7365/In Erebos: The Gates of Doom

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In Erebos: The Gates of Doom
Date of Scene: 13 August 2021
Location: Tartarus and Themyscira
Synopsis: The Titans in Tartarus reach the top of the stairs just minutes ahead of the army of undead centaurs, but fortunately Diana has already sent word home to be on the alert, and brought extra Titans as reinforcements. The army of Themyscira and the Titans join together in an epic battle for the defense of Paradise Island, and a law that has stood for two thousand years is set aside - for the first time since the rise of Rome, men step foot on Themysciran soil, in recognition of the service they have done the Amazons.
Cast of Characters: Donna Troy, Kian, Dick Grayson, Terry O'Neil, Caitlin Fairchild, Damian Wayne, Gar Logan, Nadia Pym-van Dyne, Diana Prince, Cassie Sandsmark, Kate Bishop, Mary Bromfield, Kaida Connolly, Hippolyta




Donna Troy has posed:
    The light draws dimmer as the distance between torches gets less and less. Then suddenly tired legs find themselves attempting to take steps where there are no steps. The ground has leveled out. The quality of the air changes suddenly, from warm and dry to cool and damp. Sounds echo differently as the Titans who had ascended the stairs suddenly feel the sense of a much larger space around them.

    Eyes adjust to the darkness, and lights provided by the Titans themselves start to reveal a cavern. A vast cavern. The stairs top out at a short hallway, twenty feet long, that flares out to a huge archway twenty feet wide and forty high, that opens up into a dark space too high for the ceiling to be visible, and too wide and deep for the walls to be visible. Minds start to clear of the fog and illusion the magic of the staircases had engendered. How long had it been? A few hours, apparently. It felt far longer. What happened, and what impact did it have on the people who made that climb? That will take far longer to unravel.

    Caitlin is no longer at the front when the Titans arrive. Did she really jump? Did that happen, or was that just one more of the illusions the staircase had thrown at the Titans? She's no longer on the rope. Nor is Donna. Or Nadia. But before there's time for this to really sink in, the appearance of the three, some distance behind, is heralded by the movement of shadows from the torch Donna now carries in one hand.

    One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Thank Gaia. "We made it everyone!" Donna calls out with a tired but huge grin on her face. "Well done. I don't think we're far ahead of the centaurs though, I can hear something coming. Take a breather, grab a drink, and get ready to hold them at the archway as long as we can."

    Donna gathers up her lasso, and takes to the air, disappearing into the darkness ahead. A few moments later, the sound of a bell rings out three times, and all around the cavern, globes burst into light, illuminating the cavern. Opposite the archway, about half a mile ahead, can be seen a vast, round gate of heavy bronze, like some huge vault door, glinting in the dim light.

    MEANWHILE... At the controls of the Invisible Jet, Diana is coming in to land on Themyscira. With her in the jet is the box that caused all the trouble and even more Titans. Not far from where she lands is an ancient temple that guards the Doom Gates, the Gates of Bronze that lead to Tartarus, where they know their Titan companions have been lost.

Kian has posed:
    Kian flits into the air, just because he *can*, although only long enough to find something to perch on and catch his breath.  "I *hate* walkin'.  It iss what you do when you can not fly, or too young to haf grown your wings yet."
    What kind of bird is Kian right now?  Grouse.
    Never able to sit for very long, he flits back over to Gar and Terry.  "I do not like knowin' somethin' is comin'.  For some reason it iss easier to just' react when something unexpec-ted happens.  An' I am still not sure who I can act agains', and who not."  The eternal problem.  "How aware, how sentien' are these thin's?"
    He stops, and stares.  "An' how do I know this iss not another vision an' iss real?"

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Looking around as things open up, then the lights come up to reveal the size of the cavern they are in. Nightwing gives a little whistle, then looks around to make sure everyone is here, nodding to himself as Donna tallies up the group and it matches what he's seeing. Never know if the stairs are trying to play another trick on them, after all.

    As Donna flies off, he waves the other Titans over to group up. "Ok, we made it here before the battle, so that's good. On the not as good side, until Donna can get some Amazons here, it's us against the undead centaur army. So, lets set up at the top of the stairs. It's not a situation that requires much of a battle plan, really. We stop them here for as long as we can keep them busy. There's no fair fights here, do what you have to to keep them from getting past us. Vorpal, how long can you keep a rabbit hole open? If you can do it a while, make the biggest one you can at the top of the stairs with the other end somewhere inhospitable, we can block at least part of the archway that way."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal nods at Wing's words ears twitching at the sounds. One hand goes to clasp Kian, the othet to Gar, "We do the same thing we did at the Grey estate. Minus the part of me getting grievously wounded- I'd like to avoid that if we can. If only we had... "

And then a peculiar expression comed over him and he hmmms, gears turning in his mind.

"Kian, this is real, and we are going to be facing creatures who are already dead. So, don't hold back. Now is the time to show hell what you're really made of. I'm not going to hold back either, but we're going to need everything you can give- even with Donna and Cait, we're talking about /thousands/ on our tail."

He gets a drink, because hydration is important when going to hell.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin hustles up the steps a half-pace behind Donna and Nadia. The towering redhead looks as if she's had a rough go of it but with Donna and Nadia in proximity, she's setting a tireless pace up the stairs that is faster than most could comfortably run on a flat surface.

"They're definitely coming," Caitlin tells Nightwing with a grim expression on her hard features. "I can hear them." Her ears are sharper than most, and she turns to face the threat behind the Titans with all the immovable presence of a fortress wall.

She's just inside the massive gates, a rearguard position to prevent any one of the incoming horde from setting a profaned foot on Themysciran soil. They'll be forced to push her from her place if they want to reach the island's shores.

One of the Amazons draws near with supplies, and Caitlin accepts the waterskin offered to her. Food she can do without in a pinch, but water is life for the brawny Amazon. She greedily inhales most of two quarts of water on the spot before her thirst is slaked.

And as fastidious about manners and tidiness as she normally is, the situation warrants Caitlin messily devouring honeycake rations while Nightwing and Donna sort out the battle plan of the moment. The rations she had given out at the start of their adventure had left her endless hunger scraping her ribs for sustenance; in mere moments she eats a full week's worth of the rations allotted to the gate guards.

Standing in one place and having a task no more complicated than swinging her hammer seems to immensely appeal to Caitlin's sensibilities at the moment.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian was one of the Titans that attempted a step up where there was none, which made him stumble, just long enough for his reflexes to kick back in and jolt him up.

  He looked up from the ground, and gave a sigh of relief. "There, done." He added, before taking a seat somewhere to rehydrate and relax just a little.

Gar Logan has posed:
"Good, both of my feet feel like they're getting corns, or calluses, but hopefully not bunions," Beast Boy laments, wiggling his toes. Is he serious? Without looking closely, hard to tell.

He adds, "And the stairs were trying to keep us from getting here. Why would they just show us making it? We're definitely there, and I'm ready to kick centaur butt, or whatever else shows up here."

Vorpal receives just a nod aside from the moment shared. He pointedly does not discuss the ordeal to get here, nor the incident the feline reminds them of. After some water of his own, he says, "I don't think there's anything off the table for me here. Time to get the ol' noodle workin'."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
It is odd. There are still more tears on Nadia's face than likely anyone present has ever seen from her before and they're definitely not tears of joy, but as she steps off the stairs with Donna and Caitlin there is definitely something different about her. It is difficult to put into words but it is almost like she is more at peace with herself. Whatever the stairs showed her, whatever she pushed passed, the journey has left her changed.

