2469/Black Sun: Last Exit to Brooklyn

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Black Sun: Last Exit to Brooklyn
Date of Scene: 15 July 2020
Location: Alleyways: Brooklyn
Synopsis: Mariposa isn't dead thanks to the timely engagement of a bear, a sword, ICERs, a broken guitar, and a Sorcerer Supreme paid with one sock.
Cast of Characters: Jane Foster, Kara Lynn Palamas, Dane Whitman, James Barnes, Lara Croft, Jessica Drew, Stephen Strange, Mikhail Uriokovitch
Tinyplot: Black Sun


Jane Foster has posed:
Triskelion, Westchester County.

A day ago, an unfortunate tech hooked up Shirin Harami's phone and finally managed to bash through the Stark Industries security, fixed minor electrical damage and serious deterioration around the buttons, and finally slapped a new battery in.

Two hours ago, it started pinging unexpectedly.


*              8/3/20 19:18     53.78.11.318     tel:+2124731576
*              8/3/20 19:28     53.78.11.318     tel:+2124731576
*              8/3/20 19:48     53.78.11.318     tel:+2124731576
*              8/3/20 19:48     53.78.11.318     tel:+2124731576
*              8/3/20 20:08     53.78.11.318     tel:+2124731576

Immediate searches pinpoint the same phone number used to target Shirin Harami, from a man identified as one Richard Swift. The discovery is made at 7:53 PM, in time for the only transmission:

> Lights on, curtains up. Time to show America who you really are.

The report ends up on Director Kara Lynn Palamas' desk approximately ninety seconds later, back channeled into Operations to all agents higher than level 2. Flagging from the techs manning the computer system triangulate to a location on Long Island, breaking it down further to the borough of Brooklyn within ten frantic minutes.

With Agent Wilson's warnings that a murderous, racist ghost is attacking women of colour, it might be worthwhile to note the attack on Queens happened before the weekend.

Jane Foster has posed:
Tent City, Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn. 8:38 PM.

Much as the mayor would love to say nothing of the sort disrupts the peace, there are tent cities in New York City. Ignore the media reports, the homeless need places to live and the ruinous cost of living even among slumlords prevents some from reaching there. Enter Fork Greene Park, infamous for the martyrs' monument to the prison ships of the British and some pretty spiffy tennis courts. Once the site of a Revolutionary Era fort, the park now hosts a near permanent installation of tents erected by the unlucky, the indigent, the downtrodden. Attempts to roost them are next to impossible. They have been, for the most part, a lively and sometimes rollicking, noisy bunch prone to trouble, but not entirely.

The last year or two has seen a change to greater calm, greater community. The illegal evictions and unhappy NYPD patrols still happen, but the park is more of a gathering place than a spot for illicit deals, violence, mugging, sex crimes. The downtrodden of the modern masses are gathered peacefully in large part to one semi-unsung hero: Marisol Perez. It's not hard to know why with several semipermanent stalls set up on the pavement teaching important skills from coding with volunteers on donated laptops or carpentry to basic and advanced cooking. They're there every night, and a hopping Monday night beat poetry slam sees at least two hundred people packed in front of the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument to hear illegal immigrants and homeless residents, volunteers and activists, spitting slam poetry beats. The last of them is a woman speaking in rapid Spanish, following a Syrian refugee. The next to take the stage is odd, rather well-dressed, young, angry.

    "I stand here tonight in a dark silent room,
    Feeling only pain of society entombed
    Pictures of the blood flash in my head,
    The lives you stole, my sacred dead.
    Eye for an eye, the truth my knife
    To cut the strings that give you life."

He spits the verse in English, then in German. Bavarian, as it happens. A crowd of mixed faces looks around, frowning, and Marisol herself stands up. She's not the tallest of women, her hair pulled back with a butterfly-patterned scarf. "¡Oye! Rules weren't clear? We don't do violence, hate or sexual innuendo. You missed the first two, huh?"

The lights around the monument flicker, and the bulbs explode in a crescendo.

The electric grid flickers.

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
A Director's Duty is never done. Especially when you have both a serial killer on the loose using magical means to target women of color, and the Holy Lance is on American Soil and a subversive Nazi group is plotting attacks. It's been a hellish few weeks for Kara Lynn Palamar, which means just means it's normal.

