Scene #7498: Suddenly! Forestman!

Owner	Pose
Cantio	EARLIER The coordinates provided by Cantio lead to an airship docked right by the ocean. Cantio's waiting there to greet everyone, dressed in white and pink safari shorts, an explorer-y vest with no sleeves, and a wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun out of her eyes. A red-haired man wearing a similar outfit in beige is seated at the airship's controls, and Cantio explains the situation for anyone that's forgotten what happened or hasn't learned it yet on the way to their true destination. An airship (not this one) carrying food and drinks intended for distribution through the Summer region was downed by an unknown entity wielding some kind of energy weapon. It crashed on an island filled with hostile wildlife, and the supplies have largely been scattered around the island. Strange tracks have been found near the north side of the C-shaped island heading south into a dense forest, where today's investigation will begin. NOW JACKSON (the red guy) is huddled up behind a tree, peering into the forest with a heavy machine gun in his hands and advancing from tree to tree as though he's expecting something to attack them at any moment. CANTIO is also there, carving a path through the thick brush with a machete in one hand (purple, of course) and a little box in front of her that's flashing lights at the ground in front of her every now and then to illuminate the TRACKS she seems to be following. The tracks seem to be leading her towards the SOUTH, heading deeper into the forest. There's NOISES all around the group, coming from various directions. It sounds like local wildlife, but nothing appears to be approaching the group just yet. More forest surrounds everyone to the EAST and WEST, and the beach where the airship is docked is to the NORTH.
Hibiki Tachibana	Previously, on AMAGON: TACHIBANA HIBIKI helped punch out a two-faced firebreathing lion. It's only the first of what's sure to be many horrible (and kind of sad, going off one of its expressions) beasts lurking around this island. But fearsome as it was, it was definitely not what was responsible for the crash...and not only that, there's still crewmembers to account for. As anyone who knows her could attest to, that's not something she can turn the other cheek to, no matter how dangerous it might be. That...and she relates to JACKSON's desire to see this done himself. Today, on AMAGON: Already clad in the mechanical armor of Gungnir, because this place necessitates it, she's assisting Jackson in keeping watch for any potential attackers - remaining low in the brush and scanning her surroundings with eyesight and vague martial artist girl danger senses both. She's seen firsthand what a stampede of the animals here is like, and she'd rather not have to see it again. She seems content to let CANTIO do the job of following the tracks. "Nothing yet...or at least nothing that wants to try to eat us." Hibiki pokes her head out from behind a tree trunk, peering from left to right with a squint before calling over towards Cantio. "Those tracks aren't from a person, are they? Any idea what they /could/ belong to?"
Captain Flint	Despite the idea the 18th century vessel anchored off the shore might give, the pirates which made the excursion on land are no less heavily armed than Jackson. Seven in total: Flint, the captain, a man with hard, studious seafoam eyes. He's armed with a period-accurate saber evidently graced by the hands of an offworld smith, as well as a modern handgun. John Silver, the quartermaster, in whom resides a kind of affable cunning when he's at ease, and an alertness which reveals how his mind turns over all the more-so, in stressful situations like this. His dark, wavy hair and wiry beard give him a scruffy kind of charm. Like Flint, sword-and-pistol is his preference, though his pistol is a flintlock. Five members of the ship's vanguard, its most capable fighters, are with them. Billy Bones, the musclebound boatswain, handpicked the other four men, and each of them carry duffel bags with equipment besides just their often startlingly modern weapons. Among the equipment are colorful smoke grenades to signal their location for the ship off-shore, though this would be a last resort--the 'signal' is for a barrage from the ship's cannons. They've embarked onto the island at the north end of the forest. "If you'd tell us what it is you're expecting to see," quietly utters Flint, "My men and I can ensure we're all equipped to receive it." To ensure that there's a viable retreat, Billy and the vanguard have been littering crude traps as they pass. Each one is marked with a pile of leaves and sticks in an X--obvious for a person, not so much for an animal. They're mostly simplistic 'land mines' fashioned from emptied cans, sharpened lids, black powder and shoestrings.
