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Spider-Man     EARLIER...

Spider-Man @NYCWallCrawler - 15m
oh man, found something big, really big
can't say what case it's for but i gotta do a big thing right now asap

Spider-Man @NYCWallCrawler - 14m
if you see me doing anything near you in the next ten minutes or whatever then
just sort of keep back i think this might be a problem

NYC Skyline Patrol @BirdwatchSupreme247 - 10m
@NYCWallCrawler Be careful. Think I just saw you going by. I'll try to nudge people out of the streets and let them know something could happen.

Agnes (Dave's Mom) @Agnes9924 - 8m
@NYCWallCrawler Oh my goodness I just saw you again
Is there going to be something terrible
I will get people out of the way

NYC Skyline Patrol @BirdwatchSupreme247 - 7m
@NYCWallCrawler @SHIELD I'm just gonna tag you guys in on this too.

Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics @SHIELD - 2m
@NYCWallCrawler @BirdwatchSupreme247 Thank you for helping to secure our nation and neighborhoods. We'll monitor the issue and coordinate as best we can.


    NOW...

    Welcome to New York City. Something lights up the sky a shining blue, light streaming out of somewhere around Port Morris, a ways northeast of Manhattan. It's snowing, not just flurries but enough snow to push people off the streets and to keep cars from being an easy solution, though not enough to break the infrastructure or anything. A bolt of unnatural lightning has risen into the sky, filled with dangerous energies, some time ago; unlucky passerby who weren't shooed away by some of Spider-Man's local fans, and those who respond around the time the light might draw their attention, get to see the boy hero decked out in his winter spider parka get blasted clean through the door of a small garage for an auto-shop by similar light, launched into a parked car hard enough to crumple one side and shake the thick mat of snow off, and then swing back into action.

    A few men, some in the classic clothes of mechanics and some in the classic clothes of hoodlums, emerge from the garage; one of them, a man in a slightly dated suit shouts, charging at him, leaping off a large news stand, and headbutting him in mid-air hard enough to slam him through the wall of the building across the street.

    Henchmen are already setting about trying to grab up big, important-looking crates or suspiciously smuggling-friendly car parts and load them into trucks; others are busy trying to torch some parts of the garage. Many of them bear strange guns, often with weird glyphs and inscriptions gleaming on them, while some are glowing with an unnatural power, lifting crates with what seems like telekinesis, or helping their presumed boss by firing blasts of fire or luminous bolts of lightning at Spider-Man as the two duel.

    Those who tune into SHIELD intel, who watch news, who keep up with The Twitters, who know the sensations and feelings of distant evil magics, or who otherwise have any excuse to show up can get here without too much more trouble than an awful snow-hike!
Ryu     Ryu appears. It's not stealthy or subtle. Snow is blasted aside, a traceable path in the air denoting the path he took to the emergency in progress; the perceptive will note it starts on the rooftop of a nearby building, as if he had been standing up there watching for an opportunity to intervene. But he moved so fast that it was like he just blinked into existence near his target, and the gust of wind would carry a swirl of snow and freezing temperatures with it, blustering the inside of the garage in chilly air from outside. He has slid to a stop, grooves dug into concrete floors with his claws, and his hand is already going out to grab one of the men by the front of his outfit, and twist to get a nice makeshift clothen handhold.

    Then he swings his body about and tries to throw the goon into a group of his buddies, and disrupt their attempts at destroying the evidence. He only has the advantage of surprise for a moment, and he's clearly trying to maximize on that. He is neither gentle or kind about this throw, which could easily kill one or more of the goons on accident.
Doctor Strange      The Sorcerer Supreme does indeed know the sensations and feelings of distant evil magics. He also keeps up with Twitter.

Dr. Stephen Strange@MagicHandsMD - 5m
Brb.

     He appears on the scene stepping through a hole in reality, the Cloak of Levitation billowing out behind him. Spider-Man goes flying past after being struck by... who's this guy? Outdated suit, headbutting attacks. "The Bull of Wall-Street," mutters Strange under his breath. Yeah, that'd be a good name for this guy. New York is -packed- with supers these days even if you leave out the Multiverse factor. Rather than help Spidey right away, Strange places his focus on the trucks instead.

     The Sorcerer Supreme clenches his fists and gives both a firm shake. Circles of burning orange energy form before them, each composed of complex glyphs and calculations slowly circling in opposite directions. The speed of rotation increases, and the sorcerer picks up speed in the air. Making a bombing run over the trucks, he blasts the ground with two cones of freezing cold, aiming to cement the vehicles to the ground with thick, glacial ice.
Ritsuka Fujimaru      Since her last foray into New York City, Jeanne has been keeping a... Relatively low profile? Not really, but she hasn't stirred up any trouble in New York specifically! Exploring the city up close in her civilian clothes has actually been a source of mild amusement for the Avenger, especially in scoping out potential targets for future appearances.

     Today, however, she's treated to a different form of amusement: Seeing lightning blasting upwards. Suspecting some sort of mage, Jeanne heads that way to see what's what. Once she reaches that location, of course, a familiar mask shows up via being hurled through a door.

     If it had looked like a regular fight between two people, she'd probably just kick back and watch. With those henchmen interfering by firing at Spider-Man, however, Jeanne is not so willing to just observe. "You're in the way, wretches!" As her temper flares, a burst of dark magic surrounds Jeanne as her armor materializes onto her along with her flag, her sword, and several more swords floating overhead which are summarily launched at the magic-slinging henchmen.
Thomas Alva Edison     Moments ago, "Sir, we're getting warnings from Spider man.."
    "Spiderman? Oh right, the boy from the other New York. He seems like a good kid, right?"
    "Sir, about wha h-"
    "A bit too young to be fighting crime, if you ask me, but justice can't be stopped!"
    "Sir if you..."
    "I wonder if he is going for a college schollarship!"
    "Sir..."

    In a reasonable amount of time, but also slightly delayed because that poor aid was interupted at least six more times. "Honestly, the way that aid interupted me when I was in the middle of that speech," he says over the radio towards anyone that would listen. "Oh huh, that looked like it hurt." he says. Thomas turns towards his Secret Service robots. March forward and try and drawn their attention. Weapons to stun, try and capture. I'll wait here, radio me once they are paying attention, so I can make a entrance." he says, before turning to notice that light.

    "Hm...maybe it is a good thing I showed up today."

    A few moments later, the Secret Service Robots turn a corner, their gun hands firing a barrage of rubber bullets, each one aimed for the punks trying to either aid in beating up spidey, or load trucks. Once this happens, Thomas, with a blast of electrical power zaps to the ground infront of his robots.

    "CRIMINAL SCUM! I, THOMAS ALVA EDISON, PRESIKING OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE COME TO ASSIST IN THAT YOUNG MAN WORKING ON HIS CRIME FIGHTING THESIS!" He booms, pointing right at the men. "If you do not surrender, and come quietly into custody...much more than my words and my appearance will leave you...shocked!"
Nova Terra     Why hike, when you can FLY!?

