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Tony Stark TWENTY MINUTES AGO

A robed-and-cowled figure looking unironically like Mace Windu about to execute Chancellor Palpatine has Tony Stark on the ground at staff-point. The irony, with the unsuited Man of Iron laying next to the window, is not lost on him.

James Rhodes aims a pistol in a shooter's grip at the mystery wizard. "Step away from Tony now, Mace Windu, or I'm going to do a whole lot more than chop at your hand." He threatens. The wizard chuckles darkly.

"Anthony Stark, you have meddled with the mystic forces outside of your station. As a master of the mystic arts, I'm putting an end to your danger before it threatens the world."

Rhodes gapes. The internal security systems continue to be nonfunctional.

Tony, an icon of wit, leans on his forearm and taps his throat against the staff, coughing. "If you're a clean shaven Stephen Strange under that hood, he's never living it down. Never ever."

The dark wizard chuckles again, and blasts Tony out of the Tower's penthouse window.

FIVE MINUTES AGO

New York had become a battleground once-a-gain as a giant Metro Bus Golem continued to pummel Iron Man into the ground. Above it, on a sworling disc of solid air, the brown-cloaked wizard hobbles Iron Man with binding bands and cutting mandalas as the fight drags towards Central Park (it's the Toei Quarry of New York).

SECONDS AGO:

SHIELD finally finishes coordinating evacuations and a cordon as an area in Central Park is rampaged through, deep furrows and trench-like gashes in the dirt making scorched-dry paths from the sweep of energy weapons. Circles of terrain sprout here and there from teleport-snipped side-fights on different stages.

The Model Prime armor is failing visibly, multiple parts completely missing as Tony grips at his neck. His broken faceplate reveals his eyes, wild and wide, as his armored arms push back at the twist of a band cast from the wizard that strangles him.

The Metro Golem rests on its undercarriage, looming like a dog at heel.

ENTER: The Multiversals
Gawain BEFORE:

Gawain had finished looking over the evidence recovered from Lilian's world. He prepared to ride off on his motorcycle, and grab a sandwich or something, when he got the alert. Attack on Tony's New York City, and on Tony himself. Gawain placed the radio away, sighed, and got on the motorcycle. Ham and swiss would have to wait - an ally was in danger.

NOW:

The motorcycle charges in, straight for Central Park. It bursts out of the way of the streets, Gawain having sent a signal to local authorities that he was there, as he sees the giant bus golem. He could fight that...but Tony's life is literally in danger, and the wizard is probably controlling it, so...

Midway through charging the motorcycle at the Metro Golem, Gawain suddenly leaps off the bike, high into the air, and moves to just soar over it. Mid-jump, he tries to angle his fall to land directly on top of the Evil Wizard, while Strange is hopefully helping Tony not choke to death. "WIZAAAARD! STOP RIGHT THERE!" He shouts in mid-air.
Doctor Strange      There is a familiar hiss. A shower of orange sparks, tracing a circle in space. A hole. On one side, Central Park, torn up like a squad of ATVs and trucks came through to do some MUDDIN'. On the other, a barren desert of red sand. Rising from the dunes is the toppled stone head of some long-forgotten monarch or hierophant, and the top three fingers of the statue's hand. Standing in front of it, staring with an annoyed frown, is /the/ Master of the Mystic Arts.

     Strange steps through the portal. He looks forward, at Stark's current strangled state of affairs. The scenery on the other end changes, without so much as a flick of his wrist. It changes in an instant to a from-below view of Tony's body hurtling towards the viewer. The bands which wrap around him are cut with surgical precision, the portal closing at just the right time to break the spell.

     Barring intervention from the other sorcerer, Tony will fall... right before Strange. The Sorcerer Supreme steps aside to allow this to happen.

     "Hey," he says cordially, with an upwards inflection. "Sorry about this. So you know... not acting on my orders," He waves a hand dismissively gesturing to the rampaging golem, and two mandala discs not unlike those the other sorcerer had wielded before, now come to existence before his hands.

     His voice is magnified, such that it can be heard over the din of combat. "I don't remember asking anyone to..." A glance towards the window, high above. "Defenestrate Iron Man. And I sure don't remember asking anyone to beat the snot out of him with a golem in the middle of New York. So..." He frowns dryly, then hurls a binding spell at the golem, burning orange chains wrapping around its body like snakes. "Whatcha doin'?"
Tina Natsumi A guitar cover of Stars and Stripes forever blares out of the loudspeaker that forms the head of a garishly red, white, and blue robot as it stomps along one of the many streets leading to Central Park. Tina, hanging off her Persona's back, starts twisting away at the machine's arm as she raises it to aim right at the Metro Bus Golem and its wizardly controller.

"Alright. Is this a situation where you're gonna explain yourself before or after we get to blows? Because I've got a show to put on, and all THIS is cuttin' into my...!" She certainly sounds irritated in that dramatic showman-y fashion, like someone being dramatic for the sake of being dramatic. Before she can finish that statement, however, she nudges her phone out of her breast pocket juuust enough to peek at it, making sure it's recording and also squinting at something on the screen.

"... You know what, this is fine. We got a lotta big names here today, so make sure to keep smilin' for the camera!" Tina clambers on top of Uncle Sam for that very reason, making sure she has a good shot of the entire designated fight zone park while the Persona fires off a straight up missile at the golem's face. "Name, occupation, reason you're bustin' our bud there!"
X     SOME TIME PRIOR:

X faced his greatest foe yet -- paperwork. The kind of pencil pushing that came with an officer's rank, unfortunately. Reports to read and acknowledge, requests that required his permission to sign off on or send up the ladder to Signas, and worst of all, crossing all the t's and dotting all the i's required by the world governing council. It was never a pleasant experience to deal with them or their oversight delegations.

the monotony is broken by a klaxon alarm indicating for a scramble. Reaching to the his helmet placed on the edge of his desk, X quickly slid it over his head, the pneumatic seal locking it in place. "What's going on?!"

