8470/Birthright: The Earth Moves

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Birthright: The Earth Moves
Date of Scene: 12 November 2021
Location: Village in the Reeds, Boarder of Sudan and Egypt
Synopsis: The Fantastic End of the Birthright TP. In the Village in the Reeds, Zatanna Zatara, Jonathan Sims, M'Gann M'orzz, Tim Drake, Chas Chandler, Lydia Dietrich and Bart Allen defeat Leksandria, the Lady in Red known as the Necromancer Asenath, and preserve the remaining knowledge gathered in the village's underground library -- now the birthright of Phoebe.
Cast of Characters: Phoebe Beacon, Tim Drake, Chas Chandler, Lydia Dietrich, M'gann M'orzz, Jonathan Sims, Zatanna Zatara, Bart Allen




Phoebe Beacon has posed:
1PM Eastern, 8PM Local time. Unusual for the area, a massive earthquake has ripped through the Egypt/Sudan region. Sudan, currently in a state of near civil war was in no state of being able to do anything about it, but the Al Nasr Dam had to be inspected, Egypt had its hands full.

3PM Eastern, 10PM Local time. A crevasse had formed, reaching from deep in the interior of Lake Nubia. Water levels dropped dangerously quickly, and exposed the steps to a temple sticking out of the rockface of the artificial lake. The new, jagged rift in the Earth's crust reached under the web of dark magic that kept the Village in the Reeds hidden from outsiders, and burst open its library. Some knowledge has already been lost to the rising waters from here.

Magic, though, is still thick in the air. Electrical impulses race among the nerves of the living in anxious twitches and sharp pulses. Even those who are not gifted with Sight are treated to the vision of the ruined town and its former guardians. The looming Coptic church with its ancient wooden doors splintered like a gaping maw stands to the east. Its broken hospital, half-swallowed by sands and one end of it torched now to the south. Strewn about the main square, bodies long since desiccated by the desert, but the souls once contained drifting, tethered to the sands like macabre baloons. The tattoo work along their arms glows and pulses, along with the blue-white light coming from their eyes and mouths. Above our heroes there is a web formed of dull red magic, and myriad souls are caught against it, now cocooned in red threads akin to a spider's web, light pulsing from these souls slower.

Scorpions the size of footballs are on patrol here, and in spite of this being the desert, there is frost on the bodies and buildings.

The rift in the sands breaks the town roughly in half, about ten feet wide and forty down, filled with murky, muddy water for who knows how much deeper.

Tim Drake has posed:
    The beacons are lit. Phoebe calls for aid. And the Outsiders will answer. The jet can go pretty damn fast when it isn't locked into stealth mode, and it makes quick work of the trip over the Atlantic before slowing down on approach to non-international airspace. Red Robin is at the controls tonight, monitoring what information on the developing situation that can be scrapped from the internet as the autopilot does most of the actual navigating.

    Given that the Outsiders regularly find themselves abroad in places they're not particularly welcome, its flight subroutines have since been adapted to avoiding any hot spots that risk detection.

    Still, Tim is... nervous isn't the word, because that's not really an emotion he lets himself feel with the mask on. But it's a precarious situation balanced on top of an uncertain set of circumstances all wrapped up in a dangerous state of affairs. Which is to say, big potential for trouble. So Tim is concerned, but doing his best to fake it till he makes it.

    His briefing to the rest of the team present in the jet with him had been brief: Phoebe needs our help. We might not be magically gifted but we're going to handle it anyway because that's what we do. And he's sure of that, no faking necessary. Whatever happens. "<<Balm, this is Red Robin. Outsiders are in position 7000 feet above Lake Nubia.>>"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    In the absence of John, Chas contacted the Night Brigade to gather at the House of Mystery.

    Only a few of the assembled had ever seen Chas loaded for bear. His clothes consist of black fatigue pants and a black tee. Under the tee is the unmistakable bulging of a tactical vest. There is an ammunition belt around his chest loaded with a number of shotgun slugs. On his left hip is a sheathed longsword, on his right a semiautomatic pistol. On his back is a massive double bit battle axe. In his hands is a combat shotgun.

    He moves as if the tac vest and his fatigues are still, loaded with metal strike plates throughout as he addresses the group. "Alright. Those with magic in their repetoire, we need you on alert. That means Sights open. This bitch uses necromancy like cocaine and we don't need to be ambushed by invisible specters while we're fighting whatever the hell else she throws at us."

    He looks at his gathering of five compatriots. "Alright. We can't prepare for every eventuality so there's probably something I've forgotten. But no matter. Let's get out there and give her hell. Game face" He turns and walks through the portal that was already set to the location of the disruption.

    Once under the red web he looks around. "Oh... bollocks..." he says surveying the hellscape. As one of the massive scorpions skitters close, he swings at it with the shotgun like a baseball bat forcing it to skitter back and hiss to avoid the impact. "Keep your wits about you people. Hostiles are everywhere." Chas has no tactical background, but he's watched a lot of television and movies. So he at least has a cursory understanding of the lingo.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Timezones. A vampire's worst nightmare. What's day on one side of the world is night on the other and living in geosynchronous orbit around the Earth makes moving around on the ground a bit tricky. Fortunately sunlight doesn't hurt Lydia. It just makes her weak and groggy and is definitely unpleasant.

This is how she arrives at the Laughing Magician. She looks even more corpse-like during the day, with her eyes and cheeks sunken in, and her deathly pallor. Even her mutation, the aura of gently falling ash flakes of ectoplasm, seems to have been muted with only a few popping into existence here and there.

"Come on," she grumbles. "Lets get going to the other side of the world where I won't feel as dead as I am." When all are assembled and they step into the House of Mystery, a place whose existence transcends day or night, Lydia starts looking a bit better. It isn't until they all step out into Egypt that she looks more like herself.

The web of caught souls is the first thing that catches her attention. "Lovely," she says. "She's going all out on this one." It isn't until one of the scorpions strike her with its venomous tail that she takes notice of them. One of the perks of being undead is that she doesn't have to worry about venom coursing through her veins, though the hole in her pants causes her to frown.

With a flick of the wrist, a ebony spike forms from her ectoplasm and impales the offending creature, as it will any others that dare to get close to her. "I no longer have the Sight," she says, turning to Phoebe and Zee. "Any idea where we should start?"

M'gann M'orzz has posed:
Gondor rides to Phoebe's aid! If Gondor were the Outsiders and the Rohirim were Tim and M'gann.

Sitting in the co-pilot seat of the Outsiders jet next to Red Robin is Miss Martian. But where Tim is focused on flying and scraping the internet for potential news and leads, M'gann is sitting quietly with the index and middle fingers of each hand placed upon her temples. Despite the tension of the situation she seems almost meditative as she reaches out with her mind, probing for dangers that the sensors of the Outsiders' jet might miss.

<<Just tell us where you need us.>>

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon has his Sight open by the time they step through the portal, and he shudders as he looks around at the village with its dessicated bodies and their glowing tattoos. So much has happened in the weeks since they were last here, but he shakes that off.

