2959/It Came from the Deep: Kittery, Maine

It Came from the Deep: Kittery, Maine
Date of Scene:	17 August 2020
Location:	Kittery, Maine
Synopsis:	Bobby, Illyana, Julio, Gabby, James, and Lorna all fight tooth and nail to stop a Lurker feeding frenzy from tearing apart a small town in Maine.
Cast of Characters:	Namor, Lorna Dane, Julio Richter, James Proudstar, Bobby Drake, Gabby Kinney, Illyana Rasputina

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Namor has posed:
Kittery:

An idyllic little coastal town in southern Maine, known as a tourist spot with plenty of outlet stores. With a shipyard and an abundance of fishing and private docks, the residents of this sleepy little hollow have a close and personal relationship with the Atlantic. It is one part livelihood, one part tradition, and one part home. Few who make their lives here view the Ocean with anything less than a healthy respect and appreciation, but tonight they'll learn to fear it.

It's dark after sunset, the moon is absent from the sky and the ten thousand or so people of Kittery aren't close enough to a city to share in the benefit of light pollution. As such, few notice when the sea grows unusually temperamental around midnight. They miss when the waves start to come in to shore choppy and disturbed, when all trace of sea life makes a hasty and rapid retreat. The birds notice though, and most flee to better hunting grounds. Not the scavengers... The scavengers stay and watch. Ancient instinctive memories tell them to remain patient and wait for the feast.

The people of Kittery might not notice any of this, but those who dwell within the ocean itself take note. They read the signs and the waves, follow the trails and report to their King, but their King is busy. This human settlement is not the only place that faces trouble tonight, and so he reaches out to others. Those who know the threat that's coming and have pledged to help stop it.

Those willing to send a team to investigate...

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna had other duties, true, but she had also promised to help Namor against the threats that would arise from the deep. She'd had an academic's eye for details about the lurkers, and the things that might arise from the ocean's depths.. But to be told they were an imminent threat right then and there? It was another matter entirely. She suited up, metal armor put in place, and tied her hair back as the X-men traveled to the coast of Maine where they'd been told an attack was expected to occur.

As the plane touched down, she climbed out with an impatient energy. It would be good to fight something, to work out the tension and the anger that had plagued her for the past week.

A glance followed to the others as she stood from her seat. "Alright, Namor's people said the lurkers are going to be attacking the coastal regions here. These things can swarm, and we gotta watch each other's backs to make sure no one gets overwhelmed or cut off. I'm sure you all read the reports, so unless there are any questions, let get out there."

Julio Richter has posed:
Julio rushes down the ramp from the blackbird, gratefully tapping into Maine's muted seismic energy the moment his green boots hit the ground. It was a mercifully brief flight from Westchester, but he spent most of it feeling listless and detached, as he often does when airborne, far from the Earth's surface. Not so, now: the shimmer of his green mutant aura, shifting tectonically as ever, springs into being in the darkness, the edges of it made hazy by the ocean mist in the air.

"Sea monsters?" he mutters, peering out over the choppy ocean. "I don't see monsters." His vibrational senses are great at picking up footfalls on solid ground; things swimming in the ocean, not so much, and the dampening shift of sand is little better. He tugs the gray and green jacket of his X-uniform a little bit tighter around him, zipping up halfway against the chilly air.

James Proudstar has posed:
Reports...yeah...those probably should have been read. But truth be told Warpath has been distracted lately. He's usually pretty good about that sort of thing but well...he's been a bit grouchier than normal of late. Nothing off the charts crazy or anything, just more taciturn and prone to being...away. Specifically with Illyana and Tabitha. Julio and Gabby might be able to surmise why, based on other recent events that involved all of them. Suffice to say keeping the Demon Queen less Demonic has been a priority.

"Don't think they're on land yet. Not hearing or smelling anything real unusual. Besides us."

Bobby Drake has posed:
Bobby had helped to clean up the key and he had offered his help as well, and so he had joined the others on their way to Kittery, his usual silver, blue, white, and black X-Men uniform in place. As much as Bobby enjoyed being there at the school to look after the younger mutants, sometimes it was good to just get out into the field and do a bit of hands-on work. Now on the ground he bobs his head along to a song that is apparently playing in his own head. He seems to be in a good mood for an impending sea monster attack.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby had suited up to join in the fight as well. While she had her own home-grown weapons, she was also skilled enough in the use of guns. Which they wouldn't let her use... So she had opted to bring her sword with her. It's slung over her back, and she's dressed in her black and yellow body armor that was a modification of her original armor. Now it bore yellow 'slashes' across it not entirely dissimilar to Wolverine's old suit, but with the colors reversed.

