20231/Inferno: Ignite Inferno

Inferno: Ignite Inferno
Date of Scene:	07 April 2025
Location:	Grand Central Station
Synopsis:	After a portal opens briefly above the Empire State Building, a demonic surge overtakes Grand Central Station, turning machines and architecture into predators. Heroes respond fast, rescuing civilians, battling possessed objects, and severing the magic binding the station to Limbo.
Cast of Characters:	Madelyne Pryor, Emma Frost, Matthew Murdock, Greer Grant, Belinda Gutierrez, Conner Kent, Cain Marko, Tabitha Smith, Illyana Rasputina, Caleb Dykstra, Stephen Strange
Tinyplot:	Inferno

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Madelyne Pryor has posed:
OOC LETTER TO THE PLAYERS:

Hey guys!

So, tonight's +event is a little different from most, and given that this is just a huge cooperative writing environment, I'm going to spoil the ending so you can all cut loose and have fun (or decide right up front that you're not interested).

There's no single big bad guy to kill that stops everything.

The demonic infestation has started, and it is spreading. This scene is about saving innocent lives.

The end of tonight's scene is when the heroes decide they've contained enough of the damage in this part of the city, and it probably means you're all individually either racing off to some other demonic disaster or falling back to start investigating what's really going on.

In this scene, you're not going to find the MacGuffin that stops the portal, kill the evil wizard who's behind it all, or put the genie back in the bottle. This whole story is so much bigger than one switch to flip to put everything back the way it was. But, there is a larger story here! After this, if your character has an interest in getting involved in the deeper and more personal Inferno arc, let me know! We'll try to find a time to set something up.

Tonight's story is about giving your character a chance to come face to face with Inferno -- the reality of what life would be like if N'astirh gets what he wants and opens a permanent rift between Limbo and Earth so that he can take over as ruler of both dimensions. Tonight is about your character facing nightmarish horrors and what they do in the face of that. It's literal Hell on Earth.

There are civilians to save from vending machines waiting to eat people at the bottom of the escalators. There's a train with a giant mouth that's leaving its tracks to chase down passengers who are running for their lives, all while dragging its own passengers around in its cars.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
And in this vein? If you want to come up with a cool possession / battle that suits your particular character, throw it in! Have the turnstiles become buzz saws. Have someone's legs kicking out of the top of a trash can that appears to be devouring them. I won't be able to describe (or even come up with) every possible scenario, but if you don't see a particular demonic possession to fight that you love, come up with your own thing and drag a buddy into it!

Lots of innocent people's lives are in danger here. It's the first major manifestation of demonic possession since the portal opened above the Empire State Building only hours ago. The emergency calls started coming in at Grand Central Station, and social media went crazy about it being an #Avengers level threat... all before the cell signal around the building just died. No calls in or out.

This is a chance for you guys to be awesome solo heroes or team up, discuss things OOCly, and do as many epic things as you can think of. Illyana, Tabitha, Strange, and Cain all teamed up in the last one to make a Juggernaut rail gun firebomb that they launched at Belasco's fortress. As far as I'm concerned, the more epic you can be with your powers, the better!

I'll still throw my standard disclaimer up next, and it still applies, just like it does in all my scenes. We're playing superheroes on a comic book game, so if you're not having fun, I'm doing something wrong.

Inspiration Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/om7Xd7W

Mood Music: https://youtu.be/prdMsp-o1G0?si=fzmlCCfrSdSvh7ZQ

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
STANDARD EVENT DISCLAIMER:

This is all purely for fun! We're all playing comic book characters in a comic book game. You are not going to hurt my feelings by playing your character. Is your character cool? BE COOL. Can your character punch something into outer space? DO IT.

The rule of cool applies. Sure, don't be a poo-poo head to other players, but if you're holding back because you think you're going to ruin my plot, feel free to page me. I try to design these with power-scales in mind, and I don't mind adapting the story on the fly. Usually, it turns out way cooler than my idea!

In general, if you need there to be a banana-shaped rock nearby to do something awesome, there's definitely a definitely a banana-shaped rock within convenient grabbing distance.

So, be cool. Be strong. Be smart. Be smooth. Be witty. Be creative. Be powerful.

Most of all, have fun.

P.S. If you lose track of what's going on, need a TL;DR or suggestions for ways to jump into the action, or anything else, don't hesitate to send me a page!

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
NEW YORK CITY

A portal opened above the Empire State Building at 4:17 a.m. A vertical split, red-edged and pulsing. It hovered for eight seconds.

Figures dropped through -- clawed, winged, crawling. Most didn't fly. They fell. The portal sealed before the last one reached the ground. No sound. No residue. Just still air and a sharp spike in emergency calls.

By sunrise, the reports had spread. A car in Midtown drove itself into a storefront. Its headlights blinked red before the crash. In Queens, a fire hydrant pulled a man to the ground by his ankle. A woman in Brooklyn was bitten by a mailbox. In the Bronx, a streetlamp turned to follow someone walking below it. Phone signals failed near every incident. Camera footage didn't record. No consistent damage remained at any scene.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
At Grand Central, the first shift is easy to miss. On the main concourse, loose change rolls off-center. A coffee cup tips over without being touched. A maintenance door swings closed, then locks itself.

The first scream comes from a woman whose mink coat comes to life, squealing and snapping at her until she rips it off and throws it onto the ground. As soon as it lands, it scurries through a crowd of onlookers who shout in surprise and disgust, leaping out of the way.

Tile near Track 28 rises along a seam. Hot air pushes through from beneath. The tile lifts cleanly and folds inward. Three people fall through. The surface reseals behind them. The calls to emergency services started immediately, panicked and incoherent.

"Grand Central Station is eating people!"

Cell signal drops entirely mid-call. Departure boards clear. The overhead lights don't flicker -- they dim to half-power and stay there. Emergency lighting activates without alarm. A mounted camera rotates once, then goes dark. The floor beneath the concourse hums with a low, steady vibration.

On the far escalator, a family of three is halfway up to the concourse level when the motion stops. The people around them shout and push their way past. Then it reverses. The handrails jerk into motion. The stairs pull them backward, down again. A vending machine at the bottom rattles violently. Its front panel caves inward and splits along the middle, revealing a hinged jaw packed with sharp, uneven teeth. A tongue lolls out, soaked and twitching. The machine lunges forward an inch with each heave of its frame, jaws opening wider.

From the corridor leading to the restrooms, metal clangs against tile. A stall door warps outward, hinges flexing under pressure. Then it peels open from the center like double doors, revealing a massive circular mouth lined with teeth, tongue coiled and wet, eyes pressing up from inside the porcelain bowl. The sinks nearby spit water onto the floor, then crack open down the middle. One of them begins to crawl.

On Track 34, a train waits with its doors open. The engine idles, unsignaled. After twenty seconds of panicked passengers rushing aboard, its doors snap closed and it jerks forward. The front car tilts slightly, lifts off its rail, and begins to turn. The wheels grind across concrete as the engine drags itself sideways. The front windshield stretches outward, then splits down the middle. A wide mouth forms beneath it -- long, deep, jagged. Rows of irregular teeth push forward as the entire front end of the train reshapes around it. The mouth opens wider. The train moves again, this time straight toward the concourse.

People are already running. Some freeze. Others grab whoever's nearest and move. A woman near the far track calls for her son. He's already moving toward a staircase -- now covered in pulsing metal rails that writhe just beneath the steps.

Outside, NYPD lights flash against the terminal's exterior.

The platform beneath Track 34 pulses again. The structure isn't crumbling. It's warping inward -- columns bending toward the concourse center.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
TL;DR

A red portal briefly opened above the Empire State Building. Demons fell through and vanished into the city. Since then, disturbing incidents have been reported -- possessed infrastructure, living machines, and objects attacking people.

At Grand Central, the station is transforming. A floor panel folds inward and swallows civilians. Signals drop. Lights dim. Vending machines open their mouths, full of teeth and twitching tongues. Escalators reverse and pull people into them. Restroom stalls open like jaws, revealing toilets with eyes and mouths. A train at Track 34 peels itself off the rail, grows a face full of jagged teeth, and begins chasing passengers. Civilians are panicking. Some flee. Others are already being caught.

NYPD has arrived outside, but the building is warping inward.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost is hardly one to lower herself to the standards of taking the subway. It's beneath her. But still, when she picks up the mental cries of 'the subway is eating people' and then a quick few scanned minds do, in fact, confirm it.. Emma goes to send out a mental call that echos through nearby minds, being pickedu pand spread by whomever is on monitor duty at the Mansion. From there, infromation is spread along to the other teams that are networked into the communications grid to put out a general alert to anyone in the area to scramble an dgather.

Emma herself is quickly heading down towards where the trains have gone off the rails, and she's shifting over to her diamond form, even as she goes quiet on those that can warp reality.. And how distressingly common they are. She's not setting up a mental network yet - she's not sure if this is reality warping or magic, and neither tends to go well with telepathy until one has had some time to adjust and figure out what is going on. There's the click of her heels as she goes to break into a run, shoving her way past people while going to try and assess the situation.

<<It does seem like this thing finds the citizens of this city to be far more palapatable than one would have thought. I'm not sure if that's reassuring or not to discover.>> But, she's there, and is en route and goes to try and quickly dart on down as she rushes down the stairs, simply just starting to jump over the heads of people scrambling.