While Donna flies off into the gloom to get the lights turned on, Nadia makes one final attempt to wipe away the water streaks on her face before pulling on her helmet. She turns her head to offer Cait another smile before launching herself into the air as well where she flies near the edge trying to peer into the distance to see if she can spot the army of undead centaurs in the distance. It's questionable whether the sensors in her helmet will help pierce the gloom or not, magic is a fickle thing, but she certainly aims to try.

Diana Prince has posed:
After leaving the Embassy in Manhattan the Invisible Jet roared its way to the Titan Tower to pick up as many additional Titans as they could muster up on a limited time frame. The trip was a quick one, the Jet making its way in to low Earth orbit before coming back down toward the mythical island of paradise. The Jet passed through the magical barrier and emerged with the beautiful landscape on display before those on the Jet.

Once inside the barrier, Diana contacted her sisters on the Island and warned them of what was to come. A cavalry of Amazon riders were setting off from the city toward the location of where the lost Titans were expected to emerge.

A grassy field waves in the winds coming off of the distant ocean, and from the suddenly VERY visible hull of the Jet as it fades in to sight, like a beautiful cloud the jet touches down on to the grassy land before a gangplank silently lowers down to let those within disembark the vessel.

Diana is quick to appear from isnide of the alien-tech-powered Jet. She rushes down to see the Amazon riders incoming, with thunderous sounds of horse and Kanga pounding to the grounds.

Once they are within range, the Princess calls out to the Amazon commander leading this contingent approaching them. "Prepare a defensive line. We do not know what may try to come out before, or after our people make it clear."

"Is it an assured thing?" The blonde woman in armor asks from her horse as she offers Diana the reigns to her own mount that she brought with her.

"I believe it is, yes." The Princess responds before she looks back to those who came with her. "Cassie. Help tell your team mates what to do and where to be." She tells of her young sister and fighting companion.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Meanwhile... Cassie is eating a delicious gourmet sandwich. What?!

Where last we left the group of Amazons transporting the 'possibly not Pandora's but still really troublesome' box, she had grabbed them meals to go from a certain friendly Kithotaur before they boarded the ever-trusty Invisible Plane. And Cassie isn't going to let something like an impending DOOMGATE battle get in the way of her appetite. "Oh these are so good." They really are.

Pre-battle snacking aside, she's all business!

By the time they've landed, Cassie has had time to gear up with stuff she'd grabbed at the embassy, and stands just behind Diana as the ramp comes down from the plane. It is one of the rare cases when her heroic costume isn't merely a random assortment of streetclothes or athleticwear. OK, technically she's still wearing some of that, but she's actually donned armor over it, a molded breastplate and loose-hanging military skirt, and greaves to match her usual bracers. They take this DOOMGATE stuff seriously.

In terms of guiding her teamates? The better option seems to be explaining the Amazonian tactics. "A good number will form a defensive formation around the door, fighting dismounted and creating a shield wall. Kate you can hang behind that and free fire. Mary, well, you're mobile, so I say hit 'em from above, maybe strafe along the front of our line. I'm gonna join up with the remaining cavalry detatchment, who'll maneuver to hit them on a flank once they've engaged." She can't resist the lure of the kanga charge...

And then there's Kaida, who she doesn't really know and she looks (down) at curiously. "I guess you can kinda do some hit-and-run underfoot?"

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate made sure her gear was all reeady to go and stowed with her in the invisible jet. That was step one of getting ready.

Step two was asking Diana some brief questions on what they might have to deal with if the Doom Gates are opened. I mean yes their friends and they may need all sorts of aid. But what opposition may take advantage of something called The Doom Gates being opened.

She definitely took advantage of the snacks that Ferdinand packed for everyone for the trip.

Her gear is grabbed up after they land and she jobs out after Diana and she can't help but smile brighter with the approach of the Amazons. Especially the Kanga. They are so fricking cool.

She waves to some of the Amazon she recognized there in the approach before turning to look to Cassie.

The archer seems fine taking instruction from the Amazonian teammate. This is their home turf. "Will do." she replies with a smile,

Mary Bromfield has posed:
     Mary Marvel hangs in the air behind Wonder Woman, arms crossed as she waits as the Amazon warriors assemble on horses. Then her eyes look over the forces preparing to make the stand. In her white outfit, she could pass for one of the Amazons, with the Greek styling. It is the wait, Mary's face is serious as she is prepared, but unable to yet act. As Cassie is placed in tactical command, Mary just observes, ready to accept instruction and coordination. A nod is given, it is pretty much what she would have expected, and a sound call. A deep slow breath and she remains calm on the exterior, and worried about the casualties on the inside.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
Like Cassie, Kaida has brought food. If anyone looks, the seat where she is supposed to be seated is filled with a various assortment of her favorite any time snacks. Simply put, cheese, crackers and meats all made into tiny sandwhiches. She has been working her way through them, bouncing up to look out at the world and then back to a sandwich. She's actually super excited by this entire trip and her little scarf flitters about along with her cloak as she moves and occasionally makes little excited sounds. Then they arrive!

"We're here! We're here!" Kaida declares and races down in time to see the other Amazons and she giggles excitedly, running to and fro, looking over each Amazon she can see before racing to another. Diana already got the star struck treatment briefly but like most things Kaida does, all of it lasts only moments before she's bouncing back by Cassie's feet as instructions are given.

"They will taste the bite of my blade and will learn to fear the name Kaida!" She laughs as she draws her now notched in the middle makeshift sword and points it in the direction of the Doomgate.

"Whoever or whatever they are!" She then bounces giddily and races over to Kate, who she doesn't know any better than say Cassie and giddily bounces near her, "We're gonna fight beside Amazons! Isn't that awesome?!?" She then is away again and racing to between Amazons and staring in the direction of the Doomgate, blade in her right hand, body bent so her left paw like hand acts as a third stabilizing point as she sniffs at the air and large round ears swivel before she looks over at a nearby Amazon woman and if she is looked at, she winks and grins, "Sup!"

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna stands before the bronze gate, waiting. She doesn't have long to wait before a hatch opens and a voice calls through to her in Themysciran, and she answers in the same language. There are a few moments silence before several voices can be faintly heard from the others side of the hatch. Even to those who don't speak a word of Themysciran, the tone of the brief conversation is obviously heated, but short. Donna turns and rejoins the Titans. Behind her the cavern starts to echo with the sound of vast gears turning, and slowly the heavy gate starts to creep open. Slipping through the gap before the gate is fully open, a dozen Amazon warriors in golden armor, carrying eight foot long spears, follow along behind. They peer curiously at the Titans, particularly those who are male. Apart from one.

    "AIKATERINE!" a blonde Amazon calls out, running forwards with a huge grin on her face to offer Caitlin a waterskin and a quick, one armed hug. She gets some dirty looks from several of her companions, who form a semi-circle of spears around the mouth of the tunnel leading to the stairs.

    "Chara!" Donna calls out with a laugh. "Time for that later. Be ready, they are not far behind us." She can't help but greet Chara with a pat on the shoulder herself though - obviously an old friend of Donna and Caitlin's. Being Donna, she also draws Chara's sword from her scabbard and gives it a couple of hefts, getting used to the balance. Chara has her spear. Donna wants something deadlier than a lasso.

    "Smart idea, Nightwing. We need to hedge them in," Donna says. "As long as we can. It's going to take a little time for the cavalry to arrive. Vorp, your rabbit hole can probably cut off half the width of the passage, and that's going to make life a lot easier. Kian, yeah... if we're facing what we think we're facing, they're animated corpses. They are already dead. Gar, they'll break past our line just on weight of numbers eventually, but you're not going to have room to charge at first. Robin, you're mobile. Nadia, Kian, you can fly. Can you three handle any breakouts while the rest of us hold the line?"

    Soon even those less sharp of hearing than Donna and Caitlin can hear the sound of approaching thunder on the stairs.

