7675/PoP: Release the... Kraken.

PoP: Release the... Kraken.
Date of Scene:	03 September 2021
Location:	Chelsea Piers
Synopsis:	Another thinning, another nightmare, a fight hard won by heroes of the city and a door closed by one bastard mage.
Cast of Characters:	John Constantine, Arthur Curry, Wanda Maximoff, Aldrif Odinsdottir, Laura Kinney

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John Constantine has posed:
    It's summer time still, the heat oppressive at times, but that doesn't stop people from gathering at the Piers of Chelsea. Or maybe it's the breeze coming in off the water that draws them here? The place is crowded with people going about their sportly fun, both indoors and out. It's not quite dark yet, the sun just beginning to set and it's a glorious thing today. It's one of those rare times where clouds and pollution break enough to allow the reds, oranges, pinks and golds to be seen clearly.

    With attention up toward the brilliant colors of the sky, it might just go unnoticed at first, the ever so slight bubbling of the waters around the area. Perhaps it's just fish being fish or something similarly simple. It's easy for the typical human mind to dismiss the slightly out of place for something harmless, innit?

Arthur Curry has posed:
The disturbance might be notable on the surface, but down below it's no better. Whatever's creating turmoil, whatever starts to bubble and rise from sources unknown, it's panicking the creatures around it, sending schools of fish scattering and a call for distress rising from the creatures of the shallow end of the deep.

A message eventually related to the deposed King of the Waters, ambassador to the surface and esteemed member of the Justice League, the noble warrior known as Aquaman. He plunges through the salt water, faster than any submarine, his eyes casting about the dim-lit depths of the waters as he moves towards the bubbling source.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Ugh, working out. A necessity even for witches who consume unnaturally high quantities of calories to sustain themselves. The Complex offers better options than one of those overpriced cycling classes, and Wanda does not care for Pelotons or perky influencers racking up likes with their mind-numbing chatter about barnyard weddings somewhere in the Hamptons. A gruelling round of swimming laps and contorting herself into a pretzel while pretending to be serene will do instead. The calming effect might be true. Stretching after finishing up the class finds her seeking the cool blessing of twilight. In her yoga ensemble, she faces the sea through a large window.

Water in a bottle isn't bubbling, but she drinks in controlled sips. She isn't alone on that strand, walking slowly to take in the city and all between. Something typical for a human mind to ignore, though a sorceress? Something's scratchy and enough to bring her to a door marked EXIT in loud red letters, nudging her hip to it. No reason she can't get back in that way. No alarm rings, her gaze turned to a darker spot on the sea.

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
Angela was actually currently in the area for a reason that's likely totally unheard of among most folks. She's wearing not her armor (though it is underneath her outfit) but instead a pair of jeans and a shirt that says 'Rolling Oldies' on it. She wasn't exactly a natural fit in with the group but she was fitting in all the same as she points toward a woman wearing a shirt that states, 'Holy Rollers'.

"Stick that tongue back in your mouth, Delores!" The 'angel' of heven states as she gets up and collects a custom made 16 lbs. ball like it were made of cotton candy. She squints at her, "You may find yourself on a streak at this moment but you are merely having a lucky moment." And then Angela carefully squints and steps forward in near perfect form and throws her ball. She stares for a long moment and then turns triumphant to the sound of pins falling and cheers of three woman in their late sixties and early seventies.

"Well done, Angela! That'll show that old bat!" Angela nods and smirks at Delores as she passes by before setting beside Georgia and giving her the fist bump. Bowling had become a fun challenge for the powerful woman who could easily knock down every pin in the alley with a hard enough stomp but now must delicately knock down just her own with a ball that weighs less than one of her blades. For now, water disturbances go unnoticed.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Chelsea Piers isn't the usual sort of place to find X-23. It's a little more upmarket than her usual haunts and all those tourists mean a lot of cameras. Still it's the places people don't expect to find you that make for the best pick up and drop off points.

A black hoodie, some matching black pants and sneakers let her blend in well enough to slip through a crowd and leave something in a dead drop. Sadly her desire for discretion means that today at least she's not really well armed. Aside from those which come built in. And as for the armour... well she never bothers with that.

The bubbling water isn't likely to alarm her. Not unless it has a smell that'd set off her nose anyway.

