[Episode 3, Part 2] Marshmallows and Campfires

[Gwathdraug]

Riley just rubbed the back of her head and gave everyone a laugh and a grin at the fact that she had made Coco run off – the girl did keep her eye on Miyuki though, in case she tried to grab her again now that she was back in the physical realm.

When the girl came back, Riley once again just gave her a hopefully encouraging thumbs up. At her marriage comment the young stage magician turned on Percy rather sharply, her grin slight and a serious shine in her eyes.

“Watson.” Riley reached up on her tip-toes and pat Percy on the shoulder a few times. “Don't take the nuptial night too rough, I'll still expect you in for work the next morning.”

Riley only had time for her to stick her tongue for a few seconds in fun before Duncan decided it was time to get serious. Letting out a small “Eeep!” of surprise at the sudden storm and yeti stampede. Conjuring up one her blank stage masks the little stage magician quickly molded the white material into the the head of a Czechoslovakian Wolfdog.

Then, with a sudden burst of energy, the floating caricature burst into motion. It's snout splitting open into a maw filled with row upon row of transparent teeth as a spectral body formed behind it – the newly formed limbs coiling from a run into a leaping attack that collided solidly with the closest, unengaged yeti.

The phantasmal hound's claws sunk into the yeti's flesh, leaving no wound and coming out clean and gleaming white, each strike drawing no blood but sapping the creature's strength and any mana reserves it possessed.

[Kokuten]

"What."

Percival was left a little dumb-found at that. His face was flat and obscure of expression, simply blank at the surprise he felt at Coco's sudden question. The only softening of it was the fact it was a joke. He wasn't sure which one got him the most, the absurdity, or the embarrassment. Instead offering much of a response, he stood and sweated a little bit, even as Riley offered her extent of humor. The little girl always had a way of making light of any situation, no matter how pale or dark they were. There was a questionable look on the boy's face, as he conceded to embarrassment. He wasn't sure why he crumpled so easily from such things, but such was his nature, which seemed constantly prodded and questioned by his environment.

He almost failed to notice the appearance of the Yeti, only snapping out of his embarrassed daze to realize that everyone had already begun to counter-attack. For once, he was thankful for a disruptive moment. His eyes met with Modeka, who had trotted back to him, and she nodded in understanding as she was wist off to become one with the Elementalia Magicus again. With a firm strike, and forceful release, Percival called for the assistance of Aurus. He had hoped that the Fire God would be in a good mood when he came out.

"Detroi! O Nyit O Ember!"

The air around the head of Unity began to warp with heat, but was suddenly snuffed as that heat collided unto itself with a nasty spark.

"Need us to fight your battles for you again, boy?"

Nothing was happening, and Percy's already edged nerves began pushing over in a panic as he watched Yeti approach.

"Isn't it obvious!? It's dangerous out here, I need your help!"

Aurus gave a cruel, boiling laugh. "Perhaps you should learn to fight on your own, I'm tired of playing patsy to a weakling. Perhaps we should let nature take its course!"

For a moment, Percival thought he heard an objective voice from Zulan, but it was cut off suddenly. In fact, he could hear anything. Normally there was distant ambiance of crashing waves. The sound of the ocean meant Zulan was watching him, yet he could not hear it. For the first time in months, his mind felt empty of the presences that had occupied it for so long. "Zulan? Aurus!?"

The Welshman threw a panicked gaze to the left, and then the right, raising his staff in a poor, defensive posture. He suddenly had no combat capability, unable to commune with the Elemental Pantheon. His spine and blood had suddenly overcome in a cold chill, fear icing up every portion of his body. The boy felt a very immediate fear, but found himself frozen by it. He tried contacting them again and again, all the while his mind becoming more panicked, before he simply gave up and gripped up his now useless staff. His head thrust left to right, too overcome to truly come up with a strategy of retreat or attack.

[Kalshion]

Sakura sighed as she watched the antics going on and shook her head, placing a hand on her face as if to say 'who are these people', she wasn't used to people joking around or playing around; at least that's how she viewed it. It was then that her blood ran cold when she heard the Yeti's and looked up to see just how towering they were, had she not used the bathroom before boarding the train she'd have probably wet herself right now; and it wasn't hard to tell that the sight of these things wasn't exactly sitting well with her, given she had a most terrified look right now. "W-w-w-w-w-w-what the heck are t-t-these things!" she shouted, pointing

Settle down...

