2013.04.29 - Demonic Lamp

It's a bit after noon and Rennaisance Land is quite busy in the pleasant spring weather. Enough so that it's actually kind of difficult to get around the park at times! One man, Michael Ruthers, is trying to navigate to a souvenir shop. Unlike just about all the adults visiting the park, he is here alone. He has no family to speak of, few friends, and his co-workers are not the sort to come here. The hook-nosed middle-aged male has enjoyed his visit, but it's still tiring trying to get around when one spends most of the day at a desk.

Finally, he spots one particular shop that catches his eye. "Ye Olde Magic Shoppe?" he asks outloud as he stands in front of the store. "Why do they insist on adding extra letters in Old English?" he mutters and shakes his head as he enters the store. Some browsing later, his eyes alight upon one item in particular. A lamp with the base seemingly shaped like a hand, gripping a skull. The 'skull' is a light bulb of some strange kind... The lamp is ugly, creepy, and weird. Michael decides it will make a nice conversation piece. The lampshade is even scrawled in weird symbols! He can claim they mean anything and invent some story about finding it in a foreign land!

The shop worker sells it to him for very little, and it seems that there is only one lamp like this in the entire store. Michael shrugs and decides perhaps it's so ugly that they just want to get rid of this last one. Walking outside with it, Michael has to squint in the glare of the sunlight. The lamp feels cold in his hands, but he wants to keep holding it anyway. It's somehow... Soothing. But the sun...

"I wish it wasn't so bright!" he declares as he finally decides to put the lamp back in the bag and head over to see a jousting re-enactment of some kind. Thus, he doesn't see that the pinky finger of the leathery hand that comprises the lamp's base twitches, bends several times and then grips the skull-shaped light bulb all the tighter.

Overhead, storm clouds start to roll in out of nowhere, huge, dark, rumbling, and blotting out the sun...

Elsewhere... Warning wards go off in the Zatara mansion while Zatanna is busy studying a tome. Paper talismans shrivel and crumble as though burning. Crystal balls turn black and opaque. Tea leaves rot instantly in the cup next to her. "...Uh, that's not good." Zatanna says after a few seconds of surprised silence.

Cue the call for aid as Zatanna Zatara prepares to teleport responders to the site of the disturbance.

Does one really NEED a reason to visit an amusement park, even if one is an extraterrestrial refugee stranded here on Earth? Of course not! Kara Zor-El was still a teenaged girl full of vibrancy and life and a strong will to live it, even if she did feel at a small loss for direction right now. She hadn't really gotten close to her new team as of yet, and while she had an apartment, she didn't really have anything she'd consider a 'life' of her own. Not like Kal- Clark -did anyway. These days the blonde had mostly been solitary, a lone figure who appeared in times of need and then flew off again without waiting around to be thanked.

And Kara? Well, she didn't even really have much of a secret identity to call her own.

So there she is, wearing a white button-up long-sleeved shirt, sleeves rolled up over her forearms, and low-riding jeans with rhinestone hearts on the butt pockets at the Fair, or perhaps 'Faire', she'd seen while flying overhead. Her 'costume', also known as the fighting armor of her home planet, has been carefully hidden beneath, and her cape nicely rolled and placed in her backpack. Which is a good thing, considering she thinks she might be needing it soon as storm clouds run in out of nowhere. The blue-eyed blonde frowns in confusion as she looks up at the weather suddenly threatening rain.

Weather here on Earth could change suddenly, but always in time that could be measured in hours, not seconds.

"...Great."

Greer Nelson has long liked hitting the renn fests and similar occassions, though it's something she's gotten away from in recent years. Things have changed a bit now, though, and so she's indulging, wandering the festival grounds, and having indulged in a costume for the occassion. She's in a loose, pink cotton dress, sandals, and a a black bodice snugs things up and shows them off. She is in human form, though. Mixing this outfit with her fur, well, that'd be a little strange, she thinks. She's currently chatting with the owner of one of the shops that sells swords the link, mentally comparing his faked accent to that of Thor's and Sif's when the out of place rumble is heard. She frowns and glances out of the booth. "Didn't think it was supposed to rain today," she says. "Verily, 'twas not," agrees the confused shopkeep. Or is that shopkeepe?

It's been one of those weeks for Amanda Sefton. Between the altercation with Mystique and encountering Alice-in-Wonderland... Ye-ah. It's been interesting.

