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Spider-Man     The white wind still howls.

    Things are beginning to converge a bit. Tombstone has sped out into the dark, pursued by Oryou. His goons are still trying to take what they can from the warehouse where the mysterious fourth party to this conflict has stashed their guns. How many of the defending criminals survive is questionable, but thankfully most of the conflict has kept them out of the line of fire. Tombstone is headed to presumably the last known location of one Aaron Davis, an informant for the Paladins. In his possession: SHIELD superweapons that should never have been produced from a blacksite dedicated to sustainable energy.

    Hes getting close to a spot where Gargan and his men have had their serial bombing run interrupted by Thor, a man now deliriously poisoned, but helped, at least, by the timely arrival of Spider-Man, a hopeful helper at the inferno. Toxic gas covers the streets, and various fires brew in the structure as Jeanne chases an objective. The warehouse Tombstone left behind is still the site of moderate conflict with Asche, who remains menaced by what few weapons the goons managed to acquire, and what few attackers might persist to stop them.

    On the other side of the bombing is Tombstone's siege on the hospital, and Hammerhead's personal attack on Captain America in the bowels of the morgue, where his men make one last-ditch effort to take down both. At least, most do; two are still in conflict with Orchid, offering opportunities to learn Tombstone's next move.

    Things push ever onwards. The fight is beginning to condense from such a spread-out brawl to a dangerous mess of agendas and lethal interests. Can -- or should -- the Paladins protect their ally, Aaron Davis? Can Thor get the VIP out, and can he stop the storm? Steve Rogers has been saved, at least for the most part, but what further schemes does Tombstone's men have that he'd need to thwart, and what /does/ Hammerhead know about SHIELD? Can Gargan be stopped, from taking this VIP, or from assaulting the next?

    Let's see.
Orchid      Orchid has some advantages here. Because they are inside, the radio isn't being degraded as much as it might be outside. Thus, she can nearly completely see through her spiders, and thus knows where the goons are much better than they know where she is. Splitting up will constrain her movements, but will mean they aren't watching each other's backs. And, if one is talking on the radio, he's more open to certain tricks. Tricks that may seen more juvenile, but it often works.

     In short, she flings a spider at his face. A spider that is just so excited to give him a hug, while she dashes in to grab the radio itself. She's also bringing more of her spiders, to web the guy to the wall. Dash boots let her approach quickly, once the guy is screaming about the spider.
Steve Rogers      Steve Rogers might need a minute.

     Ordinarily this wouldn't've been nearly as much exercise. Ordinarily he'd've been able to go toe-to-toe with someone like Hammerhead without losing his breath, or at least, without being *this* tired. He wouldn't be sweating, wouldn't be shaking, as his superhuman heart pumps the remnants of the bootlegged Eitr through his veins twice as fast. He wouldn't be experiencing mild flashes of white and a deep feeling of COLD.

     But since when was anything Steve Rogers had to deal with ordinary?

     When he's ascertained Hammerhead's capture (and made sure the man's not /dead/, pulling the stethoscope off in the freezer exchange), Steve slowly stumbles over to the stairs, stethoscope-hand against the wall, his makeshift tray-shield hanging at his side. He brings that hand up to rub his face.

     Gosh, this is not fun.

     Still, he's got a job to do. He gestures at Doctor Strange. "Doctor," he says, "Can you make sure Hammerhead is contained somewhere the rest of them can't get to, while you're here? He might...he might know something we can use, and I want to know what he knows anyway."

     And then he starts climbing the stairs.
Kotone Yamakawa The white wind still howls.

Kotone has got the last of the people out that she could find, and now it's time to turn her attention to the remaining thugs who are still trying to light the hospital up and there's the matter of Hammerhead going after Steve Rogers. She's not taking on the big dogs but these guys are not exactly normal either and as Orchid is facing down the thugs? Orchid would find a new contact on her HUD, it's Kotone and she's clocked. As Orchid makes her move? Kotone will strike and she'll pounce the one she's not going after her eelware is fully charged and well she just unleashed it on the guy. She also punches them for good measure, she's restained enough that she shouldn't kill them but she does need to make sure they are down given what these guys can do.

"Enough of this."
Ryouma Sakamoto     Once they told the tale of a woman so scorned, that she pursued her quarry through rivers and mountains, shedding her human flesh and bone to turn into a dragon of vengeance. It was a tale of denied romance and karma, truly a bedtime story.

    This is not that story, because Oryou is just a very angry snek.

    Braving the cold in her massive form, Oryou slithers through the streets, through the blizzard, the cold weakening her scales and making her uncomfortable, but doing nothing to temper her desire to step on that tiny man made of stone. And everytime she almost does, her fury flares back up, and it's the energy she needs to keep chasing, leaving an obvious and easy to follow trail even through the blizzard for anyone who still wants a piece of Tombstone. The occasional gushes of flame trying to buffet the fleeing Big Man of Crime help, too.

    MEANWHILE, Ryouma manages to get the tank out of the hole it'd been smashed into, although its mobility leaves to be desired. He's not much of a tank driver though, but the basics are easy enough to grasp - it's just a big car. The weaponry is another matter though.

    "Ah, mister Stark, I got it running. I'm not sure it'll go far as it is, but if you have a direction in mind..."
Spider-Man     Orchid gets close. The man's almost dropping his gun with the efforts to flail the spider off his face, calling out expletives and slamming hard into a nearby wall. "FUCK!" He barely notices the shadow of Orchid approaching out of the corner of his eye, but sweeps fire in her direction clumsily. Take him down! Hopefully with help from the ally coming up the stairs.
Doctor Strange WAREHOUSE

     Doctor Stephen Strange is not among those menacing Asche, but he is present. As the baleful winter wind continues to blow, an astral projection of the Sorcerer Supreme peers down at the opportunist. He's watching to see what, if anything is taken, and standing by to pursue. Hopefully, that will get him an idea of what Asche wants to do. The moment it looks like Asche is departing, Strange is on his tail.

HOSPITAL

     Strange frowns thoughtfully as he listens to Steve's request. It's the kind of expression that almost suggests 'that'll be hard, but I can manage.' It is completely at odds with the blithe motion of his bruised arm. With that motion, he hides Hammerhead in a non-Euclidean pocket chamber that spontaneously slides into existence between the walls of the morgue. His frown is replaced with his usual deadpan expression. He frowns a lot--but he gives a shaking thumbs-up.

     As Rogers departs, Strange lifts up his good arm to check the time. He sighs. The sorcerer hesitates, looking back at the walls as Cap offers a suggestion. No... no. He'll be fine in there. They won't even think to look in there. Especially not now that he's put the floor tiles back the way they were. The Sorcerer Supreme vanishes through a portal, going to the Sanctum to retrieve his robes with a resigned version of his usual frown.

     He knows exactly how long the rest of this day's going to be.
Thor This is a mess on all sides. Pursued by a Scorpion, storm and firebrand saint above, poison below...and Spider-Man ahead. As Spider-Man comes forth, Thor can see him, and moves to spin the hammer as he holds on tight to the VIP, trying to fly briefly enough to get the VIP into Spider-Man's arms. "Jeanne d'Arc and Mac Gargan are after this man. I'll deal with them."

Jeanne gets a shout from the booming Thor as he moves to land back on the collapsing apartment building, waiting for Gargan to definitely come after him. "This man has information! I cannot allow him to die without knowing what he knows...as it may guide me further. I do not fear you, so come at me!" Thor says confidently.

The room is also spinning, and he's dizzy, and he's not at his best, because the Eitr has yet to purge from his system. Mjolnir remains in his hand, as he searches for Mac Gargan...who hopefully will come for him. They need to fight.

They need to end this.
Reyes     Reyes also needs a few minutes. Because with Tombstone running off mostly empty-handed, he arrives at the TANK just as Ryouma's working to get it out. If need be, he can pitch in using a spell called Fulcrum, allowing for a spectacular showing of apparent strength by simply temporarily LOWERING the tank's functional weight and helping shove it free.

    That's the easiest part for the two Paladins, though.

    "Geeze, it took a beating..." All kinds of heat damage, the lopsided tracking... but Reyes manages, using spellcraft and telekinesis to wrech parts back into place and resculpt broken armor plating back together as if it were wet clay. It's not going to be pretty, but it should restore plenty of the machine's integrity.

    And, y'know, the ability to drive straight.

