2014.02.09 - Slain Heroes

The elements are not a fixed thing.

There's scientific elements these days. More people are familiar with the Greek elements. Fire and water and all that. Magical elements.

They're not magical, not really. If you dig into what is studied by the greater magical community, the situation becomes extremely complicated. The elements are not so much a list of things, or even a system of things, but rather a concept to be applied.

Amy Winston has learned a lot of high concepts in the past few months. Not all of them have come from Dr. Strange's books, but this one did.

The elemental desert is a place. There are no tracks, though the sand is yielding and even treacherous. They disappear when no one is looking. The horizon is unblemished, and in the nighttime it is a surreal sharpness between land and sky. The stars and moon are so bright that the torches are redundant.

They've been set out in a wide circle, forty nine feet in diameter. The flames burn diagonally in the night wind. They are mercifully smokeless, sparing the lungs of the assembled Defenders within the ring. In the very middle kneels Princess Amethyst of Gemworld, placing a large shard of black diamond atop a small wooden altar with agonizing care.

"Alright," she murmurs, her hair and armor sparkling in the torchlight. Even the quietest noises carry, out here. "I think we're ready. Please, let Doctor Strange do the talking." She shoots an apologetic look to Pete.

Stoic, solid Gilad, the Fist and Steel of the Earth, stands there, arms folded, watching Amaya with an unreadable expression that may as well be granite. The bright moonlight sets off the claw scars across his face against his dark skin. The recommendation to remain silent is obvious - magic was afoot, and the better to leave magic to those who trusted in the chaos of it. Give him solid earth anytime... even treacherous sand.

Wisdom-- in his armor, the anonymous black business suit and tie, white shirt, black shoes and gloves and sunglasses-- spreads his hands a little when Amethyst looks at him with apology; he offers a lopsided smile. The dry heat's obviously not bothering him any, and he's not even smoking a cigarette. Of course he brought them, but he's not smoking.

This is the part where he is going to make sure he doesn't get possessed, come hell or high water. He'd never be able to mock his sister for it again.

The torchlight is causing Booster Gold's costume to throw off a lot of glittering highlights. It would be useful if his suit had some sort of stealth mode, but it does not; by default it stands as 'noticeable' and all options available simply turn up the noticeability until people need to wear sunglasses just to stand near him. He is also hovering a few inches above the ground, as he tends to do. "You got it, Princess," he tells Amethyst, pointing her way and tilting his head as he gives her a tongue click to accompany the gesture.

Meggan, freshly returned from a holiday sojourn in the Old Sod, has joined this estimable scene; the elemental desert is, of course, a place she hasn't been before, but that covers more places than it doesn't.

She has been looking towards the horizon without words for a while, the wind tugging out her hair - it's quite good at being windblown. She looks back when Amy speaks, nodding once and giving her a radiant and hopefully encouraging smile.

Dazzler is, this time, dressed in some sort of spandex-or-similar. Boots, belt, jacket and other accessories, but also the clingy silvery dark-gray bodysuit. Because... well, if whatever they do ends up trying to kill her, a little bit of armored high-tech mutant-grade costume migh at least give it a bit of pause so that she doesn't have to spend a few hours getting over it.

Mostly Ali is waiting for Pete to crack some sort of groan or otherwise obvious display of displeasure, but Booster's brief commentary nets a light laugh and she taps the side of her nose at him.

"As much as we can be," Strange murmurs, assuming his place in the circle after giving it a final examination. The soaring points of his collar make for long, malevolent shadows across the sands, a fact which he dutifully tries to put out of his mind once he's in position. Especially when it comes time to reach into his cloak and withdraw a mace with a long, stout gold and ivory handle that ends in a roaring lion's head, lovingly detailed in solid bronze; as soon as it's free, he quickly brings his other hand up to keep its weight steady, then beckons to Gilad with a tip of his head.

"If you could--" he asks, smiling tightly in an attempt to keep the strain from showing too prominently. "--our honorary member could use a strong hand to support it."

Amethyst catches Gilad's look. She stands and nods solemnly back to him. The mermaids in Hokkaido are still a fresh wound on her morality.

The princess steps backward, looks lingeringly upon the diamond shard, and then retreats to the unity of the crowd. Only after that does she smile, pushing hair back behind her ear. Not that it gets in her way, being magically photogenic. "Don't look so cocky. You might be wrestling with a god in a minute."

