"Nice raccoon?" squeaks out of Xavier as he looks up at the massive raccoon standing over him, bringing the makeshift trashcan shield up in front of him.  It seemed so completely not enough compared to the creature standing in front of him.


    While the shield is still rising into place, the raccoon reaches out with both front paws to try and grab him.  Xavier knocks the overgrown hands away with the bat as he takes a half step back bringing the shield up the rest of the way.  The hollow klonk of the metal bat on knuckles echoes around the room as the chitters die down.  A short bark escapes from it, like the cross between a loud hiss and growl forced out in a huff loud enough to hurt his ears, before the creature lashes out in a flurry of swipes, the claws on the ends of its fingers grown to easily 5 inches long as they gleamed in the dark light.


    Xavier ducks under the first swipe, feeling the passage of the claw and the breeze that follows it as it passes by  directly overhead, before leaping backwards to avoid the follow up coming directly down at his head.  Slipping on a piece of debris from the destruction in this house, he stumbles backwards, only barely avoiding falling onto the ground.  The makeshift shield has several inches removed from the top as the next swing comes through, the claws tearing through the metal as he manages to push the claws back just enough to avoid them slicing into his face.


    Well, that''s not going to work.


    He lashes out with the hammer in a pause in the flurry of blows, easily landing a hit on the creatures underside.  It steps back with a hiss of pain, followed by another as he landed another, but the mass of the bearcoon easily absorbs the blows without any apparent damage as it begins to lean forward at him again.


    Not that either.


    Grabbing claws reach out towards him again as the creature comes crashing down toward him, evidently having decided to rely on size instead.  Xavier slams the shield between him and the large form as he tries franticly to activate the shield from before, trying to flex the non-existent muscle he could feel in the back of his head.  For a moment, as the weight came crashing down on him, he didn''t think he was going to pull it off.  The sensation felt slippery, as if he was grabbing it the wrong way and it was slipping from his grip.


    With barely any space left, it finally works as something clicks and the shield blossoms out from the flimsy piece of metal in his hand, hexagons forming out of the air between them as the creatures weight slams down onto the shield, causing several of the pieces to shimmer for a second before reforming.  Unfortunately, while the blow itself doesn''t connect, it doesn''t stop the weight of the bearcoon from shoving down on the shield, forcing him to the ground underneath of it.  While it still protected him from the now scrabbling claws of the creature, he was unable to move with his arm pinned against his side.  He could feel the pressure of the creature pressing down on the shield, despite the weight not actually crushing his body like it felt like it should.


    Maybe because its not actually attached to the shield?  Or maybe cause it was going into the floor?


    In his other hand the hammer was glowing, gaining in brightness as it cast stark shadows on the room around him as he could feel the shield starting to fracture, but he was unable to bring it around with the weight on top of him.  "Help!" he calls out.  His sister was in the room with him.  What was she doing?


    "Trying!" her voice calls out from somewhere beyond the bearcoon before, in a much quieter whisper. "why isn''t it working?"  He hears her slip on something before catching himself as he flails with his legs under the growing pressure he can feel on the shield as small cracks spread across its surface in front of his eyes.  Straight into the fur of the creature, through the shield itself as it doesn''t seem to block his body at all, despite the wall is presents to the creature itself as its back leg kicks back against the blows to its lower body.


    "Ha! Got it!" Balere''s voice calls out from out of sight.  A heavy thudding noise shakes the room, the footfalls of something big not even attempting to be stealthy as three-toed foot prints stomp themselves into the floor of the room towards him before a blow slams into the side of the bearcoon, throwing it off of him and rolling across the room as the shield winks out of existence.  Sucking air into his lungs, he freezes as he feels an invisible foot pass over him as whatever Balere had summoned step over him, following the bearcoon, before slamming another foot into the floor on the other side of him.


