2012-08-04 Thriller

Early morning, Upper Manhattan. The weather is back to it's normal glaring hot, and most people are doing their best to stay out of the sun today. A busy glorified lemondade stand is serving frozen drinks nearly as fast as they can make them. The line is several dozen people deep.

It starts quietly. The shadow of a single tree growing darker. A cold breeze which makes everyone relax, when thats the last thing you want to be doing. The shadow deepens even further, and suddenly a child screams and points.

Red gleaming eyes, peer out of the darkness, and suddenly the sky goes dark. It's like an eclipse..the sun is just...dark all of a sudden. There is a deep growl from the dark shadow as the light dies. Followed by a hundred others. Bethany is out doing what she usually does in the mornings--running. She's been going for nearly two hours now like something's hot on her heels. Either she has to head back to Hell's Kitchen soon or she needs to refill her water pack. She's undecided but the heat is starting to sear her skin.

Everything was going uneventfully, and the Thunder God was just relaxing at home in Lower Manhattan with a fresh mug of mead when that sickly feel of Something Is Terribly Wrong Here washes over him. Wordlessly, he puts his mug on the floor, summons Mjolnir, and leaps off the balcony of his Earthly home. A sudden tornado swirls about him, hurls him at inhuman speeds toward the source of the trouble. There, feeling hte darkness, the Thunderer unravels the cyclone and drops to the ground before the darkness.

Tony Stark. Genius. Billionaire. Philanthropist. All of these things are no reason for him to not be doing something where he actually has to pay attention. He's not. As usual. His attention is on his S-Phone, because his car is stopped and there's nothing unusual about this. Perhaps there's a little bit of traffic or something. Or perhaps there's just people in his way. But right now, Tony's likely engrossed in a Tweet or something. The window to the car he's in is rolled down, perhaps so people can point and finger waggle in his general direction.

@IAmIronMan: It's hot as me outside. Don't worry. Stark will fix it. #WinterIsComing

The day was hot, and there was every reason to cool of. For one particular man, he was just set on doing that. It was a bit dangerous, and perhaps he was taking things a bit too carefree. But it has been weeks since the last incident, and Bruce Banner was only human. As such, even heneeded to be cooled, and was enjoying his drink that he just got as he felt the air get cooler. That was weird, and especially the scene that starts to come with it. As he hears the screaming child, he looks up with the rest, and sees the supernatural event occur. Bruce froze, knowing that he's in it deep.

Or will soon be.

Sif had been in the kitchen but she knew what it meant whe Thor behaved in such a manner. Trouble. It didn't take long after that for Sif to find the area of said trouble. She's almost what most would consider too calm when she sppears, out of no where, on the scene. She's been itching for a good fight lately and the promise of this is one that makes her smirk. She's got a lot of pent up aggression that needs dealt with. A lot.

Twisted near humans, with extremely pale skin, dripping fangs, and long ugly claws come streaming out of the portal. These are creatures out of myth and legend. The tortured souls of murderers and killers. The stories call them ghouls. And they hunger for the flesh of the living.

They come streaming out of the dark rift, charging towards the now panicked and screaming crowd.

The bright day has faded to twilight. Sunlight is visible in the distance, but here, in this area, even the street lamps that flicker on from the automatic sensors seem weak and feeble.

One lone little boy, with black hair and sparkling green eyes is sitting at the table furtherst from the rift. A tiny necklace about his neck seems to be growing brighter and brighter as the sky darkens further. Whatever that glow is...the warm light the is settling around him is keeping the twisted monsters at bay.

As soon as Bethany hears the screams, she changes course and sprints straight into the mess, tugging her stun gun from the straps under her water pack. A woman with a bulky stroller is moving slowly and Bethany marks her as the weakest person in sight. She steps right between the woman and a creature about to fall on her and fires right into the creatures face from two feet away.

Bethany's gun doesn't shock, not yet. She's not close enough. It blasts an ear-shattering siren and a blinding flare into the monster's face.

"Hel! Recall thy troops from Midgard! Thou hast no reason for such an attack," Thor yells toward the portal. This while striking out at the first of the ghouls that near him. Against these inhuman creatures, Thor holds nothing back. High above, in the darkened sky, thunder rolls and flickers of lightning dance. The light from the flashes of skyfire high above is perhaps not as brilliant as one would be used to; the runes upon Mjolnir flicker with the same flashes of lightning.

