats major means I'm primed to be a competitive Starcraft player after I graduate, I guess."
Nica snorted with amusement. "So, same thing as you do now, only you get paid?" she joked.
"Nothing wrong with getting paid," Xavin said. "Why do you think I'm majoring in comp sci?" They held a hand up and waved to the others as they went in the door.
"Because you're a giant nerd?" Maya had only heard the last of Xavin's comment, and so she responded as she was often want to do, sarcastically. Of course, she would have been the first to admit that she was also a giant nerd, and so the comment wasn't nearly the burn that it might otherwise have been. "You guys caught our text messages, right?"
"Something spooky has been going on here. First the trashing of the school, then the monster noises, now a phantom student is lurking the halls." Clea said and shook her head. "It has certainly been an eventful day."
"She's playing it down if anything, today has been downright weird but," Stephen grinned, "then when aren't our days spooky and downright weird? I swear if I knew all this when Amanda first showed up, I think I might have thought about stay...nah who'm I kidding, I'd have stayed here anyway."
"It's more than that." Maya glanced around as they talked, unable to shake a sense of foreboding that had been growing as they talked. She couldn't pinpoint where the sense of dread was coming from, only that all around her felt like being in the middle of a horror movie. "Don't you all feel it? This entire building has felt like it's getting ready for something horrible to happen, and that's not normal for a school, even this one."
"Not all of us have the magical paranoia," Nica replied with a half-grin. "So exactly what sort of weird are we looking at? Dimensional holes? More VR video games? Has anyone tried calling the Powers That Be back at the mansion?"
"Wait, Maya, ye said ye texted - did ye text everyone?" Rahne pulled out her phone and frowned at it. Nothing had come in all day which seemed odd. In fact, she had texted someone earlier about a study session and hadn't gotten a response. A quick check showed a little red exclamation point next to it indicating it hadn't gone through. "Okay, that's weird. Let me try to call back home..."
A minute later and she shook her head, eyes a little wide. "It, ah, doesn't ring. I just get a busy signal."
Stephen's face furrowed as he waved his hand, a wisp of light appearing between then, dancing over his fingers with the faintest tinkling sound, like the faintest sound of bells ringing through the air. "Well, we're definately not in a game, there's still magic in the air." He frowned at the light which was growing brighter in between his hands before banishing it with a flick of his fingers. "A lot of magic actually..I just wannt say. It wasn't me this time."
Clea turned around to face the rest of the group and looked up, the remaining color in her otherwise pale features drained away. "Bear." It came out so softly that even Clea wasn't sure if she had said anything. "Behind you..." She raised her hand to point directly behind them.
"What?" Rahne asked, looking up from her phone with a frown. "Is this some sort of weird American joke?" But the look on Clea's face told Rahne that she wasn't joking so she turned and her jaw dropped. While her brain scrambled to catch up, her enhanced senses were ringing the bells. Because while it absolutely looked like there was a giant, freaking, bear in the hallway, her nose was telling her it didn't smell like a bear should.
"Holy shit," she whispered. "We haven't covered bear attacks in training yet!"
Maya’s power didn’t allow her a pause before it kicked in, blowing past instincts that might have had her retreating to instead pull the ceramic knife Wade had given her after she started training with North. She threw it directly at the large, terrifying beast in front of her, unable to quite believe what was going on.
“Rahne, you need to change if you can, attack it from the right, try and take out its ankle muscles, maybe that’ll slow it down.” Maya pushed Clea out of the way as she moved to the left, trying to keep the bear’s notice on her. She didn’t have a weapon now but that didn’t mean she was helpless. “Stephen, Clea, do you have any way of contacting Amanda from a distance or when weird sh*t happens?”
She left Miles, Nica and Xavin to their own choices, unable to control the entire battlefield when she needed to concentrate on the really, really upset bear in front of her.
She'd already been shedding her clothes, ducking behind the group quickly to try to avoid any accidental views, so by the time Maya was moving into position, so was she. The bear continued to not smell correctly though, to be fair, Rahne hadn't actually encountered many bears in her life. But there was something acidic in the air that didn't seem natural. Quietly, making almost no noise, she padded away from Maya, circling towards the bear. It was concentrated on Maya because she'd thrown a knife at it and Rahne was happy for the distraction.
