1268/A Case of Portal COMBAT!

A Case of Portal COMBAT!
Date of Scene:	21 April 2020
Location:	Upper West Side
Synopsis:	Now you're thinking with portals.
Cast of Characters:	Patsy Walker, Jessica Drew, Stephen Strange

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Patsy Walker has posed:
Even this late at night, a good number of line-swinging superheroes and vigilantes call New York City home. This particular vigilante in her sunflower-orange suit accented with black gloves, boots, and eared cowl, is currently completing an arcing swing to land on the rooftop of the Sanctum Sanctorum. Her cloak flutters to stillness after swirling around her body. A quick stoop and there's now a note in an envelope left upon the rooftop:

//Hey Doc, it's Hellcat. I checked on the portals over in Riverside Park in the Upper West Side and they're still there. I saw one eat a pigeon and it didn't come out. They probably need to be fixed sooner than later. You'll find me, I'll be sneezing.//

That note being dropped up, Hellcat then leaps fearlessly off the roof to make her way across the city towards the Park in question. She easily finds the small grove of trees near to the underpass of the highway overhead and...yes, immediately begins sneezing on and off. The portals have become larger and more intense since last she visited from what she can tell; only half of the sticks and rocks she's thrown in have popped out the exit portal.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Missives wing their way across the city by text and superhero mail from boho Chelsea to the Sanctum Sanctorum. Jessica leans against the doorway of her neighborhood Bodega, thumbs flying as she replies to the ping she had received from the Doctor.

<My friend's dog off-leash disappeared. A portal? Meet you there then.>

A kid holding his mother's hand walks by sucking his thumb. He scowls, and pops it out to ask, "Mommy, why is that lady in her pjs."

Clearing her throat, Jessica looks down at her red and black ensemble, belts her chic camel hair coat around her and pushes off the side of the building, not without crossing her eyes at the child and shrugging to the mother.

Rooftops are the standard superhero mode of travel in the Big Apple. She walks into the nearest alley, drops her coat off with a homeless person who she knows will have it for her when she returns and not use it for a pillow, and climbs the side of a building.

Some time later she pads through the dark; spider senses on alert, looking for the Doctor and wary of blundering into a portal.

Stephen Strange has posed:
    Stephen looks to Wong and furrows his eyebrows and purses his lips as he takes the letter from his former mentor and reads the "Wow, hand written. How quaint." He says to himself as he goes over the note and then turns his attention towards the cellphone in his pocket.

    A quick message is delivered to a certain someone he knows would likely enjoy the mystery and the puzzle these portals may likely present. Stephen summons his cloak to his back and stands up. As he rises from his chair, the world around him fades and disolves into a swirlling of color and shape until everything reorders itself into that of a park.

Hetephen stands up through nothing and is suddenly walking down a path in the Upper West side, wearing a red fabulous cloak and blue tunic over a rather sensible pair of slacks. "What's the drama going on here miss Hellcat?" The wizard asks as his hands subconsciously find their way into the pockets of his pants.

Patsy Walker has posed:
"Oh hey, Doctor." The Hellcat is easy enough to spot in her own cloak, even if it didn't cover the brightness of the catsuit. She turns and twiddly-finger waves from the edge of the copse of trees, steel-blue eyes bright behind the anonymity of the cowl.

"They got bigger, I think," she continues as she thumbs over her shoulder. Turning, the young woman leads the way through the spring-greening trees until they spread out in a small glade. "Here, watch." Stooping, she picks up a rock and tosses it at a seemingly innocuous patch of grass, almost like a fairy-ring. The rock falls down into the patch and vanishes completely...

...only to pop up about a dozen feet to the left with a goodly amount of velocity. It whocks off a nearby tree trunk noisily. "See? It's a one way portal, but I watched a pigeon walk into it and I haven't seen it come out yet. Like, it's pretty - ee - eeh -- kerSNEEKT!"

Sure proof of magic, the Hellcat's sneezing reaction to it. She sniffles and shrugs almost to herself. Both Strange and the Hellcat are easy to spot through the trees with their cloaks and general conversation, though thankfully, not many others are out tonight.

Jessica Drew has posed:
It doesn't take spider senses to feel the strangeness that pebbles her senses. Spiderwoman stops on the edges of the shadows, face still under the red mask as she watches the rock come zinging back into existence.

"Wow," she whispers, stepping out from the darkness. More loudly with a nodded greeting to them both, "Evening. That was like it was slingshotted around the sun, gained velocity and boom. This looks like it might be a job for...well, the both of you."

Stephen Strange has posed:
    The goatee'd man lifts a hand towards Jessi- Spider-Woman as she's approaching the two. "Come. Take a look at this." Strange says as he motions for Jess to join him and Patsy. "Do you mind jumping through or are you too scared of not returning any longer Hellcat?" Strange asks, squinting his grey eyes in the acrobat's direction. The colorful acrobat... The woman colorful acrobat.... ! Patsy's direction.

    Stephen takes a breath and turns his attention towards the grass where the rock first disappeared and then sits. He crosses his legs forming a lap and he then closes his eyes and listens, reaching out with his minds eye and his other senses to try and feel out the portals.

Patsy Walker has posed:
Patsy turns at the whisper, still soft as a breeze, to see Spider-Woman arrive. Her expression is transparently surprised, down to the rounding of her lips. "Oh wow -- I mean, hi! You're one of the Spider-people! The Spider-themed heroes, I mean!" She glances back at the portals and then to Jessica again. "I guess it's a job for the two of us? I mean, more him," and one black-gloved finger indicates Strange.

"I can jump into it again, sure, I'm pretty sure I'll come out the other side. Here, just let me..." she murmurs as she walks a quarter-turn further around the grass path, the better to adjust her exit-angle, and then, as if she were going down a waterslide, she jumps feet first. Arms crossed keep her cloak in place and ZWHIP: the Hellcat's gone, just like that.

Only to appear at the exit in a squealing flailing of legs and cloak! Her air-time arcs for a second before she manages a quick twist of back to land roughly in a crouch. There's a roll through her hip and then she catches herself, boot pads dug into the earth.

"WHOA!" she exclaims. "There was -- I saw colors! Not just blackness!"

Jessica Drew has posed:
Head tilted quizzically, Spider-woman takes a step closer, "I've never thought of myself as a theme, actually." The bright staccato of her English accent is friendly if not puzzled. "Mutated always seemed to fit the, erm, theme better. Actually." With a tentative half smile, she offers, "You're welcome to call me Jessica."

The masked woman frowns at the grass where the portal hides itself, eyes sliding from the bright form of the woman to Dr. Strange. When she disappears like Alice through the Looking Glass, leaving a vacancy in the night, Jessica approaches the 'launch' site then looks up just in time to see the woman come zooming back to them. "I say, at least there were colors. I don't know. I may be able to help. Dimension slinging being a bit of a thing among the Spider-themed."

Stephen Strange has posed:
    Stephen remains silent and feeling with his mind, and actually leaving his body on the ground of the New York park, unattended except for the two super heroines. The man's mind tries to go through the portals to attempt to experience them in a non-corporeal manner as Jessica does with her physical self. Stephen does a silent and unknowable reconisence.

    Returning to his body either centuries or mere moments later Stephen doesn't know but returns he does and frowns, "Should anything happen Jessica, I'll make sure you're safe. Both of you. But we do have to close these soon enough."