Thor moves like a... He moves well. It's seamless from the warrior. He strikes with Mjolnir against one, pulverizing the chest of a ghoul. His arm carries through with the strike into the head of another. What brains it might have have within its once living skull, splatter from the strike. WIth a backhand motion, Thor throws Mjolnir at a third, summoning the weapon upon impact while charging a fourth. Kneeslide, Mjolnir caught, tornado-lift to an uppercut that rips the creature's head from it's lifeless body. There's a sharp gust of wind against the Storm Lord's back, and he drops again in front of the portal, his mass landing upon two others and cracking the sidewalk beneath him.

"Uh. Say what now?"

Tony ends up stashing his phone into his pocket and throwing open the door of the expensive ride he's in. He steps out and looks up and around. There's madness. And creatures that make no sense. "Okay. So Ghostbusters 3 is finally official, huh?" These words are said to nobody, really, as he's focused on the screaming crowd and the people that may or may not be in trouble. "JARVIS? Please tell me you've got a Ping." For all intents and purposes, Tony looks like he's talking to himself until his head turns and there's a earpiece in his ear. His face lights up, probably in response to whatever JARVIS has said into his ear and he's taking off in the general direction of... Starbucks?

THIS IS NO TIME FOR COFFEE, MR. STARK!

Cut To: Starbucks. Bathroom.

Tony Stark rushes inside and to the far stall. He slides inside, places a hand against the back wall, a light flashes and the wall slides away, revealing a small passage way. It only takes a moment more for Stark to step through into one of his Armories. He hops up and onto a platform, cues the Armor Up Sequence of Cinematic Justice and theme music. Less than a minute later, the Iron Man is high in the sky, soaring above the craziness and the randomness, sending Repulsor Blasts from above to send Hel-atious Zombie Type Things flying this way and that way and the other way.

"JARVIS, get me a read on these things. And play Thriller."

"Zombies... Has to be zombies..." Bruce wasn't sure quite what to do. Sure, he had the ability to help out. Well, the big guy does... But what happens after that, he wasn't sure. He could become an even bigger threat than these guys coming out. And yet for sure, he didn't want to see these people suffer. And now, it looks like several heroes are coming out of nowhere, so at least they got it handled. The lease he could do is search for what's causing this.

Magic was the automatic answer to this problem. Being a scientist, magic was something that he still struggled to grasp, and yet with all he has seen he was smart enough not to dismiss it. Since he would seem like any other human, he hoped he didn't stand out. His beard and sunglasses have covered him from recognition, so at least there was that. And so he runs away from the pack of invaders like the rest of the populous, while looking around for what's causing this.

Bruce is not so much afraid of what will happen to him, as he is of what will happen IF something happens to him.

Like Thor, the Goddess of War is completely letting loose on the things which spew forth from the open portal. All her time and skill as a Sword Maiden is brought into play, the blade slashing through the creatures, typically decapitating them.

She takes only a few moments for her to spot and note where each other the other fighters are. Especially Thor.

That is, until her eyes fall on the dark haired little boy and the way the things are leaving him alone. And his eyes... There's a moment of hesitation from Sif. A moment where her eyes dart from the boy to Thor and back again. Shit!

The ghoul charging the woman with the stroller merely changes it's target to Bethany, and leaps, claws extended. The siren doesn't seem to bother it at all. The blinding flare however, causes the creature to scream in pain as it falls over. Blistering and burning red welts appear all over it's body from the light, and then fade into an oily black smoke as the creature vanishes. It's eyes almost looked thankful, as a thousand years of torment come to an end for the poor soul. Another ghoul is hot in the first's heels however, and leaps forward, trying to grab a chunk of flesh with it's slavering jaws.

Thor wades into the pack streaming from the portal, and these poor souls stand little chance agianst someone of his might. However...this is only the first wave. A grotesque monster steps next through the portal. Nearly 20 feet tall, it's a huge iron mechanical creature covered in long rusted spikes. Those ghouls that are too slow to escape it are impaled all over it's body, giving it an odd sort of living armor. It unleashes a mechanical scream and charges the God of Thunder.

