ic Kramp My Style [IC]

[Gizmo]

For all its wonders, Freedom City could be a dangerous place and it was a sad fact that the metropolis was home to more than its fair share of orphaned children. Fitting for a city known for rebirth from the ashes and undying resolution, many of those orphans had grown to become wealthy industrialists, expose-writing journalists, well known photographers and so on. Their legacy meant that Freedom boasted one of the best developed and funded social services programs in the nation. Even so, there never seemed to be quite enough beds, food or cheer to go around, particularly during the holiday season.

Keith LaMarr had first become aware of the Santa's Super Helpers charity through his friend Reverend Stone of Lincoln's Church of the Eternal Rock of Justice. The concept was elegant in its simplicity: local superheroes volunteered to dress up in the traditional red and white suit of the jolly elf and spend the day with underprivileged youths at Millennium Mall, bringing some cheer in their own right and drawing much needed attention to the cause at the same time. Jingling bells next to a hanging pot taken to the logical extreme - at least logical by Freedom's standards.

Certain bylaws unfortunately made it prohibitively difficult to have heroes participate in their secret identities, so those who's true names were public knowledge were typically approached. It was thus that the earsplitting educator known as Wail stepped into the bustling shopping center from the temporary changing area with a fluffy brimmed hat atop his bald head and bright red across his broad chest, stroking his grey streaked beard through a black glove that matched his boots and wide, gold-buckled belt, looking at though he could shake considerably more than a bowlful of jelly with his super-dense footfalls.

The other two heroes in attendance were no less eye catching. The presence of Amir Al-Misri, the high-profile billionaire playboy turned superhero, assured a substantial media presence. His reputation as an irresponsible fop and dilettante would have raised LaMarr's eyebrow more if not for the good things he'd heard about the man as Asad, the energy absorbing metahuman. Neither of them was much comeptition for sheer visual impact next to Louis Ross, the popular cartoonist who's transformation into one of his one, massive, four-armed creations was almost too fantastical to believe. Wail knew he'd seen stranger things than the genial artist's demonic appearance in his decades of experience, but he was hard pressed to name more than a few off hand.

[Cube]

It was difficult for Lou to get a costume that fit his... unusual build. He had managed, of course. He looked somewhat silly, with his four arms, and horns peeking out from beneath his hat. Still, it was worth it for the kids.

"Hey there, you must be Wail." Lou offered a massive red mitt to the grey bearded Santa Claus that just emerged from the changing area. "It's great to finally meet you. I'm Lou."

[TheAbsurdist]

Compared to the other two, Asad ate this up. Wearing the cheesiest variation on the costume possible, the standard red and right outfit, stuffed with pillows in the front, and a fake beard over his, and a wig to top it off. He was having a ball. He was jovial, open, grinning interacting with people, and even managing to restrain himself to merely playful flirting with some of the women that were there. His put upon looking assistant, Ms. van Cleef had made her brief appearance with the assorted toys and clothes and other things.

To help drum up support for this Asad had organized a charity drive at his businesses, and even donated a sizable sum to the local energy companies to help cover heating cost for low income families. The question of his being Muslim had come up, as did the whole being super wealthy, he had rebuffed it with a shrug and a smile before steering the topic back to the kids. But now he was here. Posing for photos for the kids who wanted it, and even making introductions between the children and Louis Ross and Keith LaMarr, who were both more famous than he was to the children. He was not the center of attention tonight, and while he got the media here, he was doing his damnedest to remind them of that.

[Gizmo]

LaMarr had a brief moment of hesitation as he had to adjust the position of the hand he offered Ross in return to meet the correct set of arms, but shoot the proffered mitt firmly. The older man's hands tended to engulf most handshakes but with the massive cartoonist he found himself on the receiving end of that phenomenon. "You can call me LaMarr," he noted, craning his neck to regard the smiling, crimson visage. "I've had to confiscate a few of your funny books in my class," the civics teacher continued, flashing a grin that showed teeth. "Skimmed 'em before handing them back. You do good work."

