Scene #7730: The Challenge: Finale

Owner	Pose
Doctor Strange	NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK On the usual day, Manhattan is a collage of sounds. The growl of coming and going motors, the chirping of birds vying for what space isn't denied them (and sometimes even for what is), the cries of street vendors, the indisctinct ups and downs of cell phone conversations by passers-by, the occasional rush of wind, breaking against the towering buildings which dominate the skyline. Today is not a usual day. The chirping of birds is not there. Squealing tires, heavy impacts and shattering glass replace the usual sedate sounds of traffic. Street vendors' stalls lie overturned, merchandise and food spilt into the street and trod upon by throngs of terrified pedestrians, all running in one direction: away. There is no conversation--just a chorus of horrified, panicked voices. Though it is mid-afternoon, the sky is blood red, the light of the sun filtered through some otherworldly haze. It reflects off of a gigantic band of gold which hovers above the highest peaks of the buildings that litter the skyline. Easily large enough to fit over the widest of skyscrapers, this ring turns, slowly, driven by eight fleshy pink legs-human, equine, simian, canine, arachnid, and three sourced from creatures forgotten by time. Each is large enough to be a monument to its respective species, and they call connect to a tumorous mass of flesh, ringed by misshapen fangs and a darkened, pulsating cavity.
Doctor Strange	MOTHER-OF-PAIN God of Entropy Strange and Loki strategize, as several Masters open sling-ring portals to help people flee the otherworldly invader. Others form a barrier of golden-orange concentric circles, which prove to be necessary as that darkened cavity spews forth caustic red mud--similar to the spell Mordo cast, but distressingly greater in volume and effect. Where it seeps through the barrier and stains a tree, two Masters hurriedly rush over to it and set it ablaze. Something inside the tree screams, a misshapen cluster of arms emerging from it and blindly grasping before they are fully incinterated. "I put the call out to the Paladins. Who else do we have?" "I couldn't raise my brother," says Loki. "The Legion of Monsters are spread out and helping with crowd control. Wiccan and Brother Voodoo are ferrying people out. Excalibur are rounding up the city's non-magical defenders, getting them up to speed and fighting back." "Namor?" Loki rolls his eyes. "Sends his condolences." "Douchebag," says Strange in unison with Loki. "Okay," says the Sorcerer Supreme. "Banner? Dracula?" The God of Chaos shakes his head. "Better than I expected, but not fantastic. Would've liked a few heavy hitters, but we've got my guys coming. We'll be able to drive her off." "Yes, but in time time it'll take us to do that, she'll be able to make more... servitors," Loki says with a shudder, leaning on Gungnir as another two Masters incinerate an unfortunate pigeon before its pulsating body can birth something repugnant. "Than we can handle." "I've got something for that. Let me worry about that. Kay?" There's a glance behind him, as sling-ring portals open, hissing rings of sparks appearing from several different worlds, windows revealing Strange's allies and the sorcerous runners he sent to ferry them here. "...they're here." The sludge rests atop the barrier and blots out the sky, until it burns away, the Masters conjuring the barrier performing a synchronized palm thrust and tiger punch to superheat their concentric mandalas. This is your first glance at one of the Trinity of Ashes. "I tried bargaining first, as you do. No dice. She's just flat going to create more children than we can deal with--so harm reduction is going to be the name of the game. Living things over property, because she'll destroy both." As if on cue, Mother-of-Pain's golden ring brushes gently against a skyscraper, concrete and windows crumbling with centuries of age on the spot. "We also need people who can hit her with haymakers, because destroying her physical form is our only way of getting her to--" One of the barriers breaks from rapid bombardment--half-eaten corpses from countless worlds, Earth-like and otherwise, crash into it and bury the unfortunate sorcerer alive. They rise up, as they are able, and even those without means of motion under normal means simply spindle forwards at alarming speeds on repurposed strands of viscera. Hands, teeth, claws, rusted weapons are all raised against you.
Kale Hearthward	Kale Hearthward steps out through a portal. He's got a floral-print shirt, shorts, and a pair of sunglasses perched on his nose... and there's a waft of sea air and some beats from a steel drum in the seconds it takes for the portal to close behind him. He is not mentioning that the summons came in the middle of the vacation he'd been taking with his boyfriend (not present), but he doesn't have to. "Oh - yeah, this bad." he says, likely finishing up whatever remark he'd been making to the runner that was sent to get him, and then to those assembled: "Fifteen seconds." He doesn't say anything more, in clarification or acknowledgement or greeting or anything, because he's taking a breath. And he keeps taking that breath. For a solid fourteen seconds - he doesn't do anything but stand feet planted on the ground and inhale, one strong inward breath, taking in all of the air his lungs can hold - trusting in everyone else to hold the line and keep his spot from getting overrun, at least for those few precious seconds.
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry Princess is lying on her couch in a little cramped apartment when the Master arrives. An incredibly sparkly and Very Heterosexual space-opera anime (never, ever magical girls) is blaring on her boxy TV. Ice packs rest on both of her sunburned hands and a heating pad on one knee. There's a shitty beer on the armrest next to her, thankfully not yet opened. She takes the Master's message with eyes wide, startling up from her couch and sending the ice packs tumbling to the floor. "Oh, shh- okay. Uh. Let me just-" Strawberry fumbles with the TV remote and tries to turn the air conditioning off before realizing that it's not worth it, and just grabbing her wand's carrying case off the wall. "I'm ready! Let's go, let's go!" When she stumbles through the sparking portal into Manhattan, Strawberry is still wearing a comfy sweatshirt and flannel pajama pants. Her hands fret with the locks of the carrying case, trying to get them open. "Hi! I'm haymakers. Sorry, sorry, I'm just- give me just-" She does not have 'just a sec'. A mass of limbs surges towards her. Strawberry yelps in panic, sprints perpendicular to its charge like how you're supposed to outrun an alligator, and wallrun-leaps up into the lower branches of a nearby tree. The wand beeps and clanks, but it may not be fast enough. She fumbles for her gun instead.
Tamamo	It is time, and Tamamo no Mae has come. It is not to her original Earth, but one close enough that it still seems to her as if she has been displaced through time more so than space. For all the ills one may rightly place on the feet of New York, she had enjoyed her prior visits, and would all the more wish to not see it reduced to time-blasted rubble and randomly attached vestiges of life, to say nothing of the mass slaughter that would continue from this city an epicenter. On the brighter side, if somewhat macabre in detail, Tamamo had at least known that some great battle was coming. She's come prepared, having devoted substantial time and effort to inking more curses to talismans than she could possibly need. Each contains, if one could decipher the meaning of the scrawl, a reference to one of the Narakas. Specific knowledge of these hell realms isn't necessary to use them to deliver their associated curses, alternately of freezing blizzards and cutting fires. They need only be applies to an opponent, place or, with a little more preparatory time, to ammunition. Unfortunately, she has no immediate time to pass out the fruits of her work to anyone (with the exception of Lilian, for whom she's had plenty of opportunities to top off both blessings and magical items), but is no further into announcing, "I have arrived, Doctor -- oh, my!" before she must begin constructing her own versions of the sorcerers orange-glow shielding circles. Hers aren't all that different in either broad appearance or function, apart from being a brighter gold. She takes that time to have a look at what's happening, and speak on it with a well-controlled appearance of calm. <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "Entropy, is it? For its breadth of power, I see it has, too, fearfully respectable depth. Both the creation of chaotic life, to quickly burn away, and the death of age are within such purview. That which needs hold nothing in reserve is all the more dangerous to those who wish to live long lives."
