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He'd been spotted.

Lucky tried to play dead a few more seconds longer, but it was too late - she was talking to him as if he was awake - which he was - and presumably wasn't fooled. Her hand still had a tight grip on his bandaged wrist, preventing him from escaping her 'help'. At least unless something dragged him down a second time.

He pulled himself up to his feet again, weapon summoned on principle in his free hand. It was unclear what she wanted, or if she did want anything at all, from pulling him out of the sand. Twice now she'd grabbed his hand to keep him close, a complete reversal of her threatening approach. He looked at Mimsy again, this time with some clarity. Her smile was unnerving, in that it was a sincere expression, just not one he expected from her. He worried he had failed to notice her smiling for a long time now. Song met his continued attempts to let his guard down to Mimsy with a frustrated sort of silence and half-walled herself away. Lucky, meanwhile, searched for an answer, though fortunately or unfortunately for Mimsy it was not accompanied by a pleasant smile. "Alive." He looked back over toward the sand, which no longer churned with bugs. "Barely."

"Ulp-" Just the sight of the behemoth centipede made him queasy. He could still feel the phantom impression of a hundred hundred legs crawling all over him, and in his mouth, nearly gagging him at the thought. The time after that felt strange. Like something was missing. He remembered them crawling in - and pouring out again just as suddenly, with nothing between the two. Had he simply blacked out? He swayed on his feet a little, before taking a single step closer to her as if gradually but wordlessly accepting her offer of protection. "Insects. In the sand. They vere in my mouth-"

The tug combined with the leverage from his weapon was enough to free him. "Thanks hun, sorry about the burn. You'll probably want to re-summon soon, the lull won't last forever."

"Yes." Lance answered quickly as Stormy asked her question, beckoning towards her. "C'mere a sec."

The Insanity Titan shrieked, not quite a shriek, more a strange high-pitched clicking noise, sharp and grating, as Lance's wall of fire prevented it from moving any closer. Unlike the other Insanity Titans, this one seemed to know exactly what to do as it burrowed deep into the sand and burst from the other side moments later, appendages wiggling individually. It had taken a lot of damage, and bits and pieces of its legs were slowly falling apart, turning into individual insects again, tiny centipede tapeworms that slithered back into the sand instead of reforming whole pieces.

Slowly, bit by bit as it took each hit it dissolved a little more, sections of it steadily peeling off. Its body thrashed horribly, anyone who got close would feel a sharp, poisonous sting as it continued to dissipate-

- And then the ground was shaking again.

There wasn't one flat, tapered head that emerged from the sand to join the first. There wasn't a second. There wasn't even a forth or fifth or sixth.

No, what faced the Hunters was a whole forest of them, a mass that seemed to blot portions of the sand grey and black, that seemed to take up the sky. The Hunters had only angered one of them, and there were easily ninety-nine more problems.

"You know," Candace tugged, "that is at least the second time you have set me on fire. The first time you set my clothes on fire and I lost my top in the middle of a mission and had to use my scarf as a shirt. Thanks for that."

The ground shook. Goddamnit no! More of them appeared. "What is this a bug hydra?!"

Lance plunged his weapon tip-down into the sand so that it stood on its own next to him, yet ready to pull out when needed. When Stormy came close enough he reached up and clamped his hands down on her shoulders. "Look at me."

His grip tightened on her shoulders. "Listen to me. Being a hunter means you have to put up with ******** up s**t. I need you to focus; I need you here and now. This won't be the last time something like this happens but I need you to be here and in the moment. Something big is going to happen soon, I don't know what but I need you to focus and not get hurt further. I want you to pay those ******** back tenfold, you hear me?"

He raised his hands, then dropped them back down onto her shoulders to make a point. "If you're not feeling it, stay close. I don't want to lose you on the account of you being caught up over what happened instead of what's happening, got it?"

The ground shook as the Titan shrieked. "It's showtime!" He yelled, letting go of the trainee as he reached over to retrieve his weapon. "Chin up, shoulders squared and boobs out Stormy! Rock'em like a hurricane and goddamn do I wish this wasn't ******** sand!"

With a loud whoop the division assistant swung his lance, smacking a centipede-titan that erupted near them. As Candace sarcastically thanked him, Lance threw a grin over his shoulder. "Oh really? Damn! I should've been paying more attention to you, I would've loved to see that."

