Scene #7372: Twas The Week After Christmas...

Owner	Pose
Sylvi	\ There are two pitches to this operation, in the frozen north of... Canada, actually? Huh. Who'd have guessed! One is sent to the Paladins, an SOS from a 'remote factory complex' that produced 'joy and happiness'. An anonymous tip from an informant known only as 'Master' had recieved a strangely high priority for the dispatch of heroes - and that was why you were all here. The man known as 'Big Boss', however recieved a different tip. A tape, in an envelope, fit for listening to for several hundred hours of extra content like all other collectable bits of audial lore. "Boss--" A voice growls on a tape. "No. Snake. I would never call you - not after what happened. But this is different. This isn't business, or personal. This is bigger than that." "Someone with the call-sign 'Snake' has taken Christmas. You have to make it right! This is..." His voice trails off into Kojima fade-in and slow-pan of of the Kris Kringle Complex (Or, KKC, because nobody wants the acronym gained through cute use of similar sounding letters) - a forbidding land of blasted obsidian dusted in drifts of white. A single access road pulls through strange, fence-like vertical black pillars of volcanic glass, sharp and jagged and warped all over. Deeper inside, the arrangement is that of a work-camp, with deep trenches and quarry dug-outs that festively-dressed elves toil away in, bound in strange serpentine chains that are affixed to poles in the work areas. There doesn't seem to be anyone minding them but they toil away nevertheless, blank-eyed stares into the earthy walls they excavate and the bitter, ice-slurry mud they work ankle-deep in. Deeper in is a defaced building shaped like a large gift box, the front door blasted open and the interior lit in peppermint stripe. A golden throne sits, just in the foyer, snapped in half with a torn red pillow spilling fluff nearby.
Big Boss	A snow-camoflagued jeep, complete with driver, brings Big Boss and anyone else who needs a ride towards the Kris Kringle Complex. He chews on a cigar as he goes down the single access road, repeating that audio message in his ear. He hasn't heard that voice in several years. They hadn't parted on amicable terms, but if he was calling him over this...that meant it was dire. Christmas is in danger. Santa Claus is likely in danger. Perhaps he had returned after his vacation last year...and someone swooped in to steal all the joy. Christmas was the most important time of year, so... The jeep navigates around pillars, before stopping outside the defaced building. Big Boss keeps his cigar in his mouth, tilting his beret, and makes sure he's armed. Large briefcase. Assault rifle undercoat. Pistol. Knife. The commander of Outer Heaven steps for the throne. His head tilts back and forth, making up for the bad eye, as he sets up radar. Not even drawing a weapon, he raises his voice. "Come out, 'Snake'. You've made a huge mistake."
Kale Hearthward	A mission! Kale likes missions. They're nice, usually self-contained tasks, instead of patrolling around looking for trouble (and often causing it as a result). Except on arriving... "This... doesn't look like it creates joy and happiness," mutters Kale as he observes from the sky. The hawk isn't intimately familiar with Christmas traditions and culture (aside from accidentally watching A Christmas Story three times in a row) but the Windswept Continent has its own gift-giving equivalents. And this most definitely isn't quote unquote 'in the spirit'. He dives, and lands near the big gift box building, figuring it to be some sort of headquarters - there's no visible guards elsewhere for him to ambush, so maybe someone's got some sort of mind control weapon hidden here... As he makes his way in, he draws Periactus, keeping the drill-sword in hand and at the ready...
