Summary:A riot in The Bowery has Spellcasters responding Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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The Bowery is kind of a hell hole. It's not as bad as some places on earth but in New York City its just about as bad as it gets. The infrastructure is shot, public services are spotty and people are poor and desperate.
And now, they're rioting.
It's not clear to anyone observing casually WHY they're rioting. People are just out en masse fighting eachother in the streets with no rhyme or reason.
Actually fighting is something of a misnomer. People are BRUTALIZING one another. There have already been several gruesome fatalities on news camera already. The riot police went in but now they're just fighting eachother. Whatever is going on its contagious.
And to those who are attuned to the mystical, there's definitely something here.
The big guns are being called in. The police can't stop this and right now the worst of the riot - the place the heroes are being asked to intervene - is in the dead center of the Bowery where people are literally tearing up the streets, smacking one another with crowbars, tearing the doors off cars, setting fires and…
Oh my. It seems there are a couple of mutants here in the process of knocking down a house that may or may not have people in it.
Koa Turner has just arrived and he is… staring from the edge of the chaos. Unaffected thus far, thankfully.
Mari McCabe is a bit of a thrill seeker. What she is also is a super hero. You just don't see Vixen on the streets much.
She's there though, in The Bowery, wearing her trademark mustard and black costume. She'd been crouching on the edge of a building when Koa arrives. It doesn't take much for the glowing image of an owl to perch on her shoulders and the dark skinned woman to glide down, landing next to him.
"Agent Turner. Do I get to see more of yours?" she quips. The normal humour is lacking though, as she observes the scene unfolding. "I'm here to help. Use me."
Yeah. She really can't help it.
It started with an itch in his spine. Over time, the discomfort grew, and the discordance in reality began to rankle, until the Sorcerer professed to himself that the headache required a stiff cup of herbal tea. By the time the call went out, the silver-templed practitioner was dealing with something akin to acid reflux.
"Alright - clearly, someone didn't lock the door behind them," he grumbles to himself as he fusses at the cuffs of his gi-like shirt. An idle gesture towards the stand set outside of the master bedroom on the third floor of the Sanctum summons the crimson Cloak of Levitation to alight upon his shoulders with the familiar weight of an old friend. "Let's see what the cat dragged in." Standing centrally on the dias beneath the Window on the World, he gestures upon the open air before himself in a long-practiced circling of wrist both graceful and precise. Reality itself begins to oclude outwards, fritzing and sparkling at its edges like a tamed Roman candle, and through steps the Sorcerer Supreme. It turns out that his arrival is not too far from Mari and Koa and he takes a moment to observe the chaos before him.
A click of his tongue. "This won't do at all." His steel-blue eyes flick to the others and narrow. "Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme. Whom am I addressing and what can you tell me?"
Yeah. Sif's arrival is nowhere near as graceful as Mari's or as elegant as Strange's. She'd heard the call come into the Embassy and requested a taxi. But, when traffic brought the hired vehicle to a halt, she got out and started running. Thus, she arrives a moment or three after the others with her sword and buckler in hand as usual.
In her haste, though, she didn't stop to put on her armor. So she's there in her now accustomed dark jeans and t-shirt.
Koa turns as Strange arrives. It's hard for the WAND agent not to notice him. He fairly radiates magic and Koa, of course, can see it. "Doctor Strange. Koa Turner, WAND. I'm not quite sure what's going on yet but, this is Mari McCabe and…" He peers at a woman in jeans with a sword. She looks familiar.
"That… seems to be Lady- SIF! LOOK OUT!"
One of the two mutants that was taking that house down takes exception to her, all running with a sword in jeans and all. It raises its arm from off to her left and blasts a pure white energy beam at her which will miss Mari by a hair as well.
"You see that, right Doctor?" What he can see, and strange can see that the other two can't are the motes of magical energy lodged in the heads of everyone that is acting violently. Okay, it might be more psychic, but it's mystical ish. They're all connected to something further into the riot by thin lines which pulse periodically. Mind control of some kind? Hard to say.
At that very moment screams erupt from further in. A school bus has taken a very, very wrong turn and its being set on by the crowd. It'll be breached in moments if someone doesn't intervene and then the kids are either lost or…
Worse.
"Mari! Sif!" Koa points to the bus. He and Strange have the best chance of figuring out how to get this to stop but in the mean time it's critical that they don't allow the rampage to continue.
"I can't see where it's linked to from the ground, Doctor. But it looks like it's coming from back there."
Sif bows a hello to Sorcerer Strange, starts to offer a nod to Mari, and then Koa's shouting and she almost reflexively lifts her buckler to fend off what looks to her like a white version of one of Loki's magical attacks, and ends up getting knocked onto her backside from it.