    Nova lands atop a nearby rooftop as her invisible starship rises away from the city once more. Best not to draw too much attention with overwhelming force. Nova walks up to the edge of the rooftop, reaching up to lower her visor down over her eyes. She zooms in on the scene playing out below just in time to see Spider-Man thrown out of a building and then headbutted into another. Nova winces in sympathy, but then turns her attention to those pulling the caper.

    Nova reaches back to retrieve her Canister Rifle, but then pauses at the radio banter. Right, the locals here are a little touchy on killing. Tch. Well, Nova admits these guys don't seem TOO dangerous. As long as it doesn't get out of hand, she's willing to humour them.

    Leaving her weapons in their place, Nova calmly jumps off the edge of the roof. She plummets to the ground, before landing at street level and starting to calmly approach the scene of the crime. As she does so, the snow covering the ground around her begins to rise up, collecting together into several balls, packed fairly tightly. Moments later they begin to fling themselves at the faces of some of the mooks, Nova just smiling along in amusement.
Thor Thor was, actually, nearby. He was eating a sandwich he bought at a food cart, pursuing a dead-end lead on the scepter, when he saw the energy and heard the calls over radio. With Mjolnir at his side, Thor lifts it despite wearing a winter coat, spins it around, and flies up and into the air. It's weird to watch, because until a few seconds ago, Mjolnir was an umbrella. Soaring through the air with the hammer, the God of Thunder lands in a crouch, standing up proud. Besides the hammer in his hand, Thor looks normal.

Until he raises Mjolnir, and a bolt of lightning suddenly lances down from the sky, slamming into the hammer. This has two purposes. One, it's intimidating as hell. Two...armor begins to form around Thor, metallic with a red cape, the medium-length blonde with rippling muscles taking his fiercest stance. Hopefully, this will convince a few of the thugs to stand down, and if not...

Well, if Thor handles their boss, they'll have to see reason. The god casually starts to move over towards the mobster with the hard head, moving to try and rapidly swing the hammer into his chest, not hard enough to kill him, but enough to throw him back if he's a regular guy.

He's probably not a regular guy.

"You've got a pretty hard head, criminal. Is it all skull in there?"
Tony Stark NEARLY A WEEK AGO:

Tony Stark had, in a moment of boyish whimsy, had wished for a white Christmas. It wasn't a wish he wanted often, but in the tower penthouse, he had sipped a hot toddie (it's whiskey and honey and lemon juice and some boiling water) with a long stick of cinnamon in his big mug.

"Huh. White Christmas would be nice." Sssssip.

TODAY

More of the same, snow falling. Too much snow falling.

"Sir, to update you: Building upstate has slowed to a crawl due to weather activity and icing."
"It's upstate New York, that's practically Maine, how can we not deal with snow? Have I not invented something to fix this?"
"Yes, sir, you have, but the logistics are proving problematic, and SHIELD is..."
"Bloated, bureaucratic, governmentally useless?"
"That."
"Update from SHIELD - you're gonna want to see this."
"Business or casual?"
"Business."

Moments later, Iron Man lands with a heavy metallic crunch of boots-on-snow and ice as Spider-Man peels himself out of his sprawl. "Hey, Spider-Man. You warm enough in that?"
"Boss, I'm picking up a harmonic reaction."
"Yeah, figure it out."

Bringing up his gauntleted hands to his face as the headplate opens, Tony Stark shouts into the crowd. "HEY! This is an Avengers problem now, so if you could all not make this a thing, we're doing a New Years special - drop it and get out of here, and you won't go to Jail, or Rikers! Or the ICU, then Jail or Rikers!"
Spider-Man     Ryu goes right for the evidence. What's going on in here? Well, much of the place is on fire, including some of the stacks of papers and a big important-looking map. He does keep them from starting more, but mostly by slamming them off their feet and out of their fire-chanting. "Shit!" One shouts. "Where is he?!" "I couldn't see him!" "Who the hell--" "I don't know! Just burn everything! Hold him outta the door!" They're all calling out in disorganized, distinctly un-magely behaviors. But when they pull back into the garage area, and start blasting the only opening (the hole in the garage) with fire to hold him back, it's a solid limit; Ryu will need to find another entrance, or fight through the fire. He can get surprise on some of the other criminals, but if he does, someone else will need to get that evidence!
Spider-Man     Freezing the trucks to the ground provokes a fascinating response. Whoever these criminals are, they're terribly magical, and magically terrible. One turns his fancy enchanted pistol up on Strange, and opens fire with bolts of lightning, which is the magical equivalent of trying to operate a computer with boxing gloves. Another gets to work on trying to wrench the trucks free, which he does through clumsy manipulations of esoteric geometries and less esoteric low-fire. They're freeing some of those trucks, but others remain too firmly rooted. Maybe he can fully deal with this if he can get the slightly-more-creative sorts dealt with, so they can't undo the trucks!

    As he calls on ice magic, something very unusual happens. Some sort of complex quantum effect has interacted with his cold magic, enhancing it passively. It's not clear what happened, but it has nothing to do with these magical criminals.
Ryu     Ryu decides to ignore the fire.

    Yes, he can do that. Using his absurd ability to regenerate damage, he simply dashes through the flames and into the room where they're trying to burn things. They would see his silhouette in the flames as he simply powers through. Once he's in, he moves with his supernatural speed, /while still on fire/, and just beats them upside the head and other parts to get them out of his way in his path to what he needs to do. He dashes in quick bursts, suffocating the fire off of his body to prevent any major damage, and the scarring and scorching on his body visibly heals while he moves.

    He then pauses, aiming a steaming claw at a stockpile of evidence that smolders in plain view, with goons around it. "Blizzard," he announces, and snaps his fingers. The effect is not gentle. Spikes and sheets of ice slam forward, filling the room with cold air and glittering motes of blue light as he casts a burst of ice magic to try and smother the fire. Water and ice damage is easier to deal with than fire damage. Fire destroys utterly.
Spider-Man     "W-woah! Hey! You're, um-- You're Ms. Jeanne! Thanks!" Spider-Man calls out, between being bounced off of one building and into another. He leaps and dives fast, trying to pull out to a distance where he can use his webs. "I think!" He's a bit confused, but he's quick to act on the opportunity, finally getting one solid kick in on the man he's fighting, managing to slam him against the opposite building. "GhhhhhhYEAH!"

