7180/1000 Faces: On Blood-Dimmed Tides

1000 Faces: On Blood-Dimmed Tides
Date of Scene:	01 August 2021
Location:	Tyre, Lebanon
Synopsis:	Apep and Set engage in a titanic struggle off the coast of Lebanon. Sacrificed Setites claimed by the black serpent remain undiscovered after its untimely death at the hands of a lot of heroes with powers of light and magic.
Cast of Characters:	Jane Foster, Achilles, Morrigan MacIntyre, Hope Svelgate, Balder, John Constantine, Phoebe Beacon, Zatanna Zatara, Karen Starr, Tim Drake
Tinyplot:	1000 Faces of Death

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Jane Foster has posed:
LONDON (REUTERS) -- Emergency broadcast.

Scores of Europe-bound migrants are feared drowned after their boat sank off Lebanon, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported Monday. The IOM and its allies begged for help in a news and social media blast.

The sinking marks the latest tragedy on the deadly Mediterranean Sea crossing to Europe.

The ship sank en route to Cyprus. At least 98 people are confirmed drowned and another 132 missing. Many are believed to be Syrian nationals housed at the Za'atari Refugee Camp, one of the world's largest camps. Vessels leaving from the Lebanese and Turkish coast are often heavily overloaded, departing even in rough weather to avoid detection by the coast guard.

A charity ship found 10 people floating near a capsized wooden boat. The Ocean Viking launched a search in "exceptionally rough seas, with up to 6-meter waves." Two merchant vessels reported "an extremely large snake" reportedly in the water and were unable to approach for fear of being swamped. The storm is considered unusual given clear conditions elsewhere.

"The three bodies we recovered were violently injured by a deliberate attack. Our doctors aboard Ocean Viking have never seen this sort of ritualized brutality. Smugglers are dismembering and attacking vulnerable migrants, said the IOM's Safa Hichilema. "We call for Mediterranean nations to respond to these distress calls."

Earlier this month, the IOM said the number of people who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean through Lebanon nearly quadrupled in the first half of 2021 compared to the same period last year.

Jane Foster has posed:
The ancient city of Tyre, Lebanon. 2:51 PM.

The trouble begins with a flotilla of small ships crowding the port of Tyre. Under the heavy sun, bodies come ashore wrapped in white shrouds to hastily erected tents. Someone has thrown up a tarp in hopes of hiding the sight from the local media but with a large ship offshore that doesn't belong here, this is no surprise. The skies are beautiful. A few nautical miles to the northwest rages a storm like a bruised blot on the sky, purple clouds and thunderheads impending danger and violence.

The Red Crescent and other disparate NGOs have gathered along with a representative of the Greek embassy who happened to be outside Beirut, stuffed down here. He looks patently uncomfortable.

The bodies being offloaded from the Ocean Viking are hard to miss, given the amount of blood they weep even though firmly, utterly dead in the clutches of drowning. Swift to be buried, if anyone prefers. They're certainly from this area of the world, most of them poorly dressed, most of them thin and hungry. Men, women, children. The youngest fished out of the sea, 8.

A watching woman pulls her hands over her head and wails the lamentation of countless women, countless ages. The world moves on as the storm swirls and rages.

Achilles has posed:
    It has in fact been centuries since Angelo had been back to the Mediterranean area. Well, at least so close to Greece. I mean it's not because he is worried about a family reunion or anything. When your great grandfather is Zeus... reunions are complicated, at best.

    But he finds himself studying the odd ancient texts en route. "References to Sutekh, Set and all have been varied and different depending on the precise reference. This one refers to Set, the dark god of Egypt for those who are not aware.... as the Great Storm, and... He who smites Apep, the Great Serpent."

    He pauses and shakes his head. "Not sure if that image in the water is Apep, or something different that is being assumed to -be- Apep. Perhaps the Norse legend of Jormungandr? Or the Greek Charybdis?" he asks with a shrug, "It is also possible that all three are the same being."

    "And I am really not sure if any of this information actually helps at all." he says as he glances up and looks about the SHIELD aircraft's innards. "Either way, that's what I know about all of this." he adds as he checks to make sure his ICER is fully loaded, and that he has spare magazines ready to go. He's not planning on using lethal weapons here if he can avoid it.

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan had been expecting a quiet Monday evening. And maybe sneaking in some dinner with a really old guy and his live in demon. Sadly the call from all corners of the mundane and magical world were not going to allow dinner to happen. Ah well. She'd forgone the teleporting to go with SHIELD. She'd dressed in gear that was either going to be easy to clean up when (and if!) she got home or would be able to be burned upon returning.

She listens to Angelo quietly and there's a frown, "The last time people started saying names a whole lot of folks ended up dead in Hell's Kitchen, I'd like to avoid any more of that." she admits. Though they arrive to so much death that those would be just a drop in the bucket after a thought. "Are they trying to draw the serpent out?" she mutters to herself. The sound of the wailing woman makes her heart ache for a moment, no one should have to go through this situation. For the moment the motive was unclear...except for another Death God getting shanked probably.

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Lady Death stands before the aged stained glass windows of her Sanctunary, windows that empowered by the Earthbound spirits show events from afar and even future. The images have become stranger as the underworld has been thrown into chaos. As one mortal wrote in stranger aeons even death by die and that has come to pass twice thus far. So it is that a new strangeness shows itself in the glass, blighted desert and oily seas, a body inscribed with long dead words of power and a blighted serpentine creature swimming among them.

Feeling the sudden burst of Death on a massive scale, Lady Death summons her sword and her scythe. A burst of the Energy Arcane extends forth from sword to enchant windows into doorways and rising on a nimbus of crackling bluish white mystical energy, the White Witch of Death steps through into the sky above coastal Tyre where she hangs floating while she tries to get a better sense of just what is going on and the state of the massive amount of souls recently passed on.

Balder has posed:
Balder was enjoying a deep sleep.

Emphasis on was. As he slept, a vision appeared to the Lord of Prophecy in the form of a dark dream, of a lingering darkness that threatened to devour all. The heart of a devastating storm, a death cry of hunger and rage. Something resides in the heart of the storm. In the valley of shadow, a great endless hunger.

It's black eye opens.

Balder awakens from his sleep, covered in sweat. It took him a moment to know where he was: Asgard. He was in his chambers...but that will not be for long. Balder knew his task akin to the Nornir as they weave their threads of fate. Prophecy must be fulfilled, the message must be heeded. The innocent and the crownless shall be given the warm shelter that the light offers.

So to does the Odinson rise.

He crosses the rainbow bridge on a mighty steed, and speaks to it's gatekeeper, Heimdall. It was deeply disturbing, that the All-Seeing Heimdall could not tell what was in the heart of such a storm, at least not specifically...but he -does- know where such an event was transpiring that Balder had described.

Thus, in a beam of light, Balder descends to Midgard via the bifrost, dressed in gold and dark shades of purple, armor glinting in the light as his winged helmet covers parts of his face. Around his shoulders is a cloak of the purest white furs, as if taken from some mighty beast. In his hand is Svraden, the Uru weapon glinting as the God of Light arrives.

and yet...only sadness appears on his face as he sees those dying and weeping. But his eyes look to the storm in quiet rage.

John Constantine has posed:
    As much as that House can be a Wretched thing, John really couldn't do most of what he does without it. The House of Mystery, truly, is an invaluable asset. Maybe he should buy it a potted plant or three.

    When he asks it to drop him where he needed to be, the sentient thing is kind this time. He doesn't wind up dropped into the drink, but rather the portal opens somewhere inconspicuous, out of the way, but near enough that wailing woman that it won't take him long to wind up beside her. He doesn't say anything, not yet, he just surveys the scene from beside the woman, quiet... eyes wide open to anything he might see beyond the mundane, from magical traces to a peek into the astral.

    The sheer amount of death here is a weight, heavy and hard to bear. But it's other things he needs knowledge of before he makes any further moves.

