7625/Il Mutante: In Fire

Il Mutante: In Fire
Date of Scene:	31 August 2021
Location:	Main Room - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	The Titans chase down Il Mutante at his new lair to discover he's about to open the portal at last, despite not having been able to figure out the dimension-bridging part required to create a doorway to the ZZGU doppelganger universe. It turns out he has changed his plan -- and intends to bring THIS universe's version of Zhed'Zhud'Ger'Uth to Earth. Spoiler alert: He fails, the world didn't end.
Cast of Characters:	Colette O'Connail, Terry O'Neil, Kate Bishop, Dick Grayson, Kian

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Colette O'Connail has posed:
    It's a fine day in Metropolis, and all is well at Titans Tower. The swear jar has gone missing again, which is a sure sign Colette is visiting. It's probably hidden in one of the cupboards. She's sneaky like that.

    For those in the know, this is not the /other/ Colette. While the doppelganger problem is one that has been ever-decreasing, there is at least one Doppelganger from the unverse of Zhed'Zhud'Ger'Uth around who hasn't been a problem - apart from the problem of not telling Colette that she has a secret doppelganger. One that certain people may actually prefer to the original...

    Alt-Colette has been tracking down her own kind to send them back to that other universe. While Colette has her secrets, one thing about her that has become known to the Titans is that she has some kind of mind-shield -- Kian's mind touch simply doesn't work on her. It's arguable whether this has been an advantage or disadvantage to her job as Kian's English teacher. This mind-shield appears to have protected her doppelganger from Zhed'Zhud'Ger'Uth's influence, and she's one of the very few people from that other universe who never succumbed. She's not crazy, and she's here to do good.

    Arguably unlike Colette.

    Alt-Colette has been infiltrating the doppelganger underground, and twice now she's called on the Titans to help out with an organization lead by il Mutante, a powerful mutant follower of Zhed'Zhud'Ger'Uth, who has been trying to open a two-way portal back to that other universe, to allow the other followers of ZZGU to come to our world. Twice now the plans have been foiled, and on the last occasion the Titans had faced Il Mutante himself - a dangerous individual with significant super-strength and powerful pyrokinetic abilities.

    All of this, Colette is blisfully unaware of. Nobody has mentioned this to her, at the request of her doppelganger. Instead she's here to check in on Kian and give him his latest lessons, taking his completed work away to mark. And argue with people. Colette does that a lot. "I still think we should have just destroyed the Brazier, Two-Point-Oh," she argues with Kate. "It would have been easier. Buuuut, I will admit that whole thing was kinda fun."

    She turns to Terry, grinning mischievously. "And Abba sucks."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry glances at Colette and smirks, "I will allow you to say that only because your mind has grown addled by all of that booze. Talking about braziers and lego people ... you clearly have been in the throes of delirium tremens!" Nobody dishes on ABBA around Terry O'Neil. Taking a sip of his soda, he pepares for Colette's riposte when his phone buzzes with a very particular ringtone. "... one sec!" he says, holding up a finger.

He reads the text, and his eyes suddenly go wide. Breathing out a curse, the redhead reaches for his comm. "Terry to all available Titans, rendez-vous in the main room. This is an emergency!" he says, and the brings up the maps application on his phone. He needs a visual, for the sake of accuracy.

Kate Bishop has posed:
    Kate is having a cider, yup underage drinking in the tower. She gives Colette a long suffering look, which may be honestly why she is having a cider come to mention it. "Quit.. giving Terry reasons to .... Terry..." she sighs.

    "Look. We all know the dream adventure was real and frankly sort of awful... and as far as I could tell we couldn't destroy the stupid dream artifact or I would have voted for that." she pauses "Abba sucks.. what does that have to do with dream quests.. aren't they like that old band who did the sound track for the Mama Mia movie?"

    "What is the emergency... or is this just an excuse to geto ut of the arguement...?"

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Nightwing is in the Tower today. One might think he's catching up on currently active enemies of the Titans, or getting to know members he's not that familiar with, or even going over reports of recent encounters between the Titans and evildoers.

    One would be wrong.

    The former Boy Wonder, one of the founding members of the Teen Titans and hero in his own right as Nightwing is on the couch, a controller in hand, trying to beat Gar's latest high score on Mortal Combat 4.

    He'd said his hellos to the others in the room when he arrived, but headed for the gaming console like a man on a mission... at least until Terry's call. Pausing the game, he turns to look over at his fellow Titan, saying "I'd ask what's up, but you'd just have to repeat it when the others arrive, so it can wait." He puts the controller in it's charger and stands, moving over to where the others are.

Kian has posed:
    Kian is already rummaging in the fridge for his usual purple Kool-Ade as things start to happen, and flits across the room to touch down next to Terry.  "I thought we had gone too long wit'out somethin' happenin'," he remarks almost casually, draining off half his sugar water.
    "An' what's an abba?" he asks completely innocently.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    The visual Terry gets up is pretty much just a flat field, surrounding by high wire fencing, with an old road leading to it, mostly gone to dirt. There are a couple of large trucks parked up in the field, a rectangular area of heavy concrete surrounding metal, and about fifty feet away from it a smallish concrete building with a single door and no windows.

    A little more digging shows that this is an old, disused Titan missile silo. The rectangular area is the retractable launch bay that leads down to an eight-story deep silo. The small building is the head of the staircase and goods elevator that leads down into the bunker section. Plans show that five flights of stairs down lead into the bunker where a pair of blast doors give access to the decontamination and rest area. Further blast doors lead north and south, to tunnels going to the silo in one direction, and the command and control center, a three story buried structure, in the other.