She jogs off the ramp to the Blackbird after the others adjusting a pair of goggles on her face which were tinted a bit green. "I really hope these low-light lenses work. I mean I don't need full on night vision but I imagine it'll help to see either way." Looking toward the water she shrugs some. "That just means we got here before trouble started! That's a good thing!"

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Reports: wise to read. Thumbed through on some kind of screen before touching down, no doubt. But the sullen Russian apparently takes a leaf from Jimmy's book and resides far more inside the frozen shell of herself. Gabby and Julio can probably perceive the subtle tells of the wrongness, the girl whittled to even harsher lines, the arrogant curl of the smirk quicker to come. The pointiness all around isn't a joke, but she finishes twisting her hair up into two white-blond buns to keep the masses off her face, giving her a vague resemblance to some Japanese superheroine.

Her mood is best described as non-existent, a veneer of humanity found as she tilts her head, reading things that aren't seen or heard. Getting her bearings isn't too problematic as she follows Bobby out. "Straight into the water?"

Namor has posed:
Suddenly, a blood curdling scream pierces through the otherwise quiet night, high-pitched and terrified. It's followed almost immediately by the resounding crack of wood splintering and more shouts. As if a spell is suddenly broken, another horrified scream follows the sound of grunting and then a sudden gunshot elsewhere in the relatively small town. What starts as a fairly human reaction turns otherworldly as screeches and chittering wails rise up and start to mix with and drown out the sounds of struggle and fright in the dark night.

Roused from sleep and peaceful, blissful ignorance, Kittery comes to life with porch lights and headlights. People rouse themselves from their slumber and sirens start to wail, and off in the distance, leaping from dimly lit rooftop to dimly lit rooftop is first one dark, indistinct figure, then a couple more, then a dozen. Shouts are cut off, more erupt, and the night descends into chaos as glass shatters and wood splinters throughout the town.

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna wasn't as strict as Scott when it came to reading the reports, and frankly, didn't care either way. Everyone there was trained and capable, there was a threat that had to be dealt with and it would be; one way or another. She checked the clips on her armor and started off, straining her senses for what she could pick up. Sea life sometimes gave off a stronger electrical pulse than most land animals, and she could pick it up if she was on the look-out for it.

Which is right about when the screams picked up and carried through the night. The gun of course, was easy to find. She took off into the air immediately, going straight for where she'd sensed the action going on.

"Sounds like we're right on time!" She called and promptly looked for things to use as a weapon against the lurkers that were sure to be there. A port town like Kittery had plenty of metal to use, cars, pipes, boats.. Anything and everything was a good weapon.

Julio Richter has posed:
Now that Julio's connection with the Earth has flared back to life, he feels more awake to the people around him. Jimmy and Illyana get a sympathetic look, if a guarded one in the latter case. He hasn't really had a chance to talk to the Demon Queen since the whole thing with Julian concluded, which wasn't a great note to go out on -- but he is hoping that the little stuffed goat he left for her on her birthday will suffice for a peace offering. Gabby and Lorna came loaded for bear, and get businesslike nods of acknowledgement, but when his eyes settle on Bobby, upbeat bopping and all, he'll try to catch his eye, then raise his eyebrows and tilt his head slightly. Just a little significant glance that surely communicates something between the two of them.

Not for long, though: Julio whirls, not toward the screams and the gunshots, but straight out toward the coast. "From the ocean -- an army," he announces apprehensively. Dropping into a crouch, he swings his hands together in a clap that emits a wide, concussive wave of force. Sand is kicked up and out in a massive arc, and anything crawling toward them in the dark is going to be knocked back -- hard.

Bobby Drake has posed:
"Straight into the water," Bobby confirms to Illyana with a grin, and in a flash he's frozen over, translucent, a slight mist coming off his icy form where it comes in contact with the warmer summer air. He catches the look from Julio and winks at him. The sound of a blood-curdling scream from land, however, pulls his attention, and instead of toward the water, it's toward the rooftops that Bobby turns.

Extending one hand in front of him, a slide of ice forms and he hops on it, rapidly picking up speed as he uses the beach, the sea wall, and then the sides of buildings to anchor the ramp as he lets it carry him upward toward the rooftops to get a better look at where the things seem to currently be. He'd been expecting them to come up from the water, not already be on shore.

