Monsters On The Run

[Philote]

The living statue tears through one building after another. Every time the two of them reach open air again, more humans begin to arrive to assault them, and even a metallic bird roars at them from above.

Hypatos begins to believe that the buildings and pathways were endless, an afterlife for them to infinitely flee through. His fears are proved false though. As the two run through their fifth building, the ground below them gives away. The weight from the living statue causes the floor to collapse, bringing them crashing down into some wet tube.

There was not as much pain as Hypatos expected. Sitting up, he could see the hole they fell through, as well as hear their pursuers above. Around them were piles of debris, but beyond that, the tube they had fallen in stretched out into darkness in two directions. Hypatos felt as if he was back on his home turf, the darkness always proved to be an ally before when he hid from hunters seeking his head. Calling for his ally, Hypatos leads the two of them into the darkness, taking several twists and turns until they had outpaced the humans seeking them.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

The golem was uncomfortable in the  cramped underground tunnel. His shoulders and head scraped the curved stone ceiling and the ankle deep water soaked into his clay feet, making them damp and malleable. Small clump slowly melted off his feet the further along they traveled.

Soon the golem began to make nervous grumbling sounds in its chest. Hypatos, noticed the nervous sounds and quickly lead the golem out on of the many holes that lead above ground. The golem, unfortunately, did not quite fit and destroyed a large portion of the street surrounding the manhole. The crash of crumbling stone echoed across the empty street and the two hurried quickly away from the scene to avoid any suspicious bystanders. They sprinted into a nearby park where the trees would mask their presence.

The golem however, was not built for stealth and smashed recklessly through the frail tree as it blundered along behind Hypatos. The creak of wood could be heard for yards in every direction.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Ammon turns to the sound. He knew it. After all, he'd made it not moments ago. Something with at least as much power as him was coming at them through the trees. He looked to his companions.

"Hey, kid, Rei. Hide out for bit. Whatever that is, Im'a grab it. If it's hostile, you guys jump it from behind after I do."

He takes the floating plate and throws it into the embrace of a nearby bush. Then he squares his legs and spreads his arms. After the craziness of tonight, he was ready for just about anything.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

The golem continued it's oblivious march forward through the trees as it followed it's companion. The branches scraped loudly off it's stoney exterior as it pushed through the leafy barricades.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

Rei quickly shifted back to her fox form yet again. She didn't know exactly what was coming, but she could hear two sets of footsteps, one heavy and the other lighter, and the sound of hissing accompanied the steps. Along with that, there was the smell of trash, nasty trash that wasn't fit for smelling ever. Rei covered her nose as best she could while looking as inconspicuous as possible. As well, she set up a small illusion that made it appear as if the air behind Ammon was shimmering as if from intense heat, to make him look slightly more intimidating. Hopefully, the unknown ones didn't have an onmyouji who could see the illusion, but it was worth the chance.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

With a final thundering step, the golem emerged from the shelter of the trees along with his gorgon companion. The golem looked around curiously, completely missing the strange creatures before him

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Well, at least this was slightly familiar. He knew what clay looked like. God's above, he knew. And he knew that Pharaohs sometimes were entombed with miniature servants made of it. What he was seeing now, the creature that had stopped before him, was just a bigger version of that.

This was not completely foreign. It was strangely comforting, seeing this creature. So, they stood for a while before Ammon realized he should probably say something.

"Hello, be you friend or-"

It was then the creature was followed by.... something else. Ammon looked at it, and then stiffened as he felt something wash over him. Not just wash, explore. Dig. At that moment, Ammon knew what it was to be besieged, to have an enemy poke and prod and find any crack or weakness where it could push itself through and annihilate him. With great force of will he turned away from it, and threw himself onto the ground.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

The golem turned towards the figure as it began to speak. It cocked it's head in a curious manner as it spoke to him. Suddenly it stopped, froze, then dropped to the ground. The figures odd behavior intrigued the Golem. In lumbered towards the prone figure and crouched near it.

The golem reached out a large thick finger and prodded the mummy in the side. It made a questioning groan and poked the figure again. The golem, confused at the newcomer's actions, looked back to the Gorgon.

[Philote]

More Humans! And just when the two of them had finally had a run of luck. The living statue had chosen an opening that was close to the wilderness, even if it was an incredibly small wilderness. Even now, Hypatos could see labyrinth of civilization that they had left behind looming down on them from each of the cardinal directions.

These humans would have to be dealt with before they called for assistance. Hypatos jumps forward and graps the human who initially dropped at the sight of them and uses his inhuman strength to roll him over. Getting right in the human's face, Hypatos stares deep into his eyes. The living statue could deal with the inanimate ones he was about to create to remove with the evidence.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Oh Ra, it was right in his face! He could feel his defenses holding, but it was right in his face!

He grabbed the thing by the head, rolled him over, and made it taste dirt. Instantly, the pressure on his body began to lift.

