7534/What the hell just happened

What the hell just happened
Date of Scene:	24 August 2021
Location:	Carter-Sousa Home - Long Island
Synopsis:	While Abcde and Lily attempt a magical ritual to severe the connection between Daniel Sousa and Arturo Malevolo, they are strangely interrupted by time nazis calling themselves the Time Variance Authority. They arrest Daniel; Peggy, May, and Abcde race after them to save Daniel as Lily absorbs a time reset charge (because nom!)
Cast of Characters:	Abcde Prescelta, Peggy Carter, Daniel Sousa, Melinda May

---

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    A magical guillotine to cut a magical cord. Daniel and Arturo are in metaphysical free fall around each other. Which is why the basement of the Carter-Sousa residence has been turned in to a bit of a magical laboratory. At its center is the mirror frame through which Daniel and Arturo arrived in 2021. The mirror itself is gone, the djinn that inhabited it too. That meant the power source was gone but Lily promised she had a solution to that.

    Surrounding the mirror are ruins painted in (what Abcde assures them) is rust and not blood. Because she does not do blood magic. That way lays darkness.

    When the use the magical mirror, powered up by Lily, to cut the cord - they can finally keep Daniel in the future and not worry about the world coming to an end. Of course, they would still have to deal with Arturo - but one problem at a time.

    It was sure to be a weird day. Starting off with having both May and Lily in the room. Abcde can't stop peeking over at the pair of them. She should be paying more attention to Daniel, assuring him everything is going to be okay. But really, she can't give that guarantee.. which is why she's been avoiding Peggy's gaze too.

Peggy Carter has posed:
A few weeks of stolen happiness. Peggy recovered from the assassination, Daniel promoted to being a full agent, they had a brief time of nothing wrong. But that was a lie, really, something WAS wrong. He still had that connection, there still needed to be some Daniel in the past. So, instead of just savoring this time, they've come to fix it. Peggy is hovering nervously close to her husband's side, wearing an elegant teal jump suit and t-strap heels, it's an outfit made for fighting and moving if they need to but still with her certain kind of style. She keeps a plain, quiet, slightly too tight smile on her features as she watches the set up between them all.

It's odd seeing May and Lily in the same place. She's incredibly close to both of them for entirely different reasons, but seeing them together is odd. She gives a little sigh and a half laugh, "I wish we were all in the same room for... very different reasons. I wanted to enjoy the time we all got to meet, you know? Reminsce about good, old times... But, I suppose this was meant to be."

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Daniel looks around the basement saying, "And I thought the weirdest thing we'd do here is keep a head of HYDRA captive." He's standing to one side of the preparations, in one of his old suits and ties, wearing his old leg and gripping his cane with the hand not holding tight to Peggy's. He wore his old get up just in case things go wrong, if he gets flung back to 1956 wearing a modern suit and packing an ICER they'll have done more damage than good. Still, he was hoping it wouldn't come to that, and all of this would work.

He believes in his friends but they can all likely see the nervousness he keeps under tight lock and key in how he stands and for Peggy the faint smell of cigarette smoke clinging to his suit.

"We can enjoy this weird reunion at the wrap party when we do this thing," he says. "But it's good to see you all."

Melinda May has posed:
May, frankly, is totally and absolutely weirded out by her... !doppleganger. Time twin. Whatever. She's controlling it; it doesn't show on her face. But there's tension in her shoulders that betrays it as she steals glances at her lookalike periodically. Her emotions -- and Lily can certainly sense them, even if no one else in the room can -- are certainly a messy roil of conflict and concern. Weirded out as she is, she's still intensely curious about the other woman, simply because she read the other woman's diary. An invasion of privacy, maybe, but she knows full well Lily expected it. Hell, Melinda's convinced Lily left it for her quite on purpose.

And, she did. For her part, Lily is much calmer than Melinda on the inside. She knows why she's here. And while she doesn't know what's going to happen -- indeed, she's a trifle nervous she might scatter her temporal atoms across the cosmos before this adventure is over -- she does know it will somehow work out. Faith is something she's learned over the last fifty some odd years of her strange life.

Where Melinda's expression is tight, focussed, and intent, Lily has a small smile on her lips. It's almost playful, really. Part of her wants so desperately to punk Melinda by acting as a mirror for her... literally reflecting her every move just to get the uptight agent's goat. The more compassionate side of her, the empath who can feel just how deeply insecure her 'twin' really is, knows better than to try that with the woman. Not here. Not yet, anyway.