    And this only takes about ten minutes of rapid, precise operations. There's no questioning of what's wrong or whether something is fixed or not. Reyes works almost silently. He clearly knows -exactly- what is wrong with EVERY bit of the tank. There's not a second of wasted time from not being sure of his course of action.

    "Alright, let's get moving!" He crows out, dropping through a hatch after Ryouma and joining him for the ride, closing the hatch behind him with telekinesis.
Spider-Man     Hammerhead isn't unstoppable, but he /is/ fucking inconveniently difficult to stop. Even after choking the man thoroughly, he's still kind of restless in his unconsciousness, likely to wake up soon. We'll deal with what exactly happens when that goes on shortly; they'd better get him interrogated pretty fast after tonight, because he's not leaving a jail cell after this stunt he pulled while out on bail.

    Steve Rogers gets back up the stairs. There's a pair of men still up here, ones that he's perhaps more equipped than the info-support specialist to help. One of them, nearer the front of the hospital, is swearing and shooting already, making it a little easier for that to be a convenient target to rush down. Another is prowling the halls with a hefty assault rifle, though, and is likely to turn a corner on Steve at any moment.
Tony Stark Bombings in a snowstorm. Attacks on a hospital. A super-tank rolling through the city.

Teammates and civilians in trouble.

And Tony Stark follows an albino Big Man Of Crime through the worst white-out in New York's history nearly blind to make sure a man he never met didn't get killed by a criminal he met passingly yesterday with a briefcase of stolen secrets and fists like ham hocks.

In his ear is Detective Sakamoto. "Detective! You're breaking up, but I've got you. If you and Reyes can get that thing mobile, either get it to the Captain at the hospital, or meet him halfway to meet your wife - you should be insulated from the bombings there. Try to use it to push through the storm!"

Iron Man barely avoids connecting head-first into a light pole that just jumps out of the snowstorm at him, weaving around through the area.

"Friday, get me a best-guess to Davis' location."
"Boss, the SHIELD database connection isn't responding."
"What IS working, then?"
"I'm reading a large and unique exoenergetical signature consistent with the profile we have for what attacked Steven Rogers."
"Let's go with that. Prioritize auto-repair of the navigation and sensor systems."

Having lost Tombstone, Tony Stark goes for the next best thing: getting to the VIP first.
Orchid      The good news is that Orchid's system is tough enough that she can 'eat' a few bullets if need be, but the attack will deplete her main energy reserves. Good thing she brought a full sub-tank. Still, as she approaches... she falls low. Huh. Almost like she's setting up for something.
Spider-Man     Kotone is the one who rushes ahead of Rogers. She took the stairs, she can take them again. The men heading down those are likely easy to deal with, with her invisibility and their mobility. The one that's marauding the halls, though, is a different matter. He's in a high-intensity alert mode, which makes any steps a danger. He actually winds up turning on Kotone, eyes wide and panicked, spraying the hallways. But if Steve manages to be loud, proud, and distracting in any way with his attack, it's likely that he and Kotone will be able to get the jump on the man and shock him to the ground.
Steve Rogers      Two men. One with a gun, one prowling the halls. The one with the gun is already firing on Orchid; the other will turn and fire on him in no time.

     Opposite directions. But...

     Well.

     Steve unrolls the cord around his arm. He frees the tray-shield. He takes a step forward and spins his hip into it.

     The tray goes shooting towards the man down the hall with enough force to probably knock him out - and then rebound, rebound again off the wall, rebound off the front desk, rebound off the ceiling, and nail the first shooter right in the head.

     Steve wobbles a bit. He's not used to wobbling. Flash of white. COLD.

     "I need to..."

     "I need to get dressed."
Spider-Man     It'd be nearly impossible to track Oryou's flame through the snow. And hard to track Tomstone too, though Oryou is managing it handily. He's heading towards something residential with purpose. As he does, he speaks with Oryou. Muttered phrases hard to track precisely around alleyways, until she manages to find him and slam him again. "There's another reason I thought Fisk ought to see you." He barely evades a gush of flame before surging down a narrower alleyway. "Beauty like his favorite artwork, certainly. But men like us can only respect women filled with the fire you are filled with. But you. You never hesitate to put it all on the line, like a raging beast."

    "A monster of legend doesn't take responsibility for what it does. It's a setpiece. An incident that happens. A challenge for a hero to rise up and strike down. You sneak by the rules of the game with the will of that man. But if you wanted to stop me fastest, you'd tear this city apart, you'd knock down buildings, you'd crush me with stone and steel and corpses. It's what you ought to do. It's what something like you should do, without a man like him."

    She can get a good angle on him dashing across a snow-covered street towards a particular door to an apartment complex. There's a good chance to strike.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone can eat a few bullets herself but would rather wear armour. She, however, has her target to take down she needs to be quick about it. She's had some strange feelings today with Reyes? It hits her she was far more green than he was. She'll attempt to make us of Steve if he his loud enough to distract the guy to pounce and tase him.

Kotone would also weigh a good deal more than her frame would suggest too. She'll be quick about it, there's still more for them to do after all such as deal with Tombstone but also bailout Arron right? He was the one who tipped them off to this mess regardless of his motives it has helped a hell of a lot. So this has to be wrapped up fast. She also does aim to hit him high.
Spider-Man     Hammerhead is kept away in a pocket universe. One expects that, of all the mobsters in the world, Hammerhead might be the only one who can /headbutt/ his way out of a pocket dimension. Strange will probably want to grab him out of there before he crushes his way out of it and into the interdimensional multispace in a few hours, but he has time enough for the storm to subside before that's an issue, at least.
Ryouma Sakamoto     Oryou slams into Tombstone. He keeps standing back up, like this is just his morning jog. What is he MADE of? Is it divinity? Science? Oryou wouldn't know the difference, but it's impressive. If he wasn't wounded, this'd be bad for her.

    He flees again - an apartment building.

    He's not wrong, either.

    The Oryou of countless years ago would burn the building to get to him in a heartbeat. But when she thinks about doing that - and she does - she reaches the conclusion Ryouma would be unhappy. The single greatest crime.

    The divine serpent slithers out of view, melting down into black, liquid shadows that smash through a window and reform inside the building, in her human guise. Black blood drips from her mouth, still bruised from Tombstone's single hit. She barrels through a door into the hallway Tombstone entered, her hair rattling out and blocking the way, and one fist pulled back.

    "Oryou doesn't need to be struck down by a hero. Oryou already was!" Fist -> Tombstone's face. It has to break eventually, right?

    MEANWHILE, Ryouma gets the tank en-route to the HOSPITAL, courtesy of Reyes' repairs and support figuring it out.
Spider-Man     Thor passes ff the VIP like a football. Now he has the one Gargan, Thor, and secretly Weiss are all after. "Woah! Alright! Yeah, I'll try to--!" He says, hoisting the man over one shoulder and trying to web-swing through the storm. It's terribly difficult, and he has to land shortly, using webs to zip and tug the man as fast as possible with high mobility around the building.

    Gargan takes his menacing combat posture, snapping his claws. "Information. Puh. Of course he has information. That's what SHIELD takes. They look down on us! They watch us like animals! They poison us for fucked-up science, you want to ask him /question/? No, no. Men like us don't put aside the good. You've tamed down too much, Odinson. We see evil and we strike, and we don't give a shit what gets in our way. We don't bother with the information. With big pictures. We don't wait for smart men with smart laws to tell us what's against the rules or what we should prioritize. We see evil and we /slay/. We see problems and we /solve/."

    With the opening to the outside made, Thor will now be able to feel the blizzard. In his bones, he can feel the awful supernatural storm digging into his body, attacking him. Perhaps it's a hallucination when he sees the shape of a massive, awful, venomous snake in the clouds above, the sort he was always fated to fight. It is cold, and it is lethal, and every moment it only gets stronger.

    But it'd be hard to fight it and the Scorpion both at once. Especially with the man leaping to try to smash his way out of the building and go after Spider-Man, past Thor. What's his focus?
Doctor Strange HOSPITAL

     Strange returns to the hospital, slipping an arm through his tunic with a wince. He arrives in the morgue, and promptly breaks off a portion of it. Namely, a portion containing himself and Hammerhead. Hidden behind the illusion of a quiet, undisturbed morgue, there is a small, circular room with no apparent entry or exit. A slab of dingy hospital wall pushes out diagonally, like a cement coffin falling in slow motion.