    He stares up at the red web for a moment, frowning. Adjusts the staff he holds with more confidence than the last time he had it, checks the gun--who the heck gave the Archivist a /gun/?--he has in a shoulder holster. He's wearing cargo pants and a black long-sleeved shirt that looks a little bulky since the armor Moon Knight gave him is underneath. He looks... halfway competent. Weirdly quasi-military, for those who've known him. He also gives Chas a vaguely amused glance, but doesn't comment on the cliched lingo.

    He swings his staff at an encroaching scorpion, a little clumsily, but still manages to hit the thing. "I'm pretty sure you're seeing what we're Seeing, just now," he says to Lydia. But he's scanning the area regardless, looking for anything that might stand out.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
All for the love of Phoebe - the amount of magic assembled in one place approaches the miraculous for a world currently short of them. The hot, dry wind of the desert carrying a charnel house smell plucks at her dark hair and clothes. Souls hang in the web of magic hugging the village while the desert sands scour old bones in the ruins of the houses.

How many gods were represented? Two against the forces of evil: Thoth would be on his home ground, and a second that had elected Zatanna to walk with, Persephone - Queen of the Underworld and the maiden of spring. Zatanna had dispensed with the frivolous and dressed in boots and cotton clothes to face the desert and Leksandria's magic. A sturdy keffiyeh in red and gold, the colors of the goddess, wraps her shoulders and throat.

Standing straight, fists clenched at her side, Zee faces into the wind waiting while everyone gathers.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    M'gann would get a lot of static. A Lot of static, when reaching with her telepathy. There's an awful lot of interference when it comes to the Astral realm right here, almost as if there was a massive hole in existence that Wasn't Quite Right. All the magicians could feel it in their bones, and everyone who's not magical? The hair is standing up on the back of the neck from the energies around the place. Like being close to a live wire.

    Phoebe is doing something rare. She's wearing her own armor, the matte gray of Balm's armor with her hood up and over her hair, the Rod of Asclepius emblazoned in a shining black over her left breast.

    She had tried to prepare herself for the worst when she had been told about the condition of her Birthplace, but this... was a lot.

    She brings her hand up to her hood, and she brushes her fingers against a communicator.

    "Reading you, Red. Lock in on my signal. The web above should be passable for the living. Just... be careful where you land. There is a lot of..." she looks to the side, at one body that's floating in the air.

    "... it's a lot." she states.

    And now, there are two gods on their home turf.

    The Scorpions of Unusual Size don't seem to be anything special except very, very large. One is squished with a staff, the other is sent flying off by the flick of a gun, but they seem to scatter when Phoebe steps out of the portal, hissing and clacking their claws and giving her a good eight feet of distance.

    Phoebe breathes out, and she holds her hands out. She walks to the edge of the new crack in the earth, and drops to her knees, peering over.

    <<Red, did you happen to bring any spare jump lines? I can see an opening below, and it's got scrolls and books in it.

    "Anyone got a spare library card?" she asks of her group, looking back.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Once they have marching orders, Tim takes over active control of the jet. It's surprisingly quiet until it's an oily smudge on the lens of reality a few dozen feet in the air above the assembled group, and then the camo refractors switch off to reveal the fairly non-descript black outline of the aircraft in hover mode. There are no obvious callsigns or logos on it--not that the Outsiders have a logo, really--and it's not even bat-shaped, despite it being based largely on the Batwing's tech.

    "<<You know I always pack more than I need.>>" That's just the Bat way of things. The cargo hold has its fair share of spare tech stashed away, and with a tap at the console screen on his left, several hidden cabinets open for perusal.

    When Red Robin lands on the sands below, cape spread out to slow his descent, he's loaded for war in a way that is not entirely dissimilar to Chas, though without the technical lethality. Not that Tim couldn't kill someone with his gear if he really wanted to, but... well. Not his thing. "<<MM on her way to you with gear.>>" And then, with a crackle of electricity spiking off the ends of his staff, Red Robin twists on his heels and strikes the nearest scorpion like he's up to bat and aiming for a home run.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas gives the leader of the Outsiders a careful nod of acknowledgement (with a great deal of respect added in.) He walks to the edge of the the crevace, batting and kicking aside a few more of the scorpions with a frown until he reaches the protective circle of Phoebe's *presence.*

    "Long way down. We're probably going to need light" he says to his oldest daughter. He peers at the scorpions giving the woman a wide berth and smiles. "But I guess you are more than capable of handling that since these walking vemon monsters don't want anything to do with you."

    He whistles at the mention of jump lines. "Rappelling... haven't done that is..." he rolls his houlders. "It's been a while." He was fairly certain it'd been forever since he'd never had to Last Action Hero while on any trips before.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia makes her way to the crack in the earth and peers down besides Phoebe. "I can fly," she offers. "I can take a couple of people with me. Worst comes we make a couple of trips." When she sees that Red Robin has brought rappelling lines she shrugs. She'll gather whoever takes her up on her offer, and ebony black wings sprout from her back, and she lifts off in the air to float gently down to where the library.

M'gann M'orzz has posed:
"Remember when we stopped that truck in Boston?" M'gann opens her eyes turning her head towards Tim. "I said the driver was like a whole in the Astral, no mind, just a void? This entire place is like that. Pure static, might as well not exist telepathically. If he was undead or whatever, this entire place... it's like a hole in existence. I've never seen anything like it."

The green skinned alien redhead unstraps herself from the co-pilot seat. Standing up she walks over to one of the onboard supply caches and fishes out some jump lines and other assorted useful things for Phoebe. "I'll get these down to her while you land the jet."

And with that M'gann's body turns insubstantial and phases through the floor of the jet as she flies down into the psychic void of nightmare hellscape. She's seen some pretty terrifying things in her time heroing, including the planet Apokolips and she honestly isn't sure which is worse. Crimson eyebeams lance through a giant scorpion skittering towards Phoebe as the Martian superhero comes in for a landing. "As requested, jump lines and a few other things I thought might be useful." She tries to put on her best smile as she offers the 'go bag' of stuff to Phoebe, though her eyes are still a bit wider than normal as she looks around and then winces from the continued psychic static.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "You have one better--a /librarian/," Jon quips as he walks over toward where Phoebe kneels. "Never underestimate the power of inter-library loans." He steps forward to peer down over the edge of the crack, toward the opening that Phoebe is looking at. Partly, he's looking to see if anything stands out astrally, but also just... oh there's scrolls and books and such down there. /That/ is something he of all people ought to look at.

    He looks up at M'gann as she arrives and blinks a few times, then nods to her in greeting. "I think I'll take the jump line. Meaning no offense, Lydia, but I don't think I'm up for 'flying' yet and... I did go rock climbing with a friend once." It wasn't a /great/ experience but at least he's done that before.

    The green-skinned woman reminds him of something, so he asks, "Phoebe, your, ahh... friends... do they happen to have another telepath among them? I wonder if we can... network, as it were, so we can all communicate." Since the Night Brigade doesn't just have ear comms that could be tuned to the same frequency. He files that away as a suggestion for later.

