2013.08.05 - Shards of Betrayal - Invasion of Midgard

A swirling vortex appears in the otherwise bright clear sky above Lower Metropolis. The clouds are a dark inky black that pool into a hurricane-like spiral. Giving the clouds a sense of dimensionality are flickers of rainbow light. As the vortex and the lights seem to solidify, a funnel shaped tendril begins to reach down toward the street. The asphalt begins to char, arcachic knotwork forming as the Bifrost works its way open. It's different from any other Bifrost those familiar with such a thing may expect. Namely, the tendril doesn't actually touch the ground. Rather, it seems to hover twenty feet above the ground. Underneath appear human figures, ranging from 5 to 6 and a half feet tall. As they solidfy into view, the lack of flesh becomes apparent.

OOC: http://fantasycreaturesdb.com/images/undead-skeleton-001.jpg http://paizo.com/image/content/CrimsonThrone/PZO9009-FungusSkeleton.jpg

A ride out from the Park does Firehooves and his rider a world of good. Fandral's got a loose rein on the warsteed, and trots easily down the concrete corridors that is known as Midtown, to Lower Metropolis. The day is nice enough, the sky clear enough-

That thought, however, isn't possible to complete as a dark, raging vortex begins to form. Blue eyes look to the skies even as he leans back in his saddle, cuing his horse to stop. A frown begins to form as he recognizes the pattern as it comes. Spurring the bay steed forward to a gallop, Fandral avoids most of the traffic, and some that he simply can't, the horse jumps effortlessly. His sword is pulled from his side, and calling out to any that may be near, "Depart the area at once!"

There's no need to fear! Underwear girl is here! Well, Circus' underwear is still mostly here suit, so it's not like there's a Victoria's Secret fashion show going on on the rooftops as she bounces along trying to peel off her clothes so she's in her full neon green and purple (Yes, she's in her rare collector's edition purple today!). "What the frip?" she asks the empty air as she comes to a halt on the edge of the last rooftop before the vortex looms in front of her. She wobbles drunkenly upon the edge for a moment, balancing on one foot while she fights her jeans off. Finally the villainous jeans give up the ghost and are flung behind her. "Oh...daaayumn! I should call the Avengers or some crap!" But the phone was in her pants, and her pants are the past, and Circus is the future. With that last thought about good planning left behind, she leaps into action, a blur of bright colors as she races up to see what is going down at close range.

The first wave of twenty skeletons step forward, their various armaments rusted in their hands. Their soulless eyes peer ahead and they start their shuffle toward the nearest forms of life: wayward civilians.

Civilians who do as civilians do best; freak the frak out! Blood curtling screams of terror fill the air and people tumble, fall, panick out of cars to run. Oh, and some are starting to step out of the local storefronts in order to see what the commotion is all ab-HOLY NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! Panic.

Michael Jon Carter is on his way home from work, with a to-go cup of Sundollar coffee in one hand, and a messenger bag slung across his chest. As the vortex forms and touches down, he stands there and watches, bemused; for all he knows, this is a common weather phenomenon in this era. When the skeletal figures begin to appear, and people begin to scream, he decides this is -probably- not a weather thing. He sets his coffee aside, and reaches into his bag. If these things are going to be a problem, he would rather do so while properly suited up. Taking out his cowl and goggles, he pulls them on, runs his hand through his hair to ensure it looks good, and then flies upwards and towards the incoming undead. He pulls his buttoned shirt open far enough to reveal that he is wearing his Booster Gold costume under his business-casual outfit.

From the top of the Halo Towers someone could have a great view of Lower Manhattan/Metropolis. But few bother looking through the tinted windows. Nate does, though. He is not as jaded as the average Newyorker. So he sees the vortex forming, and it is vaguely familiar. "Void? Hey, do you know what is going on?" But as usual the computer goddess is not around when he needs her. Or at least she is not answering. "Nevermind, I will find out myself." Phasing though the glass, Nate glides down, checking telepathically for odd minds, or for panicking ones. Just in case. Oh, right... lots of those. Wince. Mindshieds up, no telepathic trickery for now with that kind of stuff going on. But he hurries forward.  Thor says, "http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/43777/undead.jpg"

The rainbow lights of the bifrost vortex pulse, and the shadowy form of something else begins to materialize. The skeletons continue advancing, nearing the first of the civilians.

Another uneventful day attending classes at the Academy of Tommorow that, while effective in accomplishing its ultimate purpose, leaves a certain girl feeling... utterly bored. This diminuitive girl of fourteen with long, curly, brunette hair and emerald green eyes is presently making her way down the sidewalk of an adjascent street. Dressed in a pink pull-over with white undershirt, denim blue jeans, and worn gray sneakers - she saunters along quietly with one hand in a pocket...

... and the other hand upon a peculiar gray and white beanie with a cartoonish cat appearance. She's adjusting it upon her head wordlessly, lips pursed in concentration. Being what time of the year it is, it seems entirely too warm of a thing to wear. But she is certainly wearing it.

...Her walking pace is a relaxed one... at least, until those blood curtling screams pierce the day air and draw her attention. Darting toward the source of the screams with a speed entirely inappropriate for one so seemingly small, and weak. "...Something fun must be happening! WAIT FOR ME!"

"Go eat that ghost, Balor...go cleanse that apartment, Balor...go investigate that ****in' unholy light, Balor...I swear, Aiden, y'keep interruptin' me an' I'm /never/ gonna get past Sen's Fo..." Balor is saying as he jumps from rooftop to rooftop on his way towards the area. He stops when he sees the Bifrost activation, though...and what's left behind. "****. Aiden, authorize me." A pause. "I'm serious, Aiden. Authorize me now. It's god stuff. Here, I'll show you!" He pulls a smartphone, taking a picture and texting it to his contact. A moment later, there's a flash from his eyepatch's symbol, and he reaches up and removes it, revealing the blood-red lidless eye beneath, and blood-red lines of power spread from the eye across his body. His hair darkens to blood-red as well, lengthening, and a mist of power surrounds the Evil Eye as he holsters his phone and tucks the eyepatch away. "****in' /finally!/ I get t'/smite/ some stuff!" He runs forward, leaping from rooftop to rooftop until he's close to the undead, and then leaps down and charges headlong at the advancing horde, grabbing a parked car in the process, and swings the whole thing towards a chunk of the horde as he approaches.

The first of the skeletons reach the line of civilians. The screams intensify, and one young man is cut nearly in twane but a rusted sword. First blood: monsters.

The shadowy form in the bifrost grows, reaching thirty long. Massive batlike wings unfurl and shatter windows on both sides of hte street as a dragon appears. OOC: http://1-media-cdn.foolz.us/ffuuka/board/tg/image/1341/93/1341937090128.jpg

The car hurled by Balor impacts just after the first civilian's life is lost, and five of the twenty skeletons shatter on impact. The vehicle rolls to a dull stop against the dragon's forepaw.

Fandral told them, he did! Depart the area at once. Easier said then done, undoubtedly, but regardless?

Spurring his horse on, the wave is met after, sadly first blood by the monsters. Steeling himself as hard as the iron of his Asgardian blade, he swings up, hacking and cleaving at the first line, his courser stomping at parts that fall from the hewing of his blade.

The flying of the car, however, gains the Warrior's attention, and pulling back, giving Firehooves the chance to rear, Fandral spurs forward to get out of the way of the now.. falling car. "From whence come ye, ye foul creatures of Hel?" Probably close, no doubt?

Circus skids to a halt as she reaches the site of the undead invasion type thing. "Definitely not good." she announces, for anyone who was curious. Well, they don't look peaceful. Still, she probably should try talking to them, so she gives a wave, "Hey. You guys going in peace? Looking for my leader?" No response as she bounces there, not unless you could this Balor guy racing out of nowhere and smashing up a whole bunch of them with a car. To which the undead reply by bringing out a mother bleeping dragon. "Mother bleep! A dragon!" Well, shit just got real. Out come a pair of steel balls and she races forward to start off by leaping over the head of one of the non fungi guys, giving the head a soccer ball kick while simultaneously leaping off it to try landing on another one. From afar, Fandral cheers at the dragon! <3 Nate hits a second after the flying car. A blast of golden energy lands on advancing skeletons, shattering bones as if they were glass. The dragon looks the biggest threat, but the skeletons are already attacking people. So not much of a choice for him. He forms a telekinetic wall, trying to separate the undead from the fleeing humans in that particular street, yet leaving space for the horseman to keep going forward, since he seems to know what he is doing.

No answer is given to Fandral. No answer is really needed. The land of dead, Helheim is hte only place these sorts of creatures can come from. That dragon, especially. It steps forward, wings flapping. It's claws tear up the street.

A skeleton head flies off its body, sails thruogh the air, and lands in a trash bin. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL! Migard: 1, Helheim: 0.

Behind the dragon, as its long bone and sinew tail slithers away, more shadowy figure begins to materialize.

Civilians first. Always save civilians. Due to his recent and sometimes unfortunate experiences, this is a lesson that has been driven home in Booster Gold's mind over and over; at this point it is instinct. The HUD provided by his goggles start to target those people who are in immediate danger, as well as those who are unable to flee due to injury, infirmity or various other reasons. The downside of this is that no matter whom he picks to save, he cannot save everyone at once--but some is better than none. Like a glowing, golden comet, Booster is flying rapidly through the chaos and grabbing people out of the way to spirit them to places out of immediate danger. Molly's jaw drops just shortly after she enters the scene, coming to a complete stop and nearly freezing completely still in a mix of fear and sensory overload. Undead everywhere and NOW a Dragon as well, and they all seem to be coming from that familiar vortex.

The brunette closes her agape mouth again shortly, with an upturned palm, and steels herself visibly before darting toward the nearest large object she can find. It's an almost empty white bus being attended by a professional driver at the curbside. "Hey! Get out of there, I need to use this!" She shouts at the driver through the open doorway.

"What? Am I being hijacked by a little girl?", he replies from inside and laughter ensues.

But the laughter ceases the very moment the bus begins to creak under the stress of its own weight, rocking briefly before sending him tumbling face first out of it. "Yes! Sorry!" ... And then it is then thrown throug the air, directly at the biggestvisible threat: the Dragon.

Civilians are being pulled from harm's way by the Hero of the Hour, Booster Gold! If only there was an intrepid reporter of photographer around to cause evidence for the 21st century's news sources of these grandly heroic acts of great valor and daring!

The bus flies at the dragon, and it turns his burning red embers of eyes toward it. Great maw opens, a screech is let out. The bus cracks and crumples and warps, falling to a limp and lifeless wad of formerly-a-Metropolis-Bus on the ground at its feet. The dragon placed a forepaw on it and soda-can crushes it into the pavement.

Laughing wildly, Balor starts to charge the remaining lines of skeletons, before he spots what /else/ just came in and skids to a stop. "/Bone Dragon's mine!/" he bellows. He grabs a lamppost and rips it out of the ground, then leaps over the remaining lines of skeletons, landing before the bone dragon. "C'mon, y'big ****in' buncha bones! Face Balor of the Evil..." And then a bus is flung at it, but the beast catches it. Balor glares at the bus as though it was personally resposible, and starts over. "Face Balor of the Evil Eye!" And with that, he swings the makeshift club for the leg that was placed on the bus, hard.

Circus giggles as the sideeffects of her powers start to kick in. She bounces from this skeleton to that skeleton, noting that they smash pretty well. While bouncing around at increasing speeds, she starts to throw her ball bearings when she's sure there's no one around to hurt with misses. Unlike her rubber balls, the metal ones can be dangerous. After a spinning backkick thrown while leaping through the air, she flips midair to slide along the ground on her back to avoid being part of the beer-can crush of the dragon. "Yikes! Glad there are some heavy hitters here!" None of whole she recognizes yet, well, except Booster. She doesn't know him know him, but she knows him. But...who was it that threw that bus? When she sees who did it she ends up tripping over her own feet and ending up falling into a hug and kiss with a skeleton. "Pardon me."

The dragon's forearm takes the clue-by-lamppost squarely. There is the resounding reverb sound of metal on bone. The forearm bone shows a hairline fracture in a spiderweb pattern at the sight of impact.

Target is angry.

The bone dragon turns its unholy gaze on Balor, and though no voice is heard, there's a sense that the creature is speaking the tongue of magic. It swirls about the undead beast's head, condenses into a searing hot fireball, which then launches itself at Balor.

Skeleton heads everywhere! It's the like the world's boneiet party game of keep-the-balloon-off-the-floor EVER!

Also, skeleton's aren't into PDA. Or, they are very into PDA. The one under Circus, while suffering from fractures but not wholey broken ribs, seeks to embrace the young heroine... and then to bite and rend her limb from limb.