    "Don't ask Terry about Abba, Kian," Colette says with a smirk. "That's about as useful as asking him about Carol Channing." She takes a swig from her bottle of beer. Not underage, it's totally cool. She'd never encourage Kate, either. It's all just coincidence.

    When Terry announces that there's an emergency, Colette gives Kate a dubious expression, already regretting what she's about to say. "I guess I could help out," she offers. As long as Kate doesn't attempt to persuade her that she'd be doing anything heroic therein, that is. Just helping out some friends, right? "What's the emergency?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Greeting the assembling Titans, Terry transforms into his Cheshire sef- because they are going to need a Rabbit Hole. The seriousness of the situation can be gauged by the fact that he doesn't continue the ABBA banter but launches straight into the spiel.

"A while back, a contact unearthed information that one of the doppels, a pyrokinetic who goes by Il Mutante, was seeking to open a portal to ZZGU's dimension. In a previous raid, we were able to rescue the scientists they were forcing to work for them to that effect. That set them back for months, but now my contact..." he pauses, and then continues "Has informed me that they have acquired a magic-user and are attempting to open the gateway. /Now/. Obviously, we don't really have time to make an elaborate plan. The gateway is located somewhere in here..."

His power of illusion recreates the plans for the building, "A decomissioned missile silo. Nightwing," the Cheshire cat glances at the older Bat in the team, "I'm proposing that I try to Rabbit Hole us into the silo proper, we can't afford any delays nor the return of any of our doppels... but we'll likely be jumping directly into the belly of the beast, since everybody they've got is probably there and our battle plan is just going to have to be 'Let's Bust All The Shit Up'. Shall I?"

Deferring to Dick's senority , Vorpal prepares to open the Rabbit Hole at his word.

Kate Bishop has posed:
    "Oh right... the boat job. We had some heavy hitters on that one and we still didn't nab the pyrokinetic jerk..." she thinks about what Vorpal is saying. Them being set back with the rescue of the scientists explains why they haven't heard anything about Il Mutante. The next part though about a wizard being involved and opening a gate right now is bad news.

    "That would be great Colette. We don't have Superboy or Caitlyn here right now .... so we could definitely use a hand making sure I am not BBQ'd." though she does jog to get her gear, not having it in her hands since they were arguing about dreams, ABBA, and drinking a cider hwne this all went down. "One second..." she notes as she vanishes getting her gear on and in hand. She will show back up for the Rabbit Hole though.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Shaking his head, Nightwing replies, "I suppose it was too much to hope for that these guys were done with. Ok, let me see here..." He takes a closer look at the plans Vorpal has brought up, thinking over the best location.

    "Ok, most likely they're doing their thing on the bottom floor to make it hard to get to them. So let's start at the bottom rather than having to fight through all the defenses as we try to go down from the top."

    He touches a small room on the bottom floor, "This looks like some kind of storage, and it's big enough to fit us as we go through, but not so big that they should be using it for much." He looks around at the gathered Titans, "Any alternatives?"

Kian has posed:
    Kian nods at Colette.  "Eart' music, right, so it iss missin' half the notes," he says as if that settles the matter to his satisfaction.
    The birdman looks at the plans, and looks dubious.  "That looks very cramped," he says, a bit fussily.  "An' such a strange way to launch rockets.  A surface launch pad would be easier."
    Okay, who's going to explain nuclear warfare and mutually-assured destruction to the birdman?

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Colette downs the rest of her beer, getting up to toss the bottle in the recycling bin before wandering over to look at the plans Terry and Dick are poring over. "They have a wizard, huh? That's annoying. Wizards are always annoying. Do you guys have some like anti-wizard spray or something?"

    Terry opens a Rabbit Hole to the chosen location, just a small hole at first to check that it's opening onto space not into the middle of a wall, and see what's on the other side. Beyond can be seen the dimly-lit space of the blast section below the flame shield. The space is fairly well filled with containers of a variety of types, and the goods elevator is visible at this level. A metal stairway leads up through the blast shield. The floor is damp and there are no lights on in the area beyond, but the circular hole in the blast shield where the launch exhaust from the missile (were there a missile there) would enter the chamber lets plenty of illumination leak in from above. The sound of a number of voices can faintly be made out coming from the space above.

    "I mean," Colette says slowly. "It's empty. That's always an advantage when you're making an entry. But on the other hand you'll be going up a staircase into a location that you don't have direct sight on. That's dangerous. It's safer heading down staircases than heading up them, because whoever's highest on the staircase gets the widest angles." She tilts her head in Kate's direction. "Remember, Hawky? We've had this discussion before."

    "I mean... safe approach would be to throw a large bomb through Terry's portal, shut it off, and then go pick the pieces up later. Buuuuut... I'm gonna guess everyone wants to do this the hard way, right? Right. Who's got night-vision goggles? Best bet for getting up those steps would be to take out the lights so they can't see what's going on."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"No need. I can create darkness, remember?" The Cheshire cat says, holding his hands apart, a globe of illusory darkness floating between them. "But I can also turn *us* invisible. We go up together and ambush, and stealthily take out any ones on the way. If it sounds like a good plan, we can go ahead..."

"Kian. Il Mutante is VERY dangerous. We couldn't take him down last time, but I've an idea, this time. White Rabbit." He says cryptically, then he looks at Dick and his other team mates for the go-ahead.

Kate Bishop has posed:
    Kate double checks her quiver, sword, other weapons. To be honest she will be leaving Il Mutante to Vorpla and whatever White Rabbit is and focusing on the minions. This guy has minions.

    "Hmm.... I mean yeah I dislike leg day too..." to Colette "But they expect infiltration from above not below in this case so starting in one of the buildings on a lower floor is the stealthy way. Invisibility sounds good to me Vorpal."