Lilian Rook	"You like my handwriting so much? The Eighth Code, Lilian. The First one. Are you going to keep being that goddamned stubborn if you really have to fight the Trinity of Ashes? The Orphenoc King? The London Terminarch? The Wedge of Heaven? What's it going to take, Lilian? Does someone have to die first?" "I'm not ready for it. I mean, I don't know if I'm ready for it. I don't know if anyone else is ready for it either. I don't think they are. The moment I do, things will . . . change." "The way things are now, with those people, it can't last forever. Pretty soon, it's going to be too much." §Please not now. It's still too soon.§ The portal sent to call Lilian finds her literally in the process of sheathing her sword and hooking it to her combat harness. "Just a second." she waves, cramming a half-dozen thin wooden rods into a cylindrical carry sack and attaching a leather-bound handbook to a chain, settling it next to a sheaf of paper tags and a hardcase of runestones. She shoulders an angular gunmetal grey slab over one side, writing plastered over its magazine well, but the space on her back is reserved for the black nylon backpack even she grunts a little to pick up. "Strange isn't the only one." she says, hurrying through the portal without elaborating. Hitting the streets, she detaches her carry case belt and sets its down at the intersection. Smoothly unlimbering the rifle, its pneumatics jamming the gel stock into her shoulder and holographics lighting up its sights, for the first time ever, she walks past Kale greeting him with just "Got it." She advances down the street at a swift, steady clip, weapon attached to her upper body, which she swivels with mechanical precision. Short electric roars of weapons fire trace slashing arcs of lingering muzzle flash through the air, swept through ranks of charging gribblies in the way, and back to concentrate fire on survivors, rapidly pulsing in longer and longer burstst while she fearlessly closes the distance with anything that doesn't fall right away. Heavily prepared, the shrieking bullets curve subtly with blessed aim, penetrate, and explode from within into balls of hellfire. Cutting her way ahead of Kale, she backs up, slices a street corner, and sights Strawberry up in the tree, snapping her aim down to her pursuer and blasting it ten times through the side just to be sure. She releases the backpack and lets it fall onto the road with a crunch. "You're haymakers." she vocally affirms. "I normally wouldn't ask this, and you know why, but just this once, ignore the timer, Strawberry. Use everything you have, then return to me. Trust me." She hits her radio. "And Tamamo . . . if it looks bad at all, even for a second, get back and get away. Don't take any kind of risks at all. Please."
Archer EMIYA	Archer arrives through the portal, pretty much wearing the look he always does, sans his red jacket. Though he's long since patched it up, he's decided to go without it. A good thing too, he figures, given the goop pouring out through the sky... The sight that causes him to furrow his brow. It's a scenario a bit too familiar with him, but at least this time around, civilians are actually being evacuated. Luckily for him (or unluckily?), Archer doesn't get to focus on his past traumatic experiences for long, as one of the sound barriers breaking snaps him out of it. He takes a step back, and draws a bow from the air, preparing himself for the inevitable.
Doctor Strange	"Hi, haymakers, says Loki, nervously smiling. "I'm damage control." Tamamo's assessment of Mother-of-Pain proves unfortunately accurate. The horde seems to take particular umbrage at Kale, for what is breath but an expression of life? Milky eyes of several species burn blood red as a concerning portion of their number diverge, attempting to overcome Loki and Strange to get to him. The asphalt is iced over by the latter, causing them to slip as Gungnir weaves through them like an impossibly quick sewing needle. A few still get through. One of Master Wong's overlarge chui--an unwieldy mace only usable by one with brute strength like his--splinters the spine of one attempting to climb with stringy viscera and get at Strawberry, while her pistol splatters through three in quick succession as yellowed claws and fingernails try to gouge and scratch at her. Lilian advances and cuts a swath through a significant number of their portion with her rifle, arcs of scarlet and other, inhuman colors, all invariably curdled, staining the pavement. She is wise to double-tap--because clavicles and bones burst from their coils to try and impale her as she passes. Tamamo's offer of seals is taken by Loki, who incinerates those few remaining on the unfortunate sorcerers beneath the initial breach. Charred torsos crawl after her, easily avoided and dispatched. Archer's arrows (read:swords) slice through the remainder, with two surviving, berserker-style rushing him to try and club him with bloated, swollen fists. They're little match for such an offensively-tilted spirit as he. "Alright," calls Strange. "Let's start hitting back. Lilian, love the initiative. You're quarterbacking this one. I'll be on damcon with Loki, but I'll divert to swing here and there. Exits east, west and north," he says, pointing with scarred fingers. "Anyone who's gonna duke it out with her, start swinging now while she's gotta wind up." The golden ring in the sky spins faster. Thorny veins shoot out from the maw at the center of that ring, burrowing into the ground. Visible lumps travel upwards through those veins, and they undulate and whip wildly, attempting to impale anyone who would approach up close. The asphalt crumbles from beneath as dissolving, gigantic microbes attempt to use their short, corrupted lives to envelop the living. This strategy does have the notable effect of rooting Mother-of-Pain in place...
Kale Hearthward	Kale holds back while the rest of his allies (mostly) rush ahead - he catches whatever talisman Tamamo tosses to him, but doesn't have time to examine it or use it yet. All of his focus is going towards taking - and holding - that one deep breath, ... At fourteen seconds, he stops inhaling, snapping his beak shut, containing it, letting the air soak in his straining lungs for a solid precious second to empower it... Depending on who you talk to in the multiverse, magic might come from the heart, from feelings... or from the mind, from thought and intent... or from the motions of hands and spoken words. For someone from the Windswept Continent, all of that has been baffling. You can't take a deep heartbeat, or let out an exasperated thought, or shout out loud with the full force of your hands. (Well, you can, but most people call that a punch.) No, magic resides in the lungs. It's a silly thing to think about at first brush, the lungs not being a particularly poetic organ... but their main product, breaths, exhalations - shallow, short, exasperated, deep, relieved, happy, and angry - have an expressive energy to them all of their own. And Kale, who wears his emotions on his sleeve, has never been one to keep things bottled in. And at fifteen seconds, he lets it all out. It's like a bomb going off. It's a jet engine. It's a sound and a fury to rival any dragon you could name. It is proof given form of how the East Wind earned his title. It's one nearly literally solid wall of air and wind and sound blowing forth, trying to push everything trying to get in right back out again - and clear a solid chunk of space beyond the barrier line in the process.
Strawberry Princess	"Ignore the timer". Lilian... you know exactly what you're asking, don't you? "Okay," Strawberry calls back tensely. "I trust you. Please- be careful too, okay? Don't do anything... drastic." Of course that's hypocritical of me. If she were ever going to do something drastic, it'd be now. Shouldn't I worry about Manhattan more than her? But... Strawberry's hands are moving on autopilot to boot up her wand. It's not fast enough. She leaps out of the tree and sprints towards Tamamo, but a scrabbling claw catches her leg just before the transformation can come over her and the protective Shimmer Aura can ignite. She staggers, but keeps running; soon her sparkling ghostly wings materialize, carrying her up and away from the danger. As soon as she's vertically clear, she heats the tip of her wand white-hot and jabs it against the wound without hesitation, cauterizing the entropic infection. Her teeth grit and her face twists into a grimace, but she's done this before. Still trailing a thin wisp of smoke, Strawberry does a high-speed flyby of Tamamo. In the process she snatches up a handful of the paper talismans, ejects her handgun's magazine, slaps the talismans on it, and pops the magazine back in. Fifteen rapid shots, fifteen explosions, dumped into whatever meatmonsters are closest. Then the empty gun drops, and the full transformation washes over her: the frills, the cutesy fruit, the new-old tiara. This is what I wore at London, wasn't it? Maybe this time, we'll make it out better.
Archer EMIYA	Focus on clean up to prevent another barrier breach. A simple enough job for Archer, after all, cleaning up messes is basically his life now. Exerting himself a bit to make sure he isn't hit initially, he grabs a handful of Tamamo's charms before breaking away from the group, making his way towards a nearby building. Despite the lack of a ladder, Archer makes use of loose bricks and window sills to climb his way all the way to the top, quickly setting up shop on the roof by projecting a bunch of featureless swords that he just lets clatter on to the floor, before grabbing each individual one and slapping a talisman on to them. It's a slower set up for him, to be sure, but at the very least, it'll save on energy for later. Assuming he lasts long enough into the fight, that is. With the prep work complete, the Heroic Spirit stands over the roof's ledge, loading in one of the swords into his bow as he pulls on it. Focusing his sights on another advancing horde, Archer lets the sword-arrow loose. The projectile flies, striking its target dead center in the middle of the shambling group, before exploding in an icy cloud that freezes everything else nearby.
