18028/Lord of the Monsters - Sack of the Sakhalin

Lord of the Monsters - Sack of the Sakhalin
Date of Scene:	27 May 2024
Location:	Sakhalin Peninsula
Synopsis:	Among the most powerful heroes on the planet fight against rampaging monsters off the Russian Coast. They protect the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people at cost. The Sakhalin Peninsula and the Kuril Islands are gone. But the people have survived.
Cast of Characters:	Emma Frost, J'onn J'onzz, Clark Kent, Billy Batson, Divine, Illyana Rasputina
Tinyplot:	Lord of the Monsters

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Emma Frost has posed:
The Sakhalin Peninsula was between Japan and Russia. Claimed by the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War, with a small population and an economy mostly consisting of fishing and small amounts of tourism. No major infrastructure was present.

Within the last several hours, SOSUS (The Sound Surveillance System, a line of sonar stations stretching across the entire Pacific used to detect Soviet Submarines) ahd been ringing with massive seismic waves and water displacement for leagues around. Confrimed by the Atlanteans and any other monitors in the area..

A massive number of monsters had been converging on the area. Desperate evacuations had started, with the island's population being rushed and herded onto anything that could fit them - transports, fishing boats, ancient tugs. Scattered over the entire peninsula due to the lack of time to respond, hundreds of thousands of people in a state of total panic.

Massive tidal waves churning in the distance, explosions of plasma, detonations of near nuclear strength. Forces that could shatter mountains detonating as the kaiju warred.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz keeps a series of powerful rare martian stimulants for such emergencies and takes two of them, flying in and grabbing a massive amount of people, telekinetically shielding them and moving at near light speed to the safest location, then flying back for more, beads of sweat on his forehead as he pushes himself to his limit.

Clark Kent has posed:
Hovering in the air, Superman listens to the world around him. The subtle changes in atmospheric pressure. The sounds. Closing his eyes, he concentrates, and hears it first. Then senses it. The seismic waves and pressures. There it is.

His first thoughts. The people. With a push, Superman heads to the tumult at the best speed he could within Earth's atmosphere. His first target...the massive todal waves. Those are extinction level events. Using all his superhuman abilities, Superman targets that first. Heat vision, super speed, and smarts will get the job done. The other heroes can start on the monsters without him!

Billy Batson has posed:
Shazam was pushing an Alaska Cruise Lines ship, loaded to bursting with evacuees. He sees the gathering storm in the distance, hears the roar in the depths of the Earth and the energies splitting the sky. The ship is clear.

this is not enough. The Wisdom of Solomon confirms his instinct. This is ants making war on the immense stupid creatures trampling them. He gathers the lightning and winds of the storm in his wake. Zeus, god of storms empowers him. He flashes, a bright bright light and hurls the energies of their storms back at them. He winces a little as the power almost consumes him. "TE ZEUS!"

Divine has posed:
Divine shakes her arms out and takes a deep - deeper - breath as she flies towards the fighting behemoths, before slowly and steadily releasing it as she zips down the main line of the fighting. A second of those deep breathe and release patterns is done, then a third and forth. She can't freeze a tidal wave, but she can freeze the smaller splashes of water that stick to limbs and tentacles and that other stuff these creatures are sporting. With the buildup, she's gotten the freeze a few inches deep, but the reality is that it doesn't slow them down for long, and she can't keep breathing that deeply and well-controlled indefinitely.

But it helps. It does slow them down. That gives rescue crews more time to get people away, and every saved second is important here.

She doesn't know these people, but this is the sort of fight she'd told Emmom she'd show up for, because it was too big for regular people. She gathers more breath, and does several more passes before flying towards some of the monsters that have gotten even closer to the island. She picked up a small one. Small is relative here, but it's easily the size of a tank, and she hurls it towards one of the partially stuck monsters with alacrity.

The fastball special isn't just reserved for X-Men, after all.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Illyana grew up relatively close to Sakhalin; a native of the Russian Far East, the archipelago at least registers on her national and cultural radar. Normally, the islands bear little more than a footnote in the news, a reminder of Tsarist wars and post-war achievement.

Wards in the Sanctum Sanctorum shimmer with considerable alarm while she practices hacking a series of elemental dummies to pieces. Flames dance across the Soulsword's blade while she pivots to the sound, hand raised to guard her face. Then comes the survey, the summary of danger. Lips part.

"Damnit." No, Wong isn't responding and neither is Doctor Strange. Thus it falls to the other sorceress supreme in residence to take care of something, and she falls through one of her stepping disks as her armour takes more serious form. A step through and *down*, into the midst of frightened Russians trying to find their way to safety.

