2012-10-18 A Savage Game-Pt. 3



A magical compass, an old fashioned detective like man hunt, combing through reams of old blue prints and city planner files, really it matters little how one got here, because shy of digging a hole through parts of New York City it becomes clear there is only one way to enter the massive ritual glyph that Savage made of the New York subway system. The planning, the dedication it must have taken, to see to is that the lines were built in just such a manner, that there was enough time not to do it all at once and draw attention, to keep the entire thing secret is impressive. And to find that there's only one way in, a single abandoned line who's long echoing corridor leads off into the darkness with an oppressive weight to it that just screams of 'trap'... Well that's just pure Savage.



From high above, with careful layered sheets of planners blue prints or X-ray vision, one can see the mystical glyph carefully laid into the foundations of New York itself, but beneath the city it all looks the same. When Illyana and her group reach the place where the long abandoned tunnel leads to a crossing line, the actual 'edge' of the glyph, she stops, a small furrow forming between her brows. A hand reaches up as if pushing against something and then is jerked away instantly, a hiss passing through bared teeth and the scent of burning hair wafts in the enclosed space. "I cannot continue." she says, glancing down at her palm more in irritation then true concern. "He has warded it." the words are clipped as if bit off near their ends.



Superman floats a few inches off the ground, his arms crossed over his chest as he uses his x-ray vision to scan around and try and detect how this trap will be sprung. He's floating front and center, hoping the red cape and blue uniform will scare any attackers off, and make this a cake walk. "How bad would it be if I just used Superspeed to zip around the city and rip up and distort this glyph with my heat vision?" Kal-el asks Illyana. When dealing with magic, it's usually best to double check.



"We go under. Or around." Sam comes up to test the place where Illyana stopped, pressing his own hand to it. Something is pressing back against him, a strange feeling under his skin. "Something's building ahead." He's not used to being able to feel so much.



Colossus isn't in his JLA costume this time. He's all in black without the gold that highlights his X-Man costume. Given the stakes, something that won't attract attention is better in case they need to leave after mass destruction. At Superman's question, he glances over to Illyana for an answer. But he does say "Since Zatanna had so much trouble finding this, I'd think he warded all the important parts against that kind of thing. He does his homework and since he knows who Magik is, I'd bet he knows who I am and who I can call upon."



Nate came with Illyana, but introductions were brief. A bit surprised not to meet the Titans but people from the JLA. The famous Superman and... Colossus and Iceman, which are far more famous in his memory, and yet they are not them. Oh, Nate wants to ask them many things! But not now. The usually energetic young man is rather quiet today. Pale and tired, although this is obvious only to Illyana who knows him well. Well, that is what happens when someone donates a chunk of life-force to a black magic ritual, the things you learn! Still, he insisted in coming. And when Illyana talks, he has questions. "Warded against you specifically? What about us? They are expecting you but not the other Titans and their allies?"



Stepping up next to Cannonball, Iceman frowns. He makes a face at the smell and Sam's reaction. Forming a snowball, he tosses it forward to see if the wards block that. "Even if he does know who you can ask, there's no way to prepare for everyone in your little black book, big guy. He'd have to be a pre-cog or have a mole or somethin'."



