17819/The Best Defense - Dark Magic Masters Unite

The Best Defense - Dark Magic Masters Unite
Date of Scene:	09 May 2024
Location:	New York Graveyard
Synopsis:	The foul fiends Baron Mordo and Kulan Gath are stopped as they attempt to summon their masters, Dread Dormammu and Shuma-Gorath to this plane of existence.. While they also fight one another.
Cast of Characters:	Mary Jane Watson, Mary Bromfield, Sally Pride, Cain Marko, Victor Von Doom, Clea, Illyana Rasputina, Stephen Strange

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Mary Jane Watson has posed:
New York City had many dark and desolate areas. And yet despite the size of the city, few graveyards. The large population and high cost of land meant burial was not economical. Often graveyards were simply re-interred as plots got bought up. Or built over.
    But there were still a few. Abandoned. Miserable. And yet now..
    From one such space, a huge beacon was blasting out into space. A deep, blood red cut of power. The energies of the DARK DIMENSION.
    Accompanied by another streak likewise blasting up to the air, a brutal, violent violet. The embodiment of the living void, Shuma-Gorath. Columns of power that rended existence and warped reality casting up and shrieking to all the realms.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
When someone is trying to poke holes into another dimension via magic... it's pretty hard not to notice if you're attuned to magic.

When /two/ holes are being poked into Places That Should Not Be, it definitely gets the attention of the Rock of Eternity. And that's why Thunderbolt is rocketing towards the graveyard, though she doesn't go barreling in fist-first, if only because she knows there might be other magical types that are a bit more spell-inclined that can help.

Because, let's be honest, punching the darkness is not a great idea unless you don't have an alternative.

Sally Pride has posed:
And some people just happen to be in the wrong place at the right time, right place at the wrong time, or something to that effect.

Sally had just happened to be prowling through that part of the much larger city on entirely different unrelated matters when the massive beams tore into the sky one after the other. No idea what those were, but it certainly did not look to be anything good. So the lioness made a detour in that direction, eventually trudging near the dark and dour graveyard. Well dark other than the two beams rippling upward from it.

Uttering under her breath about how she never gets to work in someplace nice like a tropical resort Sally hunched down behind a crumbling memorial and pulled out a pair of binocs to try and get a better look at what's going on before venturing farther across the lands of the dead.

Cain Marko has posed:
Places like this are great cover for dealings of all sorts to take place so it should come as no surprise that less then civilized transactions were already occurring before the mystic disturbance even began.

Nearby...The Juggernaut stands within an abandoned warehouse within sight of the impending chaos. Nearly ten feet tall and wider, shoulder to shoulder, then many large men are in height - the tankish behemoth is in full regalia as evidence by his tremendous physical stature, proportions and the crimson armor that frames his body. Before him, a collection of nervous information brokers are seated at a makeshift table and the goliath frowns dourly at them, helmet removed and propped against his side by an outstretched arm - but skullcap adorning his head as he darts his eyes between them all.

"You sure this info is legit? I paid good money for this tip and I don't want to have to come callin' asking for a refund..." he rumbles at the lead informant....but then suddenly he squints his eyes and cuts his attention towards the broken windows of the far warehouse wall. While his preternatural awareness of magic is hardly honed or something he can call upon at will - a disturbanc of this severity can't help but be noticed by the giant given what he truly is.

"What the---What's with this light show??"

The informants have already packed up and are beating a hasty retreat for the far end of the building in search of the emergency exits with a rapid "Pleasuredoingbusinesswithyousir!"

"Hey!" Juggernaut turns to see them making a break for it and then just sighs and reaches up to seal his helmet atop his torso. "-Now- what..."

Victor Von Doom has posed:
Whether it is the result of reality beginning to warp around one of New York City's very few graveyards or some design of his own, suddenly a figure may be found levitating in the air on the perimeter of the graveyard. As the otherworldly energies begin to grow in their power and churn the winds of change around them, Doctor Victor Von Doom can be found watching on. Hard eyes stare out from beneath the mask that covers his face and the man's crossed arms surely signal to onlookers that he's none too happy with the current state of matters. This may not be Latveria, but one as well-versed as he in matters magical does not need the inconveniences of mundane national borders to recognize a growing problem when he feels it in the fabric of reality.

Sorcerer, technophile, artist, leader, King, eventual world ruler, someday God-Emperor, but above all else... Doctor. All of these may apply to the man whose Latverian green cloak and cowl shift with the gradually growing winds.

Doctor Doom's mask inclines slightly, yet his eyes lower as though to peer down his mask-covered nose at the affairs beginning to unfold within the graveyard. No doubt his annoyance has grown, for upon finding weaving being performed he has already deduced their purpose. None would rule this world save for Doctor Doom and that would-be world ruler has now found a threat to that potential future. A threat which must be engaged and countered. Harshly.