She picks herself up again quickly enough, though, and draws her sword. Because that was just rude. And then Koa's pointing her toward the large, yellow vehicle filled with children. "By the Norns, what is causing this insanity?" And then she takes off running to try and get the violent people away from the bus.
Mari glances as Strange arrives. Ooooh, the Sorceror Supreme - she's heard rumours. It's probably a good thing that Koa just introduced her, that beam of energy has her tumbling out of the way. "Well, I guess I'm going to back to school…" there's a nod to the bus.
People might wonder about her. She wears a fox headed pendant at her throat and just the leathers - which seem to be just that. No reinforcement and no enhancements - and yet, here she is running straight into the mob that's attacking the bus.
As she runs, a glowing outline appears at her back - a silver back ape for those in the know.
There's no hesitation on Mari's part. She's soon ripping those in the back away and just tossing them.
There's the sound of engines streaking over the Bowery, and a sleek shape of a stealth-style aircraft. Within the craft, Batman has eyes on the riots down below as he takes in what is happening beneath him. His lips pull into a line as he reaches and engages the automatic link between his cowl's HUD and the Batwing and sets it to auto-pilot.
Adjusting to open the canopy, Batman ejects into the night sky as he starts to soar down, his cape deploys into a glider as he dives down on the mutants that are preparing to tear down the house.
"It's past curfew." he growls as he flings a pair of batarangs. When they slam into the ground at the feet of the two, they hiss, releasing non-toxic irritant gas at the pair of them to dissuade them from their attack.
Koa gets a curt nod of greeting — excellent, the agents of WAND are known to be competent casters all. His hands, kept before himself in half-formed mudras of preparation, showcase their scarring in red lines. They begin to slip into a more finalized motion and he's got a Word on the tip of his tongue when the action breaks into fuller force.
Off the ground and into the air he goes, lifted by the Cloak, and it spreads behind him like a pair of fell crimson wings in what can easily be construed as threat across all realities. Now that he's above the gathering of humanity that writhes like a kicked ant's nest, he squints. About the centers of his irises, an iridescent frosted-lavender flows in, proof of the Sight being used.
Immediately, indeed: everyone's got a bad case of gods-only-know-what slapped to the back of their skulls. It makes the former surgeon grimace, the lines of his goatee breaking for the force of the expression. "Cheapjack work," he mutters to himself and then scans more of the area. "And appalling. Yes, Agent Koa, I see it. Here, with me." It's easy to begin throwing down the cicular mandalas of shielding spell on the horizontal as steps. Koa will be able to jog above the crowd at the same height as Stephen if he's brave enough to try.
The Sorcerer notes the arrival of the sleek jet and smiles faintly to himself, but his attention won't be diverted for long. There's a rather nasty spell to untangle, after all. He flies towards the central node of the wide-cast spell in the crowd.
The bus only has two exits. The one in the back and the one on the side. Batman, Mari and Sif are able to control those. They can keep the people inside safe but how long can they keep it up. It's not just the kids that are the targets now either. Even as Bruce batarangs people, or Sif clocks them with her shield or Mari literally tosses them, more come. Several of them have something small in their hands. Something glowing and about the size of a nectarine pit. They're trying to drown the three heroes in force of numbers and… force those things into their mouths.
Koa immediately takes to the air on the provided platforms with a grace more than human. He's good at that. People throw things as he does but the WAND agent spins a pendulum into his fist and produces barriers to deflect the projectiles.
"There!" He points. All of the 'lines' run into a central point indeed. Something that looks a bit like a plant or tree growing out of a manhole cover. It isn't 'real' which is to say it isn't physical. But it IS there in the astral. And it is clearly providing some kind of power or link to what everyone has attached to themselves.
As Strange moves toward it Koa begins making marks in the air in front of him, which the Doctor might recognize as the beginnings of one seriously nasty ward. He has to focus on the spellwork though and it's a bit like the Gordian Knot. The question is, does the good Doctor try to untangle it, or just slice it? He's going to have to deal with rioters trying to interfere either way.
This battle is NOT going well for Sif. She's fettered from using her full strength against their attackers for multiple reasons. First and foremost: they're all Midgardians. She doesn't want to hit any of them hard enough actually kill them, making her sword almost more of a liability than a help, even as she's doing her best to knock them away with the flat of the blade. Her buckler is much more effective thus far. Her second worry is just the sheer numbers of attackers. There are so many of them now she doesn't really have room to push them back. And now they have things in their hands.
This is getting … difficult. Quickly.
"Batman." Mari nods as she takes a hit to her face. The ape she is channeling is strong, thank goodness. "Lady Sif." That's what Koa had called the jeans clad woman.