Illyana turns her gaze to look at Superman, her expression is muted but carries obvious amusement mixed with incredulity, "There would be no more New York." she states evenly, then adds, "State." for clarification. "He is meddling with the power to reshape the reality of a dimension and he is using pained human souls to do it, like capturing a sun in the palm of his hand with the combined powers of dozens of nuclear reactors as fuel. Don't poke holes in the containment system." Sam's words make her head snap to him, "Go." she says, urgency in her voice without it so much as ticking up in volume, "He's warded it to keep the... sword from returning to me when it's unleashed, but if you can sense it then the ritual has already begun and there isn't time to try to find weaknesses in his spells. Go!" The words are punctuated by a snowball that sails down the tunnel and plops unmolested to the concrete floor. Plop.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The 'glyph' is a curving thing, but not a circle, and the paths that are taken inside it seem backwards and wrong. With Illyana's warning it's likely better to not simply burrow through them, so the path to get to the center involves far more then one might suspect. Still, a half a mile or so in, the chanting can be heard softly, a language that clogs the ears with wrongness and leaves the air feeling as if it were heavy and sticky. The close the heroes get to their goal, the less hope they feel. It's not a matter of willpower, it's a literal matter of hopelessness, a sorrow that hangs like sheets that drape over everyone, muting things in unfamiliar ways. Wrongness. Just plain wrong. The entrance into the abandoned station glows with light, and as they enter they will find a what was once a beautiful station, built in the old days when high ceiling and great open spaces were more important to the subway lines then cramped confined and maximum transport capabilities. Pillars stretch high into the air, about forty feet, holding up a great tiled dome mosaicked in the art deco style. The ever present concrete benches are set hither and yon, and there are still posters stuck to the walls, faded and yellowed with age, that tell of the German invasion of Poland with shock and surprise.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">But all of that is hard to notice. In the center of clearing, at the base of a mountain of stairs that disappear up towards the surface but inevitably lead nowhere, there lays what can only be called an altar. A raised stone platform that was once the inside of a ticket both, carvings on it glowing a soft sickly red. A handful of hooded figures surround it, chanting the icky language, the massive figure, so large it hangs off of the altar, glows with a light all his own. Stonewall. "You were slower than I thought, but still too quick." says a deep rumbling voice as a very large and powerful man steps into view from behind a pillar, his hands resting idly at the small of his back, "But it is good you've come. Whenever I have been raised to rule over the cattle in the past, there has always been a fitting audience. I suppose in their absence you motley crew will have to suffice. Sit and be silent please." A grin spread over his face that suggests he expects they'll do no such thing.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Okay, so random destruction would be bad. But there is Vandal, and like the Spanish inquisition, Superman is banking on not being expected. With a blur, Superman moves forward, intending to rest a hand on the man's shoulder as he talks. "Surrender, and it will go easier on you." Kal-El says, his voice slipping into that commanding tone that makes even the most hardened criminals and seasoned diplomats blanch with worry.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"Stopping the ritual is a priority." Colossus says to the others. "We need to make sure he doesn't get Magik's..." Soul. "What Magik lost." It's complicated. Since Superman is heading to the big guy who seems to be villainous leader, he rushes the chanters.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Sam isn't simply here to fight. He *will* but he doesn't know that fighting is their best option right now. What he wants to do first is stop the chanting and get control of Stonewall's body. He pulls his shields up in a thin layer of power over his own skin--not that it stops the pressure from Illyana's soul under his--and wraps a matching shield around Stonewall's body. A little concentration and he expands the shield outward to gain at least physical control of the of the altar and the area around it. Nothing he can do against magic itself.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Nate is rather reluctant to leave Illyana behind, but since there is nothing they can do, "watch your back," he grunts, following the others through the tunnel. The dark emotions emanating from the station make him clench his jaw. He can't make his psi-shields too opaque, he would 'blind' himself, but he is an empath and an esper, that stuff is bad for his head. 'Fortunately' he has his personal recipe against despair, it is called rage. Sorrow and despair he knows too well, and they make him extremely angry. When Savage makes his smug statement, Nate snarls, his left eye glows brightly and jumps into the air with every intention to blast the man telekinetically. Only that Superman is now on the way. "Yeah, that guy is going to surrender for sure," he comments, dripping sarcasm.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"Hey, look! The latest line from Bed, Bath, and Bad Horror Flick," Iceman jokes readily. He always jokes to cover up his own negative feelings. He arches a brow at Savage and shrugs. "Dude, you take the audience you can get and this one gives you two thumbs way down," he remarks as the others move into action. Shrugging, he lets a blast of ice and snow fly at the chanters in hopes of distracting them away from their mumbling and Colossus.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Vandal Savage simply tracks the red and blue blur with his eyes, and Superman finds himself staring straight into the black eyes of Savage as his hand comes down to rest on Savage's shoulder, "You," Savage states matter-of-factly, "are a fool." Superman's voice has no effect what so ever on the inventor of murder, who in turn moves in a blur all his own. Savage is fast, superhumanly fast in fact. Not perhaps in land speed, though an argument could be made that anyone running car speed is super human, but his reaction time is frightening. His arm lashes out from behind his back in a wicked arch, a grayish glint flashing in his palm. When the hand comes to a stop it holds the haft of a long obsidian knife, the edge sharper than a razor, carefully crafted with expert skill. "Kill them all." he says even as he moves again, ducking back through the pillars and their shadows in quick motions. "GATHAK THUL MAJLL NIPAT!" Savage's voice rings out, each word hitting the air like a gong and reverberating unnaturally.