He begins to float forward upon the very winds of magical energy and change being called upon to weave the elaborating spell. He proclaims, loudly, for the cemetery and beyond to hear as his voice carries with it the notes of mechanical filtering through the amplification built into the Mask of Doom, "Those who would seek to invite usurpers into the world of Doom will be punished! Tremble, quake, and seek the mercy of Doom!" The words are accompanied by the sudden alighting of his gauntlet wrapped hands become suffused with brilliant, golden light as Doctor Doom's own sorcerous powers are brought to hand and prepared to begin the delicate act of unraveling the spell of another sorcerer. Or two.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
As the group goes to maneuver towards it, within the rending of reality they find themselves face to freak with.. A large man with a goatee hovering in midair, hands glowing with eldritch energies as he would gesture, twisted runes incomprehensible to the human brain that were warping existence. Calling upon currents of another reality.
    And next to him an ancient, shriveled thing that couldonly be an undead monster. For those that could grasp the concept, it was a lich. An ancient wizard that had ascended to immortality via the suffering of it's fellow man.
    Baron Mordo looks on at Doctor Doom, chortling as his hands would continue to weave arcane energies. "And what claims do you holdto this realm, Doom? You have for years failed to achieve your goals, eternally being thwarted by a man of silly putty, a manchild, and a thug made out of coal." Not even Mordo, however, would mention Mrs. Richards in such commentary. She was scary.
    "Your boasts are meaningless and your deeds pathetic!" As DOOM would go to start his own powers to unravel the spell, MOrdo's chanting would increase in tempo, drawing more from the Dark Dimension.
    Thunderbolt has likely fought necromancers before. This one is shriveled. Ancient. Tens of millenia old. A servant of the Great Old Ones, that's mere attention upon a realm would unmake it, for but a fragment of such a thing's consciousness shatter reality.
    "What do we see before us?" Kulan Gath would cackle with laughter, "Children! Animals!" Mocking and baiting Sally and Mary. "Then let us play with you like them!" His hands would twist through the air, and from the defiled graves about dozens and dozens, then hundreds of bones would snap into the air. Growing, enlarging, merging. TWisting into a great beast made out of bone, wingspan formed of skulls, limbs, a tail of spikes, and a head..
    Face to face with a giant, undead dragon.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
Thunderbolt scowls, "Maybe, but at least I'm not some amusement park has-been who's ten thousand years overdue for a spa day." With that, she launches into action, glancing down at Sally, "You go low, I go high!"

And then she flies towards the giant undead dragon, looking to just punch it right in the face... only to veer off at the last second and shout, "SHAZAM!"

Which sends a massive bolt of lightning rocketing right at Kulan Gath! Likely hoping to break his concentration on whatever he's currently doing.

Sally Pride has posed:
The attempt at taunting her gets a snort out of Sally as she lowers the binocs, her tail flicking. "Honestly, with some of the shit I've seen humans do? I'll take being called an animal as a compliment."

Welp, no reason in skulking around when she's already been detected. Sally unholsters her energy blaster, and takes a moment to flick the setting up to full. That animate pile of bones isn't alive, or even biological at this point, so why hold back. The flying gal calls out, then flies off in one direction. So Sally darts from her spot to dash to the opposite side of the dracolich (she thinks, no time to call Donatello and ask the nerd what you'd call an undead dragon), firing energy bolts at it's legs as she does.

"Hopefully some of these people spend less time yapping and more time actually acting," she utters under her breath.

Clea has posed:
Clea's not too keen when Dark Dimension energies start showing as strongly as they do this evening. And with little time she has herself arriving from a teleportation spell not too far from the incident.

Showing up in the middle might be a TERRIBLE idea given she isn't sure what is going on entirely...or who is up to no good.

Victor Von Doom has posed:
"Doom," the Latverian monarch speaks his own name with gravitas and his words that follow are spoken with menace beginning to bleed into his voice, "never fails". For the moment the invocation of Reed Richards and his misfit bunch of cronies doesn't seem to result in Doctor Doom's faltering or wild approach to the battle that will no doubt soon join.

As debris takes to the sky, along with all manner of other weavings beginning to manifest into more tangible machinations, Doctor Doom continues to float forward upon the currents of both wind and magic. The golden light that suffuses his gauntlets begins to fade away after Doom's own magical defenses are erected. The wards stand ready to face the attempts that will no doubt come from Baron Mordo to direct the harmful flow of magical might at Doom himself.

That golden light fizzles out of existence though as Doom levitates over the treetops of the cemetery and the more mundane energy shield that surrounds him, by virtue of his power armor, snaps and hisses at times as some bit of debris or another strikes it before either burning up upon contact or being flung off its original course as it seems to rebound from the brief shimmer of the energy shield.

Each of Doctor Doom's hands rise up and his titanium clad fingers splay as he begins to weave the appropriate gestures and motions together. Soon infernal light begins to glow from his palms, growing greater and greater as Doctor Doom announces over the sound of rushing wind and roaring magical energies, "Your master will be most displeased with you when Doctor Doom is the architect of your failure!"

Cain Marko has posed:
The ground shudders and sunders. Windows in nearby buildings crack. Heavy *TOOMS* rumble through the area and then the warehouse wall falls away like so much wet tissue or papier-mache as Juggernaut casually walks through it with the apparent disregard one has for walking through a door already open.

As the behemoth arrives, leaving a Juggernaut shaped hole behind him and sundering the concrete under his feet into massive footprints, he twists about and takes a full survey of the area just in time for Doom's arrival to be made -very- loud and clear and the reset of the supernatural manifestations continue to take place and increase in intensity.

As it does, he wobbles slightly.. the intensity of the magic in the area beginning to agitate him and tugging at those Cytorrak amplified instincts in his blood. "The -hell- is going on!" he grumble at nobody in particular. "..Ugh...looks like I gotta be all Justice-League Dark or somethin' for once... I got too many group memberships to keep up with!"

HIs grousing aside, the super-villain mercenary turned occasional 'I -guess- I'll help out, I do live on this planet too- anti-hero, turns his attention to the ruined warehouse besides him. A heartbeat later and his mammoth hands have dug into the ground, piercing the foundation of the structure like a hot knife into melting butter. The earth shakes, the ground is rent asunder and with a flex of arms that give the impression of sequoia trunks, Juggernaut rips up the earth and hauls half of the building up with it in a horrendous torrent of falling debris and warping and sundering rebar and cement.

Shadowed by the enormous mass, the armored behemoth turns, hauling it overhead and then somehow balancing it briefly upon one hand. "HEY! UGLY!"

The Juggernaut leans forward and shot puts the rubble through the air like a meteor for Kulan Gath and the dragon. Hopefully those nearby see it coming!

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Holes torn into reality resonate loudly, even a dimension or three over. Generally the alarms end up being false or a matter resolved by someone of a higher paygrade. With the titles go the responsibilities, generally.