    "Woah! Woah!! It's the magic fire lady!" One of the criminals calls out, apparently recognizing her from her previous attack in New York. "Shit! She must've been working for Gargan or something!" Another calls out before getting into cover. "Fuck her up! Send her back to that crazy asshole in a fucking popsicle coffin!" They try to push her back with Cones of Cold, fired wildly, and even moren wildly when one of them accidentally over-fires and blasts half the street with a three-foot-thick sheet of ice. "AAAAUGH WHAT THE FUCK!?" One of them is screaming.
Spider-Man     Thankfully, PRESIKING EDISON is here to slam the one over-firing his cone of cold square in the chest with a rubber bullet, taking him down hard through secret service robots. And shortly after, efforts to stop the truckloaders work out well, because telekinesis takes focus and focus is hard to have when being both stormed and speechified. "Shit! Shit shit shit, it's the feds!" One of the truck-drivers cries out, stunned by the electricity, and goes into a panic. He tries to floor it in a blind panic, disoriented by electricity, snow, and other strange effects, accidentally goes barreling right for the Presiking straight into his swarm of Secret Servicetrons; unless they can stop a car, it's likely he'll have to deal with the oncoming steel himself!
Reyes     Big messes like this that involve SHIELD means Paladin support isn't too unlikely.

    And so a new weirdness is flying in above the New York skylines. A human figure garbed entirely in hard-plated but flexible body armor from head to toe, with a fully covering helmet and faceplate. Strange glyphs have been carved into the armor all over, all glowing a faint blue.

    And yes. it was mentiond that this person is flying.

    "WHOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOO yeah!!!" All thanks to what looks like a JET PACK strapped to his back - one that's shooting out a plume of sparkling blue 'plasma' and sprouting thin, skeletal wings of bare metal filled with a hexagonal latticework of more glowing blue energies.

    Down swoops Reyes, cutting a little thrust and angling down to let gravity do the work instead. The Techno-Wizard makes a clean landing in an alley. He leans out to have a look towards the garage, clutching what looks to be a simple six-shooter from the ol' wild west!

    It's covered in the funky glyphs and runes too. But they're not glowing yet.

    "Oh man... first time I get to see a city that wasn't reduced to wreckage and it's-- ngh. No whining. Gotta help the allies..."
Spider-Man     Snow slams into faces. Faces slam into ground. Nova manages to disorient many of them, shutting down loading up more materials into the trucks through disrupting focus even further; together with Edison, that particular preventable crime is prevented, for now. She's got several of them stunned, and doing so manages to keep Doctor Strange particularly covered when it comes to helping him get enough time and convenience to keep the trucks in place! Sadly, as the leader clambers to his feet after being kicked hard into the side of a building, he calls her out, shouting, "They playin' games with us?! Fill 'er with lead, boys!" He tosses an enchanted chicago typewriter to a lackey, who opens fire on her, before moving on to further upcoming business with Thor.

    The snow feels just slightly wrong in Nova's psychokinetic grasp. It moves too easily, works too conveniently, it's More Snow in some way that's hard to define on a subatomic level. It's /really/ goddamn cold; she might manage to feel a chill in her mind just thinking her grasp on it, but it's a boost to her efforts, not a debuff.
Doctor Strange      "Ah!" It's a genuine, human noise of surprise. He really wasn't expecting the gun to be enchanted. Being surprised in such a way rather annoys Strange, who narrows his eyes. The wound looks worse than it is, a grazing blow across his hip suffered as he made his bombing run.

     He is also somewhat annoyed that Jeanne is here, but he sees no reason why he can't let set these two problems towards one another. "Yeah, bye." Two portals open--one right in front of him, and another in the air above the spot where Jeanne does battle with those she's referred to as 'interlopers.' With a wave of his hand, the one in front of him, a circular portrait of the ground outside, flies forward. Guided by his hand, it flies through the air, chasing down the more creatively minded criminal elements. Any which it is able to overtake are dumped out of the portal above Jeanne.

     With his other hand, Strange fires another cone of cold, attempting to simply wall off the vehicles from any further... well, interlopers.
Spider-Man     Thor goes for the charging mobster before he can get to Spider-Man and start the boy hero's beating anew. "You wanna dance, Shakespeare?! You think you're the only man with a hammer here?" The gangster fits himself with a pair of knuckle dusters as he approaches Thor, and then when the hammer comes down, he leans forward and... into it. He rushes to keep his forehead between his body and the hammer, and when it impacts, there's a "CLONG" that actually manages to /bounce/ the hammer back slightly, as well as the man's forehead. It leaves him reeling slightly, badly bruised, but still somehow quite functional, and having driven back a hammer that shouldn't be driven back. The shockwave of the impact cleared snow for several feet around "Never made my bones killin' a god before. Let's make the hit, Shakespeare." Somehow he's managed to stay standing, and then surge forward and start trying to break Thor's jaw with repeated boxing-style strikes, surging with unexpected peak-human speed and strength.
Thomas Alva Edison     A truck peels out, Edison, narrowing his eyes, as the very expressive lion head can be almost shaking his head in disappointment. DC power flows through his arms, before a burst of it shoots out towards the racing vehilcle. The attempt is to overload it's electronics and get it to start freezing up, before the lion-king digs his heels in.

    The truck, which should hopefully be more drifting than speeding at this point, would crash into the Presiking. The two collide, as Edison, is pushed back, but at the same time pushing forward. His body is physically tough, and his strength is superhuman...slowly, he would start lifting the truck up...

    And then backwards, aiming to SUPLEX it behind him, upside down.

    "Son, you have decided to make poor life choices in reguards to this whole magic shindig buisness you got going on."
Ritsuka Fujimaru "Miss...?" She doesn't look /that/ old, does she? Pushing that distraction out of her mind, Jeanne narrows her eyes at the gangsters once more as she draws her sword fully. "Why are you getting yourself involved in this, child?" Sadly, she's pretty sure she knows the answer already, but hearing it directly might...

... Actually, she's not sure what she's looking for in an answer. "You should be doing things at school or at home. Not the police's job!" Despite the duel not really being a duel any more, she still sounds quite irritated, and that irritation builds all the more when the henchmen start yelling at and around her. "Gargan? Tell me who that is, or I'll send you to them myself!"

Raising her flag in front of her, the Avenger conjures up a flame pillar to shield her from the ice magic blasting towards her. She holds her sword near the flames to keep it and herself from freezing over, then smirks broadly when Doctor Strange delivers some more of those criminals right to her.

"A gift? You shouldn't have, good Caster. Remind me to return the favor some day." Several more of the Dragon Witch's spears float above each of them, threatening to skewer each of them and drawing ever closer until she just starts stomping on their faces instead. Stomps with armored heels, no less!

The spears are reserved for the ones blasting ice magic at her. The spears spiral around each other before firing forward one after the other, not aimed at any body parts in particular or even all that well. They're more to cover her approach as Jeanne charges into the garage, a crazed smile on her face as she aims to start stabbing and slashing into these criminals personally. "Well?! You said you would send me there in a coffin, so don't disappoint me!"
Spider-Man     "Hey! Wow, hey Mister Stark. Is it really that bad here? I have this under control actually!" Spider-Man says, urgently, in that usual people-pleasing tone he has with Tony. He actually looks nervous enough about it that he checks his jackey. It's from Goodwill, marked much like his usual hoodie is. His snow-boots are worn and a bit thin. But he seems to be going strong, surging back into battle with the many gangsters.

