9645/Xavier's Ski trip II: Return of the Hunger of the Night

Xavier's Ski trip II: Return of the Hunger of the Night
Date of Scene:	15 January 2022
Location:	Slalom: DEATH'S DOORSTEP
Synopsis:	The X-Men investigate the mysterious cave from their first outing in Killington. The cave, as it turns out, is possibly the butthole of a sleeping primordial ice giant, who draws power from every murder in the local town, which transform people into its Wendigo-like servants. After, er, climbing into the creature, its servant attacks, fought off by Warpath, and the giant itself awakens, forcing the team to scramble to save the town from the ensuing avalance. Defeating the titan itself requires defeatnig the seemingly deathless Wendigo servant - ultimately, Rogue defeats it with her own life-stealing abilities, reclaiming the lifeforce stoeln on the titan's behalf, and sending it back to its slumber. Also: the school cancels all future ski trips and everyone votes for tropical vacations.
Cast of Characters:	Jean Grey, Rogue, Monet St. Croix, Noriko Ashida, Jamie Madrox, Kitty Pryde, James Proudstar, Bobby Drake

---

Jean Grey has posed:
A year ago...

The school was holding the ski trip as usual, in the same small town of Killington, Vermont. Fresh off the slopes and out to enjoy the 'apres ski' party-scene, a few students and their chaperones had stumbled upon a curious mix of small-town crime and local legend: a man was found horrifically murdered in the parking lot of the Wobbly Barn (that place just looks perfect for murders, the desc says so!), his death blamed on unsubstantiated rumors of a local serial killer. But with the aid of a bit of Magik's magic, those on the scene quickly followed evidence from the scene and tracked the killer into the woods.

What they found didn't resemble any sort of cunning human murderer: the man was ravenous and unnatural, even zombie-like, clutching the still-beating heart of his recent victim and retreating toward a nearby cave. Those on the scene made quick work of him with a variety of swords, explosions, and getting hit by a giant tree. Sensing a certain evil seeping from the cave, Rogue made the decision to collapse the entrance, and Jean, who arrived to the emergency call, helped seal the rocks for good.

Problem solved!

Since then, there've been no more murders attributed to the Killington Killer (the name writes itself...), at least not in the Vermont Mountain Times, the closest local Newspaper. But every small town has its darker underbelly, its secrets, and a bit of casual investigation reveals that things aren't quite so perfect.

Rogue and Jean had set out on a mission to check on the cave (inviting along some friends for backup!), which sits somewhere near the bottom of one of the mountain's more infamous ski slopes, not far from the town. They've hiked (or flown, or skied!) out to find the cave...

To no avail. There's no sign of it. True, maybe Rogue isn't a mountaineer, but they've reached a spot as good as she could remember, to find no sign of the landslide the flying brick had brought down to seal the cave mouth.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue is decked out in black and green snow clothes. A winter cap on her head, and some glossy winter ski goggles on over her eyes. She huffs out a heavy breath and points to the tree. "That's where Illyana was!" She says. "Up on that branch." Then she points down at the ground. "And that's the tree branch that I threw."

She then spins and points to the north.

"That's where the god damn cave was! Right there!" She says, huffing, and shooting steam out between her lips.

Her gloved hand goes up to her goggles to push them up on to her forehead, and she starts to walk through the crunchy snow toward where she was indicating.

"How does a whole cave and like... big hill in the ground, vanish??"

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix is currently along with the group becuase Fortress M has repelled all attempts at invasion and breach of security, and she's managed to avoid the dueling that Jubilee has gotten into with teh Fleebes (Wahtever htat sort of personal agenda is). So she's taking a moment to go out and hopefull find somthing that's a little more of a challenge and engagement than sitting back and staring over at what passes for the news, sports events, and various attempts at assassinating the jolly old man no doubt made a regularly yearly aoccurence by some of the nastier groups of society seeking to slay the sled rider.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko is dressed in some cargo pants and some kind of purple-and-other-colors-that-don't-belong-in-this-decade windbreaker.  She's also sporting some neon athletic cleats that certainly are not doing the job in this extreme of environment.  She arrives by skidding and promptly falling over to eat a face-full of snow.  If she had goggles of some sort?  They're nowhere to be found now.

"It gets up and walks away?" Noriko replies facetiously just before shaking all the icy particles out of her hair in a blur.  Her hair fluffs up with static as if it was never wet and she reaches out to the nearest lucky person to discharge it casually as if nothing ever happened.

Jamie Madrox has posed:
Despite being a detective _by trade_, Jamie's mostly here for his professional _consultation_, not leading the charge. That, and _no one_ canvases like Jamie Madrox. Even speedsters, who are faster, don't have the attention to detail he can bring to bear when there's two dozen highly trained investigators just scouring an area for clues and evidence.

Jamie considers Rogue's question, and then says, "So many ways. Translocation. Cave in. Maybe someone with geomagnetic abilities. I mean," he shrugs. Look, they live in a weird, amazing world where things just _happen_. How it is he can even call himself a detective when literally 'a wizard did it' is a viable answer is still a mystery to many.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde stands in the snow looking towards where the cave is supposed to be. She's wearing her ski pants and jacket for warmth, with a stocking cap that is white with bits of blue that give it a festive, wintry look.

"Nancy Rogue and the Case of the Missing Mountain," she says, arms crossed as she looks over towards the location. She wasn't there for the previous encounter. "You guys are sure you just didn't celebrate a little too hard and got your spots mixed up, right?" she asks. Though it's in a light-hearted tone that isn't really expressing any doubts about their memories.

Kitty looks back to the spot. "Is it worth me having a quick run through down there looking for anything? Granted, I pretty much would have to stumble right upon it, not like I can see through rock."

Jean Grey has posed:
Jean's in her fluffy green parka and black thermal leggings, ski boots, the whole nine. And while she wasn't there for the original fight, she remembers the cave. "I'd say you'd just forgotten where it was but... this does feel like the right spot," she agrees, peering at the mountainside. There is still rock there, of course, coated in a good snowfall. The whole mountain didn't walk away. But the shape is just... different.

"You know, I couldn't help myself, after asking around in town and getting a lot of non-answers... but there's still something happening. They've just stopped reporting it. I've felt it, from people in town. Stray, worried thoughts. People who are happy while they're warm and safe indoors... but their minds just immediately flip to looking over their shoulders as they step out into the dark and cold." And it gets dark awful early up here, in the dead of winter.

Jamie's multi-person canvassing could have turned up very similar things around town. People are hesitant to talk, but it always seems like there's a reason. Here and there, though, someone shares a useful tidbit: a friend of a friend gone missing, or a second cousin once removed, or an old high school acquaintance. The sheriffs office has written most of these off, strangely: its a small town. People just leave. Move on to better things. And sometimes, there's accidents out in the cold.

Back at the should-be cave, it remains, well, a pile of rock. There's no obvious evidence in the vicinity here, to multiple-person searches. Really, it wouldn't take a hell of a lot of investigative prowess: moving those rocks via machinery or with explosives or anything else? It would leave massive evidence, probably even a year out under the snow. Gouges for the tracks or tires of heavy machines. Or the debris would be piled somewhere nearby, you just can't truck so much out, without leaving some sign.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would shrug, "Well, how hard is it to miss a cave? Did you not mark it on something like a map? On your phone? Keep a reference along the local geography of it's position? The landscape cannot have changed that much in a year. If you cannot remember the specific frames of reference.." Well, M is keeping her voice neutral.

"Then if you are comfortable with it let me scan your mind to pick up the memories. I can use them to compare to the area that we have walked down and the maps of the area more efficiently if you feel that is an acceptable alternative." Says the girl with an eidetic memory and too much time to kill on vacation.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue looks bacdk at the others, her hands on her hips now as she just looks to Jamie, then to Kitty. "Yes." Rogue says. Her right hand points at the ground. "Bird dog it for me, Pryde. Like Bugs Bunny." She adds a light smile before her eyes go back to Jean.

"I knew I shoulda come back up here on my own, and just ripped the cave back open, and handled it myself..." She sighs then, taking a step to the side where she kicks a snow covered rock, causing it to soccer ball fly away in to the trees, birds shooting up in to the sky.

