19637/The Coming of Conan

The Coming of Conan
Date of Scene:	11 December 2024
Location:	Times Square
Synopsis:	The necromancer Kulan Gath and Conan of Cimmeria are brought forth into the present along with hundreds of skeletons and a giant necromantic construct! Thankfully, an impromptu group of heroes gets together and saves the day. Red Sonja and Conan are reunited for the fist time since the Hyborian Age
Cast of Characters:	Conan, Mary Jane Watson, Miles Morales, Thor, Alison Blaire, Daniel Ketch, Diana Prince, Cassandra Cain

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Conan has posed:
The Coming of Conan

It is twelve thousand years ago and the legendary warrior known as Conan the Cimmerian has murder on his mind. Kulan Gath and his sorcerer-priests have been kidnapping and sacrificing hundreds of people to fuel a dark ritual and the families of the victims pooled their savings and hired the Cimmerian thief to assassinate Gath. Not that he wouldn't have killed this enemy a hundred times anyway.

Conan moves like the wind, swift and silent. The night is dark when he approaches Kulan Gath's fortress temple and begins his infiltration. Guards on the walls would see almost anyone approaching despite the darkness of the night, but the thief moves so slowly and steadily as he crawls across the earth that he remains undetected.

Climbing the walls is an easy task for a man who was born among the savage Cimmerian mountains. The imperfect stonework, the mortared cracks. If there's even the slightest chance someone could use a spot for leverage Conan makes it work. In no time he's climbed the wall, wrung a guard's neck and entered the fortress proper, drawing his broadsword.

Soon he's found Kulan Gath and his sorcerer-priests, the latter standing in a circle around the former and chanting. The foul Gath plunges a ceremonial dagger into the heart of a bound prisoner before Conan can intervene! The thief witnesses energy, pure white light, pour out of the wound and into the ritual circle the sorcerers and their victim were inside.

"All wizards should die!" Bellows Conan as he charges, taking the head of a sorcerer-priest before they can react. The mighty warrior, muscles rippling, slices through the opposing forces on his way to Gath. Kulan Gath raises the dagger in his hands but the fierce man from the frozen mountains drives his blade through his enemy's heart.

As the light leaves Kulan Gath's eyes and his corpse slumps to the ground, sliding off the Cimmerian's blade unceremoniously, the now terribly disturbed ritual circle begins producing black smoke! Conan attempts to flee, having completed his mission, but there seems to be no end to the darkness!

Not far, he hears the sounds of approaching footsteps hurrying in his direction. As he looks around he sees armed and armored skeletons walking towards him, "What is this? Has Hell finally found me? Fine then! By Crom, I will destroy you all!" Instantly Conan is smashing through bone like a scythe through wheat.

Then the smoke partially dissipates until it hovers around a foot above the ground. Almost all at once the darkness is replaced by flashing lights from every angle and screams, whistles, moans, cries, and noises Conan has never heard before! The skeletons continue coming at him, then a strange metal beast he has to dodge out of the way of plows through a horde of the bone men!

There's another beast, similar in size and shape but blue where the first was red, right behind it! This time he gets a better look and shows confusion and anger on his face when he realizes there is a person inside of the beast controlling it!

"Crom! Where am I?" Conan roars as he struggles to adjust, all the while destroying walking skeletons. Flight seems nearly impossible due to the screaming metal monsters with people inside zipping past him. Luckily, they strike quite a few skeletons.

Then the world begins to shake! Rising out of the fog, in addition to the hordes of skeletons, is a massive creature so vast that it would tower over even a mighty mastodon! Whatever it is, the creature is horrifying to behold. It's made up of human corpses arranged so that together they appear almost as if they're some manner of octopus-like thing. At least a dozen tentacles, each made of a chain of bodies linked together, lash out and strike people and vehicles with such force that they're sent flying in every direction.

Conan has posed:
New York, New York

December 12, 2024

8:00 PM

Times Square is a mess. Black fog covers the ground like a blanket. There's a car sticking through an electronic billboard that's showering the area below it with sparks. Traffic is insane. In the middle of the road there's a very buff, very poorly clothed guy swinging a sword at the hundreds of walking skeletons that keep appearing from the fog. In their haste to not kill the loincloth clad swordsman some of the drivers collide with the skeletons, then with other vehicles. Traffic is soon completely stopped, leaving the vehicles' occupants at the mercy of the dead.

And then there's the giant necromantic monstrosity slithering around, propelled by thirteen tentacles that are making a mess of everything they hit. There are already a few police on scene who have radioed for backup, but now they're in a desperate fight for their lives as they try to help civilians flee the scene.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
She is lost in her dreams. Nightmares. They call forth to her. Of a bygone era. From eons in the past. Fragments. Blended together. Blended together with so much rage, blood, fury.. On this night the dreams envelop her completely. She wakes up screaming as images pour forth from her mind as if nightmares staggering to life. They call to her. Bleeding, broken moments of the past that have slaughtered through to the front of her consciousness. She howls. Ferally.

Then she is running out through the streets, lost in the presence of another world. One that she has always danced up against the fragments of nightmares, of the soul within her that shares her body, her mind. The soul that whispers to her, challenges her. Tonight, there is a difference.

Tonight the soul rages and lashes out. And subsumes her. Devours her. Through the streets she rages, running through them in a maze that she somehow knows exactly to go through. She arrives in the fog wielding two blades. Each held out in front of her. As she does she screams out in a language so ancient, so forgotten.

The language of an age well since past, a language from the darkest periods of human history. When the gods abandoned the Earth. When humanity damned itself. Where few remember it. But words and intents come through. In this ancient, almost unknown language the berserk redhead screams out through the streets.

"NECROMANCER! I smelt your corpse from across the city. I see that it needs hacked once more!" Feral, mad glee devours her. There is no Mary Jane..