    "Fuck off, rich boy, we'll goddamn drop /you/ and get out of here!" One of the criminals shouts. "Mark! Get the gear on!!" One of them has a backpack full of wireless jamming equipment, and it starts blasting over the airwaves hard. It won't scramble highly dedicated voice communications, of course, but it's an intense effort to interfere with Tony's suit's more complex communications. And normally it wouldn't work, since it's just mostly civilian-grade equipment. But something about the weather is already making the signal a little wonky, so there's a chance it might make it. Hopefully enough that he has a hard time noticing the effort to telekinetically lift a car over him and crush him before it happens.
Spider-Man     Ryu feels it too. There's something in the cold. Something in the ice. The air hums with it, gently; it offers a chill in every moment and motion.

    The fire is smothered fast, unnaturally so. The efforts of the various goons are nullified, but the goons themselves? Less so. Spider-Man swings into the hole, kicking one already, and engaging another in a fast-paced violent fistfight, trying urgently to avoid his foe's electrified fists. One of the criminals gets the bright idea of trying to lift Ryu telekinetically, to keep him from having his feet on the ground and deny him his speed, while another just pulls another (bafflingly enchanted) gun from his waistband, readies it to fire, and tries to empty the clip straight into the dragon. "FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU LIZARD!" He shouts, equal parts criminal aggression and half-panic. For now, the evidence is preserved. They just need to stop the criminals from starting any more fires!
Nova Terra     Nova doesn't immediately recognise anything unusual about the snow as she bends it to her will. Mainly because she doesn't play with snow like that much. Although the strange feeling does cause her to shiver just a little... Because it's strange. Or cold. Take your pick.

    Nova stops her snowball flinging as the criminal leader calls her out. Language has certainly developed in Terran society since they were exiled from Earth, as has weapons technology. So an old saying like 'fill her with lead' goes over Nova's head. The clearly obvious machine gun does not.

    Reaching out with a hand, the sound of metal tearing apart screeches into peoples ears as a street-side mailbox is ripped from its legs and flies over in front of Nova. Just in time as the criminal opens fire.

    Nova realises her mistake too late as the weird bolts of light fired by what should be a projectile weapon rip into the mailbox, quickly melting through it before a bolt finally strikes Nova in the side. Nova is only saved from having a hole burned through her by the energy absorption properties of her suit. Still, Nova winces at the pain, stumbling a few moments before looking down at the scorch damage at the impact point.

    Nova looks back up at the one who fired at her, clearly annoyed. She sends the mailbox flying with her mind, careening towards the criminal with more force than was probably called for.

    Nova starts walking forward at a more serious pace, still looking a little annoyed as she tries to find and assist in the securing of the 'magical drugs' at the center of this criminal enterprise.
Ryu     "Hup--! Fuck you too, buddy!"

    Ryu gets hammered by gunfire, his skin smoldering further, muscles twitching painfully. He growls from the agony of it, but the lanky reptile's wings extend and snap once, the strange faerie-like dragon quickly descending upon the one firing his gun with a single foot. He rather purposefully tries to shatter the man's arm with this kick, so that he'll be more distracted by the pain than angry at him. Then he'd point a finger at the one that used TK on him while falling, whether his kick was successful or not, and calmly says, "Volt."

    And fires a splitting bolt of lightning that has the concussive force of a shotgun. The bullet wounds and burns gradually heal, but his healing is starting to slow down. There's a lot to deal with here for one dragon.
Thor The hammer impacts, but not with the mobster's chest. It slams onto his head, and instead of knocking him out or killing him like it should, it /bounces off/, creating a shockwave, yanking Thor's arm back in surprise and bruising the mobster. In Thor's surprise, the mobster gets several hits in on the Asgardian, blows cracking into his jaw. Unfortunately for him...

Thor is far, far sturdier than a normal human being. The blows definitely hurt, and send Thor reeling back, but Hammerhead can't seem to clearly break the jaw. Thor takes a step back, bruised and beaten, and then steels himself, straightening his jaw out with his strength. "A head stronger than a bilgesnipe...looks like I won't have to hold back." Mjolnir crackles with lightning, as Thor rushes back in on the hammerheaded man. The hammer goes down again, this time with electrical energies surging around it, with powerful force behind the swing. The swing moves with superhuman reflexes to hit the man in the jaw.

Though it's fast, the mobster is also fast, so he may be able to take it with his more reinforced parts of his head, if his jaw isn't. But Thor sort of accounted on that by empowering it, so hopefully, it'll still disorient him.
Spider-Man     There's a man in the alley Reyes just landed in, and it'll likely be just a few seconds before Reyes realizes it. He's definitely not looking legitimate in his presence in the alleyway, considering how many people have been cleared out of here. Sporting what looks like sickly yellowish-green gang colors on his winter wear, he immediately locks onto what Reyes is doing, drawing a (mundane, but modern) pistol and stepping out of the shadows of the alleyway, trying to interrogate Reyes at gunpoint. "Allies? The Big Man's got more coming in to help this clear-out? How many more bodies is he gonna be putting in the ground here? Where are they comin' from?" He seems to think Reyes is a member of the gang that's causing this terror! But he also seems to know about the gang too, and doesn't seem to be allied with them in any way.

    Something in his voice speaks of intentions that aren't criminal; he seems to flinch each time there's the sound of gunfire, and his questions seem focused on de-escalation. But maybe that's wrong?
Spider-Man     With Nova Terra and Thomas Alva Edison having thoroughly disoriented, distracted, and otherwise impeded much of the loaders and drivers, Doctor Strange doesn't have too much trouble conveying them directly to Jeanne Alter, adding them to the backup that the boss had against Spider-Man and condensing the combat a little bit, keeping them away from their vehicles. Now that he's had time and has a little space for focus, it's very likely that he'll be able to identify the crates as definitely, definitely full of illegal magic just like that homeless man had, just by the runes and glyphs that have been inscribed on them for convenient and safe containment. Strange can probably see some of the drivers remain in their cars though, those with no magic of their own. Some are in various states of figuring out a way to flee on foot, others might attack him depending on what he focuses on next, but none of them will be getting the crates out anytime soon; it may be worth it just to focus on another problem, since they can't do much.
Doctor Strange      The portal near Jeanne flips on its side to reveal Strange's deadpan expression. "Don't mention it," he says. The portal closes.

     With the trucks taken care of, Strange takes a quick mental inventory of what else is going on. The drivers won't be much of a threat now. Ryu had asked for help, so that's what he does next. A burning ring of energy appears in the ceiling of the garage. Strange steps through it, and simply... stands. On the ceiling. He begins weaving a new spell, a three dimensional confluence of many circular mandalas, coalescing into a brightly burning sphere.