The question from Monet has Rogue looking to Jean. "Gettin' inside my head is trouble.." Rogue warns the French girl.

Jamie Madrox has posed:
"Now don't get all testy," Jamie teases Rogue with a tilt of his head and a grin for her. He leans over and nudges the untouchable Belle playfully. "No one doubts it was here. But something happened to it. We'll figure it out."

But they already have a plan -- or two, thanks to M -- so Jamie looks more than happy to not interrupt or bog the process down. "Be careful, Kitty," he tells her. "Don't wanna get stuck down there. Plus, if there was a cave in or something pulled it shut, there may be like, underground mole people or something."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde trudges through the snow, and then pauses and shakes her head at herself and then steps up on top of the snow, walking phased across the surface like Legolas. She reaches a spot and looks back to Rogue, motioning to it. "Here?" she asks, to confirm, and then turns back and studies the lay of the land closely.

Kitty can't see while moving through the ground, and she has to come back up for air before she suffocates. But she's gotten decent then at navigating blind. "Ok, will make a few trips in and see if I come across any open space," she says. She double checks her bearings and then walks into the ground, heading in for a depth of about thirty feet, straight in horizontal, before doing a bit of a sweeping U turn that takes her about 20 feet to the side before she's coming back out. Barring finding something, she begins a pattern of trips into the rock like that, moving to one side and the other, and up and down.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"You can scan people's memories?  Eww."  Noriko seems to blip further away from Monet in a quick spurt.  She was there, now she's over there, closer to Rogue.  Does Nori /ever/ keep her voice neutral?  The girl seems more concerned about this than the task at hand.  "Why does everyone want to get in people's heads?  Creepers."  The words come out at chipmunk speed, which is the equivalent of a speedster mumble when it comes to Noriko, but the words are perfectly clear and understandable.

"I cooould just blast the rock," Noriko offers before doing.  How thoughtful?  Is this a sign of maturity?  "Find out what's inside.  Maybe it sparkles, like a geode," the speedster digresses.  "Kitty see if there's a sparkly inside!" she blurts.

Jean Grey has posed:
"Whatever we felt in there was powerful, Rogue. I'm glad you didn't fly off to get in trouble without us."

Then she glances between M and Rogue, and then back at the mountainside. "You could try it, M, or use my mind if that's safer- but I'm pretty sure we're in the right place. You can see the ski run, right over there," and she raises a hand to gesture past a stand of trees that serves as a convenient natural border to the cleared out path of the ski slope. "And that's about where I remember it from last time. I'm with Jamie with this. Some kind of powerful geokinesis feels like the easiest explanation. It's definitely not unheard of, and we know a few people capable of it."

Even still, it says something about her perspective on things that Occam's Razor points in THAT direction, of all places!

Of course, of all of them, Kitty is particularly well suited to the task. Solid rock means nothing to her phasing, absent the physiological limits she is very well aware of. As everyone stands and watches, the young woman vanishes into the rock face, making one U-turn trip before re-emerging, and then disappearing on another. While they wait, Jean looks over at Noriko with... a slightly dubious expression. "Could try a small section, but it's a big mountain. And blowing up the rock was what we did the first time, more or less. Enough to cave it in. But seems like... it didn't take, somehow?"

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar sips from a juice box and watches the commotion. The expert tracker with the enhanced senses offers no insight he just watches quietly sipping away. He is not dressed for a ski holiday. Raw denim jeans, work boots, he wears a ski jacket but it was likely the only bit of puterwear in his size.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would shrug, "It is merely an offer." Noriko woudl be given an irritated glare (where Noriko had been, she had moved on befroe Monet could M-Glare her, which was assuredly a secondary mutation). "If you see appropriate, Ms. Grey. Let me know if you feel that you require the assisstance." She would cross her arms over and then glance at Jean. "Or if you feel something more aggressive is required at tunneling I'm suret hat some of teh others would be more suited to such a task to clearing the area." Her owne xpression flat.

Why did everything end up turning into blowing it up or breaking it?

Rogue has posed:
Rogue gives a smile to Monet. "Lets call it Plan B." She says, before looking back to Kitty. "If ya find any gold or diamonds down there... I mean, ya know..." She tells her friend before taking a step back and walking toward Nori, and the others. Her arms cross over her stomach with a bunch of that swishy noise that cold weather clothing makes.

A smile is given to Jamie before Rogue notices James. She up nods at him once.

"Ya got any more'a those juice boxes, Mistah?" She asks him in a detective-like tone, like she's interrogating him..

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"I'm just bored," Noriko confides to Jean in a rare moment of naked honesty around what is driving her behavior...well at least, her current interest in cracking open the side of the rock face.  "Probably not a good idea until Kitty recons.  There could be anything or anyone or nothing inside that thing."  She looks back over her shoulder at the delayed M-Glare with only a cursory interest.

As they wait on Kitty to make her passes (could it even be that long?), Noriko makes a small snow village off to the side with mini snow-people and what must be snow animals and a giant abominable snowman (compared to the snow-people).  No...that's just one snow person...inside her fortress.  Now there's a second abominable snowman advancing in what looks like stop-motion.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty returns, head appearing out of the ground first and getting at least waist high out before stepping back up onto the surface of the snow, and then back over to join the others. She has a small penlight in hand which she stows back in a pocket. "I found an open space," Kitty confirms. "And it's not just a cave in. It's all smooth sided. Like someone reformed the rock, or it was melted and reshaped and then was cooled. It was kind of a tunnel shape, heading deeper inside. I didn't go deeper than just finding it and getting my bearings so I can get back to it," she tells them.

She looks to Jean and Monet then, tapping her head and thinking about what she found so they both have a good mental picture of it that they can share with the others. Memories of Kitty flashing the light on the wall's surface, running an unphased hand over it, and inhaling just enough of the air to make sure it was breathable.

Jamie Madrox has posed:
Jamie smiles when Kitty shows back up. "Huh. So, yeah," he says, given her report: "Probably some geokinesis or something like that if it was reshaped. I mean there's a number of explanations but I'm going to go ahead and assume whatever happened to it had some sort of intelligence behind it, you know?"

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar raises an eyebrow at the belle, then quirks a lip and pulls another drink box from the bag. He tosses it to Rogue.

Jean Grey has posed:
Jean can share a quick echo of Kitty's findings, which are as she describes: a narrow, smooth tunnnel, large enough for a person (although perhaps requiring the taller folk to duck), winding deeper, beyond a fairly large amount of seemingly naturally formed, undisturbed, definitely un-Rogued stone. The air inside is stale and cold.

"Melted and reshaped, or otherwise reformed, definitely sounds like another point for Jamie's hypothesis," she agrees. "Stone powers of some kind."

And now she looks back among the group. "Kitty could get us through to the tunnel, I think, but it'd be awkward, going one-by-one, and very risky once we were inside, since we'd all be trapped without an easy escape. Suggestions?"

Bobby Drake has posed:
The group had clearly set out well before him - likely because they were on time - but the intrepid Iceman is in his element and able to cover tremendous terrain to catch up to where they have gathered. Using the latest and greatest in ice-technology, Bobby Drake slides into the gathering of mutants with the greatest of ease. "Sounds like you're in need of a snow plow," he offers, clearly having caught at least the tail end of the conversation.

He drops down to land on the surface of the snow, and as if by natural reaction to his landing, a running line of snow, Bugs Bunny style, makes a a slow wave towards Kitty. Clearly the snow's revenge for how easily she phased up and out of it before, the snow tunnel stops once it has buried her up to her knees.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Smooth?"  Disappointment tinges Noriko's unsurprised demeanor.  She knows what a geode is, and they aren't big old mountains, but a girl can dream for an instant of unreality...and sparkly rocks to explode.  "Weird.  I guess whatever you guys stuffed in it made itself cozy?"  She goes back to creating a little highway for the village-turned-fortress-turned-city.  "Maybe it was just trying to get out or make a hot tub or something."

