9610/The Long March From Katz's Deli Into Night

The Long March From Katz's Deli Into Night
Date of Scene:	13 January 2022
Location:	Lower East Side, New York City
Synopsis:	Leading a group of survivors from the Lower East Side toward a SHIELD checkpoint in Alphabet City -- when he encounters the mysterious Ilyana Rasputina. Dark sorcerors greet one another, and do a kind thing to protect humanity...
Cast of Characters:	Atrun Rai, Illyana Rasputina
Tinyplot:	Path of Glory

Atrun Rai has posed:
    Manhattan is a ghost town, a landscape of empty, quiet towers and the blossoming of concrete bones from a plain of steel and tarmac. As it will be when the last of humanity dies, in the gray space between the end and the reclamation of all its works by green, rapacious nature.

    But it is not yet that time. It is, for now, a dress rehearsal. The empty streets are still lit, sodium haloes thrown down by streetlamps still yet powered, neon signs above street level or in shopfronts abandoned before they could be shuttered. Some of these have seen intrusion. Most, however, have not. Angels stalk many streets, the terrible scions of Heaven. And where they do not...

    Proceeding up Ludlow Street, toward Katz's Delicatessen, a small procession of people. Scared, grizzled, angry - all emotions are represented here, but they all seem simply tired. Ahead of them, bearing a spear of red wood and with a three-bladed head of gleaming red-gold metal as if it were a holy banner, a man in black leads. His features and skin tone vaguely Mediterranean, his beard curled and arranged in the way last seen fashionably in ancient Mesopotamia. He wears a breastplate over his cassock that looks like something from the ancient world, but made of an inky metal that should not have ever existed in the age of bronze. He is awash with magic, though his aura is an undentifiable blur to magical senses. His lance a holy torch that blazes in the astral with power.

    Signs and wonders. Truly, such displays must mark the end times.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Too early to declare humanity is fit to die huddled under the great towers dedicated to Mammon and the endless pursuit of wealth or power. The glass spires looming overhead glitter oddly when abandoned by the devotees for a pitiless deity little interested in more than improvnig the bottom line. Too late to indicate the last minutes dwindle from the doomsday clock's bitter faces, too, if an Arctic blonde has anything to say about it.

Angels give a good reason to clear these long pathways carved through the hubris man leaves on the island of Manhattan. A lonely figure striking out by herself in an artificial steel-shod canyon begs for trouble, attracting unwanted eyes that might be human if she is lucky. In this city, in these dreadful times, luck left with the birds and dogs ahead of the most perceptive mortals. She ain't coming back until Captain America strolls down Fifth Avenue.

The exact sort of person who ought to be swept up in the bedraggled procession of the forgotten and the dispossessed. She turns empty eyes on the pre-Sumerian figure at their head, gauging the state for his little flock of ducklings hurrying along. Injuries stand out strongly through the magical blur, though her Sight leaves her eyes watering. They probably stare at her just as curiously.

A girl in dark pants and a sweater, barely dirty, roaming around has to either be an idiot graced by the first blush of adulthood or some kind of cape to avoid. She upnods them subtly.

The shadows in her vicinity quiver in rapture, anticipation a slaying breath. Signs and wonders. Horrors await; how soon is the question.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    His handsome face is a black blur to the Sight, something that defies purchase and classification as an inkblot might. The refugees in his wake slow at the sight of another potential human - potential, because they have seen so much. So many strange, terrible things, some of them tonight. And they are led by a creature of some kind of sorcery, though what essence, what nature, is unknown.

    "Hello." His voice projects through the urban canyon, his gaze aimed at the pale creature standing alone in the streets. The spear in his hand, seen from the astral, radiates the white fire of an item of power, like a torch in the darkness. Yet in the desert of the real, there is no light, no balm. Just the orange haloes of streetlights. He sees what she is, of course. Or what has happened to her. The baritone voice that emits from his throat is warm, rich, but also radiating warning. "Be you woman or beast?"

