2012-10-04 A Beastly Discovery

So much for a relaxing trip into the forest for the X-Staff and X-Kiddies. Outside of the first night, nobody has really had much time to have fun or relax. Not when some sort of creature rampaged through the camp in the middle of the night. And the school's resident X-Techie went missing. Outside of the blue hair, blue fur, and the large "Bigfootish" footprints in and around camp, there hasn't been that many leads. Even Professor X hasn't managed to get a lock on Henry's mind. At best he's been able to zero in on a general location. The X-Staff/X-Men who were in attendance on the camping trip have split up to hunt.

Either Hank's been eaten by this thing, kidnapped by it, or... Sam isn't thinking about the rest. No. The animal isn't too good at hiding its tracks for a while but then they just disappear, as though the thing took to the trees. Tracking in the canopy is so much harder than on the ground. Spreading out to see where the tracks pick up again might be the only choice but he's taking one more look in the trees for broken branches and the like. Bobby is trying not to think about what could have happened to Hank either. He's instead focusing on how much he'll freeze the creature and jokes to use during and after the fight. Standard Iceman Sanity Retention Process. He's along with Sam, peering about for any signs of Hank or the creature while the other mutant checks the trees. "Anything down there?" he calls to Sam from the ice-pillar he's standing on.

Cannonball's speculation that the creature may have started moving through the canopy of the trees appears to pan out. As anyone with a half decent tracking skill will find the massive gouges of claws in the tree trunks and limbs. If they weren't hunting for what appears to be a bigfoot, one might assume that a Predator was lose in the woods. There's no skinned humans to be found, but the half-eaten remains of a large deer does fall out of a tree as Sam's investigating. Clearly the creature was hungry and wasn't too particular. Yum Yum.

Sam's not bothered by the remains, he's more curious. He drops down to take pictures of the tooth marks and the damage done to the thing. Good to know what you're hunting. |"This thing is huge,"| he says to Bobby over their comms. |"It could make burgers out of both of us. Well, burger out of me, sno-cone out of you. It's more like a bear than a cat, from the tree marks, but I could be full of crap."|

Bobby's too busy scanning the area to notice the deer. He does catch sight of Sam moving and glances his way though. |"Well then its confirmed. We now know not to let whatever this is eat us."| Bobby replies, a bit more worried about Hank now. Of course he's also starting to wonder a few things now from that news.

While there's claws and teeth marks in the deer's body... anyone who's a hunter or has some basic medical knowledge might notice something. The deer's neck has been snapped, as if whatever did this wanted to quickly kill the animal rather than make it suffer. Of course, if Sam or Bobby make note of this... it's debatable. While Sam's checking out the carcass a loud feral snarl echoes through the woods. Whatever it is, one thing is clear. Given the growl and the deer, it's very very close.

Sam had, in fact noted the neck break. |"This is bear-sized work,"| he notes, before the snarl comes. |"Not a big bea... That's close."| He shields up and takes off a few feet.

That snarl makes Bobby tense and thicken his ice armor. Hopping off the pillar, he slides down a bit closer to the ground. |"If this turns out to be some guy in a mask trying to scare us away from a gold mine, I am totally going to go all meddling kids upside his head."|

Close? Sam's not just whistling Dixie. Because as Bobby hops down off his pillar, there's a sudden explosion of activity in the treeline. A flock of birds are spotted, as they make their escape. But most attention will likely be on the sudden flash of blue fur that leaps from the tree.... diving towards the Man of Ice. It's a large feral beast... blue fur from head to toe, with dangerous claws and fangs. It's body covered with blood, moss, and the shredded remains of clothes. Whatever this creature is or was, it once had horrible fashion sense.

Sam doesn't get a chance to focus on the clothes or anything else. He's looking at claws and fangs and a massive blue thing diving at Bobby. He doesn't even have to think about it before he fires a blast to deflect the thing. If he'd had a bit more composure it might have been a shield but at least it's not both barrels, so to speak.

The sudden explosion of action has Bobby turning quickly. His eyes go wide but before he can make with the ice, Sam's blasting. Bobby ends up slipping and falling off his slide, quickly making a spiral slide to catch himself and get down to the ground safely.