There is only the SHE DEVIL

Miles Morales has posed:
"Come to New York, fill in for a night." Spider-Man (II) swings through the air, firing webline after webline as he heads for Times Square. "It'll be a blast." Instead, though, there's a thick black fog that's encompassing the area, and as Spider-Man swings about, he sighs. "Look, I know it's too much Christmas right now, but we don't have to go back to Halloween!"

There's the skeletons, and the guy with the sword, as the webslinger passes by the car to make sure that noone is within.

Seeing a scared person within, the black suited hero pauses for a moment. "Hold on, I'll get you out of there!" Grabbing the handle of the door, he overrides the lock with a venom bolt, before ripping the door open. "Grab on!" he calls to the young man within." Once he has a grip on him, he moves on a line to place him on the ground.

"I'd suggest running away from this mess. And don't forget to give me a favorable review on HeroYelp!"

Now his attention is back to the wild Evil Dead 3 production that's playing out in the middle of Times Square. "I don't think you have a certificate for this movie or ... Overly Musclar Guy meets Redhead Muscle Hotty in Do Your Flex Part Deux!"

Then one of the tentacles is lashing out at him, and Spider-Man... disappears. Time to move!

Thor has posed:
A battle of epic proportions requires a warrior of epic intent.

To the omenous fog that belches out undead comes the sudden clouds above creeping together in a storm front that signals the impending approach of rain. Of the crack of thunder. Of the snap of lightning. Long arcs run across the sky, bouncing betwixt clouds coiling together like snakes in the atmosphere.

    Then the rain.

The bottom falls out above New York City. Emptying buckets upon the chaos. A bolt crashes to Earth. A thick white flash of electricity and a sonic boom of thunder when the lightning grounds.

Another bolt crackles.

    Another crash of thunder.

And then the shockwave erupts out from a figure who descends from the Heavens to land upon the flat end of a Mighty Hammer slamming against the concrete. The shockwave clears hordes of undead out in a wide berth around the figure standing in the downpour.

Bathed in battle Asgardian Battle Regalia. Blonde hair soaked and sagging against his jaw and thick beard.

The Asgardian Prince stands up from his landing in a swing of Mjolnir. Sending a crack of lightning in the wake that crawls across the water surface and erupts in an explosive snap-boom, cutting a path through the scores. "Be gone back to the spawn of your death where the halls welcome you, yee shall find no respite here!" His voice roars like the temptest winds that circulate around him.

"I am Thor Odinson. The God of Thunder." Mjolnir spins in his hand and sets into a twirl along the leather strap as he twists around and hurls the mighty weapon like a javeline through a line of Undead. Palm open to accept the weapon as it curves outward along his command and retreats back into his palm through another horde.

Alison Blaire has posed:
Getting a coffee has turned into a opportunity for an autograph because DAZZLER's sunglasses aren't too good a disguise by themselves. She scribbles her name on someone's notebook and then on someone else's shirt, smiling and saying nice to meet you and thanks and other crap like that which is totally polite. She steps up to order a coffee and starts to open her mouth to give her all-important order, "Hello, I'll have a---" she begins but she's suddenly drowned out by a myriad of car accidents just outside on the street. She frowns in confusion, turning to look out the windowed front of the small shop.

CRASH! A large (gross) tentacle smashes into the pavement with such force that a couple of the windows of the shop shatter.

"Look out! Everybody back! Stay away from the windows!" Alison says helpfully. Of course everybody probably obeys because hey, it's a celeb but you can never tell who dares rush forward to see what they're missing. She gives them a smirk and a disapproving look if they do.

Alison isn't decked out as Dazzler or any such superhero, instead merely a casual jeans-wearing shopper like everybody else (mostly), but she walks up and steps through the broken door to go outside anyway. "Everybody stay here. Don't worry," she tells the people behind her. On the sidewalk of Times Square, she can see some of the destruction. She points out to someone nearby that they might hideout in the coffee shop. She's distracted for a second as one of her own recent Times Square concert posters lies ripped and battered nearby on the pavement. She frowns at that horrible sight. Then she looks up into the air at the other horrible sight, "Holy Crap." She catches sight of the sidewalk-smashing tentacle as it lifts off the sidewalk to swipe at Spider-Man and miss.

Daniel Ketch has posed:
Dan Ketch tends to avoid Times Square. Traffic is awful at the best time, even for bikers. But tonight he left work late and thought he was worth a shot. Foolish boy.

Traffic wasn't good, but it moved at decent pace. But then comes this fog, which gave him this bad feeling of it being a supernatural thing. But really, in the middle of New York? Who would be so crazy? And when the screams start, he realizes that someone was so crazy, indeed. Danny he is still on the motorcycle when a skeleton with a sword jumps at him. He curses and ducks, and falls to the ground. The skeleton pounces, but he manages to kick it away - all bones, it must be just about fifty pounds.

Unfortunately, there is a dozen more coming. And unfortunately, there is another skeleton coming, and this one is angry and not accepting a 'wait' for response. Daniel falls to his knees, clenching his jaw so not to scream.

An ancient sword stabs him from behind, goes through his body and burst from his chest, but instead of blood, only fire erupts from the wound. And Daniel is no longer there, instead a much larger creature stands up. Another skeleton, this one wearing black leather and steel spikes, the skull in flames. The Spirit of Vengeance.

The Ghost Rider turns, crushing the skull of the stabbing skeleton with the back of his fist, and ignoring the others, he walks forward, pushing aside a bones and vehicles as if they were made of cardboard. He senses someone deserving his wrath ahead, and as always, he is relentless.

Diana Prince has posed:
Times Square was a hot point within the JLA monitoring systems. When something major happened there, the JLA network spread the word, far and wide.

It took Wonder Woman no time at all to drop what she was doing, and appear atop the crown of the Statue of Liberty. She had been coming in to Manhattan fast from the south west, and looked to the city. She stared in to the distance, listening to the JLA updates through an ear piece, her dark hair waving against her bare shoulders, as she stood atop the most famous symbol of American pride, poised just beside the island of Manhattan. She leapt again from the statue, and rushed through the cold December air toward the bow-tie-shaped intersection that was famous across the world.