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen will come up along with his friends to help his other friend "I read a library once." He says at the mention of a librarian. He has a backpack on as seems Bart is coming to the party with a few surprises. He looks around and sighs "I so need to get a legion flight ring." He moves to stand looking down the hole waiting to see what the plan is.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna snorts to herself. That is the girl they know, ready to face down monsters with black humor. Over coms, "If Jon can't handle it, I can drop you a line or lend you mine." The magician startles and looks up as M'gann's red laser vaporizes a scorpion, making for Phoebe.

It's not Zee's first rodeo with the Martian. Using telepathy, she chuckles, *"M'gann, a heads up next, please."*

A simple spell then, to waft her into the crack in the earth that she fervently hopes stays open while she joins others to retrieve papyrus scrolls laying in the dust.

"taolF" she commands.

Keffiyeh fluttering, she slowly descends into the fissure next to Red Robin's lines. She undoes a corner of the fabric to make a pouch which she gently stuffs with the brittle scrolls.

"Where to with the scrolls, Phoebe?" Zee asks as she settles back next to the healer

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Thanks Red. Thanks M'gann." Phoebe gives a bright smile to the Martian, and she shoulders the lines. "We can at least use these to bring anything up, especially if there's like, stone tablets." she pauses a moment "I really hope there's no tablets." she states, and she turns to look at Chas. "Dad," she states with amusement as she steps off the edge, floating with help down to the library beneath the sands.

    And as she does, she grips her left hand, and the night lights up with soft light, like that of a brilliantly full moon. It might bother Lydia a little bit, none of Phoebe's magic is without Light and Holy alike.

    "I /am/ Light." she jokes.

    Unfortunately, the scorpions begin to crowd Tim a little bit, hissing and clacking their claws at the young hero and his stick.

    A couple try to snap at Bart's heels.

     As Above:

    The Temperature Drops. The frost becomes heavier, and breath begins to hang in the air. The bodies that are floating begin to pulse along the tattoos on their arms, the lights in their eyes and mouths beginning to fade. The cocooned souls above begin to pulse with anger. The sand begins to rattle and shake around everyone above, and echoing, screaming, snarling begin to whisper to ears.

So Below:

    The library is damaged; scrolls and books have been lost to the waters of the Nile from which the water to scribe their pages and papyrus was sourced. There are support columns here that though faded, have blue and pink lotus petals kissing the ceiling, which is inscribed copper. Demotic is the Language used, fading into Old Kingdom Egyptian, fading into something even older. This place was once powerfully warded, but it appears to have been drained.

    The remaining room is about forty by eighty feet of shelves. It's like a little piece of the Library of Alexandria, accompanied by the smell of sand and water, the vanilla scent of old books and the tanned leather.

    Here, there are whispers from the past. What ghosts are haunting here that even those with Sight cannot see?

Tim Drake has posed:
    Even some yards away, it's possible to catch a brief glimpse of the guarded expression on Red Robin's face, though the domino mask and white lenses obscure it partially. There's a determined set to the grim line of his mouth, though, and as he kicks a scorpion hard towards a nearby wall in an attempt for a very satisfying splat, he offers a quick, two-fingered salute in response to Chas's acknowledgement.

    He's not unaffected by the sights surrounding him, or the way the very air is heavy enough with unease to bring up goosebumps across his skin, underneath his armor. But for now, he's compartmentalizing. Selectively ignoring the horrors, unless they pose an immediate threat.

    "<<MM, what you said in the jet--I think even I can feel it. It's like my brain is trying to tell me that something is inherently wrong with... I don't know, the laws of reality here.>>" Or so his logic-bound mind is attempting to interpret it all. And since Tim is unable to offer mystic aid, he remains above ground, doing his best to keep the swarms of scorpions from tumbling down the crevasse after the group heading in for artifact retrieval.

    Though he's loaded down with a not-insignificant amount of his weaponry backstock--explosives, and other assorted grenades of various effects--as of yet it seems the application of force AKA a swing of his staff or well-aimed kick seem to be doing the job.

    At least at first. Then, their attempts at crowding him only earn a faint grimace. Don't they know he's AOE DPS? Out come the aforementioned explosives, and bursts of sand begin to erupt into the air as Tim tosses them out. To extend the metaphor, he's also playing a bit of a tank role here in that he's purposefully trying to draw aggro. "<<Might need some crowd control up here shortly,>>" he says, and that's when he notices his breath is suddenly visible, fogging up in front of him.

    Then he feels it on the exposed skin of his face. "<<It's getting cold up here. Feels like the boss might be charging one of its big attacks.>>"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    As Lydia takes him down the crevace he gives a smile to Phoebe. "That's my girl" he says with pride. At the bottom gives he shakes his head as he gazes around. "Thank you, Bleeding Heart" he says in thanks to his safe method of getting down.

    "This is... terrible..." he says, looking around at the floating spirits and waterlogged scrolls and tomes. He breathes out a few more times, watching as the unnaturally chill air freezes his breath into fog instantly.

    "Arc is going to have a fit." Still, despite the joking, he's gazing looking for any sign of danger, his hands grip the shotgun with a vice-like authority. "Any sign of our foe?" he asks, looking to Zee, Phoebe, and once down--Jon.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia steps carefully into the library, careful not to touch anything. "This is.... wow," she breathes. "I wish I could share this with my coven. Isis knows they'd /love/ this." Then the dead start voicing their displeasure above, and her acute hearing picks up on it. "Well," she amends. "She'd love the library. Not the angry spirits above us. Which, by the way, are getting angrier. I don't think we should linger too long down here.

"Here," she says holding out a hand and forming a platform of ectoplasm about five feet in diameter. "Load up what you can on that. I can keep whatever we take protected." She looks up out of the entrance to the library and up the crevasse. "Hopefully this won't close on us when this is over and we can come back." Once loaded up with books, scrolls, and any other valuables they wish to preserve, she encloses the disc in a protective black bubble.

M'gann M'orzz has posed:
<Sorry, sorry!> M'gann's telepathic voice reaches into Zatanna's mind.

The green skinned girl turns to Jonathan, red hair blowing in the desert wind. "I am a telepath, but this place, it... there is tremendous static and interference. However we can try."

She returns Phoebe's smile. "Be safe." She tells the other young woman as she watches her descend with the others. M'gann stays topside for the moment both to watch the initial team's backs as they descend and to try and focus her telepathy on cutting through the psychic static and reach out to Jon, as well as her teammates, turning herself into a sort of psychic signal booster to help him create a network despite all of the interference.

The dropping temperatures do not bother Miss Martian much, what comes after however, rightly belongs in a horror movie, the kind that Tim loves to bring to movie night, only it's happening right in front of her. The pulsing angry souls, the rattling and shaking sand, the echoing screams... <<Yeah, and I think it is getting worse!>> She agrees with Tim on the comms, gesturing at well everything around them, before broadcasting through the fledgeling telepathic link. <Uh hello? Your name was Jon right? I'm going to try and give you a boost so you can make a network. You guys should also know something is happening up here and I'm pretty sure it is very bad. Shaking sand, pulsing bodies, screams, and the temperature feels like Mars, I think something is coming!> When even the Martian sounds a bit nervous things are probably bad.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon takes a moment, after looking out over the village again, to twist a gold bracer on his wrist. It's inscribed with two ibises holding tablets, a design of six interlocking circles, and hieroglyphs along the edges. The bracer glows briefly, a soft green light, and then Jon's /eyes/ turn a bright, glowing green that one needs no Sight to notice. And then he's the Archivist, and his expression hardens a little. The Archivists have actually seen worse than this, as much as the state of the place angers him. Oddly enough, it might make it easier for Miss Martian to reach his mind, since the bundle of raw pain and grief that he's been walking around with gets cloaked by the mystical mantle.

