Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Alright, you know what? Screw it."

There was no rope, so Reyin had to rethink his strategy. Unfortuantely, there was a surplus of talking and not enough action...ing. Sure, they could go around, but they might not have to. Of course, there was really only one way to test how they should go about the business. Reyin put his bow away, slung his pack across his shoulders, and made sure that his sword was easily accessible before easing out from the group and entering the swamp water. He wasn't heading straight across the water, though. He was angling himself towards the tree, because just in case that stupid mutant lizard was actually awake, he wanted to be as close to a safety net as possible.

Of course, he did this all without actually telling anybody. Much like Arian, Reyin didn't seem to want to wait around for people to resolve this issue anymore.

And hey, if she needed saving, he was right there.

Iopurl watched the group slowly begin to disintegrate as everyone began to move in their own direction. He turned around to watch Reyin and Arian slipping into the water, and another member leaping towards a tree. With a sigh Iopurl glanced at the alligator one last time. It looked asleep, although he would curse himself if he trusted it fully. His hand moved down to his side to grasp a hilt of one of his daggers. He swiftly pulled out the blade, and with his other clawed hand he unclasped his cloak. If he was going swimming, it would only hold him back in the water.

He walked towards the edge of the land, and placed a clawed hand on Jurie's shoulder. The hand was meant to be comforting, rather than aggressive. With a heavy sigh he looked down at the smaller Hume.

"Come, it seems I was wrong about this fight, we should move forward before we lose the rest of our group."

With that, Iopurl walked down to the water, his blade still unsheathed, and slipped gently in, making as little noise as he could. Being the tallest member he found he could walk in the water with much less difficulty than the rest. He was concerned if the beast moved though, he had often heard of swords and daggers getting stuck in sheathes due to water, and he had noticed he was the only party member in the water to have a blade out. Still, hopefully the beast would not stir. He began to make his way towards Reyin and Arian, catching up on the pair deftly.

"I don't do what I do because I want recognition-"

Well. ********.

An exotic, foreign word left the outlaw's lips in an obvious curse as her vibrantly colored eyes snapped on the moving gator in slightly widened surprise-and then slightly narrowed dislike.

She turned her body, stance widening under the water as the weight of her bag suddenly became more trouble than it was worth. Running was not an option, but her equipment was still weighing her down, cutting thin her options. The gator was...significantly bigger than Arian had first gauged. Now that it was in the water, now that it was closer and she had the nearby brush to compare to it-it was ******** huge.

Her expression was calm, though determined seeming as she gauged the speed of the gator and it's intended target-herself, and Iopurl, not too far behind, the taller, bigger guy having caught up or near there given his easier time with the water. She did not freak out or even really cry out a warning, confident she wasn't the ONLY one paying attention to the giant a** lizard-and then Arian was all movement.

Lifting her staff in both hands, fists over her head, She stretched her back and then rammed violently downwards, thrusting the length of the staff deep into the mud, the six and a half foot long rod securing itself in the murk.

In an instant, she was tearing the strap to her bag over her head, dropping it with a splash into the water, her left hand drawing a short sword from her belt, right whipping forward for the staff, gloves allowing her some grip despite the slickness of the wood. Arian, of all things, scrambled up on the staff, her soaked jeans heavier than Arian would have believed possible, causing her arms to feel the weight of them-but Arian was conditioned to haul herself up with much more weight on her body, so it was not enough to slow her.

(Depending on the depth of the water, Arian will be either a foot above it, or two.) Legs wound in such a way Arian could support herself solely on them if need be, he gripped the staff in her right hand for balance and in order to lean out while her left wielded the two and a half feet of blackened metal in a lifted gesture that expressed, quite plainly, her intent to slice this thing and it's creepy a** eyes.

In getting somewhat out of the water, Arian hoped she'd be in better shape to retaliate, at least safe from a first attack. Of course, the thing might be able to jump out of the water...-!?

Arian mentally freaked. Like sharks? Could gaters ******** jump? She wasn't sure and didn't know, but she felt a hell of a lot less secure. Oh well. She'd just have to pay attention. As for Iopurl... "It's probably pissed about the rock you tried to throw." ...what? Did Arian...was that...did she think that was funny?! The hell kind of morbid, weird, foreign humor was that?

That was just it. Foreign. Different culture, different life, and different kind of lady. Reyin, you any good with that bow you've got? Hit it's eyes! Arian mentally urged. She didn't look back at the kid, but she sure as ******** was hoping he was still there, and thinking ahead of her. Arian cursed herself for not bringing a bow, but it'd been a while since she had wanted to use the long range weapon, rather than get up and in there.