    RIGHT ABOUT NOW:

A blue flash of light descends from the sky to the rough entry point of Central Park, materializing into a humanoid shape that solidifies into Megaman X, who immediately dashes forward, propelled by jets in the back of his legs to confront the situation at hand. A brief look is spared to Gawain, Doctor Strange, and the other Paladins as X squares up beside them, one of his hands being vacuum sucked sucked into his wrist to form the barrel of his buster cannon. "Whatever your reason for attacking Mr. Stark, just give up and come quietly, for your own sake."
Strawberry Princess      It's rare that there's a call for Strawberry to come in 'wand hot'- most situations warrant at least a little bit of delay, a few precious seconds conserved before that five-minute timer has to start ticking. Not today. She revved up the plutonium reactor before even arriving in New York, rocketing towards the nearest open-air warpgate at harrowing speeds once the call hit. Accordingly, when she arrives at the scene of battle, she's a tiny speck soaring overhead.

       04:23  

     She's got a dual dilemma here, she realizes as she swoops down in a J-shaped maneuver to assess her targets. The Metro Golem is an Annihilator Beam-sized problem; the wizard is a Glock-sized problem. But shooting what appears to be a live, sapient, vulnerable person is... dicey, for her. It's bad for the Magical Girl image, for one thing- but there's also the chance, however miniscule, that they might really die. And then she'd be, you know, a murderer. On purpose.

     And on the other hand, this is New York City. Firing the Annihilator Beam here would be unconscionable. She's trained to think in "millisieverts-per-hours and life expectancy charts and total exposure doses" enough to know that shooting a nuclear-powered laser at something on ground level here is a non-option. Can't attack the soft target, can't use the armor-buster. There's only one option left, then, and it's an absurdity.

     Strawberry descends from the cloud cover to hover a hundred feet away from the Metro Golem's face at eye level, pulls out her Glock, and pulls the trigger.

     Plink.
Tamamo BEFORE:

    Tamamo is reading something with intense interest. She mouths the unfamiliar term. "'Hashed browns.' Not canned, no."

NOW:

    Tamamo's research trip to New York is interrupted by events in the not-far-away Central Park. Urgent calls to action are being made. She arrives in such a hurry that she hasn't even had time to don her souvenir tee-shirt. It's still in the bag she has hanging from one arm. "Oh, dear."

    Walking around the edge of the area, she continues fretting, though not doing anything particularly attention-grabbing outside of her extremely identifiable Far Eastern garb. At least, it wouldn't look like much, to most, but a master of the mystic arts is sure to notice, or at least guess at, the significance of someone dressed vaguely like a miko carelessly tossing paper talismans all along the deceptively precise lines she's click-clack walking along the sudden battlefield's edge. There's a curse in them, but it takes time to build.
Evangeline      She hasn't been out and about in the Multiverse for a while, but the Neuroi known as Evangeline was available this time. When the call goes out she heads to the nearest warp gate and is soon joining the others in central park. She floats above looking over the scene, then slowly floats down to the ground but never actually touches it. Her jet black metallic finish likely stands out in the daylight.

     She takes up a position between the golem and the others, then raises an arm toward it and the wizard. "...please...let Mr. Stark go and leave the area...there is no need for anyone else to get hurt..." she says. Her voice is quite soft and lacks all but the most basic of inflection, and while she does have a speaker watch on her wrist that lets her speak aloud, most people probably hear it as a voice on their radios.

     When it becomes clear that is not going to happen, the flat surface at the end of her arm which is facing the wizard starts to glow a sinister red. "...okay...you were warned..." she says, then fires a concentrated red beam, carefully aimed so that it shouldn't hit Tony despite the explosion on impact.
Archer EMIYA      Central Park is in danger. Again. Insert some witty commentary about the state of modern humanity and public parks for yourselves. It's EMIYA, you can probably come up with something.

He, unfortunately, has to get there on foot. The World hasn't blessed him with the power of supersonic flight, and getting through crowds of panicking people is never fun. He perseveres through, wading through civilians until he eventually makes his way to the park.

Current Assessment: Wizard bad. Giant Bus Monster Worse. Tony's probably to blame in some capacity.

With his facts straightened out, Archer hops behind a park bench for some really awful cover, bow and sword materializing in a flash of green frame wires as he loads the featureless blade into his bow. As Archer pulls the string back, the blade stretches and twists, taking on the shape of a thin twisted piece of metal. He holds for a bit, before letting go.

There's a deafening screech as the arrow flies through the air, before finally colliding with the massive bus golem, creating a small but respectable explosion as it shatters on impact.
Tony Stark It's good that there's more than one hero in this comic book issue of Invincible Iron Man! At least, it's good for Tony Stark.

Plucked from the jaws of asphyxiation by the Strong Magic Hands of the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, Tony Stark - shattered armor and all - tumbles to land staggered on his feet one he has open ground beneath him.

"This guy's the worst kind of lunatic, Doc--"

Gawain descends on the Time Hater, goomba-stomping boots first down on the shoulders of the cowled Master.

This works! Entirely! The floating man falls all the way to the ground and lands in a heap. Gawain feels things shift under his fall that aren't meant to shift the way they do.

The robes crumple, and beneath them, a swirling orange sling-ring hole. Knight and robes fall through as an aging man with a salt-and-pepper goatee and well-kept hairline floats, pale blue of robe and red of cloak. Gawain lands nearby, however gracefully that is, on a patch of grass. He's no worse for wear.

It's the spitting image of Tony, but he's wearing Stephen Strange's clothes. "I've come to stop the world from getting any worse because this lunatic wants to drink from both ends of the garden hose. Did that sound like an oxymoron? Good! Because you *can't*. And it took oxygen this moron won't listen to.