<Whatever that IS,> he started, in fluent Greek, <you have until three to cut it off!>

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Alex blinked absently. A large clay doll? He had heard of women in Serbia and Bulgaria making dolls of a creature like him--a mythical being; a spirit of rain and hail--German.

But...didn't they usually make those dolls about the size of the doll babies little girls played with? Certainly not large and hulking like this great, burly clay man. And didn't they make those dolls with...generous genital size? This thing looked flat as a model mannequin he'd once seen an artist used!

The latter thought sort of made Alex chuckle.

But some effect quickly silenced his laughter. Who was that following the walking clay man? Was his hair...moving? And those eyes...piercing and serpentine; utterly petrifying.

<<What?>> Alex gasped sharply, and looked down as he felt his extremities begin to tingle, harden and soften, as though some effect was trying to take hold of him, <<My hand! What's going on?!"

Alex quickly turned to inspect his hand, and shortly after breaking eye contact with that second fellow, his hand returned to normal. Thanking God for his ironically unholy regenerative healing factor, the Fext resolved not to establish eye contact again. He'd let Ammon handle them first, and just hang back until he was needed. And in the meantime, he would hope that he would not be needed.

But his hope shattered as soon as it was hoped. The serpentine man had lunged onto Ammon and now attempted the same wicked effect on him as he had on Alex with less than the slightest effort. Now was the time to jump in, fist cocked back and ready for smashing.

[Philote]

This man turned out to be the second human to resist his petrification in less than a day, a fact that displeased Hypatos. It was not often that he was overpowered by a human either. There was only one thing left to do......

<Smash him!> Hypatos yells towards his ally.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Smash? Oh right, the big guy. Must of been his big finger poking him before. He put his arm under the things neck and stood him up, holding his arm behind his back. He talked to the clay thing.

<Yeah, come on big guy.> He called in pitch perfect Hebrew. <Come over here and smash me.> He pulled the thing closer to himself. Then, he recognized the language he was just speaking. He went on. <Oh man, you're an Israelite? This is perfect.> He called out to Alex and Rei, the Greek he was speaking translated through their pieces of bandage. <Hey guys, after this thing is done beating us to a bloody pulp, just take me and throw me in that pond over there. It should fix me right up. Not sure what we would be able to do for this guy though, hahahahah.>

He lowered his voice to talk to the thing. <Seriously though, you might want to rethink that order. Quick to, cause it looks like that guys gonna have a hard time stopping once he starts moving. I do not want to be beaten into powder any more than you.>

[Philote]

Three snakes stretch out from Hypatos scalp, sinking their fangs into various places in the man's face. A fourth lurches forward to join in the frenzy, but fails to reach its mark as Hypatos breaks away from the man's grip in the confusion.

Hypatos scrambles away, finally free from his foe, and without having to retract his order to the living statue who came barreling past him.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Ammon slaps his face. Oh, that was dumb! Why did he let go? He was dead, they wouldn't a able to hurt him anymore even if they were poison. Stupid. Stupid.

Then he heard the barreling footsteps of the big guy. He moved out of the way as the creature thundered past and skid to a stop. He raised up his fists as the creature turned back to face him.

<Come on, you still aren't sore about the slavery thing, are you? Killing all our first born should have squared that little dept, don't ya think?>

[Marvelous Miscreant]

The golem stopped and cocked it's head to the side. It was confused by this being's angry shouts.  Slavery? Killing of young? It knew nothing of these things. All the golem had known for centuries was the cold earthen soil that had held it's magic charms in safety.

Utterly puzzled, the golem didn't know how to act. It looked from Ammon to Hypatos and back to Ammon. The golem shuddered under the strain of decision. Should it smash the mummy? Hypatos had told it to and it trusted the gorgon, but there was something about the mummy's words that struck a cord somewhere in the golem's ancient memory. The golem stared for a long while unsure of what to do, when suddenly it leaned back, fell backwards and landed with a great thud in a sitting position, it's legs sticking out childishly before it.

Then the golem began to groan.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Ammon was taken aback. Did he just make it cry?

He lowered his arms, and scratched the back of his head awkwardly. <Oh, hey, big guy, I uh...I didn't mean it or anything. You don't have ta...uh....> He looked over at Alex and Rei, eyes plainly asking what do I do?

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Alex crosses his arms and whistles, awkwardly, hoping the problem will quickly solve itself...

[Philote]

Hypatos begins to panic, neither of the men would petrify and they were not acting as any hunter he had come across before, and his ally had come to a halt.

<"Who are you that resist my gaze?! Are you men, or monsters? Answer me!"> Hypatos had to know which side these men were fighting on.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Ammon looks back at Alex, looks down at himself. <Well, I guess that answers wheather we can pass ourselves off as human s, huh? Look buddy, I'm not a monster. But I'm definitely not so human anymore either. No one here is.> He shield his eyes with his hand. <And like I said, whatever that is you should turn it off. It makes it hard to look at you.>