     With an open palmed strike, it explodes into a swarm of glowing white motes that fly over to Ryu and begin mending his wounds, aiding the dragon's healing factor.

     While this goes on, Strange moves the portal in front of Ryu, redirecting some of the incoming fire into the outside wall.
Reyes     Reyes whirls about to face the man accosting him and leans back slightly, but doesn't go on the offensive... nor does he raise his weapon. Garbed in this heavy body armor, covered in glowing runes that enhance its defense even further, he apparently doesn't fear such a pea shooter.

    Thankfully wearing this FULL SUIT OF ARMOR means that nobody has to see the way he's gaping, sweating, or almost panicking for a brief few seconds. He can safely maintain the appearance of an imposing armored... well, whatever he is.

    A few moments pass as he PROCESSES what was just spoken to him. The visored helmet tilts down slightly to level with the man who accosted him...

    A hundred interpretations run through his head.

    Then an idea strikes. "Hoh... nice. This outfit's really that convincing? Now that's something to be proud of. I'll have this gang fooled in no time." Neither really answering any of those questions or not, he lets slip that he's planning on INFILTRATING the gang for some purpose! Maybe to undo them from the inside.

    "A bit late for that plan at this site though, looks like. Cavalry got here too early."
Spider-Man     The car's engine goes out. A battery inside it detonates violently, butchering the engine magically. A gush of metal surges out the bottom of the hood, leaving the car skidding forward already, before it's stopped and suplexed violently. The driver sprawls out of the driver's seat after that, with portions of his seatbelt still wrapped around him. "Nnnneed your insurance informationnnn." He mutters in a disoriented way before passing out, a limp hand somewhere around a gun at his waistband.

    The crates in the back of his truck are shattered by the impact. Thick plastic and metal containers of esoteric magical fluid are scattered, but don't leak. They were packaged tightly and padded heavily in the way ultra-valuable drugs might. Every impulse of any observer screams that these crates are hideously illegal and highly valuable materials for black-market, back-alley, or shady-street-corner distribution. Luckily, Edison has exactly the sort of people on-hand who should be good at confiscating the lot of it, both in that truck and in the others!
Tony Stark 'Fuck you, rich guy!' is the response Tony Stark gets for being a reasonable, easygoing adult with moderate to severe chest pain and a headache and the reasonable expectation that when a man with incredibly armed power suit shows up and goes 'hey maybe just leave', some people will.

Nope. Nope! He gets insulted instead. "SHIELD didn't think so - you're big time today, Spider-Man." Tony replies despite the jeers 'from the crowd'.

His faceplate drops back down as the goonies take attack stances - with cars. "Ok. Sure. Let's go with the hard way."

"I've almost pinned down that harmonic frequency, but the interference--"
"Interference? What interference?"
Friday breaks up a bit. "It'zzzz-fering with zzz remote connection!"

"The hell is with this weather?" Tony complains. With his AI support disrupted, Iron man becomes more visibly anxious, though Spider-Man is already swinging off to continue fighting goons in - as Stark's readout reveals - goodwill parkas and a hoodie.

Well, even during all of this, Iron Man still has all his suit functions, even if there's no assistant AI on board. So, he aims to rise up above everything and get a good eye on things, and rain down dettering fire to solve this whole situation.

The car to the face changes that, smashing into the just-flying Iron Man and flattening him under the bulk of the car. Pressure alarms whine, and with a hydraulic whirr, Tony lifts aside the car with effort, sliding out from under the crumpled vehicle with a man-shaped depression on the front crumple zones.

"Where are you, jamming source -- Gotcha."

Zooming in through the garage, Tony aims a flying metal fist at the guy who had been carrying the tech backpack, suppressing anyone else with quick blasts.

"Heads up, I think Doctor Strange is right - they're using the storm to mess with my sensors via some sort of backpacks. I don't have a good tactical map, and am currently flying solo. The whole thing reeks of engineering."
Spider-Man     Spider-Man tumbles out the side of the garage again, currently having a tense fistfight with an angry man casting LIGHTNING BOLT LIGHTNING BOLT LIGHTNING BOLT as rapidly as he can. "Why-- Because I gotta, lady! These guys are hurting people who're really vulnerable, I have to stop them if I /can/ stop them! Just because it's someone else's job doesn't mean I shouldn't try to help-- OOOF!" He takes a punch square on the chest and crashes back into the garage, but leaves a bit of webbing on the man so that he's yanked with him the moment he turns to try to fire lightning at Jeanne.

    Meanwhile, some of these criminals are being violently stabbed and dismembered. Most of the ones she's dealing with are now violently magical, since Strange managed to use this as a chance to consolidate his problems. Which means several icey folks are now impaled on spears, but their bursts of magic can still not pierce the firewall -- though, for reasons yet mysteriously unknown, the weird chill gives them a little more impact than they usually would have at their hedge-mage level.

    One of them, stomped badly in the face, cries out, "Gargan! Mac Gargan, he's the one who's been after us! Him and his /fucking/ Scorpios trying to kill us--!" It looks like she's managed to identify an opposition party, some other gang that has been at war with whoever is running this awful magic-dealing operation. Sadly, they don't seem to have been successful enough to break this particular site.
Spider-Man     The hammer-headed criminal is on a lot of people's shit-lists. He angles his head dramatically, taking the force of the strike head-on. The flesh blisters and bruises, and the man roars with pain, but the revealed bone beneath gleams a shiny, smooth silver. He stumbles and staggers in the crater left by the impact, wobbling badly. "Sh-shit..." He mutters, trying to clear his head. Unfortunately, that's around the time that the mailbox slams into his decided less metal-reinforced body and crushes him back, slamming him about twenty feet back and into the side of a building.

    "I'm not gettin' pinched by no Avengers. The Big Man's gonna have your hammer for this, Shakespeare, mark my words." He looks like he's going to try to make a break for it, instead of attack. Drawing another of those enchanted revolvers, he tries to put six magical rounds directly into Thor's body and then book it into a side-alleyway. Now's a question of whether the local boss is worth chasing, and who might be best to chase!
Thomas Alva Edison     Thomas looks down a the man, disoriented and sprawled out. He moves over, to collect the gun, and check him for any other weapons, as his robot guys start checking out the vehicle and securing it. He hands the man off to one of the robots. "Get him somewhere out of this. Criminal, sure, but he doesn't deserve to freeze to death. Cuff him until the authorities can get here." he says, calmly, and starts trying to figure out what he has here in these crates. He will take a sample for proper analysis later. Slowly, rising, he checks the car over, trying to see if there was anything else. Inventory, instructions...a map? Does the guy have a phone with a google map location keyed in?

