20336/Hell Hydra Pt 1

Hell Hydra Pt 1
Date of Scene:	06 April 2025
Location:	Hydra Base
Synopsis:	A group of heroes team up to stop a Hydra magical sacrifice from going off. It however feels like merely a small upset, leaving the greater scheme continuing.
Cast of Characters:	Natasha Romanoff, Meggan Puceanu, Daniel Ketch, Caleb Dykstra, Richard Stadler

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Natasha Romanoff has posed:
WAND regularly scried for signs of Hydra using mystical artifacts. Given their origins as Nazis, and Hitler's obsession with the occult, the terrorist organization had long made use of magical artifacts. So when WAND had detected something amiss, a recon team had been sent in. They had not reported back in. A larger raid team had then been dispatched which had given a 'Code Red' signal before going comm silent.
    Now it was a full strike force being deployed of whatever magical assets were on good terms with WAND or that just were picking up demonic activity from the rural base dug into a mountain. Given little idea of what they were up against beyond missing teams, erratic magical activity that was blocking WAND's attempts at scrying, there was almost no intel available as the strike team was being flown in.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
In the right circles, a name often appears in digital indices or yellowing rolls next to 'exorcist': Constantine.

Sadly he's busy. Another Constantine comes with recommendations of Bat, Krypton, and Themyscira however. Demon solutions are not restricted to the original carrier of said surname though. Enter a polite, golden-haired Englishwoman in a jade, belted raincoat that elicits some comparisons to the battered trench ensemble favoured by her spouse. Since showing up on a mountainside randomly often means getting shot at, she takes the jet ride.

Meggan isn't bouncing up and down in her seat. She perches on the edge, strapped in, clutching a small battered satchel covered in enamel pins. Blazing emerald eyes are slightly unfocused as she strobes the terrain below and ahead of them with a wave of empathy. The active search for lives -- and demons -- tries to fill in the intel gaps.

Daniel Ketch has posed:
Daniel is not sure he has ever heard of a thing called WAND, but hey, that is why he is not in charge of the team. The Justice League got called, and the 'dark' division took charge because they are in charge of dealing with supernatural. The fools.

Also, Hydra mean Nazis, and it is his patriotic duty as a Brooklynite to kick their asses. Or shot at them with a shotgun. He is not sure what the Ghost Rider would do if he calls him here. But since it is likely he will run off to chase after some 'sinner' somewhere else, Daniel is not going to let him loose until, well, the Nazis are trying to kill him. That always works.

"So, yeah..." he glances at the others, "how do we do this?" Someone (else) is in charge, he is sure.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
When you0ve been a part of the Gotham underworld, if you make it out alive, you learn to hear things.

One such things that echoed through the walls of the JLD was that HYDRA was up to something, something involving demons.

Well, shit. Caleb is really more like a junior member, but the stakes here are high...

And so he arrives, bearing a sort of armored uniform, a long coat to complement it, and a featureless gold reflective mask that covers his face to keep his identity secret. Some in the JLD might've heard about him. John sure has; when he found out, he didn't seem happy. Yelling shenanigans pending still.

<<Greetings>>, a distorted voice rumbles.

Richard Stadler has posed:
     Oh, wasn't this going to be an enjoyable outing? It wasn't often that Stadler got information for a mission on both an encrypted smartphone app and the weird, magical trinket the JLD happened to be handing out for communication. Dealing with SHIELD was generally professional, of course, but the JLD was like herding cats if the cats knew more about how deeply metaphysical the world was than Stadler could expect to learn. Not that it wasn't needed here; the operation was going to be... unpleasant already, given the possibility of Nazi magic and almost zero intelligence on what they were wandering into.

Rick supposed he was lucky it was the other Constantine here; Small spaces like this would be intolerable with him filling the air with those British cigarettes' he smoked.

