8136/Hallodoom Grounds

Hallodoom Grounds
Date of Scene:	06 October 2021
Location:	Sanctum Santorum
Synopsis:	Doom visits Strange and Illyana. Two sorcerers supreme vs Victor... well, you can't say he's totally outnumbered.
Cast of Characters:	Illyana Rasputina, Victor Von Doom, Stephen Strange

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Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Autumn resides in ghostly splendour around Greenwich Village. Look up instead of down and it's possible to imagine the heroes of the Revolution walking or riding through those narrow streets. Jump a century later, then. Well-heeled Americans swanning around below the trees, grumbling about the cold and shutting up the house in the Hamptons seems about right. Some of those trees are old enough to remember. Many a brick flat is, stowed on the tiny plots and crooked byways that linger under a black moon smudged not even with the slightest sliver of light to make it out against the mist-strewn darkness.

The Demon Queen of Limbo is a hefty title and October's maladies to atmospheric glory certainly suit her well. For the moment, she's in a cropped smoking jacket and a pair of black pants, staring up at the sky like it owes her $20 and hasn't forked over its due since pay day.

Victor Von Doom has posed:
The manse of a sorcerer is no place to tread lightly, doubly so that of a Sorcerer Supreme. Though Doom may scoff at the choice of the Vishanti, he does not deny power where it is exhibited. Tonight, he turns to technology to circumvent certain mystical wards and seals. Rather than a spell of translocation, he uses the teleporter in his armor to transport himself where he wishes to go.

A glare of bright white light in the shape of a hooded man, and from it steps forth Doom.

"Bring me the Sorcerer Supreme," he demands, arms boldly crossing his chest, "Doom would have words with him."

Stephen Strange has posed:
Titles can be so unruly.

Stephen has had many. Some simple...some rather weighty. But, for the moment, he is just Stephen, and he is standing besides Illyana. Though, his eyes are not on the sky, but, rather, upon the smoking jacket as a slight smirk slowly materializes into view. "Tell me honestly now. Did that come from my closet or yours? Because, speaking truthfully, it certainly looks better on you than it ever did me."

Before she can answer, however, Stephen shifts his attention, seeing if he can spy whatever it is that has claimed Illyana's attention so. But...it is more than just that. Those grey eyes close, even as the face is turned upward towards the night's sky. There has been disturbances as of late. Some minor....some even amusing. But disturbances, nonetheless.

And, it would appear that disturbances would be the proper term for tonight, as bright white washes over the environs, penetrating through closed eyelids. "It seems we have a guest." Those eyes open, as they level upon the newly arrived personage of Doom. "So good of you to join us."

Really, though? There might be just a hint of sarcasm. Just a little. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your certainly unexpected visit?"

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Titles can be plenty unruly, this is so. The accorded few gathered by the Sanctum Sanctorum possess several each, and they can be damnable mouthfuls. Queen this, Lord that, God-Emperor so and so.

The home of the Vishanti's representative and champion shall not be taken lightly, full of artifacts never meant to see the light of day and the personal Book penned by one Agamotto. Collective might and weight of the Mystic Arts summed up, the place makes the most secure military fortress look like a kid's bedroom fort constructed of twin sheets and couch cushions.

Thus which must make the arrival of Latveria's master-in-chief all the more glaring. Bypassing this divine ward or that secured doorway is one matter, but the celestial teleporter staring out the window shifts her attention when an explosion detonates off the port bow as it were, commanding some kind of reaction.

Onyx lips crook faintly. The shift of arctic-pale eyes, denuded of their brilliant sheen to be reduced to tangibly cold portals to the perpetually frozen land that birthed her, marginally receives a mark below the blunt fringe of bangs. The dark silk conjured around her shoulder threatens to slope right off, though the rest is savagely fitted.

The charming disturbance will be Stephen's to answer, not the Russian sorceress. For did not the demand state /him/, not her? No mistaking her gender or her part in the matter. She flicks her fingertips in a casually violent gesture, dashed elegantly in the doctor's direction. "You have."