Releasing Pyre's hand to greet a small group of children Al-Misri had brought over to say hello, he crouched down on one knee and asked in a voice like jovial thunder if they'd been good that year. There was no denying that the billionaire knew how to work a crowd, but LaMarr was more stuck by Asad's determination to stay off to one side of the spotlight. It was a trait he'd seen develop in outgoing high-schoolers as they matured through their formative years, an empathy and awareness of others that went beyond simple attention seeking. Undoubtedly the wealthy playboy had been a good choice for the event.

[Cube]

"Thanks, LaMarr." Lou grinned. "I was actually going to do some sketches for the kids. Maybe I can do one for you later?"

Moments later, Pyre was swarmed with excited children as they gathered around the supersized Santa Claus. Pyre wasn't used to being in the spotlight, but he was more than happy to help out with the kids. A few quick sketches here, some neat pyrotechnics there, and more four armed hugs than he could possibly count.

[TheAbsurdist]

In fact, despite his showy reputation, and history, Amir was avoiding doing anything resembling using his powers. Of course he was nominally circumspect about that in general. After all, his powers were such that it was in his best interest for others to not entirely know the extent/depth of his abilities. Although his real concern was the amount of hell he was going to receive from people in the local Muslim community. Which wouldn't be such a huge issue, if he wasn't helping fun the construiction of a new Mosque in the West End, after the last one had been demolish during the Gorgon Crisis.

So right now, he was drinking some water, and settling in a little. Fortunately once the kids were steered towards the other two heroes the media magic was pretty much set. And the image of Lou being a big much galoot was a better story than Amir being, well, Amir.

[Gizmo]

While the heroes spoke and laughed with the children, an elderly gentleman in a simple black outfit approached, smiling with satisfaction. Father MacElvie, the architect behind the event nodded his owlish head, seemingly a little too large for his wizened frame, hands clasped behind his back. There was no question that the old fellow had known exactly what he was doing when he invited these particular men to play the roll of Santa Claus and he made no apologies for those selections. This was first and foremost a publicity stunt and decades of sermons had not left MacElvie without a certain appreciation of spectacle.

LaMarr returned the nod as the priest approached, setting a giggling girl down from his shoulder and back to the mall floor. "How are we doing so far?"

"Oh, quite well, quite well," MacElvie assured him, head bobbing absently even as the eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses sparkled keenly. "A great many generous donations, yes, and perhaps more importantly quite a bit of attention, hm? Ha ha, yes."

[Cube]

Lou smiled as a swarm of children used him as a Jolly Jungle Gym. "I'm glad it's working out, Father."

He was really enjoying himself. For once, he was around people that weren't freaking out just because of his appearance. Children were laughing and smiling, not running away and screaming. Lou couldn't help but grin as the kids hugged him. This was why he agreed to do this. Not for publicity, but for this. The smiles, the laughter, the joy...

[TheAbsurdist]

Amir remained off to the side, managing to not seem standoffish, for as long as possible. Though he had to admit he liked a media event that wasn't about him, and any efforts towards than end he shut down and directed it back to the kids. Eventually he meandered over to the other two, well three now including the priest, a big grin on his face, as he looked more than moderately ridiculous, not that he noticed or cared, apparently.

"I just want to say thank you for this opportunity, I am always glad to help for these sorts of things." He didn't add the corollary that was expected, in that this was a good tax break, or something like that. He seemed to be having genuine fun, though that could be attributed to Amir being decidedly immature. And he successfully avoided talking super shop with the other two, and considering he was a rookie, he was rather proud of that accomplishment.

[Gizmo]

MacElvie thanked Al-Misri warmly and began to make a bit of small talk with the volunteers while saying hello to the excited children themselves. A slight rustling in the nearby Christmas tree caught LaMarr's eye, drawing his attention as one of the shiny red bulbs jostled about for a split second. He was about to turn back to the small girl tugging at his pant leg when he saw it quite clearly shake again, as if something had reverberated through the branch. Gradually a resounding booming noise rose above the collective laughter and happy chatter to sound in time with the increasingly violent shaking, a silver ornament from higher in the tree coming loose and shattering on the mall's floor. "What in..."