    Of course, his little stubborn, pain in the *ass* sidekick is there, right on his heels. Bloody stubborn females in his life.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe is coming in on John Constantine's coattails, her eyes going wide as they've passed through the House again, her hoodie half-zipped and her messenger bag behind her. She never should have said it was a quiet night, she should have known better, and now she had to name her first five children after John. And if you asked for plants for the House, Phoebe would be happy to help.

    We'll see about that last one later, maybe.

    "--apparently the museum staff were getting a lot of inquiries about the symbols, including the Set-" she states, until she finds where she has ended up. The weight of the situation, the wailing woman, and the unresting dead. She gives a thick swallow, and then comes up besides John.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
It was not going to be a carefree Aegean holiday blessed with sunshine and loafing on the beach. Zatanna knew that the instant her eyes opened from yet another nightmare about white beaches strewn with bodies and snakes hissing in her dreams. Messages had burned between people in the mystical community, portents were discussed.

With a twist of her wrist, a bag appears at her side. A murmured incantation takes her to behind a tent filled with the dead on a beach in Tyre.

        *POP*

The bag appears as an afterthought. There is no lag in the magical world unless someone creates it. Trouble is brewing.

Jane Foster has posed:
Chaos on the dock only spreads. What to do with the dead? A few unhappy doctors mill around, uncomfortably ignoring the wailing woman. They excuse themselves around the two SHIELD agents. Labourers wait for instructions, muttering when they are bid to carry a shrouded body. One grey arm flops out while they struggle to drag the corpse to a waiting truck. The back of the hand is bloody, skin around it burnt, fingers curled in a rictus to grab something. The body they drop spills out, and the wrappings barely conceal the teen or the pictographs drawn up and down his spine to his nape, another scorched into his other hand. Curses and prayers scald the air. The crowd of workers dive back, careless of who they might run into. Be it a man in furs or a magician hopefully not wearing fishnets, they scatter like cockroaches before the exterminator.

Karen Starr has posed:
    The distress call came in at an opportune time. In Metropolis, the tech-mogul known as Karen Starr sits at her desk, idly staring at a stack of paperwork that has been growing ever so frighteningly large over the past few days. She's told her secretary to send these proposals and reports to her via e-mail, so that the algorithm she made specifically to shirk responsibility could approve them all without her intervention. Once it became obvious enough that this is what was happening, her dutiful employee began printing things out for her so that she would have to read them- spots to sign or initial hidden within the text so that she couldn't just skip to the line.

    The woman is so good at her job that it is /maddening./ That is not what Karen hired her for.

    Regardless, an emergency pinging on the League communicator brings her attention elsewhere. A quiet "Oh, /finally,/" is uttered and within moments, Power Girl is departing from a hidden shaft at the center of Starrware Incorporated. The speed at which she changes and flies out is enough that it kicks up a gale within her office, blowing stacks of paper everywhere within it.

    At a multiple of Mach so high that Clark is going to have a Conversation with her later, Power Girl is gone from Metropolis and mere moments later- enough to contend with the speed of teleporters and speedsters alike- arrives in the skies above Tyre.

    "If anyone else is here, can we get a read on the source of that storm? I'm about to go see if I can get it to disperse." she notes, coming in over League comms in hopes that she's not alone. "And I swear, if I have to punch someone with the gall to call themselves something as stupid as the Weather Wizard, I don't think they're living through it."

    Then, off she goes, the telltale pop of a sonic boom accompanying her movement towards the freak storm.

Tim Drake has posed:
    This is not his problem.

    That's what the logical part of Tim's mind is saying, at least, and he hates that voice. Hates the implication of its existence, of what it foretells him becoming. He's not perfect, doesn't pretend to be, but he holds himself to high standards. Keep up with patrols, training, investigations. Get through college. Pretend (hah) to have a social life. Lead the team.

    Well, there's no team here with him. It's just Red Robin in the Outsiders plane, hovering above the Black Sea in stealth mode. He's meant to be headed towards one of the stans on a lead that's really little more than a rumor, the underworld equivalent of 'Lady Shiva wuz here' graffitied on an alley wall.

    He sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose through the material of his mask. One deep breath. Make the choice.

    And then he guides the plane into a slow turn before he fires off the thrusters.

    "<<Balm, I'm getting a ping on your comm unit, can you confirm your location?>>"

Achilles has posed:
    "The last time I was in Tyre..." mutters Angelo with a shake of his head. "The technology was different, but the scene was very similar...." He lets his voice trail off and sighs.

    Thoughts of helping while dressed as a monk and giving pseudo-medical aid to the victims of the siege of Tyre.

    But he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and strides down the ramp into Tyre to help where he can in this current day and age. In a living lesson on how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

    "Where can you use me?" he asks of his superior officer.

Jane Foster has posed:
Swells ripple and break softly around the pilings. The water sounds uncomfortably like it's hissing as it gnaws on the shore, dragged away from the dredged port old in Alexander the Great's time. Rubber dinghies used to transfer the dead to the sad Tyrean dock for their unhappy reception are peculiarly doused in some kind of oily finish, a faintly milky sheen, and they start to rock a little stronger than before.

A sonic boom offshore is uncommon enough to make the locals equally uneasy. Sailors paid to head out and meet the NGO stare at the horizon as the black blight only grows behind the rescue ship floating out aways.

The Ocean Viking is a rather prominent sight, hull painted blinding red, structure in white. She's well over two hundred feet long and ought to weather the Mediterranean's worst moods, but she looks like something side-swiped her in a shipping lane. Gashes scuff off chunks of her jaunty paint. Chains and mooring lines dangle from her sides, and the crew restlessly stalk the flat deck. When one of her crew nearly falls overboard away from the port, it might not go unnoticed. Others in their gear converge, hauling the poor guy back, and then four stop to stare at the storm.

There's a small hump where none was before. Maybe an island.

Except the nearest island is Cyprus, three hundred kilometers away.

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Lady Death turns to face the oncoming storm, her long bone white hair whipping out behind her as the wind up picks up. "And who are you?" She asks seemingly the wind itself while looking towards the storm. The last time it was Celts and Greeks, this time seems to be much much older. Not that the one known as the Usurper in Hell has ever been terribly concerned with respect for age.

A glance is spared towards the wailing woman mourning the female corpses that seem like a metaphor for the plight of women through the ages. There is the briefest expression of sympathy that flashes across her face, but it does not linger more than a moment. Blink and you missed it.

The albino 'Hell Valkyrie' then drops out of the sky and down to the beach, where she begins to study the bodies that have washed up there with keen interest. Her sword is replaced at her side for the moment but her scythe remains in hand as she pokes one body and turns over another, regarding them with eyes that glow with the fiery radiance of the Energy Arcane.

But then, then her attention is drawn back out to see, back towards the storm and the new 'island' that her eyes seem to lock on to. Something out there has definitely gotten her attention in a big way. Rising into the air without a word, she begins flying out to sea in seeming defiance of the power of the storm.

John Constantine has posed:
    In an odd, for him anyway, gesture, John lays a hand on the wailing woman's shoulder. A gesture of comfort. Burying their dead or helping them do so, it isn't why he's here. "The ley lines here are wrong," he murmurs quietly to Phoebe or maybe to himself. "Ghost ships in the water, but the city itself seems untouched."

    Eyes still open wide, his attention's drawn by the ruckus surrounding that one corpse. He takes in the state of the hand, the pictographs next, paging through years of occult research for anything similar in his mind's eye.

    "I'm going out there," he mumbles before sitting himself down on the ground. "Keep an eye out, aye?" he asks Phoebe. "Back in a split. Don't let them mistake me for one of the dead."

    Really John? A Walk-About? Now? Seems that way. Seems the plan. Legs crossed, sitting next to the wailing woman, John's eyes close and his consciousness, his perfectly realized astral self, it pops right on out to move up close and personal on what's happening at sea.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe's phone, a cracked, older phone buzzes in a familiar siren pattern. She pulls it from her bag, and looks at the message -- and she just types back 'ping' -- it would ping her location, and she tucks the phone back into her bag, and she breathes out.

    "Right." Phoebe states, and she rubs at her left rist.