    A simple question. Direct. And another warning.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The accent ameliorates some of the concern and raises another. The Russian accent would be less noticeable in parts of the city populated by the immigrant waves from the 80s through the present, Brighton Beach and other corners lending the patchwork. In downtown, the Cyrillic influence meeting deep woods of the Russian Far East is simply odd at best.

"Hi." She sketches a modicum of a wave by raising her right shoulder, which has to do for cosmopolitan hellos among city-dwellers too busy to bother with long words, lengthy conversations, or voluminous exchanges of any kind. Her eyes narrow, shaded by the fringe of her bangs that hangs a little too low to make her vision totally unobscured. The penchant to lower her chin and deliver a slanted, oblique look is purely a prospect of her age group and probably meant to irritate authority.

"What?" Black lips stretch. "Who is to say 'beast?' Is joke?"

He might care to warn her, and she meets it with the insouciant crackling of invulnerable youth or mild disbelief, parsing out what the hell English attempts to achieve. "You," she gestures with a flip of her wrist and fingers canted, "go with him because you want? All okay?"

Laconic is her nature, but the direct, blunt question in reply doesn't mince things either. Any fear or hesitation bears following up on. "Not a nice day to walk."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    The accent he knows. The language he speaks. But he stays quiet for a moment, looking to the collection of people behind them. It's a strange question; they look at one another, in the way of the cowed and scared. But there are, of course, sparks of courage among them, and silence doesn't last for long

    "Yeah," a burly man who was probably a force in his youth, now is seeing the rough side of sixty. Carries a pipe wrench in his hand. "He's takin' us to the SHIELD checkpoint. Who the Hell are you?"

    The magician at their head turns his attention back to the pale woman, and then speaks again - this time in Russian, wierdly unaccented. "There are monsters out here, sister" he says to her. "Are you a monster to be fought, or are you a woman to be aided?"

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The older man with his wrench ought to earn respect, relative age and elders holding some modicum of respect. "Student. I walk to Greenwich Village. Safer." Her English is tortured into submission, tilting itself up and around the precipitous spires of her vowels. Assonance fluted to ascribe to a Slavic backdrop, she pursues that relentless interrogation without so much asking questions. Looks across younger people and through the bravado of men in uncertain times tells her something that she needs to know.

"New York things, da?" Another shoulder roll indicates the pooled sulfur glow on empty storefronts and shuttered businesses that try to hold on, and not add to Damage Control's bottom line when all this is done.

The magician holding the lamp high for the dispossessed is another matter to address. Her blank gaze meets his unaccented question dead on. <<Neither.>> Russian comes easily, slipped into. <>

Atrun Rai has posed:
<< These people are my charges, >> he offers to her, as much as he tilts the tripartate head of his spear toward her in a suggestion of further warning. It's wartime, and she is a stranger; perhaps such breaches of niceties might be understood. But it passes swiftly enough, once he squints at her a moment longer, and then begins the march once more.

<< Come, >> he calls back to her as he goes. << If you are not to be fought or to be helped, then I ask that you walk with us. Evils walk the alleys. They seek to kill us all. >>

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
What some people use words for, Illyana delivers with typical Russian fatalism. She can pack into a flat stare what Dostoevsky needed fifteen kilos of paper and seven years to write. The spear-rattling does not instill much reply verbally. Mere silence raked still as a Zen rock garden comes from the Demon Queen as the moments lengthen on. The mute nudge of her elbow could be mistaken for a twitch or an adjustment but this is not the kind of person ever given to idle movements or nervous tics. A whole other can of problematic worms is their complete lack under lengthier observation.

As if telling Atrun-Rai to get going though he already has such under control and purpose. The travelling is the easy part if unbearably slow for someone given to other methods of locomotion. Let the older and younger ones pass her by. She keeps to the straggling end. <<I'm counting on it.>>

In that mirthless answer, all he needs to know.