Cantio	Jackson appreciates the extra eyes! He keeps moving from tree to tree in tandem with Hibiki, having some more confidence in his step as thanks to their numbers being swelled by Flint's crew. Thankfully, nothing's coming to accost the group just yet, although the NOISES seem to be growing louder the further along the group heads into the forest. Every now and then, however, one of the rudimentary mines goes off, followed by the chattering of anxious animals fearful that they've been discovered and hauling ass in the opposite direction as the noise quiets down for longer moments. "We're looking for... Hm. I mean, at this point, the food supplies might be a bit of a lost cause, but if you see any red and yellow cans of..." She taps on another side of her drone, the robot apparently acting as a tablet at the same time. "... Bonk? Right. Then the food shouldn't be too far away, either. If it hasn't spoiled by now, anyw..." She pauses. "... right. The preservatives. It should be fine for a while." Jackson finally speaks up afterwards, still sounding anxious, but far less hoarse than the last time around. "It's the things that shot us down we need to keep an eye out for. Some kind of energy weapon, maybe, unless it was some kind of... Giant laser lizardman." He's also looking much healthier than before, and he doesn't smell like he hasn't bathed in days. "They're not, no... I don't think, anyway." Cantio answers Hibiki next, although she sounds uncertain as she speaks. "They're too large and... Um. Animal-foot shaped to be a person, but... Er. Animals usually don't walk on two legs, right?" She gestures at the tracks she's following, illuminating them with her drone to reveal a weirdly long gait that would be much too far apart for something walking around on two legs. Her question is answered rather soundly as a pair of rabbits, each the size of a small human child, approach the group. They stare at the group wide-eyed as if sizing them up, but what's stranger than their size is the fact that they're walking around on their two hind legs. They make some kind make some kind of threatening rabbit noises, then rear their heads back before spitting globs of vile acid towards the group!
Captain Flint	"I see," says Flint. So, mostly animals, with someone armed and entrenched further in. "Fan out. Set up a crossfire." His men begin to take up positions at the front, as the land mines occasionally pop off in the distance. John Silver, peeking around a tree, is nearly splashed by the acid, saved from burning only at the cost of his equipment. Dropping a smoking, melted duffel bag, he calls out. "On me!" As he moves to a less exposed tree, he is covered by several lines of lead, expertly broken up after Flint barks another order. "Don't overcommit!"
Hibiki Tachibana	Hibiki is glad that time off-island did Jackson some good. Seriously, he was pretty rough off last time. She was a little unsure about Flint's gang of seafarers at first too, but also a lot like their red-haired flyboy, any doubts are pretty quickly put to rest by the way they carry themselves. That, and the very up-to-date guns. And the explosions that occasionally ring out from behind them. The bigger the party, the better! "...I wouldn't be surprised if a laser breathing lizardman actually did do it," she says towards Jackson, completely seriously. She's seen some things. At the same time, it's hard to imagine the culprit being something that's /not/ the local wildlife, if only because the island has seemed very much uninhabited and untouched to the outside world up to now. If anything like that existed, it'd have to be hidden deep inside this forest, maybe. "..."And be able to stand up to everything here..." She finishes her thought out loud, in a mumble to herself. She takes a momentary pause from her watch with Jackson to investigate the spotlighted track herself, and is about to express some doubt when the things that are potentially responsible reveal themselves. Right in front of them. Oh. They'd be adorable enough to pet if they didn't have the ability to try and melt them, and that hesitation catches Hibiki just long enough that her hasty attempt at a dodgeflip backwards is too slow to avoid getting smacked clean with a blast of acid! "Bweh--!?" An almost uncharacteristically high pitched squeak of surprise comes out of her as it takes her back into one of the trees - which she uses to help spring herself forward a second later, casting off the fluid in the process. The slight melting of some of her armor doesn't stop her from going to deliver a flying knee towards one rabbit, followed up immediately while she's still in the air with a rotating elbow strike, with the intention to send it (metaphorically) flying off-screen! "Even the things that should be cute are trying to kill us...! So we must be on the right track!" That's one way of looking at it.
