Location: Inside Frost International Skills: Magic: Thamaturgy (Shield/Force)
"That'll make getting your group reunited easier. Mage said. Then the alarm started blaring. He shifted getting ready to leave the room as Klara came in to get her things.
"I was just about to ask." Ed said. He stood, and placed the vials back into his pockets. "I am finished. I know where the others are." He followed Mage and Klara out into the main area. Seeing Quicksilver made his stomach drop a little. He knew that this world's version of Quicksilver was unredeemed, which would make later awkward if they weren't careful. He also had little qualms about fighting this group.
Ed tried to throw up a bubble around one of the biggest threats. Getting Juggernaut stopped before he got going was basically what he hoped to do, but it didn't work. He cursed under his breath.
Mage threw a couple of force blasts at Tom, who was currently having a fight with Mary. She had plant viens and was trying to hit him with them. He was able to knock Tom into the viens. That sent him flying into a wall.
Ed had to try two more times. But he was able to bubble Juggernaut. He didn't know how long it would last though. He would have to manipulate the bubble to make it something the Juggernaut couldn't break or move from the inside. He had some experience with something similar at least.
New York, Frost International Skills: Shadow Manipulation, Shadow Travel
"Dunno, i'm not much of a sciencey kind of person, so it's really beyond me why it's only happening to her and not me." Nightlocke said giving a slight shrug towards Emma as she leaned back on the couch. Bethany turned to Mary, she wasnt going to actively say it in front of the group about Mary's other personality poking through. "It's fine we can talk about it later." Beth said towards Mary as the alarms to the building started to go off. "Is this a common thing here?" Bethany asked sounding a little bit alert now as she turned towards the elevator as the door opened up to reveal three other people coming through.
One of them was Quicksilver as he instantly went over and flipped the couch that Nightlocke was sitting on, causing her to be knocked off and onto the ground. "You know that's really rude and really annoying as hell." Nightlocke said sounding really annoyed as she instantly got back up to her feet glaring at Quicksilver as he started to break everything in the room. Bethany quickly tried to use her powers to trip Quicksilver but she wasnt able to.
Nightlocke getting what her counterpart was doing, she quickly went and sent some shadows around Quicksilver's legs causing him to fall over. Getting Quicksilver to slow down or knocking him off his feet was usually always the quickest way to dealing with him, Bethany then closed her eyes and started to shadow travel Quicksilver out of the room and randomly putting him somewhere else in the building. "Hopefully that should slow him down a little bit."
Location: Warehouse Hideout – New York City Skills: Enhanced intuition; Illusion Casting
Lance and Runa were doing their best to keep the Hulk away from Pietro and Guin but it was only making him angrier and stronger it seemed to Antoniette. She puzzled over this while ducking to avoid furniture being tossed at them. Lance raised a good point on a couple things that helped their Hulk calm down. It was a big gamble. For all Antoinette knew, puppies could be another angry trigger for the Hulk. The group was running out of time though so Antoinette quickly tapped into her intuition to see if casting an illusion of a litter of puppies would be wise. Antoinette wasn’t getting a complete feeling that it would be a good or bad idea, so it might work. Might was all they really had at the moment so Antoinette focused her mind and stared at the space around the Hulk and thought up a large litter of puppies that barked happily and tumbled about, yapping up at the Hulk to get his attention. Unfortunately, something went terribly wrong and a gang of cats appeared and they weren’t happy. They trotted around, hissing and screeching. Swatting out at people, including the Hulk. Antoinette’s face creased with worry. ”Oh, no.”
Location: New York City Defenders HQ Skills: Asgardian Magic
Yes, he can't see us, but I want to know where exactly he is so we can at least see our death coming! Guin replied to Pietro. It was a basic principle in any video game - never take your eyes off of the Big Bad. That was how people ended up getting killed when playing Breath of the Wild. They couldn't see Hulk right now, so they had no idea what the Hulk was going to do - maybe the Hulk in this universe had some sort of secret move, like a laser cannon, that could go right through the barrier. Guin didn't know. She just knew she was anxious to not have eyes on him.
Speaking of video games, it just so happened Guin's ideal solution was also inspired by a video game strategy: when the Big Bad is too strong, sometimes it's best to just run. If the barrier breaks, grab me and run. We can always meet up with the others again later. Provided we're still alive. That was also one of the downsides of the barrier Lance and Runa had made - they couldn't really tell what anyone else was doing against the Hulk. Hopefully at least someone was doing something helpful over there, Guin didn't want to die - not here, at least. She hadn't even gotten to finish watching her favorite shows!