     Trapped within it is Hammerhead, with only his face exposed. Strange isn't sure how well this'll hold, but he's got a lot to do, if the experiences of his past self are any indication. "Hey." He snaps his scarred fingers in front of Hammerhead's face. "Hi," he says. "Answers, please. Thank you." His gravelly, flat voice is the only sound besides the buzzing of the fluorescent light overhead. The light is made into an odd asterisk shape, as if someone had spliced multiple lights together in a photo editing program.

     Strange sips a mug of hot chocolate. "Who's making the storm, and where's the undo button?"
Spider-Man     Reyes is in his element. Even without electronic systems, something like this is well within his abilities. He gets the thing up, running, and active. While the goons are mostly dealt with, he'll doubtlessly find good use for them when they get to Tombstone, who is affected by anti-vehicle weaponry about as much as a normal man might be affected by a swarm of hornets. Which is to say, it's not lethal, but he sure doesn't want to stand in it. They just have to chase down Davis, and drive Tombstone away from him. With the APC working, it might even be possible to protect Davis directly with the remaining armor! Not that there's much left after the massive losses...
Ritsuka Fujimaru      "Guidance? Is that the only information that man possesses?" Jeanne narrows her eyes slightly at Thor as she works on unraveling just what it is this agent could even have in his head, the whole thing becoming even muddier when Spider-Man gets passed the VIP bodily and takes off. "What does he know? Why is /he/ involved with this?" There's an accusatory tone in Jeanne's voice as she shouts at both Thor and Scorpion, drawing her blade upon Thor issuing his challenge and Gargan stating his objective.

     "Is it something so important that you'd truly be willing to die for it?" She hasn't charged towards either man just, but there's something building as the flames intensify around her. It's likely to cause a bit of a problem for the stability of the building they're in despite her not launching them at anyone yet, or especially because she hasn't directed the flames at anyone yet.

     "One styling himself as a warrior for the people, one facing insurmountable odds alone... Hmph! This is getting too drawn out, so answer me or I'll kill both of you right here!"
Thor Gargan rants at Thor some more. And his rant actually clicks something with Thor, as everything goes to chaos. Well, two things. One, Thor isn't sure he really trusts SHIELD anymore, and two, as he glances out into the clouds above...

Thor sees evil he must slay. A problem he must solve. Spider-Man can protect the VIP. Thor must save the day. As Jeanne shouts at him, Thor points to the clouds above, where she wouldn't be able to see his hallucination. "Jormungandr. Jeanne d'Arc, I must slay the great serpent causing this storm. I do not know what information the man possesses but if he dies, it is lost...and Gargan ends another life out of his madness." Thor spins his hammer around in his hand, trying to remain awake even as the bitter cold bites into his flesh, as the Eitr continues to tick away from him, almost causing him to stumble out the building, but he suddenly launches upwards at superhuman speeds.

He moves to strike the storm itself. A hammer strike to the snake, as the winds around him start to howl, shifting the battlefield to try and force back the snow and cold and let in Thor's own windstorm, hopefully clearing some of the visual obfuscation in the area around the apartments, and maybe blowing out a few of the higher-level fires with the strong winds.

To anyone watching Thor, he's beating up the clouds. It's a little weird.
Steve Rogers      The men go down, and Steve is going up. It's not the fastest going, but he's dealing with it. Keeping his breathing steady. Keeping his heartrate steady. Relax. Focus. You're in your element, Steve.

     He opens the door.

     The old man lunges at him with a knife. Steve grabs the Vietnam vet's hand, sidestepping him. His arm goes for the man's neck. It takes Steve a moment before he releases the other man, and the vet laughs.

     "And you say you were in *Germany*?"

     "Yessir. Sorry, I'm in a hurry. I need to go get dressed."

     The Vet glances at the shield on Steve's back as the big man heads over to his bed. There's a few moments of the curtain being pulled before Steve emerges.

     The vet looks at him.

     "Iraq, huh?"

     Steve shrugs. "I did a favor for the British."

     Then he opens the window.

     "Don't you need a parachute?" The vet asks.

     Steve looks over his shoulder and grins.

     The vet chuckles and salutes. Steve presses his hand against his head, salutes, and then, as soon as he can see the tank, throws himself out the window.

     He's five stories up.

     It's fine. He'll be fine.

     The tank may experience a mild *thump* before Steve knocks on the hatch.
Zwei     Which crates Asche takes and which he skims over (if not just steps on) seems to be pretty much arbitrary at first, but there's no doubt that he can tell what's inside of them without opening up the tastefully unremarkable shipping containers themselves, if not just possessing a fully marked registry. Considering what slipped briefly into view when Tombstone made off like (well, he is) a bandit, and the fact that it's sparking and sputtering chitauri tech that falls out of the crates that are callously destroyed (or allowed to be destroyed in the crossfire), Strange can take a solid guess what's in them.

    Obnoxiously, Asche doesn't sling them all on a backpack and walk away with them either. After getting a few at a time, they all disappear in a red-tinted warp of light static, like bunches of probably-nuclear grapes. That probably isn't even to foil him either; lugging them all around in the open in a shitstorm like this is the last thing one should want to do if they can avoid it.

    Once Tombstone's footsoldiers start actively menacing him though, they have dug their own grave (no pun intended). The first couple of stray blasts hit Asche without retaliation, bursting on the matte black exoskeleton that suddenly luminesces with ripples of white light through tessellating hexes beneath. The exact instant the number and pattern of incoming blasts indicates intentional fire of a volume that is more efficient to remove at the source than endure, Asche completely skips any kind of warning or discouragement and escalates without the slightest hint of warning. From the back inner/upper side of one of his shoulder mounts, something small, angular, and black snaps out, floating, but behaving as if attached by some rigid, invisible mount. Perched in the space around Asche's shoulder, it swivels, sweeps, and jerks like the stare of a hunting bird, pointing itself and flashing once at each gunman.

    Loud, magnetic cracks follow rapidly one after the other, each one accompanied by a blink-and-you'll-miss-it streak of light and a human target turning into a violently burst balloon of red paint that turns to hissing scarlet steam before it can even stain the ground. No repulsor beams. No spider webs. No shield bashes. The efficient little automatic tool makes people *cease to exist* until they run for their lives.

    Weiss doesn't have it quite so simple, but she's made good use of the moment she got to put her hand on 'Mr. Insight's shoulder, sticking a micro communicator that's basically there just to talk into his ear while Thor, Spider-Man, and Mac Gargan play keepaway with him. Sitting at a distance, she keeps focusing her scanning on him, looking out for an opportune moment to step in physically again (if a plausible change even presents itself; odds aren't great), but mostly playing high speed CAT scan with him in a situation he absolutely won't have the mental composure to elaborately fake replies in

    <<"So, since Thor might not be around much longer, where are you planning on begging him to take you? More specificially, *who* are you hoping he'll take you to?">> She transmits into his ear, almost definitely going to be lost in the noise even to someone hauling him over their shoulder.
Spider-Man     Tony gets towards the VIP. He's going to find the storm intensifying more and more. That's gotta be, what, a handful of options? Gargan's signature is one that attacked Steve, but then, so has Hammerhead; either have their own unusual energies, from Chitauri-tech exosuits and vibranium implants respectively. Both are surprisingly close to each other. Tony may also get a larger signal, the signal of Thor doing something strange high above. There may be options to track Oryou to Tombstone, but just looking for heat out here is a nightmare. The world is his oyster of danger, a buffet of disaster. If he heads to the burning building, he finds fires, exosuited and magical criminals, and Spider-Man trying to get the SHIELD man out of harm's way before he freezes to death. Heading for where Hammerhead's signal has gone a bit dark and muted might give him a lead on following that tank to the next area.
Ryouma Sakamoto     The hatch opens, without delay - Ryouma seems concerned for Steve, given the fact he just lept out of his own hospital room and bed, but he seems entirely too stubborn to stay behind, so there's no arguing.

    If Kotone wants to board the tank too, there's apparently plenty of room!

    Once they're all set, and Reyes can pinpoint Spider-Man's location, Ryouma gets the tank navigating through the awful, snowy streets of New York. On the bright side, traffic is less of an issue like this! This thing was clearly not made to weave between taxis.
Steve Rogers      Steve slides down and places one hand on the back of Ryouma's seat. He'll act as tank navigator for Reyes - he's done this before, after all. "This is definitely Howard's work," he says fondly.