    It's normal, when Diana lands on Themyscira, for an honor guard to arrive to greet her off the jet. Clearly today is not a normal day, because there's no honor guard.

    There's an army.

    To those accompanying Diana who have not yet visited Themyscira, it might be a little intimidating to be greeted by the sight of at least a hundred warriors on horseback (not to mention Kangas!) thundering towards them, but they wheel their mounts to a halt, and Diana seems to be in charge. The blonde Amazon captain salutes Diana with an arms-crossed bracer clash. "At once, Princess," she replies. "Philippus is heading to the gates with another force in case we aren't enough."

    The Amazon force is fast and frighteningly efficient. Two soldiers take possession of the box, riding to the safety of the palace with it, several more bring extra mounts for Cassie, Mary and Kate (though not Kaida, she's going to have to share) while the rest form up a line. Before long the force is marching towards an ancient looking temple in a wide clearing, surrounded by a wall of spears. Advanced troops start pulling spears from the ground to clear a path for them when two more Amazons run up on foot from the inside the temple.

    "Diana!" one of the newcomers calls out, greeting her with a clash of bracelets. "Troia and Aikaterine have arrived at the gates, with some friends. They say there is an army of centaur close behind them, coming to besiege the gate. Make haste!"

Donna Troy has posed:
    At the head of the stairs, a fiery glow can be seen, moving ever closer. Even with the advantage of height, Nadia only gets to see the source a few moments before anyone else - a tall man, striding confidently forwards. Behind him, floating in the air, is a cart wheel six feet in diameter, cracked into three pieces, floating in the air and lit with flames that do not consume it. He stops just beyond the top of the stairs and looks at the defenders with a sneer. Moments later he is passed by a figure with the body of the horse and the torso of a man, a sword in his hands. His flesh looks flayed, raw muscle and sinew glistening red in the dim light, and his left arm is rotted to the bone. The air is filled with a foul scent. Behind him comes another. And another. And another. The battle is on.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal, noticing the tears on Nadia's face, walks over to her and gives her a quick hug. Nobody's taking about The Shit That Must Have Gone Down Up The Stairs. Nobody has time. "Ice Cream and sappy movies after this is done," he says. Or threatens, depending on your viewpoint. "... we've got company."

When My Little Dark Pony: The Cloppening is upon them, the Cheshire pauses for a second, and then gets a wicked grin.e
"I've got an idea. " Displaying the same kind of Byzantine labyrinth of decision-making that Alexa does when you tell her you want to hear more artists like Jethro Tull and somehow end up with Demis Roussos, Vorpal holds up a hand and a purple, glowing bone appears. It's roughly the size of his arm. He also opens a Rabbit Hole, waves the bone and hastily throws it into the hole, which closes immediately afterwards. Then, he sings by way of timing:

"How do you solve a problem like a Vorpal
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means a 'Vorpal?'"

He offers no explanation, he merely proceeds eventually re-open the hole again, to see the result-.

But, what is it?

Kian has posed:
    Kian gladly takes to the air.  Something *normal*, at last.
    What, though, to do from up there?  He still hesitates to cause injury.
    He glances down to check on Terry and on Gar... well, hm.  Terry.  He /can/ cause some confusion.
    Which means a bright, flickering curtain of light moves towards the... oh, whatever those things are.  It's just light, it can't stop them, but it should slow them down until they figure that out.

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan glances behind him with that large door off in the distance at the other end of the cavern they're not quite in. For the moment, the area they're tasked to defend is considerably smaller, much less wide, and not the roomiest. "Yeah, I can see that. I got a feeling we'll be back there soon, but until then...who the hell is that?" he asks, gesturing toward the guy with the flaming bits. "Know what, nevermind."

He grows in proportion, turning into a large gorilla as he beats his chest in a show of dominance as the first of the centaurs begins to approach with more behind. "You can all just call me Hodor!"

Then he stomps forward and simply /slams/ both fists into the closest centaur. "Ugh, these things smell like whatever you ate the other day, Vorpal!"

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Taking up a position to Cait's left, he pulls his batons from their place on his back and shakes his head. "Somehow I get the feeling my toys are going to be of little value against the undead. Can you tase a zombie?" Despite his misgivings about his effectiveness, he sets himself as the first centaur appears. Effective or not, he's going to hold position as long as he can.

    Considering the scene for a moment, he shrugs, raises an arm and fires a tranq dart at the man with the floating wheel. The centaurs may be dead, but maybe this guy was sent down here while still alive. That done, he sets himself in a combat stance. As Gar engages the first centaur, he watches the thing's response to try and get a feel for reaction time on the average large zombie. They're impressive, to be sure, but he quickly hones in on his strategy. When another approaches the defense line, he strikes not at the head or body, but at the front legs, possible the most vulnerable spot on the zombies.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Terry gets a hug and a smile too when he approaches for his quick hug.

"They're here!" Nadia calls out a few seconds before that becomes quite obvious as the army charges up the stairs and through the tunnel, but in battle a few seconds of decision making can make all of the difference.

When the tall man with the strange magic wheel comes into view, Nadia takes a shot with one of her energy blasters straight at the man's head. They're already dead, this is some sort of afterlife right? She just needs to make him deader and if she can help it she is not going to give him a chance to hurt her friends.

"Right! Stragglers!" She calls back to Donna. Until any stragglers present themselves though she zips around lining up shots where she can when an idea occurs to her. "What if we bring the mouth of the tunnel down on top of them? I have some explosives that could probably do it. Unless these are magic rocks that do not explode?" Magic things can be such cheaters.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin exchanges greetings and embraces with her fellow Amazons; all are well known but the moment is cut short by the sound of hollow hooves clopping a sepulchral beat along the stonework.

The Amazon phalanx forms a vanguard, stacking ranks; the Titans and their unique tactics make for fine shock troops but poor line soldiers. Caitlin's fellow heroes form their own skirmish line ahead of the phalanx, trusting the Themysciran women to catch any centaurs nimble or tricky enough to slip past them.

Caitlin takes her place ahead of the point of the spear with Nightwing and the other Titans, that twenty-stone hammer of hers heft across wide shoulders.

"Darnit, Richard, I'm a doctor. Not a zombiologist," she mutters at Nightwing in an aside.

The Titans have many strengths among them; speed, wits, precision, power-- but if there is one skill Caitlin has in abundance, it is the immovable endurance of the mountain itself. The line will hold as long as it must.

"Ready?" It is more statement than question; the response is a sharp crack of spears striking the edge of shields. Caitlin hoists her battle-maul and strikes the head on the ground with a resounding *crack* of stone underfoot.

"Ready!" she shouts. Spears clash against shields; the phalanx shouts, "Hou!" in unison.

Spears and maul and voices create a chanting cacophany as the vanguard rouses themselves with the rising shouts of readiness and the callback refrain of steel and aegis. The centaur legion breaks into a trot, then a galloping charge. They let loose a warbling, unnatural scream, ripped and decaying throats offering a macabre threat.

The response from the Amazons is a howling warcry of war-ready unison, and the light phalanx sets themselves to take the charge head-on with spears in hand. Nightwing and Caitlin, with her great two-handed battle-maul, scatter the first waves of the assault as easily as a farmer harvests wheat with a scythe.

But the sheer overwhelming numbers means that no matter how many centaurs pay for each backwards step, they /are/ gaining ground and forcing the defenders back onto Themysciran soil.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Nightwing's aim is true, but he's firing a tranquilizer dart at King Ixion, and Ixion is magically protected. The dart embeds itself into a wall of nothingness in front of Ixion, who looks at it curiously before turning his attention back to the battle. Nadia's energy bolt suffers the same fate, and this time Ixion barely pays heed to it.