    "Just take a walk and get back. This whole thing is grating on me." she states, not willing to offer how she is afraid, but she stands guard over John.

    She looks up to the white woman flying out over the sea, and she looks to the spilled body. Her lack of aura, at the moment, is making even her uneasy as she scratches again at her left wrist, and she takes a few steps towards the body that's tumbled.

    "... they have his symbol here..." she trails, "Oh, you poor kid, what did they take from you?" she asks. She breathes out, recalling the canine in repose figure she'd left at a graveside last week, and she hopes those big ears on Anubis's face aren't just for framing. Protect and guide the dead to the land of reeds in the West.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The stench of death drains the light from the sky. Zatanna steps out from behind the tent, dressed no differently than any aid worker, cargo pants, a vest with pockets over a t-shirt. Her dark hair pulled back into a clip.

Magic weighs heavily in the air to her senses. But, nothing prepared her for what she sees. The Homo Mage walks in two worlds at once. A world stalked by the misery of poverty, pushing migrants to risk death, and the unseen world in torment. Hieronymous Bosch could have set his easel on this beach and painted scenes of hell from it.

Through the screams that deafen her mystical ears, she reaches for the familiar magical signatures that plink into existence around the maelstrom boiling out at sea. Zatanna is getting lyrical in her old age; she sends capsules that unfold into parchment messages.

"What the hell is going on? Did someone open a pyramid and let Set out?"

Zatanna recognizes Lady Death walking on the beach as she paces toward a body covered in signs that do not belong on it. The characters seem to crawl as if alive and about to descend onto the sand looking for prey. Someone has unleashed "The Great Storm". Kneeling by the blanched corpse she begins to decipher sign portending the unraveling of the world.

Balder has posed:
Balder looks upon this storm and it is unlike anything he had ever seen before, even the godly wrath brought upon by his elder brother Thor. His eyes narrow, the storm is not behaving like a storm. Much rather, it is behaving like that of an animal or a disease that is spreading, moving in the path that it wishes to tread. "This is no storm. The seas are rough, as if disturbed and fleeing from what lies above them. This is not the result of a God's creation, like that of Thera or Delos." Balder takes a deep breath. "This is no storm." He repeats.

Turning his gaze away from the storm, the Asgardian Prince turns his eyes to the bodies. Best to know the -how- now that he has a decent idea of the -what-. He turns over one of the bodies, his gaze spotting hieroglyphs of the Egyptian deity known as Set...even more disturbingly that this is a repeating factor...'He who smites Apep, the Great Serpent.

"Set."

The name is like a curse on Balder's tongue. His eyes briefly close, before he rises and stands tall, steady gaze looking back to the storm. The mortals and immortals alike will know why he is known as the bravest of all Asgard. Taking his weapon in hand, Balder approaches the storm. "It must not be permitted to grow. It must be sent back where it came, into it's night slumber. By all the names of the All-Father-"

Balder lifts his axe.

"It will fear my light."

Balder suddenly vanishes in a flash of a golden ray of light, reappearing floating next to the storm, a product of magic no doubt that all wizards, sorcerers, magicians alike may yet notice. But rather than charge in, Balder calls a beam of light as if to make a path through the shadow...to the monster within.

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan's senses flare out, taking in the incoming mystical information that is presented and the violet eyed woman gives a whistle underneath her breath. Because this was already a disaster. Her eyes focus on the bodies that have been brought up. She approaches, gaining permission before she goes about looking over them. She didn't want to just start manhandling the dead.

She takes a few long moments to investigate the first body and there's a bit of a frown, "What the..." she mutters as she gets up and moves to the next. Then she repeats the actions, checking the bodies that are nearest. "Something has sucked the souls of these people out...and I'm guessing it's that bump out there in the ocean. Because the marks are lining up with huge circular teeth." she frowns. "I'd rather it not be a megalodon though." she adds quietly. "No wonder the spirits are angry." she states as she stands up and shakes her hands a bit, trying to shake the uneasy feeling off.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Once Red Robin has opened up the throttle, it's only a matter of minutes before the Outsiders plane is on-site. Still stealthed, idling well overhead, far enough up that the people on the beach are little more than moving dots, even with the plane's optical sensors at maximum zoom.

    If the team were here, he'd have made an "Enhance!" joke. But they're not.

    Well, Tim still thinks it.

    Being up this high does, however, give him an excellent visual on the storm as it develops. He's getting readouts of significant datapoints; water temperature, wind speed, and the like fed in to him through the pilot console. Projected up on the display across the windshield are zoomed-in views of the mysterious island from the visible light, IR, and UV sensors.

    And that's just... weird.

    His head turns away from the screen when Balm does not audibly reply, only sends another ping. Busy, he supposes. She's one of those dots down there on the ground.

    "<<Balm, I don't know what you're seeing down there but I don't think that's an island. Transmitting images to your phone.>>" His fingers fly over the console, tapping at the keys rapidly. "<<I know this isn't exactly in my wheelhouse but the readings off of this storm aren't right, either.>>"

    Inside the jet, Tim sits forward, elbows on his knees and hands steepled in front of his face. Actually, this is so far out of his wheelhouse that Tim's at something of a loss for words. "<<Is... that a giant snake?>>"

Jane Foster has posed:
The bodies on the shoreline are largely abandoned by the lot of workers unwilling to stay too close when trouble is obviously afoot. They can't understand everyone but they certainly get what Set and Lady Death seem to say. Never mind the fact those people are awfully strange. Winds pull at the plastic tents and send them flapping inland, nearly knocking into Phoebe. Loud flapping wings of the blue tarpy bat create an awful racket before the sheet cartwheels off into the buildings ringing the part.

To anyone who senses the presence of souls, there are none. Neither do any of those dead hover around a ship of tears starting to bob and buck as the waves retreat a bit. Not much at first, but it may be noticeable to those nearest the shore. Crabs, flopping fish, and barnacle-studded pilings stand in the muck. Puddles form on the exposed mud, and a sunken dinghy plus a lot of trash miring the shallows.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Flying out above the water at well over the speed of sound, Power Girl arrives in the midst of the storm within a few seconds, or just a little more if one is being pedantic. When she arrives, nothing looks right about it- it looks generated, and biblical. For once, she's a little at a loss for words, but even so, something else catches her attention.

    "There's something /in/ the water. Like coils." she states over the League's comm system again, having little trouble seeing- but not liking anything that any of her senses are giving her. "Let's hope there's /some/ logic to this." That's more of a... Vague hope than anything backed by any probability. "I'm going to piss it off. It's coming for Tyre."

    Contrary to her statement, she then seems to fly... Up. From amid the rain, the vague shape of Power Girl finds her way amidst the clouds themselves, and draws back both of her arms.

    Regardless of its success, the /noise/ that's made from her sudden clap is loud enough to her heard from the shore. It seems almost like thunder, and the force that she uses is enough to disperse hurricanes, and reduce a tornado or ten to nothing but an afterthought. Its impact on this storm? Might well be nothing, but she hopes it'll at least diminish the cloud-cover and put an end to the largest clot of it over the water.

    Despite this, she isn't going to linger to watch. Curling up, and not waiting for anyone's okay on the matter, Karen shoots forward like a bullet, right down towards the coils in the water.

John Constantine has posed:
    Just a quick Walk About and right back, just a split. But that split seems to be taking a little longer than just a split. Phoebe's still watching over a motionless, basically comatose John Constantine.

    While what makes that meatsuit there a real boy is out to sea taking a stroll through Chaos - big C that even threatens his strong willed stubbornness. Everything in him screams at him to turn back.

    But he doesn't.

    Instead, he presses forward. "Bloody Hell," he splutters, his battle cry to give him the courage to continue, even in this incorporeal state.

    Does Zatanna reach him out there? Like this? Probably wouldn't if he was just any old anybody to her and her to him. But there's history there, enough so that his spirit, his mind, his soul would be familiar even such as it is now.

