13067/The Worst Defense

The Worst Defense
Date of Scene:	20 October 2022
Location:	Central Business District - New Troy
Synopsis:	A group of disparate heroes fight off the DREAD DORMAMMU attempting to infect the world with the DARK DIMENSION!
Cast of Characters:	Natasha Romanoff, Audra Meridian, Valeria Richards, Franklin Spade, Jr, Stephen Strange, Illyana Rasputina

---

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Along the Central Metropolis Business District, the sky had turned fully dark. Gotham on a dramatic night fully dark. Not a cloud to be seen, not the stars, not the moon, not even the bright lights of the City of Tomorrow. The air was thick with tension. Then the air was thick with lightning. Purple lightning. Nauseating. Feeling like blood, gravity, and pain.
    Then up in the air, several dozen meters would be a purple rift in time and space, dimensions and existence breaking through. From it would be a realm of total darkness. A dimension of doom. From there would be breaching dozens upon dozens of golemnic styled beings. Large, like beasts, faceless but for a red streak down the center of their heads like an optic.
    Striding next from the portal, the essence of the portal itself would be an abomination, head on fire, clad in impossible armor. "COME MY MINIONS! DREAD DORMAMMU SHALL CLAIM THIS REALM AS HIS OWN! COME, MY MINDLESS ONES! TODAY THE ALL-POWERFUL DORMAMMU CONQUERS THIS INSIGNIFICANT GALAXY AND ADDS IT TO THE DARK DIMENSION! A high pitched cackle causing windows to shake and shatter! "
    DESTROY ALL FOR THE DREAD DORMAMMU SHALL REMAKE THIS PLACE AS HE SEES FIT!" yes, apparently glowing skulls could grin.

Audra Meridian has posed:
When your 'day job' includes literally staring at the sky, you tend to notice things like it turning unnatural shades of darkness. There was no storms in the forecasts, and the lack of any celestrial bodies in view was also a bit distressing.

The purple lightning was a neat touch. But still, unnatural. Also, it's over Metropolis. So hitting a bit close to home.

It is all together more than enough to have gotten Audra's attention, and a quick costume change later Windrose is cruising through the city at wind propelled speeds. Until she reachs near where the gaping hole in the sky is open, pulling to a stop and hovering as she looks it over. From the rift, to the armored head-of-fire, to the grotesque figures stomping out around him. "Huh. That's... something else."

While THE DREAD DORMAMMU is rambling like the megalomaniacal menace he is she pulls a PDA out of a compartment of her suit and flips through it's display controls. "Aliens... animate rocks... mutant beaver... more aliens... jackelope... relic hunting assassins... beach vampires... deadly novelty items... Nope!" She flicks a fingertip to make a new entry. "Transdimensional Invasion is a new one for the Weird Shit I've Seen list." A pause. Another flick. "I really should of made this a bingo card..."

Hopefully someone with a bit more familiar with this sort of weirdness will show up? Those faceless things don't look pleasant.

Valeria Richards has posed:
Val gets gerself every sometimes. Usually by Fantasticar. In this case she was on her way to see some friends in Metrropolis. Of course the trip has to get distrupted when sensors start picking up rips in space time. The computers in the vehicle and her own wrist computer making a big racket. Mostly because of the Doom tech installed which sometimes factors in mystical energies. Benefits of a godfather that's a mystic.

Sweeping down with the Fantasticar she hovers conventiently not far from the portal.

"Val Rings, you're such good bling!" she activates the tech in two rings on her middle finger, turning a tank top and way too tight designer jeans into a uniform that could be a cross between Fantastic Four uniform, and padded armored motorcycle leathers. The colors and the numeral 4 on her chest selling the look while the Thing Suit tech installed increases her strength greatly and the forcefield tech encompases the vehicle and herself in a protective shield.

More Doomtech, the shields able to absorb a lot of energy of varying types. "There's a swipe of a haptic display on her wrist computer and her voice rings out from the car's speaker systems.

Over those blaupunkts: DREAD DORMAMMU! As a duly empowered representive of the sovereign realm of Latveria and goddaughter of LORD DOOM, a member of the Fantastic Four, a few other super hero groups. I order you to cease any and all supernatural activity and return forthwith to your place of origin or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension!

Franklin Spade, Jr has posed:
    It's been a long week for Franklin Spade Junior.

    The content he's been looking for just hasn't been happening. He's had a few goes at trying to get footage in the digital can for the debut of his new reality series. He knows in his gut that this is going to be his biggest show yet, but...

==*== SOME MINUTES EARLIER ==*==

    "Thank you for saving my baby," an old woman says as Franklin, clad in a red-lensed gas mask, buffalo leather trench coat, and armored jumpsuit, tries to hand off a restless, hissing cat off to her.

    "Yeah, no problem, lady," Franklin's muffled gravel comes through the vents of the mask before he pushes it away from his face with a gloved hand before turning toward the close-up cameraman to his left. "You know, when you said 'please save my baby,' I thought you meant a real -baby-, but now that I've met him, I can see how Oscar is -"

    The squirming cat suddenly swipes a lucky shot across Franklin's face, drawing blood, before jumping down as Franklin howls and clutches at his cheek.

    "- a little F---ing PRICK! God-fricking-son of a freaking BITC-"

==*== PRESENTLY ==*==

    ...so far, it's not going so great for the debut of Mr. Badass.

    Or is it?

    "...Goddamn senile old - hey, what the frick, is there an eclipse today? I mean, what is this, Gotham? Huh?"

    Frankie's just about to put his mask away in his equipment truck when the unnatural night descends on Metropolis. Scowling up at the heavens as if it's some personal spite that's cast the spell of darkness over him, Frankie pulls the mask back onto his face.

    "Well, if the power grid's on the fritz, might as well give the night vision on this piece of crap a test run..."

    As the Spade curse would have it, the first thing the family scion sees when he susses out how to switch his visor to night-vision mode is of the portal opening a few blocks away.

    "Oh, shit."

    He turns his masked face to look back over his high collar to the mobile tech station.

    "BOYS! Stop jerking it and get rolling again! We've got real crap happening over here!"

    He jumps up on the side of the other van, holding onto the handle.

    "Roll out!"

    "Is he serious?" the man driving the equipment van asks as he looks into the side mirror.