The source of the monstrous footfalls rose abruptly into view, towering over the shopping center's glass atrium as in approached, pausing to roar, a terrible sound somewhere between a goat's bleating and a jungle cat's throaty rumble. Covered in shaggy, green-grey fur over most of it's hunched, lanky form, the creature's gaunt face was framed in stringy black hair that fell on either side of a toothy maw of razor sharp teeth and concealed the bases of two massive, curving horns each the girth of a city bus. Impossible huge iron chains dangled from wrought manacles on each wrist while a one clawed hang gripped a half dozen birch tree trucks clearly ripped right from the ground, roots and all. The other hand pulled at the strap holding a gargantuan woven basket across the beast's back, a lid sealing it tight. A long, pointed tongue lolled from it grinning mouth as beady eyes spotted the gathering below.

"My god," MacElvie breathed in the stunned silence. "Giant Krampus."

[TheAbsurdist]

Asad stops abruptly, along with pretty much everyone else. "Holy- err, sorry Father. Pardon me everyone." And he pushed up, and took off up at the giant Krampus. Throwing himself as fast as he could up through the air, and then through the glass as well, slamming into the beast's midsection. He knew he wasn't going to be able to stop him, but he had to get close, he had to get into the fight, and more importantly, he had to get the Krampus to hit him. Sure he knew the League of Nonstandard Santas were not soft men, but if he could distract it, get it away from the kids. "Hey big ugly, how about you pick a fight with me! I am going to need to bathe in bleach after fighting you, you reek astonishingly."

[Cube]

"Kids... Get out of here NOW!" shouted Pyre. In seconds, the massive creature was surrounded with an aura of flame, before taking a single mighty leap toward the beast. His flames trailed behind him like a comet as he fearlessly flung his four flaming fists of festive fury at the ferocious freak in a flurry of alliteration. It was dangerous, and the demonic hero was well aware that he was leaving himself wide open for an outside attack, but he had to force this thing off somehow...

[Gizmo]

Despite the reckless abandon with which the heroes through themselves against the hundred foot monstrosity, Giant Krampus seemed to barely notice their assault, evidently more bothered by Asad's shouts than Pyre's pummeling blows. The flying hero found himself on the receiving end of an attack of Shakespearian proportions as a veritable forest of uprooted birch trees came crashing down atop him as the beast swatted him away. The force of the impact was even more than wealthy hero's powers could absorb, sending him crashing down through another of the atrium's glass windows and into the floor below, trailing down feathers as the pillow he'd put under his Santa suit burst open.

[Gizmo]

"Jiminy Cricket!" Wail placed himself between the children at his feet and the shards of glass falling from above, the minor shards bouncing harmlessly off of his super-dense muscle tissue. He spared a glace toward Al-Misri, who looked awake and recovering even if the wind had been knocked out of him. LaMarr suspected his own superhuman durability wouldn't fair any better against a creature of such massive size, which put them at a disadvantage: none of the three Santa-suited heroes were used to being the 'little guy' in a fight. "Keep moving!" he bellowed to Ross, the sound carrying easily to the demonic looking cartoonist despite the distance and din of battle.

Turning back to the civilians, he made a lowering gesture with one hand. "Everybody on the floor! Hands over your heads, cover your ears!" He waited until they'd done so, the event's organizers and volunteers helping the frightened children, the looked back up at the beast. "It's about to get loud." Taking a deep breath that filled superhuman lungs, Wail let loose a sledgehammer of sound the rocketed upward with such force it visibly warped the air in a column from his mouth to his target. The remaining glass in the ceiling vibrated then shattered, raining down from above while decorations toppled from the perches. The blast of sound crashed into Giant Krampus' horned face, sending it back a half-step as it shook it's head, momentarily disoriented and roaring in anger.