HP: 90/100
Charge: 1/3 'til next buff~

Stormy won a kiss to her temple from Candace before the woman summoned Atropos again, getting in close while letting Stormy take some of the hit as she apparently wanted. Good girl, Stormy. She'd pay you back for that.

Just as she hit a creature it stung her and she hissed, kicking it and backing off.

"Careful, guys! ********. That kind of hurt..they sting!" She called out to everyone, rubbing her thigh. Tingly..strange. It went away quickly enough but it was still worrisome.

HP: 46/60
Damage done: 4
Charge: 1/3; 1/3 spent
Attack: 1/5

There were more.

There were more.

Mimsy looked at them all with wide, excited eyes and absolutely no survival instinct, overwhelmed by her insatiable curiosity. How incredible!

"Incredible! Were they here all along, and simply dormant? Or has our action caused them to multiply? What if they occupy the entire desert?" Svensyl was vaguely between Lucky and the closest of the Titans, the only indication that she was still protecting him. It was only after another long moment of staring at the creatures that she remembered Lucky mentioned something before they surfaced. She glanced over her shoulder and gave him a little half-smile that was hopefully encouraging.

"It was only the fog, Lucky. They were not actually 'in your mouth'. It was only the sensation that was real." In no way did she believe that, but it sounded nice. "Be careful. Do not stand unless you feel steady enough."

Defense: 2
Target: Lucky

They didn't wait. The closest one slammed into Finn, sharp mandibles grazing past his Fear Shield, but not without impaling his left arm with one of thousands of its sharp needle-like legs. That appendage broke off, and continued to twitch, embedded deeply in his arm through flesh and possibly bone. The poison from contact spread through him like wildfire, directly in his system. It would take every inch of his concentration and effort to stay alive.

The second moved, not even bare moments after. Shiloh and Candace's defense were shoddy at best. One of the Insanity Titans hissed, spitting a thick acid that corroded right through Candace's Fear Shield, spraying her from arm to back with a heavily corrosive acid that tore right through skin like butter. The spray also caught a large group of Hunters, Shiloh, America, Gale and Otto, just the aftermath of it, flecks flying all directions. As it hit it quickly corroded, tearing into flesh and leaving gaping black spots that smelled like acid and rot. A second centipede followed and then a third all surrounding the group.

It wasn't even a fight. Lance's talk was all the Hunters had. The Mist assistant himself, got the brunt of three simultaneous attacks at once, his only saving grace was that the creatures could not discern him from his wheelchair and managed to knock him out of it. The Hunter himself took little damage as a result though his wheelchair was already half-corroded. Said wheelchair managed to pin Abbi down so that she lay smothered between the heavy metal of the runic wheelchair and the added weight of one centipede. Her exposed legs were sprayed with acid that curdled her skin and made it feel like it had peeled right off.

Stormy didn't even need much momentum at all as a fourth - or was it a fifth or sixth or seventh? - easily tipped her over, as hundreds of sharp legs rustled and tried to jab and impale her, as she was protected from instant death only by the bare dregs of her Fear shield. Ripley fared the same treatment, only his shield snapped, as a massive pair of clacking mandibles lunged straight at his neck, intent on the kill. A second snapped up to tackle Jack, forcing him to the ground, needle-like legs clawing deeply into his skin just as Milo took the brunt of that particular grouped attack, suffocated by a mass of them piling on him at once.

Lucky and Mimsy fell prey to another group - one centipede creature had left a barbed poison sticking right out of Lucky's back. Mimsy wasn't so lucky as she would feel the acrid sting of spray against her shoulder, her neck. It burned and corroded and it hurt to the point where it blinded her. Both would not be getting up any time soon.

Rin, Pandora, Ian, Melvin, and everyone else, thankfully took the least damage, they had somehow managed to avoid the worst of the acid, though the sharp limbs where everywhere. It wouldn't be long until they were spotted, as the sand and sky buzzed black and scratched against their Fear shields like sandpaper plowing through cotton.

This was a joke. This wasn't a fight. This was a desert full of creatures that existed only to slaughter, terrify and kill. They were condemned as soon as they touched sand.