Atrun Rai has posed:
 Atrun-Rai does not know Russia. The land didn't exist for him, in the days of his living - most lands did not. The woman's flat stare is mirrored, its meaning taken if its etymology not necessarily known, and he nods before he leads the march once more. The people between then, of course, are on edge now with a stranger...but it isn't like they've any choice in the matter. And so, this grim procession proceeds forward, past Katz's shuttered facade toward the wilds of Alphabet City.

 There are predators here, of course. While warfare in the modern city has to do with gentrification versus art, the grim undercurrent of crime still exists here - though if the gang boys and the thieves that remain see these poor folks making their way, nobody says a damned thing. Nobody even seems to look. Someone mutters to another about it. Atrun-Rai laughs.

 "They know better," he replies. "It's been tried before." Then, to Illyana back there, he looks from over his shoulder. << We need not fear the mortals, >> he tells her. << The criminals, that is. They have tried. I have demonstrated the folly of it. >>

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The day Illyana Rasputina fears a criminal on their own is the day she takes a point off her tally for ruling Limbo. The other Hell-Lords would never let her live that down. Unlike them, she has to deal with the day to day consequences of striking down humans or those whose choices may not be great, but their souls are not permanently damned. The temptation to creep away from the laggards hustling for Alphabet City to engage with the gaunt figures or opportunists in hoodies eager to get their prizes looted through misfortune remains.

It practically tickles her palms and burns her gloved hands. She walks, rather than runs, and stays close by to the last of the urban refugees following a person out of time and place. For once, it's not merely her. "You stay closer to him," she urges a shuffling, tired teenager along. "Arm's reach. Go." A shooting gesture is the closest she gets to hustling the chickens along.

Shadows slant. She's easy pickings, compared to the others. Not armed, not heavily weighed down. Slighter, in most ways, thus fit to be seized. Maybe they know better for the torchbearer, but Atrun-Rai has old advantages civilization has reinforced for millennia. Go for the weak and not the strong. "Play stupid game, get stupid prize," she adds in response to his explanation.

Delicious follies. They beckon. Come and play, little cockroaches. Here there be fire.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    Play stupid prizes, indeed. And it is because of his sight that he has not made comment about this pale, thin 'girl' who comes into line with the rest of them, and his lack of comment when everyone else is so reasonably regimented by size and physical condition somehow puts them equally at ease and yet also wary - not because of her motives, but what she might actually /be/.

    But they trudge on.

    "We're going to the subway," the kid explains as they go. The one she prodded. "He's taking us to the station up at First Avenue. There's a SHIELD checkpoint, farthest south. They don't come down any further." He grunts. "I should've listened to my abuela and left when everyone was evacuating. There's..." A shake of his head; the kid shivers. "Like. I've seen things like out of a horror movie, hermana. It's fuckin' crazy."

    "We got angels in Manhattan, and Michael wants to kill everybody." This from the burly man with the wrench. "Saint Michael on the news. Doing interviews. Fuck, man..."

    Heading down Avenue A, now, the shadows /do/ seem to thicken; the alleyways darken like mouths, mysteries solidifying like impending violence. Atrun-Rai's pace begins to slow, and he checks each alley - looking into each, as if the shadows have no substance. No purchase for him. Wary.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
A trudge to the subway. Even in New York, the walk stretches out through several blocks. Under normal circumstances, a busy walk routing pedestrian traffic and vehicles would make it busy, a longer slog. Is it faster when there is no one at all?

The City that Never Sleeps is now the overtired city, eyes wide open and bloodshot. Wary troubles would make it easier to stumble over the curb or stagger into the clutches of trouble.

Illyana puffs her cheeks and blows out a breath. "This," she says, "so slow. Too slow." A complaint that's echoed in a couple nodding heads does not impress another woman with grey-streaked hair, her parka half-unzipped from the exertion of marching on.