And, of course, Caleb just gets a rather severe, semi-annoyed stare at his armored get up. Not very bad, of course. It's just that one could expect Stadler to stare, judge, and lament any of the students from Happy Harbor deciding to get in on a mission whose causality rate was bound to be high. He shook his head a bit, pulling the M50 mask over his face and quickly clearing it. "Word of advice. If you're trying to keep yourself from being identified, don't dress up in something everyone's going to remember. Silverdane can't help it; she's a giant dog, but you certainly have access to some surplus stores upstate or down in Virginia." He notes. Voice tiny through the vocalizer and he quickly checks over his rifle.
Daniel gets a look. "Very little intelligence, so until there's a need for it, I don't want people going heavy with aggression. We're going in, establishing a defensive foot hold on a touch and go, and then assess what sort of hocus pocus we're dealing with. Leave that to you mages. Defend yourself, and be ready to follow orders when you get them." He notes, tapping his ear with two fingers. "Frequencies and encryption keys for the current net should have been distributed. Keep an ear open."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
The Constantine's abilities are picking up a lot of interference. Demonic activity, but a great deal of unknown as well. There's something around that's not normally associated with demonic summonings.. Almost an opposite, in fact. It has something of a different take to it than darkness. It's warped, standing out and inert. So they're definitely gettin ga welcoming party. And given that Hydra's had at least a day or two of advance warning and not evacuated the area, they're in for a rather messy drop in. But that's the way it always is.

It's the god given obligation to everyone to punch Nazis. As taught by Captain America. A strong tradition of hitting them in the face. SOmething that united humanity. Gangsters. Mobsters. Supervillains. All of them were quite happy to go against what could only be described as the greater evil.

As the group heads in by whatever means - Quinjet, hellbike, JLD teleporter.. There's definitely something ahead. Not a glowing portal, but the entrance to a large bunker. Well, was an entrance. It looks like it had been melted through with lava and then the lava had solidified, turning the entryway into something like rock solid, razor sharp obsidian. With small crystal-like growths coming out of it that were radiating out an intense, unearthly chill. If anyone would recognize it they were from the land of the Dark Elves.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Anyone in the Dark flavour of the Justice League certainly ought to know by now, Meggan's appearance is purely skin-deep. Richard's warnings get a nod. Her lack of a flashy uniform -- not her usual emerald and black ensemble -- goes a long way to passing as a civilian in most settings, and it won't matter when she decides to hit the ground.

"Mind the nasty maw ahead. Might let me go first, if it's no trouble?" she asks, glancing over at Richard and Daniel with a merry little smile. "It gives you cover if they get all excited. Mmm, getting flavours of Svartalfheim. Peat, blood, and iron. Bleh." How exactly a six-foot tall bundle of sunshine can achieve this remains open to interpretation, but she flexes her hands and fortunately doesn't skip right into Mordor.

However, tiny green shoots absolutely break through the soil after where she walks. Pointing to Caleb in his getup, she says, "You stick with them. My cousins, if they're in here, really hate bright light. Something not hellish is bubbling up through there along with all the usual infernal marks, and I need a bit of time to figure out what's what."

She doesn't leave footfalls at the point of the entrance, mostly because she doesn't walk. Her body shifts and fades, outline blurred, going almost chiaroscuro the closer she gets. Such is the effect of a Tuath de Danaan -- a god of the fae -- in full Spring regalia approaching the demesne of her antithesis.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
<<Point taken>>, Caleb - actually going by Faceless One - says to Richard. <<But it's what I got.>> A small aside, <<Plus, aside from all the pockets, it's stylish.>> A sligh shrug. <<Maybe.>>

Then, when things turn serious, he starts to wonder. <<Svartalfheim... Those are the Dark Elves of viking lore, yes?>> And he nods to Meggan, <<Understood.>>

Daniel Ketch has posed:
If Daniel is the 'mage' here they are already doomed. He is at the point he knows enough to hurt himself, but not enough to make a difference. Unless the calls the Rider, and then it is usually a horrible mess.

But that is okay, usually an horrible mess is how this kind of situation goes.

Daniel knows enough to sense the evil magic long before he actually sees the crystal and obsidian things, or even feel the chill. He rarely feels much chill lately, even in the worst of New York's winter.

So, the plan is sneaking in and 'establishing a defensive foothold'? "I don't think that is going to work, my partner rarely follow even the most common sense orders, but you might be able to go undetected if I let the Rider..." and then Meggan goes forward like the Queen of England. "Oh crap," he sighs and shakes his head at Richard. "Well, you might still be able to do it," as for himself, he follows Meggan, pulls out a small knife and stabs himself in the palm of the hand.

When innocent blood is split... he doesn't feel innocent or anything, but this always works with the Rider. He falters, and groans in pain as his form shifts, his skin burns.