The ghouls have little defense agianst the flying repulsors from Iron Man, and they hiss and scatter from his ariel assult. One gets the dim idea of hurling an aluminum chair at him as the opening chords from Thriller start. Mistaking Bruce for the normal human that he looks like, two ghouls break off from the pack and charge the man, moving to leap upon him and bear him to the ground to feast.

The dark haired little boy giggles and claps his hands as the heroes engage. The light around his neck has created a sort of aura about him, of softly glowing yellow light that the ghouls are avoiding.

The people here are screaming and panicking, running every which direction trying to escape. A few here and there are born to the ground, and three or four ghouls set upon them. It's right out of a zombie movie.

"This is..." Bethany kicks the next ghoul in the chest to make some space and gets a slash down one leg for her efforts. There's only so many times she can fire off the flash on this gun. "...not happening," she finishes. She flashes the ghoul in the face and turns to assess the situation. She can't miss Thor and the new creatures.

"Bloody Asgardian..." She's not happy. This isn't even her fight. She grabs someone's kid, fends off another ghoul, and focuses on getting the fodder out of the way.

In his crouch, Thor looks up as the corpse collector steps out of the portal. This is going to get ugly. Rising from the ground and gliding backwards, Thor summons a fat blue-white bolt of lightning to Mjolnir before rechannelling and redirecting the electric bolt at the creature before him. So focused is he, that he has yet to notice much about the rest of the area.

"Sha'mon!"

Iron Man's robotic voice comes out over the speakers of his suit that are playing the Thriller. He dips low and comes in towards those ghouls that are attempting to chow down on innocent crowd members. "Hey Guys. Beat it." He spins and skims right above the ground, his shoulder plates opening up and sending a volley of bright red flares in their direction. They rain down upon those ghouls like nobody's business, not to mention they are safe for the grounded humans below.

Iron Man pulls up and is back in the air loop-de-looping to come back around. "Talk to me, JARVIS." The HUD display inside the helmet pulls up innocents and clusters of ghouls within the nearby area, which has Iron Man spinning and diving back down towards the fight. And, coincidentally, in the direction of Bethany.

Editor's Note: It's not really coincidentally. JARVIS scanned for any hot women in distress.

Iron Man comes in nice and hot, jet boots burning a ghoul in the skull as he makes his drop in. Both hands go up and he blasts repulsor beams at incoming ghouls and then puts his gauntlets together to blast a path through another cluster for Bethany and Someone's Kid to get to somewhere a bit safer.

"Call me." comes the robotic Iron Voice and then Iron Man Repulsorwalks away.

Editor's Note 2: It's the Moonwalk. But on Repulsors.

Part of looking simply human has its advantages and its flaws, as Bruce can see now. Two of the ghouls of the pack are coming after him. He may not be super-strong himself, but years of running have taught him the value of a first strike, and of a heavy backpack. Quickly loosening his pack, he holds it from a strap and lets out a huge swing, able to smack one zombie into another (or at least that was the intention).

Whatever is happening with those beast, Bruce did manage to find something of suspicious note. As he was running, he caught the eye of a peculiar boy, covered in sunlight. 'He must be the cause,' Bruce thought. And even if the zombies were stunned or not, that was where Bruce was heading. He wasn't sure what this boy was capable of, but this had to be the source.

Sif's eyes narrow as she watches the portal a moment. The corpse collector comming through with more of the corpses causes her eyes to narrow. She's done this before. Last time, Thor stepped through with her.

She teleports to the Thunderer's side and points at the portal. "I'll stop them from the other side." It's somewhat familiar territory for her after all. Before there can be any objections or even acknowledgements. "Finish this and seal it behind me." And then she disappears through the portal to staveoff anymore from making their way through.

The dark haired child makes it's way over to Bethany as Iron Man moves away, the yellow aura washing over and driving the ghouls back. "You're hurt." the child says, green eyes narrowing. "Stupid Hel portal..."

Thor's lightning bolt crashes into the monstrous Corpse Collector, and rapidly dispereses through the giant iron lightning rods all over its body. It unleashes another mechanical scream, and moves to impale the Thunder God with a heavy foot.

The flares from Iron Man's suits have the effect of rapidly killing and drive back a large number of the ghouls, give a bit of breathing room and the normal folks a chance to get out of harms way. Thankfully no one is yet seriously hurt.