They can't hold this indefinitely but they don't need to, do they. Doctor Strange and Agent Turner are probably dealing with the source - that's a gamble the spirit channeler is prepared to take.
"Form a line to meet them. Batman, do you have something to amplify an electric shock?" She channels again, the ape being overlaid by a rhinocerous and a small electric eel perched on her shoulder. Now she has tough skin and strength.
Without waiting for Batmans response, Mari reaches to touch the closest assailants. The shock goes through them even as their hands grab for her.
With Batman landing in the midsts of the battle, the dark knight is quickly working to try to find a way through - he's not above punching or kicking - but there's the sheer volume of people. After twisting someone's wrist to get a hold of one of the seeds, the Bat works on trying to clear his way out, before he's buried beneath a sea of people.
Noticing Sif nearby and in trouble herself, he shoves his way through to the Asgardian's side. "Hold on." he says to the woman.
When Mari asks him the question, he grabs one line-launcher, firing it through the crowd to latch to a light pole, and giving Mari access to the localized electricity grid as he tosses the line to Mari.
A second grapple gun is taken, and this time, his arm grabs Sif by the waist before he fires the line into a nearby building to yank them both up.
Because things on the ground are about to get electrifying.
The good Doctor is pleased with the apparent comfort on display by Koa. Sometimes, others balk at the stepping-stones of golden lines, thinking them less than stable or not at all. On the approach, Stephen can be seen to gain a closely-gathered ambiance around himself, like the mirages of heat seen in the depths of the deserts. He pulls up short of the ugly little growth of ghostly pseudo-flora below and scowls at it.
"Finish out your spell, Agent Koa," he says calmly to the other practitioner even as he divides his attention. Koa's platform-mandala remains beneath him. Assuming the proper mudras for the incantation at hand, the Sorcerer then gestures in a series of sharp, precise motions. His hands begin to glow violet.
"Through the deity's might, let the Shields of Seraphim alight!" Reality wavers around him. Around the two men in mid-air appears a sudden full-dome of Mystical shielding.
Koa does have the advantage of working with the weird daily. "Roger that, Doctor." He calls back as he makes markings in the air. It LOOKS cool but it's actually the mystical equivalent of doing algebra on a whiteboard. It's a very hermetic style of magic. Things have to balance out. And Koa's got a lot of variables and power to account for.
He does finish though as people begin throwing themselves on Stephen Strange's shielding. They don't penetrate but it is NOT for lack of trying.
By the bus, the screaming of the school children has not abated. It in fact gets a bit worse when Bruce grabs Sif and appears to abandon them. Mari has the tools to clear that area so in reality the kids should be safe but that is sadly NOT the end of Bruce and Sif's troubles.
Because the mutant that didn't like Sif before still doesn't like her. And he fires a blast as Batman executes his escape. Only this time, Batman is between the mutant and Sif.
And then from the other side, the OTHER mutant just leaps at them, fists crackling with electrical energy like a cut rate Thor as he tries to intercept the Asgardian and the God Damn Batman.
When the WARD goes off all Koa's symbols begin to glow VERY brightly. Then they fly to Strange, to Batman, to Mari and to Koa himself and surround them with blinding, dazzling beams that shine in the face of anything that gets too close with a painful light causing most of the affected to shy away. Not the mutants though. The lights dazzle them but they REALLY don't like Sif. Or Batman. Or possibly both.
This is gonna hurt. Mari knows that but they need to thin the crowd in the least harmful way. The channeler grabs the line that Batman tosses in her direction and directs another blast of electricity into it.
The ground lights up - just as Stranges ward covers her, protecting her from the bulk of her own power.
Unable to effectively use her sword but loathe to just drop it and risk one of the violent Midgardians picking it up, Sif starts using pommel to block attacks as best she can. Well, up until the masked and black-clad man appears at her side, throws an arm around her waist, and hauls her clear of the melee.
Did he take into account that she's Vanir instead of human and weighs roughly three times what she looks like she should?
The sudden yank clear does catch her sufficiently by surprise that she's unable to do more than try to keep her sword from hitting anyone, including the Batman.
Sadly, she can't see that the violent mutants are targeting her. Again.
Anyone making contact with the Shield thrown up in a beautiful violaceous lattice-working about both practitioners is probably regretting it. It's like smacking into a window and with none of a pane's subtle give. While Koa is finishing out with his graceful inscribings, the Sorcerer is calculating just how much power it's going to take to do some rapid Mystical surgery. In the Sight, he marks the spindlings of the connections and their attachments to each person — at the base of the skull — and the tensile strength of the tendrils.