Matthew Murdock has posed:
"This isn't what they mean when they say New York is the City that never sleeps." Says Daredevil, who would usually be in Hells Kitchen, but the problem hasn't spread to that neighborhood yet. So he goes where the problem is, Manhattan. "Karen, calm down. We need to get ahead of this thing, call Jessica and Luke, tell them we'll start moving people out of high traffic areas if it looks like it's starting to spread." Airbuds are important for vigilante work, so that's a solid invention... even for a blind lawyer. "I'll be careful. You do too.." He taps the disconnection button and slides the bud out of his ear before pulling on the red and black gloves of his costume.

Last is the horned helmet.

They call him the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, but this very well may be too on the nose. So before he leaps down off the building, he crosses himself, and says a silent prayer... kind of feels like he's going to need a little divine assistance on this one.

His baton fires off a wire from one end that wraps around a light fixture that's sweeping down towards a lady pushing a shopping cart full of recycled cans in trashbags. The awkward angle nearly sends him flying in the wrong direction when the animate fixture twists under the weight of the vigilante using it for his swing and tries to snatch him out of the air with a maw grown right in the glowing beam of light. It looks very much like the John Doe lights of Pennywise, without all the clown makeup and Tim Currey's creepy ass smile.

"oh hell no." Matt flicks his wrist and releases the line, flying beneath the mouth that nearly snaps closed on his shoulder, and rolls across the sidewalk. He gets to his feet, then rolls over, back to his feet, and then stumbles onto his hands and knees. While a newspaper stand is spitting fiery periodicals at him like a cannon. "What am I suppose to do with this fucked up'ness..." Bend, twist, backwards flip, up onto the roof of a car.

Nobody wants to KNOW how all this looks to Daredevil...

    "This is not okay at all."

Greer Grant has posed:
"I did not sign up for this, I did not sign up for this," Tigra growls to herself repeatedly as she faces down a commercial floor buffer, the big sort that outsizes some riding lawn mowers. The lid opens and snaps shut, revealing jagged teeth, and the buffing wheel grinds against the floor with a spiral of diseased molars. She doesn't know how this could happen, what's happening, or what it all means, but it feels like it's waaaaaaaay out of the wheel house of a tiger woman. When she arrived at the Station, she saw this scrubber chomping it's way towards a mother and her little girl, and Tigra had darted forward, scooping them out of the way, and drawing the buffer's ire. A leap to the top of a ticket stand, a flip to a balcony, and she places the civilians down where she hopes they'll be safe.

"What do we do?" asks the mother in a near panic.

"Pray," says Tigra, before an elegant leap backwards drops her on the top of the buffer, slamming its snout shut. It then starts spinning rapidly and she digs in with her claws. "No, no, no. The saying is about riding a tiger, not the tiger doing the riding!"

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
Life is full and chipper and happy for one Belinda Gutierrez: deliveries running on time, the Candle running smoothly, and dearest heart doing wonderful construction works far away-- occasionally linked by phone call! Blessed be Mr. Stark. Alls is well in the world!

At least until the escalators start shoveling people towards waiting machine-maws.

A howl splits the air first, an animal cry to pierce the rising sounds of fear and monstrous horror rising from the Station. Wolf-challenge, wolf-song-- and with it, Silverdane leaps from the upper ramparts above the descending stairs, arcing overhead of the panicking family to slam into the tooth front of one of the Vile Vendormachines.

"No!" the toothy fang snarls cheerfully, puncutating the announcement with a ragged tear of claws through plastic front. "No dinner for you!"

Conner Kent has posed:
Since he lives in the Village and rarely sleeps, Conner is one the superbeings that notices something weird is going. Oh, and there are screams. The Empire State building is just a mile and a half away, and he has this super-hearing thing going. It might be the reason he rarely sleeps.

It is barely 6 a.m. and he should be writing about the latest batch of human right violations in Buredunia. Instead he is flying over Midtown and watching how a cab with teeth is chasing after a garbage truck like an angry Chihuahua, and how the driver is panicking.

Gotta be Toyman. That, or someone spiked his soda with orange Kryptonite (which might or might not exist, mind you). Anyway, it is a job for... whatever, it is just a carnivorous cab, where is Spider-Man when you need him?

And he is not even close to Grand Central yet.

Cain Marko has posed:
What a day to decide to make your way into the city from your self-imposed retreat out in Westchester. The adventures of Cain Marko And His Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad -Series- Of Days...continues.

It starts off fairly normal enough. The mercenary super-villain, on his semi-sabbatical from super villainy as he deals with the fallout of his feud with The Acolytes, had made his way from Westchster County trough his usual means of travel and was busy making on foot towards Grand Central in order to catch a swift ride over towards the part of town where his old safehouse once stood.

Key word - once. Check the back issues for details.

Either way, nothing to see here. Just a gigantic red haired brute of man looming down the streets with a sour look on his face as he ponders his various woes. That is until a slight chill comes over him, rippling through his core. Cain Marko is not known for sensitive mystic senses but he -is- a being connected intrinsically to the supernatural and the unseen world. It's no Spider-Sense but the feeling that something is ...wrong...begins to pulse through the currents of mystic energy that infuse his very being. He slows, turning to survey the streets leading towards the station which...is when the screams begin and the world starts warping wildly around him.

Cain Marko is a man who has seen his share of horrors. He's -committed- his share of horrors...b ut the madness that boils forth is enough to elicit a resounding, "What th'hell--!?" An instant before a delivery truck that had grown a demonic face and massive jaggd teeth, careens around a corner and goes barreling onto the sidewalk hurtling straight for him and any other pedestrians who have not gotten out of hte way yet. Clearly it's in the mood for maximum beef.

Cain turns away from Grand Central, just in time to see the headlights of the demon possessed trucks eyes shining right into his own. There is a resounding crash. The area shakes. The earth buckles. Several of the demon possessed buildings turn their attention towards the seismic impact zone as the truck is stopped in its tracks by its impact against the proverbial immovable object....the towering Juggernaut, now in full regalia, with the front end of a demonic truck gnawing in futility against his impervious frame..demonic eyes widening at the realization that it very much picked the wrong chew toy.

Juggernaut sneers, lifting his other hand up and clenching a vast fist to prepare to strike the possessed vehicle as he thundres: "Alright...that does it....I've had enough crazy to last me at least a whole six months!"

Tabitha Smith has posed:
One one hand, property damage with not much guilt. The downside is, there's so much of it and so many people that dialing down to avoid hurting people can be such a pain. But Tabitha Smith manages well enough.

It's an over confident smirk she wears so inevitably the universe will probably punish her for it.

But taking out phone booths and as she works her way through the hordes isn't much of a problem. Well for the actual clean up crews after maybe, knocking the demon out of them is still fairly easy, a wild milkshake machine appears and catches itself a directed stream of plasma, leaving a hole through it leaking strawberry all over the floor.

"Pfft, my milkshake is better than yours. I could teach you, but I'd have to charge!" she taunts. In the appropriate cadence. Her own shake in a pink bodysuit, red boots on her feet while similar coloured shades sit on her nose. A belt with numerous pouches in the same darker red hang from her waist while she lines up her next blast. <<Just don't give them ideas of possessing people Emma!>> she points out from one telepath to another. "The worst thing is, I didn't bring the hover van. So good luck trying to get commute out of the city. Good thing I know a guy!" Well technically girl. But the statement counts.

All said while aiming blasts at a screaming PA loudspeaker. Tabby might possibly be sending more energy at it than is probably needed. There's that overconfident grin again. And some bright glow in her eyes, the blue shining almost purple behind her red tinted shades.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The year's at the spring,
Night rent by a scream;
Strange called by al'rm bells;
The red cloak unfurled,
As soul-forged blades swing;
A queen crown'd supreme,
Magik's left the Hells--
                         All's wrong with the world!                          

Turbulence crackles along the electrified lines that feed into Grand Central Station, charged by close to 800 volts along the third rail. Metal lengths welded together hump and sag as though held up by the mid-Atlantic Ocean rather than solid Manhattan bedrock, concrete, and oily gravel. Skittering rocks stained by decades of detritus splay out in irregular heaps as something under the unoccupied Track 29 moves the earthworks and dislodges spiky ties that linked the track apparatus together. Long, partly corroded ties rip from the earth with the stench of ozone as Track 30 buckles inwards, suggesting the gargantuan awakening from a vexed and stony sleep beneath the impending morning commuters due in an hour or less.

The City That Never Sleeps holds long, bitter vigil for many dangers, not all of them outside the five boroughs and blighted Staten Island. This one snaps ragged jaws dangling copper wires and snapped filaments, electricity shining on rust-girt nail teeth and twisted sleepers. That thing, multisegmented and fed on the drunken dreams of a million Rai passengers, threads the needle between crocodilian and wyrm, scything at the hollow passageway that acts as an artery for workers sent skittering in screaming terror.