When the report comes across her desk computer alerting her as she's reviewing the last few hours worth of reportson their latest 'acquisition' and the mental degradation of the creature that used to be a human, she slams her hand on her desk and swears, startling the tiger-striped cat named Zhuul.

She's already making her way down to the garage through a backdoor elevator in her office. She taps on her communicator.

<< Whitman, Croft, we've got a probable attack by Richard Swift, AKA The Shade coming. I want him. Get to the Brooklyn borough ASAP. Intel is finishing pinning the location now. You'll get the exact location sent to you. We are looking for women of ethnic background being harassed by unseen entities. Be prepared. >>

The communicator is switched as she picks up her celllphone, her lips twist as she dials a separate number. Not very many people have a direct dial to Doctor Strange, but then - not many people are Director's of WAND, either. "Doctor Strange. It's Kara Lynn. No time for chatter. We've got a magical entity on our hands that is stealing life from women, specifically targetting women of color. Suspect is Richard Swift, The Shade. I'd like an assist on this one. I do not want him getting away again."

She pauses.

"I'll owe you one."

SHIELD, afterall, can deal with many things. And Dane's sword can deal with many things. But, Kara Lynn knows they might get there too late. Might not be able to reach him, or the target in time even if they can find him. Strange is a rarely used resource, but - this time, to the Director, seems to be one of those times where it's worth it.

Dane Whitman has posed:
Well, when speed is of the essence, and Dane Whitman is on the case, the easiest option is to fly the equine skies, and so Dane Whitman and Lara Croft find themselves on the back of the mystic steed named Strider, making what would be dozens of minutes or more in traffic into less than ten. And if some folks in the buildings that line some of New York's street catch a glimpse of the white, winged stallion cutting through the air well...it's New York. They're somewhat used to that kind of thing around here, and probably just glad there's not a squadron of Alien Spacefighters or horde of demon-things or whatever behind it.

Still, with at least -some- effort to be mildly inconspicuous in play, Strider sets down out of line-of-sight of the park, about half a block away in a small alley (yay VTOL Horse). Dane slides out of the saddle with practiced ease, offering a hand to help steady Lara as she does the same (if she needs it), and then Strider disappears in a pulse of pale light. Back to munch on apples in Avalon for a while.

<<This is Whitman, we're in the vicinity of the signal, do you have a pinpoint yet?>>

James Barnes has posed:
So, he's not an Agent. Barnes lives in a weird limbo (figuratively), as well as the Triskelion (literally), as something of a ward of SHIELD. Is he a war criminal or the longest serving POW? He's got trackers implanted in his arm, to soothe the nerves of those antsy about letting a formerly-HYDRA assassin out on his own.

But that doesn't stop him from occasionally seeking solitude in his old neighborhoods. He's got a hide - one can't even really dignify it with the name 'safehouse' in an attic of one of the older apartment buildings. On his way out from there when the alert goes out, and he's heading to the park. On foot, arriving swiftly enough. To all appearances, just someone one step up from the indigent that dwell there - dressed in old fatigue pants, plain t-shirt, a compression sleeve and glove over the arm....and a ball cap reading 'WW II Veteran'. (Steve's to blame for that one.)

Tapping at his phone when he gets there, letting Kara know he's on site. <<The guy with the magic sword and the sparkle pony is en route, I think. Just saw him.>>

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara had just been settling in to her desk in the WAND Offices when they'd gotten the call. Dane had then made his offer of a very particular type of transportation which had made Croft's eyes momentarily grow noticeably larger. She'd agreed to go by that method... how could she not really? Such a thing is the kind of stories she got lost in as a child after all!

Along the way, Lara had said things that probably weren't that unusual for the rider to hear when offering this sort've transport to others.

"This is unbelievable!"

or

"No seriously, this is unbelievable!"

Even the British Aristocrat Adventurer can lose some of normal eloquence when riding on the back of a winged horse 'Striding' its way through the skies of New York.

When they land, she does indeed accept the help down from the flying steed, having a fair amount of experience with regular horses... but with those adorned with large wings? That's a new element when disembarking the magnificent mount!

"Thank you." She tells the Black Knight. "Well then..." She adjusts her SHIELD jacket and looks around. "Shall we?" She asks as he finishes calling in their arrival.

Jessica Drew has posed:
The discreet ping of an important message received makes Jessica look up from her book. The cafe's air redolent with honey and pistachio and the deep dark smell of Turkish coffee has been her staging area for the last few hours.