    He also gets ready for his other idea, which involves Tony.
Spider-Man     Nova's efforts seem to be rewarded. The man is in the middle of a duel with Thor when she crunches him into the side of one of the buildings, which seems to have driven him off. If she wants to pursue, now's her chance, and if she wants to hold back and secure the crucial materials, now's also her chance. Edison's people are at work on securing some of the scattered goods, but who knows what might disappear if the trucks aren't handled? After all, Strange has broken off, and there's a few drivers there left behind. But if she does stick to securing the evidence, she can quickly and easily get there, and those drivers are non-magical and easy enough to disable; she won't have any problems with whatever method she chooses to ensure the crates remain where they are properly.
Thor Silver bones? That's a little new for Thor, even if he's met men made out of rocks. As the man is smashed into the building, Thor moves to pursue, but a gun is drawn and fired six shots into him. Magical shots. They slam into Thor's armor, each one starting to push through it, until the last three break and impact with Thor's stomach, eventually putting a hole in it and drawing blood, causing Thor to choke up in pain. Thor is suitably slowed long enough for the man to book down the alley...but Thor's going to try and pursue anyways, because he's now frustrated.

Thor doesn't do it by flying, though, as he starts dashing towards the alley, jumping up and over trash cans and the such to try and get towards the hammerheaded man. Spinning Mjolnir in his hand, if he gets a clear line of sight, he'll try to angle and boomerang it to fly into the mobster's legs and trip him up. "Think again. Is your Big Man large enough for Thor, God of Thunder?" Thor one-liners, trying to intimidate.

Also the bullets still really hurt, and he'll definitely need someone to help him with that afterwards, it seems.
Nova Terra     Nova watches with satisfaction as the mailbox manages to knock some sense into the hard-headed criminal. Sticking around against this kind of force is stupid. He begins to flee, but Nova doesn't give chase. No doubt someone else will catch up to him. Nova's more interested in keeping the illegal goods from getting away.

    To that end, Nova walks out in front of the trucks still trying to break free. She stops and turns to face them and their drivers within. Nova can sense that they can't provide any real opposition against her. But that's not going to stop Nova from ensuring that they dont.

    Nova smirks at the drivers, before closing her eyes to concentrate and reaching out with both hands.

    The trucks begin to shake and rumble, yet more sounds of metal tearing free. Soon enough, the engine blocks of the trucks forcefully bust out of their housings. They rise up into the air just in front of the former homes, at which point Nova clenches her fists.

    The engine blocks are crushed under the telekinetic force, compressed into chunks of metal no bigger than basketballs.

    Nova visibly relaxes, letting the chunks of former-engines fall down to crash into the street with rather loud thuds. Nova opens her eyes once more and stares at the drivers with a look that says: 'Just try it.'
Doctor Strange      Strange extends an arm towards the portal. He makes a motion like turning an invisible dial, and the image within shifts from the snowy streets to the inside of some sort of mansion. He sends it flying, away from Ryu, and towards the evidence the dragon managed to preserve. It scoops up whatever's intact, depositing it into his Sanctum Sanctorum.

     The sorcerer closes the portal. "I'm gonna see if it's just you," says Strange over the radio, in reference to the jamming equipment. These guys clearly have more complex magic than one would expect, but can they jam his scrying spells? Still standing on the ceiling, a Strange from the future casts his vision outwards, looking for more would-be jamners. If he's able to find any, he's quick to attempt interception, raising pillars of the landscape in an effort to simply pierce through the backpacks and snatch them away...

     IF he can see them through the blizzard.
Spider-Man     Meanwhile, inside the garage, Strange dives into the battle with Ryu. Many of the enchanted bullets are redirected, and much of the wounding can be healed, leaving Ryu fully capable of lashing into the gunman's arm and kicking him hard enough to send him flying through a window inside the garage, before Volting his telekinetic assailant. For the most part, the inner criminals there are dealt with! Ryu will notice from the screaming that most of the dead guys are out there, so he'll surely be on his way to get people revived shortly, cast through the portals.

    That leaves Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and a few others shortly ready to go into the investigation. Doctor Strange dives fast into scrying, which isn't a bad approach here. There's backpacks throughout the garage, and a few stashed in small businesses that are likely criminal fronts around here. Most aren't in use. There's enough that it's presumably something somewhat common to deal with something, but Stark usually doesn't fight street crime and the backpacks wouldn't work on his advanced suite without the weather, so what are these /for/? Knockoff Iron Men?

    It's a bit hard to scry. It's not magical warding. It's just... The storm is so damn thick. It's not even gusting that hard and it's still just a really bad winter. It's thick on an atomic level, not a magical one.
Ritsuka Fujimaru 'People who're really vulnerable.' Jeanne doesn't have an indignant response to that, or any response to Spider-Man for that matter. It's a familiar motivation, one that's not foreign to Jeanne even now. And if he's still fighting so desparately for it at this early age...

She'll save her anger for the authorities in this city for later. For now, she directs her anger at the one that shot lightning at her and is occupied with Spider-Man, staggering briefly as the lightning impacts against her gauntlet and sends a jolt through her. Hissing through her teeth, Jeanne yanks her sword out of a different unlucky henchman before hurling it at this one in particular, aiming right for his legs.

At least she's not aiming for his head.

Jeanne spares a quick glance towards the henchman that's actually given her some information, rolling her shoulder once and shivering as that chill pierces through even her flames. "There. Was that so hard? Keep that up, and you may live through the night. The rest of you may not be so lucky if you don't surrender while I'm still feeling generous!" She calls out to those in the garage that might still be conscious in the garage, putting on her usual psychotic smirk for good measure.
Spider-Man     The one threatening Reyes looks uncertain. He pulls up his hood, revealing a mess of dreadlocks and a surprisingly kind face. "You don't wanna get near Tombstone's crew even with a good disguise, man. Not infiltration, anyway. The Big Man gets /really/ mad about betrayals. Look, okay, if you're not here to help them and if there's not anyone else coming to help them, that's fine. You're not with them, and you've got armor kinda like Iron Man, so, uh, SHIELD, maybe Paladin I'm guessing?" He looks at his gun and sort of sheepishly puts it back in his waistband -- safety on. "Sorry. Tough streets, you know how it is." He checks back, seemingly to make sure there's no other gangfolk around.

    "You guys finally gonna deal with Tomb and Mac?" He says, in a hopeful way. "I really don't want that guy having any good reason to get people running around killing people, even if Tombstone really has to go." He has a palpable worry on his voice and a light nervous fidget just thinking about what sound like two terrifying names, the way he says them.
Spider-Man     The car that crushed Tony is now totalled, but to his credit, a car with a direct impression of Iron Man's body pressed into its hood is actually triple the value of the car itself, as a collector's item.

    Tony manages to take out the tech backpack, slamming the metal fist right into Mark's face and sending him flying, landing on his back with the crunch that teenagers everywhere dread when they put their backpacks down. Oh bye mark! He's dealt with, and soon the signal comes back, though it's still not quite as good as it ought to be with this damn WEATHER. A few people are still firing at him and at Jeanne, but Jeanne is dealing with most, and the cleanup isn't terribly relevant to him.