    The curtain of light Kian generates does not halt the centaurs for a moment. They are not phased by Gar's chest-thumping. They are already dead, and they just don't care. The line of Amazon spears holds them barely any longer, as they charge the spear-points heedless of their un-lives, using the sheer speed of their charge and mass of their bodies to push at the line.

    Gorilla Gar, Donna and Caitlin do a counter-charge that drives the weight of centaurs back through main strength for a few moments, but more and more keep coming. Robin and Nightwing, both brilliant tacticians, know just where to be to bolster the line when it most needs it, and sword and batons both seem perfectly effective against the centaur soldiers. Nadia's air cover helps to pick off any centaurs that break through.

    But it can't last long. There are just /so many/ centaurs. It seems like only seconds of fighting before there are centaurs clambering over the bodies of their companions and leaping over heads, or simply pushing through the gaps in large enough numbers to force defenders to swing to the flanks. "/ANAGO!/ calls out the captain of the gate guard. "PULL BACK!" Donna echoes. "Close in, form a circle!"

Diana Prince has posed:
With the news of the Titans arrival at the gate, Diana readies herself. she reaches for her golden helmet attached to the side of the leather saddle. She raises it up and slips it on over her head where it form fits perfectly with her tiara across her brow line. The helmet has golden wings that reach down over the sides of her head and the form of an eagle above her head. She turns then to the commander riding beside her and leans over to place a hand upon her shoulder as they ride side by side.

Diana speaks to the Amazon warrior before riding off and moving ahead to another, doing the same with them, issuing orders as they close in on the Doomgate and the temple that precedes it. Once on site, Diana dismounts her horse and pulls from the side of the saddle now a number of weapons that she sweeps around her shoulders and afixes to her harness. Now with multiple javelins, an quiver loaded with arrows and a golden bow, the Princess rushes toward the temple. She shouts to other Amazons doing the same around her before she lunges in to the sky and shoots forward with super speed aiding her in taking the lead!

The Titans are up ahead, as are the Zombie CEntaru beyond them. As the Centaurs make their charge upon the Titans, a nearly imperceptable blur of Wonder Woman rushes past the above their heads!

With two javelins drawn from her shoulders, the Princess slams right in to the midst of the Centaur lines and begins to whirlwind in motion, using the dual wielded javelins to strike the horse-men's knees!

An order to pull back is given, but Wonder Woman is here now to ensure they have that much more ability to do just that!

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Robin joined the line away from Nightwing and the other tacticians, making sure he was going to be best utilized. Damian's sword unsheathed, it was probably his most prized possession, and he took very good care of that gift from Donna.

  Damian full well knew what exactly he was going to do, and he did it right from the start. He took out a grapple, and used it only to get himself some air, disengaging it soon after he had some height. He held the sword pointed down, as he landed on a centaur, piercing the monster's side.

  Almost immediately, he drew the sword back again, and used the centaur's body to jump off to the next one, slashing and stabbing to quickly damage and hinder movements. He took out the sword again, and kept up his fight, jumping and accessing where he needed to be most while in the air.

  Thank god there wasn't many archers in the centaurs, he would be an easy target.

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate a bit disatisfied with the advice the Amazons are able to give as they ride over to the gate and thne move down to the Cavern where reinforcements are needed. Shoot them and see what works is not too helpful.

Though she does get that it is unknown what sort of threat or how her specialty will be useful to the warriors of the island.

So not too disatisfied.

Arriving at the site of the defensive stand and breakdown of the defenses she whistles "That is a lot of dead horses to beat." and yeah she lets that slip over the comms.

Someone had to make the joke.

Still she fishes out an explosive arrow and looks past the front line of the Centaurs.... she is honestly looking for something.... ah there it is. She fires an arrow sending it sailing over the front line zombie centaurs and letting loose chaos amongst the centaur archers. "Hey I thought they had a big love of archery.. why are there so few archers?" this is out loud and over comms, already letting a second arrow loose as she side walks towards some cover because she is pretty sure they will be returning fire.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"Hoppa!" As they're brought mounts, Cassie gives an apparently familiar giant battle kangaroo a slap on the neck as she mounts up. In Amazon land, this kind of thing is normal!

Soon they're riding hard to reach the gate and reinforce the existing Amazon defenders. "When we get there, reinforcing the formation will be our main tactical priority, but you can mostly leave that to the Amazons. You three stick to your own strong suits like I covered. Best thing we can do against a superior force is mix it up, keep 'em off balance, never try and fight them on their own terms." She doesn't actually have any intelligence on the huge army of undead centaurs before they arrive, but context is key: defending Doom's Doorway is always a big deal, and it's always a 'superior' force, in some sense or another. Sometimes it's an endless horde, sometimes its a titanic creature. Sometimes its a titantic creature leading an endless horde. Point is, the work is never easy, and the Amazons always have to rely on their immense skill and know-how to carry out their task.

Although having Diana along never hurts, either!

As they reach the temple, Diana takes off at her faster flying pace, and while Cassie would be as well, she sticks with the cavalry compliment for the moment, riding at their fore as she has in some prior battles. As they make it through the temple (the column narrowing briefly as they pass), and she sees the huge mass of what they're fighting, she does react to the scope of the enemy force. "Oh great. Uh- OK! Well I guess they're mounted too huh? Just makes it a fair fight! Onward, break through to the circle! We need to open a path back to the doors and room for our artillery and injured!"

Clearly, time with the Amazons has taught her things that rarely apply in day-to-day heroing, where she thinks on the scale of the whole battlefield. But... she also still does the fearsome superhero thing, putting on an impressive show even at the head of the Amazon charge. Riding fast toward the enemy, the whole formation picking up momentum, she does what has become her classic maneuver at the last second: she leaps from the back of her kanga right as it reaches the first centaur, her mount rearing on its tail to deliver a two-legged kick to the opponent. Cassie goes airborn in the same instant, lighting up her lasso and casting it down into the fray, around another centaur near the front. Who she promptly yanks aiborn, and starts swinging around like a flail against his own army. All of this is centered at the proverbial tip of the spear where the cahrge meets the enemy, to help break open their line and let the other Amazons drive in the wedge and open a path through to the center formation.

Mary Bromfield has posed:
     Mary doesn't fly past the leaders of her group, Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl. She is; however, right behind them as they enter the chamber. She surveys in a second the state of things. The line is breaking, and the centaurs are pressing though into the hall. Very much having intended to harrow the ranks of charging beasts, another priority is assigned ahead of the skirmishing. She dives right into the first wave in a straight charge dropping towards the ground run along it at a meter height. The horse bodies stumbling faltering and sometimes pulverizing in direct impact as Mary Marvel cuts a line.

     However, even enemies can be collateral damage They aren't her target, and she swivels, putting her back to the hooves and flanks. Her hands grab overrun Amazons, and fling them clear to the sides. Some may indeed be more wounded for her effort, and some bodies corpses before she reaches them. Clear the wave of stomping hooves gives the sturdy Amazons of the line better odds than trampled beneath. Despite the Wisdom of Solomon, Mary Bromfield does not believe in acceptable losses.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
There's a bounciness to Kaida that certainly matches the animal she is riding over to the coming battle. Once they are there, she leaps down without asking anyone or anything what is going on and she races ahead to peer into the fray. She ends up having to claim a shoulder briefly to really get a good look before she leaps down, spinning as she goes and racing forward.

"To battle!" She proclaims without caring who follows her lead. She's got her sword out and is laughing as she goes.