Diana landed atop one of the glowing bilboard signs next, high above the avenue below. She clutched thee sign post beside her, as she took in the visual sight of what was unfolding. Thor was there, she could recognize him in a second, and she felt a great wealth of relief to have his support for... whatever this was.

Diana looked to the skeletons, and immediately there-after to the tentacles of connected corpses. A foul expression fell across her facial features, as the Princess of themyscira reached behind her shoulders, her right hand drawing her gleaming sword from its leather scabbard, her left pulling forth her golden round shield. With one swift motion, weapons in hands, Diana leapt from the sign, down in to the fight below.

Conan has posed:
The barbarian is untiring, moving with almost supernatural grace as he carves through skeletons. Conan's bleeding a little now, one of the skeletons having gotten lucky with a spear that caught the mighty hero's outer thigh. It slows him down not in the least.

As he lays eyes on the She Devil and hears her speaking a language he knows well Conan lets out a mighty laugh and calls out in the same strange tongue, "A warrior with flame red hair!" One of his hands grabs a skeleton by the skull and crushes it. "Today Crom will witness our victory over the dead or he will see us join them! Let us put on a show for him!"

Another figure rises from the black smoke. Clad in green robes with a tall cylindrical green hat, a horrifying glowing eyed man with claw-like hands looks around before settling his gaze on Conan and yelling in English, "You fool! I am free from the restraints of death! I am KULAN GATH and nothing can stop me!" The sorcerer turns his head to look around, eyes settling on the flaming skull, "Spirit! Have you come for me? I think you'll find it challenging." For those who can detect such things, this guy radiates evil and magic and darkness. Very, very bad news.

The tentacled thing continues its rampage, punching out with its tentacles to bust through cars, people, and the front facing part of some buildings. One of the tentacles goes right after Spider-Man, swinging in a wide arc that smashes though an empty bus effortless on its way to crush the wall crawler.

As Thor lays waste to the skeletal hordes Conan finds himself with breathing room and yells in English, "I am joined by the Gods themselves this day!" More laughter erupts as the big man starts carving his way towards the giant monster, "Come! I will teach even the dead to fear the name Conan!"

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
And there's a wild, wild laugh over from the She-Devil as she sees the familiar figure from eons past. "The necromancer has called you forth because he does not have nightmares enough? I tire of his spawn already!" There is feral, berserk glee from Sonja as she sees what one might not quite call an old friend. A rival? An adversary? A challenge? A man that was just as much a monster as she was, but one that had scruples. Where the She-Devil so often did not. He was the better half of the old pair.

"GATH!" Sonja screams out as she goes to face forwards at the man she has hated for millenia. "No matter how many times we rend you limb from limb you still come crawling out! Let us see if this one more time shall be a reminder!" She cries out, "Goddess, be with me and let me.." She would grin madly, ferally, loathingly.

Then she's charging in full tilt towards Kulan Gath, slashing her way through anything and everything in her path. A zombie to the left, hacked apart. A tentacle to the right, skewered. A beastly head snapping at her, that she would use to vault over the head of, swords caught up and over in her hands in a downward scythe aimed at Gath's projected body itself whether or not there would be any others at her side, to stop her, to frenzy with her..

Miles Morales has posed:
As Spider-Man vanishes, he reappears a few moments later, swinging in a wide arc. As he gets a second look at the redhead, recognition hits. "Sonja! Friend of yours from out of town?" he calls out to her, because he can't make out a word at all of what they are saying. But he has bigger issues to worry about. As he lands on the ground, he feels the tentacle that was swinging towards him and while he could easily dodge it.

If it wasn't for the fact that the tentacle is going to smash into Alison and her small group if he did. "Fiddlesticks." he grunts, and twists to stabalized himself and when the tentacles SLAMS against him, there's a loud groan and he moves to lift the tentacle to force it back with a series of Venom blasts into it. In the meantime, his masked face turns towards Alison. "Hey! I know you! Love your work! Your recent record was cool, I can get behind it. I mean. Kinda in FRONT of it at the moment! Anyway. Big fan. Talk later when I don't have my hands full."

And he pushes, trying to force the tentacle back. "May want to get outta here!" he offers between grunted breaths.

Thor has posed:
"Conan! The name of a mighty warrior befit such a mighty name!" Thor booms as Mjolnir swings outward and shatters a horde of skeletons to their base parts. The undead are of no real concern to The God of Thunder. The crash of lightning falls from the heavens around him with each blow. Clearing a path as much as the swing of his hammer even does.

The legendary weapon looses from his grip and swings about with the sweep of his hand. Skeletons that rush towards him, find only the smack of the humming maul as it coils around him as if guided by his out stretched fist. A fist that smashes one of the undead into bone meal when it collids with the side of its skull. A fist that closes around another to be used as a blugeoning implement to smear bones across Times Square.

"Be silent Necromancer!" Mjolnir hums into his grip. Fist closing around the leather handle to come upwards and send a skull sailing towards the heavens. On the upwards swing, Thor hurls himself into the sky and comes down before the tentacled beast of many corpses lashed together. "What manner of abdomination hath come to my eyes." One of those tentacles lashes out at him and he brings his hammer down in a whirl of electricity to knock it from the intended target. Another tentacle is caught by back swing. But there's so many and the beast is so large.

"A noble victory, I see in your vanquish!" He's aerial, hammer held in both hands, flat edge coming down towards one of the many heads of the corpse golem.

Alison Blaire has posed:
Alison looks up and braces herself as the tentacle swipes again but Spider-Man helpfully steps in to stop it. She takes time to direct traffic, "Everybody out! Let's go!" she tells people nearby stopped in traffic. People slowly start to get out of their cars and follow what the super-important celeb says. She points into the coffee shop, "That's right, this way. Just ignore the gross...slobbery...tentacle...thing," she tells them.

Alison is really in the way of Spider-Man's epic battle with the tentacle monster from Hell.