     It's probably to distract him from his hand shaking Ryouma's chair like it's a massage seat. From the chill of the Eitr. From the COLD.
Reyes     Reyes has gotten CLEVER during the trip. He's mounted a his main and backup portable computers at different viewports of the tank, giving him a precise view of what's happening outside the gunports.

    A view that's streamed to his head, as he sits in meditative focus. The external guns orient without anyone at the controls, mountings swinging around as pushed by telekinesis.

    After that massive display of trying to -disable- this thing earlier, he's only able to focus this much while remaining seated, eyes closed. Nothing that can break his concentration is permitted.

    All of the guns moving on their own is probably -really creepy- to watch though.
Spider-Man     The men in the hospital are handled fast. One goes down hard, losing teeth as a tray crunches his face and knocks him down fast. It loses a bit of energy as it slams into the other guy, whose gun is thrown off the aim fast enough for Kotone to crash-tackle him fast, and for Orchid to finish whatever scheme she has.

    Once she does, she can get at that radio. Tombstone is speaking over it, in staticky audio, He's directing a few of his remaining men to meet with him and kill a man who informed on him. The static even clears up enough for Orchid to get an address, one that's just about on the way to the Gargan bombings, off to one side in the streets. Anyone who wants to protect their informant will get a chance to drop in fast, but they better /go/!
Orchid      It's the old "A knocks B over C" trick. Once that is done, Orchid does some manipulation of the radio so that Tombstone won't hear anything said on this side. She communicates this information to Kotone and the other Paladins in the area, before heading out to latch onto the tank as it rolls past.
Kotone Yamakawa The Guys are town, Kotone will pause to use an old trick George taught her long ago and move to zip tie them before she'll head off. She will get the information from Orchid and get on the move. With the information in hand and the Tank is going the right way to get there quicker she'll move to get on board only riding long enough to get to where she needs to go.

She'll leap out if she has to not slow the tank down when she gets near to where she needs to go. Arron gave them a lot of good information, a hell of a lot of good info. Even if he is a small-time hood? His info was legit, and he shouldn't be six feet under.

She gets into the tank for the moment and says "Thanks for the lift."
Spider-Man     Crash! Tombstone slams back from the impact from Oryou While he can resist damage, he can't resist basic kinetics. He winds up smashed through one of the apartment complex walls, calling in backup on a radio, and engaging Oryou in simple bare-knuckle fisticuffs. "Hmph! No, no you don't-- You need to be what you /are/. I am the Big Man of Crime, I know what I am and I /embrace/ it." He shifts into a boxer's stance, trying to engage the girl up and down the apartment complex, uppercutting her hard enough to crash her through ceilings, charging her hard enough to send her through walls, all while trying to keep the blaster and SHIELD case on his back -- but her blocking may yet hold strong, and make it /hard/ to get through for him! "You're running around with the will of a man turning you into something you're not, something I'm sure would be /beautiful/ to see rise and fall if it were put to use with what you know is right, not what /he/ knows is right. Do you have any /reasons/ for taking care how you use your power, or are you just!" He goes for a HEAVY strike. "Shifting!" He strikes hard again. "RESPONSIBILITY?!"

    Their fight is sending the people fleeing from their homes to neighboring buildings. One of them, a shiftier-looking fellow than most, tries to surge by and escape, and Tombstone turns to try to target him most of all quite abruptly. It must be Aaron Davis. Tombstone is going for his heavy gun!
Spider-Man     Strange gets Hammerhead dazedly awakening, already looking pissed and angry and unpleasant. The first thing he does is try to spit in Strange's face. The second thing he does is try to spit again, hoping that if the first one turned into a butterfly, the second one won't. Or maybe that he'll just get another one in. But after that, he can deal with the questions. It takes a bit of time and frustrating negotiation and possibly even magical shenanigans, but Hammerhead spills after a while.

    "The Cartel knows where it came from. And they knew how to stop it. They didn't. Wanted to see what would happen. They're eggheads, y'see?" Hammerhead explains. "That's what got to the Big Man. They had power. Then they weren't responsible with it. So the Big Man says, 'I'll take that power if you please'. Easy as that. He sends us to take out the Cartel's biggest enforcer, and to get enough weapons and blackmail to scare 'em. And you putzes back 'em up instead of protecting people, just 'cause they got the same name as the old war heroes."

    "This? You can pull this storm apart, sure. Same as I bet magic could pull any storm apart. But there'll be more. The Big Man, he decides, it's time he make sure this is the last one. That's why he decides, if the Cartel's gonna own SHIELD, he's gonna own the Cartel." It looks like Thor's approach tonight is likely to work. But even Hammerhead thinks that the Cartel is part of this -- and they know the root of the source. "You wanna take the storm out? Kill a blizzard? Cartel says, it's from 'ecoheroism'. Says someone got up to something nobody voted for. Put something subatomic in the air, to fix the grime." So it's some kind of quantum charge. Perhaps Thor and Strange might work together, with Thor's storm-handling and Strange's understanding of fancy quantum magic?
Doctor Strange WAREHOUSE

     Astral Strange strokes his ghostly goatee as he watches. Whether he realizes the nature of Asche's selections or not, his face doesn't really show it. This might not be relevant, considering he's watching from above with his back parallel to the ceiling. Then again, considering his earlier ceiling antics, anyone scrabbling for Asche's leftovers might be a little more observant.

     His face does, however, sour upon seeing the hulking figure's response to guys with guns. It isn't anger or disgust--it's disappointment. At the very least, the violent display is a good advance warning of what he can expect. He floats this way and that behind the shoulder turret, careful to keep himself out of its view. He's translucent, not invisible, after all.

     Teleporting the crates away is also valuable knowledge. If he can do that to crates, he might be able to do the same thing to himself, and Strange doesn't know how far his fellow teleporter can travel. He decides to find this out, but his means of doing so might reveal him.

     There's a hissing sound on the ceiling that might be audible over the din of battle and the roaring winds. Present Strange's unconscious body tumbles through the air, colliding with his insubstantial form. He manages to stop his fall before he just thumps into the big ass mech. What's important is that now, he can affect the physical plane again--which means he can place a visible scrying sensor upon Asche, in the event he decides to teleport somewhere else.

     Burning brightly upon the robot's back is an orange glyph, stylized to look like an unblinking eye. It's extremely obvious to anyone with critical thinking, but, he hopes it's at least in a spot the robot can't see.
Ryouma Sakamoto     Oryou is raw muscle and hardness, but a boxer she ain't. In that regard Tombstone has yet another leg up on her - fisticuffs, as if to prove his point that she's being dragged down, will end in his favor if they remain such. And true enough, while she can anticipate and block a few punches with her arms, a mean hook through her defenses sends her plowing through walls and ceilings with ease, her motions halted when her hair digs into the walls like hooks.

    "Oryou is doing what she thinks is right. Oryou doesn't care about responsability or saving people. Oryou's goal is already in her hands. And Oryou is plenty fine with the way she looks already!"

    Maybe the interpretation of Tombstone's words is a nudge too literal there. Rather than dive back in for another ground of getting punched in the face, however - her hair lances out!

    Hundreds of shadowy tentacles, sharp like spears, hot like flames. But they're not going for the Big Man of Crime. They're going for his trump card of a gun, to attempt to yank it, melt it, damage it, crush it, anything she can manage.
Doctor Strange HOSPITAL (?)

     The first spittle attack does indeed transform into a butterfly and fly away. Most people wouldn't make a second out of pure spite, and so Strange's shit-eating barely-a-smile evaporates immediately into an annoyed glare. "My /God/ you're a douche." He tries to use the Cloak of Levitation to wipe it off of his forehead. The Cloak does not allow this. Strange ends up using a sleeve instead.