"Hey, Titans!" She calls out as she approaches the battle and she leaps, lauhing as she goes and tries to sail right past Terry as she calls out, "Hi!" And then once she lands she is off again, racing straight for the zombie centaurs with her blade out, going for one particular horse man's ankles.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna with a sword in her hand, Donna who isn't holding back, Donna who isn't even getting disapproving glares from Nightwing because these enemies are animated corpses and she's allowed to kill them, is something of a force of nature. She moves around the battlefield at a blistering pace, almost a blur as she goes around diving under the legs of centaurs to hack their hamstrings, then leaping up over their heads and stabbing down into humanoid torsos. Along with the rest of the defenders she fights a furious defensive action.

    But it is defensive. The twelve guards and the Titans are being pressed on all sides when help arrives. First Diana and Thunderbolt crashing into the enemy lines, breaking up the assault on the defenders and giving them breathing room, then the cavalry charge lead by Cassie throwing the whole centaur battle line into disorder. Kate's question about the lack of archers is answered when they return fire in her direction, and two of the centaur archer's bowstrings snap - the weapons they are armed with are ancient, and very few strings have survived. Kaida dashes nimbly between clashing hooves, and the diminutive hero discovers that she's a really useful height for fighting centaurs. Her blade may be dented, but it's sharp enough to sever hamstrings.

    It's a respite for the defenders, but the battle is still finely balanced. The centaurs outnumber Themyscira's defenders more ten to one, and the cavern is still filling with more and more centaurs making their way up the stairs.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
And the Rabbit Hole finally opens, and what is it that comes out of that end.

A glowing bone that bounces down the stairs as if it were made of rubber- and chasing aftet it?

Kerberos, the Goodest Boy There Ever, courtesy of the Cheshire Cat. "WHO'S A GOOD BOY?" He's not, admittedly, a dogperson, although Gar is on a full moon, but he's starting to appreciate canines. The cat points at all of those naughty souls that should NOT be trying to escape, far more interesting than any old bone, "Fetch!"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
The Amazons are losing ground. Foot by foot, the implacable and seemingly endless tide of enemies chops their way towards the sacred soil of Themyscira.

"Fall back!" comes the cry.

"Fall back!" The Amazons break contact and retreat, fast as they can without it turning into a rout. Mary's help in plucking the injured makes the retreat far safer, allowing the Amazons to drop back to a secondary position outside the cavern proper. It is more defensible but they lose their ability to stopgap the flood of centaurs as they turtle up. Centaurs spill out of the cavern and start charging into the night, deranged undead seeking death and violence.

When Caitlin swings her heavy battle-maul, she clears out two or three of the undead legion at a time. Even aside from the weapon's low magic and exquisite craftsmanship, she's a woman of incredible stature and impossible strength. The maul weighs as much as a grown man and she wields it with great sweeping blows that use her mass as lever and counterweight all in one. Nothing can resist the great, sweeping arcs the maul leaves in the air.

Caitlin pauses, cocking an ear to the air over the riotous din of battle. "Do you hear that?" she demands of her fellow Titans. "Listen! LISTEN!" she shouts. Battle roars and surges and centaur hoofbeats strike the ground. Yet over all the din a sound can be heard; drums, in the distance.

"They're here!" Caitlin cries out, and lifts her hammer to a hillside in the distance. A Kanga stands in relief atop a hill; she waves her hand twice at the rider, and the rider waves back. It seems more signal than salute.

"Al-la-le!" Caitlin shouts. Her voice tears the air, loud enough to be heard for miles.

"Al-la-le!" the rider shouts. Another thundering burst of drums-- *thum thum thum thum*. Another hilltop, to the east-- another rider.

"Al-la-le!" the rider shouts, and her kanga drums the ground with the rapid thud-thud-thud of its meaty paw.

No longer a drumbeat-- a great thundering, like hundreds of hailstones beating a tattoo on the soil.

Lest one think the Kanga a strange choice for mount, the hills to the east would dispel that notion. Not one-- not ten, not a score. A hundred of the beasts are bounding forward with alarming momentum. Every one of them is clad in armor, breastplates and helmets and sporting sickle-claw gauntlets with a terrible hooked edge upon them. The least of the Kangas are twelve feet tall and the largest, nearly twenty. Muscles and tendon ripple in their flanks under lean fur, betraying how well-exercised the monstrous steeds really are. Every bounding step carries them nearly a score of meters.

And atop every steed is an Amazon rider, balanced effortlessly behind their neck and standing full upright in stirrups as if riding the tides in a rocking boat. The sound of their paws beating on the soil is not merely loud; it hammers the soil, rising up into the belly and setting the heart itself to dance a jig to the thundering tune of a thousands Amazons riding war-trained Kangas to battle.

"Vlastos!" Phillipus leads the countercharge with a warcry, and the Amazons raise their longbows and loose a volley of arrows at the enemies trying to flank the beleagured defenders. Such is their skill, even at that range, that few of the arrows fail to strike home-- and none of the gate's guardians are so much as scratched by the flying arrows.

"Etoimi fortisi!" comes the cry-- and the Kanga cavalry crashes into the legions of undead centaurs with all the force and fury of an unrestrained rockslide. Kanga use their gauntleted arms to cut and slash, to rip and tear; they lean back on their tails and kick out with enough force to kick a vehicle on its side. The cunning trap closes as the Amazon cavalry charges through the ranks of undead centaurs like a tidal wave wiping clean a beach.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
A blast here, another there, Nadia is very skilled at finding angles and opportunities to pick off the centaurs using her three dimensional mobility. It just doesn't seem to be enough though. More and more undead horsemen just keep coming.

When the front line begins to get overwhelmed with centaurs bursting over and around her friends, driving them back, Nadia looks on in concern from the air. The order to fall back and regroup is called, but she knows the Centaurs are not just going to sit still and let that happen. In that moment the last words Maria Trovaya said come back to her and Nadia does something no one among the Titans has ever seen her do before.

Dropping out of the sky she channels the power of her Pym Particles, not to shrink but to grow.

With a loud crack of stone splitting from the impact, just over 53' of Nadia drops upon the undead centaurs spilling through the gap. 'The cavalry' metaphorical and otherwise comes in many forms as she faces the oncoming horde and goes for a goal kick straight through their ranks. Just in time for the cavalry to arrive and the battle is joined!

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Nightwing has been very busy avoiding centaur weapons and breaking front legs right and left. A centaur without frone legs doesn't go mush of anywhere, so it's a fairly handy tactic. His acrobatic skills keep him from getting hit, as the centaurs seem to be relying mostly on numbers at this point. He's not easy to spot dodging and rolling through the mass of centaurs since he's taking the low ground, but a line of centaurs behind him are trying to figure out how to fight from the ground. About the best they can do is a kind of sliding motion, pushing ahead with their rear legs.

    At the call to retreat, he fires a grappel into the ceiling, rises out of the roiling mass of combatants and then releases the line, extending gliding wings from the backpack of his armor to head for the door leading out of the cavern.

Gar Logan has posed:
Strike and punch as he might, Gorilla Gar can only hit so many undead centaurs before their numbers push the line back. Donna moves in and proves why she is not to be trifled with. Robin makes his mark. Others still make a progression of their own, but it's just not enough. They're forced into the wide open spaces of the cavern.

For a time, Gar assumes his normal self, eyes sweeping the room in search of something to inspire him. Wonder Woman suddenly appears, tearing into the attackers. "That was awesome."

Soon as Vorpal's rabbit hole leads to the arrival of Kerberos, who wreaks havoc on the numbers. He laughs. "That's even more awesome!"

However, they still have to move back, though the pace at which they do is slowing.

Then come the army of Kangas and their riders. Beast Boy stares at this openly. "They have giant kangaroos? Holy crap!" And they're decimating the centaurs with their attacks!