For once her language isn't a liability. It's helpful; she has a different regional dialect, but it helps. Quickly she spots a rickety old fishing boat, used to the icy currents offshore and completely overloaded with panicking people. "<<You five! The boat will not hold you.>>" Her voice holds considerably harder tones than young people usually have, but anyone who wants to argue with her might contend with the fact she's carrying a big glowing sword and, somewhere, Superman is actually out there. <<"Stand together and close your eyes. This is going to feel unpleasant.>> The X-Men don't have a reserve on the fastball special, but they do have a leg up on portals. A *lot* of portals, as it happens, swallowing up anyone standing still to return them somewhere relatively out of harm's reach.

Nevsky Prospect.

Emma Frost has posed:
It's rapid evacuation of as many as they can. Going in ships, going in portals. Being carried. Tugged along at superspeed. Flown along with by heroes. Whatever methods they are, people from the entire island are being taken off in groups. To the south, along the Kuril Islands, claimed by Japan and Russia shudder as tectonic plates among them crack as beasts hundreds of meters tall and weighing hundreds of thousands of tons clash.

Shazam goes to draw on hispower. Magic lightning borne of Zeus. Towards one of those monsters it blasts on down. Bring the lightning indeed.

And coming out from it like a Titan, like a wretched monster from the age of Cronus, before Zeus usurped his father and cast down the Titans into servitude or oblivion, it strides. Energy blasting down it, power flaking across it, magical and nuclear fires smashing down along it. It lets out a cry, a screech over as electrical energy goes along it's body, sizzling as energy goes down it's entire frame, seeming to stretch from the bottom of the ocean all the way to the sky.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz is relentless, sweating or not he keeps bring loads of a few hundred, which is slowly a frw thousand. Still a drop in the bucket but each life saved is still a life.

Billy Batson has posed:
//Typhon...// Zeus whispers.

Achilles says sternly, //Heroes do not merely pick the fights they know they can win.//

The lightning back fires, blasting Shazam to Earth. He strikes a small island, deserted, and loses his senses a few moments.

"A winner isn't measured by how many times he gets knocked down, he's measured by how many times he gets up. Kick their ass!" That's Victor Vasquez, his dad's, quote. He shakes his head. SHazam is made stronger by Billy. Shazam is a red blur streaking to the fight, lightning in his eyes.

Divine has posed:
Divine is relentless in chasing off the kaiju attacking at the part of the island she's defending. Pick one up, heat blast another, toss into crowd. Repeat. It's a good workout, but a pity they couldn't have stayed in the middle of the ocean somewhere instead, because without harm to people she would actually be having a good time. Yeeting them into one another is still entertaining, but there's a seriousness to it she'd like to avoid.

A streak of lightning comes by. Oh, Shazam. She frowns, then picks up a larger monster and hurls it into a group of smaller ones. The resulting wave is... mostly directed away from the island, but one of the remaining piers decides it's time to take a nap on the ocean floor.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Transit to St. Petersburg by way of Limbo isn't fun, even when the journey lasts a few seconds. Vicious reddish spires sculpted by violent winds stand tall against the seared landscape, the skies an unnatural shade of coppery orange. That probably beats a fourteen meter tall wave crashing into the local village or running from a giant scaled monster from the depths of Tartarus.

Illyana doesn't accompany the people she pulls into the portals and jettisons into the former capital of Russia. Sakhalinese evacuees need to negotiate their own footing once they hit the pavement, tripping over one another or dodging pedestrian traffic. They aren't thrown into the way of cars, but 'sidewalk' is narrow limitation. She hurls narrow stepping discs or grabs several people with one shaped like a fan, dropping them through the sapphire fire-limned lenses.

Of course, none of this actually helps her keep her own footing or contribute to the fighting. Kaiju can knock her back pretty well if they can get through Divine or Shazam. Lightning strobing the sky is pretty impressive.

Another monster wading closer brings her to a pause in her rescue mission. "Hey! Shall we try snickersnacking?" She has that big sword, but it might not be as effective as trying to drop a portal around a kaiju neck to see if she can move the head away from the body. Maybe!

Emma Frost has posed:
They're lifting up moutains. Slamming into creatures the size of skyscrapers. Blasting into beings the likes of which make the Earth tremble and shudder from but a step. As one is picked up and hurled, slamming into the ocean with the power akin to a megaton warhead going off, water blasting thousands of meters up in the air from the displacement, the thing rising up and out of the ocean covered in the gore of the ones that it had just been skewered through.. Lighting strikes and shatters, fists and claws meet in a fury. As the Martian Manhunter races people to the mainland, as Magik goes to evacuate them in rapidfire portals, as overly filled ships race away at their best possible speeds without capsizing. These are heroes fighting monsters.