Under the swirling vortex and funnel cloud, a score of dark elf archers appear, and for every four, there is a beast, hiddeuous formed between dog and spider. http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/051/0/d/Temple_Valg_in_the_Underdark_by_EAHowell.jpg

Well, that didn't work. Molly frowns as the thrown bus is rendered utterly ineffectual by Dragon's breath. "...Well, that sucks..." The girl looks around, briefly, from side to side... as if to decide what else to try. Eventually she seems to remember something and /instead/ darts away in the direction she came from... the direction of her Academy. "...Might need to get some friends for this one...!" Or better equipment at least...

Of course Fandral's wading through the line of skeletons, hewing as if he is cutting grass, the great steed beneath him grinding shod hooves into the dirt, breaking already dead bones.

Looking up, Fandral brings his blade up once again, and catching the battle cry of another that targets the creature from Hel, shouts a warning, "Be wary-"

Okay, that warning obviously isn't needed, but the Warrior does harken to his own advice- sometimes. Now, however, is not the time, and Fandral spurs forward, at his mounts full speed, and as he approaches, heaves a sword near that central part from which he catches the glowing of magic forming. "Fell creature! Be gone from Midgard! Thou shalt not win the day!"

Sweeping civilians out of the way is good for the short term, but the threat has to be dealt with in order to -really- protect them. Booster pulls on his wrist gauntlets and tosses his messenger bag into a tree, where he can hopefully retrieve it, later. His shirt gets flung, after it, and then he is flying back to the dragon and its minions. He glows like a golden star, striking a dynamic pose in mid-air, pointing downwards at the grim creatures. Loudly, in a resonant but affable tone, he says, "Just some friendly advice, forces of darkness... you have ten seconds to get out of this reality. If you choose to stay, I--Booster Gold--will help beat you to a gross and pulpy mass of thwarted evil!"

Nate holds the wall in place until the civilians are a safe distance. Then it vanishes, and he can see the dragon, the archers and the... glowing guy giving a heroically pointless speech. "Seriously, does saying that every work?" He grumbles.

The boy with the Evil Eye doesn't sit still for the fireball to hit him. Rather than dodging back, Balor runs /forward/, charging closer to the beast. As the fireball explodes behind him, he rolls, coming up nearly beneath the beast. "****in' ****...heroic speeches've gotten /cheesy/ these days," he mutters. He swings his club to the side again, aiming for roughly the same point on the leg he hit before, even as he looks up at the beast. "Lesse...that spirit-ball's right...about.../there/." The reddish mist about the Evil Eye swirls, and then lances forth as a beam of mist-like energy. There's no kinetic force there...it's a strike straight at the energy powering the beast, not the body.

Fandral's blade, made of Asgardian metals, is made of sturdier stuff than that found commonly on Midgard, and while the swing is not as physically mighty, it is more flashy. The hypnotic swirl of the creature's magic heart seems open and defenseless, but its other paw comes up at the last moment to try to swat the swordsman away, just as the tip of his blade started to make contact. The beast screams in pain as part of the glow fromthe ball is whisked away by the tip of Fandral's blade. It's blueish green Eldritch smoke which slowly moves to reform into the ball.

Some of the elven archers seem to have heard Booster Gold, for five of them aim their bows upward at him and let loose their volley of arrows. Immediately, they then take a step to the sides, moving toward the buildings and thus... height.

The archers' spider-dog companions snarl for a heartbeat then launch themselves forward at the heroes upon the ground: Circus, Balor, Fandral (on Firehooves). One spider-dog each.

Wispy smoke still trying to coalese(sp!) is knocked further off kilter by the soulbeam fired by Balor. The ball is still there, burning brightly, but some of the cloudiness has been brushed away.

"Whoa! Whoa! Slow down big fella!" says Circus to her would be romantic. Then she isn't in his arms any more. And a split second later she's right behind him, lashing out behind her with a vicious straight kick to the spine, hopefully snapping her foe in half. Using him as a springboard she leaps forward to go rolling along the ground to take out a knee here, a femur there, while kicking a skull off to smash into another of the horde. "We need Thor! Thor can shut this thing off! This is like his wedding, but like...all Evil Dead 5, Armies of Stupid!" The Archers and the spider dogs send her scurrying to get some high ground. From the top of a tree she looks down with her chest heaving, trying to make sense of the new battleground.

There.. contact has been made! The blade vibrates with the energies disturbed in their swirling vortices of magic. A wide grin is plastered upon his face, and Fandral's sword rises again even as the paw swats at him, sending both horse and rider yards away, landing heavily in arms and legs.. and hooves.

Hand is firmly upon sword, however, and the Warrior regains his feet first before he pulls at his horse to aid his rise. The moment the warsteed snorts and is on his feet once again, Fandral swings back up in time for that spider-dog's attack. Spurring on to meet the foe, the Swordsman leans over onto one side of the saddle, and is able to run a full blade's sweep at Hel's creature.

The kick is good! Vertebrae go everywhere! And Circus finds her upself up a tree with a spider-dog ...barking? at her. Thank goodness these spider-dogs seem not to be able to climb up walls.

At Fandral, the spider-dog shreaks as two of the spider-like leg things are severed cleanly and sail through the air to land on the hood of a random car with a sick sort of splatter.

The bone dragon, angry at the attacks, is pausing to cast another spell.

The fourth spider-dog, mouth slobbering, runs toward a storefront, jumps through the glass. Screams of frighte can be heard from inside. Because some civilians don't know enough to just RUN AWAY.

The five arhers that loosed at Booster are reloading. The other fifteen are loosing at civilians and heros indiscriminantly.

Booster Gold does not try to dodge the arrows, he just puts his fists on his hips and tilts his chin upwards. The elven archers have good aim, and most of them hit their target. The arrows do not ricochet, they strike him but then fall away listlessly, as if robbed of all momentum. Booster catches one as it drops, twirling it in his fingers like a small baton as he smiles brightly. He ought to have a tooth-sparkling 'ting' at this point. "Fine. But don't say you haven't been warned!" He extends his arms, hands clenched in fists, aiming at the elves. A barrage of golden energy fires from his wrist blasters, strafing at the archers--although these are stunning blasts, as Booster has no intention of killing anyone, even if they do seem to be minions of the dark forces. His concentration, however, is upon those archers who are aiming for others. "Hah! That's got it!" Balor shouts, ignoring the fact that the swordsman /also/ hit the creature where it counted. He lets loose another, slightly stronger shot from his Evil Eye for the dragon's "heart," as it were...but then hears the growl of the spider-creature behind him. "Oh, go away," he mutters. "You're not interestin'." He lets the creature leap at him and commit itself...then suddenly whips around, moving with surprising speed to smash the thing from the side with his makeshift club, knocking it to the ground. "You're wastin' my ****in' time, so die!" An arrow or two comes his way, but without even looking he holds the club in the way, blocking the shots. Nate rises again over the battlefield, his left eye pulsing with golden light. Skeletons are mostly gone, and the archers are actually fighting Mr. Heroic Speech. Which is fair play since he is probably not a helpless civilian. That leaves the dragon. It is doing magic, and Nate doesn't care much about it. He points at the creature with an extended arm and attempts to 'grab' it with a huge telekinetic forcefiled. Then he closes the field, trying to crush the monster like it did with the bus.

Tooth-sparkling 'ting'! In a four story window, a young woman watching the flying heroes and the fighting wound swoon at the sight, if she hadn't cowered as arrows flew at Booster Gold. His strife attacks keep most of the archers' attacks from being clean shots and so no civilian still stupidly lingering about is killed.

The soul-blast strikes the dragon, whisks away another small layer of magic core thing, but it continues to chant. Dark pinpricks of shadow are coaleceing (SP!!) around it.

The spider-dog yelps as its hit, and skids away from Balor and the Dragon, a side is crushed in. It's breath comes in whistles and wheezes ans it slowly, painfully, trying to get to its feet.

Nate's telekinetic bubble has to first collapse the beast's wings. Which alerts the beast. Which, thankfully, causes its spell to fizzle, but does make the beast unfurl it's wings with a snap and then push downward with them to try to shatter the bubble while simultaneiusly launch itself into the air.

"Crap!" says Circus as she notes that one of the monsters has got away from all the fighting and is going after easier targets. She leaps off the tree and flips through the air, firing off a few bullet like throws at the dog she left behind while she hurtles through the air to get to the dog chasing around the people in the store. Hitting the ground outside the store she leaves a neon streak in the air while she kicks on the afterburners to get inside to rescue the civilians.

The loss of limbs means that the spider-dog is effectly laid low. Sure, it'll snap at feet, but Firehooves half-rears in order to kick at the head of the damned creature, crushing the skull before landing again, and grinding what is left into the dirt.

Fandral twists his head around towards the dragon; the arcane magics rising once again deep within the creature. With his rider's turn to look, the warhorse does the same, wheeling around. With a deep spur, it sends the horse into a racing courser, and it's only a little lean forward that Fandral sends the horse into the air.. one foot.. two.. three.. four.. and with a deadly swipe of his Asgardian steel, swings at the Dragon even as he begins to beat his wings to rise from the ground. He is careful to keep clear of Nate, however!

As for casualties?

Oops?

Nate smirks arrogantly as the dragon gets trapped in his field. But when the monster flexes its wings and pushes back, he loses the smile. His field wavers, shatters at places, only to reform a second later. He switches tactics and struggles to pin the monster down, to the ground. It is too strong to just crush it, at least not with a field so wide. But Nate is very stubborn and keeps trying.

Spider-dog under tree is hit with the steel balls and it whines, staggered a moment.

The spider-dog in the store is facing off against random civilian with a mop and a bucket. He looks quite proficient with that mop! And then Circus happens, appearing in the shattered window behind the beast. The man glances. The beast attacks; he barely manages to dive out of the way. BARELY.

Fandral's spider-dog is a gooey pile of no-longer-spider-dog.

The dragon managed to get a full three inches of clearance before Nate's bubble dropped him back to the ground. Wings still beating, the dragon, clearly no longer in the realm of hte living, inhales... Not that it takes a breath and fills its lungs with air, because in honesty, there is no reason for it to NEED air, but the sense of a breath being taken is there.

At the bifrost sight, more black things are starting to form. "Die! Die! Die!" Balor yells, as the spider-dog he was fighting tries to get to its feet...and is smashed, smashed, and finally splattered by repeated blows from the boy's makeshift club. The club itself is bent pretty badly by this point, and Balor is looking increasingly irritated. "Why won't any of you ****in' ***es just let me solo a ****in' dragon?" he shouts to no one in particular. At least something stopped the dragon from flying away. With a yell of rage, Balor unleashes another beam from his eye at the dragon's heart...and then leaps at it from the side, aiming a downward strike for its neck from above with what's left of his club.

Booster is blasting at elves, but he cannot help noticing that the dragon is being a big problem. He does remember what the dragon did, earlier, to that bus. "Hey..." The Man of Gold is flying at the dragon's face, now, shouting at it and giving it a friendly wave. Booster Gold likes being seen, and sometimes it works well when you are trying to be a human target. If it has an attention to get, perhaps it will help the others if the dragon can be distracted for a moment.

Balor's Smite Fiendish Arachnid gains a level! +2 to damage vs Fiendish Spider-Dogs.

Ten of the archers clamber up the building side for better shots. Ten others, onthe ground, take cover from Booster's blasters, and reload to loose arrows at the various heroes fighting the dragon.

The big bone dragon, which after 'inhaling', screeches like a banshee. It's high pitched, and can easily flay the skin of the bones of even the heartiest of mortals. It's wings flap vanely, trying to get out from under the bubble while at the same time keep Balor from sinking the bent lamppost between exposed ribs.

"Marked one, silence!" Fandral turns about, reining in his steed upon landing on the other side of the dragon. He spins his horse, the animal now dancing and snorting. Firehooves has taken almost as many targets as his rider, and the stench of undead blood rises, agitating him more.. encouraging his need to attack the bad creatures.

The Swordsman winces at the screech, and his ears begin to bleed.. the pair of them. Shaking his head, blood droplets fall. Firehooves, however, is truly stricken. He can't, or rather, shouldn't be used further until time passes.. and striking the horse's flank, sends the creature flying.

Fandral goes after the Dragon again, unaware now of the archers gaining their ground in order to let their arrows loose further.

Nate recoils from the dragon scream, which mostly gets through his telekinetic shields now most of his power is spent in keeping the monster caged. Several arrows bounce off him too, but a couple find unshielded areas and he grunts as one of them pierces his side and breaks his concentration. He crash-lands on the top of a sedan and rolls off, putting the vehicle between him and the archers. A second later, he shots a high power TK-blast to those elves. But the dragon is free.