"Uhh thanks, Spider-Man! You're awesome! Um listen, just hold on!" Alison calls out to the awesome hero.

Meanwhile, she finishes helping the people into the coffee shop to clear the sidewalk so she's not in the way of Spider-Man and the tentacle. She moves out of the way and runs further up the sidewalk, but can still get a good viewpoint on what this Spider-Man guy is doing, so maybe she can help out. Hopefully another gross tentacle doesn't swoop in to make matters worse, "You're doing great!" she compliments Spider-Man.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
There are warriors that charge in the sunlight, bellowing confrontation, wearing mail or perhaps baring flesh in all its glory in defiant challenge to monsters, gods and man alike for their glorious combat.

Cassandra Cain was not one of those warriors.

How long had she been there? Unknown. But where a student on a trip from Gotham had 'fled' with other bystanders, a shadow moved from the buildings, a whistle of throwing weapons announcing her intervention from the dark as several of the skeletons would find themselves with embedded throwing stars that flashed for a few moments before they detonated with a sudden -crack-.

It wasn't killing if they were risen corpses after all.

Erupting from the dark in her hooded cape and figure-hugging 'batsuit' minus the coal, Orphan swung into the fray, a twist and a throw of several more not-batarangs at the tentacled creature currently trying to snatch a spider out of the air.

A 'mere' mortal among gods, ancient magical warriors and Radioactive spider-people...and she didn't seem to hesitate in the slightest.

Daniel Ketch has posed:
The Ghost Rider hesitates when Kulan Gath shows up, his fists clenching, and his flame seems to burn brighter for a few seconds. "YES!" He speaks, his voice a bass too deep for a human throat. "Your sins are uncountable, wizard. Rarely do I see a human-born so vile, so deserving eternal punishment. A RECKONING IS DUE!"

The burning skeleton jumps forward, crashing through a dozen non-burning skeletons, sending bones and rusty bits of armor flying. A scythe made of chain-links and fire appears in his hands, slashing to Gath's undead minions and cutting them down like chaff. "Come, necromancer, face your fate!" He yells.

Diana Prince has posed:
wonder Woman landed in amongst some of the traffic jammed vehicles. There were skeleton warriors rushing between cars, and attempting to harm the passengers inside them, but Diana was quick to rush to their aid. With her Aegis bracers given two quick strikes together, the Godly energy was absorbed directly in to that of her sword and shield, and as Diana slashed with her blade, she obliterated a line of skeletons that were all rushing between a line of cars, sending bone shards spraying across the street. She dashed out from the vehicle cover, as another wave of skeletal foes came upon her, only to face the bashing force of her Aegis charged shield. With a powerful strike of her left arm, she smashed her shield in to the clattering old bones, and a whirlwind of conical energy crashed across the skeletons, spraying a wave of broken bones all across the buildings on the western side of the city street.

Diana rushed forward then, not wasting any time, as she lunged directly at one of the Corpse Tentacles, her gleaming sword blade swiping down, cutting through the cold air, to slice through one of the tentacles, and attempt to separate it from its main magical body of morbid design.

Conan has posed:
"Sonja! How convenient. I'll need you for what comes next," Kulan Gath addresses his ancient enemy with a smile on his face. As she brings her swords down towards him the magician sidesteps them both with incredible alacrity and grabs the red headed fighter's arm, twisting it in his grasp and causing a sword to fall into his other hand. He bats Sonja aside with a flick of his wrist, sending her sprawling. Gath lifts the sword over the She Devil and moves to pin her to the ground with it.

Gath turns towards the Ghost Rider and says, "I'll deal with you momentarily. The Crimson Bands will put you to your first test, spirit!" As he says the words 'crimson bands' red bands of energy launch out from the sorcerer's body to attempt to bind the limbs of the Ghost Rider!

The tentacle strains against Spider-Man's impressive strength. Another tentacle rises and slices through the air in a downward arc to whip at the web slinger. And its not alone, skeletons approach and head in Dazzler's direction when they see her! Apparently, these guys are also fans.

Thor and Diana's assault on the tentacles leaves a few them shorter than they'd been before. The creature's rampage continues, however. Pushing itself up on three of its limbs the beast begins to spin in a circle, letting its tentacles fly with abandon!

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Never let it be said that Sonja has any sort of restraint as she would be hit hard over as her swords go to slash down over at Gath as he goes to meet her in midair and SNAPS her wrist over like one would a twig, and is sent sprawling over as her blade is held over against her. She doesn't howl over in pain, even as she lays at a brutal angle.

Her hand snaps down over to a boot, hopefully while Gath is distracted over with the others as she goes to try and launch the dagger up at his eye with a quick lash.

"If we rend you enough times, necromancer, then eventually your master will agree you're just a waste and consume you for eternity!" Whether or not the sword is pressed down against her, Sonja is still trying to go over on the attack. That's either going to leave her a chance to get up if the blade wavers as Kulan Gath is distracted, or it's going to let her get dismembered over and skewered by it slashing right through her gut.

There is no real middle ground with Sonja as all of her attention is on her ancient adversary.

Miles Morales has posed:
"Apparently the gym bros are busy..." Spider-Man grunts as he starts to gain ground on the tentacle. He starts firing weblines to try to anchor the first tentacle so that it may not harm Alison and her entorauge. But at the last moment, his Spidersense is going off angrilly. It's not the Bat swinging in - it's the tentacle coming from above. There's an acorbatic twisting leap, and as he passes the tentacle, he uses it as a springboard.

This puts him in the path fully of Orphan. "Oh hey. Visiting from Gotham? Should grab some deep dish while in town! The crap they have down in Gotham doesn't hold a candle to it!" His hand reaches to fire a webline to twist him in line in synch with Orphan for just a moment, before he releases, diving towards the mass of tentacles center, both arms pulled back as he charges up with electrical energy that he plans to unleash whenever he strikes whatever in the middle of the chaos.

