4244/Nibbles of the Hellmouth

Nibbles of the Hellmouth
Date of Scene:	29 November 2020
Location:	Dawnrise Apartment Complex
Synopsis:	A hellish gate opens in Westchester, spewing imps and a massive demon!
Cast of Characters:	Lucifer, Amanda Sefton, Clint Barton, Peggy Carter, Jean Grey, Rogue

---

Lucifer has posed:
In the street, a small uncertain crowd has gathered, to take pictures and gawk. Impatient cars blare their horns and drive around the item, though. A refrigerator seems to have been dumped there, the doors flung open, resting on it's back. Items from inside the fridge are littered around in the street and sidewalk, but most interestingly, these food items appear to be cooking, by some unnatural heat. An egg carton is nearby, open, but the eggs are popping and sizzling, cooking in their shells and on the concrete, as if on a stovetop. No one has yet tested if the ground is hot; the onlookers are starting to think better of hanging around.

Looking up will give more answers: after all, where did this fridge come from? There is a sizable hole in the upper apartment in the Dawnrise's fifth floor, where strange flutters of mist-like coiling motion slip through the air, like heavy waves of heat. It 'feels' like there is a raw, malicious intent there, to any living creature. The vibration in the air contains a low threat of a hiss inside it, but is subtly building.

Naturally, the street and apartments are emptying, as people react to that sensation in a natural desire to find safety from it.

Amanda Sefton has posed:
What attracts Daytripper to this place isn't the frying eggs on the pavement, or the fridge itself. Nor even the damage to the apartment -- though she's not surprised when she steps out of her portal and sees it. What attracts the gypsy witch to the scene is the sense of a hellmouth opening within the confines of the urban area she has claimed as her territory to protect. Sure, Westchester isn't strictly New York City, but she has *friends* out that way. One friend, in particular: Kurt Wagner, whom she knows works at a school somewhere in the county.

She's never been to that school. But she is fairly protective of her friends that way.

Thus, the portal she emerges through appears in mid air about even with the hole in the apartment wall. Daytriper glides through, held aloft by eldritch energies, to take stock of just what the disturbance is. The place, to her magical senses, definitely stinks of Hell. Steeling herself and squaring her shoulders, she moves through that gaping hole, all those floors up, and into the apartment itself.

"Knock-knock. Anyone home?"

Clint Barton has posed:
Exactly WHEN did Clint get transferred to WAND again? Was it while he was sleeping, while he was out on a mission to Tajikistan? Or while he was (re)writing yet another AAR about the movements of the southern northern tribes on the border in the aforementioned country?

Still, it was an alert given by SHIELD, and contrary to popular belief, the Agency doesn't have an infinite amount of personnel who can respond at a moment's notice.

Shhhh.. trade secret.

So, here he is, the SHIELD agent that side-hustles as an Avenger rolling up (in style) to the scene of the refrigerator seemingly lodged now in the city's street, spewing its own version of hard boiled eggs. The agent that steps from the vehicle is dressed in black, the darkly colored emblem on the shoulder announcing his affiliation with the somewhat secretive agency. Hawkeye doesn't look hurried; his bow is out, however, and he's careful how he exits the car with his quiver on his back.

"Aw... hell."

Bringing his gaze upwards to the building above, blue eyes narrowing as he does his quick scene assessment. Once that's done?

"Aw... hell."

Peggy Carter has posed:
Nearby and able to respond are big qualifications for SHIELD agents in incidents such as this. So, while she's generally no where NEAR WAND operations, Peggy is more than well qualified to be Barton's back up for this mission on the sheer fact that she was up in the area. So, in the passenger seat of the black sedan that Baron drives, the 1940s styled woman has no need to concentrat on driving at all as she stares at the oddly spewed fridge. "...That looks a touch more than a marital dispute." She deadpans flatly as they park.

Then she's sliding out of the car with him at the same time, T-strap heels a very quite click on the cement below, as she follows his eyes from the scene towards the upper part of the building. "...I will take that second one literaly. Perhaps not. Maybe it's simply a strange burning fire. We could be so lucky." She mutters to him. She's then assessing the area, considering if going inside is wiser or remaining out here. As she sees a few gawkers, she comments flatly, "This scene is now under SHIELD control, move on for your own safety. Come now. Go!" She's got her most commanding voice on, and a heavy glare, apparently having decided to secure the perimeter for the moment. "If you want to go inside, I can keep eyes out here for people with more idiocy than self preservation instincts. Or we can leave them two it. I've got your back, either way."

Jean Grey has posed:
Jean Grey and Rogue are out and about on a usual day's business in Salem Center, the nearest major town to Xaviers School for Gifted Youngsters. There are some small errands (as well as the non-stop necessity of holiday shopping) to do at the local shopping spots, and it serves as an excuse for the two of them to hop by a cafe for a couple pastries and coffee. The season has turned, so the eternal scourge of PSL has been replaced in favor of pepperint mocha. Such is the way of the changing coffee seasons.

Strolling with their bags and sipping their drinks, it's hard not to notice the crowd that has gathered outside, nor miss the honking horns. Compared to the nearby city, it's usually pretty quiet up here, and that sort of noise pollution a bit more rare. Moving nearer, it's hard to make out exactly what's happening with the fridge and its spilled contents, although it becomes clearer as they get closer.

As does the palpable malevolence.

"Well, something definitely feels wrong here," she confides to her friend. And as it happens, they're qualified to help, so naturally they start going the opposite, non-running away option. "Suppose we ought to go see. I'm going to scan around a bit. You want to go straight up up? I'll keep in touch with you." She immediately starts reaching out with her mind to take stock of the area, the apartment, its fleeing residents, and even that presence - which may be a bad idea, but such is hero'ing.

Rogue has posed:
With Jean, Rogue nods her head softly to her words. "I'll take to the skies." She offers as she flies toward the vehicle they took to get here to put some bags away in the back before arching upward in to the sky.

Up in the sky now, Rogue's eyes are scanning the chaos that this situation is creating and she reaches out with her mindlink (presumably) to Jean. <"Well this is far from normal. Even for this apartment building. Gonna try'n get a little closer though.">

The Belle swoops down out of the sky and comes up along the front facing facade of the apartment complex to try to get a look through the windows and the damage already done.

Lucifer has posed:
The apartment as Amanda, and then Rogue, move to look inside is unnaturally dark, ashy, the interior blown to bits by super-heat: burned and smouldering, ashes there in the room with the hole. A gate, or portal of some sort, has been torn open, a scar in the fabric of things, approximately eight feet across. There's a strange, odd fleshy lumpiness inside it or coming out of it that won't make a lot of sense at just a look, but it is emerging, like a bizarre slug larger than a person, with a big black beak-like form on the end. There is another humanoid present, just standing there, robed in purple, hood down, as if focusing on the thin lines still in place on the floor under the opening portal.