Dick Grayson has posed:
Nightwing nods to Colette and Kate, "Exactly, while that is certainly true, it's also very likely that their defense plans involve a force coming down from above. They're far less likely to be ready to face enemies from below, given they're in a structure specifically designed to keep the interior safe from whatever's outside it."

    Glancing over to Vorpal, he says "Sounds like a plan, we sneak in under their noses and remain unseen while we figure out exactly what they are doing and how we can best put an end to it."

    Addressing the group he adds, "If anyone needs night vision just in case, there are state of the art units in the armory here you can grab. I don't want to knock out the power before we're discovered because it will put them on guard, but if we're detected it might not be a bad idea to inconvenience them."

Kian has posed:
    "It iss the hard way because that iss the only way anythin' iss ever done aroun' here," Kian remarks, "but that iss because even dik-heds do not deserve to be blow up."  No, apparently no one has bothered correcting Kian of that Vic-ism yet.
    He blinks at Terry.  "I... yes, maybe, but I can not affect heat an' flame.  It iss not a nuclear or atomic force," he points out.  Apparently, he knows what the cat is talking about, and has a couple minor technical issues that he'd like to have sorted out first.  The middle of an incident is generally not conducive to calmly thinking through what one is doing.
    Also, the night goggles sound good.  He can see fine in low-light situations... but not in /no/-light situations.  Flying into things in the dark is never a good idea.
    Never mind how he knows that.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Colette gives a shrug. "Look at the blueprints. It's open floors all the way up. This will be an infiltration for the first thirty seconds, then it will be an assault. Assault is better going down." She goes to the fridge, fetches herself another beer, pops the cap open and returns to the group with it in hand. "On the other hand you guys are the superhero types, I'm just along for the ride, so whatever you guys like." She takes a swig of the beer and shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly. She may think this is about to be an assault, but she seems to have decided that you do assaults on defended positions with a beer in hand.

    This is probably why she's a school-teacher, not a Titan.

    Once people have fetched their night-vision goggles, there's no point holding off any longer, so Vorpal expands the hole, sets up the invisibility illusion, and the team enters the silo.

    The concrete floor is damp, and the chamber smells slightly. It's impossible to see what's happening on the floor immediately above because of the positioning of the flame shield, but the sound of voices and people moving around can be heard. Through the hole in the flame shield, the upper floors of the silo can be seen, each level a broad balcony running around the circumference of the chamber, connected by steep ladder-like steel steps. There are people moving around on each of the levels, and on the third level from the top can be seen the blast doors leading into the bunker. A pair of guards stand either side of the blast doors, and a few other guards can be seen patrolling the balcony on that level. They are distinct from the rest of the people visible in that they are clearly armed with assault rifles, and dressed in combat gear including gas masks.

Kate Bishop has posed:
    Honestly. Kate is nearly positive that Colette would protest no matter what just to be contrary. She is pretty certain if they had said lets go down from the top and assault it that Colette would suggest going from the bottom and stealthing it.

    Just to disagree with people. Especially with Terry.

    As soon as the portal is open Kate is through quick, her Hawkeye sunglasses actually quite effective state of the art nightvision gear amongst everything else they do for the archer. The sight of gas masks though has the archer pause and pull out her own rebreather and fix it into place just in case the bad guys will be slinging horrible chemicals.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Taking a look at the opposition, Nightwing zooms in on the guards. Assault rifles are a little problem for the team on this run, so they will need to be dealt with quickly. Gas is out, so part of his arsenal won't be getting used today. He does, however, emulate Kate and pull a rebreather out and equip it.

    Switching to comms so he can remain quiet, he says <<Ok, looks like they aren't in the biggest space like I hoped, so we're going to have to look around. Given the location of the guards, I'm guessing they're actually in one of the other structures.>>

    Pulling out a tiny fiber optic camera, he continues <<Vorpal, can you give me a tiny Rabbit Hole near floor level I can peek through with this? We can do a little recon and then drop in on the ritual they're trying.>>

Kian has posed:
    Kian's first impulse, as usual, is to take to the air, except that he doesn't.  There are two very good reasons.
    One is that he needs to stay near Terry.
    The other is flame.  Scorched feathers are a very bad thing.  Fortunately, that's something he /doesn't/ know from first-hand experience, but it doesn't take a lot of brain power to figure out that it would be Bad.
    He peers up the silo.  Without a missile, it is at least a sensibly-sized space.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Colette wanders into the room, still accompanied by her beer, and peers up through the hole. After a few moments peering she steps next to Hawkeye and takes a swig. "Stick close," she whispers. "And I'll stop 'em shooting you while you shoot them. Deal?"

    Nightwing's fire-optic reveals the fact that his assumption is right; there is no sign of anything that looks like portal machinery on the floor above. What it does reveal is an area with a dozen rather cheap-looking bunks and other furniture scattered around. Apparently the largest space in the complex is given over to living quarters and the portal is elsewhere.

    The people here - about ten of them, excluding the four guards a few levels up - look tired and dishevelled. They're milling around doing their own things in small groups - playing cards, reading, chatting together. Nightwing spots a couple of them with holstered handguns, but it doesn't look like these people are here to fight -- they're probably technicians. They will be easy to deal with.

    The guards on the third level down, with assault rifles and body armor, will present more of a challenge. It's a fair bet that they are guarding the blast doors because they lead to where the portal device is.

Dick Grayson has posed:
<<Ok, looks like just technicians here. Can you give me a view into the decontamination area and then the control room the same way? We'll try and pin down where we need to go, then we can drop in and make their lives miserable.>>

    He pulls the fiber optic out of the existing Rabbit Hole and waits for the next one to peek through. While he does, he warns the others <<We'll probably have to face some guards no matter where we end up. They're equipped with assault rifles and gas masks, very likely Kevlar as well, so plan your attacks to get around their strong points.>>

Kate Bishop has posed:
    Kate listens to what Dick has to say. "Could we just rabbit hole now that we have an idea of where the portal likely is past the guards and into the room with it... I mean sure they will probably also have body armor and guards with assault weapons.. but... " maybe she misunderstood.