Not so fortunate when the house you live in adds its loud voice to the claxon ringing in the back of the psyche. An inconvenient matter when she stands surrounded by undead warriors clad in spikes and compressed moonlight, masked faces leering against the flared burst of radiance wrapped around her soul. A sword, conveniently in hand, that too resonates with greater insistence.

The Hell Lord smirks at one of the chiselled faces before her. "You." A gloved finger points, judgment levied. "Soon."

Evocative fire swirls around her, drinking her up, a cataclysmic burst thrusting her back to a point of origin rather than to a moment too late to deal with it. Reality spaghettified by major arcane powers would be a problem for those who like breathing. Petite gossamer flames emerge between some of those bleeding scars and coalescing mist manifests into a Russian with a penchant for black and wielding oversized holy relics that clamour nearly as loudly as her infernally-shot aura does.

Getting the lay of the land takes time; Doom floating in the air, Thunderbolt rushing across the playing field. A lioness? If it's not Nala, then Nala should be jealous. Juggernaut, instantly recognizable, shaking trees and cracking the earth. Two gigantic poles for trouble, all centered on Mordo. The Soulsword in her hand crackles, shifting shape as the blade narrows and lengthens. Armour rolls over her much like it does her brother, less an instantaneous shapeshift into metal-clad skin as pauldron and gorget locking together, spreading crystals interwoven to a glimmering sheet reflexively as she has to dodge a tree.

"Do they never learn, Stephen?" A question asked to thin air? Probably not. Because where she walks, another Sorcerer Supreme favoured by Agamotto is always close by.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Baron Mordo calls out over at Juggernaut, "Fool! I would pay you your heart's deepest desire for your aid! My master would give you all that you ever wanted, dreamed of! A whole world at your fingertips. revenge on those that had wronged you! Having the wielder of the gem prostrate at your feet!" Cyrrotak.. "Anything you would take if you aid me now!" Fingers going to work up in the air, warping more reality now as Doctor Doom went to a counter chant. Violent energies would blast together, moving to twist and dance as Mordo's spellcraft, enhanced by the seeping tear in reality that lead to the Dark Dimension as the two wizards waged magical war against one another! Threads of magic that sought to thrust between this dimension and another, twisted one slashing in a duel to the darkness as Doom's technologically enhanced magic clashed with Mordo's Dormammu aided darkness!
    Clea could very well tell the sign that someone was trying to connect her uncle to this reality. Twisted energies seeping through to this dimension, of Mordo attempting to break a hole and widen a gap. And the other.. Something just as twisted, dark, and wretched in it's own way as her uncle. Whether she was familiar or not with those ancient Elder Spawns, the one of the Void.. Kulan Gath let out a cackle over as the many would fight and feud.
    Thunderbolt goes to channel her energy, even as Kulan Gath would raise his hand. "My Lord, grant me this vessel!" The thunderbolt would strike him, glow.. And then be encapsulated in sheer darkness, twisted.. And reversed. Energy flashing out back at Mary, turning brightness and strength to.. Something twisted. From another place. Another realm. One that had been CONSUMED.
    Sally goes to charge along towards the huge undead dragon. Seemingly made entirely out of skulls now as it went to take in a breath - more out of a twisted sense of grandioseness than anything else, drawing power upon it.. But the agile lioness is far, far too fast for it to respond. Even before it could gather necromantic energies upon it, she goes to smash through it. Her blasts take out the legs even before they were fully formed, and rapidly Kulan Gath's attention is elsewhere as Juggernaut's massive, multi-hundred ton ballista bolt was hurled towards him! Impacting against his shield as matter warred with darkness, the shield CRACKLING over as it shattered, parts of Kulan Gath being split apart in a pile of gore! But the power kept up, even as the remnants of Gath's body would pick themselves up once more.
    Baron Mordo goes to pick up the signs of the Sorceress and Sorceror Supreme coming. "Too late, Steven! Too late! I shall have this dimension brought under the heel of my lord Dormammu and you shall be but a bootlicking slave at his feet FOREVER! And I will be there to see you eternally unmade, seeing all the realms you claimed to protect eternally damned and consumed!" Mordo was caught up in the darkness, shrieking over with glee as he kept his war with the self-proclaimed Doctor DOOM.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
Thunderbolt blinks, "Wait, wha..." And then she's /gone/ in a blink of an eye as the sickly green lightning strikes her. There's a moment's pause, as the storm seems to grow overhead, and then there's another flash of greenish lightning, and then it looks like Thunderbolt reappears.

Well, if Thunderbolt wore a jet black outfit with golden armor greaves and guards. And had an eldritch green lightning bolt on her chest that seemed to almost... crawl, with sickly energy. Oh, and did we mention the glowing green eyes, which currently look at Kulan Gath, "Why did you summon me here, worm! Open the por..." Then she pauses and looks around.

And this Dark Thunderbolt sees Dr. Strange, Clea, Doctor Doom, and others.

And then she /smiles/. "Oh, I get to kill them all over again? Why, this is going to be the BEST day!" With that, she launches into flight, going right at Clea first!

Stephen Strange has posed:
"Apparently not."

A question to the void...and the void answers. If it is at all possible, the words drip with a distain that borders upon annoyance.

Then, the source of the voice is made manifest. A section of the sky ripples, like a stone dropped into still water, concentric circles pulsating out from a central point. There is no light, no dramatic display of eldritch sparks to indicate arrivals. Instead, a figure of blue simply floats through, emerging through the silent portal with no fanfare. Hands to the side, thumb to fingertips, the Sorcerer Supreme remains motionless, hovering approximately 10 feet in the air, red cloak billowing majestically in the breeze.

If there was a breeze. Apparently, the Cloak likes dramatic gestures.

"Too late? Really? Are you so sure about that, Mordo?" No, Strange does not seem all that impressed at all. In fact, as he takes a moment to review the situation with a critical eye...there actually seems to be a sigh. Possibly?