The Beast... (coincidence?) snarls in both anger and pain as Sam fires a blast, getting thrown back and smashing into a tree. Crashing to the ground with a groan that suggests it's been dazed, it gives our heroes a moment to gather their wits. Before the creature is back on it's feet... or more crouching and glaring at the two X-Men. It's now when the two get their first really good look at what just attacked them, sniffing the air and scenting them both.

Sam isn't too worried about actual damage to himself. What he is interested in is the really atrocious pants - or what's left of them. Those, and the eyes, are remarkably familiar. |"I have such a bad feeling about this,"| he says, just barely loud enough for the comms to pick up.

"Hey," Sam says a little louder, watching the beast. Keeping his shields up, he crouches down to look less challenging. "If that's you, you should know you're more of a Twinkie guy, not so much raw venison."

Getting to his feet, Iceman frowns. When he gets a good look at the Beast, he ends up staring. |"Oh man..."|

"Hank?" he holds up both hands, a lot more worried now than he was before.

This does earn something of a reaction from the blue-furred bigfoot. A long low rumble of a growl, as The Beast backs up just a little bit. The growl growing more angry as Bobby chimes in, speaking that familiar name that seems to awaken some buried sentience in the beast. "K...ki..kill me." It growls out, before leaping at Sam with a snarl.

Yeah. No. Sam snaps up a shield, trying to wrap Hank in it instead of trying to get out of Hank's way. He can soak most attacks and even if Hank is strong enough to hurt him, he'd rather be hurt than let Hank get away from him with that attitude. "No way, Hank."

Okay, that has Bobby's attention. And the jokester act drops. Chilling the air a bit more, he waits to see if Sam's shields stop Hank. "Hold him a minutes, Sam," he says, getting ready to make some ice restraints.

Getting the beast wrapped up isn't easy... as he's thrashing around, snarling, clawing, and trying to rip apart anyone closeby. Sam's lucky... having a barrier that's almost indestructible. It's hard to believe it's Hank, as for the most part he rarely allows his barriers of control to slip. As Iceman approaches, Hank lashes out towards him.... saliva and rage dripping off his fangs.

Sam wraps Hank up tighter in the shield. "I'm afraid he's gonna kill himself like this." He has to shout to be heard over Hank's noise. "I don't want him to get hurt." He's seen it happen to wild animals, dashing themselves to death against the sides of a crate meant to protect them or to take them somewhere safe. "We need a big tranquilizer gun." Even behind his shields, Sam can't help the instinctive fear that comes from being this close to all that feral rage.

"Unless that's not you being happy to see me, I don't think either of us has one in our pockets," Bobby remarks to Sam. He's scared too but jokes are his defense mechanism. He frowns, considering what to do. Eventually he fires off a beam to try to create some ice-shackles around Hank's wrists. Might be good to keep those claws from slashing at people. "Hank! C'mon, man. It's me, Bobby. Calm down and let us help."

Kill himself? Or at least work himself up into a frenzy. As he's snapping his jaws and trying whatever he can to get free. Eventually he does settle down, and simply glare at the two X-Men. A soft rolling growl the only vocalizations they're encouraging out of the Beast now. Though he's certainly not happy to have been caught. The ice shackles earn Iceman another round of growls and snarling snaps of bestial jaws. He's not happy. Not happy at all.

"Hey, Hank," Sam offers gently, in the same tones he'd use to calm a child or frightened horse. "It's us, we were worried." He thins out his shields slowly, dispersing them as Hank seems to be calming and he's not sure that smell passes the shields well enough for Hank to know they're really safe people. "We're not going to hurt you."

Bobby isn't sure what else he can do since an ice-gag wouldn't be a good idea. He shakes his ice armor off, thinking plain old Bobby will be more calming and familiar than iced up Iceman. "What's wrong, Hank. Let us know how we can help?"