Cantio	"I know I heard something weird when I was still out here. Something bigger than..." Jackson doesn't finish that comparison, instead just shuddering uncomfortably as though he was reminded of something particularly unpleasant. When the battle begins, Jackson regroups with Flint's men, covering them with his machinegun to add some extra bullet density to their firing line. "Understood!" Despite his size, he doesn't seem to have too much trouble handling the heavy weapon's weight despite his aim being questionable at best. That doesn't seem to matter much, though, as the combined lead wall makes short work of one of the rabbits. Cantio, meanwhile, gets to work hurling healing spells about, still pointing the group along with her drone's light constantly illuminating the tracks and the (presumed) way forward. The second rabbit gets it a little bit easier, courtesy of Hibiki launching it into the distance like a fuzzy football except with her elbow. Her reasoning certainly isn't flawed, at least, as yet more fauna begin to join the fray (and find themselves gunned down in short order, thinning their numbers down relatively quickly). Hornets continue to be a pesky menace, not just because they're the size of dogs, but also because their stingers launch a dangerous array of burning slime instead of actually being used for any kinds of stinging purposes. Porcupines scamper around underfoot, their quills harder than steel as they make approaches treacherous while more of those projectile-spitting rabbits become more numerous by the second. What's strange, however, is the arrival of floating tortoises. For whatever reason, they're just floating around, traveling down the river and lingering close enough to land that someone could conceivably jump on them should they choose to. Stranger still, the tortoises float higher when someone does land on them, and the animals below seem reluctant to actually give chase. The strangest part, however, is that the tracks eventually split in two wildly divergent directions and sets of tracks. Lighter-footed tracks, as though whatever they came from were moving without being particularly stompy and considerably more careful about it. Those tracks continue along the RIVER where yet more forest and a coursing river is... actually kind of easily bypassed on these floating tortoises or if Flint's crazy enough to try and get a boat in here. The second set of tracks looks far more heavy and stompy, as though the source just didn't give a crap. They lead into a particularly DEEP DARK section of the FOREST where visibility is likely to be questionable. JACKSON and CANTIO seem to have their hands full, so they're not in any position to decide on how to proceed!
Hibiki Tachibana	After some flicking of her elbow, Hibiki doesn't waste too much time trekking along the path pointed out by Cantio's extremely helpful drone, while the healing spells work their literal magic on stifling any pain from acid burns. And will be helpful going forward, now that they're the ones who are going to be running into the crossfire. The hornets are particularly annoying things that she's more than happy to leave to the fine array of gunners they have available. She sticks to her forte; focusing on evading the barrage of stinger-launched acid, and after stepping on one porcupine and needing to stifle another fairly embarrassing sound of surprise, working on quite literally punting them out of the way where she finds them so that they don't harass anyone else moving forward. Acting the vanguard is fine by her, and she does her best to keep battering more rabbits out of the path as they go. Until they reach the DECISION POINT, and she pauses for a moment. After a glance back towards Cantio and Jackson, and a momentary pause to think - because she knows they don't have too long to mull it over - she shifts her attention towards Flint and his gang. "...If these tracks could have been made by one of the missing crewmembers, we have to find them. I'm going to check it out. Not to mention...!" Hibiki jumps, really high in fact, to land on top of one of the tortoises. As it rises, and she notices the change in demeanor from the things below, she lets out a satisfied nod and does so towards the next one, beginning a steady leapfrog to cross the river and keep following the small-footed footprints. Wait, is she really not holding up for a group decision? No time to waste, apparently. "It should be safer this way, too!" As she goes, she rears back her fists and punches them downwards, the pilebunkers within her gauntlets priming back and slamming back forward each time - producing scattershots of golden energy to shoot down towards the animals below, to help take some pressure off of the others!
