2020.12.20:HoHoHorror

HoHoHorror
Santa and his friends were very naughty this year.
IC Date	12/20/2020
IC Time	Afternoon
Players	Branton, Theron, Heidi, Ben, Leif, Einar, Ulf, and Killigrew as ST
Location	An anchor store at a mall. Somewhere.

There's a ripple, a whisper in the spirits that the Fenrir bend an ear to. Something's wrong at one of the department stores. A warning, a murmur of foreboding filtering down.

Branton gets a nagging feeling. Go get a new tea pot. Not an electric kettle, but a nice, shiny bright blue one.

The big anchor department store is attached to mall, and there's signs everywhere that they have Santa and his reindeer for pictures! It's cliche, it's lovely. There's children and moms and bored dads playing games on their phones or texting their side piece while hauling around the bags of goodies that their wimmins have bought.

Near the Santa set up, complete with half pint 'elves', five honest to goodness reindeer with jingle bells on, is a display of cookwear, including a lovely, shiny blue tea kettle.

Oh God. The Mall! Theron doesn't know why he is coming to the mall, but here is is. He pulls his jeep up and he sits in the jeep a few moments looking over at his sword, ah baby. I know...you want to come with don't you. He grunts a bit then and he climbs out of the jeep, he leaves the sword behind...and the armor, gasp!....oh and the shield. "Next time. I promise." he says. Yes, he talks to his weapons sometimes.

Branton has learned to listen to those sorts of instincts and impulses. Between his oracle of a step-son, his own precognition, all his spirit dealings, and Herself's more heavy handed directives. So he gets his things together and drives around for a bit until he finds the mall. And the display with the tea pot. He meanders to browse the display, paying attention to the surroundings as much as the tea pot. Sure he's going to buy it, its what he came for, but he's also pretty sure these things are never just about a tea pot.

Ben pulls up in his truck right next to Theron's jeep. Heidi gets out quick and also leaves her weapons behind the seat. She takes a look over at Theron, and team Stonecreek gets a thumbs up. "Let's go in."

Leif is in the truck! Or was. Now he's just big and ready for near anything. He doesn't leave his weapon behind the seat, because hands aren't removable.

No weapon for Ben - carrying a sword isn't his style at the moment. Soon, maybe. "So... trouble. Do we know what sort?" He asks, looking to those who have assembled at the mall.

Einar rolls in behind everyone on his bike with a bit of a rumble rattle of the engine before he shuts it down and kicks the stand out. His vivid blues rake over the Christmas set up and he gives a confused huh even as he dismounts to join everyone else. No weapons? No problem. The biker guy usually doesn't carry for fear of getting smacked by Johnny Law. "The fuck we have here?" he asks of anyone who'll anser.

The whispers of the spirits get stronger at the mall, leading, guiding those sensitive to it towards the point of cheerful greeting. The people seem unaware, flocking and forming a long line. But those sensitive to such things can feel how not-right the scene is. The reindeer move and do reindeer things, but it feels hollow, like someone pretending just well enough that the plebes don't catch on that they aren't perfectly normal. Santa's smile is a little too wide, a little too toothy. His jacket lumpy in a way that doesn't seem stuffed with pillows.

Heidi pushes her way into the mall through the door. She's walking most likely with the Creek Gang, and she looks over at Einar, Leif, and Ben. Not a spirit savvy one, she'll be following the lead of the garou. "Oh look there. It's beautiful in here with all the Christmas decorations." She leans to catch sight of Santa once she passes lines of parents with kids.

"I hate malls this time of year." Theron complains idly to anyoene that wants to listen to him, but hey, he's smiling despite the muttering. "Look at that Santa Claus...If I was a kid, I'd be scared." he chuckles, poor kinfolk has no way of sensing if anything is actually wrong...just those feelings.

"Fuuuuuck man......." Leif murmurs to the group. You can almost see the hair raising on his arms. "This... kinfolk stay back. This is gonna get ugly REAL qiuck." He glances over briefly. "Not you, Branton."

Branton nods at Leif and considers "My priority is getting the civilians clear. Might be time for a fire alarm yeah?"

Einar gives his Cut a bit of a fluff to settle it onto his shoulders while the hoodie underneath gets a bit of a straightening as well. A clearing of his throat comes and he chuffs, "Never understood the fuckin appeal of a fatman in a red suit. Always screamed fuckin wives tale to scare children to me," he mentions and then nods. "We got fuckin trouble, anyone who ain't fightin shape needs to fuckin get," he agrees with Branton. Then will wait for anyone to deny the fire alarm thing. Let the punk biker do it, everyone expects trouble from him anyways.