"Whoa! Whoa!" Circus yells at the dog, her squeak higher pitched than normal as she hurries up to get between mop-guy (TM) and his dog opponent. "Right about now I am wishing I was carrying my sword!" Kicking and punching seems a lot less efficient vs these sort of monsters than versus her normal street thugs. "When the sky cracks open and pure evil spills out, you run. Just a pro-tip for you buddy. Got it? Sky cracks evil. Run. Simple right?"

Getting into point blank range of the dragon's sonic cry is not at the top of Booster's list of fun things to do, but there he is, anyway. The suit he wears gives him enhanced healing, but it can also protect it. The issue is the force of the sound waves. The tight golden aura around Booster seems to ripple like the surface of a pond, the glow flickering in and out. He is not smiling now, because this actually hurts. Kind of a lot. He has a dead serious expression on his face, teeth gritted, concentration focused on keeping his forcefield intact, which means diverting power to it moment by moment. This is not a good, long-term plan, so he suddenly flies forward like a bullet, fists leading, with the intent of crashing his way into the dragon's screaming mouth.

Inside a store is Circus and a spider-dog. Mop-Guy gets to his feet and brandishes his mop again.

"This people need to be protected," he says in an accident that is decidedly High African. The spider-dog snarls at the pair and it steps forward.

Outside, forgotten by a tree, is another spider-dog. Now recovered, it launches itself at the fallen Nate.

In the dragon's mouth, Booster shatters its lower jaw. Teeth shatter in all directions. The beast seems annoyed more than anything, but at least that horrible banshee screech is gone. For now. Its wings beat again, sensing its freedom and seeking to get off ground level.

Under the bifrost funnel cloud, rainbow lights pulsing, the dark figures condense into spiders. Hundreds and hundreds of cat-sized, shiny abdomened, black spiders. A red star burst on them instead of an hourglass makes it clear that these are NOT over sized black widows. But that's not all... Something large this way comes: http://images.wikia.com/powerlisting/images/5/57/Drider_by_Ironshod.jpg

The archers continue to loose arrows at the various heroes. The ones with vantage on window ledges start adding to the confusion.

Jeremy grimaces in pain at the noise, missing his strike and stumbling a bit as he lands. That hurt...but Balor is hardly a mere mortal. He catches his breath, looks up at the dragon, and lets loose a wild cry of his own--not one with such dramatic effects, mind, but it at least shows his raw bravado. He hurls the remains of his club at one of the creature's wings, and the blood red mist surrounding his eye swirls about as though itself enraged. He looks up at the dragon, unleashing another, stronger blast of misty, soul-draining energy, starting to push up towards his limit in his rage. An arrow takes him in the shoulder, bringing him somewhat back to reality. He glares at the archer that did it, catches another arrow in midflight, and unleashes a sustained blast from the Evil Eye at the line of archers, sweeping it across several of them. And, just because he's annoyed, he throws the arrow at one of them as well.

Balor grimaces in pain at the noise, missing his strike and stumbling a bit as he lands. That hurt...but Balor is hardly a mere mortal. He catches his breath, looks up at the dragon, and lets loose a wild cry of his own--not one with such dramatic effects, mind, but it at least shows his raw bravado. He hurls the remains of his club at one of the creature's wings, and the blood red mist surrounding his eye swirls about as though itself enraged. He looks up at the dragon, unleashing another, stronger blast of misty, soul-draining energy, starting to push up towards his limit in his rage. An arrow takes him in the shoulder, bringing him somewhat back to reality. He glares at the archer that did it, catches another arrow in midflight, and unleashes a sustained blast from the Evil Eye at the line of archers, sweeping it across several of them. And, just because he's annoyed, he throws the arrow at one of them as well.

Speaking of swords. Brynhildr of Polaria was in town, making her way towards the loft. As usual, she had her bag of weapons and armor pieces floating alongside as she soared silently through the air. But... um, that's... insanity down there. Brynn gestures, and her bag opens, the armor pieces snapping out and afixing themselves to her chest, left shoulder, shins, right forearm, and a small shield is gripped in her left hand while a simple looking sword is gripped in her right. The bag is left to drop roughly near the largest group of those fighting the monsters as she angles downard, eyes glowing with power as she channels that power right into her blade, causing it to glow a bright yellow-golden color. She aims a diving thrust at the head of the dragon-thing. After her attack, the bag will land with a loud metallic *clang!* and she will call out, "Those who need to may arm themselves from whatever is within that bag!" And indeed, inside the bag are half a dozen swords of various sizes, two small shields, and a dozen or so daggers.

Walking slowly and deliberately, his sword at his side, hanging, Fandral's eyes are drawn to the cone, the bifrost funnel. The Warrior calls out to the battlefield at large, "More are on their way!" before he's running towards the potentially poisonous spiders.

The wings of the bone dragon are a far more delicate than the legs. Balor's strike breaks the thin bones and the dragon crashes back to the street. Angry again, the dragon once again moves to 'inhale'.

The poor archers on ground level all die under the blast from Balor's Evil Eye. The only archers left at the ones 'up'.

Brynn's diving thrust lands clean, sinking into the beast's head and seeming to do little more thatn further upset it.

The spiders pour forth with over a hundred focusing on Fandral. The larger one, with the body of a beautiful elven woman, slowly clatters forward. She lifts a hand and flings tweleve bolts of purple-black magic at Balor. She saw him ground a dragon, after all.

Booster Gold is feeling less than stellar after getting the dragon's sonic scream up close and personal. However, there will be time to ache later. His hair still looks good, so he's clearly fine. Booster grabs part of the dragon's fallen jawbone as it falls away, and grips it in both hands. He flies aside to avoid getting squashed by the falling dragon, and then brings the jawbone up and around in a big swing to gain some momentum, before he chops it downwards at the dragon's cervical vertebrae. "Try to get its head off! I dunno if we can disable this thing, but we can probably inconvenience it!"

"Take that, you ****in'..." Balor starts, before he spots the spider-woman raising her hand towards him. The bolts of magic lance out, and he runs sideways, dodging a collection of them...before a few land home. He's thrown to the ground by the magic, grunting in pain, but he pushes himself to his feet, returning fire with a quick burst from the evil eye. "/Fine/! /Fine/! You want some ****in' pain? I'll give you some ****in' pain!" He scoops up a large two-hander from the pile of weapons Brynn dumped on the ground, hefting it with ease despite his short height. "All I wanted t'do was /slay a ****in' epic monster/..." He leaps across the battlefield to land before the spider-elf, bringing the two-hander down in a mighty blow aimed for her head in the process. "...so if I have to kill your whole **** army t'do it, I'm /gonna/!"

With a scream of jet propelled turbines growing louder from the direction of Midtown. A glint of metal appears in the sky. It's a strange flying craft. To those uneducated in local celebrities. It is the flying car owned by the cities first hero family: The Fantastic Four. Sitting in his pod Doctor Reed Richards studies the screen that is looking down on the situation below. "Susan? Ben? Johnny? Are you seeing this?" he states as he looks down onto the scene. "I'm not picking up any kind of radio waves or remote sensors. They must be a self contained automatons. Or possibly even mutations with accelerated growth. Ingenious." Yup typical Reed Richards.

Sue Storm does in fact see what's going on, and she does not like what she's seeing. It's like some kind of Renaissance Faire bad guy convention on meth. "Whatever they are, they're making a complete mess. Ben, are you ready to get down there and do something about that giant brontosaurus with a really bad attitude?" She's already got her force fields ready if the big guy wants her help. "I think I'm going to do something about all of those archers. Johnny, how are you doing?"

Up there on the head of the dracolich or whatever the skeletal dragon thing is, Brynn nods to Booster. She instinctively works well as a part of a team and she twists her blade to try to gain leverage between the head and the upper vertebrae. However, she looks down at the point where the blade sinks into the bone and her eyes flash and golden power blasts down into the dragon. "You be dead already. Now we must simpy remind you of it." she says to the creature as she tries to pry that head off.

Johnny's fiery form soars alongside the Fantasticar, leaving a trail of flame behind him. He chuckles at Reed's detailed observations of the creatures below. He nods to Sue, turning sideways in the air to face his teammates.

"Yeah, yeah...self-contained whatever whatevers. You got a plan? I mean, other than we blast 'em and kick their a**es?" Ben Grimm just nods, smacking his one hand against the other. "On it, Suzie-Q..." He observes his monitor screen. "Is that Booster Chrome?" As the plane comes in from a landing, Ben leaps from the flying car arcing right toward the giant stampeeding brontosaurus, to grapple it around the neck and ride the blow to the ground, where his landing sends fractures into the pavement as he hipthrows the Brontosaurus onto a giant patch of spiders, decimating that wave of them. As he leapt, he yelled his famoous battle cry that still echos over the streets. "IIIIIIIITTTTTT'SSSS CLLLLOOOOOOBBERRRRRRIIIINN TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME!" Wha-boom. Cloud of Dust.

The cervical cracks under the attack but doesn't shatter all the way through. It turns the banshee screech into a weaker gurgle and turns the blast downwards toward the street. At its core, a glowing ball of magic throbs, seeming to weaken momentarily. As Brynn adds her force to it, its wings flap unsteadily, the unbroken on definitely stronger than the other. The magic at it's core shudders. One paw comes up to try to claw at Booster or Brynn or.. one of hte living things on its face. And then The Ting happens. Spicder guts EVERYWHERE, more than a dozen small bones scatter everywehre. The dragon is on its back.. but by the lashing tail and that eerie feelig that it's speaking without words orsounding, it's still kicking. But it's hurt, if the flickering magic power core in its chest is any indication.

The dryder scuttles back a bit as the attack arrives, and she brings her other hand up to try to parry the strike. Her hordes of cat-sized spiders pour toward Balor.

The archers continue to loose arrows at various heroes, but as the sound of that flying iron thing over head is heard, they start to shift along the window sills to contineu to gain vantage and to try for cover.

The bifrost swirl is unrelenting, and the char marks on the street are now starting to smolder. Around the site where creatures have been arriving, the air is starting to mist.

Booster gets swatted by the flailing dragon, smashing into the pavement. He sits up in his modest crater and shakes his head a bit to clear it, then smiles and gives the Thing a thumbs up. "Awesome, dude. Can you rip its head off and throw it into orbit?" That may be overkill, but it would be pretty cool. Booster floats back up into the air, extending his arms before him and firing his blasters full-bore at the dragon's neck.

A yell of wordless fury emits from Balor's throat, the lines of power across his body glow brightly, and the red mist around his Evil Eye swirls like a tornado. His first strike is parried, and the spiders swarm in...only to be /shredded/ by a spinning series of slashes with the sword. He's enraged...he's got an arrow in the shoulder...but he's still quite the swordsman. Between the flashing blade and a few well-placed super-strong kicks and punts, the cat-sized spiders turn into sailing pulverized bits, splat marks on the pavement, and diced up chunks. Somehow in the middle of all this, he finds time to let loose another blast from his Evil Eye at the dragon's core...and then, he turns his attention back to the drider, charging in and striking at her again and again in strikes that would /look/ wild and uncontrolled if not for their precise timing and the way they're always aimed in such a way as to strike just where her defense is weakest. "Do you know /who I am/? I am /Balor of the Evil Eye/! Do you know what that means? You **** fool! I am your death!"

Balor's sword: Sliced, dices, makes juilanned spiders! Order now and get a free eye patch! (Supplies are limited. Call now!)

The dryder hisses as she's faced with the demon whose swordmanship is more tha she can muster. With a hiss as a sword lops off a spider leg, she casts a shield over herself and scutters further backwards.

The blast, a short burst of power, strips away yet another layer of the glowing power in its chest. Its struggles weaken for a heartbeat.

Johnny watches as Ben grabs the dragon thing and uses it to tenderize a horde of spiders. Two birds with one stone! Now -that's- certainly a plan as good as any. He cheers at his teammate, then peels away from the Fantasticar, speeding toward the dragon's glowing core and making a pass over the archers on the way. A volley of golf ball-sized fireballs hurtles toward them, aiming for the bows in an attempt to disarm them.

Finally, Johnny arrives before the giant skeletal dragon, eyeing the glowing sphere. He directs a concentrated blast of fire and hot plasma at the core. "This looks important!"

"Intriguing. Im picking of life signs on all the creatures." Reed mumbles to himself. So much for his robots theory. As he continues to scan he catches a glimpse of the energy output scans. lifting his gauntlet communicator to his mouth he opens a channel to all the Four. "Hmm. Ben I need you to direct the operations. I'm picking up awkward energy fluctuations. Not sure if they are dangerous or not. I'm going to track down its origin and attempt to get better readings if I can. I'll be back when im done." With that Reed stretches and climbs out of his pod of the Fantastic car and stars to wind his way through the battle.