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Cannonball's shield hits the pocket of chanting men and then fall back a step or two, one of them stumbles and falls. His hood falls away to show a mutilated face, hollowed eye sockets sewn closed, glyphs carved into his skin, barbed wire wrapped tightly about his skull and disappearing down his neck into his cloak. As his voice fails him in the fall, he thrashes wildly, stiffens, and then simply seems to age before the eyes of those present until bones and dust are all that remain. A couple dozen feet behind Cannonball and Iceman, a loud CLANG! is heard and the floor itself trembles under the impact. It's followed by four similar noises. From the shadows high up in the ceiling drop five heavily armored 'men', or perhaps robots, laden with more high powered weaponry then is really needed for nearly ... anything really. But what can you say, Luthor Corp. makes a fine product if you're willing to pay. There's the soft whirring noise of rotating barrels moments before heavy armor piercing rounds fill the air between them and the pair of mutants. In the empty stone walled dome, the noise is deafening, but not so loud as to muffle the bellow of primal unbridled rage that raises from the altar as the fifteen foot tall shirtless glowing man sits up, his once vacant eyes now alight with life, "CREEEEEEEEEELLLLL!" he bellows, his gaze locked on the Charging Colossus with undisguised hate.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A knife? Superman is almost insulted as Savage swings the blade. Maybe Kal-El is a fool. Maybe it was hubris, or maybe he really was caught off guard, but a simple glass knife slices cleanly through the Man of Steel's thin suit and into the flesh beneath. A long, scarlet line appears on Superman's chest as he blinks a few seconds, and glances down.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"That...hurts...." Superman says, bringing an arm over the wound and taking a couple of steps towards the others. A couple is all he manages before he stumbles, and leans agianst one of the pillars.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Wonderful. It's a mind controlled Stonewall. He should have been expecting that given the Titans' report on the church. And what could be more utterly futile than fighting him? It's probably hopeless anyway but one thing Colossus knows is doing what's needed no matter what. Detouring slightly, he avoids Stonewall's reach and continues for the chanters, trying to barrel into them and putting them between him and Stonewall. Hopefully having the giant come at him will be like a bull in a china shop.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Well, hell. Sam drops the shield on Stonewall to throw everything he has into a shield around himself and Bobby long enough for them to get out of the crossfire. He thinks a few uncharitable thoughts about the maker of the robots as well. This is why he doesn't play video games, too much like the day job.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Nate rolls his eyes, "hey, you didn't like the audience, why don't you..." but bullets start flying and he can't finish his not-too-witty remark. He surrounds himself with a psychokinetic forcefield and tries to grab one of the armored figures as they drop, and toss it against one of its buddies with all the force of his telekinesis.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"Whoa!" Iceman yelps, turning quickly as Cannonball shields them. He takes to an ice slide quickly to get out of the way. Riding his preferred method of transport up higher, he picks a robot and targets its weapons with a frigid beam. "Chill out," he calls, aiming to jam the guns up with ice.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Vandal Savage ducks through the shadows of the pillars and uses the basic chaos of the sudden battle to cover his retreat... or at least that's what anyone with brains would suspect. For Savage to retreat from Superman. Unless they were a tactical minded person of course. "So arrogant." comes Savage's voice from right behind Superman before the knife flashes again, this time low towards the back of Superman's knee, "So certain of your own invulnerability." Savage flicks the blade, sending droplets of Superman's own blood at the alien's eyes, "Fool. You did not think I had planned for this? Did not know my target? I have tracked the girl for longer then you've known she was alive. Her allies? I know them all, her friends, her family, her enemies. You think this has not been foreseen?" the blade flashes again as Savage darts into view.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Stonewall isn't just a big galoot, he knows how to fight. Not martial arts, but like a brawler, a street guy. As Colossus darts to the side, Stonewall merely reaches out and plucks one of the concrete benches from the subways floor and swings it in a vicious arc like a batter aiming to put Colossus over the left field fence. Fifteen feet tall with a bench for added length, his reach is longer than Colossus is tall.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">One of the armored men, or possibly robots, is plucked from the air as if by the hand of god, and hurled into one of its compatriots with a loud rending of metal. The two almost instantly begin to right themselves. Another's armor ices over for a moment before it begins to glow from an internal heat source. While the gun melts, small shoulder mounted weapons begin to fire pockets of super-heated plasma Iceman's way, each time they hit the concrete walls a fist sized portion of cement simply vanishes in a puff of smoke. Freeze breath power counters? Check. The last of the mechs turns its attention to Nate, and bullets hammer into the shield Nate has up. More importantly, the laser used to aim the guns slices at Nate's eyes, not with heat or force, just blinding light.