    <Island's moving, getting bigger, not there yet but almost, don't think that's normal, luv. It's crazy out here, little like an acid trip back in the day. Wouldn't surprise me if someone let the bastard loose, seen weirder in the past few weeks. Eyes open, be careful, if you see a little black girl with my body, tell her I'll be back in a split.>

Achilles has posed:
    Speaking to Agent Khalid, Angelo switches to Arabic without skipping a beat. Better to communicate clearly without the need for locals to translate. "I'll see what I Can do about reaching the ship." he tells the man.

    Then he heads for the shore, and the docks. "Now, if I could only get my hands on something seaworthy." he says aloud as he approaches the water. "I have not been sailing in quite some time."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe feels her phone vibrate with another incoming, and she slips a bud into her ear, and attaches a button mic to her hood, letting it fold over as she takes out her phone.

    <<Apep? Charlybis? Egyptian serpent>> Phoebe sees the pole incoming, and with a snap of her wrist her extending staff is out. NO tpulling the glow-stick yet, and she ducks and guides it to the side of her. The wind picks up and can be heard in her mic. <<The dead have the mark of Set all over them, in particular it's Set the Destroyer. Got a message asking if someone just let him out-->>she cuts off quickly from subvocal, seeing the sea receed, like a creature taking a deep breath. That can't be good.

    She takes steps backwards, towards John and the weeping woman. "John. /John/ -- Maman!" she cries out to the weeping woman, coming to a skid at John's body, looking for the woman. "Up, up we get, John--" she states, and looping one arm around her shoulder, Phoebe rolls John up over her, holding onto his arm and one leg like he's a prize catch that she's bringing back to a tribe of hungry cavemen.

    "And she tries to urge the woman, wordlessly, to get further inland. "Ah -- shaqa! Uphill!" she stammers a moment, still holding John carefully. She doesn't want to move if she doesn't have to."

Jane Foster has posed:
In the storm... Light flashes. An Asgardian casts light into the everlasting darkness curling beneath boiling seas. When it connects, the first beam pierces a thin shaft into that bloated whirlwind. And then it bends and twists and folds, solidified into cubes and a floating shoal of spaghetti-splat horrors.

Fish thrown up by the surf are few and far between, the Med being an overworked sea. One of them becomes an obelisk and shatters when it hits the flash-steamed water. Rain turns into okapis, rats, crocodiles. Desert-glass bombards the shadowy hill that keeps growing in size, relative to the people on the shore. It's hard to miss.

Jane Foster has posed:
In the sky... Temperature inversions send squalling warnings to a Batwing plane shrouded above, as a spray of superheated muck and rocks from the seafloor go sailing up and come right back down. They're still blazing read, partly molten, in a massive fantail. From up there, seeing a /second/ island appear is patently visible. Smaller than the first, but another coil breaches the heaving sea.

Did someone throw something at the plane, unseen? Power Girl's sabre-rattling got an answer? Streaming black clouds come undone and reveal raging duststorm that maintains some cohesion.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
As Zatanna is lost in thought, remembering the meaning of hieroglyphs studied long ago, the sound of the waves changes. The boiling rage that had animated the shore retreats revealing flotsam of old wood, shells, and stinking mud. The absence of sound raises her eyes.

A familiar voice floats in her ears, sardonic and biting even while he sends a warning. Then, of course, he would have a young girl looking after him. Zatanna puzzles over his mention of an island as she looks out to sea, only then realizing what retreating water means.

"TIDAL WAVE!" she screams. "GET BACK!"

On the horizon, a mountain is rising. Zatanna raises her hands, praying for all the goodness in the world to help her hold back what is going to overtake them all.

"!DLOH" she yells holding her arms aloft.

Jane Foster has posed:
On the shore... Frogs start to bounce down at weird angles, the winds going absolutely hectic. Scarab beetles, locusts, and flies pelt the buildings and ground and everything in between as vast clouds of them get flung over the few kilometers of open water to hit Tyre. They naturally splat when they hit things. Ew.

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Lady Death arrives in the face of the roiling storm about the same time that Balder. Her scythe glows and returns to the form of a short sword for now before being secured, instead she draws her blade 'Apocalypse' forged of Netheranium and Chaos energy from the ends of Infinity and tempered in the forges of Hell. The darkness that gnaws at the back of her mind wants more than anything to fight the Chaos being down in the water, but first things first, this storm is clearly what took the souls of the dead, consumed them, and that is something that she will not abide.

When Balder sends his beam of light cutting into the storm, Lady Death as one of her own. Holding Apocalypse before her with both hands she summons the power of the Energy Arcane, seeming to glow with bluish white fire from head to toe, shot through with sparkles of Holy light that flows from her to the blade mixing with its Chaos energy and unleashing all of it in a devastating blast at the heart of the suddenly revealed 'Sandstorm'!

Achilles has posed:
    Retreating tides do indeed mean waves. The amount of water going out means that well, to paraphrase everyone in the sixties... surf's up. Angelo notices all of this, turns his head to glance over his shoulder and calls out, "Get as many folks on the SHIELD Jet as we can and get it into the air!" into his comm. "Anyone who can, needs to move back from the shore! MOVE MOVE MOVE!" And he is well aware there's not enough time really. If he only knew.... he pauses, inclines his head and then does something he hasn't done in thousands of years.

    He crouches and reaches a hand for the dregs of the water... touching it, connecting to the sea that way. He switches to ancient Greek and says softly, "Uncle Poseidon. If you are still out there, you know I can't die, but everyone else here can. This would be a great time for some inexplicable interference... you know, sometimes miracles -do- happen."

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan's drawn out of her reverie by the sound of a small fleshy 'THUNK' that happens in front of her. She looks down to see the splattered frog and there's a moment to scream internally. Everything was fine on the outside. But on the inside...things were NOT OKAY! Then she gets smacked with a frog, "Alright, we're not going through the plagues again." she snaps out.

The warning from Zatanna about the incoming tidal wave has her looking towards the ocean. And she decides that she's going to help hold the barrier so that more people don't die and drowning is not a good way to go. She holds her hands outstretched and focuses on creating a wall of violet energy to help hold back the incoming waves. They'd be fine, unless something killed her. "Everyone back unless you can magically hold back water!" she shouts to those closest to her.

Tim Drake has posed:
    "<<I don't know the details but there's been some chatter amongst academics in Gotham about Apophis,>>" Red Robin says just before the temperature warnings begin to blare in the cockpit, and he frowns as he silences them. Then they start up again, though--

    No, those are proximity warnings! Tim pushes down hard on the flight controls, putting the plane into a steep dive to avoid a loose clump of molten rock that comes flying through the air towards his cloaked location.

    Probably a coincedence? Unless this giant serpent has some tricks up its... uh, scales. Which is entirely likely, given Red Robin knows very little about Egyptian mythology beyond what he's gleaned from pop culture (mostly inaccurate) and a handful of museum outings.

    He pulls the plane away from the mysterious island as best as possible, though he realizes soon enough that he's not putting as much distance between himself and it as he expects to. "<<Is it moving?>>"

    Oh. Oh, that's a really big snake, isn't it?

    "<<Does anyone down there have a plan?>>" he asks Phoebe, voice flat over the comm-line.

Jane Foster has posed:
Agent Khalil is already running for the jet, and the benefit of having a passenger-capable plane becomes clear. Organizing a rapid evacuation is not going to be easy. Those who can flee through the streets do, though too many tend to stand there staring. Danger tends to go ignored until it's too damn late. And when the water hits, that means more spoilers for the victor. Every soul here that falls is caught in the war between the storm and the serpent.

Or Set and Apep, as has been correctly noted.

The breakwater guarding the harbour provides a modestly arcing barrier over the basin. Ruins face the south where Crusaders and ancient Egyptians both traded and the battered columns from antiquity start to heave. The ground cracks. Magic rolling between the barrier flung by Zatanna and reinforced by Morrigan forms a seething wall of force, the front of which is already contorted by spirals and swirls of insects bouncing harmlessly off it. The sea is coming.

Achilles has posed:
    The sea is inexorable, unstoppable... damnit. Angelo looks up to see the oncoming wave. "Well fuck." he mutters as he stands up. "Thanks for nothing Poseidon." he mutters before he just turns to look back. He's not super strong. He doesn't have magic. He gets hit in the head by a frog.