On call, she had been expecting, hoping, actually, that they would move on this mysterious force that had been targeting women.

She sends an acknowledgment signal back, she is on her way. Money left at her table she makes her way out.

Not three blocks from the park, her entrance in discreet black bulletproof clothing is much more prosaic than the other agents - all the better for reconnoitering the grounds without any attention on her.

Stephen Strange has posed:
It's kind of a wonder that the Sorcerer Supreme even carries a cell phone on his person. Certainly, he communes with divine entities across the gulf of time, space, and dimensions but even he's not immune to good deals on off-peak minutes. He'd taken the call, though he'd not said much beyond 'hello' and a murmur of acknowledgement before hanging up. The phone itself had disappeared into an unobtrusive pocket dimension where it could not bother him, and he'd moved to one of the many doorways within the Sanctum Sanctorum.

He knocks three times, taps on the doorframe with his knuckle, and mutters something. He turns the handle to open it, revealing a horde of creatures as tall as skyscrapers striding a barren landscape. Their heads like the lit ends of matches. He sighs and shakes his head, closing it quickly. Now two knocks, three taps, and another muttered word. The door opens again, and he strides through and out of a side door across the street from Fort Greene Park.

He's dressed conservatively so as to not draw a great deal of attention, though one would still easily label him a Greenwich Village bohemian. A long scarf wrapped about his neck despite the time of year and the weather, a dark turtleneck and a brown felt coat the runs down to his knees. He pushes the button at the crosswalk and waits patiently for the signal to 'WALK'.

Jane Foster has posed:
8:46 PM

The analysts tracking the phone signal hit just outside Brooklyn Borough Hall.

The pings from 8:08 PM come from 0.8 miles directly west of Fort Greene Park. Barely a ten minute ride at a leisurely pace, five minutes by car. Or two by horse, spider line or Soviet-tech arm.

The power is out at Fort Greene Park and Brooklyn Hospital Center flips over to generators 30 seconds later.

Fort Greene Park

For a few moments, lamps glow through the many leafy trees scattered around the broad concrete and red-bricked terraces rising up the slope to the Slave Ships Monument.

Golden floodlights washing over the grey Doric column and lamps on the paved trails sputter again, and then completely go out. Filaments flare and burst. Several of the hotter, higher-wattage bulbs immediately crack or explode in a sound not unlike stepping on dried bones. Widening eyes and shuffling feet ripple outwards as the first knell hits.

The blond poet thrusts his hand in the air, fingers pointed straight in a line all the way to the shoulder. It's executed with disturbing precision considering he's about seventy years too late to be in practice, his other arm bent and palm pressed to the waistline. "For America!" he shouts to be heard over the grumbling of a restless audience. They don't give him any time, a clot of people rushing him off away from the columns.

With the second knell, some start to curl into their seats or shiver in the summer heat. Stalking through the stands, Marisol vibrates with anger. "You don't be disrespecting the craft or the community. None of this! Get off my turf before I haul your ass out of here myself." That'd be a feat, she's 5'5 at best. "Madre di Dios."

Mutters and uneasy moans follow as night rushes in, and with it, a weirdly creeping cold. The third knell rings when the light hits 'WALK', when a pair that came by horseback touch the green, as a daughter of spiders feels something /tilt/, the hair on the back of an assassin's neck goes up, as Kara Lynn's head throbs.

A collective breath.

Image: https://315gqf1cb88e2qagu3f9xz91-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Fling-Promo-1-1140x570.jpg)

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
<< Good to have you on board, Agent Drew. Barnes. >> Kara Lynn hadn't worked much with either of the Agents, but certainly each knew of the other well enough.

Kara Lynn is then on her way on her personal SHIELD motorcycle. It's fast. Sleek. And, it'll get her there - not, perhaps quite as fast as Strider, but faster than a car would.

As she weaves through traffic, two different feeds continue to come into her. One, her comm system. The other, the feed and information from Intel in SHIELD on the situation.

<< All responding to SHIELD activity, signal has been pinpointed to Brooklyn Borough Hall. Lethal force is authorized only as a last resort. Repeat. We want the target alive, if possible. ETA 4 minutes until I have eyes on. Prepare for backup. Doctor Strange will be assisting on this --- >> she cuts off, sharply suddenly.

It's another few moments before she comes back, though now one can, perhaps, her the grit of her teeth as she forces herself through. She's been through worse, she's sure. She just can't think of the time right now because her head is throbbing like a jackhammer.