Generally speaking, she's not one to wander about an amusement park as a way to unwind. No. Her recreation of choice, today, at least, is a cup of tea and a good book. And her wards are generally limited to her own apartment, rather than set to cover the whole city. Of course, to be fair, her natural attunement to New York and its surrounds, rather means she doesn't need to setup alert wards quite the same way. Instead, the disturbance in the aether -- the unusual weather -- feels more like a cold draught across her skin.

She looks up from her book, toward the window of her condo. Setting it aside, she pushes out of her chair and crosses to look out. The clouds gathering simply don't make sense with the rest of the sky.

She lets out a soft sigh. "Naturally."

Turning away from the window, she retreats to the bedroom to gather her bag of tricks and open a portal across town.

In a poof of smoke, Zatanna appears. There weren't any other JLA members available to respond, but some of the other League magicians were at least able to start looking into the background of the matter, checking for signs of what lead to this development, if there are any magical villains on the loose recently, etc. As soon as Zatanna arrives, she can tell that some powerful magic was used at Rennaisance Land -- and recently. Her stage magician garb might not be well-suited to the setting, but she's not really here for fun, so she just smiles and waves to anyone who stops to stare, and then tries to track down the source of this dark enchantment. Her normal scrying methods were completely blocked when she wasn't actually on-site. "Laever eht tirpluc!" she chants as she waves her hands in the air.

A luminous trail of green energy appears in the air, tracing the footsteps of whomever is responsible. "I don't like the feel of this magic..." the raven-haired magician mutters, holding her hat on her head with one hand and beginning to follow the trail as the wind picks up. There's no rain despite the clouds, but thunder rumbles amidst electrical discharges within the clouds themselves. Even normal people are going to wonder what's going on and start moving to find shelter as banners whip violently, and light-weight objects are sent rolling and tumbling across the ground.

Meanwhile, at Ye Olde Magic Shoppe, the door bursts open and a man in a voluminous red cloak with a raised collar seems to just hover inside. His smoothed-back black hair with white streaks on the sides remains untouched by the strong winds outdoors, unlike just about everyone else. Sunken, coal-black eyes stare intensely around the store as the attendant comes out to the counter. The exchange is brief. "Where is my lamp?" the cloaked man asks. The man behind the counter lapses in his fake accent, turning a bit pale. "Th-that was for YOU, sir? I sold it to another who came in and showed interest!" The cloaked man's thin, aggressively-swept eyebrows shoot up, eyes widening. Then they narrow and his eyes glow bright red. The shopkeeper gasps.

There are screams from within the shop that can almost be heard over the wind. Then the cloaked man exits the shop, looks to the sky, and swirls his cape about him until he seems to spiral into himself and disappear.

Meanwhile, Michael can't seem to reach the front of the crowd who insist on watching the joust despite the weather. He tries to stand on his tiptoes, but it's just not working. Holding the bag containing his newly-acquired lamp to his chest, he frowns, and mutters, "I wish the crowds weren't so large here..." Green lightning tears down from the sky above and strikes in the middle of the crowd, injuring several people, blasting the ground, and hurling others through the air violently. Two more bolts do the same as people flee in terror. The crowd and the lightning are going to be hard to miss even by mundane folk. For those already alert to the odd goings-on, all those running people, screams, and so on, are going to be very much an indicator of trouble.

Michael, having been knocked to the ground, just stares in shock as he suddenly finds himself the only one at the -- now abandoned -- joust. Even the knights have run off. He feels something move in the bag, and extracts the lamp in a daze. Two of the fingers seem to be almost ALIVE. Twitching and moving like they're real! He looks up at the sky, and then to the lamp. Comprehension dawns on him. "...Wh-whoah. A magic lamp!" Duh.

She's already looking for a convenient place to do the ol' phonebooth changing act when the first scream, that of the man in the magic shop(pe?) rings out. To ears that can hear a hearbeat from forty yards, it might as well have been a police siren going off. The blonde teenager darts a quick look around to see if anyone is looking at her in particular, before she simply... vanishes from sight.

In reality, Kara Zor-El swoops through a nearby tent wherein wenches serve ale, or beer passed as ale, whichever. In one side enters a mild-mannered blonde teenager, and a heartbeat later Supergirl is hurtling out the other end, blonde hair whipping in the wind, cape flashing out behind her, Kryptonian protective suit clinging to her. She weaves in between running and screaming people and flashes through the flimsy protection of the shop's tent.

What does she find upon entering? Maybe a charred corpse, maybe just a really frightened man. Maybe even a toad that used to be a person!