    There is a glance over to Colette and she nods "Sounds like a plan to me... I'd rather not be shot while I shoot em." she moves closer to Colette now.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
<<On it, En Dubya.>> Someone has been watching DuckTales* recently. A pause.<<So. Good news, bad news. I CAN'T open a hole into the command center. That means it's warded by magic. Which means...>>

<<Good news is, I can open one into the decontamination and bunker area....>>

*Woo-oo

Kian has posed:
    Kian sighs heavily as Terry explains why rabbit-holing past them will not be happening.  "It can never be the easy way, can it?" he asks, not really expecting an answer.  "Because... it jus' can not."
    He peers upwards again.  "I do not know what I can do agains' the ones wit' the big guns.  I am open to ideas."

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "I'd say leave them to the fighty types, birdy buddy," Colette suggest. "Rabbit hole in, let Hawkie and Nightwing take out the guards, then take a look at that door. Probably blast it open."

    She takes another sip of her beer. "It's a good bet that whatever we're looking for is going to be behind the magic-proof door. So blow the magic proof door up. That's just logic," she supplies.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    With a grim smile, Nightwing replaces the camera in it's compartment on his belt. <<Yeah, Colette has it right. If it's warded, that will be our place.>> He pulls his batons from their places on his back and looks around the group. <<Ok Vorpal, give us a Rabbit Hole right outside the doors to the warded area. Kate, be ready to shoot if any guards are in front of the Rabbit Hole. I'll roll in low so you can shoot over me.>>

    <<Vorpal... go!>>

Terry O'Neil has posed:
<<You got it, boss!>>

The Cheshire cat takes a breath, and focuses. <<Alright... everybody ready. Your invisiblity isn't going to go away just because you're attacking, I'm no cheap D&D mage. But I will make us all visible as soon as we engage because we do need to see where everybody is. With that being said, Hole in 3... 2... 1...>>

And the Rabbit Hole opens into the selected area, right for the blast doors. Vorpal is going to let the others go first, in case there is enough of a scuffle to bring in others, and he might need to use his powers to make the reinforcements' lives miserable.

Kate Bishop has posed:
    Kate reaches back and after a moment of consideration draws two of the trickier arrows there. Holding them ready for the inevitiable rabbit hole to be opened.

    Once the rabbit hole is open she is moving through it though not even a hesitation. Like she expects Colette to stay close like they agreed perhaps. She seems to be veering to the right though heading for those armed guards. Loosing an arrow even as veers that way to hit one aiming center mass. Yeah they have armor but the arrow explodes into the expanding and fast drying goop that will end up sticking the guy to himself ansd then the floor if he doesn't have super strength.

Kian has posed:
    Kian slips through, and waits alongside the exit hole for Terry.
    Until he has a target, he reaches out to try to get a feel for the area -- where the main power lines are, if there is any unnecessary radiation.  Magic is off his radar, of course, but there are physical things that could help.  If they need the lights taken down, he wants to be able to oblige.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    As promised, Colette's right along beside Kate when she goes through the Rabbit Hole. Colette's style is distinctly different. While Hawkeye is all action and Nightwing is performing gymnastic rolls to bring himself into escrima-stick distance of the other two guards, Colette strolls nonchalantly through, swigging from her beer bottle.

    As Kate tracks her bow around to loose at the first target, Colette raises her spare hand and a flood of darkness flows out from her fingers, forming into a short wall that ends just to Kate's right, giving her cover but also room to fire around. The first sticky arrow hits the guard dead-on, the expanding goop engulfs his arms and gun, pinning the gun close and his arms to the rear wall.

    The second of Kate's targets manages to get a couple of wild shots away before Kate's arrow takes him down and glues him to the floor, but the bullets slap harmlessly into the wall of darkness.

    Colette gives Kate a short nod and redirects the wall with a gesture of her free hand, moving it to ensure everyone who isn't in direct combat is covered, while everyone who is - Nightwing, that is - is free to finish off his two guards.

    Kian's senses can feel power flowing through the walls in the familiar patter of power lines in any building. There are no obvious signs of particularly high-energy lines here, or at least nothing that is running a lot of current through it at the moment. Nor is there any unusual radiation present. He does know what it'll take to cut the lights, and he feels faintly the throbbing of larger amounts of power some eighty to a hundred feet distant, somewhere beyond the blast door.

    Which Colette helpfully gestures towards with her beer bottle. "Think you can blow the bloody doors off, Kian?" she asks. "Go for it."

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Nightwing somersaults through the Rabbit Hole as per the plan, rudimentary as it was, eyes tracking to the guards in the room. He rolls to his feet and springs forward, diving between them while flicking the power to his batons on. Still in midair, he spreads his arms so that the batons hit home on the two guards left standing. On one, he hits an unprotected arm, the taser dropping the man to the floor twitching. On the other, however, the baton hits the Kevlar and can't stun the man.

    Finishing his dive forward, he kips up to his feet and spins, sweeping the guard's legs out and dropping him to the floor. He doesn't even bother to hit the man, just reaches out and taps the guy on the arm, tasing him as well.