     He listens. The irritation gradually fades as his mind turns to solutions. The Cartel has the same name as war heroes... there is one war hero here. ...does Hammerhead mean SHIELD? The Sorcerer Supreme's brow furrows, as the explanation continues. No--the criminal's referring to something big enough to /own/ SHIELD. "Alright," he abruptly says, taking a look at his watch. "Got a name for me? The..." He looks back up at Hammerhead. "'Egghead' that cooked up your little potions? Someone who knows where I can find said egghead?"
Spider-Man     Jeanne is causing problems for the structure. "Augh, augh, crap crap crap!" Spider-Man mutters, trying to get the guy to a safe spot as a wall collapses out from under his wall-crawling. "Woah! L-lady! Jeanne-- You don't have to kill anyone!" Spidey shouts, swinging from one web latched onto a still-standing portion of the building. "Hold on, guy-- Augh!" He swings hard to one side, barely getting out of the way of the massive robotic tail from Scorpion's attacks. Those approaching the SHIELD VIP's location find this horrifying, dramatic scene going strong, but the mist at its base remains just as toxic.

    "Listen!! Jeanne-- I know we fought before, but, but-- I know, I read, a long time ago you were a hero to people! I know they hurt you, I know /you're/ hurt and deserve more justice, but that can't, it can't have made you lose whatever pushed you to help people before! Didn't /something/ push you for that before? You know what would help most, you know what would do /good/ most, not just bring justice, it would be keeping this from turning deadly!"

    "God damn it, get /back/ here!" Gargan shouts at Spider-Man, but seems to have answers for Jeanne as well. "They /know/ everything, girl! They watch people, they do so much goddamn surveillance, they put everyone under the microscope to /judge/ and /watch/, and they decide who's the sinners and who gets to live! They poison our people just to see how they live and die with it in them! It doesn't matter what they know, they all /deserve/ to die!" Spidey and Gargan begin desperately dueling on the side of the building, which collapses out from under them from the fire. It only gets barely above the street level toxins before Spidey lashes a web out suspended toxic duel is what the SHIELD-VIP-chasers will get the chance to jump into. Jesus what a disaster.
Spider-Man     The vast storm intensifies more, more, more. The great hallucinatory snake in the heavens heaves up and up into the heavens, rushing down towards Thor as he takes off into the storm. The great storm rears up, and the blizzard seems to actively intensify as it crashes back against Thor. A crushing blast of cold tries to reduce the Asgardian's biological function to nil. The temperature drops hard, the snake tries to rush down and slam into him, swirl around him, bite into his flesh. But when the hammer strikes, it's like Thor struck a solid object. Whatever subatomic effects lie in the storm, in this Eitr-poisoned state Thor can almost see and feel it. Where he strikes with Mjolnir, he strikes against the storm itself, against the Cold and the Winter. You can't hallucinate the sense of impact.

    The snake is crashed back when struck, slammed into the heavens to reel back and circle around. And every time it's struck, the storm's obfuscation disperses just a little bit, and the high-speed hypothermic chill slows on Thor's body. Crash. Crash. Crash. But the blizzard intends to strike the man down; the destined poison means to make him dead within nine paces. The storm-snake rushes in one massive colum and crashes towards him, intending to crush him into the ground -- and coincidentally, the poison in him surges, trying to devour his endurance, to make it hard to balance, hard to fight, hard to stand, hard to breathe.
Tony Stark Thor strikes the apparition of 'the Blizzard itself' with Mjolnir - and smashes clear a few areas. From his fevered vision, clarity blossoms against the city of New York.

"Boss, support satellite link re-established."
"Launch Relief-5 towards that beacon, then!"

The dramatic confrontation indeed. Buildings with crumbling supports. A lost VIP in the storm.

And Spider-Man, swinging through the crumbling, bombed out building trying his hardest.

A series of large empty-cored cylinders sweep in past Spider-Man born on microjets, clamping around shattered support structures or coming together to wholly replace the crumbling bits of the building's near-toppling and creaking weight with flying support pillars. It doesn't entirely save the building, though - too little, too late - but the smart-rockets reinforce the structure before the whole thing covers the ground.

Following them in is, of course, Iron Man. "Hey kid! Staying warm?" Tony quips, panning his damaged faceplate across Mac Gargan and Jeanne d'Arc. "Hey, this may be awkward, but you guys wouldn't be responsible for a bombing, would you? Just asking. More backup's coming, so just hang in there."
Spider-Man     Asche activates Destroy Decomposer with extreme prejudice. The men are driven back, those who aren't immediately burst. Red splats dot the snowbound crushed warehouse interior, like a Rorschach pattern that reminds you of something traumatic. It's a good thing Asche was there, because he has the kind of size that can make mobsters not be stupid about this, and not continue their rush. Some try to slink into the night, with a paltry one or two guns.

    Something unexpected happens. Someone else arrives. And they're flying. Flight is something that even Asche might have difficulty doing right now, but the figure that arrives doesn't. Green optics are visible in the thick blizzard, as it lightens every few seconds. The figure lands at the warehouse, massive VTOL-like wings folding to stabilize his body in the snow.

    He's silent. He's nearest the edge of the area where Asche isn't most active. He's waiting. His scanners are focused on the gear, not on Asche. He sits... with a kind of patience. Not threatning Asche. Just a scavenger. Waiting for when Asche has gotten what he's after. He'll take the rest, or so it seems. There's blood on his talons, and several of the guns that Tombstone's men took are on his back. But Asche? Not someone he intends to tangle with. Only watch, judge, and clean up after.

    Weiss finds that the man has barely had a moment to think. "Aaaaugh! SHIELD! I work for SHIELD! If they take me to SHIELD I'm going to be fine! That's where I want to go!!" He's being truthful, he works for "SHIELD". He's not quite truthful that he's safest there. Surface thoughts that Weiss might find indicate something else. His mentality has a brief surge of surface-thought of another organization entirely, and another rescuer he wishes he could call in. That same codename is on his mind, the one Weiss found in the conspiracy-wall, but it's possible Weiss might extract a contact channel, or even more information.
Thor Thor strikes against the storm, personified in his mind as the great snake Jormungandr. He can feel that weighty impact, the thing that indicates to him this is real even when it's not. With the chilling 'bites', Thor struggles in agony, however, and as it comes back, even as he strikes it again and again, the blizzard moves to slay him.

The snake slams forward, and crashes Thor straight into the ground, creating a massive crater. The cold fights against the Asgardian, making it difficult to move. Indeed, it'd be very easy to just let it take him.

But Thor knows better. Fate is on his side.

The Asgardian rises. It's slow, it's not steady, and he clearly looks like he's dying, his veins so cold, his body so weak. But Thor isn't a quitter. He's a man who pushes through everything, whether he's mortal or not, and he does it for humanity. He does it for Midgard. This storm, this snake, is the enemy.

The storm crackles. Winds rage around Thor's position, as he stands tall, and suddenly, they begin to converge around him. Thunder rumbles through the sky, as the winds spin and spin, lightning surging through them. They build up to a fever-pitch intensity, ripping apart one of the evacuated buildings in the neighborhood nearest Thor as a tornado is born, trying to break apart the storm with intense lightning-winds.

And as that tornado fights against the storm and the environment, debris goes flying everywhere. Those helping Spider-Man should probably watch out for falling chunks of building getting flung their way, as Thor rises into the tornado, moving to strike at Jormungandr again with his hammer, spinning in his grasp.

"Your storm ends here, Jormungandr! I will not let you harm the people of this fair city any longer!"
Ritsuka Fujimaru      He doesn't know. He's just doing it out of a need to save lives. That would make Thor a hero as well, then, wouldn't it? One that's just launched himself into the sky by spinning a hammer and gone off to punch clouds, even. "... Right." She doesn't move to stop him, instead just staring upwards incredulously. The windstorm Thor generates is certainly something worth watching, at least, even if the rest of his 'attacks' seem to be whiffing just a bit.

     It's Thor's words that keep her from pursuing more than her inability to fly, however. If Thor is the foolish hero seeking to save someone based on scruples alone, then what does that make Scorpion? A vigilante, perhaps. A costumed one, too, not unlike quite a few others she's seen around New York in the past few weeks. However...

     That doesn't quite line up with what she's seeing and hearing. If Scorpion's a vigilante hero, then why is he fighting Spider-Man? Why is Spider-Man only pleading with her?

     "Was I? I remember having those reasons once. But that was then. Now..." Now, she's not sure what her reasons are. "You remember the museum, don't you? Preserving lives isn't a concern of mine!" Getting a name by killing people hasn't exactly been a foreign concept to her, either. Does that make her and Scorpion more alike? A willingness to kill for their convictions, sure, but pointless killing? Thoughts like that certainly didn't stop her in the museum or in Eorzea, but there was anger at /something/ to drive her those times. Here, though?