Okay, pry off that head and... awk! Dragon is suddenly lurching and going up and over. Brynn grips her blade and whips it out of the bone before making a quick and vicious slash at the neck to try one more time to decapitate the creature before she leaps from the upturned dragon. She deflects an arrow or two from her shield and another of the arrows strikes her on an unarmored spot in her unarmored hip. She hits the ground, rolls, snapping the arrow off with her movements and ignoring the pain before she rises to her feet and fires off another twin beam of golden energy... this time at the archers, sweeping over them. Sue Storm bails out of the Fantasticar as it passes by overhead, her force fields of course making it look like she just effortlessly stepped off of a sidewalk. She zips along in Johnny's wake, using a pair of force fields to yank bows and quivers of arrows away from the archers, and probably also smothering any weapons that are actively burning from her brother's flyby. The archers themselves she's not injuring, that's not her style. She's also very frequently looking toward where the dryder and giant spiders are, because she REALLY dislikes spiders. Stomp! Stomp! StompStompStompStompStompStompStomp!!! Ben comes charging out of the dust, smacking spiders into other spiders with pulverizing force as he jogs up. He grabs the Dragon by what's left of his skeletal tail and plants his feets, orange rocklike toes digging into hot asphalt like warm butter and he heaves, starting to spin the dragon around and around before letting it fly directly toward the dryder and the swarmping spiders. "Stay behind me Suzie! Reed, whatcha got?" he asks.

Those poor poor archers. Torched, Brynn'd, Sue'd (not that they have any assests...); they never stood a chance! The dryder's shield can withstand a few sword slices from Balor, but a drcolich-mallet wield by Ben the Mighty? Not really. She goes splat.

The dragon's core heats up, the dragon screeching in undead pain as the bones begin to ember and the fire around the glowing ball of blue magic seems to boiling away layer by thin layer. Ben's use of it makes the creature shreak and snarl, and it flails weakly and ineffectually. (And hte inner gamer girl in me is squeeing at the mental image of someone using a dracolich as a ragdoll, puny dragon!)

Menawhile, in a storefront, Circus is taking on a spider-dog solo (her last pose, she went idle, we'll leave her ot be heroic with that on her own). While further down the street, Nate Grey is taking his own spider-dog (ditto Circus). And a bit further away, Fandral is dancing with hundreds of spiders and keeping them from civilians. (he posed out with that and we'll leave him there)

In the sky, the bifrost vortex still swirls. The rainbow lights pulse as more things arrive. The mist that's been forming is condensing into a very real chill, a cold that is mind numbing and blood stilling as to only be one thing: Frost Giants. Six of them. All over fifteen feet tall. The temperature in the area is plummeting quickly and hte sheer size of the six warriors hides the two slightly smaller jotun in the middle. The giants step from their landing site and roar a channel in something that almost sounds scandinavian.

Booster Gold floats back a bit when the Thing starts to Thing-handle the dragon, so he can avoid getting accidentally clobbered out of the sky; he can use the breather, anyway. He brightens up when he sees Sue, because he knows her. "Hi there, Ms. Storm," he greets her with a bright smile and a wink. "So, I think this is some kind of cross-dimensional invasion sort of thing, but everything got so crazy so fast, I haven't had a chance to really look into it. Stuff just keeps appearing." And then, there are giants. Booster looks at them, and then gestures their way. "Yeah. Just like that."

You paged Nate Grey with ‘Thanks for joining, nate!’ The drider goes splat, right in front of Balor, and he just sort of stops and stares for a moment. The dragon's mostly down...the drider's dead...what's a war-god of death to do? Well, apparently, start swearing very, very, very loudly. Balor unleashes a /stunning/ stream of multilingual explitives, slices one more spider nearby him in two without even looking, and looks at the frost giants. "Fine! Fine! No dragon...no ****in' spider lady...I guess I'll just hafta kill /you/, then!" The mist swirls around his eye once more, and a strong blast lances out at one of the bigger frost giants.

The cold leechs into everything. And the first giant is staggered back by the blast a half step. Behind them, in the swirl of hte bifrost, more figures are starting to materialize.

There are just too many creatures to get by to find the source to the readings. Making his way back to Ben, Reed takes in the scene best he can. It's chaos. Johnny is doing his thing, which is normal and just what needs to be done on his part. As he looks to the large rock man Reed smiles. "Sue, Ben on me." Reed says a bit taken aback by the arrival of giants. "Let's go with: Attack pattern Theta." He says quickly with a the plan. As Reed positions himself between two traffic signal posts and wraps his rams around them. As if making a slingshot. As he continues to turn himself into a sling, Reed stars talking into his comm again, this time signaling Johnny. "Johnny. Corral the.. the uhh.. go after those large men. Try to get them into a single column." He isnt going to admit their giants. There is no such thing as magic.

"In the name of Munnopor's many moons, I call on the judgment of the flawless Faltine for you who would bring darkness to this innocent realm!"

Doctor Strange's incantations ring across the battlefield even before the Sorcerer Supreme descends into view, his brilliant red cloak fluttering around him. His hands deftly weave ancient sigils and patterns into the air, leaving traces of golden energy that glimmer even to the untrained eye. Below, the fires claiming some of the archers' bows grow wildly and inexplicably out of control, leaping from bow to quiver, to the quiver of the archer nearby; even the arrows littering the ground aren't spared. For all their voraciousness, however, the flames are heatless.

"May their purifying flames consume the implements of your baseless aggression!"

The bows and arrows do indeed disappear in short enough order, but rather than ash, the archers are left with hands and quivers full of tree branches, catgut, metal, and the occasional bird. With that, the Doctor lowers his hands and glides nearer to some of the defenders, the air around him still humming with arcane energy.

"I need to know our status," he requests of anyone who isn't too busy with spiders, drow, spider-drows, or giants to update him on the situation. "So that I may do everything in my power to see that they're removed from this realm quickly." Ben nods and starts pushing back against Reed's middle section, stretching him out like a giant slingshot. He follows Reed's instructions and moves a little to the left. At about half a block Reed starts to strain and calls for a halt. "Ready when you are, Suzie! Let's go get 'em!" When she gives the go-ahead, he balls himself up to get launched directly at the giants with an echoing "Waaaaaahoooo!" as he hurtles toward them.

Okay, the Dragon seems to be immune to her power, and the archers are taken care of. Now Brynn can focus on smaller threats. She rips the arrow out of her hip and goes into a flurry of activity, working her way through other enemies such as the driders as she calls out, "I have no ability with magic! If anyone can do something about the bifrost, it would be most appreciated!"

Sue Storm quickly moves to hover directly over Reed and Ben's slingshot arrangement, and then force fields shimmer into existence on either side of their chosen street, framing their improvisational weapon so the big guy hits their intended targets and not the buildings. Keeping her arms outstretched and squinting to keep the force fields firmly in place, she yells down to the pair below, "Ready!"

"Short version," Booster Gold tells Dr. Strange, as he points towards the vortex, and then at the various things as he speaks about them. "That basically came out of nowhere, and then there were these skeleton guys who started killing people, that big nasty dragon thing, these archer dudes and then these spider things. And those guys." He gestures at the giants. "From what I'm getting out of all of this, it's a dimensional thing but I sure can't do anything about the portal or whatever they're using."

Johnny watches with satisfaction as he burns away at the glowing sphere and the dragon flails helplessly. But then a bunch of frost giants suddenly appear out of the rainbow bridge and Reed calls for attack pattern Theta.

"One fiery vortex, coming right up!" The Torch calls out, and he rockets toward the frost men, beginning to fly in circles around them at dizzying speeds. Before long, an enormous column of flame has formed around them, rising over even the heads of the tallest giants.

It's about to get mighty hot in there!

The dragon weakly struggles to its feet, arcane magic swirling about it. The air, already cold, grows even colder. The sky not covered by the bifrost grows a hazy winter grey. Then, from the sky, foot long spikes of frozen ice begin to fall from the sky. They land with otherworldly power, breaking off bits of building, lancing clear through cars, and embedding themselves into the asphalt. Johnny's going to have to stay super HAWT just to stay warm if this keeps up. The dragon stays down on its stomach, winged closed around itself, tail weakly lashing like an angry feline's, channel and casting.

Inthe bifrost vortex, the shapes come clear... more giants, ten of them. And not just the giants, but mounted warriors. Each giant rides a snow white mastadon, with twenty foot tusks which are tipped in metal. The giants wield wicked lances of ice. The first two lower their spears and charge down the street. OOC: http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics10/img44bf175730d57.jpg

Balor growls, marching into the crowds as he fires off another beam at the giants to keep them under control and hopefully at least somewhat cowed. "More an' more...more an' more..." As he hears Strange's call, he calls back...he's speaking calmly, but there's a clear underlying battle fury. "Buncha ****in' stuff comin' through, an' it ain' stoppin'. I don' like admittin' it, but there's too much comin', too fast...we're just keepin' up, not beatin' 'em back." His sword is whirling, flashing blur in the midst of the troops, cutting through foe after foe as he intermittently fires off beams of death-energy at the larger targets. He's accepted...barely...that he's going to have to work /with/ these people now. "We've gotta finish off that dragon thing an' /close/ that bridge. Then killin' the rest ain' gonna be hard. That...an' we're disorganized. We need a commander." As the mounted giants charge, he takes aim and fires another strong beam...not at the giant, but at the mastodon. Cause a charging steed to stumble, and you could play havoc with the rider. He puts a hand to his eye, the lines of power along his body flickering a bit. He's not tiring...but he's burning up far too much of his eye's power.

As the Four do their jobs, Reed starts to feel the familiar twinge of pain as his body stretches to its max. "Tension is at optimal level for what is needed, Ben." Reed says wincing a bit. Yeah you can only stretch something so much. "Now!"

Oh, look... more of them. Brynn narrows her eyes and dashes over by her bag. She tosses her shield to one side and scoops up a second sword for her off hand. "Right then... battle it is!" she remarks before launching herself towards the giants. She is preceeded by a twin blast of pure heat from her eyes before she wades in. She may not have the ability to teleport the way Sif does, but her sword handling skills are quite on par with the Queen of Asgard, and she puts them to use here. "The portal! Close the portal!" she cries out as she adeptly zips from target to target, trying to keep them off balance, deflecting blows with one blade, absorbing a hit or two and cutting, slashing, and stabbing with a frenzied sort of agression. Long distance to Circus: Thor offers to schedule a one on one of Circus and the Spider-dog at your convince. It's getting awfully cold, and even Johnny is having to work relatively hard just to keep himself and his teammates from freezing! He continues to race 'round and 'round the giants, doing his best to maintain the flame vortex, as well as shooting fireballs at the falling ice lances in an attempt to melt as many as he can before they do more damage.

"Ben...Reed...if you're gonna do your thing, do it now!" he calls out over the roar of his own flames.

Ben is flung forward at several hundred miles an hour at a perfect trajectory. He's not called Mr. Fantastic because of his fashion sense, not Reed. Ben tucks and tumbles through the air until he's about to hit the lead giant, smacking him in the head like some giant sling stone. He bounces to the side, skidding off of one of Sue's force fields that scoops him around into the face of another giant, and a third. The fourth Giant is lucky, slamming Ben to the ground with a club. "Whot a revoltin' development!" he's heard to say mostly by the giants, and Johnny and probably Dr. Strange, and the rest of his team. He grabs the so called Lucky giant and starts swinging him around, bashing his buddies with him, repeating until he's levelled the non-mounted giants.

The six non mounted giants were the breech force for the mounted force, two of which charge in tandeum at Ben, lances pointed downwards at their target.

The two smaller jotun, with a glance at each other, each step into the cover of the mostly not fully intact buildings to either side of the street. One looks up and begins adding her own ice-storm magics to the drragon-made blizzard. The other, eyes on the dracolich, channels fresh magic toward it, hoping to rebolster it's magical core, healing it slowly.

The bifrost pulses again, but unless you're watching the site closely, you may not see anything come through.

Sue Storm takes off immediately after Ben, her force fields disappearing as his slingshot momentum runs out. She starts making force fields appear and disappear as fast as blinking, using them to stop, deflect, shatter, or otherwise keep as many of those ice shards as possible from hitting any people still in the area. Like Brynn. Property takes a second on her list, as this is about all she can concentrate on at the moment. Thankfully, she at least seems mostly immune to the cold. "Reed? Is there anyway to get that Einstein-Rosen bridge closed?" Yes, she just spouted technobabble. Mostly because it's likely the only way to keep Reed from pshawing the portal's presence. "Things keep coming out of it."