Sierra Kereson	It couldn't be, could it? Could that jolly fat man really be the one in danger this time around? Even before reaching the staging area, Sierra's already gotta dollar signs dancing in her mind, the potential optics from pulling off such a daring rescue giving her more than enough reason to give her all in this particular mission. Sure, the chains binding the rather docile elves are somewhat worrying, and she has to be careful not to look too chipper once she heads in there should any footage of it get out, but she'll be able to spin this in a good way later. First things first, she needs to figure out where their captive is. With Big Boss announcing his presence, Sierra opts to try her hand at moving along the perimeter of the complex. Keeping a low profile might very well be difficult for her, though, between the giant witch hat that adds another foot or so of height clearance and the large brim making being hard to miss. Spotting the gift box building, she approaches it from the side, well away from the open door to instead head straight for one of the walls at the corner. Should she get there unimpeded, she'll just shove her face right through said wall to get a better look inside. In particular, she looks for big piles of money. stairways, and ominously closed doors.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	This year, Christmas has been under attack. Like, actually literally under attack by people with superpowers, not a strawman for people looking to be upset with too much time on their hands. The Green Knight of old was a figure symbolizing the transition from winter to spring, among other things. Fittingly, this Green Knight, a made creature of nanites and altered genes and cybernetics--the 'clerkly craft' of the future--shall not allow the holiday, or for that matter, any winter traditions, no matter their origin, to be endangered. When Big Boss calls for aid, his response is nigh-immediate. "I shalt conveie forth," he says, simply. His home--the High Wasteland, is aptly named, one of many islands suspended in perpetual flight, rich with the cries of insects and animals which once roamed a lush and vibrant planet, existing, as the islands, now only as memories of what they were. The Shadowlands, this dimension is called, a static portrait of the moment in which Rubi-ka was destroyed, a place where the vehicles and transportation networks of the barren desert planet cannot function--where, for most, travel in or out means going through the halfway-point city of Jobe. Or, if you're really brave and looking for a way out, you can always just jump, and hope that when your body passes through the dimensional barrier it's not too long a fall back to Rubi-ka. Bercilak likes it that way. It's fun. Dumped back into the real world, the Green Knight's armor manifests upon his body as he freefalls, followed by, benath him, the frame of his hoverbike, which rockets off towers the nearby warpgate... NOT LONG AFTER Kale will hear the roar of Bercilak's chemical thrusters before he sees him. The bike buzzes him, not close enough to burn, but definitely too close for comfort. As he comes in for a landing, that enormous axe of his appears in his right hand, the very un-camoflaged and in fact flashily decal'd bike pulling up alongside the jeep. "Stelinge Crist-masse, verily," says Bercilak, upon spotting the elves bound in chains. That will be the first order of business. Approaching the nearest such post, he attempts to use his strentgth to simply break the links.
Sylvi	Even as heroes approach from air or land, the slave elves don't look up. What's worse, if they're watched for long enough, you can even catch one of them just unhooking themselves from their Labor Pole to leave for a restroom and a smoke break, and then return to labor. Empty-headed and completely oblivious, they toil away on the twisted obsidian. Bercilak's breaking of their chains with his incredible strength causes some commotion and confusion, as this either puts the laborelves 'on break' that they immediately start taking, or get into a loop of 'but I already had a break, time to lock back in' of tinking the broken chain pieces together. They don't seem capable of higher thought. Inside the large gift-box area is different. A massive workshop floor of magic conveyor belts feeds the obsidian through all sorts of presses, moulds, crucibles, stampers, dusters, shapers, cutters, whirlygigs, rube goldberg flywheels, sets of tubes and flasks and straws, and even down a marble racetrack, all towards one large chute at the center. Beneath the chute is some sort of assembler that looks like a big christmas sack. Instead of being disdended with childish joy and good cheer, however, the strange obsidian fills the sack-enricher-container with a queer and smoking effluence, like a coal flue being aired out. And, sitting atop the conveyorbelt, riding along and just-so-happening to miss the stations, is an enormous snake, scaled in blue with large slit eyes and a maw full of terrible teeth. "Did you come for the title of Sssssssssnake? Sssorry, it'sss mine!" The snake hisses, before sliding off the conveyorbelt and sliding through the factory floor into a different room. "Sssanta was going to make a missstake, ssso I'm correcting it. Golem! Dessstroy them!" As the snake departs deeper into the mechanisms of the factory, the Santa Sack full of strange coal-smoking Christmas Magic enhanced obsidian rumbles and rattles, screeching and clinking against each other and bulging in the belly of the sack. Which grows volcanic glass chad arms. And chad legs. And angry eyebrows on its shoulders that sort of look like eyes but not. With an earthen roar-screech, it starts hurling obsidian 'toys' at everyone, bursting through walls to pursue fleeing targets. It has enough presents for everyone, you see.
Kale Hearthward	"Oh, it's... a giant long thing," says Kale, who in addition to lacking christmas context is also lacking monster/animal context. When someone says 'snake' he pictures a snake person, not a legless tube. "And some sort of workshop..." "And some sort of automation... oh! It's attacking." Kale's so happy at finally getting some context that he utterly misses what the realization that the giant sack-man-thing attacking means, and by the time he thinks to bring his sword up to parry position he's already smacked in the face. "Okay! Head in the game, head in the game... you!" He takes off, air-dashing off in the direction the golem went, sword at the ready as he starts weaving a spell with his off-hand... "... There! The chains!" He takes a hard left turn in the air, heading towards some of the broken/discarded/spare chains, and hooking them with his sword and swinging them around, flinging them towards the golem at the same time he casts his wind spell... ... and the wind picks up the flung chain and steers it, aiming to try to wrap around the golem's legs and trip it up!