Spotting the flying drink box, Noriko darts to take a look to see if she likes the flavor, but slides past when she her metal cleats just slice through the snow.  "Noooooo-" SPLAT again.  A little bit of her self-made gust alters the trajectory of the box, but only enough to evidence possible tampering (there is none).

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would glance at Rogue and then at Warpath, "I trust their ability to be strong enough and skilled enough to simply make a new entrance to it via brute force if need be." B ecause in the end sometimes brute force was the way in. "Then Robert can freeze the surrounding rock and soil to help ensure that the ascent is stable and so is the tunnel entrance for our extrication. We have sufficient fliers with us that we can hoist and carry ourselves into it. In the circumstance that the way out is blocked, we can utilize the same manner to make an egress."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue smiles at Jamie, then to Kitty and then looks at the hole. When she looks back at James, she moves to catch the juice box in her hand, but Nori makes it fly away past her in to the snow. Rogue glare!

As she stomps her way over to the box in the snow, she leans down to get it with a gloved hand.

"Jean can lift all the rocks in the ground up with her brain power." The Belle mutters while taking a glove off to open her juice box up now.

She then looks up quickly, from face to face. Excited expression on her features.

"Lets go get some booze t'bring back here! It'll make this all much bettah."

Straw stuffed in the box, Rogue lifts it up to sip from it.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde acks and raises her arms as if to fend off the wave of snow that Iceman sends plowing towards her. Though it just passes through the ghostly girl and she straightens, stepping up on top of the new accumulation, and unnecessarily dusting at her shoulder as if some of it had clung to her as it phased through her. "Bobby," she says.

Turning back to the others. "Bobby would be good about securing a hole in. Might be kind of noisy making it though," she points out. "Of course I'm willing to phase us all in, but yeah, could be slow, and wouldn't let us escape quickly if it was needed."

Jamie Madrox has posed:
"Hrm. Could also have Kitty take Rogue down into the hollow stone and she can punch her way out?" He shrugs a bit and then crosses his arms, looking amused at Bobby's antics. He kicks snow at Kitty, too, winking at her with a teasing smile.

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar watches again sipping on a fresh juice box or maybe it's the same one, who can tell, "Kitty, you didn't see an entrance? A wendigo needs a den. if it was just a spirit then why does the physical environment matter?" He walks over to wear Kitty is standing and paces put the chamber in the snow looking for signs of a den hidden in the rocks also looking for Indigenous markings.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Quit flirting and do something productive," Noriko says with a smirk to Jamie as she stands in front of her intricate palace snow city that abruptly collapses like a house of cards.

Rogue has posed:
"Guys. What about booze?" Rogue asks as she looks around at everyone, also sipping on a juice box."

Bobby Drake has posed:
As the well crafted snow pile doesn't phase Kitty, pun intended, Bobby sticks his tongue out at her. He replies with a matching tone, "Kitty."

He considers her plan for a moment, and then adds his own twist. "If it's just snow burying the entrance, Kitty can phase me down to it and I can arrange a far more convenient way for the rest to get down."

Jean Grey has posed:
Jean looks back at Rogue. "You want me to... lift the whole mountain?" The expression she is giving her friend now is not much different than the one she gave Noriko earlier! Maybe that's something the Phoenix can do. It's probably not something they just want to CASUALLY let the Phoenix do.

"I could probably help make a tunnel, though," she offers with some consideration. "It's just fairly deep. Doing that bit-by-bit with TK, and not destablizing anything is tricky. But... yeah, I could maybe make some fissures. Let Bobby work with those? If we can crack and brake up a portion, the strong folks can probably help clear it." And she upnods Jamie's suggestion. "Have her work from one end and James and M from the other, or something. Alright, sure. Why not. It's just a bit of elbow grease, right?"

Thus, Jean puts a couple fingers to her temple to concentrate, and on the surface of the rock, a few yellow-orange crackling lines emerge, almost like lightning patterns drawn over the skin of the rock as she strategically starts pulling it apart.

"It wouldn't surprise me if there's another entrance somewhere," she does agree with James. "If someone is actually using it." There's no obvious signs of habitation here, however, a year after the initial encounter. "Nori, instead of complaining, maybe you could do some scouting for us."

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix woul glance at Rogue, "I Presume your invulnerability gives you a stronger reisstance to intoxicants. So you need a faster way to get them into yourself so your body does not filter them as quickly. Have you considered some sort of IV to utilize? That might help you get more of a buzz from it." She would nod at Jean and then wait to be given further instructions while leaving the -others- to do the icky physical work unless she had to. With a sigh.

She did like this jacket after all, even if she had at least twenty of the exact same make and style and this one was one of the shoddier ones just in case she had to do something that might imply -touching- things.

Rogue has posed:
With a heavy sigh, Rogue finishes her juice box off and stuffs it in her jacket pocket. She takes her hat off then, and her sunglasses, before setting them aside near Nori's little snow village. Her jacket comes off next, followed by her hoodie, and Rogue just approaches the snowy on the ground, wearing a black tanktop and her snow pants and boots.

"Fine." She says while Monet talks about the booze effect on her.

The Belle starts to go to work though, uncovering a big boulder that she just starts to hoist up in the air. She lifts it up over her head, leaving a long shadow across the ground, before she throws it off toward a creek bed about fifty feet away!

"Next! Here we come, Wendigo!" She says, clapping her hands together.

"Booze works on me just fine, Miss Monet." She says as she drops down in to the hole she's making with rocks.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Yeah I can /find/ another entrance," Noriko chuckles under her breath with a crackle of her gauntlets.  While Jean is using so much lovely effort to surgically fissure the rock, Noriko just blur-walks up to the face of it, slaps her gauntlet on it, and lets the bolts of lightning spider through of their own accord, yelling out just before, "Four!"  She's heard golfers yell it right before they hit someone in the head with their golf ball.  "Clear!" is also said rapidly after since, on second thought, the hospital show defibbing seems way more applicable.  She explains this to no one.

Jamie Madrox has posed:
"I am being productive," Jamie tells Noriko with a smile. "See? I have ideas." He looks nonplussed by her criticism, rolling his eyes and grinning at her. He just multiplies. He's of little use here.

In fact, if they're going to an enclosed space, his powers would definitely make things _worse_.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde tells Bobby, "As deep as it is, it's definitely rock. Plus the interior wall was all rock. But yeah, you guys together could probably bore in slowly," she agrees. "I can pop in as needed to help you correct your course. Or take you in and let you work from the inside out. But that might be noisier," she suggests.

She moves over beside James, patting his arm. "Time to earn your pay, muscles," she kids him. Kitty could actually phase the rocks and let them just sink into the ground below. But she knows super strong, punchy people like moving boulders about, so she doesn't volunteer that method.

The Jewish girl glances over at Jamie. "So if you get cold, can you make a Dupe to run around and get warm and then absorb him back and you'll be warmer? Or will you just get the memories but not the heat? And if not, we gotta ask Hank what happens to the heat."

Bobby Drake has posed:
Frowning in thought, Bobby considers the options. "If there is a thing down there that is eating people, then we probably don't want to open a huge hole to make it easier, right?" He glances over towards Rogue and then back to Kitty.
    "I say we ride the Cat Express down, and then if anything hits the fan we take the Ice Train out on the express line." He seems content with himself with his word play, a slightly smug expression crossing his face.

Jean Grey has posed:
Jean has just begun weakening that portion of the rock face when Noriko approaches and lets loose. Perhaps, in a general sense, lightning doesn't tend to blow up whole mountains, but this is a bit more focused, and it has the assistance of those existing fissures. Along which the release of electricity has several relevant secondary effects: rapid superheating in the otherwise very cold environment, causing subsequent expansions and retractions of material, both the stone itself, and the air seeping into the fissures. So while it's maybe not quite the same thing as using TNT to go cave fishing, it does have a sort of explosive effect, causing the existing cracks and fissures to blow outward, the rock along them shattering amidst the temperature changes.

Of course, like going fishing with TNT, there can be... other concerns.

Rock goes everywhere. Jean reactively catches a bit of it with TK, but not all. And the resulting BOOM of all the rapid compression-decompression effects sends an angry echo through the nearby mountains. "Nori!" Jean calls, a bit angrily. "You could pull a damn avalanche down on our heads." She looks around nervously. There's no rumble of sliding snow. Not in that instant, anyway.