James Proudstar has posed:
"Hold on there's..." Jimmy wrinkles his nose, eyes turning to look over the town. "Yeah, there's something out there, it's..." Eyes widen behind his mask as his preternaturally sharp eyes start to pick out the dark shapes on rooftops. "Damn, they're here, and there's a lot of 'em..." Jimmy exchanges a glance with Illyana and then starts bolting towards the town, superhumanly strong legs carrying him towards the town.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney glances toward Jimmy and Illyana as she takes a moment to regard them. "Are you two okay? If you need a hug before we start--" She'd be happy to offer. Unfortunately the screams come causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand on end as her attention diverts to the trouble. "Ooor maybe they're already here. You think they wouldn't be as good on land but of course not. It can't be that easy," she mutters while reaching back to unsheath her sword. Just the one. She wasn't a dual weilder like some mercenaries. With that she sets out at a run toward the village.

Namor has posed:
The scene within the town limits is pure chaos. People stream from their houses, from late night bars and pubs, and from businesses closing up for the night. The streets are almost immediately made impassable as cars are abandoned and people caught in the midst of a mindless flight weave in and out of traffic. Whatever police and emergency services that can get to the site have trouble making their way through the surge of bodies going the opposite way, and every second they're delayed is another that puts the people of Kittery in more danger.

Tracing the signs, the shouts, the footsteps, smells, and sights back to the source, one comes across uncaring and bloody violence. In that short time from scream to speedy arrival, there's already a dozen or more victims scattered across the coast, most of whom are in pieces. Standing over them in droves, taking their fill, and running on two feet and four after fleeing survivors are the Lurkers. There's no uniform appearance, but most seem to resemble something similar to a rubbery monster movie creature. Humanoid with pale, slimy skin, webbed hands and feet ending in wickedly sharp claws. Broad, black eyes and thin, needle-like teeth round on movement and sound with the familiar cant of a predator on the hunt. Several crawl belly to the wall up the sides of homes and businesses, and a seemingly endless stream emerge from the dark waters at the shore. Dotted throughout are creatures that stand several feet taller than the hunched, sickly forms of their brethren. Whipping tentacles and snapping crab like claws in a roughly bi-pedal form suggest a kinship with the other Lurkers, but the seem just as happy to smash through the other Lurkers as they are to swing heavy limbs through solid timber and shatter it like matchsticks.

Their arrival is slowed significantly as sand suddenly rises and slams into slimy bodies all along the beach, with many of the smaller creatures flung fully back into the surf. The larger ones stagger and hiss, but their advance is only slowed, not stopped.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Straight into the water means straight into trouble. Illyana pauses while the mutant posse weaves through the outskirts of Kittery, making two sharp gestures with her hand as a scream echoes through the muffling night. "You have had better ideas," she suggests to Gabby. Saturated light from distant points nets into a thin veneer over her, shining on her dark attire. Others have their Xs and Os crossed off, but her only reference on the uniform is black on darker black. The arrogant smirk darkens as Jimmy bolts. Hot pursuit means snapping open a door through space and time, leapfrogging ahead in a shower of cornflower sparks, her stepping disks collapsing around her in a profusion of dark flames. Stay with the group means bounding on ahead.

Just in time to end up before several of those monstrosities crawling about and sliding along from the sea. Almost instantly comes the brilliant presence of the Soulsword, wide and bracketed in black barbs, rather than its thinner-bladed variation. With a low, muted growl, she takes a step out of the luminous ring of light...

She's most certainly not alone, the elongated trail of her too-dark shadow writhing with fraught horrors. The leap that flings her into the fray seems to ignore the multitude of squishy, chitinous horrors or the wriggling tentacles; maybe too close to Thursday Night Hell-Lord Meetings. On the contrary, the Demon Queen brings the glowing golden-black blade straight down onto... nothing. Resistance found there requires the double-handed grip, apparently, and she springs off of emptiness to strike out at the void. It's all very impressive if as a demonstration of kata.

Lorna Dane has posed:
It was decidedly a good thing to be able to fly when fighting things from the deep. And Lorna kept a good amount of space between her and the things down below. She waved her hands, and pulled hard on a car parked alongside the docks. An old thing, and rusted through in places, but it was good steel, and she flung it into the mass of lurkers down below.