Oh, most certainly. Particularly when those grey irises fall upon Doom.

"Oh, this is already going to be tedious."

Clea has posed:
Clea was getting really tired of people trying to summon Dormammu to Earth the past few months. They'd already headed off one incursion, so one following so closely on its heels was...a lot.

"Mordo nothing that he promises you will come out to be what you want. It is a lie!" she calls to him. Hoping that he might see reason.

But she's apparently got something else to worry about as Thunderbolt comes racing towards her and she dodges out of the way in enough time to not be tackled.

Sally Pride has posed:
So far so good, so far so good, so fa -- Sally's run&gun of the bone dragon's legs is interrupted by a bellowing cry and a shadow briefly looming over the graveyard as part of a building is hurtled into the air. "Dammit!"

It's only by virtue of feline agility that she's able to pivot on her footing and runs in the opposite direction, diving behind a broken groundskeeper shed at the last second to avoid getting crushed by cascading rubble when the structural shotput slams into the magic shield!

A few moments pass before the lioness slinks around the opposite of what remains of the shed. More sorcerors, and now one of the responders has been corrupted. Plus whoever threw an entire freaking building into the fray. There's very few people she knows could do that, and she doesn't see anyone with a big red S on his chest.

Well she lacks any sort of dispel or magic in general, so Sally resorts to arming a flashbang and chucking it in the direction of the two evil summoners. Maybe that'll distract them long enough for someone more apt at handling arcane matters (looking at you Doom, Strange, Illyana) to deal with them.

Victor Von Doom has posed:
The magics that suffuse the Hands of Doom seem to lick and curl around the titanium gauntlets of his power armor like fire. Where his right hand extends and his palm directs itself toward Baron Mordo, a blast of eldritch energy is sent slashing through the magically charged air. Doctor Doom levitates swiftly to his right, likely preemptively dodging aside the potential for a return blast. Another blast is directed toward Mordo and the name of the game now seems to become that of keeping Baron Mordo's attention split between his efforts at finalizing his spell and warding off Doom's own magical attacks.

Those distracting blasts of energy rain down upon Mordo and the Latverian monarch calls back, his voice carrying with it the weight of DOOM, "Mordo, you are a man of mediocre talents in your supposed art, please," and then the true scorch of Doom's words are delivered, "don't distract yourself from the strain even your most basic weavings may impose upon you!"

The left hand is the true attack. Every eldritch blast of Doom has thus far been a distraction. The roll of his left wrist seems to ready the next bit of magical energy, shrouded from more casual observation. Somewhere across the growing battlefield, the avatar of an immensely disgruntled god is given the magical equivalent of a godlike slap on the back and the slight twitch of that same wrist seems to correct the course as yet another eldritch blast is rained down upon Mordo once again. Something unstoppable is coming his way and it is now upon Doctor Doom to keep Mordo well and truly distracted.

Cain Marko has posed:
"Ugh. That's nasty."

Juggernaut squints his eyes as he surveys the end result of his handiwork but he's then forced to turn his attention towards the sorcerer as he's directly addressed.

Cain is not a man known for his altruistic tendencies or deep sense of the greater good. Selfishness and a deep rooted desire to be acknowledged lies deep within his core for reasons that they'd need to conjure up a psychiatrist couch to begin to unravel with him... Needless to say, he doesn't immediately say no and actually seems to be -listening- to what the good Baron has to offer.

But something seems to click within him. Perhaps it's the cry of Clea, warning of lies and potential betrayal and these are things he's also all to famliar with.

"Huh. No foolin'! Sounds too good t'be true. What can I say? I like my Starbucks."

He begins a slow approach as he speaks but as he begins to truly take into account just how many of the worlds preimier magicians are showing up - he starts to reconsider just how deeply involved he wishes to get.

"Looks like---WHOLFHg"!

His choice seems taken from him. Fortunantely for the spell effect he'd still been moving forward and not trying to hold his ground against anything either. Unfortunantly for him ...he was moving forward. So not so gentle eldritch shove sends him launching in a clear trademark infringement of the fastball special, sending him more -into- the direct battlefield then his consideration of just leaving it. "What th'hell!" he bellows as he goes flying only to realize at the last second he's aiming for Mordu..

"..Eh what th'hell.." he repeats, cocking a massive arm back as he draws in, swelling the sinew therein to monstrous proportions as he builds up power as he soars in.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Stephen has enough to deal with where Mordo is involved. Shuma-Gorath, however, is an abomination best stopped before making his hideous appearance.

"<You petulant, sparrow-faced ass with a handle.>" Illyana's voice crackles across a spectrum that no human throat can possibly conjure, slipping into harmonics likely to shred the trachea as she lashes out in a vicious High Demonic tongue at Kulan Gath. "<Did Selene tell you your hat looks like a toilet? We all heard how she laughed about it.>"

Sounds that hurt the ears alight from her dark lips, taking full wing as she bends more evocative Russian insults to her purposes.

Consuming darkness that swallows up Thunderbolt a short distance away draws her in, a bead as she lunges at full tilt through the torn up graveyard. She flashes out of existence to reappear again off of a level plane through one of her radiant stepping disks. Not like she can get past Thunderbolt and Clea, or Kulan without rabbiting it. So be it. A traceur ten feet off the ground, she disappears again, reappearing to kick off a lopsided headstone and drive down. Another vanishing act swallows her up, dropping striaght down into a disk.

Running away from the battlefield? How brave of her.

Except that feint puts her straight into Limbo, where she turns and draws a copious swell of mana out of the dimension bound to her. While the Juggernaut goes roaring across the battlefield like a tremendous maroon bowling ball, she's more the dart hurled by some Slavic deity with a dark sense of humour. A Zorya, an Artemis by another name. Her perspective is falling, another portal winking open to get her closer to the cannibal sorcerer of old.