    "I think mostly he's old," the woman sitting in the passenger's seat says, "but he's also the boss."

    "Whatever," the driver says, before peeling up the street. "Hey, what's our hazard pay like again?"

Stephen Strange has posed:
An invasion in Metropolis? And the pet superhero that this city keeps around is not around to defend it? That is surprising. Or, then again, maybe not. There does seem to be a influx of magical power and Little Boy Blue was never very good with that sort of thing. So, what is Metropolis to do now???

This looks like a job for....someone else.

And, with a shower of golden sparks in the middle of the night sky, that someone makes his appearance. Definitely a him. Decked in dark blue, with a flowing red cape behind him, this one could be mistaken for Metropolis' Favorite Son.

If it wasn't for the lack of muscle tone. Or the absence of a giant yellow letter on the front of his person. Or the finely coifed hair.

Instead, it looks like what appears to be a middle-aged individual, with grey hair at the temples and a goatee. And...a rather annoyed expression on his face. "What, it's Thursday already? Time for the weekly incursion into this realm again, Dormammu? We really have to do this again?"

Ladies and gentlemen, the cranky man doing his best 'Get Off My Lawn' expression....is none other than the Sorcerer Supreme himself, Doctor Stephen Strange.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Metropolis is such a wholesome, wonderful city, full of bright lights and hopeful faces inspired by their Kryptonian overlords. It never asks for the monstrous incursions that cannot resist targeting such a well of purity. The pumpkins and little ghosts decorating parts of town are no match for flaming pumpkinhead monsters beyond human ken.

From such insignificant beginnings comes the taste of terror. Declarations roar off skyscrapers and settle down onto an unperturbed ripple in space much shorter by far than the glass bastions. It might go overlooked except that the Dread Dormammu has sharpened senses likely to catch such a minute perturbation. On grounds of that alone, he might take pause. A semicolon to the period following her, naturally.

"When do I get my cloak?" A protest tossed into the aether forewarns of a competitor to piquing the great heroes drawn by a most horrible and grave threat. Who dare vies with the hulking heavyweight of the Dark Dimension?

Ice blonde attitude who makes their monthly Hell Lord meetings more lively, maybe insufferable, as the human and the youngest. Illyana wears a blue t-shirt to go with a split skirt over leggings, the t-shirt bisected by a silver trident that leaves very little doubt about where she adds her authority. Or obtains authority from?

"So this interrupts date night?" A curl of her lip radiates spite. Except for the Fantasticar driven by someone younger than ninety years old. This she can upnod, cool and remote. Though her eyes narrow at reference to DOOM. Questionable tact in approach. "She came from the theatre. Such a waste on... Nyet, this is intolerable." Her hands clap together in an overly dramatic sigh, dragging out the brittle crystal vowel with an annoyed air of a Russian presented with an interruption. Or a royal. Rasputina means bad luck for them. She eyes Strange and smirks. "Do you want to skewer him or shall I?"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
The first one that the DREAD DORMAMMU deems worthy of response is Val Richards. "THEN YOU WILL BE DOOMED JUST LIKE DOOM! FOR DORMAMU SHALL DOOM ALL EQUALLY!" Finding his repartee quite amusing, he would gesture over. "MINDLESS ONES! CONSUME HER AND LEAVE HER BRAIN AS EMPTY AS YOUR OWN! WE SHALL USE HER BODY AS A SCARECROW TO SHOW THE DOOMED DOOM WHAT HIS FATE IS!" With that, a half dozen Mindless Ones would go to charge up with massive bursts of energy in their optics to all blast over at her! They would be mystical bolts of immense power that if they hit clean on might very well do some rather nasty things over to her shields if not perhaps even breach them entirely!
    Audra has the perspective of one that has seen it all. Or at least close to it. What was one more unnatural experience over to the list? Wherever she was watching DREAD DORMAMMU from, the crazed ruler of the DARK DIMENSION would seemingly take offense to the bright, peppy architecture of Metropolis. With a wave of his hand it would take on a chaotic, eldritch themed wasteland as buildings would twist about to horrible non euclidean geometry! Bouncing over to shift as they would spiral up into the air as if they were suddenly being made to feed off one another!
    For Franklin Spade Jr.'s intrepid (or less than intrepid) film crew, there would be the moment of time where they could flee this weirdness, go along with their boss (and hope the pay matched it).. And then be interrupted by along the ground what had formerly been the roadway warping, and more MINDLESS ONES starting to form up and over from it, absorbing the concrete and any other material about as they would rise up like terrorizing beanstalks!

    And then there is the mustached man of the hour. The Sorceror Supreme himself. The DREAD DORMAMMU goes to hiss, "STRANGE! THIS WILL BE THE LAST TIME YOU THWART ME! FOR THIS DAY WILL BE THE LAST OF YOUR PATHETIC EXISTENCE! ACTUALLY.." Dormammu's burning skull-head would twist over in the look of someone whom has just had a eureka moment. "IT WILL NOT! FOR I WILL LEAVE YOU ALIVE AND HELPLESS WHILE YOU SEE THE WORLD YOU FAILED TO PROTECT BECOME THE FABRIC OF THE DARK DIMENSION ITSELF!". Never let it be said that the crazed megalomanical murder-god did not enjoy his work. From there numerous Mindless Ones would go to charge Strange, attempting to dogpile over onto him like midgets out of a clown car!
    Date night is alas interrupted for the Lady Rasputin, sos he will seemingly have to take some of her irritation out and over upon the maraudering mayhemmers! Dormammu is content to monologue while gesturing to his minions to maul anything and eveyrone in sight while cackling in malevolent glee!

Valeria Richards has posed:
The girl in the flying car just frowns and makes her annoyance as mindless one's all line up to blast at her and her vehicle. The Doomtech forcefield emitters easiily handle the energy pumped at her.

There's a wave to Illyana and her husband. She's met the Queen of Limbo. She was cool.

DREAD DORMAMMU! You were warned. Mindless ones are considered a pest species in many realms. Remove them and leave. Otherwise you shall lean what time it is! she orders one last time and puts the other function of those shields to work. There's a few swipes of her wrist computer and the fantasticar starts deploying some very sleek plasma cannons. Blasting back at the mindless ones with matching force. The shields and the whole vehicle might not last long under the assaults but they should thin enough numbers to give others breathing space.