John Constantine has posed:
    Beneath the surface of the water, dark and murky, more so than it rightly should be, makes sight difficult, but as Aquaman gets closer? Well, the water under the surface, deep, near the bottom of the river is rolling and boiling much more than the surface. He'll be the first to see it and it's just the one in the moment, a tentacle snaking its way from the silt and sediment, swaying and thrashing this way and that as the rest of whatever it's a bit of begins pushing its way up as well.

    The surface of the water begins to roil, become mucked with silt and debris, it bubbles now almost as if boiling. One little boy calls out to his mother, "Look mommy! Look! The water has bubbles!" His little voice carries to another person that points and gasps a little and so one down the line until the attention shifts from a beautiful sunset to the rolling, bubbling mucked water of the Hudson.

    The smell, not strong to anyone without a sensitive nose such as hers, but Laura will pick up on it. Whatever's there, beneath the surface, it doesn't smell like anything normal. It's an odd combination of salty sea water and death - the rotting kind, not the kind made of earth and incense.

Arthur Curry has posed:
Arthur Curry can tell that whatever's in the ocean is rising out of it and arrives near the shore with bubbles obscuring most of the near water around it. Seems like the best view will come through air rather than sea. As such, Aquaman drives himself up and out of the water like a torpedo, flying up into the air and landing on the piers, water dripping down his topless form, his tattooed shoulders bunched as he looks back over his shoulder, his Trident in his hand glowing with eldritch light.

"Dunno who you are, big boy, but let's see what you're packin'," he calls out, bracing the butt of the spear on the ground as he turns to stare it down.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
The water looks odd and behaves strangely enough for Wanda to know better. Her fingers curl at her sides and she sets down her bottle, no longer quite as thirsty as she was before. That can wait. With her luck some overly dramatic and fit employee will carry it off before she can tell them otherwise. Black pants and a watercolour-patterned top don't make for armour or a recognizable costume, so she has to excuse herself by getting closer to where the bystanders watch. "Did you just see that?" she asks the boy.

Right until the water breaks and forth comes an Atlantean. Her eyes glow red for a moment and she raises her hand to her brow, an invisible shield unwrapped without a word of incantation as the chaos locks in.

"Take your son and leave," the witch warns the boy and his companion. "Back into the building and stay clear of the glass. Let's go!"

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
"This is a game of skill, ladies! Watch and learn!" A woman from the otherside stands up and gives Georgia a smirk before walking up to grab a bowling ball. The one octogenarian of the two teams casually rolls the ball with a smooth wrist that was built up over decades of experience. She casually makes a strike and stands up as straight as her old body will allow as she nods to the other side and strugs her way back to her seat. Only casually wincing a little as she sits before keeping her locked up face.

"I will acknowledge your skill, Vanna, but you are about to be shown up by my dear friend Betty." The older woman with the dazzaling smile looks down with her painted on ruby lips and white hair to Angela before standing up and sucking in a breath. She casually uses a cane to head toward the ball retrieval and is just about to put on a show of how to bowl with only one hand free.

Of course, that's when Angela slowly turns her gaze toward a door as she sniffs the air. Her eyes flicking to the door that just opened and closed, causing her to slowly stand as she sniffs the air. Her friend Georgia looking up.

"What is it, Angela?" The older woman asks of the seemingly younger.

"Be prepared to run, ladies." The warrior states and gets a scoff from one of the woman from the other side who is about to say something until she sees the terribly serious and dark look upon the warrior's face. As competitive as the woman might be, she is in equal parts wise.

Laura Kinney has posed:
The smell on it's own might not have been enough to set Laura on edge but with her keen ears also picking up the little boy shouting... It's enough to put her into high alert mode. Although to be fair it doesn't take a lot to do that. For now at least her dead drop plans are put on hold and she makes towards the best nearby vantage point.

There aren't exactly many options on a pier. But whatever is about to happen will probably distract everyone from the weird girl climbing up a tree!

From up there she looks around for possible threats.

John Constantine has posed:
    The first tentacle to break water causes a wave to bash against the piers themselves, it's huge that thing, twelve stories at least from tip to water's start, and how much further does it go down into the murky river? The second follows shortly after, not quite as long, but half at least. A third, then a fourth, rapid succession and all of them thrashing about, feeling, seeking, perhaps for an Atlantean, perhaps not... perhaps for easier prey than that.