Ten eyes -- five sets, all turn to owlishly stare at Amanda when she shows up right in front of them like that. They scream, fiercely, their power radiant near the portal.... but don't attack.

They Scatter. In all directions.

Little flying imps, their wings blackened and vined with purple and pulsing wretched shades of pus-pink, chatter at each other in some hell-tongue and bolt. Some go deeper into the apartment complex, one tries to go aerial out through the hole above Amanda. Another breaks a window and stops short to look at Rogue. It's sort of contemplative. "SKURK?" asks the imp at Rogue, friendly, but with a lot of teeth. "SKURK SKURKEN?"

The other demonic critters that had already cavorted into the building prior to the arrival of the heroes and agents start to have now made street level, and three tumble out of the main spinning lower doors of the apartment complex. They're arguing in high voices about who is going out the door first among them, and clawing at each other's ears and shoving. It slows their exodus considerably, this door-argument. Another one belches fire at the other two, setting part of the wall aflame at the lower doors, making entry dangerous to non-imps.

Amanda Sefton has posed:
As she alights on the floor, Amanda hisses slightly at the heat. She pulls her magics together, deciding continuing to fly is best. Her eyes fall on the hellgate and she groans. This means banishing spells, lots of them. Never mind the work of actually closing the literally damned gate -- which can't be done if she's in danger of being overwhelmed by demons. She swears in German and throws a shield up around her, pulling back towards the hole. She does not leave the apartment, however.

Meanwhile, the imps scatter. One flies straight at her, heading for the sky. She spins, drops her shield, and blasts it with a powerfully conconssive bolt of eldritch energy.

Lucifer has posed:
From the sky, SPLAT, an imp that was shot by Amanda's eldritch energy tumbles, spins a little, and falls right next to Peggy, one wing gone.

It's raining refridgerators and imps.

Clint Barton has posed:
"Yeah," Clint agrees with his current partner, "Got it right in one."

Echoing Peggy's instructions for crowd control, the archer is calling out in his own loud voice, "Back up, move along. This isn't gonna get you extra views on Youtube. Go on.." He knows he's not going to be in too many pictures; who is he anyway?

The approach of the pair of women actually gains Clint's attention, and he's in the middle of calling out to them, calling them out, "Hey... scene's secur-" and blue eyes follow Rogue as she takes the skies, before he sighs and glances back at Peggy, brows rising.

It's the appearance of the imps, however, that gains Hawkeye's attention, and there's a soft swear before he pulls an arrow quickly, sets it to a nock, and looses it towards the firebreather. "Think there's a chance for a raise later?" is asided to Peggy. "At least I'm considering renegotiating my contract with the Old Man."

Peggy Carter has posed:
Well, that answers the question about outside or in. Both are dangerous and there's more risk to civilians out here right now. A gawking security guard from a near by building gains her attention and she stares at him just a second before snapping. "YOU! Start getting people off the streets. Evac them down this thoroughfare and two streets over, at least. Go, go go!" Peggy commands with the sharpness of a proper military order. She might not be technical military now, but she certainly served long enough and she knows how to put that tone in her voice that people just obey. So, she's gained them a bit of extra crowd control help.

Which means they can focus on taking out the actual threats that now seem to be doubly raining from the sky. "Looks like we have more than a bit of company, but I'll take human looking and helpful right now over..." Peggy jerks a bit to the side, her gun whipped out and pointed straight down at the imp which has tumbled next to her shoes. "...infernal and winged." Being this close to the thing, it's not a safe shot. So, instead, Peggy slams the heel of her pump into it's little head with a sound that might slightly haunt her later, but she needs the enemy handled, not pitied.

"If they give you a raise, it's not going to be for demonic clean up, no matter how well earned." Peggy deadpans to Clint as scuffs imp off of her shoe and then brings her gun up to start target practice on the more dangerous looking creatures in the sky. She's a disciplined shooter, not just spraying and praying, but waiting until she's got a solid shot on a certain enemy then placing 2 well targetted bullets into it before moving on. Sharp a marksman as she's ever been.

Jean Grey has posed:
There are rumors, sometimes, at Xaviers School: when the leaders of the school- first Charles Xavier himself, and then his protege Jean Grey -are powerful telepaths, when they can freely enter a person's mind and alter their thoughts, perceptions and memories, can it be trusted that such a power is never abused? That inconvenient recollections might not vanish, with no evidence they were there in the first place? These are only rumors, surely...

...but there's a truth behind them. And here, as Peggy and Clint try and contain the situation, she does WAND a favor:

As the crowds flee the apartment or gawk from the streets, Jean reaches out to their minds, keeping back natural human panic while still guiding them away from the area. More than that, she subtly clouds their perceptions and newly-formed memories. An appliance may have fallen, certainly. Such things are rare but understandable accidents. But boiling hot streets? Scattering imps? Surely not.

Steam pipe. Large ravens. Maybe there was a coyote. They get coyotes out here.

<"I'm clearing the area,"> she tells Rogue, and ineed, Amanda too, when her mind touches another that is more familiar amongst the many. But she can also see what Rogue sees, and has reason for concern. <"Will you need help?">

For now she remains at the street level, and her attention turns over toward Clint and Peggy, who likewise stand apart from the panicked crowd, and seem to share her concern for it. "I am trying to get the people under control," she explains. "Don't mind my flying friend. She's pretty tough."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue is just outside of that window that shatters, her eyes having been on the madness unfolding within the apartment and she was about to speak more toward Jean... when that Imp burst through the glass and stopped short on the window's sill.

His little comments aren't lost on her, of course. She often gets jokes like that when her white bangs are wind-swept back over her head. A smirk is given to the Imp then as she flies toward him and reaches her gloved hands out to put them on the edge of the sill as well. She gives the Imp a smug smirk. "First of all. Rude." She says back at it quickly, before continuing. "Secondly. Whatever you'n your friends are up to in there is probably gonna go poorly for ya, so ya might wanna scamper back inside that big dumb demon doorway ya'll threw up in there. Cause if ya start causin' trouble in our neighborhood, we're gonna have t'turn ya inta smudgy green smears on the pavement. Just a kindly warnin' is all though. Take it or leave it."

She says it all friendly-like, accompanying her words with a sweet smile.

As the wingless Imp that Amanda dispatched from above falls right past Rogue's shoulder, the Southern Belle glances at it as it goes, then looks back to the one on the window with her. "See?" She says, grinning at the Imp.

<"We got a buncha Gremlins pourin' out've a ... ugh, a portal, or somethin'. Looks like some kinda magic gone awry up here. This could get real messy, Jean.">

Lucifer has posed:
The imps by the door have sorted out who got to go out first, finally, only to have a fourth show up and upset that when it comes tearing out and pushes two of its cohorts down. A new little fight erupts, into a ball of screaming imps at the doorway. Proof that the things are strong, and most definitely breathe fire, because there's some other new fires going up at the front of the building's main doors. More have also exited, and are starting to dive-bomb into the street. Peggy's shots find at least one more mark.