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Superman spins suddenly, as Savage's voice comes from behind him, his fist laid out to close line the man. Luckily, Savage ducked to slash at Kal-El's knees. Again, the knife bites into his flesh, drawing blood. Superman's arm sails into the large stone pillar, and just takes the support structure out, causing a section of the roof to collapse down towards the pair as Superman is blinded for a moment by his own blood.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">There's the windup, and there it is, a line shot up the middle. Colossus goes flying, sailing over the heads of the mages and crashing into a wall before sliding down to the floor. And then he climbs to his feet and takes stock of what everyone else is doing. "Iceman, kill that laser targeting... Him." Whatever his name is. "Cannonball, play bowling ball with the sorcerers. Whatever your name is, levitate and hold Stonewall if you can." Switching targets himself, he gives the giant a wide berth and heads for the robots.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"That's not good." Sam pulls in the energy that's hitting his shields, slams his shields and everything he's absorbed back out at the two robots working to right themselves, like a battering ram. His personal shields still cling to his skin, an armor he can't turn off while he's conscious and under power. He takes off to rain more blasts down on the robots, striking at the one targeting Nate next. Anything that they send him, he pulls the energy in and uses it instead of draining his own power. He is more interested in disruption, drawing fire and knocking them off balance, than he is in outright destroying them just now.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Nate is sent flying back when the bullets hit him. Not because they can hurt him, it is just he wasn't firmly 'anchored'. He corrects the mistake and charges up a TK-blast to crush the robot for good when the laser hits his eyes. His shields are transparent, of course, he needs to see through them. They break the coherence of the blast, but still let pass through an awful amount of light. The young man recoils, shielding his eyes and his blast misses by a yard, creating a truck-sized hole in the wall and sending a few tons of concrete crashing down, hopefully on the cultists. |"I am blinded/Those guys are robots/Hit them hard!"| He sends to his companions (and to Illyana outside). Grabbing Stonewall? Difficult since he can't see. But he knows the man's mind, so he 'grabs' him, yes. Grabs his mind |"STOP!!"|.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"Hey! Who let them get the Fire Flower?!" Iceman calls out as he evades plasma blasts. His slide ends up with holes punched in it and the blasts get a little too close for comfort but he avoids direct hits. Colossus' sudden call and then Nate's telepathic message get a slight wince before Iceman nods. Still sliding, he fires off some sharp ice-spears at the laser targeting emitters trying to break them.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Vandal Savage's laugh rings out at Superman's wild swings, the noise echoing in the room oddly, almost inaudible in the constant scream of battle. "Brilliant idea, take out the support pillars, bring down a section of the heavily populated city above." his voice is acidic with sarcasm, "If only I had thought of that." Savage plucks up a chunk of concrete the size of an engine block and hurtles it at the blinded Superman's head. Not being magical he doesn't imagine it will do much damage, but the statement makes him smile like a kid who's just hit his father with a snowball. Tag. As Colossus flies through the air, Vandal speaks again, "Lln Quot." he says before vanishing again into the chaos. It's not concrete that reaches for Superman, this time it's Stonewall, his over sized hand reaching out as if to try to pluck The Man Of Steel up by his head.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Cannonball smashes the pair of righting robots down, again, again, again, AGAIN, and only then do they seem to begin to short out, their motions jerky and awkward, like fritzing computers. Ordinary war machines these are not. The instant he takes flight and hurtles towards the one targeting Nate the robot turns and sends the same laser at Sam's eyes it was using to blind Nate, only just as it attempts this, it's targeting mount ices over and explodes in a puff of sparks. Ice shards slam into its armor, a few finding their way into the joints, crippling the gun mounts on one side of its body. The other robots seem to fair better, until one of them simply topples over smoking heavily as something critical was pierced by a needle fine shard of ice.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">All right, Superman is done playing. His head is grabbed by the massive fist of Stonewall, and his hands come up to grab at the fingers before he just lets his heat vision go. Burning away the blinding blood, and trying to bore into the hand of Stonewall to get him to release his grip, Kal-El growls low in his throat.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">As they say, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Even if the plan was formulated twenty seconds before. With most of the robots down, and Stonewall interfering this time with Superman, he revises his battle plan. Grabbing as large a chunk of concrete as he can accurately throw - a pretty good size indeed - he fastball specials it. Straight at Stonewall's groin. Sorry guy but you don't have metal balls this time.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The laser light show is painful. Sam's shields cut a certain amount of it but it makes his vision blur and darken. Have to work on that. Shoot me with a laser, someone. Sam doesn't have the focus to actually shoot the last robot accurately. He just slams a full dome over it and lets it fire into the curved surface. That usually sorts things out right quick.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Nate telepathic command has hit a wall of rage... and hallucinations. Looks like Stonewall is not as much mind-controlled as seeing things. Nate could drive deeper into his mind to try to fix things, but it would take time, far longer than just try to grab the big guy with a huge telekinetic grip and pin him against the wall. Preferably against a section far where he can feel the minds of the others. Away from Superman.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A second later he is hit by a wave of fatigue. If Nate could still see, his vision would go blurry. But he can't. "...the hell?" He can feel his powers weakening, too. Drugged? When did that happen?

