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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"Oh, thanks!"

But Molly doesn't hesitate to scoop everything up and run after Howard as quickly as she can - which isn't as fast as he's going, or as fast as she could be going if she weren't making sure she didn't drop anything.

Yep, there are rocks bounding aggressively around the door, though they explode outwards as Howard and Molly emerge.

"That's right, pay attention to me!" Nico shouted at the Fearlings. "Pay no attention to the in-coming pit-crew! All your beady little eyes on me, or I'll make you regret it!"

Molly was still okay. Good. Now she just needs to keep the monsters distracted while Howard puts the sleigh back together.

Ugh, next time, she was going to demand sturdier transport.

Shawn is finally making progress toward the sleigh again, ducking, running, and dodging the fearlings now rather than trying to beat them off.

As he approaches the corner of a building, speeding up at the sound of voices ahead, his vision abruptly blurs and is overlaid by a grainy image.

—somewhere new, but still the amusement park. A stretch of old wooden roller coaster curves over the path that Molly and Howard are taking back to the sleigh. Something dark surges up against the support struts. The wood creaks, gives, and a section of track comes crashing—

Just as suddenly, Shawn's sight returns to normal and he narrowly avoids smacking face first into the side of the building.

"Wh- What?!"

He stumbles around the corner and is greeted with a now-familiar sight. The same stretch of coaster, still intact. His training kicks in as he identifies all the important elements of the scene—the sleigh, the tracks, the running figures, the mass of fearlings swarming toward the struts, Nico's attention focused elsewhere—and they click into place in his mind. What he just experienced was totally nuts, but there will be time to panic about that later. For now he's barreling towards the sleigh, arms flailing, and shouting as loud as he can:

"Move! Out of the way! TIMBER!"

Molly almost stops entirely to look at the new guy, what's-his-face, running towards them, and--

She's smart enough, when she hears something creaking out of her field of vision and someone's shouting for her to move, to fucking book it, and she puts on as much speed as a 12-year-old in reasonable shape can be expected to. It's not much, but it's more than she would have otherwise.

Hopefully, it'll be just enough.

Howard's a fast runner, even faster when he's not laden down, and so he's a good twenty yards ahead of Molly when Shawn starts shouting. He doesn't think, doesn't consider the fact that he's already decided he doesn't like Shaun, doesn't even blink; he only reacts. He looks up, sees the danger, and throws himself to the side.

It's just barely out of harm's way. A few pieces of roller coaster shrapnel and dust cover him as he rolls back to his feet. A splinter that went zipping past left a shallow gash under his eye, and it starts to bleed. His palms and wrists are skinned from the ground.

"Hat Girl!" he yells, although he doesn't stay to see if she made it out. Instead he has to stay focused, and that means baseball-sliding under the sleigh and hoping she follows him with their supplies.

Molly yelps, and does get whacked in the back of the legs by a small piece of the falling timber on the edge of the crash, sending her sprawling for a moment. But she's both okay and back on her feet within seconds, grabbing Howard's supplies and scrambling towards the sleigh again as fast as she can.

When she reaches the sleigh, she dumps Howard's supplies on the ground without ceremony.

"It hurt!" she calls to Nico, looking a little shaken. "When I got knocked down, it hurt!" It shouldn't hurt when she's got her powers going, should it? It wasn't enough to slow her down really, but it wasn't quite the same level of untouchable that she was used to.

"We'll figure it out when we get back to base!" Nico answered, trying to keep her voice steady so Molly wouldn't freak out more. It was definitely freak out-worthy, but now wasn't the time or place. "Stick close to the sleigh in the meantime, I've got you covered. Help Howard, he might need a second pair of hands!"

In the meantime, she can put the remains of the roller coaster to good use:

"'Coast guard!"

The pile of wood and metal cracked into pieces before resolving itself into half a dozen large golem-like creatures that immediately set about intercepting Fearling attacks and trying to open paths toward the sleigh for the others. She felt her grip of the skipping stones spell loosening and released it, filing that away as another thing to work on when they got back to the Pole. The roller coaster golems were plenty to control right now anyway.

"Yeah, getting knocked down tends to do that," Howard says quickly. He holds a hand out. "Give me some wire or string or something, Hattie."

He can see it laid out in front of him, not visually but in his head, a glowing pattern of what's missing. As he gets things in his hands, it's like finding puzzle pieces, except sometimes the picture he's making rearranges. Necessity gives way to different requirements as the possibilities change and new avenues are explored.

"Keep stuff coming, Hats."

Everyone Loves the Sleigh

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