The section of rock ahead isn't fully clear, but it's been left much more brittle, and probably easier for the power-houses to plow on through. Jean lets out a breath. "OK, let's clear the rest out. CAREFULLY, and then... I guess we're seeing where this tunnel goes."

Monet St. Croix has posed:
And right as there's a near concussion moment going on Monet St. Croix is zooming in front of the others to be ready if anyone is taking a tumble or needs catching. The explosion disorients her just a little, even as she's being ready to catch anyone that's not managed to stabilize themself as quickly as the others. There's an irritated look on her face that -screams- out 'put her on a leash' but is left unverbalized over as M would hover up about three or four centimeters in the air, just enough to make sure that if there was another shake of the ground she wouldn't risk being knocked down from it.

Bobby Drake has posed:
"....or we could do that." Bobby murmurs to himself. He sidles up towards Kitty as the muscle types muscle their way around the rock. "Hey, how you doing?" he asks softly.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue pauses in the waist-deep hole she's made for herself when the booms start happening. She looks back at the others, then to Nori. "Yeesh." She says with a hefty sigh. "Bobby. If this starts t'cave in on our heads, please do that thing ya do and freeze it solid again. Nori's turnin' this in to a magma chute."

She steps in deeper then before pulling another big rock out of the way.

"I see a tunnel." Rogue says through gritted teeth before she throws that huge rock over the hill of snow and ice, shoving it away like a basketball.

"I hope there's no fuzzy forest animals ovah there." She notes before reaching her hands up to tie her hair back out of the way.

"I think I can slip through now..." She says, turning to the side and using her profile to narrow through the gap she makes in the rock... vanishing underground!

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"That's why I shouted clear!...Plus I knew you'd get it," the speedster shoots off to Jean with an irritating grin...though Nori's burgeoning snow civilization definitely has been decimated, even Mayor Snowman was skewered through and through.  "Aww."  Clearly Noriko isn't concerned with an avalanche, even in those cleats.  "Cool."  She's talking a little louder than she ought to.

Noriko looks up as if she could read the shifting of the mountain face and then shrugs.  "If it comes down I'll help get people out before then."  The speedster scurries off to the side to let the bulldozers do their work.  "I'll clear out debris so they can keep working fast," she volunteers with probably the first helpful thing she's done this entire outing. But when Rogue hucks a huge rock, Noriko's eyes widen a little as she watches it sail away in her perceived slow motion.  She disappears momentarily to go see where it lands before returning.

Jamie Madrox has posed:
"Jayzus," Jamie says, lifting an arm to ward when everything goes _BOOM_. But it's not enough. That's too much kinetic energy, and now, there's half a dozen Jamies just standing around doing nothing.

Jamie Prime waves a hand, looking like, you know, _whatever_, and the dupes get to work helping the others move rocks and whatnot. To Kitty, he says, "The heat gets dispersed, but I only absorb a fraction of it. It probably gets popped back out to the same dimension where I pull the mass for the dupes from. At least, that's the current theory."

Jean Grey has posed:
Rogue forges ahead, heaving a large final boulder out of the way. Some birds go scattering from the stand of trees, but there's no SPLAT sound at the end, and Nori's rapid recon discovers no evidence of a flattened Bambi.

Otherwise, the remainder of the team can clear the other rubble so no one has to squeeze through, STRONK folk can quickly moving heavy rock, while Jamie's one-man army or Noriko's speed can handle what smaller rubble remains, ultimately opening a little wider access to the tunnel that Kitty's initial investigation had revealed. Still, unless they plan on blowing up the whole mountain (which... avalanches aside, presumably the local ski resort would not appreciate), they are eventually faced with a path that is narrow, winding, and claustrophobic. Since Rogue is at the lead with her oft-bragged of sturdiness, she quickly discovers a further complication: a branch in the path a couple hundred feet further in.

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar raises an eyebrow at Kitty's comment but stands ready until the explosion. Jim sighs, "And now whatever was trapped is free. Great job, everyone." He shakes his head and moves towards the now opened "den." Jim raises his eyebrows, "Oh, good." He starts to clear out the rock debris muttering under his beath as he tosses large chunks of rock away. He opens the passage slowly keeping it stable, maintaining the structure, the things you learn at Xavier's. "If you see the ghost call out. I'll wait here."

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix is holding back over and just watching at the others. "So we should send soemone in to scout further and have Ms. Grey maintain a mental ink with them to see what we're facing." She would offer casually. "So the rest of us can know wht is happening and can respond accordingly, and if there is something hostile we are not all pressed iwthin short quarters."

This si the 'send in the fat one' plan

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde phases as the bits of rock debris go flying, letting them pass through her. "Stealthy," she comments. She climbs back on top of the snow that Bobby piled up around her, and then heads over towards the opening. "We were the ones who buried it the first time, can do so again. Though I really don't know that it accomplished much if it made its own tunnel," she comments to James.

Kitty phases through to the tunnel, leaving the new opening they've made for the others. Once inside she pulls out her small light, keeping it shining downwards rather than pointing it off down the tunnel which would make it more likely to be seen. She looks over to Jean to see if she endorses Monet's plan.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue finds herself in the tunnel looking at the split. Her hair back in a ponytail, with the whites of her bangs framing her face loose and left to their own devices, the Belle watches others come inside.

"Looks like we got choices." She says in the dark, Kitty's light shining on her, still in half her cold weather gear, the cold not bothering her as much as it does the average person.

"What was that sayin' that little kid said, Kitty, in that movie we watched?" She says while taking a left.

"Left tunnel... Indy." Rogue mutters more as she starts to brazenly delve deeper in to the dark. "Goin' this way!"


Anything ahead of her would likely hear her coming, but she doesn't seem to mind that.

Jean Grey has posed:
Psychic links are standard operating procedure on X-men missions, so it's almost unecessary to ask: as soon as Rogue (or Kitty, with her freer, tunnel-ignoring movement) gets a bit beyond her immediate vision, Jean reaches out to contact them, and then back to the rest to connect the team. Which means everyone can see the split in the tunnel even before they've all gone inside.

<"Can you figure out where they lead, relative to the mountain? Up or down, out toward another part of the slope or deeper into the mountain?"> she wonders across that connection, although apparently, Rogue has a simpler way of deciding! Rogue picks left. And, as it turns out, left does start to descend a bit, although the winding nature of the tunnel makes it hard to keep track of their compass direction.

Once a couple of the others have done some cleanup, Jean moves toward the entrance of the tunnel herself, while nodding at James. "Tight quarters. Alright, wish us luck." And then in she goes as well.

Jamie Madrox has posed:
After absorbing the dupes created, Jamie stretches and then waves for people to go on ahead of him. Once everyone is starting to go in, he pops out a dupe to keep watch, and then heads in after them.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would just listen to the others while going to float on down slightly, then going after the others. M is ducking her head and not letting her feet touch the ground. As this is -ewww-. Somethign gloppy would fall down and splortch on her hair as she would make an icky face while looking at things and resist taking a hand up and over to her hair. Trying to look at it without touching. Ewww.

Bobby Drake has posed:
Following along with the group, Bobby brings up the rear in case a fast exit is needed. He nods appreciatively to the Rear Guard Jamie, and continues along, keeping close to the group.

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar keeps working opening the way out to make passage easier for when they return. "Did it? We never found the tunnel." He works easily and quickly until Monet passes by him. He gathers some of the grime off the stones and flicks it at her back, "Oops."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde reaches a hand over to rest on Rogue's back. "You make me so proud," Kitty says as her friend quotes the Indiana Jones movie like a proper geek. She keeps her hand over the light to help keep it from being spotted by anything further down the tunnel, but lets it illuminate their steps as they continue on down the tunnel.

She brushes a hand over the wall, wondering if it was melted or otherwise formed, but then turns her attention back to where they are going. "So anything about this creature we should know, from last time?" she asks.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue starts to move down the sloped floor of the cavern. She looks back over her shoulder at those behind her. "Uh... it was dark. I never really got a good look at it. I just acted on instinct, once we had it in here, I just locked it up. Or so we thought. Illyana .. was here... she probably knows what it was, but never shared."