The mastodon that was attacked by Baolr stumbles, taking a knee hard. The rider pulls onthe reigns to help the beast right itself while slashing out at Balor with his lance.

"Understood," the Doctor begins, nodding to Booster as the amulet hanging near his throat cracks open along the middle.

|"Closing the portal from this side isn't an option,"| he continues without moving a muscle; his voice echos in the mind of each defender, through the power of Agamotto's Eye. |"It will only close when the shard holding it open is pulled through to this side--or allowed to run out of energy."| Now that communication is less of an onerous prospect, Strange glides higher into the air, towards the weakened dracolich. His hands quickly twist into familiar - to him, at least - shapes, conjuring serpentine bands of ruby light around the monster.

"That which was must no longer be, lest the cycle of life grow slack; let the foul magics animating thee thus be bound by the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak!" Upon finishing his incantation, he thrusts both hands forward, sending those red bands lashing towards the gaps in its ribs with intentions on encapsulating the magical energies within--and, Strange hopes, nullifying their hold on the monstrous husk around them.

"Allowed to run out of energy? Man, how long would that take? This area is taking a beating as it is." Booster Gold frowns a bit, looking at the wintry weather; it is a nice break in the middle of summer, but a little goes a long way. He flies up further, points at the dragon and says, "Dibs on the dragon skull!" And then he is flying towards the portal like a golden comet.

Johnny watches as Ben hurtles forward and delivers a serious clobberin' to the six non-mounted giants. Once attack pattern Theta has been completed, he finally stops flying in circles and lets the vortex dissipate.

As soon as he hears Doctor Strange's words, he follows Booster and flies straight toward the portal, shooting fireballs at the mastodons on the way. Animals are innately afraid of fire, right? Well, Earth ones, anyway--but it's worth a shot. "Right, pull the shard over this side, got it! Should be easy enough, right? Just grab 'n go!" The Torch is convinced he'll be fast enough.

With a hmph, Balor dodges away from the lance just enough to give him time to catch it under his arm. The lines of power running along his body flare up again, and he twists, lifting the giant off his mount and sending him crashing to the ground. Balor drops his sword for the moment, taking hold of the giant lance with both hands, and with a furious roar, he stabs it down at its fallen former owner. "Y'might wanna explain t'any hotheads we've got that they'd better watch their ***es if they're goin' through. Might run smack into anythin' on the other side...an' if these guys are smart, they'll be guardin' their weakness pretty well. 'course...they could be ****in' morons, sure."

Starting up ice storm magics eh? Well a warrior maiden comes out of the sudden blizzard, blade glowing golden as she slashes at one of the two smaller jotunn, and then sidesteps to stab at the second. Then she's on again. She leaves the cavalry to others and attacks the infantry. She is not exactly trying to be a leader, but she does kind of have a tendency to draw the eye. Especially when she summons her own glamours and cloaks herself in the appearance of well, the one she was mistaken for so many centuries ago. It fully appears now that she -is- a Valkyrie, armored, armed, and killing Jotunn. She is hoping they will either fear or, focus on her, or both.

As soon as Ben is off into the air, Reed slumps loosely from traffic poles. He hears Sue's question, but the strain of launching Ben was tiring enough. "Run out of energy. Run out of energy!? Of Course! Wait there is a way to fix this." It took a few moments to work it out, but Reed says it loudly as he pulls himself together and heads for the Fantasticar. "A tachyon destabilization pulse on a modulation of point-three-four-three should be enough to siphon off enough of the energy to close it with out any adverse effects." As he climbs into his pod he runs the math in his head while imputing the calculations into the Fantasticar's on board computer.

Long distance to Sif: Thor giggle and hugs.

The ice lances continue to fall as the temperature continues falling. Snow begins to crystallize out of thin air. A water line suddenly reputures, adding a fine spray of freezing sleet and ice to the mix. One of the jotun mages still channels into the sky.

As Strange's magic leeched into the lich, the creature screeches again, it's unholy and descerated(sp) sound. The glowing pin pricks of hateful light in its eye sockets burn fiercely as the Magician fights against the bonds that hold the creature to it's body past death. With renewed vigor, the dracolich struggles, fighting a losing battle against the disenchantment. The jotun mage that was trying to heal the dragon turns on the source of magic and casts a wicked cone of cold at Dr. Strange.

The jotun see a valkyrie and two mounted riders do indeed turn to her. The others continue their charges, thundering down the street, destroying and killing and attacking heroes as they come to them. One, points towward the flying sparks of light, yells something, and flings his ice lance at Johnny and Booster, not caring whom he hits.

Meanwhile, under the vortex, ten more front giant infantry appear, each with four wolves the size of clidestales, with blue-white fur, gleaming red eyes, and snarling mouths. OOC: https://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/4dnd_20111214_Frost0Giant0Jarl.jpg

The jotun mages both have to fling themselves out of harm's way, leaving their nooks to find fresh hiding spots to cast from. Each toss cones of cold behind themselves as cover.

Sue Storm lets her concentration slip when she hears the discussion of a shard and sees Johnny on his way to the Bifrost opening. "Johnny, no!" But, as much as she wants to chase after him, she sees Brynn fighting by herself and stops deflecting the ice lances in favor of protecting the woman that can hopefully stop the ones creating the ice. The charging jotunn riders and their mounts get only a brief blue shimmer in their path to warn them that there's now a force field wall between them and their target, and Sue braces herself for the impact of those huge creatures. She's sure she's gonna be able to feel it.

"Sure, quick and easy job," Booster answers Johnny. When he sees the ice lance arrowing for them, he rolls his flight to get just in front of Johnny, and suddenly his forcefield appears around him in a golden sphere, so that when the lance hits it can shatter and spray widely around him. Booster knows Johnny is made of fire, but he has no idea what that much ice can do to a fire-dude.

"Jotun! You will fail! In the name of Sif, queen of Asgard... you shall not pass beyond me!" cries out Brynn/Brun... whatever. She raises both swords and then fires off a blast from her eyes to shatter the lance tossed towards Johnny and Booster which shatters the thing into thousands of small shards. "Your fight is with Asgard. It is with me. This is not Asgard, but...you will -all- die by my blades if you persist." and that said, she starts stalking forward. Working -very- hard to try to become the focal point for all of their attention... to buy everyone else a moment to do... well, something desperate and stupid... translation, to be heroes!

Johnny isn't sure if Booster is being sarcastic or not, but he doesn't have much time to worry about that, as a giant ice lance comes flying toward him. He doesn't stop, rather, he turns around as he continues backward toward the bifrost portal, shooting a long tongue of fire at it just before it strikes Booster's force field. Hopefully that will lighten the blow for his comrade.

|"Wh--"| The wide-eyed Doctor frantically searches the skies to figure out who's heading for the portal, only to find Booster and Johnny blazing a path to it. |"--no!"| he 'exclaims' as the brunt of the jotun spellworker's freezing spell clashes with the protective magics around his body, melts into steam, and forces him to give the giant his full attention. A deathly chill settles into the air around his body despite those passive protections, and all he can do to mitigate it is try to fly out of - and ahead of, if the jotun is persistent enough to keep trying - the cone.

|"The portal would close behind you--you would be stranded on the other side!"| he adds, quieter thanks to the exertion of trying to complete his binding spell before it's too late to deal with the jotun.  Johnny Storm says, "That poor ice lance just got eye-blasted, torched, AND forcefielded. xD"

With his foe felled, Balor pulls the giant lance back out, looking about the battlefield. Human mage...working to demolish the dragon. Jotun mage...trying to harm the human mage. All right, he's got a problem to solve. He leaps into the air, clearing the distance between him and the Jotun mage that was firing at Dr. Strange just as it leaves cover. It's shooting behind itself...he's coming from above, aiming a giant's spear straight down at its head.

The dracolich flails weakly as the magic bonds are cut. Its re-death is anti climatic. The glow fades and the bones just... fall apart.

The jotun cavalry continue their mounted combat, moving the giant beasts nimbly for their size. Three now focused on Ben, the mammoths attacking with their tusks while their riders staba dn slash with their lances. One is on Balor still, while the riderless mount regains its feet and begins fighting to get clear of combat and wait for its rider once more.

The new forces snarl at Brynn's threats and all ten of the warriors charge her. Half of the wolves attack her as well, and hte other twenty fan out to join the attacks on the ground forces. (Add two for Nate, two for Fadnral, and one for Circus, all inthe back ground so the current heroes have fifteen to deal with.)

The mage attacking Strange continues her attacks, flaring her cone of cold briefly before summoning an iceball to fling at him that will explode on impact. Fortunately for Strange and unfortunately for the jotun, Balor's leap attack wasn't seen until literally the very last moment, as the spear goes straight through her skull, into her body, and the mage crumples to the ground.

The bifrost pulses again, preparing for something else to come through.

Meanwhile, as the pair of flyboys near the bifrost, it's power is most definitely a pushing sort of thing as it's depositing things on this this realm from another. The 'winds'in here are ever shifting, comign from various different directions, literally at the same time.

On the ground where the things appear, the knotwork that marks a bifrost site are now three inches melted into the asphalt, and still going. Sparks are starting to form as teh world, quitely literally, is starting to warp and buckle between realities.

The dracolich flails weakly as the magic bonds are cut. Its re-death is anti climatic. The glow fades and the bones just... fall apart.

The jotun cavalry continue their mounted combat, moving the giant beasts nimbly for their size. Three now focused on Ben, the mammoths attacking with their tusks while their riders staba dn slash with their lances. One is on Balor still, while the riderless mount regains its feet and begins fighting to get clear of combat and wait for its rider once more.

The new forces snarl at Brynn's threats and all ten of the warriors charge her. Half of the wolves attack her as well, and hte other twenty fan out to join the attacks on the ground forces. (Add two for Nate, two for Fadnral, and one for Circus, all inthe back ground so the current heroes have fifteen to deal with.)

The mage attacking Strange continues her attacks, flaring her cone of cold briefly before summoning an iceball to fling at him that will explode on impact. Fortunately for Strange and unfortunately for the jotun, Balor's leap attack wasn't seen until literally the very last moment, as the spear goes straight through her skull, into her body, and the mage crumples to the ground.

The bifrost pulses again, preparing for something else to come through.

Meanwhile, as the pair of flyboys near the bifrost, it's power is most definitely a pushing sort of thing as it's depositing things on this this realm from another. The 'winds'in here are ever shifting, comign from various different directions, literally at the same time.

On the ground where the things appear, the knotwork that marks a bifrost site are now three inches melted into the asphalt, and still going. Sparks are starting to form as teh world, quitely literally, is starting to warp and buckle between realities.

Thanks to the method of Dr. Strange's communication, Booster Gold can 'hear' the warning. It might be difficult to see, due to where he is now, but Booster is giving a thumbs-up in response to it. He knew the job was dangerous when he took it. For now, he has to focus so he can fly against the buffeting energy at the bifrost's 'mouth', pushing against it to get through.

Doctor Strange's words only succeed in encouraging the Torch to press on. "Oh, so we don't actually even -have- to grab the shard? We just fly through and it'll close behind us? Sweet! This is even easier than I thought!" And Johnny boosts himself forward, adding an extra burst of speed; his determination to reach the other side renewed by this new information. The winds buffet him back and forth in different directions, seemingly at all at once, but he continues, undaunted. <> he reassures his sister over the F4's commmlink.

Amid the crashes of calvary, magic bolts, and all around chaos that is a battle scene, there comes a mechanical roar which seems to be getting closer now. Suddenly from around one street corner, comes a motorbike with the Star Spangled Avenger. His shield is in the front of the bike as he crouches down low as he is racing to get to the scene as quickly as he can. He had heard the commotion building on the police scanner. While he is late for the party, he is trying to make up for lost time. He is coming up from behind the invading Asgardians, hopefully, so the heroes will see him, but perhaps not the invaders.

The chanrging mastodons bearing down on Brynn hit a literal invisible wall. The lead mount crumples again the wall, a tusk breaking clean in half, the lance snapping like a toothpick, and the rider siding forward to slam into the wall. TONS of frozen mammoth and frost giant and armor. all at once. And there's two more where that came from! Though, they hit with slightly less impact as the abrupt stop of their leader gave them a heartbeat of warning.

"Heimdall, if you can see or hear me... please summon the King or the Queen. We could use some help on your end of the Bifrost." remarks Brynn. She knows that for Heimdall, if he is capable of watching, one does not need to speak up to be heard by the god of steadfast guardians. As it is, she narrows her eyes and prepares to face the oncoming hoard. Blades held out at the ready and then WHAM! It's like watching birds fly into windows. She herself... kinda stops and stares. She had -no- idea the field was there. She was prepared to fight them all. But now she just kind of stands there staring dumbly. "What in the name of the All Father's missing eye?" she asks.