    Then he notices the rain of vermin all around. "Wow." he mutters, "Is Moses here?"

    But then he shakes his head to clear his thoughts. Not being able to die is kinda cool. But drowning thirty seven times in a row will still suck. He turns and runs towards the aircraft, trying to help usher the doomgazers in that direction.

Balder has posed:
The light did not breach this powerful darkness.

"BEWARE THE COMING OF THE DAWN!" Balder cries out to the darkness, and with a decisive movement, Balder flies headfirst into the storm! He glows a radiant aura and his axe remains firmly in his hand. "For Midgard..." He'll keep charging. "FOR ASGARD!" he sounds the call of his battle brothers, of his father, of all those before him.

The Gods will not remain silent in this battle against this ancient horror.

But at times, rather than light, it's electricity. It's dirt. It's flies that radiates from Balder, whatever effects of this storm perverting and distorting his power. Sometimes, rather than fly, he's just falling out of the air before picking up against. "What devilry..?" Balder claims, and perhaps he will see the giant serpent in the heart of this storm. For that reason alone, he must keep going.

He refuses to turn back..or lives may be lost. Either innocent lives, or the lives of those trying to help end this atrocity.

He tries to radiate brighter to -see- clearly, but instead all he feels is a weight on his shoulders as miniature explosions happen around him...which may be as much a help as a detriment.

John Constantine has posed:
    John always has a plan, even if he makes it up on the fly. Of course there's no one out there on *that* side, the other side, of things but John. The only person that he might be able to contact who might be able to maybe let others know is Zee.

    <The Island! The SNAKE take out the SNAKE!> Because yes, he's figured out that those things are moving, big humps in the water moving, he knows who's here, who the players on the field are.

    ...and he's chosen a side.

    ... so goes the story of John Constantine's death? Maybe for real and for keeps this time? Out there, alone in the chaos that is the Astral over the ocean, he stills for just a moment, steeling himself. ...before the crazy bastard heads straight into that storm, straight for Set - the eye of it. His opening, Lady Death's blow.

    He may not be a God, but he's about to try riding one on for size. He slips through the crack in defenses caused by the Scythe's blow. But not to attack from within, but to actually offer what he can in aid, in defense, so not so much 'riding' as... tagging along for the ride. No matter where it takes him. Any means to the right end, init true?

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan's feet dig into the ground underneath her. Most of the magic that she had to employee was small potatoes compared to what she was going to have to let out to hold back the SEA. Even a Master of the arts was going to have a rough time here and the strain shows on her features. There was the gritting of teeth as she tried to focus all of the energy that was building to reinforce the magical sea wall.

Something bleeds into Morrigan's magic that's new to even her though, there's the old Irish gaelic writing that plays into the casting, then black starts to run into violet like spilled ink. Shadows twisting along the edges the woman.

"Riordan, can you make sure there's no straggler's on the beach?" she asks her herald as she tries to keep focus. Having the beach cleared would help with that.

Jane Foster has posed:
In the storm... When a chaos-infused blade smashes into a form of the desert tempest, the pitiless light, a brief explosion occurs. Up close it's possible to see the form of a man, red-skinned and swinging up with a peculiarly forked staff to stop the cutting edge from penetrating his body further than Lady Death already has. A few critical inches send divine ichor whirling into the storm, and he flashes through a dozen forms that resemble no animal known.

Phantom ships materialize and vanish, as if someone is switching the light on and off. Here, a swarm of tiny Nile feluccas, the ancient lateen-sail boats used since the Old Kingdom. There, a dark-eyed trireme pulls oars hard to close on the black isle. Two dromons, the mainstay of the Byzantine navy, race parallel to the rising crest with their backswept sails gone ragged. A French ship-of-the-line, victim to some Napoleonic era nefariousness, comes rising out of the heart of the boiling water, her figurehead pierced through and the cannons on her broadside sending volleys of ignited arrows. Dinghies and overloaded fishing craft sacrificed to the Mediterranean by smugglers and war surge in lines, small crawling ants next to the massive black island shape that explodes from the sea to answer the Kryptonian's blast and Balder's strike.

Up and up uncoil four hundred damn scaly meters of stygian nightmare awakened at last from its stony sleep. A quarter of its coiling body surges to meet Power Girl when she comes hurtling down, lightning striking off its scaled-then-slimy-then-crystal hide. Mouths open to chew and gnash at Balder. The main mouth bears large, pointy fangs: the kind Morrigan warned about.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    <<... help Set the Destroyer take the snake down so the Sun can Rise Again?>> Phoebe replies with uncertainty in her voice, <<Set should be positioned to destroy the serpent and allow the boat of Re to rise again, and *it is raining frogs and rats down here Red*>> Phoebe protests, still holding John's body as she winces. "John, come back -- where the *hell* are you?" she questions out loud.

    There is, in fact, a straggler on the beach. A familiar young lady with JOhn Constantine's limp body over her shoulders, "/Damn It John/ I should be out there!" she exclaims in frustration.

Karen Starr has posed:
    It may be lucky on her part, but at the moment, Karen is not generating any forces that can be easily transmuted- no laser vision or ice breath currently to twist into lightning or confetti or The Actual Sphinx for Whatever Reason. This puts her, in some ways, ahead of Balder who has begun to bomb the sky- something she doesn't connect to chaotic forces.

    In other ways, it puts her somewhat behind, as this chaotic force causes shifts in ways that hinde her more directly. For example, she can perceive atoms- and can see how they interplay in the very air in front of her. This is a low-level effect of her microscopic vision, akin to seeing the vapors in the air around a car's exhaust, Karen can at all times be somewhat-aware of the very molecules that surround her.

    Right now, however, for some reason, her vision has focused very, very clearly on a single electron on the seabed, amplified by a combination of x-ray and microscopic vision until it's all she can see. This blinds and confuses her for a time- until even her elongated perception of time- which seems to fold and bend in upon itself, making her feel like she's been traveling for fractions of a second when in reality it has been several.

    To those outside who can see, the source of this confusion and why Power Girl hasn't punched a snake yet may be relatively comical, as she flies down into the water at Mach X, only to collide with it and emerge from the clouds to do so again. And again. And again. Until she is a pinkish, blurred line that extends from the clouds to the water line, having made the journey only to be shunted back to the beginning repeatedly, whether by teleportation or time rewinding doesn't really matter.

    Eventually, Power Girl realizes something is going on- her perception of time returns to what it should be and she understands she should have hit the water long ago. Coming to a blistering stop midair, her vision rights itself as well, and she sees that she's gone exactly nowhere, understanding immediately that magic is involved, because of /course/ it is.

    Though the resultant muttering and cursing regarding magic does come out over the League communications, it shouldn't be repeated.

    Still, the same tactic isn't exactly failing any more than /any/ tactic is likely to fail, so she falls back on it, twisting in the air as the snake rises, and then again she shoots down to it- now aware of the way that the magic is infesting the air around her, she is compensating.

    Grossly enough, however, when confronted with frogs, locusts, and obelisks, a Kryptonian flinging themself at Mach Please Don't is going to win: But it isn't pretty.

    Either way, once she's regained her bearings, the Angriest Bullet is going to strike a coil of that snake with genuine fury and enough force and toughness to sink an island.

    After all, from her perspective, she's been /flying/ for /thirty minutes./

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Divine sparks fly and all around Chaos magic sizzles with the explosion of power as Lady Death clashes with Set. "What is going on?!" She demands of him. "Two lords of Death stand defeated and now here you are harvesting souls en masse while She remains quiet!"

But the entire time it is tugging at her, the building battle lust, the desire to slay the Chaos Beast below in the water. Even Apocalypse begins to rattle and shake in her hands, the blade itself eager to lay low Chaos Lords that would dare cross into this world. She glares at Set a moment longer perhaps waiting to see if he has an answer, ever the charmer she is, before moving backwards out of the blade lock, dodging ice and fire, locusts, frogs, sand, and stranger things amidst the storm.