Jean's mental powers can pick up that the apartment building is not free of people, there are others inside, that are hunkered down in their own apartments. It isn't a lot - seemingly the awful 'sense' of the hellish gateway did mostly empty the building. People don't want to hang around hell, not at all.

Rogue's imp narrows its eyes at her. Whether it understands her words or not may be unclear, but tone, it can get. It lifts a finger of a three fingered hand (it seems to have lost two fingers, maybe), and stares at Rogue while very deliberately and very slowly inserting a finger into one of its nostrils and picking its nose. "Skik," says the imp, as if deciding to agree with Rogue, and offers a hand for a handshake with her. It was the booger-hand, though.

That mass at the portal is arriving further, the big strange sausage-like shape has continued it's arrival from the portal, shoving that rip open further with it's hellish, horrifying presence. The humanoid standing near the gate is feverishly holding focus - perhaps to control the portal, maintain it, or continue it? Hard to tell.

At the street level, cars are starting to get hung up as people leave, but Jean's kept it out of a panic state. It's allowed a black Stingray to also make arrival, idling in the entrance to the apartment's parking. Clint has seen that car before, as has Amanda.

Amanda Sefton has posed:
Amanda's head comes up as Jean brushes her mind. She recognizes her. <"I need the building cleared, if I'm going to get this gate shut down,"> she tells the telepath, and by extension the other minds Jean links with. <"The more monsters I have to deal with here, the more likely we are to have to face the really big guns."> Because she can't hold them all back by herself. And there's an image in her mind when she says 'big guns' that suggests what she's referring to are big alright... but infernal, evil, and very likely to try to destroy the world.

With that message conveyed, the witch starts firing on the creatures coming out of the portal, trying to drive them back.

And, when... *if* she ever clears a big enough space, she pours her energy into erecting a shield in front of the gate to keep anything more from breaking through.

Especially those slug things.

That's when the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. There's something else incoming... though not necessarily from the gate. <"Company's coming,"> she tells Jean. <"I don't know who.">

Clint Barton has posed:
"Of course not. Why should they? None of this actually exists," a grouse is returned.

Clint's keeping an eye out for his partner, as always, and watching the marksman (markswoman) in action, he nods his head once before gesturing towards the doorway that is aflame. Another deep sigh exits the archer, and shooting a comment over his shoulder, "Headed in to check the entry.. I'll keep my eye on you," he jogs in the direction of the flaming entryway.

Let it not be said, however, that he doesn't notice or appreciate help. The way Peggy words it pretty much sums up the entire episode at the moment; human over imp, every single time. Clint's had nothing but bad luck with the little b* and this does nothing to change his mind about it all.

Bow is brought up again, and another two arrows are loosed into the creatures; electrical currented arrow-heads to at least give them a stun so he can get past. Ducking and dodging through the flames, with a moment of using his bow as *gasp* a fighting stick to smack one out of the way, he's headed in, but catches the arrival of the Stingray out of the corner of his eye before he's within the entry.

"Stingray's friendly. As friendly as a guy named 'Lucifer' can be." The archer searches the atrium before calling out to people cowering; when met with the obvious form of egress inaccessible, they're opting for freezing. Not a good plan. "C'mon.. out the back.. go-go-go-go!"

Peggy Carter has posed:
"I'll be here. Keep on comms, call if you need me." But, while Peggy would generally prefer to be at her field partner's back, she trusts each of them to operate solo fairly safely and feels like it's important that SHIELD has eyes on both sides of the situations. Therefore, she lets him disappear into the building without much fuss about it while she keeps her focus to the outside.

"...Lucifer. Someone calls themselves Lucifer and is a friendly. Got it." Peggy's dry tone cannot entirely hide the skepticism there, but she trusts her partner. Mental note achieved. Right now, however, her focus is really on downing the larger, more dangerous creatures that are coming out of the crack in... Reality?? She'd rather them not escape this mostly secured square block.

She's taken up a careful shooter's position and is continuing her sharp work, focusing first on the meatier creatures, putting two or three into them when she needs. She'll pick off imps if she has breathing room, but she's doing threat triage.

Jean Grey has posed:
<"Alright,"> Jean acknowledges Rogue. In this kind of mental communication, emotion carries almost as clearly as words, and she can get the change in tension. Anything that would temper Rogue's usual bravado is a serious matter, and she's not going to leave her friend hanging.

So for a second time in this whole afair, the lovely SHIELD/WAND/whatever people on the street get to watch an apparent 'Salem local' take to the sky. Lifting two fingers to her temple, Jean's mental energies move beyond the purely cerebral to the physical, levitating her own body upward toward the level of the window. Her concentration is increasing now, as she focuses on the possibility of a fight.

<"There are people inside who are too scared to get out on their own."> she transmits, and this time, the message goes even wider, to include the pair of apparent government agent-sort of people on the ground, and seems to particularly address Clint as he charges in. <"I'll give you locations, which apartments are still occupied."> Maybe that will speed it up.

Yet it's as she rises to the level of the window that everyone in her thoughts can feel a moment of strange uncertainty, confusion. <"I feel a presence too, but its- strangely I can't really hone in on it. Did he say -Lucifer-?"> This gives even the potent telepath a moment of true pause, even fear, as she looks down toward the vehicle, the apparent source the others give, even though her own senses can't quite confirm it. Which is concerning in and of itself.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue lives in a school with a lot of teenage boys. So seeing someone pick their nose isn't really a new thing for her, sadly. Seeing an IMP pick their nose is fairly new for her though, so in the end it still gets a disgusted expression from the Belle.

When he offers her his nose-picking hand though, she just tilts her head at him and reaches her own gloved right hand in to the side pocket of her leather bomber jacket to pull out a candy bar that she'd gotten out of the last store that she and Jean had gone inside of. She /was/ going to use it to bribe one of the students back at the school to help with Christmas decorations tonight... but, well.

Rogue hands it over to the Imp. "There ya go, Skik." She tells the Imp, handing him the Three Musketeers bar. "I'm Rogue, and I'm... gonna go save some people. You should go hide and not get yourself smooshed now."

Yeah, he's definitely gonna get smooshed, it's the way of the Imp.

<"I'll get some people out."> Rogue adds as she hovers down a level to where she can hear some people shouting in an apartment down below. She hovers in front of it and lifts the window open to look at the folks inside. "Come on." She says, offering them her hands. "Climb aboard, Air Mutant is takin' folks down t'safety." Least she's bundled up today, even with a scarf around her neck.