    Once exposed to the air, the stench is an overwhelming thing, that death and salt water, rotting seaweed and sun ripened fish. It's completely and utterly *wrong* that smell, it doesn't come from 'here' that's for certain.

    The panic is immediate, people running and screaming in willy nilly directions that take them nowhere far enough away to get out of its reach when it finally finds them. Not to mention the threat they all pose to one another in their panic. One person, an older gentleman trying to flee, is knocked backwards by someone else trying to flee in the other direction. So close to the edge of pier 60, his arms flail in circles, he teeters a blink, two, and then he topples, his cry of terror short lived as the water's distance isn't much from him. He vanishes into the dark river and pops back up like a cork, catches his breath and screams for help once before being taken under again by the rolling of the water.

    Not often one to be late to these parties, John Constantine's been a little busy today. He wasn't even on US soil twenty minutes ago when the map, spelled to trigger at signs of 'otherness' sneaking through to where it shouldn't be, in the backroom of the Laughing Magician lit up fire red around the piers. The House of Mystery drops him off pretty much square in the middle of the chaos, no one seems to notice; they're all to concerned with not suffering Death by Sea Monster this evening. "Bollocks," is all he offers for now, he needs a second to assess the situation proper like.

Arthur Curry has posed:
Arthur Curry doesn't need to assess anything.

He raises the Trident above his head, calling on the power of the gods of the sea. He steps forward towards the creature that rises as lightning starts to crash back and forth between the clouds above, blotting out the limited view of the stars this close to the city, congealing and condensing as the winds tighten and start to batter at the monstrous, eldritch, unholy thing that emerges from the deep and the dark.

"I know not your name, abomination, but you shall know mine. I am Arthur, heir of Atlantis, chosen of the Gods, protector of the surface and lord of the deep. And no matter how many things you have that might be called asses, I am fixing to kick every single one of them in," he says. And then he starts to charge forward, running full tilt with his trident in his hand and leaping into the air to stab at the thing even as the lightning begins to crash down from above.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
One storey would have been enough. Two? Overselling the impact, but anything past four is simply an egregious act of terrorism against the good people of New York. Given the situation, Wanda goes airborne. A simple act of will bleeds off her mundane clothes to wrap her in the scarlet armour, gloves crawling to opera length and that crystalline, pointed crown scrolled in her namesake magical energies. Waves lash and lick at the sides of the Complex, giving very little protection for civilians or her other than the bubbled shield.

Being higher in the air helps distinguish people in the chaos, those falling into the water or possibly being hurled by the enormous tentacled shape interested in devouring the living. "I have anyone in the water!" she shouts to Arthur, since he's gone and announced himself. Shouting lessons in the field from Cap have their occasional use.

First, the old man dipping under the water. She has to arc and swerve to find him, throwing forth threads of light to send a literal red tide running. Anyone else caught in immediate proximity to the arcane net may just be scooped out.

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
The sound is all that is needed to set off a small panic inside the bowling alley. Angela looks to the others and gestures, "Flee towards the street and more secure areas!" And with that, she's to the door, opening it and out. She frowns at her outfit and lack of weapons but, it is what it is. She'll have to live without her ribbons and blades for the moment. When she clears the building and flies up above things, she stares in disbelief for a moment at such a large thing protruding from the water, "What in all the realms?"

She looks to the sky and then at the one yelling and diving in before shaking her head, "One would think Thor himself was here." She rolls her eyes before she suddenly bursts with speed right at the tentacle that is coming out of the river. She attempts to slam into it, feet first and use her considerable strength to send it back and away from the people on land.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Well. Crap. While snikting is an extremely effective way to deal with many situations there is only so much Laura can do against a creature that large. Still being a hero means leaping into action no matter what the odds are. So she leaps down from the tree and moves to put herself between the fleeing crowd and any tendrils that might be making their way onto land.

She might not form much of a barrier. But she pops her claws out with a snikt nonetheless. Ready to try their edge against the rotten smelling flesh.