    <<Ok, good. Guards are down, time to get through the doors.>>

Kian has posed:
    Kian looks at Colette with wide eyes.  "I do not see any doors that are bleedin'..." he remarks dubiously, and then remembers Colette has a weird way with words.
    Shaking his head, he takes stock of the task at hand.  "Yis, I think so," he says, "but please stan' back, it will not be quiet or gentle."
    And it is not.  There are multiple blasts, one at the expected location of the bolt, one each on any visible hinge, and one to give the blast... or rather, blasted door a violent shove out of its frame.
    As promised, it's not stealthy, but it is a pretty neat job for having been accomplished with explosions.
    And any radiation detectors that are still on-line here will probably pick up a brief and essentially harmless burst of alphas, betas, and perhaps the stray gamma or two.  Can't help that, that's what happens when you break atomic nuclei apart.
    Kian doesn't exactly look pleased, but he looks satisfied.  "There iss a large energy source somewhere on the other side," he warns.  "I haf not been able to identify it yet.  Please be careful."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
<<Okay, now we're in Leeroy Jenkins territory. I'm going invisible for the advance and warn ahead of incoming.>> And, of course, he can lay out 'surprises' for them, potentially helping the team by derailing the first wave of attackers. Because they must have /definitely/ heard that. <<That large energy source sounds like whatever might power up a portal. Just the kind of thing I love breaking!>>

He fades again from view, and he dashes off, moving as quiet as he is fast. Just because they will have heard the explosion, it doesn't mean he wants them to /hear/ him too, and ruin the element of surprise.

Kate Bishop has posed:
    Kate is being careful. She can't make doors go nuclear. Especially not blast doors. She shifts to be partially covered by Colette's wall and fishes out a very specific arrow. It has a very dull looking metal shaft and tip.

    When the door goes down and boom like that though she is moving forward. The movements are back and forth and more than a little bit unpredictable in nature in case there is a hail of gunfire that Colette doesn't manage to catch.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Nightwing makes quick work of the last two guards, who while they are certainly 'real' guards rather than just random people with guns, are simply no match for the kind of skill and training he brings to bear. Slowly the cloud of dust that's kicked up by the blast door coming off its hinges settles, the corridor beyond comes into view. Cylindrical in shape, seven foot in diameter, eighty foot long, concrete walls with ribs of metal reinforcing it along the length.

    Half way down it, the corridor is filled with a luminous shimmering. Behind it stand two figures; one of the same guards, with gas mask, body armor and assault rifle; the other, standing up against the luminous shimmering, is a haggard-looking man of perhaps seventy. His face is bruised, and a band of metal is around the crown of his head, dried blood visible where it appears to have been bolted into his skull.

    Terry is able to approach the luminous barrier without any indication that either of the two people behind it has observed him. When he's close he can see some of the cloud of dust has settled on it, indicating that it's acting as a physical barrier. His more arcane senses are enough to tell him that this is the barrier his Rabbit Holes were unable to open beyond. There's not much doubt that the man standing immediately behind it is the magic-user.

    When the rest of the Titans become visible to him passing through the destroyed door and into the corridor whether zig-zagging like Kate or striding nonchalantly alongside her like Colette, he draws patterns of glowing light on the surface of the shimmering 'wall' with a finger tip, and itl glows momentarily brighter.

    "I'm sorry, " he says in a croaking voice. "I'm sorry. I can't let you past. He'll kill me if I do. Please... please just leave. He'll be finished in a few minutes. The portal is opening now. Then he'll come for you. You can't do anything. You can't help."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Invisible, Vorpal whispers into his comm:

<<I can't open a portal past that barrier. He's not doing this voluntarily, he's a hostage. I'll try something.>>

The Cheshire cat closes his eyes and begins to focus, trying those exercises Leonardo has been teaching him, that attempt to get to the place that is not a place and where the mind is but a tranquil mirror, and everything is in flow. It's gotten easier with practice. It helps to focus intention... that's what Leonardo tells him.

It was time to test it out.

He opens his eyes and he fades into view, his invisiblity vanishing as he reaches out with a finger that suddenly crackles with purple-red light, the light growing brighter and brighter quickly. "I'm sorry too."

He touches his finger to the barrier and releases as much chaos magic as he can in a wave. It's something he really can't control or predict, and it's not always reliable, but he is the only magic person here, and they are counting on him to do /something/.

If it works, he hopes the sorcerer isn't hurt too badly. Otherwise Il Mutante is going to pay dearly once Kate gets to him.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    The yellowish luminous wall wavers momentarily as a wash of purple light spreads out across it. Behind the portal, the wizard frowns and takes a step back. He starts to gesture again, drawing glyphs on the inside of the wall, causing it to brighten yellow once more. Yellow and purple merge and blend, smearing into kaleidoscopic patterns.

    The wizard shifts his feet, drawing glyphs faster in the air. A metal reinforcing rib starts to peel away from the wall, and when it falls free it slinks down the corridor, passing Nightwing with a polite "I do beg your pardon, if I could just get past... thank you, thank you." Clumps of trumpet-like flowers in a dozen different colors sprout from the concrete walls and start singing 'Fly Me To the Moon' in gorgeous close harmony.

    "Chaos magic?" the Wizard says. "Fascinating. I do wish we had met under different circumstances," he says. He redoubles the scrawling of glyphs, and after a few moments the flowers start to wilt, the steel rib curls up into a giant spring and lies unmoving, and Terry starts to feel a familiar wooziness. He can sense that the Wizard is countering him with spells of highly-ordered magic - if he doesn't give up on the conflict pretty soon, he'll end up as stoned as he was when Phoebe healed him.

    Terry's magic is powerful, but this is a wizard who knows his stuff, and the yellow starts to progressively overtake the purple. It's times like this where Terry's lack of magical training shows up.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Nightwing is up and headed into the hall almost as soon as the doors are taken out. When he gets closer to the barrier and sees the sudden glow he nods and stops before he runs into it.

    Once the mage has his say, he starts to respond to the man, but Terry's attempt to drop the barrier interrupts him.

