longestnight_old | Everyone Loves the Sleigh

They'd had a few days to get settled in. In that time, the Yetis and Elves had been nothing but welcoming, making sure the gang had a never-ending supply of treats, cocoa, and eggnog, as well as more wholesome food to nosh on. Even though they had work to do - and seemed to enjoy doing it - the Yetis had been helpful in getting them all settled in, into rooms specially designed to each of their specifications. If anything had a want or need of something, like new clothes, or a new pair of shoes, they'd been quick to provide.

Jack and Bunny had done their part to make the new folks feel welcome, as well, by showing them around and socializing, but they'd been in and out constantly during the last few days. Some of the times they'd come back in, they'd looked a touch on this side of ragged.

True to their word, despite the fact that they'd been busy putting out fires caused by Kuk and Its minions, they had reached out to a few contacts of theirs to see about helping the others get home.

That was why Jack was gathering them all up on the balcony in front of the globe.

"Okay, guys, we have some good news. We managed to get in touch with an ally of ours. We think she can give us more information about what exactly you are. Like...how much you were changed to be like us, how the mechanics of the world have changed to pull you in. It might give us some headway in figuring out how to get you back home. She wants to meet you."

[ooc: Bendytimed to after they negotiate Tony being allowed to stay at the Pole.]

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Jack looked like he was trying to throttle the air with one hand.

He didn't know what to do to keep everyone happy because there wasn't anything he could do to keep everyone happy. Not when they all wanted different things, not with the level of distrust there.

That whole "the fate of every world there is" thing was getting to him a little. People stress being added on top of it was not really something he could deal with right now and it didn't help that everyone was tugging in all different directions - Mami wanted to fight because she seemed to trust them, Howard didn't want to fight and didn't trust them, and Nico did want to fight but it was because she didn't trust them.

Jack never thought he'd miss the days of having no human interaction but they were starting to inspire some nostalgia at the moment.

He and Bunny were not leaders.

"Listen, you little -"

Jack stopped.

That was because the birds had stopped. They'd been chirping and chittering and chattering the entire time they'd been here but now there was dead silence.

Far off in the distance came a noise that was in between the laughter of children and screaming, and dark clouds suddenly started to roll over the sun.

Jack's eyes went wide.

"They can't be here! It's daylight and the kids' joy should be shielding - " Another screaming laugh rended the air. Frost - no, more like a thin sheet of ice - spread over Jack's skin with a crisp noise.

"Everyone, back to the sleigh!" Jack cried out, his voice thin and panicked. "Now!"

Molly, to be perfectly honest, had lost interest in the conversation ages ago, and wandered off to poke around. Always within eyesight, so Nico wouldn't get scared, but out of earshot of regular conversation. She'd definitely caught some of the shouting, but as far as she was concerned, unless Nico was looking like she was getting ready to make herself bleed that was all the more reason to stay away.

She'd found a few odds and ends that looked interesting and made it into her pockets and was playing with a piece of metal pipe like it was a sword when suddenly everyone arguing went quiet for just a second, and a strange, kind of scary noise started off in the distance.

Clouds started to roll over the sun.

And Jack shouted.

Molly raced back towards the group as fast as she could, eyes already glowing because something wrong was coming.

"Nico!"

"Molly!"

Nico reached out to shove Howard in the direction of the sleigh as she ran toward Molly -- if the younger girl wasn't going to be able to reach the sleigh by the time whatever-it-was got here, Nico'd rather be by her side that too far to help.

"What's coming?" she shouted at Jack. "What's its weakness?"

This, at least, was something that Sam was used to. He reached back, under his shirts to pull his gun, carefully thumbing the safety off as he looked to the sky.

"Anybody who can't or doesn't want to fight, run for the sleigh." He looked to Nico. "Nico, fall back with them, please. They'll need somebody there who can fight and we'll need somebody to cover our asses when we pull back." He wasn't sure what she did, but he was pretty sure she had distance powers. That would be most useful in the sleigh, when they had to run. "Everybody else, spread out a bit. Stay close enough to cover each others' backs but far enough away we won't be hitting one another."