She tightens her grip, pivoting to bring the Soulsword to bear -- and not on Kulan Gath himself. Far from it. Soulfire-wrought cutting edges do their worst against magic, and his building spell is exactly what she wants. Power comes from somewhere; if channelled, then cutting the channel is her first priority. If invoked, then Shuma-Gorath's strings of calling are up for a heavy pruning. If something else... deal with it when she hits.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Kulan Gath is a corpse. A living, moving one. Even as Juggernaut's throw had dismembered him, his body is simply regenerating like ink, a fresh portrait being drawn and coming bcak to reality as he would solidify. "Good, do enjoy yourself as we bring our Master to consume this realm even as he has so many others." Kulan Gath goes to a full on cackle over as his voice would boom, chortling and making the realm shudder as he would go to weave his fingers together once more. "Your god showcases his fallibility in selecting his herald of one so easily distracted, Mordo! You lack focus! Which shall be your undoing here! Take him and obliterate him!" Gath's mocking chants would be directed over at the.. Heavily magically dogpiled Mordo.
    Mordo is certainly being under threat from many angles as he has to shift from sundering the thin dimensional lines whihc prevented the Dark DImension from seeping in and infecting reality, his hands going up to desperately work upon magical wardings to deflect each attack.
    "Surrender to your family and you will be spared, given a place at the head of their court!" Thrown out to Clea. As if he believed she would be not consumed the very instant that Dormammu had his grubby talons in this dimension. Oh yes, he clearly had few grasps on things at all.
    And then Sally is going to hit at him with something far more simplified - a flashbang. It interrupts Mordo mid-monologue as he would be blinded. "Infernal pest! I'll have you skinned and replicated a thousand times, so that unto infinity you would suffer being made into rugs! Enough to cover an entire planet over!" That was a.. Highly specific threat. She got her own monologue!
    And even as Mordo would be focused upon drawing the enchantments about him, readying some sort of supreme spell, as he fends off so many of the others.. Mid monologue Doom's blast hits him. And he SCREAMS in pain.
    "By the Hoarry Hosts of Haggoth I shall find out how many of them there are and feed you to each one like a MAGGOT, DOOM!"
    He seems almost able to recover. ...
    Almost. Then there's the CRACKA-THROOM as the Juggernaut charges. Through shields that could stop an infinite host of another dimension, through magic which was channeling a universe entire, from nothingness that would spawn darkness unto reality and oblivion.. It is nothing to the charging Juggernaut as through each bit in his way.
    KRAKKA-THOOM! Through all Juggernaut smashes. Bring the pain train to the stop.
    Destination: Baron Mordo. CRUNCH.
    As Magik goes to taunt towards him, Kulan Gath watches the savaging of Mordo with glee. "Come, my psion! Show them their place!" Even as Mordo would almost disintegrate under Juggernaut's punch.
    Then as Magik would go to launch herself into limbo, he would rally. "I am older than life! I am older than you can grasp! I have fought many far more powerful and skilled than you. And I HAVE DANCED UPON THEIR GRAVES AFTER I SENT THEM TO THEM!" He would go to cackle with morbid power over even as Magik would go to charge him and slash the tethers apart! The seeping infection stalled for just a moment!
    As Gath would go to struggle to recover the spell, now attempting to seep the magic -around- limbo, struggling to try and refocus it to another dimension to continue the ritual!

Mary Bromfield has posed:
The Dark Doppleganger of Thunderbolt grins at Clea, "Oh, darling, much as I don't mind you disrupting Mordo so viciously, I can't have you dears stopping /my/ master from coming through. Though I'm sure my counterpart here is being most... entertained, by him." She laughs, then shouts something... it isn't shazam, but something far more alien, and the shadows that this warped reflection of Thunderbolt casts seem to almost writhe with things best left unseen as she calls forth eldritch lightning, aiming them towards Doom, Clea, /and/ Strange, deciding they are the biggest threats to her Master's arrival...

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Meanwhile, in the Cancerverse... Thunderbolt comes to slowly, blinking at the alien surroundings, and in particular one alien. Shuma-Gorath himself, floating in his unholy majesty as his voice booms in Mary's mind.

"WHERE... IS MY HERALD?"

Thunderbolt blinks, then shakes her head, "Well, if I'm going down... I'm going down /swinging/!" And with that, she charges right at the Eldritch Horror of Eldritch Horrors, because the only element she has going for her right now is that of surprise.

Though the powers of the Goddesses don't really hurt either.

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Sally Pride has posed:
Feline tail flicks back and forth. Despite having very little grasp on all the magical shenanigans going on around her Sally manages a one-fang-showing smirk as Mordo rants at her interruption. "Ooooh, is that a personal threat from the big bad yackity-yack? Did I hit a sore spot?" None of Doom's shots hit... but she knows suppression fire when she sees it, regardless if it's bullets or magic. Doom may not be the greatest of people, but he's a tricky old ruler, and does probably have a better plot of how to deal with this problem than flashbang trick throws.

"Maybe you should talk less and actually try--" Cue Juggernaught hurtling in, revealing the true tactic of Doom's machinations "--being a splat on the carpet yourself,> she quickly adlibs whatever she was going to say in her attempt to keep Mordo from realizing bigger trouble than her was coming.

Clea has posed:
Family?

Clea's emotions flare and that sends out a wave of magic aimed to help those in disrupting Mordo. Because team work, right?

"I do not have a family." the Faltine states with venom in her voice. "They imprisoned me for over 900 years you imbecile and Dormammu will do everything in his power to get rid of me. So /NO/ I will not be surrendering to anyone. Especially not him!" she announces. Making her stance clear.

But with her emotions and actions being distracted she doesn't have much time to react to Doppel Mary's eldritch lightning strike and it sears her form in a painful way.