Thor has posed:
The sudden shift in tactics from the tentacled beast draws Thor's ire. One strikes him upon his armored chest and sends him flying backwards, his landing cushioned by the side of an unoccupied vehicle whose driver side door bends in to the passanger seat. A lesser man would feel they had bitten off more than they may chew, but Thor is not and he doesn't. He grins. Mjolnir returns to his grip as he pulls himself from the wreckage of the Lotus Electre. Electricity pours out of the engine into his shoulders, it coils along his armor, and runs down into his flexed fingers around his mighty weapon.

Trailing back towards the destroyed automobile in a white-blue arc pooling around the thick red cape of his regalia as he leaps into the air. Creating a current that curves upwards and down following the flat edge of his Hammer as it comes over his head in his right hand to crash into the front of the twirling beast.

It may not be enough to fell it, but certainly enough to knock some 'act right'. Enough to stop that irritating twirling when the God of Thundr stands up from the corpses spilling off the abdomination. His foot comes forward and sends it sliding backwards. "Diana! You are a sight of great joy in this battle! And a spider to boot! You've fallen upon thoust doom, Fel beast. For the troubadour Dazzler is here to sing songs of our valour!"

The electricity that had collected in his body from the destroyed electric car smashes outward. Creating a growing sphere that zaps anything that attempts to slap at him. Every tentacle, every skeleton trying to get a 'freebie hit'. He smacks one of these skeletons hard enough to spin it's skeletal head around backwards. "Do your worst, Necromancer! These are childrens games!"

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cassandra wasn't the Bat one would expect to arrive at the same time as Diana...but well, she was here none the less. When Spider-Man comments towards her? There's a little light inclining of her head that -might- be humor, or it might be annoyance. Kind of hard to tell when you had the bottom half of your face shrouded.

A swift movement of her hand and from beneath her cape the oft-underused sword was drawn without so much of a rasp of the sheath before she ruses forwards, swift strikes and slashes coming to attempt to de-limb the tentacled creature.

Of course, her perception moves, sweeping the battlefield only to lock on the most dire moment: Sonja's near-impalement.

She had no idea if the necromancer could be harmed by the electro-shock batarang...she flung his way.

Still, she had to try, right?

Daniel Ketch has posed:
Not many things can slow down, much less stop an angry Spirit of Vengeance, but the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak are one of those things. The red ribbons flicker around the burning skeleton, who attempts to cut them down with the hellfire scythe but misses some strands, as they are too quick. He roars in righteous anger, struggling against the bands wrapping around his limbs, and before he can break free dozens of skeletons jump on him, stabbing and slashing at his leather-clad form.

Usually physical attacks are of little consequence for the Ghost Rider, but these are undead beings powered by magic, and he is not really invulnerable. They can hurt him, and he needs to fight them off and get rid of the spell before dealing with Kulan Gath. It looks the wizard has managed to stall vengeance, at least for a few minutes.

Alison Blaire has posed:
A crowd of undead SKELETONS march down the sidewalk in Alison's general direction and she skids to a halt to gape at them. She looks behind her, but there's no escape as she's cornered with Spider-Man's battle so close-by. "Crap!" she complains.

Alison raises her hands because there's really tons of noise and energy around to power her for a while. Her response begins as Thor deals with more of the skeletons in his own way but this only fuels Alison go on and stop the horrible MARCH OF THE DEAD. She stares down the length of the sidewalk at her deadly, deadly fans. They eye her and stalk forward without pause, as demanding as any autograph signing ever was. It prompts her to action!

The kinetic energy around Alison kicks up, and the cute little glittery sparks become heavier and larger until the energy is a deadly mass. Whoa! The energy circles as Alison takes a step forward toward her new fans, as if off her rocker, and it becomes a tornado. The kinetic light energy follows her and bursts forward with tornado glitter power, swirling into the undead skeletons. It has no mercy!

"Take that!" Alison adds.

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana had landed right beside thor, and heard his words with a grim expression on her face. Her eyes swept over to him, and with her hair flowing freely around her bare shoulders, she concurred with a dip of her chin. "Sadly, the meeting is during an inconvenient moment." She replied in her naturally husky toned voice. Thor was gone, a second later, as the tentacle knocked the burly Odinson away from the themysciran Princess, causing her muscled thighs to flex, her armored boots to spread apart, and her body to lunge up in to the air. She avoids a similar attack, and instead strikes at the arm that had just knocked Thor aside. Her silvery blade of Athena, slices down through the grotesque connection of the cadavers, attempting to sever the one that just knocked the Asgardian away from her. With a measure of success, Diana ducked another incoming attack, before a second one took her from behind, and cast her down upon the pavement with a rattle of armored Amazon across hard concrete. She rolled on to her back, sword and shield still in hand, as a cluster of skeletal warriors came down upon her. With metal on metal clashing noises, and the cackling cacophony of Skeleton bones on the same city street, they encircled the Princess, creating a dire image of an overwhelming number of foes.

A deep base rumbled the earth, however, as Diana called upon her kinetic power once more, a thundering of her own, that rattled the very foundations of the buildings that gathered around this section of the city. A tidal wave of golden energy blossomed out from where Diana was being horded upon, the blast of spherical power bursting out from where she had been tackled upon, causing the boney enemies to crack, split, break and burst in to piles of discarded shards.

Diana, back on her feet, twirls her sword around in a moment of flamboyant flurishing, before she looked across the situation, noting the other heroes on site for this ordeal. She drew in a breath, and slipped her shield back on to her harness behind her shoulders, before she pulled her golden line of glittering twine from her hip. She uncoiled it, and willed it to life, the brilliant yellow light gleaming from the lasso of Hestia.

The rope was swirling around Diana's form within seconds, her arms gracefuly casting the line at her enemies, touching the foul dark magic with the countering power of the gods.

Conan has posed:
When Sonja drives a dagger up at him Kulan Gath the wizard reaches out to stop it, letting the blade drive itself through the necromancer's palm. He doesn't react with pain, simply twists his hand to rip the dagger out of its wielder's grasp. Then the wizard applies a boot to the side of his adversary to toss her through the air and away from him, "I'll deal with you later!"