The rest of what she does is a bit closer to what another man she called uncle taught her.

Her Uncle Ben.

Audra Meridian has posed:
Audra Meridian hasn't seen it all, but she has seen a lot in her career as a superheroine, short as it is relative to some of the other arrivals. Speaking of, there's the hopeful familiar with the scenerio... Which turns out to be some cranky old man in an admittably awesome cape. "Yelling at him to get off your lawn works better if you have a cane to shake at him!... don't wizards usually have big sticks anyways?" Magic is no surprise but apparently she has a limited image of what qualifies for the magic user archtype.

Then fireskull starts messing with the local visual asthetics. "Ugh, who does this guy think he is, H.R. Giger?!" An audible thrum and ripple in the air is there as she starts fully powering up her tech. "You really are mad. People need those clean edges and porportioned cubicles to be able to focus on their work!" But of course, to deal with the big evil boss, you need to go through the hordes of minions first.

"I'm going to have to rain on this parade!" She releases what she'd been building, drawing moisture in from the air and rapidly cooling it, to release a burst of wind and torrent of freezing rain bombarding upon one of Mindless hordes. It's cold, it's windy, it's going to leave a nasty chill in whatever passes for bones in these things from frost bite... And it's going to make the ground sleek with the icy sheen that coats it, sending minions slipping and stumbling into each other when they try to move about!

Though patches of black ice might be as much of a hazard for other heroes as they are for the enemy.

Stephen Strange has posed:
The becaped Sorcerer does cast a smile Illyana's way, the grumpy man routine dissipating when he regards her. "Well, maybe we can get youa cloak after this. Although, mine is rather partial to you. You just might steal it away yet." What, addressing Illyana before the Dread Dormammu? It is apparent where Strange's priorities lie. After all, from the sound of things, Dormmy interrupted a date. The most vile of all offenses. Strange has a priority to his better half first...and to the safety of the realm a close second. Actually respecting Dormammu? A distant fifth at best.

Oh, speaking of Dormammu, Strange casts a glance his way. "Oh, new material. That's shocking." There is a definite rolling of the eyes as Stephen considers the threat of the ruler of the Dark Dimension. "Leaving me alive to witness destruction is only the third of classic blunders. The most famous is to never get involved in a land war in Asia. Only slightly well known is..." Stephen waves his hand dismissedly. "Nevermind. You will not understand...."

Well, time to get to it. First...dealing with the Mindless Ones. The Sorcerer Supreme actually stifles a yawn as he regards the onslaught of Mindless Ones rushing towards him. With a lazy spin of his fingers, he opens a portal between himself and the wave of minions before him, with a second portal opening above the breach from the Dark Dimension...which just happens to be near Dormmy himself. Then, a flick of the wrist and the sorcerer sends the sparking circular portal plowing ahead, engulfing one golem after another, clearing a swath through the masses. And those swallowed by the sorcerer's doorway? They tumble out of the hole in the sky, falling towards their own gateway. Which...may cause just a little of a bottleneck. And if a few happen to fall on their fearless leader?

Well...too bad for him, then.

Franklin Spade, Jr has posed:
    As the roadway ahead starts to warp and creatures from beyond the ken of the crew of the convoy come forth, the driver of the van Frankie Spade is hanging off of makes a decision to put life and limb ahead of his future with SpadeCo, pulling an epic illegal U-ey between the medians, and sending Spade tumbling free from the van to slide along a slick ice patch that's mysteriously formed following the suddenly inclement weather - stranding him in the middle of the emerging Mindless ones miraculously unharmed (or at least, underharmed).

    "You little --!!" Franklin starts to swear behind his gas mask as he staggers upright, flakes of ice falling from his genuine buffalo leather trench coat, to witness the deformed creations taking shape in front of him through the freezing rain.

    "--shit."

    For the first time in a long time, Frankie Junior finds himself wondering whether he's made the right decision.

    He decides, as usual, that if something's gone wrong, it's not HIS fault.

    "I swear to GOD, if some mutie ASShole just pulled that shit -!!" Franklin takes a brief moment to curse toward the heavens as he pulls what appears to be a giant-sized metal sidearm from inside his coat and brandishes it at a shape in the sky that might be Audra. Mercifully, the sound may be too muffled to hear through the iced-over mask - though it's perfectly audible to the tech team listening in on the radio.

    "At least he's not pissed at us," the driver says as the van veers around a corner.

    "He will be," the woman beside him says, before hitting a send button on her radio.

    zz FRANKLIN! Focus! zz

    Fuming, Franklin lowers his gaze, suddenly eminently aware of the Mindless One looming over him.

    Without hesitation, he raises his gun and levels it at what seems to pass for the thing's face before pulling the trigger.

    *KTHUNK*

    The projectile fired from the device smacks into the thing, then... rolls away, more or less harmlessly.

    "That was a warning shot," Franklin insists, before quickly sliding off to one side to avoid an optic blast from the monster that blows a chunk out of the street where he was just standing. Taking dramatic aim from his side on the ground, he returns fire.

    *KTHUNK*

    Another shot bounces harmlessly off the Mindless One's hide.

    "Givin' you a count of three!" Franklin warns as he scrambles backward from the approaching menace. "Sandy-"

    zz It's Sylvia. zz

    "- why the hell isn't the BFG working?"

    zz I'm reading freezing rain at your location - might be affecting the rounds. Try one more -zz

    *WHUMP*

    Suddenly, the encroaching Mindless One falls flat in front of Franklin, having been blown by a gust of wind while stepping onto an ice slick. The creature's eye starts to light up as it lifts its head toward Spade.

    Franklin takes aim.

    *WHUUUMP*

    Third time lucky, the shot explodes with unexpected concussive force as it strikes the Mindless One directly in the optics, the blast hard enough to crack concrete - and the creature's visage, seemingly putting it out of commission.