But regardless, the super-powered blonde is just in time to see a red flash of cape exiting the store. "HEY!" Sure, not her best 'surrender now' line, but when you're playing catchup, they can't ALL be gems.

If she were fuzzy at the moment, Greer's fur would be standing a bit on end from the charge in the atmosphere, both meteorologic and magic. She pulls her hair back out of her eyes as the wind whips it about, and then looks at the shopkeepe as he starts tying down banners and putting weights on flyers and paperwork. "I'd batten down the hatches if I were you," she suggests, even as people start crowding in, seeking shelter, and then she steps out into the whipping wind, reaching up to touch her amulet, worn under bodice and dress, and Greer becomes Tigra, just in time to hear the lightning blasts and screams of terror. She dashes across the parade ground towards the joust, not moving as fast as a certain blonde, but definitely moving damned fast, despite to jump over or duck and weave through panicking crowds.

Amanda emerges through the portal, behind one of the multi-coloured vendor booths. Brushing a bit of dirt from her jacket as the wind lashes at her, she squints and looks up at the sky in time to see the lightning lance down like electric green beacons to pinpoint the center of the disturbance. The woman's had lots of practice, over the years, identifying demon magic. And, yes. That definitely looks like it.

Actually, if she's honest, the whole park is saturated with the (quite literally) damned stuff. It sets her teeth on edge. Muttering her usual mage armour spell, she sets off at a run, toward the danger.

In short order, however, she quickly finds herself a salmon swimming up stream -- against the tide of people fleeing the jousting arena. Letting out a soft expletive in Romani, the gypsyborn blonde steps in between two game tents and casts a levitation spell that will let her course above the crowd.

Rising straight up, the sorceress pauses to survey the park and get a better handle on what's happening, instead of rushing pell-mell into the heart of the storm. Magic energy starts to swirl about her as she sets to determining just where the greatest concentration of demonic magic lies. Just because the lightning struck the joust, doesn't mean that was its source. Indeed, the source of such spells are usually fairly distant from their target -- that's the advantage of such spells.

But, there's only one person left in the immediate area of the jousting arena... which means, even if her magic wasn't pulling her toward him -- and his lamp -- it's a good bet he's either the caster or the target. So, noting she isn't the only one moving in that direction, poor Michael becomes her target by double default.

Tigra pages: I'm willing to have Michael use a wish on Tigra if you like. :) Long distance to Tigra: Zatanna nodnods. "We'll see what happens. He's not exactly a villain himself, so he probabl doesn't have any malicious intent in particular at the moment, buuuuut if he gets scared or something she might get caught up in one!"

What Supergirl finds in the shop is an ash-stain on the floor in the silhouette of a human body, but no actual body. The red-cloaked man doesn't stop his disappearing act at the call of 'hey' no matter how authoritative. But the man reappears only a short distance away once the stampede of people has passed by. Amanda has bypassed the wall of people, leaving only mister-red-cloak and Supergirl in the immediate area, and the former is floating in the direction of Michael. It seems like everyone is converging on him! Tigra, Amanda, red-cape, Zatanna... Where is Zatanna?

Michael is starting to stand up, digging the lamp out of his bag and trying to figure out if he should use a wish and what on. There are people with odd burns from the lightning lying around. They don't even look like electrical burns. They've left spirals and grooves on burnt flesh. He hesitates, torn between his fear of what's going on, his concern for these people, and his concern for his own well-being. "Taolf ni eht ria!" a voice calls out. Then Michael is lifted up into the air. "Wh-wha...!?" he lets out in surprise. He nearly drops the lamp but his arms move almost of their own accord to wrap around it and keep it 'safe'. As two sorceresses, a catgirl, some kind of evil wizard, and quite likely an alien teenager arrive at the same spot, Zatanna looks around at the others gathered, recognizing some, and identifying at least one as being bad news. "Krymson!" Zatanna snaps when she sees the red-cloaked man. He in turn scowls and says, "Zatanna Zatara... Meddling as always, I see." 'Krymson' then looks around at the others, not yet aware of Supergirl behind him, and announces, "That lamp is mine. Don't get in the way of my retrieving it, and there no harm will come to you or the others."

Zatanna snorts. "Even if you were sincere about not hurting anyone, handing over a really powerful demonic artifact to you would result in more getting hurt later. Listen, everyone, don't let this guy anywhere near the lamp. I don't recognize it, but it's nothing good." She raises her wand. Krymson narrows his eyes. The sky rumbles threateningly. People lying around moan in pain as Zatanna tries to edge close enough to provide some kind of healing without taking her eyes off the bad guy. Michael floats helplessly in the air. "Um," he offers poignantly in complete confusion and more than a little bit of terror.