    Once the lines are out, the Archivist rappels on down. Not easily or gracefully, but he manages it. Once inside he doesn't go to gather books or scrolls immediately. Instead he makes sure to firmly look at /everything/, staring at each wall and column and pile of washed-out scrolls as if he's taking pictures. Which he is, in a way. His perfect recall will ensure that the memory of this place is preserved for as long as the Archive exists. "Warding spells," he murmurs softly, reading the inscriptions. "Powerful ones."

    He has to stop inside the preserved room, the smell hitting him and triggering a rush of memory. He closes his eyes and grounds himself with his staff, murmuring, "Later. Later. I know it's familiar. But it's not the Serapeum. /Later/." His fingers flex on the staff, knuckles whitening briefly as he pushes back the pressure of five thousand years of Archivists, two thousand of them in exile, yearning for something that feels like /home/, even if no Archivist has seen it before this moment.

    Finally he manages to push it back, and says to Lydia, "If nothing else, it's in the Archive now. We will keep it in memory for as long as we exist." Then he goes to gathers things up, carefully but swiftly. Even the damaged items--there are techniques that might restore them, if they're careful about transport.

    Over the telepathic link: <We're moving as fast as we can. Do you need someone up there to help immediately?>

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen looks down the hole and says "I could come down and read it all, well read and memorize what I can't read." He says but then he is looking over the whole, and pulls out a ultraviolet light, and says "Most scorpions glow in UV." He says as he moves around seeing if the scorpions do. "You guys know that scorpions can slow down their metabolisms." He will take one of the ropes and starts tying pinchers shut, and multiple scorpions tails together so they are more struggling against one another to move.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
To Zatanna's sight, it's like the gates to the Underworld, crowded with the dead. The shades of the men wear the remnants of fine linen kilts and pleated tops; the ghostly women are in long dresses with their bare shoulders covered by a shawl. It's a distracting scene, but the air above them crackles with anger - the atmosphere charged with hostility.

The unflappable M'gann's nervousness felt through their telepathic link reinforces her feeling of impending doom. She can feel Jon join them in the link - cool and dispassionate as the Archivist inhabits him.

That is when Zatanna sees a woman in a Greek dress of white chiton in the distance, a diadem in her hair, who raises a hand to point to the village above them.

Zee speaks to them both: **"Do you feel it? A storm approaches."**

Gingerly, Zatanna deposits the scrolls she had picked up from the floor on a stone table then pulls the keffiyeh closer around herself against the increasing cold.

To Chas, "Not yet, but I don't think it'll be very long. I'm going back.

Over coms:<"Something is very wrong. See you in a minute Red Robin.">

"pU" she whispers. Clothing rippling, the magician returns to the surface to land not far from Red Robin. While Bart regales them with little known Scorpion facts.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
As Above:

    The temperature drops, and settles around -6C -- about twenty degrees F. It's cold, frost takes what moisture is in the air and makes it cling to the splatted bodies of dead scorpions. The growling and snarling becomes less aetherial and more physical. The sands shift, and creatures appear. Tim would recognize Leksandria's handiwork; each beast is about the size of a VW bug, colored gray with mottled, tattooed flesh, chains and pins keeping their skins together over stolen muscle and reconstituted bone. Teeth made of jagged shards snap as these brutish hounds confront Impulse, M'gann, and Red Robin alike.

    Robin's paws at the ground, eyeless, snorting at the air like a pig rutting for berries, and it at first goes to the wall, where the scorpion's innards were still oozed and slightly warm, and then it turns and giving a phlegmy roar, it charges the red-armored hero!

    M'gann's works similarly, trying to step around her, as if trying to flank. It is telepathically dead. Controlled elsewhere, basing its behavior on something like ancient instinct and not living in the present. It feels *cold*. Blind, it tries to scent out the unfamiliar, it hasn't encountered a Martian before, she might have an upper hand.

    Bart ties up and tethers a bunch of scorpions (who do not glow in the blacklight, somehow! Perhaps they are not really scorpions... which may actually be worse than football-sized scorpions!). The one chasing Impulse attempts to take the speedster by surprise, errupting from the sand in an ambush, maw spread wide to try and take out his shoulder and maybe hold him down! (Hounds: https://i.imgur.com/Emj7vws.jpg)

    Footsteps appear in the sand. (Theme music: https://youtu.be/ltD0hQ1rVMM)

     You are Not Welcome in My Home, 'Friends of the Last Child'. I will make sure your souls join the web above to rebuild what you children have stolen from me as I reclaim my birthright from what should have never been! booms a woman's voice, and the Lady in Red makes her appearance, her eyes dimly lit, markings and scarrification glowing on her hands and through the fabric of her heavily hooded jacket as the wind picks up, whipping sand into the air.

So Below

    In the library, Phoebe is glowing among the books her ancestors have scribed. Physically glowing, and even those without sight would see the strings surrounding her, made of light, orbiting and stretching from her by turns as she looks at the warding.

    "... I can *read* this--" she whispers in surprise, pulling her hood down, and giving a breath out... it turns to a puff of frosty breath. The temperature drops here as well, and though there are ghosts dressed in Egyptian finery in replay here, something else hunts as well.

    Behind Chas, books crash from a shelf as a skeletal creature breaks through the ancient wood, and attempts to knock the large man out of the library and into the ravine to the murky waters of the invading Nile below! (What's attacking Chas: https://i.imgur.com/ufhqIQz.jpg )

Tim Drake has posed:
    The shift from comms-based chatter to telepathic isn't so much a shift, really, for Red Robin. He's used to it, so his telepathic 'voice' such as it is is only slightly more harried than the normally droll tone of voice he affects aloud.

    <<Definitely getting worse!>> is his next report, echoing M'gann's. And at Jon's question, there's a fuzzy moment of uncertainty.

    Then giant necromantic creatures burst out from beneath the sand and the <<Now! Now would be good!>> that follows from Tim is suddenly very certain. He's already on the move, racing towards the necro-hound charging him, only to spike his staff into the sand so that he can attempt to vault straight over it.

    Out come more grenades from ye olde utility belt, these sticky ones that he drops as he flings himself over the beast's back.

    He lands in a tumble of sand, but he's back up on his feet after. <<Lady in Red sighting confirmed!>> And despite how sinister her appearance is, there's also marked relief from Tim as Zatanna announces her imminent arrival. Even with Red Robin carrying his max equip load, there's only so much that concussive grenades can do against magic beasties. Still, he knows who the true enemy is, here, so as he looks over at Leksandria, he says, "Zee--we'll do our best to keep these things busy. Don't worry about us!"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas shouts in surprise as the monstrous skeletal *thing* tries to overpower him. But while most would recoil from the creature and probably meet a watery death, Chas is no stranger to the more grotesque creatures of the darkness. He leans into the thing, letting the pincers of its forequarters slash and tear at him.