<< Repeat. Doctor Strange is assisting. Keep an eye out. >>

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
Mikhail is not normally sent on WAND missions. The key word is normally. The former Soviet soldier has been sent here because things are getting weird enough to require one of SHIELD's more unique agents. He has a special ICER for the occasion, though the still-human agent is focused on a tablet that is helping guide him as he approaches the park from the east. Because sometimes you just need to call in Bear Cavalry. For a big man, Mikhail can move quickly, power walking to avoid undue attention, and also to avoid getting too much focus from people that he'd rather keep out of this mess.

When the agent sees the Prison Ship monument, the large man is able to avoid stepping on anyone as he navigates the homeless city. As he approaches he calls into comms <<Ursa Major coming in from the east. Moving in on Prison Ship Monument.>>

Every hair on his neck is on end, and his more animal instincts are screaming out that something is not quite right as he claims the hill towards the monument. It was going to be fight or flight, and Mikhail does not have wings.

James Barnes has posed:
Winter may no longer be driving, but he's still there. Even as a diffuse set of instructions, the ghostly construct...and it requires a mental reset to try and dial it back from that default lethality, hard enough to make the mind's gears grate.

That salute is greeted with a scowl, lips pressed into that grim line, and it's all he can do to not yell back. Only training restrains James, as he starts circling around, looking for a way to flank the blond. Marisol can be a distraction. <<I know this guy.>> he taps over the link, just another gawker on his phone. <<Can't remember the name, but he was one of the ones involved at the incident in the Museum. These weirdo Nazi wannabes.>> Thanks for the precision, James.

Dane Whitman has posed:
"It never gets any less awesome." Dane assures Lara with a bit of a grin, concerning flying around on Strider, giving the Horse a pat on the neck before he disappears, and then along with Lara making his way towards the park. As it so happens, their path brings them alongside a certain Master of the Mystic Arts as they wait to cross the street.

"Doctor." Dane greets, giving the man a nod and a brief smile.

After crossing though, and drawing near the site of the unwelcome poetry performance, Dane frowns as his eyes fall upon the recent speaker. He cues up his comm, speaking quietly, <<Don't recognize the face, but there's a guy here that's giving me all the same vibes the hostage-takers in Bryant Park did. Be careful, those guys were more...or less...than human. More like made out of some kind of energy. Either way, good chance where there's one, there's a good deal more.>>

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara strides into the park with Dane, she too looking upon that of Doctor Strange to offer him a nod of her head. The wind across the park picks up and sends her tied-back hair into a far drift out to her right as she looks toward the audience that the speaker was calling out to.

After a few moment's, Lara's eyes lower and she raises a hand up to touch her forehead, then down to her torso to hover it there.

"I'm feeling a sense of nausea." Lara tells Dane, and Strange for that matter. "I don't think it was the ride here... that would've come on much sooner. I think it's something in the air here..."

She shakes her head softly and looks up to the gathered crowds in the park with them. "That's... just a guess, however." She adds in her soft toned voice.

Jane Foster has posed:
Fort Greene Park
Slam poetry evokes emotions. It cuts to the quick with none of the restrictions found in classic forms. It reaches into the body and mind, pulling out reactions.

A little Italian girl in a t-shirt starts crying, hands going to her face. Blood drips off her wrists and stains her side.

A Black guy cocks his head, dreds snapping like agitated snakes, and anyone passing might see glittering eyes and sharp fangs.

On Myrtle Ave, a cyclist falls off his bike and hits the ground. On all fours, he whispers to the gutter.

A kid sitting in front of a computer starts coughing, thin body shaken by tremors. The volunteer hugs him while whispering comfort. Gmail tabs start opening and firing off spontaneously on the Chromebook. All bear the same question: Where is she?

Jessica Drew has posed:
SHIELD training has instilled bone-deep reflexes in Jessica that she doesn't heed. A gun in this crowd would kick off unnecessary panic. She slips into the crowd like a spider onto an adversary's web careful not to alert her prey.

Something is very wrong ahead of her though she can't say what it is. Warily, she scans the crowd, testing the web, catching sight of a small, angry Hispanic woman who shouts at someone. Ah. The blond man would be strange at any time with his archaic salute, arm at his side like the hero he wants to emulate.