And she didn't stop there. Cars were expensive to be using as weapons, and there were plenty of other metal objects to hurl about. Street lamps and guard rails came alive under her direction, and she bent them this way and that to knock the creatures about as she spotted them.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney purses her lips together in a thin line. She was already running toward the sounds of screams when the commotion at the water as the larger lurkers start to come out tears her attention away. She wasn't as quick as the others in running. But she doesn't stop either. Reaching back she pulls out a gun that she *was* allowed to carry. Whirling around on her heel facing the crab-like Lurker she squeezes the trigger sending the flare straight toward it's tiny mouth.

She doesn't take the time to see if it hits. Hopefully it'll do enough damage to either keep it from going further... or send it into a minor frenzy that would take out all the other Lurkers nearby. The emptied (for now) flare gun is shoved into her belt loop as she resumes her charge leaping ontop of a parked car as she gets close enough to do so. Swinging the sword out low she aims to lop the head off some Lurker that looked a mix between a sturgeon and an anemone.

Julio Richter has posed:
The Maine coast isn't especially geologically active, and it takes a few seconds for Julio to build up a decent tectonic charge after his first explosive burst. This gives him plenty of time to try to force himself to focus on mermonsters, instead of who may or may not be winking at him. It's somewhat effective!

But by the time he has built up a sufficient reservoir of seismic energy, he does have a plan: Illyana's portal and her shining sword are nearly impossible to miss in the dark, but there's only so much ground she and her demons can control. He, on the other hand, can control /lots/ of ground. He drops to one knee and punches the ground with both fists, unleashing twin tsunamis of vibrational force that pile up cacophonously until they practically upend two massive sections of beach, one on either side of Illyana's army. The ground tilts into a precipitous, clifflike slope on either side of her, creating twin seawalls that will funnel the oncoming army into a defensible chokepoint. One that happens to be full of portal demons and a flashing soulsword.

Namor has posed:
Lurkers go flying left and right as a car lands amongst them, flattening several who were unlucky enough to be directly beneath. The rest crash into each other, striking limbs against heads and heads against wood and concrete. Several are either stunned or outright killed by the sudden impact, but even more rise once more and fall on their downed brethren, turning their own dead into yet more meat for the feast.

As Illyana emerges from her Hell-portal and starts laying about her with sword and skill, she manages to hit very few actual Lurker bodies. Still, perhaps they're just amazed and stricken by her demonstration of ability, for every creature that comes near her blade seems to stop dead in its tracks. Almost universally, they blink large black eyes about in confusion before turning and sprinting back through the oncoming press of Lurker bodies to return to the sea from whence they came. Every once in a while one resumes its attack, but it's usually cut short quickly after either by blade or by demon. The monsters from the deep are truly horrific, but they pale in comparison to the twisting, evil things that reside in Illyana's shadow, and they fall like prey to her forces, especially as Julio's sudden and impromptu fortifications begin to funnel them directly at her.

Nearer to the beach, Gabby's own efforts manage to behead one lurker and irritate another. The former dies and falls in a twisting, convulsing mass off soggy fish-monster, but the latter roars an impressive challenge at its smaller assailant. With a trembling, slithering gait, it closes the distance between girl and creature in several stumbling steps and swings a massive tentacle through the air in front of it to clear out the more sickly Lurkers that block its way. Their broken bodies go hurtling through the air, collapsing in small piles against the walls of buildings and along the surf. When finally it reaches its target, the creature lets out a triumphant roar and snaps at Gabby with a crab-claw large enough to crush a light post.

There's a sudden shriek, high-pitched and child-like followed by a gunshot and cries for help. In the midst of the swarm, a family of four stands atop a parked semi, the mother wielding a shotgun against fish-like Lurkers that struggle to climb up the side. The father swings a baseball bat already slick with black, brackish blood, and a girl of around twelve does her best to keep a boy half her age from panicking.

Bobby Drake has posed:
Bobby slides along through the houses nearby, freezing slimy crawling things as they attempt to climb up the sides of houses, in windows or break them, or over rooftops. He freezes them solid, causing them to fall and break on the ground, or remain stuck in a hunk of ice for a while, incapacitated for a while, or smothered, depending on whether they need to breathe or not.

He swings back out toward the shore as he sees even more coming up out of the water and leaves a large frozen wake in his trail, sealing some into a swath of solid ice along the shoreline. It doesn't stop them all and plenty can certainly just crawl right over it, but a bunch are caught up in the thick ice, struggling to break free.