Those not fast enough to escape face an unwelcome body massage from the machine, flung like ragdolls. Stiff limbs jerk from one unfortunate man taking the full brunt of the electrified corona, another struck by the lashing tail rising out of the ground right into cardiac arrest. Devil-gator-demon 2, mortals 0. Silver fire incisions pierce the concourse ahead of the mole-mined run of 30. Neat tears cut a chain of snowflakes out of reality. Light flashes through a rip, severing an appendage and leaving a bannister trying to entangle a poor scientist convulsing in rage and smashing to the ground. "<<Seven!>>" Temporal leak shadows that gleefully pounce upon their wicked, wayward kin that defy the mandate of a bonafide Hell-Lord. Several oozing tiles trying to foul someone's step abruptly screams, an explosion of ichor wobbling as the internal structure falls apart in a wisp of red smoke. "<<Eight!">>

Those shadows resemble mastiffs, winged cats, and disturbingly nondescript people in "Humans and Houses" game t-shirts or black suits from city law firms. They only look like lawyers until they run at any untoward demon recycling bin or monstrosity assembling itself from discarded flyers from last night's Times, Post or Bugle. None of them go for the great horrible crocodilian horror lifted from the tracks in its bleak lightning-mired rage.

Ozone belches. The sonic hum builds to a crack dissipated through thick, fume-heavy air. Another whirlwind of silver light opens on the concourse in perfect snapping distance, revealing a falling black silhouette. The opposite side opens directly above the ruined track, depositing one mad-cap Demon Queen with a pair of radiant blades whirling in both hands. Blonde hair and spell-work streams behind her as she shouts, "<<*Nine! My beloved Murder-Mittens, you are too slow!*>>

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
Aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnd, guess who happens to be at Grand Central today for this shenanigans! That's right - yours truly, Caleb Dykstra.

He was hoping to catch a different means of transportation to go back to Happy Harbor after coming to pay his father a visit, and it's just when he's seeing the train arriving that he also witnesses this one changing and coming off the rails. Changing into a creature... Like, a sandworm with spidery maws and teeth...???

"..."

Deadpan stare.

"Uhm..."

Realization that it comes off the rails and heads. Straight. At. Him.

"Okay, FUCK THIS SHIT!!", he protests as he starts running - and he's looking up. "DO I LOOK LIKE PAUL FUCKING ATREIDES TO YOU??!"

Closing in fast and meant to swallow him like a running train, Caleb finds an exit door to the sind and lunges through it, in the hopes of avoiding the behemoth.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
The escalator stops the moment Silverdane hits the vending machine, claws cracking through plastic and sparking off exposed wiring. It jerks backward under the impact, teeth grinding as the motor sputters. The front casing buckles, and one of its lower support struts snaps. The machine drops onto its side with a crash, mouth still working, but slowed. One of the family members on the stairs loses their footing in the confusion, but the escalator doesn't restart. Its inner railing continues to pulse while the family tries to gather their footing and race up the stairs.

Across the concourse, a powered kiosk rocks on its base, the top of it blooming into a broad, mechanical smile. A panel splits across the front, revealing a coin hopper filled with teeth. The machine leaps forward, propelled by its base wheels. It clips the leg of a fleeing man and sends him tumbling. He scrambles away. It skids sideways, reverses direction, and begins to turn.

The train has fully left the track now. Its engine car drags three behind it, their doors slamming open and shut, catching the hands of passengers trying to climb out. Inside the cars, people claw at sealed windows and scream in terror. One of the side panels bulges outward. With a metallic tear, the side of the second car peels back and spills two civilians onto the floor near the information booth. They land hard. The train veers right, recalibrating, and its front maw opens wide enough to fit a minivan.

Emma Frost moves quickly through the thinning crowd, her crystalline form catching flickering red light from the emergency signage. A woman stumbles near her, hands bloodied, shouting something about a "singing power outlet" that tried to bite her face. A payphone -- if you can believe such a thing exists -- embedded in the wall near Emma shudders once, then splits at the base, its receiver curling like a scorpion tail that hovers and then lashes out.

Near the west entrance, a floor buffer slams itself repeatedly against a vending machine, jaws snapping shut with each impact. The vending machine doesn't respond. It's already dead, front panel torn apart, wires trailing like guts across the tile. Tigra rides out another spin on the buffer's back, claws dug into the rim of the grinding wheel. The machine shakes violently, but its movement is slowing. One of its drive arms breaks with a crunch of metal. The motor wheezes, tries to restart, then stops.

Outside the terminal, a possessed delivery truck barrels down 42nd Street. Its cab contorts on impact as it slams headlong into Cain Marko's chest. The force shatters pavement beneath his feet, and the truck's teeth, massive and jagged, clamp down across his upper torso. They fail to puncture. The whole front end cracks. The truck freezes.

At the corner of Madison and 43rd, a streetlamp swings downward like a hooked limb, trying to catch a falling vigilante mid-swing. Daredevil slips beneath it just before it snaps shut, but the impact shears off a chunk of its own casing. A pile of fire-singed newspapers launches from a broken stand nearby, striking the sidewalk in a cluster. Some catch fire mid-air. A pedestrian ducks and screams. The sound of bending metal echoes overhead.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
On the mezzanine level, several of the coin-operated binoculars along the railings detach at their bases and begin crawling. Their eye sockets widen. One lunges at a teenager filming with a phone, knocking it from his hands.

Inside, Track 30 splits wide. A creature -- part train, part scaled tunnel-drill -- rips upward through the concrete, throwing debris and rail fragments into the air. Its mouth is wide, studded with ceramic breakers and sparking power lines. It slams into a wall of the lower level and tears a support column in half. Illyana lands through a portal overhead just as its tail retracts. Silver light carves across the broken floor in a pattern that burns through several attacking objects before the lines wink out.

At a side door off the platform, Caleb Dykstra dives through just as the possessed train reaches the space he stood in seconds before. Its edge scrapes the wall, metal screaming as it shears a bench in half. Sparks flash. The air fills with the scent of scorched plastic and smoke.

Tabitha Smith clears a stretch of corridor one machine at a time. A wall-mounted speaker bursts under concentrated plasma fire, molten casing dripping down onto the floor. Another machine nearby tries to rotate away from her but catches fire and burns in place. A nearby poster stand shudders but doesn't animate.

From above, the ceiling shifts again. The far arch over the Lexington entrance ripples, the concrete pulling inward. Metal in the beams groans. Something is pushing from the other side. The pulse that started beneath Track 34 now spreads out in waves -- structural, deliberate, and growing stronger.

The building is not crumbling.

It is reshaping.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma goes to take her diamond hard fist over and moves to try and smash it over through the front of the payphone. "Oh, bother." She moves to speak over the comm, and then as Illyana and Strange announce themselves via the power of ROCK, Emma makes the assumption.. <<We're dealing with magic, in this case? And some sort of dimensional breach or other?>> Nominally to her this seems more like some sort of chaotic field rather than a demonic one. But hwat does she know? She moves to try and slam her fist into her target again and again, while going to speak to the woman. "Get out of here, the exit should be clear. Try and avoid the chaos." Then glancing over at the telephone booth as if half expecting a Kryptonian to spin right out of it. Or perhaps Hyperion. He was close enough after all.

<<So do the rest of us try and contain things while you banish and seal it?>> The group is spread out rather far, even as she takes a glance over at the civilians in the train. One thing at a time. She has to focus on her little corner of thing. She couldn't secure the entire area on her own. Just one little corner of it. So she moves to once she's hopefully dealt with the threat move along towards the next one. Her tactics are, if on ehad to giev it a term, would be 'bite and hold'. Advance slightly, engage anything in the area until it was down, and then repeat the process, a few meters at a time.

Spread away from the others and not able to immediately give or get assistance.

<<This has almost become pedestrian in the last few years.>> With those imbellic flatlining inconsistent angelic failures having been at fault.

Greer Grant has posed:
Howling? Oh great, now there's wolf demons here? Can this day get worse, Tigra wonders, not knowing the source of Belinda's howling. She digs in with her claws, tightening her grip on the buffer that's trying to spin her off. She gives a snarl of challenge of her own and then draws her legs together, kicks them out and slams her heels into the floor, dishing it hard enough to be able to briefly brace and pull the buffer up off its spinning molar wheel. The toothy hood opens to try to chomp down on her and she grabs both sides of it, and with a growl tears it apart, tossing the now inanimate pieces aside. She staggers as she feels the rippling pulse through the ground. "Oh now what?"

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
Belinda-- Silverdane! --has precious little knowledge of things architectural and structural. But she has experience with cave-ins, collapses, and disasters; her eyes divert to the ceiling above, ears perked as she quivers with apprehension.

..and music? She taps at the earpiece wrapped snugly around one ear, flicking it on.

<<"Comms onli--">> Silverdane stars, the wolf-woman's announcement cut short by the squealing of static. Grimacing, she cuts the link back off, muttering darkly as thne unferfoot rumbles, shaking ominously. "VIejos metodos," she grumbles, absently reaching up to press her jaw back into place. And add a last stomp on the quivering mass of machine-monster underfoot. "Old school it is then!"

A quick, whispered prayer to the Saints-- and then off, loping quickly. Find, hunt, rescue!

Conner Kent has posed:
Conner lands on the top of the cab and attempts to stop it with his tactile telekinesis, which should work but... the cab is resisting? He increases the power, and the vehicle slows down, than stops.

"Okay, who is... yeah..." no one inside. Therefore it must be remotely controlled. He looks around, looking for drones or something.