So, instead, she sits as much at ease as she can, given the circumstances, and glances to Peggy as the Englishwoman expresses her nervousness with a wistful lament. "Keep the whiskey in reserve," she tells her friend. "We'll need it before this night's out, I'm sure."

Her gaze falls on Daniel and her lips purse slightly. "Daniel... where's your good leg?" She's not expecting him to wear it. She wants to know where it is in its case. "Mind if I look at it?" Odd request perhaps. She has her reasons.

Melinda quirks a brow at Lily's request. Snirking softly, she pushes herself off of the up from chair she's been perched on and crosses toward the stairs... just because it's someplace to move. Aside from that soft scoffing noise, however, she says nothing, having fallen typically silent in the face of this 'stranger' in their midst.

Which is funny, given who the stranger is...

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    User Friendly is often a term reserved for computer interfaces. They are as complex as magic sometimes. Abcde has tried to make this one simple. Some of the rust on the floor is not magically inclined at all. There's a circle for Daniel to start in and a circle for Daniel to stop in. There's a dotted line that passes through the magical mirror with an arrow head. Because the last thing a magic user needs is regular people messing up the spell.

    "This is your last reminder that intent defines reality," Abcde has told them this before, "so do not let your mind wander to strange flights of fancy while we do this.. and everything will be okay."

    She smiles and nods to May, "Lily," A thinning of the lips. Oops, that's May. She nods to Lily, "Lily, imbue the mirror with the temporal power source please. Daniel, to your starting circle."

    Abcde has a lectern set up scrawled with odd magical symbols and on it, notes. So so many notes. She is dressed in her witchy best too. A literal black pointy hat with the tip bent over, a long black cloak, but underneath a brown t-shirt and blue jeans. She picks up her wand and taps the tip on the edge of the lectern like the conductor of an orchestra.

    In her Appalachian drawl she invites them to step toward the brink of disaster with her, "Places people. It's time to fix ...time." No one here is under the illusion that what they're about to do is safe. The alternative, though, will be far worse.

Peggy Carter has posed:
Peggy doesn't really have much to *do* here other than be on hand if things go wrong. She's not the one displaced, she's not the one giving magic. Therefore, as Abcde steps forward and starts getting them into place, she leans over and kisses Daniel full on the mouth. "I love you. I love you madly. I'll see you on the other side of this." She wishes she could promise that, but she can't. "I love you." She wants it to be the last thing she says to him, just in case something goes wrong. Then she's stepping back to give them room.

Her eyes lift towards May and Lily, a brow arching in curiosity about how bad, or not bad, this is. She's trying not to interfere with the stepping and energy that Lily is giving, so she steps a little closer to May who is also mainly here for back up, from what she can tell. She takes a deep, long breath, trying to calm her emotions enough she doesn't overwhelm the woman, but she is terrified of losing Daniel. "Abcde. You'll...let us know if you need us to do anything else. Otherwise, we're here for... back up? Protection? Whatever you all need. And yes, this is officially the strangest thing to ever happen in this basement."

Daniel Sousa has posed:
"Got it," Daniel tells Lily, stepping away from Peg to fetch the modern leg and it's case and hand it to her. "Thanks for being here, Lil," he tells her quietly before retunring to Peggy to say his (possible) goodbyes.

Daniel returns the kiss desperately, his arms wrapping tight around Peggy, until, slowly, he breaks the kiss and lets go. "I love you too Peg," he says meeting her eyes and holding his gaze there until he's called to the circle. He squeezes Peggy's hand then letting go of it he steps into the circle trying to calm his mind, focus on the mission and not let his mind wander.

He lets out a breath, "I can do this," he tells himself as he stands ready for the ritual to begin.

Melinda May has posed:
Peggy's quite right. Melinda is here for support. Mainly, moral support for Peggy and Daniel. And, perhaps, for Abcde as well. This is pretty big magic for the kid. She knows that. Other than that, however, there's really no good reason for Melinda to be here. Except that she just didn't want to be left out. Which feels a little odd to her. As Peggy steps away from Daniel's embrace and inhales that deep, steadying breath, she reaches out to lay a calming hand on her friend's shoulder. It's not an empathically calming hand. It's just the hand of a friend lending support. She leaves it there until Lily speaks her name.

"Melinda, hold on to Daniel's leg, would you? Just in case."