Clea's back was up against one of the lockers as she fumbled for her phone that was in her jacket packet. "What the bloody fuck." Bears weren't uncommon in this part of the New York, but seeing one inside of a school was probably a rare sight. "How did it get inside?"
"Worry about how later, worry about surviving now," Stephen's brow furrowed as he ran through any options he had to contact Amanda, "Nothing, I mean short of trying to blow the roof off the school to get her attention. We really need her to teach us how to make some kind of giant magical flares. That'd be super useful right now." Slowly the teen padded away to the side, circling around the bear. "Is this one of those cases of don't make eye contact, or do make eye contact?"
"She's going to get herself killed," was Miles's first reaction when Maya took immediate initiative. His second was to follow her lead and get in its face, pull its attention away from everyone else. Figuring out why it was even here would have to wait until they were all safe. "You're supposed to make yourself big and loud to scare away bears, right? I think I saw that on TV once. ¡Ay, oso, mírame! ¡Soy miel!"
Miles had the right idea, Nica thought, moving to cover Clea and Stephen. Her light wouldn't hurt it, but it might frighten it away. She let her stored up energy rush to the surface, lighting up like a small searchlight. The bear growled and flinched away, but it didn't look to be leaving. Instead it turned and headed for the next non-threatening person, Xavin. "Xavin! Look out! it's coming your way!"
Xavin grew, skin rippling into something like rock. Arms out, Xavin screamed. "Go away!"
The bear roared in annoyance and backed away from Xavin. It then tried to take on the wolf before rearing up on it's two hind legs. It was definitely bigger than a normal bear. It went to attack again when it hit an invisible wall, but from the impact spot it rippled with magic.
Clea held up her hands with the magical sign for wall. She had forfeit her phone for now as she didn't have any bars.
Maya wasn’t an expert on bears, but you didn’t go camping as often as she did with Wade Wilson and not get a very thorough rundown of all the possible dangers and how to best deal with each of them. Given her mutant power along with the fact that she was a natural when it came to remembering everything she’d ever been told she was not badly equipped to deal with the current threat. If only she could convince herself of that now rather than running in panic, which would have been the worst reaction ever.
“Hit it around the nose and the eyes.” Maya dodged out of the way of a swipe of its paws and backed off once it reared on two legs, the thing was huge, grizzly size at minimum. “If it’s anything like a real bear, that should scare it off.”
"You really think the bear that appeared randomly in a high school is going to react like a real bear?" Nica asked rhetorically as she made another light flare as it tried to swipe at Maya again. "Betsy DeVos is never going to let anyone hear the last of this if it gets out."
Rahne snapped at its legs a few times, trying to get close but every time she did, it got smart. Or someone got in the way. So instead, she let the bear get distracted by the people in front of it and quietly snuck around back, though it was a tight fit and she nearly got squashed once. But she managed it and didn't waste time. The moment she was behind it, she got a running start and jumped.
The bear roared as her wolf form slammed into its back. Snapping her jaws, Rahne bit deeply into the shoulder. Both of them were snarling as Rahne struggled to hold on.
"You know what, if it means we survive Betsy DeVos can rant about this all she wants to," Stephen replied as he sprinted for the nearest locker, slamming his hand briefly on the metal. "Sorry," muttered as the door sprang open like the maw to some unmentionable horror filled dimension, an assortment of clothes seemed to explode, tearing away from the locker towards the bear like fabric snakes winding their way around its paws. "We just need to convince it that we're not an easy meal."
"Apologies to whoever's locker that was," Miles said wryly. "If we're not gonna scare it away with punches, then someone's old gym shorts'll do the trick."
The bear's howl was louder than Miles knew a bear could make a sound, and it seemed to shake the building. It tore the bindings off its arms, a move much too calculated than a thoughtless beast out to be able to do, and then, seemingly measuring its opposition, turned to run down the hall deeper into the school.
"Okay, I wasn't actually serious about that. Seriously, whose locker was that? Febreeze-bomb it, damn."