Form a moment she still stands there looking at Set and then in an action that physics says really shouldn't work as well as it does, but it does, /throws/ her sword down at the exposed serpent's coils, before flying after it.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna's knees feel weak at the thought of what is coming. Only the moon falling to earth would equal the force of what is descending on the shore. Yet, the magic Zatanna calls on is more significant than any other spell of her life.

An eerie cry, echoing over five octaves joins the percussion of frogs splatting to the ground and insects pelting the sand. Out of the ocean's depth, black forms appear, denizens of the deep, that had left the Aegean Sea long ago for cooler waters.

Spouting water whales swim into the air. Baleen whales, Sperm whales, Fin whales, North Atlantic Right Whales form a living barrier between the incoming water and the shore. The gray bodies of dolphins leap to fill the gap. A wholesome aroma of iodine, salt and kelp battles the stench of death.

In the midst of this struggle, John's voice sounds clearly in her head. It's a mystical cell phone call that only their old magical connection would allow.

Shaking like a leaf (Zatanna knows she would collapse without the magical aid of the Celtic mage Morrigan) she crooks her left hand and murmurs. "!ekans eht thgiF :nrohlluB "!EKANS EHT THGIF" .enoyreve txeT" (Text everyone. "FIGHT THE SNAKE!" Bullhorn: SNAKE! FIGHT THE SNAKE!) Every magic being in the vicinity would hear: "Battle the snake."

Zatanna drops to her knees, one hand still raised, asking for help from the Sea.

Tim Drake has posed:
    One breath. In and out. That's all Red Robin allows himself to get over the fact he's witnessing an apocalyptic myth being played out before his eyes.

    Right, okay, this is fine (no it's not). Tim will deal with it later!

    "<<...Copy,>>" is all Red Robin says before he toggles his comms off, and then he mutters, "Yeah, okay." He leans forward to tap at one of the control screens flanking his seat and takes a deep breath. "At least it's a nice, big target."

    He's trying to stay positive, here.

    The stealth system deactivates, leaving the silhouette of the plane visible to those who might look up when they hear the distant whooosh of missiles firing. They streak across the sky towards the serpent, one after the other, until the launcher is empty and retracts back into the jet's undercarriage to be reloaded.

Balder has posed:
Oh.

A serpent that would be a fitting opponent for Jormungandr itself! It's scales, it's rows of teeth, it's bonebreaking maw....its enough to turn away any warrior that comes to try and strike it down. But not Balder. Balder the Brave holds his axe tighter and raises the weapon over his head as he leaps into the charge as four hundred meters of the ouroborus serpent rises into battle!

The Kryptonian is not unnoticed by Balder, nor are the people on the island they are trying to evacuate escape his watchful eye. But the mouths that come up towards Balder are met with the sting of Uru as he swings the mighty weapon with all of his might! Those fangs come after him, and he tries to strike -at- the fangs themselves, daring not to test how well his invulnerability works on Midgard.

"Have at thee!"

He cries out, swinging for scales, for necks, for maws...with anything in his power. Even in his hand, he tries to call upon his birthright: the heat of a sun burning in his hand as he tries to expel the creature with the strength of the rising sun.

...However, such a thing may backfire on him, especially since magic and similar abilities seem to be short-circuiting, bursting to chaos in a myriad of ways...it could simply be a massive explosion centered on Balder. It could be something far worse...it could be something insignificant.

"We must push it back!" the god calls out to his fellows.

Jane Foster has posed:
With any luck, Tim decloaks somewhere above four hundred meters in altitude. Else he might be caught in the coil of a snake breaching from the sea to put a humpback whale to shame. The problem with proximity is when Set rounds within the convulsing tempest, atmospheric upheaval follows a surprisingly mundane individual wading through the ocean, disappearing under it or atop it. He whirls a staff still in hand, sending another ragged hunk of basalt straight for the serpent so much larger than himself. But those forks come apart as the rain of flaming arrows and ghostly bowsprits being rammed into oily flesh that oozes venom and hardens to a reinforced steel shell.

Apep has taken lessons from the Kursk and the lost fleet of U-boats littered through the Mediterranean, apparently.

Set cocks his head, pointed ears swept back, and a moment later, he looks like an entirely mundane Bedouin. <<You lost count.>> The crackle of lightning acts as rejoinder to Balder's burning glow and the hum from the scythe in the demented hell-valkyrie's hands. His smile cracks and the ash-smoke spill from a thousand braziers and one Silk Cut rises. <<Two? Magnitudes too little to be true, et tu? There are no laws. There are no cycles. An empire comes to snuff the light. She has gone silent. It is all madness and ends.>>

A step plunges him beneath the waves into the shallows of the bay, sending another sloshing torrent of the tide crashing north of the city and jettisoned back away from point of impact. Cyprus, the Dodecanese, Crete, the Cyclades islands will all feel it. Quite as much as they will Power Girl slamming into the snake and both of them crashing into the seabed with force enough to make delicate scales leap at the magnitude.

Jane Foster has posed:
As for Apep... The opening those nearer have waited for might be rising, but so is another lashing tail ready to wrap around the god of light. Venom spat from those immense fangs flies for Lady Death.

Missiles rain down in peppered shadows, though they turn to butterflies and whales. One becomes a paper airplane and then a biplane and collapses at point of impact into a chariot driven by a flaming team of ibexes, streaming smoke. Another turns into a red and white sphere that appears to haplessly bounce off the waves, splitting open when it breaks off Apep's hide.

Until it splits open and the whole monster turns into a purple cobra for a moment, sending a gout of blood wildly into the air. Apep flashes once more to black. The waves shriek in a sibillant hiss of a snake that would devour the world. One yummy bite at a time.

Starting with YOU.

John Constantine has posed:
    All right John, it's now or never. The source of that single Silk Cut, all warm and cozy inside Set, closes his eyes for just a moment. Slinging around power, not his cuppa, though he's been doing a lot of it lately. He *can* do it and do it well, but he's never tried to do it like this, so... he takes a second, just a beat, to metaphorically 'breath' and focus.

    ...he doesn't try to inflict his will upon the God, no, he more focuses on his 'willingness' to be a tool in the battle, to be used to aid in the defeat of the Serpent trying to steal the Sun.

    To that end, it isn't from *him* that the strike will come, no it's from Set himself. John's fire, not Hellfire, just fire is summoned to his hand and slowly takes the shape of a mighty spear. ... a gift offered Set, to be channeled through, enhanced, amplified by the power of a God and used against his enemy.

    ... Bloody Hell, what he wouldn't give for an actual Silk Cut right about now.

Jane Foster has posed:
On the shore, the sea cannot take Tyre. Not the populated side, which meets the cetacean wall and reflects back. Leaping whales and dolphins, old friends to humanity, reinforce that role. A few stray gawkers surely doomed to drown have long enough to start staggering away. A sailor hiding under an abandoned truck gets up and runs flat out, a good five minutes after he should have fled. Reflected waves bubble back as Morrigan and Zatanna chain the magnified force that rips away a few docks and hurls the ghost ships into Apep's wracked form.

But they can take the sea by beguiling it to going elsewhere, tricking it to think the shore is impervious. Lives tallied are lives saved.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Morrigan, don't let go!" Zatanna implores. Without Morrigan's power, nothing could keep the water at bay. All the cetacean life gathered to save the ones who treat them with disdain, fish them to extinction, would disappear. Death would spill across the sand and obliterate everything in its path.

            "HOLD!"

Screams carried on the wind tell Zatanna that the warning was heard. News services will broadcast the chaos recorded on cell phones to the rest of the world.

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Lady Death may not have her sword at the moment having flung in into the Serpent's vast bulk, but she does bring forth her scythe again in the face of the venom, spinning it before her as she flies. Even as the bulk is dispersed, globs and patches still find her skin. Poison older than the universe sizzles and burns even the inhuman flesh reinforced by both the powers of Asgard and Hell.