Fine-tuning her senses in a crowd can be trying. She stops, closes her eyes, the darkness that had descended on them, covering her strangeness, allowing her to focus on Mr. Nazi Salute. He glows like a firefly in the dark to her, too hot for someone healthy. Moving forward through the crowd, displacing people frozen in place, the Spider-Woman slowly makes her way forward then stops frozen in place for an instant as she realizes that she neither hears the familiar beat of a heart or the shush of breath from the man.

One finger pressed to her ear-bead she reports.  <<"I think I have our target. Look at the the stage, guy making the Nazi salute. No heartbeat. Drew here, flanking him to stage right.">>

Stephen Strange has posed:
As Doctor Strange enters the park, he opens his mouth to say something. But before he can, something seems to knock him off his feet. He reaches out to catch a hand against a bench, leaning on it momentarily. He stands upright again only for another invisible wave to topple him onto the seat, leaning back into it. A third gives him cause to grasp the wrought iron handrail with white knuckles, eyes squeezed shut and a sickly pallor on his face. The fourth and final leads him to breathe a long, slow sigh before he hoists himself to his feet again.

"Whatever this ghost is," he offers, his voice thick and froggy as he steps up alongside Lara and Dane, "This is a place of power. It feeds from it. Makes it stronger."

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
<< The Terrace. Magical emination, spewing from it. Also. Blonde poet. I can see him from here. Soaked in magic. >> Kara Lynn says, as the seconds tick down and she gets in sight of the building.

<< 2 minutes out. We need to stop whatever is going on, before it gets out of control. Some kind of effect, or spell, is being woven people. If our zombie-friend is any indication, our suspect is somehow twisting magic to weaponize other people to do his dirty work. >>

She can't, unfortunately, go faster. She's already taking a few risks on the bike, and with traffic, and traffic lights.

Jane Foster has posed:
Radios spark and pop, voices whispering through the crackling blue electricity, all blending in a chattery patois of Spanish, Urdu, Cantonese, Bantu, French. If it has a speaker, for a twenty foot radius on the eastern side of the park, it radiates the same broadcast. Stop hurting us stop hurting us stop hurting us stop hurting us!

Mama? He's a bad man. Don't you remember he's a bad, bad man...? strums a guy on his guitar beside Dane and Lara, the strings and the voice mingled together in a mournful growl.

Not everyone who lives here is adversely affected. The poetry slam seems to have reached an end for the moment, but the park offers plenty else. Tromping back to their tents or the spots they've claimed as theirs, residents go to gabbing or working on their latest projects. The teaching booths try to resume work, but for every five, one's caught up in their thoughts. Holding their sides, rubbing their temples. Stimming, but not really. Look long enough and they aren't hard to spot, speckled far and wide.

Finding a blond poet being shoved out of the trees isn't so hard to do. Confrontation lasts only so long, he isn't fighting them. He just smirks, tugging on the sleeve of his shirt with dark confidence and calculated promises, standing just on the other side of the boundary. Something that won't take long for his hunters to spot: Mik, Jessica, Bucky, Dane. He's right over there, sort of ringed in, and idly standing back for the others to leave. They do, peeling off with a shaken head or a choice bit of offense. After all, not like Marisol is there to tell 'em not to.

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
<<Da,>> Mikhail says over comms, <<Strange heat signatures, very similar to before.>> He is still hurrying, though his right hand does not stray far from being able to reach his hip. His left hand holding onto the tablet for dear life as he navigates the mess that is the park, his long legs covering ground quickly. It is not a good day, and he is not the only hunter here.

<<About same distance out, two minutes. Moving in on foot.>> Mik's heavy accent is evident over comms, <<Likely more than one Nazi, there is never only one.>> When he sees the blonde one he says, <<I have eyes on him. Will approach when team in position.>> He takes up a spot by a tree, observing, though it is not right. Nothing about this is.

Dane Whitman has posed:
"You all right?" Dane reaches out a hand to help steady the Sorcerer Supreme, a look of concern flashing across his face, which continues as he glances to Lara at her admission of nausea. Though as Strange and Kara alike confirm a bit of what's going on, his eyes sweep towards the Terrace. "I've dealt with this kind of thing before, but you're the real expert. I can make sure our "poet" doesn't go anywhere, or I can try to siphon off some of this power with the Blade up on the Terrace, maybe buy time if nothing else. These guys have been using a lot of misdirection. I'm not saying we should let the decoy go, but might not be what we want to focus on to the exclusion of anything else."