Ash stain on the floor. A casualty. If only she'd been a little faster, a little smarter, precognitive, used her x-ray vision and looked in this direction. ...If only she didn't blame herself for every death that happened when she was nearby. But she did. And the guilt and helplessness over her inability to save this man's life fuels itself and turns into rage at the person responsible. She doesn't know who this red-cloaked person is, but he's obviously some kind of killer.

At least that's what she's decided from this circumstantial evidence and 'due process' be damned. Someone was going down. Hard.

Like a bullet, Kara Zor-El rushes to catch up. It's kind of like Zatanna is speaking in slow motion, but even at these speeds, even with the wind rushing through her ears, she makes out what's said readily enough. And by the time she reaches the converging point, she hasn't even slowed down in the slightest.

She collides with Krymson from behind like a bullet train, her forearm laid high across his back in a frontal slam. Using her momentum from the collision, she'll try and carry him forward and down, to make a new trench in the ground with his FACE. She'll do that by clamping an iron hand on the back of his head and forcing it down at the same time she tries to wrench one of his arms behind his back (and out of socket, while she's at it).

Angry Kryptonian is angry.

"I SAID //HEY//!"

Okay, Tigra doesn't know who everyone here is, but she knows who Zatanna is, and recognizes sound advice when she hears it. Lamp = bad, lamp away from guy in red = good. She can deal with this. She turns to the floating guy and looks up at him. "Hey, long as you got that thing, you're in danger. Toss it here, I can keep it away from that guy a whole helluva lot better'n you can," she says, speaking quickly, and hopefully convincingly.

Amanda won't argue with Zatanna on that account, to be sure. Her own assessment of the artefact pretty much matches that of the top-hatted mistress of magic's. As the red-and-blue streak zooming in from behind looks right on course to slam into Krymson's back, and the tiger woman tries to coax the lamp out of poor Michael's hands, the X-man alights on the ground beside him and throws up a heavy, defensive shield of mystical energy around all three of them -- Michael, Tigra, and herself.

"Do as she says, mister," Daytripper suggests, glancing over at him even as the translucent, violet dome of her power solidifies overhead, her erstwhile blue eyes glowing with arcane energy. "The genie in that lamp isn't voiced by Robin Williams, I can promise, and the wishes it grants will make the ones from the Monkey's Paw look like a Disney dance number in comparison." It's only an educated guess, of course. But, consider it a highly experienced and thus pretty darn accurate educated guess.

Despite the fact she knows she's doubtlessly pissed of Krymson by ignoring the prick's warning not to interfere, she actually keeps her focus primarily on Michael and his lamp. Her immediate concern is that she's just trapped the Avenger (whom, no, she doesn't know), the man, and herself in a cage with an even bigger threat: Whatever god forsaken species from Hell might be lurking inside that lamp.

Krymson is caught completely off-guard. He finds himself being used as a gardening tool for Supergirl's garden of PAIN (and trenches), and as much as that hurts (which is a lot), he manages to survive. Which is good, because Supergirl probably doesn't want to be a killer herself. But the man isn't quite out of it yet, he actually seems to reverse himself -- the direction of his head, his shoulders, his arms, his body, etc. facing upwards rather than downwards, like he just melted his body into wax and rearranged it as he pleased.

"I heard you the first time," he snarls as his eyes light up red and send a magic blast at Supergirl's face as she's on top of him. He's still being held down, and Supergirl is fast, so she might be able to avoid it, or at least get clear if not.

Zatanna begins using her magic on the injured people. The lamp is a priority, but so is saving lives. Healing injuries inflicted by demons and demonic energy is hard though. It may have LOOKED like lightning, but the burns are clearly supernatural in origin. "Esnaelc eseht sdnuow!" she chants, trying to purify the injuries. Looks like she's going to be busy for a little bit.

Michael shivers in mid-air and answers Tigra with, "I c-can't." From the way he's shaking, he's clearly scared, but he's also struggling with his own arms, it seems like. "My arms won't let go!" Well, crap. At least there's a barrier around them to keep any stray magic blasts or krypto-punches from making the matter worse!