Lucifer has posed:
The various imps coming from the portal take the shots from Amanda, some of them blocking, others clearly injured or killed. The large 'thing' now has been joined by three more of it's cohorts.... and then the true nature of it may become apparent. It isn't a sausage, it isn't a worm, it is one of multiple fingers, of a monsterous hand starting to press through from the hellscape on the other side. It reaches out of the hole, trying to take grip on the edge of the building and the wall itself, talons extending from fingers... and now a thumb, as it emerges into the world.

"It is done!" declares the female cultist, hands up in ecstacy. "And I shall be the herald of the end!" She adds. And wisely she ... scoots back into the apartment, so that her summon doesn't accidentally murder her. She seems to have faith it will tie up the arriving heroes. Or murder THEM.

Jean's touches to minds will discover something very worrisome: Clint's receptive at first, then suddenly something happened. An imp's mind seems to overlap his. And a moment later, Peggy will see the reality of it too. An Imp, physically wrapped around Clint's head, seems to have cast a spell, and is steering Clint outside like a puppet. His bow comes up and out, as the imp causes him to unload arrows upwards towards Jean and Amanda, while giggling like a maniac.

Skik the imp accepts the musketeers and bites it with the wrapper intact, before dodging an arrow aimed upwards at himself. He screams and yells nonsense down at the Clint-rider, flying down towards him. It might be outrage at nearly having dropped the candy bar.

Rogue's found a family with two young children; the mother has a baby and a toddler with her, and she looks worriedly at Rogue, and out at all of the imps and things. Is it safer to stay put, her eyes ask?

At the Stingray, the man inside, immaculate in suit, handsome and relaxed but otherwise unremarkable compared to the other demon presence, gets out, shuts the door, and scans the building with a sort of put-upon dismay, taking stock of the rampant chaos.

Amanda Sefton has posed:
<"I know Lucifer,"> Amanada sends into the mindlink, continuing to fire at imps and whatever else comes out of that portal. She's had to land, and is firing magic bolts off with precision and speed that would match Cyclops. But there are beads of sweat on her brow. <"I trust him."> That may not mean much to most of the people in the link. But maybe Jean will accept it.

She inhales a deep breath as the cultist steps back out of the gate. "LUCIFER!" she shouts, hoping his senses are good enough to hear her where she is up in that appartment high above the ground. "A LITTLE HELP HERE!"

Then, she slams both fists together and fires straight at the cultist, to push *her* back towards the portal, too. That hand coming out of it? Yeah, that doesn't thrill her. The Man with the Devil's Name had best move his ass. Or Amanda's pretty sure she's going to need to retreat.

Peggy Carter has posed:
Well, this is why SHIELD uses ICERs. Because if someone's field partner is suddenly taken over by an Imp, then they can non-lethally down that person just as quickly as they do the other enemies, dealing with it later. That's an exact example in the books! Look it up! Peggy curses beneath her breath, "Oh *hell*," as she catches sight of what's happening to Clint. As much as it pains her, she turns her body and, quick as she took out some of the other minor demons, she now fires two shots at her colleague's shoulder. Just enough for the neurotoxin of an ICER to kick in without hitting where he's got his vest, or doing damage to more delicate body parts.

"Sorry, Barton. Doubt you want an imp driving the wheel." Peggy mutters over the comm unit to the probably unconscious man. She's then moving faster, to get to where his body has dropped. She's got her gun still trained on ariel enemies, taking another few shots as she's moving, but her attention is split between getting her comrade somewhere safe, getting the imp OFF his head, and continuing to provide outside cover.

"...Is that a...hand?" She mutters to a now-empty comm unit as the things stretching out of the portal can be seen somewhat on the edge of the building. Surely her instincts are wrong on that.

Jean Grey has posed:
Other problems become someone less of a focus as Jean is suddenly being shot at- by Clint no less. The fortunate thing is that she has a little warning in the way the hostile, infernal mind seems to overtake his own, something that saves her from being totally ambushed by the arrows. Because for all her fancy mental powers, Jean is not very arrow proof at all!

With warning, she has time to react, turning in the air, with one hand still beside her forehead and the other now reaching before her in the directon of the assault. The arrows that fly upward halt in the air, caught in the grip of her telekinetic prowess. And rather than simply drop them, she takes it a step further: each does a backflip in the air, reversing their tips, and then streaks downward toward the assailant. Their flight is not an arrow's flight however, a simple vector of force. Instead, she guides the missiles fully, and they take slightly slower, twisting paths back toward the archer, homing in on him like heat-seeking missiles.

Well, not on him, on the thing hanging on his head. She wouldn't trust herself to make that shot with a weapon, but her mind is quite a bit more precise.

Peggy is also firing, however, and so perhaps she has the leeway, splitting the multiple arrows to seek any of the other imps that may be visible in the air, individually.

All of that means that for the moment, she leaves most of the other troubles to the others: Rogue on her own within the structure, and Amanda dealing with the hellish gateway and other minions, although she takes the latter's word on their new 'friend.' <"If you say he's not hostile, so be it. But that situation with the gate looks very bad. If that's its ARM, I'd hate to see the rest of it.">

Rogue has posed:
Seeing that the children with the mother are pretty young, Rogue flies in to the window and settles down on the floor. She motions toward the sofa where a carseat is located. "Put the baby in there and strap'em in." She tells the mother, before crouching down in front of the toddler and smiling at them. The toddler is staring at her with huge eyes, considering all that's going on, and the fact that she just flew in through the window.

"You wanna go flyin' with me?" Rogue asks the kid while the mother gets the baby ready. "Come on, it'll be fun. We'll go down t'the park across the street, okay?" Offer the toddler a gloved hand, Rogue looks back to the mother with the baby in the car seat.

"Put your arm around me and hold on." She tells the mother before picking the Toddler up and holding the kid in her left arm up against her jacket. "Least this building has big windows, yeah?" The Belle says as she now is moving to float out of the complex with the little family all wrapped around her, mother holding the car seat with the baby, aiming to take them down to the park across the street, over the heads of all the onlookers and street chaos.

<"I'm comin' up t'the gateway next. I warned'em t'get back inside, gonna be time to smash some heads if they didn't listen.">

Lucifer has posed:
At the portal, the hand begins to heat; searing the walls and floor where it's grabbing, trying to get leverage. Amanda engages the cultist now, who reacts quickly enough to deflect with her own aggressive spell, and to fire back - mostly just to cover herself as she falls back to the hallway outside of the apartment, making her retreat with a mass of imps. The only reason she's able to do this, though, is an explosive arrow from Clint slams into the ceiling close above Amanda, the BOOM from it giving an opportunity.