Moments after Sif steps through the portal, the stream of Ghouls falls to a trickle, and then stops. The portal itself sits like an angry black tear in the middle of what was once the tree's shadow. Bethany is grateful for the rescue from Iron Man and between that and being out of breath she refrains from shouting--"What the hell is wrong with you?"--after him. -Call me? Seriously?-

She hands the shrieking toddler she carries off to its parents and turns to the Loki-child. There's no one else it could be that she can think of, no one else with those eyes--unless he has children she doesn't know of.

"It's nothing," Bethany says sharply. "Why are you doing this to my people?" There are still ghouls scattered here and there. As much as she'd like to stop and deal with the cause, she can't just let people get shredded. She takes off after a cluster of three ghouls terrorizing a hot dog vendor who's hiding between his cart and a trash can. "Hey, dead people!"

"Aye, Beloved. Go!" is all the acknowledgement Thor gives to Sif, for anything more is cutoff by the need to tumble roll out of the way of incoming boot to midsection. His dodge gets him free, but that beautiful red cape of his gets shredded by the spike on the boot. Thor cares not.

On his feet, Thor runs toward a building, leaps, plants a foot to it, and uses it to spring off and vault over the creature. He twists himself so he can keep sight of the creature he's fighting, and when he's driectly above the thing, Thor throws Mjolnir down onto the collector's head, and leaves it as he completes his jump and lands on the far side of the Hel-creature.

Iron Man just had to make an entrance. Show off to the hotties at least once. It's part of his heroic nature to be a showboat during all this kind of stuff. Which is why he's heading over to a pair of Bikini Models (what? it could happen! again!) and blasting some ghouls that were totally about to strip them down in the bad way. It is, of course, what he does for a living. Save hot boobilicious babes. Repulsors blasts. "I Arc Reactor You." is said to them, before he's blasting back off and up into the air.

Another pass and he's sending more rocket flares out to try and help thin this herd of ghoulish foolishness. But this has him coming up along side the Mighty Thor. "Need a hand for a Marvelous Team Up?" is asked of Thor, just in case they need to get their Avengers on or something. "Wait. Did you break a sweat? Do you even sweat?" Oh, Stark.

The dark haired child moves towards one of those fighting, and Bruce moves towards the child. His backpack is making a pretty good makeshift club, as he smacks away the ghouls while he heads towards his target. It's a funny thing to not be afraid of these beasts, considering his own power. But Bruce makes his way hastily towards the child, thinking that he has to be the cause.

Bruce does notice, however, that the zombies pouring through the portal have stopped, as well as the giant one fighting against that one blond... warrior. Thor, without a doubt. And fortunately, with all the fighting, there were not so many focused on him as they were on their attackers (other than him).

He reaches for the child, and calls out to him. "Hey, are you doing this?!" Kind of a stupid question, but the first thing that comes to mind. He goes to face the child. "I think you should stop this... whatever you're doing."

The Loki-child actually looks offended, as he trails after Bethany, and keeps the ghouls from getting near her, inadvertenly saving the hot dog vendor in the processes. "What makes you think this is my fault? I'm just here to watch." he says angrily, his high pitched voice squeeking a little.

The mechanical creature charges after Thor as he runs, and takes a huge chunk of the building out as Thor leaps over it's head. The hammer slams down on top of the Corpse Collector, denting deeply into the machine's head. It tries to twist, to continue to fight the Thunder God, but finds that the hammer will not allow it to move. It screams its fury, limited mechanical intelligence not allowing the creature to understand why it can't move.

Tony's second set of flares causes the last of the ghouls here to break apart into whisps of smoke. Things are looking up, save for the gianst mechanical thing with a hammer on it's head.

The Loki-child turns to Bruce and shakes his head. "I am not doing this. Hel is." he says, sounding way too intelligent for his 8 year old frame. "You need to seal the portal with sunlight." Bethany will feel badly for assuming later. A little. There's still no excuse for sitting around and watching people get hurt, not in her world. She comes out of the scrap with the three ghouls a little the worse for wear but the hot dog vendor is well enough. She hauls him out from under his cart.

"Devil! Witch!" He shrieks, spittle flying. "Let me go!" Nitrates, man. Terrible for your brain. Bethany lets him go and turns to take stock of the rest. Whatever Thor's fighting is way over her paygrade.

End odd weather effects in the sky. The moment Thor refrained from summoning Mjolnir to him, the gray clouds that added to the already oppressive darkness faded away.