Rogue calls out ahead of them. "Hey hey!" She says, before looking back again.

"I heard on Youtube that if your voice echoes, it means the walls are strong, but if it doesn't, then there's gonna be a cave-in..."

Her stare goes back in the direction she's walking, then mutters...

"Course. If I shout and cause a cave-in, I guess we know too..."

Jean Grey has posed:
"Hey hey!" echoes back Rogue's voice. If there's anything to the youtube video, it's a very solid cave!

The X-Men probably have something on file about the incident, even if Rogue's memory is like swiss cheese. Jean wasn't there in person, but given her concern for the prior incident while planning the trip, she did read up in detail. "From what was in the report, the thing they fought was just a... person, under some kind of supernatural effect. Kind of zombie-like, but stronger and faster, took more punishment. But it seems like maybe he was... just the symptom, of whatever's happening here?"

Soon, journeying down the downward passageway, Rogue finally comes to what seems to be the end. A larger cavern opening out before her, although the scale and scope of it is hard to tell in the dark, with whatever bit of light they're using.

Simultaneously:

Outside, where James and Jamie #2 stand watch, a strange sound echoes through the air. A howl? A moan?

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix is just trying to get the glop out of her hair without having to directly touch the surface of her hair, and trying to figure out how to get it out without having to muss her hair further. As the glop would be flung over at her, Monet would quickly fly out of the way, the glop 'accidentally' set in her direction missing and perhaps even depending on how much of an mooph that James had put into the accident might go on towards the person ahead of her!
    Monet is settling now even while still moving of trying to 'twang' her hair back and forth in hopes that the vibration will have it shaking off.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko is small enough and curious enough to follow the others into the tunnel, but not to stay there.  She keeps going back and forth along the trail, checking the structure and examining the scars left behind telling the story of how her lightning moved through the rock.  Finally, she ends up sitting at a midpoint.  "Just let me know if you need me," Noriko hollers down the tunnel and curls up for a quick nap.  No one needs to know.  A light sleeper, Noriko is woken by the vague sound of something...howling, moaning? but she can't tell how far off it is.  Nor can she tell if it is inside or outside.  "Fun."

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar looks about and dusts off his hand, sniffing the air as he hears the noise. "It's sounded like a wendigo from what Ly told me. The people up here each have a legend about them. They're pretty common in this part of the world up into Canada. It may be out here."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde slips along, trying to move quietly. As she sees that the tunnel opens up, she moves her hand closer to the light to limit it further so it is less likely to be seen. Though if the place is pitch black, it probably is noticeable from a distance. Still, not as bad as if the beam is shining across the room.

Though that also means they can't see. << Ready for me to shine this around? >> she asks over Jean's link. "Or does anyone want to try to go slink around in the dark and see if anything is there, first? >>

Rogue has posed:
Rogue steps off to the side of the large chamber that they enter in to. Her ski pants make swishy noises as she walks to the left of the chamber, and just starts following the wall, using Kitty's ambient light to help guide her eyes in the dark.

"If anythin' is down here, I don't mind spookin' it. Whatever might be down here, should be way more afraid'a me, than I am of it, anyhow." She says arrogantly, her bare arms moving to guide her through the dark around bumps and turns in the rock that she's moving along beside.

"We shoulda just bought a bucket of chicken from that KFC in town, an' laid it on the ground at the cave mouth. That sweet sweet aroma woulda woke up whatever is in here..." She distractedly says whilst walking.

Jamie Madrox has posed:
"Oh, wonderful," Jamie #2 says with a sigh when James points out there might be a Wendigo out there.

Meanwhile, Jamie Prime is looking around in the dark and already grumpy, because he has no idea where he's going, and there's a feeling he's having where he could provide a lot of food of whatever's down here and that... man, that could be bad. For his mental health.

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar frowns, "Incoming from the south. Jamie can you give me a dozen? I might need bait." The joke is so dry it might skip pass unnoticed. I can smell the blood on it... You're sure there was one?" He pulls the knives and moves toward the incoming animal taking an aggressive stance, "Clear the cave, I'll hold it off."

Bobby Drake has posed:
Following along at the back end of the group, Bobby looks around nervously, casting a glance back the way they came. "Ever get the feeling that you're just walking straight down the gullet into something's belly?" He frowns. "I mean, I haven't. Not before tonight. Maybe now."

Jean Grey has posed:
<"We may as well get a look,"> Jean replies. <"If we want any answers about this.">

And it seem Rogue agrees. What she will soon discover, exploring more and more of the cave, is just how large it is, quickly making that touch-and-feel approach to exploration a bit ineffective. The rock, here in the cave, has an icy coat over it, which perhaps happens everywhere under these conditions, but is notably thicker in the cave, especially on the floor - which may as well be a skating rink, albeit an uneven one - making her flight valuable. And as Kitty shines more of her light through the place, she can spot large bumps and ridges on this icy surface.

However, a warning of something outside sets Jean on edge. <"You OK out there? Know anything about this creature? Inside, well, it just looks like it's all ice in here-">

Outside, James' nose gives him warning, even as his hears strangely fail. After that initial announcement-by-howl, the woods go silent. Against the white snow, and in the quickly fading winter light, the creature is even hard to see. But it comes, all the same, moving from the treeline like a ghost, a great white giant with a bloody maw. This is clearly not the thing they met before, although its bloody mien holds some similarity.

A Jamie is the first casuality, as the creature moves with rather impossible speed for its size, and its feet only skim the top of the snow, never sinking in. In an instant, a paw catches one of the duplicates and lifts it up for a bloody, rending bite. At least it serves as something of a distraction!

Inside, the cave, there's a sound, somewhat like that of the fracturing rock when Nori blew the entrance earlier. Cracks shoot down the surface of the cave's frozen interior.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would go to call out <<We're being flanked!>> She's immediately going to a defensive position, her mind snapping along to where there was just a Jamie-Kebab. Her mental warning goes along to the otehrs, right as she goes to give them a flared warning of the location of the Jamie that had just gone down. She's going to send her perspective of the tunnel that the group had gone down and their positions relative to all of it. Trying to give a rough idea as to where the thing had been.
    M is floating up i the air in a defensive stance, as best she can within the confines of the cave and is ready for the next attack to come in. SHe's grunting, and ready for a fight and is deferring to the others as far as what to do. Ready to launch in the attack or..
    Tell Rogue that the monster has taken all the beer.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
<"I didn't do it!"> Noriko mentally knee-jerks when she hears the familiar sounds of cracking.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue continues to walk along until she feels ice under her ski boots. She huffs and lifts up off of the cave floor to float a few inches above it. "Bobby." She says, hearing his voice behind her. "Are you sure this isn't your secret lair that we've stumbled across?" She asks before the warning sounds of a fight outside come in.

Naturally Rogue spins around then to look face first in to Kitty's light, which blindes the Belle, causing her to raise a hand up to shield her eyes from the LED bulbs!

"Ah... crap. Should I go back?" She asks Jean in particular.

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar takes a swipe as the the monster grabs the Jamie, a Jamie, "Bait was not really a strategy, that was- sorry." Warpath takes a breath as the creature runs off into the woods, staying in place watching that way it moves, looking for tells.

Bobby Drake has posed:
Bobby moves fast. Super fast. Ice flies out to support the ice already supporting the cave and runs up along the entire length of the tunnel. "Everyone out, I've got this." He looks to Kitty as he keeps more ice flowing out. "Come back and get me if it goes down, after everyone is out."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde moves along carefully across the ice. She slides a step and catches her balance, then continues. Gradually she starts to shine the light around further and further as it seems less likely there is something in there with them that won't have seen them already.

As Iceman begins putting up supports for the cave, Kitty's attention turns to what they are standing on. "I'm not sure," she says slowly. "But I think maybe something is moving under there," she says. She begins backing up in the direction of the tunnel that they came down.

Jamie Madrox has posed:
Jamie #2 doesn't have time to scream. It's just a _gurk_ and then blood across the snow, flesh torn and ripped asunder, bits and pieces everywhere, splashing on the cave entrance, on James, on everything.