James Barnes has posed:
<<This is getting weirder,>> James says, over the link. <<It's gotten a significant fraction of the people here. These guys....they're hard to fight and harder to kill. I got into hand to hand with one, after the incident at the Met, and he damn near cleaned my clock. Do we have any idea what they're trying to accomplish?>> Frustration in his voice - he knows very well what a relatively narrow skillset he's got, when it comes to addressing threats. Mostly consisting of either shooting it or punching it.

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
<< Shit. >>

The word is decisive. Final. And spoken through gritted teeth in the same effort that someone fighting a massive migrane might speak.

<< All Agents. This is about to become the equivilent of a necromantic chernobyl if we don't do something. If you have Strange in sights, let him know there's a massive magical battery that's fueling this thing in the terrace. He needs to control, absorb, redirect, stop it - anything he can do. Whitman, buy him some time if you can. >>

Kara Lynn climbs off her bike, staring, hard, unreadable as her eyes take in the pure magical energy that none of the others, save, perhaps, Strange, can see. A blessing, and a curse.

She calls in reinforcements, to assist with evacuations, as well as blockading the area off, in the meantime, orders shouted out over the comms.

Stephen Strange has posed:
"It's hot," Strange murmurs, away in that other world again as he reaches out to touch something that isn't there, "Come back, come back. Not again. No, no no no ... where? WHERE?"

It's as though the Doctor is in another place, another time. One moment he is holding an arm up before his face, as though shielding himself from blows that come from, well, nowhere. The next his sickly complexion is riven with a throbbing forehead vein as the blood rushes to the surface and he appears furious, screaming at someone or something unperceived.

"Low magic," he gasps, his eyes focusing for a moment as he falls to one knee and plants a hand on the ground to steady himself, "Necromancy." The word rings through at the same time Kara says it through the radio.

"Absorb it ... " he mutters, pushing himself up to his feet and lurching forward with drunken steps towards the monument, "By the Seraphim's great and hooded host, contain the malice of this unruly ghost!"

He lifts a hand, turning it clockwise through the air and leaving a trail of what look like fiery symbols and lines as he does. The odd design grows before him, stretching out to try and surround the battery. The equivalent of lead lining for a nuclear reactor gone haywire.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara steps over to the man with the guitar who had been singing that horribley unusual song. She speaks to him, there's a back and forth, before she pulls out a long leather wallet. There's an exchange of cash to the man, who then offers Croft his guitar.

She exhales and walks back toward the others, as she goes, carrying the guitar... she pulls out a knife and opens its silver blade up. One by one she starts cutting the strings of the guitar until they're all snapped.... She dumps the guitar into a waste bin that she's passing by as she rejoins her fellow WAND members and WAND consultants (Doctor Stephen Strange). "I really didn't like that song..." Lara exhales as she starts to survey what they've all been dealing with.

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
Mikhail hears the calls over the comms and notes the presence of Agent Drew. He then notes the rules of engagement for the fight, and the ICER is technically non-lethal. Following those, the agent draws his modified ICER, including an expanded trigger guard for potentially larger fingers, and lets loose a few blasts at the Nazi, hoping to incapacitate the enemy, hoping that the mods on the weapon were sufficient. The Russian is still holding onto the tablet, though it no longer has his attention.

Dane Whitman has posed:
"Right, absorbing duty it is." Dane Whitman looks to Lara, indicating Doctor Strange with a cant of his head, "Watch his back, and keep him on his feet." There's a flicker of grim amusement at the ruins of the guitar, but then the time for joking is done, as Dane is racing on-foot towards the tower, extracting his photonic blade and turning on the accompanying shield as he goes. He doesn't plan on being terribly gentle about anyone getting in his way, but none of it will be lethal, at least.

Jane Foster has posed:
Up springs the protective barrier of the Seraphim's call around the tower. Forty-five feet plus a bit at its apex, the cylinder squeezes downwards in a spiral to hit the ground in a wave. Ugly blackened filaments storm around the base, visible like smoke rising from a burning tire, oily and thick. Sooted lines might be visible scrawled on the stone to the height of about 8 feet, scratched arcane symbols glowing a livid red at first and turning to blue as the underpinning magic starts to come to life.

The shield contains it, but won't completely deplete the spells right away. There are opportunities yet to feast.