"So my advisor says if I'm gonna keep taking Korean then I might as well get a minor in it, too, since it's only a few other classes and some of them fill gen ed." Miles spun his key ring around his finger as he, Nica, and Xavin crossed the Bayville student parking lot to the school building, where some of their fellow Gen X'ers were waiting for them. "So that and a stats major means I'm primed to be a competitive Starcraft player after I graduate, I guess."
Nica snorted with amusement. "So, same thing as you do now, only you get paid?" she joked.
"Nothing wrong with getting paid," Xavin said. "Why do you think I'm majoring in comp sci?" They held a hand up and waved to the others as they went in the door.
"Because you're a giant nerd?" Maya had only heard the last of Xavin's comment, and so she responded as she was often want to do, sarcastically. Of course, she would have been the first to admit that she was also a giant nerd, and so the comment wasn't nearly the burn that it might otherwise have been. "You guys caught our text messages, right?"
"Something spooky has been going on here. First the trashing of the school, then the monster noises, now a phantom student is lurking the halls." Clea said and shook her head. "It has certainly been an eventful day."
"She's playing it down if anything, today has been downright weird but," Stephen grinned, "then when aren't our days spooky and downright weird? I swear if I knew all this when Amanda first showed up, I think I might have thought about stay...nah who'm I kidding, I'd have stayed here anyway."
"It's more than that." Maya glanced around as they talked, unable to shake a sense of foreboding that had been growing as they talked. She couldn't pinpoint where the sense of dread was coming from, only that all around her felt like being in the middle of a horror movie. "Don't you all feel it? This entire building has felt like it's getting ready for something horrible to happen, and that's not normal for a school, even this one."
"Not all of us have the magical paranoia," Nica replied with a half-grin. "So exactly what sort of weird are we looking at? Dimensional holes? More VR video games? Has anyone tried calling the Powers That Be back at the mansion?"
"Wait, Maya, ye said ye texted - did ye text everyone?" Rahne pulled out her phone and frowned at it. Nothing had come in all day which seemed odd. In fact, she had texted someone earlier about a study session and hadn't gotten a response. A quick check showed a little red exclamation point next to it indicating it hadn't gone through. "Okay, that's weird. Let me try to call back home..."
A minute later and she shook her head, eyes a little wide. "It, ah, doesn't ring. I just get a busy signal."
Stephen's face furrowed as he waved his hand, a wisp of light appearing between then, dancing over his fingers with the faintest tinkling sound, like the faintest sound of bells ringing through the air. "Well, we're definately not in a game, there's still magic in the air." He frowned at the light which was growing brighter in between his hands before banishing it with a flick of his fingers. "A lot of magic actually..I just wannt say. It wasn't me this time."
Clea turned around to face the rest of the group and looked up, the remaining color in her otherwise pale features drained away. "Bear." It came out so softly that even Clea wasn't sure if she had said anything. "Behind you..." She raised her hand to point directly behind them.
"What?" Rahne asked, looking up from her phone with a frown. "Is this some sort of weird American joke?" But the look on Clea's face told Rahne that she wasn't joking so she turned and her jaw dropped. While her brain scrambled to catch up, her enhanced senses were ringing the bells. Because while it absolutely looked like there was a giant, freaking, bear in the hallway, her nose was telling her it didn't smell like a bear should.
"Holy shit," she whispered. "We haven't covered bear attacks in training yet!"
Maya’s power didn’t allow her a pause before it kicked in, blowing past instincts that might have had her retreating to instead pull the ceramic knife Wade had given her after she started training with North. She threw it directly at the large, terrifying beast in front of her, unable to quite believe what was going on.
“Rahne, you need to change if you can, attack it from the right, try and take out its ankle muscles, maybe that’ll slow it down.” Maya pushed Clea out of the way as she moved to the left, trying to keep the bear’s notice on her. She didn’t have a weapon now but that didn’t mean she was helpless. “Stephen, Clea, do you have any way of contacting Amanda from a distance or when weird sh*t happens?”
She left Miles, Nica and Xavin to their own choices, unable to control the entire battlefield when she needed to concentrate on the really, really upset bear in front of her.
She'd already been shedding her clothes, ducking behind the group quickly to try to avoid any accidental views, so by the time Maya was moving into position, so was she. The bear continued to not smell correctly though, to be fair, Rahne hadn't actually encountered many bears in her life. But there was something acidic in the air that didn't seem natural. Quietly, making almost no noise, she padded away from Maya, circling towards the bear. It was concentrated on Maya because she'd thrown a knife at it and Rahne was happy for the distraction.