"Is that the best you have Chaos Serpent?!" She shouts teeth gritted against the pain as she flies after her sword, sunk up to the hilt in Serpent flesh, which may not seem like much of a wound at first glance given the size of the beast, until that is she grabs that hilt and rather than pulling it out puts every ounce of her strength and speed into dragging the Chaos blade through the creatures flesh as she flies along its length.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    There was a a brief talk on the beach, as John's body was delivered beyond the reach of the oncoming wave, cradled in safety after Phoebe was approached by a beautiful man with the deepest blue-of-the-sea eyes.

    And then Phoebe was gone. Her tracker may fizzle slightly, the mic catch the rushing sound of wind and waves before she is guided by the hand of someone who knows His sea better than she will ever know her beloved Gotham City. The sea boils around her, the steam stinging at her dark skin as she makes for the god and the serpent -- and as she approaches she lights up her staff, the brilliant light of the sun rising from the palm of her hand, illuminating her as she turns to avoid stampeding okapis in the middle of the ocean!

    Of course, that sunlight, that bright Beacon of hope is noticable as she approaches the island, and comes out swinging.

    After all, Someone wanted her out there, and she goes to strike at the beast with her brilliance, running crosswise accross with her Light dragging behind.

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
"I won't! You don't either!" the celtic magic user calls back to Zatanna. Morrigan's eyes blaze as she tries to keep from slipping on the magic that is pouring from her form now. She could turn it up to 11 and it wouldn't hurt anyone. Kids, don't do what your teacher does! Ahem!

The woman gives a physical push, and her magic pushes forward with a snap and rush of power. But the exertion drops her to one knee, one of her eyes filling with blood as vessels start to collapse from the pressure. She continues to speak in that ancient tongue, the black energy pouring into the violet as she tries to keep up the amount of energy that they need to turn the tide back.

There was a long nap in her future.

And blood.

Karen Starr has posed:
    PGvSnake: Dawn of It's Not A Bad Idea To Punch An Anthropomorphized Idea Because I Can is going well, at least at first. Shooting herself at the snake with inexorable force and speed results in a hole that pierces the flesh of the thing- but seems to do little else. When Power Girl rounds again to look at the damage she's caused, she sees an odd assortment of evidence and lack thereof.

    The hole has become mouths, biting and seeking fanged things that encroach upon her personal space all too quickly for comfort, and yet misting the water surrounding them is massive chunks of Previously God, along with a healthy amount of blood. The resultant curses towards magic go unheard, this time, as you can't hear League comms underwater without a suit.

    Then, the coil that she's under surges downwards, slamming into Karen and thudding onto the sea bed below, enough force and weight behind it that on the shoreline, there is evidenced a small ripple amongst the insane tidal waves and moving water, a sign that Set has returned fire. Unluckily for Set, however, the idea of a Kryptonian is likely to be a new thing, something difficult to contend or comprehend until the God's mind thinks back to the closest analogue, a man named Teth-Adam.

    This means that just as soon as it's flattened Power Girl to the sea floor- something that definitely, very much, does not feel good /at all/- there is the sudden sensation that the snake is /rising./

    Titanic strength is brought to bear, and despite Set's efforts, that coiling length that had seemed so unstoppable before is lifting off of the see bed and before long breaches the surface of the ocean, the blonde below pushing it upward.

    It does this for a time until quite suddenly the snake's body becomes immaterial, if only for a moment, before becoming material again, /around/ Power Girl, who is now decidedly inside the snake.

    Despite the barriers of chaos serpent flesh, and despite the distance, the citizens of Tyre could swear they can hear what can only be described as Angry Power Girl Noises.

    Within, of course, Karen has had just about /enough/ of it all. Her eyes burn red, exploding with the light of the sun itself, and a heat unlike anything that can be felt save for the very surface of a very, very angry star. She knows which way is Out, and she's going to fly there, unleashing violent beams of the most potent combination of Rage and Heat known to man- for any beast, such a maelstrom being dragged through the body would be enough to split it stem to stern.

Tim Drake has posed:
    There's no one in the plane to hear the bitten-off shout of surprise Red Robin gives when the proximity sensors start blaring a warning again, this time from below. His comms have been toggled to manual activation mode, too, so down below Phoebe won't hear it either.

    Probably no one would believe Tim would swear, anyway. Too much of a boy scout. But he has his moments.

    The thrusters rotate towards the ground and then fire, accelerating straight upwards rapidly enough that briefly Red Robin is weighted down, fighting against the g-force exerted on his body. But he gains enough altitude to avoid the rising bulk of the serpent from smashing into him, especially as with the stealth system disabled the engines can spin up to their full potential.

    On one of the screens, the missile display lights up from red to green as the launcher is reloaded and redeployed. The plane is still in flight, banking hard as he streaks across the sky. Putting more distance between it and Apep, firing the next round of missiles.

    "<<Balm,>>" he says, and the comm-line crackles as it reopens. The missile launcher has already been retracted once again for another reload, and Tim makes note that he's about to hit empty. He taps at a control screen to warm up the laser cannons, which will at least be able to continue firing for as long as the plane has power to give. "<<Balm, do you copy?>>"

    He looks out beyond the plane, at the wall of water being held up before the shore, the monstrous figure of the serpent and the brief glimpses of those fighting it that the plane's optical sensors automatically track and highlight, marking where to avoid targetting. It's... humbling, he supposes. Which in this instance is just a way of saying terrifying without giving into that feeling.

    Beneath his feet, Tim hears a high-pitched whine. Ah, there it is. The cannons descend and a dual-stream of white hot energy cuts across the sky, directly into the serpent's flesh. Scales.

    Whatever.

Balder has posed:
There were many prophecies in Asgard.

There was the prophecy of Ragnarok, the prophecy that Thor would fall against Jormungandr, who in turn would fall against Thor. There was the prophecies told by the Nornir. There was the prophecies given by the dwarves of Nidavellir. This beast appeared in Balder's dreams as a prophecy.

And it was his to fulfill...or so he thought.

Balder is ensnared by Apep's mighty coils. But it is not for long, as Balder manages to keep his axe-arm free! He looks up to the heavens...and begins drawing power to himself. Power from nature. Power from all that is good in this world. Power from the light that shines in the heart of others. The snake's tail may find it quite difficult to maintain a hold on him as Balder begins to roar a warrior's cry fit for Valhalla.

He brings his arm down, as if to send a rippling impact like that of a meteor crashing down to earth onto the Serpent's midsection. Let us see if a God's power can overwhelm another as deep Vanir and Aesir magic is performed.

Afterwards? He brings his axe over his head once more, both hands now as he rises into the air, calling upon his Odin-given strength and comes to descend at the massive serpent, bringing his axe down towards the creature's neck with all the strength he can muster with one final commandment!

"FALL!"

Jane Foster has posed:
Chaos cuts into chaos. A light comes from a sacred seven angles. Phoebe brings a sweeping burn, delivered on a rapidly scurrying craft that tacks hard to swerve around one of the boiling waves, diving down the trough of a wave.

Shots from the wildly maneuvering craft glow white-hot and jettison geometric tendrils from the exit wounds where Tim strikes true. One burns about a meter beyond Power Girl's head, giving her a little daylight to see by. The serpent thrashes.

The glowing blade in Lady Death's hand may lose all its cohesion as gravity enmeshes gravity and turns again to microwaves, blurring to a discordant wailing tune. Of blade, of monster, some duet of both.

Titanic temperatures known by stars erupt around Power Girl, unbinding the atomic structure that keeps warping and twisting beyond the bounds of known reality. Flesh evaporates, faith-infused corruption diminished into a compacted form in a last gasp. Fangs flash.

An axe rips open a hole, one that closes quite fast, a stroke that cuts deep and costs so very much, for poison ripples across the fomented vicissitudes that broke the world in its early days.

But for a man, that's all you need. Flames, the oldest force of cleansing, wreath the Sceptre of Was in the Egyptian god's hands. Set laughs aloud at the sacrificial offering, and the storm echoes the throaty, guttural sound. He hurls the double-ended base straight into the exposed aether shown by their acts. Molten lines radiate through Apep, light crawling past the pulsed beams and holes. For an instant, it goes dark.