Not for the sake of fighting monsters. To save lives. To fight. To save the day and to make people safe. They charge in, heedless of the cost. Shazam smashes and Divine goes to grab into one, hurling it to others. Illyana's sword glows as she goes up to the air, slashing through the head of one even as it goes tos lump down. Like a mythical hydra, the head starting to grow once more.

Then, charging through the air and coming down like a meteor is something alien, something strange, something.. Familiar cresting the atmosphere, almost like a spinning discus, a flying saucer.. But of a shell. A hardened shell the likes of which only the most mythical of metals could match. Slamming down into the creature that had just been slammed by one or another comes a massive.. Turtle? It lets out a war cry.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz has been waiting for a turn of the tide and will attempt to use his telepathy to link any details of weaknesses for the other monsters he can sense, but unless the turtle asks for aid he telepathically informs him of the intents and actions of the heroes while still saving as many as he can, flying again amd again without tiring.

Clark Kent has posed:
Fresh off his taking care of the tidal waves and natural disasters, Superman pauses in the air, taking in what was happening. With a stern nods, he scans what allies have shown up today, and says, "Wow. A great group of heroes indeed! Well, once more unto the breech!"

Superman hurls himself back into the battle, to support and assist all the other heroes engaged in battle!

Billy Batson has posed:
Shazam flies along a shore. He sees a reptilian horror, stirring waves and a small boy running towards a ship that sailed. the monster takes another step, Then stops, clawed foot raised. Then it falls back as Shazam yanks it by the tail.

"Hey, creature! Leave that kid alone!" They are a wall of defense and he's another brick in it. He swoops down on the boy and grabs him, soaring above the wave.

"Spacebo Shazam!"

"You know me?" he asks in Russian.

"Da! I steal American TV from Alaska."

"Heh. I'll get you to your parents."

"No dad and my mom ditched me when I was... four. I'm Dmitri!"

"Call me Billy. You want a ride on a cruise ship, Dmitri?" He must have gotten some creature venom in his eyes. He looks away but finds the ship. He doesn't have all day, despite his issues.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Cue not chopping off heads. The convenience of removing one and receiving another for her trouble is unfortunately deeply annoying to Illyana. She learns things as she goes; the delight of being young.

The Russian sorceress keeps to her original plan, much as J'onn has. Throwing open a wide, circular portal taxes her more heavily than those fast ones. Someone in a truck might really question going through the wavering lens, but she gestures. "<<Quickly! It goes to a road in St. Petersburg. Maybe you get a broken fender, but you live.>>" The stress on her face is more for the effort of keeping two realities merged at a hub where so many converge, and certainly she's not about to let a kaiju come storming through after its preferred prey: dramatic plots.

Divine has posed:
Divine is gobsmacked by the shell crashing down. And the glowing sword, but the very cool lady with the sword and portals is not A GIANT TORTOISE, so she comes second.

She stands in place long enough for one of the monsters to get a grip on her and do their own attempt on a fastball special, or maybe it's an attempt to create a new hole that goes to the center of the earth. Divine goes up, the island shrinking even to her advanced eyesight. She hits the peak of the toss, and gains velocity as she hurtles down. She's practiced this though, although the speed is more than she gets from yeeting herself off tall buildings. She banks and turns, losing both speed and velocity but gaining control and picking up momentum as she aims at a line of monsters and unleashes her heat blasts.

This... still needs practice. A lot of it. But she hits her targets, albeit much more broadly than anticipated as she comes to a skidding stop just above the water. A few of the monsters are decidedly more well-done than expected, and incredibly stinky. It's worse than the raw fish she uses for feed at work.

Clark Kent has posed:
Flying towards the battle, Superman prepares hinself to take at least one enemy out of the ring. Concentrating, and aiming for the biggest target, perhaps the turtle? Superman moves his right arm back, and with almost slow motion, increases his mass to near infinity...then unleashes the "infinte mass punch" on his target.

Conscious of the effect this could have on the environment, Superman only does this for a split pico-second. Ensuring no one else was in the "blast radius", Superman waits...recovering from the blow, Superman takes a moment to see what effect this has on his enemy.

Emma Frost has posed:
The.. Giant alien turtle (?) has thoughts in a way that J'Onn can sense them. Friendly in a sort. Not allied. Focused. A co-belligerent? But it is focused in a way. It goes to slam over into one of the other monsters, snapping it's teeth over at the neck of it. Huge flippers (?) going out to grab at the neck of it, twisting it about to slowly crack it's head over to the water as several hundred thousand tons of monster was slammed around by several hundred thousand tons of monster.