Stephen Strange has posed:
There was intent to take on Mordo. The conflict between Mordo and Strange is storied, after all. And, justifiably, Strange's attention was focused upon his rival. And then...

Mordo was no longer a threat.

There may have been a blink of surprise. Perhaps even a chuckle. After all, the man nearly became a smear upon the earth. All without Strange lifting a finger.

However, resting is not an option for the sorcerer. Thunderbolt and lightning would normally be very, very frightening, indeed. However, this is the Sorcerer Supreme...and he was already prepared for eventualities such as a bolt out of the blue. The hands flicker, fingers carving arcane lines pulsing with power through the space between him and the dark Thunderbolt. Apparently, he has been taking cues from the Demon Queen, as he employs a tactic she would be familiar with. A portal sparks into existence, directly between the incoming arc of electricity and Strange. At the same time, another portal opens, directly behind the evil doppleganger.

Will it be a triumph? There may be hopes of a huge success as Strange returns the lightning to the source.

Yet, even as he does so, there is concern. A glance is stolen over towards Gath and Illyana. Is she holding her own? Strange has little doubt she is...but he does have an emotional investment in her well-being. A momentary distraction that may prove to be an opening.

Cain Marko has posed:
Mordo can be forgiven for this error. It can be easy to under estimate The Juggernaut and The Exemplar of Physical Power. Nevermind that his power has been said to dwarf entire teams of powerful heroes, or threan unspeakable calamity. The fact that he's such a blue collar mercenary whose ambitions seem to begin and end with get paid and live a life of luxury until the next job, means it can be easy for the uninitiated to just assume he's a common super strong being.

This assumption can prove to be fatal. Sadly, Mordu realizes this an instant too late. Doom may have acted as the catalyst to 'encourage' Juggernaut forward but once that momentum began ...it became a simple situation of fly against a windshield ..and Baron Mordu was the fly against the comparatively sized fist of The Juggernaut.

The thunderous *BOOOMS* of his passage through the barriers was accomanied by an appropriate muted siound of his fist colloiding with the unprotected sorcerer as Juggernaut continues onward past whatever's left and then finally touches down, digging his feet into the graveyard ground to continue onward for a few dozen yards before finally stopping with a huge canyon dug into the earth courtesy of his massive feet. Blood now stains his immense fist and knuckle dusters and he blinks as he looks and takes note of it, clearly surprised at that.

"Huh. I guess he didn't have enough GTFO spells slotted in..."

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Kulan Gath's mad cackling is cut off as he's busy going to refocus his power over on continuing to try and channel the energies to connect his eldritch master to this dimension, trying to bypass Illyana's deft severings of mystical tendrils. He was still a necromancer with tens of millenia of experience, weaving magic around and trying to bend it to realms isolated and away and re-anchor them in reality.
    Few things can withstand the Juggernaut punching. Magic falls before him. Shields fall before him. Mordo.. Well, MOrdo's more of a smear of paste on his fist at this point. Of course he'll be back. An evil sorceror never stays down. But there might be a sense of accomplishment for Cain. ... He might want to have his knuckle dusters dry cleaned though. Maybe Tom Cassidy knew somewhere? He probably was good at getting pulped sorcerors off of things.
    Sally Pride has gotten in her personal monologue/narrative threat from the evil mustachio'd villain. And then he was squished over to a pulp of detonating magical energies rapidly swallowed back up to the Dark Dimension in a satisfying -POP-. Just don't lookd irectly at the trap when it opens. For those attuned to it, Dormammu's scream of denial at once again being interrupted before he could break into this realm would be snapped shut as the portal would swallow itself up and disintegrate.
    Now Kulan Gath is facing off with the Sorceror Supreme and Sorceress, even as he lets Dark Mary deal with the more physical threats. His fingers would weave together, even as he would start to draw upon the essence of the void. "From the damned, I call. From the suffering, I call. From the depths of darkness I summon HATE!" His hands snapping up, even as he would start to act as a physical conduit for human suffering to draw it to empower himself and boost his spell!

    Meanwhile, in teh unending void that was the living dimension that was the vast unending embodiment of consumption and entropy, a giant semi-conscious eye of a size impossible to comprehend.. Would be going OW OW OW as magical punches would continuously be given. If one could view that particular plane of reality, it would be nearly as hilarious as the destruction of the smug, evil mustache that Mordo wore like a symbiote upon his face.

Victor Von Doom has posed:
"You shall be generously compensated!" Doom announces with might and authority threaded throughout his words as the Juggernaut goes hurtling by right after another blaster of mystical energies are directed toward Mordo. The Unstoppable Juggernaut connects with a fist and is soon skidding to a halt some distance later. The threat of Baron Mordo has been resolved, at least temporarily. This means that Doom may direct his attention toward more pertinent matters and less petulant matters.

The arcing bolts of lightning that are sent his way present Doom with an opportunity and he lifts a hand, the gauntlet humming with energy as technology meets magical prowess. The bolts split further and begin to dance all around the Latverian ruler in a vivid display of colorful lights and crackling energy. While Doom's cloak may become singed and scorched, the Doctor himself is left altogether unaffected. The power armor that he wears hums with energy, siphoning some of the magical energies from the displaced threads of magical lightning.

"Enough," Doom announces with a sense of finality. No longer will he be distracted from his work and it's clear that he's becoming annoyed by the continued pestering of minor threats. While others begin to deal with the chaff, Doctor Doom turns his attention toward the column of rippling magical energy that pierces the sky. He begins to weave his hands in intricate patterns, his hands moving with practiced precision as he beginnings working to redirect those magical energies into something far more productive: redirecting those magical energies attempting to draw another entity to Doom's planet.

Sally Pride has posed:
"Nice splattering," Sally off-sides to Juggernaut. "Though those kind have an annoying habit of somehow managing to come back. Worse than cockroaches."

For now she's going to just stay back and let the magic people deal with the rest of the magic threat at the center of all this madness.