She exhales and looks up. "One, everyone's been magically warded against possession. Two, we know exactly how to summon Ninurta. Three, we're as close to the middle of nowhere as we can be without heading into the Chaos Dimension. Four, not even close to an eclipse. We're good. We're going to be okay."

"Of course, Doctor," Gilad responds, closing the gap between him and the Master of the Mystic Arts. A spiked gloved hand reaches out to take Sharur, the mace that the Doctor is requesting support for, and clenched it tightly. His strength, born of the Bloom that gave him his immortality ten thousand years ago, locks onto the handle of the mace.

Maintaining a strong, two-fisted grip on the handle, Gilad nods towards the others. "Ready."

Not a word from Wisdom over anything Ali may or may not be expecting him to comment on-- but when Amy steps away from the diamond, and Gilad has the mace, he relaxes ever so slightly. When she says her last bit, though-- "Break a leg."

"Hey, dude." Booster casually greets the mace with a lifted hand, when Doctor Strange unveils it. He allows himself to land now, lightly dropping to his feet upon the sand. "Anyway, if worse comes to worst, there is always the option of flinging troublesome beings out of the gravity well of this location. The best part about this tactic is it works on nearly everyone."

Meggan stands on the balls of her feet for a moment (bare, obviously) as she folds her arms, then lets one drape, putting the hand previously on elbow to upper arm. She does not look very intimidating.

She does seem pretty calm, though. Perhaps she's feeling that desert groove.

"I don't know if there's a gravity well," she tells Booster. "This is a desert, after all."

Ali is all set UNTIL Amy says they're going to be okay. Her mouth drops open and she shoots Amy a *GLARE* -- Then she looks at Pete, Meggan, Booster, the Doctor and Gilad in turn and *points* at Amy, inclining her brows at her as if to convey 'Did you HEAR what she SAID?!'

"Ah," Strange exhales as he gives his arms a brisk shake. Afterwards, he drops his hands behind his back and adds, "That your many diverging paths have converged here, in this place without trails to yet again risk your selves in the name of a common cause is nothing short of miraculous; I cannot promise that victory will come easily, but it will come," to Amethyst's affirmations. His eyes travel the circle as he says it; when Ali's disbelieving gaze finds his, she gets a brief, apologetic smile along with it.

The last place his eyes go is Sharur, and he fixes his gaze to the weapon's as he brings his hands forward and chants, "Through the mysterious Mists of Munnopoor, I call upon the breath of Ninurta..."

Outside of the circle, the sand begins to stir as new winds blow across the desert. Within it, the lion-headed mace lets out a quiet growl of annoyance before picking up where the Doctor left off: "... who purifies all and seeds life at death's door," in a deep, rumbling bass. Stirring sand soon becomes a howling, blistering storm--outside of the circle; grains of viciously driven sand seem to flow around the air itself, rather than penetrate its confines.

By the time the Doctor's voice joins Sharur's in chanting, "In the name of the blessed Vishanti, I summon thee now: we would have your knowledge of this demon most foul!" there are places where the sand outside of the circle has been drawn up into the violent cyclones beginning to form across the expanse. As they complete their incantation, a taste of the wind outside finally enters the circle, in the form of a breeze just strong enough to blow through the torches and extinguish them; once they're out, the ground within and without begins to shake.

"What?" Amethyst raises her voice, crossing her arms and unable to hide her guilt. "I've said it before and it's been totally true!"

Then there is magic. Amethyst forces her hands to her sides. She has to watch. Watch, and be wary. She is the Sorcerer Supreme's second here. It's her duty to prowl his work and pounce on mistakes.

The breeze stops abruptly. Amethyst startles, but remains silent, preferring to look toward Strange for guidance. Apparently this is not supposed to happen. The air quickly becomes hot and close. It's as if a blanket has been drawn over the circle, and the Defenders are left to breathe their own breath.

The darkness grows--just a little bit at first. It's halfway done by the time it's really noticeable. It's not the lack of the recently dead torches, but the stars. They're disappearing. The final few, surrounding the moon, hold constant for slightly longer. Then, they too are gone.