And the cab turns aside and bites him! Like a snake! CHOMP!

"My hand!" Conner punches it to pieces, and then shakes his hand. That hurt, which is weird because it didn't feel that strong. "Magic. It had to be magic," he grumbles. He is allergic, okay?

He is reaching for his Starkphone to make a couple calls to more specialized crime-fighters, when another scream draws his attention. He sighs, leaving the cell in his pocket.

This is going to be a long day.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
If there's one train coming in, there's probably more. Though more than a few possessed trains likely came through here. "You know, if a good hit is like knocking the demon outta all this." she ponders while she works her way onto the main platforms of the station, grinning to Illyana when she portals in sword swinging.

"I might be able to deal with the next train, hopefully before anyone in it gets digested. Or at least chewed." she considers an idea while she eyes the possessed nerds. That gets her pinching the bridge of her nose. "I said don't give the demons ideas!" she yells in a disappointed sound as she eyes the Humans and Houses players.

And sends a small number of bombs towards them. Concussion level, enough to launch them towards the two blondes and leave their human selves probably feeling like they got hit by a linebacker. Which is probably Tuesdays for some of them.

Matthew Murdock has posed:
Fire bad.

Daredevil slams his baton down on the roof of the police car he'd landed upon and sends out a reverberating echo that illuminates wicked things and humans alike. The visual display to his sonar vision is unsettling because the mind doesn't process these images outside of the imagination.. they truly are the description of demonic forces in every way he's ever heard them, with the outline of humanly objects overlayed. It's strange, in his odd form of vision, to see the reality and the fantastic so imposed upon one another.

Fire, however, bad.

Monsters or not.

The Daredevil twists, then flips sideways as the street light pulls itself from the casing it's own chomp had dislodged. Sparks fly from the electrical conduits still attached to it, until it clambers too far from the source of the signal and the wires snap. The light inside it's mouth blinks, then goes out. While flaming periodicals are hurled all around the sidewalk from the open mouth of a news paper stand. Matt, lands on one side of a screaming pedestrian who very nearly becomes a casuality of this oddity, and sweeps her out of the way with the crook of his arm. "Come on." He tells her, but doesn't give her enough time to refuse.

At least he takes the full force of the window throw which he jumps, turning so the glass is mostly lodged in the armor section between his shoulders, while using his body to protect the woman when they stand. "Out the back." He puts one of his batons in her hand, then nods. "Go on, I'm right behind you." He wont be, but not because he's overtly lying.

No, he wont be because the street light twists and snaps around his midsection, yanking him out of the little coffee shop. A loud howl of pain when sharp teeth stab through armor into softer flesh beneath. Would be the end of him if not for the baton, which he stabs into the gap at the back of the light poles jaw against, what he hopes, is flesh like soft pallot before igniting the electrical element that sends a few thousand volts right into the inside of the possessed poles jaw.

It too howls, mind head jerk (like a pitbull), and releases Daredevil to fly off to one side across the street. Where he hits the side of a bus and smashes down onto the concrete with a groan. A hand on his side, oozing blood, and the other pushes him up to his feet. Awkwardly. "This is a good time to give me a little help here, big guy.." Said upwards, calming breath, and he's limp running back across the street towards a fire hydrant. His hand falls down to his last remaining baton, twists it in the middle and opens it along a monowire that he wraps around the top of the hydrant and twists. Sending a gout of water spraying upwards like a geyser. Open door of the police car catches a straight kick, then another. Until he finally breaks it off and uses it to direct the high powered water stream like a hydrocannon at possessed things... A news paper stand gets blown down an alley, away from the homeless lady and her buggy full of cans. A hotdog cart that's trying to eat the man who was working it is send sliding up the street...

"This is absurd."

Cain Marko has posed:
The immutability and inevitability that is The Juggernaut seems to provide an eye in the storm. A sense of stability that, despite the chaos around them, draws some civilians to take cover near him as the behemoth grapples with and holds at bay the terrifying maw of the demonic truck seeking to enjoy itself a Cyttorak fueled mass of protein.

This doesn't do much for the rest of the block mind you. As buildings distort and other vehicles rampage, Juggernaut flickers his gaze about - taking stock of the rising chaos and the roar of confusion as it continues to rise in volume alongside the screams and panic of the citizenry. He sees the contortion and warping of Grand Central Station itself...sees and feels the pulse of demonic energy as it washes over his armor and invulnerable hide like a tidal wave crashing against a mountain range. The urge to simply get the hell out of here is rising. To get thee gone. These demons can't stop him. Nothing can, right?

His eyes fall on the cowering citizenry, huddled near him and he sees the walls behind them start to reshape and warp.

"Awwww......hell!" he grunts before finally plunging his free arm into the truck before him with thundrous, richter scale triggering force.

His huge body braces and then he pulls, bringing both of his arms apart in opposite directions in a brutal effort to literally rip the truck completely in twain and send its pieces hurtling in opposite directions as his enormous limbs splay apart.

One of the pieces goes hurtling like an out of battering ram, hurtling for and into the bus that Daredevil had just slammed into, catching it just as it begins its own metamorphing, before it can lunge after the vigilante in search of more of the tasty blood he'd left behind on his impact against his side. The force of Juggernaut's throw enough to send tanks spinning, let alone a bus. Someone up there saw fit to answer Murdoch's request.

"Go on! Keep movin'! Sheesh!" Juggernaut bellows at the citizenry, none the wiser to his intervention. "I aint about to babysit y'all!"

His full attention falls onto Grand Central Station and the chaos within it as the remains of the demonic truck falls about him .. and he begins a forward tread that turns into a steady run right for its outer walls. If nothing else he can provide an escape route. Maybe? With the warping of ...everything...who can say?

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Unfortunately Emma's broadcast doesn't reach the Demon Queen, though her minions lack unlisted mental domain. A few shout, "Bad grunts listening to an uppity servant. Her darkest, benighted majesty *is* Magik! *Right* there," eagerly croons a lawyer in the chorus, waving a briefing paper that cuts suspiciously like a knife. A nasty kukri-like knife.

Several wandering gamers punch and claw with glee into their preferred targets: a vending machine ejecting 355mL cans at passersby to rebound off the tiled ceiling, or a demented exit sign trying to brain them. When another crack sways the building in its torments, three of the winged tressym shadows flap their ragged wings for a chandelier swinging precariously overhead, with claws, triple-rows of teeth, and the viciousness of ladies who lunch casting aspersions on the unworthy kin. Mostly it sounds like mechanical squealing and kettles shrilling, a la feline.

Magik stabs the double-bladed assault into the misbehaving track, the Soulswords resonating in tandem with a reverb trill. She hits the ground and rolls before the indignity of sleeper ties and rails tumble onto her, springing at a run for the next target that hasn't been exploded, punched, shot at, or clawed majestically by Tigra. The ground shaking from one unfortunate demon van meeting Juggernaut's fist brings out the thrill of laughter from her lips, Arctic-cold and silvery. Monsters warping and twisting here very smartly probably want nothing to do with her as she strides through the place in her black leather ensemble. A sideways double-punch with the hilt of the blade ends a flapping door, or whatever animated it, the demon poofed on contact with the Soulsword. "<<Eleven. You are going to show off, aren't you?>>" As another pair go skittering over the concourse, she turns her wrist anticlockwise and twirls the blades in a pirouette. Her onyx crown splits her golden blonde hair, looking like she just stepped out of a rave or Cure concert.

"Go to Tabby! You know the rules!" Cue the gamer-horde echoing a horrifying off-key rendition of "Big badda-boom!" Proof that even Hell watches Luc Bessant movies. The quintessence underfoot leaks up through the ground in ethereal filaments taking on a slight blue-black stain at the edges like diluted ink washed across a canvas. One, two, ten. Twenty. The number grows as the silvery tendrils waver and spread, attracted to the infernal. The deeper the corruption, the more the glow and eager waving around, anemone-madness to draw attention from anyone who might need targets.

Tentacle-like spellshod appendages lash out to capture the offending creatures in a sticky field all the easier for the White Queen to pick off or Tigra and Silverdane to chomp into if she wants. The incarnated field grapples demons, bashes them around or stabs at them with ephemeral pointed tendrils that go right into flesh like there's nothing particularly stopping them.

Yana's damned tentacles do not care about humans or near-humans, patently ignoring civilians, but wreaking havoc among the misbegotten creatures that won't bend the knee. If they won't bend, very well, they won't *have* knees.

Her trajectory drives towards the Lexington side of the building, if falling glass or reformed walls won't halt the way. "<<Doctor! The other half of my heart, my soul--!>>" How romantic.

If the left-hand blade wasn't looking for Doctor Strange, hurtling through the abyss to find its missing piece.

Stephen Strange has posed:
The Demon Queen of Limbo does not disappoint with her arrival. However, what of her cohort? Mr. Murder-mittens, as the Russian so lovingly named him?

It is true. The Sorcerer Supreme is has not been nearly as expedient with his particular brand of combat. He could easily tap into his melee prowess and go for his targets one at a time. But...that is so *pedestrian*. Plus, didn't he just deal with a horde of demons? Recently, to boot?