"That's no help. Complaining about Michael, saying we're too slow. We are solving a similar problem, getting out with what we got now. Not yesterday or tomorrow!" Her irritation is mixed to a Dominican accent, suggesting she's from Harlem. Her mittened hand scrubs over her face. "Not crazy, boy. You live for ten years in this city, you see it all. Don't be letting it get you down."

Avenue A lies ahead and the promise of a Reuben sandwich no longer a prospect. Katz's is probably shut down like everything else. Illyana wheels, waiting for Atrun-Rai to finish his perusal of another alley for another danger that lurks behind the dumpsters and down inky, oily spots.

<<Give me a good reason not to teleport them to the checkpoint. Three seconds, they are safe. No trotting out like fat sheep and goats.>> Yes, she's Russian. Rural Russian.

Atrun Rai has posed:
 << It's been tried, >> he replies, turning back to look at her. Brows arch. << The city doesn't like my magic. It would kill them. And it isn't just about speed. But if you have such power, then yes. >>

 He looks to the civilians and gestures to the thin young woman. "She wishes to try a thing," he says to them, in his English with its strange, vaguely Mediterranean-but-not-quite accent. "It would get you to the checkpoint immediately. Will you allow it?"

 "Man," another of the group says, a young man with a large bandage on the side of his face, "She can do that, I'm all for it. I don't wanna see you kill another...whatever that was. Damn near killed /us/." This wasn't witnessed by most, apparently, because they turn to look at one another, and then the young man whose face is getting paler just mentioning it. A spark of madness in his uncovered eye. "I can't. Please." He looks to Illyana, tears starting in that hollowing eye. "/Please/."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"You will remember help comes in many forms. Tell them on the other side, we still bring help."

Illyana's fractured English turns smoother than silk, articulate but very much influenced by her Slavic accent. Chancla-boy gets a flat, direct stare out of her, and she stretches her hands apart. The last vestiges of anything normal ends then when she extends two fingers, ring and pinky folded down to touch her thumb. Centrifugal force paints a circular ring midair, absent the necessity of pushing around circuits repeatedly. By the time the orbit is half-completed, copper flames blossom into a trail of spell fire. Their heart runs purple, a darker hue enriched by the brighter light around its edges. On the other side of the portal, a clear look of the interior of the station. She knows and roams around on the subways like any average sorcerer. Her job to know the ones close by, it proves beneficial. The hole in space and time opens and stays open, even with probably one SHIELD agent running for the portal and being marginally troubled to find what amounts to a college student standing there. The wind that isn't there blows her hair in a suspended gust. "Go."

Though the man with madness in his eyes is another matter, something she knows how to deal with to some degree. <<What condition is he in? I can get him healed, if it is severe.>>

Atrun Rai has posed:
And by virtue of the blonde sorceress, the way to deliverance is opened. The swirling currents of magic that billow her hair brush his face, too, though not so much as hers. As the people go through the portal, first tentatively and then hurriedly aas it's clear it will not kill them, Atrun-Rai shakes his head at Illyana's question. << The touch of the Void, >> he explains, even as the damaged young man has gone through to the checkpoint. <>

Which, you know. Brings up a lot of questions.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The deliverance of the mortal needy is but a blip, a drop in the ocean. It amounts to precious little but this much she can do, an effort made with minimum waste of energy. Poured will ripped into the fabric of creation holds that balance between safety and wild danger. The rush of people keeps her in place, resolute and unmoving against the tide that rises.

When they pass through in its finality, she snaps the portal down. <>

Atrun Rai has posed:
The other magician laughs faintly, looking over his shoulder at another alley before returning his attention to her. << The Void, sister, and all manner of abominations, >> he replies. << Just as the Legions of Heaven cluster in places, casting their light, the shadows are darker than ever. >> A pause; he squint at her again, taking in the lines of that lovely face, her slightness. Considering what other secrets than magic her essence might form. Wings? Claws? Will she metamorphose into a monstrosity? Always he is vigilant, always suspicious. << What is your name, sister? >>

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
No psychotic owls flutter out from the nightfall perpetually enshrined in the alleyways where dwindling resources and light make it hospitable for mere humans to hide. The risk lies only to those fool enough to stand in plain sight. Illyana has not discharged the portal energies fully, and certainly the ease in which she calls up a teleportation spell belies something or another. Atrun-Rai and his burning brand disguised as a spear render him inscrutable after a point. <<The dark comes in flavours,>> she reminds him.