Prime Armor Tony, already halfway to retreating past the crowd, calls back: "Not negotiating with the TIME HATER, thanks!"

The Metro Golem, a massive bus-monster with a cartoonish face, is almost placid in its post-rampage squat-pop -- right up until a missile full of FREEDOM splashes into the side of its head, causing it to screech and swat with a turning-signal equipped 'arm' at the damage. Turning towards Tina as she shouts her challenge at the Time Hater. It's punctuated by X's photonic arrival, which draws a long fatherly chuckle out of the 'evil' wizard.

"You all don't get it, do you? The one you should be helping is me. You see, I'm..." He spreads his hands, the text appearing in a sand mandala all around him in block helvetica.

ANTHONY STARK
SORCERER SUPREME OF EARTH

"... the Time Hater. Your version of me talked shit, and the balance must be kept."

He winces as a GLOCK goes off in mid air, looking up at the descent of Strawberry GLOCKcess firing plinker rounds into the dome of the large golem. They don't actually bounce off, finding some vague purchase against the animating energies of the golem together with Evangeline's thin laser, but disassociating the parts and causing damage doesn't seem too effective: the thing must be demolished to do real damage. Still -- for some reason GUN seems to work better than LASER. We're not sure why Sword works, but since it's closer to GUN than LASER, it also deals some considerable disruption.

"This is a real bad look for everyone, so--"

Supreme Stark begins a bit smugly, but sniffs the air, looking incredulous - hurt, even - at Tamamo. "You wouldn't curse me. That's rude, honey, I'm just trying to help."

The golem rears up to start actively attacking the people aggressing on it, while Supreme Strange splits into a bunch of copies, aggressively shaking hands and offering cards. "But if we're going to be rowdy:"

He lifts his hands, runed discs forming in his palms as he claps them together and tugs apart the weave of magic. The world distorts.

"I'll do you all a favor."

The world shifts -- spins -- rotates around central park like a paper lantern being spun about until the whole of Central Park sits in a wide hovering skyblock in the Mirror Dimension, fractal reflections replacing the skyline. The golemn, and everyone else, is still there and the feeling of transmigration lingers like being spun around a dozen times rapidly.
Doctor Strange      Did he? Hmmm. No. He's sure he didn't. Which means there are three possibilities. No. Four. Let's go through them. One. This is Mordo, or someone who feels similarly, going completely off the reservation. Two. They're acting under orders from a future or alternate Sorcerer Supreme. Three. Two, but it's specifically a future iteration of Stephen Strange. Four... let's hope it isn't four.

     There's a direct request for his assistance.
<Tac-Paladins> 4 Hoarse, Strawberry Princess says, "Strange. Can you create a portal to somewhere else *behind* the golem?"
<Tac-Paladins> 2 Doctor Strange says, "I could probably create one *inside* the golem. So yes. Yes I can."

     Another portal is cut into space. One end appears near Strawberry Princess, the other behind the golem. Of course... it ends up being a portal within the mirror dimension. Rather than the burning rings Strawberry is used to, it is a plane of hovering, shimmering shards of fragmented space. Through it, like something visible through the distorted lens of a kaleidoscope, she can make out the back of the golem. If she still wants to try that ploy, she can.

     "So it IS number four." Strange pinches the bridge of his nose. "Well, listen--I respect the office, and I respect the man. So..." Tesselating octagons copy-pasted from the grass beneath him raise up, creating a stairway that gradually carries him over to Supreme Stark's position, swatting his BLOCK FONT out of the air. The falling letter A is duplicated, over and over again, a waterfall of As given substance, dropping atop the golem in a torrential downpour meant to passively chip away at it while he converses.

     "Why don't I stop *this* version of the man from killing *that* version, and you," he says, pointing at Stark Supreme, "Can tell me what it is that he won't compromise about."
<Tac-Paladins> 4 Hoarse, Strawberry Princess says, "On my count, please look *down*, pop your ears, and exhale."

     Everyone present will find, on their faces, in their pockets, in their free hands, or otherwise somewhere they'd notice it, a pair of heavy-duty just-had-eye-surgery sunglasses, and a pair of foam earplugs. Except those of you who don't have eyes. Or ears. You guys get... a paper bag and a towelette.
Gawain Gawain goomba stops! And then he falls through a hole, lands in the grass, and rubs his head. He is utterly, entirely unharmed, but very confused, and double confused at ANTHONY STARK, SORCERER SUPREME. But when it becomes clear that one Stark is trying to kill the other, Gawain stands his ground.

"I apologize, but the Tony you are trying to kill is my ally...so I must stop you. Don't worry! Perhaps we can become allies, later, once we stop fighting, but for now, you need to go back to where you came from!" Armor and sword are summoned, as the sword is lit on fire as Gawain steps forward in the mirror dimension, almost spins and trips, and rights himself. He charges forward with Galatine, lighting it aflame with a flick of the wrist, and-

Moves to try and slice through into the golem. He's not going to harm the wizard, now that he knows who he is. Anthony Stark can probably abuse that, as Gawain starts making a flurry of fiery slashes, followed by a thrust through any purchase he may have made, in an attempt to cause lingering damage!
Tina Natsumi "Oh. Okay. So there's two of... Uh." Tina's gaze goes from Prime Tony to Strange Tony, then back again before focusing once more on the big block helvetica lettering.

Naturally, she's going to have to cheer for that. "That's more like it! Yeah, that's Stark alright. So..." She sounds uncertain, looking towards Prime Tony for a moment to get her bearings straight. "So if he's the future version, won't killing Past Stark just kill Future him? Or..."