"I don't want to be here!" Michael yells, closing his eyes tightly. In a flash of green fire, he's gone. Hey! He didn't say 'I wish!' Maybe it responds to voiced desires, not a specific phrase!? However, while Michael may be gone, leaving behind the stench of sulfur and brimstone, the lamp is left behind. It clunks to the ground, its middle finger becoming animated, flexing alongside the ring finger and little finger, and squeezing tighter around the skull-shaped lightbulb.

The lamp lies on the ground, the leathery hand clearly gaining more life with each wish -- intentional or otherwise. Krymson, whether his attack was successful or not, cries out, "No! There's only two wishes left! I needed at least three!" as he tries to slither free from the Kryptonian like a human snake. Made of some kind of weird white putty or something. It's a slow process though, and he's not slithering quickly enough he can't be stopped.

"HnnnnRRRAGH!" Magic blast to the face. A lot of people seem to think Kryptonians are 'weak' to magic. They're not. They just don't have any special defenses against it. All that power and energy stored in her body's alien cells do nothing to halt the red-tinted blast of eldritch energy that hits her full on in the face like a beam of her own heat vision. Except with thirty percent more hurt since her physiology protects her from extreme heats.

The super-powered teenager stumbles back and flings herself off the suddenly-reversed evil magician as she clutches at her face, which is now smoking, little bits of steam wisping between her fingers as she staggers blindly to the side. She's clawing at her face, as if trying to pry something off desperately, and by the time she's stopped, Krymson has slithered out of her grasp, for now.

Supergirl stands where she is, her face rapidly healing, patches of burned skin replacing themselves quickly. But she's standing there half-hunched over, blinking eyes that are suddenly no longer blue, but entirely too white, tilting her head this way and that like a bird trying to hear.

It's when Krymson speaks that her head snaps in his direction, breathing in raggedly, wisps of blonde hair dragging over her face as she sucks in enough wind to bend the blades of grass... and then exhale it with enough force to in his general direction to uproot even more. What it doesn't tear up, it freezes at subzero temperatures in seconds.

Hopefully the other heroes are still safely behind that barrier and not in the path of her freeze-breath as she fires it off blindly!

Well dammit, Tigra thinks to herself. Maybe she can force his arms off the lamp, she thinks, but she's not sure she could do it without hurting him. Depending on the strength of the magic holding him to the lamp, it might not be possi--Oh. Well. That's one way to take care of it. She leaps towards the lamp as it falls, rolling over it on the ground and scooping it up, then digging in with toe claws to halt her momentum before scooting over towards Daytripper. At the inhale of Supergirl's breath, Tigra'll try to tackle Daytripper to the ground, on the assumption that her feline strength will be better for holding them to the ground against whatever blast is about to come their way.

"Fuauuugh!" Amanda has the wind knocked right out of her, as Tigra tackles her -- and the lamp -- to the ground. Of course, that causes her shield to collapse, which is a problem, since it very likely would have actually rebuffed the freeze breath... or provided an extra layer of protection at the very least. When she tries to breath, she ends up sucking bitterly cold air into her lungs, which really only acerbates the situation. "Bloody *coughcough*frozen hell! *coughcoughcoughcough*" she eventually gasps out, her European roots showing. "I *cough* had a *gasp* bloody shield!"

Krymson's elasticity is hindered by the cold. As he is flung through the air by the powerful winds, he also freezes over, letting out a strangled, "Nooo--!" that cuts off before he falls in a taffy-like heap, an expression of horror and dismay stuck on his face. Zatanna manages to resist being knocked off her feet, but with the absence of the magic shield, she has to improvise a defense for herself and the injured people she has been healing. Geez, fishnets are not very good protection against the cold! She's going to need to rub some warmth back into her legs when she's done here. Or maybe just take a hot bath. But first thing's first.

Choosing to abstain from mentioning the mishap with the shield, Zatanna turns to Tigra to warn her. "Best to not touch that lamp anymore than you already have. It looks like it's trying to possess a 'vessel' as more of its power awakens. Speaking of which, I need some help getting that man back to safety. You're a pretty good sorceress, right?" the magician asks of Daytripper. "Can you repeat an incantation for me real quick while I try to help Supergirl?" She then rattles off a spell that seems to be for summoning demons, but with key words changed to adjust the target to a living mortal recently deposited there. There's not many living humans in the infernal reaches, so it's highly unlikely they'll get anyone except Michael.