The inadequate moon, shining down upon the Defenders in a bizarre spotlight, is all that remains. Amethyst draws her shimmering sword with an arcane gesture, raising it against the diamond shard. That's not where the movement comes eventually comes from.

Out in the darkness, just beyond the torches, a new star twinkles. It's too low to be in the sky. Low enough for an enormous, leather-smooth black hand to reach up and cup it. The star drifts upward, casting ghastly light onto a black mask devoid of feature save for red eyes.

The mask smiles. It's skin, or something like it, and there are bones beneath moving around--it's a kind of smile, at least. "Defenderrrrrs," it says in a voice that belongs to a crocodile. "Do you indeed seek knowledge of a demon? I promised that I would eat your souls."

Blackheart squeezes the light out. A dozen-hundred-thousand-many black things fly from the darkness with outstretched claws, thin and winged and only vaguely human-shaped. However many can be seen within the circle, the shrieking beyond promises many more.

Gilad remains stoic, clutching the mace until the magic invokes.

It is not until darkness falls and, and the blackness shatters into swarming winged things that the Eternal Warrior roars.

"Night Gaunts! Defenders, attack!"

Ignoring the inherent irony in that statement, the mace rises and falls, buying himself time until he can withdraw the semi-automatic rifle which he carried.

And while he might not be fully -certain- what they were facing, it certainly would help at least thin the herd a little at first... and then it would be time to bring out more hand-to-hand weapons...

As soon as things begin to get stuffy, Wisdom takes his gloves off and pockets them calmly. As it begins to get dark, as well, and the star appears and Amethyst draws her sword, he takes off his shades and pockets them, too.

The screaming'll be enough for Alison to use to light things up even further; all right. No one here is especially squishy: excellent. Pete steps back and turns so he can mind Amy's and Strange's backs, and silently starts to fire shards of burning, brilliant stars through the already hot false night. Anything that comes too close, comes up behind the two magicians-- anything that might distract Strange from figuring out what the hell went wrong this time-- he just shoots, methodically. After a moment he does say, "What the fuck is a night gaunt?"

Booster is very quietly trying to explain what he meant to Meggan, but only gets as far as, "No, it's not a--" But then he quiets down, because he is unsure how magic even works and for all he knows, adding in extra noise makes the magic get confused. When the enormous figure makes itself known, he tells the other Defenders, "Okay, my earlier suggestion about flinging things off-planet isn't going to work in this case, so nevermind that."

Looking over at Dazzler, Booster says, "It's probably a good time to glow." With that, he is surrounded with a bright golden nimbus and takes off like a rocket, up and into the incoming horde of nightgaunts, his light nearly swallowed in that darkness of massed bodies. There are some really awful sounds that follow; wet, meaty thuds and screechings.

Meggan gives Capt. Gold a slightly sheepish expression as her error is made clear.

Of course, then the situation evolves. Meggan curls her bare toes on the elemental land beneath her as the sky goes black and the new star rises. Creatures come out of the darkness.

Tensions runs up Meggan's spine as she shifts around, her forest green bodysuit highlighting her moving into a peculiar posture, a glimmer of dusty-yellow light running up along the back of her legs, the relative darkness highlighting this typically subtle process. "What are you even - oh!" she says, with evident pleasure, glancing with some worry towards Booster as he jets off.

"Peter, be careful!" she calls. "They'll try to tickle you, like Kurt!" How does she know this? It's a mystery. Nothing much seems to be happening other than that dusty yellow light spiralling around her hands, which extend and curl fingers. Meggan glances at her hands more than the enemy, her hair wavering in some kind of localized breeze.

Then howling khamsin-winds erupt from her hands, the right's clockwise and the left's widdershins. "There we are! You won't be having anyone's souls!" she says, pivoting the evoked sandstorms around like so many horrible, stone-cracking atmospheric uprisings. As darkling flesh is eroded, a rasping noise comes forth - only increasing as Meggan learns she can make an even /more/ fun vortex by steering the two cyclonic formations together!

Plenty of noise indeed - the dirt crunching beneath her boots, the noise of the creatures, her teammates calling to each other, lots for Ali to work with. And a good thing too, since she needs everything she can call upon to absorb and transform into deadly pinpoints of light - a multitude of stars to contrast Pete's shards of sun lance out at the enemies, silvery globes of light illuminating the darkness so the others can see.