The intricacies of time shenanigans are truly too much for Tina to try to understand at point in time. "Evil doppelganger. Got it!" She announces with all the confidence of someone wholly convinced that they're right about something, notwithstanding the face that she 's just really good at sounding like she knows.

The world's transformation, though, throws Tina's concentration off momentarily as she braces against Uncle Sam's back so as to not vomit from the spinning (although the viewers probably get a good view of the landscape spinning). Although she can't quite focus on the golem so well, she can at least use the Persona to take the hit head on, and it does so in the most literal sense, smashing its robotic face into the golem's limbs.

The machine Persona creaks and cracks, and Tina herself recoils a little at the impact, but her confidence remains as a pair of oversized shotguns materialize in the Persona's hands. They press right up against the golem, lingering just long enough for there to be an audible pumping noise, and then they both unload upwards at it in a very much not pump-shotgun manner, but in a distinctly full-auto-shotgun manner.

Tina herself, meanwhile, takes a moment to slide right off her Persona and get those sunglasses and earplugs from Actual Strange on. "Sounds like this might be a good time for a headphone warning, folks. Maybe look away from the screen for a sec!" And then she takes Strawberry's precautions.
X Using his unoccupied hand to steady his X-Buster, the super fighting robot frowns. "You're...another Mr. Stark?!"

It shouldn't be /that/ surprising considering the nature of a multiverse. But it still left him gobsmacked, a feeling that was quickly overtaken by something that was acutely similar to nausea, a first for the android. "Gh.."

The alternate Sorcerer Supreme saw fit to transport them into what Doctor Strange referred to as the Mirror Dimension, and the Paladins present realized that it was a chance. For Strawberry Princess, for example, she could fight without worrying about irradiating the local life. For X, it meant an opportunity to utilize his Force Metal without risking others for a similar reason. The radiation released by it was untested on humans, even among reploids, was still in the experimental phase. But here in the Mirror Dimension, he could fight freely without worrying about the blowback, beyond the danger to himself.

The jewel embedded into his waist on the belt-like construct glows, as do the nodules studding his knuckles, and lining his legs and shoulder blades as the limiter releases.

        WARNING

The internal pressure in his body rises exponentially as foreign energy courses through it. His system feedback begins displaying errors as the exhaust vents on his shoulder blades glow a bright and full red, billowing out two jet streams of energy. He was on a strict time limit before he'd have to turn the Force Metal off .. but until then, he'd go at it 110.

The X-Buster charges past the limit as he disappears in a red flash, dashing to deliver a crushing kick to the golem's chest and rebound off of it, out of the blast radius of the Annihilator Beam and other bombardments to add his own charged shot to the bunch, a massive and pluming orb of blue wrapped in a weave of chaotric red energy supplied by the Force Metal.
Tamamo     "Oh, no!" Tamamo looks at Sorcerer Stark with shock at... several things, probably. "Please do not misunderstand!" Though it probably doesn't mean much when Gawain just stomped on him, "I only wish for a measure of *calm*."

    Everything is turned around and around, some persons arguably excepted, depending on perspective, and Tamamo pauses in her work. Aggressively meeting Starks appear, and she avoids neither hand nor card, taking one in hand and slipping the other quickly through her fingers, scanning it to minute detail before it disappears somewhere, copy of a copy of a copy though the business card may be. "You would not object to being called the originator of this rowdiness, would you, now? Surely you cannot object, in that case, to such a light response as this."

    Avoiding any form of contact would probably have been wiser, but it would not have been as polite, and this is, in some respect, someone she knows. For Tamamo, fortunately, this doesn't matter. Her defensive preparations were already in place, a labyrinth of subtle mysticism through which to work before one could turn a curse back against her. that's the idea, at least.

    "Now... the warning has been given, yes?" She is shaking hands. Her other hand is pressing a sealing talisman over Stark Sorcerer Copy's face.

    The skyline is gone. There is a sense of a sun in a sense of a sky, but there was no true sun in this space.

    Tamamo no Mae begins to glow, the fox's fur consistent, yet flaring flames.
Strawberry Princess      The spinning, rotating world doesn't trouble Strawberry in the least- as long as her wand is running, gravity is only a polite request, and dizzying disorientation is absolutely par for the course. The Metro Golem's swatting, swiping assault is slightly more of a problem- if it landed a solid hit with those crushingly heavy limbs, she might be out of the fight in one or two blows. Fortunately, her plunging aerobatic maneuvers pull her out of its reach, though she pulls enough Gs in the process to be looking pale and nauseous by the end of her 'float like a peregrine falcon' routine.

     She pulls back to a safe distance. As Dr. Strange's sparking portal materializes, she halts and lines up the shot while flicking switches on her wand's reactor, using its feathery wings like iron sights. "Thanks, Dr. Strange! PREPPING THE ANNIHILATOR BEAM," she shouts- the latter part pure habit at this point, from dozens of controlled tests back at the Reignition Project.

     Control rods shift and raise out of their wells like a blossoming flower to de-inhibit the fissile material inside, accompanied by hisses of steam and grinding metal. The air is filled with a ringing tinnitus; everyone who has a tongue can taste metal in their mouths, everyone with skin can feel a sunburn-like prickling along it. A column of glowing blue, like a Vegas skylight, shines out of the tip of her wand and through Strange's portal to paint the Metro Golem's back.

     "FIRING ON MEDIUM! THREE." The anticipation, the thrill, the anxiety- it's all she can do to keep her hands steady, and that's evident in the quivering of the Cherenkov searchlight. The staff's reactor shrieks like an animal, like a flywheel spinning up to unimaginable velocities. It's keening, grating, unbearable.

     "TWO." The darkened crystal at the tip of Strawberry's wand, emblematic of her drained soul, glows with an unearthly light once again. Dim at first, over the next second it becomes utterly blinding to look at; shadows stretch out into long stark ribbons until they're erased, every color in eyesight bleaching to a blinding white.