Balor lands from his leap, looking at his handiwork, and finally gets a little smile. "Heh.../that/ was pretty bad***. Now where'd I drop my sword...oh, right." He leaps across the battlefield again, landing by the other frost giant he'd killed, and scoops up the two-handed sword, his eyes scanning over the battlefield. Hm...downed frost giants over near the Valkyrie... "No point in lettin' more of 'em stand up than we hafta," he mutters, and leaps over to where the frost giants have piled up in front of Brynn, slashing his sword for the necks of any that still look like they might be able to fight when they shake off the stun.

Balor's intervention comes in the nick of time; Doctor Strange's evasive maneuvers were flagging thanks to the chill seeping through his abjurations. The means of intervention is a bit more problematic to his mind, but he can - begrudingly - accept it well enough to carry on with the fight; surely, a warrior of Jotunheim must have already prepared herself for the possibility of death before embarking on an expedition like today's.

Still, though, Balor and his strange, glowing mark get a lingering look of disapproval before the Sorceror Supreme turns and flies towards a pack of marauding wolves.

As the Doctor passes over them, soothing music - lyres, flutes, woordless, choral singing - swirls through the air around him, seeking to lull the savage beasts to sleep--or at least inaction.

Sue Storm flinches as the mastodons slam into her force field, and just to make it more confusing for the mounted frost giants, the moment their forward momentum is halted the invisible wall is gone. Sue tries to blink away the beginnings of a migraine and drops to float closer to Brynn, where she'll be better able to toss up force fields and drop them again quickly enough to protect the warrior woman but not keep her from fighting back. She's practiced this with Ben, but hasn't ever really had to use it for real. Fingers crossed.

The rumble of a motorcycle engine draws her attention and she glances to see the shield on the front of the vehicle. Okay. Two people to protect on the fly. She can do this. She's trained to do this.

As the boys fly into the portal, their sense of reality wrapping about them. Before their eyes flicker the attacking realms: a dark graveyard (http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/comicsalliance.com/files/2013/03/helheim01.jpg), an icy wasteland(http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/10/101568/2169882-jotunheimfreeze.jpg), a magical tower(http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRHXN4Qb7OaUCNdbwMldao5e1Ef6ylwkF3TgO0DuGkovCgnhEEi), a smoking field of lava and flame (http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSrL8PKkh_l39WdruNg2MJezG0zM2Bc_GYSgXlXrEmep4C1_KG1), a craggy shadowed mountain (http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQh6OZ1nd8sce3Hjt_9Ou_TI4nE7D7ZW4yk6SLHgefE7iujKFpMgg).

The jotun turn to Balor and Brynn now, the wolves and the warriors fighting in tandeum. The remaining jotun mage finds her cover and recasts blizzard. The temperature falls again and the icce shards start to fall from the sky again.

The music Strange conjures gets the attention of ten of the 35 wolves in the area. Five drop instantly to sleep, the other five look sluggish, tired, and slightly dazed.

Did someone pray for a King? In front of the portal, the bifrost vortex swirls out of nothing, followed by a cacophany of brilliant multi-colored lightning bolts. When the light clears, Loki, if full regalia, golden horns and all is kneeling upon a large celtic knot burned into the ground. Around him, in brilliant silver, is a strike team of Valkyrie who quickly take up defensive positions around the prince.

Loki himself rises and holds out a large shard of the rainbow bridge. He stands tall, eyes closed, and is speaking. It's soft at first, but his voice grows in strength and power each time he repeats the phrase, spoken in words that few would understand in this day in age.

The portal, vibrates, and shudders for a moment, before a strange green mist begins to flow from the vortex and into the shard in Loki's grasp.

Ben communicates to the rest of team... /These guys is tough an all, but I bet they still breathe... Sue forcebubble their heads where you can, and watch out, they hit almost as hard as me/ He continues his battle with the three Jotun out to get him, trying to ride him down. He finally manages to tangle a charging spear with the tusk of another mastadon, making the two collide with a titanic ripple, leaving him free to tackle his lone opponent. The giant lances at him, and Ben just throws up a rocky fist at the last moment, grabbing onto the Speartip and driving it into the ground rolling it over his shoulder and vaulting the surprised Jotun into the ground with a jarring thud. "Who's next," he yells, looking around. He spots Lokis entrance and his jaw drops. "Aw Crud. Dis guy."

It's not the King or Queen of Asgard that arrives to help. No, it's the Prince. Sporting a few bandages and already showing signs of battle, Axiom's on a nearby rooftop looking the battle over. Armor and uniform on, he's looking for where he can help the most. It's the Jotun Mage that gets his attention. Axiom glances at the assembled heroes and nods. The Human Torch will suddenly find his powers boosted beyond their normal capabilities as Axiom applies his powers to one of his favorite heroes. He mimicks him a moment later, costume shifting to a fusion of his own and Johnny's. Loki's arrival gets a deep frown especially when he sees magic instead of a hammer but he shakes it off. "Flame on!" Axiom exclaims, using mimicked powers to fly down and start launching fireballs at the Jotun Mage from behind.

Booster pauses in his flight, processing what he is seeing. Then, he says, "It's kind of like a nexus, I think. But I dunno if that means they naturally have a sort of... node where they come together, or if each one got opened up to dump out in one spot. I'm kind of hoping that there isn't a thing in each one that needs to be taken or busted, but if there is, I guess we're going to be kind of busy." From afar, Axiom nods. "Eddie's just taking a guess based on magic being cast and there being no hammer...since he doubts Thor would be very magically inclined."

Captain America rides into the thick of the battle. He pulls his feet up on to the seat of the bike and lets it fly towards one of the wolves that are near Dr. Strange as he leaps off of it. He has his shield on one arm even as he does. He spots Loki appearing and makes his way through the fodder towards the man, he thinks, is his friend in the wrong body. "Looks like you showed up at right time, Goldilocks." He is wary in battle, but is looking outward and not towards Loki at the moment.

In a word, eek! Brynn discards her glamour now. She doesn't feel that she really -is- worthy to bear the regalia of a Valkyrie. Instead, the redhead with teeshirt, jeans, and attached armor pieces wades into the fight. She doesn't know what it was about the area that stopped those guys from reaching her, but she reaches them now and she has zero mercy. She is not a hero, at least not today. Today she is a warrior and she lashes out to kill any enemy within reach. The fact that she can fly at high speeds also helps her mobility on the field. "My lord! The Bifrost!" she calls toward Loki. You paged Brynn with ‘Not known that Thor and Loki hae switched back’ From afar, Brynn nods, "Hence, I just said.. My Lord:)"

With the gentle melodies of some phantom ensemble still playing around him, Doctor Strange breaks off from looking for wolves to soothe to make a bee-line towards Loki and his conjurations. The Eye of Agamotto slides open along the way, darting this way and that as it scans the Trickster and his mystical shard.

"Very interesting," he begins as he comes to a halt above Loki and his Valkyrie ring, "And very fortuitous." Curling his fingers so that he's ready to hurl Bolts of Bedevilment at the first giant, drow or drow-giant(they haven't shown up yet, but at this rate...), he tips his chin towards the shard. "I trust that you have a responsible use in mind for that, mm?"

"Y'brought good weapons, Valkyrie," Balor says, looking briefly back towards Brynn before she flies off. "Y'have my thanks for the blade." And then the giant warriors and their wolves are on him, but Balor's giving no ground. He's a great swordsman...far from the greatest, but still excellent on the field. And he refuses to falter. All the same, though he's not physically tiring...he's stopped firing any beams from his eye, and the mist surrounding it seems to have thinned and slowed. But his blade--his greatsword flashes back and forth, parrying blows, and it doesn't seem to matter what direction the blow comes from--he doesn't have to see it at all. At the slightest opening, his blade slices in, aiming to kill. "Loki is here...so which side's the god of tricks on?"

The mage screams as the flames bite into her, and she rounds to blast a cone of icy cold at the meddlesome...

"THORSON!" She crows loudly, redoubling her efforts, and backing up to get behind the line of warriors that come to her call. A few of the jotuns glance and turn from Brynn to Eddie, whistling sharply to summon their wolves. They shout something in their tongue: (Brynn: Kill the Thorson! End the line of Odin!) and focus on the boy. From the back ranks, the mage redouble the Blizzard effect, forcing the temperatures to plummet again, leeching heat from the surrounding air so that snowflakes appear in midair.

The vortex summoning the creatures pulses again (And in the swirl, Booster and JOhnny would see a flash of the dark mountains and the waiting armies of spiders and drow warriors and dryders and archers. There are thousands, but the portal snakes out, almost at random, and grabs up a dryder, six warriors in black plate and chain, a few thousand cat-sized black spiders, and two archers), and figures start to appear around Loki and Dr. Strange.

Voice still getting louder with each repeat of the same magical phrase, the mist swirling away from the vortex is getting brighter and stronger as well as it's sucked into the rainbow crystal in the Trickster's hand. ***Please do not distract me, Sorcerer.*** Comes the distracted touch of Loki's mind to the Doctor's shared telepathic link. ***I can spare little attention. I care not for the shard after the battle. Protect me, and I will see this rip sealed, before it becomes permanant.***

Johnny also pauses as he and Booster arrive at some kind of nexus. Examining each of the worlds before him, the Torch automatically decides the fire and lava one suit him best. "Well, if Doc Strange is right, as soon as we pass through the thing should close behind us, if it hasn't already." The Torch remarks. "But to be sure, if we find any shard-magic-glowy things anywhere, I guess we'd better blast 'em. Sound like a plan?"

But before Booster can even respond, Johnny is off, making a fiery beeline for the magma world, where he will -hopefully- be totally at home and in his element. Seeing Axiom's flame attacks nearby, she half turns in relief thinking that means Johnny chose to NOT go through that portal like a ninny and calls out, "Johnny, need a distraction when you're done there!" The young man likely hears it anyway due to Dr. Strange's magical communications link, then as Captain America moves out of her line of sight and Ben tells her to try the bubblehead smothering trick, she leaves herself too close to the enemies attacking both Brynn and Balor as two of the bipedal attackers end up with translucent blue shimmers like soap bubbles surrounding their heads.

As Loki's shard sucks in the power of hte bifrost, the vortex grows slightly smaller, but only by fractions. It's been open for so long already. The Trickster would be very familiar with was a bifrost bridge can DO to a planet if left open for too long. For that matter, so do the jotun. But floating inside the swirling vortex, the power drain affects not only the bifrost but Booster Gold and Johnny Storm.

(I wonder if they even care that Eddie is not Thor's -blood-, and that Sif is... oh skip it...) O O o o. . thinks Brynn. She simply nods to Balor. "Keep it!" she calls out, "You have earned it!" And then she launches herself towards Axiom. After all, she gave her word, did she not? "Thorson!" she calls as she comes to end up between Axiom and his enemies. The fact that she can fly... fast... does help there. Also, the blizzard casting sorceress gets a blast of heat from her eyes to distract her from further spells. But she places her body between the Thorson and any threats or attacks coming his way. In fact each of her swords is shoved basically down the gullet of a wolf as they lunge in, and her armo stops a bite or two even as she says, "Stay behind me Thorson. My word has been given to both your parents that I would protect you. Please... do not make that more difficult to do."

"Okay, but--" Booster starts to answer Johnny, but the Torch is already blazing off. "I wonder if I'll get blamed, if he gets killed? Probably." He therefore follows Johnny, if only to avoid having to tell Sue that he watched her brother fly off, alone, into his doom.

Johnny's choice may or may not be a good one, for the vortex buckes around him, the vision of Mulspelheim rippling like a heat wave. Between those shifts, with the bifrost shoving him back toward Midgard, he'll see a room. It's dark, and round, with a swirling vortex at the center, which he's in the middle of. Surrounding the vortex are twelve vanir-born mages, eyes a glow with rainbow light, chanting in time with each other. Their hands are out stretched toward something below him on a pedestal, something that doesn't quite come into focus before the vortex shoves him violently back to Midgard and the battle on Earth.

Sue's bubblehead smother attack. Interesting! The first few seconds have the frost giants not reactiong. Then one suddenly blinks and shakes his head. The second stumbles. And then they are staggering about like drowning men.