Right then Orphan manages to strike Gath with an electric attack that causes the foul necromancer to lock up in place for a moment. The Crimson Bands fall away from the Ghost Rider.

As a platoon of skeletons approach Dazzler her powerful energy tornado plows into them and sends bones in every direction!

The tentacled monstrosity loses more of its cadavers as Mjolnir and the Blade of Athena hit it. Many of its limbs are significantly shorter or missing after the attacks. As the Lasso of Hestia passes through the ranks of the dead they begin to fall apart, collapsing into neat piles on the ground.

Conan of Cimmeria takes advantage of the diminishing number of skeletons to make his way towards the evil sorcerer. He runs up the hood of a car and leaps off of its trunk, sword held high overhead! Propelled through the air he moves to bring the blade down on his enemy's head with a battle cry, "DIE!"

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Sonja goes to snap up, intent on shoving the dagger in and twisting it around, but she's slapped away far and hard by the blow. She gets up groggily, one arm twisted at an unnatural angle. Her other hand goes up and twists it with a loud SNAP to something closer to approaching the way it should properly be. She goes to rush forwards over to pick up her dropped sword, shattered Hyborean steel at the core that is coated over with a layering of secondary adamantium, and her ruined arm somehow manages to twist out her second blade, one of a fallen Valkyr, a Shieldmaiden, gifted to her by the AllMother.

She gives a quick look over at Orphan even as she's in her blood-crazed state to acknowledge her aid, even as her full attention is over on Gath once more as she joins the charge of the Cimmerian.

"And STAY that way, damned you freak!" She howls as she goes to lash along, going by sheer inertia more than anything else. She can't let that barbarian fool take all of the glory in this feud after all. But ultimately the war is going to be won by those that can hurt the sorceror. By the gods. By the brave. By the bold. By the heroes.

Not by the berserk She-Devil. Gath's fate is not to fall at her bloodthirsty blades.

Miles Morales has posed:
After striking at the tentacles, Spider-Man groans. "Going to need like... five showers after that." he groans, hands covered with gunk he doesn't want to think very hard about. And just as he thinks it may be over -- he hears something that he doesn't want to hear, at all...

DIE!

Twisting in the direction where Conan is about to make the fatal blow on Gath, Spider-Man doesn't freeze. He just acts. They don't kill. They don't let others kill. Even if they are other dimensional necormancers that should probably be beheaded, chopped up and thrown into the East River.

And it is with that in mind that Spider-Man fires off a pair of web-lines, wrapping them around Gath to yank him away from Conan's closing sword, and away from Sonja's bloodthirsty barrage. "We don't do that here!" he grunts as he tries to heave the necormancer to safety.

Thor has posed:
Thor rejoins the fray beside Diana, Hammer sways to one side as Sword cuts to the other. Creating a wide area into which multiple heroes might join the battle up close and very personal with the abdomination. "Nonsense! There be never a poor moments engagement to speak with comrades!" The God of Thunder says to Diana as Mjolnir whirls out of his hand and splatters the corpses of a tentacle into visceral corpse bits. He's covered in the gore of combat. Chunks of undead flesh clings to his soaked hair and his face is smeared crimson!

All with a grin.

Because the lust of battle has fallen upon him.

Mjolnir comes down again. It smashes into the concrete and sends off a shockwave that knocks skeletons away from him. Then comes up and around to smack a tentacle that aims to grip him. Hammer flies, doing it's own damage, but Thor grips a tentacle to swing it around in a manner meant to slap that abomination across the face with it's own undead appendage. "Stop hitting yourself, you abhorant fiend!" Smack smack samck, "Stop hitting yourself!" Duck. Smack. Lightning crashes.

"Stop hitting yourself!"

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Don't they?

Well...they're not meant to. Cassandra hadn't really even stopped to think about stopping the others from killing the necromancer, a thought that would probably have her adoptive Father a little disappointed in her...but well, she was more than a little distracted by the tentacled monster and skeletal hordes.

Her sword was sharp, but it wasn't some divine gift like others, it could slice bone easily but not indefinately. Perhaps that was why the metallic weapon's vicious slashes were complemented with swift, shattering strikes that would absolutely kill a human being...if these things weren't already dead, when they got too close.

Every spring, sweep, dive was a hasty, skillful but urgent move. After all, she wasn't going to shrug off if one of those tentacles seized or smash her as easily as the others might.

Daniel Ketch has posed:
A few yards behind Conan and Sonja, bones crack and metal shatters, and then a column of hellfire burst from under the stabby skeleton pile, as the Ghost Rider gets rid of the undead in the most expeditive way: summoning a large all-consuming fireball. He stumbles forward, or rather limps forward, his outfit slashed a hundred times and bones obviously chipped, a few ribs are missing! He almost falls, and has to reach down to pull a large shard of metal from his leg so his bones will move correctly again.

"YOU!" He points at Gath, "you won't escape vengeance!"

Vengeance at a barbarian's sword. Which is better he deserves but... And the Spiderman pulls Gath away.

"NO!" States the rider. A chain of steel and fire jumps forward and servers the webs. "This one does not deserve your mercy!" He yells at the Spiderman.

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana landed on firm footing once more, her lasso twirled through the air before her, and wrapped around her right armored forearm. She looked to Thor, who returned to her side, and with his words, she raised her chin up to look to see the Spider-man drawing the Sorcerer from the wrath of the Barbarians. "Who is the man?" Diana asked Thor, of Conan, her eyes watching his reaction to having the Wizard stolen from his death sentence.

But, they were far from out of this perdicament, and with it, Diana lunged forward again. Leaping back in to the fray, with her lasso joining MIles' webbing, the golden rope being utilized to lash out at a moment of opportunity. She leapt past some of the other fighting heroes, and attempted to lace her divine twine around the form of Gath himself. She wished to ensnare him, a shouted question coming from her, as she landed upon the hood of a delivery truck that had been cast over on to its side.