The girl blinked and glanced at her bow then looking up before unsealing it and pulling the string back - causing the arrow she had summoned earlier to reappear as the glow around her bow dissipated. She then began to fire wildly, out of both fear and out of a desire to live.....

[CadetNewb]

As Duncan tried to figure out how he would intervene if things went badly, he idly looked between a mecha figurine and a 'star core' meant to be rolled about to collect mass, only glimpsing at the iPad in his hand and checking on everyone's progress once in a while. "Gyaaaah! What should I do? I only know fancy stuffs!" Coco squealed, dancing in place on her toetips, panicking - a bright flash went off as the druid's rune briefly confused the Yeti, a lightning bolt quickly arching in one ear, and out the other! Snow was blasted away and vaporized as a pine on the opposite side burst into flames, the Yeti itself finally being shocked out of its stupor, beady eyes blazing red. With a terrifying roar, it rampaged about, swinging its arms with random rage until it connected with yet another tree, hugging the woody plant and yanking it straight out of the ground before swinging it about like a massive bat, roaring madly. "This is really looking bad out here!" the little girl screamed over the din.

"Well, just do something really simple, like a big sword maybe?" Duncan suggested, reaching out to pose the awesome little figurine that stood upon the counter-top.

The sound of ice rapidly crystallizing filtered over the white tablet's speakers - the viewpoint of the camera through which the iPad saw quickly swiveled about as the enraged Yeti swung the tree about, finally connecting it with something utterly solid. A Certain Magical Ice Bubble. Just as the occupant's call finished, her outline within could be seen looking up as the pine tree was brought smashing down on her protective sphere; alternately, as Miyuki finished up her call, she turned her head only to see the blurry form of the Yeti standing over her little enclave, the green and brown mass hurtling right at her! A massive crack could be heard breaking across the frosty air as the sheer force knocked the Mahou Shoujo off her feet, the protective ice barrier spider-webbing with each crushing blow. "I thought you didn't have any real Yeti!" Coco screamed again, covering her eyes from the sight and blocking off Duncan's camera feed. The bubble shattered.

"Of course not! Those guys are assholes...I just dropped in some Pigmy Yeti but enlarged them a little bit," he explained, finally having chosen his mode of Deus Ex Machina should the party fail. "Well, 'a little bit' being a subjective term," Duncan added. "Go ahead and join the fight whenever you're ready Coco."

The fingers parted ever so slightly to behold an utterly surreal sight - Sensei Miller rushed in to grapple fearlessly with a being almost twice as tall as he was, successfully flooring the massive creature! Duncan watched Coco watch as the man brought his fists to bear, smashing in the Yeti's face with his fists. As blood speckled the man's glasses, a giant hand reached up and grabbed him by the face, flinging him off into the distance like a toy. Miller bounced off a pine tree and skipped off the snow like a rock before coming to a rest. From where he lay, his eyes slowly came to focus, finally settling on the glowing red eyes through the storm as they swayed with each footstep closer. It roared at the man. "W-wait, aren't I supposed to just keep an eye on them and give them examples and stuff?" the little girl asked her older brother.

"Pffft! You gotta get the basics down first before you can teach and fight like sis - now get out there already!" Duncan replied, now typing on his battlestation's keyboards - the sound of generators coming to life could be heard on Coco's end.

"Ok, ok! I can do this, I can do this!" the little girl encouraged herself, getting ready to help the teacher. Before she could do so much as summon a weapon, a giant dog-thing burst through the snowstorm and bit down on the Yeti's arm, eliciting another roar of rage from the Abominable Snowman as it grappled with its new opponent. Grabbing one of the large teeth, the magical being firmly planted its feet into the ground and slowly began to force the apparition's mouth wide open, finally managing to shift both of its paws into grasping the dog by the largest teeth. "Er, those two will be fine..." Coco muttered to herself, turning away from their fight.

Instead, Duncan watched as Coco watched Percival cower, paralyzed with fear. "Better help him out Coco. Hate to see your betrothed get squished like a fly," Duncan dryly remarked from his station, causing his little sister to snort in amusement as she recalled the prior joke. He pushed a little button, his voice booming over them all as though it came from an intercom - "Doing good overall guys, you're only losing and not being curbstomped - something less flashy if you can Riley, and Miyuki, no phonecalls in class!"