Clea's back was up against one of the lockers as she fumbled for her phone that was in her jacket packet. "What the bloody fuck." Bears weren't uncommon in this part of the New York, but seeing one inside of a school was probably a rare sight. "How did it get inside?"
"Worry about how later, worry about surviving now," Stephen's brow furrowed as he ran through any options he had to contact Amanda, "Nothing, I mean short of trying to blow the roof off the school to get her attention. We really need her to teach us how to make some kind of giant magical flares. That'd be super useful right now." Slowly the teen padded away to the side, circling around the bear. "Is this one of those cases of don't make eye contact, or do make eye contact?"
"She's going to get herself killed," was Miles's first reaction when Maya took immediate initiative. His second was to follow her lead and get in its face, pull its attention away from everyone else. Figuring out why it was even here would have to wait until they were all safe. "You're supposed to make yourself big and loud to scare away bears, right? I think I saw that on TV once. ¡Ay, oso, mírame! ¡Soy miel!"
Miles had the right idea, Nica thought, moving to cover Clea and Stephen. Her light wouldn't hurt it, but it might frighten it away. She let her stored up energy rush to the surface, lighting up like a small searchlight. The bear growled and flinched away, but it didn't look to be leaving. Instead it turned and headed for the next non-threatening person, Xavin. "Xavin! Look out! it's coming your way!"
Xavin grew, skin rippling into something like rock. Arms out, Xavin screamed. "Go away!"
The bear roared in annoyance and backed away from Xavin. It then tried to take on the wolf before rearing up on it's two hind legs. It was definitely bigger than a normal bear. It went to attack again when it hit an invisible wall, but from the impact spot it rippled with magic.
Clea held up her hands with the magical sign for wall. She had forfeit her phone for now as she didn't have any bars.
Maya wasn’t an expert on bears, but you didn’t go camping as often as she did with Wade Wilson and not get a very thorough rundown of all the possible dangers and how to best deal with each of them. Given her mutant power along with the fact that she was a natural when it came to remembering everything she’d ever been told she was not badly equipped to deal with the current threat. If only she could convince herself of that now rather than running in panic, which would have been the worst reaction ever.
“Hit it around the nose and the eyes.” Maya dodged out of the way of a swipe of its paws and backed off once it reared on two legs, the thing was huge, grizzly size at minimum. “If it’s anything like a real bear, that should scare it off.”
"You really think the bear that appeared randomly in a high school is going to react like a real bear?" Nica asked rhetorically as she made another light flare as it tried to swipe at Maya again. "Betsy DeVos is never going to let anyone hear the last of this if it gets out."
Rahne snapped at its legs a few times, trying to get close but every time she did, it got smart. Or someone got in the way. So instead, she let the bear get distracted by the people in front of it and quietly snuck around back, though it was a tight fit and she nearly got squashed once. But she managed it and didn't waste time. The moment she was behind it, she got a running start and jumped.
The bear roared as her wolf form slammed into its back. Snapping her jaws, Rahne bit deeply into the shoulder. Both of them were snarling as Rahne struggled to hold on.
"You know what, if it means we survive Betsy DeVos can rant about this all she wants to," Stephen replied as he sprinted for the nearest locker, slamming his hand briefly on the metal. "Sorry," muttered as the door sprang open like the maw to some unmentionable horror filled dimension, an assortment of clothes seemed to explode, tearing away from the locker towards the bear like fabric snakes winding their way around its paws. "We just need to convince it that we're not an easy meal."
"Apologies to whoever's locker that was," Miles said wryly. "If we're not gonna scare it away with punches, then someone's old gym shorts'll do the trick."
The bear's howl was louder than Miles knew a bear could make a sound, and it seemed to shake the building. It tore the bindings off its arms, a move much too calculated than a thoughtless beast out to be able to do, and then, seemingly measuring its opposition, turned to run down the hall deeper into the school.
"Okay, I wasn't actually serious about that. Seriously, whose locker was that? Febreeze-bomb it, damn."