The Beast does seem to be calming down some... dropping into a crouch as Sam weakens his shields. Glancing between Sam and Bobby, still rumbling softly in his throat a bit but also sniffing and peering at the pair. It's a good thing he doesn't need glasses all that bad, so they're not somewhat recognizable blurs. Hank fidgets in place, his large feet clencing at the ground under him. He even lets Iceman get close, perhaps too close. And if Bobby offers a hand, Hank even nuzzles it just a bit. But then... Bobby's known Hank for ages. So he should be safe, right?

"That's better." Sam doesn't push it by getting too close. "He's a little old for this, isn't he?" he mutters, tilting his head as he tries to remember how old Hank is. "Guess it can happen any time, maybe." He's not clear on all this mutant business himself, and he's a mutant.

Bobby has known Hank for ages. He was one of the first people that actually made him feel welcomed at Xavier's. Sure Scott and the Professor sort of 'rescued' him but they were more 'father figure' and 'older brother figure' where as Hank was his friend. Bobby does offer a hand, quirking a brow slightly at the nuzzling and then sighing a little. "I think I know what might have caused it, Sam. I'll let everyone know when we get back."

There seems to at least be some keen animal instincts at work here... even if Hank's normal genius intellect has gone on vacation. But as soon as Bobby's distracted a bit and talking to Sam, the hackles along Beast's spine start to stand up. It's the only real warning sign that either of them get before Hank lashes out at Iceman, slashing at him wildly with a feral growl that's meant to send him flying towards Sam. And then hopefully before anyone can target him, Hank leaps away... his powerful leg muscles at least 15 feet away from where he was once standing. Which explains the fidgeting and digging in of his feet, he was preparing to leap. Rather than turn and fight though, The Beast snarls and makes for the nearest treeline. The sound of claws on wood and cracking tree limbs announcing that he's once again taken to the trees.

Sam can't get a shield up in time to protect Bobby, not without risking hurting him in the process. All he can do is catch Bobby, taking off to absorb the impact, and let out a wordless shout at Hank. As furious as he is, fortunately he has Bobby to worry about and Hank makes a clean getaway into the woods.

Sam drops to the ground to assess the damage. "Let me see what he did..." It could be ugly--Hank is a monster like this.

Bobby certainly isn't expecting that. He doesn't have enough time to pull up any armor so he gets sent flying. He's glad Sam catches him, too focused on the shock to protect himself. When Sam sets him down, Bobby takes his arms away from himself. There's blood and slashes in his shirt but nothing too bad. He'll be fine with some first aid if Sam gets him back to camp.

"He'd better be *really* crazy or I'm going to have a few things to say to him when he gets back," Sam mutters. He's very careful about helping Bobby up even though he's visibly angry right now. "Come on, let's get you to camp so I can clean this up. If you're lucky you'll end up with some cool scars to show off."

"Something is wrong, Sam. He's definitely not himself," Bobby replies firmly. He's mad at Hank, yeah. Not for the injuries though. He leans on Sam, shaking his head. "I'll be fine. I don't scar too much and we've got the anti-scar stuff..."

"I'm sure he's not himself. Whoever he is right now, though, I'm just gonna be pissed at him until you're not bleeding on me." Sam gets a grip on Bobby and takes off slowly. "If you're okay with that. Because I could work at not caring so much, but that's not as fun." By the time he's done talking, his irritability has mostly slid away and he even manages to give Bobby a grin.

"Oh, I like the you caring about me part," Bobby remarks, putting an ice coating over his wounds. "I just..." he sighs. "Hank was experimenting on himself. Trying to cure his mutation...and I think this means he screwed up big time."

"Can I be mad at him for that?" Sam is, even if Bobby says no. Like, really mad. "Damn it." He'd be mad at Bobby but he figures that if Bobby ratted Hank out, it would have have stopped a damn thing and would have just pushed Hank away from his friends--friends he needed now if he wasn't going to end up being a game hunter's trophy. "Okay, I'll patch you up, you fill everyone in. You know what's going on."

"Yes but I get first dibs at being mad," Bobby replies. He's glad Sam isn't mad at him since he was sure that ratting Hank out would have pushed Hank away but not stopped his work. Just moved it somewhere else. "Great. Patch me up, I'll think up jokes to go with this explanation. Then we can get our dumb scientist back."