Lilian Rook	<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Strange; do we assume they're lost assets, or can their magic still help?" <J-IC-Scene> Doctor Strange says, "They'll be dead already." <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo, forlorn, "Oh..." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Avoid contact with the target using any and all means at your disposal." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "And I do mean any and all means." <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "To stand beneath this ash-maker was a brave defense. Lilian, I shall keep my own self safe, do not worry for that, though I would appreciate that others place themselves within range of my blessings, that I need not rush far to meet them. I have brought supplies. Flames are effective, is it?" <J-IC-Scene> Doctor Strange says, "That's right. Cauterize whatever living flesh she touches--and if it's too late, burn it. Even tiny things. Even plants." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Agreed. We're going to need to clear a strongpoint for what I have in mind." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "We have the firepower and the defensive ability we need here, but not enough resources to keep the situation in check without running out of gas." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I planned ahead for that, a fair bit, so just, keep safe." <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "Near half of what extra I have brought bring forth the heat of the Narakas, from Sanjiva to Avici, and some lesser-known, besides. Please, avail yourself." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Perfect." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Kale, can you help them with the barrier? A wind wall should be fine for plugging gaps. Ideal for sending that sludge away. We'll try torching some safe landing zones." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Tamamo, I'm going to be using a lot of magic pretty shortly. Could you set something down?" <J-IC-Scene> Kale Hearthward, currently incapable of talking, taps an acknowledgement code. <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "I will, the moment I am able." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Archer, can you focus on cleanup and keeping our support safe? We can't have another one of those breaches burying the few hands we have on our side." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Unless you have something terribly large you've been keeping in reserve all this time at least." <J-IC-Scene> Archer EMIYA says, "Clean up duty is easy enough." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I'm sure Strawberry knows what to aim for." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Bank on having . . . four shots." <J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess lets out a hissing, pained breath. "I'm airborne. Everything green." <J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess says, "Hard to find a good position from below; it'll drop meat-vomit. Can't fire from above, then it's piercing down into the city." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "It's a wheel shape. Hitting from above or below just means putting a neat hole in it. This type of creature; it won't have singular vital organs in convenient places. You want to intersect those spokes; they aren't arbitrarily chosen visuals, but resonant architecture. Aim as shallowly as you can. If you can't break that ring, angle as narrowly as possible above or below." <J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess says, "Ash the spokes. Alright. I'll see what I can do."
Lilian Rook	"I prefer to think of myself as more of an uppercut. A haymaker is something known for being seen coming." Lilian says to Loki as she returns. "I'm glad to see you here. Who'd have known all that training would be so important so soon?" There's a beat, and she stares at Strange. No, he said he'd never seen past that day with Mordo, and she believes him. Instead, Lilian begins liberally applying fire to the surrounding area, hurling some of Tamamo's talismans into anything green, and then rapidly torching down the street with a stream of curling fire from her own hand motions. "Strange; landing zone for you. If Loki can set up boundaries with the earth magic and warding I taught him, we can gutter anything from above here." Then, blipping back and forth to retrieve those tools left in safe care for the moment, Lilian addresses the huge backpack she'd left by where Strawberry had taken off, working its zippers and upending a solid block, lashed together with ample elastic shipping bands, of soft silver dowels, like a bale of hay. Well over a hundred pounds of it. She unravels the harness with a motion like a whip, rolling it out into a stream of small components. Then she has to get to work. Lilian must really have 'something in mind'; even more than she always does. This hellish ground zero is about one of the worst places imaginable to start throwing water over the ground, scraping through the asphalt and into the dirt with knifepoint and wand, inking mandalas into the soil, and laying out complex interrelations of fire and water, silver and gold, flower and bone, and solar and lunar items. Even if she works like a blur, seemingly making three lines for every stroke, it's still preposterously dangerous to turn down her eyes from the sky. "Circle of black, circle of white, circle of gold, circle of crimson, axle of silver. Didn't have to start with aluminium, so I should be able to do this with . . . four projections, by the Mutus Liber method of the twelve keys." Lilian mutters to herself in a frenzy. "Wands of . . . oak, ash, birch, cherry, first, then-- alright. Tin. Five planetary orbits plus the sun and moon. Invoking Jupiter; resonant metal of tin. Day ruler of water, night ruler of earth. Sign of Zeus. Presiding the fourth day, elemental thunder--" Separating off a quarter of her payload, she drops it into the center of the circle she has rigged up, and within seconds, it has been dissolved into a glass basin with some horrendous acid, centrifuged by wooden rods, joined with flicks of blood from her deliberately slashed finger, and set fire to. The lines begin to glow as Lilian kneels and presses her hands to the arcane geometry to channel her magic into it, sweating with the focus required. "Sublimation . . . exaltation . . . multiplication . . ." Of course, it was inevitable that the vines would attack Lilian from behind. She'd left her back wide open, and couldn't be interrupted for even a second doing this, so-- -----[stop]----- "Nice try shitbag." Lilian stands from her circle, arcs of frozen arcane lightning stretching from her fingertips and snapping, hanging in the air like threads of still water. She spins within the confines of her adjoining marker, drawing and slashing in the same motion, carving blood red and vantablack swirls through the air. "Cleasa o'Skye--!" -----[start]----- --the explanation of how she gets away with it will have to wait. Lilian had said she was prepared. For some reason, the vines that approach her are torn to ribbons the moment they burst from the ground. Not just that, but the damage backflows along them, multiplies as it travels like a backwards wave.
Tamamo	Tamamo looks toward those master sorcerers who had so quickly lost their lives with only now growing resignation and acceptance that she can do nothing for them. For the living, she can cure any malady or break any curse she's ever encountered, but there's nothing she can do for the dead. Very few are those who can bring one back from beyond the brink of such disaster. "Would even more have fallen, had we been moments later?" <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "To stand beneath this ash-maker was a brave defense. Lilian, I shall keep my own self safe, do not worry for that, though I would appreciate that others place themselves within range of my blessings, that I need not rush far to meet them. I have brought supplies. Flames are effective, is it?" <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "Near half of what extra I have brought bring forth the heat of the Narakas, from Sanjiva to Avici, and some lesser-known, besides. Please, avail yourself." At Strange's confirmation, Tamamo names two of the realms referenced in the construction of her curses -- the one a place of torment of molten metal and fiery weapons, the other a cavernous oven. No single slip of paper is great enough to create such a realm on Earth, but each provides a tiny portion of that power. Tamamo hands or tosses the talismans, in loosely bound sheafs, to those who can accept them. "My thanks," she says to Loki, as her shields hold. They might not forever hold, and the strain with which she throws up more defenses to keep the monstrous mass at bay is greater than most any to which she's accustomed, but they do hold, for now. They buy her enough time, together with Loki's help, to finish off the stragglers with quickly launched talismans of flame. As importantly, they give her time to follow Lilian's direction, revealing an entirely different set of talismans from beneath her long sleeves. These, when released, glow with a soft pink light. "O gods of Izumo, from the seas of heaven," Forming a circle around her, the pink fades into a smoky violet, like a distant, stormy sky above a setting sun. "That rivers flow, and mountains stand, denies the end has come. Let light flow from above to below, and breathe life into the soul. Let this mirror be my proof of purification, the Eightfold Blessings of Amaterasu." The circle expands, talismans shooting away from her position, each summoning a ghostly, standing torii gate that 'opens,' briefly, with a misty impression of light, air and water quickly flowing back to her. Tamamo gathers the cloud-like spirits from each direction into her mirror, the artifact she'd just named, lets it rise, unsupported by her hands, into the air above her. When it drops, it's both sudden and forceful, embedding into the ground with its reflective surface raised. The gates still stand, though insubstantial. The ground loses the appearance of asphalt, rubble, and concrete, and gains the appearance of a still, shallow lake, Tamamo's raised footwear carrying her safely above it. That place fills, as Lilian had requested, with a strong, yet gentle energy of life and soul in the abstract, a haven of empowering peace amidst chaos and destruction. Defending this space, to which any in need of refreshment and healing may return, will take efforts of another kind. Tamamo doesn't name aloud the curses she launches from her position at the center of the lake, but they're tuned to the Raurava Naraka, known in another tongue as the Screaming Hell. Where those curses land, the ground erupts into heat and flame that doesn't dissipate, but remains constant. Such is the curse that those who attempt to to navigate the ground safely only find themselves in worse straits, tricked from open paths into entrapping themselves in dead-ends.
