Scene #7729: The Challenge-3

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Doctor Strange	MIRROR DIMENSION Ordinarly, the Mirror Dimension is like a thin layer of very malleable reality laid atop the space that humans actually inhabit. Its name comes from the fact that, from the inside, one sees a 'mirror image' of physical space, but much like a mirror, the viewer is unable to interact with real space in any meaningful fashion, other than to cross into it and back. In certain, very specific, specially warded regions of this dimension, there are prisons used for low-to-medium threat containment. This is one of those places. Getting here at all required an exacting ritual of walking to certain places at certain times of the day, in exacting patterns, at several different points across the globe, in consecutive sequence--designed so that only sorcerers, or those trusted enough to learn their ways, may get past the wards in place. The landscape here is anything but earthly. The mirror-sun in the sky looks as though its real counterpart would kill anything that dared stay here for longer than a few hours. Pools of too-blue water steam and hiss, while yellow, sulfurous sand sprouts salty protrusions that range from white to blue to burnt-orange to ruddy green. A kaleidoscopic, tesellated fortress constructed from bricks of that very same terrain overlooks a moat of above-ground lava. Immediately, there is a problem. Approaching the fortress, immediately visible between the crenellations of two towers are the slumped-over bodies of the guards who would normally be posted there. Loki has accompanied you, and was under the impression that Strange would meet all of you here. As he draws nearer, he blanches. The towering portcullis which leads into the prison is raised, the shimmering drawbridge lowered. Anxiety twists at his brow, causes his grip on Gungnir to tighten. "Either they've escaped... or... I won't say it. Come on!" He breaks into a run, heading for the entrance of the prison.
Doctor Strange	PRISON-FORTRESS 'HORN' The gatehouse is unmanned--the sorcerer who would normally operate it lies in a heap on the floor, blood pooling around her head. The subsequent hallway is littered with the signs of battle. As you travel farther down, the sounds of exactly that reach your ears. Cells have been emptied out, and Loki's expression gets more panicked the farther down you travel--until the cell blocks empty out into a courtyard. This isn't a prison break. It's a hostage situation. Strange is bound by a thorned, pulsating length of vine that wraps all the way across the barren courtyard. "Funny," he groans, the color drained from his face. "I knew exactly how long it'd be before you guys got here. Doesn't make this suck any less." The vines wrap around easily thirty prisoners, sourced from various worlds and dimensions, not all human by a long shot. "You could end it at any time, Stephen," says Mordo, over a distant volcanic eruption. His fist clenches. "The incantation to release the Grand Finale. Then I release you all." A passive glance towards Loki, a narrowing of his eyes. "Hold, Asgardian--if you would see your 'teacher' live." "You don't need the Grand," says Strange raggedly. "By using that spell, you've already guaranteed countless deaths--sorcerers and other people alike." Mordo dismisses it, squeezing and drawing a wheeze from Strange as the vines constrict. Lies. The Book of Embers mentioned no such side effect." "Listen to me. You violated an ancient pact between the Vishanti and the Trinity of Ashes by using that spell. Because of you, Earth is no longer off-limits to them--and the nearest Vishanti to us is presently about two hundred years from the Rainbow Bridge." Mordo fumes silently... then begins to crush the life out of Strange and the prisoners both. The courtyard is awash in pained screams, until one rises above them. "STOP!" Gungnir flies towards Mordo, forcing the vines to retract into a tightly woven, massive shield. Even then, it pierces through and looses a brilliant explosion of light, forcing Baron Mordo backwards. Gravity bends to his will, and he calls forth his mandalas--they burn an unsettling, smoldering shade of crimson.
Lilian Rook	Prison duty is something that, even after all of this, Lilian had to be convinced to participate in. Despite being in the Paladins, the mere thought of 'handling' criminals has her react with all the degrading revulsion of being handed a McDonalds uniform and told to wear it. It's like a cat completely losing interest once the prey has stopped moving, and turning its nose up at the smelly corpse of a tiny animal. Even then, she refuses to actually wear her battlesuit, as incredibly wise as that would have been. She claims that patrolling the halls with a stab-proof vest just tells all the inmates that you're terrified of them pulling a shiv; and that she can't be afraid of anything classified as a 'medium-security threat'. So she has no climate control upon arriving, and groans at the desert, the sulphur, the sun, and especially the lava, comparing it to 'a magic eye picture of some circle of Hell'. And she barely looks any less enthused at seeing the fallen guards. "I'd prefer that they did." she says to Loki, quite possibly considering a similar conclusion. But then once she can see Strange himself, and see for herself what Mordo has chosen to forsake, Lilian thinks back to a subjective year of her life, takes a deep, centering breath, unhooks the lodestone pendant from around her neck, and stepping forward, says "Loki. I apologize. I was having so much fun being your schoolteacher for the last year that I held out on you. It wasn't that I didn't care enough; it was just something I'd only get to do once, and I liked you a lot as a pupil. Please don't hold it against me." Lilian is then already at Mordo's throat, the shaped pommel of Night Mist crashing into his face with a sound like a lead-filled bell punching drywall. "And you threw away your shot. And everything else."