Finally, after seeing Nadia grow to almost the full height of the cavern, he whistles and draws on a sudden idea. Centaurs. Kangas. Who knows what other mythical creatures Themyscira may call home. While not yet realizing they've reached soil normally forbidden to anyone of the male persuasion, he waltzes up to one of the larger Amazons, one toting a heavy-looking warhammer. No, he's not going to ask Caitlin for hers.

"Excuse me, but can I borrow that? I just got an idea," he asks the warrior, who gives him an openly skeptical look.

She tells him, "You look far too puny for this. It is nearly as long as you are tall. How could you ever hope to use it?"

Gar grins up at her, his sub-six foot stature beginning to change again, to grow. "I was hoping you'd ask that."

Within moments, he sees her eye-to-eye, then he's looking down on her as a bulkier form takes shape, along with a few particular features. "How about now?" he asks, extending a powerful arm, a strong hand.

The warrior stares at him and simply hands the heavy hammer over. "I have a spare," she tells him.

"Thanks," he rumbles, and Beast Boy turns back to the battle, almost literally bull-rushing into it anew as an eight-foot tall minotaur.

There is a satisfying crunch as he swings the hammer with both hands down on a centaur, then he drops his head and gores the side of another as he carves out a path of his own through the horde.

Kian has posed:
    Useless.  The light was useless.  And now there's just not enough time to think of something clever, but that doesn't mean that Kian doesn't /think/.  If they're genuinely dead, he doesn't think electricity will have much effect.
    That means explosions.
    But not where his friends are at.  Strategically placed to push these things away from his friends.
    Strong, sharp, very localized explosions, shoving the monsters into the cavern walls, knocking them off the paths of their charges, anything to keep thim back and away.
    One that he sees charging in the general direction of Gar is knocked off course perhaps with a little more force than was actually necessary.
    And then the unthinkable -- to Kian, anyway -- happens.  An arrow passes essentially harmlessly through his left wing, damaging two feathers.  No real or permanent harm done, not even to his maneuverability...
    ...except one of those filthy creatures hit his /wing/.
    This is probably the first time anyone has heard Kian sound genuinely angry, and it's just as well that it's in his own language.
    The archer... isn't.
    Where it was is marked by a small crater, and a scattering of centaurs that had the misfortune of being too near it, and he doesn't stop there.  The other archers, those not already being dealt with by his friends, will get the same treatment.
    There are some blasphemies that are not forgivable.

Diana Prince has posed:
The undead Centaurs converging around Diana do their best to try and encircle her to increase the odds of landing a blow on the blur-like target that is the super fast Amazon Warrior.

She ends up on the back of one equine zombie man only to deliver her right-handed javelin in to the side of his head and out the other side, before leaning back to avoid an attack from another of its bretheren!

On her back on the back of the Centaur, Diana rolls swiftly to her right and transfers from one beast to the next, straddling its back now with her own back to the back of the zombie upper-half that tried to stab her!

Back to back with this enemy now, Diana hoists her javelin in her left hand up to stab it in to the back of the rider's head behind her own over her shoulder!

Two more Centaur ride right at her on the crumpling horse body beneath her as she lunges from it toward them! Both of her gold and silver javelins lunge outward in to their noses at the same time, and using the leverage of having the weapons embedded in their heads, Wonder Woman sommersaults backward and down on to the ground upon her armored boots where she pulls herself by her own javelins across and beneath the impaled Centaurs!

Her armored boots cast sparks up in to the air whilst she glides across the ground beneath the two toppling undead beastmen! When she comes up on the other side on her feet again her arms thrust upward and her golden bracers slam together!

The resulting kinetic blast sends out a ear popping explosion of energy! The white and pale gold wall of power rolls out from Wonder Woman's arms directly in to the horde of Centaurs coming up the staircase toward the temple!

The mouth of the cave is suddenly illuminated by the blast of power from Diana, before it falls silent again....

A moment later and the Princess rockets back out of it, flying through the air with sword and shield clutched in her clenching fists!

Diana lands on the grassy fields outside of the temple in time to see the Battleroos rolling across the field, leaving what Centaurs that got out in ruin in their wake... She breathes a soft sigh of relief at the sight.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian had been continuing his strike and flee methodology for a moment, before a Calvary unit of kangaroos, and a very big three headed dog make their foray into the fracas.

  Robin turns in the air, and takes his RPG from his back, and launches the device, towards the back of the centaur group, away from his allies, but dense enough to where he makes his rocket propelled grenade worthwhile. The explosion echoes through the air, along the zombie bits that fly through the air in the explosion.

  Damian tosses the launcher aside, while his cape goes rigid to glide out, and land on the fluffy neck of the three headed Good Boy. "Empros, Kerberos, dankoma!" The young Robin gave the dog a pat on the back, and held on to the beast like he would Goliath. The dog began to rip and tear his way through the centaur horde, splashing Damian in the juices and viscera of zombified centaur, to most it would be a horrifying experience, to Damian: "This is the coolest shit ever!"

Mary Bromfield has posed:
     By the time Mary's recovery efforts have completed, she is behind the main body of centaurs. Roeckets forward she snatches one from behind at the shoulder under the arm and drags him forward till she can do the same on the other side pushing forward with their moment till there legs cannot keep up. Then Thunderbolt start to spin with them until the centaurs are almost straight out from her at high g-forces. She rams forward into the closet group clobbering with their zooming breathern. Faster and harder till the momentum rips loose the dead man-horses from thier body and launches them as projectiles.

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate dodged the not very bountiful volley back and watches several lose their ability to fire arrows. Then well .... they are pretty much taken care of. "Well that is that..." she muses to herself and then eyes the battlefield.

She races along heading for a group of amazon who have bows with them and points out there. "Hey I think we have an opening there for us to get a solid volley into the centaurs rank..." point "There if we hurry without putting any of our people in danger. Need to act quick though."

She knocks one of her own arrows and eyes it a moment longer, which gives other a chance to ready their own volley as well. "Now!" shouts the young archer as she fires three arrows in quick succession arching them up so they will fall on an area of the enemy army without any friendlies.

She hopes the archers follow her lead.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
In the air, Cassie continues to twirl her first target in the air, savaging the rest of the centaurs beneath her with the electrified, increasingly battered, and eventually broken and smoking body of one of their own... until at last she hurls it about like one of the slingers and then lets it fly, turning the whole... corpse turned foe turned less pristine corpse again into a massive projectile that goes bouncing through a section of its kin below.

It is nice when you don't have to play gentle.

At the end of the maneuver, she flies a quick loop that brings her back to Hoppa, landing in a crouch rather than fully in the saddle. Here the two become a team again, riding through some of the area her prior brutal lassowork has cleared. Like Mary, she is very much focused on her sisters; indeed, her entire push has been aimed at clearing them a better avenue of retreat. As she finally rides into their midst, she calls quickly so that a few more wounded can be brought forward, the first pulled up into the saddle behind her, and the next to -replace- her as she leaps free again to hoist an Amazon who cannot walk and lay her on the kanga, the other Amazon already there now helping secure her. "Go," she instructs, the words for Hoppa as much as for the other woman. And they're spoken just as those horns sound, and the full kanga regiment appears to begin its own charge.

She really almost DOES shed a tear. Well. "OK I gotta ask about getting some of those claw-gauntlet things..."

In any event, her mount turns to reverse the path, hopping away to safety with two passengers. Cassie is fine on her own, after all, with the flying and stuff, and quickly returns to battle, drawing a shortsword to pair with the lasso, sailing into the midst of the creatures for closer melee, hacking and shocking alternately, or occasionally fending off blows with one of her bracers. A moment later, she's back in the air again, leaving a group below her just as Kate -- and a whole squadron of Amazon supporting her -- saturate the area with arrows.

She still has the quip-presence to offer a thumb's up from the air: "Noice."