Spoken as an ignorant practitioner. Spoken as a Russian expecting the worst. Spoken as a student with an attitude, what more or less applies to everyone under 26. Which is her reason for the haughtiness? <<Not so dark, if they are here.>>

Who indeed are they, to gather like crows around a corpse? There is always suspicion, always reason for fear. <<Friendly neighbourhood Russian. You dress like a priest and speak like a youth minister. Who are you, anyway?>>

Atrun Rai has posed:
Alas, no psychotic owls - the world is indeed made all the poorer for it. << Friendly neighbor hood not-a-priest, >> he replies, chuckling - but then his smile settles into something more sober, and he executes a shallow bow, and makes a sign over his heart as he speaks next that looks oddly like a mudra. <>

Would she know of Lantalla? That long-ago city state, when Atlantis and its Ten Kingdoms was not an empire, but an alliance akin to the Delian League. Forty-four thousand years ago, history gone, remade, gone again. Atlantis is known only as a city beneath the waves, now, and its people barely remember that they ever walked the surface at all.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The world needs more superb owls, for there are not enough. Had there been such watchers, the archangel might never had dared come. Would he?

Illyana does not bow back. She bows to none, rather by her own dictate instead of an elf-blooded king. Those eyes are cold, blanched wisps of hair a jagged row over her brows, meeting the lashes. The better to hide narrowing gaze, calculations and the line of black lips devoid of a smile.

The poor man cursed by the void will have to wait for those formalities to end, though staring into the endless shadows around her is a risk unto itself. They move, possessed of darkness greater than any that would naturally appear on Earth or in a dimension composed of nothing but shadow stuff. Atlantis is forgotten, true, Atlantis is gone.

Technically his home is a hop, skip, and a nose-wiggle away. But time is a mirthless thing.

<<Illyana Strange of Irkutsk.>> Mother Russia, a child of the crescent rift lake.

There's only one Hell-Lord with the name Illyana. He might know it. He might know not at all of a mortal Hell-Lord invested by the Vishanti, either.

Atrun Rai has posed:
<> His Atlantis is gone even to that which exists now, so alas, it has gone the way of superb owls. But he is of the darkness that exists beyon the Earth, and looks into the heart of the Old Ones themselves without flinching - for he is made of them, and his mind is thus protected. so to speak. << Well, sister Strange. You hunt these creatures, yes? The cults and servitor-things that are returning to the city to fill the gaps? Then you and I should go hunting. And soon. Much requires purgation. Is it the Sanctum I should go should you wish to meet, then? Or does Sister Strange lair elsewhere? >>

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
<<As the scythe reaps the grain.>> Illyana directly answers that without trial or trouble. <> She dips her head, blonde hair dashed around her shoulder. Her palm lifts to catch a few sparks on the wind. The damaged young man hit by the void needs attention, and the greatest healer of their kind isn't the girl with her soul infused into a sword or pretty staffs. He has scarred hands and kind eyes.

Nothing like them at all out here. <<Knock at the Sanctum, maybe I am there. If not then look for the greatest unrest. The little visitors have reason to run.>>

Her teeth flash briefly in a frame of black. For an instant, the light blooms around her and the erstwhile man with the bandaged eye and madness leaping in his wake. Lucky him; she doesn't take the short route. The portal is straight up mastery of the Mystic Arts.

Then why does reality quiver and recoil from her?

9610/The Long March From Katz's Deli Into Night

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