Captain Flint	Flint's men hold their fire once Hibiki leaps in to deal with the second rabbit. "Where's the Sharps?" "Melted to hell and back," responds Silver, as he presses his back to a tree untouched by acid. "Single round," says Flint, prompting Billy and two of the vanguard with more modern weapons to switch their fire selectors as the buzzing of hornets kicks up. He's already made his decision. "Get across that river! Call out to Cantio if you're hit!" The pirates make a hard-fought advance through the dense forest, and indeed, one does cry out for Cantio's aid, having stepped on a porcupine and eaten a wad of burning slime while he was downed. Billy and another crewman end up pulling him along, until she can heal him, with Flint taking up the lead while Silver guards from the rear. He, and the other two crewmen, take potshots at the hornets, while Flint sweeps the forest floor and... "It will be," says Flint in agreement with Hibiki. "More visibility." But how can he and his men get across? There's a glance over his shoulder as Billy's AK is fired at another one of those rabbits. The Walrus could send a launch here to cross the river. It would take too long to get here. They could cross, in a pinch, by felling a tree, but that'd take time and manpower to do safely, both of which are at a premium while more animals appear. "The tortoises!" He shouts, slamming his bag on the ground to procure a weighted net. It's thrown over a tortoise to keep it in place by weighing it down. Once the wounded crewman is seen to by Cantio, the pirates cross, using the extra handholds provided by the weighted nets to hurry across the levitating tortoises to (relative) safety.
Cantio	Between yet more suppressing fire from Hibiki's gauntlet-powered punch lasers and the retreating gunfire of Flint's men and Jackson with Cantio bringing up the rear by just stabbing things, the group finally gets a chance to catch their breath. The animals, having had their numbers thinned out again and (most of them) seeming strangely unwilling to even go near the flying tortoises, retreat back into the forest. From above, the river is... Well, it's a river. The tracks are far easier to watch from here, as whoever made them apparently remained near the river to take a safer path like that chosen by these very Elites. With Cantio splitting her attention between patching the group up and making sure her drone keeps its lights trained the right way, Jackson's left to do the exposition about what the group's seeing! "Looks like... Three sets of tracks down there. Those don't really look like shoe prints, though, do they?" He murmurs while looking through a pair of binoculars that he totally had, passing them around for the others to see what he's seeing. "They almost look like... I don't even know. Some kind of GIANT CAT PRINTS, maybe? Like leopards or lions or something, but they're..." He guides whoever's looking a little more. "See those? By the tree." There's broken CROSSBOW BOLTS scattered around. "And a... Is that a HARD HAT?" It's easy enough to guide the tortoises down if anyone chooses to investigate the dropped things or the weird tracks or do something else. There's also the option of staying on the tortoises and continuing to follow the river.
Captain Flint	Billy's eyes follow Jackson's gaze. "Do you think it smelled the food and went looking?" "Cats of that size aren't known to be scavengers," says Flint from his tortoise. "But hornets aren't normally known to fling caustic mucus, either," admits the captain. "We'll head for the tree there, in any case," he decides, with a point in the direction of the CROSSBOW BOLTS. It takes his men some time to get used to riding tortoises, but the nets Flint cast over them serve as adequate 'reins' of a sort. When they arrive at the base of the tree, John Silver takes a look at one of the broken bolts, looking to see if any drew blood or otherwise struck true. "Either our friend's aim is terrible... or they were woefully ill-equipped to put down whatever was chasing them," he says, twirling a broken half of a bolt around his finger.