Thor looks up to Tony. The angry glare to his eyes lifts in an instant.

"Aye, Tony Stark the Iron Man! It would be an honor to fight at thy side," Thor says as he gets to his feet and looks at the Corpse Collector. A chuckle, and Thor retorts with an amused sort of, "Nay I have not, and aye I do." Just not when fighting a Hel Army it seems. You want to see Thor sweat? Call down some dragons from Mulspelheim, the Fire Realm.

"Can thou destroy the Collector," Thor asks of Tony, pointing at the now pinned creature. "I can not without running the risk of likewise destroying the buildings of this city," adds Jord's Child -- Earthquakes in the middle of Manhattan, not a good idea. -- before turning to find more ghouls to physically attack. After all, he can summon Mjolnir to him when the collector is down. That and if Tony can't do it right this second, that beast isn't going anywhere until Thor's ready for it to. It leaves the hammer in a very vulnerable position, given that Loki -- the penultimate liar of Asgard -- is near by. Someone want to tell Thor that Loki's around?

"Depends. Do I get a cookie afterwards?"

Iron Man gives a thumbs up the moment that Thor leaps off to take care of some more ghoulish business and then he's flying up and in front of the Collector. "Yeah. Don't really know what you did to piss off Blondie Bear. But you gotta' go. You're wrecking my city. And something tells me you don't have the Visa to pay for it."

Shrugging from his hovering in the air, Iron Man backs up and goes quiet. JARVIS shifting the systems and the power away from shielding and into the Arc Reactor that's glowing brighter and brighter on the center of Iron Man's armor. The entire armor starts to shake and Tony's head bobbles around on the inside. "JARVIS.... Unibeam...." Tony grits his teeth. "... NOW."

The light on the HUD goes from Red to Green and a massive beam of burning hot blue light comes blasting forth from Iron Man's chest, aimed to engulf and burninate the Collector Creature, all the while sending Iron Man's body flying backwards and off towards the Models, Inc. building!

Hope the hammer is okay.

"Sunlight... of course! Thanks!" It does dawn on Bruce that this is coming from a small child, not to mention why he hasn't been harmed himself. And now Bruce has the answer, but how to get it to the others? There's always shouting, but who can hear while fighting out?

While Bruce was thankful of the boy, he didn't trust him that well. He wasn't sure why he believed the boy, other than it made some sense, but he knew this guy was more than he seemed, and yet wasn't going out of his way to help. This guy was to be watched, but that could wait.

Bruce started to look around, and it seems that much of the fighting was coming to a close, as it seems that the ghouls were all but gone. But how to generate some sunlight? He didn't have the necessary tools, but Stark did. Using his phone, and some ingenuity, he planned to send a message that would be able to get to Iron Man, or at least to the computer operations running that suit. And he sends a simple message:

"Sunlight on the portal!"

The Loki-child shakes his head as Bruce runs off, and pulls his necklace from around his neck and holds it out to Bethany. "Break this in the portal." he says. "It should contain enough sunlight to do the trick."

The Corpse Collecter is still struggling in vain agianst the hammer, when Iron Man's beam slams into it. It's not like the hammer is letting the thing dodge. The beam would normally slam the creature into the building, but again..that hammer. The force of it all, pushes the creature to the ground, burning a nice large hole through it's metal frame. The ghoul corpses all vanish into whisps of black smoke, and one can almost hear the audible sigh of release from the souls. The metal of the mechincal beast itself twitches a few times, as the last few impulses of it's dying body crack and damage the sidewalk. Cement companies...time to invest, with all the heroes running about. Bethany takes the necklace from Loki and then kisses his forehead. She can't stay mad at that little face, even though logically she -knows- he's a grown god and she should be furious. So cute. She loves kids.

"Sorry for blaming you," she calls over her shoulder as she sprints toward the portal. "I am." She was just shaken by the whole scene. They can talk later about 'not letting humans get slaughtered' and other little things she'd like him to work on. Her wounds are starting to burn, she can feel the weakeness in her injured leg, and the two hour run is catching up with her a little. -Break it in the portal.- She reaches out to do just that.

Thor looks back over to see how Tony is doing against the Collector. His eyes turn that way just in time to see the beast fall to the cement, and Beth sprint by with... It that an amulet of sunlight? Where on Midgard would Beth get one of those? Those things are...