He wasn't always used to being a leader, but group tactics were drilled into his head by his father. Smaller group, sure, just him and Dad and Dean, but a group. And maybe he was only human, but he was going to make sure those who couldn't fight this were safe.

Part of Zac wonders just what an 'Oogie Boogie' is, but that's drowned out more by the sheer sting of what Howard's saying. There's a visible bit of recoil in Zac literally shrinking a bit, but before he can put together a response, Jack freaks out - a look to the darkening sky coupled with the strange noises gives a vague explanation why.

Really, all he knew here was that there was danger, and they apparently needed to get away from it. He straightens up, regaining that bit of height he'd lost a few moments ago, and raises his fists as he puts himself on the outer edge of the group, so that everyone is between him and the sleigh. He doesn't know most of these folks from Adam, but putting himself between important people and dangerous stuff is old hat to him now. Though, it's admittedly nice to be doing it without a Summoner yelling in his head.

He does turn back to Howard for a moment, though - "Well, maybe this will fall under when you care: you get movin' so we can finish this conversation later, little man." He then looks at the others, and nods at Sam. "You guys heard the man."

But Howard's not listening, not to Sam, not to Zac. He's listening to the basic impulse common to all humanity, that part that sees bad shit coming and wants to get out. He takes Nico's lead and bolts for the sleigh, moving quite fast for a guy with such short legs.

Whatever is coming can affect the weather. The fact that they're still going to take a risk with the flying sleigh means that whatever's on the ground is way worse.

This was a nightmare on top of a nightmare. Bunny's temper was as close to snapping as any set of mortals had been able to fray it. They had so much to worry about even before these people arrived, and now they'd been charged with a bunch of - of teenagers to wrangle.

There was the big problem - teenagers were a different animal from children, and neither Jack nor Bunny had ever had much reason to really learn how to handle them. It wasn't as though they'd ever expected to have to baby-sit them at the end of the world, when Jack was barely more than an eternal teen himself, and Bunny - Bunny was just rapidly running out of the temper to handle anything, much less all these angry, defiant kids who weren't accepting their label as "kids," all primed to defy over something different.

And that distraction had kept him too occupied to listen for ambush - which was precisely what had come upon them.

He whipped his boomerangs out, grateful when Sam took the tactical lead. Of the things he'd learned in his long life, group combat tactics were not one of them. He knew how to fight with the Guardians, and alone, and that was about all he'd had the need to know over time.

"What he said," he said, as he listened through the panic for what, exactly, was coming. "Ground beneath us is fulla lindworms, no out that way."

He gritted his teeth in frustration. That cut their secondary escape route off completely. It was the sleigh or nothing.

The childlike screams rended the air again, and he added, "-and fearlings. Loads of 'em. They touch a kid too long, the kids turn into fearlings themselves, so anyone still a child, keep behind the adults - and if I hear any arguments about that, I swear, I will knock you out and drop you in the sleigh myself!"

Howard wanted the kid gloves off? Fine. The kid gloves are off.

The trees around them rustled with sudden noise, chitterings that sounded as much like children talking as like leathery wings rustling in the dark.

"Ah, strewth."

He let both boomerangs fly, each completing more than a full circle before returning to his paws, slicing through several batlike creatures that emerged from the trees, before more poured out to join them.

Edited 2013-06-18 03:56 (UTC)

Shawn is, for lack of a better term, bugging out. He's got his hands up defensively, head swiveling, looking for the source of the terrible noises. But, as soon as those batlike creatures make an appearance, he lets out a high-pitched shriek and books it, arms flailing wildly.

Unfortunately, he has no idea where the sleigh is. He knows the general direction from the kids running past, but he's panicked and not thinking clearly and they had a head start. Doesn't matter. His biggest priority is to put some distance between himself and the monsters.

So much for that hero speech, huh?

Everyone Loves the Sleigh

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