Kale Hearthward	"Is it weird that I'm more ticked off by this, by the day that we're having to spend running around the globe doing the unlock sequence, than I am about spending a whole week-year in the time sanctum?" says Kale at one point during the trip. And then they're inside. "This... looks, um, kinda, inhospitable," says Kale, noting the obvious. "Like - very inhospitable. Also there's a moat of lava... wait, if it's in a moat, is it still magma, or is it lava at that point..." He picks up on there being something wrong, though, and leaves that thought for later, racing on ahead. And... Strange is saying some very troubling things. So two hundred years till one of these Vishanti show up? He'll have to worry about it later. It's certainly not a good thing for any great^6 grandchildren he might have later, but for right now Strange not dying is a bigger concern. "Hey!" He breathes into his hands, shapes the winds, and casts them out to either side - forming a strong draft to try to channel the flames away. "You're messing with the wrong mirror dimension!!"
Tamamo	Somewhat foggy on the specific importance of the people being moved, Tamamo is at least aware that there must be danger involved, if Strange has called for this much help. One or two companions, perhaps, for a merely middling threat, but all those gathered? No, it must be something he suspects will require that much insurance. That, or... Looking sidelong at Loki over a spread paper fan as they approach the fort, Tamamo keeps close to Lilian. "Might it be for his benefit, I wonder...?" She doesn't further illuminate the thought, instead being distracted with, "Oh, is the heat bothering you? Here, please take these," and passing Lilian a small, cloth pouch with the smell of Summer. Even a desert sun, or its mirror, is comparatively little bother for Tamamo, herself, though she's made the concession of a lighter robe than the formal, heavy affair that is her most usual, if that wasn't solely because this one makes it easier to move about. As it becomes clear that something has gone terribly wrong, predicted or not, she hurries in with the others, though not so much as to reach the front of the group. It's easier to keep a watch from the rear. Once in the courtyard, she stops, looking automatically to either side, scoping out space for other traps. She returns her attention forward as Lilian (figuratively) leaps into combat. Briefly, Tamamo frets at the unknown dangers presented by attracting so much attention from someone who's managed to go from 'prisoner' to 'taking sorcerers hostage' in such a short amount of time, before smoothing out her worries by focusing on the others taken captive. Fire seems an appropriate curse for the locale, and the curse-bearing talismans she throws out explode into brief, if very hot flames, once they reach the spots on the vines she's aimed for.
Strawberry Princess	It's been a year. Some things change, and others stay the same. Strawberry wears her casual clothes a little better, but that wardrobe is still the same: the button-up shirt, the dark pants, the comfy surplus jacket she hasn't bothered to button. (She's even got some light makeup on, thank god. Lilian will be proud.) Even with her posture a little straighter and her eyes a little brighter, though, the idea of 'prisoner trasport'- for whatever things wizards like Strange consider in need of imprisonment, no less- sets her a little on edge. Her fingers worry at her carrying case's strap; thumbs hook inside it, fingernails scrape its rough nylon texture restlessly. "I don't know how good I'll be at this kind of thing," she says to nobody in particular. "I mean- if they try to run for it, we'll be surprised, right? And I'd need..." She trails off as they arrive at the prison itself, and then gasps in wordless alarm. Sprinting over to one of the slumped-over guards, she presses a hand to their neck, checking for a pulse. A few seconds later, she straightens up with shoulders slumped. Too late. Too late for what? No, this should never have happened. Just prisoner transport, right? How could it... no, these people are at the entrance. "Nobody broke out," she says, shrugging the case off her shoulder and ripping it open to pull out the wand inside. "Somebody broke in." Levers are flipped, buttons pressed, and safeties released as she runs down the halls behind everyone else. They'll know when she's got it when they can taste metal on their tongues. 04:59 A soft whoosh heralds her catching up to the rest of the party. Her costume's changed in the year she hasn't worn it, too- a little more frilly, a little less sleek, with thinned boots and gloves less suggestive of armor. The visor over her face- notably- is gone, replaced with a cute tiara. There's something vaguely poetic about the costume no longer hiding the scar. At the same time Lilian 'teleports' forward to crack Mordo in the face with the pommel of her sword, an eidolon of a seventeen-year-old magical girl appears behind Mordo in a sharp dive and delivers a harsh kick to the back of his head, sandwiching his skull between the two impacts. "I believe in you, Mr. Laufeyson," Strawberry says with a smile that's braver than she feels. "We taught you pretty good, I hope. Let's do our best." She flits up into the sky herself, silhouetting herself against that bright unbearable sun to become harder to target.