    As it looks like the barrier will stay up, He calls to the man, "Let it drop. We can stop him. We've beaten him before, this is what we do. Do you think he'll ever let you go if he succeeds?"

    Meanwhile, the launcher on the wrist of his armor loads a tranq dart, ready to drop the guard the very second he gets a chance.

Kate Bishop has posed:
    "Okay. Razzle Dazzle Vorp." Kate shifts her hand, drawing a different arrow replacing the dull metal one and then fires it right at the barrier in front of The Wizard.

    She isn't going for penetrating the magic. I mean that isn't liable to work.

    The team who has trained with Kate knows the arrow is going to blow up when it hits it's target with a blinding flash of light. It will be an interesting test if the wizard can cast his spells while blind since light obviously seems to be able to pass through this transparent barrier. It also hopefully gives Vorpal a chance to close his eyes.

Kian has posed:
    Instinctively, Kian reaches out to try to damp down whatever energies are active, if they even respond to the influences of atomic and nuclear forces in the first place.  And if they can't be stopped or slowed, perhaps they can be interfered with.
    Not that Kian understands anything about magic, but if magic is going to affect the physical world, then it stands to reason that the physical world can affect it.
    He hopes.  If Earth is weird, magic makes Earth look normal.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "You don't understand," The wizard says to Nightwing. "He's brutal. Look, look what he did to me." The old sorcerer gestures up to the band of metal around his head. "He's already shown me how he'll kill me. He can make this /hot/. At any moment. It's iron, I can't magic it away. I don't have a choice." His voice becomes pleading. "You understand, don't you? I'm not a bad person. I just don't have a choice. Please go, he'll come for you, and he's so powerful."

    The flash of light from Kate's arrow bursts brilliantly, eliciting a "Fuck! You could have warned me!" from Colette, who hasn't trained with her. The Wizard take a step back, blinking, and rubs his eyes. It's clear he's not as bothered by it as he should be though - presumably the barrier is intended to stop any kinds of excess energy passing through it.

    Kian has no more luck. Magic is, indeed, very weird. Kian knows how particles work, understands the flows of atomic forces on an almost instinctive level -- but magic laughs in the face of the laws of physics, and this is a powerful sorcerer.

    "I have a question." The voice is a surprise -- it's the guard, standing behind the wizard, who steps up to speak to him. The Wizard looks around in confusion. The further surprise is the voice is oddly familiar. It might take a while to place it, because the accent isn't quite the same, but it's Colette's voice. "I thought he hadn't solved the dimensional bridge problem. How's he opening the portal /now/?"

    Beside Kate, still blinking and rubbing her eyes, Colette frowns.

    Looking confused, the wizard turns to answer the guard, "I... dimensional bridge? I don't... there's no dimensional bridge. It's a portal to another place, but not another universe."

    The guard cants her head to the side in surprise, then quickly reverses her rifle and crashes the butt into the wizard's head. He falls to the floor, unconscious, and the glowing barrier drops. "Quick!" she calls out to the Titans. "We need to..."

    She's interrupted by a ball of darkness shooting towards her from Colette's palm, but she's able to raise a hand and create a shield of darkness that the ball crashes into with a powerful boom that rattles down the narrow corridor, painfully loud. The guard crouches behind her shield of darkness and calls out "TERRY! Stop her, explain! We don't have time for this!"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Thank goodness that Colette(2) did that, otherwise Terry would have been as high as a flag on the fourth of July, and things would just have gotten /weird/. Admittedly, not as weird as the Duel Of The Doppelgangers. Still, they really didn't have any time for this.

Rabbit Holing himself between them, he spreads his arms. "Colette(1)! Stop- she's my contact. She's on /our/ side!" he realizes this raises questions. Questions for which they simply don't have time. "I'll explain- later, but we've got to move!" he glances to the side, at the fallen sorcerer, and makes a quick note to conjure up a Rabbit Hole and deposit him in the beach by Saint Martin's. Once this is over, he can get him to Phoebe. But right now-

"Please, Colette. Trust me."

Kate Bishop has posed:
    Kate has that metal arrow knocked once more. She is a bit disappointed that the bright flash didn't work. "I mean I did warn everyone... if you showed up to train with me like I've invited you .. .then you would know...."

    Which when the whole thing sinks in and Kate just stares, looking between the guard, and Colette, and then back. "Fuck."

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Nightwing was ready to tranq the guard, his mask automatically filtering the flash when it went off, but the revelation that it's Colette(2) and Vorpal's actions stop him. Lowering his arm, he moves forward towards their objective.

    <<Colette, we have bigger problems. If Vorpal says she's ok, we'll sort it out once we stop this portal. Move!>>

    He doesn't break stride, running right past the second Colette towards the reason they're all here.

Kian has posed:
    Shocked by the appearance of both Colettes at once, Kian's jaw hangs open for just a moment.  Then, sharply, "/Tavar'h/!"  Looking back and forth between them rapidly, he adds pointedly, "Colette /*tavar'yw*/!"  Certainly Original Colette will understand the meaning of *that*, even if Emergency Backup Colette doesn't.  He flits over to join Terry, facing whichever Colette he isn't.
    "We haf a much bigger problem, an' the bot' of you together will be a lot more help than the bot' of you goin' at each other!"
    Ever-reasonable Kian, even in the most difficult of circumstances.  Terry did call him the voice of common sense once.
    Now is not the time to contemplate exactly how much -- or how little -- Terry knows about common sense.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "Get out of the fucking way!" Colette yells at Vorpal. She launches two more balls of darkness, which veer around him to crash once more into alt-Colette's shield. "Fuck! Don't you get it? She's /me/. My doppelganger. She's dangerous! She's... she's... "

    "On your side!" alt-Colette calls back from behind her shield.