James Proudstar has posed:
Jimmy's momentum is hard to stop by the time he gets into town, so he doesn't really bother. Instead, he starts living up to his codename. He grabs one of the creatures that's trying to bash down the door of a house on the outskirts by what approximates a throat, and leaps into the air to the roof of the neighboring house, using the first Lurker as a bludgeon to swat a second off that very roof, and then hurling him into a cluster of his fellows. He follows it up with another high leap, aiming to come down with a two-fisted hammer-blow on one of those larger ones. He's not being gentle about it...at all.

Then he catches the sound of the family on the Semi, and bolts in that direction, barely slowing as he nears, and swatting and hurling aside Lurker's in his path as he tries to clear space around the vehicle, or barring that draw the attention of the Lurkers.

"Hey! Somebody get these folks someplace clear!" He shouts as he caves in another Lurker's skill with a fearsome backhand.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Nothing like a girl whipping around a sword the comparative size of a caber as though it were little better than a feather. She drops into a crouching stance as one of the demons surges out of her shadow, an ink-dark apparition suspended in the air, sinuous and without clear form other than quadripedal. That proves entirely on the basis of pressing clawed appendages to the ground, and unrelated to the ribbon-like surges demarcating its movement in a primordial surge around her. Anything coming too close to Illyana bears the brunt of escaping her Rorschach test haunt's reach first. Other demons themselves resemble the hounds of hell, equally shadowy, their eyes a vantablack shade while the others prowl in silence and stalk the street in search of prey. As with all things, they race in circles, a churning gyre between the walls marked by Julio or architecture itself, seemingly two-dimensional until they open their burning mouths and take a bite out of maritime crime.

The Lurkers might be forgiven for turning to easier prey in a way. Running light and quick leaves some of her foes untouched, an uncharacteristic thing, but the whirlwind ginzu found in demonic claws and teeth might account for that. The family out there draws a look from the girl, her eyes burning, unnaturally bright. "Da. Open paths!" she calls back to Jimmy and Bobby; possibly Gabby if she's in arm's reach. Dancing among the outer reaches of swarming horrors, the Demon Queen strikes in backhanded arcs and neat, efficient stabs not out to earn any appreciation from an Olympic fencing community. She's cutting among them more than striking carapaces and fleshy bits, the white-hot glow of the Soulsword a blazing elemental beacon for anyone to follow. This will probably end badly. It may not. Without James' strength, she reverts to an exemplary show of skill honed on the battlefield of Limbo. Prancing around is a comparative picnic with nicer guests.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"Not good, not good," Gabby mutters when the giant creature comes after her. Not good at all, and she had been trying to head closer in to the village which meant after the beheading of the Lurker, she jumps off the car to change her angle. Try to get that thing AWAY from the town... And try to avoid that giant claw coming for her.

Small. She'd always been small in one way or another, which meant she made up for lack of size in speed and agility. A quick jump, swinging her sword down to try and stab into the claw as she leaps to avoid being caught inside the pinchers. Instead she aims to land on one of it's sizeable claws using the sword for stability. She doesn't stay there long as she yanks the sword free to leap in toward the creature's center swinging the sword overhead to stab deep.

With a sickening crack of shell she ... gets lodged right there, swinging from the grip of the sword she clings to with both hands, legs swaying in the air beneath her.

"LORNA! Down hard please!" She yells out hoping she would be able to hone in on the metal of her sword to pull it down through the beast.

Julio Richter has posed:
"Where's clear?!" Juli yells back to Jimmy. So far, he hasn't been personally accosted, as he's staying well back from the battle lines in an uncharacteristic show of good sense, but as they encounter enemy forces in the town, several of the Lurkers have veered back toward his position. One young man, alone on the ground, with no apparent defenses: Julio looks /deliciously/ vulnerable.

Worse yet, in this environment, his powers are sluggish to ramp up to their usual devastating effectiveness, and especially after that big fortification project, he hasn't got reserves to draw on. Four of the Lurkers start to rush him, and he whirls, registering their approach through the ground, but helpless for now to do much about it. He blasts a concussive wave at them, and it hits two, but only gets a solid crunch out of one; the second is only knocked off course and delayed.

He's pulling as hard as he can, but the sleepy Maine coastline is barely giving him any power for a repeat performance. He turns to magic, in desperation: a wardwall provides a second's respite as the monsters clamber over it; the glowing rock-caiman armor snaps shut over him, but rock won't be much defense against those claws.