Despite all of this-somewhere, sickly, Arian was pleased. Finally-some ******** action.

"Man, I totally saw that coming."

No point in moving slow, Reyin picked up the pace and, even though he was sloshing through waist-high water, he was definitely moving twice as fast as he had been initially. Both hands shot out, grabbing the branch of a nearby tree and lifting the blonde up into the relative safety of the tree. As he pulled himself up he went slightly inverted for a brief moment, wrapping his legs around a higher branch while simultaneously bringing him just a little bit closer to Arian, who by this point had positioned herself atop her staff.

Reyin would have whipped out his bow, but it seemed Iopurl had already seemed to get the same idea, and Arian might as well have been a sitting duck for the mean ol' gator should a knife to the eye do little more than piss the thing off. So, now it was his job to play insurance policy, and even though he had to admire the girl's bravery, this wasn't exactly the time for swording. Not until they had the high ground, any way.

"ARIAN!"

Reyin, still using the momentum from his initial swing up into the tree, swung his torso towards the girl on the staff and extended his arm, obviously with the intent of grabbing her hand and bringing her back to a slightly more advantageous position.

Of course, this kind of hinged on her accepting the offer, but hey, can't blame a guy for trying.

And with a quick jump, Renshia flung herself off the ground and into the air. Arms and legs spread out like a flying squirrel with the sheathed sword gripped by her left hand, she flew through the air and zoomed past the tree she had aimed for. In a futile attempt she tried to grab the branch but only caught a twig. Up ahead a dead tree without branches was the only thing within reach and above the water.

With her right arm she grabbed onto the trunk, the dead bark gave way and crumbled under her hand. Quickly she used her tail to momentarily hold onto the lower part and swung herself around, smacking into the trunk face first. Renshia winced a little then shook her head and looked over to everyone else.

The gator had awakened and made its move into the water with the bigger member of the team also taking first actions against the massive beast while Reyin scooped up the potential appetizer for the gator. Well nothing to worry about, Renshia was in a nice secure place, arms, legs and tail wrapped around the old tree...until the dead tree made an aweful noise that sounded like someone biting into a crisp ripe red apple. The tree shifted to the side as Renshia's eyes widened with shock, "This does not bode well...". Finally the dragon-girl spoke though not that it mattered as she was too far for anyone to hear.

Reyin swung backwards, dragging Arian along with him in the process. It probably helped that the gator was distracted by the beast man, but hey, Reyin was going to look at his daring rescue as one of his better moments in his short heroing history. His legs and arm were straining like mad, because despite Reyin's excellent physical condition, carting a girl around with one arm while loaded down with equipment was way harder than the movies made it look.

"Alley-OOP!"

Reyin let out a little grunt as he pulled up on Arian's arm, releasing the girl just as soon as he started swinging back towards the tree's trunk and sending her (hopefully) into the relatively safe confines of the tree's upper branches.

Reyin, meanwhile, started swinging back towards the ol' gator, already building up a nice amount of momentum, Reyin opted for the retarded route instead of waiting to see how Iopurl was going to handle the crazed reptile.

"YAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Reyin unhooked his legs, used what momentum he had built up to literally send himself flying at the gator's head. Depending on how lucky he was, Reyin would either end up going shoulder-first into the side of the gator, or, more likely, end up inserting himself between the gator's two jaws.

Should the former happen, Reyin would just hope to disorient the gator long enough to buy the rest of the party time to take the thing down.

Should the latter happen, Reyin would be frantically jamming his palm up into the roof of the gator's mouth, relying on his backpack to keep his back from getting destroyed by the thing's razor-sharp teeth, all the while trying to unhook his hunting knife from his hip.

Iopurl had been prepared to take a chomp, and as such had backed up slightly as the alligator had opened its mouth and prepared to make its move at the Beast-man, however luckily for him savior came in the form of the Hume youth jumping down on top of the rather large reptilian. Iopurl was thankful for this, for he was growing rather short on breath at this point, however he saw a golden opportunity that he couldn't pass up.

He pushed back the burning feeling that filled his lungs as he remained underwater, and with his dagger in hand he lunged himself upwards and outwards slightly, causing the blade to hopefully meet the soft underbelly of the gator, and carve him a new opening along his underbelly, even if the flesh didn't part as Iopurl expected it to, it would certainly sink into the beast, judging from what his throwing blade had done. If his knife didn't slide along the beast's stomach, he would begin to make as many stab wounds as he could.

Iopurl strongly hoped this worked, his vision was getting fuzzy at the edges at this point, he would have to swim up for air immediately after the stabbing, leaving Reyin to fend for himself.