On the beach

[Mariuset]

Mariuset screamed, a huge blast of fire came from her mouth, aimed at the tentacle that was trying to grab her.

[Melody Martens]

Melody flung two more bombs at the tentacles to slow the thing down.

[Narrator]

The tentacles jerk back from the blast of fire though it keeps moving towards Mariuset, slowed down by the bombs first detonating near it's face, the ripping apart one of it's tentacles. The creature screams in pain but refuses to let itself be slowed down, despite the purple-black blood bubbling from it's wound. Some of it's arms are gesturing and the fog grows thicker as it tries to hide itself from Ryan's bird's-eye-view.

[Mariuset]

Mariuset turned and ran up the beach

[Melody Martens]

Melody's barrage didn't stop. She made volleyball sized bombs in either hand and chucked on at its face which would explode in a dazzling display of light and sound to stun the creature and another that exploded like a stick of dynamite as it slammed into another tentacle.

[Ryan Gabriel]

Ryan dove in between Mari and the giant Lovecraftian horror, kicking up sand as his foot dug into the ground to brace himself so that he could slash at the thing with his wing, the feathers glowing ominously.

[Narrator]

The creature staggers at Melody's distraction as the other bomb slams into it's side, seeming to do much less damage than it would have had it hit the tentacle. Instead one of those lashes out in a wide arc, trying to slam Melody to the ground. At the same time Ryan's wing slices through the air as well as one of the thing's hands, most of the hand and a chunk of thumb falling to the ground. The creature roars and a shadow builds in the fog behind it which quickly reveals itself as a huge tidal wave that comes crashing onto the beach.

[Melody Martens]

Melody dove onto the beach, missing the creature's tentacle slam by a hair's breadth. She tried to scramble to her feet, unaware for now of the incoming wave.

[Ryan Gabriel]

Oh... my... SHIT! Ryan half scrambled to his feet, not even really regaining them before he started flying, boosting up to top speed to try to grab Melody and Mariuset before the tidal wave was on them.

[Narrator]

Unfortunately Melody was off to the side while Mariuset had made it further up the beach. He manages to scoop up Mariuset and carry her far enough away from the wave.

Meanwhile Melody simply gets swept off her feet by the wall of water. The creature is somewhere nearby, occasionally she can catch a glimpse of tentacles or arms or god knows what next to her in the water but it seems like it's not interested in the helpless mutant being swept along. Instead the creature rides the waves after Ryan and Mariuset, reaching out and managing to grab Ryan's foot just as the wave breaks and loses momentum.

[Ryan Gabriel]

Ryan made a quick judgement call and decided that an uncomfortable landing was probably going to hurt Mariuset a lot less than this thing would. So he let go of her, giving her a little toss on the way to get her some extra distance before he spun in the air, wings slashing at the monstrosity. "Damn it... don't... make me cut loose..."

[Melody Martens]

Melody was knocked off her feet and swept underwater, and she definitely grabbed almost a full breath of water. She managed to find her bearings and surfaced, coughing and sputtering. Fighting hard against the rapidly receding water, she swam towards the shore but made little headway against the current and was at this point getting swept out towards the sea.

Desperate, she detonated a bomb under herself to propel herself upwards and forwards. It worked to some extent—she sailed about twenty feet through the air and skidded to a stop in the shallower water near the shore. While she was immune to the effects of her own powers, her clothes were not, and the sand and rocks scuffed her up pretty badly, so she emerged from the water bleeding from multiple scrapes, and with her clothes hanging from her in tatters.

“Alright you son of a bitch! Back over here!” she screamed, flinging more bombs at the thing.

[Narrator]

The creature reels back from Ryan, keeping it's distance for a moment while trying to figure out how to get past him. It doesn't seem to care about Melody, at least until her bombs tear chunks out of it's mass of tentacles. Turning it's attention away from Ryan it pushes it's squirming bulk towards Melody, several arms reaching out to grab her while it's maw opens wide.

[Ryan Gabriel]

"NO!" Ryan shouts, leaping at the thing. The glow around his eyes, his wings, his hands slid from golden to green-white as he lashed out again, this time aiming for the very lifeforce of the creature. Personal comfort doesn't have anything on keeping this thing from killing anyone...

[Narrator]

Ryan's hands sink into the thing, cutting right through it's thick hide as blood bursts out of it. Everything seems to slow down and fade away into darkness as the cold and strangely salt blood washes over Ryan. To everybody else the creature lets out a piercing scream, flailing at Ryan with the arms it has left, trying to dislodge him somehow.