Strange is initially as confused as Amethyst is when the breeze stops blowing, and when the darkness settles over them, it hides deep, almost fearful contemplation. Did he misread, misprepare? Could he have made a--

The sudden appearance, then disappearance of that star puts an end to the Doctor's worrying; regardless of why the ritual went awry, the consequences are the same: tonight will be a night of battle, rather than learning. After he slams his hands together in front of himself, the Eye of Agamotto snaps open and releases a spiralling stream of tiny duplicates of itself cast in golden light. A dozen of them swirl around the Sorceror Supreme like radiant bees, firing beams of weaponized divinity through threatening night gaunts, and several more zip over to the Eternal Warrior, where they circle his rifle for several moments before snapping in to meld into its surface. Streaks of gold shoot through the gunmetal, and as they stretch along the barrel, the bullets leaving it begin to be imbued with mystical light.

"Imminently flammable!" Strange then offers in answer to Pete, with a quick look towards the spy. Afterwards, he turns his eyes skywards to shout, "I'm afraid we don't have time for this, demon--we've far more important things than your petty vengeance to see to tonight!"

The mace in Gilad's hands begins to smoke and groan. The finely worked details fracture and snap, falling off piece by piece, until it is just a hunk of crude matter.

Amethyst raises a protective arm first, casting up a bulwark of purple gemstone. The nightgaunts break upon her fortifications, but it is a momentary setback. She is fast with her sword, faster now than ever, thanks to Gilad's instruction. "These are!" the princess yells back to Pete, sheering a bone-thin thing apart. In a brief second of calm, she has time to reach out to the most heroic guy she knows. "Booster! Don't! You don't know--"

More monsters steal her attention.

Pete and Dazzler's illuminating assault does not inspire confidence. The nightgaunts number as the grains of sand in the desert, it seems, the sky thick with them. Where they cannot reach the Defenders, they fight with each other, forming packs that rip lone figures apart and then turn on each other just as quickly. It is into this that Booster has disappeared.

Their barrage is made more effective by Meggan's funneling of the swarming beasts. They are instinctive, apparently, and willfully avoid her bombastic sandstorms, even if it means death by hotknife or lightbeam.

Blackheart, lit by the battle, lurches forward. He is immense, twice as tall as a human, with porcupine-spike hair and a thrashing tail. His creaseless, black skin distorts and dimples in strange ways as he walks.

"You only have time for me," he corrects. His arm twists and bends upward, musculature bulging around uneven bones. "Did you think me so amateur that The Hood was my plan? My father underestimates me. He always does."

With a clawflick, the sand near Meggan becomes molten, congealing into forceful spikes that threaten to skewer her. They do not stop there, the burning sand flowing together into proto-human figures that attempt to embrace her with dripping arms and lolling mouths.

"You used my tablets. You summoned me with my mace. Now, you will be my army. Together we will kill Eclipso and ride his corpse into Heaven. Then, to Hell!" Blackheart spasms wildly, arms wide, things crawling beneath the surface. The sky fills with a judgment day, flaming stones crashing down and disintegrating nightgaunts as they go. "My Defenders!"

The mace is tossed aside, as holy bullets rain into other night gaunts. The great sword is drawn, then as Gilad weaves his way through the crowd, fighting to stay close to Doctor Strange so that he may be covered. "Strange!"

Wild-eyed, hair tumbling about as he slashes through the night gaunts, the Eternal Warrior falls into what he knows best- warfare. Covering the key to their strategy that he may take down the blackguard that threatened them.

Booster had hoped he could just plow his way through the host of nightgaunts, but there are so many of them that he cannot keep up his momentum. With them clutching and clawing at him, it is like swimming through a kelp forest and becoming entangled; struggling does not help and now he is in danger of drowning in darkness. The lack of mobility means a lack of leverage, so punching and kicking becomes less and less efficacious.

Although mid-battle is a poor time to test a new application of one's powers, Booster is starting to realize he has little choice. He ceases struggling for a moment to allow the creatures to crush in around him, as he allows his suit to reconfigure its power output. Then, golden energy erupts from him like a supernova as sizzling blaster energy is re-routed through his forcefield. It sounds like a bacon-cooking explosion but does not smell as delightful as such an event naturally would be. Now temporarily dangerous to the touch, Booster is flying upwards again, every physical attack turned towards him rebuked with a crackle of energy. He is leading fist-first towards Blackheart, because when in doubt, punch stuff.