Doctor Strange	Archer's method of control proves extremely effective on Mother-of-Pain's chosen attack strategy. Hordes of corrupted microbes from beneath the earth prove highly susceptible to being forzen, made of protoplasm as they are. They are stopped dead in their tracks, those beneath and oozing atop the sorcerous shields alike. Kale's gale-force bellow hits the corrupted, giant microbes like the shockwave of a fuel-air bomb. Wind lifts up frozen protoplasm, shattering it against the street, against light poles, against barriers, against buildings. Parked cars are lifted up too, windows shattering from the force, skipping across the road to collide with those thorny veins, in places hard enough to uproot or crush them. More microbes rise up to replace them, as there is a throat-rumbling sound like lightning splitting a massive oak that reverberates across the city. Strawberry's pistol, blessed by Tamamo's talismans, incinerates them from the inside out, boiling them over--but Mother-of-Pain does precisely what Strange and Loki predicted. There are more. Always more. <J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess lets out a hissing, pained breath. "I'm airborne. Everything green." <J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess says, "Hard to find a good position from below; it'll drop meat-vomit. Can't fire from above, then it's piercing down into the city." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "It's a wheel shape. Hitting from above or below just means putting a neat hole in it. This type of creature; it won't have singular vital organs in convenient places. You want to intersect those spokes; they aren't arbitrarily chosen visuals, but resonant architecture. Aim as shallowly as you can. If you can't break that ring, angle as narrowly as possible above or below." <J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess says, "Ash the spokes. Alright. I'll see what I can do." Loki makes a swipe with Gungnir, and the asphalt ripples, smashing the newest, unfrozen microbes to nothing with repeated tesselated street-waves. "Good plan! Here!" Rings of light appear before Strawberry, in her flight path. As she passes through each, mirror images of her appear with flawless accuracy. There's no time for him to rest on his laurels--Lilian already has another idea. Loki plants Gungnir in the ground, and fragments of asphalt lift into the air, commanded by a mandala of his making. Futhork runes inscribe themselves into the chunks of asphalt, and then with a flurry of rabbit punches, they are sent hurtling over to Lilian's scorched landing zone to create a boundary. "Done!" "Good work. Keep your focus up. Remember what Archer told you about your barriers." "I would simply not get hit," Loki says, with -complete- confidence.
Doctor Strange	Lilian is able to tear up Mother-of-Pain's veins, which has the added benefit of slowing the absurd rate of creation for new abominations--but the unfortunate side effect of spewing her ichorous lifeblood every which way, as the veins blindly, unnervingly writhe. Strange lands in her designating landing zone and manages to bind them with icy tendrils conjured from some other plane--but not before a distressing amount of that corrosive sludge is hurled. The Masters not maintaining barriers rush over to incinerate the sludge, but can't get all of it before some seeps into the sewers through storm drains. Screeching sounds from below, before hordes of misshapen skeletons swarm out, each the size of dogs with what might've been the fur of rats clinging to them. They swarm around Loki's barrier, heading for Kale. Several masters avail themselves of Tamamo's talismans, their mystical flames burning ever brighter as they attempt to incinerate the remaining two vines. Tamamo's lake is of great assistance--they withdraw from it like burrowing insects from light, even though they weren't near it to begin with. The wounded are ferried to that lake under the safety of her curses--sorcerer and infirm civilian alike. Another sound like thunder striking a tree--you realize then that this is Mother-of-Pain's howl. Corrosive sludge is spewed on Archer's building, on several near Tamamo, and on a few in Strawberry's path. It isn't direct attacks--rather, designed to collapse the buildings and crush the three of them with falling rubble. Loki manages to save Archer the effort of making more ammunition, bundling them together to keep them from flying everywhere--but he and Strange are too busy with the corrupted rats to do anything about the collapse.
Kale Hearthward	And - there. Kale takes in a raspy breath - he has definitely pulled something or other, internally, letting loose like that. He'll be paying for it later - but... ... well, he has a moment to catch his breath, in the literal sense. He flinches back as the sludge comes in - and then relaxes as it goes into the sewers instead, having never actually been to a New York before. "Hey, at least there's nothing living in the sewers," says Kale, with perfect dark comedic timing, before the rats emerge and swarm him. "- What the heck are-" He starts throwing out spells again as he gets driven back - trying to block sewer entrances with any bit of debris that's lying around, shoving cars and bits of buildings and trying to just stem the horde any way he can.
Archer EMIYA	First order of business is grabbing hold of the nice bundle that Loki had made out of his stockpiled ammo. The second, probably more pressing matter that he should have worried about first, is surviving the building that's collapsing underneath of him. Well. He can't fly, so the only answer is to drop. He does this without hesitation, jumping off and landing on the ground as if he's a pro at it. Even with his supernatural humanity, however, the impact of the rushed escape courses through his entire body, and his first few steps of movement seem a bit off as it takes a moment for him to ignore his body's cries to stop. Pulling a sword from the bundle, Archer reloads his bow as he makes his way back to Strange and Loki before letting the projectile loose. The weapon lets out a scream as it flies through the air before it buries itself between the eyes of one of the bone rat abominations, and then promptly explodes in a scorching fireball, incinerating the rest of the mob nearby and hopefully buying the two some breathing room. "I heard the sewer rats in America were pretty bad, but frankly, this is something else." Out of obligation, Archer makes an awful joke. Half out of an attempt to lighten the mood, and half because he's got a terminal case of making light of being in life or death situations. It's disappointingly inoperable.
Lilian Rook	-----[stop]----- "Fucking blood shit everywhere like you didn't think I'd figure that out already." Lilian mutter-hisses, having to leave her brow-sweat to drip from her chin unaddressed in the effort of maintaining the Projection, wrapping causality around her little finger, and now laying out her own wall through the runestones in her assembly herself, mirroring what she'd told Loki to do in smaller fashion. Her bulwark erected against the splash zone, she touches her choker, burns up a prayer up to Amaterasu for strength and energy, and resumes her work. -----[start]----- The danger wave of heinously corruptive blood crashes against a wall of earth that spills from the split asphalt Lilian had left behind her. How prepared was she for this exact moment? "The fourfold stages of the Tabula through fourfold repetition of Exaltation and Multiplication of the Prima Materia into Caelestia Essentia. Fifty, ninety, ninety-two, ninety-four . . ." Whatever she's doing, the silvery glop in the vessel has now turned molten hot from the concentration of energy. The counter-rotating currents of light through each pulsing ring cause it to repeatedly burn, congeal, dissolve, separate, and burn once again. Each time, the specific hue and text of silver changes subtly, and the amount actually inside appears to decrease, until there's not all that much left. "Tin, through its sign ruled by Jupiter, the ruler of Thursday ruled by Thor, the ruler of thunder ruled by Zeus, through Thorium, transmuted through the gate of Uranius, the key of Pluto . . . gods of thunder, the smallest of the terrestrial stars, fourfold multifaction of silver . . ." And then she calls out. "Strawberry! Tag in!" What was a small pallet of tin now rests smoking in a shallow pool of water, having shrunk each time into a pool of thorium, then uranium, and now a perfectly weighted solid plutonium rod. "Throw one more in and I'll have it done in thirty seconds!" In the extraordinarily brief intervening time, Lilian stands up, takes up her sword (which is already drawn?), and teleports across the field to reach Tamamo, appearing before her in a swirl of dust and incense smoke, magic charging in her clenched and vibrating fingers, to be released with an expressive slash and a horizontal sheet of rippling explosions, simply bursting out of the air to consume wayward concrete and steel and thin the debris. A rising wave of time-place-mercury dreamstuff crashes into errant globs of sludge, and her sword is used to bisect and deflect the shrapnel headed for Tamamo herself, rather than her lake. Catching her breath for a moment, Lilian stops to draw up replenishing energy from that same hotspot, wiping away sweat and heaving "Everything's going according to plan. You're fine. And thank you. Keep at it!", before recharging and disappearing off again. Then she is right back to the array. There is more plutonium fuel ready in seconds.