    "Told you, dumbass," the gas-masked gunman says as he gets up onto his feet.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The dread, flaming being threatening the welfare of the galaxy or Earth isn't the first to do so. Not even the first this month! Metropolis does not warrant such dubious displays as Dormammu throws, and Illyana's posture leaves absolutely no doubt whatsoever of her irritation -- not even full fury! Merely the display of idle contempt that would follow a dumb trend on Tiktok. A stupid game like eating a mouthful of cinnamon or planking on train tracks. She has arrogance to back up displeasure at DREAD DORMAMMU. Not a good thing to underestimate him; he really does underline dread for a reason. She isn't immune to fear, after all.

Her voice grows louder in response to the shouting. No one has taught her shouting fails to be effective in winding down social conflicts. "Hey, knock-off Marshmello!" The minions get a second look. Can anyone else here deal with them? They haven't fully registered yet as the immediate threat, though she has faith in Fantastic equipment and Audra's Giger commentary that they will deal. "Jack wants his look back!" Moisture pulled out of the air has the unfortunate effect of making her a bit cold and wet, but these are worthy sacrifices.

Dormammu's threat level is the better of the Strange pair. The Rasputina-Strange sounds better on paper than in words. But while Stephen surprisingly engages in crowd control, Illyana raises her eyebrows. "That's better. You want me to be aggro." She simply drops out of sight through a hole in space and time, the blue flames licking upward to envelop their mistress. When she reappears, it's not alone.

No, she has demons on parade, though the orders shouting down the line are 'masks up,' not weapons down. Masks to make them look like hoodlum trick-or-treaters. It's not /much/ to wear a Bat cowl or a squeak-bat hat, a Zorro mask, or any other facial covering, but it's something as the masses of red, purple, silver, and white eager demons scurry out from demon backgammon night to play with the Mindless Ones.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
The protective bubble that Valeria VON DOOM.. Err, RICHARDS has put around her body move to block most of the things going at her, absorbing the energy directed at her without issue and her plasma cannons scythe through the Mindless Ones! They're sent flying, vaporized and disintegrated by it. Then small bits of blasted goo over from various ones would immediately start to slither back together, starting to remold themselves back into more! Admittedly not as numerous as there had been but rapidly reforging themselves from any goo left!
    Audra goes to bring the rain (in the literal sense) as black ice forms all around! While it might not be the easiest of things to get around on, the fact that most of the heroes could fly lessened it as a threat! Mindless Ones would tumble over it, stumbling down even as they would go to start rearing upwards. Growing spikes on their feet to serve as anchors now to make the walking easier, adapting to what they had been struck with! But, her maneuvers were effective.. And even better, Dormammu was not monologuing at her anymore!
    The DREAD DORMAMMU hisses over at Doctor Stephen Strange, "MOCK ME AT YOUR PERIL STRANGE! MY VICTORY IS ASSURED! ALL YOU DO IS PROLONG YOUR OWN SUFFERING AND THAT OF THIS WORLD! IT SHALL DIE IN AGONY ALL THE MORE WHEN I CONSUME IT AND EVERY SINGLE THING, LIVING AND UNLIVING ON IT!"
    The redirected portal seeming to serve as an interdimensional vacuum cleaner, zooming around as it struggled under the control of Dormammu and the powers of Strange, zipping up Mindless Ones while cutting off more of them forming even as more and more of them would be picked off by the other heroes/meat shields!
     Dormammu did not take the lack of respect from Strange very well. And he would whiplash his arms through the air as the Dark Dimension itself would rise up at his command! Eldritch bolts of oblition would lash out at Strange, living pockets of another dimension entirely lashed out to rend the fabric of space (but not time, for there was no such thing in the DARK DIMENSION) as Dormammu went to unleash his own version of the Flames of the Faltine (which ironically did not have flames)! But magical bolts that could render entire worlds barren would blitz out to attack the SORCEROR SUPREME! "I SHALL WIPE THAT SMUG MUSTACHE OFF YOUR FACE AND THEN YOUR ENTIRE FACE WITH IT!" Dormammu had insulted the stache.
    The Mindless One that had been attacking the fearless Franklin Space, Jr. would be blown apart in bits of goo and.. A total lack of gore, surprisingly enough. Where it had been blasted apart would now be a spread fusilade of goo and blown up bits that would start to fall back, slithering towards one another as the various destroyed bits would be clustering together again, growing with power as they would be about two thirds of the way from remolding themselves into yet another Mindless One as Franklin quickly decided who to go along with in the blame game and his intrepid crew was left but to guess!
    And then Illyana summons her own horde of minions as they do the mash! It's the monster mash.. A demon smash! A dimensional bash! It's like a rash! As they slip on ice and crash.. But being the magic of Magik and Limbo (how low can you go) and beings formed of the material of the Dark Dimension.. When beings of two fully formed alternate planes of reality and existence came upon one another, oddities would happen.
    Namely over in the bodies of Mindless Ones would be starting to consume and merge over with the inhabitants of the Limbo Dimension that Illyana had summoned forth. What would be the result would be roughly three meter or so tall Mindless Ones over with the heads of the intrepid midget goblins of Limbo taking up the upper torso, on fire.
    Probably just as confused at it as everyone else was.

Audra Meridian has posed:
Audra Meridian would apologize about the cold if she realized it was impacting more than the monsters! Who, for being called Mindless, seem to have a certain knack for adapting as those getting back on their feet improvise spike treads from their own... whatever they'd made of. So no more slipping. Maybe moving a little slower since they have to stick and unstick their feet, but they're ugly brutes they can probably muscle through it without much else.

"Well, that's a twist."

The lines in her suit glow a bit brighter (that's how you know SCIENCE is happening, it's got funky tron line glow effects) as she engages more manipulators in her gauntlets. "And one good twist deserves another!" She draws and focuses her wind power into a swirling form, creating a minature (but still sizable considering what would be 'minature' to the real thing) cyclone and send it spinning towards the spike-soled Mindless Ones. Even on the small scale it's got the tremendous force of a tornado, enough to rip those anchors free and heave Mindless Ones into it's vortex, slamming them together before tossing them away to bash into things, or other Mindless, or the bizarre algamation, or even back through the portals.

Except for one Mindless left with its spikes firmly planted, like that one house that still stands even after the rest of the neighborhood got ripped by the windstorm. Even without facial features it manages to look as confused at this as anyone else does.

Audra snaps her fingers. "There's always that one that's still standing!"