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	"Bah! Sclaves, al of thee!" The Green Knight is annoyed by the elves' confusion. "If thou cannst not ithinke of what to do with thy frenesse, thanne sclaves thou shalt remayne, whider-sum thy chains be actual or figuratif." He's not going to bother trying to free people who evidently lack the higher thought to understand the very notion thereof. Shaking his head, he turns and heads for the gift-box area, his heavy armor clinking audibly against the obsidian. He enters, thankfully through a door rather than just bursting through a wall, and arrives with the others just as the snake makes its exit. He takes a step forward to pursue, cracking his neck and giving his axe-arm a few warmup swings. The obsidian Christmas golem doesn't... stop him, so much as get his attention, when a chunk of rock is flung against his helmet hard enough to crack his T-shaped visor and snap off one of the helmet's horns. "Thou wouldst inseke a pese of me?" The snapped horn begins to mend itself slowly, the spiderweb cracks in his visor doing the same. "THOU SHALT HATH IT!" He switches his grip of the axe, so that the butt of the head, rather than the edge, faces his opponent. Stepping forward, he puts his shoulder into the swing and digs his heels in, batting one of those 'toys' right back at the golem. That isn't the attack--it's just throwing the gauntlet down. The attack comes right on the heels of that batting. Flipping the edge back to its usual position in a crisp, clean movement, Bercilak gives the weapon a one-handed twirl meant to add a bit of extra disrespect, before he uses both hands to drive the eye forward, attempting to catch the golem's foot with the beard of the axe, and yank it off its feet right as Kale's chain trick plays out. "Grete minds, ei?" He chuckles--then yanks with all his might.
Big Boss	As they enter the giant giftbox workshop, Boss just grabs his cigar, snuffing it out and tossing it to the side. As the Snake speaks, he speaks back. "Taking it upon yourself to correct Christmas...to stop Santa. Snake is a title worth respect. You haven't earned it." He's on top of his game for the golem, but not enough. Obsidian presents smack into him, buffeting his jacket and causing a grunt of pain, as he removes his rifle from his back, turns the safety off, and pinpoints the golem. Still raising his voice, in an attempt to lure the snake back... "You're nothing but a legless lizard." The rifle is fired at the sack, trying to rip it apart and leak that obsidian onto the ground. Bullets tear forward at a rapid pace, conspiring with his allies to get the most dead-center shots while they try to trip it up!
Sierra Kereson	The more Sierra looks at this place, the less it looks like the idyllic North Pole wonderland she had once believed in as a child. She can't quite figure out what it does look like to her in reality, but it's definitely not what she was expecting. The talking snake being the culprit just confounds her even more, but she's got enough sense of self-preservation to not stay right where she is when it starts shrieking and hurling obsidian projectiles all over the place. Breathing a sigh of relief as she pulls herself back from the wall and loses sight of the golem, there's only the briefest of moments for her to react when the wall gives way regardless. Weighing her options while staring at the time-frozen 'toy' coming right through that wall and right at her, she braces herself for a solid mental minute before finally twisting and flinging herself sideways. Although she avoids getting beaned full force in the face, the force of that throw grazing her shoulder painfully and passing right by her head still manages to draw a startled shriek from the witch while she yanks a multi-colored plastic duster out of her satchel. It'll have to do. She looks like she's being pulled along by the thing as she takes flight, looking the massive golem over to try and figure out her plan of attack. With Kale targetting its legs with the chains, the witch decides on her own target. "... Hey, big boy! Keep your eyes on me!" She taunts as she flies in dangerously close to the golem, yanking a massive bottle full of gray liquid from her pouch. As she draws closer, Sierra slices the middle of the bottle open with a knife and flings it right at the golem, the acidic contents poised to explode all over it and weaken whatever might be holding its arms together!