The differences between Lily and Melinda are clearer now than they've ever been. Aside from sartorial choices -- Lily is wearing earth tones while Melinda is in black as always -- Lily doesn't have the sharp edges Melinda does. Her tension doesn't come from the focus of anger or loss, but from hope and, on a very basic level, love. It gives her face, otherwise so much like Melinda's, a gentler cast. Of course, the playfulness in her eyes, something Melinda's lost years ago, helps with that. Nervous as she is that she may not see the end of this, Lily believes intrinsicly that the rest of them will.

Thus, as Melinda blinks and steps forward to take the case from Daniel, looking just a trifle bewilidered, Lily smiles to her friends. "Just in case," she tells them seriously. Melinda has the case 'just in case'... no pun intended.

Then, however, as Abcde calls them to begin, her smile fades. For just a moment, it's possible to see the apprehension she's feeling. Melinda actually responds to it involuntarily, from where she's returned to Peggy's side. She raises a hand briefly, as if she'd reach out to comfort her twin. It falls away as Lily's lips twitch, her dark eyes crinkling just a little with unspoken gratitude. She knows, after all, what Melinda is feeling and what the gesture intends.

"This... shouldn't take long from your perspective," Lily tells Abcde. "I expect you'll know when you've got enough." For Lily, though... This could take a small eternity. She steps forward and simply lays her hands on the mirror frame, rather than producing some device and attaching it. It's probably about then that everyone will realize she doesn't *have* a power source.

Lily *is* the power source.

She closes her eyes in concentration and... flickers. That's all anyone else sees. Her form just seems to flicker like a transmission that doesn't quite resolve or a video stuttering across the same second in a digital loop. That, of course, is because that's what's actually happening. Lily has set up a small time loop for herself, flickering back and forth between moments -- minutes, seconds, microseconds -- trying to build up enough temporal energy to power the spell.

From her perspective... this could very well take *years*, reliving the same moment in time, from acknowledging Melinda's gesture of comfort to laying her hands on the cool wood of the frame to the moment when it all finally ends. Over and over and over and over again. Her goal is to try not to have it end with her creating a temporal supernova in the middle of Peggy's basement.

That'd suck for everyone, not just her.

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    Abcde nods her head to Peggy. She takes in a breath and lets it out - breathing exercises, then smiles. "Yes, that's exactly what you and May are today." She has no idea what could go wrong that they'd be able to help with. The worst case scenario for something like this is pretty bad. Frankly, it's moments like this that she wonders why anyone is ever given the ability to do magic like this. Big Magic is never a good idea.

    The apprehension and fear of doing big magic is knotting up her stomach. But she was instrumental in bringing Daniel to this future (from his perspective) and reuniting him with his long lost wife. She's not going to let a love story like that end in tragedy. Not if she can do something about it.

    Her eyes widen though as the revelation is finally laid bare. Lily.. all her talk of blinking, moving through time. She didn't have some technology to do it - she is doing it herself. Natural chronitons through some improbably fluke of a time echo. She has no idea this will become a very long journey for Lily but there's no time to waste.

    A nod is given to Daniel and she says, "We begin."

    The shimmering blue energy of her magic begins to coalesce about her arms, out her fingertips and palms, then her eyes begin to glow. It's rare that she draws so much. All her life she has learnt that small magic is the only right way to do magic. The tiniest effects produce the largest results. This is like taking a jackhammer to that ideology.

    A corona of magic begins to shimmer from her wand, the tip glowing brightly. She points it down to the rust and like oil lit with flame, it erupts in magical potential. The lighting in the room becomes hues of rainbow as the high powered magic starts to feed back off the mirror frame that the rust is connected to.

    Abcde shuts her glowing eyes and begins to speak, her words echoing against the fabric of time. A fabric one should never touch because its ripples can be felt by creatures not yet described in books.

    "perfectum cultro ad interficiam funem metaphysicum" The mirror frame begins to glow and Lily can feel the across time the tug on her gift. Abcde nods to Daniel indicating it is his turn to move. The vibrations from the mirror begin to hum and fill the room with discordant tones no human ear is meant to perceive.

Peggy Carter has posed:
The gentle hand on her shoulder helps. Peggy takes one step closer to May, especially as she's been entrusted with Daniel's new leg. Good to have it on hand, no matter what. He'd want it later, she keeps telling herself that. Since there is nothing active she needs to do, she just leans her shoulder tightly against May's and continues with those slow, deep breaths. There's a faint shine of moisture in her eyes as she watches her husband on the edge of that energy but also watching her old friend.