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"Booya! You just got iced!" Iceman taunts the robots. Quickly looking over the robots, he gets another idea and targets the ground with his icy beams. A thick sheet of slippery ice forms over the floor, Bobby trying to destabilize the bots and make them vulnerable to the others.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Stonewall screams. Not the sort of scream of pain one would expect, but more an explosive bellow of shock. "You think you can stop me with FIRE?!" Stonewall hollers. The heat vision punches a pair of holes clean through the big man's hand, but it only seems to make him angrier. His grip on Superman's head tightens like a vice and he swings his arm back, then forward, dragging Superman with it... The intention was to hurl the Kryptonian as Cannonball like, well, a cannonball really, only as the last second he's slammed to the side, the concrete bench clipping his hip instead of his um... other bits. The giant slams into the wall with enough force to crater it in with cracks, and he shakes his head as if trying to clear it. "You-" he says, his skin dulling, darkening, "can't-" concrete begins to form over the young man, and he grows slightly taller, "beat-" his eyes blaze with a yellow light, "me!!" and he pushes off of the wall with all of his strength, leaning forward as if into a great wind, ripping through the telekinetic force pinning him in place until suddenly, he's free, as if bursting through an invisible wall. His roar causes dust to trickle from the mosaic ceiling, his rocky body bulging with flexing muscle.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The robots, or rather, robot remaining slips forth a new weapon from its back, and hypersonic waves fill the underground concrete subway station, the nauseating amount of noise echoing off of the walls and turning everything into a deafening cacophony of agony. At least for 2.3 seconds. Then the robot falls backward as its footing is compromised, and crushes the fragile emitter used to make the sound. It flails there, trying to right itself but unable to get traction, looking like nothing so much as a turtle on its shell. Savage should have coughed up the cash for the VTOL equipped bots instead of the land based models. It ticks, twice, then seems to stop moving as if its switch had been flicked or its motors frozen up entirely. The silence that comes after is as deafening as the hyper sound that was there a moment before. Only Stonewall remains standing, twenty feet tall, his skin a mottled mix of concrete like plates and glow fissues beneath where his single form contains the souls of two people. He looks... unstable.