And J'Onn is there to give the smashdown and the beatdown, leaving the immobilized thing staggering and dropping before going back to help evacuate som eof the tens of thousands of people rushing off the island and being herded along.

And there is Superman, rushing to save the day. Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! No, it's a plane! It's SUPERMAN as the Last Son of Krypton goes to charge into one huge thing, going to send it flying away frmo where it might have capsized a massively overloaded tramp hauler that would have turned to mist!

The Hero known as Shazam's greatest power is not the strength gifted to him by the gods, but the heart that comes from Billy. His heart. His sincerity. His strength. Greater than that of any god. Restoring hope. Restoring faith. And marching towards him is what looks like some sort of tnetacled monstrocity floating up in the air, a dozen tendrils dropping down from the sky to the earth. An underwater beast out of Lovecraft's twisted, horrible and morbid stories of What Lies Beneath.

Miles away tectonic plates shudder. Things break. The ocean surges. Islands connected for leagues about to the bottom of the seas stagger as the waves break against them. And each crash cracks those things which anchor them to the ocean floor a little more. THe Kurils, already evacuated and far from anything..

Are starting to die.

Divine is learning on the job, much like Illyana is. Just how broad the things which walk, swim, and fly across the Earth are. Powerful and big. She has to learn on the job. Divine goes to fly like an arrow, strength which could wrench a city from it's foundation and goes to smash into a monster, sending it pinballing! It slams into the water HARD. A spiked tail in turn with a huge barb at the end glowing with unknown fire goes to crush out over towards her at a speed like lightning! Leaving an ionized trail behind it as the air would be superheated!

Above Illyana's head, another beast that looks like it came from the age of the dinosaurs flies. A massive pterranodon with wings seemingly the scope of an aircraft carrier blitzes, barbed fangs gonig to smash on down towards a cruise ship that might barely seem to fit in a clawed talon.

And then striking towards it in the air is another thing out of ancient memory. Huge, multi-pronged wings, almost soft. Insectoid. Huge anntenae glowing, massive multiple eyes gazing across and judging. Going to snap into the massive pterra to wrench it away. A huge, striking Moth.

As Superman goes to smash along, it's a multi-pronged attack as fist strikes pinned kaiju as he joins along with the massive force of J'Onn and the assister.. And there is a SNAP as Superman's strike for but a billionth of a second breaks it. Hard.

A force that could seemingly break through reality barely restrained. And yet saving the day.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz conveys to the heroes the benign intent of the two more benevolent monsters and links the two monsters (woth filters to prevent overwhelming minds) to the heroes so they can cpordonate as he flies besides Gamera and Mothera to pound anything they attack and to move the fight from innocent civilians.

Billy Batson has posed:
Shazam sees Divine and the glowing, venomed or flaming tail heading for her.

"No. Fuck no!" that's his boo, That's his bae. That is his light. With speed he never accessed playing games with Irie or Nitro, he becomes a virtual streak of lightning. A sonic boom explodes in his wake and he grabs that tail. His lightning burns the nuclear venom, keeping most of it from him as he grapples and snaps it off. The beast roars and flees. He blurs over to Divine. "Divine?"

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Something flying around with that large a wingspan earns an irritated noise at the back of Illyana's throat, but she refuses to allow anything worse than that to come to the fore. Craning back to see the monstrosity tackled by another monstrosity in a titanic battle of terrors is impressive, but the worst part is that she's down /there/ and they are up here. or vice versa.

The portal flung open for another stumbling fisherman or comrade leaves her on the ground -- home ground.

Standing between two worlds gives a small amount of leverage. Cheating, of course. But as Divine's bae is running around, she stands in for hers. And as her boo happens to be Stephen Strange, a chunk of his soul lodged within her fractured one, just maybe the Vishanti will feel inclined to play nice. Hoggoth or Oshtur, anyway. Agamotto loathes sharing.

All that to stay, when she starts to chant, insidious tendrils of power wrap around her hands in a triple set of spinning mandalas. Scribed shapes fill in the rings, and power revolves around her, her barbed crown radiating a spiky threnody. Lines radiate away from her feet, marking another far more complex circle on the ground, invocation taking its sweet time. Superman or J'onn might level three kaiju in the time it takes her to complete the spell, but in that moment, she hisses to the restless earth and whispers to the penitent sky, speaking the abjurations to quell, invoking the command of ancient purpose to restore order. It's a bit of a tall order... if not for a Hell Lord. Order is rather their thing. Even if this means she's going to be sleeping off the next two days for the effort. Fricking white magic.