[TheAbsurdist]

He didn't know which hurt more. The swing from the Krampus or where he hit the ground. Somehow he caught his fall, unable to use his power of flight except to prevent himself from hitting other people, the impact was still just staggering in force, making concrete crumple like tissue paper under him, and blurred his vision. Then came the power roaring in his ears, (the real reason he called himself by his codename). Amir resisted the urge to just simply lay there and regain his senses, and he got to his feet swaying in a punch-drunk manner.

"I am gonna thank you for the charge Ugly! Now kindly step off the orphans!" And he lifted a hand up, unaware he was starting to glow, before it happened. All the energy he couldn't absorb was bleeding off him, as he did, his eyes becamed focused. A glowing ripple of surged out of his chest, and he guided it with both of his arms and hands, and then a brilliant out bolt of pure kinetic energy back out at the overly large cautionary tale. Still addled from the impact from the Krampus' strike the blast sailed wide and went past the Krampus.

[Cube]

Pyre grit his teeth as Asad was sent flying from the impact of the Krampus's birch bat. The complete ineffectiveness of his blows didn't do much to encourage him either. He needed to act, and he needed to act fast.

Wail's shout provided him with just the distraction he needed. Channeling all his might into a prodigious leap, Pyre rocketed into the air, as far about the Krampus's head as he could manage. Just as gravity was about to reclaim his hold on him, he coated his massive form in a crackling aura of flame, before performing the most spectacular elbow drop any of the orphans below had ever witnessed: aimed directly at the Krampus's skull.

[Gizmo]

Even as it flew wide, missing it entirely, Giant Krampus turned in response to Asad's blast, perhaps surprised by the unexpected show of force from the hero it had so easily swatted aside. As such, the monstrous creature was caught unaware as Pyre's four sledgehammer-like fists crashed into the side of its head, wreathed in fire and fueled by righteous indignation. Roaring inhumanly, the beast took another step backward, away from the mall's atrium and closer to the other side of the street, throwing its free hand toward the demonic looking cartoonist in a futile attempt to ward off his attack.

[Gizmo]

Wail wasted no time charging out from under the shattered glass ceiling and through the mall's front doors with thunderous footsteps that left noticeable dents in his wake. "We've got this Christmas turkey on the ropes now!" he shouted to the other Santa-suited heroes encouragingly, the bellow carrying even to Asad back inside. Snappy banter didn't seem to be having much effect on their gargantuan foe, so LaMarr simply took another deep breath of bracing winter air and unleashed a second column of sonic force, catching Giant Krampus right under its hairy jaw. This time the terror actually stumbled onto one knee, holding itself upright with the arm holding its fistful of birch trees as the lid of the enormous wicker basket strapped to its back fell away, rolling about the street like an impossible hubcap.

[Gizmo]

The moment the basket's lid came loose, a howling, freezing wind erupted from within the wicker container as if it had been somehow holding in the blizzard of the century. In the span of heartbeats a heavy snow was falling down from above and the heroes were glad for their unconventional costumes' warm weight. The true horror only became evident, however, as the first obsidian talon clawed at the lip of the basket, pulling its owner up into view.

Dark, spindly creatures with pointed ears and pupilless white eyes poured from the opened basket by the dozens, crawling over the askew container like ants before leaping with inhuman agility to the street below. Grinning with sharp teeth and chittering maniacally, the horde of svartálfar surged forth, splitting into three rough groups to attack Asad, Pyre and Wail in turn. Though barely coming up to even an ordinary man's waist, they outnumbered the heroes ten to one and slashed away with long, deadly claws in their efforts to swarm over them.

[TheAbsurdist]

"Oh great... he's spawning..." The creatures came at him, clawing at him, and doing little more than cutting his suit. He didn't know that his eyes were still bleeding out light, somehow managing to look imperious even dressed as that, standing with perfect posture, and his face looking more annoyed at what was happening than made. The kind of expression one expected a king to have when confronted by unruly lesser. "Enough!" And force exploded out from him, knocking away the creatures around them, as he hit them with several tons of force by releasing it out. He managed to restrain the blast from going to it's full size, but it would blow away the remains of his Santa outfit, leaving him in just his uniform, and glaring disdainfully right up at the Giant Krampus.