Hibiki Tachibana	Only when she's sure that there won't be anything else trying to fling gross acid at them or do some kind of superjump does Hibiki let out her breath in one big sigh, stopping on the tortoise she's on to sit down, let her legs hang over the side, and watch them fall back into the treeline. "Phew..." She's kind of surprised they don't like these things. Maybe she should take one of these guys with her? Like a hard-shelled good luck charm to keep them safe. ...No. Taking them out of their natural habitat would be the real animal cruelty here. They should be left to continue roaming the river, free and unchained by gravity. "CAT PRINTS...? Wait..." When she gets a turn with the binoculars, she scans downwards. The sets of prints get a frown out of her, with them not actually belonging to a person as she might've wanted, but the displaced items reignite her hopes. "Do you know if those belonged to anyone from the crew, Jackson? Someone definitely /was/ here after all..." She'll definitely be among anyone else of the group maneuvering downwards, deciding to inspect the HARD HAT in particular. She's not entirely sure what she's looking for on it - but some kind of sign of exactly how long it's been here is a good start. If she can find that out, they can get an idea of how long it's been since whoever was wearing it has been here. "I hope they're not far..."
Cantio	"Could be. But those steps look too long to be of a cat. It's like one of those rabbits, but even bigger." Jackson grimaces, rubbing his head in frustration before reloading his gun. "This really doesn't make any sense, but you got a point about the mucus thing. Or... Whatever it was coming out of them." As Jackson badly imitates the hornet's method of hurling acid with the power of pelvic thrusts, Silver's inspection of the CROSSBOW BOLTS bears some fruit. They're extremely primitive looking bolts, most certainly not by a master or by machine. They were likely made by hand, but whatever these bolts were fired at was fast enough to avoid them before something else stepped on these. That's not to say that they were all duds, though, as nearby the missed bolts is a BLOODY TRAIL leading further into the forest. It's not leading into the DEEP DARK parts of the forest past the RIVER, though, but somewhere else entirely. Hibiki's question about the CAT PRINTS, meanwhile, has Jackson finally stopping his embarrassing movements (much to Cantio's relief). "The crossbow arrows? No, I don't think anyone even had one of those things with us on board. Wouldn't need it, between... You know." He hefts the machinegun onto his shoulder, posing briefly and actually looking close to some kind of generic action hero. "The HARD HAT, though... We did have this one guy with us that was good with machines. Or so he said, anyway. He had this pretty... Uh." He furrows his brow, trying to word it in the most polite way possible. "Unique accent." The hard hat, too, has some hard and dried blood on it. It's on the inside rather than the outside, though, as though the wearer had suffered a head injury with it on before it was removed. It's also missing a couple of parts from it, as though something had melted through the material. Between that and the blood stains, it's likely that the injuries happened a couple of days ago, and the BLOOD TRAIL looks to be roughly the same level of dryness.
Hibiki Tachibana	"You did, huh..." Thankfully, Hibiki was too focused on her item investigation to see Jackson bring his power to bear. So this is from someone they're looking for, but the bolts aren't. She's not really sure what to make of that at first. If he was some kind of engineer, maybe he made a crossbow to defend himself with? "Hmm..." There's a long moment where she takes note of the blood on it, and also what seems to be damage. "From one of the animals, probably," she murmurs, when she realizes it's from being melted away at. Her first instinct is to assume the worst, and there's a pursing of her lips at the thought of being too late...then she actually thinks about it. Maybe not--hopefully. She'd have assumed something very unfortunate would've happened to the body, if not for the trail leading away. Not that that means something awful didn't happen, but it does leave the possibility of hope. "...Whatever happened, I think the blood in here and that BLOOD TRAIL belong to him. He must've been injured, and kept going on...or maybe whatever's responsible took him that way." The frown on her face only deepens, as does her need to get to the bottom of this. Would the oversized cats responsible for these tracks go through the trouble of dragging their prey off? Nothing is off the table when it comes to this island, as the others said. "It looks like we know where we should go next." She looks between the others for confirmation--though it's obvious she's antsy to start following this trail as soon as possible.