Meanwhile on the other side of the barrier, Runa was less than impressed with the Sorcerer Supreme's attitude towards the Hulk. For all of the power of that office, he should have been the one dealing with the threat. Annie, bless her, had tried to come up with a solution - but instead made an angry herd of cats. Runa took a step back to avoid getting swatted at by one of them, a little impressed with how realistic Annie's illusions had become.
She then swung Gandr around, casting a quick spell, and suddenly, a hoard of puppies fell from a portal and landed in front of the Hulk, barking and sniffing and peeing and chasing their tails and demanding pets. Runa raised an eyebrow, almost unable to believe her eyes as it seemed to be working - the Hulk was focusing a bit on the puppies now, rather than trying to destroy the barrier in order to murder Guinevere and Pietro. "There, now stop this nonsense, Banner."
Warehouse You don't have to tell me twice about running away. Pietro responded to Guin.
Things seemed to be going alright despite Annie accidentally summoning a hoard of cats that were clearly not too thrilled to exist. Lance was more or less prepared to shift if need be in order to do something, however, that didn't seem to be needed, as with the puppies around a distracting the Hulk, he started to shift back, causing Lance to lower his portion of the make shift wall that he and Runa had created. "...I honestly hadn't expected that to work, it was just random bit of trivia, didn't actually expect it to work..."
"Honestly, at least this time the room hasn't been completely destroyed like the last time he went a bit crazy," Lana commented, before she walked over and found a stray shirt lying around and tossed it at her father.
"I told you not to try to kill them Banner." Strange commented.
"You could have BLOODY WELL TOLD ME IT WOULD BE THEM, STEPHEN!"
"Dad, just calm down alright? Apparently that's not actually them. Well it's them, but also not them. I don't know, it's confusing, also apparently our version of Lance is still wandering around on the streets or whatever at the moment..." Lana added with a shrug, not fully caring.
"It was easier to show you rather then explain. Would you have reacted any differently even if I had told you?" Strange responded.
""YES, YOU FUCKING ASS!!!!!"
"Uh... Dad? Can you calm down a little? Please? Though this is reminding me of the very few things that I don't miss with you being MIA in our reality..." Lance responded.
"Please do calm down Banner. Otherwise you might shift again and we'll be back to where we started."
"NO ONE HAS STILL FUCKING EXPLAINED ANY OF THIS BULLSHIT TO ME!"
Lance was starting to get more then a little bit annoyed with this entire situation, completely and utterly. He took a deep breath, before he basically gave a fast pace version of what led them to where they were now. "You want an explanation? Fine! We went off into space back in our reality and wound up getting stuck fighting someone who had one of the infinity stones! The reality one in fact, which inadvertantly created small dimensional rifts all across the galaxy and we ended up falling into one! Fun fact, initially I dragged everyone on this little trip into space LOOKING FOR YOU because somehow you ended up in space! In our reality, Pietro and Guin are on our side, New York doesn't look like a ghost town, but people still constantly try to destroy it, the Avengers are still around and not hanging out in some weird warehouse or whatever. Any other questions?" he was annoyed, and there was a hint of green creeping up his neck that was easily visible to everyone else.
“Is that true?!?!?!” Banner demanded looking at Strange.
"There is an infinite amount of realities Banner. The multiverse is very real, and it is possible if the reality stone is constantly used it could create the small dimensional rifts that people can fall through. They are not lying, every word he just spoke is true. However, might I suggest the younger Banner calm down, otherwise we still it seems might have a situation just like the one that ended only moments ago." Strange replied calmly.
"Since when did you get the ability to go green or whatever?"
"...Blood transfusion, recommendation, just know what you're getting yourself into if you accidentally end up needing one from him," Lance commented, not really calming too much, just taking a few deep breaths.
Thor and Klara were off to the side, and Klara looked at the group, "Well... We likely will need to find the others first... At least a more exact location anyway, and then we need to figure out how we're supposed to get back home... And hopefully without anymore people trying to sit there and strangle each other, hopefully anyway..."
Frost International Building Well things were more then a bit chaotic, her mind was racing a bit, but then it seemed to clear in her head, as the other voice suddenly was back, having woken up or something like that. Oh, cool, you're back, cool, hey listen, what's the best ways to deal with these guys?