There's a sickening thud as Jamie's head hits a tree when the monster runs off.

Inside, the psychic backlash of the dupe's sudden death makes Jamie howl, his hands going to his head as he buckles and drops to his knees, a low whimper pleading out. "Aw, fffffffffffff--"

Somebody grab him. He's dropping.

Jean Grey has posed:
Outside, the creature spends a few moments savaging the duplicate body... until suddenly, with a sound of strange disgust, it throws it aside, a mangled red mess in the snow. Then, its cold blue eyes turn, focusing on James. Its blood-dripping maw curls, a sneer of sorts, and it surges forward. Again, its motion is swift and unusual, half savage beast, half graceful ice-skater, swift and graceful across the white landscape. Zigging, then zagging, it finally lunges, swiping with its claws at the man.

<"Tunnel's restrictive,"> Jean answers Rogue. <"Anyone in the rear, if you can make it out to support them- Nori?">

Of course, the GIANT Ice LAKE seems a very fit task for one Bobby Drake, the Ice MAN. From the surface, pillars reach up to the ceiling. Nothing collapses. But the cracking continues. Something about the situation is wrong, or at least, not quite as it's assumed. And maybe it's Kitty that gets it first. In the light, it is difficult to make out, but maybe something is in there with them. Something, slumbering beneath - or within? - the ice. And as Bobby layers more on top, in an effort to maintain the structure, the more it shifts, new rifts opening, sheets breaking apart.

And then it's clear. The ice itself, or maybe the stone beneath it, more both? Whatever it is, the cave floor itself, is moving, rising, of its own accord, into some colossal figure.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix isn't fast enough to get up and outside even as she's looking wildly behind her at Bobby. She's reay to go and if need be fly up and over behind Jean to pull the other telepath up with her if a boost is needed, ready to yank up and fly along. Very put off and disoriented by how much is going on with the freezing. And then as Kitty would speak MOnet would swing her head around to inspect it.
    She was by no means a Warpath, wtih all that training. She was not a Logan, with extremely enhanced senses. But she had slightly better senses than normal and self-called herslf a super genius. Which would -clearl- be enough.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue continues to float in the air above the cave floor, which lead her to not noticing it was moving. But with the tunnel being clogged with others in their party, the brave adventurer now comes to see what the others are talking about.

"Why the hell is the cave floor movin'?" She asks. Her eyes go up then.

"Kitty. Start evac'in people!" She says, whether a good plan or not.

"Jean! Somethin is alive down here, like the whole damn cave, maybe!"

Rogue touches back down on the floor and tries to fly in to it, using her full strength to try and keep the ground down... where it belongs.

James Proudstar has posed:
The creature lunges and James launches himself at the creature, throwing it off as he meets it in mid air. The beasts claws dig in catching that fluffy jacket and shredding it, just grazing his flesh. His own vibranium knives slash out at the creature. He uses strength and mass to grapple the beast trying to keeping it pinned with him.

Jean Grey has posed:
As the whole cave is now moving, Jean does seem to re-think the situation. <"Agreed Rogue - everyone, pull back."> The woman coats herself in the typical thin aura of orange psychic energy, ready to shield herself against debris... or perhaps bore through the rock if she needs to. <"Anyone got hold of Jamie? I'm reading him unsconscious.">

In the meanwhile, there's another rumble, and a section of the tunnel suddenly pitches downward. While the light icy cover makes more cracking noises, strangely the stone itself... very much does NOT mimick the earlier performance that Noriko coaxed from it. Rather, it seems to bend, shift, naturally flexible.

Elsewhere, at a ski patrol station near the top of the mountain, monitors register an avalanche warning.

Outside, James and the creature crash together in the snow. His blades cut deep, but oddly, they draw no blood, all that the fluid that would result frozen in the creature's veins. Whatever's on its muzzle (well, before it was Jamie) clearly belonged to someone else.

They grapple for a moment, yet suddenly, one of its massive claws gets a grasp on the bulky Apache warrior and tears him away, tossing him bodily across the snowy clearing and sailing toward another stand of dusted pines. Stands of trees are having it rough today, first Rogue, and now this!

Monet St. Croix has posed:
And that's about enough for Monet's standards. The sound of an avalanche coming is something that she can pickup even from here in the cave with her enhanced hearing. Then hse's going to move over to grab at Jean in readiness. "We're departing." That's firm and in a tone that would hopefully brook no resistance. Unelss Jean is trying to openly resist she would be moving and then going to try and also make a grab for Bobby. "I can fly us out quicker." Presuming the two aren't throwing her off or telling her to drop them, then she would be goign to take them with her. Flying parallel to the ground and holding the two up underneath and arm to maximize her maneuvering speed back towards the hole they came from!

Rogue has posed:
Rogue abandons her attempt to keep the floor where it is. With the Evac under way, she just flies straight up in to the chamber ceiling now, trying to catch any rocks coming down to toss them away from her friends below. "Go, go, go!" She shouts while doing this, rushing to catch a big piece of rock as it breaks loose and starts to tumble through the air!

She's lowering it down to the ground more safely when hit from behind and sent cascading toward the floor of the cave herself now! Oof!

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty has been an X-man long enough she doesn't argue the call from Rogue. She looks about the group and quickly sizes up who would be the first person she should get out of here.

"Jamie, we're going up!" she tells him, reaching over and grabbing hold of him by his hand. "Catch your breath," she tells him, though like most of the team he's familiar enough with Kitty's power to know he's going to have to hold his breath until they are done phasing through the rock.

With that, she guides them up, having been keeping track in her head as best she could how far back along the path from the tunnel, versus how tall the hill is above them. They head up and then angling back to take them on the straightest path to the surface. It should also have them emerge some distance from the tunnel mouth, hopefully a safer area than Jamie One was in when the creature got him.

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar sails off towards the trees spinning uncontollable but the spins slow and with an effort of will he comes to a stop meere feet from the closest pine. Hovering in mid air and stripping off the jacket and shredded shirt. He floats a little higher, naked from the waist up hair blowing in the wind. There's a fairly viscious wound on his shoulders but the blood is already slowing, he narrows his eyes, "Hey! Fuffy! The cold never bothered me anyway." He takes off back towards the the monster, no knives just fists this time.

Jean Grey has posed:
Everyone focuses on evac. It's pretty simple, in principle. They know the way back, and there's really only the one way to go, not counting that un-explored route.

Except that things pitching downward, the very orientation of gravity shifting relative to their movement, until the entire, previously horizontal tunnel has become nearly a vertical shaft, albeit with a few twists and turns that create ledges. It'd be a bit bizarre if it wasn't so clear what was happening, by now. They've awakened something, and that something is... standing up.

Jean doesn't argue with Monet hustling her along, but rather turns the group of them being together into a bit of a strategy, expanding her own aura of energy to encase them all. "I think maybe- lets try a shortcut." And as with the previous attempt, she starts psychically tearing at a section of rock ahead of them, on what was the ceiling of the tunnel before, but is now the side. It is guesswork, but based on their movement, maybe there's something to it: "Punch us through, there!"

Rogue is a bit behind, now, still in the central cavern as the whole complex changes orientation. But it gives her a unique perspective: as rock and stone slide away, part of the icy interior (was that the floor or the ceiling, before?) remains transparent enough that she can see... out. Out over the whole freaking mountainside, and down toward the town. The light outside is dimming, but in those last moments before sunset, it illuminates the interior chamber.

Outside, its a pure brawl. Warpath launches himself, and the ice-blooded demon meets him with cold predatory eagerness, taking a vicious punch before lashing out with its claws. It is strong and desperately fast - both moreso even than the impressive X-man - but lacking in comparison to his skill and training. Everything is the pure desire to catch and consume his foe, always trying to get a good grip with his claws and then pull the other man in.

Has James even noticed that half of the mountain has STOOD UP behind him? Who knows. But it has, a giant of rock and ice towering in the background, with Rogue standing in an icy chamber that apparently sets at the center of its chest, while a glowing hole soon opens in its leg, allowing Monet and co. a route back out. Bobby presumably slides out behind them, while Kitty emerges elsewhere from blank stone, bearing her unconscious cargo. Hopefully she doesn't come out too high!