Valeria Richards has posed:
Boots on the ground thud with a bit of force. Valeria does make note of the exploded sludge reforming and she hmmms. She probably could up the output of the plasma cannons on the Fantasticar to vaporise them but that will just speed up the end of the Fantasticar and they family goes through way too many of those.

Valeria does not want to hhave to redo the presets on the stereo.

In and amongst the hordes of Mindless Ones not yet splattered or launched into portals back to their current source dimension she does start throwing hands. Or feet. And sometimes mindless ones. CLOBBERIN' TIME! is the battle cry that is blasted out of the car speakers. It's in Ben Grimm's voice for authenticity.

The man would be proud.

The merging of pan dimensional entities getting an eww face from the twenty year old blonde.

That gets Valeria pumping her voice back through the speakers. Excuse, me your highness Queen Illyana?! the speakers blare out. Might I suggest thinking with Portals like that old video game. Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out! Even when horizontally and aimed at Dorkammu! Magic and mysticism might not be anywhere near her forte, but science and physics are Valeria's bitch.

Franklin Spade, Jr has posed:
    Franklin grimaces behind his mask as he realises that the creature whose face he's just exploded remains capable of movement - and rapidly regenerating into a copy of its former self.

    "Christ," he says, before firing off two shots at the misshapen monstrosity - *WHAWHOMP* - splattering it again, more messily, if only for a moment. "Susie! What do I have for goo monsters that put themselves back together?"

    zz It's - wait, really? Can you get a sample? zz

    "Oh, sure, sweetheart, I'll get you a sample," the businessman bellows with bitter irony as he holsters his blaster and pulls another weapon out of his coat - what appears to be a high-tech bludgeon with a large head akin to a medieval-style mace. With a press of a button beneath Franklin's thumb, the weapon starts to hum. "Why don't you get your butt back here? Forget free samples, it's a goddamn all-you-can-eat grey goo monster buffet!"

    Gripping the humming Mace of Spades with two hands and hefting it over his shoulder, Franklin calls out to the portal above.

    "HEY, DICKBAG! ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF!"

    Franklin lifts the weapon up in the air above his head, his muscles swelling with inspiration as the words CLOBBERIN' TIME blast from a nearby speaker.

    "THE NAME'S MISTER BADASS!"

    With the power level of the Mace set to 'Maximum' (also known as 'On' - Franklin wasn't particularly interested in nuance), 'Mr. Badass' brings the weapon crashing down on an approach lump of sample with the intent of atomizing it -

    *WHOMP-KRACK*

    - and ends up sending himself flying backwards through the power of Newtonian physics as the Mace delivers a kinetically-amplified concussive shockwave, leaving the warped asphalt in an even worse state of repair than it was before.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Fine, something has gone not according to plan. The Hell Lord doesn't have much time to examine the hordes still under her command, those not blobbed into the tall, block figures of the Mindless Ones. When the situation turns on its head, no one is going to say she lacks tactics.

Her fingertips lift over her head, spreading out. "Look sharp!" Valeria is hard not to hear. At the best of times, playing Portal proves deliciously fun for her, especially with Strange pinned down and busy removing Mindless Ones from her way. A wave of her hand sends the free demons rushing off at speed to block exits to the vicinity. They can make plenty of fun from throwing pumpkins or scooping up whatever's at hand to clonk a Mindless One on the head. Dumb they aren't; she prefers her subjects more rebellious, apparently.

Sustaining multiple portals isn't particularly hard for her, especially when she can dash on the run. Avoiding Audra's icy patches isn't possible, which makes for clever skidding too, she flings a handful of small flaming circles scattered unpredictably across the street. Basically anything mobile is fair game. Faster moving? More portal. That means dropping the small chimerical titan-hybrids on Dormammu. Or pelting Dormammu with special delivery, another Mindless One! Congratulations, candygram!

Wait, no, it's more goo or phased beams or whatever weather that Audra may want to throw through a window to another world, and on the other side, the backside of the Dark Dimension leader. Hopscotch with portals; she facilitates the pair using their powers or scientific gear in tandem.

"By the grey eyes of Oshtur," invoking the gentle goddess of the Vishanti, "let us see the true scale of your failures, Dormammu!"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Ther'es one Mindless One over in the unfortunate lot that Audra has bowled over and that stay off their feet, being shish-kabobbed and blasted apart. Even as they become fewer in number and others of them are trying to reknit and regrow with the remaining bio-mass that they have present, attempting to refuse back to themselves! Then the tornado goes to rip through them, like a Tasmanian Devil through a buffet, rending, ripping, and raging them all about as they're shorn apart and goo flung in every direction! Whatever sort of regrowing they might do is going to take much longer now to accmplish anything and she's given the other heroes much room room to work with!
    As Valeria looks on at the artful SCIENCE in action, she's set upon by her own adversaries! The Mindless Ones go to launch over to try and bowl her over, even as she goes to mash and maul them right back! Fist meets face (not that the Mindless Ones necessarily have faces) as she goes to be able to outmatch and outpunch them as she goes for clobbering time! IF anything with some of the dampness in the air from the frozen ice and tornado flicking goo everywhere, one might almost imagine that it's slobbering time!
    In his action, Mister Badass goes to prove that by any means, he is definitely street level. Or street leveling, in this case as he goes to kick up an dinto the air and goes to mash and smash HARD on down. Where there was once mostly broken up pavement, now there is even more broken up pavement and concrete that will perhaps take Damage Control up to five, maybe even six hours to get back fully into place! Which might be an eternity by the way they normally go.
    Illyana goes to play with portals. And DOOM (not related to the good/not as good reigning monarch of Latveria) as her portal sweep through the air, gutting, guillotining, and skewerfying any of the Mindless Ones that are left. Then she goes to call her own challenge out to the DREAD DORMAMMU!

    For our other group of intrepid heroes, they now have another challenge to dela with! Those warped buildings from earlier? Skyscrapers twisted and molded over into the horizon? Now they're moving again. Mobile. Twisting through the air, growing spikes, and churning through the dark plane of existence as they would launch themselves in multiple-story scaled smashings to try and crush the heroes hard underneath a brutal fist of concrete, dark dimensional nexuses, and heavy metal warring!