    If the silence of the library hadn't been disturbed by the clatter of bookshelves and gutteral sounds of the creature then the roar of the combat shotgun unloading into the thing would surely do the trick. BAM! BAM! BAM! the gun fires in quick succession the semi-automatic fire hammers into the beast, equal parts rock-salt and solid slug (Chas wasn't going to mess around with buckshot for any of these things) slam into the abberation at point blank range. Chas' own defiant scream (or maybe a war cry) add to the cacophony as he pushes against the monster.

    He shoves it away, and keeps the trigger down on the shotgun until it's empty. 10 rounds. "<<Someone. End this bitch!>>" he says. "<<And let's get the fuck out of here! Our quarry is topside!>>" he both transmits and says. He's a mess of cuts and blood, but he doesn't seem to be taking much note of it at the moment. He'll heal once it's done or he dies. Either way, he's finishing this fight.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
One of the things about being undead is that you don't get to feel the cold anymore. She can tell the temperature has dropped, but the chill doesn't seep into her bones like it does her companions. Her breath, when she deigns to breathe, isn't frosted since the air coming out is the same temperature as the air coming in.

Lydia tilts her head at the booming voice above them. "It sounds like Leksandria has shown herself," she tells her companions. However, she's interrupted by the appearance of the foul looking ghoul. "Crap!" she shouts, as a protective bubble surrounds the precious cargo being carried by her floating dais.

Reaching out with her hands, tentacles shoot out and wrap themselves around the waist of Chas and Jon, yoinking them close to her and away from the abomination. "Hang on!" she yells at them and just /rockets/ out of the library, bowling into the ghoul and knocking it down into the water.

She swoops up into the air about ten feet off the ground and scouts to find a good landing spot that's not within attacking distance of the flesh hounds that are attacking the Outsiders. Finding a spot she gently sets down her passengers, but sticks to the air, herself, getting ready to assist whoever might need it.

M'gann M'orzz has posed:
M'gann takes a deep breath and puts on her game face, red eyes glowing intensely as she stares down the approaching necromorph hound-like creature the size of a small vehicle. Some might notice there is something different about the way she engages it versus past conflicts. Rather than charge in powers blazing, there is more strategy and threat assessment as the creature circles her.

<<Storm isn't approaching, storm is here! We have giant zombie dogs and now some lady in red is threatening to sacrifice our souls. If this were on TV there would definitely be an epic villain soundtrack playing!>> M'gann relays across the telepathic link, as natural as speaking, perhaps even moreso.

Red hair and blue cape fluttering in the cold wind, M'gann watches the giant death dog circle her, head twisting to follow it even as the rest of her body remains still. When the creature charges she waits until the very last moment, springing straight up into the air while blasting downward with her Martian Vision, twin blasts of searing red heat beams composed of telekinetically agitated atoms.

About ten to fifteen feet up she pitches her body forward and comes back down in a dive towards the creature's back, shutting off her heat vision just in time to deliver a brutal diving punch to the middle of the creature's back, like an inverted shoryuken!

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    The Archivist's reaction to something coming at Chas is to spin and send a bolt of energy at it from his staff. It's a thing he does almost on instinct, with his ancestors so close, a smooth turn and spinning of the staff, the energy bolt sent flying at the thing that had been coming for his friend. Then, once he's sure Chas and Phoebe can get out, he turns and heads back out at a run, to get back out taking Lydia's help back up.

    <We have hostiles down here!> There's a clipped, oddly professional tone to his mental "voice." <If the Outsiders have the scorpions and the zombie dogs I suggest the Night Brigade take Leksandria, converging on Zatanna. She's the most powerful of us magically, she can coordinate our attacks. I'd also suggest Chas step in the front and take the brunt of the damage, Lydia's shields and energy spears will definitely be helpful. And Phoebe's Light... well. I'm sure she knows what to do.> Confident, even if he doesn't want to be, in the teenager's ability. < Zatanna, I've got /one/ major offensive shot, the gods have already judged her unworthy. Tell me when you want it; I'll focus on distracting her otherwise.> Look, he's been studying tactics, and he's played just as much nerdy games as Tim if not more. But assuming Zatanna takes charge, he'll shut the heck up and do what she says.

    Once he's landed with Lydia he turns to look at the 'Lady in Red.' "This isn't your home anymore!" he shouts at her, brandishing his staff. "Your people threw you out, the gods judge you unworthy, and I'm pretty sure the rest of us have something to say about you messing with Phoebe!"

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen brought all kinds of things with him, salt, holy water wooden stakes silver bullets (No gun), a couple different holy books, but as the woman in red shows up, he tries something a bit out there pulling the backpack off he starts getting some speed running in a circle and then tosses the backpack at the woman followed by a bold of speed force lightning. Most people believe it is the belief not the item that works to repel evil, well Bart's trying it all. That ball of energy has all Bart's positive thoughts, of the things that he holds dear and precious as others would normal religions, but for Bart, those things are the speed force, friendship, and family. The thoughts and feeling are all sent with the bolt of lightning at the woman, who is not just evil, but corrupts one of the things Bart considers righteousness and just, family, and this woman would throw it away for power, so not crash dude.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Oddly, Zatanna is glad that the Lady in Red appears. Finally, Phoebe's nemesis is at hand. The magician settles lightly near Red Robin as Leksandria's spectral voice reverberates in the air.

"Not while those friends live," the homo magi's voice crackles like heat lightning in reply. Zatanna draws herself up and steps aside like a bullfighter when the first pig from hell rushes them. Red Robin vaults in the air as a flame appears in the palm of her hand ".meht nruB". She lances a magical version of Red Robin's sticky grenades with an overhand throw. Likely, redundant perhaps considering how well he fights.

Zee glimpses the woman in white walking between the crumbling remains of the Coptic Church and an outbuilding.

Through their link: *Yes, the storm is here. Keep it up. Both of you. /We/ will not let this monster take her.*

"Leksandria!" By all that is sacred and good, you will not touch them!" She wants the witch's attention on her while M'gann, Red Robin, polish off the hell dogs and Bart pulling out the stops, throws his very best at her.



Zee glimpses the woman in white walking between the crumbling remains of the Coptic Church and an outbuilding. *I have an idea* she sends to the others.
% Gesturing in a great sweeping arc of her arm, to the dead hung in Leksandria's chains. .slleps s'airdnaskeL .reh ot daed eht fo selkcahs eht kaerB" (Break Leksandria's spells. Break the shackles of the dead to her.) "Persephone, take them home to you!" she prays aloud.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Oddly, Zatanna is glad that Lady in Red appears. Finally, Phoebe's nemesis is at hand. The magician settles lightly near Red Robin as Leksandria's spectral voice reverberates in the air.

"Not while those friends live," the homo magi's voice crackles like heat lightning in reply. Zatanna draws herself up and steps aside like a bullfighter when the first pig from hell rushes them. Red Robin vaults in the air as a flame appears in the palm of her hand ".meht nruB". She lances a magical version of Red Robin's sticky grenades with an overhand throw. Redundant perhaps considering how well he fights.

