ic Unstill Life

[Electra]

Raina turned her head again to grin broadly at Robin, obviously pleased to find someone on her wavelength. "Why not? Creepy statues need a little touch too, right?" She gave the statue girl a look of wide-eyed innocence. "Now you know I don't normally do this with girls. You... you're still going to respect me in the morning, right?" Closing her eyes, Raina arched her back off the ground in the best full romantic-heroine style and gave the statue an enthusiastic open-mouth kiss right on the parted lips. It tasted, she decided, like kissing the Blarney Stone on her first trip to Ireland, but probably with a lot less germs. 

[Gizmo]

The statue was predictably unresponsive to Raina's advances but a moment after he lips touched the jade she felt a jolt across her tongue like licking a battery, powerful enough to make her toes curl reflexively. Very much unbidden a spark of raw, instinctive magic reacted violently with something in the sculpture. If that hadn't been enough to startle to fire witch the audible crack of fracturing minerals right where her nose had brushed against the rock.

The crack lengthened quickly, bisecting the statue's face within the span of a heartbeat then spiderwebbing outward across the entire head. Little flakes of the green stone were already falling down onto Raina in her reclined pose by the time the fissures reached the shoulders and in the next moment the whole thing seemed to explode outward with a sound like a massive hammerstrike, paper-thin slabs of jade flying across the room in all directions, raining down on everyone nearby!

In its wake was left a flesh and blood girl, toppling over from her outstretched pose on top of Raina with a shuddering gasp for air. Green eyes wide and terrified, long black hair slick with sweat she struggled to get her hands and feet under herself as her limbs spasmed out of her control. Gulping loudly like a drowning woman struggling for breath she grabbed desperately at Raina's lace top, what little torn rags she was wearing herself sliding about her shoulders as she trashed.

[Electra]

Raina yelped a surprised expletive as the statute began to split open, throwing up an arm just in time to protect her face as the thing exploded in all directions with a rush of magic that made her skin tingle. She lowered her arm just in time for the nearly-naked statue girl to fall on her, which drew another few squeaky curse words from the startled witch. Instinctively she made a grab for the statue girls arms and attempted to pin the flailing legs with her own, unable to roll over effectively, she instead grabbed the girl like a giant stuffed animal. "Hey! Hey, calm down, you're okay! You're okay, dammit, stop hitting me!" She craned her neck to look at the others. "Little help, please!" 

[alderwitch]

Robin stared, the jade that pelted her largely unnoticed by the young vigilante as they very definitely broke the statue though really - who would have expected the thing to unearth some poor girl frozen inside. Even for Freedom City, that was weird. It was Raina's yelp that pushed her into movement. In one fluid motion, Robin leaned forward and lifted up the half naked young woman.

It was surprisingly easy. Part of Robin's brain took note that it took little effort to lift the girl up from where she had been thrashing at Raina even though she was almost of a height with Robin herself. With her hands around the girl's rib cage, Robin lifted her off the ground to hold her up. It wasn't the best, or most restraining, of grips but she seemed more freaked out - reasonably enough - than dangerous so for the moment, Robin was willing to leave her arms free to smack at Robin's chest and shoulders.

"Hey, calm down. You're out of the statue thing now." Robin offered and then averted her gaze upwards, "Aaand kind of naked..."

[Thunder King]

Hannah gasped as the girl emerged from the statue. She didn't know who she was, or why she was in that statue. She looked distressed, and dressed in rags. Hannah removed her hoodie and stepped towards the girl.

"Oh my goodness, are you okay?!" She asked the girl, and the others. Everyone was freaked out, but she figured if she suddenly exploded out of a statue, she'd like something to wear. So she stepped forward with her hoodie outstretched as an offering, help preserve the poor girl's dignity, or what remained of it.

[Tiffany Korta]

Back home Cathy had need seem the need to protect her identity, everyone roundabout for miles around knew what she could do anyway. But since coming to Freedom City she understood that it was important to keep a low profile and not use her powers in public, apart from her unfortunate condition. When the jade exploded apart however her instincts kicked in and as she raised a hand she formed a wall of ice in front of her to protect her from the debris.

Apparently it was all for nothing as the statue revealed the girl within. Looking a little guilty around her ice wall she offered her Queen Vic jumper, revealing the thick shirt she wore under the jumper, and even a little of her pale skin

"She can wear this if it helps. We erm... might have drawn a little attention to ourselves."

[Gizmo]

The heaving girl seemed entirely too panicked to worry about her state of undress on top of everything else but she managed to get her breathing under control enough to lock her wild, pleading eyes with Robin and weakly thump a fist into the other girl's chest. Forcing accented words through a jaw that wouldn't stop locking and unlocking on her she grated out, "For... the love of God... run!" The fist against Robin's chest spasmed again with a wet, sickening pop and swelled to an impossible size, as wide across as her whole torso. The growth continued violently up the girl's arm and down her ribs, the bones practically exploding outward with enough force to break the Fens native's grip, leaving the transforming girl's feet to hit the museum floor with enough new weight to crack the tiles.