Stephen Strange has posed:
Clearing the road. That is exactly what Strange is doing, with relative ease. And no, he is not trying to evaporate the golems or flex his might with just how hard he can hit one target. No, the name of the game is efficiency...and what is more efficient than using a mystical slide to send these empty-headed brutes back to where they came from?

Though....the Faltine does irk Strange somewhat. How dare he trash the 'tash? That was uncalled for! That sort of insult cannot go unpunished. Alas, such punishment will have to wait.

For...walking buildings draw Stephen's attention. And, really...that needs to be dealt with. And Stephen deals with it with how he started...with barely any patience. Those grey eyes shift, and hand on the rather loud individual with the mace and seemingly an overly inflated sense of self worth. "You over there with the overgrown baseball bat. Think you can handle one of those walking buildings? You seem out for wanton destruction. Well...go for it."

As for Strange? He doesn't bother to wait to see if Franklin actually bothers going. He simply glides into the air and makes a beeline for one of the walking steel behemoths, already working on an incantation to either free the building from the malfeasance inflicted upon it or take it apart brick by brick and reassemble it into new and harmless variations. Whichever Strange feels like at the time.

Audra Meridian has posed:
"What the--" The woman turns her head, just in time to see one of the corrupted buildings move and extend... bits of it's twisted infrastructure for lack of a better description into a thrashing replication of a limb. Maybe more like a tentacle. Some weird algamation of dark dimension batter and cable and rebar into a spiney, wirthing protrusion being thrust into the conflict as the formation heaves forward and outward.

Eyes widen behind her goggles, and she cranks the ionized thrusters of her boots and jetpack to get out of the way of the appendage slamming down! She avoids being crushed, hurrah! But the impact with the pavement, a bit weaker because of the frosty coating, creates a hard shockwave and a shower of debris that still sends her reeling! Tumble, rumble, and she eventually drops to the ground, using vectored force from the dash thrusters and digging one hand into the ground in a clonky attempt at the superhero landing to arrest her movement.

"I've heard of urban sprawl but this is getting rediculous!" Audra considers for a moment how to handle this without things escalating out of control... then just accepts that it's already gone beyond that. The best she can do for caution is to keep out of the range of where her effects will harm the others as well.

Which is why she reingages the ionized vectors, stabilizer wings snapping back out into position as she boosts off the cracked pavement and back into the air. Can't use 'Up Up and Away' because that's just rude to Metropolis' main headliner but you get the idea. She weaves and winds about the protrusions, towards one of the buildings trying to uproot itself and flail about.

"I hope this works like it does on normal windows." She channels both the wind and ionized power into her gauntlets, spreads her arms out wide as she's as close as she dares get, and then slams her palms together.

*KRATHRAFOOM*

It's a literal clap of thunder, producing a booming shockwave and several arcs of electricity blasting into the corrupted building, intent on shattering a portion of it regardless of if it still has windows or not!

Valeria Richards has posed:
Sometimes Val has to move a little slower for the icy ground that Audra creates but when she can, the blonde all but ice skates on the low friction surface. This allows more than a few mindless ones to get scooped up. Their own Summersian Optic Blasts redirected at other mindless ones or even at Dormammu.

Mostly they get thrown in Illyana's portals. The added strength from the Thing Suit tech putting her roughly near class seventy strength.

This allows some pepper to those pitches and Val looks at each flight of the mud mooks with the sort of glee that only a nerd could have. Even if she's sort of a princess, role model, and almost as much a papparazi target as a Kardashian.

The Fantasticar, mostly set to autopilot and blast any Mindless Ones it tracks keeps on zooming like the impromptu air support it's been assigned to be. Mystic goop and muck not fighting back is always handy.

She had been trying to keep things on the street but when buildings shift and move and rumble she hmms. I bet when we're done, Superman will probably wonder if this mess was his. So much environmental collateral! she ponders aloud over the speakers.

For all she knows most of the civillians had been cleared out via super speed before even the teleportation started. Let alone the weaponised teleportation. Ever closed a portal on something half way through? she asks the mystics. Bet DREAD DORMAMMU has never seen what it feels like, or had it happen to him yet!

Franklin Spade, Jr has posed:
    The aftermath from the kinetic burst is still ringing in Franklin's head as he lifts it off of the pavement, groaning as he does.

    zz Franklin? Are you okay? zz

    "It's Mister Badass, Susie."

    "It's Sylvia, 'Mister Badass.'"

    "Sure, sweetheart. Whatever. I'm okay. Just probably a little concussed or something. Happens all the time in football, right? No big deal. And some guy is telling me to fight a skyscraper."

    zz ...How concussed would you say you are on a scale of one to ten, Franklin? zz

    "Five. Now enough with the distractions, I gotta skyscraper to fight. It's comin' at me."

    zz What the - zz

    Franklin gives the Mace of Spades a wind-up swing as he stares up through the red goggles of his gas mask at the warped structure descending on him.

    "Yeah, I've bought bigger," he grunts in challenge to the tower as it lurches in his direction. "And I've got your re-zoning permit right here."

    Just before the tower can stomp down on him with a foot formed of a former parking deck floor, the shockwave from the tentacle assaulting Audra knocks Mr. Badass once again off of his feet - sending him sliding serendipitously (perhaps serenderpitously) across the road to be trapped in an alcove of concrete rather than being turned into an exceptionally unpleasant paste.

    "Oh, God," Franklin gasps in the enclosed gap. Then, perhaps in foolish panic, he decides to try and beat his way out - hammering at the concrete above with his mace, which seems to have shorted out for the moment.

    *KLUNK*
    *KLUNK
    *KLUNK*

    "Like HELL am I going out like this!"

    *KLUNK*
    *KLUNK*

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"That's a moving violation." The Demon Queen of Limbo spits out her opinion at the degenerate buildings tearing free from their cemented foundations. The girders hauled up from a deep pit produce some manner of leg, an appendage fraying at the ends into smaller supportive limbs spreading out in a troublesome slither. Lightning sizzles in the background, forcing the blonde to look away and try not to end up deafened. Stray chunks of concrete and pediment wobble in an ominous wave that could double on itself. Giger indeed.

Demons of Limbo poke their heads out and engage in a game of tag. Tag being they shout and hop up and down in front of the Mindless Ones or the buildings, then run. Stealth and canny games prove key to their survival, zigzagging around Audra and Valeria. They might even pile up two or three high temporarily to attract aattention, then splitting to vamoose in three directions.