Perhaps, for the first time and not for the last, a thought crosses Strange's mind. A thought that gains voice, even as Stephen reaches down to grasp at the ley line running through the station....feeling the power coursing through it. Coursing through *him*.

Is he going to show off? The answer comes to Illyana. Two simple words.

<< Of course. >>

The sorceress queen can feel it. The tug upon the power coursing beneath their feet. A mandala circle takes shape, but no mere circle. No, it is large, encircling a squadron of demons, at least 20, that decided to try to show some sort of organization. Unfortunately, for them. The circle completes and, without a word, the lines flash a bright white. And...20 demonic solders disintegrate into ash.

<< 20, beloved. >>

Was there a hint of amusement? Perhaps.

Then, without much fanfare, the figure is seen. Red cloak billowing, Strange strides into view, those piercing grey eyes centered upon the twisting building before him. What others see as merely malformed brick and metal, the Sorcerer Supreme sees beyond. He sees the cause of the sickness. The source of the infection. The cancer within reality.

His reality.

A frown slowly plays across his features. There is only one thing that can be done. One procedure for which he is uniquely qualified for. And, as if joined (for indeed they are) Illyana responds, sending the Soul Dagger sailing towards the good Doctor. He ascends, the dagger caught within his right hand. Armed now with a scalpel honed for the delicate procedure he must now undertake, the former surgeon calls upon his former trade.

For the building is the patient, and the doctor is in. The cancer must be excised.

It is time to operate.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
The concourse is no longer full, but it's not clear. The exits choke with foot traffic, some people tripping, some pulled back to their feet, others pushed forward without choice. A child screams for his father, and someone else -- older, not related -- grabs his wrist and shoves him ahead through the side entrance toward Vanderbilt. A woman cradling a broken arm stumbles past Daredevil's hydrant stream and shouts a thank you . The man in the hotdog cart stumbles out and limps away without looking back. He doesn't take the cart. He leaves the apron behind.

Near the information booth, one of the spilled train passengers makes it to her feet. Her legs are cut, one ankle twisted, but she half-drags another man with her toward the stairs, leaving a trail of blood behind. A red-coated kiosk springs into her path, jaws stretching open. It doesn't get the chance to bite. A concussive blast from the side knocks it off its wheels and into a marble column, where it crumples in on itself. Steam vents from its undercarriage. She doesn't stop running.

At the base of Track 30, civilians trapped by the wreckage pour through a gap carved in the floor. The structure still pulses, but the passage is temporarily clear. A man in his sixties trips at the threshold and falls hard. He tries to rise, but his knee folds. He covers his head. A breath later, Silverdane vaults past and bodily shoves the debris clear. He blinks up at her. She's already gone.

Tigra lands next to a broken divider and turns in time to see a tangle of wires and grinding gears trying to reform into another floor buffer. It jitters once, begins to animate -- and is then silenced under her clawed foot. She moves again before it finishes collapsing. A mother and daughter, crouched in the corner she left them in, grab hold of one another and bolt for the mezzanine.

On the upper level, the binoculars have stopped crawling. One is in pieces. Another teeters, eyepiece twitching, until it slips off the railing and smashes on the marble below.

At the far end of the platform, Emma's fist drives through the last of the payphone's outer casing. It pops loose from the wall, the receiver still twitching. The woman beside her stares, wide-eyed, then gives a short nod and takes off toward the Lexington exit. A brief burst of static crackles from the broken phone. Then nothing.

The Soulswords carve across the wreckage again. Every place they strike, the floor pulses with white-hot light. Possessed fixtures twitch, seize, and collapse. One of the exit signs unbolts itself from the wall and tries to reorient -- only to crumple under the heel of a passing spellblade. The chandelier overhead groans, sags, and tears loose in time to miss anyone below. It crashes through a bench and comes to rest on its side, inert.

Some of the civilians stop running. One man -- shaking, covered in soot -- grabs a dazed subway employee and pulls him behind a column. A group of teenagers huddle beneath a wide overhang near Track 26, watching the possessed train snarl and pivot. None of them speak. One of them starts to cry. Another puts her arms around him. She doesn't look away from the platform.

On 42nd Street, the two halves of the delivery truck are still sparking. The pavement around Cain Marko is split into a shallow crater. A young couple who had crouched behind a mailbox see the Juggernaut rise to full height and sprint toward the building. They don't wait. They run, one of them shouting, "He's going in there!?" as they go.

The shrieking from inside the train cars has mostly stopped. The few who escaped are moving. Many of the ones still inside are slumped against the windows, eyes wide, too terrified to try again. One bangs her fist against the glass and screams. The train's wheels slow. Then stop. The mouth at the front flexes but does not advance.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
Near the corridor leading into the shops, the walls are shifting again. Not cracking. Shifting. Tiles stretch. Doorways tighten. A moving trash can tips sideways and spills its contents -- food wrappers, scraps of paper, one man's shoe. The can then folds inward on itself, mouth forming, teeth rising, only to be struck by a spinning blast of energy from somewhere off the concourse. The shell cracks. The possession doesn't reform.

Then the circle forms. A mandala, luminous and wide, appears not on the floor but hovering inches above it -- its outer edges just barely brushing the surrounding wreckage. Inside, a dozen or more possessed machines -- some ambulatory, others still reforming -- twitch once in unison. The entire circle flashes white.

And they disintegrate.

Not burst. Not explode. They reduce to ash and powder. Some collapse where they stood, others drift upward in the air, disassembling into flecks of gray. Nothing remains but hollow footprints in dust.

Civilians trapped behind them break and run. One of them -- a boy in a soccer jersey -- turns and stares upward at the figure now striding into view from the far entrance. Red cloak billowing. Eyes forward. Not rushed. Focused.

To most, the building is deformed brick and twisted steel. But not to Dr. Strange. A crack opens in the floor near him, then stops. Something beneath it resists. It cannot touch him.

The Soul Dagger finds his hand mid-stride. Caught in motion. The blade glows as it merges with the current flowing up through the ley line.

Greer Grant has posed:
The big magic guns are here, Tigra realizes, after wiping a mix of demonic saliva and floor cleaning solution from her hands. Harder to do than you think, when you don't wear pants to wipe hands on. She feels like things are going to get resolved now, and with a little more confidence, she's able to turn and wade into a mass of small demonic guidebooks, shredding them into confetti just like any other cat when tearing apart paper.

Emma Frost has posed:
There's a roughly hewn perimeter being formed now as Magik and Strange act as the primary sweep team. Emma remains in her diamond form, pondering over exctly as pauses, seeing one of the monitors that normally shows the train schedules flickering. Odd, it shouldn't be active now. It should have been reactive.. It suddenly fritzes, turning black and white, static going up and down the frame, like one was trying to tune an antennae for a very old tv set.

It flickers, then shows a drabby looking figure that's very pale with long black hair hanging over dark eyelids. The figure gazes out over at the chaos, the anarchy, and the fighting.. Then smiles with an array of razor sharp teeth. Arms go to move behind the screen, snapping up to it. They impact the screen, and the monitor would shake. The figure would snap them out once more, the monitor saking again.

Then, her fingers would slide -out- of the television, stretching along to grasp at the edge of concrete, and use them to -pull- herself out of the flickering tv. Revealing a woman with a pallid complexion, a flimsy white dress, and long hair. Which would immediately fritz out and contort into blades as the girl would run and twist her way through the melee, crawling along and darting about like she was only two dimensional, leaving violence in her wake.

Emma goes to slam her fist over into a nearby support pillar, loosening it. Then she goes to start slamming into it again from the side. Emma is strong, but not that strong. She goes to call out <<Tabitha, break it>>. Her intent being to just -slam- it through the side of one of the trains as if she was Ahab going after that great white whale..

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
From the enmtrance atrium to the corridors and service tunnels, Silverdane moves from light to shadow in stalking grace. Darkness may be realm of evil too, but it belongs to wolves as well-- and as a monster of myth, the wolf-woman feels confidence in her place. Her purpose. Shrugging off that naggling inkling, working her way through the dimly lit unnels.

"San Miguel, Defender of Man...." she murmurs in quiet prayer, exhaling softly. Following trails, following scents. Workers, fleeing passengers, people who (shockingly) may have so little clue about the terrors unleashed around them.

And the memory of something cool. something silver. Oceans against the Inferno.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Admittedly, interfacing Tabitha bioelectricity with some of the patently corrupted and demonic environments has probably not been a good idea. And getting her wrathfulness on had probably not helped in preventing her soaking up any of those energies.

So while she's using her explosives to blast and herd possessed human nerds towards tentacles, some of them do occasionally have to ne shaken off when they coil around a leg every so often. Forcing Tabby to hop on one foot occasionally to kick and shake the other loose.

That get's a chuckle. "Down, I'm not on the menu! Go snare the unrulier demons!" she points out while punching one demon dork directly. The tentacles get the idea and move on. It does give the blonde an idea though. "So Yana hon, umm, after this, can you portal me to the Meat Packing district. There's probably gonna be a whole mess of succubusses at some of the pop up raves tonight. Snaccs need snacks." it's one way to work off all the extra energy.

Those poor demon girls.

In the mean time, Tabby keeps the bombs and plasma streams flying. The mages need room to work, and a sweeping wide circle of demon tinged psionic energy swirling and hitting anything coming close makes for a good extra layer of breathing room.