Finally, without really knowing what he's doing, he drives glowing trace-roots into the sandy ground, up which crawl beasts of glow and sand: crocs, little jaguar cats, iguanas with lashing tails. As the Lurkers close over Julio, ready to make a meal, these animate beasts of earth tackle, bite, and claw, peeling them away from their quarry for mere moments.

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna was busy sweeping the streets and tangling the creatures from the deep in electrical wires from the telephone poles, and street lamps. Moving cars by lifting them up and prompting setting them down out of the line of action when she spotted people inside. It was a combination of defensive and offensive moves, and she picked them as she remained flying high above the battle.

A glance was spared downwards as Gabby shouted, and she flew back toward the younger mutant, flicking her hand and shoving the metal of the sword downwards. "Be careful!" She shouted back, and turned her attention to flinging an empty car at a line of lurkers.

Namor has posed:
These creatures know well the crushing, freezing depths of the sea, but while the water at the bottom of the ocean may be startling cold, it still doesn't compare to the ice brought to bear by Bobby. Dozens of creatures fall from rooftops and the sides of buildings mid leap or crawl to shatter on the pavement below. Even more are left still and threatening only in visage as they snarl eternally at nothing, their would-be victims long since fled into the night. Only those impeded from escaping the waves to terrorize the land still fight against the mutant's efforts as a multitude of claws and fists and tentacles scratch and smash at the thick sheet of ice that blocks a good portion of them from coming ashore.

Nearby, James' unstoppable blitz through the legion of creatures goes largely unchecked. Several reach out in an attempt to slow or kill the whirl of deadly force wading through their midst, but none so much as lay a finger on him before they're swept away and brought down. Only when he alters his course and makes his way through the swarm to defend the base of the semi serving as temporary shelter for the besieged family do the Lurkers see their chance. In a mindless rush, they bare down on the proud Apache with endless claw and fist. Perhaps one can't do the job, nor three, nor five. But ten? Fifteen? Twenty?

The family on semi begins to panic. The monsters have stopped streaming onto their position with quite as much ferocity or number, but they still come and the shotgun runs dry. Now no better than a club, the Lurkers start to make headway, and with a quick and sudden movement the father's leg is grabbed as he's yanked forward towards the edge and the sea of hungry mouths. The woman shouts in concern and abandons her swinging, desperate attempts to fend off the creatures to reach over and grab his outstretched arm, barely keeping him from going off the side to certain death.

Bobby Drake has posed:
Having slowed some of the onslaught by freezing them in ice, Bobby quickly slides toward the family on top of the semi truck, using his ramp to make his way over to them and quickly creates a wall of ice around them to prevent more creatures from getting to them, freezing the arm of the thing that's got the father by the leg in place. He then offers them a hand and says, "Come on, slide along with me. Hold on tight to each other. Like going on a toboggan ride." A crazy wild toboggan ride through a bunch of murderous sea creatures, but hey, some people pay good money for that at amusement parks.

James Proudstar has posed:
Ten...fifteen...twenty...the pile grows, and Jimmy slows. They're not /hurting/ him per se, but they definitely are slowing him down, and eventually he disappears from view beneath a large pile of the creatures.

It's slimy and gross and suffocating, and not someplace Jimmy wants to stay even if these particular creatures teeth and claws don't seem to be enough to get through his highly-resistant skin.

And so a few moments later, there's a burst of motion and strength, and the pile "explodes" in several directions as Jimmy scatters the bulk of them in several directions.

He moves forward again, reaching to rip a Stop sign out of the ground, swinging it as a very rudimentary club/blade, trying to clear larger numbers as he inexorably draws closer to the Semi. With Iceman handling the evac, the urgency may have faded, but it's done nothing to dim Warpath's ferocity in the attack.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney doesn't say thanks. Mostly due to the HORRIBLE GORE and gross shit that spills down from the slice on the monster splashing over her. Ew. An arm does stick out from the yuck to give Lorna a thumbs up though.

Trudging out she swipes a bunch of goop off of herself with a swing of her arm. Ignoring the rest she brings her sword up again to attack some of the fleeing monsters. Those still pressing forward were facing quite a bit with the others, but she had been kept behind due to dealing with the big ugly who, thankfully, had cracked in half like a shelled crab. Lobster? Octopus... something.

Sweeping swings of the sword, slicing through those smaller ones that try to pass by as she seeks to take down as many as possible before they decide to try to turn around again or else find freedom to cause trouble elsewhere later.