And then Daniel Ketch is gone, and in his place there is an imposing skeleton on fire, six and a half feet tall, clad in black leather and steel spikes. He walks with the fae goddess as if he was a knight from Hell.

Richard Stadler has posed:
     Rick shakes his head over to Daniel. "No sneaking needed, in this case. Caution, yes, but I doubt we'll get stealth. We're walking blind into a place like this here, and without knowing what's waiting for us, I assume they know we're coming. When we land, hit them hard, get some breathing room, but keep yourself tight with the rest of us. Too many of you superhero types head up quickly and overextend. Leads to defeat in detail."

This was... one of those 'do as I say, not as I do' situations. So what if Rick did that sometimes? /He/ at least knew when it was warranted. Who knew what these magically infused blockheads thought when they were going out-

"Well, there was one of them. Magical regalia, then the foom of fire, bone, and leather, as the Rider appears. Rick pauses, for a long time, and gives a nod of his head to Meggan. They were the magical people, after all. Why shouldn't they take point? A quick look over to Caleb, however. "Goes for you. Keep tight with the rest, pick a sector, watch it." He notes, standing up from the seat, boots thumping against decksole as he moves toward the back ramp of the QuinJet. Once it's open, his rifle is up, ,peering through the thermal sight on front to engage any threats mortal men might see.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Whatever it is in the 'soil' that's been made by whatever eldritch fires were used to mold the base doesn't last long as Meggan goes to disspell it, it turning back over into ordinary matter against the Fae Constantine's magical abilities. What Meggan is getting a sense of as the group goes in further is.. Anger. Hate. Loathing. But so directed. So controlled. So focused. That's quite a contrary from how the damned often are. So prone to lashing out at anything, to raging.. Instead, as the group goes down for those that can magically sense it there's a sense of complete and total focus. Obedience.

That is likely a veyr bad thing.

And the Ghost Rider goes to transform, turning into his infernal form, he picks up a sense of evil. Great, great evil. By the standards of humanity, old evil. By mortal standard,s impressive if he can filter through it. Up ahead, there are yells - Hydra STormtroopers hurriedly going to setup with their normal defensive tactics.

Admittedly they seem to be packing machine guns firing magic missiles. And fireballs.

However, machine gun magic fire is a nasty thing.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
Again, to Rick he nods, followed by an <<Understood.>>

Now, he'd never seen Ghost Rider transforming, even though his name had been thrown around a couple of times, so the sight of his transformation is truly something to behold, <<The Hell...?>>

It sounds like an appropriate time to say it, so there.

Recomposing himself, he pulls out two modules from inside his coat, and combines them into a gun, which he points as he moves at any corner or point to cover the group for a swift getaway if needed.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
For someone who can transform at the drop of a hat, Meggan doesn't often get to see others dramatically shedding their skin and setting themselves on fire. She breaks into a bright smile when the Rider roars out of nowhere, clearly impressed by the show. After regaining her composure, she wiggles her fingers in a greeting. As he chooses to stride alongside her, her mood clearly has improved. A good thing because she needs every jolt she can get against the slurry of sick emotions radiating from every angle.

Humming to Jefferson Airplane at least in her head provides a counter, if clanging through Wonderwall or Sympathy For The Devil or something from Spamalot isn't sufficient mental noise. Fear and Loathing in Las Svartalgas it is. "Devils with a purpose, oi. They've been lined up like chess pieces or they're all middle managers and barristers," her words slip back softly. She halts, fading into near obscurity as her skin -- such as she has it in this form -- either chameleons to match the rock or she's loosening the hold on her corporeal side, flesh transmuted to something of light and transparencies.

Yells up ahead, people focused on attacks. Those are minds to be touched. Batman might approve of her sending a wave to touch them, a simple wash of a singular emotion, but Supes probably wouldn't like it.

Guilt. That gnawing, drowning ocean that heaves and hauls someone down, a channel to doubt, shame, grief.

Daniel Ketch has posed:
"Devils are selfish, parasites, I am the Spirit of Vengeance," the Ghost Rider's voice is a hollow bass, definitely unsettling, but not malicious. Just full of righteous, unearthly anger. "Corruptors. But be this the work of demon, alfr or mortal, I will undo it and punish the perpetrator."

He might have said more, but his large frame on fire is a great target for the Hydra soldiers. And although he has nothing to fear from fireballs, when the enchanted bullets hit his frame, he grunts in surprise and perhaps in pain. Is he 'bleeding' blue fire?