Archer EMIYA	Archer is honestly more used to being inside a cell compared to being the one standing outside it, but that's practically a lifetime ago, and he's honestly not going to openly voice a complaint on that front. Especially given some of the company. He's free to imagine the reaction though, which causes him to smirk to himself. Unfortunately, transporting prisoners is going to have to wait, given the sudden emergence of a sudden Evil Wizard. He was honestly expecting someone like this to appear to interrupt the training montage they had early, and now was wishing they did. Hostage situations never go well. There's no quips, no attempts to lighten the mood, just a piercing stare from Archer as he waits for his moment. Something that Loki gives him in spades, as when Mordo is sent flying back, Archer sprints forward, ducking low to reduce his profile as he rushes past the obvious target and instead heads towards the vines. "Trace on!" Digging his heels into the ground to stop himself, the Servant slides across the ground a bit as the circuits in his arm light up and get to work. A rough outline of wireframes of an object followed by a sudden filling in, and Archer's holding on to what could generously be called a sword. In reality, it's more akin to a slab, as it's too big, too rough, and too heavy to be considered a weapon. But a weapon it'll have to be, given it's what is in his hands right now. Grasping the sharpened rock with both hands, Archer grits his teeth as he brings the weapon overhead and then swings down at one of the vines. And then at the same time horizontally at another. Diagonally yet again at the next adjacent vine. And so on and so forth. It's a lot of slashes, more than three. Three times as many as three, to be exact, which brings the total to nine. Nine consecutive slashes that hit all at the same time. He's not kind enough to catch the prisoners as they probably fall and hit the ground, but at the very least, he's more than willing to catch Strange before he has a chance to. Partly out of courtesy, and partly because he's expecting an awful joke out of him for it.
Doctor Strange	Mordo's face contorts in a mixture of surprise and fury, when Lilian is suddenly upon him. Sorcery may be a martial art, but even the best martial artists may be caught flat footed. It's all he can do to turn the blow aside with a last-minute palm sweep--and even then, the pommel ends up splitting the skin just below his right eye. He is in the process of righting his right leg up to strike her ribs with his knee, when Strawberry's eidolon forces his nose to crash into Night Mist's cross guard. His boot stomps on the empty air, and it supports him as if he'd planted it upon solid earth. Kicking sideways, he leaps away from the eidolon and the Immune alike. Kale's wind blows him off course, but gravity again bends to serve his will just in time to avoid Gungnir as it flies back towards Loki's grasp. Tamamo's flames and Archer's gigantic stone eradicate the vines--and when they die, they disintegrate like flesh rotting in time-lapsed rapidity, leaving disturbing bite-like wounds where once they clung to Strange and the prisoners. The landscape shifts. A protective dome of tesselated not-sand ensconces the prisoners, Strange light-headed from the effort but still 'with it' enough to give Tamamo and Archer a grateful, shaky nod. "Answers," he promises Tamamo. "Later." Between Loki and Mordo, the courtyard becomes, very quickly, not-a-courtyard at all. The earth is broken up into geometric platforms of varying heights and sizes, as the two make death-defying leaps over an empty blue void that was once the sky, hurling bolts of energy at one another, vying for position. Unable to pinpoint her location while being pursued by Loki, Mordo snarls and hurls a volley of mandalas blindly into the air. They pass through solid matter easily, but burn so hotly that they set ablaze all in their path. What was once 'the ground' is now 'a wall,' but thanks to intervention from Loki, no one who once stood upon it is forced into a slide towards nothingness. Instead, you 'stand' perpendicular to where conventional gravity would pull you--though Mordo knows this too. A sling-ring portal buzzes through the air, guided by his hand as he fends off Loki's spear with a burning orange quarterstaff. One portal hovers over the lava lake--the other pipes in blistering hot air sufficient to ignite your surroundings, making a pass over Lilian, Archer, and Tamamo. He's wise enough to Kale's specialty not to try the same trick. Instead, earthen spikes with serrated edges erupt like missiles from what was formerly the ground, trying to impale Kale with sheer numbers.