"...Thank you, Lily, You... We'll see you on the other side." She hopes. She's known the woman long enough and is a good enough profiler to have just realized what Lily is thinking -- the woman might not survive this either. Her throat tightens and she reaches a hand up to wrap overtop of Melinda's, giving a soft squeeze. All she can do is watch.

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Daniel's mind flashes back to the portal in the Mojave desert all those years ago, that was the last time he saw something this otherworldly. The memory is quickly banished for fear of drawing that mess to the present or winding up there. He wasn't sure either was possible but he didn't want to take any chances.

Then, slowly and with no cord wrapped around his waist this time he steps towards the portal, closer, closer.

He glances back at the others for a moment, fixing on Peggy one last time before he turns back to the mirror with a final determined motion he steps through the frame.

Melinda May has posed:
Minutes melt into hours, flow into days, fall into months, blend into years... and longer. In her mind's eye, Lily relives the best of times with her friends both before and after Daniel's passing. She rides shotgun against HYDRA. She sits at the controls of an M-class freighter, streaking across alien skies in a mad race against enemies intent on destroying innocent worlds. She watches suns burn out and new planets form. It all blends in together, not as a distraction from what she's doing, but as a reminder of all the reasons why.

The pain, as she passes the threshold of what she thought were her limits, is intense. The cascade of chronal energies through her body turns her into shimmering light shaped in a semblance of human form. The basement glows brighter and brighter with each passing moment -- passing year, from her perspective -- as her body begins to incandesce. The agony of sustaining the energies can be seen in the rigidity of her form. If her face were not concealed by a drape of hair and the bowl of her shoulders and arms, it would be all the more evident.

As it is, one arm returning to loop across Peggy's back, Melinda can feel its crescendo within her temporal twin. She gasps softly, her own body stiffening, expression turning into an empathetic grimace in response. She looks to Peggy, all of Lily's earlier apprehension in her eyes in addition to her own growing sense of dread. Her arm, where it falls across Peggy's back, tightens perceptibly with her discomfort.

She can only stand there and hope this all ends soon... and well.

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    Arturo stands before the giant stone circular door way. The team is dripping wet from the swim but it had been worth it. Finally, access to his grand vault, "It has been too long," he says placing a hand on the cold stone. A giant HYDRA squid was carved in to it.

    The founder of HYDRA feels his body jolt a moment and he scowls, "No.. not.. now." Gripping his fists together tightly as his body is dragged backwards through time by a few moments. This, as Daniel steps through the mirror, those watching through the swirling colour palette of energy see Daniel stretch out from the last step to the first step through the mirror.

    Abcde is about to speak the words, they start to come from her mouth. The words to cut Daniel free from Arturo, "Nunc de Verre..." as her words begin to slow down and she sees everyone else coming to a stop. In the moment, she peers at Lily who seems unaffected by this strange shift in state; and though Abcde has not completely come to a stop, everything is moving strangely for her, her eyes move to Daniel and he too seems to be moving at full speed.

    ---

    The group finds themselves standing in the basement. The lights are out, the rust is ash, the mirror frame is destroyed. Lily is missing. And most strangely, they're all dressed differently. The air of the room isn't cool, it's warm, suggesting not much time had passed, even though everyone just teleported to different positions in the room and the magic is gone.

    Abcde looks down over herself and pats her body. A groan, her right side hurts like heck. But she's wearing what could best be described as a fanciful Agent of W.A.N.D. uniform. A Senior Agent of W.A.N.D. uniform. She has a leather strap running around her torso with her wand tucked under her arm like an under arm holster and on the other side, small vials of magical potions. There's even an ICER at her hip now instead of where her wand usually is. The armor looks a little worse for wear but it does fit her perfectly. There is, too, a cape hanging from her shoulders which is definitely not standard SHIELD or WAND wear.

    Abcde's eyes take a moment to adjust. She can feel a comfortable feeling in her left hand - the shaft of her magical broom. How did that get here?? she left it upstairs. She takes to the moment, then looks at everyone else.. a look of confusion and bewilderment on her face. She says what is on everyones mind, "What the hell just happened?"

Peggy Carter has posed:
As May wraps her arm a bit closer around Peggy, the woman's throat tightens a bit more. She can only imagine what May is feeling, if she's able to sense Lily as much as she can the others -- maybe even more. She lets her hand drop down, resting over May's wrist and hand, holding her just a bit closer. She leans there, throat tight, eyes worried. "Goodbye Lily... See you soon, I hope." Peggy whispers into the air. She knows it's a vain hope. The world doesn't work like that.