Sylvi	The large Krumpsidian Golem, following after Kale with both large meaty-rock fists windmilling and hurling sharp chunks of present-shaped obsidian at people, engages with the chains like an utter buffoon, tripping and stumbling over itself as the more-rock-than-joint legs lose locomotion. Simple as reaping wheat or foo-els with the beard of his mighty axe, Bercilak follows up by sweeping the golem onto its front, limbs spastically flailing uselessly. Big Boss has all the time in the world to aim his rifle into the laid-out sack, barking loudly and tearing deep holes that spill black dust-smoke and leak shards of black glass presents. A drenching of acid finishes destroying the sack, spilling out the strange get of sizzling volcanic rock. Which then explodes, model replaced with pyrotechnics, As You Do. The ground rumbles dangerously, though, at the shouted words of the Big Boss. "You think you, a man, can tell me who deservesss the title 'sssnake'?" A voice as deep as a mountain hisses sibilantly. Then, the whole building explodes upward and outward, cieling popping open and walls falling away like a comical lootbox opening as the whole machinery-belt is carried up on a curtain of bursting earth, scattering damage and destruction and devastation all around. Wearing the mechanism like a scarf or necklace, the enormous serpent looms over the party, ophidian eyes blinking slowly down on the party. "I'll create a better world with the power of Christmassssss. You can't ssstop me! I've already won!"
Kale Hearthward	The golem goes down. Mission accomplished! Christmas is saved! Oh, wait, the giant snake. Right. "Hey, did anyone see where the-" he starts to say, right before it explodes. This time, Kale brings up his sword in time, and manages to parry the explosion of earth and building bits! It is a beautifully excecuted parry, but unfortunately, parrying an explosion doesn't actually work. In reality he only manages to be slightly less battered and singed. "The heck you've won!" calls Kale, sheathing his sword and taking off again. "Christmas isn't a thing you 'already won'! Christmas is magic, and if there's one thing I know about magic, it's that magic can't be seized and bogarted like it's some physical object!" He rises slowly, dramatically, into the air, one hand on his heart and one outstretched in the finest of traditional declaiming traditions. "Because - because if you believe, the magic lives inside you! Deep within you!" Inside your heart, of course. "Inside your lungs!" Oh. "Whenever you breathe in the first wisps of morning air, that's Christmas! Whenever you give a long slow sigh of satisfaction at a job well done, that's Christmas! Whenever you snort mildly with laughter, perhaps on overhearing a street performer tell a mildly humorous observational joke - you'd better believe that's Christmas!" He seems to be making all this up as he goes. "So breathe deep - let your chest swell with generousness, and let goodwill to all men flow through your trachea, and let the spirit of the season into your bronchioles!" "Live Christmas, and BREATHE HAPPY NEW YEAR!" He casts, throwing out both hands, empowered by what he assumes is the true reason for the season (but is probably only literal hot air). A series of compressed wind orbs are flung from his hands, landing around the area - and forming a pattern of inrushing wind with the snake at the center, both knocking substantial amounts of debris at it while also forming a ring of forceful winds around it to keep it contained!
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Boss' assertion earns a grunt of agreement from Bercilak. The golem explodes in a shower of pyrotechnics, and as is usually the case with Bercilak, he is unmoved, dramatically standing near it. As the ground rumbles, and the snake approaches, baited by Boss, he readies his weapon. Bercilak begins a slow march towards the snake. The sudden upwards explosion sees him shaken slightly, but he continues. Even as rubble, stray bits of machinery and earthen fragments rain down upon him, he perseveres, never buckling under the weight no matter how heavy the falling scenery may be. His armor is struck with loud, jarring clangs, sparks flying from the plates, deep scores cut into them which eventually mend themselves. Finally, he stands just a few scant feet away. "Verily," he yells at the snake (but not at his maximum power level, he's not that fired up yet). Yes, not only is Boss correct, but... he shoulders the weapon and points upwards, eyes locked on the Christmas thief. "That a NEUTE swich as thee wouldst ithinke to knoue bet than SANTA," he cries, "Hou to biweld Crist-masse, is JAPELI! HA! I laugh ascorne at thee, jobet neute!" He claims to have already won? We'll see about that. "Sheu me, if thy victori be treu--sheu me thy masterhed of Crist-masse!" With a triumphant roar, Bercilak leaps into the air, bursts of golden chemical fire belching from the vents upon his armor--so that's what those are! Microthrusters. He weaves rapidly about the snake, battering its conveyor-scarf with the blunt end of the axe in several spaces. As he does so, Kale's speech reaches its own crescendo, and he can't help getting in the spirt--Kale's oddly clinical choice of words in some places seemingly doesn't diminish his enjoyment of it. Yes, now he's fired up. "IF THY VICTORI BE TREU, THANNE QUELL US NAU!" This barrage culminates in him riding the current of Kale's wind, using it to rise fully above the snake's head, verdant plant-life cloak flapping theatrically behind him, and, with an agile midair barrel roll, he drives the monomolecular edge of the axe downwards in a way that's sure to create a shower of those sparks that always seem to appear in these situations.
Sierra Kereson	Being as close as she is to the golem to begin with, Sierra gets to relish in the fruits of her labor as the sack sizzles away. Unfortunately, being as close as she is to the golem to begin with, Sierra also doesn't have nearly enough time or distance to get out of the way of the gift box building as it bursts out of the ground. She doesn't spend an entire minute in her head trying to figure a way out of this one, at least, simply sighing in resignation before bracing herself for the impact. As her shitty little duster takes her as far as she can before the inevitable impact of scenery change knocks her way off course, the building explodes, pieces of obsidian and architectural debris strike at her from multiple angles. Sierra loses her grip on the duster and tumbles to the ground, rolling along a few times before stopping herself in a three-point-landing-esque pose while staring at the transformed serpent. As impressive as that pose might look in a vacuum, however, the look on Sierra's face is anything but as she stares at the serpent in open-mouthed terror. "How the hell are we supposed to fight that thing?! I thought we were just going to fight some... I don't know! Crazy jackasses with guns!" She screams in pained terror, digging around in her pouch again for something a little more maneuverable. Alas, she just ends up pulling out a janitor-styled water cart, but even that's enough to get her flying again, albeit a bit shakily as she tries to give the serpent a wide berth. She doesn't look any calmer as she does that, of course, but at least she's not stuck on the ground any more. "Not a... Giant Christmas snake! This is just mixing up all kinds of mythos now... A-and aren't snakes are supposed to be cold-blooded? How's something this big even alive out here?!" Although she's still freaking out, Sierra at least manages to keep her nerves in check long enough to get an actual spell going. While she draws various shapes in the air, the earth beneath the snake starts to rumble as noxious gases waft upwards at first, eventually becoming countless sharpened fragments of solidified poison that joins the wind from Gale's magic to buffet it from multiple angles. Sadly, her Christmas spirit is considerably lacking compared to Bercilak's, Gale's, and especially that of the Boss.
Big Boss	The response of the snake is angry, and in the explosion of the building, it blasts Boss back, buffeting hixm as he dives forward, opening that briefcase despite the pain. Inside is a rocket launcher, which he starts to put together... And points up at the snake's head, despite the cuts and bleeding. "I get to decide...because I was Snake first." The old man says, as he pulls the trigger. A rocket is targeted straight for the snake's head - an eye, if possible, but the explosion should hurt either way. "Don't call a victory before you've sealed it." He seems determined. Christmas is on the line, after all!
Sylvi	The enormous snake, surrounded by the twisted pit that ~~Northern Canada~~ Santa's Workshop has been blasted into and wearing the mechanical conveyance of joy like a laurel wreath about its neck, sways in sibilant conversational talking. Everyone has to have half a round to get back up, retransform, and make a dramatic speech. Kale is first up, in fact. True to their word, they draw in a tremendous Breath of crisp winter air utterly unsullied by the darkness extruded into the land. The power... to Ho-Ho-Hovercome. Compressed wind sweeps around containing the threat, and the dark cloud of corruption around it, a hurricane of white winter that starts to powder over the massive serpent. "Of coursssse I've already won. I wanted a Chrissstmas Magic only Odin himssself could grant!" The snake announces, held down and back by the lashing winds of winter breath. "That Naughty Lissst... I wanted it! You can't ssstop me!" Bercilak's bellowing voice decries the trulee-ness of the snake's machinations, and of corrupting Christmas, bellowing with arcayne hurlante to carve a long path of bright, clashing sparks all along the snake's head and down its body, tearing apart the upturned world and drawing clean hits across the scaled form. A piteous voice, old and frail and without power, calls from the rubble. "Green Knight!" A large man in a dirty red coat, wearing a white eyepatch whose clasp disappears into the fullness of his white beard, rosy cheeks, and long white hair. He clambers out of some wreckage, arms bound with those same serpentine chains. "She's done something to the List!" Sierra thinks to wield poison during this time, sharpening the surroundings and slashing across the snakescale with vitriolic intent. The wind binding leaves the long body an easy prey for her to smash the terrain into, but for all the burning damage, there's still Just Too Much Snake to convincingly put damage to it on top of the natural toughness of all that snake. The serpent, not precisely free from bondage, still lashes and rolls about to throw off both poisoned debris and Bercilaks that have settled on it, diving into the ground once more. When the head re-emerges, above it, hovering, is a deep black scroll of paper that falls and falls and falls, a scroll of ancient and terrible power. Because the snake doesn't have hands, the scroll floats. The costumers are saved 'adding another set of limbs to a suit mid-fight' thanks to CGI. "I've used the Naughtiessst Lissst to work my magicsss. It'sss done! I've ensured a sssalty new year for all the naughty children. Essspecially the ones who play on wirelesssss internet! Thossse netcode babiesss can ssstay extra sssalty in twenty twenty-one! And you, too--!" An RPG strikes the snake directly in the eye, a fireball of shrapnel and damage occluding the eye with a bellow of pain, causing the snake to reel back and shout, with a terrible shockwave of force-- "--ARE ALL NAUGHTY!" The Naughty List pulses with dire and occultic might, bursting at the scrollwork with a lifetime of bad luck and terrible misfortune pushed into a single retroactive moment-- --That's fired like a beam attack, because that's how these things work, tracing explosions of literal molten salt all over the battlefield, crashing meteors of obsidian falling out of the sky, and deep and crushing doubt whammying all those subject.
Big Boss	Santa Claus is in the rubble. The Naughty List is active. The Snake has managed to do something to it...and Boss moves to dive as soon as Santa speaks up. "GET DOWN!" The JRPG finisher attack blasts over Boss, beam singing into his coat, knocking his hat off, and heating his flesh incredibly painfully, as he narrowly rolls out of the way of an obsidian meteor. This is the power of the Naughty List. For a moment, he considers destroying it completely... But that's Santa's decision, not his. Instead, Boss taps his radio, and a vehicle revs to life. The jeep from before had pulled out of the way when everything exploded, and now it's coming straight for the snake. Boss stays low, as the jeep rams straight into the Grinch-Snake, the driver diving out of the vehicle last second, and is followed up by Boss grabbing his rocket launcher, loading his other shot, and firing it straight into the same jeep impact spot, for hopefully colossal damage.
Kale Hearthward	There's more words that Kale doesn't understand. He recognizes 'internet', but 'netcode baby' sounds strangely weird and weirdly strange. And in any case there's more important things to worry about. "What is that-" The 'that' turns out to be explosions of salt. Literal salt. Kale kicks off with Tabtrack, and tries to get clear - and fails utterly, getting hit by several explosions and getting a beakful of salt. "Oh - damn it to a still summer's day," he mutters as he tries to get his airflow clear, his jet boots sputtering out momentarily but then kicking back on. That was a close call. "You think..." "... That you can just declare people naughty like that! It doesn't work like that! It doesn't work nearly like that!" He pulls out Periactus again, the drill-sword glinting off of the light from the salt-explosions. "Judging people like that... is incredibly naughty in and of itself! And if you think otherwise... if you think that doesn't put you squarely at the top of your naughty list..." He orients himself, and divebombs straight at the snake, sword outthrust. "YOU'D BEST CHECK YOUR LIST TWICE!" With the force of his exclamation, Breath Weapon Periactus activates - the mechanical parts clicking as they unfold and the parts of the blade snapping into a spiral shape, the weapon's Sylphian Drive taking the trace magic put out simply by Kale shouting - and twisting it into impossibly efficient amounts of motion, causing the drill-configured blade to spin lethally as it's thrust towards the snake, with a crazy bird pushing it onwards at dangerously high speeds behind it!