Almost as suddenly as she'd broken free from the statue the disheveled girl had been replaced by a slab of uneven, grey-tinted muscle, covered with bulging veins and towering a full three feet over the top of Robin's head. Milky white eyes devoid of pupils or emotion looked down at the Claremont student and broad teeth audibly ground against each other behind swollen lips pressed tightly together. Without a word the hulking monster slammed its fist into Robin with the force of a freight train!

[alderwitch]

Showed what she got for trying to be polite and avert her eyes. Since she was looking anywhere but the girl she was holding, Robin was surprised by the sudden explosion of muscles everywhere that ripped the previously slight young woman from her hands. Still blinking at the transformation and the warning, perhaps her lack of response to the really rather reasonable warning could be understood this time. Hopefully, she'd be quicker on the uptake next time. 

The monster - for lack of a better term - didn't waste any time and the punch hit Robin with the audible crack right in the jaw dead on, sending the girl staggering backwards. It really should have broken several bones, by rights as the punch was solid and backed by the sort of muscle that could probably send cars flying. Robin certainly felt it as the healing split lip broke open once again, twisting with the force to come up on her feet once more. 

She brought a hand up, touching the new bruise forming and spat out blood. 

"Okay, fine," Robin muttered as she shrugged out of her leather jacket, letting it land in the dust, and pulled her fists up, "Let's do this the hard way, then."

[Tiffany Korta]

Almost as soon as the girl, monster, had hit Robin Frostbyte had taken to air forming a trail of ice than she balanced upon. As she move around the room, hopefully drawing the creatures attention, her skin took on the appearance of ice as it toughened beyond normal human skin.

As she made a second pass she flew near to the beast firing a burst of ice that coalesced around the beast's feet, the plan being to hold it place for as long as possible.

“If you have something clever planned do it quickly, I don’t think my ice is going to hold it for long.”

[Thunder King]

Hannah was grateful for her hoodie, that way if anyone took a picture it might not be clear enough to show her face. Whatever this poor girl had become looked strong, and she could help. She floated upwards away from the group and hoped the other girls could defend themselves. They had to protect the bystanders. 

A circle of shimmering lines appeared in mid air around the girls, it extruded upwards about ten feet into the air, and was about twenty feet from Alkahest. It looked like crystals of light, translucent, shimmering with shimmering colors.

"I hope she can't fly." She mumbled to herself, hoping the wall would hold.

[alderwitch]

Robin didn't comment as really, her only plan when confronted with things like this was to give as good as she got. Though, from the size of the thing and the way it hit, this was certainly no common thug like she was used to. Still, there were innocent people beyond Hannah's deceptively delicate looking wall. However, there were also other super heroes. The Chaperones might not be right here but with a bunch of middling trained super kids wandering around, they couldn't be all that far off.

"We just have to keep it - her - here until one of the teachers shows up," Robin offered, her jaw tense as she stepped in to close the distance with the creature. "However long that takes."

Without her jacket, the definition in Robin's arms and back was a lot more obvious in her thin shirt. She stepped in, ducking under one long arm to bring her fist up and towards her rough guess as to where the monster's solar plexus should roughly have been. The hit connected with a meaty smack, backed by the momentum of Robin's body as she twisted with the punch but it didn't seem to even slow it down. Well, if nothing else, hopefully Robin continued to make sure the attention remained on her. 

[Electra]

Raina continued to lay on the floor for a moment, still looking a little stunned, before survival instinct kicked in and had her scrambling to her feet. "What the hell?" she demanded, sounding almost as outraged as scared. "What the hell?" As Robin and the monster exchanged blows and Cathy and Hannah did their best to change the topography of the room, Raina busied herserlf with her tools. Tugging a small compact mirror from her pocket, she flipped it open and breathed on it, fogging it completely, then hummed a few bars of some old-fashioned song. Instantly she disappeared from sight without so much as a ripple of light to mark her presence. 

Suitably concealed, Raina grabbed a lighter from her other pocket and flipped it open, lighting it with one practiced flick of her finger. Raising it to eye level, she whistled a quick and cheerful rendition of "Pop Goes the Weasel," then smiled grimly as the fireball hit the monster dead on. It wasn't going to be enough, but at least it was something for now. 

[Tiffany Korta]

As Frostbyte flew around the room she considered her options against the beast she was pretty sure that it would be able to absorb more damage that she would normally dish out. She’d need to do more than normal if she wanted to take the beast out before it could hurt anyone, or herself. After all there was still a young woman in there and hopefully someone could return her from this bestial form.