"Loki," Thor mutters, immediately summoning Mjolnir back to his hand. No way he's letting his brother have a free shot at his hammer, AGAIN. And that's when it occurs to the blonde one, /Bethany/ has the amulet. Thor charges forward toward Bethany, intent upon protecting her from any other straggler-ghouls, even if there could be a case made against the impressivon of that.

The message comes up on the flickering HUD that's inside the helmet of the Iron Man armor. Iron Man, himself, is smashed into far wall of the Models, Inc. offices... where nobody is half-naked. Sadly. It's taking a moment for the suit's systems to fully come back online, so for the moment, Iron Man is going to have to just lie there. Here's to hoping that amulet thing does the trick, because Iron Man is out of juice.

Models, Inc. receptionists, though, are headed his way. Oh yeah.

"Hmm..." It just dawns on Bruce that the 'boy' had the answer. But that doesn't matter, it looks like the heroes of the day are going to take care of things. And fortunately, the area was nearly cleared of all monstrocities, leaving Bruce to breathe a little.

That stopped with small cries of anguish that are coming clear to him. During the struggle many people were attacked by the zombies. Bruce took a look around, realizing there was still some work to do, to help the wounded; those who could still be helped.

He took a look around and saw a two children, a boy and a girl, huddled over a wounded woman who they both resemble. He went over to their side and took a look at her injuries. There were a lot of scratch marks, some deep, and she was losing blood. But the condition wasn't fatal, and there was still time to help.

"Hey, kids, I'm a doctor. Let me help." He motioned to the kids as he brought himself and took his backpack, which carried supplies for such occasions. "This your mother? She protected you, right?" The kids both nod, eyes red from tears. "Don't worry, she'll be fine." He turns to the woman and gives her a smile, as he takes out some bandages to help her. "Don't worry, you'll be fine."

The Loki-Child yells. "Bethany, throw it into the air! Brother! Destroy the amulet with lightning!"

Naturally, the receptionists, models, and various ladies of Models, Inc. swarm as the Iron Man lands right in their office. Various crys of: Oh My God! Is That! It's Tony Stark! You sure? Damnit Janet, don't you read? Is it about me? No. Then of course not. All sound out as the Iron Man is surrounded by women.

The injured mother gives Dr. Banner a weak smile. Her injuries are not very clean, but she should make it with a little treatment. Bethany looks over her shoulder to see Thor bearing down on her. She can follow orders, she flips the amulet up and steps back as it spins in the air above the portal. Her injured leg gives out--there's only so much adrenaline will do for her and she's only human--and she hits the ground awkwardly.

Loki's voice -- so youthful and clear as it was in their youth... Thor doesn't even question it. He acts. Skidding to a stop at Bethany's side, Thor Brings the Lightning. In a flash his eyes turn electric blue, clouds cover the sky, a crack of thunder rings out, and a bolt of lightning streaks down to Mjolnir, and then out again, redirected by Thor's Will at that tiny glimmering sunlit pendent now hanging, defenseless in the air.

Systems are finally back online and Stark's helmet slides up as he's surrounded by women. Which is always nice to 'wake up' to. "Well. Ladies." Iron Man takes a moment to get back to his feet, taking his sweet time. "Who wants to celebrate me saving the world tonight? Hmmm?" Oh, well, looks like Tony won't be coming out of there any time soon.

Bruce helps bandage up the young mother and has the children help out with what he's doing. That's mainly for their benefit, and for the mother; of course, Bruce did stitch up the most glaring wounds of the mother before bandaging them up. Even though he was never in medicine, he knew she would be fine.

Seeing that he was done there, he went and took a look at any other wounded, and there were plenty to go around. He moved on to see a young kid who's arm was bleeding, next to a young girl with a chewed-up leg. As he moved over to them, he could see that their wounds were bad, but not serious. And there would be no need for amputation, but to be safe he put his skills to work once again. He'd hope to get as much done before the paramedics come.

It's almost like a cloud passing in front of the sun. One moment its dark, and the next, the sun returns as the amulet shatters into a fine mist of glass particles. The darkness of the portal weakens, and shifts, and seems to boil for a moment and fades back into the shadow of a tree. Even the body of the giant corpse collector burns away under the pure light of the suns rays, leaving only the cracked cement and damaged building behind.

