Raymond Stantz

Good. Challenge, response, snarl...and SNARL in return. That last would be from Spoon. While he's doing his best to circle it prior to hurting it a lot.

From:

Tavi looks to Ray.

"You know anything about fighting in pairs?"

He does, but that light thing looks rather dangerous.

From:

Cre'hktdi is both fascinated and gratified.

She growls, loudly, shifting her stance to make up for its roll, and starts moving back towards the buildings.

She's going to have to get some height off the ground if she wants to reach anything vulnerable.

From:

gone_byebye

Christine's best bet may be the lightposts that line the elevated highway, at least for perches to allow leaping. The Sarkastodon isn't designed for bipedal motion, though. It won't be able to maintain that posture long, especially not if it keeps trying to swipe at her. It'll have to come down and give all fours a go, rather like the one that's lumbering inexorably towards Ray and Tavi.

"I spent a good five years learning the technique and I try to keep in practice with it," Ray answers. "I'm game if you are."

As for the Andrewsarchus pack, Spoon's beast is circling him in return, its ears pricked forward and its snarl something awful to hear. The one Stitch stunned paces back and forth erratically, trying to walk off its injury before lowering that massive head and making ready to spring.

The third is sniffing at the car that Stitch threw and warily observing its comrades' fortunes.

From:

The Andrewsarchus is eyed warily as it paces. Once it has gne into a crouch, Stitch rushes forward hoping to take it by surprise. Unfortunately this does not occur, the predator charging forward as well and the large fangs graze the top of Stitch's bulbous head before he ducks between its forelegs and out of reach. A moment later, he's seized the animal by the tail and pulls backward.

From:

It takes a moment, then Spoon sees an opening and lunges as quickly as possible in an attempt to catch his Andrewsarchus in the neck. Not quite fast enough, however, and he lets go of the sword as soon as he realizes that it's gotten itself wedged in the thing's shoulder.

Right, then.

From:

Tavi nods to Ray.

"I'll take right top, you take left bottom. I'll be pushing off of one of those things," he tilts his chin to a car, " to try and chop it's head off while you distract it to attempt to get it to protect it's belly."

From:

While the Unblooded are getting themselves oriented, Cre'hktdi is testing her opponent; she's darting past it to see how quickly it chases her, launching herself up to a high point to see how it follows, and otherwise seeing what it does.

She can't snipe it honorably, but she can work out just where to hit.

From:

gone_byebye

It's not the fastest of beasts, although it's far from trudging. Christine's Sarkastodon is probably about as fast as, oh, let's say a Kodiak bear- and as foul-tempered as one. It would need more space to work up to a full gallop. It's good at climbing, though there's the slight problem of nothing in the area being suited for its weight. At least when it falls, it has the sense to roll and pause before getting up again... but now it's angry, and it ROARS for Christine's blood.

Stitch's Andrewsarchus is in for a very bad day. Perhaps it can dig its claws into the pavement to avoid being thrown around? Oh, that's right- IT HAS NO CLAWS. Just those hooves. Whoops!

.... all right, so it's kicking as best it can and trying to thrash, but Stitch is still winning the hand-over-hand contest with this thing's tail.

"All right," says Ray. "I can do that. Good luck on your end, eh?" And he smiles, and takes up a stance that forty years of Melcene sword instructors would cry for joy to see.

Spoon, now... well. Spoon's Andrewsarchus is hurt, and angry, and has nothing to lose. It lets out a weird coughing bark and lunges at him, vast jaws snapping. It'll crush what it can, kick what it can't, and roll over on anything that's left (at least until the sword digs further into its shoulder than it can bear). It's out for blood now, and it's fighting with all its might.

From:

Once he's successfully managed to back the thrashing Andrewsarchus up a few feet, Stitch tightens his grip on the unfortunate beast's tail and jerks down forcing it in to a sitting position. He releases his hold on the tail and scrambles up the animal's back, grabbing handholds of the thicker fur around its shoulders.

The Andrewsarchus is, quite understandably, less than thrilled at this turn of events. It springs to its feet with a snarl. Snapping and bucking, it begins to spin in frenzied circles in an attempt to dislodge its passenger.

"Yeeeeehaw!"

From:

Spoon's response to his Andrewsarchus...part of his brain is thinking of it as Snuggles. There are soooooooo many reasons he's not allowed to name things...is to circle toward it's good shoulder with his wristblades and attempt to give it matching wounds.

From:

He nods to Ray just once before moving as he'd said, faster than he really should be able to and up a car, up onto it's roof before pushing off hard for a jump up at the thing's head.

Something, some sense that wasn't entirely his, tells him to shift and he does it just as something swipes past him. His foot lands against one arm and his response is to swing his other foot around, get more traction, and push to get higher as he turns towards his target and slices at it's head.

From:

Cre'hktdi is still focussed on her fight. She's been watching. Not only has she been observing its recovery time and its speed, but she's been jumping from vision mode to vision mode to see how its bones move around its heart and lungs, how much heat its muscles generate.

(Learn the gift of all sights, or finish in the dance of the fallen gods.)

And now that she knows, that's it; she draws her wristblades, because she likes its claws, and moves down onto a level with it.

She'll head back up once it charges, yes.

From:

gone_byebye

Everything more or less happens at once at this point.

- Stitch's Andrewsarchus, unaccustomed to anything being on its back, is spinning in circles and thrashing like a dropped fire hose. It's not looking where it's going, it just wants Stitch OFF- and it gets it, flinging the little blue alien a car-length or so away before staggering sideways, HARD.