<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Oh yeah, and there is the chanting. The continuous chanting... that suddenly comes to a stop with a soft 'ping' of emptiness. Each of the robed figures falls, a pile of ash, bones, and rusted barbed wire.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Superman is hurled at Cannonball, but flies towards him only long enough for the Man of Steel to counter his motion. He hovers in mid-air a moment, his eyes still glowing red, and takes a look at the situation. So hurting Stonewall only made him stronger....so remove him. Superman zips forward in a blue blur, his x-ray vision already plotting a course through the stone of the tunnel, the sub-street, and then through the city itself to minimize damage to the city. Superman tries to grab Stonewall, and then just take him up, and up, and up. It's a plan that’s worked before on those that Superman couldn't just fight fist to fist.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Colossus claps his hands to his ears, trying to block out the noise which is magnified by the excellent amplification of metallic ear canals. Even at 2.4 seconds, he's still hunched over and grimacing in pain. "Stop the ritual!" he shouts, either to make sure he's heard or because he can't hear himself with his ears still ringing.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Sam's got enough vision left get out of the way some, then to track Nate and Bobby once the threat is gone. Bobby looks like he's all right for now. Nate looks like he's in rough shape so Sam heads that way to try to help him out. The sound is painful through his shields, but it's not Klaw-levels of badness. He lands near Nate. "Hey, here." He puts up more shielding to protect them both.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Nate does his best to keep Stonewall still against the wall. It would be difficult if he was at his best, and he wasn't even before getting sprayed with sedatives and then a sonic blast. So the huge man bursts free and Nate falls to the ground with a muffed curse. Something about the ritual, ears are ringing. Really, a psion unable to concentrate is pretty useless, and Nate is blind, half-deaf and struggling to stay conscious. When Sam gets to him, he is still struggling to stand. "What? Keep fighting... I need a minute."