John Constantine has posed:
    Arthur, heir of Atlantis and Chose of the Gods, scores a hit that causes one of the tentacles to retreat into the water and an unholy wailing scream pour forth from the depths, the volume of it muffled by the muddied river. Another springs in its place, then a fifth added to the four, one retreats from a strike of lightning from above - another appears, or was it the first gone returned? It's hard to say.

    They found it now, the pier, the running people, the panicked masses, the fresh meat, the easy meal. The search does, however, leave openings for those land bound to strike, should they do so quickly enough. One kicked back, but not out, one sliced and bleeding dark green ichor that smells of infectious waste and toxic dumps tries to lash back at its attacker, blind maybe, but large enough to cover a wide space when it slashes about in its search for the source of its pain.

    A woman screams as her date is snatched up lickety split by one of those searching appendages and dragged toward the water. A man cries the same grief and anguish as his brother suffers the same fate.

    An old man scooped out, a teenage girl next, a small child in a stroller next, but more are falling, swept in by tentacles retreating with their snacks of human flesh. Satisfaction, an staving of of a near insatiable hunger, has a beaked head protruding only slightly from the water to bring that beak closer for the delivery of *food*.

    "Bloody Hell," day can't start without that, can it? John takes off running for the end of the middle pier without a second thought beyond that curse and a quickly shouted, "Kill it or drive it back in!" to anyone that might care to listen, perhaps no one does? He'd come in with eyes wide to all and he knows what needs to be done on his end. He disappears beneath the surface of the water, not so much of a shadow of him left as he's almost instantly swallowed up by the muddiness of it. Closing the door, that's his job. Booting the nightmare inducing sushi ingredients flailing about above back through it first? Well, he'll have to trust that someone will manage that bit, right?

Arthur Curry has posed:
Arthur Curry plants his feet into the great beast as he drives the Trident into the depths of its monstrous form. He gives an almost brutal roar of savage delight, the warrior-king drawing back his weapon only to drive it back in again, striking at the edges of the selfsame wound.

"You're no child of the sea. You're a devil of Hell and I'm sending you back!" Arthur cries. He springs away and slashes with the spear again, making a meaty cut through one of the tentacles and trying to scramble up onto the rear of the thing, holding his weapon aloft to channel the lightning coming from above and blasting it down into the acrid, fetid flesh of the Elder Thing.

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
The woman in the bowling league outfit is getting her nice suit torn up to reveal parts of that golden armor underneath. She stares at the people being dragged for a moment then at the beast revealing itself and then turns her gaze to the bowling alley she just left. She considers a moment before she suddenly bursts off at break neck speeds through the wall of the bowling alley. It takes a moment for her to gather things but moments later, something goes blasting through the roof of the bowling alley.

Orb after orb goes up into the air before suddenly the form of Angela is once more airborne, chasing the flying orbs. Moments later, the sound of cannonballs follow as Angela chases after her thrown bowling balls and uses both her strength and gravity to send them flying back. Each twelve plus pound bowling ball she found being sent back from the sky at tentacles that are grabbing for people at break neck speeds.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Striking the monstrous tentacles with tridents and claws is very well and good, for at least someone is doing that. The Scarlet Witch's job on rescuing civilians takes considerably longer given the number of them crashing off the piers under the waves or scattered widely at each collision. Fear blinds their senses and sometimes leads people to fall in when their trembling knees or mad dash ends with a trip, an elbow to the side. Pulling on her intangible threads, she hauls the younger up who are least likely to make it ashore. That swimmer holding onto someone flailing, two birds and one stone as the adage goes, she drags back. But for every three saved, one might be drowning, and their cries stand out like sparks in the night.

Her eyes burn brighter, reality shivering to the emotive force pushing down the magical threads. When the two forces align, her unconscious will and the expression of that power, the former overtakes the latter inch by inch. "It came through somehow. A rift that might be a door between realms, a crack in reality!" She slaps aside a bit of water, dredging out another victim from the ways and depositing them on the rooftop of the athletic centre. Up there she can manage more space, less worry about rolling into a wall or another fleeing soul. They might hear her or not, but she holds out her hand to the other quadrant, angled to the monster. You, next, beastie.

Laura Kinney has posed:
With the size of the tentacles and the length of her claws there isn't much chance Laura is going to be leaving any fatal wounds. Especially from something that already smells pretty dead. But by snikting those tendrils she can at least draw as much attention as possible.