    Nightwing's words, and Kian's all filter slowly through, and Colette throws her arms up in disgust. "FINE! You're all idiots, but FINE. She's going to kill you all, you know that right? I'm just gonna watch. Because it'll be your fault!" She crosses her arms over her chest, looking furious, and glances to Kate. "Except for you. You're the one who responded correctly. I'll get you out of this, but the others can..."

    "No time for this!" Alt-Colette calls out, joining Nightwing as he runs down the corridor to the blast door at the other end. She enters a code into the numberpad, and the door starts to swing open...

    Colette glares at Terry. "We're having words about this later," she says before starting to stride forwards again.

    The blast doors swing open to reveal that the control center beyond has had the floors knocked through, turning it into one huge, domed chamber. In the center stands a complicated machinery surrounding a metal arch forty feet across, with runic glyphs marked on the floor around it, glowing brightly. A dozen technicians tend the equipent, and five more armed guards raise their rifles as the door comes open.

    Standing in front of the arch is Il Mutante. He glances towards the doorway with an arrogant sneer, and calls out "Kill them!" to the guards, before raising a wall of fire to block their way in. The guards rush forwards.

    Alt-Colette stumbles backwards from the wall of fire, colliding with Colette, who responds by swearing again. Fortunately they're just doppelgangers and touching doesn't cancel out reality.

    "NOW!" Il Mutante calls out. "Now! No more delay! We open the gate!"

    A technician works fingers rapidly across some controls, and the room fills with the hum of energy. Lights come on across the lenght of the arch, and it fills with a swirling blue vortex, which starts to give way to an image of the blackness of space, stars glinting visibly beyond. Out there in the darkness, a shape moves, a form too dark to make out, blotting out the stars as it passes, moving towards the portal.

Kate Bishop has posed:
    Kate responded correctly because she seems shocked, clearly didn't know there is a dopple-Colette because no one shared trhat information correctly, and she has grave reservations about dopples from that dimension let alone dopple Colettes for god's sake.

    "Fucks sake.. she better be on our side..." is all she mutters worried and then she starts to hustle running ahead hoping her Colette keeps up in case there is a whole rain of gunfire from down yonder.

    When the wall of fire comes up though she pauses and considers for a long moment bow string drawn back and then she firees where she hears Il Mutante call out Now like that.

    Honestly two of those oddly dull metal arrows go flying right towards his cry. One Center mass. One for his loud ass mouth. Blind shots but... she saw where he is and he is yelling like that.

    

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"You guys deal with the Big Asshole, his big hole, and the rest of the henchies- I'll deal with the guards on this side! You /have/ to close that portal!" With the sorcerer out of the game, there is nothing that can inhibit Vorpal's Rabbit Holes from forming, so Il Mutante's wall of fire can't stop the Titans. Vorpal merely opens a Rabbit Hole to the other side that his team-mates can go through, "Hurry! I'll take care of these boys!"

Facing the guards, the Cheshire Cat does what he said he could do earlier, and sends a miasma of pure darkness to blanket the guards and slow them down, enough to give his friends time to pass through the Rabbit Hole so they can tussle with Il Mutante.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Even while diving through the Rabbit Hole to get past the wall of fire, Nightwing is thinking through the tactical situation.

    <<Colettes, if Kate's arrow fails, keep darkness around Mutante so he can't see us. Vorpal, guards are yours. Kian, this thing is at least partially a machine. Break it.>>

    Coming to his feet on the other side of the fire wall, both arms come up, aimed at the apex of the ring, and with rapid *PHUT*s he starts firing pellets at the gateway ring, arms moving to target down and around it so the pellets strike about a foot apart, explosive and acid pellets alternating.

Kian has posed:
    Kian remains close to Terry.  He remembers what 'White Rabbit' means.
    But he does turn to give Original Colette a Look.  "Are you goin' to question my judgmen' when I accep' *you* wit'out bein' able to touch your mind?" he snaps, not angrily, but certainly meaningfully.
    And then he returns his attention to the machine.  He toys briefly with the question of whether it should be overcharged or starved of power... and settles instead on a small detonation within it.  It's messy, inelegant, but likely to be effective.  Sometimes the best solutions aren't the elegant ones.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    The guards fire on the Titans, but thanks to Vorpal's blanket of darkness, they are firing blind. Kate however finds herself having to take care not to get in the way, because her own shield of darkness, provided by Colette, is no longer there. Both Colettes seem to be hanging back for some reason.

    The dark mass visible through the portal gets bigger as it approaches, blotting out more and more of the stars until nothing is visible through the gateway but darkness. "YES!" Il Mutante calls out. "Come! Come to me my lord! Come! I give you this world as my gift! Come, take it! I shall be your loyal servant, to rule this world for you, as I was to your brother in my own world! COME, ZHED'ZHUD'GER'UTH!"

    Nightwing is through the Rabbit Hole and launching pellets at the metal arch. He gets a few on, explosions and acid ripping into it, but before he can get too many on a pair of the guards close in on him, and he's forced to resort to his sticks. One of the guards goes down fast, but the other is unusually skilled, swinging his gun around to deflect blows of those electrified escrima sticks, and it's taking all his concentration to break past the man's guard.

    Kian lets his senses flow through the substance of the portal's metallic parts, feeling out the atoms and sensing charges. The shape and structure of atoms starts to fall into place in his mind, and he sets to work.

    "COME!" Il Mutante calls out. "COME!"

    In the portal, there is nothing but darkness. And then there are tentacles. First one, slipping through the gateway and probing at the floor. Then two more, probing the edges of the arch. Then a wall of tentacles, filling the width of the gateway and weaving through the air around Il Mutante. "COME!"

