09-21-2016, 10:58 AM
Jade surged forward to catch Valerie, just barely keeping his head from cracking against the floor. She gently laid him down on the frozen ground, her body positioned defensively over him as she heeded his words and looked towards the roof of the cavern.
Dozens of pods hung from the ceiling, the bodies of trolls, dwarves and unfortunate travelers curled into the fetal position seeming almost like weirdly-shaped seeds through the greenish skin. Some were partly frozen from the cryopheonix's departure and glistened with hairline patterns of veins and ice. Trying to get a grip on them with her sense of Space was stupidly easy; the tentacles attempting to strangle herself and her friends, not so much.
They were just so wriggly, it was like trying to scrub an annoying speck of dust out from her eye! Her telekinetic hold fumbled and stretched in vain after the frisky flagella until Jade was red in the face from exertion, but still they continued to wave about and bar her from freeing the plant creature's captives. Tartaros' hail of steel rain sliced one tentacle apart that had managed to get close enough to wrap around her ankle, the amputated limb flopping uselessly to the ground with a squelch.
"There are just so many!" Jade exclaimed, acidic gorge spraying from the stump left behind, and turned towards her companions with eyes wide as the creature's vile blood was dark.
"We'll need more bullets, then," Tartaros called in answer, his injuries only lending a small amount of shakiness to his otherwise impeccable aim.
The dark-haired Witch huffed, stamping her foot down on a wayward tentacle with ferocious gusto. It burst like a pus-filled welt; Jade grimaced at the resin lining the undersides of her shoes, peeling it off with a quick telekinetic swipe before the acid ate through the soles. "That's not what I meant! We have to help those poor people and this overgrown ficus is getting in the way!"
"Not a ficus," Valerie chided weakly from his prone position on the ground. "A pitcher plant."
The Witch barely flinched as a flurry of searing light razed part of the tentacled mass into a blackened mess of smoking plant material and sap, pausing only to send a blinding grin Rock's way. With Karkat's sickles glinting in the corner of her eye and gunfire coming from all directions, they had a pretty great slash and burn tactic going. The creature was visibly diminishing, the remaining tentacles curling back into an almost defensive posture even as a few stragglers continued to writhe about as if they had a mind of their own.
With a flounce of displaced air, Jade bounced through Space in an electric green flash, reappearing at once amongst the dangling pods. The fizzy smell of ozone tickled her nose as she reached out to one of the pods, latching onto the petal-like edges with both hands. Then in one mighty pull she wrenched the petals down like the peel of a banana, extracting a sap-covered troll and deftly depositing them in a furrow of snow that lay below. Rebecca and Bec, she noticed, scrambled forward to investigate, the large wolfdog placing himself at all times between the trembling, sticky body and the Little Sister.
Again and again she repeated this process, relying on her companions on the ground to keep the tentacled vine-villain at bay. Instead of raining cats and dogs, it rained dwarves and trolls. Occasionally there was naught but an unrecognizable mass of broken down muscle and a few bones left in the sacs, and, much to Jade's horror and rising disgust, a teensy bit more.
All at once, a rush of frigid air came down from above. Jade's head jerked upward, eyes widening as she watched the bluish icebird spread its wings and send another windstorm of cold towards the plant creature, the length of its tail fluttering like shiny silk ribbons.
Opening its beak, the bird screeched and let loose a beam of the purest white Jade had ever seen, a miniature blizzard picking up and wrapping around the cavern.
Dozens of pods hung from the ceiling, the bodies of trolls, dwarves and unfortunate travelers curled into the fetal position seeming almost like weirdly-shaped seeds through the greenish skin. Some were partly frozen from the cryopheonix's departure and glistened with hairline patterns of veins and ice. Trying to get a grip on them with her sense of Space was stupidly easy; the tentacles attempting to strangle herself and her friends, not so much.
They were just so wriggly, it was like trying to scrub an annoying speck of dust out from her eye! Her telekinetic hold fumbled and stretched in vain after the frisky flagella until Jade was red in the face from exertion, but still they continued to wave about and bar her from freeing the plant creature's captives. Tartaros' hail of steel rain sliced one tentacle apart that had managed to get close enough to wrap around her ankle, the amputated limb flopping uselessly to the ground with a squelch.
"There are just so many!" Jade exclaimed, acidic gorge spraying from the stump left behind, and turned towards her companions with eyes wide as the creature's vile blood was dark.
"We'll need more bullets, then," Tartaros called in answer, his injuries only lending a small amount of shakiness to his otherwise impeccable aim.
The dark-haired Witch huffed, stamping her foot down on a wayward tentacle with ferocious gusto. It burst like a pus-filled welt; Jade grimaced at the resin lining the undersides of her shoes, peeling it off with a quick telekinetic swipe before the acid ate through the soles. "That's not what I meant! We have to help those poor people and this overgrown ficus is getting in the way!"
"Not a ficus," Valerie chided weakly from his prone position on the ground. "A pitcher plant."
The Witch barely flinched as a flurry of searing light razed part of the tentacled mass into a blackened mess of smoking plant material and sap, pausing only to send a blinding grin Rock's way. With Karkat's sickles glinting in the corner of her eye and gunfire coming from all directions, they had a pretty great slash and burn tactic going. The creature was visibly diminishing, the remaining tentacles curling back into an almost defensive posture even as a few stragglers continued to writhe about as if they had a mind of their own.
With a flounce of displaced air, Jade bounced through Space in an electric green flash, reappearing at once amongst the dangling pods. The fizzy smell of ozone tickled her nose as she reached out to one of the pods, latching onto the petal-like edges with both hands. Then in one mighty pull she wrenched the petals down like the peel of a banana, extracting a sap-covered troll and deftly depositing them in a furrow of snow that lay below. Rebecca and Bec, she noticed, scrambled forward to investigate, the large wolfdog placing himself at all times between the trembling, sticky body and the Little Sister.
Again and again she repeated this process, relying on her companions on the ground to keep the tentacled vine-villain at bay. Instead of raining cats and dogs, it rained dwarves and trolls. Occasionally there was naught but an unrecognizable mass of broken down muscle and a few bones left in the sacs, and, much to Jade's horror and rising disgust, a teensy bit more.
All at once, a rush of frigid air came down from above. Jade's head jerked upward, eyes widening as she watched the bluish icebird spread its wings and send another windstorm of cold towards the plant creature, the length of its tail fluttering like shiny silk ribbons.
Opening its beak, the bird screeched and let loose a beam of the purest white Jade had ever seen, a miniature blizzard picking up and wrapping around the cavern.
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Gamzee Makara Wrote:S’aight. After all, dogs have a tendency to motherfuckin’ bite.