     "O-"

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     The beam fires. Every blade of grass in Central Park burns away, ignited by the sheer brightness of it. The beam itself is visible through your eyelids; it's visible through the back of your skull if you're turned away, radioactive particles prickling the retina.

     The sound comes a fraction of a second later; more properly a shockwave. It's like thunder if thunder forgot to stop, drawn out into a roar that reverberates in your lungs and bones. Radios fuzz and hiss with the electromagnetic scream of the energy output.

     Things that are in the way of the three-foot-wide beam tend to stop existing, utterly reduced to ash or discovering new and exciting phases of matter to be. The Annihilator Beam lives up to its name.
Evangeline      The golem starts rampaging, and Evangeline...just floats up out of range. She tilts her head slightly as her initial laser doesn't seem to do anything. "...magic...?" she asks softly, then turns both arms toward it.

     She is starting to charge power even as the world goes fractal. She looks around at the pattern of fractals in a slow turn of her head even as the sinister red of her growing laser power builds in her arms. She hears the warning from Strawberry Princess, but being a Neuroi she doesn't think she needs to worry. She just keeps charging.

     "...Breaker Beam..."

     She doesn't really have to say the name of the attack, but it seems to be the style. She tries to time her blast with Strawberry Princess's blast so that the golem will get caught in a crossfire of giant beams. But, either way, the scenery is soaked in sinister red light as a beam as wide as Evangeline is tall is launched from the little Neuroi.
Archer EMIYA Archer's arrow lands (somewhat) true, and the metro golem comes swinging at them and the rest of the heroic fools that decided to pick a fight with it. They jump back to avoid the rampaging massive fists made of bus meat, though a chunk of asphalt is sent flying into the counter guardian's shoulder from the impact, ruining his perfect landing somewhat as he drops his bow from the sudden shock of pain.

The entire battlefield shifts to a weird, mirror-like nightmare realm. Good for the types who care about causing collateral damage, and something they kind of appreciate.

Shaking off his hurt arm, Archer puts on the pair of newly acquired sunglasses and pops in some ear plugs as he begins work on creating a new weapon. Green lines trace through the air, creating a long shaft with a barbed tip. It's nowhere near finished, but sitting and waiting for it to do so isn't an option at the moment.

There's not much room between him and the bus golem, but Archer does his best to get a running start. He covers his approach by raining down half a dozen mundane swords, before jumping up into the air.

At this point, the weapon in his hand is done. The details have all filled in, creating a bright crimson spear that's prime for throwing. He raises his arm high, his torso twisting back as far as his body will allow while still maintaining eye contact with his target.

"GAE BOLG!"

As he shouts the weapon's name, all his muscles snap forward, letting go of it as the crimson spear becomes more of a crimson missile. It creates a blood-curdling scream as it flies towards the metal monstrosity's 'heart'.

Unsurprisingly, like a lot of Archer's arsenal, the spear also explodes, though not before the weapon pierces through.
Tony Stark When the Supreme Stark showed up, this was going to be an easy run. Beat up his other self, do some magic stuff, grab a burger at the place that hadn't closed in this timeline, and return home.

The fatherly smile he wears is the one worn by Someone Else's Rich Dad. The kind worn by men who think they know better than you.

The kind who, just by the way they carry themselves, probably do. But you'd never announce it, becuase even the wise among them are wise bastards.

In the spun-about Mirror Dimension Central MUDDING Park, where the Sun that hangs in the sky is not the one that the Earth is physically the third rock from, but the Sun that rises in the East and smiles down warmly on all of creation.

The Sorcerer Supreme Of Earth knocks out the A from ST RK and lets it tumble through the air, tesselating outwards in the light of the Sun. Unlimited A Works becomes a Quite-Limiting A-Frame. As Tina's America Gundam grapples directly with the Metro Golem, the two heavier monsters battle as shotgun blasts tear into it from the hands. Sparks fly as motive energies buckle and seize under the assault. The blasts begin to lift the Metro Golem off the ground.

A pile of Starks snap into Just The One, wearing a large pair of bomb-testing darkned glasses. "I am, I apologize, My boy me here is having a little problem that needs direct intervention. Have you ever wondered about those people who shout up at the sky and go 'hey! sky! if you don't strike me with lightning, God doesn't exist!'? Well, sometimes, when you're feeling very pious, you find some lightningbolts to throw. You don't get to have both what I have and what most Starks get. They're mutually exclusive. Trust a time hater on this one, honey."

Supreme Stark winks at Stephen Strange, past Tamamo, but most people can't tell because the glasses are so tinted.

Tamamo can tell because she's being winked PAST. Stephen Strange can tell because he is Stephen Strange.

MEANWHILE--

The lifted up form of the Metro Golem has caused mush anguish and grief - enough that the heroes assembled, collectively, decide that it is the Mother Loving Primary Round. With the Metro Golem airjuggled on a cloud of gunpowder and FREEDOM, Gawain leaps off the shoulders of Lady Liberty to deliver a sundering combo that continues the air-carry, ending with a twirl and acrobatic air hike the golem to down-Aerith through the whole body, dealing multiple extra rendingly juicy hits on the way down.

Then, tumbling through the air, there's the last three blasts:

Maverick Hunter X--v
Strawberry Princess=====>Triple Beam Finisher
Evangeline---------^

A three-sets-of-eyes cut-in laser Absolutely Obliterates the Metro Golem.

Supreme Stark sighs. "Fine. Fine! I get the picture. You guys win. We can all slow down. Okay. We're calm. Very calm and good."

Floating up a little he pulls on his left glove's wristpiece to reveal a watch. "Oh, actually, I've got time to burn. Nice."

As he speaks, a lingering ailment, a sort of Time Fire, begins to manifest among all those 'trapped' with Supreme Stark in the Mirror Dimension.