Wait what happened? Mary was incredibly confused considering she didn't know at all what happened.
Well genius, how do you deal with Speedy, Juggernaut, and plant manipulator wannabe?
That didn't answer the question!
Who cares! That's not important! I'm better at this sort of thing then you anyway, just answer my damn question!
...Extreme cold or just trip him... Magic, telepathy if you can get his helmet off, and I don't know, never really went against Cassidy... And let me back in control, since I feel like either you are going to try and kill everyone, or get us killed.
Hell no. came the mental response, before she instantly started talking to the others, mainly about Juggernaut who was still going to likely be the biggest issue if she had to guess. "Magic in general is best for Juggernaut, not sure if that bubble you've got there is going to hold though, then again we've got enough wizards around to make this not an issue in general."
As if right on cue, Juggernaut started pounding on the bubble surrounding him. The first hit didn't seem to do anything. The second one though caused the bubble to crack. With each consecutive hit, the cracks started to get even bigger. Klara meanwhile, was preparing a bit of a spell on her own, magic started swirling around her free hand, and a ball of fire appeared in her hand. With one final hit, Juggernaut managed to shatter the bubble, letting out a bit of a roar. Thankfully though, Klara was prepared.
"Omsluttende ild," she muttered, before throwing the fire down right at the giant's feet. The flames remained low to the ground, as it formed a large circle around Juggernaut, before it more or less somewhat replaced what Ed had sort of done, as the fire went upwards a little bit, and when Juggernaut tried to get past it, he wasn't able to. "Magic, right, anyone else have any decent attacking spells? Preferably anything that might not result in the entire area being blown up? Since I've got like, one that I've truly figured out how to do, it's been interesting experimenting and trying to figure out what I can do. Which has essentially been speaking in a different language I figured out I could speak and see which words actually will allow me to use my magic. Not to mention, we can only keep trapping him for so long before we can't and then things get worse," she said with a shrug as she swung her sword around a little bit.
Cassidy then proceeded to jump back up onto his feet from where he had gotten knocked down, and using the club that he was holding, started shooting what looked to be sharp pointy sticks out of it, which were heading straight for the group. Bethany would manage to only get scraped by one of the makeshift spears, while Nightlocke would manage to get skewered in the left arm from his attacks, while Mary managed to dodge it.
There was a gust of wind now, as someone had decided to just sort of race up the stairs now, and he looked annoyed. "Seriously? Trying to keep me out of the party? That is so rude!" Quicksilver snapped, before he started zipping around at top speed. He slammed Ed into his counterpart which knocked both of the wizards onto the ground, before he continued zipping around the room, and ended up slamming into Mary, knocking her into the large window, causing the glass in the window to crack from the amount of force.
"I hate speedsters," she muttered, before she sent vines flying at the speedster, and seemed almost chasing him around a bit with them, before eventually she managed to trip him and send him down to the ground.
Location: Warehouse Hideout – New York City Skills:
Thankfully Antoinette didn’t have to worry about causing more destruction owing to Runa’s quick action. Runa opened up a portal and a horde of lovable, adorable puppies invaded their space and the Hulk calmed down. At least this Hulk also liked puppies. Antoinette sighed with relief and let the illusion of cats go, leaving happy, barking puppies behind. Antoinette turned at the now human sized Banner and listened in on the conversation. Antoinette winced a little from the loud voices and yelling coming from Banner and then Lance in his frustration at his father. There was a lot of emotion circling in the room and it was beginning to give Antoinette a headache. She rubbed her temples, keeping quiet as she decided her input was not needed at this moment.
New York, Frost International Skills: Shadow Manipulation, Shadow Travel, Shadow Solidification, Improvised Weapons.
Bethany looked at Mary, and nodded slightly unfortunately she didnt have any kind of ice powers, or magic so tripping Quicksilver would be fairly easy, Juggernaut she'd let Ed and his counterpart and Klara deal with him. Mary seemed to have Black Tom under control pretty well at least for now. Both Beth and Nightlocke groaned whenever Quicksilver came back into the room. He managed to knock Mary into a glass window that led to the balcony outside. Mary managed to trip Quicksilver using her powers as she turned to look at him as he laid down on the ground, getting an amusing idea of just doing that again to him.