"Oh, Raumatelix. Overreaching again," Lucifer comments with annoyance, eyes up on the fingers jutting from the building hole. He's headed alongside Peggy now to where Clint just exited the building, probably talking to himself as much as Peggy is into her comm unit. Maybe they can mututally talk to nobody - or each other. "A hand, yes. He does have more than a hand - but it'll take him a few minutes to prove that." Lucifer doesn't really explain it beyond that, as if he didn't expect Peggy to listen to him anyway. He looks down at Clint with brief recognition, eyes moving to Peggy. She doesn't look like an agent, but does have an ICER-- "Find who let him in, eh?" Lucifer recommends, as if he had any room to make suggestions; then he's headed at a swift walk towards one of the emergency doors, pulling it open, and disappearing inside. Once out of sight, Lucifer will /move/, though, make very short work of the stairs.

The imp on Clint's head has now hidden under him, eyes huge, at Peggy and Lucifer. Maybe they'll forget about him. As arrows rain down from Jean, that seems unlikely, and the imp plays dead under Clint.

Rogue successfully saves the young family; once in the park the mother squats to get the baby back out of the carseat, and to carry them all out of the way towards the safety of the mall.

Amanda Sefton has posed:
The ceiling above her explodes, raining debris down on top of her. The only thing that saves Amanda is that she threw up a shield to deflect the cultist's return bolt. She lets out a startled cry as the infrastructure above piles on top of the magical energies that protect her. She's in a tight crouch, hemmed in by concrete, brick, drywall, and wood. Darkness closes in -- not the darkness of unconsciousness, but the literal darkness of being covered in a ceiling's worth of construction materials -- not to mention whatever might have been sitting on the floor or roof above. The light from her shield gives her enough to see by. She looks down at the floor beneath her feet.

"Well... *schiesse*." One hand bracing the shield above, she lays the other against the floor and mutters a spell. A concussive wave of energy explodes outward, flinging the debris from around her and leaving another hole beneath her. The shield around her acts like a hamster ball as she falls down into the apartment below, collapsing as she hits the ground and rolls off a couch and up against a coffee table.

"Owww."

Peggy Carter has posed:
"...Lucifer." Peggy states to the sharp looking man who has come up next to her. It's not a question, his name said in the flat tone of someone who is affirming what she already knows. If she's wrong, he'll correct her. If she's right? It looks like she's very up on her file reading and has full control over her tiny corner of this situation. "Hawkeye said you were on the up and up. He's out for a bit, but if you can help us... I'll keep the scene secured."

The woman might not look like a SHIELD Agent (well, unless someone knows their history well, and then she looks like THE SHIELD agent. One of the very originals), but she talks sharply and acts like one. She clearly knows what she's doing with that ICER and is finishing restraining the unconscious Clint for the moment. For his own safety. She then reaches back, peeling the big eyed Imp off the back of his head and fastballing it into the side of the building. Not the most pleasant method of probable execution, but she's not wasting a bullet on it.

As she finishes defending her back up, a few other black sedans arrive on scene. Peggy's comm switches over to the general SHIELD channel. "Barton's down. ICER shot. Get him somewhere safe and make certain the things coming from inside the building don't escape our perimenet! Use lethal force on them, if necessary!" And with that set of commands, she's dashing up and into the building, albeit behind everyone.

Jean Grey has posed:
Absent being shot at, Jean focuses on other things. Which is to say, the situation in the apartment. She's also kind of through messing around.

Jean's flight is less Superman fist first and more the hovering kind, and as she approaches the window, the telekinetic energy encapsulating her increases to the degree where it becomes visible: a bubble, a shield, crackling at its edges as the energies interact with the matter that is always there, the air, the particles... and any stray debris that comes flying her way. Large pieces strike and do not just bounce away, but rather are torn apart into smaller bits, and one cannot help but notice that this threshold, this barrier, begins to look a little more destructive as the moments pass, the visible threshold becoming a flickering, almost fire-like yellow-orange.

Mostly she doesn't want to get hit in the head by a random brick, though.

Which is a threat. There are explosions within, but she enters anyway, still in that same pose, one hand at her temple, the other in front of her. Whatever gremlins may attempt to challenge her are met with greater hostility, as the outstretched hand is accompanied by outward force, either simply slamming against the small creatures, or barraging them with the very same debris.

She's clearing a path.

Because her interest is not in them, but the cultist, who she seeks with both with her eyes and her mind. <"Amanda, are you alright? We need to put down this summoner.">

Rogue has posed:
With a smile tot he family in the park, the Belle turns around and blasts off back in to the sky, arching her flight path up over the street to bring her back down to that building's demolished roof.

She lands on the edge of the opening to look down at the big nasty hand crawling its way out of the portal and trying to find purchase to seemingly drag the rest of its body through it as well. "Son of a bitch..." Rogue mutters, watching it with a grossed-out expression. "Why does this stuff gotta ruin what was otherwise a fine day..."

She tugs her flowing scarf off from around her neck and lets it take to the wind, fluttering off behind her loose and free.

With a heavy exhale, Rogue mutters. "One two... three four... I declare... a thumb war." And she drops down in to the building to land right beside the Hellish Hand's big old nasty thumb. She lunges at it, and with all her considerably strength she starts to try to bend it back, shoving the hand back toward the portal from whence-it-came! With upward of 75 to 100 tons of pushing power, the Belle's got some major oomph behind her otherwise petite frame, maybe even for a Hellmonster like this hand is attached to!

Lucifer has posed:
Jean's barrage on the creatures is keeping them low, unable to assault or stop much of what is happening: it's excellent cover, and keeps suppression down to allow Amanda room to recover, and Rogue to fly in without getting covered in mind-eating imps.

The massive hand reaches out of the portal further as Rogue grabs the thumb: it's reacting to her for sure, trying to pull sideways to divert that pressing power, engaging with her, exposing more forearm. It starts to move to to try to sweep everything and everyone out of the apartment. Amanda, demons, a couch-- anything in the room is likely to get swept by that massive blow, as it reaches backwards for the mighty backhand, slowed by Rogue, unable to execute, as Rogue pins the thumb back --

Ready for a blow -- which doesn't end up happening.

The portal pulses... and slams shut like a massive maw of red fangs, a guillotine, unexpectedly. It 'bites' hard, and the arm is severed across the center of forearm. A bellow of sound shakes the whole of the apartment, as the disembodied hand writhes. There's no blood; the gateway cauterized it. But it is a harsh lesson in how dangerous portals can be! The portal reopened, it just 'bit' in a flux.

The disemodied arm lashes, still active, but lacks the anchor and leverage it had had, and begins to tumble forwards out of the apartment, though still in Rogue's grip: set to fall into the street if she lets it go!

Near the now cleared, and still-open portal, Lucifer clears his throat. "Clear up this side?" he 'suggests', projecting well: and with that, directly moves towards and enters the hell portal, into the wretched, engulfing opening. A flex of both hands behind him as he passes through it closes the gate entirely: with a pulse of hellish discharging energy. And Lucifer, and the gate, is gone.