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    Once it had moved over him, he scrambled back to his feet, hefting his hammer as he turns towards the bearcoon as it backs away from something it can''t see, a look of panic in its eyes.  The bright gleam of the hammer draws its eyes back toward him as the outline of a large fist appears in the creatures fur as it takes an invisible punch that knocks it to the side with the sound of cracking bones.  *It''s taking actual damage!* He starts towards its as it rolls to the side, but stops as its claws dig into the floor, launching it back towards him, claws throwing chunks of the floor behind it.


    Xavier tries to summon the shield again for a moment, but despite being certain that he was doing the exact same thing as last time, all he got was a pain in his head, as if he was pulling on a strained muscle.  Instead, the throws himself the side at the last minute, swinging the glowing star of a hammer out behind him hoping to catch the creature with it as it charges past, and managing to clip the shoulder a fraction of a second before it would have slammed into him.  A bright flash of the energy in the hammer exploding blinds him while the force of it sends his already midair body into a fast spin that blurred the room around him and left the room spinning as he landed.


    Accompanying the impact of him hitting the floor was the loud crash of the bearcoon slamming into, and from the sounds if it, through something in the house.  Fighting the urge to vomit as the room spun around him, Xavier groans, fresh pain joining the aches from the last fight as he shifts off of the sharp remains of a chair leg that he had landed on jabbing into his side.  An angry roar echoes through the room as he can hear the bearcoon regain its feet and charge back into sight from the other room that it had went through the wall into it.


    Spotting him, it heads back towards him, the shoulder that he had connected with ruined, caved into the rest of the body and twisted around and the arm dangling limp at its side as it lumbered towards him.  Xavier started to climb back to his feet as the bearcoon, and his death, lumbered closer.  Before he could regain his feet, the bearcoon screeched as its dangling arm was grabbed by the invisible something and pulled on.  The bearcoon swings angrily in the direct that its arm is being yanked, but before the claw can connect with anything, a large foot print appears in the fur of its body and the arm stretches out.


    Shrieks of pain accompany the sound of wet tearing and blood splattering onto the floor underfoot as an unimaginable strength pulls the arm off of the bearcoon.  It begins to back away rapidly from its arm that is dangling in midair, blatant panic on its face at the traumatic injury, before its arm is whipped around and slammed into the side of its face, knocking it backwards, which the bearcoon turns into an awkward roll that points it in the direction of the hole for a front door of the house.  It takes off out the door and onto the street he can see beyond, trailing a stream of blood behind it as the gaping hole of a shoulder pours blood from it.


    Regaining his feet, Xavier charges after it past his sister hiding in the shadow of the door, noticing her almost in passing as he shouts at the back of the creature.  "Where are you going!?  Got a little hurt and decided you didn''t want to play anymore!"  Bullshit!  Knocks me around like I am nothing but takes off when it gets hurt.  Missing an arm and still able to run faster than me!  The gap between him and the bearcoon grows as it takes off across the cul-de-sac this house sat on and towards another house which would provide shelter.  Behind him, he could hear the foot falls of Balere''s summon chasing him out the door, but it wasn''t catching up to him, so it would never catch up with the creature.


    I really don''t want this thing to get the jump on my again.  Either inside that house or cause we didn''t make sure that it was dead before it decided to get revenge.


    Instead, the sound of a gunshot rings out across the cul-de-sac and a bar of light pierces the bearcoon, lancing down from the roof of one of the other houses nearby, through the middle of the bearcoon and into the ground behind it.  A crater is blown in the dirt where the bar connected to it, followed shortly by the middle of the bearcoon blossoms out in an explosion of blood and bits that splatters everything nearby, including Xavier as he skids to a stop in the middle of the road.


    Xavier looks towards the roof that the shot had came from and sees a hand shoot up out of the shadows on the room and the person hiding up there waves and stands up, revealing the dark bearded face of the man up there, half dressed.  Xavier waves back and opens his mouth to call out as the warm coppery spell of blood washes over him and some of it drips down his face into his mouth.  He pauses for a brief moment before his stomach rolls and he folds in half, vomiting all over the ground at his feet as his body begins to shake, the panic and gore getting to him.