Kale Hearthward	"Answers are nice," calls Kale, and then there's no time for further chatter - only focusing. If you asked Kale, a year having gone by has made him more mature, more thoughtful, and more reflective. All three of these claims will prove to be demonstrably untrue. But - - He has had a year to live and work alongside the rest of this group. Learn a bit more about their abilities, their fighting styles, and how to work as a team. The winds alter, in subtle and unsubtle ways, as Kale throws out more spells (literally throws, in the form of compressed and knotted balls of air currents). Even as he has to duck and weave and exhaust himself to stay one step ahead of the earth spikes, he's making changes - Tamamo's talismans getting precisely pinned to their intended spots, and the flames they produce fanned a bit hotter. A tailwind at Strawberry's back, no matter which way she turns. Archer getting a bit of a extra push on that giant slab he's swinging around. And Lilian gets... "Yeah! Smack him harder, Rook!" ... Moral support, since he still doesn't quite have her figured out. Helping Strawberry with her makeup was the real actual assist, though.
Strawberry Princess	I could floor it and dodge wide, but then I wouldn't be against the sun; he could hit me with something more precise. Could yell 'Bissotwo', but Lilian's in the thick of it. Let's keep it close. Strawberry eyes a narrow gap between the oncoming mandalas, twists herself sideways to minimize her profile, and plunges downwards with the benefit of Kale's tailwind to weave exactingly between them. No direct hits, but the convective heat stings her skin and singes errant locks of hair. In the aftermath, she uses her 'scrying' to check over her body from an outside perspective: everything still attached? Good. When the world rotates and the ground becomes a wall, Strawberry isn't disoriented in the least- she maneuvers to keep her back to the sun, even though that now means being sideways relative to the plane of the fight instead of above. "Trying to make yourself the least bad option... I can't make a choice like that. Strawberry Princess- doesn't decide, whether people live or die. Doesn't matter one or a million. But there's four people here smarter than I am!" Strawberry drops her handgun and lines up a shot with her wand, heating its tip to a blinding white. What's fired is a huge, slow-moving white-pink sphere of energy that neatly disintegrates anything it touches, howling and shrieking with fissile combustion as it shreds the air. It's trivial to dodge. It's a distraction. Her handgun falls sideways towards the ground behind Mordo. An eidolon materializes out of thin air to grab it, aim at his legs, and empty two quick three-round bursts into his knees. "I'll keep fighting until they say stop. Don't waste your breath on me."
Tamamo	The terrain changes, and while Tamamo succeeds, together with Archer, in freeing the hostages, the ground becomes a wall on which they're standing, thanks to Loki, and Mordo tries channeling heat over most of the rescuers. How will Tamamo get out of this surprising predicament, as sorcery sends everything into artfully controlled chaos and what would doubtlessly be very impressively expensive special effects in the movie version of today's events? With great ease, as it turns out. He may have known better than to use such a technique on Kale, but he should've known better than to use it on Tamamo. Under normal circumstances, she's comfortable in the heat. Under this specific scenario, the bright fur of her tails and ears becomes immediately brighter -- incandescent, even -- as it becomes flames in vulpine forms. To call it a 'mortal guise' might be overly generous to her subtlety of appearance, but what hiding effect there is falls away, making it all the easier to mark Tamamo no Mae for what she is -- a Sun deity, if one has no basis from which to guess further 'bunrei of Amaterasu-omikami.' <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Baron Mordo says, "If Strange is telling the truth, you waste time fighting me. This world is overgrown with sorcerers--allow me access to the Grand, and with one alteration to the narrative, I will render Earth beneath the notice of the Trinity of Ashes." Tamamo says, "What else might you render it 'below,' I wonder? I am rather taken with it being a place of interest, and the methods of your plans leave little cause for trust." Loki confirms, a few moments later, what had been largely clear. "My, really? The most simple of all possible solutions to a problem is to give everyone the peace of death, but it never really does turn out so simple, when one attempts to put such into practice. I suppose you have yet to learn this." Practically overflowing with divine power, even beneath (or above, or to the side of) this unnatural sky, Tamamo wastes no time attempting to integrate into its constantly changing geometry, but uses the far quicker and more reliable, if somewhat less sustainable, option of summoning forth her ornate mirror. "My blessings are for the living." They're for everyone else assisting the fight, in fact, catching and shining light that bounces from mirror to mirror, with Tamamo herself as the primary origin point, reaching Strawberry, Lilian, Archer, Loki, and Kale. When that light turns toward Mordo, it's more baleful than blessed, carrying distracting, even blinding feelings of dread, as if her words were reversed, only for him. For Dr. Strange, Tamamo leaps from point to point, having less fine control shifting gravity than the sorcerers but some able footwork to make up for it, and tears, rather than throws, a talisman once she reaches him. It breaks into, visually, nothing, but carries the sense of fresh baking and cinnamon. The healing effects are subtle. "Later," she accepts.