The wounds might make the beast angry, but hopefully it'll make it angry at her and distract from the easier to catch civilians.

Each leap, whirl, dodge and roll she makes precisely timed to stay just out of reach of capture while still being just close enough to continue inflicting damage.

John Constantine has posed:
    Almost, Arthur, almost. The tentacle getting so much attention from the Atlantean is close enough to being severed that it flops weakly about in the water. However, any attempt to climb the thing results in it rolling and undulating with force enough to throw Thor himself off its back. The resulting waves crash up over the pier, but fail to knock anyone into the drink; people have retreated far enough that waves won't touch, but those appenedages have a much greater reach than any little old river wave.

    Once, twice, thrice in its rolling, the head is fully exposed; too quick to react to it, but perhaps not to quick for the alert to notice the way it rolls its four eyes shut, guarding them behind thick, leathery eyelids, laced through with near armor like bones. Eyelids should not have bones, truly they should not.

    With bowling ball bombs raining down the thing lets out another of those wailing sounds of rage and rolls once more, eyes closing as the head truly breaks water's surface and then goes back down once more, tentacles retreat from the pounding and then snap back again. Four now, that fifth still weakly flapping about on the barest of sinew and leathery skin holding it together at the middle.

    There's been no further sign of the fool of a magician save the Silk Cut cigarette on the pier that fell from behind his ear when he lept, it's blown about this way and that, swished about by waves, wet and soggy now and sticking in one spot. How long can he stay down there? Did anyone even see him go in?

    Keep faith little Kinney, death by a thousand cuts, that's still a thing. If Laura concentrates, as best she can on one area, she'll get there. Until then, at least that one tentacle is focused solely on her, the cause of the pain... the fruit fly eating away a its leathery flesh with the persistence of a ... fruit fly fixed on a piece of fruit.

Arthur Curry has posed:
Arthur Curry flings himself up into the air, catapulting off that roiling, monstrous girth, his sculpted body showing off a dolphin's grace as he throws his arms out to the side, slowly turning over and then diving down, with a form that would blow the scores out of any Olympic judge as he presses his hands together, the trident at his point and dives down into the beast itself.

He plunges through the top if it, tearing through arcane meat and blackened bone, the very marrow of the thing splashing into his eyes, reminding him of his plunges into the deepest crevasses at the bottom of the deep sea, a land where only the blind can thrive. But he can swim blind, diving hard, ripping his hole down, down, down through the thing.

He'll dive until he tastes water again, until he shoots through on the other side, under and beneath, the water washing away the horrifying gore of his attack as it streaks over his invulnerable body before flying back up and out of the water to land on the pier.

"YOU SHALL KNOW DEATH BY MY HAND!"

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Another body dragged up from the deep has another chance at life and spewing up half the Hudson's filthy water from their lungs. One person should not contain so much liquid inside them, but leaving the victim of the angry apartment-sized tentacle to the cares of other survivors is the foremost course of action for the Scarlet Witch. Wanda has arguably larger monsters to fry.

Her path shifts and veers between the monstrosity floating in the water, dredging the river bed with its sheer bulk. The calculated look downward when it closes its eyes and rolls around to evade Angela or Arthur's heavier bombardment seeks that rift, a split in the disturbed sediment and three centuries' worth of trash, castoffs, and built-up junk. Searching for something untoward gives her plenty to worry about.

"Wait for it to come up! It's chitinous or..." There is a word for that, but she cannot spare the attention.

Fewer bodies to focus on shifts her spellcasting into the greater work, that spindled energy building behind her eyes and coursing between spread fingers that fan wider. Undulating lines race between her fingers, flowing in a wider, broader arc that she loops and twists as she flies, throwing those slender, singular threads around the tentacled behemoth with some purpose that isn't, alas, 'no more tentacle-hentai.'

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
After throwing the bowling balls in an attempt to get the thing to stop attacking the humans, Angela turns her attention to the head of that thing. She eyes that beak as it goes in and out of the water, considering it a moment before she tenses up briefly before shaking her head.