But he takes no step back, instead, with an imperious gesture, he summons his hellbike and jumps on it, speeding towards the Nazis protected from more bullets by the wind deflector, which seems quite armored.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
As the HYDRA agents begins to fire, Caleb ducks behind a natural cover, and starts firing back.

Okay, this is fair game, so let's get real.

He pulls out a cartridge labelled red, clicks it into his gun and aims in their general direction - not any in particular.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

And he fires. The bullet is fired much like a missile, and, upon reaching the designated distance, it explodes, meant to incapacitate them.

Richard Stadler has posed:
     And they were on the ground; there was a bonus to not being able to connect with those magical rites, to feel that energy of old, dark evil washing over everything like black mold or kudzu. Able to focus on the targets in front of you and piece things together latter. This was a big operation, of course, stopping them from doing something horrible, no doubt. But it started with what was in front of them.

Rick dodn't know how to deal with magic machine gun fire, but it was, presumably, dealt with like normal machine gun fire: scrambling on the ground and throwing yourself aganist whatever good cover you can find. Here it happened to be a small, dead tree and a berm underneath it, sliding next to it as the magic chipped and ate at the tree from around. Protection wasn't the end game here, and while it did seem like the rest seemed to have things... well in hand (it was hard to imagine bullets dealing damage to the Rider Ketch had become), Rick might as well add his own weapons into the mix. A quick thought as to what he had seen when leaving the quinjet, a deep breath, and then a flip out of cover for a moment. The /thump/ of an M302 sending a 40 millimeter grenade to one of those machine gun posts sending fire at them, looking for direct fire, before his hand worked into his gear. Thermal smoke; enough to keep thermals from finding them, and giving them time to manuever close to their positions. It's tossed out, sputtering grey, hot particulate toward the end of it's arc, scattering on the ground just in front of the gunners.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
The Nazis are quickly cut down by the burning Hellfire of the Ghost Rider's cycle. Caleb's shots deftly pick them off as his careful aim takes them down in quick order. As they were hit, they would fall and collapse, whether from unconsciousness or death depending on the ammo. The steady pulses of Richard's fire and the grenade's impact sending the defensive line to break. Corpses turn to ash and storm behind them as the Ghost Rider leads the charge. Leaving nothing but remnants of bodies in his wake. But Hydra's definitely got some new toys here. Rather nasty ones.

If Rick or Caleb took looks at them, they would definitely notice a highly functional fusing of incorporating magic into standard weaponry. A functional clip for an asasult rifle that seemed to be loaded with fireballs. A shotgun with hellfire rounds. A pistol that held small bullets to shoot enchanted lightning. The engineering for it, the fusion of the eldritch was so efficiently done in a horrendous, twisted way as the hallwas cleared of the Hydra troopers effectively.

And Meggan's blasting of guilt, regardless of power, seems to yield almost little. These are men that are fanatics. Monsters. That serve monsters. There is no sense within them of even the possibility of guilt. They care not whether they live or die. Merely that they serve their purpose. Efficiency above all else.



Down several corridors, they could hear chanting. Chanting in what was clearly some sort of oofshoot of Latin. Very ominously. Dozens of voices in a chorus.

But, for those of them that could actually speak the language, what they were uttering was.. Complete nonsensicality. Random words, yet fused together and rising faster and faster. Magical energy and demonic rising up those corridors away.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Good to know that hollowing out a space in their souls isn't going to slow them down. Meggan can taste that on the charnel wind emerging from ammunition and flames. John is always banging on about how they're not worth the bother and moreover, he is right.

She flits in the Rider's wake, his awesome motorcycle leaving a burning path that barely illuminates her. Magic, then, is her problem. Weapons dropped from inert hands rise to her, the power she can sense in them enough to compel her to pull out the removable parts where possible. If not, then she simply hauls on the magical energy until it fizzles or can be discharged harmlessly into the problematic HYDRA goon or demonic force over that way. Even hurling a shotgun into someone's face packs a punch and disrupts their ability to fire on the sharpshooters behind her.

"Want to throw a fireball at them?" she asks The Rider, midway through tearing into a chunky machine pistol that did nothing wrong except be made in an infernal armory.