More than enough plasma that the odd one here and there can launch up and over and explosively destroy Emma's television terror.

Matthew Murdock has posed:
The pressure pushing water from the hydrant is dying rapidly and when it finally subsides, Daredevil nearly collapses atop the police cruiser door he had been using to direct it. The thank you from the battered woman, he gives her a thumbs up, then pushes to his feet with his hand once again clamping down on his right left flank. If not for the sounds of horns, breaking concrete, and howls of demonically possessed lawn ornaments, he'd be absolutely blind in the otherwise abysmal circumstances... due in no small part to the ringing in his ears.

Must have struck his head when he was thrown against the bus.

It's causing huge gaps to appear in his sonar vision. One moment he sees the black and white highlights of creatures imposed with the familiar objects they're possessing, the next he sees only darkness, but he's not going to let something silly like that stop him. Limping towards grand central station with blood oozing from between his fingers, from between his clenched teeth.

Until there's a truly disturbing sound from above the entrance to Grand Central Station. It's the sound of concrete cracking, the sound of a creature... if it's fair to call it that... falling from the massive clock that adorns the steps down into the station as Mercury pulls himself from the Statue of Commerce wielding his Caduceus, the snakes writhing and snapping in the Devil of Hell's Kitchen's direction.

"No. Bull shit. Nuh uh." Says Matt, shaking his head.

The weapon twirls in the massive stone beings hands and slams down into the concrete where the Vigilante had been a meer half second prior. "Alright..." He pats his hip and doesn't have any more batons to wield, but there's plenty of weapons laid around the floor. Specifically, at least in this case, a discarded shotgun that a police officer had discarded when he was chase down the sidewalk by a possessed Segway shooting fire from the headlights.

Daredevil leaps out, rolls over the shotgun, and very nearly gets his head taken off by the Cadeceus slamming into the sidewalk. He comes up with the weapon and racks it. Aims and gets hit in the side by someone throwing, of all things, a bag of cool ranch doritos at him. From a vending machine. At least he hopes it's a vending machine because this is a terrible time for product placement.

"Nah, bullshit." His vision goes black, ears ringing, but he follows the sound of cracking footsteps and pulls the trigger. Knocking half Mercury's granite thigh off with a pepper spray of buckshot. chi-chik, "I swear to the ol mighty, if Frank sees me using a shotgun..." Smack. Right in the head with a bag of nerd gummies.

BLAM. The vending machine tries to keep it's candy snacks inside as it bleed M&Ms from the massive hole in the front of it's belly. Using the plug like a hand, scooping up jolly ranchers until it groans, falls overs, and dies? Just in time for Daredevil to get baseball smashed with the symbol of Medicine, right into one of the granite pillars. Shotgun goes flying, Vigilante goes falling... Blood goes splashing as he pushes up onto his knees. Mercery lumbering after him with one and a half legs, the destroyed one dragging across the sidewalk.

Cain Marko has posed:
Of course he's going in there! He's The Juggernaut! The Juggernaut goes places! That's part of being a Juggernaut and doing what a Juggernaut does -- even if part of him really doesn't want to. He should have just hiked it off on his own but... even at his most selfish there's still enough of a ping of humanity in him to not want to just leave tehse people to their fates.

He'll have to make up for this altruism by beating up a superhero or stealing something valuable. As to the station itself?

Imagine a bullet wound of sorts. A shotgun blast. A mine going off. As the building is alive, having the front of it explode into demonic warped ruin as The Juggernaut comes thundering in, bursting through it's flesh with a rapidly expanding shockwave rippling up and outwards fro the point of impact with all due violence--well needless to say it doesn't feel good for whatever this demonic creaure is. The earth shakes and the thundrous *TWHOOOOM* of his impact announces his arrival to all still trapped within the transforming structure and he skids to a stop, spraying concrete and fracturing the station under the pressure of his movements. A larger way out is now present for those still attempting to flee the building and while the chaos of the streets beyond must still be dalt with.. it's certainly better then being devoured by the interior of the station or and those things within it.

"EVERYBODY OUT WHOSE GETTIN' OUT!" he thunders before beginning a futher tread into the station as the people desperate for freedom from the place begin swarming around and past him to try and complete the evacuation efforts.

"Don't say The Juggernaut aint never done anything for ya! Yer welcome!" he shouts after some of them, turning briefly to watch their exits before continuing onward upon seeing the efforts of those would be heroes who happen to already be inside.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Giving up a piece of herself is a trust-fall of the highest calibre for Illyana. A free hand for casting makes the difficult spell she threw down more stable. Corruptive influences yearn to drink deep of the demons they tangle, inflicting their mistress' displeasure in crystal-clear, adamant terms.

Punishment meted out in Limbo is rarely pleasant and often fatal. "Oh, if it isn't the consequences of your actions!" she calls out when twenty demons cease to be, choked out in a go. The physical art of snaring the squirming traitors -- and not the fun kind in Scottish castles -- gives her an opportunity to focus on every one of her forces engaged nearby. Brutality isn't delivered in a silken glove, but by two or three of her loyal host eagerly leaping on the drudges and monstrosities trapped in fly paper sorcery.

Limbo isn't the bleakest realm but its denizens enact Illyana's will at some level. Or something drives them to snatch the vitality and essence from traitors to feast upon. The lawyers just brow beat in rapid-fire beats, spitting low demonic accusations and sections of the Codex Magica. Castigation lets them loom though their facial features distort, craggy brows and burning eyes. Sharp teeth behind bland features, as every word diminishes their writhing, gnashing, lashing foes.

"We can go play, da. Though they owe me several coins. It's all business---" And a sibilant hiss that becomes. Illyana cannot hold them all without personal attention; being slammed into by a mailbox sends her skidding over the tiles. Its last victim is picking themselves up, dazed, a big bruise on their side and their sleeve lolling out of the evil blue stamp-licker. Lug-soled boots screech and Illyana bounces, kicking the dented, USPS-stickered side while eagle talons stick out and try to gore her in the leg. They might just have succeeded as the flap open-close flutter-shrieks at her in indignation for its master. The fleeing ticket-seller running for cover wails, clutching their arm.

"By dead of night, or rain, or shine, die, die, die." The Demon Queen chants as she kicks the box again and stabs it unnecessarily a few times with the other Soulsword made sabre. The first time was enough. It was! Looking over her shoulder, a dead chandelier crashes to the ground with an uncanny tinging. That won't be sneaking up on Doctor Strange.

She shrugs and stalks on to find the next fun target. Is that a teenager hiding from an evil slamming door? One Limbo portal to go, depositing him outside. It's less scary than his bedroom or dating, honest. Another civilian, straight past the gossiping succubi to end up in Greenwich Village. She'll have an awesome story to tell. Or months of therapy bills! "He-e-e-e-yyyy Juggernaut!" Her voice rattles with the great, impressive mountain rushing around. Yay!

Stephen Strange has posed:
Senses beyond the standard allow the Sorcerer Supreme to see beyond what is visible. The hulking edifice is fully visible by all, but beneath that, perceptible to only Strange and perhaps his soulmate (literally) are the threads of magic that anchor this dimension. The ley line, with power unspoken, below, with a thread directly attached to the sorcerer himself. He is a conduit, channeling the mystic energy through him....to the essence of Illyana within his hand, the Soulsword in a more portable form. Still just as sharp, just as precise.

And, before him, the tendrils of dark sorcery. Black. Vile. The enchantment's corrupting fingers reach out, trying to grasp upon the wire frame that is the metaphysical representation of the station, to mold it to its dastardly demands. The solution is simple, though it requires the utmost concentration.

Sever the ties. Carve the foreign mass out completely.

"If at all able, please keep the distractions to a minimum. This will require finesse."

Who is Strange talking to? Nobody? Everyone?

It does not matter, for the surgeon begins to operate.

The cloak acts as Strange's legs, carrying him to where he needs to be. The Soulsword, now Soulscalpel, is quick. Exact. A single swipe in the air to most, but for Illyana and Strange? That is all it takes to slice free a tendril.

Then another.

And another.

Despite his request...despite his wife's best efforts, there are simply so many threats. One decides to take a risk, a barricade corrupted by dark magic. It snakes along the tiled floor, rearing its head like a chrome cobra, poised to strike.

A flash of the white blade in Strange's hand and the threat is no more, clattering against the tile lifeless.

And the only reaction from Strange? A sigh of disappointment as he returns to his task to cut the infection free.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
The ley line beneath Grand Central surges. It doesn't pulse now. It convulses. The tempo of the vibrations breaks from its steady rhythm and turns erratic. Three full beats. Then a pause. Then five. The tile near the information booth buckles and doesn't return to shape.

The building is reacting.

The perimeter that had been holding begins to waver. The floors ripple -- not like water, but like muscle. Track plates rise. A section of the ceiling pulls downward as if under pressure from above. One of the mezzanine supports shrieks and begins to twist, and the lights there strobe white and red, caught in some failing loop.

The corrupted structure resists Strange's work. Every time a metaphysical thread is severed, two more knot themselves tighter. They reach through the physical -- into the bones of the building itself -- and twist. A section of track support near the doctor coils like a spring and snaps toward him from below, a piercing arc of steel and possessed rebar. The cloak lifts him clear, just barely. Below him, the tile where he had stood implodes.