- The Sarkastodon that was attacking Ray and Tavi's position was more interested in trying to take off part of either man's anatomy than in the position of its fellow hunter. When the huge hoofed monster slams into its side, it loses its footing and its focus simultaneously. Tavi's sword doesn't quite strike its head from its shoulders, but you'd be hard pressed to say that for sure- a spinal severing is a killing strike, and at the moment of death the beast's flesh suddenly dissolves into bluegrey dust, leaving behind only an inert skeleton.

- The other Sarkastodon found the footing it needed, and the road-bed is shaking with the force of its fury as it lunges after Christine, swiping with its foreclaws. Its kind evolved to fight for prey, not against greater predators than itself. There's nothing in its brain to say that greater predators even exist. That sort of thing makes a beast careless; there are vital spots exposed...

- Spoon's Andrewsarchus is screaming in pain and fountaining blood from both shoulders even as Stitch gets thrown from his mount. One more strike and it'll be so much dust like the rest. And the unharmed Andrewsarchus will have a clear strike at the careless, obsessed yautja on the ground.

- As regards Stitch's Andrewsarchus, though, that beast scrambles frantically away from the disintegrating Sarkastodon. It swings around to see where the little blue thing went-

"Oh no you don't," says Ray, and there's a whrrrrm noise as the lightsaber severs its massive head from its shoulders.

From:

Stitch sails through the air and lands with an audible THUD. It's a few seconds before he picks himself up. Highly durable engine of chaos or no, smacking face first in to the pavement hurts!

He rights himself, shakes his head and touches his nose gingerly. He's definitely going to feel that tomorrow. He glances back the way he came, noting Ray lowering a lightsaber (?!?...oooooh) and standing before a pile of smoking bones.

From:

Spoon gives his beast the mercy stroke as soon as he can get the opening, and then his obsession turns into confusion for what has got to be the fatal second.

He'd object to the careless description, however. There were an equal number of beasties and people...and Tavi and Ray were behind him. He didn't realize that they didn't each take a beast.

The narration feels the need to state: god-ranked idiot, here.

From:

Tavi, unaware that the thing would disintegrate like some crowsbegotten castle of sand, did not plan for the fall. He'd planned to use the falling (or flailing) of the beast to get to the ground and out of range.

Disintegrating? Not so much.

That would be why, despite his training and his skill, he ends up catching his hip on one of the cars and tumbling to the ground. Lucky for him, he knows how to fall (oh, that was a lesson he'd learned well) and the hip is the only thing affected.

But oh that's going to be sore until he can find a watercrafter.

From:

Cre'hktdi has just chosen to dart towards it and go by at an angle. What she wants is to get the tendon on the way through; that will give her a chance to turn when she's by the elbow and stab deeply with one pair of wristblades at the heart.

It's big, it's strong, and it's alien. She's in a very strange vision mode for this, so that she can tell precisely where she's hitting; the beast is skeletal and flickering, purple-white.

From:

gone_byebye

In truth, and with no exaggeration, the beast literally never saw it coming. Christine's Sarkastodon briefly has a look of utter surprise on its features; then it has a look of nothing at all, because the flesh melts from its bones in a rain of bluegrey dust.

'Fatal' may not be quite accurate a term for Spoon's moment of hesitation, but 'painful' certainly is. The remaining Andrewsarchus dives for Spoon's exposed arm and bites down HARD.

That's GOTTA hurt.

From:

Stitch begins skittering back toward the others when the Andrewsarchus' lunge catches his attention. He turns in time to see the rather impressive set of jaws clamp down on the masked man's arm.

"Choota," he half hisses. That doesn't look fun at all.

From:

Spoon offers a fairly choice set of words himself. They start with "FUCKIN' 'ELL!" and continue in an unholy mix of English, yautja, and Dardanian Greek while his...arm, at this point he's only got the one...starts shoving his wristblades as far into the trophy-to-be's eye as is possible.

From:

Tavi groans and gets to his feet.

"Okay... someone needs to tell me when things are going to do that."

From:

Cre'hktdi, who threw herself under the falling trophy to keep it from getting damaged by the pavement, would agree. . . but she to try to catch it on her unarmored body, and even something of her mass is not happy to have a prehistoric skull drop upon it.

She is, in a way, unsurprised to look up and find Spoon in the grips of something that should not have happened. Not happy, no, but she starts carefully easing the trophy off.

She needs to prevent duel interference.

From:

gone_byebye

There's not much left to interfere, unless you count the sudden grey shape looming up from the trail of wreckage left by the Sarkastodons' passage... although it appears to be holding still at its current position.

Spoon's got a good stab going and Andrewsarchus had sizable eyes. There's a sick wet little plorp! sound as the blades are driven home and the fluid starts to run- and then vanishes, because Spoon has now got an Andrewsarchus skull devoid of all flesh stuck on his wristblades. Looks like he got to the brain after all.

Ray looks at Tavi and notes, "If I'd known they were going to do that I would've said something."

"It's an unfortunate side effect of the process," calls a woman's voice. It's high up and some ways off- it's coming, in fact, from the vast grey shape. (And when we say vast, we mean eighteen feet high at the shoulder- and rather higher when the beast raises its head to its full height.) "Dr. Curwen was only interested in preserving animal bones, and I had to base my spells upon his solutions of essential salts in order to get them to work."

Dear Lord. There's a blonde woman riding that monstrosity.

From: