Xaviers!

Carlos led his X-Squad out into town, driving around in the X-Van (as Carlos regrettably allowed people to call it), with one of Sean's golem things serving as a rudimentary GPS.

((This is one of three threads for the big ol' fight scenes. Pick one!))

Tereza was riding shotgun, keeping a wary eye out the passenger side window.

"Hope these things don't mess with the van."

Smirking, Tosh hummed the Gremlins theme.

"You do realize you've doomed us all," Tereza deadpanned.

They wouldn't have to drive very far into town before coming across a sight that's likely to make them stop, if only for the fact that the man dangling from a traffic-light is blocking the road. He's still somewhat conscious as evidenced by his struggling to get his fingers around the noose that's cutting off his air. A couple yards away a car has swerved into a wall because all it's tires seem to have been cut mid-drive. A man is hunched over the steering wheel, unmoving. The rest of the street looks deserted.

Tereza jumped out of the van as soon as it got even close to a stop, aiming at the ground under the man as she created a pillar of ice to try to give him something to stand on.

"Oh fuck!" Tosh exclaimed. He ran after Tereza, shifting to Bruce to be tall enough to undo the noose if she stabilized the man.

The man has some trouble finding footing on the ice, though it gets easier as the area he has to stand on gets bigger. The man is still panicking and seeing Tosh grow into a giant shark does little to calm him down, which makes it hard to get to the noose. As Tosh is trying to pry the man's hands from his neck to help him there's a shout from above him.

"Oy!" the little wrinkled gnome yells before he jumps down from the traffic-light he appeared on, landing on the back of Tosh's neck, wielding a knife that's easily as long as the Redcap's entire arm.

"Gah!"

Bruce punched at the Redcap.

And promptly punches himself in the neck as the Redcap slides down his back, tip of the knife skidding across Tosh's rough hide a couple times before the little creature pulls it back far enough to drive it past Tosh's natural armor. The knife isn't large enough to hit any vital areas but it still drives a spike of pain through his back as the Redcap gleefully dangles from the hilt. "Giant man, looks like a fish, heat a pan and serve the dish!"

Tereza's eyes glow bright white as a humanoid figure pulls itself out of the pillar of ice and begins walking over to the wrecked car. The missing ice in the pillar is swiftly replaced as more works to secure the man. "Apologies for the frigid temperatures," she calls out to him, her accent somewhat obvious.

"How's this one to you?" Sam says, her mind lashing out at the redcap.

"Little man, dressed in red, doesn't know he'll soon be dead."

Bruce winced and hissed. He charged his electric membranes, hoping his body would electrify the knife.

The electricity arcing around Bruce flickers across the knife, but it doesn't seem to bother the little man too much. Instead he laughs as if he's being tickled.

"Brought some friends, the Phantom Queen, cut the Red and stain the Green!" he cackles, Sam's mental attack sliding off the little critter like oil on water, just as a second, higher-pitched voice snickers from a nearby window. "Ravens, ice and crackling thunder, still just meat to tear asunder." a second figure, this one wearing a dark-red hood jumps out the window wielding two nasty-looking needles each over a foot long as it throws itself at Sam.

Meanwhile Thereza's construct makes it over to the car and the very dead looking man inside. The hanged man is too panicked to respond with coherent speech, too focused on staying steady on the pillar of ice.

Bruce grabbed for the creature instead, intending to throw it.

"Old dog, new tricks," Tereza muttered as the pillar expanded, now about as big around as a kitchen table. She took a deep breath and stepped into it. It was hard to see, but it looked like the ice might be lifting her upwards through the pillar to bring her up next to the hanging man. Robbed of her current conscious attention, the other construct froze in place.

Carlos vaulted over the hood of the car, coming and trying to deliver a flying kick at one of the two Redcaps on Sam. You know, to make it a fair fight.

Since Carlos is making with the kicking, Sam starts to scout the surrounding area, mindful of any others springing out.

Bruce has to strain pretty hard to get his hands to reach his back and even then he still has to twist and turn around some until he finally manages to get his hand on the Redcap. The small man, apparently unwilling to let go of his knife, shows a surprising amount of strength as he hangs on, resulting in Bruce pulling the knife out at an angle, only tearing the flesh wound open more before the knife slides out among a gush of blood. Apparently the Redcap finds that highly amusing and laughs the entire time he's sailing through the air before he hits the wall, his head making a faint squishing sound and leaving behind a brown-red splotch on the wall from his hat before he tumbles to the ground.

The second Redcap suddenly finds herself violently flung off course as Carlos kicks her torso. She goes tumbling through the air and slams into the pillar of ice, clinging to it and pressing her hooded face against the icy surface. Her eye is distorted and magnified as she curiously peers at the person rising through the pillar, raising one of her needles and driving it into the ice with the sound of cracking and screeching ice, leaving a nasty gouge in Thereza's thigh but thankfully failing to actually pin her. She raises the needle in her other hand to try and remedy that mistake...

Sam might notice that one of the manhole covers in the street is moving slightly and the sounds of at least two voices arguing with each other coming from underneath.

Carlos dove to try to stop the stabbing at the ice! Ice-stabbing is bad.

At that same moment, a small cylinder of ice punches out of the pillar, right in the vicinity of the distorted eye looking into it.

Bruce roared in pain. His eyes went 'feral' for a moment and he almost abandoned the hanging man to seek retribution. Instead, he grabbed the rope over the man's head and clawed it with the other hand.

The Redcap howls when a chunk of ice punches out and hits her right in the eye, sending her tumbling down and leaving one needle behind in the ice. The other one she swings in wild arcs in front of herself at Carlos as she backs off a little. "Nasty nasty little witch, dump your bones into a ditch!" she complains about getting ice-punched.

The other one pulls himself back up from the floor, not looking any worse for wear and charges right back at Bruce. Just as Bruce manages to tear the rope he feels a sharp pain in his leg as the first Redcap slices at it.

Meanwhile the manhole cover is lifted up and first one, then another red-hatted, wrinkled head pokes out and look around, beady little eyes settling on Sam as they clamber out of the hole, almost tripping over each other in the process.

"Alright little evil dude," he growled as he turned, releasing the rope, "Now you're really freaking screwed."

Ugh, it's contagious.

He kicked hard at the knife-wielding redcap.

Tereza emerges from the top of the pillar, her injured leg still solidly encased in ice. "Take a deep breath," she says to the man as she works to remove the remains of the rope from his neck. "I'm going to get you out of here." Almost on cue, they both start sinking back down into the ice as the pillar expands to accommodate them.

The man looks relieved, but panic creeps back in as he sinks into the ice. He's not exactly in a condition to really fight back though.

The Redcap hop into the air as Bruce kicks at him, avoiding his foot and landing on his knee. He immediately starts swinging his knife and cutting away at Bruce's natural armor.

Tereza grimaces as her hands come in contact with the ice and the lower half of the pillar slouches. It starts slithering off down the street, trying to take them away from the redcaps. "I'm going to get you somewhere safe, then I have to go back and help my friends, okay?"

Bruce growled as he attempted to grab the creature.

The rope...quivered a bit.

Carlos attempted to dodge the knife swings, looking for an opening to kick the dang thing in the face, like, super-hard.

Thereza has no problem getting the man to move away from the fight at all as he half runs, half stumbles to safety.

The one clinging to Bruce's leg brings his knife around and swipes it at his grasping hand before running up his leg. Gravity seems to be more of a rough guideline for the little gnomes.

The red-hooded one is pretty fast with her needle, but so is Carlos with his foot. He connects with her face with a satisfying thud, but the Redcap doesn't go flying like she should. Instead she seems to have bitten down on his foot and hanging on to it, trying to gnaw through the material with sharp teeth.

As soon as the man stumbles away, Tereza sinks to her neck in the construct as it twists out arms and legs. The construct turns, resembling a large suit of armor thumping forward to try to stomp on one of the redcaps going after Sam.

Carlos swore in Spanish, trying to get the thing off, hopping on one foot and trying to maintain his balance.

"Get offa me!" Bruce roared.

He rather violently attempted to shake or knock the Redcap off. His tail swung dangerously close to Carlos.

Running up towards the two emerging redcaps, Sam jumps and tries to land on the manhole cover to pin them.

One of them manages to slip out from underneath the cover before Sam steps on it. The manhole briefly closes almost all the way, catching the Redcap's fingers which results in a loud yowl before the manhole cover starts to raise again as the little gnome pushes back against it with surprising strength.

The one that had escaped sets his eyes on the approaching Thereza and jumps at her face before she has a chance to step on him.

The one clinging to Carlos' foot is pretty dang tenacious, hanging on to his boot mainly by her teeth that are slowly working their way through his boot as she apparently tries to bite off a couple of toes.

The last one clambering up Bruce's body gets brushed off by his hands and instead clings to one of his fingers, bringing up his knife to try and cut it off.

Thinking fast, Carlos grabbed the loose rope that had been hanging the guy, and used it to put SOMETHING in the way of the thing's mouth the next time it bit. If possible, he'd tie the damn thing's mouth shut.

A visor of ice springs up in the creature's way, but instead of being hard like expected, the ice tries to fold around to entrap the creature in its grip.

Carlos manages to slip the rope between the red-hooded one's teeth and his boot and for a moment the tiny wrinkly woman seems confused when the rope pulls her away from her intended meal, flailing about in the air.

The one flinging himself at Thereza is trapped in the ice and looks annoyed for a second before he starts straining against the ice, causing it to groan and crack slowly but surely as he rears back a little. But instead of trying to break the ice entirely suddenly slams his head into the ice with tremendous force, shattering a good chunk of ice. Tiny droplets of blood splatter across the otherwise pristine ice from his soaked cap.