gone_byebye | (no subject)

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There's music pouring from well-concealed speakers in the Firehouse as Tyler arrives, and we do mean well-concealed. When a building's decorator corps includes a twenty-three-foot-tall transforming robot and a five-armed, five-eyed, five-brained alien from an arboreal species, the decorations get everywhere. The outside of the Firehouse is practically wrapped in strings of lights, and the inside- well. Someone introduced Jhalak to the concept of pine garland this year and she kind of went berserk with it. The tree in one corner is as sparkly as a north Jersey homeowner's attempt to get on the local news. Even the dinosaur skull hanging from the ceiling of the ground floor is decorated. Ecto's probably to blame for the dinosaur-sized Santa hat, though.

Which isn't to say that's the only holiday being marked here. Miss Eartha the golem has very firmly staked out part of the Firehouse's ground floor for Hanukkah, on the grounds that it was a Jewish ritual that got her into the golem body she now occupies and she feels a certain measure of gratitude for that. Janine's been helping her with that, and somewhat reluctantly Egon's been doing so as well. No sign of Kwanzaa on the premises, probably because Winston is as big of a Christmas man as you'll ever find, but someone tacked up several solar symbols and "Joyous Solstice!" messages. As a matter of fact, about the only sign that anyone here isn't celebrating something is the periodic snark of "Bah humbug!" from the fish tank on Janine's desk.

"Here we are, Tyler. How's that look to you?"

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"Just a sec." He's gonna stuff the bags with Winston and Peter's gifts into the Godiva bag first. No sense in letting the guys peek.

After that he's climbing up onto miss Eartha's shoulders.

"Want me to start yelling?"

"I don't know that you're going to have to," murmurs the golem.

Mostly because there's an awful lot of screaming coming from the direction of the sirens. And something far too large to be natural, with curving horns and what might be an overly long tongue if they're lucky just leapt out into the street where people could see.

...Eartha probably can't feel the kid just clamping onto her head and shoulders for dear life just now.

Okay, so maybe this is what Ellen means by those tongue monsteiiieegyffg.

"Good Lord," mutters Miss Eartha as the thing- it's goat-legged and covered in white fur, and has burning red eyes- darts forward with unnerving speed. "If I have to punch that thing..."

She might not. There's a very familiar siren coming from the direction of Times Square.

Well since they're not running towards it right now Tyler's just bunkering down to stare at the thing as it starts running down the street with something tied to it's back and wielding a thorny broom-looking thing. it takes a moment for him to realize that he isn't yelling at all and that there's the noise of someone his age screaming coming from the..it's a wicker basket on the tonguey-goat thing's back.

There's just enough time to catch a glimpse of an arm and a face trying to climb out of the basket before the beast LEAPS over a thick section of crowd that hasn't parted in time.

"...Eartha. There's a kid."

"That'd explain the cops, then," says Eartha, who's just spotted the NYPD members running after the thing with their weapons drawn. "Where the hell is Dr. Stantz?"

The answer is depressingly simple: this is New York, at Christmastime, in the middle of one of the most heavily overcrowded shopping districts around. Unless Ecto wants to dump her crew and transform so she can step over the crowds herself, she's stuck trying to get people out of her way.

"The crowds. He can't get through the crowds."

Suddenly he wishes that Eartha had brought along a a proton pack. But since she didn't, he's the only one armed with a projectile weapon.

I must be completely out of my mind. He thinks, lining up for the shot as best he can on the white-haired kidnapper goat with the gauntlet set to taser-probe.

-thunt!-

How's Tyler's German? Because that's the language it starts cursing in when it realizes it's about to get hurt.

(It doesn't seem as hurt as one might hope. Angry, yes, and apparently growing larger with every ounce of rage, but... not so much hurt.)

It's about as good as his Russian. He needs a translator, but he can pick up on the fact that Goatman is cursing himself.

He might be getting bigger, but he is NOT getting away that easily.

-thunt!-

-thunt!-

-thunt!-

....wait. This is NOT a good plan!

Yeah, no, not with the size that creature is getting. It's- ooh. That was a really impressive dent it just put in the lamppost.

And that was the German for "YOU'RE NEXT, BOY!" as it turns, tongue lashing and flailing all over the place, to find where Tyler is currently hiding.

Tyler has no response to that, really, it's not a good plan, but it's working at keeping that thing in one place so far.