"See, even the local Sorcerer Supreme couldn't keep his hand out of the cookie jar, so, you're all complicit. Man should not seek out two opposed enlightenments. Take it from the expert."

While he's incredibly smug, and a floating Wizard Jackass, he's also rapidly draining the Temporal HP out of everyone here. What a dick!
Gawain As Metro Golem is burnt, Gawain suddenly turns, pulls his sword back out, and then dashes away from it, because-

Three mega beams just completely obliterate it, and Gawain can see it while *turned around*!

He sighs in relief as Supreme Stark says they're all calm. And then...

Gawain can feel his health being sapped away by the ailment. It's bypassing his armor completely, and is going to be really painful. He starts using his regeneration to bypass it, causing it to do zero current damage and just be a lingering threat of damage that actually frightens him. Complicit? Gawain's mad. He's going to destroy his own alternate self...for what? Who knows. But...

"That's enough, Sorcerer Stark! If you are truly the Sorcerer Supreme, then I don't have to hold back on you! Take this!"

Excalibur Galatine is lifted into the air. Suddenly, magical runes form a circle around Gawain's feet, performing a move he can only do safely in the Mirror Dimension, as a miniature sun sparks to life above him, floating in the air above him. It's absolutely radiant.

"EXCALIBURRR..."

The sword is thrust into the sun, and the blade turns into a radiant beam of light. It extends high into the sky, as Gawain takes the sword with both hands.

"GALATINE!"

And then, it is swung down, directly on top of Supreme Stark, in an attempt to just end this fight here.
X With a well-coordinated finishing strike between himself, Evangeline, and Strawberry Princess, X lands back on the ground. A thin film of radioactive particles from the Annihilation Beam coat his body, intermingling with the Force Metal's own contamination. Thankfully, his body seemed like it was holding up well regardless, once his eyes began to recover that is.

He gives a thumbs up to the others with a small smile on his face, before the other Tony indicated that he would surrender. X, narrowing his eyes slightly, nodded none-the-less. "That's fine. I don't want to fight anymore than necessary -- "

But, the sudden magical attack catches him off guard. X gasps, staggering as the temporal flame ramps up the self-damage being inflicted by his Force Metal. Waves of heat roll of his body, staining the air red. "Gh..!"

His time with it might as well have been cut in half, if he had even that much left. He'd have to squeeze out all it was worth, the blue armoring on his body beginning to shift in color to a strawberry-red while his black undersuit turned a shade of pretty pink.

His signature copy system at work quickly renovated his weapon system after being exposed to the Annihilator Beam, resulting in ..

    WEAPON GET
    STRAWBEAM CANNON

Hopping back for a better firing vector, X steadies his aim and fires, a sharp lance of plasma encased with a swirling sheathe of nuclear energy, turning like a drill bit that warps the air as it barrels towards the sorcerer in a bright flash.
Tina Natsumi The sheer force and light coming from so many attacks smashing that golem apart, obliterating it, turning it into little more than... Wait. Where did it go?

That'll teach Tina not to look at the potentially eyeball destroying light show. "Guess I'll have to watch the archive for that one.." She sounds mildly disappointed, but still in that showman-like disappointment way where she's really just relieved that things went as well as they did. That goes doubly so when Supreme Stark seems to be relenting finally, getting the Persona-user to actually take a few steps closer.

"See? Could've settled it easier like ad-"

And then he sends out those temporal flames. It catches Tina off guard, and she lurches back with a startled yelp as she takes it right in the everything. Clutching her chest, she braces herself against Uncle Sam while an angry scowl crosses her face almost immediately.

"Why the hell not? If you get to the top of one mountain, then you find another one to beat! That's what all these folks are already doing!" Somehow, the whole thing just rubs her the wrong way, especially with so many specialists in their own fields around her. Gawain's beefiness, Stark's wealth and technology, Strange's sorcery, Strawberry's lasers, Tamamo literally being a deity...

She's pretty sure Archer, Evangeline, and X have their own masteries, too, if their impressive weaponry is any indication. It certainly doesn't help Tina feel any better about her own shortcomings, although that anger seems to be fueling her as Uncle Sam starts folding, bending into itself as it transforms steadily into a (still garishly colored) laser cannon complete with loud charging noises that sound like something's swirling around inside of it.  "And once they've reached the peak... Only thing left to do is dig a deep enough hole to reach the other side!"

And then it fires off an incredibly thin beam right at Supreme Stark, the beam expanding rapidly on contact into an obscene number of lights, fireworks, and also regular explosions.
Evangeline      The beams and blasts and blade attacks die down, and Evangeline turns to Supreme Stark as he acts like he is conceding. "...good..." She moves in, intending to apprehend him.

     And then he catches everyone on time fire. She flinches as cracks appear along her form and a rain of sparkles that might bring to mind falling cherryblossom petals starts to fall from her. "...You...lied..." she says, and the ends of her arms glow again. "...and...Ms. Natsumi is right...and even if she wasn't...you don't have any right to come in and decide that Mr. Stark should die...he's nice...and tries to help people..."

     Then she fires a shotgun-like blast of red beams at the floating sorceror. Each beam causes a small explosion on impact.
Tamamo     Tamamo is afflicted by the temporal drain more than she'd been, by all indications, by the beam blasts, though the outward signs of injury are just as scarce. Something gets her to react, at least.

    "Oh, my! If you wish to take from me my time, then I must take even more in return. Such is the price incurred." In point of fact, Tamamo's feelings on trading blows and curses are far from egalitarian, and her opinion on Sorcerer Stark is somewhere well below 'a proper gentleman.' She's categorically against striking any woman who is also her.

    Well, if they have a goatee, or appear from a portal to a mirror world, she'll consider it.