Should be a hell of a fireworks show.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The insouciance of a twenty-something Hell Lord ought not to be underestimated. Young people these days have no respect for their elders, absolutely not. Just as Socrates whined bitterly for posterity, things haven't changed much in the past three thousand years. Or fifty, if anyone happens to be counting, but that's neither here nor there.

"<Yes, and Asmodeus traded Set's sceptre last week at our dinner. You might impress Satannish.>" Dismissing the cackling sorcerer's claims, Illyana's reply slants through High Demonic, cracking consonants in half to reveal their sibilant hearts. <"Yes, you're old. Oh, look, showing off for the little girl who ascended at seventeen.">

Her smile doesn't veer, pulled tight against her teeth, black onyx edges and alabaster moonshine. Light flashes off her barbed headdress when she reverses her grip on the Soulsword, swiping through the cloying magic pushed back on her. Cobweb strands mire the crackling body of the blade, swallowed in bursts of power that crackle and sing in clear E major tones.

Strange's new aesthetic of redirecting electrical discharge is lost on her, except to be heard through the thrum of dark magic bending and burning against her senses. Limbo reflects through the burning blue glow of her eyes, and she swivels around through the necromantic ritual to find the anchorage points. They might be nearly invisible through the veritable eye-wall of a hurricane, with Kulan Gath at the centre, but her strategy shifts in response to his. Rather than standing still and hacking, better to allow those currents to carry her at rough speed across the metaphysical battlefield.

Cut and swerve, spinning the chaotic energies of Limbo's yesterdays and tomorrows in a tangled waltz is an act of rebellion and affection, hope and determination. Exorcising the poisoned connections to the other side where Shuma-Gorath waits is admittedly something that Strange excels at as the medical doctor. She is merely the scalpel and the doorway to the Elder Gods. He is the surgeon. Doom's got PhDs but Strange is the healer.

Her bloodied smile rises--

And she throws the Soulsword--

--to Stephen.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
When Strange sends the lightning /back/ at Dark Thunderbolt... she simply vanishes! Clearly, he had the tools, he had the talent, it's Miller Time, right?

Yes, not so much that, as Dark Thunderbolt seems to just /warp/ and materialize right behind Doctor Strange. She reaches out to grasp his neck in her hands, "You know, they say you can't go home again... but this is going to be just as satisfying killing you a /second/ time, Stevie." Sadly, she doesn't notice what the Doctor's demonic half has been up to with the Soulsword, else she might rethink this approach...

-----------

Mary, meanwhile, is just unloading a flurry of punches on Shuma-Gorath, who was expecting a triumphant emergence into a ripe dimension to conquer. And instead, he gets a Kryptonian-level magic threat punching him repeatedly in his big eye. To be fair, it IS really big, and Mary isn't pulling her punches for once either.

-----------

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Kulan Gath's mad cackling is cut off as he's busy going to refocus his power over on continuing to try and channel the energies to connect his eldritch master to this dimension, trying to bypass Illyana's deft severings of mystical tendrils. He was still a necromancer with tens of millenia of experience, weaving magic around and trying to bend it to realms isolated and away and re-anchor them in reality.
    Few things can withstand the Juggernaut punching. Magic falls before him. Shields fall before him. Mordo.. Well, MOrdo's more of a smear of paste on his fist at this point. Of course he'll be back. An evil sorceror never stays down. But there might be a sense of accomplishment for Cain. ... He might want to have his knuckle dusters dry cleaned though.
    Dark Mary goes to dart around as she engages the enemies of her lord Shuma-Gorath, flying around and brawling while the Being of Entropy and his herald in this realm fought to tether him to it!
    not helped by the Being of the Void's continuous beating to the immeasurable eye-stem that was it's focal consciousness. Shuma-Gorath could only focus his essence upon a singular realm for so long after all. Even as his irritation wtih the small, Superman-strengthed femme punching him with magic that could sunder a planet.
    Doom's magic was focused. Turning things inwards. Namely, taking the powers that had been cast out and hurled into the realm, the twinned realms of the Dark Dimension and Shuma-Gorath.. And thrusting them at one another. Two separate voids of unreality clashing, threatening to consume one another.. And rather effectively starting to cancel one another out as energy was turned against it's opposite. Teh two primordial realms starting to manifest themselves in squabbling, starting to withdraw bit by bit.

Cain Marko has posed:
"Yeah, thanks.....always a pleasure t'have a reliable client that pays on time..."

Juggernaut shakes his hand, dislodging anything unseemly or unsettling.

He turns his attention towards Sally at her compliment and he turns towards her, stares for a few seconds and then says while making a finger gun like gesture at her with his bloodied fist, "I almost had a Lion King joke but can't remember the girl lions name."

He gives her a slight grin and then turns and starts heading back towards the fray itself. "Let's wrap it up already!" as if stopping an end of the world dark horror summoning was so simple but this is Juggernaut. Do you expect him to sweat the details?

"Yo Mumm-Ra!" he yells, turning towards Kulan Gath, "You're out numbered and out gunned here. Beat it already!"

He crouches low as he shouts, the pressure of his body and strength causing the area about him to splinter and sink in from a widening crater....and then he springs, leaping upwards towards the flying necromancer while arcing his body and cocking a fist back for a swing.

There's been enough trademark infringment for one desperate battle so he's no Hulk leaper but Juggernaut can still clear buildings and gain the needed height.

"Let's see how you handle my Sunday Punch!"

Stephen Strange has posed:
The Soulsword flips through the air. Once, twice, three times. Until a hand reaches up and snags the hilt, pulling the sword from its trajectory.

Stephen, Soulsword in hand, descends quickly, towards the undead sorcerer. The other hand clutches at the amulet upon Stephen's neck, drawing from the power within. "May the light of truth blind you, cursed one! May it expose the tenuous threads that anchor you to this realm so that I may slice them asunder!"