Sierra Kereson	If Sierra's Christmas fantasies from her childhood weren't dead before, they certainly are now. A giant death snake, a one-eyed Santa, an artifact called the Naughtiest List, and the worst/only part of Canada Sierra's ever been to all combine into a terrible force that nearly dismantles that optimism entirely, and the effects of the Naughty List have a distinctly terrible effect on Sierra in particular. Misfortune and bad luck are simply par for the course for her, but those lingering doubts, that nagging disillusionment, the molten salt and obsidian meteors... She can't afford to get hit by any of that if she wants to survive. The strange green knight said he believed in her, after all, and the strange bird guy told her to believe in Christmas, so she's definitely got people counting on her. Feeling herself getting fired up, Sierra kicks off a falling meteor to give herself enough momentum to narrowly avoid getting obliterated by the Naughty List's beam, swerving under and around it multiple times out of necessity with the meteors coming down all around her. "None of this is making any sense, but... To hell with it! Screw your list! We'll wipe that thing clean if we have to!" Sierra shouts in half-defiance and half-panic, shrieking again when the molten salt bites into one of her legs and threatens to send her spiraling out of control. She lets the cart pull her along in the sky as she jerks a broom out of her pouch, releasing the cart just as it gets crushed underneath a meteor and taking off sideways upon the broom next. "If kids get punished forever, then what do they care if they get better? All they know is that it doesn't matter if they're a bunch of little jerkoffs or not!" Three should do it. Maybe four? No, four's an unlucky number. As the hatless witch ascends higher, ominous circles filled with various runes appearing the air briefly before she pulls them along with her in her ascent. "Besides... Wifi works just fine for me!" Sierra dives. The circles are flung downwards at the serpent like oversized chakram, exploding downwards into showers of fiery darts and icy blades.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Bercilak is thrown clear of the snake, landing with a thud powerful enough to drive a crack into the hard, rocky earth. He is called--called by none other than Santa himself! Or perhaps Odin. Or Odin Claus, or Big Claus, or Santima Goro... This Mystery Santa cautions that the snake has done something to the Naughty List! "WALD-SCATHE!" It's probably an insult, the way he bandies it against the snake as he risies, the way he readies his weapon anew. The beams of the Naughty List pierce and burn a hole clean through his armor, and through him, in several places as he attempts to get back within axe-swinging range. The holes heal at an incredibly rapid pace, though the armor takes longer to mend by far than Bercilak himself. A salf-meteor crashes into him, bringing him to one knee... but he perseveres, grabbing hold of Boss' jeep and hitching a ride. Over the roar of the acceletator, he makes one final remark: "Children who plei games of porful make art alredi unbethed and stenchi--to forspill thire games..." The jeep crashes, Boss' rocket explodes, sending him sky high, absent an arm which regrows in seconds from bone to sinew to skin. He rises high, his remaining microthrusters guiding his descent, and continues. "...is to iforce theim 'pon the rest of the world..." The thrusters fire in sequence now, rapidly spinning the Green Knight around, his axe held with the edge outwards, holding a wide grip. "AND THAT IS A SIN YE SHALT RECOMPEND IN BLOD!" Another thruster--but there's nothing 'micro' about it. This one opens up at the heel of the axe, firing at the last minute just as he swings, to drive the weapon's edge in with all the force the man and the machines can jointly muster. Even after this titantic blow, the Green Knight's thrusters change direction all at once, every remaining nodule on what armor there is left pointing upwards, to force the man down and drive it still further in.
Sylvi	Driven into by a jeep, the Grinch-Snake is not 'hit' so much as smashed back, the sheer velocity of the metal chariot at full tilt an unquestionable 'hit' on shifting scales and mass. The rocket that detonates the vehicle into a cloud of smoke and sparking damage. A good hit. Running right up a crested loop of muscle, Bercilak's pell-mell charge to grip the jeep's wreckage and drive it wholly down upon the head of the snake. Kale's twisting, piercing blade drills deeply under the jaw and through the neck, impaling through the skull and causing the terrible Grinch-Snake to thrash, pinned. Kale and Bercilak get clear (or don't, in the latter's case) after Midgardsormir-But-The-FF7-One'ing the enormous boss snake. The Naughty List, hovering above the speared head, is chakram designated by Sierra in the massive ice-and-fire lightshow. It, and the body of the enormous snake, is blasted with a terrible Gamer Light. <Besides... Wifi works just fine for me!> The light flares a brilliant Mountain Dew Green, Unused Soap White, and Rage Red. Within it, it is not a snake that is consumed, but the far more compact shape of a rather large person. <RESOLUTION: It's a Solid Hit for a total of 25117 damage!> The "pure" light of Gamers tears apart the power of the Naughty List, unmaking the corrupted artifact. As it does, the salty corruption, and the obsidian infiltration of the warehouse, begin to fade away. Curling into colorful christmas Northern Lights above, the broken workshop begins to re-knit itself as the place is purged. There's no sign of the figure that the snake had been blasted to, when the dust clears and the workshop begins resettling back to normal. On the wind, a final curse sussurates on the dying winds of Decemeber. "You can defeat me, suckers... But you can't un-salt the internet! Stay mad, idiots!"