Then the wall on the west side collapses inward -- not under its own strain, but from impact. Concrete buckles outward. Rebar splits. But the building itself seems to roar from the bullet-like puncture, the whole structure vibrating. Light pours through from the street. The Juggernaut steps through the breach he's made, concrete dust rolling off his shoulders. The pressure wave of his entry still echoes through the frame of the station.

Civilians turn and run toward it. Some scream. Some cry out in relief. A tide of people flows toward the open exit. Mothers pull children behind them. Strangers drag others to their feet. One man shoulders a woman with a broken leg and limps through the gap. Three teenagers still crouched beneath the cracked mezzanine bolt for the breach the moment they see it.

The building reacts with fury.

A section of wall near the opening re-forms and begins to push outward -- its edge hardening into sharp, angular blades. Floor tile shifts like muscle, trying to rise and block the escape. Overhead, a twisted iron beam peels from the ceiling and swings like a limb toward the group sprinting for the gap.

One of them stumbles. Another doubles back. A third just runs harder.

On the concourse, a television monitor turns sideways on its mount. The screen stretches like fabric. From it, the pale woman in the white dress pulls herself out fully, her limbs flattening and bending in impossible angles. Her hair flickers into blades. She moves toward Emma. The support pillar Emma had cracked before buckles further as the creature leaps past it. The screen behind her warps open again and flashes through random channels -- each one a distorted face, all of them watching. The nearby monitors begin to flicker as well, outlines forming behind each one.

In the tunnels beneath, Silverdane rounds a corner and finds herself face-to-face with a panicked employee and a group of civilians -- three adults, two kids -- pinned between her and a rail junction blocked by debris. Behind them, an emergency stairwell pulses with red light. The floor is wet. At first, it looks like water. Then it bubbles, hisses, and moves. A wall-mounted ticket kiosk begins to melt and shift. From the hole where the keypad was, a round snout emerges, glassy-eyed and blind. It groans low and begins to drag itself out.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
Outside, the demonic energy surges again.

The great bronze statue above the main entrance cracks apart along its seams. The upper half of Mercury turns fully. His missing leg regenerates in seconds -- first as wire, then as bronze. A horn forms in the center of his forehead. The wings at his heels shatter into spikes, and his caduceus swells, snakes growing into writhing cables. He whips it toward Daredevil.

Inside, the structure fights harder now. The very walls push. Doors begin to close. Metal edges sharpen. A water fountain snaps from its bolts and skitters sideways on limb-like pipes. Civilians still within the station scream as the mezzanine stairs crack apart beneath them. Two teenagers lose their grip and slide forward -- only for one to catch the other's hoodie. She holds tight, arm trembling.

Tabitha's psionic field dims for a moment, flickering with interference. A surge of infernal static rips across it like lightning over a dome. The energy she's pulled from the field isn't dispersing -- it's starting to cling.

Near the Lexington corridor, a low growl echoes from beneath the tile. Something huge moves there. A fresh split opens in the floor, and a series of hands -- rusted, forged, metallic -- rise in a staggered spiral around it. They don't attack yet. They reach, brace, and begin pulling something larger through.

Greer's foot lands near the edge of that spiral. The floor fractures beneath her weight -- not from her, but from the force building underneath. Beneath the concourse, the same structure that peeled back Track 34 begins to surface again. It isn't just a train. It isn't just possessed.

It's growing.

Illyana's blades tear through the last of the kiosks in her path. A mailbox claws at her shin and fails to penetrate armor. Her demons tear into possessed fixtures by the dozen. But the portal she holds open across the concourse begins to destabilize. One side lurches. The other flares. The civilians she sent through are gone. But now something else is trying to crawl back the other way -- something larger than the gap it's squeezing through.

From every wall-mounted screen in the station, a voice begins to hiss. It isn't coherent. It isn't words. But it's everywhere.

Something knows it's losing.

And it does _not_ intend to go quietly.

Cain Marko has posed:
"Yeah, yeah, it's me. The hell is this Dr. Seuss nonsense you're spoutin' off!" shouts Juggernaut as he hears The Demon Queen's chants and acknowledgement of his presence. He treads forward, a walking sherman tank that crushes under foot scrambling demonic vending machine goods and then swats out a gigantic pillar sized arm to crush a rushing animate magazine booth like an accordion as his immense fist comes thundering down and a crater forms in the 'flesh' of the warped building.

"Aint this your territory?! -Do- something about all this!"

He twists around, looking towards the walls, towards the floor, towards the monitors as the hissing and rumbling begins to fill the air. He sees Doctor Strange attempting to work his sorcery and he turns abounce once again in considering of his own strategy. Attemtping to just destroy the whole building and doing so is within his capabilties but not with so many people in it, let alone heroes. Too much potential blood on his hands so - complaining is the next best option.

"Make with the Hocus Pocus already!"

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma goes to brace herself, even as she sees -more- things popping out of the screens. The place is thrashing and trembling, lashing out like an animal would to try and take it's attackers out with it or drive them away. Very much hte last frenzy. Emma has to take a risk here, evne as those -things- advance on her and she falls back now. She doesn't bother asking for help as she goes to withdraw, heading towards one of the entrances with anyone else falling back.

She shifts out of her diamond form, and goes to focus her mind. Magic is a tricky thing. The area is conscious, angry, and physical. It's embroidered between this reality and it's own that it's trying to enforce upon this one. Fortunately they have plenty of those here that can drive it back and hold it in place. Now all they have to do is kick the door in. And Emma goes to attempt that telepathically.

Mentall working with magic, with things that are outside of the framework of human consciousness are hard for any telepath. Even among the most skilled and powerful in the world. But Emma doesn't need to do anything turly complex here in her communication.

She goes to lance out, her mind flashing as she tries to interfere with the thing, going to try and unleash a psi bolt upon it of those parts of it that seemed to be latching down and lashing out, going to try and blast it over with focus and disruption. Trying to break it's concentration.

<<BEGONE!>>

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
Sounds. Echoes. Smells. Oil and electricity and blood and viscera. The world according to sounds, scents.

A dark tunnel stretching on forever.

"Vaminos," Silverdane says quietly, gesturing for those she has found. Tunnel workers, track workers, engineers, those caught up in the chaos of the rising Inferno-- innocent all. "This way," she repeats, gesturing towards that most rare and precious of things-- the emergency tunnel escape. Straight shot, straight to the streets above-- and never, ever appreciated until it is truly needed. "I have already checked ahead--" she continues, voice gruff as she glances back up the tunnel. "Is safe, for now. But keep tools, phones!" She gestures outward, on ward, rumbling as she holds the heavy steel door tight. "Call help when you get to surface, get signal. Go!"

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Till she gets an all clear, Tabby's wall of plasma keeps swirling, the energies likely not good for her while she makes as best an effort to keep the Strange-Rasputina's space clear enough.

Sometimes the odd thing gets through, but that's the price of distraction and making sure the blasts don't get too wild and hit someone that doesn't need it.

Or accidentally incinerate someone while they're already out cold. Though considering the scorch marks on a number of downed nerds. Boom-Boom's been teetering dangerously close to running out of cares for collateral damage. Now she's on a rush.

"Splode demons, Splodemons. Sounds like I should throw a ball at them and catch them all!" she jokes and actually pitches a plasma bomb at a flying laptop trying to get over the firewall.

Manic grin wide as Tabby pushes herself more and more to keep up the perimeter. The evil laugh follows soon as the computer debris rains down.

It's probably a good thing it's not all one single bomb this time.

Matthew Murdock has posed:
Daredevil wouldn't believe what he was seeing, even if he could see it. So it's a good thing he can't because he definitely wouldn't want to. The regeneration of the missing limb becomes obvious, even if not visually, when the scrap of rebar support against concrete becomes the heavy foot falls of the approaching Mercury statue wielding the snake headed Cadeucus like a club. It smashes into the pavement where Matt had been, but he's already moved. Rolled beneath the behemoths wide set legs. Then in a side flip when the Effegy of the Roman God swings the staff around. Matt Murdock is just a man. He's been fighting constantly for far longer than most could, so he's starting to slow down. What would be large gaps in defenive rolls are now meer inches. Close enough that he feels the wind or the concussive blow against the wall where his head had been half a breath earlier.

Until finally he's not fast enough.

The Bronze hand closes around his midsection with his arms pinned to his side and he's pulled up towards the grotesquely widening mouth full of rows of sharp bronze teeth beneath that wicked horn that sprout from mercury's forehead. "Put him down!" Shouts.. someone? A young woman. Maybe in her twenties, but she racks the shotgun Matt had lost earlier. "YEAH! Put him down!" Says someone else, an elderly Black man carrying a baseball bat. "Yeah..." "Yeah..." "YEAH!" More and more New Yorkers pour out of the station, emboldened by the heroic actions of so many inside. Of Daredevil outside. They're not going to just stand there and let the City they love kill them.. "Ain't no shit from hell going to take New York from us!" Shouts one, then another joins the chorus.

Exclimated by the blast of the shotgun in the ladies hands, taking Mercury's arm off at the shoulder. Daredevil falls, lands in a crouch, and pushes up to his feet. He half turns and grins to the army of New Yorkers behind him, then slowly faces the monstrocity. "Nobody steps on a church in our town." It's a quote.