Any mystic knows to duck. Ablaze from within and out, the great monster dissolves into gory muck and falling scales. The magi's spell is asked to hold one more time as the eclipsed sun rises over the Bay of Tyre, and implodes in a single point of intense light. An atom, even smaller, crackles and becomes nothing.

The serpent is dead.

Tim Drake has posed:
    The Outsiders jet comes slowly to a standstill. Its engines are little more than a low hum, the missle launcher and laser cannons folded back into its underbelly. All is quiet within the cockpit.

    Until Red Robin speaks up, into the comms. "<<...holy shit.>>" He said a bad language word! "<<Balm, please tell me you're out there.>>"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe knew to duck when the flames hit. She raises her left hand, letting her staff go out, and her shield covers her as she's brought back towards the shore, weaving and bobbing through the calming waves, her eyes closing.

    <<Yep>> is her reply on the subvocal. <<Still alive. Until John finds out I left his body on shore to hit /Apep/ and return him to the underworld so that we can see Sunrise thanks to Set the Destroyer. Ohmigod. Please, little golden boat, /please bring me to John's Body/.>>

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan's chest tightens as the strain continues, but she can do this. She can keep the energy up for the time being and her having bloody eyes is not going to be something that she can explain away now. She'd rather this outcome than letting Zatanna do all the work though. Once she knows that the threat is gone there is a slow ebbing of her magic, the inky shadow tendrils that have been showing up for months vanishing like shadows on the wind.

She lets herself collapse to her knees, hands reaching out to catch herself as she does, "Everything is alright." she tells herself as her head spins. "Just level out." she adds.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
After the sky turns blinding white followed by the crack of a sonic boom, whales and dolphins leap in the waters outside the harbor. A frieze of sea life depicted on the amphoras of the ancient Greeks keeps the wild waters back. Zatanna lowers her arm then plops on the sand like a kid ready to build a sand castle. Blinking she looks around.

"Well," she croaks with exhaustion, "so much for an Aegean holiday."

John Constantine has posed:
    When John finally makes it back to his body, he rolls onto his hands and knees and *vomits*. It isn't even that it was so terribly bad in there, kinda felt like riding his spirit animal. But riding a God, not all it's cracked up to be. Headache for days like than not, from the effort of it.

    As it almost always is, once he's done chucking his breakfast and the rest of the days liquid meals - read scotch and more of it, John struggles himself to his feet. Quick look... no Phoebe. His jaw twitches as it clenches.

    "PHOEBE!" Bellowed after a deep breath. For someone with lungs as scarred as his and currently turning to mush by the minute due to a demon's cursed breath, man can get LOUD.

    He's tired, cranky and not in the mood to have to go searching for, and possibly rescue, his young charge.

Jane Foster has posed:
Few people remain around the docks. Explosions and magical wonders are enough to send them for refuge elsewhere. There is the doctor hobbling away, assisting a shell-shocked crewman from the Ocean Viking charity ship. The man with bluer-than-blue eyes lowers his hand from his brow and turns away, a smile hidden under his beard, headed down the main road. A grizzled port worker scoops up a whimpering cur huddled under an abandoned crate, carrying the little yellow mutt to safety as fast as a bum knee will carry him. Baristas from the only Starbucks in town use the pause in the violence to join the exodus, conspicuous in their green aprons. The SHIELD craft swivels on the skyline of the city, returning from a run to pick up any civilian still waiting safety.

John's body remains very much on the shore where it has not run away or up and wobbled its path anywhere. May have a burn on his hand to explain later on though, the same mark in pink, raised flesh as the migrants drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. He isn't going to sea for her.

That boat Phoebe on stays still and bobbing until someone recovers it or she figures out how to turn a sail.

Set remains standing on the sea floor, yet laughing. <<I'm off to find a proper beer.>> This counts as something of farewell.

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Somewhere floating in the dark waters, blasted clear of the final cataclysmic clash a blur of inhuman flesh, Chaos energy, and sword has managed to reform itself into Lady Death and Apocalypse. Battered and burned by Chaos venom, she floats there for a few moments with her long white hair drifting through the water, as she thinks about what Set told her. She's had enough. There is a flash of bluish white light from somewhere out on the water as Lady Death disappears from the Aegean Sea.

Tim Drake has posed:
    The Outsiders jet--not that there are any logos or insignias emblazoned along its armor plating announces it as such--comes in for a low sweep across the water, close enough that ocean ripples as it passes, like a bird skimming along for fish. Its trajectory becomes rapidly obvious as it follows along its set path towards Phoebe's location.

    It slows. The side hatch opens, and the flicker of Red Robin's cape precedes his appearance through it, clutching onto a hand-hold as he looks downwards. "Need a lift?" he calls out, before tossing down a line to her.

Karen Starr has posed:
    The waters calm. The snake is dead. Its body falls to the sea, and then in some fashion discorporates.

    Idly, Phoebe is late back to her rendezvous with Constantine, and then alongside her golden boat, rises the soggy form of the blonde heroine Power Girl. Stealing Tim's thunder without a single care, Karen lifts the boat out of the water and flies with it to the shore, Phoebe within.

    Sodden, and still so /very/ irate, Power Girl sets the boat down in front of Constantine.

    "I hate magic."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe looks up, and she takes her com out of her ear, and puts it in her sea-soaked bag, looking to reach for the line when suddenly Power Girl errupts from the sea, lifts the boat, and Phoebe, and begins flying it towards the shore!

    "Oh! Thank you for the lift very kind of you Power Girl!" the healer states, and she flails a moment, grabbing onto the mast before she is put in front of John Constantine, and Power Girl announces her hatred.

    Phoebe opens her mouth, and then closes her mouth, and has the decency to look more than a little ashamed.

    "... you didn't come back."

Balder has posed:
Balder huffed a moment as he stood, putting pressure on Svraden to allow him to rise to his full height.

A slow exhale as he looks to his weapon, the blade of the axe slick wit hthe blood - and poison - of the beast. What's more? The god was now standing a pool of poison. Thankfully, he seems to suffer no ill effects since the poison has not entered through his body and his pores are too thick for the poison to seep into the skin, but he doesn't take hte chance of staying there long.

With a simple incantation, Balder teleports back onto land near the others, his armor stained by the price of victory and his cloak still managing to surround him.

"There is no reason to hate magic." Balder states. "No one should hate a sword when it is used, only the one wielding it." He offers his wisdom on the matter.

To the rest of them, he speaks. "Are there any injured?" He questions.

John Constantine has posed:
    "Me too, luv," John replies. ...and some days he does. He reaches up to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. Scotch and more scotch doesn't taste good coming back up. He plucks a Silk Cut from his pocket and lights it with a spot of Hellfire dancing on his fingers. Still can't find that bloody Zippo Chas gave him.

    A muttered few words under his breath and the door to 'home' opens. "March..." he snaps at Phoebe, a finger pointed toward that portal. "I was a wee bit busy..." Oh, he's pissed, yes... he is so very pissed.

    "Her, if she doesn't march her arse through that door," he replies to Balder. So. Much. Pissed. Off.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Red Robin sighs. "I was, like, right here," he says into the open air before he ducks back into the plane.

    A few moments later, the stealth system is re-engaged, and he's gone. Maybe? Well look the plane has disappeared.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna considers getting up. Her pants are sodden and covered with sand. She could magic that off but that would take an effort. She thinks the whales and dolphins are beautiful. Behind her, she hears rumbles of disapproval about magic. Little do they know.

"Later, John," she wishes the man as the portal winks out. Slowly, Zatanna gets to her feet.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    And Phoebe's soaking wet. Her hair is going every which-way, and she clings to her bag, and her shoulders rise up. She recognizes she screwed up, and she passes through the portal without another word or action, disappearing from the Tyre shore.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Karen is there, as Zatanna starts getting to her feet, to help her up. The Kryptonian is moving at human speeds, but she's still an impossibly strong statue that someone could, say, use as a brace to stand up on their high-heels in the sand, for example.

    "So can anyone explain to me what the actual /fuck/ that was?"