    Now he can run the analysis. Several targets are available; the evidence in the garage, the illegal substances in the secured trucks, the names and faces of the various criminals, or even the weird criminal's head and resonant shenanigans therein.
Reyes     "Hah... yeah, don't I know it." Reyes is really bad at the fake infiltration thing. Relief is somewhat visible if the way his shoulders sag is any indication. Of course there's CHAOS in the streets so that's not saying much. His visor recedes with a hiss, showing some face. "You've got it right. Paladin Chevalier Reyes. Came to help my friends out there in the streets. I ain't with these thugs. It's just a stupid coincidence they also use magic." Pause. "Correction. Abuse magic." He holsters his own weapon into his belt but he's keeping a glance at the streets in case chaos comes this way. "Any information you've got on these guys could be what we need to take down their operations."
Tony Stark Iron Man generally doesn't deal with street-level crimes, because Tony Stark doesn't live 'on street level'. Perhaps this is why people want to get sassy with him?

Or maybe this is that 'Eat the rich' meme. Tony never understood it - he worked to get where he was!
Tony, being the son of an industry mogul muddies that...

With the crack of the backpack, Iron Man divests Mark of his technological pack with a direct yank - Once he muckles gauntleted hands on the backpack, his suit's auto-analysis features give him a digital cross-section.

"This wouldn't be good enough for me most days of the week... It's the storm. But--"

There's more than one. There's more all around.

Keeping the (slightly smushed) backpack, Stark encourages Mark to 'Stay Down', before flying to join Thomas Edison in the street, with the interference cleared.

"Thomas, I'm updating my hypothesis - This may be something else. Once you can get me through to satellite, I'll get Friday on facial recognition. SHIELD or the feds may have something. I think this actually... Is a 'street level' crime. Check out the backpack." He offers the fellow tech-head the jamming pack. "A bit hodge-podge, but if you're not suppressing Iron Man... What's the next step lower? Copycats? Other criminals? Rhodes isn't around, and this is too much hardware to be a one-off."
Spider-Man     The criminal underboss is dashing as fast as he can, but it can't last long when his competition is Thor. His abilities are at peak human, maybe just an inch or two above, but Thor's a god! It's just not likely that even six bullets would slow him down enough to lose the man. While lesser criminals might escape, today Thor can ensure at least the under-leader is dealt with. While, for obvious reasons, he's not knocked unconscious when he trips and slams his forehead into the ground, he's on the ground and disoriented pretty bad, Thor probably can ensure he's restrained or something like that.

    When Thor gets to him, the man takes a chance to spit in his face. What an asshole! "Worst you Avengers can do is kill me. The Big Man is /always/ worse." He declares defiantly, but defiant is about the best he can do.
Thomas Alva Edison     Thomas, looking back towards Tony nods, "So not a magical storm? Alright..." he says, and with a move of his hand, he uses his TERRITORY CREATION, to craft his worshop in the street...out of snow. The entire work area is now just very complex snow creatures. Working with his tools, and the provided pack, Thomas starts putting together a device that can cut through whatever is blocking Tony's signal, so he can reestablish connection.
Spider-Man     The trucks errupt like volcanos. That settles their issue once and for all. The remaining drivers stare at Nova. One of the busted engine blocks emits a puff of smoke, which seems to be their signal. "SCATTER!" One of them screams. And they all run in different directions! There's about five of them, and honestly it's unlikely any of them will get far on foot, especially with no local jamming. What happens about them is less relevant to what will happen when Nova gets a chance to investigate the captured underboss. Let's move onto what she does with that captured criminal!
Tony Stark "I can pull the atmospheric data afterwards, Thomas - but I was having trouble before I suited up. This cold front is just dense in a way we've never seen before: it's choking logistics across the eastern seaboard even for me."

Edison's DC POWER expands and with the jamming defeated, Friday crackles back into his (and Edison's) ear.

"Boss - Mister President. We're back online. Facial recognition data processing, cross-referencing SHIELD databases and local police records. The storm seems purely atmospheric from satellite, but there are notable quantities of exoenergitical activity all throughout the area that are making it hard to sort. Cross-referencing will take satellite tasking - we'll have a better picture in twenty minutes."
Stark sighs into his helmet. "Twenty minutes? Well, I don't want to lose a suit in this fog. It'll have to do. Sorry for the trouble, mister Presiking."
Thor Thor wipes his face as he approaches the underboss, crouching (which is painful due to his wound) to lift the man up, bound him tightly with his strength, and carry him over towards Nova's position. "Do you have rope?" The Asgardian asks Nova, bounding Hammerhead if she has that or cuffs or something. If more thugs start coming at Nova, he stares them dead on. He's carrying their boss with one arm...

Do they really want to start something with the two of them? Though luckily, they're scattering from Nova, so he doesn't have to worry about that.
Spider-Man     It's actually slightly comical and mostly horrific, what happens when Jeanne impales the man's legs. It goes into one knee and out the other side, then through the opposite knee. There's a tremendous amount of screaming. It's part of the reason why Jeanne is so convincing when she offers a term of surrender. With Ryu handling the corpses, at least, now Jeanne has put the fear of god into these people. Or wait, was it the other way around? Well, whatever the case may be, a lot of fear of /something/ got stabbed into them. Police and other forces are approaching, but... are keeping some distance from her. There's tacticians trying to figure out how they should approach, though they're inexorably heading towards the conclusion of maybe waiting to arrest her for a bit.
Spider-Man     FACIAL RECOGNITION SCANS of these crimelads now reveal important information. These people are all current, past, or suspected members of one or more Maggia families, a type of post-Iron-Man pan-national organized crime group. Most of them are part of the Tombstone Family, one of the east-coast cells of the Maggias. Tony actually has some information that SHIELD or the FBI don't have, because of Stark Industries having previously sold some fairly advanced weapons to Maggia interests over the years a long time ago, before Stark pivoted the company.

    There is no form of record about them ever being magical. Many of these criminals have prior convictions or active arrest warrants for much more mundane crimes, crimes they wouldn't have done if they had access to magic-drugs. Hmm.
Nova Terra     Nova doesn't see much point in chasing after the drivers. They're only minor pawns in this affair. And she expects they'll be tracked down by the regular authorities and dealt with.

    As Thor comes over, carrying the underboss in one hand, Nova gives him a smile, "Don't think we've officially met. Nova Terra. Nice to meet you. Impressive work, by the way." At the question of rope, Nova shakes her head, but then glances around before focusing on one of the disabled trucks. Some metal piping rips out from what's left of the engine, flying towards the three before twisting and wrapping around the boss's hands and legs, "That should hold for a while."

    Nova then turns her attention to the underboss, giving him a smirk, "Try to resist all you like." She reaches a hand out to press against the side of his head, "It won't help."