At the exit, Peggy runs directly into a grinning cultist making her escape in the stairwell, her hood fallen back, silver hair loose from running down a flight of stairs. Jean can sense her mind there, as well, thick with glee and magical potency. She DID just open a hellmouth, after all.

Amanda Sefton has posed:
<"Yeah,"> Amanda replies to Jean, though there's a grunt of pain in it. Body ache pain. The type every single one of the defenders knows -- at least, those that have ever been thrown into a wall certainly do. She pulls herself to her feet. <"I'm okay.">

Once more, she summons her energies and rises through the hole she just made in the floor above... the ceiling above her. Her eyes glow with green eldritch power. She turns as that hand sweeps back towards her and flings energy towards it. She's not actually trying to damage it. She's merely propelling herself *away* from it. Towards the stairwell, where that cultist fled.

She sees Lucifer out of the corner of her eye and watches as Rogue engages the thumb and tries to push the hand away. Thus, her next response to Jean is, "I'm on it." The cultist, she means. Yes. She'll go after her.

Thus, she flies into the stairwell, eyes ablaze with magic, straight toward the retreating cultist and the SHIELD agent coming at her from the other direction.

Pincer maneuver achievement, anyone?

"Hey!" she calls out, flinging out an ice spell at the fleeing woman. "I'm not done with you, yet!"

Peggy Carter has posed:
Once more, Peggy's relieve for having an ICER in her hand. While sh'es pretty certain the dashing woman in the stairwell is an enemy figure, MAYBE there's just a series of people who dress like that strangely in the building? Peggy's gun comes up immediately the moment she catches sight of the woman, levelled straight at her sternum. Peggy's shifted her own body to stand in the middle of the stairs at the closest landing, so she's blocked off the woman's escape.

"HANDS UP! On your knees, NOW! Or I will shoot!" Peggy's clipped, British tone gives a loud warning to the woman. It'll be the only warning she gets and, if the strange cultist moves another muscle, Peggy will make good on her threat. She flickers a momentary gaze up towards Amanda, giving a slight nod as if to acknowledge neither of them are going to let this woman go. But the other woman's yelling well confirms her suspicions.

Jean Grey has posed:
An unexpected spasm of the big 'ole hand catches Jean!

While her telekinesis technically works at the speed of thought and can move objects very quickly, it relies as much on her own awareness and conscious directed focus, a process somewhat separated from the way people normally move. Which is all a fancy way to say that she's just kind of floating there doing other stuff and then the gigantic hand unexpectedly flops into her.

This is why she has a barrier!

Its presence spreads and distributes the force of the blow around her, preventing it reaching her body, which could otherwise end up very splattered by something like a GIANT DEMON LIMB with fingers as big as her, her body very much akin to a fly's beside such a creature. It saves her this squishy fate, yet there is still a bit of equal and opposite force physics going on, even in the telekinetic realm, throwing her, bubble and all, back out the window. The bubble probably also leaves a bit of a mark on the hand, given the destructive and mildly Phoenix-y molecular bullshit going on at its edges.

Anyway, the redhead sails out over the street, the impact causing more mental toll than physical. The bubble flickers, and she falls briefly, but catches herself again mid-air.

In the meanwhile, she's briefly lost the link on the cultist, but reaches for it again- presumably to follow with a mental assault if somehow Amanda and Peggy can't stop it.

Rogue has posed:
It's like that mechanical bull in that Western Bar down on 4th and Grover St. Only, there's not a bunch of cowboy wannabes hootin' and hollarin' at her while she rides on it.

Or at least, that is a momentary thought that goes through Rogue's mind while the big damn demon hand is thrashing and flailing around inside of the apartment while she uses her strength to try and counter it to keep it from being able to do quite as much damage as it could probably do on it's own, without her grasping on to it!

Amanda and Jean are of course seen by Rogue, but there's not much the Belle can do to help that she isn't already doing. She does, however, shout "Look out!" Before the hand goes sweeping past!

It's all fun and games though, until the portal clamps shut and severs the arm just past its wrist. This, of course, gets a big grimace from Rogue, just before she feels gravity take hold of the hand and start to pull it out of the building.

"Woah, woah, woah!" Rogue shouts, planting her heeled boots down on to the ruined floor of the apartment complex, grasping tightly on to the thumb as it drags her across the floor!

Finally though, she changes plans and just shoots off up in to the air, to drag the hand through the sky!

Lucifer has posed:
The cultist suddenly yelps in pain, as she started to cast with her right hand, a shielding energy that was intended to defend her from Peggy's gun. "WHAT? No! This wasn't part of the bargain!" the cultist screams, disoriented and in clear, massive pain, staring at her arm, as her right arm turns blackened, from the forearm down, and, suddenly and magically severed, it falls to the ground. The woman twists and collapses towards a wall, bringing up her left hand to feverishly throw up a shield to try to defend herself. It's weak, though. Losing an arm is stressful on a caster.

There's a price to dealing with hellish entities, in binding onself to their power... if anyone was tempted, there's a vision of the cost.

"Lord Raumatelix, help me! I did everything!" She yells. She can't fathom that the gate was closed; it's not possible for such a gate to just close like that. She sends a weak necrotic whip of magic at Amanda, but it's desperate.

Outside, Rogue is dragging an enormous demon hand skyward. It's heavy -- maybe because it's twisting and writhing and trying to get loose of her grip, as if it could turn around and crush her. Still, it's starting to weaken, as the magic inside of it is used up without any hellish connection. It may provide a bucking ride for Rogue, but while it has no leverage in the air, it is mostly nullified from doing any real harm. Assuming it doesn't get a grip on Rogue, anyway!

Amanda Sefton has posed:
Amanda is mildly surprised as the cultist's arm drops off with the sickening thud of charred skin and burning meat. "Didn't read the fine print, did you?" the sorceress says knowingly, swatting the whip of magic sent her way with a gesture that's very much akin to swatting a fly. "Pro tip: The warnings generally come *after* the spells in the grimoire."

She meets Peggy's eye briefly, acknowledging the other woman's awareness. The SHIELD agent will doubtlessly hear that Amanda's own clipped London accent has shades of Munich underneath it. A German who spent long enough in the UK for her accent to shift.

The witch lands behind the cultist and conjures chains to whip around the cultist's body in an effort to secure her. They are drawn from the metal mixed within the debris that is scattered about the building. Gods know there's enough of it. And the magic that forges them reinforces their mundane strength with something far less breakable than steel and aluminum. "That's enough out of you, I think."

Peggy Carter has posed:
Peggy gave her one chance, and one alone. The moment she doesn't put her hands up and go down, Peggy levels her ICER in that tight space and takes a point blank shot at the woman's shoulder. Once more, she's not going for the chest -- especially not at THIS close a range -- too much chance of the impact being lethal even if she didn't intend it. Peg's nose wrinkles slightly as she sees the woman's arm starting to shrivel like that. She doesn't have any witty commentary, she's just trying to drive the woman unconscious.