    But nothing can excuse the present situation but to reach out and grasp the threads of Fate, Sorcerer Stark's Fate, and pull. There's something akin to conservation of energy, sometimes, when it comes to these things. There's a balance of good fortune and ill. In this instance, one man's fortune will be traded away, replaced with snarls, to serve a helping of good fortune to -- as the robot enters Tamamo's field of view -- X.
Archer EMIYA The big lumbering golem made of public transportation is down. Nice.

Archer lands back down on the ground with an audible thud and sound of jingling metal due to all the belts on his pants. He has like, so many belts, but not as many as a Nomura character. Why does he have so many belts?

Thoughts about his fashion choices will have to wait though, since apparently Evil Tony has felt the need to cast vague time magicks that's sucking his <s>will to live</s> life force.

"You know... Experiencing self assisted suicide from the observer's end helps to put some things in perspective."

He jokes, but this really isn't a pleasant experience. One that he wishes to return at some level. The question is: can he?

There's only one way to find out.

"Trace on."

His eyes lock on the alternate Tony, both hands held at his sides as his fingers start twitching. There's a large runoff of magic off his body as his internal circuits begin pumping.

His fists clench, and the excess magic coalesces into a pair of green ethereal blades. He takes a step, before shooting off towards Wizard Tony as he jumps up into the air once more.

As there's not a lot of ability to use footing to increase your swording power in the air, he instead lets momentum and downward gravity power his cuts, aiming for the sorcerer's mid section as he soars by.

One strong hit isn't enough however, they need to get in extra hits. As they begin their descent, they quickly turn around to face Evil Tony once more, extending a hand outward as he summons a torrent of ethereal swords to launch at them as a follow up.
Doctor Strange      "Oh, I see," says Strange. "First it was 'exoenergy,' now it's 'gimme gimme.'" He can't blame That Stark. Recently, That Stark's been talking a lot about measures taken to protect those he feels responsible for. About what he'd do when his work had finally been done, when there was no need for a Tony Stark. "I get it. Listen, I'll talk to him." It's understandable that he'd want to pursue sorcery. But those two paths are fundamentally incompatible. One cannot be as Attached as That Stark is and have sorcery as his master. "He's right," says Strange to Tina. "It's a... conflict of interest." He takes to the sky, avoiding Tina, Evangeline, and X's beams, and Gawain's sister-sword of Excalibur. He doesn't directly attack the other Sorcerer Supreme. It's generally a good idea for Sorcerers Supreme of different timelines and worlds to cooperate, to have a good working relationship. But some lines shouldn't be crossed.

>Stark Supreme: Time Burn

     "Excuse me? No." The mandalas before his hands shift from orange to brilliant emerald. His hands pantomime the motion of a boxer fending off the spears of two or three assailants, parrying invisible forces, guiding them away. The rings of those emerald mandalas reverse, the ravages of time once pushed through him fading away like a dirtied wound beneath water. The Sorcerer Supreme is incensed.

     "I've been more than patient with you. But you... cross into another timeline to take a swing at one of mine, and when you can't manage, you weaponize the Eye. And you tell *me* it's *my* hand in the cookie jar?" His eyebrow twitches, as those mandalas apply the Keyword of Time to a different spell.

     "Time out." The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak fly like striking serpents from the mandalas--but they aren't Crimson. They're Emerald. They bind not Supreme Stark's hands, body, or strength, but his ability to manipulate time within this space. Wrapping around him, those green, smoldering coils enforce the same linear existence upon him that everyone else must normally abide. Behind him, swirling green, a portal opens. Not to a Where, but a When. The same Where--Central Park. But the timeline is Supreme Stark's, not Prime Stark's.

     With one hand, Strange beckons it to swallow Supreme Stark. The other is held close to his body, fingers forming mudras to fool his opponent into thinking that Archer and Tamamo's attacks are far more severe than they actually are, cranking up the VFX on both. Archer, in particular, has the benefit of tesselated tree-textures forming and kaleidoscoping from nothing to appear beneath him, granting him footholds to make his attack and avoid reprisals.

     Tricking this Stark into thinking he must manage much more defensive spells than he actually needs, Strange makes his actual play. His foot, bathed in emerald light, is rapidly whipped around into a cross kick aimed directly at Supreme Stark's chest, kicking him not just back to his own timeline, but forward through it.
Strawberry Princess      Strawberry swoops down to the ground, the sparkly manifestations of her magic guttering and flickering dangerously as the reactor slams in its control rods to avert meltdown. The skin on the lower half of her face- the only place it's visible- is tinged an unhealthy sunburnt pink; the grass here is still sizzling and carbonized from her Annihilator Beam shot, and crunches into ash underfoot as she lands. With the hostilities apparently over, she hastily powers her wand off, trying to avoid further irradiation. As it goes cold, so her mahou outfit disappears in a flash of pink light, replaced by her normal casual clothes.

       00:00  

     When the 'time fire' courses through all those present, Strawberry's physical expression of the metaphysical harm is unique; it takes her a moment to notice it herself. The awful scar that curves from her cheekbone all the way up into her scalp somehow un-heals, trickling rich dark blood down the side of her face a drop or two at a time. She reaches up to wipe the liquid away, then blinks slowly as her fingers come back red.

     "Oh," she says dully. This is bad, isn't it? This is bad.

     Acting on raw instinct and some form of self-preservation, she does the thing. The thing she wasn't supposed to do. The semi-automatic pistol finds its way to her hand. There's no safety to disengage. Line it up, even though the blood's tinting one eye's vision pink. Squeeze.

     Bang.
Tony Stark It really is a Toku Bastard Moment when Supreme Stark, Time Hater, decides to refill his megaman hit point bar and then just stand there while your life bar decreased. Doubly so when Strawberry drops her transformation. The Time Stone's pale green flames surge up, fit to consume the party, when--

They are contested. Health returns to the body, vitality to the mind, energy to the soul. The ringing in the ears of the fading away slows until it can be understood by the mind as the ticking of a clock.