    Nova dives into the underboss's mind, starting to dig around for any information relevant to this crime. People, places, plans. She also specifically searches for anything he might know about this unnatural storm, or the backpacks she's heard the others talking about. He can try to hide it, but you'd be hard pressed to find a telepath much stronger than the best the Terran Dominion has to offer.
Doctor Strange      It takes a fair bit of concentration to look through the storm. Thick as pea soup, so thick you could cut it with a knife, and so on. He eventually gives up on finding any goons outside, and starts peering into local buildings. What he finds, he uses to his advantage. With most of the backpacks not actually in use, Strange simply snags one. A portal in a nearby laundromat simply opens beneath one, falling from the ceiling of the garage into the sorcerer's waiting hand.

     He drops from the ceiling, as if he'd nicely told gravity 'ok, thanks for the lift.' Strange turns nimbly in the air to land on his feet. He tosses the backpack to the Strange of the present, just as that Strange finishes squirreling away the evidence. Future Strange then disappears, leaving just the one.

     That Strange listens in on his earpiece. Tony's asking him to do something about the drugs. "On it," he replies with a nod. He teleports outside to find that Nova has made quick work of the trucks themselves. Strange surveys the work, giving it an impressed frown, and Nova a trembling thumbs-up.

     As before, the Sorcerer Supreme simply creates a portal to the Sanctum, then begins sweeping it over the contraband, storing it away for perusal later.
Ritsuka Fujimaru     That settles that, then. Jeanne looks around to give the garage a once over, smirking in satisfaction when the henchmen seem unwilling to push their luck further. Spotting the police, she scowls slightly before stepping out of the garage, picking up her swords and spears to disperse them into the ther as she passes.

     "It's about time you showed up. Do your jobs!" She spits out disdainfully while keeping that sword drawn, although nobody in the immediate area is unlucky enough to have her actually pointing it at them. No, she has a different target in mind.

     It's Hammerhead. Spotting Thor and Nova standing over him, she waits until Nova's finished doing... Whatever it is she's doing, Jeanne isn't sure. She'll be patient, at least, and wait for that to finish before giving the hard-headed gangster an experimental stomp in the jaw.

     She has to know. She can't leave without knowing.
Spider-Man     Now comes the mental interrogation.

    Nova reaches in. The experience is... strange. And it's baffling, because it's strange in a way that Nova may not have experienced before: This man's skull is not a skull. It's a reassembled chunk of some kind of esoteric, alien metal. And that makes it /nearly impossible/ to plumb for information. Note that this "nearly" though. A lesser psychic would run into a wall. Nova's mind-reading is far more powerful, and lets her through the metal mental barrier. However, as a symptom, she'll have a "ringing in her ears" -- a persistent feedback that feels like it comes out of something vibrating badly, and which will make it kind of miserable to stay in his mind very long.

    She finds several other sites of some more of these drugs. She determines that some of them have been destroyed by the efforts of a man named Mac Gargan leading a group called the Scorpios. She also determines that some form of foreign cartel is now assisting the Maggia Tombstone Family with supplies, though the identity of the cartel and the location of the source can't be found in this mind at all. The identity of the Big Man himself can be found, though not enough evidence to legally implicate him: L. Thompson "Tombstone" Lincoln, The Big Man of Crime and, legally speaking, an entirely legitimate businessman with many philanthropic ventures who is well-liked by New York City. As for the criminal himself, his name is Joseph "Hammerhead" Harrow, a subordinate of this Big Man.
Spider-Man     "Alright, I guess I can cover that, sure." The man says, cautiously. He seems less ill-at-ease about Reyes, but only a little. "You're looking at Tombstone's crew. Couple months ago, they started putting out a lot of really weird product from some weird cartel. Some kinda... I dunno. Some kinda drug that makes you magic. It's messed up stuff. But they're pushing it way too hard, and Mac Gargan, he runs the Scorpios, Mac says none of their cash makes sense, they're getting lots of profit without spending much, so he thinks they're really quiet gearing up for some... I dunno, some big war, man. They don't care who knows they're dealing, they gotta have something bigger they're putting their eyes on."

    He scratches the back of his head. "Mac's kinda crazy, man. Some of those drug caches, he just burned with everyone inside. But thing is, people say Tombstone /is/ doing something big with that cash, they just don't really know what. So people keep helping the Scorpios or getting paid by Tombstone. It's getting too heated. Lot of danger on the streets, you guys planning to help?" He actually looks really hopeful.
Nova Terra     The effort involved quickly begins to show on Nova's face as she presses. She can tell the difference between a resisting mind and the more inanimate forms of psi-protection. This one is definitely the latter, and much on par with the psi-screens in her old world. But they're not perfect and neither is this one.

    The struggle continues for as long as Nova can maintain it, until finally her hand jerks away from the underboss and Nova stumbles back a few steps. She moves a hand to clutch her head, groaning quietly, "That's some serious protection." Nova looks up at 'Hammerhead' and smiles a little tiredly, "But not strong enough." Nova then watches with some satisfaction as Jeanne proceeds to kick the boss in the head, not moving to stop her.
Spider-Man     The Magical Feds have secured the dangerous drugs and other matters. Now Strange and Edison can figure out the nature of the complex metachemistry involved in getting this all figured out! What they will generally be able to determine is that the product is primarily static -- that is to say, no adaptations are made stateside. The drugs, it seems, are being delivered and then remain undeveloped here, meaning an external cartel is providing the product to the Tombstone crew. Furthermore, it is as Strange suspected: The substance is absolutely derived from the Scepter of Loki. Whoever is making this has access to a very high-power artifact!

    Also among supplies recovered are financial records. Edison's no-doubt extensive bureaucratic connections can determine that much of this money is being funneled from street drug purchases right through Tombstone's holdings and directly into some kind of singular purchase involving... automotive work? Scattered enough that even these records are only a fraction of the extensive mechanical project-work underway. Something, somewhere, is being made very very powerful and heavy-duty with this money. It may take much more time to pin down a precise location or nature for this project, though.
Spider-Man     The jaw is not reinforced. The skull is! The forehead especially! The jaw? Less so. There's a crunch, and Hammerhead, who has spent several seconds wincing because of the awful vibrations in his skull, goes down, facefirst in the snow. Ooof. Well, legally speaking the Paladins weren't the ones doing the police brutality there, so technically they're not under the critique for that! Even Spider-Man over there winces a little when he hears that.
Reyes     "A DRUG that induces magical abilities. ... That sounds like a TERRIBLE idea. Do they have any clue how hard magical energy is to control?" Reyes mutters to himself. Clearly, he's not used to thinking like criminals do! Or about what they do.

    "And it's odd they've gotten a hold of this stuff? ... Sounds REALLY bad then. They could be working for some kind of cult project. Working for something nasty..."

    He does solidly nod. "Yeah. I gotta pass this on to Iron Man and the others. We'll figure out a plan. Do you know anything about these guys' base of operations? Where can we find their other setups?"