Heidi nods to Leif and pulls back. She hears Branton and lifts a hand to acknowledge him. "Let me see if I can try and find one." She nudges Theron. "Let's see about getting a fire extinguisher. Those things pack heavy weight." She whispers.

"Yeah clear the people and we have to see about security...or an excuse for the rumble? You cant just fucking attack Santa Claus in the mall this time of year." Theron suggests with narrowing eyes as he watches the display with care.

There was not an Ulf, and then there was; he's just walking with the Crickmas Crew like he's been there the whole time. What sets him apart is that he's carrying two full shopping bags. Also he's wearing a Santa hat. "Did I miss something?" he asks, looking around in surprise. "Wait... was there an organized shopping trip? I wouldn't have come alone."

Branton nods at the lack of objection and waves off whoever was mentioning pulling the alarm. Then Branton glances aside and A trashcan by one of the cash registers that doesn't currently have someone at it starts to smolder and smoke. Smelling awful as some of the disposed packaging from the gift wrap station starts to burn.

"Isn't there always?", Ulf replies to Branton.

Heidi sees Branton telling her to hold off a bit and she waits until the fire is obvious. It has to get going before she actually does something. "Say when, unless you want an employee to pull?"

Ben is up front with Leif and activates some gifts as he rolls his shoulders preparing for this to get ugly. He's smart, so he looks for where the cameras are.

The flames need a moment to get enough steam to put off nasty smoke as the trash bag and the plastic bin itself start to go up. In moments the alarm triggers and the sprinklers go off, flooding the area.

Parents panic and grab kids and bolts, some sliding on the now-wet tiling. In a under a minute the place is empty.

Except Santa. In the panic, he's stuffed one of the kids into the front of his coat, and it's moving in a manner reminiscent of... chewing.

As soon as the panic begins, Theron completely loses all sense of himself. No armor. No weapon. It doesnt matter, he bolts towards Santa in a battle charge of the berserker, always so confident, so sure of himself. So ready for the fight.

As soon as someone moves aggressively in their direction, the ruse is forgone. Santa sprouts six more twisted arms, all ending in hooked claws that are spider-like, the limbs bending in the wrong ways. The elves drop what they're doing and their pale skin turns a sickly, green hue, the trio starting to puff up like putrid bullfrogs trying to attract a mate.

The reindeer are a whole different beast, rearing up on hind legs and displaying a huge mouth on their underbellies, the top halves flopping around like half-stuffed socks with faces on the. Eyes open up on the chest and the upper legs shed their guise to be revealed as whipping tentacles lined with hooked claws.

Things go Tannenbaum-shaped, and Ulf drops his shopping bags to dash toward trouble. You know, like a hero, but less inspiring. He shifts to Glabro as he goes, shouting, "Cry havoc!" and punching one of the Elfrogs in the... inflatey... pouch. Hard.

Branton scowls as the creatures transform and thrusts a hand towards the Santarantula, snatching the slobbered on child with his telekinesis. The kid gets floated to one of the main aisles with a straight shot to the door, which they take in a panic like everyone else.

Berserker Theron is always getting himself into situations that are dangerous, but when he storms in he ducks under a hand and comes up with a powerful uppercut to the fucked up Santa with a crack of bone and flesh.

Kapow!

He grunts out, taking a clawed attack in return that cuts across his jacket, sans the armor it manages to cut true. "Fucking Santa Claus..." he says, "No. Eating. Kids."

The frogling-elf that Ulf smacks -explodes- all over the place, the tile hissing and sizzling, as well as places the toxic nastiness sprays across the Ulfinator. Likewise, the one Heidi smacks ALSO explodes into hissing, burning nastiness.

Ben sees the kid getting snatched and Santa-Spider making a crazy dash run. He races after with a hard grimace as he glabro shifts. The kid goes floating by and he keeps pace with Theron before his BIG MIGHTY foot kicks at Santa's left knee to take him down and off balance.

Einar steps out from the back row and glares a challenge, only to be rushed by Donner. The biker wrinkles his nose and squares up with the creature angling antlers at him. Well, what's a Get to do besides charge right back? Ein catches the antlers and gets into a good old fashioned wrastlin match with a psychotic Fomori reindeer. What could possibly go wrong?!