"You wish something to eat beast? Well, nothing for nothing. I have given you pain, do you wish to return it to me?" And then she plunges down but not at the speeds she has been using before. No, the sound barrier breaks as she directly aims for that thing's mouth and attempts to give it a full course of a charging warrior woman. She doesn't hear Wanda's call, instead going for her own and hopefully devestating plan.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Laura almost certainly could cut through a tentacle given enough time. But that's not really her goal. She splits her strikes between as many tentacles as possible. Making it increasingly dangerous for herself but giving more people a change to escape.

Her plan is simply to act as the worlds most snikty fishing lure.

Of course it's also an incredibly dangerous and stupid plan. Thankfully she's a very fast runner and can keep leaping & dodging for hours at a time.

John Constantine has posed:
    Arthur's attack has it rolling again, once, twice, three times and four. A bit slower this time, but the damage done by the Atlatean is already beginning to heal, flesh pink rather than the nasty grey of the spots before, fills in to make the it all look like some child's grotesque Play Dough project. Once more, with each roll, its eyes close as the head rolls that direction to the surface and open again once those bulbous things are beneath the water once more.

    Down beneath the surface, way down, way way down, a light begins, pale and green, flickering before it strengthens to something more steady. The efforts of a near drowned wizard or something else? Hard to say innit?

    Angela's efforts almost hit their mark, almost... instead she ends up somewhere above and alongside of actually becoming a meal. She hits straight in one of those bulbous eyes and right at the moment before it closes. It's not rage the thing wails with that hit, it's pain pure and simple. It thrashes about with the wild abandon of an animal trying to run away from itself and the agony of a grievous wound. That hurt, that really hurt... really really hurt. If one causes that much suffering, what then, would destroying the other three do in turn?

    Laura might get swept off her feet, knocked about and bruised by the thrashing as the thing rolls, two of the remaining tentacles retreat in the process, flailing in the water however, leaving only the one near severed already by Arthur.

Arthur Curry has posed:
Arthur Curry can see the eyes of the thing, glaring with alien hate and revulsion, with sorrow and pain of a world beyond this one, of what it would make this world become, given its way. And Arthur hates it in return, because this is his world, his people, his kingdom and he will drive back the monsters at the shores and at the depths, because if he cannot sit upon his throne then he will, instead, wage war against its enemies.

He throws the Trident into one of those eyes, flinging it with the inhuman power that enables him to lift aircraft carriers above his head, propelled with enough force that it may tear the eye clean through, god-crafted metal sharp as a Titan's fangs as he gnasehs the flesh of his children.

"YOU SHALL COME NO FURTHER. WE WILL STOP YOU, HERE AND NOW, AND IF YOU DO NOT DIE, YOU WILL LIVE ONLY TO TELL THE OTHERS THAT HERE THERE BE DRAGONS."

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Wanda flashes her hands wide and forms another complex pattern, wrists rotated and palms drawn apart. The frozen cradle of scarlet energy stretches out with her, and then turns into a ghastly bright bolt that she sends flying true for the thing as it bobs forth from the water and that mouth bruised by the Asgardian 'angel' throwing herself at horrific speeds to it surfaces.

No glyphs, no pretty symbols. This is merely the act of reconstituting the monster thrashing its way up and when its eyes bulge past the water without their defenses, she claps her hands together to seal the flesh over the beak and clamp together the bony plates, melting them together into a barely peaked wall that thickens as matter shifts its construction to deny that horror its ability to feed itself.

It may not survive the battle. If it does, it will starve to death without some means to flay itself open for nourishment. Her judgment comes with a concoction of tightening density, hardening and shifting the displaced void with all that intent focus she can muster.

//We are not for you to consume.//

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
Rising back up out of that muck, Angela is covered in viscera and growls as she rips away her ruined shirt. She rolls her shoulder before looking over at the beak being sealed and then at Arthur. She hasn't fully acknowledged Laura's presence mainly because she only briefly saw her actions. She isn't sure who or what any of them are but her golden armor top shines through the muck and gore. She considers the pier briefly before she flies right for one of those large light posts nearby and rips one up.

It's a fast movement, her speed is her greatest asset and she appears above the creature. Despite her weakness for electricity, she doesn't even flinch as thunder and lightning rolls and instead raises up her weapon, watching those eyes and then diving down with incredible speed and force to try and drive that pole right into one of those eyes.