In the meantime, she's waving her wand over Supergirl's face with one hand and placing another on the blonde's shoulder to reassure her. "Krymson's on ice for now, and not going anywhere. That was some good thinking. He can do all kinds of magic, but his elasticity is weakened by the cold. You stopped both that inch-worm act of his AND spellcasting at the same time! As long as no one mentions wanting anything while touching that lamp, we should be out of danger for the most part." Zatanna glances up at the sky, and the unholy lightning that continues to surge through the clouds, looking for crowds to shoot at within the amusement park grounds. "...Though doing something about the weather will be needed, and probably some ritual to cleanse the area of demonic energy." In a few minutes, Supergirl should at least be able to see again, if not be mostly healed. Likewise, the people injured before seem to be getting back to their senses and getting back on their feet.

If Amanda can manage that incantation, then Michael should reappear shortly as well, thoroughly traumatized, slightly singed, but alive and intact. "Good job, everyone. This could have been a lot worse. Krymson is an elitist jerk who thinks only magic-users deserve to live in this world. I'm pretty sure one of his first wishes if he'd gotten that lamp would have been for something nasty to happen to everyone who ISN'T a sorcerer or magician of some kind." She tips her hat and smiles.

But inwardly, Zatanna is wondering how the lamp even got into poor Michael's hands to begin with... And what sort of trafficking of illegal artifacts was involved that allowed it to be here without detection. There's more to this than meets the eye. Some investigation will be needed.

It's a good thing Zatanna talks, because an angry, and a little frightened at not being able to see, Supergirl makes for a dangerous cornered animal. But she doesn't lash out before the fishnet-wearing magic-wielder begins casting her spells. She was beginning to make out dim shapes as her eyes began to heal (much slower than the rest of her, unfortunately), but the spells speed the process by minutes. After mere seconds, Kryptonian DNA's superior genes and sorceress magic have her blinking vibrant blue eyes at her sight's rescuer.

The young woman frowns, not at Zatanna, but past her, towards the frozen-taffy she'd made of the villain. "Crap. And I reeeeeally wanted to punch him some more. He's killed someone here, and I know some authorities who'd probably really like to get their hands on him."

Supergirl stands up from her partially-crouched position, reaching out a hand to gently squeeze the Mistress of Magic's arm in thanks as she moves past her on her way to pick up the crook, her cape swirling about her thighs. She couldn't teleport, but she could still get this guy to a meta-crimes restraining cell before he thawed. She looks back over her shoulder for a moment, though, with a small, apologetic smile at the group.

"Sorry for the temperature change. Had to make sure I got 'em." And then the blonde tucks the villain under her arm like a frozen popcicle, apparently unperterbed by his immensely-cold state, and lifts a fist into the air. The grass around her flattens with the backblast as she takes off like a human rocket, becoming a blue-and-red streak soaring straight up, then releasing a sonic-boom as she curves sharply eastward.

"Uhm, sorry about that," Tigra says to Amanda. "Next time, I'll make sure to just let you deal with it on your own," she says, tail twitching, as she tries to keep her apology from turning even more snarky. She stands up and starts brushing herself off, none the worse for wear from the blast of cold. At Zatanna's suggestion, Tigra kneels and carefully sets the lamp down. "Yeah, I can tell that thing's pretty dangerous. I was already thinking of things to do with it, and I sure as hell should already know better." She takes a look around at the people starting to recover, and then back to Zatanna. "Do you want to take posession of this thing?" At Supergirl's apology for the temperature change, she flashes a quick grin. "No problem for me. Fur, y'know." Fur which ripples from the concussion of Supergirl's take off, and she winces slightly at the sonic boom.

So, Krymson sounds like a right grand piece of work, to be sure. Amanda rises stiffly to her feet, as Tigra moves off her. She rubs some feeling back into her arms and arches a brow at the cat woman, trying to decide whether the apology is genuine in spite of the snark or genuine lip. In the end, she decides it doesn't matter. Everyone's in one piece, so she just raises a hand lightly to accept it at face value.

As Zatanna rattles off the spell at her, she gives a light nod. "I'm familiar with it," she says, though, to be fair, the X-Man usually uses a slightly different form -- even when calling mortals back to the material plane. In this instance, however, since Zatanna seems more familiar with the demon in question, not to mention the plane where Michael had been sent, she uses the spell she's given to effect the desired transport.

Michael reappears a little the worse for wear, to be sure, but more or less hale and whole. That's the main thing. When she's satisfied the man will live, she moves back toward Zatanna. "Let me give you hand with the cleanup," she says, extending her hand with a smile. She glances up at the demonically charged clouds and the collateral damage that litters the faire, and makes a mental note to do a little investigating of her own once she's helped the magicienne set the world to rights once more.

So much for her quiet weekend in.