Tamamo	A wide-area attack is quite bad for Tamamo right now, not just because it's more likely to actually hit her, and the weight of falling buildings would be more than cumbersome for her to hold up all on her own with her shielding magic, but because her blessed lake is filling with the injured. Its purification effects are enough to render those people immediately cleaned, as well as slowly heal their wounds, but tons of rubble would disrupt the ephemeral effect of applying that Watery Heaven to a dry, cracked and embattled field on Earth. "I had not expected to use such, and yet -- the mountains surrounding Arbuda, rise for our protection, now!" They're still 'curses' that she launches, but the masses of ice that spring up and curl inward, partially shielding her lake, only direct their blistering cold outward. They may stand up less well to direct attacks, having been intended first as an offensive tactic, but against falling rubble, they'll provide some defense. They don't protect the center point at all, where Tamamo is actually standing, but someone else has that covered. "Lilian!" There's some concern in her voice, though more warm gratitude than anything. She's too busy for more words than that, Tamamo knows. There is one additional benefit to those icy mountains, in that the waves of cold rolling forward don't so much interfere with the previous paths of flame as they do provide yet another obstacle, and just as capable, if substantially messier, in killing vines and less well-shielded life. So long as the lake persists, its blessings aren't limited to just its immediate area, but act as a locus from which Tamamo can easily direct those energies outward, letting her sight in on Strawberry, in particular, from an uncommonly large distance aiming a burst of empowered healing talismans her way. She'll still have to actually catch or run into them to benefit, if only because she's much more mobile a target than Tamamo's used to catching, and there are limits to the homing effect.
Strawberry Princess	"Thanks, Mr. Laufeyson!" Strawberry calls out, swerving through the aerial rings he creates with sublime ease. She's forked over and over with each one, decoy-reflections that can serve to take a bit of the heat off. Reflections of a different kind swarm off of her after she passes the last ring, lingering over Tamamo's lake for a breather- it certainly helps with her cauterized leg. Ghostly-pink arms claw their way out of her body as if it were a portal, followed by heads, torsos, legs. All told, a dozen eidolon-bodies- all identical, all reflections of Strawberry at seventeen years old- disperse from her, flying down into the alleys and between buildings. With the bits of power her reactor can spare them, they start methodically burning away at the Mother's spawn with perfect coordination, taking particular care to prune back those that might be trying to flee the area of battle. Unfortunately for Strawberry, that divided attention means she's not quite as alert to indirect attacks as she ought to be. The falling rubble crushes a handful of her Loki-granted decoys, but after a tense moment, Strawberry shrieks out of the dust cloud with Shimmer Aura flaring and bits of glass in her hair. Twisting around to face the falling rubble as soon as she's clear, she simply ashes a good amount of it in a flurry of mid-sized beams before it can land in the lake. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. But that's the point, isn't it? Nothing held in reserve. Lilian... I hope you know what you're doing. Ah, but those are-! Tamamo's air-burst healing talismans come at an opportune moment. Strawberry herself swoops through as many of them as she can en route to flanking the Mother, but the ones she can't catch, a ghostly eidolon splits off from the containment efforts to grab and apply to her anyway.
Strawberry Princess	<J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess says, "I'm in position. Look down, cover your ears, open your mouth, exhale." Her wand's plutonium reactor kicks into overdrive with the crunchy flip of a heavy lever. There's a taste of metal in the air; a high-pitched tinnitus-like squeal. She repositions to line herself up with the Mother's golden rim, but just off-center. A diffuse beam of Cherenkov-blue light paints where she's aiming: the exact perfect angle to pierce through the ring, three spokes, and back out the ring's other side, hopefully severing a whole chunk of the Mother's body. "FIRING ON HIGH! THREE!" Control rods shift, clank, and grindingly pull out of their wells. Her wand's unleashed reactor screams like an animal, like a flywheel building up to unimaginable velocities. Its power consumption holds steady through almost anything, but not through this. Her timer display begins dropping precipitously. 03:43 03:05 02:31 01:51 "TWO!" The darkened crystal at her wand's tip, emblematic of her extinguished heart, gutters back to life with the sheer amount of energy being forced into it. Then it becomes brighter than the sun, an unbearable pinprick of light that sears itself into the retina as a streak if even glimpsed. The Shimmer Aura over Strawberry's face turns opaque pink, shielding her from the worst of it. "O-" _________ _________ ______ ______ ___________ _____ ________ _ __________ ________ ____ _____ _______ _______ _____________ ________ _______ ______ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯
Strawberry Princess	The pulse of light comes first. Every shadow is gone, every color is bleached to unbearable white. Dry leaves, stray newspapers, and dead grass burn away instantly as if under a cruel child's magnifying glass. It is visible through your eyelids. It is visible through the back of your skull, pinpricks of radiation tickling the retina. For a fraction of a second, the only audible noise is every fire and car alarm for miles shrieking simultaneously under the electromagnetic pulse. The noise- no, the shockwave- of the beam itself comes an instant later, a reverberating impact that rattles in the bones, rupturing windows and sending ripples across the water. The beam melts everything it can't vaporize, and ashes everything it can't melt, and irradiates lethally everything it can't ash. 00:05 Strawberry swoops down and lands hard next to Lilian even before that noise has stopped echoing off the buildings. The tip of her wand is trailing smoke; her face is sunburned. A complex hissing-shrieking mechanical process pops out the white-hot fuel casing of her wand to land smoldering on the grass; her translucent wings and Shimmer Aura sputter and cut out. Then she grabs Lilian's plutonium rod and slams it in as a replacement, shutting the reactor again with noisy grinding clanks. It boots up once more. 05:00 "I can't believe it," she mutters softly, then more warmly: "Thanks, Lilian. We'll make it, I promise."
Doctor Strange	"It's really their city," says Strange to Archer and Kale. Bone fragments embed themselves into buildings, storefronts, overturned vendor stalls. Strange and Loki's shields protect the two of them and Kale, while the latter's gusts of wind plug up the sewers to prevent another such instance. Lilian manages to protect herself from the blood's influence, and just in time to offer Strawberry a plutonium rod. Tamamo herself may not be at much risk from the building--but there is still the issue of the lake, and the injured sorcerers using it to recover. "Loki, Lilian's got Tamamo. Protect the lake." "On it!" The rubble from Lilian's explosions smashes against the mountains of Arbuda, before gravity abruptly reverses and it all swings dramatically upwards--even that which was in the middle of rolling down those icy peaks. Stray bricks and support beams snap off, flying upwards in bits and pieces, into a shattered screen of reality that seals itself shut when the last bit of debris is through. <J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess says, "I'm in position. Look down, cover your ears, open your mouth, exhale." "Sight Without Sight," calls Strange, and the sorcerers--himself and Loki included--all perform a synchronized left-right elbow strike. Mandalas chime and spin, and halos of warding, burning orange eyes appear to encircle their heads. They 'see' now through the veins of Earth, not their eyes or their ears. Mouths open, the Masters of the Mystic Arts are prepared for Strawberry's attack. So is Mother-of-Pain. The legs begin moving faster. A dead sprint. Then faster. Faster than anything 'alive' ought to manage. They become a blur. A powdery, pollen-like substance flies outwards from the radius of its physical form. Strange is reaching through space as everything turns to white. The other sorcerers all perform some manner of subtle alteration to the concentric barrier rings. There is another shriek--rising over and above the din of car alarms and fire alarms. What happens when entropy itself is destroyed? One might expect for that ring to be melted. It is. But what one might not expect is the effect of the Annihilator Beam on the entity's flesh. Tumors shrink and wither, inflamed pink becomes the various shades of natural life that its legs imitate. Lilian was right--each part serves a purpose. As the tumors disintegrate, so too does the mass in the center. Giant, hale and healthy legs tumble free of the golden ring, smashing buildings, cars, landmarks as they collapse. But Loki and Strange weren't wrong. The Mother-of-Pain's last-gasp attack was an attempt to wring as much as she could out of the ancient compact with Earth's sorcerers. She had been invited, and she would make the most of that invitation. Red pollen swells into lichens and mosses.