And then everything has abruptly changed. She gives a little gasp, on the floor, on her back. An horribly ugly orange jumpsuit covers her frame and she's got her wrists tightly bound behind her with something she cannot see. There's soot or burn marks across her face, her nose and the corner of her lip are slightly bleeding like she's head or face butted someone recently. Her hands are tightly wrapped around a few other things that she can't see at the moment. Everything gently hurts.

"What...in bloody...HELL?" She breathes out with a little groan, trying to roll over and sit up enough that she's not laying on her arms.

Daniel Sousa has posed:
In that long moment he can feel Lily's pain but he keeps hand by his side, he can't reach out, keep your mind on the mission, keep your mind on the mission.

He passes through the mirror and it's like stepping through a long tunnel full of swirling colours against a backdrop of black. If he'd been around to see it it'd remind him of 2001 A Space Odyssey but instead it simply takes his breath away.

Then it's gone.

Daniel rises from a crouch, his black leather trench coat brushing against the ash on the basement floor. Standing there he looks down at his hands each one clutching a custom .45 automatic, or he tries to look anyhow, he can see well enough from his right eye but his left is all darkness.

He brushes at his face and the light appears again the eyepatch over his eye having shifted. The guns are put away and he yanks the thing from his face and tosses it aside.

That's when he sees Peggy, he rushes to her side and reaches for a knife at the back of his belt to cut her ties if he can. "Hey, Peg, we're back in the basement you're going to be okay."

Melinda May has posed:
As everything slows down for Abcde, everything speeds up for Lily. The sound of roaring overcomes her ears and, just the spell hits its climax, the swirling rainbow of magical energies rippling out as Daniel steps through that mirror, it looks for all the world to those on the outside like Lily's body explodes into a burst of light that dissolves in a showery of white glowing embers that fade like fireflies in the new darkness of the basement as one moment passes into the next and everything changes.

There's a new crackle of light in the darkness. May actually yelps as she finds herself standing atop a side table that had been pushed out of the way earlier. She yelps purely because her head almost hit the ceiliing. She's short. It's a near thing. The light, however, comes from a glowing plasma blade in her hand.

"What the hell?" She looks down at her black gloved fists, a glowing sword in one, a similar hilt hung from the wide leather sash encircling her waist, and a black-face-plated orange helmet in the other. Her hair is bound back in a tail, braids through it. She is clad in a heavily padded, black leather coat that falls to a diagonal point in front of her knees, accented with slashes of bright orange. Her black leather trousers and heavy black boots match the coat, as do the padded gauntlets on her wrist.

She almost drops the sword, though doing so causes it to extinguish. She *does* drop the helmet, even as she jumps down from the table. "What the hell happened?"

From the top of the stairs, an orange glow can be seen. A door-sized glowing orange rectangle of light appears. Then, quick footsteps sound on the stair treads. Lily, in a fairly futuristic suit of armor, pauses at the base of the stairs. A broad grin is on her lips. "Oh, good. You all made it back in one piece."

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
...What the hell just happened...

    Abcde is about to speak the words, they start to come from her mouth. The words to cut Daniel free from Arturo, "Nunc de Verre..." as her words begin to slow down and she sees everyone else coming to a stop. In the moment, she peers at Lily who seems unaffected by this strange shift in state; and though Abcde has not completely come to a stop, everything is moving strangely for her, her eyes move to Daniel and he too seems to be moving at full speed.

    An orange door way opens up in the space and through it steps five people in what looks like black riot gear carrying a stave with a glowing tip. One of them is holding some sort of PDA, "Yes, this is definitely the place. Careful not to touch the magic."

    The agent in charge looks at the paused people and the slow moving Abcde, but her eyes set upon Daniel who is moving at normal speed. "Variant identified. On behalf of the Time Variance Authority, I hereby arrest you for crimes against the Sacred Timeline. Put your hands above your head, you're coming with us."

    Two of the jack booted TVA soldiers move to flank Daniel on either side and a third presents a thin band of metal with a device set in its center. The last of the TVA soldiers places a device on the ground and says, "Reset charge ready." A small timer on it begins to count down.

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Daniel Sousa says, "Huh," he says as the world slows down around him. He had not been expecting that. Neither did he expect the people in the fancy riot gear.

"What in the hell is a Variant?" he asks his hands going for his guns. He's struck with some sort of baton and his world slows further filled with pain before he drops to the ground and they fix the collar around his neck. He's not in any condition to argue after that."