"Crashing a party that you werent even invited to is pretty rude, so i'll keep kicking you out." Bethany said, as she held out her hand as shadows engulfed Quicksilver and shadow traveled him out of the room again and into another room somewhere in the building. She suddenly felt a sharp pain going over her arm seeing a cut appearing on her arm and turned to stare at Black Tom. "Thats kind of entertaining actually." Nightlocke said to her counterpart before she cried out in pain as she felt something going through her left arm, she looked over to see a large piece of wood going through her arm which hurt quiet a bit. She knew that pulling it out wouldnt be the smartest thing really either.
Nightlocke glared at Black Tom as she started to use the shadows around herself and held out her right hand as they started to harden and solidify turning it into a spear. "Why don't you catch this?" Nightlocke said using her good arm as she threw it directly at Black Tom, seeing it impaling itself into his shoulder.
Location: Inside Frost International Skills: Magic: Thamaturgy (Shield/Force)
They needed to get Klara her powers back. "The Klara from our world is the goddess of water and love." He told her. "I've seen you control the ocean." A bit of an exaggeration but wasn't a lie. Then Quicksilver slammed into him tossing him back into Mage. Ed had a sinking feeling when that happened, concerned about possible repercussions, but thankfully nothing seemed to change. This was a different reality not a time travel situation.
"I'm sure you are aware I can't do cold magic though." He said. Standing up and gave a light dusting to his clothing. Now was not the time to be too concerned with actually cleaning his clothing. He looked over at Juggernaut and said, "Now you weren't meant to get out quite yet." He twisted his hand and orange light surrounded Juggernaut and this time the bubble around him appeared and lifted off the ground slightly. The bubble was super flexible.
Mage stood up now that he was no longer pinned under Ed. Bethany had taken care of Quicksilver again so that annoyance was not present. He went for the next threat. Black Tom. Mage flicked his wrist and the orange light that left went toward Black Tom who dodged them deftly.
Location: New York City Defenders HQ Skills: Asgardian Magic
Guin was honestly getting stressed out with all of this yelling. She was normally fine with yelling. Hell, she would join in on the yelling. But the existential weight of the guilt of her counterpart from this world was really weighing down on her. She wanted to take a hot soak in a hot tub, down a bottle of something alcoholic, scream, and live tweet an episode of some terrible TV show - and not necessarily in that order. She wanted to go home and smash random bits and parts together and behold her monstrous creation. She wanted to play with Pietro's hair and tease him about his facial stubble. She didn't want to be here right now, doing this.
"Is there somewhere we can go that's... well, not here? This is honestly stressing me out and making me want a cig," Guin admitted. She rubbed her forehead, pushing her hair up. It was a mannerism she had learned from her dad. He did it too when he was stressed.
"Where? Since most people clearly don't like us, not to mention smoking bad!"
"I know, I'm not stupid," Guin complained. "And that's why I'm asking if there's a place we can go, since I don't know the structure of this place, and I don't feel like digging around in other people's heads right now. Also, seems rude." Guin was clearly a little bit crabby. She was shifting her weight from foot to foot, and scratching now at her wrists, her classic coping mechanisms.
"We also kind of stick out like a sore thumb," Pietro pointed out, since it was kind of hard for most of their group to blend in, though mainly him, since he's got the hair that stands out fairly easily.
"Are there no rooms that we could go chill in?"
Runa, meanwhile, she begun some magick rituals, designed to locate their missing friends. They were almost all together as a group. They were just missing a few of their members. She concentrated on the runes she had pulled previously in the woods to determine locations, closing her eyes and meditating as she began the divination cast. Fortunately, it seemed that their lost, wayward members had all congregated together. That would make things easier for a retrieval. The name of the general location the others were in then came to mind. "Manhattan. They're in a building to the north of us. I don't have a more specific location - Stephen, perhaps if you assisted?"
He was, after all, the Sorcerer Supreme of this world. That ought to give him extreme magical powers and capabilities, access to spells that Runa could not bear to cast. It ought to not be a huge trouble for him to cast a simple location spell on the others, particularly as they were all together in a group. And from there, they could use Stephen's sling ring to open a portal and grab the rest of them, finally reuniting the team into one place, where they could hide until Strange's spell to return them home had completed.