Doctor Strange	In moments, huge portions of the city block that weren't evaporated by the Annihilator Beam are covered. And in scant few seconds, the slime that oozes from the infestestion takes humanoid shape, in droves. Servitors outnumber the gathered forces to a near-hopeless degree. Loki is shouting something about the Legion of Monsters and Excalibur being overwhelmed. About Doctor Voodoo forced into retreat. Strange places a hand on his shoulder. The other hand cluthes a book by the spine. Another Annihilator beam will take care of it. But there are other parts of the city being overrun. "Save the second shot, Strawberry." And frankly... "You've given enough of yourself today." Strange hovers high above the battle. Across Manhattan, gelatinous bodies storm buildings in search of life, swarm streets, attempt to overrun what defenders the city has managed to bring forth to stop them. Strange opens the Grand Finale. Brilliantly burning white mandalas form in the air before him, starting small and growing nearly as large as the golden ring of the fallen Mother-of-Pain. The array resembles the lenses of an old-style magnifying apparatus, layered before one another. The resemblance is more than a coincidence. The mandalas begin to spin. Strange dictates the narrative, and the Grand, happy to comply, enforces it. "At the eleventh hour, Doctor Strange beseeched aid from the Hoary Host of Hoggoth. They came, turned the tide, and sealed the Grand--" Black, inky sludge crawls up Strange's arm, attacking his mind as swarms of little black-somethings fly in and out of his body. The Grand is furious. Strange's scarred fingers dig into the book's plastic cover hard enough to draw a squeal from the binding. "WHERE HANDS WOULD NEVER GRASP IT!"
Doctor Strange	A shockwave ripples through the air, TV-static flickering in and out of shadows. Strange is knocked backwards, the Cloak of Levitation keeping him from a dangerously hard impact. The Grand furiously rebukes him, hurling static bolts his way--but the spell is cast. White figures fly from his amplified mandalas, servants of Hoggoth, Vishanti of Creation. Hoggoth themselves may be centuries away--but their Hosts are not bound to the same restrictions. A pocket of natural blue eats its way into the red haze. White figures, indistinct until one truly Looks (and then, resembling, to whomever may look upon them, the wizened, gray-haired face of a venerable elderly person), dart in multitudes across the city, burning away the lichens, mosses and slime-creatures alike. White broadswords drawn, a ring of them appears in a circle around the Grand. A mandala so brilliant as to be near-blinding appears beneath the artifact. Chains whip from beneath it as it furiously attempts to destroy the Sorcerer Supreme, himself forced on the defensive. The chains increase and multiply until not even the slightest bit of baleful magic can escape it. Then, and only then, does the light grow so bright as to be a pale imitation of Strawberry's Annihilator Beam, focused in one specific area. There is a 'pop,' and the book is gone, along with the chains and the binding mandala. There is a moment wherein that ring turns, in unison, to peer at Strange, only now able to get off the ground. He nods. They disperse, and bit by bit, that creeping blue in the sky eventually overtakes. The day is won. Sorcerers are cheering. Lifting Loki up (who looks like he might cry from all the approval) and clapping each other, and Strange, on the back. Those in Tamamo's lake can convalesce knowing that victory was had, that they did not fail their allies. She is thanked profusely for her help. Wong surveys Strawberry's work with the Sight Without Sight spell, nodding and giving her a thumbs-up, while Kale and Archer swarmed by a couple of neighborhood kids who snuck back to watch the monster fight. So... why doesn't Strange look happy?
Kale Hearthward	Kale is simply never going to get used to the annihilator beam. Even after nearly a year of seeing it in action, even with warning and distance and safety. And then... it's over. "... And aside from the annihilator beam, I'm... still never going to get used to that..." Kale's impending thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of admirers. He spends some time, entertaining them with cheap wind tricks, getting lost in the moment de célébrité. ... There's a lot of questions on his mind. He's also realizing, belatedly, that he ran off without letting Zephyr know where he was going, and is wondering if he should mention it at all when he gets back.
Tamamo	Saved from the rubble by the work of Strawberry, Lilian, and Loki together with her own efforts, Tamamo's lake, surrounded by its ghostly gates, will continue supplying healing for as long as the Eightfold Blessings remain where they are. Its reflective surface is a manifestation of the mirror itself, channeling blessings from the Age of Gods by the authority of Amaterasu. This being the case, thanks are wholly warranted, yet Tamamo can't help but be humble in receiving them, insisting that she only did as might be expected her of it, and it was no more special than that. This is undoubtedly a result of the nation she'd been raised in, in that prior life. The blessings will remain where they are even if she moves a bit away, so long as she's not too far, and doesn't need to direct them as she had been in those last moments of the battle. There's no reason for her not to go and find how each of those fighting in other areas are doing, then, and plenty of reasons to do so. Lilian is the first for her to check on -- if Lilian doesn't instead find her, first -- but by excellent happenstance, she'd avoided any real harm throughout the fight. Strawberry, going back for her recharge, is easy to find from there, and Tamamo takes a moment to press a healing charm into her hands. "Are you well? Please, take your time. It seems we have driven off that ill-behaved mother, after all." Unable to easily spot Kale or Archer, Tamamo goes next to find Strange, having spotted him flying up with that book. What exactly happened after that is less clear to her. "Dr. Strange, that item... was linked to the contract that allowed the Trinity of Ash to approach, was it not? Has that agreement been voided?" She can only speculate, without knowing the details.
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry takes a good few moments to parse everything going on. Her expression, at first, is one of shock and disbelief that the limbs are still 'living' and intact- only to realize, with Wong's help, that this is just how an avatar of decay 'dies'. A deep, ragged sigh of relief escapes her; the wand's tip falls to rest against the ground as she returns the thumbs-up. "Don't worry," she says to Kale, shaking her head a little. The words might sound wry in any other tone of voice, but there's no smile on her lips: "I haven't gotten used to it either." Tamamo's pool is immensely tempting right about now. One of her eidolons flits over to soak in it, sympathetically sharing the healing with her real body just as they sympathetically transmit harm. But Strawberry herself doesn't go. Doctor Strange looks off- he needs someone to talk to. But before even that: "Thank you, Lilian," she says softly, smiling a shaky-tired smile. "Alchemizing plutonium... you really are amazing. I'd never have thought of 'cheating' it like that, but I knew you'd come up with something. ... And- I'm sorry." It isn't made explicit what the 'sorry' is for. But it's not hard to guess, either. She's unhappy, isn't she? With just 'helping and directing others', when big things like this show up. Was she planning to 'push herself' today, beyond the alchemy? I hope I didn't take away her chance. Tamamo distracts her from her reverie of thoughts, catching her as she's just about to leave. Strawberry's face lights up- the new costume doesn't obscure half of her expression- and she takes it reverently, tucking the wand under one arm to hold the charm in both hands. "Ah... thank you, Tamamo. I really did need it. You're the best at picking out gifts, aren't you?" She's stopped favoring one leg, at least, and her skin looks noticeably less radiation-blushed. Then, finally, she walks over to Strange, giving Loki a warm congratulatory smile and wave on the way. "What was all that, Dr. Strange? With the book, and the angels, and the... and why do you look so sad? Is there something wrong? I know we couldn't save everyone, but- I feel like there's something else."