Archer EMIYA	"Well, if you needed any indicator that you've come a long way since you started, Loki, you can at least look at this guy and rest easy knowing you aren't a filthy spammer." Archer makes his usual jab as he plants the slab of rock he was holding on into the ground and angles it at a slant, using it as cover from the sloppy danmaku attack as he conjures up a bow to replace it. He doesn't pay any mind to the fact the ground is currently tearing itself apart, and instead focuses on himself. The computer circuit-like pattern on his arm lights up again, this time summoning forth an actual sword, which he promptly nocks onto his bow string. As he pulls on the bow, the shape of the sword changes, twisting and contorting into an extremely thin spiral. Now climbing out from behind his cover, Archer stands on top of the abandoned slab, balancing himself despite the minimum footing as he takes aim at Mordo. "Caladbolg." Archer speaks the name of the attack in an almost bored manner, before letting go of the bow string as its body snaps back into shape in an instant. The arrow flies forth, letting out a startling boom one would expect from a railgun as it heads towards its target--- Mordo's right hand. A rather tricky shot, but not one that's particularly hard to hit for someone of the Archer class. Doubly so since the arrow seems to course correct itself, swerving in a variety of different directions just to make sure it hits its mark.
Lilian Rook	Lilian would have something to say about Strawberry's shift in look, and more importantly, her completely open use of the eidolon right across from her, but right now, she's in business mode. If not for the context of the situation, at least because she knows how Doctor Strange can completely change the flow of a fight in an instant with his magic, and she presumes Mordo's must at least be similar. The sudden switch of gravity and perspective causes her footing to slip, but then Lilian disengages from the wall immediately, pushing off by reflex. Her trick tumble through the air is righted in an uncanny way, asserting that she is now weightless rather than calculating where to direct thrust. Her feet tap against thin ripples of foggy black static in the air, and then she joins Strawberry in the nonsense sky of the Mirror Dimension. Wordlessly, she takes an opposite orbit to her, climbing upwards and forcing Mordo to pick one or the other to have on his tail. "Look at you now, Mordo. All of that, and you still wound up having to fight Loki anyways. Except now you can't possibly win, and even if you did, you still get nothing." Lilian calls down. Her fingertips spark with molten red embers and pitch black ash, and rapid slashes of her hand, like the motions of a conductor, send down a barrage of falling fire on the platform gauntlet. Streamers of eerie flame both cross him up while trying to dodge Loki's attacks, and preemptively smash down on the platforms in his way, leaving black bonfires all over the solid ground he wants to use. Worse still, the majority of her blasts are concentrated as a curtain away from Strawberry's death sphere, herding him into them. Lava explodes out from elsewhere, creating a wall-like deluge over Lilian's head. Having nowhere to maneuver through it, Lilian draws back her hand, and flies down and backward, swooping over Tamamo to land in her beam, and gathering white motes into her clenched fingers, and then thrusts out her palm to release a radial burst of black and white blades of ice that unfold like a gigantic rose, clashing with the wave and disrupting its approach with the blast of resulting steam and clashing magic. Incanting "Sioac agus aisling!", she follows it by swiping two fingers down the flat length of Night Mist, and whirling to throw a matching wave of silvery and prismatic, mercury-like energy into it, mingling with the lava and mutually dissolving it away to clear space. "You can't manipulate me. You can't outsmart me. You can't beat me. And you can't even out-magic me, Mordo!" Lilian calls out from across the dome. A split second later, Strawberry's glock tumbles out of the air and claps into Lilian's outstretched hand, now midway between its fall and the Eidolon below. No time at all later, Lilian kicks against the haft of the returning Gungnir, and sends it right back Mordo's way. "Not that you ever would have beat Loki, apparently! To think! You! Sorcerer Supreme!" And then she's right behind him. Lilian has no further need to respect the burning mandalas. "What a joke." Five consecutive gunshots go off right at his back, strung together as fast as the bolt will cycle, aimed for the soft parts of his midsection to come right out the other side. Tossing the handgun herself, it drops right into the Eidolon at the bottom of its original trajector, a quarter-second early.