Annie - Will feel the sudden urge to attack the group in the room, and then just leave Guin - Start having a minor panic attack Lance - Fighting off the urge to pop the drug pills that are in his pocket currently Pietro - Contemplating murdering someone
"Getting out of here sounds great... But I'm also in the camp of tracking the others down... And I can't go racing around every building in the area to find people..." Pietro commented a loud, looking at Guin. He really didn't want to be stuck in this building too much longer, considering he knew how the others they were around felt about the pair of them.
"Aiding to with your spell should be a rather simple matter." Strange commented, before he started doing some magic of his own in order to potentially complete the tracking spell.
Lance was still not too thrilled with how the conversation had gone so far. He honestly wasn't even too sure whether or not this version of his father actually believed everything that was being said with regards to alternate realities. The theory of the multiverse was a very real thing that existed, and people didn't necessarily think that it was likely to be true. "Believe the whole situation or not, I honestly stopped caring a few minutes ago," he ended up saying, still a bit annoyed.
"See, you talk like that, and you sound like you - well, like you."
"Probably because I'm still literally the same person? Just different things happened, since I never died, had a close call that resulted in me getting a transfusion from you, and also never had a sister, at all. At least as far as I'm aware of anyway."
"Oh fun, so I don't exist."
"As far as I know, no, you don't. Seriously the whole alternate realities thing is getting confusing. For instance, this entire situation for me, is getting weird since I haven't had an argument like this with him," Lance continued, pointing towards Banner, "For well over a year now, and he ended up in space somehow, so yeah, this place is really weird."
"Sounds like a whole lot of fun to me. Though I guess if I don't exist in your world the whole cult thing didn't happen, so at least that's something."
"...What exactly happened with that?"
"Don't ask."
"....I guess Thor exists, so the multiverse? Why not..."
"And once again, going to reiterate, Pietro is not with the Brotherhood, and not a complete psycho, he's actually a hero and not a villain," Lance added, just as Strange completed the spell.
"Well, this is quite the predicament. Though I suppose the spell could be picking up the counterparts of your other companions, I doubt that though. It would appear that they are in the Frost International Headquarters. Also known as one of the many bases of operations for..." Strange said, before Pietro cut him off.
"The Hellfire Club," he interjected rather abruptly.
"So they exist in your world?"
"Yeah..."
"Um... For those of us in the room who don't know. Who are the Hellfire Club?" Klara asked.
"Well, not too sure how much this version is different from ours... But they are very similar to the Brotherhood in many ways. My father actually is a member last I checked, a part of what's known as the "Inner Circle" and holds a rank in the club, that being the White King, since the main 4 leaders of the group go off of the King and Queen pieces on a chess board..."
"I assure you, in our world the Hellfire Club can be just as bad, though Magneto is not a member here. Actually the Brotherhood and Hellfire Club tend to be at each other's throats half the time, and the other half of the time they are fighting against us. It just depends on the situation."
"We have had more then a few run ins with them. They crave power, and while the Brotherhood works to get rid of humans, the Hellfire Club prefers to sit on top and have them all serve them instead." Thor added, speaking up at the moment.
Banner sighed. “Honestly they’re a bunch of rich assholes in fetish gear. Tony loved their parties.”
Pietro had gone somewhat quiet at this point though, and Guin would potentially notice a slight shift in his demeanor mentally in his head. Lance was just sort of listening to the conversation, well, half listening anyway, as his mind started to wander randomly away from what was happening. However he at least got pulled from his mental thoughts for a second, as there was the sound of a door closing, and footsteps as Lance's counterpart walked into the room, before proceeding to ignore everyone else and find a chair that he ended up slouched in it, though it did look like he passed out the instant he sat down.
Frost International Building Klara was seemingly getting a bit annoyed with Ed at this point. "Would you stop comparing me to the version of me from your reality or whatever? I am not her! You keep saying all of these things that I supposedly can do, but I can't, because I am not her, and don't know what the hell I'm doing half the time! So would you stop with the comparisons! I can do some things, but not everything. So just deal with it!"
...Aren't Asgardian weapons enchanted and magical most of the time or whatever? As in like, can hurt things that normally can't?
"Look, I get it, you hate comparisons, whatever. One thing you might not care about is that a lot of Asgardian weapons typically are magical and can hurt things that others can't. You know, in case you decide to poke Juggernaut with that stick of yours. Just saying since you all were having a conversation about not having access to magic that is attacking or whatever."
"...Wait really? I didn't know that. Did I? Sorry, brain is not wanting to work... Well that's how it is most days..."