Archer EMIYA	Archer, not being an absolute jaded asshole, messes up a few of the kid's hair with a smile. Ultimately however, he leaves the rugrats to Kale, making his way back to Strange. "By the look on your face, you'd think this isn't the last of them we've seen. I assume that's actually the case though, messes like these never smooth over this quickly or nicely." Having no use for the stock pile of swords any longer, he drops them on the ground now. He'd have done it sooner, but dropping a bunch of lethal weapons in front of a group of tiny crotch spawn is generally seen as an irresponsible move.
Lilian Rook	"Well you should believe it." Lilian replies just before finishing. "It's me, remember?" Just before Strawberry flies away. Having an idea of what comes next, she stands to her feet, rolls her shoulders, and takes up Night Mist in two hands, hilt hovering near her shoulder. Curling lines of inky blackness grow beneath her suit up to her cheeks, the red to match bleeding into her eyes. Counting the seconds, she avails herself behind her shield of gamma-absorbing stone, and then not a moment later, flies out to the site of battle. She doesn't show herself again until the Host of Hoggoth have come and gone. A worrisome pause, for minutes of silence, before she appears at the end of the street, wiping away a trickle of blood from her lip with her fingertip, and then with a theatrical sigh, throwing herself into the blessed spring and wallowing. "I wouldn't say irresponsible things like 'trust me' if I didn't think we could do it, you know." A pause for her to get up. "If I didn't think you could do it." -----[stop]----- Just this time. This is the last time. That smile is worth it. -----[start]----- She seems to find something Tamamo says funny, spreading her arms over the edge. "Ill-behaved? I suppose that's true, but the tone you're taking . . . ah, you're thinking of how much better of a mother you'll be, am I right~?" she makes a passable attempt to grab Tamamo and pull her in. After something like that, she has the right to be a greedy little shit and cheekily sit the nearest person who isn't taller than her across her lap. But that glow does slip away shortly, when Archer approaches Strange. "A 'Trinity' of Ashes implies three. But more than that; that's what Mordo was ready to kill for, wasn't it? Are you really sure it was wise to fire your silver bullet at a time like this?"
Doctor Strange	Kale and Archer are both quite popular with the rugrats, who have never quite seen heroes like either of them. It's just long enough for parents, who have broken through the barricade of emergency responders in hazmat gear, to thank the both of them profusely for keeping their children safe, while also furiously, tearfully scolding their children never to be so reckless again. Tamamo is rightfully concerned with the use of the book. "Oh, the agreement's been voided, alright, but that was the Grand Finale," he explains to Tamamo. "Not the Book of Ashes. Mordo screwed us with that already." Lilian does bring up a valid concern. "I wouldn't be surprised if, down the road, Griefsavor or Ygmlosvorraich showed up. They won't be too keen on it, with the thorough clapping we just gave one of them--but they're eyeballing us, for sure. As for whether it was wise to use that... yes. It was. I'll get to why in a moment." There is a tremendous weight about the man--moreso than usual, as if he is expecting the other shoe to drop any moment now. To Tamamo and Strawberry both, "The Grand Finale's an artifact from another world. It allows the user to dictate what events occur. To control the narrative. As one of the bones of its respective world, it's extremely powerful." He closes his eyes. "But that world is Off now. And 'On' was... a miserable, hateful, sorrowful miscarriage of life." He can't conceal the anger--something about that world and his dealings there profoundly bothers him. But he continues. "So every 'bone' of that world is inevitably possessed of some cruel twist. In the case of the Grand Finale... the book exerts just as much control over the narrative as the author." In other words... "There's no such thing as a happy ending with the Grand Finale," Strange sighs. "I just chose the least shitty one I could." Now, he turns to Lilian once more, to offer the explanation as offered. "Being one of the Vishanti himself, Agamotto's Eye is unable to see the Vishanti and the Trinity, their equal opposites, directly. But their /servants/ are a different story." So why was it wise to call the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth? "I knew the Hosts would be coming to recruit me for the War months ago." <J-IC-Scene> Strawberry Princess says, "... Good job, Mr. Laufeyson. I'm proud of you." <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Loki says, "...thank you." Loki's joy diminishes as a realization strikes him. "...and the bargains you made with Hoggoth are binding, aren't they?" Strange nods solemnly. "All I did just now was speed up their arrival. When I realized what Mother-of-Pain was going to do, I knew it was either take huge losses and try to live with myself for selfishly delaying the inevitable, or... do the right thing." His voice wavers when he says 'the right thing.' Clearing his throat, "Which is why the Grand agreed to the spell before it knew the full terms. I guess it thought that was all I was going to say," he admits with a melancholy smile and a glance towards Archer, a brother-in-arms when it comes to finessing ancient and asshole entities. Loki's face contorts into a pained expression, squeezing Gungnir anxiously. "But... but what about the challenge?" He isn't asking because he wants to be Sorcerer Supreme--his tone and his face make this plain. "Come and gone," says Strange. "You and Mordo both had very tempting things dangled in front of you. Instant gratification for you, a powerful artifact for him. He failed. You didn't." Several of the Hoary Host touch gently down near Strange, arms swept behind them in silent beckoning. "And now I need a replacement. Take the Eye of Agamotto, Sorcerer Supreme." Strange unclasps the rose-brass amulet and hands it over. But Loki doesn't take it. Of all things that the God of Chaos should do, crying may be the least expected. "You can't /leave!/ You stupid mortal wretch. I... I need you! There's so much I don't know!"
Doctor Strange	"No you /don't,/" snaps Strange, in the stern, cold way that only a martial artist's master can manage. "And cut the waterworks. For Christ's sake." But when next he speaks, his emerald eyes soften. His voice, too, is warm. "You have Wong, and everyone else in the Masters. You have an entire community of people here in this city who care just as much as you what happens to this dumb planet." Strange turns, and gestures to the Paladins. To Tamamo, who taught a trickster the value of subtlety. To Kale, who taught a god the value of patience. To Archer, who taught a coward the value of courage. To Lilian, who taught an ageless being the value of new experiences. To Strawberry, who taught an outcast the value of his own heart. "And you have them. How many times did you screw up when we taught you? Every time, each one of these people was there. Holding out their hand for you to get back up. Loki, I promise you'll pick up what you need to know. Just like I did." "I'm almost ready," he says to the Hosts, who wait nearby like heavenly ushers. They nod, smiling wanly at him, where those of you who look upon them care to look hard enough. Strange conjures a portal with his sling ring for Kale, and anyone else to get back home. But he bars Archer's path. "Wait." Archer and Stephen Strange have dealt with loss on scales that would break weaker hearts--and the both of them have often blamed themselves for that loss, as many who know loss often do. Archer may feel that such a loss is around the corner--because Strange, sans the Eye (forcibly foisted on Loki through a simple, but unbreakable spell), approaches him with that same look of resignation. Wordlessly, he embraces Archer. Hugs him tightly, closes his eyes, and doesn't fight the tears. Now that look makes sense. Now the look that Strange gave him, that night in Kamar-Taj--'I have something to say, but can't say it'--makes sense. When he releases the spirit, the Sorcerer Supreme has, through another sorcerous trick, foisted something upon Archer. A letter which reads 'Archer,' but that has been crossed out. It reads the spirit's real name, instead--and an instruction: 'open when I'm gone.' A radio crackles to life, one speaker submerged in heavy rubble, ancient 80s brick technology allowing it to just barely survive the EMP from the Annihilator Beam. Loki doesn't cut the waterworks. Tears stream down his face as he watches Strange turn and leave with the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth, their radiant forms occluding him down to a tall silhouette. The sunlight condenses into colorless brilliance, woven into a giant six-fingered hand with inhuman bone structure. Strange turns back, standing on the palm. "Goodbye, everybody. Be excellent to each other," he says. The clouds shift, and they are gone. Loki is left, in tears, surveying the wreckage of the city. "Every time I get to liking someone... they leave," he murmurs. One of Wong's chui, in an expert application of strength and physical control, lightly bonks him on the head. "Idiot. Did you not hear a word he said? Let's finish up here and go home." Loki wipes his eyes with a sleeve of his tunic. "Home..." He nods sadly, managing a smile. "I'd like that. Everyone... thank you so much for believing in me. I'll work hard to be worth it."