Kaida Connolly has posed:
"This is awesome!" Kaida yells out and races between legs of friend and foe alike. She leaps to the side just before being stepped on only to nearly get stomped again. She races up a leg and leaps off to slash at another before flipping over to land right near Terry and jump on to his shoulder briefly to say, "Hi! Cute dog!" And then she's gone again. She's not sticking to one spot for very long. Each movement is bringing her to another part of the battlefield only to have her halt when she spots...

"NADIA!" She declares as she spots her at over fifty foot tall and her arms go up and she yells out, "Woohoo! Big Nadia!" And she doesn't even hesitate to try to rush up Nadia and go to her shoulder before shouting, "I'm on top of the world!" Before leaping back into the fray from that high.

Sure, it might seem dangerous but being tiny really makes it difficult to take fall damage. Being two pounds of stuff that is tough enough to get hit by a car and the car gets a dent? Well, she's quite the little projectile from above.

A tiny foot lands on the back of a centaur, causing it to nearly collapse under the sudden impact and she cackles as she races off to try to cut another with her blade but she hits a hoof.

A moment later, she stares at her broken sword and very litterally wibbles. Her mouth quivering even as a centaur races a hoof to try to stomp flat the little mouse.

"THAT. WAS. A. GIFT!!!" And the hoof comes down on nothing only for the little blur of Kaida to reappear right into the side of that centaur's face.

It's a brief appearance, the little mouse reaching damn near the speed of sound while screaming in anger.

It's like a game of angry, tiny pinball. One could explain the math but suffice it to say when you take something that can punch with nearly twenty pounds of force and speed it up ot nearly the speed of sound? Well, you end up with a furious pinball that has most certainly tilted.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Kaida! You're here?" The Cheshire blinks in surprise, and agrees, "Yes, he's a cool do-" and she is gone in a blur. She is like that. Hades, Terry reflects, can't really be a bad sort, if he named his big woofy boy 'Spot.' Think about it. Outside of a few bad days (and who doesn't have /those?), Hades seems to be the least dysfunctional of the gods. "I'm sure he won't take offense, we're not taking the pupper /out/ of Tartarus. We're just taking him for walksies." Or ridesies. Gar has become MinoGar and Kian has gone Supernova. What, aside from summoning Goodboy, can Vorpal do?

Unleashing the Manxome was out of the question. That way led the loss of control, and that was dangerous here.

The Cheshire Cat narrows his eyes as the lines fall back, only to then be rescued by the arrival of the Men Of Roha---- the Amazons. The Amazons are riding /war kangaroos/, and it's a sight so /much/ for Terry that he almost forgets what he's doing. Just for a moment he is totally and so absolutely verklempt- until an arrow passes by his ear. Then he returns to What Is Going On.

Shielding himself with a glowing kite shield, the Cheshire takes a brief knee to try to think in the midst of all this chaos- it's not as disconcerting to him, he revels in it. But that's when his earlier conjecture surfaces to the top of his mind again...

Eris. Discord. The orchestrator of chaos, surely she was behind this, beguiling Ixion to give way to his desire for vengeance for the sheer sake of upsetting the golden apple cart.

Order was here in the form of the Amazons and Diana- he had held her lasso and he had felt the absolute giddiness that Chaos feels when in the presence of its opposite number. So the clash was in order- Eris' hidden hand versus Diana's glowing lasso. He could use his tricks and he could use his Rabbit Holes to great effect, but that wasn't going to weaken the cause of all this, was it? He needed to think like Eris-- well, soon. He first needed to do /something/ to help.

Hands on the ground, he unleashes the Chaos Wave to course through the stairs and cause the steps to tilt, in an attempt to send all the centaurs that haven't made it sliding over the edge like a funhouse staircase. Because that's On Brand. "You should've made a left turn at Albuquerque."

But there's more work to do.

"King Ixion!" the illusion of Vorpal floats by the King Of The Wheelies, resting on thin air and... gnawing on a carrot, in a reference that the Titans and Absolutely No One Else Here will get. "Have you gotten so eager in your revenge against being used by one god that you are eager to be used yet again by another one? From Zeus' whipping-dog to Eris' lapdog? What a maroon!"

Donna Troy has posed:
    The battle had been hard at first, but once Philippus' reinforcements had made their charge, and Kerberos had joined the fray, there was only one way to go. Although still outnumbered, the Themyscirans and their Titan allies are simply better fighters than the centaurs. More skilled, mostly stronger, and far more disciplined. It would have turned into a rout if any of the centaurs were fighting for their lives, but they are already dead. It's only a matter of reminding them of that fact. Soon the floor of the cavern is littered with the bodies of long-dead centaurs, no longer animated by the magic that had allowed them to briefly returned to this mockery of un-life for one last battle, and groups of well-drilled Amazons finish off the stragglers with calm detachment. At last Diana and the Titans can take a well earned rest.

    Or not.

    "That did not go as well as I had hoped." The sardonic voice echoes through the cavern, weirdly amplified. He's speaking in some ancient Greek dialect, yet somehow everyone finds themselves able to understand it. King Ixion floats slightly off the ground and drifts forwards into the ranks of the Titans and the Themysciran army, the broken wheel floating along behind him, still aflame. "But then the Centaurs always were a bit of a disappointment."

    A score of arrows speed through the air, but like Nightwing's tranq dart and Nadia's energy bolt before them, they just embed in an invisible wall that appears to be floating ahead of him. He grins wide and arrogant. "Luckily they are not my only allies. Now, as none of you can hurt me, I suggest you all just get out of my way, while I..."

    "Do nothing. You stupid little man. I did not give you permission to leave." If Ixion's voice echoed through the cavern, this voice fills it. It comes from everywhere and nowhere. Ixion looks around, his expression fearful.

    Behind him, the wheel burns suddenly twice as bright, and the three broken sections start to drift inwards, and come together with a clang. Ixion looks behind him with panick, and starts to fly forwards. The wheel, whole again, comes on inexorably, keeping pace with him, then accelerating until it catches up with him. Bands of fire lash out around his limbs, and pull him to the wheel, spreadeagled across it. The fire burns even brighter and for a moment, and Ixion screams - and is gone, leaving behind a whirling cloud of fiery motes.

    A woman in a long saffron robe, glowing slightly, steps through the sparks, brushing them idly from herself, and stops short of where the heroes stand, looking around. One by one, all around the cavern, Amazons fall to their knees.

    "Well," she says to herself, in a voice that sounds like moonlight should sound, "What a mess." She raises one hand and snaps her fingers, and all the centaur corpses are just vanished. "I think that's everything. Oh... no. One small detail. Come on out. Stop hiding. I know you're here."

    One of the Amazons giggles and stands up. "Busted!" she announces gleefully, walking towards the woman in saffron. She takes her helmet off, revealing youthful features, looking no more than sixteen, with short cropped hair. "You always ruin my fun," she says, sighing dramatically like a sulky teenager. "Oh... very well. But..." she turns, her eyes finding Vorpal. "You. You disappoint me. A creature of chaos, and you try to oppose /me/? Foolish little Wonderlander. I shall have to think about how to repay you. Perhaps I shall visit your realm. Or... yes. Oh... yes. Even better!"

    She bursts into laughter. The woman in Saffron clicks her fingers again, and both of them disappear.

    Around the cavern, the Amazons rise from their knees, and get about the business of seeing to fallen comrades in a strange quiet, none of them talking about what they just saw.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Almost as drenched in centaur gore as Damian, her sword dripping and eyes glowing with battle lust, Donna shakes her head and gives out a long sigh. Then she walks up towards Philippus, sheathes her sword and brings her arms up in a bracer-clashing salute.