Her Slavic accent could pare silk threads apart, and splits said hairs perfectly well. In an aside, she replies belatedly to Strange, "Is there a difference?"

Victor Von Doom has posed:
"Withhold your hospitality, Sorcerer Supreme," Doom answers irritably, arms still crossed, "For Doom has no need of it. Doom would have spoken with you at Varvegzet if there was any chance you would answer such a summons in short order. No, Doom has had to venture into your Sanctum and expects no crass, American finery."

"Limbo is not of Doom's concern," he tells Illyana, as though reading thoughts, "Rather, it is Doom's intention to pluck Mephisto from his fetid realm and watch him burst like a maggot over a flame. If your Vishanti feel no special attachment to the Fiend, your assistance would be accepted."

Stephen Strange has posed:
Is there a difference? "No, I suppose not."

The answer is certainly for Illyana, though Stephen himself does not bother to clarify himself. He shouldn't have to. He wasn't the one that just walked into another's home without so much as a warning. "Oh, you would be surprised as to what I may answer to. One would really only have to try to see." Was that a dig on Doom for not attempting to call first?

Maybe...

But, even that is spoken with no true malice. More of a flat response. It simply does not pay to upset the man, since nothing good will come of it. Besides...there was a singular entity brought up that earns Strange's attention and gives Doom a modicum of forgiveness for the intrusion.

Mephisto.

"I would feel that I am not at all out of line when I say that the Vishanti hold no opinion over him. And, I have business with him as well. I had sensed his hand, subtle though it may have been, in the attempted consolidation of the realm of the dead within the living...the very thing that summoned Atum forth. I have been meaning to pay him a visit to express my displeasure..."

It isn't an immediate acceptance. Just like Doom's request wasn't really a request, either. But, there is interest there. That is a certainty.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
No samovar of black tea for Doom then. Let him earn that privilege or charm the master of the Sanctum sufficiently to earn those gifts. Like as not, he will get his cup anyway and receive it with the far from grudging grace that two titans prowling around the battlefield are bound to face one another with. Or lions; they have the manes and egos to match, while the huntresses do all the work.

The pale blonde's reaction to Limbo is scarcely even a ripple across her features, the smirk still placed exactly where she left it last. Prying open her head is a task set to bedevil even Charles Xavier, and they'd have better luck dashing her skull against stone and reading the brutally mutilated organ that spilled out than hope for a glimpse otherwise.

"Surprise, no one likes my downstairs neighbour," she idly comments, all insouciance and dark amusement. "So unruly, da?" They can speak of the specifics in fine detail, and she just knifes the conversation through the back.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is reality's youngest Hell Lord.

Victor Von Doom has posed:
"Anything so powerful that chooses to embody itself in such a way is fallible," Doom says with the air of a man who believes himself the only exception to such a rule, "And can be, if not destroyed, then punished in such a way as to ensure docility. Mephisto holds a treasure I consider mine by right, and I shall have it returned to me."

"While Doom does not doubt your combined efforts would be suitable to speak with Mephisto without suffering his wrath, a unified front may do more than merely thump the proverbial broom handle on the floorboards."

Stephen Strange has posed:
"I will not bother to ask what the devil holds that you find so dear. The fact that you are asking for help is enough to provide an understanding." Yes...Doom didn't ask. But, Stephen knows Victor would not have bothered to come here if he didn't want assistance.

After all, as the saying goes, it takes an egomaniac to understand another egomaniac. And, while Stephen doesn't necessarily speak of himself in the third person, he does know that Victor even standing before him is meaningful.

"I do believe we can do more than knock. However, we do need to take into account that the vile fiend most likely already expects a response. An overwhelming show of force may be the very thing Mephisto is hoping for, to allow him to slip through the cracks like the rodent that he is. When we do strike, it will be to ensnare. All possible angles will need to be accounted for."

Yes, Doom already knows this. Stephen is quite aware of it. OF course, it is not going to stop Stephen from actually saying it out loud...and saying it first.

Such is valid in the war of egos.