With that...a white light grows from the amulet...and channels through Strange, to the Soulsword within his hand. The blade grows bright, blinding, as all illusions are laid bare. The growing light has the unexpected benefit of blinding the dark doppleganger attempting to claim his throat. It may not be in the best interest of the creature of shadow to get close to the outpouring of light that envelopes Stephen. The spells that attempt to bridge the worlds are plainly visible now, individual threads as fine as silk but clearly present.

The surgeon has the scalpel in his hands. The light has laid the cancer bare. It is now time to operate.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
As far as Dark Thunderbolt is concerned, the light is blinding her, and she feels her ties to this reality fading as not only is Evil Mary's tether snapping from the Soulsword, but also a certain Elder Being is busy trying desperately to banish a certain lightning-wielding hero of the gods from his presence.

Eventually, Evil Mary swears, "Fhtagn!" and seems to dissolve into black motes of negative light. After another moment, there's a crashing lightning bolt and the real Thunderbolt reappears in a literal flash. She looks around, disoriented, "Alright, where's the bozo with one eye! I owe him another punch!"

Victor Von Doom has posed:
DOOM continues to work. His resolve is iron and his mind focused to a fine point. It isn't a counterspell that he weaves together with his intricate gestures, but a redirecting of the spells that already suffuse the column of light. The space bends and folds, warping under the influence of Doctor Victor Von Doom as his titanium wrapped hands glow with the flow of magical prowess. The manipulation of reality along the seams of the column results in Doom's hands twisting and curling, his armored fingers honing the boundaries of his own magical workings with the careful precision of an ancient sculptor.

In this fleeting moment, Doom is without grandiloquent speeches or long-winded declarations. Doom is called to a higher purpose now as he works to redirect and bastardize the flow of the magical energies wrought by Baron Mordo and Kulan Gath's. Under the unwavering hand of Doctor Doom their efforts to see devastation brought to Doom's world will invite nothing more than their two master's being pit against one another. To the mortal eye their skirmish may last but a moment, but for such eternal beings it will surely be a devastating war spanning time unimaginable.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Illyana isn't armed with that deadly sword; the only bulwark against the doorway to the universe-ending eldritch evils, bigger and older uncles to Agamotto, is currently in Stephen's hands. Some might consider this a blessing, though its absence risks the teetering balance of the Demon Queen of Limbo. For the likes of Kulan Gath, Doom or Mordo, were he not dead, her soul's shattered stained glass effect speaks entirely to the disastrous state of affairs that most sorcerers or students would never have. Something is entirely off about that sight. Three parts of five carry the infernal scars of being forcibly ripped away.

Consequentially, taking on Kulan Gath in a fit of gleeful, ruthless rage might be fine for Juggernaut and nothing short of an unmitigated disaster for someone holding onto the remnants of their humanity like a favourite pair of jeans from university. Or, in Illyana's case, leather pants. The ferocious icon of Cyttorak's rage can deal with the bastard poncy-pants sorcerer. Excellent trade, there.

She flicks her wrist up while dashing aside from one of the falling clods of earth and probably parts of Mr. Reginald George raining down, since stomping in graveyards never comes freely. Stephen may have made it hard to see, and indeed her eyes aren't any more immune than anyone else's. But Mary's relative location /is/ an afterimage. Her poisoned presence reeks in another sense, something to focus upon behind the man who holds the Soulsword.

So the ground merely opens up in a wide portal, splintering space in a vicious hemisphere, torn as far open as she can manage safely. Streaking into a blind leap throws her at Dark Thunderbolt's general vicinity. The particular accuracy doesn't matter because once she crosses the invisible boundary, Limbo recognizes its Sorceress Supreme. She is of the Hell Realm and the Hell Realm is an extension of her.

The dancer, the sword-fighter, arts that pale in comparison to how seamlessly she pulls the sheer essence of mutable possibility and chaos to herself and lashes out /back/ at the corrupted scion of the Rock of Eternity. "Burn."

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
What happens is a mixture of a rather powerful, potent, and nasty array of spells being used. As Doom is essentially turning two black holes together to have them cancel one another out with precision and power, two voids smothering one another as passageways to dark, wretched, eternal realms would dissipate into the unreality from which they had spawned..
    And Kulan Gath is suddenly attacked over on two ends over as Stephen Strange goes to launch himself up and into the air, twirling with the Soulsword, blade of Limbo and the wicked witch Illyana as Illyana herself channels darkness upon darkness to seal off her own adversary. And as Strange rends and uses the blade of anti-magic to cut into a being composed of death, fueled by hate and a spawn of darkness.. The Juggernaut flies in. For all the power, skill, and cunning displayed by the sorcerors and wizards engaged here, there is something to be said for complete and total brutality as Cain goes to charge forwards. All else unimportant as the combine CRACK of Soulsword and fist bissecting obliterates Kulan Gath and seals the wretched abominations away, crushing them all.
    Don't you know who he is?
    He's the Juggernaut, B*****.

Victor Von Doom has posed:
The effort is completed. As a Herald is decimated and two portals into adjacent realities are fused together, however temporary. The dust has barely began to settle before Doctor Doom scoffs, stating plainly and clearly to the pair of vanquished Heralds, his voice practically dripping with every ounce of patronizing superiority, "You were warned, but you each underestimated Doom to your folly!" An armored hand tightens into a triumphant fist before Doctor Doom shifts and begins to drift away upon the dying currents of magical energy fading swiftly with the closure of the gateways.

Through his battle armor Doom transmits an order to the Latverian embassy. Moments later a payment - in Latverian Franc, of course - is deposited into one of the Juggernaut's accounts for 'Brute Services Rendered'.

A dimple seems to form in reality itself and as Doctor Doom's silver and green form begins to press against it, that dimple forms into a ripple. As Doom passes both against and through it, he soon simply ceases to exist in the sky over that New York City graveyard.