Rogue has posed:
Rogue starts sliding with a bunch of the ice and rocks, and snow inside the chamber as it changes directions around her. She's caked in the stuff now as she shouts before flying out away from the mess she's rolling with. Back up in the air now, she dodges a few more rocks before she sees outside?

"What in God's name..." She utters before she flies toward the icy 'glass wall' and punches it!

PUNCH!

"PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH!

She just starts to unload on the icy wall, trying to punch her way out!

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Going to go up and moving to brawl through, letting Rogue take point over with the smashing and then bursting up and out alon gwith the ones she was hauling. She would flip up with Jean at the diretion, going to explode out of the hole and then glare at wherever Noriko last was with a 'THIS IS YOUR FAULT' expression on her face. Though admittedly that was probably several minutes ago, which might be a lifetime by Noriko standards. So hauling Jean up and out and then looking over at the exploding mountain, evaluating the presence of Warpath brawling over with the other creature and then finally muse..
    "I do not believe this is an appropriate vacation spot for us to return to in the future, Ms. Grey. We might wish to consider somewhere else."

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar is focused on one enemy at a time. and he focuses totally on the demon, trading blows, getting as good as gets, but this an animal and James has been hunting since he was a child, He's fought wolves and bears while out alone in the wilderness. He's been outmatched before. But he stays in the fight, he uses what he knows, using his flight to dash in and out able to move much faster in the air than on foot, learning as he goes starting to dodge the animals baiting it with a position of advantage only to turn it against the creature. He takes a few deep wounds and a dozen small wounds but he delivers a series of devastating punches and hard won throws.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde sees what is happening as she makes it out of the mountain, and part of the mountain behind her stands up. "Ah, crap," she says. "I'll get the students out and raise the warning with the town," she says, knowing this is the sort of battle that people like Punchy McPunch-Face D'Ancanto can handle better than her.

The young woman takes off, running across the snow which at least she can do much faster than people who have to wade through it. Heading for the cabins to rouse the students out of their beds.

Jean Grey has posed:
Each blow against the icy wall resounds with the sound of growing fissures, slowly widening cracks. The ice is thick, very thick. But Rogue is strong, very strong! And with every blow, those cracks deepen, until finally, with a final triumphal blow, she smashes outward, sending icy shards spraying over the area below, and leaving the chest cavity broken open. The light shines on it, showing the full shape of that icy chamber, almost like a heart. Free to fly, she can also admire the sheer size of the creature, as well as its overall shape. Humanoid, if very vaguely, with its limbs and torso all a little too long, to form the various ridges and valleys between them that composed a portion of the ski slope. Its 'head' is quite vague, just a rocky block with a cavern for a mouth, gnashing in the air. And as this titan stirs, all around it, snow begins sliding down the mountainside, whether shed directly from its body, or simply dislodged by the seismic reverberations of...

Well, the freaking mountain just STOOD UP.

"Yeah... probably the last time we come here," Jean has to agree, ruefully, as the float there in the air beside the Titan. "Question is, what do we DO about it now." From their aerial vantage, they can see not just the massive threat of the creature itself, but the risk to the town below, and to all the various ski resorts and lodges. Including the ones where the students are, as Kitty rightly notes. But just a warning won't be enough, not to evacuate everyone from the veritable wall of snow sliding down the mountainside.

Which apparently provokes Jean's decision: "I'm gonna try and handle THAT," she declares, breaking from Monet before expanding her aura, the crackling energy bursting out into those familiar flaming wings. Then she dives toward the snowy wall, her bird-like aura growing as she moves.

The giant, meanwhile... doesn't immediately do much, except perhaps to reach out toward Rogue, King Kong style. Unlike its smaller counterpart, it isn't fast, though!

Meanwhile, James' slugmatch continues. As he fights, he'll come to a conclusion: he should be winning, if this creature played by any kind of normal rules. If it bled like a man, or a beast. But it doesn't. He wounds it, smashes it, eventually learns its patterns and starts getting ahead of its savage blows, yet the damage he's doing to it just isn't really slowing it down. Even compared to his own stamina, this thing is tireless in a way beyond life, beyond death.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue bursts from the chest of the icy monster. She flies out in to the air, shaking her hair loose, sending ice shards all around her as she floats in front of the big baddie. Her eyes look him up and down, before she shakes her head. "Boy. This was a mistake... I mean. Wait---" She looks down toward the forest floor below, the monster had apparently been locked up inside of this thing all this time?

She looks up to its vacant looking face. "Sorry for stickin' that thing ... up... inside ya... for a year. I mean. I doubt ya wanted that."

When he reaches up toward her she just flies up away from his hand...

"Hey now. I'm a Lady. Ya gotta treat me nice!" She taunts him then before flying over one of his shoulders now to get behind him...

<"We need to melt this thing, Jean. Let Bobby handle the snow down there already! You come fly inside the chest hole I made, and take this thing down!">


Bossy!

James Proudstar has posed:
James Proudstar stops, he just can't get ahead of the beast on damage. He takes in the mountain monster, his lack of a reaction is probably the shock. Jim notes the heart shape in its chest and he makes a call, dodging the next few blows it takes him a moment to get a hand on the beast and he launches it at the Mountain golems chest. "Heads up Rogue!" Jim calls

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would just sort of flat out stare. Monet St. Croix does not stare. She does not. This has never happened. Not at all. She is immediately in denial of this occuring. As Jean is giong to drive at the avalanche, Monet is just going to pick up one of those trees that had been knocked over and would hef the trunk. It strains her; she's strong, but nowhere near as strong as Rogue.

Then she's going to then as Rogue would charge in over at the thing, move to try and attack it over from the side! She's evaluating with her eyes for points on it that were joints or where ice-tatchmetns were made. Then she's moving to try and swing with her club to try and strike it with full force over there! Taking a long time to fly forwards to build up momentum and inertia and then swinging to try and clock the thing over in a joint location if at all possible! Altering her trajectory to be out of the way to let the monster-ball not be impeded!

Bobby Drake has posed:
Seeing the giant, the Iceman frowns a bit. "I don't think the trick I pulled on Scott's gorilla is going to work on an ice giant. Better tell him his lessons are useless." Then he hears, and perhaps more importantly feels, the onslaught of snow and ice cascading down towards the town and the resort. "Oh no...the people..." He takes off at a flat run, and then fires off a chute of ice to give him some more speed.

Bobby focuses his attention as best as he can, but realizes there is just no way for him to stop that sizeable amount of material, nor with that momentum. Suddenly, an idea occurs to him, and he accelerates towards the piles rapidly descending towards the village. With a quick slide he places himself between it and the village, turning his back to the cascading destruction so he can focus on the village. "MATZAH!" he yells, and then he closes his eyes, focusing all of his energy. Instead of the avalanche bearing down on the village, he pushes outward in either direction. Redirecting the massive energy of the flow instead of trying to stop it, he sends it out wide on either side. Jaw clenched and grunting from the effort, the Iceman drives a wedge strong enough to send the tumbling ice and snow far enough to either side of the town, sparing the buildings and its residents. The roads probably will need a good plowing, though, when all is said and done.

Jean Grey has posed:
<"You got it, Bobby?"> Jean's number one concern is the mass casualties, so she takes NO chances there. It may be a tiny town, but its a town. Its hundreds of lives, versus the handful of them.

Only when she has confidence that he does, does she break off to leave him the avalanche, instead wheeling around in the air to fly to converge with Rogue.

Once, Jean unleashes whatever she's got once she arrives, blasting the creature's chest. Ice melts, disintegrates... but refreezes and reforms as fast as she does it. If it were only so easy. "Damnit, I-" She keeps turning it up, but it keeps reforming. "-I can... feel it, hear it. There's no- this thing is as old as the mountains. Old as the world. But normally it sleeps, because it can't-"

Below them, James sends them a PRESENT, hauling the beast into the air, before fastballing it in their direction. The creature lands in the chest cavity, crashing amongst the jagged ice, but again slowly hauls itself upward. Alive. Snarling outward at them in hunger.

