The quahhg snarled fiercely when its heavy-handed swipe missed Tweak's backside, its hand burying itself back into the snow as it continued to stampede at Tweak. When the spacer neko tossed the blood-thin blades at the beast, the giant quahhg's eyes flashed with sudden action. It thrust its head downward slightly, the twin knives colliding with the front of its skull. They embedded into the skin just above the space between the eyes, but apparently drew no blood. As predicated, the quahhg had little time to dodge Tweak's second projectile; the DART warhead collided softly against the front of the monster's twin set of horns, the tip of the front one still wet with glistening red.

Shots fired from Kokuten's rifle sailed in the gigantic quahhgs direction, but the distance and sudden second DART detonation left any hits unconfirmed.

Another loud bang followed by the thick black smog enveloped the quahhg, the deafening mixture of sounds floating from the cloud. Tweak had little time to celebrate her success, however; the detonation had not caused the quahhg any pause whatsoever, the beast's head erupting from the cloud of smoke and lashing forward, mouth open. The large, black knobbed tongue shot out with incredulous speed, connecting to Tweak at the midriff. Almost as soon as it had latched to the CSS woman, Tweak would feel herself being yanked forward harshly towards the rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth.

---

The smoke surrounding the smaller quahhg had begun to thin a bit, the wide open area and light blizzard-billowing breeze sending the thick black particles in several directions. However, the small quahhg was nowhere to be found amongst the detonation area. Nothing but a large patch of snow, darkened slightly from the previous explosion of disruptive elements.

---

George was conscious again as Richard found him. The short Nepleslian man clenched his teeth together in pain as the man helped him up and began moving him towards the exit. "Ungh... the hell's goin' on?" George asked through his teeth, turning his head side to side in hopes of assessing the situation himself.

---

Blake's application of medical technology had an unknown effect on Cassefin. The woman squirmed and visibly tensed in the snow, her face noting the flash of searing pain that was no doubt being drawn from the horrendous wound. The most she could do was breath out a weak gasp, still half-unconscious and unresponsive. The gel-like paste Blake had applied to the wound seeped into the crevices, but did not completely stop any bleeding, nor did it have any immediate effect. Blake, with his limited medical knowledge, didn't know what to look for when it came to healing wounds of this nature. Cassefin wasn't dead yet, though; that was a good enough sign.

"We're still fighting the quahhgs. We're supposed to evacuate and let the Freespacer deal with them with heavy weaponry." Richard looked back to where the large one was, but he couldn't clearly see it or Tweak through the smoke so instead of shooting at it and risking possibly hitting her he just kept a lookout for the juvenile one while helping George to safety and keeping his weapon ready.

Kokuten hustled over to Cassefin, ceasing the fire on the beast when he saw no immediate effect. The Captain stole a quick glance a George, seeing he was fine for the most part, and being thankful for that, at least. As he came up to Blake, his worse fears were confirmed, but not the worst. The Administrator was alive, breathing, but bleeding profusely. His eyes drained of color again, leaving nothing but a pure white. Part of him was sick, another was drying to pull through the stressful situation.

Confidence. Patience. Your patient and those around you must know everything will be all right. Professionalism.

"We can't move her yet." resolved Kokuten, looking to Morris for a moment, before pulling off a small kit off his back and setting it on the snowy floor. "We need to stop the bleeding. Morris, get a hemostatic out of that kit, now."

As quickly as the word hemostatic left Kokuten's mouth, Blake was already prying open the kit and rummaging through its contents. It wasn't long before the young artist snatched up a small roll of gauze still in its sterile wrapper, and tore open the transparent film before holding it out to Kokuten. His left hand dipped for the HHG lying in the sand at his knees and brought it up towards the general direction of the Quahhgs.

"Captain." There was that calm and dutiful voice, now that someone was leading the dance again, "How close do we let them get before we move her anyway? It's better for her to be alive and in trouble because we moved her than dead because we didn't want to."

Tweak realized that the creature had lowered itself so she couldn't run under it as she thought she could have, so after releasing her darts (and DART), the 'spacer neko dropped to the snow as she passed under the quahhg's head, tucking into an off-centered roll. Sort of. It was a probably-over-complicated maneuver that would have ended with her out from under the quahhg, at least, that was her desired and intended end result. So of course it didn't result that way. Why would it?

As the quahhg ducked to avoid getting a missile warhead to the face, it's head followed Tweak's escape route. Somewhere in the midst of Tweak's rolling-thing the quahhg's tongue found a purchase on her and started reeling the lightweight neko back toward the maw. Still in a reactionary mode of thinking with probably two seconds to act, Tweak pulled off her gloves.


Two things happened very quickly. First, Tweak's left hand dissolved into blood. Second, her right hand slapped an armed warhead -- the last of her three, this one being the unknown high-explosive type -- further up onto the main body of the tongue that was soon to snap back into the quahhg's mouth as the slosh of blood soaked it, the solvent-like liquid immediately turning a large swath of the sticky-surfaced muscular extension into a steaming mass of pain with a little extra pain en route in less than a second. Third...