[Cube]

The strange creatures rushed Pyre, whose large size and red skin made him a very inciting target. A thousand tiny nicks were carved in Pyre's skin, insubstantial on their own, but enough to make the behemoth take notice.

"Get OFF OF ME!"

His body erupted in a pillar of flame, his hat and coat burning instantly to ash as surging tendrils of flame assaulted the beasts.

(Fortunately, he had enough presence of mind to preserve his pants. The kids were already scared enough.)

His eyes glowed like burning coals as he glared at the beast that loomed above, his voice rumbling with demonic powe. "I don't know who you are, or who sent you... but you will NOT HARM THESE CHILDREN!"

[Gizmo]

The svartálfar clammouring over Pyre let out inhuman screeches as the flames erupted all about them, within moments reducing them all to steaming puddles of what looked like melted ice about the hero with the demonic appearance. Though none of the embattled metahumans knew enough of mystic arcana to put a name to the nasty little beasts, it was clear they anything but natural.

The distraction they provided, however, turned out to be enough time for Giant Krampus to rouse itself, drawing back up to its full, massive height and bringing its empty hand swinging down in an attempt to grab the comparatively diminutive Ross. Fortunately, the four-armed artist was able to avoid the talons, at least for the moment.

[Gizmo]

"OFF," Wail demanded in a booming bass that sent the spindly, elfin creatures attacking him rolling off him to the ground, knocked off of their feat by the save of sonic force and sufficiently cowed by the imperious tone. Even as they managed to clamour back to their feet, sharp fingers and toes scraping the street below them, they hurried away as quickly as they could, with little rhyme or reason in the route they took. "You're next, joker," the only hero left with a Santa suit intact enough to be recognizable promised the towering beast attacking Pyre.

Even as he did so, however, more than two dozen more of the nasty little dark elves were crawling over the lip of the uncovered wicker basket, skittering down the back and legs of monster carrying it like insects across a picnic blanket. "Somebody get the lid back on that thing!" LaMarr shouted to the others and a new horde began to rush outward with renewed viciousness.

[TheAbsurdist]

Seeing what was happening, he heard Wail's order, for lack of a better word. It made sense, still a little rocked by getting smacked hard into the ground, and the billionaire didn't need . Gritting his teeth, he pushed forward, surging along the ground, flying low and darting around the things that were coming out of that big Wicker container. But he wasn't entirely focused on that, he was focused on the effort he had to made to put the lid back on top in a hurry, as with each passing moment more seemed to be pouring out of it. Thread the needle Amir, thread the needle. Despite the blurring vision and the ringing in his ears, he got to the lid, and off balance he spun, his arm whipping around and he hurled the lid back towards it's original resting spot. And he watched, as the lid spun and wobbled in it's trajectory, until it hit the lip of the basket and fell back down to the ground, his expression growing disheartened, for a moment. Then, he did the only thing he knew to do... he talked. "Hey! Uglies! You want to drag someone into your basket!? You want to punish the wicked, well I am a banker! There gets no worse than me! So come on! Take me! Leave these people alone! Come on, rich men are not virtuous! And I run a multinational and own an island!" He knew he was on it's radar, and he hoped if he was annoying enough... Well he had a plan. And he knew it was a stupid, it was an idiotic plan. But it's all he had right now. Now to see if it took the bait.

[Cube]

"Gotta think fast..."

Focusing all of his power, Pyre's hands ignited with blazing embers of fire as swirling Maelstrom of crimson flame materialized above the Krampus. Making arcane gestures he barely understood, Pyre's brow dripped with sweat as he lowered the swirling vortex of heat to hover directly above the Krampus's Vile Basket.

"Asad! Get that lid on pronto! Wail, keep those things from getting the kids! I'll try and keep him from making more!"

If a burst of flame was enough to melt these things, then maybe a barrier of flame was enough to keep them inside...

Pyre smiled as his "lid" hovered into place. "Perfect."