Through their link: *Yes, the storm is here. Keep it up. Both of you. /We/ will not let this monster take her.*

"Leksandria!" By all that is sacred and good, you will not touch them!" She wants distracted while M'gann, Red Robin fight off the hell dogs and Bart throws an incredible ball of energy at her.



Zee glimpses the woman in white walking between the crumbling remains of the Coptic Church and an outbuilding. *I have an idea* she sends.

Gesturing to the dead hung in Leksandria's chains. .slleps s'airdnaskeL .reh ot daed eht fo selkcahs eht kaerB" (Break Leksandria's spells. Break the shackles of the dead to her.) "Persephone, take them home to you!" she prays aloud.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
     Red Robin's necrodog gives a snarl as it tries to bite at him and finds only air. It twists around, its head turning this way and that trying to scent him before the sticky grenades land on its back, and explode. The concussive items blow open holes in the beasts' back, from which ichor and skulls are showing. The skulls begin to pulse and snap, missing teeth clattering as the dog turns, and tries again -- though one limb looks like it's not quite correctly joined now.

    The hound chasing Bart has to try again. Bart goes to attack Leksandria directly, who looks ... mildly surprised at the speedster. She moves her head almost as fast as he moves about her, burning up magic to keep up with him. She catches the backpack, looking puzzled, and then is hit with the force lightning. It crashes against her, and she's -- SHOCKED!

    Leksandria is forced hard to the ride, scraping in the sand with her boots, and she gives a snarl to the speedster, and reaches up and out, trying to use force to fling the boy into the crack in the earth!

    M'gann's beast gives a scream that echoes through the aether, drawing its companion that had tried to eat Bart to it. The second hound arrives just as the martian vision rips apart the hound, and the diving punch manages to finish the job, spilling ribs and arms and heads everywhere, mummified parts reaching out for freedom. The second hound after M'Gann tries to catch and crunch her feet!

    In the Library, Chas blasts the abomination mostly to shreds with salt. It cries out in country Latin, reaching for Chas to try and take the shotgun before it's blasted more times -- and then knocked off the library's ledge and into the murkey waters of the Nile below.

    Then, the gathering mostly goes up to face Leksandria. The Lady in Red wastes no time as Zatanna makes herself known.

    "Tch. Another Homo Magi? Some poor bleeding heart vampire, a man who thinks he knows, and... some... human." she raises her hands.

    The sands shift, then spiral upwards as the cold wind picks up again. She pulls moisture from breath and bodies to create thousands of little ice shards, and she sends those at Jon. She's not precisely caring if she gets judged on the cold shoulder given to his passionate speech.

    Chas would find a demon dog of his own to contend with, reaching up like a graboid from the ground to drag the big man under! Om nom nom!

    Lydia would find that the sand itself is rising up, trying to take her. The whole place was indeed soaked with the blood of her family members, why should it not obey her?

    And then there is Zatanna. The biggest threat on the field.

    Leksandria raises her hands until she realizes that some of the power is being cut. "No. NO. BY MY BLOOD YOU ARE MINE AND MINE ALONE!! " she calls out, bidding her dead family to stay there, and she attempts to drain the living.

    It feels like being pulled by your lungs through jello. It Sucks. Phoebe, in the library below, is running through the books. "There must be... something.... that can help --"

Tim Drake has posed:
    This is absolutely not the time to err on the side of caution, so Red Robin... doesn't. This next round of grenades get lobbed straight into the necrohound's gaping maw just before Tim throws himself to the side to avoid getting snapped up himself, though it's a close call. So maybe slightly more caution is called for, but it does put him in range for a swing of his staff at the beast's side. The hum of the taser circuit inside the end of it is loud enough to be heard along with the crackle-pop of sparks as Tim dials it up well past the safe operating limits.

    "Keep trying to force it all you want, Leksandria, but it won't work!" Red Robin calls out as he starts circling, giving both necromantic homonculi and the Lady in Red herself a wide berth as he tries to get a good big-picture look at the situation. The Archivist's recommendation is noted, and in truth he and M'gann are both doing their best with the adds, but Tim can multitask.

    He can't cast any spells, but that doesn't mean he has to be quiet. "You have to use magic to keep your loved ones under your thumb, but look around you!" The scorpions are still a threat, if now a much smaller one in comparison, so he freezes a good swarm (sadly Tim does not know the collective noun for scorpions) of them with a well-aimed cryo grenade. "None of us are related by blood to Phoebe but we're still her family and we're going to fight for her! You can't stop us all!"

    It's an echo of Zatanna's own words, and meant just as sincerely.

    Then he goes in for the (metaphorical) kill, possibly in the hopes that Leksandria's magic is all concentration-based and he's convincing enough to force a charisma saving throw: "You'll never have what she has!"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Chas was rushing for the Woman in Red, determined to tank anything bitch threw at him and keep going... so she threw a necrodog at his feet. He drops and shoves the shotgun into the beast's mouth trying to stymie the jaws on the creature.

    He scrabbles at the sword at his hip and manages to get it free of the scabbard before he hacks at the thing's muzzle and face. The eyes tear in gush of stagnant vitreous fluid, forcing the man to gag and wretch even as he fights for his life.

    The shotgun finally succumbs to the vicelike jaws and snaps in half as the beast lunges and bites down hard on Chas' leg. He screams, a sound equal parts rage and agony as he shoves *down* with the longsword, impaling the creature on the blade in a shower of blood and brain matter staining the sands.

    He tears his leg from the maw of the spasming monster and limps forward a few steps. He slides the axe off his back and then drops to a knee, using the handle of the battle axe to prop himself upright. It's clear his right leg is ruined and the seepage of blood is a clear indicator that his life in on a short clock. "<<Phoebe...>>" he says. "<<Take her down for me...>>" he sends to the rapidly searching daughter beneath the sands.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"Jon! Watch out!" Lydia shouts as sharp icicles fly in his direction. She flings out a hand and a smoky shield pops up in front of him, letting the projectiles embed themselves in it.

However, she isn't paying attention to what's below her and the sands themselves reaches up and grab her by the ankles. "Crap!" She lets go of the shield, letting it dissipate into the air, and puts her energy in maintaining the bubble around the books and pulling herself free from the sand.

M'gann M'orzz has posed:
M'gann impacts the back of the first necromantic hound with a sickening crunch punching down into the hole carved by her heat vision, fist impacting what passed for its spine and shattering through it before exploding her telekinesis outward from the impact point within the creature's body having a predictable effect on its structural integrity, mummified parts flying in all directions, finally free.

It is a moment of triumph, a moment brought up short as the pair of vicious jaws from the necrohound that had originally been after Bart clamps down upon her legs with a sickening crunch. It is the sound of flesh tearing and bone splintering as M'gann grits her teeth, righting herself in the air as she floats there minus one leg below the knee and the other nearly to the thigh.

"Bad dog." She glares at the creature, even as her Martian cells have already gone into reproduction overdrive, bubbling outward to regrow the missing limbs with startling speed. "Very bad dog."