It doesn't take imagination to understand what those emblems are. Runic designs, the likes of which adorned the banners and t-shirts of SS Invicta, are painted in a way only magic shows. Once ignited, any can perceive them. The black sun wheels mounted over the copper door and painted on the terrace itself are harder to pick out. They only come into focus as the wall rages, slowly but surely consuming the magic. The bent radii reach as far as the site of the slam poetry site.

https://1001freedownloads.s3.amazonaws.com/vector/thumb/135222/Anonymous_sun_wheel.png

Jane Foster has posed:
One ICER blast veers right of the blond man and the second causes him to jerk back. Bucky's statements prove accurate; he moves quick and steadily back two steps, but that doesn't compensate for a lucky shot, a great marksman, and a modified gun. A blue spark blooms. It hits the poet straight in the shoulder and he just... disintegrates, the energy burst rippling out from there and consuming him in the space between a breath and a blink.

To Jessica, the heat signature is gone.

James Barnes has posed:
"Crap," says James, startled into bluntness. Then he's drawing his own ICER - which is not modded like Mikhail's, admittedly. But it might still be able to do *something*, even if the Bear has taken care of what looks like the immedate problem....or decoy.

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
SHIELD responds, and the block begins to get blocked off from incoming traffic, to minimalize potential casualities with Kara Lynn's directions.

Crap, indeed. Kara Lynn watches as the magic unfolds, becomes manifest. She curses under her breath, the theory becoming proven fact.

As she barks directions for blockades and evacuations, she traverses the area to where the poet once stood, and is now likely nothing but ash, and pulling off her jacket she lays this over the debris so as to not let it blow away. Something more for Simmons to analyze, later. Maybe others of a more arcane facet.

<< Uncertain how many others are affected. Stay on guard, >> she tells the WAND Agents and Operatives alike.

Her eyes turn, then, to Dane and Doctor Strange; the caging of this calamity, seemingly, solely in their hands at this point.

Jessica Drew has posed:
<<Boom. I have no problem with that. The first target is down. What else in your sights, Mikhail?">>

Jessica has just lifted her hands to gift the man with a 'venom blast' while around them a demon from hell in the form of a tower takes shape before her eyes. She backs away, less out of fear but uncertainty of what it is going to do. Signs unknown to her seem to chase each other around its surface. It expands toward her and the crowd erupts in a frenzy of fear. Searching for others like the blonde man, Jessica moves through the crowd, nearly stumbling over a child crying for her mother.

<"Do you copy, Mikhail?">

Dane Whitman has posed:
With little in the way of opposition in his path, Dane reaches the Tower easily enough. The photonic sword is tucked away, and quickly replaced by the Ebony Blade. There's not a lot of finesse to it, thankfully, as Dane simply lifts the blade at a slight angle...one he knows causes it to absorb magical energies...and starts to move into the expanding field, hoping the seemingly bottomless reservoir of mystic energy he wields will be able to work it's particular brand of magic without needing to you know...deface a local landmark.

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
<<Threat neutralized,>> Mik calls over comms as the ICER works, <<Related note: New ICER works as intended.>> He looks and sees the tower and grumbles in Russian about Nazis, peppered heavily with expletives. <<Nothing else in sight, Drew. Also copy.>> The Russian grumbles and notices the agents securing the perimeter, <<This is Ursa Major, no other hostiles visible, will continue to secure area.>> With that, Mik checks the tablet again to see if any other heat signatures show up.

Lara Croft has posed:
Not but a moment or so after Lara rejoined the others at the edge of the crowd, she'd seen Jessica Drew inside the crowd ... being confronted by 'something'. Lara's hands go around to the small of her back, pulling her own ICER handgun out from the nylon holster dangling down near the waistline of her trousers. She activates the weapon, causing the blue lights along its surface to all flash brightly...

But from her left, a strange and otherworldly hand grabs Lara by the shoulder and throws her at least ten feet backward to land dead-center on top of a park picnic table! Wincing, Croft starts to roll to one side before she sees the spectral-like figure lunging at her over that same distance!

Falling back on to her spine, Lara raises her ICER handgun and starts to unload it at the beastly attacker before it can land directly upon her!

The figure falls OVER and beyond Croft, rolling into the darkness of the crowd.

Jessica Drew has posed:
The flash of an ICER booting up grabs Jessica's attention. The lights and the gun's owner arc through the air in a parabola that ends on a picnic table. Jessica sets into a dead run toward her fellow SHIELD agent.