In the distance the first of the police and ambulance sirens can be heard as things seem to return to normal here.

The Loki-child runs up to the fallen Bethany, and kneels down beside her. "Are you all right?" he asks, looking down at her leg. These humans are damaged so easily. "I'll be fine. It's just a..." Well, it's a trio of gashes deep in her calf and a few other slashes and tears elsewhere. They go charmingly with her bruises. "...I've had worse." In the moment, her instinct is to comfort the child, not to worry about herself. "As long as everyone else is all right, I'm fine. I promise."

With the amulet shattered and the portal closed, Thor looks down as the child that he recalls rushes over to Bethany and asks a question Thor hasn't heard come out of his brother's mouth -- Ever. The Thunderer half steps back, wordlessly signalling a sense of 'not mine'. Mjolnir lowers to his side, and the runes stop their glow. Thor watches this, seeing something in Loki that he hasn't, and marvelling over the mortal that would cause this.

Iron Man is busy passing around a notepad and getting phone numbers from the entire office he's wrecked. Mostly because he's likely going to throw a huge party tonight in his own honor. "Remember ladies, clothing /is/ optional." And then he's turning this way and that way to pose for victorious pictures.

Thankfully, JARVIS has told him that the threat has been vanquished. So that's good to know. Back to autographs.

The sun is shining, the sirens are humming, and Bruce is cleaning. Cleaning the wounds of the next people he was helping. However, he had to make sure that he wasn't caught, or there would be a new tragedy. So he takes a last look at his latest patient, a man with a few missing fingers and some wounds, and saw he would be fine. Bruce then makes his way out of sight, making sure he was inconspicuous. He didn't want to run into anyone who could recognize him.

And as he moved out, he took out his phone and wiped it clean with a rag he had, making sure to leave no fingerprints. He then dumped it, and walked off into the alleys. He knew the area well enough to know where to go to not encounter people. He also knew, he had just escaped a rough situation.

He wondered just how many times he can tempt fate.

Loki shifts, and morphs into the full grown version of himself, still dressed in a red 'Ironman' tee and blue jeans. "Do you prefer to wait for the human doctors to arrive, or may I" he asks, motining towards the injured leg, as it seems to be the worst wound for the moment. Loki looks up at his brother a moment, green eyes flaring, before shaking his head at him. 'Not now' is the clear message.

"I take it your mad at me for not helping the mortals earlier?" he asks out loud. "Whatever you like," Bethany says quietly. She tries to get up on her own and mostly manages. "I was angry, yes. I don't... It's complicated, I'm sorry. I'm sure you had some reason. I was angry because I was afraid you were doing it on purpose, or you didn't care, and just thinking about it hurt terribly. I'm sorry." She reaches out for Loki. "Forgive me? Whatever the truth, I shouldn't have assumed."

Thor watches as his brother shifts back to 'himself'. His lips part, his expression both confused and joyed at once. The light grin is made wistfully bittersweet by the knitted brow. When Loki's green eyes flare at him, Thor grins softly and his right hand moves to reclip Mjolnir to his belt. 'Not now -- not ever' is the wordless nod, eyes half closing. As Bethany seeks to stand, Thor steps away two full steps before he turns away from the couple. Head half turns back toward them as he moves away. A soft grin settles to his face. Thor nods to himself. Spotting Tony's armor amid a gaggle of pretty ladies, the god chuckles warmly, then lifts from the ground slowly. The portal closed, Sif was on the other side. Without a way to get to her, there are two options: fly to his apartmant and wait, or ask Loki's help. Eyes settling upon his brother, Thor doesn't seem willing ot interrupt.

"Perhaps somewhere other than here." Loki suggests as he reaches out to put an arm around Bethany. "Unless you want to wait for these 'policemen' to attempt to arrest me again."

Loki gives his brother a nod over Bethany's head, a silent 'thank you, I'll kill you later'.

"The border between this realm and hel have been weakened. These portals might appear again." When Bethany mentions not caring about people getting hurt, the expression on his face says, 'Well of course I don't care', but he doesn't comment. He prepares to teleport both himself and Bethany away. "Of course I don't want you to be arrested. Let's go." Bethany leans into Loki but she checks over her shoulder and gives Thor a little smile. "Do you know how much hassle it'd be to get you out?" She says as they go. "I usually only break people out of foreign prisons."