"Thorson?" Balor says, the eye that /has/ an eyelid blinking. "Thor has a /son/?" he calls after Brynn as she flies away, and he looks up at Axiom. No time for further consideration on /that/ point, though, as there's a mortal near him that's fighting hard...in a way he can't really quite see...but just made a mistake and got too close to the enemy. Balor isn't really much for saving lives...but exposed allies tend to make for exposed enemies. He makes a hop over some of the wolves near him, and takes up a position near Sue, swinging his blade from behind for any of the foes who had ended up going after her.

The wolves snap and bite and try to rend Brynn limb from limb when they can. The giants movig to surround her to get to Axiom, that odd mortal son of Thor's.

Booster, following Johnny, sees much the same as he does, only a moment after he does.

The jotun mage screams at the heat blazes into her skin, and she rolls away for a moment to recover as those foot long ice lances continue to rain down fro the sky.

 the Doctor agrees, eyeing the figures appearing around them. Rather than begin some fresh incantation, he touches down outside the Trickster's perimeter, reaches up behind the Eye, and unclasps the cloak that never quite seems to scrape across the ground no matter how much billowing it does; as soon as it's free, it vanishes in a golden flash, leaving the Sorceror Supreme clad in a slightly more modest blue tunic and black leggings.

Turning his head towards the nearest valkyrie, he 'says',  and gradually adjusts his footing to adopt a defensive and unmistakably martial posture. 

Johnny is violentely flung back out of the portal, and flies into a partially-collapsed building.

CRACK.

His flames are extinguished as he Torch is knocked unconscious from the impact, and the structure he just struck groans and begins to crumble and collapse down on top of him. It isn't long before he is buried under the rubble. Ouch. Hopefully his teammates can help lessen the blow before it's too late!

"That's right, come get the Thorson," Axiom mutters, firing off blasts of flame at enemies. He's just taking pot shots right now, aiming to draw attention rather than do damage right now. He dodges around ice spears and other things, waiting until he's got more attention. "Now you se-" he starts to say. And then there's Brynn. Axiom frowns and flares up a little more. The whole 'protect the Thorson' thing has him a little irritated. "I c-c-came to help, not hide behind someone else! If you want to protect me, watch my back" he says, letting loose with more flames at the wolves to push them back.

The arachnid-like elven creatures with humanoid upper bodies skitter out from their location nearest the Bitfrost portal and begin to pick out targets amongst the crowd of gathered heroes. The creatures begin firing blasts of eldritch, purple, energy into the gathred crowds. Their targets? Strange, Loki (or perhaps his Valkyries), and Axiom.

Sue Storm gasps and startles in surprise when Balor's sword abruptly keeps a wolf from biting at her even though she wasn't at all worried about the creature getting more than a mouthful of force field. She waits until the two frost giants she's depriving of air collapse, a third force field popping into place in front of Brynn momentarily when the woman is back in her field of vision near... the heck? That's not Johnny! Being startled twice in so short a span is a bad thing, and she ends up not even trying to defend herself. Thankfully Balor is a smart cookie. And worse, she completely didn't see Johnny get spit back out of the portal into a building. Ouch.

Booster barely manages to roll out of the way when Johnny is ejected from the portal, although perhaps letting the Torch hit him rather than a building might have been a kinder outcome. He does fly after him, using his forcefield to prevent any particularly large pieces of masonry from squashing the unconscious Storm.

Ben Grimm leaps to tackle yet another mastodon rider and grapples him to the ground, climbing up his leg and punching as he goes. After he delivers a satisfying double fisted blow to the giants chin, knocking him cold, he turns toward the sea of wolves. He's not fast on the ground, but he's steady. Eventually he gets close enough to their flanks to pull what he likes to think of his 'Hulk' - move. He slams his hands together hard enough to emit a stunning sonic boom like displacement of air, the showckwave throwing a dozen wolves off their feet and dazing and stunning a dozen more. Long distance to Steve Rogers: Thor noddles, salutes, shiftyeyes, tangodipsmooches!

"You need not like it Thorson. You must simply accept that your mother -and- your father both seperately asked me to watch over you and keep you safe. They worry for you." says Brynn. As she says that, she draws a sword out of a wolf's body and lashes out at another who gets too close. With the fire blasts going out from Eddie, she relegates her blades to defensive work and falls back on her optic blasts, using heat and raw force in alternating forms.... "If they wish to kill you, then for them to succeed, I will have to be lying dead on the field... and I am an Eternal. Eternals do not die." she says as she shoots twin beams at one of the dark elves.

With the dryder (http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSLSiT4bPZrG_m9i23HCrW2xWulufv9UX7Vg0nKerPPQELLTRPQrQ) come thousands of cat sized venomous black spiders. (think black widows, only about ten pounds of spider) They mob at targets at random, scutting up Ben's legs, rushing in a wave at Sue and Balor and Brynn and Axiom, and closing in a tight circle around Loki and Strange and the valkyrie guards of Asgard. The dozen or so dark elf warriors move with the smaller spiders, engaging the valkyrie, and trying to disrupt Loki's attempts to seal the vortex. Ther are still other realms to be brought forth!

Loki continues to chant, his voice gaining volume like a oddly sounding metronome. .oO(Push harder, Loki, or this isn't going to work.)Oo., the Trickster thinks to himself. The Prince seems to set his feet a little firmer, straighten a little more, and his voice grows a touch more firm as he falls deeper into the magic, drawing from the vortex for all he is worth. With this level of power being brought to bear, distractions tend to have...drastic...consequences.

The Valkyrie regard Dr. Strange oddly for a moment, not quite used to being paired with what they percive to be a mortal man, but they nod all the same, before drawing their own weapons and leaping to Loki's defense as he stands fairly helplessly in an ever growing green mist. They are well trained, these ladies, and move with the fluidity of a unit that has speant hundreds of years fighting together.

"Mind your surroundin's, mortal," Balor says, grinning at Sue. "I'm not defendin' you...just killin' the stupider ones." Nevertheless, he stays near her, sword defending himself and lashing out at anything that gets close to Sue. A wolf lunges at him from behind, but the sword flashes once more and the wolf is soon missing a head. "You get in /big/ trouble, you're gonna hafta get your/self/ out." He sighs, then spotting the drider and its spiders. "Again? /Again/? Y'stupid ****in' idiots didn' get beat bad enough the /first/ time y'showed up? Fine! Come an' die!" He marches forward among the spiders, cutting every which way with his sword to clear himself some room.

Booster drops down from the sky, behind Sue Storm. His golden forcefield pops up in a sphere around himself and Sue, although this does not prevent her from creating her own fields. Perhaps he feels she might need the protection when he tells her, "Your brother got ejected from the portal and uh, is kind of unconscious. But alive. I put him over there, so he's out of the way of the fighting for now," he points, up at one of the still stable buildings. One of the arachnid creatures falls to energy blasts fired upon it. Another nearby turns to return fire upon Brynn. The others begin to scatter as Loki's Valkyrie's retaliate, and at least two of the creatures fall to the sword. And two more fall to the furiouis Brynn. The newly arrived Dryder, meanwhile, levitates backward before firing a sphere of frigid energy in his direction.

Loki's power draining is working, the oddly flickering rainbow light in the otherwise black vortex fading and growing irratic until at last the funnel clouds shatters. There is a brilliant flash of light and then a fine rainbow glittery dust begins to fall, coating everything like a fine sand. Though as the jotun mage, now recovered turns to channeling a Blizzard the dust grows hard to tell apart from the snow in the air once more.

. Sue Storm looks at Balor and offers him a faint smile back, until he starts ranting about the spiders. She's by no means ignorant of that kind of language, but still. Kind of loud. Then she startles yet again at the sudden appearance of a GOLDEN force field and turns to look at Booster. Her eyes locate Johnny and then she's looking at Booster Gold again. "Thank you."

And now that she's got the luxury of being able to take a moment, she looks around the chaotic scene and chooses the one person that looks the least able to fight back properly. That one way over there in green and black and gold surrounded by sword-weilding warriors that looks to have been doing whatever just caused that portal to close. "I'm fine now," she tells Booster Gold, waiting politely for him to remove his force field so she can go help defend Loki.

A final flash of light and then the glittering rainbow dust and Loki plummets to his knees, still chanting a few more times before he realizes that the spell is no longer working. Both the Trickster, and the rainbow shard in his hands are smoking with a greenish-rainbow mist that wafts off the prince like heat waves. There is an audible hum from the rainbow shard as it quakes in the man's hand.


 * It is done.*** Loki sends along the telepathic link, as he pushes himself slowly back to his feet.

The Valkyrie continue to stay in formation around the Prince, one even laughing as the enemy begins to scatter before them. "You promised us a fight, my Prince!"

"Hmph." Balor smirks, stabs a nearby spider with his sword, and flings it off the blade into the path of the sphere of frigid energy, then leaps over the resultant impact, landing in front of the drider. "You're gonna die today. Don' matter what you do...you're gonna die. All you get to do is choose...fast, or slow?" And suddenly he's moving again, lunging in and slicing with his sword right for the drider's head.

"Okay, Ms. Storm." Booster's golden forcefield vanishes as he floats a few feet into the air. He fires short, golden blasts of stunning energy at the straggling spiders; this is meticulous and aimed, because he is running low on energy at this point and cannot afford the luxury of just hosing down any enemies with blaster fire. Louder, he wonders, "Anyone injured?"

"Oshtur, protect me!" Strange exclaims as he slices at one of the incoming eldritch bolts with the edge of his hand--which is wreathed in a glittering field of magic at the last moment before contact, thanks to his brisk invocation. The spell dissipates on contact with the Sorceror's ensorcelled hand, leaving him with a headache, but nothing worse. Rather than continue trying to parry spells, the Doctor launches himself into the throngs of drow, ducking, dodging, and rolling with a grace and fluidity that would be surprising from many men half his age, much less someone with so much grey at the temples.

Whenever openings are spotted, he lashes out with elbows, knees, palm-strikes and kicks, many of which are accompanied by brief flashes of golden energy to intensify the blows and send drow and spider alike flying. By the time Loki finishes his ritual, the Doctor has worked up quite a sweat--but that exertion is preferable to expending any more of his magical energies, as long as Loki still has possession of the shard.

|"Excellent work!"| he exclaims as he works his way back towards the Trickster's formation

Axiom just shoots an annoyed look Brynn's way. "Theyn keep up," Axiom mutters, starting to move again. Like he said, he's got no intention of hiding behind anyone so he starts tossing fireballs on the move. When he glances up and can't see Johnny anymore, that presents a problem. Namely the fact that his powers cut out. Axiom 'flames off' and his costume shifts back to it's normal appearance. He grits his teeth and looks around again. This time it's Booster Gold he locks his sights on. "Hey, Booster! Heads up!" he calls out, boosting the other hero's abilities and providing a timely recharge. He mimicks him a moment later, using newly mimicked powers to fire off blasts of energy at spiders as he moves to join the group protecting Loki. No, isn't a fan of his uncle but he can see he's doing something important and would benefit from even more defense. When the rainbow dust falls, Axiom smiles a little. "I t-take it that's a good thing?" he asks anyone listening.

The arachnid-like creatures numbers dwindle yet further from the blasts hurled at them by Booster, though one manages to return fire... flinging a blast of eldritch energy at him before collapsing. Yet another of the creatures is quickly felled by Balor's sword before he switches targets to the Dryder. The creature hovers backwards, attempting to escape, and begins to fire yet another blast of frigid energy - but the spell fails... becoming nothing but a quick burst of mist before its head is sliced off. The last remaining two spiders are then quickly dispatched by Strange's 'magic fu', apparently either too stunned by the sight of it or too slow to properly defend themselves.

Sue Storm smiles and nods to Booster then floats almost serenely up and over the entire mess to come to a floating stop inside the Valkyries' defensive wall. Raising her hands palms out, her force field shimmers into place, an eight foot tall, open-topped cylinder of light blue translucence, like peering through a thin layer of moonstone. "I don't know how long I can keep this in place, she tells Loki, "hopefully it'll be enough." Enough for what? For him to recover from the spell casting? For the fighting to stop? For someone to figure out they can just jump over? She didn't really specify.

...And the fireballs tossed by Axiom serve to turn all of their corpses to ash - making them all too ready for their burial.

Raising both brows at Axiom's 'keep up' comment, Brynn doesn't speak down to the guy. After all, he's royalty, and she is here to protect him, not to teach him humility, manners, or respect. She moves fluidly, ironically she really -would- fit in were she in the group of the Valkyrie. She fires blasts here and there and performs her shieldmaiden duties, deflecting attacks with her swords and thrusting one or both out now and then to defend Axiom. From this point on, she does it without comment. She simply... protects. You paged Jeremy with ‘Balor's a god too?’ You paged Jeremy with ‘or... a demon?’ Jeremy pages: Celtic mythology is somewhat vague on the difference. They're all basically gods, just kind of from different pantheons, is how I'd describe it. He's a Fomorian, but is usually referred to as the Celtic god of death in the references I found, so that's the way I went with it--a god.