"So how about you use it then?" she snapped, a bit annoyed, before she turned her attention towards Tom again, who was still there while Quicksilver had disappeared again because of Bethany and Nightlocke. She shot vines out of her pocket that charged straight at him. Before he could react again, the vines seemed to wrap completely around him, and were proceeding to start to strangle him based on appearances.
Don't kill the guy!
Please, he clearly deserves it.
NO! she ended up stumbling slightly forward, now having a bit of a killer headache. Though she did loosen up the vines slightly, so he was just more of restrained now rather then being strangled. "You are getting a little annoying though..." she muttered under her breath.
Klara seemed to think for a moment, before she muttered something under her breath, before throwing her sword, directly at the bubble that Juggernaut was in. However, instead of just hitting the shield, or popping the bubble, the sword managed to go straight through it. The sword managed to slice into Juggernaut's arm, causing a gash of sorts it would seem, before shooting straight through the other side, and lodging itself firmly into the wall. The bubble shield that Ed had created remained firmly intact for the moment at least. Even with Juggernaut slamming into it, so odds were it still wouldn't last forever, but it was holding for now.
"Huh, learn something new every day," Klara commented, before she walked over and dislodged her sword from the wall.
Quicksilver instantly raced back into the room, starting to get more then a little annoyed with Bethany and her counterpart. "Okay, stop being so rude!" he commented, before he instantly started racing around the room. It was too quick for him to rip any organs out. However, it was enough for him to phase his hand into several people and cause damage internally to everyone hit by him. Ed, Mage, Bethany, Nightlocke and Mary all would end up with blood coming from their mouths and a pain in their stomach from Quicksilver's meddling. Hopefully it isn't anything to serious, but it was an extreme amount of pain.
New York, Frost International Skills: Shadow Manipulation.
Bethany looked over towards this reality's version of Klara and Edus and shook her head slightly as she snapped at him a little bit and sighed. "Maybe now isn't the time to argue or say which realties verson can do and what the other can't?" Bethany said shaking her head a little bit as she looked towards Mary as she managed to ensnare Black Tom, though it looked like she was going to choke him to death. Mary seemed to gain control again as the vines loosened slightly.
Her attention quickly turned towards Quicksilver as he came back into the room, she rolled her eyes and sighed. "Really you don't learn when you aren't invited to be here in the first place." Nightlocke said, as she was about to attack him, when Quicksilver decided to do something new, feeling a hand phasing through her stomach, causing her to drop down to her knees as she started to cough out some blood. Bethany groaned loudly as she felt the same thing happening to her as well. She dropped down to one knee and coughed up some blood before getting up again and extended her hand forward as shadowy tendrils started to wrap around Quicksilver though not as tightly as she would have liked.
Location: Inside Frost International Skills: Magic: Thamaturgy (Shield); Sympathetic (Healing)
Ed sighed at Klara's outburst. He couldn't blame her. But this was going to be harder than anticipated getting her to realize who she was. It would be a delicate situation. For now, his bubble seemed to be holding. He was actually surprised that Klara's sword went through it without any issue. Nightlock was attacked by Quicksilver and Bethany went down too. Ed frowned. Thinking about the implications there. They couldn't hurt Quicksilver. That could hurt their Pietro. Shit.
Ed moved his hand to tighten his hold on Juggernaut. It didn't seem to change anything. He let out a slow breath concentrating and flicked his hand. The bubble was reinforced. It was what he could do for now.
Mage seeing Nightlock injured moved so he could heal her. His own orange light so similar to his foreign counterpart. Touched Nightlock and some healing energy surged into her. Nothing seemed to change with Bethany. Mage did not move to heal her though.
Location: Warehouse Hideout – New York City Skills:
Antoinette sort of just stared at people around the room as conversation was lobed back and forth. They were still going on about the differences of their worlds but it didn’t seem all that important to Antoinette. She supposed it was sort of sweet that Lance was having a family reunion but some of their friends were still missing. Runa managed to locate them in a building near them but now they had to form a plan to get to them. Antoinette’s mind sort of went blank before she felt a rage like nothing she had ever experienced before take over her. The thoughts she had been thinking before became heightened and she became increasingly frustrated that there was a lot of talk and no action going on here. For a second, Antoinette wanted nothing more than to attack the people in the room with her. To get them to shut up about alternate realities and go save the people that needed saving. But that wasn’t Antoinette. She shut her eyes and squeezed her hands into fists and tried thinking about the different bird species in America. It seemed to calm her racing mind but only a small fraction. Antoinette still had an urge to attack but she held off for now. ”S..s…something’s wrong,” she stuttered. Antoinette kept her eyes squeezed shut for now but her nose twitched as she concentrated on trying to stay calm. She was tempted to reach out and see who or what was messing with her mind but Antoinette was too scared she would lose control over what little control she had.