Lunging forward she grabs the hound, not with two arms, but four, as two more have grown from her sides. "Hey!" M'gann shouts up at the Lady in Red as she physically lifts the creature up into the air with her, "I think this is yours!" And with that she begins to spin and spin at super speed before coming to a sudden stop and positively yeeting the poor cursed necro creature at super sonic velocity towards Leksandria.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Imagine something, and then will it into being. Make a construct on the Astral Plane, and then manifest it on the physical. It's easier said than done, and the Archivist is new to the practice, so it's lucky Lydia shields him or those ice particles would have hit him. It's a few seconds too late that he manages to focus enough to manifest the shield of fire he's imagined into the material plane. But then it's there, a brief dome of fire that melts the rest of that wind. <Thank you, Lydia! Chas, you alright?>

    Before he gets an answer, he focuses on Leksandria. "What do you /think/ I know? I know that you are /ifset/, to have murdered the whole of your family. I know that your heart is forfeit, to be devoured by the Eater of Hearts when you die. I know that these people," and he sweeps the staff to encompass the group, "are going to stop you! Or did you not feel the burn of Impulse's power just now?" Look, he's on social media, he's seen the Alphabetical Animals posts.

    "And I know that the gods have arrayed themselves against you. Nothing you do matters, in the face of /that/." He twists the staff, pulls the fire into it and along its length, and sends the blast of heat toward the chains holding the dead.

    "OSIRIS, LORD OF THE DEAD!" he shouts. Roars, really, to be heard above the winds. "KHENTI-AMENTIU, RULER OF HELIOPOLIS, FIRST OF THE ENNEAD! /HEAR ME!/"

    He's trying to focus, to draw on the power of the god in question. "Aid our northern neighbor, Queen Persephone! Aid her in sending the dead to the eternal rest they have earned! This woman's heart belongs to Ammit already, no longer let her use your subjects for her twisted ends!"

    He's throwing his will and the power of the Archive and the gods he serves behind Zatanna, whatever he can.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Leksandria's spells spin in a whirlpool around them, turning sand into cutting shards of icy glass. Sand sucks at Zee's feet, a shard of ice cuts the magician's cheek, which bleeds. Again, Zatanna calls on the Queen of the Dead to take the tortured souls home to rest with her, breaking the conduit of power that Leksandria feeds on. Another magic joins her own, making a flood of heat to break the ice that replaces Leksandria's heart. On the rush of the Archivist's power, she invokes the Gods of the Underworld. "HEAR US, GREAT ONES. PERSEPHONE."

Leksndria's spell against the living takes hold. It's a wily move to attack the living while she and Jon try to cut her link to the dead.

Zatanna's heart races as she tries to take the next breath. Her lungs feel filled with water. She gasps, whispering, "traB nnag'M ,niboR deR ,sahC ,noJ ,ebeohP draW .meht draW." Ward them. Ward Phoebe, Jon, Chas, Red Robin, M'gann, Bart. Lydia walks with the dead and doesn't need the ward. "htaerB" (Breath)The last word uses the last of her air.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Tim's hound goes down as the grenade goes into its maw. It gets ripped apart from the inside, its head exploding into gray and pinkish-gray goo and teeth everywhere, and it goes down, collapsing on itself. The scorpions are distracted by the sudden meal, and begin to swarm the remains. It pulls from from the battlefield.

    The same is going for M'gann's first hound, though the second one (while snacking on M'gann's legs, Martian is probably not a common menu item in Egypt), is distracted, it gets picked up by four arms, dropping M'gann's legs into the sand as it goes sailing towards Leksandria! It looks confused, in spite of having no eyes.

    The fourth hound draws itself up and out of the sand, eating at the gun, ripping and rending at Chas's leg, until that longsword is put to use. The stench of death is wretched on the field.

    "You Fools" Leksandria breathes out. The sands rise and swallow the demon dog that was slung at her, but she cries out, burned by the flames.

    "Interlopers, colonisers and invaders! First the Hitties, the Greeks, The Romans, then the English stealing away our ancestors for museums and using our honored dead as firewood and *paint ingredients*. I would see my ancestors' kingdoms rebuilt, the DEad made Quickened with my power and hers. They would not be these pitiable creations of Undeath, but given life anew! A paradise, here on Earth for my ancestors rejected by your Osiris, refused by Wepawet! No psychopomp Anubis to lead us to judgement, just eternity, walking the Earth and witnessing how it has been--" she begins to monologue. Probably a mistake.

In the Library
    Phoebe had looked to Bart as he caught himself on the ledge, she had helped him up, and she took a breath. She tilts her head back, looking to the ceiling, and then whispers to him: "I have a plan -- I need you to move as fast as you can."

    (Theme Music: https://youtu.be/YCYHliCq3Zc )

    Zatanna's warding works. The group is protected. Persephone's beckons begin to permit the dead to untether -- save one. Bound in a circle in an operating theater in the hospital. There is a call.

    The Light knows its own.

    Below everyone's feet, the sands shift again, this time as lines etching in shimmering gold and silver, entwining with one another. The smell of death is eased from round them.

    The dead begin to ease out of existence. The webbing above begins to crack, sounding like the most delicate candied glass, breaking across.

    The smell of roses and black pepper, with the tang of citris. Pains are eased. Bleeding is staunched.

    Leksandria looks down, backing up in half a panic. "-- Paisi? NO! NO!!"

    Everyone would feel a tingling coolness. If you've ever been Healed by Phoebe, it is exactly the feeling. Nerves stop jangling. Everything relaxes, and then it's warm, like being wrapped in a blanket.

    I Can't Hold It For Long! echoes a pair of voices. Condem Her!

Tim Drake has posed:
    Oh god (whichever one out there cares to listen to Tim's inner thoughts) yes, she's villain monologuing! Could Tim have asked for anything better? Down in the library, Phoebe's cooking up her own plan, but topside Red Robin isn't out of tricks yet. And with the distance he's managed to put between himself and Leksandria, Tim has the time to actually implement one or two of them.

    First order of business is anchoring the line gun from his belt to the nearest piece of village architecture that looks like it won't topple over from a stiff breeze; an old hospital, by the looks of it. The first half of the line snaps out and its stake digs into the wall.

    It's about here that Tim really starts to feel the burn in his lungs as he fights for enough oxygen to keep moving, though soon enough Zatanna's ward spreads over him, and the next intake of air makes his ribs expand.

    Okay. Running on borrowed time, he knows, but he's a quick thinker and an equally quick worker.

    The stun grenades hadn't been at the top of his priority list when Tim had been kitting himself out, but he's still packing more than usual. He pops their outer shell open one by one and links up their circuits into one long series. It's fairly easy, given that Bat-tech is manufactured to account for on-the-go modifications like these. They're a group given to rapid adaption and thinking on their feet, after all. In the background, Leksandria is talking about rebuilding kingdoms.

    Typical. He's sure the plan ends with Leksandria crowned queen (or pharaoh, he supposes).

    He hooks the modified stun bomb to the line gun, primes it for imminent discharge, and then turns. Carefully, Tim takes aim.