Meggan's familiar enough with group beaming strategy to see where her vortex goes. The sensation of channeling the energy of 'desert' is a peculiar one; she could swear she tastes something in her mouth, like blue cinnamon. She hears the creature talking, but she has other things to do, namely try to rummage through the hordes, trying to find the captain -

Where is he?

She can't make him out. A sudden ripple in the ground makes her throw herself to the side, momentarily eluding molten-glass spikes as she lets out a shocked gasp. "What - gah!!" One of the creatures has grasped her arm, as it turns out, and Meggan throws herself in the other direction.

Which means that the half-glassified creature, logically enough, erupts partly upwards, encasing her entire arm and shoulder in still-warm, rippling glass full of air bubbles and quite thick. It keeps rippling upwards towards her, to Meggan's evident dismay, especially when another one goes for the ankle-tackle.

Dazzler's skin feels like it's crawling; so much dark magic, so many vile little creatures, and so much crunching, squelching, squealing, ripping, tearing and burning... No matter how many times she does it; Brood, N'gari, other various weird and sundry things that don't think but only kill... it bothers her a little bit every time.

But it doesn't make her kill them any less - in fact, Dazzler redoubles her efforts, greedily drinking in more sound, causing a deadzone of silence around her as she pull the soundwaves from the air and turns it into brilliant, vaporizing death for large swathes of evil.

Strange's contribution to nightgaunt killing is a rather wide-angled one; it's enough to lessen their numbers overall, but as a defensive screen, it doesn't do much more than lower the odds of one of them finding its way closer. He'

"Hey," Pete yells aggrievedly toward the demon, "fuck you!" It may not be original, or even mildly creative, but it is charged with indignant peevishness. Since Gil's covering Strange and Amy's holding her own and Booster's fished himself out to facepunch the demon, Wisdom goes after Meggan, switching to melee from ranged at the drop of a hat. Extended claw-fingertips of superhot plasma slice through night gaunts like hot knives through butter, and Pete grimly makes his way toward the Otherworldly empath. "Come on, Megs, we can crack it off back there--"

Strange's contribution to nightgaunt killing is a rather wide-angled one; it's enough to lessen their numbers overall, but as a defensive screen, it doesn't do much more than lower the odds of one of them finding its way closer. He's grateful, then, to have Gilad's support; it gives him the security to focus on other things while the Eternal Warrior and the Agamotto watch his back.

Things like the sky falling all around them; the night gaunts may be getting the worst of it now, but those flaming rocks have to go somewhere. "Gilad," he calls, checking over his shoulder to see if he can glimpse the Warrior, "I should only need your attention for a little while longer--!" He thrusts his right arm skywards at the end, fingers already twisted into an arcane form.

"By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth and the stern Seraphim, I summon protection against this demon's dread whim!" he intones, voice reverberating powerfully in the darkness. Panels of light flicker into being above the Defenders, seemingly at random until they begin to form a protective field over the group; given a few seconds to fully manifest, it should offer shelter from the apocalyptic storm.

He doesn't quite have a few seconds, though; the eyes of Agamotto dim as the shield overhead brightens, and before Strange can contemplate why - or make the appropriate adjustments to see to his own protection - a trio of gaunts take advantage of the lapse to bumrush the Sorceror. At that point, the best he can do to protect himself is hastily adopt a fighting pose and dodge around their blows; he doesn't even try to complete his spell, leaving the shield overhead woefully and perilously incomplete.

"You may--want--to look up!" he haltingly instructs the Defenders between blows.

Blackheart slouches forward, his heaving muscles slithering away again. "Lie down and die, little things. You're all alone. I'll pick you apart slowly, if you like. When you're tired, you won't be able to run away."

He gives a great, disjointed shudder. The ground splits apart, torn asunder by icy talons. They scythe through the sand, perhaps the nails of some enormous hands hidden beneath the ground, trying to grasp the ants skittering about above.

"And then I'll just walk up, and hold you down, and--"

CRACK

A meteor fells Blackheart--Booster Gold's fist, crashing through the sky and smoking-hot from reentry. The demon's neck snaps backward as if on a hinge, his sickeningly pliant skin stretched to black-grey tautness. He howls and contorts, wicked needles sprouting from every angle to skewer anyone nearby.