Doctor Strange	Thanks to Tamamo's subtle healing, Strange at least has enough energy to talk shit. "Mordo... you literally couldn't have picked a worse group of people to try 'the lesser of two evils' routine on." Is that why this specific group of people got invitations, a year ago? Mordo seems to think so. "Always two steps ahead, is that it?" He's the one sweating now--his retort is more labored than it otherwise would be, thanks to Kale's support and Loki's constant harrassing probes with Gungnir. "Two that are far too mild-hearted to accept it," he says, battering Strawberry's slow-moving orb out of the way with a gnarled mass of thorny vines that whips unnaturally through the air. They move independently of his command, seeking Tamamo and Strawberry out as if by the scent of life--but even as they do, Strawberry's eidolon's pistol strikes true, bringing him to one knee. Harsh crimson light bathes the wound, but the spell falters before it can heal, thanks to Tamamo's distracting curse. Loki, too, adds to this effect, playing a trick of the mind on the other sorcerer and forcing him to give up ground unnecessarily. He leaps dramatically backwards, but in so doing, leaves himself wide open for Lilian's blasts of fire. Another illusion from Loki sees his good leg land squarely in one of those bonfires. He's beginning to realize she might be right. He might get nothing. Fuming, closes his eyes and wills his wounds healed with dwindling mental stamina, sweat pouring down his temples and matting his green robes to his body. She's behind him. Pulling the trigger. It is pure spite, now, that closes those gunshot wounds, wasting his reserves just to squeeze a little more effort into a losing fight. His elbow crashes backwards, mandalas forming, contracting, whirling like buzzaws as he pivots and attempts to run her through with a flurry of palm strikes and jabs that loose short-range lances of crackling amber electricity. He /can't/ out-magic her. He doesn't care, now she's gone and said that. It's no longer about winning or even getting away--it's about doing as much damage as he can before they bring him down.
Doctor Strange	Midway through his flurry of strikes, Mordo's image shatters like glass before Lilian--the real one appearing standing perpendicular to a pillar sprouting beneath one of his platforms. "If that weren't enough, you brought two more, who are categorically opposed to 'the least worst option,'" he says, sneering at Archer and Kale, making a motion like parrying an opponent's blows as he leaps forward to meet them. His crimson mandalas whirl and chime with his martial command, spewing a corrosive, copper-smelling gunk the color of blood. It swells and grows heavier the more airtime it has, threatening to engulf the both of them. Though Caladbolg pierces through it easily, its momentum isn't halted by the sword's passing. This doesn't mean Mordo is in the clear. The sword flies straight through his hand, as well, punching a hole through it and halting his leap. His quarterstaff falls down-up into the yawning blue void, his focus is dwindling, his stamina next to none--burning so much of it to one-up Lilian leaves him without any better option than to sever his hand, lest he remain pinned to the pillars of one of his platforms. "Three, actually," grins Loki, abruptly causing the pillar beneath Mordo's feet to catapult him into the air with a sudden, violent protrusion. "Well done, Stephen--you even managed to find someone who would turn down my offer based purely on contempt for me. Perhaps Lilian is even correct, and I do get nothing. But what will you do after this fight, I wonder? Even the Eye of Agamotto has blind spots. Perhaps there is a joke--but it would appear to be on you." "Well y'know, jackass," comes Strange's unimpressed response, now able to sit up straight again thanks to Tamamo. Eyes narrowed in annoyance, "Once every thousand years or so, if you let people in, it turns out they can actually help you face the uncertainty of the future. Go figure." "I'll be completely honest with all of you. I -can't- track the Trinity of Ashes in a temporal sense. But I believe in all of you, and I trust you with my life. Finish it."
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry jukes hard to the right when those vines reach for her. She doesn't expect them to track her so adeptly. Her scrying sight is what alerts her that they're still grasping, and her body processes it just a second too late- the thorns reach out to bite her legs just as she twists into a dive, changing directions one more time. Her eyes scrunch in a wince; her teeth grit. Can't outmaneuver something that hasn't got blood. But then, it's not a person. Weapons free. Her wand comes around and fires a diffracted beam, something like a shotgun blast. Each individual fractured laser twists and jinks at right angles to strike one vine apiece, ashing clean through the magical plant matter. They won't be harming anyone again. "... I believe in all of you, and I trust you with my life. Finish it." "Okay, Mr. Strange," she murmurs- more to herself than anything. Pulling out of the dive, she swoops higher and skates backwards, climbing and gaining distance. 'Finishing it' usually implies a big glowy laser, for her. But Mordo is, despite all his apocalyptic aims, a person. Strawberry Princess doesn't kill people. That rules out the Annihilator Beam. I got good at some other stuff these last twelve months, though. Thanks, Lilian. There's a dopplering wail of air being tortured by something slicing through it. There's a blur of pink and yellow, passing within inches of Mordo. And there's a satisfying crack, like knocking a home run so hard the wooden bat strains. Strawberry skids to a stop a hundred feet away, staggers, and falls to her knees seeing black spots. She tenderly grabs at the long pink glove on her right hand and pulls it off, revealing an arm bruising from fingertips to elbow. Mordo is the victim of a punch thrown at airliner cruising speed. Strawberry exhales in soft relief. "Don't think anything's broken. I'll take that a little lighter next time."