     There's no personal wrong against her or a reputation to tarnish. There's no useless guards or nobles here to show up. There's just two costumed idiots swinging away at each other, and Jeanne with a banner wrapped in flames.

     "If they are watching, then... Good. I hope they're getting a close look, then." As the pair take their battle to the side of the building, Jeanne breaks into a run just as Tony shows up. "Hm? Oh, the playboy from last time. No, that would be the one with the tail. One moment." She doesn't break her stride as she goes from nonchalantly answering Iron Man to hurling herself off the side of the building, deadly gas and collapsing walls be damned. Her path takes her right towards Gargan, burning flag aimed downwards and poised with a clear intent to ram the entire thing through him.

     Even she's not sure why she's helping Spider-Man out, but... Well, she is!
Spider-Man     Oryou crushes the gun. The shot shears along the ceiling, making architecture from above fall chaotically, but before Tombstone can get another shot, she's crunched it into nonfunctionality. The exotic energies sputter and fizzle. "Hrh!" Tombstone looks pained by the loss, as it cooks his hand in a cosmic microwave, but isn't too pained by it. "You don't /care/ about responsibility?" He says, as if Oryou has said something deeply offensive. "When you have power, you had better care, /serpent/." He goes to try to grab her with one hand by the neck, and use his larger mass to his advantage by grappling her, using her body as a battering ram to smash through a wall and outside, into the cold where Aaron Davis is fleeing.

    Those who hop off the tank as it passes by the address Orchid recovered, who are concerned with stopping Tombstone or saving Aaron, will do so right about when the front section of the apartment structure explodes. Either Oryou's in Tombstone's hand or she isn't, but the man himself lands hard in the front sidewalk, intending to chase the man. That Paladin informant might die, unless they stop that giant albino pursing him from cornering him!
Orchid      Sure, Tombstone may be impressive in a fight, but how FAST is he? Orchid hops off the tank as it goes past (or stops, depending) and pulls out her hoverboard. Well, more of a rocket surfboard. And it's pretty fast at that. So she's going to go out in front of Tombstone, into the building, and will be pulling out Aaron unless someone stops her.
Spider-Man     Hammerhead narrows his eyes at Doctor Strange. "Don't know his name." He says. "Works through proxies. I know the name of the one proxy we dealt with, after the Cartel tried to take us. Only one to ever to fight the Big Man and... draw." He stops, cautiously avoiding implying Tombstone lost any fight. "Tough son of a bitch. Metal arm. Big mask. No scruples. Lots of guns. Called 'im... the 'Winter Soldier'." A useful name to study for. Not too meaningful. But maybe Gargan had more data on him?
Steve Rogers      Things are getting troublesome. With their biggest hitter incapacitated fighting an invisible storm snake and one of their next biggest hitters suffering from major poisoning, with Tony helping Peter and everything else in chaos, Steve Rogers has to make a choice. He could, in fact, probably get out and toe-to-toe Tombstone for a little bit. It might even work for a few minutes, long enough for Oryou to rally and for Orchid to get the VIP out. But...

     But they had a tank. They might as well use it.

     "This tank was made to...drive through that Iron Curtain, right?"

     "Alright. Mister Sakkamoto...drive it right into Tombstone. Let's see if he's stronger than an iron curtain. Reyes, I'll target for you."

     Steve opens the hatch and crawls up enough that Tombstone can see his face. This is how you spot in a tank like this.

     Manually.

     "Full speed ahead," he orders.
Ryouma Sakamoto     Oryou offends Tombstone, apparently, and becomes a battering ram. She's probably tougher and factually a better weapon to smash through a building than anything else he could have grabbed, so it works out in his favor.

    By the time they're outside, the serpent is still in his clutches, quite pained and weakened from the entire ordeal. It'd taken time to take effect, but serpents aren't exactly fans of the cold, and with an angry, nigh-invulnerable man beating her up it hasn't exactly helped.

    But meanwhile, Ryouma, driving by, does notice the exchange. It won't hurt to detour, will it? Case in point, Steve proposes ramming the tank into Tombstone. Ryouma is quite happy to oblige.

    "Of course, captain Rogers! Ah, Oryou, please get out of the way," he says.

    How fast can the tank go if he floors it? They're about to find out. There's no doubt going to be plenty enough time before impact for Reyes to distract Tombstone, though, and--

    It's under the fire of the tank's cannons, when Reyes opens fire, that Oryou slips from Tombstone's grip and flies off to the side, to avoid being impacted by the moving death engine too. She doesn't look like she has another massive impact in her, anyway.
Kotone Yamakawa The ride in the tank isn't bad at all things considered, however she doesn't stay on the super snow tank from the cold war for too long. The moment she gets to where she needs to be going. As soon as they get close enough to the point, she will move to open the hatch leap out into the outside and land, rolling along the ground for a moment before she gets up.

She has her assault rifle in hand for the moment and will take a pot shot or two at Tombstone but she's on a mission herself she has an idea of the address and she's got an informant's ass to save. Kotone will get on the move now focusing trying to suss out with Arron is and lend him any. She doesn't do much in the way of shooting as Steve's order is given and ya she doesn't want to risk hitting the tank, she's not big on friendly fire after all.

She'll cloak for all the good it will do in this situation and will attempt to find the man before it's too late.
Reyes     VROOOOOOOOOOOOM!

    Team tank is on the move. Reyes has thus far remained strapped down to one of the seats, hands on his knees and eyes closed. His expression's serene and calm, but anyone familiar with a psychic might know that doesn't mean they're not hard at work.

    The tank's turrets move in harmony, controls manipulated by an unseen force. Cranks spin madly and safety switches *click* off in eerie syncronicity.

    The tank barrels towards Tombstone. ... and all of its barrels focus on him too. All at once. Every single gun that has a firing arc that can converge on him?

    it does.

    All at once, the autocannons and main guns of the STARKTANK JUSTICEMOBILE open up once, adding the cacaphony of automatic non-stop gunfire to the already chaotic battle.

    Strangely though, at this point, the tank's engine revvs just a bit faster without growing unstable or overheating. The guns are pushed to fire just a bit faster than they were designed to handle... but they're not jamming up. The controls become just a tad more responsive and natural in Ryouma's hands, allowing for slightly better maneuvering.

    The Justicemobile is now in HYPER MODE.
Spider-Man     "Mister Stark!!" Spider-Man calls out, just barely holding back a heavy claw. "Oh man! Thanks! Oh man!!" He urgently backflip-kicks out of the grapple. He looks pretty torn up. His parka is cut in several spots, and he's a fair bit burned. "Oh man, oh man. The tornado's getting weird -- do I go for Gargan or the building and stuff?!" He leaps up, trying to help stabilize the building with a few webs, and then engage Gargan directly with swing-kicks.

    "Fuck off, /Stark/, this got nothin' to do with you! I'll do what I gotta to take these SHIELD sons of bitches /out/!" Gargan shouts, lashing that heavy mechanical poisoning device at him. It may be somewhat ineffectual to poison Stark, but it's less to smash him in the face. Unfortunately, unlike Tombstone, Gargan's approach is designed to quickly kill mostly organic targets, rather than completely disassemble a vehicle; Stark's got more of the upper hand in an exosuit showdown, his specialty space. This is more of a Stage One Vanko threat than a Stage Two.

    Why does this look so much like a Vanko design?
Doctor Strange HOSPITAL (?)

     "Okaaay, okaaay..." Future Strange trails off, nodding and stroking his goatee with a trembling thumb and forefinger. "I can work with that. Thanks." He gives a 'grateful' nod of his head, pursing his lips. "Do me a favor? Sit tight." Future Strange carves a hole into reality and steps through it. The impromptu interrogation room briefly fills with roaring winds. A car, picked up and hurled by the Thornado, flies through the portal before Strange can close it, sending a cross-section of metal and plastic racing towards Hammerhead's... head.

     The sorcerer quickly rotates the entire room, spinning the criminal out of harm's way. His body posture and his face say 'holy fucking shit' where his tone of voice doesn't. "Sorry." He steps through, and the portal closes behind him.