    "General," she says. "Please pass word on to my mother for me. I will be here for twenty-four more hours, and then I am turning around and going back down to Tartarus, to cross the lengths of it with my companions and find another gateway. Because it is the law of Themyscira that no man may tread on its soil, and I will not leave my companions, my male friends who dared everything Tartarus could throw at them and risked everything they have to save Themyscira. Where they go, I go."

    "Let her know, we will rest here in the cavern one day. And then depart. Unless she is willing to make an exception for my friends, and grant them the honor they have more than earned today."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal stands there, eyes wide open at what transpires in the wake of their victory. Hekate is /right/ there, and once again he has to resist the urge to ask her if he can take a selfie with her, because you do not act familiar with the goddess of sorcery. That's just not something you /do./ And then when his suspicions are proven right and Eris... well. Eris basically goes 'AND I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT IF NOT FOR YOU MEDDLING KIDS', he feels so vindicated, so justified, that once The Discordant One has vanished it just naturally blurts out of him:

"Oh my god, I was right!"

And then it dawns on him. What Eris /said/. What Eris said means that he is now on her sights, and there is a very good reason why there never was such a thing as a Temple Of Eris, why no-one sang hymns to her. Why nobody loved her.

And he doesn't even hear what Donna says, his mind quickly playing potential doomsday scenarios in his head about what Eris could do to April. Or To his mom. Or to Gar. Or Kian. Or Lois, oir....

"Oh my god. I am /so/ fucked..."

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan finishes making his own mess, and most parts of him that are green have turned whatever color zombie centaur insides are. Thankfully, this form at least included some way for him to look mostly decent, though his upper body is fully exposed.

With so much happening, it's tough to catch all of it. The matter of Ixion? Not so. The MinoGar remains standing, staring, raising both bullish brows rising before he grimaces and grunts, "Well, he just went out like a chump."

After this, he finds the Amazon who loaned him her hammer, holding it over a shoulder with his arm against the handle. "Not bad. I think we made a bigger mess here than Gallagher. You can have this back, thanks. Sorry, I didn't get a chance to clean it up."

To this, the Amazon warrior merely stares as he leaves it with her, only for her to quickly kneel and Gar, still in the minotaur form, to blink at the interaction between..whoever that is and Vorpal. "Uh, what just happened?"

And, yes, Donna lobbying for them draws partial attention as his tail flicks behind him, as if swatting at a fly.

He can't help it, adding mostly for Vorpal, "More than usual?"

Kaida Connolly has posed:
As the whole thing winds down and things start to calm, Kaida calms herself and lets out a slow breath, somewhat covered in battle gore and such. Being tiny means that the big messes don't just get on you, they get all over you. She shakes off like a dog might and sighs as she looks at herself and then looks at her sword. She holds it carefully and shakes her head, "Oh swordy. You were a casualty of war! A brave soldier, fighting for justice and peace!" She walks slowly with it toward other Titans, cradling it like a fallen soldier only to blink at the various people.

"Wait, who were they!? What is going on!?" She looks to Donna and then at the others. She then lets out an upset huff and rushes to beside Donna.

"I will not let my friends go back into hell or whatever and face off against that guy, that woman, and that other woman by themselves." She holds up her broken blade, "Even with a broken sword I will defend them if they can't go on to the island!" She then looks over in the direction of where the people went, "Seriously though, who were those people?"

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate cocks her head to the side and keeps her bow out in her hand as she looks around at all the Amazonians being all respectful to the woman in Saffron.

Quietly over comms <<Is that Persephone?>> to the other Titans because well if she had to guess that is her best one. <<Who was the teenager threatening Vorpal?>>

She glances at Damian though at his statement and furrows her brow. The fuck.

Damian Wayne has posed:
    Robin and Cerberus approach the others in his clan. The dog's muzzles darkened by gore and slobber but the three heads were alert and happy, panting with tongues out. Robin slides off Kerberos, giving the dog a good pat on his haunches before standing in front of the big pupper. "Right here, boy!" He declares, holding out his phone and giving a big happy grin, snapping a selfie with the guardian of the underworld. "Good bloodthirsty soul hunter!" letting the guardian of Tartarus on his way back. "That is the best boy."

Joining the rest of his group. Luckily, Damian cannot smell himself, but pretty much smells awful. He stands next to Donna, and swipes the blood off his sword, putting it back in its scabbard. Practically none of the Robin suit's normal colors can still be seen, only hints of crimson, green, and gold. "General, it was an honor to fight with your warriors." He said, standing tall, and proud, all five feet eight inches of his height. <<Probably, too bad we didn't get to meet her side man. That would have been awesome.>> Though, how many gods must one meet in a day?

Kian has posed:
    Kian drops to the ground, a little wild-eyed, clinging to both Gar and Terry like they were a life raft and he was bobbing in the ocean.  Honestly, he does not look well.
    "/Tenar'yw/, hold me up please, I do not feel well," he says very, /very/ quietly, so that only Gar and Terry can hear.
    "I do not want to haf to face the stairs again, Tana... *Donna* /tavar'h/," he says a bit more loudly.  "I saw thin's I do not wan' to haf to see again."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
With the danger past, Nadia returns to her normal size. She was about to take another shot at Ixion when a goddess catches him first. "Woah! I didn't know this place has surround sound!" When all of the Amazons start kneeling, Nadia blinks a few times like she doesn't quite understand what is going on but kind of half kneels because it seems like the right thing to do at the time, more of a squat really. She peers at the strange young woman when she reveals herself, something about her and her flippant attitude with the lives of others reminds Nadia a little too much of the evil versions of herself that she has met.

But then they are gone and Donna is talking about messages and possibly another treck back across Tartarus and she takes a deep long breath because even the ever eager Nadia is not so eager to face all of that again. "Donna's Mom wouldn't really make us do that? Right? They helped save the island just as much as anyone else here..."

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Once the re-slaughter of the not-alive-so-its-ok is completed, Cassie sails down to land with the group of re-united Titans. Although Donna is making an impassioned plea SLASH passive aggressive extortion for an exception for her friends -- something she'd no doubt support - she doesn't see any reason to speak up on the matter. Can she really top it?

Instead, having observed the whole divine exchange, she ambles up to Terry, who seems a little upset about the whole thing.

She, however? Seems to think it's a riot.

"Welcome to the club, buddy!"

Hippolyta has posed:
"There is no need to relay that message, general," comes a deep, rich voice, "I heard everything."

The Queen of the Amazons herself appears, imposing in the Amazonian regalia of war. The otherwise resplendent armor is marred by the remnants of dead centaurs, offal clinging to her shield and sword, her skin marred by dried blood- most of which is not hers.

"Daughter." she says, her eyes passing over the scene and its participants. The fierceness that burned in battle has still not fully disappeared from them, which makes her look absolutely implacable, unbending. "There are laws, sacred to the gods themselves, that are the foundation of great things. Time itself, the progress of the planets and the birth of the stars. It has always been the way of Themyscira to uphold the laws of the gods, and in particular the boon of The Patronesses, on whose grace we depend and from which we endure. These laws may be broken by no man, by decree of Aphrodite herself- this is our eternal duty."

The sword is cleaned and sheathed, and the Queen turns her intense gaze once again to those assembled. "But it is foolish to think that that which is eternal is immutable. Indeed, that which refuses to change is, in turn, destroyed by the weight of eternity and passes into memory. Time and time again we have seen the Patrons themselves alter their decrees when the propitious time appears, and the opportunity for a greater good, and a better law, present themselves."

She glances at Donna, then, and the intensity in her face subsides a little. "And it sometimes necessary for the wisdom of age to be reminded that the impetuousness of youth can often be a wisdom we have failed to fully understand."

"You have all fought bravely this day and have provided an invaluable service to Themyscira. Its people and its Queen welcomes you this day."