In the beginning, there's no time. Heidi sees Ulf and his presents catching up to the group and she gives him that sordid, -shit is about to get real kinda smile-. Her head turns when everything erupts, and then she picks up the nearest metal candy cane decoration and holds it like a baseball bat. "You little fuckers."

The gross splash retaliates after Ulf goes in and the explosion has her reeling, when her own SMACKED elf, gets whacked. The burn, it makes her seethe. The fenris kin war cries the sound of the Valkyrie. Shit, is about to get real now! Rooooooooar!


Quick on the heels of the burning explodey goo, there's a spiked tentacles trying to grab onto Ulf's thigh, getting awfully friendly before it cinches tight, digging and engaging the Glabro. Similarly, Einar has his hands full of antler, but that leaves the tentacles of his reindeer free to slap around, trying to lay open flesh. His poor Cut!


"GaaaaaAAAAAAAAH! OW!" Ulf yells angrily as the Elfrog explodes all over him. "My sweater!" he shouts, pulling it over his head so that it knocks off his Santa hat, and he uses it to wipe off the worst of the acid spray before throwing it on the ground and shouting, "Why am I constantly ruining my clothes?!". Science may never know.

One of the Paindeer seems to have its sights set on the kvetching Godi, but not if The Wall has anything to say about it! Leif comes in with the two-hand hammer like a Starfleet badass, fists to muzzle and one big knee coming up to meet it! KAPOW!

The remaining Goolf (goo elf) toddles towards Theron where he's tangled up with the many armed santa. When it walks close enough, it inflates further and explodes, painting the both with the toxic green sludge (festive, at least!). It noticably weakens then battered Santa.

Santa, faltering as he is, tries to cocoon Theron up in all eight spindly, twisty arms, in the worst, stinkiest-stickiest-burning bear hug ever.

Branton nods as the child runs off and then he turns back to the battle with something in his hand. A button gets pressed and the something makes a snickt sound, expanding to become Branton's enchanted rapier and he heads to find another target...looking over the battle field for an opportunity to reinforce effectively.

Covered in the hot sludge, Theron cries out in pain, "ARGH! FUCK!" he glances over his shoulder then reels back and punches Santa right as he comes in to bear hug him. Then like any true berserker, he begins to head butt the monstrous Kris Kringle. *CRACK CRACK CRACK* Three times he slams his forehead into the monstrous claus face.

The berserker is putting up a fight, giving it his all, but he's taken alot of the direct assaults from the reindeer and the Santa himself, some of the blood dripping to the floor, soaking his jacket, a jacket burning away by the acid sludge, the materials steaming away in a toxic mess. On the fourth headbutt, Santa's face is concave and he falls to the mall floor, Theron begins to try and take his jacket of, still in pain.

Leif pulling a Big Show on the Paindeer snaps Ulf back to reality, and he sees another deer gunning for him. The Godi leaps forward and swings a BOMB-ASS fucking haymaker at his opponent, clocking that Christmasy sumbitch in his FUCKING REINDEER FACE! BAM! "Stay down!" he shouts, following the punch with a sharp elbow jab.

Leif spins around just as the deer comes his way. He gets stabbed in the shoulder, but that means that the DEER stops. Leif, in a fit of pure crankiness, grabs the deer by the horns with the hand that wasn't on the stabbed side, leans back and does his very best to shotput the thing. To some extent, this works. The deer is lifted off his feet just enough for Leif to heave it off to the side with a grunt.

Heidi pulls the zipper down from her hoody in a quick zeerpt noise. She shucks her toxic jacket in a fast shimmy since its sizzling now with singed holes in the fabric. Her eyes flicker from vanilla kinfolk human to a burnt yellow as she exhudes anger. A slight tremor moves through her and is felt from head to toe as the burning on her splashed skin continues to aggravate. She sees the tentacle deer coming in for Ulf and she instinctively raises her giant metal candy cane to charge, but Ulf has it going down! She looks to charge Leif's deer, but no, the MODI has it. WHO THE FUCK NEEDS HIT NOW! Heidi knows. The kin is seething! She sees the little reindeer bastard on Ben and goes charging for it. Her candy cane hits that deer so hard in the reindeer ass, that the metal stand on the cane breaks off and pummels to the floor like a drum cylinder. Claaaaaang!