Julio Richter has posed:
Julio's sand beasties are fierce, but small; they can only harry the Lurkers, keeping them off his rapidly splintering druid armor for a while. They don't stand any chance of actually winning the battle, and indeed explode into so much sand whenever the Lurkers can be bothered to retaliate.

But as he cowers, Julio is still demanding as much power as he can get from the sedentary coastline, and the dull, green glow from beneath their wet-smelling dogpile finally grows to a bright, dangerous glare. Seconds later, the Mexican mutant cuts loose with an earsplitting seismic explosion, completely shredding one of the Lurkers and sending the other two flying: one into the side of a Buick, one in an upward arc that brings it plummeting down onto the impaling mast of a sailboat moored not far away.

He's scratched up and bleeding pretty badly where their claws managed to dig through his armor, but still in one piece. He starts to jog back toward the Blackbird, healthily spooked by the encounter.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Illyana remains in front of the semi, slicing mystical tethers and finally rounding on the legion of horrors pressing in too close. Gore and limbs splatter down around her from several sources, among them the dismembered parade from James and the slushy ice dropping down from Bobby's wall.

Several of those claws snap at her, cutting at the black leather boots enshrouding her legs, meeting the piercing spines of her arm. More than once she crashes down to the ground, the arcane shield enveloping her resisting the worst blows as seething, horrifying visions of terror slough off all semblance of contact. Weight pins her down on a guarded angle, until the Soulsword wrenches up through the heavy, jellied flesh showing all the ease of a sharpened chef's knife parting a custard.

The demons freeze and retreat on her, howling an eerie, keening wail of a thrill. The only semblance of humanity found in her actual shape, for once Magik lets go, silent and lethal falling into the writhing knot of squid tentacles and snapping crustacean appendages, lubricating a path of destruction through her chosen elements of indigo fire and whatever ichorous goo spills out of broken crab legs. The bigger the Lurker the better, the Soulsword cleaving through not with its usual ephemeral ease through non-arcane things. No, it's more a bloody, vicious exercise of a Hell Lord dishing out pain and not remotely upset about it, a spectre of the Siberian plains pushing her way to the sea.

Namor has posed:
The endless assault on the small town of Kittery proves not to be quite as endless as it first appears. Beneath ice, blade, stop sign, car, demon, and stone the Lurker advance is halted and shaken. Slimy, murderous bodies from the depths of the unforgiving sea heave themselves up onto the shore in great, seething waves. Each one is stopped and slain and replaced with another, over and over it goes until slowly a hundred at a time becomes ninety becomes seventy. Slowly the unshakable resolve of the hunting, hungry monsters shakes and withers. But still they come, driven onwards to their deaths by the sheer weight of those behind, pushing and shoving in anticipation of a meal. Their collective morale is thinning and wavering, but it refuses to break.

Then, without warning, a Lurker leaping from a rooftop to try and gain purchase on Bobby's ice slide to begin a fresh assault on the rescued family is shot from the air by a pulse of blue-green light. Suddenly another drops as it takes an earth-shattering swing at Gabby's head, the hit losing all momentum and aim as the Lurker drops dead at her feet. Within a handful of seconds, all the assembled mutants are lit in a wash of pulsing light and deep, reverberating noise as the sea comes alive again -- this time with a small contingent of Atlantean troops. The waves churn and seethe, and the screeching calls of hunting Lurker turn to panicked wails as dark blood stains the water and a roiling mass of sharks falls on the rear flank of the swarm. From the sky, a tri-pronged burst of light evaporates a swath of Lurkers and the horde breaks and flees, sprinting and crawling over each other and the dead to retreat back into the ocean. Many are slain in the withdrawal, but many more slip past the curtain of freshly arrived troops and great whites to slink back into the depths.

"You did well," comes an imperious voice from on high as Namor descends with gleaming trident in hand, sorcerous energy still crackling from the prongs. Despite only just arriving, he looks bloody and weary as do the Atlantean troops that come ashore to pick off any stragglers. "Other places weren't so lucky," he intones grimly as he looks around at the damage and carnage. Maybe two dozen dead humans, a hundred or more Lurkers, and several buildings collapsed and burning. It's not a pretty sight.

"This is only going to get worse," he concludes, turning to look at each mutant as he speaks, already lifting off into the air again as the Atlanteans start to fall back to their crafts.