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Iceman ends up mimicking Colossus' pose, hands clapped over his ears. The sound hurts and he ends up falling down his own slide to the ground. When the sonic attack stops, Bobby lowers his hands. He starts Sam's way, hoping to team his ice shields with Sam's powers if Stonewall is going to explode. He blinks when he hears Colossus through the slight ringing in his ears and looks for the cultists. When he finds them..."SKI PATROL CALLING!" he yells, unleashing a torrent of ice and snow at them to try to disrupt whatever they're doing.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Superman is not the only figure flying towards Stonewall. As the Man of Steel plots his course upward, X-raying the layers of concrete and steel, he spots a skeletal figure leaping through the air as well, and far closer. The skeleton is oddly wider than it should be, the bones thicker, far more dense, more primal then an ordinary human skeleton should be. As the blur that is Superman comes in low on the concrete giant to push him upward, Vandal Savage, leaping from the high stairs lands upon the giant's back, the long thin blade of the obsidian knife leading the way, a maniacal grin spread across his wild and brutal face. As Superman hits Stonewall from below Savage's knife cuts through the concrete skin from above. The pressure building and building and building for so many weeks, the gruesome serial killings that were seemingly without purpose, the souls trapped in torment, the possession of a soul able to alter an entire reality to its every whim and desire, all of this energy, is released in a single contained flash. Illyana's previous comment about a sun was not far off the mark as a white light like that of a supernova explodes through the subway station. There's no noise, which is disturbing, and no more force than that of a strong breeze, just a brilliant light and a standing up of hair on the skin of anyone within a square mile of the area.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">When the light returns Vandal stands on the back of the downed giant, blood covering his hands from where he carved a fist size chunk of concrete flesh from Stonewall and thrust his own hand inside of the man. He turns, his eyes blazing with light, to eye the heroes, an expression of victory on his face so pure and vile it brings back, in spades, the magical sense of hopelessness that only moments ago permeated the area. "You have lost." his voice rings in the room like the voice of god itself, "Thousands of years, countless civilizations, evolutionary cycles, I have lived through..." he looks down at his hands, dripping with Stonewall's blood. "I have out lived /gods/" his voice sharp with the power he holds, "You've no idea the world that I will once more make when I bring the Masters back. You think you have seen hell, passed through suffering and darkness, you know not the meaning... But you will." and then he's gone, vanishing into the floor as if it were a hole he could simply drop down into. Those who've seen Illyana's stepping disks may recognize the shape, the function, but where hers are doorways of light and mutant power, Savage vanishes through a black hole that feels as if it ripped away a portion of reality and only grudgingly put it back when it closed, as if he'd stepped through a wound in life itself to escape.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Superman stops, and lets Stonewall go as the flash of white light envelopes everything. When Vandal vanishes, Kal-El blinks and floats slowly back to the ground, he wounds still seeping down the front of his blues. "What just happened?" he asks, before scanning Stonewall over to see how much damage Vandal might have done to the man.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Colossus slowly straightens, blinking the spots out of his eyes. Now that the action seems to be over, he just slowly looks around. At the question, he answers "We lost?" Such a forlorn tone must be a leftover of the magical/psychic hopelessness. "This is not good." Not Good At All.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Sam is thrown back as though struck by a giant fist, something that passes through all his shields to hit him in the chest, and he slams into the far wall. The impact makes his shields flare and then they flicker out. Savage leaving hardly registers with him, he's too sick and stunned. For a moment, he can't find his power at all to protect himself, as though it were shifted from its usual place and he's grasping at nothing. He tries to get up and everything feels wrong, his bones feel black and brittle and his muscles feel made of ice water.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">There's no sign that he's hurt, no sign of what hit him. As soon as Sam can speak, he's murmuring that he's fine without knowing if anyone's there, using the wall to hold him up as instinct pushes him to his feet. He's fine, or he has to pretend that he is. Whatever's wrong with him, he's sure it's something no one should know.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"They are all dead," states Nate, rubbing his eyes and seeing little besides some spots of funny colors. At least the big white light did nothing to him, he was already blinded. "That bastard fled with... something. We need to find him." He is about to fall down, though.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Iceman straightens up too, cursing as some ice falls off his body. Reinforcing his icy armor just in case, he looks around and moves over towards Sam to check on him. The murmuring gets a frown. "S-Cannonball?" he asks. He's got no idea what happened so he's checking on Sam.

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"I think we vastly underestimated our opponent here." Superman states simply, kneeling to lay a hand on Stonewall's shoulder, and then checking him for a pulse, making sure he's breathing. He winces, and nearly falls over when he tries to stand again, his wounded knee giving out on him before the man floats up a few inches. "Let’s head back. Lick our wounds and figure out what we are dealing with, and plan out next move."

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"Who the hell was that?" Colossus asks after a moment. "Zatanna said it was really old magic but couldn't be any more specific. I can't feel magic but I assume from what he said he got Il... Magik's magic, the soulstones, the Keys to Limbo. He's now really close to being able to release the Elder Gods. It'll take him a little while to do that I think. Magik will know better."

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"I'm fine. Nothing's wrong." Sam can hardly stand up but he's trying to make Bobby go away because he is fine. Just. Dandy. He uses his power to actually get upright, or he tries, and it fizzles on him, then pops back into action. "I just... maybe wave problems again. Like that Klaw thing." There we go. Plausibility. "Let's just get people out of here."

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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Bobby frowns at Sam's reply. Yeah, not buying it. He watches the other mutant before moving to try to hold him up. "Yeah, let's go."