Captain Flint	"What else can you tell me?" asks Flint, occupying himself with freeing a porcupine spine from the internals of his pistol. The alternative is watching Jackson's absurd pantomiming. "Well... these are pretty crude. And this break--I can tell by the dirt that it's been stepped on." "Too fast for them, then," concludes the captain, tossing aside the spine and testing the action on the handgun. It's broken. "What have we got left?" He asks, tossing it into the water. He's tossed a duffel bag... by a pirate sweating buckets. The man looks like he's on the verge of collapsing, and his expression upon being relieved of this weight is nothing short of beatific, for just a moment. "Fuck," Flint hisses, at the weight of it. "Were you carrying that this whole time? Fucking hell, man," Billy says in astonishment. The crewman wipes his brow and sheepishly nods. "I'll carry it... for now," says the captain. "But from now on, don't bring this unless myself of Mr. Silver requests it expressly." Upon Hibiki's assertion, there's no argument from the pirates. "Sure," says Silver. "That seems like our best way to track down the supplies, too."
Cantio	"The blood trail.. Yeah, that's probably our guy. Whoever shot him must have gone to finish the job." Jackson grimaces again, already starting to stomp off with the machine gun in hand to join Hibiki's lead in following the trail. He's scowling a bit, but he's trying to keep his cool even as he looks ready to start firing already. Cantio, meanwhile, definitely has her emotions in check. That, or she's just distracted as she looks in awe at the duffel bag and its weight. Surely there must be something wondrous inside it! She's got enough sense to not make her glances too obvious, but... Well. She's pretty bad at hiding her interest in seeing what's hidden in there. Once the group decides to follow the trail, their way forward is filled with even greater treac-actually, it's kind of easy for once. Animals don't accost them on their way along the path, and they don't even need to try particularly hard to follow the trail. As they follow it, the non-cat tracks become heavier and more spread out, as though whatever made them had started running. Bootprints are mixed with those heavy tracks, eventually blending together until the grass is outright messed up by something heavy being dragged through the dirt outright. The cat tracks, however, are still as light and even as ever. They're even deliberately avoiding those bigger tracks and the bloody trail, as though they were following this trail as well. Following this trail eventually leads to everyone hearing the familiar sounds of combat coming from something that is most definitely not any of them. Jackson's already moving into cover by a tree already, pointing out a rather conspicuous clearing in the forest. Said clearing looks like it's been cleared of trees deliberately, perhaps to make room for all the scorch marks in the grass and to provide a convenient place for several animal men to have a fight. Also, there's a bunch of animal men fighting. Bipedal rhinos and lions rush about, relying on their bulk as their primary forms of attack while bipedal elephants howl loudly and blast gouts of highly pressurized water to keep their foes at bay. (Or is it low pressure? I forget which.) Their foes: A trio of yellow and black spotted men with cat-ish features wearing white shirts and pants, two of them inexplicably armed with a crossbow and two clubs (respectively) while the third is just huge. The club-wielder and the giant are busy keeping the rhinos and lions at bay, but the numbers difference is proving to be a bit of a problem for them. With the Elites' arrival, though, the animals seem to notice them in unison, although it's only the rhinos, lions, and elephants that seem to take offense. Individually, they're not too hard to avoid. As a stampede with the elephant men adding their water blasts to the mix, though, this could prove to be a problem. There's some assistance in the form of Cantio moving to the front lines, at least, with Jackson still bringing up the rear and gunning down whatever he can.
Captain Flint	"It's your lucky day, Mr. Packard," says Flint, as the stampede of lions, rhinos and elephants come trampling towards the pirates. "Keep them off the captain," calls Silver, already stabbing his crutch into the ground to leap forwards into position. The crew form a protective circle around Flint, swapping out positions as needed to reload. All the while, the captain is unpacking that bag, assembling a tripod with a pintle mount. With Billy's help, hefting an enormous six-barreled gun easily eighty pounds, given its size. Setting it onto that mount--and feeding a belt into it. "GET DOWN!" Flint's thumb depresses the motor control, setting the barrels to winding up--and then a near-unbroken stream of lead spews from its barrels, the captain's hands guiding it in brief bursts which nevertheless fill the air with bullets. "Stampede only," yells the captain as his prone crew cleans up after him with rifles and pistols. "I want those men alive!"