<"Croft? You okay?"> she yells, as she leapfrogs a couple cowering on the ground, to her right the Tower rises into the night sky. Beyond Lara something dark scatters the crowd.

Jane Foster has posed:
One by one the Nazis fall. One by one, their signatures poof from the tablet carried by Mikhail.

Necromancy, thick and stygian, resists burning. It resists the call of the yawning abyss embodied in a dark blade and a wise man's broken hands, like singing to like, but the hunger proves too strong to resist.

That terrible working does not fall without a fight. It keens with the rising howls of the entombed forced to fuel its making. Shapes swirl in and out, almost tangibly human, mouths and gaunt, thin faces practically skeletal in contours screaming out unheard. Their words were no different in 1776 than in 1943. Pleas go no less heard, even if they might speak German, Dutch, English, Irish Gaelic instead of Yiddish, Polish, Russian, Czech. Gaunt arms emerge and bend, washed away.

For one horrible, lasting moment, the collective hundreds entombed in Fort Greene come awake to cry forth a single word in low rolling chords that wobble through the body and crawl up the spine, in a whisper at the ear. "Justice."

For in justice might there finally be sleep. ICER rounds fired ignite human bodies that collapse on themselves, shelves going up in a blue-white burst. Where once was a tall blond man or pale fellow slouching by as a volunteer, there is suddenly nothing.

James Barnes has posed:
Buck, it must be owned, looks put-upon. Not even enraged or frightened, but the kind of weary, resigned annoyance one might see on the face of a parent who has *told* these kids a *thousand times* not to leave this mess out. "Jesus, these guys never give up. It never works, and they still keep trying," His voice is a growl....and if the dark magic dismays him, it doesn't show. Another day, another paycheck, another bunch of goons in sharply tailored black uniforms. "I was at this before any of you were born, and the job still isn't done."

Stephen Strange has posed:
"By Munnopor's many moons," Strange chants, hands moving through the air as a chill wind picks up around him and tears at his clothes like a hurricane, "By the Fangs of Farallah! Expel this darkness from this place, make clean Brooklyn's newly-mended scar!"

The energies whirl around within the seal of the Seraphim Shield, slowly dissipating as the Doctor shunts them out of the night air and away into himself. As the necromantic energies begin to ebb, the Doctor's eyes screw shut and his features strain. Years seem to wash off of him like eroding sandstone, years and years of age withering his features. His hair thins and greys, pale blue veins rise on the backs of his hands. At once tears stream from his eyes, though they are black blood not salt water.

Then it's done. His features return to normal, though the dark blood still stains his face. He lets out a gasping sigh, leaning forward as though having just run a marathon. He coughs, shakes his head, and runs his hands through his hair.

"Hm."

Jane Foster has posed:
Revenants of the Revolutionary War. Spectres of the Shoah. What is the difference in the end when deprived their rightful rest by fell doings, all with the sole intent to pin the wings of a butterfly to the ground and rip the life from her bones?

They aren't fighting within the spell or the knight's plight, but pleading, calling out, and the hedge witches, the sensitives, the mystics drawn here sob with the same slap of hands to their thighs, feet stomped on the ground, moans and cries and ululating wails swelling across the borough in a patchwork fashioned from hardship, travail, friendship, weak trust.

Awful soot clouds writhe within the cylinder of force and flame wreathing the Prison Ships Memorial. Formerly unseen scratches catch flame, the interlocking runes sizzling with the clean impressions of woodsmoke and salt. Fluttering papers and swirling debris fly on the winds, whipped in tandem, a smattering of them accompanied by the lyrics of the city, chanted low magics in children's voices, a weeping Italian, the man with the dreds dancing a beat of his people, the sublime and the debased crashing together like Brooklyn herself. Furious clapping, the click-clack of rosary beads and keyboards and trains on the ancient rails comes to a careening pitch, a halt when the spell's drunk dry and--

A woman stumbles over and drops at James Barnes' feet, eyes bloodshot, face haggard, the silver-foil-and-papered wings falling away from her in a cocoon.

"The island's torn open and the black dawn's fingers stretch poison from riverbank. Don't forget what you did in Normandy," she babbles.

The last of her borrowed energy given to the task, Mariposa faints.

This, when it all washes away, leaves the tower as grey as it ever is, the copper verdigris at the top a bit shinier, the windows a bit less grimy.