Amethyst fights back a wave with a wall of flame and gemstone towers that whirl about and make her difficult to reach. They slam together behind her, protecting her back while she gathers the flame and burns a path before her.

Blackheart's sickening words coming to an unplanned end get her attention. She looks up, mouth agape, and then points her sword. "He's corporeal! the princess shouts. "That jerk, I thought he was like Mephisto! We can trap him!"

As the meteors rain down, flinging fire and splattering into more malformed, molten creatures, Amethyst remembers the spells. The demons of Gemworld, envious as they are, have long found the royal family to be their bane. The first Princess Amethyst drove them away, once. It's in her blood.

The sands part again, but this time it reveals not ice or lava but crystal--an amethyst. As the princess glows with fairy-light and raises her arms, her creation lifts as well. It splits apart down the middle, revealing an angular chamber within.

A tomb.

"As long as you make sure we're all alive at the end of this, Strange!" Gilad calls out as he does his usual bodyguard duty.

Barely sparing a glance for upwards just in time to see Booster starting his meteor-punchu-punchu dance across the sky, Gilad turns his attention from raining the nightgaunts with holy bullets of light to...

"Into the tomb now! I will cover your tail!"

You paged Doctor Strange with 'if no one does anything impressive, this is the last round for fighting' You paged Doctor Strange with 'so you totally can if you want!! you are the sorcerer supreme' "I am not getting in that bloody thing! YOU go in there!" yells Pete, still over by Meggan, trying to get the glass stuff off her, whether or not she's actually coming with. And, incidentally, also stabbing night gaunts with his hands. "Oh god," he says in a small voice, then, looking up as Strange directs. "Also dodging would be good. Let's. Let's do that, yeah?"

Which is when he gets kicked in the head, and, dazed, rakes glowing claws out in the direction of what tagged him, only managing to piss it off. The thing comes at him with shreddy mouth and talons and whatever else, after him and Meggan.

After delivering that punch, Booster Gold moves in for another attack, but the sudden needles fend him off. They do not penetrate his crackling forcefield, but they do shove him aside in a rude and jarring manner. As his suit re-routes the offensive energy away from his forcefield and back into his blasters, Booster points at Blackheart and admonishes him loudly. "You are gross and terrible! Shame on you!"

One of the incoming meteors clips Booster, knocking him further away before he bobs in mid-air as he rights himself. He moves in to catch the next one, however, grabbing at the firey thing and spinning in the air to re-route its momentum. He then flings the meteor as hard as he can at the side of Blackheart's head. This is the fate of any meteor that gets within range of Booster's grasp--it ends up getting caught and hucked at the big demon's face.

Caught in rippling glass, Meggan is halfway entombed before good old Peter Wisdom is there on the case to help carve through the thick glass on one arm. She looks at him with some relief, even as she tries to pull loose. Doctor Strange advises looking up; despite having other concerns, she does.

She then throws herself abruptly backwards.

Between Pete's knives and this sudden lateral force, Meggan is able to get her feet /mostly/ out of the tube of glass that was rising to engulf her. The creature seems momentarily confused, and is then struck by an object falling on it from a great height; a tiny shard of glass nicks Meggan's hand, and she has to pop a finger in her mouth even as she wiggles free.

She looks at Peter as he gives a good suggestion. Her eyes are as blue as Kurt's backside. This is probably temporary. She does not resist this implication, though when another demon is coming after them, she looks over her shoulder and speaks a single killing word - which is actually "SOD OFF," albeit resonated through --

Her hair briefly became short, curly and ginger as she did it, so probably Sean Cassidy. Still, glass monster, screaming: You do the math.

Ahhhh, the glorious, glorious *screaming* -- Dazzler has enough training and skill to bleed off the edges of that scream from the periphery to both keep the attack focused on it's intended target AND steal a big power boost for herself.

Realizing that the smaller, crunchier things are but a distraction (if a deadly one), Dazzler starts to turn her focus on Blackheart as well. She starts slinging light, great plumes of enough brightness and intensity to shame a magnesium flare - throwing another and another, on top of the odd laser blast or two to keep her immediate area cleared - trying to help herd Blackheart towards the Diamond.