In a few cases - those for whom Time is more a suggestion - instead experience the haze of long grinding nothingness ease, and brightness return from the ides of long memory.

Strange's entreatment is followed by golden Tamamo returning the favor in kind-and-more, the wizard looking like a skin-and-bones emaciated lich.

"I know every answer, to every puzzle. Researched every spell. I."

"Am Supreme." Rasps Supreme Stark. You can see it, right there in his short title.

He forms the sign of Agamotto across his chests with fingers that resemble bony reeds with curling, cracked nails. The Eye opens fully, shining out with an emerald glow.

"No magecraft or machine will prevail against Anthony Stark. I--"

The old wizard is shot in the left side of his lower gut by a glock and doubles over.

More beams, including the Excalibur of Sunlight and a second Pink X Strawberry Giga Crush dazzles on-stage. In the hair's breadth between one beam and the all-out attack of Lady Liberty, Archer EMIYA snakes in like a red phantom, wielding the sword that cleaves time, and shatters the pendant across Supreme Stark's neck, causing some...

Rather odd things to happen. An implosion of the entire plane, outwardly inward, happens in the spand of a vwooooorp-worp-worp effect and a full panel reverse-tesselation effect back-

    Back--

        Back---

To Central Park. In New York. The hulk of a metro bus 'merely' burned out instead of atomized, rests serenely in a muddy ditch in one of the most notable urban parks in the US.

Scraps of the Model Prime armor lay scattered in bits and sparking pieces where someone or some-thing had trashed one of New York's defenders for talking shit on a secure radio.

And, in the center of the crater that all of you return to normal space in: A glowing green stone, once cut like a gemstone, now rough and uncut, jagged, torn, fraying in an unknown way, sits smouldering like a piece of active uranium in the center of the smouldering depression.

Nothing else seems out of place except the lack of the old man who had worn such a malformed artifact.
Doctor Strange      "Let me just..."

     Strange waves his hand over the crater, unphased by everything which happened. Pushing time through the other sorcerer, tugging the threads of his fate, and stripping his grasp of it, then pushing him back to his own timeline had the intended effect. It's a rather annoying kind of wizard hubris, that 'all according to plan' kind of energy, as the burnt-out sizzling stone is vanished with the passing of his hand.

     There are places, deep within the Sanctum, where such dangerous things are kept--where they may be kept without their poisons creeping into the rest of the multiverse. Where they may, with luck, be forgotten by all but their custodians. Deep, dark places.

     Strange removes the sunglasses he'd conjured for himself, and the earplugs. "Yeah, so... good work, everybody..." It's spoken with intentionally affected dryness, his parody of a low-energy middle-manager trying to raise morale for employees.
Tina Natsumi She tried to kill him. There was no holding back in that shot. Could Supreme Stark have survived that? Maybe, maybe not. In the heat of that moment, though, Tina knows right away that the thought just didn't cross her mind at all.

The fact that she went into it so easily bothers her more than the act itself. Uncle Sam fades out of sight quickly as Tina lowers her arm, staring at the smoking crater for several long moments before finally remembering to grab her phone. "Oh. Uh. Th... Thanks for tunin' in, folks. I'm gonna..."

She looks towards Strange, watching as he takes the stone to who knows where. "Right. Yeah. Time for a break. Remember to... Yeah." The phone goes back into her pocket with barely even a finished thought, and she takes a circuitous path to get back to the warp gate leading home.

Tina's going to need some time to process this.
X X sighs deeply as they find themselves back in Central Park, his hand coming back out as the Buster deactivates. His Force Metal had also gone offline, and with it, the glow on all the nodes of his body disappeared, alongside the bursting scarf of red exhaust from his shoulders. Steam wafted off of his frame in waves, the android looking like he'd been very thoroughly overcooked in someone's oven.

But, he raises his hand to produce a thumbs-up and a small, tired small.
Evangeline      When they bloop back to reality, Evangeline looks around slowly. "...is he...gone...?" she asks, then pauses a moment before floating over to the bus hulk. "...I am hungry now...do you think anyone would mind if I eat the busses...?"

     When no one objects, the little Neuroi floats over to the golem and touches it...and red light engulfs it before it starts to disintegrate, the energy from its atoms flowing into the center of her chest. A red glow within her starts to become more and more visible until finally the busses are gone and it dies down steadily until she is just her metallic black self again.

     With that, she floats over to Tony. "..I might be able to repair your armor if you do not mind it being...Neuroi-tized for a bit..."
Strawberry Princess      Strawberry has the immediate impulse to flop down in the grass as Central Park is returned to its rightful place, stops herself when she remembers it's still been reduced to carbon and vapor, and then does a double-take as it reappears- green and vibrant- under her feet. She sways for a moment, conflicted, and then- thump- she decides, fuck it, she's going to have a lay-down in the grass after all. She's earned it.

     The scar on her head stopped bleeding when Supreme Stark got the boot, but a rivulet of dried blood stays. She barely notices or cares. After a few moments, though, she realizes she's still clutching her pistol like a lifeline, and manages to peel her shaky fingers off it to stuff it back in the holster.
Tony Stark Tony, who had not been involved in things after Central Park was spun into the mirror dimension, looks up as Evangeline approaches to help. "Oh, actually, kid, you can just eat the parts. It's easier, faster, and safer for you to just scrape up all the tasty bits than have a Department of Damage Control team fail to find a part as big as my fist for a week."

Tony scowls, but he's in an okay mood. He's being humble, it's a new experience.

"That happened, by the way. A week. Anyway:"

"Everyone: Thanks for coming. I owe you one."