Koa's end result earns him a thoughtful hum. "That'll do," Strange opines, sounding impressed with the non-lethal ingenuity on display. "Brace yourself, Agent. I'm going to have to divert the Shield's power towards detatching its influences."
With that warning, Stephen's hands inscribe a short cutting X-motion across his chest. The Shield of Seraphim fractures into glittering motes of amethyst that hang like frozen raindrops. Then, they shift in the spectrum to a warm spring-yellow. The glittering diadems, so small and yet radiating energy, sparkle out across the crowd. Everyone's touched by them, but only the angered react to it. Like salting a slug, the shimmering mistings begin to eat away at the tendrils' adherings, and then backwards towards the plant itself. In the Sight, it's like Astral fuses lit and furiously burning backwards towards the creepy plant.
As Strange's shield falls Koa makes a sweeping gesture with both hands and a barrier of his own springs into being around them. The Doctor may note several motes flying into him from behind and the fact that several leaves just withered off a nearby tree. But they're still protected which is good because lighting those 'fuses' drives the affected NUTS.
Which is bad news for Sif and Batman. The beam misses but the leaper with the electrified fists connects just as they make the nearby building. He grabs onto the wall with one hand and punches at Sif and Batman repeatedly. Whichever is closes. With fists that could probably short out a stadium.
Speaking of which. Mari's power grid augmented attack does two things. It blows out every light for six blocks and it tazes everyone around her for about sixty feet. Which has them stumbling. Screaming. Flopping onto the ground. But not attacking her or eachother.
Slowly, starting from the ones closest to Koa and Strange those astral 'seeds' burn out as the magic in those tendrils reaches them. The crowd starts to come to some kind of confused, shocked order. Though the process takes a minute or two and it does mean that while Mari can probably see to the kids, Sif and Batman might want to defend themselves rather than wait.
Not that they can see anyway.
"Nice work, Doctor." Koa murmurs. He CAN see what Strange did. This is why the man gets the fancy cape.
Thank goodness for the ward, Mari makes a note to thank the two casters in a moment. Her hair is frizzy from the static that fills the air. It feels weird.
The spirits she's channelling disappear as she turns to bus, making sure the kids are alright as the riot squad turns up to relieve her.
Then she's picking her way through the stunned crowd to the presence of the casters. "My thanks, Gentlemen for the timely shield you provided, it saved me a shocking experience." she looks around "What was happening here?"
There's honestly very little Sif can do currently, other than use her buckler to try and defend the black-caped man and herself from the Midgardian with electrified hands. The shocks from the impact of every blow she deflects is unpleasant to say the least, and her arm is starting to lose feeling. She truly has only one recourse.
She swings her blade at the mutant, rotating it at the last possible moment to smack him with the flat of it. This time she doesn't pull nearly as much of strength back as she had been doing previously.
Mari is given a glance from on high. The crimson Cloak slowly undulates in an unseen wind as the Sorcerer gestures towards Agent Koa. The platform-mandala beneath Koa elevators beneath him, and once reaching the ground, disappates in a sprinkling of dying embers on the concrete.
"An intrusion from beyond," is all the good Doctor says to Mari's question, his airbounre attention still mostly upon the plant. Hopefully the spell will burn out its roots within this dimension as well as its stem. It receives a gimlet squint in the brilliant frosted-lilac hue to aid its demise — and crossed arms, the scar-lined hands hidden away beneath the storm-blue clothing of his mantle.
Tsk.
The big electric fisted guy punches. And punches and punches. And then he gets smacked something good. His head rolls back. He looks dazed. He ALMOST falls off the building.
And in that daze-haze he looks up at Sif… and smiles.
"Wow. You're Lady Sif. I'm such a fan." Beat. "Um. How did we get up here? Why… ohgodwasIpunchingyou? I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry…"
Not all interactions are ended so well. The kids were saved and the riot stopped but several people are dead.
Koa lets out a long sigh. The police will be coming in, again, now that everything is settling.
"An intrusion from beyond yes. We're going to need to…" He tugs at his neckline as if something is suddenly uncomfortable but it seems to pass. "We're going to need to figure out what. I imagine you'll be looking into it Doctor. I will as well. In the mean time… Mari can you help Sif get down from there?"
Batman, he assumes, is gonna want to poof.
As soon as the Midgardian attacking her stops, Sif doesn't attempt to hit him again. And then he recognizes her. This was all very unsettling.
"No, it's— Truly y—-"
She sighs as the mutant is just a little too dazed to be truly coherent. But, she'll still help him back down to the street level where everything has finally calmed.
She reminds herself to ask Agent Turner what occurred here.