Elsewhere, in Vanaheim... the gathered mages that had used the ritual to link so many realms into one focused if chaotic attack find their shard collection - a roughly egg shaped crsytal made of at least a dozen shards of the bifrost the size of a full grown man's chest - suddenly find their magics feedbacking as Loki's spell forces pulls the magic keeping the whole thing stable. The egg shatters explosively, sending their feedbacked magics, along with knife like shards of the Rainbow Bridge, flying like shrapnel. All the mages drop, and the room is still.

Meanwhile, back on Midgard, with the combined forces of an Eternal, the Fantastic Four (of which only two are still up and fighting), a super from another time, a supreme sorceror, some mutants (Nate & Circus, background), an aesir (Fandral, background), a mimicking meta human, two gods, and a flock of valkyrie, the day is pretty well saved. The last of the jotun fall, the last of their wolves fall, the last of the spiders and dark elves, and fall. Bones lie scattered everywhere, the street is in ruin, and the buildings are a mess. Cars are destroyed and in the middle of an intersection is that knotwork pattern of a bifrost site.

Heroes, you can all breathe a little easier. Midgard is once again safe.

When the spider's blast hits Booster, he groans and his flight wavers; his energy sources, both battery and body, are starting to go into the red. Eldritch energy is difficult for him to absorb, so that strike is mostly ablative, and his force field is fairly weak now. Axiom's boost arrives just in time, keeping the blond man energized enough to last out the remainder of the fight. Even then, when the last creatures fall, he stops flying and drops to the ground on his feet.

"In the future Thorson. Might I suggest that when you are fighting for your life, and if your life is potentially endangered, you focus your abilities on perhaps... mimicing the powers of one who cannot die... just a thought." suggests Brynn as the fight winds down. Wounds on her flesh are already healing at a much faster rate than they should be, and she reverses the grip on her swords, walking over towards her mostly empty bag now and dropping them into it along with the armor plates from her arms, shoulder, chest, legs... "You fought quite well." she says towards Balor. Then she speaks up and says, "Whomever controls those invisible walls... thank you. They were quite helpful!" and then she eyes the Valkyries... not without some measure of jealousy. They are a sisterhood of warriors, and she... is alone.

Glancing about, Loki takes everything in for a moment and then smiles. It's a genuine, relieved smile that crosses the gods face before it turns into a smirk, and then a head shake. The Trickster holds up the shard, inspecting it a moment before calling out to the Valkyrie. "This needs to go directly to Heimdall." he says, indicating the shard.

With a grin, Balor looks down at the fallen head of the drider. "Guess y'chose /fast/. That was prob'ly the better choice, really. I'da made it hurt /bad/ if y'chose slow." He wipes the blood off his blade using one of the many corpses nearby, and takes a deep breath, looking around. "Huh...so we made it." He grabs the arrow that's been in his shoulder, pulling it out with barely a wince, and tosses it on the ground. He looks over towards Brynn as she speaks to him, and grins. "I had a good blade. An' I guess I hafta admit I had some good companions." He laughs. "Been a long, long time since I fought in a battle like this. It's not /quite/ as much fun savin' the world as it is /conquerin'/ it, but it's growin' on me."

Sue Storm maintains the cylindrical force field until she's certain that all of the fighting has stopped, and then lets it disappear like a popped soap bubble. She closes her eyes for a second trying to will the growing migraine away, and has to at least be glad that she didn't trigger a nosebleed this time. When she opens her eyes again she realizes she's standing in the middle of a bunch of sword-wielding warrior women, possibly between a couple of them and their charge. Awkward...

"If you like," the Doctor adds as his eyes and Agamotto's Eye square on the shard, "I can accompany whomever takes it there--just in case more trouble arises." His tunic is ripped and shredded and he's got the beginnings of a black eye, but he still manages to maintain a a reasonable degree of decorum in addressing the Trickster and his entourage.

Axiom just frowns at Brynn. "I'm not even sure my p-powers work that way. I mimicked someone who's abilities I'm more familiar with and more c-c-comfortable using," he says, dropping the boosting and mimicry and looking around at all the damage and destruction. First the Sentinels and now all this. He closes his eyes, silently mourning all the dead from both sides and feeling even worse about all the property damage than he did when it was happening. Eventually he takes a deep breath and pushes himself past it. There'll be time for more later. He turns and approaches Loki, nodding in greeting to the Valkrie. "Uncle Loki," he lifts a hand in greeting. "It looks like you're f-feeling better than the last t-t-time I saw you," he says, seeking confirmation about his guess. "Hello, Dr. Strange," he adds, offering a smile to the doctor. "I n-need to talk with you after this about what we t-t-talked about before. Something else happened."

Just as everyone is getting comfortable, another swirl of the bifrost appears. It's near Loki and the rest. The knotwork scrotches into the ground quickly and just as quickly the vortex fades, leaving Thor and Thor alone standing upon the knotwork. Mjolnir rests clipped to his belt and his stormy eyes scan the aftermath (Algebra?) of battle. A soft smile touches his face, as he spots his brother with the shard, sourrounded protectively by a ring of valkyrie. The Thunderer approaches, red cape fluttering behind him as he moves toward Loki and Dr. Strange.

"Brother... Thank you," Thor says simply, a great weight of feeling in his words. He looks to Dr. Strange at the offer and smirks with a chuckle. With Loki smirking near him, Thor's smirk would be nearly identical, if colored only by degrees.

"That would be acceptible, though, I don't recommend two people touching it at the same time?" his blue eyes cut to Loki, a brow quirked. Can we laugh about this yet?

The Valkyrie regard Sue cooly as the sheath their weapons. One of the warrior women steps forward and takes the shard from Loki gingerly, the fear that it might explode at any moment evident on her face. Loki is quick to let the shard go before both he and the woman touch it at the same time. When the good Doctor makes his offer, the women all turn to look at him oddly, before looking back to Loki with a questioning look.

When Thor arrives, Loki turns and chuckles softly. "Late to the party, Brother." he teases softly before addressing Strange's question. "You may if you wish. Heimdall will summon them directly to him, so there is very little to intercept."

The Valkyrie bow formally to Thor as they walk past him to stand on the newly formed celtic knot on the floor. They turn to the Dr, and are awaiting his answer.

"So...that's the Thorson," Balor says to himself, frowning a little at the sight of Axiom. "Smaller than I was expectin'. Less...divine, too." He'd go say hello, but...he's not entirely sure that Thor would much like the sight of that. Which wouldn't matter so much, except that Thor just got here. "Thunderer!" Balor calls, waving his hand and grinning at the man. They might not be on the best terms, but...well, that's why one should make very sure the Thunderer knows he was here, saving the world and all, right? Brownie points with the thunder god. Very important for a divine ex-con. "You missed a grand battle!" He looks down at the head of the drider he decapitated. "Hm...I wonder how that would look on my wall. Ooh! I should use that as my profile picture online!" He takes out his smartphone, nudges the thing with his foot to get it into good light, and takes a good shot.

When another portal-vortex opens, Booster Gold raises his hand, golden energy glowing around his fists. But, as it turns out, it's only Thor. Booster gives a little sigh of relief, because at the moment he really does not have the energy to fight. Turning, he looks at the mess and gestures vaguely at it. "Ugh." He floats into the air, and drifts towards some of the larger detritus; he has just enough energy left to get some heavy lifting done, and at least clear the streets so that emergency vehicles can get into the area.

"Sif required me. I sensed Midgard already had a minagerie of Champions. I came as quickly as I receied the summons. I admit that as always, thou art the swiftest of the two of us," Thor teases right back, smiling gently, seeming relieved that he's able to tease his brother once again. His eyes glance over teh gathtered again, resting upon Eddie briefly, though Thor refrains from making comments just yet. Or Balor calls out before he's able to muster a greeting to his adopted son. The Thunderer nods, to Balor, and waves back.

"Before coming here, my astral self was travelling the outer dimensions, searching for clues to that conundrum," the Doctor says as he lowers his eyes to regard Eddie. "If you have new information, I would be glad to have it; I am loathe to let--that particular shadow loom over the world any longer than it must." The last half or so of this is said as he makes his way to the celtic knot to claim a place among the Valkyrie.

"I should not be long; we will talk soon," he adds once he's settled in. He takes a second to gingerly feel his face now that he actually can, and purses his lips at the swelling.

The lead Valkyrie nods her head again towards the Doctor and then turns to shout at the heavens. "Heimdall!" she yells, before another vortex appears and wisks them all to Asgard, right into Heimdalls presence.

Sue Storm shrinks a little bit where she stands (and possibly goes a bit translucent?) when the Valkyrie regard her cooly, then just stands there silently as Thor arrives and greets Loki and the other spellcasting man takes his leave and Eddie addresses the gren-clad sorcer, and.... YOU'RE WELCOME. She crosses her arms as if cold, though her force field is likely not letting any of the remaining chill in the air reach her.

"You would think that someone who could see everything, wouldn't need his name yelled out everytime you wanted him to do his job." Loki comments jokingly at the departing Valkyrie, before glancing at Eddie and nodding his head. "Much better, nephew. Thank you."

"Well, now that you are here brother, you can lead in the clean up. The rest of these warriors need rest." the Trickster comments, glancing up at Sue and giving her a smile as she goes a bit see through. "Never thought I'd see the day where you were creating fields to protect me. My thanks." After getting several vehicles upright and out of the way, and moving aside some of the larger masonry chunks, Booster Gold can tell that he has only scraps of energy left. He finds the tree where he'd tossed his messenger bag earlier, retrieving that, and then pauses in thought. He goes back into the battle-ravaged area and picks up the dragon skull. "I totally called dibs," he reminds anyone who cares. Dragon skull; so cool. This seems to cheer him up immensely. Flying up into the air with the bony trophy held overhead, he calls out, "If anyone needs me, I'll be at the Legion of Super-Heroes headquarters recharging my batteries!" With that, he flies towards the Legion HQ.

Eddie nods to Dr. Strange. "I've g-got new info and it's definitely linked t-t-to what just happened here," he says. "I'll t-talk to you soon," he says, watching the Doctor and Valkyrie go. He tenses a little when Thor looks at him, not meeting the Thunderer's gaze. He nods to Loki, looking relieved at the answer he gets. Finally looking up at Thor, he falls otherwise quiet.

Thor chuckles at his brother's humor, having had similar thoughts but never voiced them. He just watches as his brother is greeted warmly, how he replies with smiles and thanks, and so nods to Loki' suggestion of leading the clean up. His eyes go to Eddie, his eyes hardening faintly before he looks away again. He reaches out to touch Loki's shoulder once, briefly, lightly, and then he moves away, to do as Booster does, moving aside heavy things and so forth.

Balor blinks a bit, watching the exchange between Thor and Eddie, and frowns a little...but he's definitely not in any kind of position to play father-son counselor. Still, he gives an almost sympathetic look to Eddie, before he takes his eyepatch back out of his pocket and straps it on. His earlier transformation undoes itself, leaving him looking much more normal, and he sighs a bit. "Aiden...I'm comin' home. An' hey...I'm after savin' the world today, so I'm thinkin' we need to have another discussion 'bout how much we're settin' aside for video games in our budget." With that, he turns, starting to walk off. Help with the cleanup? Of course not. Cleaning up the blood and gore isn't any fun--it's /creating/ it that's the fun part.

Glancing around once more, the Trickster grins and then just takes a moment to revel being back in his own body. He shifts, first into a beautiful human girl, with multi-colored short hair, and then into a large white polar bear, and then just as quickly down into a solid black kitten, with one tiny white sock on it's right forepaw. The kitten sits back on it's rump for a moment, waving the white socked paw in the air in farewell, before the kitten leaps and vanishes in little motes of green energy.

Sue Storm smiles a bit at Loki's thanks, though seems confused at the same time. "Why not? You were trying to solve this problem just as much as the rest of us." She glances over at Thor and Eddie, but doesn't say anything else, still a bit translucent and feeling out of place. Maybe she should just let these demi-gods do their too-good-for-mortals business and go find the rest of her team. Her attention is already elsewhere as she tries to remember where she saw each of them last, and also mentally tallying what all it's going to take to start cleaning up this mess. Thus, Loki's little bout of rapid-fire shapeshifting is missed. A shame, she'd probably have found the white-socked black kitten to be endearing.

Axiom just frowns deeper. He gives Balor a little nod as he notices the look but otherwise looks very much like a puppy that just got kicked a few times as he moves to start clearing debris himself.