Illyana retreats from the ambulatory bank building and its overpriced lofts. Portal hopping keeps a bit of a distance. The whole point is bunny-hopping unexpectedly and using the fall or side-step to acquire momentum. It also pulls anything ambling nearby off the Sorcerer Supreme. She uses herself as a screen, popping up to haul aggro after her.

/*WHAM!*/ The building's clobbering fist formed from an elevator shaft and several stolen flagpoles smashes into the ground, spraying glass and debris all over her shirt. She isn't quick enough to dodge the collapsing pile that should bury her - kind of the point, actually. Dust and pulverized asphalt go up in a cloud that further obscures any hint of her prone silhouette. If it were prone, of course. Or engulfed in trash, Mindless Ones, and debris. Or not trying to get behind Dormammu to offer her benediction.

"Flames of the Faltine!"

A plea to the ones who hate him best, other than Umar. Aren't family feuds grand? The wit in the house of Strange is savage.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
The magic duel between Strange and Dormammu ups in tempo as the two throw at one another even more power! Dormammu goes to throw his head back in mocking laughter, "You have never been able to match me Strange! Now, for your impertinence, you shall suffer How DARE you ignore me!" interrupting if he could Strange,s moving to stop the buildings! The air itself around Strange starts to remold itself, turning into chains made of dark energy and going to lash over at the Good Doctor from every direction! From every angle ? ones moreso than the human mind could fathom. The fifth, the sixth, the seventh.. Only the warped nature of the Dark Dimension seeping in to this dimension allowed such things that violated the laws of science itself.
    The chains are a mix of the real and the unmade, some being illusions, others being real, them switching and snapping about, vanishing and twisting as Dormammu would simply try to overwhelm Strange by not being able to shield from all of them! "You have given me some ideas. I'm calling this one the Binding Chains of DORMAMMU!" Definitely not the most original name on the block. But he was using the Dark Dimension itself as an attempted anchor!
    Audra's definitely past the point of any sort of restraint or holding back to avoid collateral damage. Audra goes to wheel her way in and out of danger, even as buildings spit dark vortexes at her; bits of concrete and ichor, skewerings of window panes and gaudy art deco sculptures, beehives of warped matter. At least until she gets enough space through them to simply release a massive burst of energy, which shatters every single window in the area of every single building! They immeddiately break, spasming into interdimensional space as they would be obliterated from this plane of existence. Apparently the dark dimension's matter could be blasted back into it's home dimension with enough energy.. Or at least enough of a backlash to it!
    The Fantasticar left on autopilot by Valeria makes short work of any remaining Mindless Ones, even as the threat is now the giant buildings mutated by Dark, Other-reality dimensional energy! Existence is now malleable enough that physics itself is being undone! The danger of the Dark Dimension made manifest as it would be infecting reality, inflicting it's own rules upon the existant world! Attempting to merge with the area to continue it's spread and sprawl as it might threaten reality itself with mutation!
    Franklin goes to bring the mace down at a level Thor might raise a drink to! If Thor were here. And not banished out into space. Or exiled. Or Mjolnir was broken. But what Franklin can do with his hits and somehow finding just the right point amongst the energy blasts from the Fantasticar, from Audra, and from everthing else going in is knocking bits of the Dark Dimension out of place and hammering them away and shattering the building htat had gone bad! Which now leaves him several dozen feet up in the air and with a collapsing building all about him falling on down!
    And Illyana Rasputin-Strange is in the air as she goes to shear her way through the building, slashing and stabbing and then completley obliterating it, driving as well any sort of energy around her back to whence it came. At least for the exact moment as it would collapse in on itself and then detonate like a newborn star! There are no Mindless Ones left ? not that anyone would mind at this point.
    The Faltine and Dormammu loathe one another. Not as much as the permanently backstabbing Umar, but the family hate is there. So when Illyana calls upon their powers in aid against their hated exile, their energy is lent over with aplomb. It goes to blast out over across Dormammu, even as he's busy trying to extend his own ball of energy all the way around Strange, successful or not right as he goes to give his first cry that's not mocking, not taunting, not belittling or challenging..

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
But pain. Raw, overpowering pain as extra-dimensional energies of another sort of existence barrage into him!

Audra Meridian has posed:
Audra Meridian was not one to be brash, but right now even her analysis of the situation had come to the conclusion that this was one of those times holding back would do more harm than good. Being -too- cautious would just give this extradimensional being more time to spread his horde and his influence over the area, and eventually it would reach an expodentional point of overwhelming them. Worse outcome than her playing a little more fast and loose with her abilities might cause. Like the icy ground others had to deal with. At least now, with her focus elsewhere, it's melting away.

The effect her attack had, beyond that of damage, doesn't escape her sharp attention for details. "A strong and sudden enough exposure of energy appears able to seperate the quasimentional matrices and eject the intrusive material arcanum back to it's plane of origin!" Who says that Science and Magic can't get along?... Well, okay, it's more like grudgenly cooperate, but that's been this scene in general hasn't it? Even the metaphysical sides can bicker while doing a greater thing.

So now what can she do with this? No time for elaborate calculations but she can spin a few quick ones and contemplate the capacity of the tech she has at her disposal.

The final formulation of a course of action has her lowering to the pavement, actually to her feet and not just the usual hover. She doesn't want to risk her ionized vectors giving out from under her. The stabilizers fold down and various thruster ports close as she shuts down both the Jetstream Pack and Zephyr Boots, save for the power systems. Which she channels all of into her gauntlets' energy conduits, making their tron-line effect glow even brighter. Holds her arms up and out, close together, using them to aim as the combination of air and electricity is now visibly building between them. She's only got one shot at this, time to make it count. She aims at one of the remaining Dark Dimension infested structures...

"Time to call down the thunder and reap the whirlwind!"

And she fires what is for all intent and purposes a storm themed kamehama at the construct to blast the corruption back into the Dark Dimension!

Valeria Richards has posed:
At this point the fight is escalated outside of her wheel house. Mindlessones are one thing. She might be able to slag a whole walking building but maybe should avoid that. Collateral damage is a thing and their could actually be people inside.