As she made another pass a trail of snow and ice formed behind her as she drew even more moisture from the air than normal before she threw a stream of large icicles toward the monster.

[Gizmo]

Robin's punch landed with a sound less like flesh connecting with flesh and more like boulders cracking against one another. The monster barely seemed to register the attack but it did make a low sound in the back of its throat as Raina's ball of angry flame splashed across its back. For a moment the witch could see the flame-licked skin blacken and twist, more like oily parchment under a candle than how she would have expected a living thing to burn. In the next heartbeat, however, the muscles in its back twitch unnaturally and the burns closed in over themselves, new greyish muscle growing in unevenly until there was nothing to show that the attack had ever happened.

The creature never turned around but from her vantage point Robin could see the veins in its neck bulge just before it swung both arms over its head, ignoring the constraints of the remaining ice around its legs as in brought down two massive fists atop the scrappy fighter. They crashed into Robin like a pickup truck being dropped on her from the top of a parking garage and when the girl managed to rise to her feet again even after the blow the twisted mass of muscle finally opened its mouth into a wordless grimace. It continued to stare unblinking at its target even while Cathy's icicles pelted it, the spear-sized projectiles doing no more than raising mottled bruises as they broke against thick hide.

[alderwitch]

Robin didn't bob-and-weave fast enough, her gaze skittering up to try and figure out what the hell everyone else was up to. She wasn't used to this, Robin realized. Oh, sure, she'd been in fights before and wasn't afraid of them but she fought alone. She was always alone and fighting with other people that were more than innocent bystanders was a whole different level. Maybe she did need at least something from this super school after all. 

She should have known better than to take her focus off of the target for even a split second. Robin didn't twist out of the way fast enough and both hands came down with the sort of force that probably buckled steel. No one was more surprised than Robin that her spine didn't snap from the shot right then and there. 

"So, I think I'm pissing her off now," Robin said as she rose to her feet doggedly. That hurt. When she stripped for her shower later today, she'd have a whole new layer of bruises over the ones still fading from the weekend. She inhaled once, carefully - no broken ribs though - as she dropped back into a stance. 

"We're not making a dent. Let's try to lock her down!" Robin called for lack of a better suggestion. "Pin her with ice, light. Blind her. Whatever. Lets just keep her locked in until someone shows up."

There, that was something like a strategy right?

[Thunder King]

With the civilians scattered, Hannah felt okay about dropping the barrier so she could concentrate her powers in other locations. She felt sorry for this poor girl, but they had to stop her, too. Whomever it was that transformed into this monster had wanted them to run, so she didn't feel so bad doing what she had to do to stop her.

The barrier dissolved as soon as Hannah stopped concentrating on it, so she could redirect the energy to another purpose. She flew around to face Alkahest, and sent a concentrated burst of multicolored light directly at her eyes, like the flash without a bang. She hoped that would be useful, at least in helping Robin dodge a couple blows.

[alderwitch]

"Here goes nothing," Robin muttered under her breath as she ducked under one big arm and used the monster's own knee to sling herself up and around. It was a near thing and only thanks to the efforts of the others to slow her down that Robin managed to scuttle up her side and duck between the arms lurching blindly for her without getting caught. That was doubtless a good thing as she thought her ribs couldn't take another pounding.

Clinging to the monster-girl's back, Robin locked her arm around Alkahest's throat from behind, and clamped her thighs around her torso. Yee gods, she was massive. But, hey, massive creatures had to breathe too, right? Right?!

"Okay, okay, lock her in, ladies?" Robin gritted out from where she clung not unlike the Man in Black on Fezzik. gotosleepgotosleepgotosleeeeep....

Edited September 13, 2015 by alderwitch

[Electra]

"Maybe if we can hit it all at once!" came the suggestion from a patch of empty air on the other side of the room. It was followed by a single soft footfall, then a moment of silence and stillness, where nothing seemed to move. Even in the stillness, Alkahest seemed to notice something, its attention focusing despite its blindness. 

Suddenly, the air just in front of the monster was illuminated with a hellish red light, a fireball that bloomed out of nowhere. "Pop goes the weasel!" sang a soft female voice from within the conflagration, and then the fire slammed into Alkahest's gut, blackening clothes and skin, bending the creature double from the force of the impact. 

[Gizmo]

"NnnrrRAAAGH!" That, evidently, the monster finally felt. From the way its nostrils flared and it looked directly in Raina's direction it was aware of its attacked even if it could not see her but with Robin holding firm against its trashing and Cathy's ice rooting it to the floor it could do little to make its displeasure more palpably known. Already its previous injuries were fading just as the burns from the witch's first attack had but the sheer overwhelming force of the point blank blast was slowing it down. Again its arms, this as tree trunks, strained against Robin's thighs where they wrapped around its torso but impossibly the Fens' native was not dislodged, displaying strength beyond anything that should have reasonably been possible.