"If you want to restrain her, go ahead, but I'm not giving her a chance to do any verbal muckity muck spells or anything. Who knows what these powers can do." Peggy certainly doesn't, magic is well out of her depth. She'll taken another brief round of ICER shots at the cultist if her SHIELD works, doing all she can to ensure the woman is unconscious. "THey're non-lethal rounds, I promise." She assures Amanda.

Jean Grey has posed:
In her brief end-over-end trip out the window, Jean gets a glance of Rogue flying out with the hand, well, the whole dang arm of the thing. A lot of thoughts briefly cross her mind, about the strange image and situation- but mostly what she sees is her friend riding the disembodied demon-limb like a cheap bar entertainment. And something about that tells her the situation will be OK!

Recovered, she gets her senses fully about her, in time to reach the cultist- and promptly wince in sympathy as she gets a glimpse at what the other woman experiences when her magic turns against her, claiming her limb in the process. Then she promptly loses the connection again, since Peggy is pumping the lady full of neurolytic whatever they are. But it tells her what she needs to know.

<"If that thing doesn't vanish back where it came from shortly,"> she advises, finding Rogue in the air, <"Take it out into an open field clear of the roads. I'll speak to the government agent here about recovering it, if it proves necessary.">

She really hopes it will just go back!

Which leaves her walking back toward the downstairs entrance, following after Peggy in more normal, less float-y fashion.

Rogue has posed:
The Demon Arm still has some fight left in it sadly, but so does the southern girl!

Up in the sky, above the Apartment complex, Rogue battles the hand, flying it eastward at a slow pace, because she has to focus on not letting it get her into its grasp!

The hand, and the Belle, cross over another road, a hill and a small walking path area before they start to descend. <"I don't think I can make it t'past the city limits, Jean."> Rogue reports over the mental link. <"Gonna set it down in the high school football field.">

And she does just that, flies it over the 50 yard line of the gridiron, then just drops it and lets it splat against the grass! Thankfully there's no game going on, and there's no school in session either.

She doesn't hold back though, not one bit. Rogue sweeps down and picks up one of those tackling-dummy-things with all the padding and metal arms that football players practice with. She snatches it up and starts to ram in to the Demon Hand with it, over and over!

Loud, thudding noises come from the football field to the east!

Lucifer has posed:
"I am not alone, fools. Lord Raumatelix!? I---" But then the cultist is ambushed in multiple ways: wrapped up on the metal containment, and while her shielding stops the first two ICER shots -- it doesn't stop the rest of them. She doesn't have it in her. She falls unconscious.

The disembodied limb was still fighting -- sort of. It's starting to deteriorate. Rogue might need to put it somewhere or it might start collapsing and fall down on ... whatever is below, in ashen chunks. It's very hot, as well, burning from the inside: increasingly so, as if destroying itself inside-out. Finally it stops moving, and the heat of it builds further. As Rogue sets it in the football field, it begins to burn away the grass, but finally is inert, little flames licking up the surface of it.

The media is really getting on the scene now, with strong interest in an imp that is dancing on a car, as well as the giant floating ARM that flew by recently in the sky. Down the block, a man is getting interviewed about how he fought off an imp with his bare hands.

Amanda Sefton has posed:
The chains Amanda creates include a convenient, thin spread of metal over the woman's mouth -- not her nose. She can still breathe. But once those ICER rounds do their thing? Yeah. It doesn't really matter. "Don't take this the wrong way, Agent," the witch says to Peggy, picking up from Jean that the English woman is some sort of government operative, "but I wouldn't have blamed you for using lethal rounds."

She looks down at the unconscious cause of all this mayhem. "Frankly, it might have been kinder, if they were." Because that woman is probably going to be quite insane before the end. Hell Lords tend to be unforgiving when they're thwarted like this. Though, of course, Amanda can't know how Lucifer's presence might mitigate that result. Still... she's had enough experience to know: "That's not the type of thing most mages come back from."

Peggy Carter has posed:
As her last shots do the jump, Peggy slumps back just a little bit, a breath of relief escaping her lips. She safeties her ICER before slipping it back into the holster beneath her arm. She still doesn't really look like an agent, in a plum colored 1940s style dress. She looks like a Mod-cloth model who got ahold of grownup SHIELD weapons. But she uses it too effectively to have stolen the thing.

"Well, I suppose that is the risk the woman took when she started dabbling in such magics. I've got several back up cars on the ground now, keeping perimeter and, hopefully, making certain nothing escapes. I appreciate the restraint on our attacker, but I think SHIELD can take it from here." She doesn't want to fight for jurisdiction, but her words are stern enough that it's clear she expects to be able to remand the woman for questioning.

Jean Grey has posed:
<"I guess that's as good as anyplace."> Better than the reservoir. Really don't want demon bits in there!

Jean continues her way inside, although as she walks, she has time (and lack of lethal distractions) to focus telepathically on their surroundings again. And the news isn't exactly good. Whatever she might have done to mitigate some of the initial witnesses, things have spread wider now. Especially Rogue flying the arm around. That's the kind of thing that peole film from their back yards on their phones. And once its on the internet, that's well beyond Jean's ability to do anything about it!

"Miss? I didn't catch your name. But unfortunately I think the containment efforts are going to be a little difficult at this point." She touches her forehead again briefly, listening to some of the wild thoughts, and sighs, shaking her head. "They've got TV vans in as well."

Then she looks over at Amanda. "My friend took the arm- it seems like it's disintegrated. Are we going to need to round up all the imps, or will they end up pulled back as well, with the gate closed?"

Rogue has posed:
The tackling dummies are tossed aside, and Rogue spend the last few minutes of the Demon Hand's life punching it with her own fists, forearms and elbows!

When it's all said and done, the Hand dematerializes into a pile of ash, leaving the Belle at the fifty yard line, standing there in burnt-up clothing, her hair all wild and her exposed skin covered in soot and ash.

<"It's gone, Jean."> Rogue says, her right hand coming up with next to no glove left on her fingers aside from the wrist-bits still fluttering in the winds. Her blackened hand goes up to stroke through her ashen hued white locks and she strokes them back over her head.

She drops down on to the football field, and just bends her right knee up while her left leg curls under herself. She stuffs her other hand into her blackened leather jacket and pulls out a second candy bar.

Soon it's opened, and soon she's just sitting there on the ground, eating a Snickers bar.

Lucifer has posed:
Skik the imp flutters down and sits by Rogue, with the last of his own candy bar, and crosses his little feets there, looking up and aside at her.

New best friends!