With the mindless ones numbering not a one. Valeria just works on making sure that damage gets contained.

The Fantasticar is directed to pull up close and the blonde is back behind the wheel. Or flight yoke. Or both.

And she's up and about again, zooming around the troofs of the walking buildings.

Forecefield emitters can be very useful things. Protective shields in particular. Tractorbeams are another. The energy ooutput is a strain but the blonde tries pulling the building ensnared back to it's previous spot like she was trying to tow an eighteen wheeler with a volkswagon beetle. Torque is a premium. There's also the risk of the buildings coming apart which could scatter very heavy debris. "Mental note, increase power to emitters and engines for towing spacecraft." she tries to make a reminder.

Knowledge is one thing but actually getting tech to do what you want takes time, effort and money.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme. His powers wielded in defense of the dimension against entities like Dormammu put him a cut above even the most heroic magic users. Home ground advantage, just as Illyana holds in the swirling between-time place of Limbo. His might is only that of a mortal man.

"Stop ruining things, oaf!" A handful of fire is lobbed, followed up by another pair of meteors. Illyana drops them as the force lifts her off the ground, floating and insistent. She looks a bit like the angelic kid in the movies who always turns out to be the Antichrist or the servant of God or something weird.

The mortals fighting on the ground against the horrors crafted by Dormammu play an integral role! Just ask him. Just not right now. Maybe tomorrow. After coffee and a nap. He will advocate for their efforts with gratitude. The might of whirlwinds purging the evil from the face of Metropolis!

Grandiose vehicles with green tech zapping Mindless Ones! Science, doing its sciency things, with a steady hand behind the wheel! These change the course of history more than an angry 20-something tossing volleys at Dormammu from all over the place.

A new gospel on the blonde Russian sorceress' lips praises the lightning and mercurially quick minds. She acts as the conduit for the Faltine to act in this realm. Ephemeral power caught up in the flesh finds an outlet at her fingertips. Whirling fires engulf her outstretched hands. This much power has a price that must be paid here and now, rebelling against the fracture lines in her aura.

"He ruined my /date/. Her study. Her walk. His..." Well, at some point, it will be true. "Cleaning. I will be your instrument to correct his flaws." Craquellure ignites visibly around her head while the segmented pauldron boils down her shoulder to her wrist in a manifestation of arcane might. It stabilizes her against any sudden appearance of horns or her hair suddenly growing to her ankles or something embarassingly overdramatic by charging so much arcane flame.

"Get out!" Sizzle and fire. "She wanted a nice day, not lightning! Valeria has somewhere to be so Dr. Reed worries about her too much and feels /old/!" They don't call her Magik for nothing. It's because spelling is hard for demons and Dormammu is kind of a demon. "Out, out, out!"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Audra goes for a plan of action. That calls for quick reflexes, improvising on the fly, and no doubt trusting her instincts over carefully calculated vectors with her power. Even blast is clearing a litlte bit of the darkness away, stabilizing it for just a few moments. The infection slowing, it's progress halting. Wha'ts needed though is to stop it at it's core. They can only clear so much at a time.
    hat, and doing calculations was hard when the fundamental principles of physics seemed to be going 'neener neener'. Magic was a hella, hella stupid thing now wasn't it.
    BOOM. That storm infused blast goes ot hit the ground, and /everything/ around her for at least a full two city blocks in every direction is cleared from her massive energy bolt. Phsyics go back to normal. Metropolis street twisted and warped like the tunnels beneath Rome or the EULA of using any product ever made snap back to normal as she is left with normal Metropolis city street debris.
    The positioninf of Valeria in the Fantasticar is ad hoc, chaotic, and somehow working as she goes to rapidly push out the force fields and the tractor emitters. Nothing quite to be said beyond the sheer awesomeness that was using daddy's brilliance and adoptive-daddy's megalomania and technology together to work ta holding back an untethering of reality. The DOOM side of her family might be pleased at her ingenuity, even!
    Illyana has gotten angry. The Russian woman, with vodka in her veins, has been pushed to the breaking point. Science falling before magic. But Magik has had her final button pushed. Her date has been ruined. It's time to make Dormammu pay for every bit of rare time with the husband she has. And then Magik goes to call forth the energy. From science, technology, physics. The Faltine annoyed with Dormammu. Even a whisp of cackling glee from Umar the Unrelenting to make ehr foolish brother once again face humiliation. And Illyana Rasputina goes to BLAST through the air with all that build up energy and strikes hard and true into Dormammu.
    "NO! THIS CANNOT BE! YOU SHALL PAY FOR THIS! SO THE DREAD DORMAMMU SWEARS! YOUR SUFFERING SHALL RING OUT OVER A MILLION BILLION YEARS! DORMAMMU SHALL FEAST UPON YOUR SOUL! I'll GET YOU NEXT TIME!
    NEXT TIME!" Beat. He'd gone the whole 'Next Time' routine! That might be a first.
    And so things snap back over to normal, wtih some adjustments. Of a minor nature.
    FOr one, Illyana's hair was now up in a MASSIVE perm making her look like she had an unholy combination of a perm/beehive and like Marge Simpson's hair had been done up like Bride of Frankenstein.

Audra Meridian has posed:
The structured eye pleasing geometry of Metropolis is victoriously restored!

Though not without cost, as smoke erupts from the Jetstream pack. Then it clatteres to the ground as Audra quickly shrugs it off before it does something worse. "Dammit!" Fortunately her gauntlet has just enough oomph left to produce a blast of cold air to extinguish the smoking tech before it starts her on fire. Or explodes.

"That's going to take at least a day to reconstruct." She sighs. Not to mention she's going to have to walk. Good thing this wasn't Gotham or someplace else far from home. "Well, worth it in the end."

Valeria Richards has posed:
Things go back to relative noremal. Metropolis gets trashed every third day sometimes. Comes with villains on pare with Kryptonians and less care for collateral. How expensive is insurance in this city?

The tractor emitters are shut down and Val looks arond to try and make sure everyone involved is still about and at least not hurt too bad. Everyone okay? Reality seems to have cleared up. People can go back to date night or their activity of choice! she says and hmms and ponders flying back to New York where buildings are less likely to walk. Demonic incursions however may be more frequent.