As the third Yeti charged at Percival, magical arrows were rapidly volleyed at the snow giant, some somehow bouncing off the thick, matted fur while others stuck deep, stinging the being. The blows made it flinch as it bull-rushed the poor, helpless boy - a giant red hammer with long handle came crashing into its face from the side, stunning the creature and sending it stumbling off to the side. "Here I go!" Coco cheered herself on, leaping in between the Yeti and the boy. With another mighty swing from above, the hammer came crashing down on the Yeti's head, the sheer force of the blow propelling the little girl high up into the air as the hammer head went down, sending the Yeti onto a single knee. As she found herself airborne, a parachute poofed into existence to slow her descent, Percival's eyes inevitably looking up at Coco from further below.

And meanwhile, the fourth stared down Adrienne, eyes aglow with an absolute and crimson fury.

'So far, so good. The druid picked up what I was getting at fast. Let's see if the others pick it up.'

[Straken]

Well, Ruarc’s strategy was mostly effective, but the odd bit where his bolt passed clean through the beast’s head caught him off guard though; and he winced as he accidentally caught a tree on fire. An unfortunate side effect of the creature still going was that now it was as angry as a wasp in a dryer, and rampaging with a massive tree in hand right towards the unsuspecting Miyuki. That was going to need to be fixed.
First things first, he needed to get the agro back on him so that Miyuki could bring her magic to bear, and to do that he needed to make the land a good hit. He had grown to like his “rune plus quick spell” combo, so he soon settled on his next action.

After a quick search, he found one of the few fire runes he carried with him. “Oi, ya big lummox! The one yur angry at is back 'ere!” he shouted. Then, getting a feel for the weight of the stone and the spot he wanted to hit, Ruarc wound up and tossed the small disc shaped stone at the center of the beast’s large, hairy back. He then quickly brought up his staff again and fired another bolt of lightning to harry the yeti in hopes that it would stop bashing Miyuki.

[Luca]

Mr. Miller looked back up from where he was and saw the Yeti, and yet he felt no fear. Something was blocking out the fact that any normal man would've been broken by now. He could hear a voice in his head: "Get up." it said. That seemed like a reasonably good idea, given that Miller was just discovering and embracing this newfound strength. He peeled himself up off the snow to look back up at the Yeti before seeing that a dog of some sort had leapt out of nowhere and went for it. He made a momentary hesitation as the phantom canine and grappled with the Yeti, Miller then made a run for the Yeti and leapt onto its back as it tried to tangle with the phantom dog.

Miller climbed up the Yeti's back put his arms around the Yeti's neck, planting his feet into it and trying to get a wrenching motion going. He'd only ever seen a neck snap done in the movies, and frankly any perceived knowledge from such a source kind of went out the window when the target was twelve feet tall. Instead he was happy to settle with choking the monster, pulling back hard and forcing its head and body upwards to give the dog an opening down below. The dog had a better chance of killing it with its bite it than Miller did with his bare hands.

"C'mon!" He yelled to Riley's phantom hound while he kept the pressure on the thing's throat and neck from behind, "Keep at it!"
"Keep at it." Miller heard in his head again. He wondered where it was coming from. He could hear it all around and yet he couldn't find the source of it, nor did the others hear it at all. Who is this? Miller thought.

[Kai]

'Wha-AAAHHHH!" Miyuki screamed as her shelter suddenly exploded, sending her flying for a ways to land with a bit of a PLOMF in the snow. The girl rose up from her landing Spot, positively fuming- indeed, the powdery snow that had coated her body was now turning to steam, and even the snow around her was melting with a swiftness- there was a red gem in the brooch on her neck, and her school uniform had disappeared, replaced instead with a red and orange dress, covered in flame motifs. In her hand, however, was a sword made of Ice, somehow unaffected by her fiery temper that was melting all else around her. "ALRIGHT< WHO DID THAT?" she yelled, looking around for something to attack- She noticed one of the Yeti nearby, attacking Ruarc, and charged at it, the snow melting into clouds of steam as she ran across it, before she Leapt into the air, trailing a bit of flame, and coming down upon the Yeti with another yell, and the blade of her frozen sword.