    With the tentacles comes a strange feeling that each of the Titans senses. A sense of dizziness, of confusion - and of anger. Unplaced, untargeted, but growing. Kian finds his focus on the atomic structure he's trying to manipulate weakens, and he has to struggle to maintain it.

    "YES! Come claim this world! I shall..." One of the tentacles weaves towards Il Mutante, and he takes a nervous step backwards. "Lord! I am your servant! I am..."

    Kate's arrows fly true, and strike Il Mutante, the special tungsten structures untouched by the flames. As before the points do not pierce his super-tough skin, but at this close range, fired from the powerful Wonderbow, the double strike of arrows staggers him, pushing him into the path of the curious, questing tentacle.

    The tentacle wraps around Il Mutante's legs. Another darts forwards to wrap his upper body. Il Mutante screams wordlessly as the tentacles pull back, drawing him into the portal.

    The acid from Nightwing's pellets breaks trhough the metal structure, and a shower of sparks erupts from the top. Kian finds his focus and makes a small twist in the fabric of matter. The ring of metal shudders and cracks. A console bursts into flames, the technician working it backing away, arms raises protectively.

    There is a rumbling, and a loud cracking. Suddenly a wave of energy passes through the room with enough pressure to knock everyone to the floor. The archway cracks and falls, the portal closes forever, Il Mutante, and Zhed'Zhud'Ger'Uth - the Zhed'Zhud'Ger'Uth of /this/ universe - countless lightyears away, on the other side.

Kate Bishop has posed:
    Kate a taste of the madness that drove that entire other plane's earth to it's knees. She doesn't trust herself to pull another arrow in that moment honestly. Too likely to shoot one of her fellows for a brief moment there if they looked at her funny.

    The wall of flame being negated and the blast wave of energy knocking here oto her ass is a very welcome relief. As shje lays there for a long moment she really hopes that thing has no idea how to find the tasty snack planet it just got a nibble of a denizen from. Sort of.

    She drags herself up to her feet though after that thought passes, another arrow being drawn and knocked into her bow as she looks to make sure no guards are getting frisky without their boss.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    While still on the floor, Nightwing thwaps the guard he was fighting with his baton, tasing him in case he felt like continuing the fight. As he hops to his feet, he's already looking around for any remaining problems while calling out "Great work Titans! I think that should finish up the dopple problem. Other than the one Vorpal is going to need to go into at length." He looks over at the Cat, continuing "Let's call in the authorities to clean this place up while Vorpal takes us back to the Tower for what sounds like it should be an interesting story."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Once the sorcerer had clarified that the portal wasn't meant for /another/ dimension, Vorpal entered into panic mode. His entire drive had been to get everybody to the machine to shut it down, because the alternative had been too horrifying to even contemplate: that that creature, of course, would have a doppelganger in /this/ universe as well.

And when those tentacles came through, he was almost sure it was all over. If it hadn't been for Kate's archery.

"Unggggh..." the Cheshire cat mutters, slowly pushing himself up from the floor, "Did... anyone get the license plate of that star destroyer?" he mumbles, and glances around.

"... Did we win, or are we hatezombies now?"

And then Nightwing explains that he is going to have to explain to Colette(1) about Colette(2) and how people knew about her(2) except her(1), the Cheshire cat lets himself drop back down onto the ground.

"...I'd rather be a hatezombie."

Kian has posed:
    Wings make a great catcher's mitt for things like shockwaves, and Kian is thrown back perhaps more than most, impacting a wall and then falling forward onto the floor.
    He pushes himself up groggily.  "Nnh... I think I am still alife, although I am not sure that iss a good idea right now," he says woozily.  "That iss twice I am thrown into a wall, an' I did not enjoy it either time."

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    The machinery is in ruins. Il Mutante is gone. There are more guards back in the silo, but they're not going to be a threat now. The technicians who have recovered enough to get to their feet are already surrendering, and the two guards here that are still upright quickly sense the way the wind is blowing and do the same.

    The influence of Zhed'Zhud'Ger'Uth is already mostly gone from the minds it had touched, but in that few brief moments, everyone got a sense of what it must have been like for the people in that other universe. That for all the trouble the doppelgangers have caused since they came here, the Titans can at least truly understand that they were driven to it. To imagine what it must have been like for people to live with that not just for a couple of seconds, but for decades. To be born under that influence, and to have never known anything else.

    Alt-Colette rests a hand on Kate's shoulder. "You did it. He's... gone. All of you. You did amazing. That was a good shot, Archer. Do not feel bad about him - on my world he was a dictator and a murderer of thousands. On this world he would have killed billions."

    Colette knocks alt-Colette's hand away, and glares at her. "She's called /Hawkeye/, not Archer," she snaps, proving that she does actually know Kate's code-name. This is probably the first time she's used it accurately. "She is my friend, and if you touch her again, I will destroy you. Understand?"

    Both Colettes turn to Terry, looking at him expectantly. Alt-Colette gives a what-can-you-do shrug. Regular Colette taps her foot.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal groans, realizing he's not going to get a rain check on this. Pushing himself up and dusting his outfit, he says to Colette(2): "You're going to have to excuse her, she was abandoned in the wild and was raised by a pack of wild Ayn Rand fans. She doesn't understand that sharing is caring."

But wait- he realizes there IS a rain check! "However, as much as I'd love to explain what is going on /right now/, I do have that poor, frail old sorcerer to get over to Phoebe so she can pump him full of goodness and can get that nasty metal band removed from him. Shouldn't take more than... thee, four hours! Soooo... I'll see you both at the tower!"

And with that, he turns on his heel to get that poor man some much-needed medical attention and also get enough distance between himself and Colette(1) until she was a little bit calmer. One apocalypse a day was enough for him, thank you very much.

Exit, stage right.