Divine has posed:
"I'm fine, you did good!" Divine calls out as she soars into another monster. She hefts it and flies into the air with a dizzying spin. "Hey Shazam?" she yells as she tosses the beast up and away... "Batter up!" It's a trick they've joked about practicing one day. Well, it's a day. Time for the live action take!

She can't stay in place to see if he'll connect, but she keeps half an eye on it as she reverts to that freezing pattern again. Slow and steady, frost and ice build in layers over a group and slow them down. It's a fitting tribute to Emmom.

Clark Kent has posed:
"Good to have you coordinating J'onn. As always." Superman nods as he "hears" the "thoughts" of the benevolent monsters. "Good to know. Switching targets to the "bad" monsters"." Superman frowns, flexing. Now he could really cut loose, as he did with his last opponent. Looking for the next big bad, Superman takes a few brief seconds to salute his comrades-in-arms with a nod and a smile. Shazam first after J'onn. Divine, Illyana and her massive power. That gives him pause. Nodding in respect, he looks to see if anyone else was on the sidelines, making sure they were safe from any attack he did.

Then, Superman unleashes his full strength at the next Kaiju. Then the next. Heat vision, super speed, and massive blows from his punch, sending them packing. It was scary how good it felt not having to pull his punches.

Emma Frost has posed:
This is the Man of Steel. This is the Last Son of Krypton. This is the man that is an adopted son of Earth. This is the man that represents the immigrant's story, that represents what humanity can and will be when it looks tot he stars. This si Superman. Smashing over to one creature. Then another. Whatever they were. Deviants, aliens. Creatures of magic or myth. Mutated monsters. Creatures and legends from the dawn of epochs. TOgether, they are heroes.

As Magik goes to teleport up into the air, as Shazam goes to fly along with Divine to save his beau, as best friends and comrades fight alongside one another. As monsters wreak mayhem and fight and heroes sore..

And there's the setup for the pitch from Divine. Slowed monster. Frozen monster. Monster moving even while encased in ice like an artificial glacier. Then SMASH.

J'Onn coordinates amongst friend and.. Not quite foe? Some of these creatures have their own feuds. Or thier own sense of territory. They don't necessarily fight alongside, but they don't fight against, either.

The fight is pulled away deep to the ocean as Magik goes to chant and pull out her full power, as Divine, Superman, and Shazam go to power up and take down things as they would drag the fight away from the peninsula, rapidly and then finally depopulated of civilians and refugees. Leaving the buildings, the homes, the islands.. Alone. Magik's commands soars as things go still.

Then things seem to unfreeze. But not the monsters. The..

The land. The land is dying. Islands and peninsulas anchored to the ocean's floor, millions of years old, made by the Earth and surrounded by the oceans shudder. Break. They die. In those spasms, land collapses and oceans devour. Where life was, where land was, now there is just the ocean. The death throes of part of the Earth.

But not the people upon it. Homes can be rebuilt. People cannot. As the wrath of the monsters eases, and the war fades, and people are taken to safety..

The islands collapse. Pieces falling to the ocean floor, seas bubbling over and swallowing them like a singularity.

Where there were once places populated by people, berths part of the globe..

Now there is nothing.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
There are always those left behind, those few stragglers determined to die in fear amd panic and as their minds cry out he plunges into the water and grabs them, one by one. No lives lost today if he can help it.

Clark Kent has posed:
Superman recovers from battle, and does what he does best...try and inspire. However, that end game was...troubling. Nothing. Nothing left. It was heart wrenching.

Moving to help his fellow heroes, he looks around, making sure everything was safe to proceed. His telescopic and xray vision working on over load so there was no surprises. As it was...it appears the battle was over.

Billy Batson has posed:
Shazam is actually a little tired. He summons his lightening. The creature Divine yeeted into the air spreads membranous wings, like a flying squirrel to glide away and escape. Shazam hits it dead center and it crashes into the sea, raising a wall of spray. He thinks, "Billy is so taking Divine to Build a Bear tomorrow."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Illyana only has so much time to work with, so much energy. The sorcerous might she brings to bear cannot last forever.

Not when the leylines shatter and wriggle, broken by the enormous monstrosities and conflagrations. She cries out in pain as those islands erode to nothing, broken to pieces. Long suffering volcanic mounts or scrapings from the confluence of a triple-arc simply aren't, and the untold damage is hard for her to contemplate. The portal collapses as she goes to her knees, exhausted, her hands pressed to the ground. The Soulsword drops to her side, head bowed.

Sometimes the best option she has? A cellular phone. <<S.S.-Screwed up big. Couldn't stop the geogr. implosion?>>