"Okay boomer..." CHI-CHIK. "Let's do this." Says the lady with a shotgun.

"Kids." Says Matt, running towards Mercury who swings his staff one handed. The Daredevil hops to the side, right up on the metal rod, and runs up towards the hand gripping it as the Demonically Possessed God hefts it trying to shake him loose. BOOM several of the snake heads are blasted off, while multiple New Yorkers rush towards the statue, slamming at bronze legs with whatever weapon they can get their hands one.

Matt jumps up and sends a twisting round house back kick right into the Statue's face. Then a knee. Then an elbow, with his arm looping around the Statues head as he falls, using the momentum, and the multiple people knocking the statue off balance, to Bulldog a GOD DAMN STATUE like a WWE wrestling match.

Matt's up, the Statue isn't, but they're on level footing now. With the possessed covered in New Yorkers smashing it with trashcan lids, baseball bats, and one wild eyed Blonde Twenty something year old woman shooting it at point blank range with a shotgun. Kicks, punches, elbows.. until, finally, one massive swing with every ounce of strength left in his body, knocks the horn from the statues forehead. Matt collapses on his knees.

Panting. Bleeding... and being helped up by three people. "We got you, Devil..."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"The arrogant bastard who tortured me for a decade thought he might try again," Illyana fires back without any loss of her composure, though the momentary beating on a mailbox is more irritation on not getting her packages delivered on time or maybe the endless supply of junk mail despite being on a do-not-mail list. Some use that is. Junk mail is truly Satannish's favourite weapon.

The mutant flicks her gaze to her portal, the razor-thin margins barely dilating enough for more than a shadow to slip through. Said shadows -- lupine and feline -- still circle around, but a silent order to every last one of her surviving demons call them to her in a terrible, wicked procession. She runs her thumb along the edge of the sabre she wields, the artifact reinforced by the slight pull on Stephen's very self. In this realm there's very little stronger bulwark against magic, and for this particular effort, it counts. Her footsteps trace a path to the bleeding wall, the screaming monstrosity underneath the surface of reality one that picked the wrong person to screw with. This -- contending with demons, throwing them back -- is what she was made for. The blue-white flame radiating off the blade grows stronger in reaction, and she leans hard into the wealth of mutation, sorcery, and vast current of magic that links the mystics to their leyline, and one another, doubly so. Doctor's in, busy being a surgeon.

Time for two. She murmurs, "<<Grey Lady, Oshtur, weave order into your light; send the traitor to the outer night.">>

White magic -- magic of the brighter side of affairs -- is typically not something someone like her can wield, not with the tangible interconnections to a place further down the celestial hierarchy than the trinity of the Vishanti. Nonetheless, their servant she remains, and if not exactly shoulder-to-shoulder with Stephen V. Strange, Illyana is damn close. Especially whilst wielding the greater portion of her intact soul against the revolting presence that leaks out, surrendering herself to the bleeding fire and the empyrean heights of invoking the patron goddess of magic. It never stops hurting but pain is an old nemesis, and better to burn from the chest outward as a circular disk wavers in and out of sight. A semblance of a locket of some kind, or maybe a pendant, a lunar ring that she manifests power through.

The silver tendrils burn white for a moment, incinerating whatever they hold as the spell falls. Her demons flatten behind her, narrowed to her reeling shadow cast long across the shaking ground that threatens to hold her off. For a couple moments there, her black armour shifts into a state closer to chrome, just the first hints of gold painted along her hips, her shoulders, largely overwrought by the dominant grey of the Grey Lady. If someone wanted to bite her from behind, it definitely wouldn't be a particularly smart idea. The demons chant "Majesty" and "Hellish-Lady" and "Our Scary" in various mutters, hands over their ears as she channels magic up, out, and down in a vicious stabbing dance if Oshtur deigns to answer. Or Hoggoth, hoary and long of fang and claw, perhaps primed to bite whatever is down there.

With whatever invocation carries her as the blade and offensive force to Strange's healing charm, Illyana's focus is a laser beam on the being that wants out, defying her, defying the very pledge to keep Earth's boundaries safe and Limbo hauled back dimensionally to a neutral position in the cosmos instead of where Belasco kicked it to. So if it's a whirlwind duet of her sword stabbing into flesh or the portal squeezed shut and a kick to the face to the Outermost Realms, or to the cotton-candy forest where a dragon can munch whatever is there, she doesn't care. Buy them time. Even if it means burning.

Stephen Strange has posed:
Make with the hocus pocus? Really? Does Marko have any idea how delicate this procedure is?

A flare of anger crosses over Stephen's face. It could very well be because of the Juggernaut or because of how tenacious this enchantment is. In any case, the sheer audacity is enough to prompt Strange to 'make with the hocus pocus.'

"I call upon the essense of Ikonn!" The command is short but powerful, reverberating. Coupled with the direct connection to the eldritch energies of the ley line, the effect is immediately apparent. Where there was one Strange are now dozens, all poised at an anchor point of the cancer from another dimension. All seemingly holding their own version of the Soulsword.

All ready to sever free the enchantment.

In one fluid motion, all of the Stranges make their incisions. All at once, the moorings are untethered, the black mass of the enchantment floating nebulously in the void. A Strange (is it the prime Strange? Does it matter?) pulls the mass from the aether, making it physical. Able to be seen by all.

And, in the process, making it *vunerable*.

It is tossed into the air, towards yet another Strange. This one besides Illyana herself. This version turns, offering a wry grin towards the demon queen.

"Do you want to do the honors, or should I?"

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
The building begins to break.

Not structurally -- spiritually. The ley line at its heart is exposed now, roiling as the magic within it is drawn out like a poisoned current. The pulse flattens. The floor no longer convulses. It strains.

Strange completes his final incision, and for a breathless second, the building stops fighting. The corrupted enchantment is ripped free -- its shape not organic, not anatomical, but jagged and howling and black. Light twists around it. Air bends in its presence. The severed binding throws sparks across the metaphysical plane, snapping through steel and stone like the plucking of cables from an instrument tuned for violence. The Soul Dagger catches the weight of it mid-air. Illyana moves with it -- one final spell building through her arm like current. The ley line hums through both of them now, Strange its conduit, Illyana its blade.

She strikes.

The enchantment does not explode. It burns. Silent at first -- then loud. The scream comes not from any one direction, but from every possessed object in the building at once. It is not a voice. It is resistance.

And it fails.

The television monitors shut down one by one. The woman in the white dress flickers mid-leap and vanishes into static. The monitors go dark. Emma's psi-bolt lands like a depth charge across the final wave of psychic interference, punching through the last of the enchantment's grip and sending it folding inward on itself. The remaining screens pop, leaving only glass and silence.

Beneath the station, the blind beast clawing its way out of the rail junction seizes in place. Its body stiffens, limbs locking, then collapses into slag before it can breach the concourse. Silverdane holds the steel door steady until the last of the civilians are through it, their footsteps retreating up the emergency stairwell behind her.

On the street, the crowd around Daredevil surges. The statue of Mercury begins to falter. One leg bends backward at the knee. The horn fractures. A shotgun blast to the chest punches it off balance, and when the final strike comes -- from inside, from below, from a crowd refusing to break -- its remaining support cracks. The possessed figure falls backward onto the steps, lifeless, groaning metal scraping against the stone.

Inside the station, the growling from beneath the floor fades. The hands pulling themselves out of the concourse crumble to ash mid-motion. Greer's footing stabilizes. The floor stops breathing.

The train that had stalked passengers across the platform lets out one last grinding exhale, its mouth gaping wide before it slackens, then stops. The wheels rattle in place. The doors unlock and hiss open. The passengers still inside don't move at first -- then one stands. Then another. A woman clutches her child and pulls him out through the broken side panel. Others follow.

Overhead, the chandelier that had twisted toward the floor cracks free and drops -- but not on anyone. It hits tile, splinters, and slides. Harmless.

Tabitha's psionic field flares once and then evaporates like smoke. The energy clinging to her skin lets go. The possessed nerds fall still -- eyes rolling back, limbs jerking, then slumping into unconsciousness. One of them groans. Another begins to sob.

And at the breach Juggernaut tore through the wall, the last civilians pour out, climbing over cracked stone and pulverized tile. Behind them, the building lets out a low, groaning creak -- nothing supernatural. Just a structure, overburdened, releasing tension.

One second, the sound is pure silence. The next, it's New York again.

Sirens. Horns. Shouting. Someone curses. Someone cheers. Somewhere nearby, a phone rings. The last of the civilians emerge into the light, bloodied, breathless, blinking under a grey morning sky.

Inside, the lights no longer flicker. The floor is solid. The walls do not ripple. Grand Central Station stands hollowed out and still.

The threat here is done.

But down the block, an engine revs.

A yellow cab with a cracked windshield and a jag

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
A yellow cab with a cracked windshield and a jagged grin in place of a front grill peels around the corner on two wheels. Its tires screech. Its bumper laughs -- a low, bubbling cackle as it swerves around a delivery van and careens down the street, weaving through traffic like a dog off leash.

It does not stop.

And somewhere behind it, a mailbox shifts slightly. But only slightly.