    Osiris, Wepawet, Anubis... and whatever other deities she decides to shit-talk. Red Robin is no longer listening. He takes a breath, holds it for a second, and then at the end of his exhale, fires the other end of the line launcher, its pointed stake aimed right at the Lady in Red. He lets go of the launcher less than a second before the sparks begin to fly.

    At the end, Red Robin cups his hands around his mouth to shout, "No, go on! Please tell us more about your evil plan instead of actually enacting it! It always works out in the villain's favor!" A beat. "That's you! YOU'RE the villain!"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Phoebe's healing is only a moment too late for the bartender turned fighter. He drops to the sand and a ghostly image that looks like him starts to rise from his form to join the recently freed souls hovering above the ground. He looks confused and slightly terrified.

    Before he can fully leave his body a slender hand reaches up and grabs ahold of the hem of his fatigue pants, a woman's emaciated and haggard form rises out of his body and says. "Not yet for you, mate" in a throaty cockney accent. "You've got more work to do. Let me take this one..."

    She shoves Chas' spirit back into his body and floats away, joining those departing souls sliding into the heavens. A smile of pride and relief spreads over her face as she gives the necromancer the finger and says, "Fuck off, you prentious cock gobbler!"

    Chas' body, still cut and bloody, lies on the sand, but he's breathing slow shallow breaths.

M'gann M'orzz has posed:
M'gann looks annoyed when the giant necro dog she /graciously/ returned to Leksandria is taken by the sand. She's had just about enough of people trying to hurt her friends and this lady in particular has done some mind bogglingly terrible things to Phoebe. Maybe it's something she understands due to the decimation of the Martians or how she was only saved from a death sentence in infancy by the love of her own parents. Whatever it is anger is writ across Miss Martian's face as she locks her glowing red eyes on Leksandria.

When the woman starts monologuing on top of it all M'gann looks around, searching for /something/ to yeet into her face. That is she spies Lydia, those black ectoplasmic protrusions are pretty cool and she doesn't seem too impeded by the whole breathing thing either. There is a silent exchange between them just with the eyes and a few head motions, not even actual telepathy before M'gann begins wrapping her telekinesis around the other woman.

It is different then the dog, this isn't a throw of simple brute force but all of the power of a Martian mind as M'gann's glowing red eyes flare almost like fire and Lydia is hurled towards Leksandria. M'gann has learned from her previous attempt though. The telekinesis does not release even as Lydia flies, instead M'gann keeps a careful hold so that even should the sand or other obstacles try to Lydia's path, her trajectory can be changed and steered safely around them.

And that's when the feeling reaches her, the feeling of Phoebe's warmth, and something with M'gann relaxes as she watches Lydia surge through the sky to wreck Leksandria's face. She smiles. They've got this.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia struggles keeping herself from being sucked in by the sand when M'gann catches her attention. There's a bit of exchange between the two ending with Lydia nodding, as she braces herself by letting go of the wings, and snapping her ectoplasm around herself in chitinous black armor.

Then she's /ripped/ out of the sand as Leksandria starts monologuing about colonialization and blah, blah, blah, and is thrown right at her. As she flies, she spreads her arms out and a dozen or so black tentacles burst out of her, making her look like some kind of eldritch squid.

When she hits the necromancer, the tentacles quickly wrap themselves around her along with her arms, binding her in place. She slaps a hand over Leksandria's mouth, cutting her rant short. "Shut up, bitch. I'm Jewish!"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    The Archivist sags down against his staff, almost to his knees, Zatanna's spell probably saving his life. All that shouting while Leksandria was draining them took a lot out of him, and then channeling the power of Osiris through him is /especially/ draining, not least because it's been two thousand years and more since the Archivists directly served any aspect of Osiris.

    But the gods of Egypt, particularly the gods of the underworld, work in close concert, and Osiris came when the Archivist called. He's out there now, for those who can see it, a tall green-skinned figure, regal with the trappings of the Pharoahs, giving his power to Persephone and through her, Zatanna's spells.

    And yet... it's not Osiris that has come to judge Leksandria. And it isn't Thoth, either.

    Something older rises behind the Archivist, a woman with crossed arrows and shield on her head, an ankh in one hand, a was-sceptre in the other. The terrifying one, she who is not named, kept in secrecy and silence. One of the oldest of the Egyptian deities. Sky goddess, war goddess, huntress and Great Mother. Neith.

    The Archivist doesn't even notice that she's there.

    With the renewed energy given by Paisi and Phoebe, he pulls himself to his full height. He flashes Red Robin a grin. He doesn't recognize his young friend, not right now, but the easy camaraderie is there nonetheless. "You know what my favorite part of this new gig is? The villains monologuing gives me the ability to do /this/."

    He does not point the staff at Leksandria this time. He raises his left hand, the bracer on it glowing a bright white now. "Eater of Hearts! Devour this wretch, cast out her restless soul!" A beam of light, shining bright as the dawn, launches from his hand, aimed /right/ at Leksandria's heart.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
While Red Robin taunts the Witch, Zatanna claps her hand to her chest with relief, no longer gasping for breath wrapped in Phoebe's healing balm.

Watching the others pile it on Leksandria, Zatanna's last thought before the Goddess arrives is 'No way, this Witch won't be smeared across the sand. Not even ectoplasm. And, I dress better than she does.'

Magic is indeed in the air when the Gods walk in Egypt. The homo magi appears to grow taller. The habitual black of her clothing takes on a white glimmer like Persephone's chiton. Her eyes glow a brilliant blue as the Goddess beckons, her voice resonating, a bell across the sand, "BE GONE FROM THIS PLACE THAT YOU HAVE DESECRATED WITH THE BLOOD OF INNOCENTS. Let the Last Child take her rightful place. You do not belong here."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    There are plenty of gods who are being invoked here tonight, and some of them are probably ready to take their worshipers home. As Leksandria begins to monologue, several plans take shape. She's robbed of more of her power, the souls of her relatives and ancestors guided Home. Forgiven transgressions imprinted in their bloodline as the Dead are wrenched from her control. The web above crackles, and the cocooned spirits and souls are released. The souls of the children in the Church, whose cries had gone unanswered in life, are welcomed home.

    All those wandering spirits who had been fighting the call to the web wrapped around the village are welcomed.

    Those who had given up on their gods of old are welcomed.

    From above, the golden and silver glow etched into the sands curls and forms sigils and circles, a huge mandala, perfected in blood and sacrifice, and it is the final piece.

    Leksandria is lit up, and held in place. She is Judged Unworthy. THe red web falls around the heroes like snow, disappearing as the warmth of the desert returns to a far, far more normal room temperature. The scorpions fade away. There are no longer tethered spirits pulsing with their energy being stolen. Everyone can breathe easier.

    Leksandria is struck down, struggling to breathe, fighting to the last.

    "N-no... you said... we could not lose..." she chokes out.

    No -- I said I could not lose...

    A black hand reaches up, from behind Leksandria, and the figure in the red jacket is drug violently backwards into the sand, her neck snapping with a sick, wet sound.

    And then, her body turns to ash, whipping away in the desert wind, leaving only that red cloak behind her.

    The Lady in Red is no more.