Adrienne, on the other hand, simply looked at the Yeti that was staring her down, and quirked an eyebrow, her mouth pulling into an amused smile. She made a short motion with her fingers, and the Yeti suddenly shrunk, going from nearly ten feet tall to less than three, and the Knight stepped calmly closer to the suddenly confused beast, and chuckled. She swung her right leg back, then forward, and with a 'Clunk!' it contacted the yeti dead center in the groin, sending it flying into the air- up, and up, and up, it continued, finally disappearing as a gleam in the sky.

-------

Outside the Tank, Duncan would suddenly be greeted with a Three foot tall Yeti popping into existence as it crossed the threshold from the condensed world into the real world, landing gingerly on one of his catwalks. The creature shook its head, a bit jumbled, grabbing onto its nether regions in a bit of pain, before noticing the mage, and trying to hastily skitter away to some hiding place, groaning slightly as it moved.

[Gwathdraug]

Riley winced as she did her best to help Miller finish off the yeti the two of them had been fighting. The little magicians head throbbed as she kept her phantasm from falling apart from the enemy's ferocious strength.

Crap, crap, crap! And the dog was doing so well until the yeti got him by the mouth like that! Riley grumbled to herself as she tried to think of a way to free her construct. Strength and mana sapping just isn't what is need here and that my dog can accomplish using his claws alone...

The Stage Magician's thoughts trailed off – until Miller jumped on the back of the yeti and did his best to throttle it. Chuckling and smiling at the silly teacher's gumphf Riley slammed the bottom of her fist into her palm as an idea came to her.

The phantasmal dog's form began to flux and flicker as mana poured from Riley into her creation. The teeth that the yeti was gripping to force the animal's head open began to shrink and no longer bit into the mountain creature's thick hide.

The dog's head itself seemed to lose bits of fine detail here and there, becoming more of a representation of the animal than a replica. With a final creak and a short hiss more of the white blank mask material formed from nowhere and shaped itself into a human face that rested between the upper and lower jaws of what was now nothing more than a dog-head shaped helmet.

The phantasmal body stopped fluxing and flowed sinuously into the shape of a human body, obscured by layers of thick clothing and a short cloak. This new phantasm lifted both its arm in a flash of movement. The left immobilized the yeti's face with a brutal grab and the right lifted into the air – pausing for a second as a dagger materialized itself into an underhanded grip – then plunged its weapon straight into the side of the yeti's head.

[Kokuten]

"Augh!" Percival yelped aloud as he stumbled aside onto the snowy floor. He had gone from one moment being in a ready stance to simply being sent down by the pure force of conflict. The boy shivered and shook, both from the cold and the fear. The only thing really saving him right now was the fact that he had become nimble with all this danger, and more so Coco was watching over him. As the Yeti came to its knee, he indeed looked up, seeing the undead girl descend from the sky. A bit of him felt a tad shamed, being out-shined by Riley and Coco. They both were younger than the young Welshman, yet had so much more proficiency. Yet he knew it had nothing to do with their age.

They had power, raw magical power, and could use it to their whims. Percival was a font, and this battle was going to be harsh reminder of what he was. He couldn't use magic, he relied on the powers of others, and more than often sat in a corner and bled to death in fights. He wasn't a mage. As his fingers began to freeze in the snow, the icy sensation stinging into his body, the disheartening realization stung into his chest. Was this it? Was he done?

No, no he wasn't. On the edge of fear and death for eighteenth time in his life, the boy refused to take it.

Percival pushed himself to his feet, gripping Unity in all it's useless glory. While he couldn't summon Aurus, he summoned a fire in his chest, and sprung forth, abandoning all fear. In his maddened charge he swung the head of the staff with all of his might into the head of the Yeti.

[Gwathdraug]

(For Kyle)
Sakura carefully watched the others as they fought; both out of interest to see how they were doing, but also because it was just her nature to observe others. When she saw an attack go through the Yeti's face it got her wondering, she glanced about and took a few steps back before taking the bottom of her bow and drawing in the snow.

Two runes appeared on the snow, one based on fire and another based on fire. I should be able to combine them, as long as I am allowed to concentrate, she thought with worry as she created an attaching line between the two runes. They pulsed once, then faded outward, only to reappear where the two points came together to create a completely new rune.

She raised the rune off the snow with her hand and then them collapsed it into her fist before glancing at a Yeti and throwing the combined rune, which broke into a series of fire splinters that went flying toward it.