Then she calls out, "Bring your lightning to this!" And she tries to clear the area for a potential strike of lightning on that lamp post.

Laura Kinney has posed:
When you get hit by a tentacle the size of a building the best thing you can do, even if it's only a glancing blow, is generally don't be hit in the first place. Second place is being too tough to get hurt. Sadly not an option for Laura but third place is heal really fast. And that she can do. Rolling with the impact also helps a lot.

She might get slammed into the ground or flung into another object on the pier but any bumps & bruises will heal up in moments.

From her new position X-23 looks around. Checking for threats and things she can do to help.

John Constantine has posed:
    It barely recovered from Angela's hit when the second comes in the form of a Trident, big T. It pulls all of its tentacles back to itself now and rolls and rocks in the water, almost as if the thing is hugging its own self against the pain. It's very near pitiful that. The wail edges toward keening. It just wanted a snack is all! Round and round, back and forth, it rocks and rolls and wails, bleeding dark green ichor from busted eyes like toxic tears down its... face? Sorta? Down its blob of a face-ish shaped setting for a wicked beak and four - no two now - eyes and two empty sockets. Three empty sockets.

    And a wicked beak that snaps no more. The scream it lets out is near deafening, it shatters glass in nearby windows. It weakens the thing enough... just enough. .

    That glow beneath the surface of the water intensifies. Water above begins to swirl and twirl, slowly at first but then picking up speed so that it seems a whirlpool funneling straight to the bottom of the river might just be the end result. It's such then, when the process started by him and intensified by a Scarlet Witch, threatens to suck him in behind the beast being dragged in, that John struggles and kicks his way out of the undertow of it.

    Once at the other side of the river, opposite the others, he drags himself out of the water. He coughs and splutters up Hudson water until he vomits. A beat, three and he shoves himself to his feet, curses the fact that his Silks are soaked and ruined and staggers his way up bank a little, waiting until it's finally over and done and he's sure of it, before he vanishes into a portal opening to the House of Mystery.

Arthur Curry has posed:
Arthur Curry walks to the end of the pier, the jagged remains that have been left after the tips it was shattered by the mass of the beast. And he holds his arms up above his head, Trident clutched in one, and lets out a tribal roar of triump, his long hair spilling down his back as he thrashes his head for a moment in victory.

"Now -that- was a fight! Ha! Witch and wizard, warrior women, we have done well, I think! There has to be a good sailor bar around here. Come along. Drinks are on me. I always keep a few doubloons on hand to stand a round or two," he says with a laugh, hefting his weapon onto his shoulder.

Meanwhile, his mind reaches out to the nearby sealife, both to guard this opening and to watch it for him, to stand guard if something begins to try and reach out from these depths ever again. If it does...

It will find Aquaman waiting.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
The witch in the air can spot a man flailing around, especially one from beneath the monster that came through the rift.

He might be happy to swim his sorry self to the bank, but Wanda pulls back the Hudson from claiming another victim. Dragging back the current to chill out a little is ultimately a lost cause. Water does what it wishes, but for just long enough, she can spare someone drowning.

Then she drops down onto the pier in a low, careful descent that proves she means no harm to Aquaman, nor to the others there. "An excellent one. I am pleased to have fought alongside you." She offers her hand in greeting of a sort, and then turns to Angela and X-23. "Very well done. If there are other injured immediately in need of stabilization, I can see to them before drinking."

The designated demon-vessel is responsible.

Aldrif Odinsdottir has posed:
Landing nearby, the woman in torn jeans and a armor bikini top shifts her red hair this way and that before shaking her head, "That was a strange demon." She states, "Certainly not something native to midgard." She shakes her head before then nodding to Arthur, "Drinks will do nicely as a proper recompense." She then looks back at what is left of the fight before looking forward, "Though I did owe that monster for ruining my night." She then rolls her shoulders and walks with Arthur to where there might be liquor.

"Nothing for nothing and I believe balance between I and that creature is now maintained."

Laura Kinney has posed:
With whatever caused the giant sea monster attack dealt with Laura glances around, then pulls her hood up to cover her face. It won't be long before the police arrive and it'd be better for her if she'd gone by then. Making now the ideal time to slink off into the proverbial night.

Alas for now at least her dead drop letter will remain unsent.