Kale Hearthward	"What 'least worst option', taking out a few, to save the many?" "You think I can't, or won't? Maybe I would! That ain't the issue here, is it? There was a challenge. You came in, you issued the challenge, terms were set, and you accepted them, and instead of sticking to the terms of the challenge you-" "And now we're here! And-" The foul smelling gunk crosses Kale's flight path, and he drops like a stone, coughing and desperately trying to clear his lungs as the magic powering his jet boots flickers out simultaneous to his inability to draw in a clean breath of air. "... Hrkh, hack, and- fuck, pollution magic should be illegal..." The point he was building up to make is abandoned - he was clear enough in the leadup, anyway, the rest can be inferred from the tone he was taking. Kale may also be the sort of person who'd pull the trigger on the Grand Finale, if he decided it was warranted, but there's a way to go about it - and this isn't it and this will never be it. "Hrrk... damn it..." Still bereft of a clean breath, he falls back on the other magic he has at his disposal, and his fingers move, tracing the patterns of a mandala, and forcing his will through it- -and connecting the palm of his hand, pressed point blank against Mordo, with the plane of the eternal winds!
Lilian Rook	Lilian makes a sound of irritation and being presented with yet another regenerator. It's Mordo's reward for his spite. When next his elbow comes flying at her head, he finds Lilian's hand already in position to intercept it, clapping to his upper arm and thrusting up with her palm to send it over her head. Looking into her eyes, the eerie feeling that she'd already known exactly what he was about to do becomes worse. She's already locking stares with where his ends up. She ducks low under the swing of buzzsaw mandalas, then kicks off the ground and tucks and spins sideways through the air to slip between two more, leaping over a fourth to bicycle kick Mordo in the air, leaping back off and coming flying at him from behind instead, driving what her own elbow strike at the back of his neck, only for the pommel of her sword to accelerate again as if fired from a gun, jabbing bones that should not be broken. The way she weaves between his palm strikes and deflects his thrusts, by hitting his arms, blocking his wrists with the blade, and kicking out his footing, is all a quarter second too fast to feel like reacting. Lilian plunging her blade through him though, only causes his duplicate to shatter. This time he's a little too far to her her displeasure, but close enough to be able to hear "Oh, you're starting to get the idea? Funny enough, this exact possibility came up before. That you'd get this desperate, and bank on something like this." She flicks the blood from her blade, where it'd spattered from the gunshots, but also where she'd cut open Mordo's face, and where Strawberry had smashed his nose against the quillions. "Unfortunately for you, I spent a whole week learning all about your magic." Lilian teleports to the side and spins fully around, building up an immense amount of torque in one rotation for ostensibly no reason, and then-- "Slais Gearradh Fola!" Lilian swings the flat sidge of Night Mist through the sloshing arc of blood droplets she'd just shaken this way. Where they splash against the black blade, they dissolve into drops of red light that flow through its looping grooves. The sympathetic connection of Mordo's freshly spilled blood, in the western tradition, transmits the force of the blunt blow without respect for space, more like a curse than a weapon strike. It's not much blood, but half of it comes from his face, and the other half from his lower back, and thus a scissoring pair of kinetic strikes snap his head back and trip his lower half out from under him, just as Strawberry's mach punch arrives.
Archer EMIYA	"What can I say except that I'm very stubborn and spiteful? I'd rather take my chances waiting 200 years than let you get what you want, even if you could clean your own mess up." Mordo comes at Archer with mandala's and Archer jumps back while deflecting the blow with his bow. He can't mitigate the attack completely, so instead he redirects it, making sure that the mandala runs down the length of his weapon before scraping against his side. His armor can only do so much for him, and there's an obvious patch of crimson red that's seeping into his already red coat, but he ignores it, taking the opportunity to close in with his own counter before letting the sorcerer get away. One last time, Archer calls upon his massive internal lexicon of useless sword facts, an empty wire frame appearing in front of him. He abandons his bow, and grabs hold of the incomplete weapon, before it finally completes itself... A curved blade composed of completely green energy, made from the same kind of magic the Sorcerers themself use. Before Mordo gets a chance to flee, Archer lunges, now firmly grasping the sword with both hands as he aims to sink the corporeal blade into his chest. It cuts, like all swords do. Actually probably a little less in the physical aspect. It is, however, really good at cutting away someone's time. Or in less conceptual wanky bullshit, it makes the Evil Sorcerer very tired and exhausted, which Archer knows fucks with their magic.