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    The TVA officers pick up Daniel and march him back through their orange door way. Well, drag may be more the case. The main officer checks the time charge, then her PDA, nods to herself for a job well done, and walks back through the door way.

    Abcde can see what's happening, it's all happening very fast from her point of view. All this magic swirling about, it's powerful magic. Very very big powerful magic.. and she's going to do something totally stupid with it. She's going to change its purpose. "Amicus!" .. the words don't need to be out of her mouth in real time for the magic to form. Not with all this time power filling the room.

    "stabiliendum in tempore amnis," she says in a shout and everybody snaps back in to the now-moment, at regular speed. She's not done though, Daniel just went through that doorway and it's closing. Closing so darned fast.

    Abcde thrusts out her wand and a beam of blue magical energy strikes the infinity small dot that the doorway closed around as she says, "manere aperta!" ... and the doorway flickers.. stretches.. and pries back open.

    "I can't hold this open forever...," she says with a strain, doing the kind of magic that the Scarlet Witch does with absolute ease is a marathon for Abcde. Because she's part of this team and there's no way, _no way_, she's going to let some strange nazi looking time cops steal Daniel away from them.

Peggy Carter has posed:
The slowing down of reality is something Peggy doesn't totally understand. She's not involved in it all. She's not seen it before. But she does know that something is going wrong, confusion dancing across her face as she sees her husband being drug away, in that pain. "Oh no you don't!" She calls, jerking forward out of May's arms. While Abcde says she can't hold the door open forever, there isn't time to ask what is going wrong. With a probably foolish amount of trust, Peggy dashes forward into that doorway, after her husband and into an entirely new view on reality.

Melinda May has posed:
Caught in that slowing tide between moments, May can feel Lily's pain but also feel it somehow suspend and then fade. She has no time to think what that may mean. She's already starting to move when Abcde pries that orange aperture back open. She's simply not thinking. She's reacting, much as she often does in moments of crisis that require quick reflexes more than anything else. Thus, she dives in tandem with Peggy, rolling through the doorway hardly a fraction of a second after her. Doesn't matter where they end up. She's the frickin' Cavalry. And these people are her family. She'll be on her feet, swinging that prosthetic case like a pro to try to take out whatever unwelcoming party they encounter on the other side.

To steal a line... It's clobberin' time.

Flickering out of the timeloop she made for herself, Lily collapses on her hands and knees in the middle of Abcde's ritual circle. Wherever those thugs took Daniel, wherever Peggy and the others have gone, Lily will find them. In this singular instant, however, her body feels like it's on fire and her head feels like it's ready to explode. She's weaker than she's ever been. Not even when she was experiencing those time seizures so many decades ago has she ever felt this bad.

Still... that time charge sits in the middle of the room, away from the swirling magic. Its timer counts down to discharge. Even through the haze of her fatigue and pain, Lily can sense the chronal energies building in it... And they're energies she desperately needs. The orange bars on the little device glow as it approaches detonation. She drags herself forward towards it, one hand reaching out to grasp at it and pull it into her.

As the reset energy ripples out from it, she wraps her body around it. The energy bathes her, soaking into her cells before it can escape to do any damage to the timeline her friends -- her family -- so desperately need. She curls around it and lets it cool the fire in her veins, soothe the pounding of her head.

It's not nearly enough to bring her back to full strength, but it is enough to keep her from dying and to allow her to climb back to her feet. As darkness settles in the basement, the mirror frame now in pieces, she looks at the spot where that temporal doorway stood, her chronal sight showing her the imprint of its place in time and space.

"Oh, you poor bastards," she says softly, squaring her shoulders and raising her chin. A sharp smile worthy of Melinda May touches her lips. "You just picked a fight with the *wrong* family."

All she needs to do now is figure out how to join them.

Abcde Prescelta has posed:
    Abcde looks at the device counting down with concern. It looks like a bomb. It's probably a bomb. bombs are bad... and Lily is moving to it. She shakes her head and frowns, then nods to her.. why is she surrounded by big damn heroes all the time now??

    Abcde takes off at a run and dives through the door way just as her magical runs its course and the orange door shuts behind her. The magic in the room swirls in to motion. The sigils in rust burn out and Abcde avoids the backlash of the paradox as mystical flames erupt through the room seeking her out. They coalesce in to a whirlwind right where the portal was, where Abcde was, then dissipate. The magical mirror frame explodes. Electricity goes out in the house.. and the neighbours.. and the neighbourhood, plunging parts of Long-Island in to darkness.