A careful duck here to avoid a spray of gunfire, a timely twist to let another bullet glide by on its way into a nightgaunt's skull--once the Eternal Warrior pitches in, Strange takes care to move with him until the offending creatures are no more. He still winds up with a long cut down his chest from the whole ordeal; lithe as he is, there were so many claws and fangs to contend with. With a hand briefly pressed across the wound, he gives Gilad a brisk nod of thanks, then takes to the air, keeping his eyes peeled for incoming meteors all the while.

Once he's a little more certain of his ability to evade flaming disaster, his attention begins to periodically shift to the rocks that Booster is hurling back at Blackheart, as well as the light show that Ali is commanding below. "Booster, Alison--keep at it! Drive him towards the tomb--he is vulnerable, no matter how powerful he may appear!" He brings his hands in close to the Amulet of Agamotto, and as he closes his own eyes, the divine one occupying the Amulet opens wide and turns squarely on Blackheart.

"This is all just theatre, after all," he continues, a cold edge creeping into his voice as the Eye tries to forcibly connect his mind to the demon's--to carry his words to the very core of Blackheart. "Just a show for the benefit of someone who will never see him as anything more than a petulant pretender." Beat. "And his father, of course; he hasn't much time for your nonsense either, does he?"

Negotiating the demon's psychic defenses while maintaining his own is the kind of task that he won't be able to manage for long - if at all - but with any luck, the spiritual assault will further unbalance the would-be King of Hell while the rest of the team pummels his body.

"What is he thinking, I wonder, as he watches your scheming unfurl yet again? Do you suppose he's laughing, or crying?"

The needles retract into Blackheart, now that his neck is back in alignment. The beast postures and flexes, tail lashing irritably. Booster's first meteor is batted away with a giant claw. The second, as well. The demon hisses, raising his hand to conjure some terrible thing into Booster's heart--and he is pierced by a thousand pins of light. He howls gutturally, and then staggers backward as a chunk of molten rock breaks across his chest.

"Do you think me an idle threat!"

Blackheart bulges and swells, skin straining, growing larger with each fleshy groan. The meteors nor the light bothers him now. They are for smaller creatures. The desert groans with the demon, dunes rising up on either side of the circle. Fingers swim up from the depths, curling over the Defenders, ready to sink down and take everything with them.

They stop. They stop because Blackheart, inches away from the tomb, stops. He raises an accusatory hand toward the Sorcerer Supreme. "My father is accursed! He is limited by Hell! He could never understand the power I wield!"

The nightgaunts turn all at once to stare at Strange. They cease fighting each other. They cease howling. A terrible purpose has filled them--

--and a meteor has filled Blackheart's face. He shrieks, teetering at the edge of the tomb, until a well-placed light bolt snipes his foot and sends him tumbling inside. The gem doors begin to groan shut. The demon, already unable to escape due to his new size, stares malevolently from the depths.

"I'll escape," Blackheart snaps, tone shifting wildly into unconcern. "I always do. You, however..."

His red eyes gleam. A sharp thing, nearly invisible but glinting just so, flies through the night. The black diamond cracks.

"...are out there with him."

It happens very quickly.

The nightgaunts howl. They are disintegrating into sand, and only just now realizing it. The air is choked with falling bodies, melting away into coarse desert.

The moon dims. A shadow passes over it and consumes the rest of the light. The black diamond makes a sound like ice breaking.

The wind returns, and the stars. By starlight, he can be seen: the elfin, pre-historic figure of the first Angel of Vengeance. The Floodbringer. Eclipso.

"What nobility. All this carnage you're created, all this pain you've gone through--" Eclipso floats into the air on invisible wings, eyes gleaming "--uselessly noble. Wherever there's pain, wherever there's destruction, there is Eclipso!"

He flits backward, quick and perhaps intangible, disappearing into the side of the enormous crystal tomb. His image sneers, face writ large on the wall.

Amethyst gripping her sword white-knuckled, looks lost. The once-angel's gaze turns to her. "And I've got a world to take vengeance on. I think that's a better image than killing you all now. More satisfying, too."

"Oh, and, close one this time, Gilad."

The image fades. Amethyst lowers her sword, staring at broken diamond. She sounds numb when she speaks: "We have to go to Gemworld."