Even if the plan is making him wish very sorely for a bath right now, even as he's plunking his last three tazer gauntlet probes at Krampus and the tongue sweeps just inches above his head.

And he'll apologize to Eartha for this. Really. Somehow.

Given that she's crouching in preparation for a run- it would be a flying tackle if she didn't have Tyler on her back- she may not have noticed just yet. Then again, given the general chaos, there's not much of anywhere to run to...

.... was that a shadow of someone leaping down from one of the buildings on the south side of Bryant Park just now?

IS IT THE REVENANT CAUSE BOY HOWDY TYLER WOULD LIKE THAT RIGHT NOW!

"AUGH! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!" Tyler starts yelling as the tongue latches onto his gauntlet arm. "GRAB HIS TONGUE AND GET IT OOFFFF!"

It's not the Revenant, no. Not unless the Revenant's had a serious change of heart about going out in public with his face showing, and become a black man in the process. As a matter of fact the fellow who leaps at the goat-creature has the dress and moves one would expect of a capoeira master, which may be why he doesn't so much as bat an eye about the prospect of striking the thing's tongue feet-first at high speed.

"We're going to have to have a talk, Krampus," he says as he drops back into a ready stance, his words heavily accented. "You're way out of line."

The creature howls, staggering backwards.

....

...

You know what? He's not being grabbed by the Krampus anymore, so now Tyler's just going to hug Eartha's head, hyperventilate and stare.

What follows is a bit difficult to describe. Even in Tyler's world, it's probably not all that often that giant goat-monsters get beaten down to size by guys in their bare feet. And we do mean beaten down to size; each time the dark-skinned man lands a successful strike on the creature it loses a little of the size and mass it gained from the tazer.

(Except for the one flying kick the man directs at the creature's basket; no sense involving the captured kid in the fight, so that's going to go flying Miss Eartha's way...)

And Tyler's just going to clamp onto her head again as Eartha rises up to catch the basket and heartily terrified kid, who is babbling away about he just wanted the darn erector set that he had hidden in his coat.

And the little gadget hero doesn't have to tell the nice lady golem to book it to safety, away from the fight does he?

No, he doesn't. She's going to turn and bolt for the relative safety of the library building, which.... is going to get interesting, actually, as the most direct route is across the skating rink.

Golems have a lot of momentum.

Skaters will be treated to a very interesting vocal doppeler duet overhead from the two children.

"aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGHHHHHHhhhh!!"

Followed by a similarly pitched wordless bellow as the goat-creature goes flying past... and then flying back again as the thing bounces off one of the light-poles around the edges of the rink.

When it hits the ice on its return trip it doesn't get up again.

Look, you could not buy enough chocolate raspberry cups in a lifetime to get either of the kids to come down off of Eartha and investigate Goatboy's bastard child.

Likewise, every skater is showing the good sense to get away from where it landed. While cellphones go off every second to take pictures because, good GOD this is New York.

A moment later the dark-skinned man leaps across the ice, seemingly unbothered by the cold and the lack of traction. He plants one bare foot on the creature's head and says, firmly, "Krampus. No one wants you here. No one needs you here. You are interfering with Sinterklaas' mission, scaring all these people."

It howls weakly, struggling under his foot.

"There was a time when vengeance and punishment were called for. This is not that time. This city has enough of that the rest of the year." He leans on that raised foot more heavily. "New Amsterdam has no need of you. You should go, now, before I get angry."

The creature holds very, very still for a moment; then, with a last snarl of despair, it vanishes.

...and now one can practically feel the outrush of air from the sighs of relief from some of the audience.

It's quickly replaced with puzzled looks at the blackman who just saved the holidays by literally kicking the hell out of that beast.

And at least one boy who is brave enough to come down off of Eartha's shoulders to get a closer look at the man standing in the skating rink.

Look. The Krampus is gone and Tyler would like to at least thank the guy from getting him out of the tongue-bath. So he's going to struggle out onto the ice, sneakers squishing to approach him and clear his throat.

"Erm...ss..sir? Thanks for saving me and the other kid back there."

He smiles, dropping an elaborate bow that resembles a dance move more than anything else. "You're welcome," he says. "I enjoy the practice. It's been a long time since I've had to fend off anyone attacking Sinterklaas. I take my practice where I can."

For a moment Tyler smiles back and then fidgets, trying to this of the nicest way to ask the question of...

"Who the heck butt ARE you, mister?"

...thank you shoplifter kid, for asking the question from Eartha's shoulders.