Hibiki Tachibana	It's both strange and relieving that they're not being assailed from all directions for once. It affords some time for Hibiki to think...and worry, as the tracks become steadily more convoluted as they move along them. She was already wondering what the deal was, and with the addition of all of these new ones and /boots/...what are they going to find? Whatever the case, these cats are still at the center of all of it...and as the sounds of battle come closer and closer, she pushes from a jog up to a run before she realizes it... And she skids to a stop at the edge of the clearing, not even trying to find cover as Jackson had. Part of that is probably because of the open-mouthed shock that comes over her for a few seconds at the sight. She had gotten used to the crazy creatures that this place had, after fighting them more than once. That wasn't surprising anymore. But it turns out Cantio was more wrong than she thought--these guys do walk on two legs. And some of them are dressed in actual clothes! They're not 'animals' at all--they're flat out beastpeople! ...Beastmen? Cheetahmen? These Cheetahmen are the ones behind those tracks...! She's snapped out of her pause when she realizes that attention has gone onto the unfortunate third party (them), and it seems to be the winning party here that hate their guts as much as the rest of this island. "Wait--" No time to talk. She's not sure /what's/ going on here, or why they're fighting, or where the man they're looking for is, but self-defense is something she does on instinct. Refusing to let Cantio take things on at the front all on her own, Hibiki rushes forward beside her to stand against the stampede. As a result of the improptu human shielding for the rest of the group to the best of her ability, she also eats a large brunt of getting smashed around, caught in water blasts, and knocked back into more trampling. It hurts. A lot! She has to seriously struggle to hold her ground and avoid getting knocked over, deflecting the damage to her armor and knocking particularly bulky rhinos aside. It also puts her exactly where she wants to be. "Cantio, jump! Haaaaaaaahhhhhh--!" Because once she's dead center in as many of them as possible, she waits for a free moment to spring upwards out of it--and then launch into a thruster-assisted kick straight down towards the ground, with a release of Gungnir's inner energy channeled straight through the heel and into her strike, which pushes through into the earth. And sends shining cracks for a dozen meters out in all directions, the radiance intensifying over several seconds before it erupts in an explosion of earth and light that shoots up like a geyser, threatening to blow a considerable portion of the stampede off their feet, and helpless up into the air - where they'll be helpless and able to be gunned down with impunity by Flint's gatling, if they're not sent scattering in all directions already!
Cantio	When that call to get down is uttered, the Elites aren't the only ones to heed the warning. The Cheetahmen, apparently having enough of a grasp of language to notice, take a dive just as a pair of rhinos are about to fling them overhead. The confused beastmen ram into each other, and they stagger around for what proves to be only moments before things start going to hell for the lot of them. "Right! Watch your head!" Cantio shouts to Hibiki as she leaps into the air alongside her, not quite having that same level of air mobility and remaining content to just stay in the air blasting downwards with her own lasers. The massive burst of energy hurls all manner of beastman into the air, making them easy pickings for the sheer quantity of bullets being spewed at them by Flint and his crew tearing them to bits. By the time the dust settles, the only survivors are the Elites that came to investigate this area, and those Cheetahmen. Getting up off the floor, the trio takes a moment to survey the damage. They stare at the beastmen's bodies, and they look from them to the Elites slowly, Flint's men and Jackson in particular. There's an uneasy silence, as if they're trying to figure out how to approach this level of carnage, and the one with the crossbow finally speaks up. "Thanks. You... Who are you? Why are you here?" He doesn't release his weapon, but he doesn't raise it. He seems to be torn between keeping it leveled at the people that just helped him and keeping his distance. "Did you come to stop Doctor Morbis, too?"