Daniel Ketch has posed:
The Rider crashes against the Hydra lines like a tank through a glass house, leaving broken bodies, broken weapons and some souls burning with the hellfire that burst from his hands or his mouth. Surprisingly, he kills no one. He moves quickly, despite the odd terrain. Physics is for natural creatures, and he is not one of those.

"We must enter the structure now, and swiftly," he replies to Meggan. "I feel a... darkness rising."

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
<<Well... Let's go shed some light on the subject>>, The Faceless One says as he rises from his cover spot.

Was that a pun? Yes it was a pun.

He reloads his weapons, preparing some extra cartridges. <<And send it packing back where it came from.>>

Richard Stadler has posed:
     Stadler's moving up when the line cracks; new weapons were certainly effective, but thankfully, outside context problems still worked to shatter those who might be inflexible. It wasn't a quick run, this time; a move up to cover, bounding forward, and stopping when he reached the dead machine gun crew and those taken out from their allies... like the flaming skull man's motorcycle, and the explosions from... The Faceless One. Better to keep that straight in his head.

It was gratifying to see Hydra wasn't the only ones with advanced ammunition, but it was still something to quickly examine. Frowning, as he ejected a clip from an assault rifle, pumping a round out of a shotgun. This was...

Questionable. There was the temptation, of course. The shotgun shells themselves were 12 gauge; he had pleanty of weapon systems that could use them. The clips, themselves; well made, manufactured; not something one would see from someone with an ammo press and a 3D printer, but stamped metal, as closed to standardized as one could say. There was power here. A lot of power. And Rick knew at least a few people that might find it useful.

And they wouldn't be seeing it. A clip here, and there, a few shells, were collected, but only for WAND to take a look at it. He wasn't loading his own weapons with them, or picking up the enemy. Refraining from experimentation was anathema to a scientist, but science without morals would be what these people practiced... and Rick wasn't about to try it.

<<Keep close; Don't care how useful those weapons look, Don't touch them until we have an idea of how they work. Where they come from.>> He says, as they moved into the building. Chanting was heard, of course. Rick didn't understand it, or most of it; latin was in the biological profession, of course, but he never focused on it as a proper language. He could catch snatches of words, odd times to hear them, though, a bit confusing, as they pressed in. SOmething they needed to get to the source of.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Hydra was making magic guns. Hydra was making standardized magic guns. That was either a nightmare or a miracle of engineering. Probably both. HOpefully something that WAND could figure out more with. Or replicate. Then again, giving everyone AK's shooting magic bullets might not go down well with corporate. And then the group goes to confront the ominous latin chanting room.

As Meggan goes to dive on ahead, flitting along and maneuvering as the high yields of power ahead are sign enough that something is going on horribly wrong.. Or right, if one is going by Hydra's goals. As the group goes to dart over into the room, there's a group of at least a hundred stock Hydra troopers wearing hoods, continuing their chanting as a glowing blue field of energy surrounds them, and blanketed the area. From the walls dangle down two sets of six arranged.. Wings with torsos put on them. Vaguely humanoid in a sense. Each torso having sick wings, like some sort of twisted butterly. And upon the wings were dozens and dozens of eyes staring out. Faces nonexistant, blank like mannequins. Arms holding scythes of a sort that one would use more for working in a field of wheat than for combat. Between them was a man wearing the standard green uniform of a Hydra officer, cufflings showing the poisoned Death's Head on them, a starched collar with the same. Elderly looking, a faded red beard.

As Meggan goes in, several things happen - first is there's a flash as what she may or may not recognize as a mutant power inhibitor kicks in and suppresses all abilities given by the X-Gene from a technological way. The man turns to face the group, adjusting his cufflinks, smiling. "Ah, good." HIs voice an austrian accent. "I was beginning to wonder when you would show up. You've kept us waiting quite a bit. I should also thank you for your heroic repetition. Third time's the charm and all that."

For those that had read his profile, Doctor Faustus. Hydra's expert of the occult.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The power suppressor that strips Meggan of her mutation rips away the inheritance provided by her father, and in that moment, any humanity goes trotting out the door. Whilst she might be impeded -- and she is -- Faustus' little plan does not entirely go off as he probably expected. It all happens in a violently bright flash: she materializes in her divine self, coalescing from force into flesh. Every exposed centimeter blazes, the strands of her golden hair an auroral light show that puts the laser-and-Pink Floyd experience and Taylor's Eras tour to complete shame. No sick wings here -- boo -- but instead, radiant, surreal perfection because the Otherworld goes overboard on beauty and charm.