Tamamo	"Oh, I would not call my heart 'mild,' though it would be overly generous to call my feelings for you 'lukewarm,'" Tamamo admits to Mordo, having assumed that that was directed at her. "You have given me little reason to trust the necessity, for that matter, though if you wish to think me a kind-hearted fool, I shall accept foolishness, if the only alternative is a void, where kindness should reside. I have misliked what other paths I have trod." More quietly, if still plenty loud enough for Strange to overheard, "I would wish you more appreciative of my restraint, and yet... perhaps one who holds oneself above humanity would not so value a principle of gentle treatment. Should you seek, you may find few gods so forgiving as myself." Vines, particularly the unnatural, magical sort, are more able to harm Tamamo than earthly heat. She has to occupy herself with crashing shining, arcane, circular glyphs into them, unwilling to move far from her spot, lest they simply target Strange in the moment she leaves his side. She has, fortunately, ample reserves of power, if hardly infinite. Enough for her to continue blocking attacks from multiple directions while thinking of some better solution. There is a sky, of sorts. In it, there is a sun, of sorts. In her current state, attuned to her nature without dissembling, it takes only a slight motion, in the unreal, controlled chaos of the Mirror Dimension, for her to pull that sun toward herself. It grows, below and to her side, as does its heat, and it's no proper curse she directs toward the vines, but a controlled channeling of that reflected energy, pouring out in such quantity as to instantly light aflame what it touches. It's a more safely diluted sort, filtered through the channels of her blessings, that flows through the light, and Tamamo, to her fellows, ensuring they retain enough power to continue doing whatever it is they do best. In regards to beating down villains, there are plenty with more experience in that pursuit than she, and she's perfectly happy with the supporting position.
Doctor Strange	Kale's last ditch sorcery might have saved Strange's life. A thorned javelin is spewed from tha crimson mandala before his stump of a right hand, but Mordo is lifted off of his feet at the last moment, and the javelin goes wide, harmlessly sticking into the wall-ground. Another is attempting to form, when Mordo's flight path takes him right into Strawberry's. The sheer violence of the impact has him spinning in midair as inertia halts his forward movement. He's still trying. Still instinctively trying to reprogram where 'down' and 'up' are. He lands on his feet, but Lilian is ready. She has studied sorcery. Night Mist crashes into his side and drives the wind from him. Even as he's falling, his back striking the relatively fire-free underside of one of Loki's platforms, there is still determination in his eyes, to try something, anything. Even as ribs are broken and blood stains his mouth. Another crimson mandala crackles unsteadily, this one before his left hand. Furiously, he tries to counteract Tamamo's spell--but her flames far outpace what he can conjure in such a state. The flames eventually begin licking at the mandala itself, preventing the spell from working at all. Loki catches sight of Archer charging, and guarantees it for him--Gungnir is swept authoritatively to one side, and a split second before Archer's impact, Mordo is stuck to the underside of that platform by four thick shackles of ice. The sword of congealed time is thrust straight through Mordo--and indeed, it is his will and fatigue which are wounded, rather than his body. Though his fingers make the mudras as flawlessly as ever, he has not the energy to be a circuit for reality's secret power. Another few seconds, and he lacks even the strength to stay awaek. Strange, only now available to stand, hovers in that eery still way afforded by the Cloak of Levitation. "I watched this day for years," he says, with quiet resignation. He can't bear to look at Mordo. "Different variations of it. Timelines where we avoid it. Sometimes even I roll snake eyes," admits the Sorcerer Supreme. "And no matter what outcome there was, I never saw anything past today. No matter how many times I watched." "We used to be friends," he continues. "We saved the world together." Strange scoffs, crosses his arms, brow furrowing. "I'm talking about him like he's dead. It's just... he stopped trusting people, and I -started- trusting people. Even with what happened between us, I kept doing it." Everyone, in turn, feels the weight of his gaze, but he doesn't speak up again until the last of you has. "I'm glad." Strange turns in midair then to face Loki, who easily meets his gaze despite being upside-down compared to the Sorcerer Supreme. "Mind if we postpone the Challenge until we deal with whoever comes calling because of Mordo's stunt?" "Of course not." "Great. Let's get Mordo to a supermax--preferably one not on the Rainbow Bridge." An emerald portal opens up, at his command. Loki and Strange disappear through it with Mordo in tow. He didn't forget he promised some answers--another Strange appears by himself not a moment later, looking refreshed and in much better shape. "Loki's gone to Kamar-Taj to get everybody ready. In the mean time, answers..."