THE THORNADO

     Thor has done the lion's share of the work to clear out the storm, namely by fighting it with a storm of his own. As Strange steps out of the portal onto solid ground, the wind whips at his hair and at the Cloak of Levitation. The latter billows behind him as he fights to make each step. His advance is like a martial artist's, slowly finding his footing while keeping his guard up. Mystic target shields conjured from glowing orange glyph-mandalas slowly rotate before his hands, winding up as he prepares sorceries to counter the blizzard.

     His hands move in fluid circles, one before the other, mimicking the motion of both Thor's storm and the blizzard's violently circling winds. Strange extends his mystic senses, and attempts to attack the blizzard on a different front. While Thor fights it head-on, Strange's magic draws its power inward with one hand, finger pointed towards the sky. He attempts to force its strength through his body, and disperse it harmlessly behind him with the other hand. Frost clings to his face, his hair, his trembling hands shake all the more from the cold. The ground begins to freeze and crack beneath him. One leg gives out, as the ice on the ground threatens to envelop his foot.

     He stands up, forces his chattering teeth shut, and converts the blizzard's energy into something volatile. Something which burns up as quickly as it appears. A gout of blue fire blazes from the hand behind him, snaking its way into the air in defiance of the biting cold. The ice at his feet begins to melt. He stands again, his sorcerous, martial arm and leg movements made with renewed vigor as the serpentine inferno winds its way around Thor's tornado. A brilliantly burning vortex of fire now fights the blizzard off.
Zwei     To some kind of credit (whose exactly still being a debate), when the first couple of goons go splat and the rest get the idea, the shooting from Asche's direction stops immediately. No time and energy is spent firing into the backs of terrified, fleeing footsoldiers, even when they score stray bits of technology and escape into the wind; perhaps they're testing their luck enough already.

    Of course, Zwei already has plenty a strong idea about the one squad, or at least the one person, who would come to clean it up *now* of all times, very much deserving of his moniker. This one, too, doesn't get weapons aimed in his eerily goggled direction; the sentry bit thing folds back up as soon as Asche has had his full run of the selection of probably PEGASUS relevant packaging.

    ||"You have uncommonly hard nerve to show yourself here and now, or very little choice. Either way, if you have made it here already, then it is yours; there is no reason to insist otherwise. Perhaps consider it as losses recouped on both sides, after before."|| Asche says aloud, pausing briefly --a little strangely-- before moving out into the snow, ploughing against the current not unlike Tombstone's supertank but on legs, leaving behind the footprints of those who caught on fast and the stains of those who didn't before disappearing remarkably quickly.

    Watching it through a scrying rune isn't pleasant. At some point, all the colours bend and shift up the spectrum from the unique sensation of 'approaching' fast enough that the wavelength reflecting off everything compresses, and then the opposite as it 'recedes' the same way, before violently 'snapping back' into focus, all somehow happening at the same time. Not something to sit through with a bad stomach. It also doesn't appear to be 'to wherever the crates went' because it's somewhere in the air, and given the nightmare storm that makes it hard to see beyond 30 feet, that's unfortunately not locationally helpful -- only the sight of suddenly launching clusters of tiny, airborne drones is.

---

    <<"You're not great at this, you know that? Just do it like Stark always does. Barking at the AI. You're good at yelling what you see along the chain. If you'd yelled anything useful, you'd already have been out of here five minutes ago. Are you really sure you want to keep risking it like this? I've counted no less then fourteen instances wherein you were exposed to a greater than thirty percent fatality rate in the last few maneuvers alone. They're not going to hear. It's your funeral.">>
Tony Stark "Spider-Man, you've done great. If you can, help the buildings - the people, or the bombs. I'll take this asshole from here." Iron Man offers, immediately moving into melee with Mac Gargan - the Scorpion.

"Oh, by the way, that's not a tornado, that's a Thornado. Try to dodge any bolts of lightning or extremely poisoned Asgardians. Good luck!"

Immediately on getting into melee, Yet Another Asshole decides they know all about Tony "Iron Man" Stark. Really, it's a trend.

"Look here... Mister Tarantula. Apparatus of Kwal-ass? Pokey the Poisoner?"

Iron Man grapples with Gargan, the big stinger requiring both hands to hold back as he's pushed back. "Look, it's been a long day - and I have no idea who you are, so I'm going to bet that suit design is a Vanko original."

"Even from the grave, that guy manages to spit on my cheek. But if that's a Vanko design, did you ever fix the design flaw?"

Internally, Tony sweats beads as his suit whirrs and creaks in protest as he wrestles with the limbs of the Scorpion. "Friday, set diffusal distance for central RT to zero."
"Diffusal to zero - adjusting for atmospheric backscatter. Ready in three, two..."
The suit's chest light glows a bright white, surrounding Scorpion and Iron Man in a vortexing halo of thinning white as the whine of the Iron Man suit's classic 'keeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEE' sound spins up.

"You really need to have more than one trick, Scorpion!"
"Central RT: ready to fire."

The blast from Iron Man's chest is more of a cone this time, a tremendous amber flash of charged energy fit to cripple or outright destroy the toxin-laden stinger.

"And I'm really more of a consultant than a SHIELD flunky!"
Doctor Strange WAREHOUSE

     The scrying isn't pleasant. But, he's done 'watching creation spread out before him as his optic nerve and/or subconscious struggle to process it' before. He would be paying more attention to the spread of drones in the blinding whiteness of the sky, were it not for the fact that he's evidently not alone. The man in the green goggles is spotted trying to make off with some of the weapons. Strange floats down into the Vulture's field of vision.

     "Uh," utters the Sorcerer Supreme between dry, mirthless laughter. "No?" With an incredulous smirk that hides his annoyance at /yet another/ opportunistic asshole arriving, Strange flicks his wrist towards those crates Vulture hasn't yet claimed. The ground simply flips over like a revolving trap door, smashing the crates beneath itself and burying them besides. It doesn't do anything to get rid of the ones he's already grabbed, though.

     He touches down, rolling his neck and popping it audibly. With a firm shake of both fists, two discs of orange glyphs appear before his hands. He adopts a combat stance--though his injury from his earlier close encounter with the ceiling causes a telling wince. Despite this, as his disciplined finger motions cross over one another, lightning crackles between his hands. He doesn't really want to fight, so he's hoping this will at least be seen as 'hey, I'm Enhanced, get the fuck out of here.'
Spider-Man     Jeanne and Tony Stark face down the Scorpion. Among the wind, debris rises. Scorpion moves fast and hard as he dashes from piece to piece, clamping heavy hydraulic claws before launching off his tail. He tailswipes Spider-Man through a chunk of rock, but the desperate boy bounces back on a spiderweb and passes by him with a meaty punch, heading off to help with the structures. He doesn't last long with it though. A moment of realization strikes him before he just barely gets away. Mac Gargan screams with pain as one claw is impaled hard, pinning him to one of the chunks of structure. The fire burns part of his face, as well as the hand fused to the claw, and part of his body where the suit links. "AAAAAAAARGH!! YOU BITCH! YOU WANT TO STAB MY BACK?! YOU WANT TO /FUCK WITH ME/!?"

    He pounds the piece of wall so it shatters under them, freeing his arm in a desperate attempt to strike out at Jeanne. Before he can swipe her hard with his stinger, though, Tony smashes into him in direct melee. He can grapple best with one big pincer, and try to crash against the man's body with his stinger, but the skewered parts aren't working. "FUCK YOU! Anyone who keeps SHIELD's Insight alive is a /traitor/ and a /dead man/, Stark!" He roars, trying to crush open a gap in the armor with hefty impacts and a jagged stinger. "YOU HEAR ME, STARK?! YOU'RE DEAD! YOU'RE DEAD!! I'LL--" What he'll do won't get figured out, sadly.

    The stinger explodes, dramatically. It is essentially decapitated and rendered useless. A wave of bootleg Eitr flashes over Scorpion, and he screams with pain as the mysterious asgardian poison seeps into the burns he's suffered on his heated exosuit. The tail goes limp, sparking at one end.

    He's brought to his knees, slumping hard. Disoriented, and in deep pain. The man near him, saved from death, quietly whispers to Weiss. "I need to get to Pierce. He's the only one that can keep us safe." A name. One of the most useful they could get. That name, in Weiss' perception, fills the man's mind with safety, power, and command. That's the name to go to for this Insight business, it seems.
Spider-Man     It's all coming to a close. The storm pulses, and drops. The white wind howls ever less. The blizzard falters, as if it turned to strike, and was scared.