She reels back a step or two, deprived of the hate and rigid constraints of order, taking in a breath she doesn't need. Sealed magic is suddenly on tap, reality far too vivid for her to grasp all at once. A hundred troopers and some guy rattling off. A whisper of sound on her lips might go without notice, but likely not the effect as she invokes a countermagic orb around her to reflect anything in its radius back at its source.

Daniel Ketch has posed:
And just behind comes the Ghost Rider, his hellbiker outfit somewhat damaged by the fight outside, those bullets did hurt him, just not enough to stop him. "You. You are your plans don't matter anymore, you and the fools that follow you, will burn for your crimes."

And since no one is shooting at him right now, he takes a few moments to gather his mystical might and vomits a torrent of hellfire towards Faust and his friends. Those hit burn with cold flames that do no physical harm but flay their very souls.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
Look at all the attention Meggan and the flaming Spirit of Vengeance are getting! It's a stroke of luck that Caleb - the Faceless One, that is - is not one to attract attention, like a good little Gothamite, and therefore seizes the opportunity to hide behind a crate.

Looking around from his hiding spot, he sees only one opportunity to get rid of this mess...

He produces a number of disks from hidden pockets on him, and starts to plant them where he thinks that, upon detonation, these will cause the most damage...

Richard Stadler has posed:
     Stadler walked in on... depressingly, not the first collection of cultist attempting a dark ritual he had in his life. Or the first attempts at collecting something from the dark pits of hell. So it at least wasn't a total shock... but it wasn't as if it got any easier to see those sorts of people and what /exactly/ they were chanting up to bring to the world they lived in. THose... things were disturbing, and Rick had to wonder when seeing things like this would get too far into his mind. It hadn't happened yet... but it might. One of these days.

<<To 'The Faceless One', he's subvocalizing through a throat mic. <<Keep your finger off the detonator. I want to destroy this place when we're outside of it.>> It wasn't difficult to see he was planting charges, of course... and RIck approved, in general.

Wat he didn't approve of was the Doctor in front of them. The doctor had a plan. It would have been prudent to capture him. Take him prisoner and interrogate him later... but this wasn't a situation they could do that. He'd already done something to one of their main hitters, and they couldn't afford him doing anything else. No words from Rick, no counters, at the moment, just a rifle pressed into his shoulder and a few heavy rounds sent toward the man's center mass.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Meggan is melting reality and replacing it with her own form of unreality. Where there is a whimsical fae tethered down normally by teh portion of herself that is human (or mutant), when it is stripped away.. Well.. It unfastens fragments of existence from itself. Perhaps. Perhaps not. In her full manifestation.. She actually draws attention from the rushing Ghost Rider for a moment as her countermagic lashes out and starts to fight over with the energy being pulled forth from the chanting, starting to suppress and counter it.

Doctor Faustus goes to laugh, "Wunderful. I could learn so much from a vivisection.. But time's a wasting." He goes to watch as the chanting continues, even as it seems to be growing weaker and weaker. And then the Ghost Rider goes to gather energy..

And blasts out with weapons that can flay souls. Even the most perfidious and damned are granted a chance to repent. To yield. To feel the suffering that they have caused and inflicted upon others. Doctor Faustus merely folds his hands behind his back, closes his eyes, and breathes IN deeply and seems to be almost gleeful.

"That was invigorating, thank you. What's the term.. Greatest hits album? Thank you.." In a twisted, horrifying way he seems to be completely sincere. The hellfire blast itself does, however, scorch many of the chanting acolytes, who are cut down in spirital agony. What had been a weakening counterpunch suppressed by Meggan's magic is now almost smothered out as Caleb goes to dart about placing explosives. The place is very solid - it's a bunker after all. But it's still several decades old concrete, broken further with the magic that had gone through and weakened the foundations. He has plenty of time to place charges and the knowledge of where to put them to bring down the immediate area whenever he's ready. No one is noticing someone going the stealth route.

Meanwhile, the pair of floating.. Things seemingly composed of eyes, wings, and faceless continue to hover in place, wielding their scythes.. And their attention immediately -snaps- over to Danny Ketch. Their weapons at the ready as they both immediately go to charge at him with weaponry that is probably very familiar to sense if he's paying attention. The contrast to the energies that most hosts of Zarathos would broadcast.