"What is your greatest weakness?" Diana called out to the Wizard, the power of her rope intending to pull the answer from between his crusty lips.

Alison Blaire has posed:
The light energy plink plink whooooooshes through the skeletons and makes mince-meat of them. Their bones are scattered in all directions, plinking and plopping all over the street and sidewalk. The march of the dead dies! Hoorah! Alison turns back to the coffee shop, and her REAL fans smile and clap clap clap for her. She smiles.

Suddenly, the bones RUMBLE! Uh oh! The ground shakes! Oh no! The bones collect upon themselves and a HUGE skeleton rises up from the remains of the marched-out fiends. "Dammit..." Alison mutters depressingly.

the HUGE Skeleton takes a car and THROWS it at Spider-Man. What a jerk. It then takes its big fist and eyes Alison up like he's making a careful pool shot and brings it down toward her. Alison is ready for this silly menace and she smirks, some beams of light cutting back and forth across the air like sharp knives, cutting off the skeleton's menacing arm and stopping his blow. She then cuts it apart little by little until the skeleton returns to its state as merely debris and pieces.

"Yay!" some of the patrons of the coffee shop say, "Hey, I like this crowd," Alison says and smiles.

Conan has posed:
Conan's blade misses the sorcerer as he's yanked away by Spider-Man's quick webs and the barbarian hits the ground, rolling neatly to his feet. Gath didn't manage to make it far before the flaming chain sliced through the lines pulling him. Conan looks at Sonja and then grins at Gath, "I will feed you to the fire-skull if you will not stay dead!" His sword penetrates the evil magician's throat, sticking straight through his neck, "Say your words of power now!" Kulan Gath grabs the sword's hilt in one hand and shoves Conan with the other, propelling him through the air and into an abandoned minivan, leaving a barbarian sized dent in it and busting out some windows.

That's when the golden lasso settles around its target! The sorcerer says simply and raspily through his torn up throat, "Hubris." That being said, he's now bound by the weapon of a goddess.

The nimble Orphan will soon realize the skeletons have finite numbers. Police tactical teams have arrived and engaged the undead as well. Turns out that shooting skeletons to pieces works great.

The assault on the tentacled creature leaves it twitching on the ground. Its cadavers, once held together by magic, now begin to fall apart. It leaves a horrible mess as it starts to dissolve into pink goo.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
A question is asked that Red Sonja knows the answer to. Who is this man from the past? But ti is one that she is not in a state of mind to answer over at the moment. Her enemy is bound, by webbing, by lasso, with the weapons of gods. He is helpless, vulnerable.. And Sonja goes to maneuver in to maintain the attack if not kept back.

She would move to charge in over at Gath, blade swinging wide. Not at the parts where he was tied down and restrained.. But she's intent on cleanly dismembering him as best as she can.

Blades locked in front of her as she's going to make her attempt to if not stopped stab the necromancer clean through the chest, and move to twist each blade wide to try and hack out his core.

"Since carving your heart out seems to not last, then we'll just have to make sure the parts are smaller this time!" Presuming she's not stopped, she would go to start trying to hack up the corpse the way a butcher would. Staying just enough out of the way to not interfere with any others going for their piece of cold meat splattering from his corpse. Whether or not she does, covered in gore, arm at an angle where it should not be able to work, the man she knows from the past having been hurled into a car and her not seeming to care in the slightest..

Yes, Sonja has issues.

Thor has posed:
For what it's worth, Thor is still smashing corpses. Pink goo or not, there's an arm over there and he's smashing it. Because it twitched. There's half a tentacle and it's getting 'what for' with Might Mjolnir. Smack. Right in the connective tissue. Separate corpse from corpse and then use the corpse to smash another corpse.

He very much resembles a toddler. NOT THE MOMMA'ing the hell out of things with a mystical hammer. That has lightning enchantment.

Kicking the actual dead horse.

Covered in blood, gore, and soaked in rain & sweat.

The thrill of combat.

Hes' /aware/ of the Necromancer, sure. He's aware that the other heroes are busy with said Necromancer.

Conversely, he's making sure the abdomination of corpse monstrocity is down, out, and ready for the pin.

By kicking a corpse tentacle right back into the fog, after hitting it with his hammer. Then using what's left of the corpse-body corpses body to smash another part of the corpses corpse-body. Hands wrapped around a section of torso to use it like his hammer to smash another section of torso until there's absolutely nothing left in his hands except goo.

A breath.

    Another breath.

"Songs shall be sung of our exploits this day, brethren."

Miles Morales has posed:
He's got him. Spider-Man may be able to pull this out after all... and then the flaming chains burn through the webs and snap. "No!" he calls out, just as Diana comes in with the lasso, snagging the necromancer instead. And while Miles would love to take a moment to slug the Ghost Rider over this - instead, his spidersenses are tingling again as a car is comig in at him.

Ducking beneath it, his back and knees arching at an odd anger so that the car barely passes over him. As he's cleared, he snags a pair of weblines on the bumper of the car. He allows some slack before pulling the lines taunt and twists hard.

Pivotting on a point, he car is broght around and over towards the giant skeleton that is harassing Alison and he slams it down with a resounding noise upon the creature to give it a tombstone suitable of being a menance to .... whoever.

Alison Blaire has posed:
Alison turns back toward the street and the battle with this strange sorcerer. Beams of light arc down with the movement of Alison's fingers and she wrecks skeletons remaining in her way like a conductor. She peers at Gath and watches as other heroes like Sonja charge past her to attack this guy. She puts hands on her hips as a goo covered Thor charges past in the other direction and sploosh some goo around. She makes a face like she thinks its really a gross mess. She dares not approach Thor too closely or else the goo might get on her too, "Uhh it's dead right?" She looks around at all the DEAD.

Daniel Ketch has posed:
As Gath gets what he deserves at the hands of two time-displaced barbarians the Ghost Rider just stands back a few yards.