    The eye of all of this is Thor. The man atop the roofs is raising his own storm, crashing against a vile monster only he can see. The body of the hallucinatory snake is annihilated by the blast of storm. The Eitr in his body is suddenly denied any more of the cold to draw in, as Thor's storm heats the air around him, forcibly rewarming his body. The high-pressure heat shifts the weather, crafting the huge tornado. The blizzard in its immediate area is dispersing, though one can still see the thick flurries beyond. What is truly most useful, though, is that the tornado clears the toxins. They're forced up the funnel, high into the atmosphere where mysterious quantum processes are already eating away at them.

    It spreads geometrically, fractally, like a vast and surreal tree of fire and wind. It devours the storm, channeling it into the Future Strange and turning it into an anti-storm of fire. The city is already beginning to warm, and in this way, only Strange is the one who can manage to keep it from hurting Thor even more. As the ice creeps into the buildings, though, they begin to get unsteady. Spider-Man leaps into action, surging to help keep the storm harmless to New York City. He knows Thor needs to do this, it has to be done to fight the storm. But buildings are rocking, crackling as ice builds. He lashes out a thread to stop one from falling. Another is lashed out to keep one in place. Another, and another. Before long, some dozen on each hand are desperately trying to hold the city down. Spider-Man is braced on the side of one of the buildings, heels pressed against a firm cornerstone, and desperately holding on as hard as he can, screaming from the strain of ensuring this all stays safe as high-level ancient magics fight a quantum storm.

    He weathers it. Barely. Once it's done, he drops into the snowbank and almost passes out. Thor will experience a sudden burst of near-crippling exhaustion the moment he takes nine steps away.
Spider-Man     Elsewhere, men are converging on Aaron Davis. He's desperately making a run for that tank. Thank god it's going the other way. He dives hard to one side, and Tombstone sees what's coming. Kotone covers him. Tombstone's men are approaching; her assault here would be crucial in fending off not just Tombstone, but his men, who could hardly see her in the blizzard, but now can see her even less. Orchid, with a dynamic hoverboard move, manages to latch onto the man and swing him aboard deftly, securing him in the APC compartment safely. He looks frazzled. With the man himself safe, the matter becomes his pursuer.

    When Tombstone makes eye contact with Steve Rogers, his face turns to rage. He just ordered that half-dead man whacked. This is /impossible/. He can't accept it. He'll have to, though, when Steve guides it into ramming him. Ryouma and Reyes manage to orient it perfectly to unload an anti-tank round; Tombstone catches it on his teeth and stumbles, letting go of Oryou, bloody and bruised. A barrage of gunfire forces him to put his arms up, and another heavy cannon round catches him in the stomach, making him double over in pain.

    Then the tank impacts him. He tries to hold onto the front for several seconds, a heavy diamond-hard hand grabbing the partially melted front armor, but he can't hold for long. After a moment, the trio in the tank going after him manage to get him under one of the treads, shouting in the first real pain Tombstone has felt in years.

    A bone snaps with the volume of a gunshot. They've broken one of his legs. The Big Man of Crime is crippled, and now fully, properly unable to escape proper justice.
Spider-Man     Elsewhere, back at the warehouse, there is a silence from the scavenger. "Would hope to recoup." Comes a heavily obfuscated male voice through a modulator. His wings shift like he's adjusting his shoulders. He waits. But then comes the other Strange. Strange approaches. And when he tries to scare the man off, touching down, he gets the strangest look in the world. On the man's pilot-goggles, he can see something. He's being looked at. Examined. Studied.

    ...He is appraised. He can see every artifact visible on his person counted, and catalogued. The cloak. The robes. The eye. A price flickers in green. The man's posture shifts to something more... surprisingly dangerous. He stands. "You're not a dead man. Yet." The wings spread, and he rises, disappearing. The mysterious third party backing Gargan is still not known. A man of few words, it seems.
Thor Thor tries to hold out. He almost breaks, but Strange is there to help heat things up and fight against the frigid storm with him, and Spider-Man is maintaining buildings. Together, the group is able to stop the storm threatening all of New York City, with his own. As they weather through it, fighting off the quantum storm, Thor is able to land again once it breaks. The winds die down, and the tornado starts to break itself, as Thor starts stepping away. He speaks congratulations into the radio, and then...

Nine paces later, he collapses. Thor is down, but luckily, not dead. He's just going to need the rest of this Eitr purged from him and time to recover.
Zwei     <<"No problem! I'll have him on the line shortly~">>

||Blacksite materiel retreived. 97% integrity. Tombstone will allow the remainder to fall into the Avengers' hands, but within operational error tolerances.||
<<Codeword: Insight leads verified. Too bad crazy Gargan couldn't have gone a little longer without getting his face melted. I guess that's what happens when you expect the meddling Multiverse teenagers will see things your way. Or much of anything.>>
||Atmospheric supersampling complete as well. Further analysis is needed on the last 150 seconds of anomalous storm activity, but the core substrate should be suitable.||
<<I guess all that's left to do is ring up a soon to be very confused field liason!>>
||Secure time to assess and re-weight value assignations of Avengers personnel and auxiliary responders. And remove scry-mark.||
<<Pegasus. Insight. Jormungandr. You've all been wonderful stepping stones to project Reclaimation~>>
Orchid      Rocket surfboards make everything more awesome... but there's only so far Orchid can push her own limits, and once she's gotten Aaron and herself into the tank, and gets the news that things are calming down... she sort of breaks, slumping in a chair, before pulling up her knees before her, arms wrapped around them.
Doctor Strange WAREHOUSE

     That guy... wasn't just some asshole. Even if Strange's message had the intended effect, the response concerns him. It means he's definitely not afraid to throw down later--and his choice of arrival means he'll likely be just as opportunistic in his eventual attack. He lowers his guard as the Vulture departs, then steps out into the street as the blizzard begins to die down.

THE STREET

     Two Stranges meet in the street as one recovers from channeling a supernatural storm through his body. The flames flick out in the air as Thor's tornado withers in much the same way. The two of them, having started out quite different in terms of their levels of injury, are now much closer. "What am I looking at?" asks Present!Strange.

     "Mild to moderate thoracic trauma, exposure," says Future!Strange between ragged breaths. "GSW on the right thigh, strained third and fourth chakras--oh, and your Lurking Eye spell's gone in three, two..."

     "There it goes," says Present!Strange with mild annoyance. He pauses a moment to listen to radio chatter, raising his brows in surprise. "I got Hammerhead?"

     "Yeah, he's in the morgue. Cap helps, just follow his lead. I'll make you a portal."

     "Thanks," says Present!Strange. He steps through the hole in reality made by his counterpart, steps into the interrogation room, and transports the imprisoned criminal to the nearest secure facility--assuming he hasn't broken his way out. He then travels to the past--all the way back to the beginning of this engagement, to volunteer his services at the hospital. The Strange that remains is /thoroughly/ tired.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa acted quick and just in time with the help she had from Orchid they are able to get him the hell out of there.

"Didn't think we'd forget you, right?"

She notes to Arron he may be a hood but the man acted, to expose something that could have killed a heck of a lot of people and caused who knows what else to happen. She made it back into the tank with Arron and Orchid. All things considered things have turned out better than she hopred.
Ryouma Sakamoto     With the tank parked on Tombstone, Ryouma actually hops out, because he certainly isn't going to leave Oryou out in the cold like that. She pointedly hovers towards him, and then plops down into his arms, proving he's capable of doing the princess carry, too.

    "Ah, welcome back, Oryou," he smiles.
    "Oryou isn't ready to go on a stone diet," she responds.
    "I imagine not. We'll drop by that restaurant mister Stark sent us to the other time once you're cleaned up, alright?" he offers.
    Oryou nodnods vigorously.

    Time to get that tank into one of Stark's garages, help with the cleanup a bit, and then fill Oryou's stomach with frog legs.
Reyes     That was a MOST unpleasant crunch. It shouldn't take THIS much to take down a dude who's not even wearing any freaking armor, Reyes thinks to himself. And that CRUNCH... he FELT it vibrate through the tank he's currently to. He shudders where he's seated, the first sign of real motion since he sat down.

    And with a gasp, he lurches forward, bending at the waist as if he was gonna chuck his guts. But no, just gasping for breath. And relief. His senses finally recede from the tank and he just rubs his forehead furiously. "Gwuh... getting a headache."