Amanda Sefton has posed:
Amanda can't argue with Peggy's assessment of the woman. But she's a little skeptical at the idea of SHIELD cleaning up a magical scene, or securing a magical prisoner. "Mm." Reluctance is clear in her tone. "Yeah, you might want to reevaluate that statement, Agent. Your permiter's a sieve. I'm going to be hunting imps down for days. Beyond that... Do you people have any idea how magic works?"

She gestures to the woman at her feet. "These chains aren't going to last forever. And your knockout darts aren't going to last forever, either. I'm all for seeing her brought to justice. And I do make it a policy not to kill." If it can be avoided, anyway. She doesn't add that part. "It really messes up the karma. But, that means also means I feel a certain obligation not to put your people in harm's way, either."

She looks around. "And all this? It's not done, yet." She looks down at the girl again. "*She's* not done yet." Because she's still breathing.

Then, however, Jean is there and Amanda smiles at her from beneath the hood that conceals her features. It's a smile of greeting that fades into a grimmer expression. "No. Unfortunately, the imps are here, now. There are only two ways to dispatch them. We either kill them, or we banish them." Neither of which are easy to do, given the numbers they're dealing with.

"But if you want to go home and regroup, I'll send out the word to my contacts about going an imp hunt. Just let the elf know I'm safe, hmm? And he's welcome to join me on the hunt." A beat. "Any of you are."

Peggy Carter has posed:
"I do understand that magic comes with it's own... Challenges. We have a division dedicated to such things. I'll ensure she's in a specialist's hands long before she wakes up. The perimeter is... Well, an air space perimeter is hard to keep in the best of circumstances, but our agents have done well all things considered. If you need back up for more clean up, do feel free to call me." Peggy reaches her hand into her jacket, pulling out a small black card.

The card is simple, SHIELD's logo on the back and 'Agent Margaret Carter' with a simple phone number and public email address. She hands it over to the woman before leaning down, preparing to get the prisoner into a fireman's carry, so she can get her out of the building and into a SHIELD sedan. "Thank you for the help, again. What's your name?" Peggy asks, before she turns to fully go. SHe doesn't seem willing to give up the asset of this prisoner, but is at least trying to be somewhat polite about it.

Over her comm unit, as she retreats down the stairs, people might hear her quiet words. "We need a team from WAND here as soon as possible. The prisoner I'm bringing in is a magic user and she will need to be rendered ineffective."

Jean Grey has posed:
Cultists are defintely not Jean's department, so that's at least one person who expresses no interest in custody of the woman!

But there is the matter of imp cleanup. This, too, is far from her job description, but the fact that they're infesting the Salem area means it's not likely something she can totally ignore. How long before some of them find their way on campus? Well, immediately, it seems, since Rogue may be bringing one home.

"Wonderful," she answers Amanda, sounding mostly put-upon, if anything. They didn't actually look all that dangerous to her; apparently some random civillian fist fought one! "Yes, I'll be heading back to the school. But if you need help, we can probably get a few people together for the inevitable snipe hunt. It's not usually our thing, but we've got a couple people familiar with the occult."

She may or may not have meant Kurt (OK, she probably meant Illyana), although his mention earns a brief smile. "I'll tell him you said hi. For now, I need to round up my friend. And bring her some spare clothes."

<"Stay put, I'm coming to you."> Which is where she heads next, after stopping back in at one of the local stores. <"Oh don't tell me you've already made friends with one of them.">

It never ends.

Amanda Sefton has posed:
Wait. SHIELD has a whole *division* dedicated to magic? And they call it... WAND?

SHIELD. WAND. Seriously? Do they have SWORD, SPEAR, AXE, or SPELL, too?

Amanda blinks mildly at Peggy, but takes the card. "Agent Carter," she reads. A beat. "You can call me Daytripper." Because there's no way she's giving an international intelligence agency her real name. Even if it's actually an alias, too. Yeesh, these layered identities get so complicated.

She gives Jean a brief wave as the redhead retreats, and then turns that wave into a flickering gesture that conjures a small white card. It has a number on it. No name. "Tell you what, Agent," she says, extending the card to her. "I'll wait here until your WAND people arrive. And if it looks like they're as competent as you believe, she's all yours." Because, really? Amanda does *not* want to be responsible for the care and feeding of a crazy demon cultist.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"...Daytripper." Peggy states flatly, recognizing an alias when she hears it, but she doesn't push for the moment. She gives a simple nod, "If you insist." And then turns on the ball of her high heeled foot and continues the way down the stairs. She might be in a dress and heels, but she's not wavering on carrying the woman across her shoulder or keeping control of the prisoner. Peggy's clearly a rather trained, rather strong agent who doesn't look near so capable as she actually is. The only hint that it's a little difficult is the fact that she's going slower than a regular walk. She wouldn't care to tumble them both down the stairs.

Once they are outside on flat ground, Peggy shifts the woman over her shoulder a bit more carefully, helping even out her weight distribution, before going to where a small section of agents are coordinating clean up. She nods firmly to them, tossing a dark eyed look behind her to see if Amanda is still there, then gazing back to her colleagues. "When WAND gets here, let me know. This is for their section."

Amanda Sefton has posed:
For just a moment, Amanda considers using a levitation spell on the woman the Agent hefts down the stairs. She really has to respect a woman as determined and stubborn as Margaret Carter appears to be. Thus, she follows behind Peggy, just out of arm's reach. Because she's not fool enough to get any closer. She stops outside the circle of agents, as well, knowing full well she can cast a portal right beneath the body, if she needs to, to teleport it somewhere else. Until the people from WAND arrive? She's willing to bet on her magic over their mundane skills.

And when those WAND agents finally arrive, she draws their atttention. How can she not? Her clothing screams magic to anyone who knows the signs. There's a moment when they stop moving and regard her -- evaluating her. She regards them in turn, doing the same. There's a subtle push and pull of magic between her and the strongest of them. It's enough that she's satisfied they have some skill.

"She's an acolyte of Raumatelix," she says, perhaps surprising Peggy as she does, since she's clearly addressing the WAND mages. "Bear that in mind. Lucifer's not here to close a second breach." She then turns to the Englishwoman and raises her hand briefly to her hood, as if in salute -- though not nearly so crisp. Then, a portal manifests behind her. She steps back into it and disappears.

Peggy Carter has posed:
As the WAND team arrives, Peggy does seem comfortable enough to hand the unconscious mage over to *them*. Then she's looking back to Amanda properly, a single brow arched as she realizes the woman is dressed specifically to make herself difficult to notice or recognize. Peggy listens to the warning, ready to put herself between the other mage and her team just in case things go wrong.

But the hand off seems to go smoothly, and with the little touch of the woman's hand to her hood, Peggy dips her own head in turn. "Thank you, Daytripper. Be safe." She doesn't try to stop the woman from disappearing. Just another name for the post-action report and someone else to keep an eye on. Then, once Peg is certain their prisoner is loaded up, she dashes over to check on Clint's condition before finishing her own clean up.