[alderwitch]

Robin clung on like a determined monkey, despite the odds and size of her opponent. Her arm remained tight against the creature's neck as Raina took full advantage to press the attack. They might - MIGHT - actually been making a dent.

"Hit her again," Robin encouraged grimly, finally unhooking her legs from the creature's ribs and tucking them up to the center of Alkahest's back. She had to get out of the way if the other girls were going to cut loose. Even unused to team fighting, Robin recognized that much. With her weight just held on her arms, her thighs tensed under her. Vaulting off of a stationary surface was risky enough. Hopefully she wouldn't brain herself on the dismount. "I'll give you a clear path."

Letting go, Robin's legs punched out with the full force of trained, and frankly inhuman, muscles backing the thrust as she went twisting away like the trained acrobat she was. Hopefully, the kick would either throw the creature off or keep Robin in her head as an irritant if this didn't actually manage to knock her down. Tucking and rolling, Robin's shoulders hit the ground first and she bit back a wince as her bruised ribs protested her antics to get clear and out of the way. Robin let the momentum carry her until she rolled up into a crouch, "Clear!"

[Electra]

Raina appeared abruptly out of nowhere in front of the monster, dancing backwards and out of the way even as Robin moved in the other direction. "Clear!" she called, then flicked her lighter once more. "All in together now, whatever you've got!" She hummed and waved a hand, and the lighter was suddenly a flamethrower, with a blast of bright orange flame spraying in a bright and concentrated line straight at the growling, staggering creature who still looked more than ready to kill them all if it could just get a hand on one of them. "Now!" 

[Thunder King]

Right on the heels of Raina's attack, Hannah channeled a blast of multicolored energy and fired it right at Alkahest. It was unlike what she'd done before, not a shape or a bubble, but rather a beam of energy. Hannah hoped to keep Alkahest staggered and unable to fight back and maybe, hopefully, end the fight without anyone getting hurt or any damage getting done.

[Tiffany Korta]

With a final swoop around the room Cathy took a position just behind the other two girls she hadn’t fought with others, being the only power she was aware off on the entire islands, but she knew it was a sound idea.

“I really hope this works, here goes nothing.”

Gathering the moisture from the air she sent a stream of ice from her two hands towards the same spot as the other two attacks pouring as much effort as she could, if wouldn’t last long but if it didn’t work then it wouldn’t make much difference.

[Gizmo]

The three attacks converged on the towering creature's chest, the force shattering the last of the icy bonds holding it in place. With a grunt the beast took a staggering step toward its attackers, then another before the blinding light of Hannah's multihued cascade and the hissing steam where Raina's fire met Cathy's ice obscured it from view. The teens poured on the their attack with clenched jawed resolve, holding nothing back. As their blasts sputtered out finally, powers spent, the cloud slowly thinned to reveal the silhouette of the monster, still upright. "RRRrrrnnnh..." Flesh marred by severe burns and frostbite it raised one foot to continue forward and instead buckled, dropping to its knees with enough force to knock painting around the room off of their hooks and clattering to the floor. Struggling to lift an arm with grasping fingers its milky white eyes rolled back in its head and finally the brute collapsed face first, unconscious.

A beat of stunned silence later, the mass of twisted grey flesh spasms, twitching unnaturally as it shrunk in upon itself. Within moments the slim girl who'd first emerged from the statue lay unmoving before them, dark hair plastered to her back with sweat and the last of her rags torn asuder by her transformations.

A crack of snapping stone brought their attention away from their unexpected opponent to the entrance to the gallery room where Headmistress Summers has just stepped on a sliver of broken jade. The highest power of Claremont Academy surveyed the rubble and displaced exhibits along with her winded students while behind her Madison and her friends gaped in disbelief, Celeste pointing unnecessarily at the unconscious girl as they whispered among themselves. Summers looked first to Robin then to each of the others in turn. With strained patience, the Headmistress simply demanded, "Explain."

[Electra]

Raina slid her lighter back into her pocket and took a look around at the disaster that the exhibit room had become. It looked... a little bit bad, she had to admit. But there was no way out but straight through. "One of the statues was actually a person, trapped inside a statue," she told the headmistress. "We were able to free her from inside the stone," and here she pointed at the fragments of jade that had flown everywhere, "but then something else weird happened. She was like super-disoriented and started yelling for us to run, then she turned into some kind of monster and punched the hell out of Robin." Raina nodded to that notable, clearly expecting corroboration. "This place is full of civilians, so Hannah and Cathy managed to get the monster to stay in one place, and then we all worked together to stop it from escaping and doing god knows what. But I think this girl probably needs some help." 

Thus saying, Raina turned and went over to the fallen girl, making a bit of a show of checking her pulse. "She's also gonna need some clothes."