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King Corpse, Aislin[@Estylwen], Luca [@FernStone] & Everyone
[hr]

For all its power, the corpse-king was still just that. [i]A corpse.[/i] Dead, [i]rotting[/i] meat and old bones.

[i]Useless,[/i] the instinct at the base of Clancy's consciousness reminded him. There was no sustenance to find here, only a problem to be dealt with.

While it appeared to remain unaware of him, the boy had made to maul the towering creature, small hands grasping and tearing at exposed bone and the residual tissues contained around it. He [i]meant[/i] to bisect the royal skeleton, one hand plunged elbow deep in an effort to grasp at what passed for backbone. Fingers grazed against vertebrae, then-

[i]Snap.[/i]

The boy's limbs seemed to drop, dangling limp at one side as the two of them were speared through by a great wooden length, the skeleton through its ribcage and the boy from waist to sternum. Clancy's gaze shot downwards, trying to make the scale of it.

It looked [i]bad[/i], horrifying even. The stake as thick as a tree tunk, more as like to be just as strong. Thick enough that it seemed less the case it had speared through him, than he'd been smeared around it, like a human donut.

The only times he could recall things looking worse than this were oout on the train tracks, a [i]long[/i] time ago. He could only guesd how it [i]looked[/i] to the others, even if he felt nothing of it save for the presence of something that didn't belong there.

The corpse-king wasn't down yet either; impaled through the ribcage, and pinned to the wall a few feet abead of his own position, uust narrowly out of his reach, Clancy could see the glow forming in its twitching, bony digits as it invoked another surge of elemental wrath, fire and storm bound into one Although he didn't have enough room to twist around, or even glance backwards, the boy could hear the panicked voices, urgent shouting. 

Getting free was a good idea, except he was suspended midair, far enough of the ground that his feet were dangling in the air, no floor or wall to kick off, and the corpse-king still a few inches too far away for him to properly grapple with or pull loose. One hand clutched at the wooden length drigen through him, palm barely wide enough to curl around a fraction of its circumference, and dug in.

[I]Definitely a tree trunk.[/i]

Legs swung out, fingers dug into the wood, cracks and fissures forming where they bedded in, and then, before he [i]or[/i] the corpse-king had a chance to lash out at the other, darkness enshrouded the both of them as the roof came crashing down, a shroud of dust and detritus swallowed up half of the tunnel with them. 

[hr]

[quote=Aislin][b]=-”...Let's get outta here. I dont think it's dead.”[/b][/quote]

Aislin's relief appeared premature when [i]another[/i] hand burst through the mound of debris. Smaller, paler than the last, it appeared to reach backwards, pulling free a looser section of the rubble, exposing the still-impaled Clancy, skewered upon the visible length of wood.

Perhaps by some stroke of luck, the debris wall had given him something to kick off. Knees brought as high as they could, he kicked off against the debris wall while fingers dug into the wood, pushing himself backwards until he slid off the blunted end of the stake, landing backwards on his rear with both palms splayed across the ground.

When the boy stood, the foot-wide tear in his abdominal cavity was near-imppssible to miss, ligHt dimly spilling through the great puncture for a few seconds before a shadowy, skeltal layer filled in the space, underlying the pale facade of flesh that had been displaced. [I]Human donut[/i] wasn't too far from the truth, complete with a [i]coating[/i] of grey-brown dust that smeared his charred and tattered clothes. The only part of him that seemed to retain any dustinct colour was the crooked, yellow sneer of the torn cartoon mask, now smeared with blood. 

[b]”Great work.”[/b] Clancy clapped both palms together with a sarcastic cheer, nodding downwards at the shadowy hole in his torso, [b][i]”Thanks.[/i]"[/b] 

Although his expression betrayed nothing of his sort, his gaze searched for the others out of concern for their potential losses. Adora and Luca were [i]definitely[/i] on rough shape, but they were [i]alive[/i] at least, judging by the latter's suggestion they move forward, [b]”Yeah, before I run out of stuff that fits."[/b] 

Then, he shot a look at Britney and the Greenwood girl, [b]"Unless you think the dog can fetch me another shirt.”[/b] His voice was bristling, laced with venom, but lacking most of the guttural rumble that had characterised his other imhuman [i]backslides[/i] into instinct. 

For now, anyway.