And stares.

Just stares. Totally harmless, right? Well, mostly. He managed to catch Gath's eyes, and now the wizard is not having a good time, as the Penance Stare keeps his soul busy and burning while Sonja dismembers him.

Diana Prince has posed:
Whatever, wherever, whoever this man was... both Conan and his female counterpart seemed to be clued in to the depths of the Sorcerer's evil. Diana draws her lasso from Gath, and swirls it back in to a coiled-up loop, before she clutches it again from mid air, and slips it back on to her hip. She stands there, simply watching, as they finish it. Her fingers snap the metal blip closed, leaving the golden rope hanging from her hip, down toward her bare thigh, as she just softly shakes her head from side to side.

"What a mess..." Diana quietly says, her eyes sweeping over the street, and the chaos left in the aftermath of this situation. She walks toward Conan, toward Sonja. "I would ask questions, of who you are, and what this is about. I would hope to get straight answers, as well, and the assurance that this is over from this point on." She declared, as she still clutched her sword in her left hand, her round shield mounted on her back, and her chin lowered, as her stern gaze fell upon the duo who seemed to likely have most of the answers about this situation.

Needless to say, Times Square was still in full panic mode, and NY emergency services would be on call for helping clean this up, for some time to come this evening.

Conan has posed:
Kulan Gath has been hacked to pieces before. By Conan and Sonja, as a matter of fact. When the She Devil gets to work on the wizard there is soon nothing but pieces strewn across the ground.

When all is said and done the black smoke dissipates. Things are not quiet, yet there are no more threats present. Car alarms, sirens, advertisements and injured people all produce sound that fills the environment. For now Kulan Gath and his minions have been dealt with.

There's a car standing on it's engine block where a giant skeleton had just been threatening the world's most famous mutant popstar. Glass from car and building windows covers the ground. Debris is everywhere. A few vehicles are even on fire.

Pushing himself slowly to his feet, Conan looks around to get his bearing and search for more foes. A stray skeleton makes an attempt on the ancient warrior and he shatters it with his bare hands. When Wonder Woman addresses him the punch drunk Cimmerian shakes his head to clear it, then looks her over again. He stands unarmed but not afraid, "I am Conan of Cimmeria! I would know your name, raven hair, and I invite you drink and sup with me in victory." Then he actually gets around to answering her questions, "I was here to kill Kulan Gath and if he remains dead then it is over. He is not such a supreme sorcerer anymore, I think."

His incredible senses pick up the woman who threw the explosive and electric electric weapons, "I would know you too! Or at least from where you get your armament."

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Red Sonja slowly forces her way upright as she falls away from the dismembered corpse, grunting over before finally answering, covered in zombie gore and with an arm hanging to the side as she picks up a rag to automatically wipe each sword clean of gore and blood before resheathing them and throwing them over her back.

"He is. A man long dead. From when only the damned and wretched walked the surface." A man from her own time. Or the fire haired woman's vague recollections of it, ancient spirit passed along by contact with a sword.

She glances over at the location where Kulan Gath's freshest corpse was. "He has been killed many times and come back many. Hopefully he will be consumed by his patron monster. But likelier to be spat out once more like a cockroach." It wasn't all bad for her, as maddening as constantly fighting someone that wouldn't -stay- down was. It was good to have an enemy that she /knew/ and that she inspired fear in. He was a monster from ten thousand years ago. So was she. They were all wretched things together.

She turns her attention to Conan. "He is a thief. Barbarian. Cutthroat. Murderer. Pirate." She speaks all of these things with sincere respect. "One of the few that could match me." She takes him in then. Estimating who he is against her own foggy memories. Forgotten things they were. For her they might be lived or they might be imagined.

From when in her memories did she and he part ways? Her mind cannot put foggy bits together, from when a whisp of a spirit was bound forever to a sword for reasons that even Sonja has forgotten to wake up ten thousand years later.

Diana Prince has posed:
As Conan offers his response, Diana raises her sword up behind her shoulder, and with a tip of the bottom of the scabbard with her opposite hand, she tilts it forward and easily slides the blade back in to the sheath behind her shoulders, and between her shield and her back.

She heard the large man's response, and glanced toward what ws left of the Sorcerer. "If he remains dead..." She quietly said, her husky voice laced with the accent of her people, not unlike that of the Cimmerian's own. She returned her eyes to him, and dipped her chin in a nod.

"I am Diana Prince, Princess of Themyscira and daughter of Queen Hippolyta. I am known as Wonder Woman in this city, and this city strives to maintain law and order. While you are here, and across our world, I hope that you maintain the same dedication to peace, and justice. Murder is not lawful here, but defense of yourself is. Defend yourself. Defend the innocent, and we will ... go from there, Conan." She tells him, as she offers him her hand to shake on the verbal agreement.

"You are invited to the Hall of Justice, in a nearby city of Metropolis, where we might learn more of you, should you wish to take the invite." She tells him, as she pays a glance to the others who may have come within easy conversing range. "Everyone here is invited to the Hall, as a thank you for this assistance. We can find ourselves plenty to dine on there, I am sure." She noted, showing a sly grin for a small moment.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
As Diana goes to speak, Red Sonja breaks out to mad laughter, "You presume the Cimmerian dog will respect, much less obey any laws. Whether they be of man, gods, or beasts!" That has her roaring with laughter as she gets in one final taunt against an old comrade in arms.

Conan has posed:
Covered in blood, bone dust, some motor oil and some goo that probably came from the tentacle monster, Conan looks at Sonja and gives her a solemn nod, "Rare is it I find someone to equal my own fury, but though our swords have crossed on occasion I would gladly kill alongside you a thousand times!"

His attention turns to Diana, "I will kill if I need to, Woman of Wonder, but I shall treat these civilized people as gently as they allow me to for now." He consider the offer for a few seconds before he nods, "Let us away to your Hall, Princess, so that I may share with you my tale. But first, I am in great need of a bath and some drink!"