This was not going to be good.

Tweak was too close to the creature's mouth by the time the blood cut through the tongue and sent the warhead hurtling toward it. If her suit didn't have that blasted reactor in the backpack, she would have let loose with the CRT rockets under her shoulder blades but, with it on, all Tweak could do was scramble back under the quahhg as best she could in the powdery snow and hope it didn't swallow before the blast went off and that the creature's body would absorb the worst of it.

As Blake and Kokuten spoke between themselves in hushed tones, Cassefin's brows twitched visibly above her closed eyes. There was a sudden drawing in of pained breath before she settled back into near-unconsciousness, soft wisps of faint steam rising from the area around her wound.

---

George remained visibly distressed as Richard continued to keep him on his way out of the conflict. "Well what the heck are we doin' here? We need to help her! Common!" The Nepleslian man struggled a bit in Richard's grasp, his mangled arm dangling hazardously enough to warrant a searing wince from George's face.

---

As Tweak's hemosynthetic blood splashed upon the giant quahhgs tongue, the virulent substance quickly began to assault the tender fleshy material. The beasts black eyes widened, its tongue pausing with Tweak in its adhesive grasp, and stood like that for a solid second before. The quahhgs body shook for a moment, lurching forward a bit before settling back to rest. It did it again a second or so later... and then again.

All at once, an enormous amount of sickly gray-brown matter pushed itself out of the quahhgs mouth, thick and with varying levels of consistency and viscosity. The mound of strange matter glided over its tongue in a soft stream before falling directly on top of Tweak's adhered form, spattering the front of her CSS suit in filth. The neko's assault on its tongue had caused a sort of unpleasant reaction, the sticky knob at the end detaching itself from Tweak once more and flowing back into its mouth.

The enormous quahhg looked confused for a moment, having just threw up its previous meals and still dealing with the pain at the side of its tongue. With its attention momentarily away from Tweak, the monstrous predator's swiveling eyes caught sight of the small group farther away, near the exit to the room... whom were apparently in the process of tampering with the meal it had left out to ripen. The quahhg let loose a short series of shrill, cautionary chirps, turning its body towards Cassefin and starting to advance.

"All right," Richard calmly repeated, letting go of the smaller man. He turned around to look for the quahhg and opened fire on it, aiming at its center, now that it was clearly within view. Noticing the squad captain and Blake continued to crouch down by the head administrator, he felt some relief reasoning that she must still be alive. He hoped he might draw the beast's attention from them, but he doubted that was possible given how easily it endured whatever was thrown at it.

"Cassefin needs to be stabilized now Blake," said the Captain starkly as he worked quickly, "I've seen this too many times before." His one hand working masterfully in apply the hemostatics. The Doctor's hand was shaking mildly, but at a continuous rate, and despite it, he managed a careful application. He set the gauze in place, padding some of the wound, before pull it off, and yanking a bit of coagulating spray and misting the wound with it. He then grabbed a separate slab of gauze and nestled on the wound trying to coat the front. The bleeding would settle there on the front, but the horn had gone all the way through so they needed to...



Son of a bitch.

The doctor tossed the gauze into the medkit and closed it hastily, before pushing it to Blake.

"Get her out of here. Find a safe spot, clean the hole in the back, spray the coagulant, apply the gauze, and do it as fast as you can." said Kokuten rapidly before patting Morris just as rapidly, "Gogogogogo!"

The Captain turned and stood, ripping his rifle out of the snow with his one remaining hand to fire on the approaching beast.

"Fuck that thing up! Unload all you've got on it! Don't let it get any closer without making it pay for it!" roared Kokuten, holding down on the trigger and letting his rifle spit plasma at the approaching beast.

Before Kokuten had even gotten halfway through his order, Blake had already holstered his pistol and swept Cassefin up carefully in his arms. As soon as the Captain was done talking, Blake jogged off into the corridor, headed back to the platform. His arms clenched firmly around Cassefin's fading body as he walked, fighting back any concern for the rest of the team.

He was finally starting to feel cold.

Richard's short bursts of fire did indeed draw the giant quahhgs attention; the plasma-charged bolts drew into the white-haired exterior in a series of soft fsht sounds, searing the flesh on contact. The girth of the beast, however, allowed it to shrug off Richard and Kokuten's attacks with relative ease. It was fairly obvious, though, that the quahhg was feeling the painful effects of the heat-based weaponry, the sharp maw growing and snarling with more intensity as it was bombarded. The giant animal turned in Richard's direction, beginning to quickly lumber towards the man.

---

Tweak remained on the ground, covered in quahhg vomit from her earlier attempt to kill the beast. With the variety of movements and noises emitting from the animal's mouth, it should have set off the shock-detecting detonation. Tweak would see why the supposed explosive did not erupt inside the beasts maw; the small light-gray warhead was laying in the snow next to her head, amidst a puddle of steaming sludge. The quahhgs sudden reaction to the burning sensation to the base of its tongue must have took the warhead with it.