Kale Hearthward	The sea air wafts through Kale's return portal. It seems to be on a cruise ship. He doesn't go through it right away - lingering silently for Strange's fairwell. "... I..." he says, looking around at the group. "... Should get going. I have something I need to ask someone..." he says, weakly, and disappears into the portal - which closes up after him.
Tamamo	"Oh, is it this small item of which you speak?" If Tamamo's response to Strawberry is feigned humility, she's very good at suggesting, by tone, expression, and body language, that it's genuine. "I always keep one such at hand, if not more, lest I find it needed, yet absent. You need not think it a gift, at all, though you may certainly keep it." She actually is that good at feigning it, but apart from the fact that she's hiding her pride in her work, it's a genuine statement of welcome. Despite the seriousness(?) of the situation, Lilian gets greedy. Tamamo ends up allowing this, with only a small protest, so long as she can still hear Strange explain what just happened. Lilian and Tamamo are pretty close in size, and it's easier to see just how 'actually not all that tall' Tamamo is when she's not being raised by her shoes. "I should hope myself a better mother than one who creates life, only to leave it to quickly die. Could any be worse? Long and nurtured lives are more my preference, burning as slowly and brightly as the Sun, rather than disappearing, in a flash, to ash. Although, I suppose I do speak hastily, for not being yet one, at all." Soon, though, her attention is taken, not fondly with her knight, but with Strange, with some growing resignation as that first suspicion of hers, now a year old, comes further to light, and then with the Hosts, either unwilling or unable to hide her curiosity at their nature, if not their presence. "One seeks no successor when one still believes in the eternity of the present," Tamamo says, if only to speak the thought aloud. And of all the things she might say of him, 'stuck in the present' could hardly be one of them. "Goodbye, Doctor Stephen Strange. Ah, I may no longer call you 'Sorcerer Supreme,' I do know. Still, may your journey be a blessed one, and let us meet again, whether an age shall pass." After he's gone, Tamamo says to Loki, "For your graduation, congratulations." It's a bit more somber than suits a line like that, but their rote nature lends some dignity. "It is for this that he did prepare you. Rather, shall I say, it is for this he hoped you would be prepared, and for which he had all of us come to meet you, that we might say anything he could not. And it is you who proved yourself, showing his hopes would be fulfilled. To say he is not needed here, if he said such himself, I would respect that wish. But to say you wished he might stay -- that is at once the truth. Such can be said of many partings. 'You will survive without me, and I have made sure of it,' does not contradict, 'I would be greater for your presence.'" Presently, Tamamo covers her mouth. "Oh, but I do ramble embarrassingly long. Please forgive me the moment. I had not thought of how little I had come to know the man until after I was certain of his intent. Or is it that I think of all that I do not know, only after -- ah, again, please pardon me." She'll be going back with Lilian, naturally. At some point.
Strawberry Princess	"Dr. Strange... what are you saying?" Strawberry begins uncertainly. "The War, what kind of..." She's still shell-shocked from everything that's just happened; the staggering inhuman spectacle of the Mother-of-Pain and of Hoggoth's Host, the creeping nausea and deep ache of having practically microwaved herself. "Wait, no, no. When are you coming back? You're coming back, aren't you? We did so well, you can't just..." He turns to walk away, flanked by those glowing figures. Strawberry runs after him. Her expression is one of incomprehension, of not wanting to comprehend, of slow-dawning pain. She is still in the 'walking ghost' phase of grief. "Mr. Strange, wait!!" He'd told her not to call him that, once, either a month or a year ago. He said that it made him sound like somebody's suburban dad. But things like that are far from her mind. The alien-celestial hand lifts him up. Strawberry rises to pursue him, too, her wings unfurling again with the power of Lilian's synthesized plutonium. I thought we did everything right. You're not supposed to lose people if you do everything right. This isn't fair. Why is he doing this?! "Stephen!" she calls out. The last he'll hear of her voice will be even rougher and hoarser than usual. She yells as if somehow the problem were that he couldn't hear her; as if he were making some terrible mistake that could be warned against. Her old visor, before the year in Kamar-Taj changed it back for a tiara, could've hidden her tears. Now there's no concealing them. And then he's gone. "STEVE!!" Strawberry is left alone in the sky. Desolation stretches out below her. Where Strange was, there's only empty blue. The salt burns her face worse than the radiation did.
Lilian Rook	Lilian listens to Strange with the so-specifically guarded countenance of someone listening to their father painfully trying to explain to his family why nobody is going out to their traditional holiday place this year, just old enough to know the conclusion well before the other children, and to have had an idea of why from seeing his late hours staring at spreadsheets. The look she gives him wobbles uncertainly between quietly and impassively absorbing the content of his announcement, and experimentally trying to find a better expression to wear, on either side of that careful balance. When he wraps up, she says "I'll be around. Given your gentlemanly age, I'll assume I won't be waiting for long. Relatively speaking. So if you take too long, I might become impatient and win it for you." She subtly squeezes her catch a little tighter. "I'm used to seeing people leave on long trips. But you've won first place on this one. Congratulations. And good luck." Only once the once-Sorcerer Supreme has departed, does she turn a gentler, more reluctant tone, on the one of the now. "You know, when he first asked us to do this, I saw right through him. I spoke to him in private, about what he hoped to achieve through this Challenge. And he told me in confidence, that he hoped to see you inherit the title after him more than anyone else. That he believed in your ability to make up for past wrongs, and in your care for this planet and its people. So, I promised him, that I'd see you become Sorcerer Supreme. I'm glad that he was right, and I'm proud that you did." Then, reluctantly as she can, Lilian recognizes that she has to gently put down Tamamo. She says "I think that's the way all humans are. The way they are about each other, and the way they leave others. There's much more to them than you'll ever pick up in less than a lifetime together, but it's all deep behind the part you see every day. That's normal." And then she goes to Strawberry, taking her time to fly up there, hoping to find words. Instead, she first just ends up holding her shoulders from behind, and gives up on something pretty with a subtly rough sigh. "This is how it is with people who already know ahead of time, exactly how they're going to exit your life. We trade a year we shouldn't have had for unknowable days we should have had, I guess. We did everything right. That was all there was to do. And he knew it too. So he did what was right too. So, I don't blame you for feeling lonely. But try not to act like it's forever. It'll only be that way if you let it be; I promise."
Archer EMIYA	Archer, probably surprising at least one person, returns Strange's hug. Not out of a sense of obligation or because it'd be weird if he didn't, but because it's simply what he wants to do. A good long hug between best friends. Sadly, all good things come to an end eventually, and after the Sorcerer Supreme slips him a letter, he lets them leave. He tries to think of one last thing to say, but can't. Instead, he just smiles and waves. After all, what's a couple hundred or so years wait for a time displaced spirit? Surprisingly composed compared to some of the group, Archer faces away from the rest of the group as he opens up the piece of paper in his hand and goes over it quietly. "We really are just a couple of idiots, aren't we?" He mutters these words under his breath lowly enough so now one can hear him, before heaving . Up until now, he hadn't felt anything. He's seen countless people come and go, some of them even being friends of his. He thought he was over such things as tears, but between the letter and the situation finally settling in, they come quite naturally. It takes even more willpower to prevent his face from contorting into an ugly mess than it did to move with his strained legs, and the only sign that there might be something up with him is when he sniffles back some snot given that he refuses to turn around to face everyone. "I'll be staying behind for a bit. I'll be back before you start missing me." Having completely lost the ability to maintain his act, Archer's voice is slightly off as he speaks. It's a lot less sauve, and much more naturally soft. A lot like Muramasa's natural talking tone, though still notably deeper.