It's a chaotic melee even as Richard goes to very, very carefully go to take his aim up and over, and goes to line it up with the Occultist.. And then pumps several rounds into his center mass.

Doctor Faustus is yanked back from his euphoric high and looking down at the bullet holes in his chest rapidly bleeding out as he goes to start to gargle and stumble, falling to his knees. Laughing.

"So.. Artfully done." Voice fading.

Room filled iwth complete magical anarchy.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Chanting in Latin tends to work great for John, but for that other Constantine, Gaelic serves its purpose. She speaks the intonations as a reflexive effort to control the magic she channels into the countering spell, though its fluctuations and wobbles reflect the burden of so much active power bombarding her naked senses. Meggan's built up enough experience in her native form to weather the worst of it, though her molars vibrate and her bones quiver with the forces around her. Those winged horrors wielding their scythes that close in on Danny give her enough pause to start pushing back on the counterspell, moving forward to rip further strength from the ward or protections from the area.

All this has its cost -- fatigue, a horrifying need for sweets and dancing, possibly charming hopelessly friendly humans into making promises -- but she won't contend with it immediately. The blasts leave her clothes sooty and flensed, torn in places, pretty coat stained and bloody. Her emerald eyes, awash in colour and utterly inhuman, half-close as Doctor Faustus makes his plausible retreat to...

An inconvenient spot, probably. Out of reach. "I would love nothing more than to banish you, squire, but feck off with that nonsense. Boys, you minds grabbing his sorry corpse and carting it out of 'ere just in case?" It's probably going to reanimate or do something horrible. In a fit of pique, she snaps, "<<Tossers!>>" and sends a draining wave of magic roaring HYDRA-Hell-soldier-ward.

Daniel Ketch has posed:
The Ghost Rider glares at Faust. Is his soul protected by some magic? Fiiine. "I will break your body first, then," he declares, advancing on the bearded man. Someone else gets him first.

Bullets? He was protected by magic against hellfire, but not against bullets? Some people has the priorities all mixed up. Actually, all the Hydra goons need to reconsider their life choices. He can help here.

But before he can begin with the bone-breaking and soul-burning the winged creatures are attacking him. The Rider ducks under the first swing of the scythes, then forms his own scythe from hellfire and the chains around his body.

Duelling with scythes is something few people gets to see in the modern days. Everyone prefers swords. Occasionally spears. But yes, it can be done, they are like glaives but with a much larger blade.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
There's chaos. There's fire. There's the clash of magic on magic. Of holy upon holy. Of empowerment.. And there's a backlash of power then as all hundred or so souls being offered up are less consumed and more obliterated. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Reduced to nonexistance. A fate which is perhaps even more terrifying than eternal condemnation. Forever to the void.

And in this energized release the combatants are blasted outside as the charges go off, and the area collapses in on itself as they have cover.

Further WAND scrying gleans nothing. The area is dead of any further magic. The taken weapons are immediately yanked and put under analysis by 'top men' in an archive somewhere.

But whatever Hydra's long term plan is, this is just a hiccup. Not a net loss.

Richard Stadler has posed:
     Oh, that was satisfying. Granted, it didn't overpower the sensation that they were in /real/ trouble, at the moment. Reality and magic warping around them, demons from some under pit coming up with sythes and so, so many eyes on those wings, heading right toward one of their principal allies. At least The Rider was taking things with a decent anger towards the targets in front of them. The mage managing to push back so much on the power in front of them. Things that Rick could /feel/ have his hackles up, the hair on his body standing up on end, the energy quickening his breath and having him looking for an exit strategy.

But, as it had happened so many times before; a target who had taken pains to plan, to protect himself, to think outside the box, simply outplanned himself. Expecting something from the enemies in front of him compared to art and manuevering, another grandmaster of chest... and not someone taking the simple, easy solution in front of them. It went to show you that it should be the first thing one attempts; when a situation came up, at least try five rounds rapid.

Rick would have stepped forward after that. Attempt to get through so many of those cultist in confusion, to make /sure/ the man was dead. But there simply wasn't time. No time at all. There was the detonation of explosives, the feeling that this was all on borrowed time. And so, instead, it was on the radio. <<Exfil! Exfil now!>>

Running out, getting back on board, the after actions and the debriefs. Not a solid win, but a strong warning. All they could do to stay on top of it.