To Ryan the creature seems to have disappeared as he floats weightlessly in a black void. Moving around feels strange, like he's stuck in molasses and there's a strange hum emanating from somewhere that seems to resonate all the way down to his bones. After a couple seconds it fades away a little only to grow stronger again after a while.

[Ryan Gabriel]

What's... that... Ryan was confused, disoriented, as one might expect by that sudden change. However, he'd at least been trained well enough to know to disregard that as much as he could.

He took a moment to home in on the hum when it grew stronger, then tried to fly in its direction. Is it my muscles that are slow? Or... everything?

[Narrator]

It's more everything that seems... sluggish, sleepy. The hum keeps coming and going, almost like the beating of a really slow, really big heart. The droning gets worse the closer he gets until it's ringing in his head every time it grows.

[Ryan Gabriel]

Ryan shook his head (or as close as he could in this environment) to clear it, then pushed on toward the throbbing hum. Get... there... fast... Don't know if... this will... be too much... He doesn't know what he'll do when he gets there... that requires thought, which is growing increasingly harder, but he hoped there would be some instinctive action he can take when he gets there.

[Narrator]

There's something pulsing in the darkness, like solidified shadow, and in the center of it is the faintest glow of light.

[Mariuset]

Mariuset lay dazed on the sand, stunned from the fall and by the hidden piece of drift wood that she'd landed on. She tried to struggle to her feet, but couldn't focus properly and her ankle hurt.

[Ryan Gabriel]

Bingo. As Ryan pushed on closer, he tried to flood the area ahead with his power, wanting to burn the shadows away with his light.

[Narrator]

The burst of light certainly does something even if it doesn't seem to illuminate anything. It's almost as if there's not really anything physical to illuminate. But regardless, the heartbeat seems to speed up more and more until there are no breaks between beats anymore and it's just a constant droning that grows to a fevered pitch the feels like it's splitting Ryan's skull in two as the faint shimmer in the darkness explodes outward, burning the image of something indecipherable into Ryan's mind that blots out every other thought.

Meanwhile in the physical world the creature seems to lurch and twitch and as Melody pelts it with bombs it suddenly splits open all over, bursting into a faintly twitching mess of limbs and guts, revealing an unconscious Ryan in the middle of it.

[Melody Martens]

Melody gagged a bit at the disgusting spectacle, but rushed towards Ryan to make sure he was alright.

[Ryan Gabriel]

Ryan was pretty unconscious. It would be hard for someone to be more unconscious than this unconscious guy, unless maybe they were dead.

[Narrator]

Ryan seems fine, if coated in monster guts.

[Ryan Gabriel]

Which, apparently, tasted horrible. Horrible enough that he suddenly gasped and bolted upright, then started spitting out whatever yech was inside that thing that had leaked into his mouth.

[Mariuset]

Mariuset managed to get to her feet. "Is everyone living?"

[Ryan Gabriel]

"Yes," Ryan panted. "Well, no. Not if you count the big tentacle monster."

[Melody Martens]

Melody, clothes barely covering her, waded into the yuck to help retrieve Ryan. "This...is....disgusting," she said carefully choosing her steps and finally offering him a hand to get to his feet.

[Ryan Gabriel]

"Yeah, believe it not? It tastes worse than it smells," Ryan said as he took her hand and made his way back to his feet.

[Melody Martens]

"I'll take, 'Things I don't want to experience first-hand' for 800," she smirked. "Are you okay?"

[Ryan Gabriel]

"Yeah, I think so. That was... what the hell happened there, anyway?"

[Melody Martens]

"You fisted it to death. I don't know. You buried yourself elbow deep in it and then you looked like you passed out."

[Ryan Gabriel]

"...You made it sound like that on purpose," Ryan said, smirking.

[Narrator]

The chunky bits of the thing slowly seem to dissolve as the blood seeps into the sand, leaving behind only the torn ceremonial garb of a Priest of Set. Not that Ryan or Melody would necessarily recognize it, but Mariuset probably would.

[Melody Martens]

"...Well...that was unexpected..." she remarked. "Are these the assholes that have tried to get to you before?" she asked Mari, trying to think back to the security briefings she'd read.

[Mariuset]

"I believe so."she said "The robes are those of the Order of the Crown."

[Ryan Gabriel]

"So there are more of... those?" Ryan asked, gesturing around at the ichor.

[Mariuset]

"I do not know, I have not seen its like before."

[Melody Martens]

"Well. Don't come down here alone then," she said looking out to the sea. "Assholes seem to be mighty persistent."