Monet attacks the giant, but it is... truly, truly pointless. She's punching a mountain. Maybe the Hulk could do it. Maybe not even. But just like as Jean makes contact with it, she's struck with a... sense of the creature, through her own telepathy.

And below them, the great white sea parts, making a white 'V' around the town of Killington, as the snow spills out into the rest of the basin around it. At least those people are safe.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue looks down to see what James had thrown up toward the giant Titan of Ice. She flies around again, avoiding the hand while Monet goes for her tree bat approach.

Looking down at the town below, Rogue flies quicly down toward it. She spies some vehicles on the road that she moves toward. One of them is very close to the snow coming in across the slopes... She flies down in front of it, and makes eye contact with the old couple sitting inside it. They both have HUGE EYES.

Rogue ducks under the truck then and floats up beneath it.

The truck starts to fly now too, turning around and heading deeper back in to the city, toward the gas station parking lot that she carefully brings the truck in for a landing at...

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would rub at her temples and slowly hiss. "This.. Thing.." She's picking up thoughts. Less than thoughts, emotions. It's a thing. Just.. Beyond her comprehension and understanding. Beyond her mind. Something old and ancient, beyond her ken.
    "It feeds upon humans. Their life, emotions.. If it is not removed from the area or redirected then it will feed upon the nearest source even if we slow it. It simply -is-."

Bobby Drake has posed:
There are not really any words coming through the psychic link with Bobby. Well, one kind of word, repeated over and over again. "HODOR. HODOR. HODOR." Adopting a mantra and using it to focus his attention, his entire body working to help focus his mind. The avalanche is no mere tumble of snow - it is a long and sustained drive of ice mixed with rock, and Bobby knows that any failure of will on his part will see it swallow up first him, and then likely the town. And that will not happen on his watch.

He drops suddenly to a knee, eyes closed, his arms wavering a bit. The shell of ice on his body starts to crack as he diverts his energy towards maintaining the wedge, and not his own protection. Because all of the protection of the world won't help if the wedge fails.

Bobby starts to wobble a little bit, but then he repeats his mantra again. "HODOR. HODOR. HODOR." The path of the avalanche seems to suddenly extend out further, a new surge of will, some deep reserve, pushing hard against it. Finally the tumbling snow and ice begins to recede, the fury of the avalanche spent, and the last bits of it set forth onto a path to the side of the village, sliding down past the grateful eyes of onlookers who no doubt came out to see the huge flow of ice and snow as it zoomed past them.

As those last traces of avalanche slowly come to a rest, Bobby pitches forward face first into the snow.

Jean Grey has posed:
"There's no chance we're removing IT," Jean calls back. And this is true. Nothing they've got is going to budge that thing. "But it doesn't eat on its own!" she echoes back, pointing at the creature now standing in the icy center of its chest. "It eats with THAT, right? Or with those zombie things, that Rogue met."

Now, though, with Rogue flown off, the giant seems to have taken more interest in Jean. She is a flaming bird creature, after all, and perhaps in some mythological sense of things, exists in opposition to it. Or she's trying to burn it and it doesn't like that. And so it reaches out again, although faster this time, as if it is slowly coming to its full senses, and abilities. A hand of ice and rock closes around her, but doesn't QUITE succeed, held back by the aura, the psychic flame pouring out between its rocky fingers. It's like its trying to crush something that itself has no true form, its strength pushing in against the Phoenix-aura.

<"Ah, I can't- the smaller one, Rogue!">

Rogue has posed:
Rogue has moved back out from under the truck now, and is hovering a good 100 feet in the air again. She's looking at where Bobby is though. Come on, there's a lot of things going on here, after all!

But at the sound of Jean dealing with the Titan, Rogue turns back around, huffs and flies toward where the team leader is. <"The thing in its chest?"> Rogue questions.

<"I gotta go back in there?"> She huffs as she flies around the icy monster back toward the hole she put in where its heart would be.

She peers inside it as the big Titan grabby hands at Jean, then she leans forward and flies inside to find that beast that James had thrown.

"Heya, Mistah. Fresh meat, waitin' for your sinister ways...." She calls inside the chamber now....

When she spies it, spies her, and she just bum rushes it, trying to tackle it!

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix is moving to fly along to backup Rogue, and then she's darting to try and assist her once she's gotten the general gist of what Jean's saying! She's flying along at speed to move to try and be the backup for anything that might have not been caught up by the southern belle!

hitting her best speed in the close confines and trying to not go on teh same direction as Rogue to compress their maneuvering position.

Jean Grey has posed:
As before, the creature is eager for battle. Or perhaps not so much battle, as simple slaughter. It lives to eat.

But in a way, so does Rogue.

Jean is still struggling in the giant's grip, using all her power just to hold it back from crushing her, yet in the moment, with a wince, she projects, just to Rogue alone: <"Sorry for making you do this.">

It greets her with its iron-strong claws, rips into her she collides with it, and then, getting a grip, even leans into bite her shoulder, sinking ice-cold fangs into her flesh. And then, in that moment, it all rushes into her. Rogue feels the hatred, the violence, the raw evil of the 'Killington Killer.' It was never one person. It was every person. Every murder, every moment of violence and evil. Those sins birthed Giwakwa's children, and those children feasted in their primal progenitor's name.

And now, Rogue is taking it all back. Maybe it isn't alive in any sense of a normal person, but there is an animating force, that flows back into Rogue. And in the end, what is left there in the snowy center of the creature's heart is no longer a beast with terrible white fur, fangs, and claws. But a man, naked, pale, and cold, a blue mark at the center of his chest, over his heart, in an echo of the giant itself.

In that moment, everything goes silent, save the quiet rumbling of the snow as it tumbles past the town, settles in its new positions. The grip on Jean seems to weaken, her fire bursting free of its grasp. And the giant... simply stands.

And then, with a low rumble, starts to descend, not tumbling, but sinking down into the ground, melding into the earth below it.

Rogue has posed:
When the creature lunges at her, Rogue was in the process of spinning it around, and shoving it toward Monet! She shouted at Monet in French to hold it still while she prepared to.

And then it bit her!

Nearly invulnerable skin or not, Rogue still tanks the bite, then shouts and closes her eyes. The absorbtion process starts, and all the creature's thoughts and memories flood in to her!

When it is said and Done, Rogue is drifting down toward the ground, with the naked guy still in her arms, until she can find a place she thinks is safe to let him go, and that's when she lets go too, and just drops down to the ground below.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix is looping around, glancing over at whatever the Rogue-A-Pult is doing.. Then as existence seems to not be shambling and collapsing atop them, she's going to dive down towards Bobby to try and pick him up so the group can go along. Looking over her shoulder at Rogue.

"I think you have invented a new fashion template." To the.. Very unique state of Rogue's hair thanks to being in near supersonic combat with the giant eldritch abomination ice monster.

"I shall request upon the staff's expense account for a full week of spa treatment to help me get over the stress from this vacation. And let us never do it again."

Jean Grey has posed:
Once freed, Jean flies down to the ground, searching out with her mind to find and confirm the locations of all the members of the team, many now unconscious for one reason or another. But Kitty has done a good job in rescuing Jamie, and Monet soon finds Bobby at the point where he stood in defense of the ill-fated town of Killington. A quick ping even finds the various students at the lodge, in the process of evacuation. To her great relief, everyone seems alive and well.

Well, everyone seems alive.

Jean sets down near Rogue, immediately looking at her in concern. "You OK?" It's rhetorical. She can guess, and the answer isn't a great one. "Let's... I guess we can take this guy to the Sheriff, whoever he was. Whoever started this killing spree, I guess."

True to Monet's suggestion, she looks exhausted. "Yeah. Guess we'll need it. Someplace warm, this " The woman shakes her head, looking guilty. "Alright. Let's... let's head back. We're gonna have to figure out about transport and what they're doing with the roads, but that can wait."

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix would nod ove rat Jean, "Yes. Let's just buy an island somewhere in the Carribean and go there for the future. I'm sure that the Professor can afford one. he seems to have a most varied portfolio. I don't think that would break his expense account."