Partially protected by the dead santa's grabby hands, the deer on Theron slaps and flails against Theron's back, nicking here and there, but not able to get a real good whollop on the battered, burning kin.

The paindeer locked up with Einar tries to lash the wolf with the tentacles, but can't break the hold on the antlers, trying to shake it's head and jerk free but strength is not it's forte.

The last of the upright deer tangles up with Ben, trying to keep him off the headbutted-to-death Santa, only to get a hip broken by the furious Heidi! The shift in weight allows Ben to properly engage with the deer and get the upper hand.

Einar growls aloud and even gives a sharp yip-laugh that is his way of dealing with pain. The tentacles were a surprise, but he's not out of the fight and so with the help of a bit of his anger he simply pulls the deer's head into his own twice, crick-then-cracking open it's skull while making his own bleed just a bit. The cuts that managed to get under his cut and even slice through it just make him more mad, and poor Donner has a very bad day being introduced to the solid tile several times rapid-fire. There are a few wet crunches but when Einar rights himself he's releasing the limp Pain-Deer with a sneering chuff. A glance around is a little obstructed, but he'll start moving towards the others to help if needed. Even if he's bleeding.

Ben sees Theron struggling and when Santa-Spider-Claws goes down, he is about to pummel his fists into that red faced puffer claus. The deer gets him tangled up and when Heidi bashed the deers hip in from behind, he uses his heavy weight to take it down to the floor, and bashes its head in. Slam!

Branton gets over to where Theron is entangled by the tentacled paindeer. Branton dodges around to behind the creature and stabs it upward through the soft spot at the base of its skull and it sprouts a third, metalic, antler/horn from the middle of its forehead.

The deer with the third horn goes slack, leaving the group to realize the extent of the mess to clean up. The toxic sludge from the elves has stopped burning, but it's -everywhere-. The paindeer leaked on things and are deflating to empty flesh sacks with all the 'air' let out of them. Santa stays curled up, like a dead spider, all those extra arms twisted and curling into towards the torso. At least the sprinklers are still going! Soaking everything.

Heidi sees Branton sticking the last reindeer with the spike of metal and then she sees his sword handle in hand. "Impressive." She upnods him as she tosses that big hunk of candy cane goo splatter and frees her hands of it. It makes a lot of noise when it clankers to the floor. "Theron, you need me to carry you or are you gunna be ok?"

Ben gets up from the floor and dislodges his deflated deer. He also nods to Branton as if satisfied things are finally dead. The big guy offers Theron a hand up if needed.

Branton slides the blade free of the enemy's skull and wipes it off as he calls out "Get all the bodies into a pile and I'll take care of them. Push it all together."

Ulf stomps the fuck out of the paindeer's head when it's on the ground, then pounds his fists on his chest and shouts, "Yuletide, motherfucker!". Once he's done huffing, he looks around and calls out, "Cry out for wounded!", eyes darting to look for Heidi first.

Einar groans a bit and is leaning against a pillar holding his middle with the intention of making sure he doesn't bleed out too much. He'll go back and snag Donner though, bring it back to the currently forming pile. He's probably still more pissed about his Cut than being cut.

He isn't used to being the one hurt, but Theron lifts a hand to Ben to help himself up. "Fuck...my...ow..." he is still stripping layers off so as to not have any more of that toxic attack on him. "Son of a bitch." he complains some more.

BOOT! Leif's had just about enough of this shit tonight. So the deer that was briefly airborn is kicked in the head and he rubs his shoulder where he got stabbed. Wounded? OH! Right. "Yo," he calls out. "But it can wait. Take care of everyone else. I'll start cleaning." And he does just that, dragging anything heavy to one central location.

Heidi calls out from her end of the hall by Ben, Theron, and Branton. She hears Ulf's voice and immediately answers him. "It's .. just a scratch!" That's her answer to everything. Slivers to chopped off limbs.

Heidi whispers to Theron, "But you look like shit."

"Everyone says it's just a scratch; this is not helping me to be doing triage," Ulf groans while taking off his t-shirt to mop more acid off of himself. He drags the paindeer to the pile Branton specified, tossing in his tee and his burnt Christmas sweater, but snags himself a red cable-knit turtleneck off the rack and pulls that on instead. "Please if you are actually hurt, say so!"

He notes Theron, frowning, and steps over to the Kinfolk before asking, "May I? You fought like a bear; it is no dishonor to be requiring aid after such."