Location: New York City Defenders HQ Skills: Telepathy
Guin had been more or less following the conversation - she was vaguely aware of the Hellfire Club, mostly in its capacity as a posh club for rich assholes to hang out at. She had gone to one of their events when she turned 18, finally old enough to attend, and it hadn't been her scene at all - of course, she hadn't been invited into the secretive Inner Circle, where the actual power of the club rested. Most rich people in the superhero community held familial memberships like the Stark family did - the Braddock family, for instance, had a membership, as did the Worthingtons.
"What should we be prepared for with this organization?" Runa asked. She had never fought the Hellfire Club - she hadn't even really heard of them before today. It seemed like a pesky Midgardian affair, one that didn't interest her too much. She found such things to be beneath her. The Midgardian clubs she was most interested in were those built up around different fashion designers - there was something about Midgardian clothing she found appealing, particularly those articles described as goth.
"Well, they're..." And it was like the wind had been knocked out of Guin. The next thing she knew, she was struggling to breathe. Everything around her felt slightly too bright, slightly too loud - everyone was too close. Guin couldn't find a place to settle her eyes, her eyes darting around the room, as she felt like a caged animal. Her heart was pounding and she began to feel dizzy, not understanding really what was happening to her. "They're..." she tried again. But she couldn't get the words to form - she was terrified.
Hearing Annie slur her words worried her though and Guin focused on that worry, forcing her eyes shut even as her hands were shaking, and trying to dive into Annie's mind. She couldn't focus enough to do it at first, but on the third attempt, she managed to get inside. For whatever reason, Annie wanted to attack them all and leave. And Guin herself was able to name the source of her own panic after a moment - the Defenders, and this second Lance. She could feel through the mental link that there was something wrong with Pietro as well - it all felt so dizzying, so overwhelming.
"Guinevere, are you alright? Annie?" Runa asked, frowning slightly. Her eyes glanced over to Strange. What was affecting her friends? Were they just feeling overwhelmed with the inter-dimensional travel and the strangeness of this new world? "Pietro, Lance, how are you both feeling?" Runa asked. She wondered if perhaps the Midgardian constitution was just weak to such things - Klara and herself were perfectly fine, after all.
Help, Guin squeaked into Pietro's head. She was having a minor panic attack. And it was hard to think or focus through it. "I'm - I'm fine," Guin lied to Runa.
"You know that I know you're lying," Runa said, frowning.
Annie - Will feel the sudden urge to attack the group in the room, and then just leave Guin - Start having a minor panic attack Lance - Fighting off the urge to pop the drug pills that are in his pocket currently Pietro - Contemplating murdering someone
Banner’s eye twitched, as he immediately rushed over to Lance (his counterpart). “Buddy if you’re high I’m going to lose my shit!”
"So what if I aaaaaaam? Besides, nothing better then it for nope," he laughed a little in response to the whole thing.
"See, I was trying to stop this whole thing and drag him back here, but I got caught up and ran into them instead," Lana commented, pointing towards the other group and all.
"...Wow you guys were not kidding about the whole drug addict... Thing..."
"Whoa, why is there another me? Am I tripping here or what?"
"...Honestly, not going to try and explain this again..."
"You are literally tripping, yes!!" Banner snapped, his skin looking a little green. "Honestly, buddy, you're throwing your life away! You won't get to come back from the dead twice!"
"And I'd care and all about that sort of thing again why?" he asked him, Lance was about to step in about Banner shifting again, when Strange decided to do that instead.
"Banner, calm down, we do not have time for this, you've already shifted once this hour, and frankly that should be the quota for the entire day." he said rather sternly towards Banner, "Now, to answer the Asgardian's question, the group as we've said, tend to crave power and want nothing more then to obtain it. The Inner Circle who typically are in that building are the more powerful members of that group, and actually many members of the X-Men team eventually joined their ranks after an incident that then resulted in the old mansion being abandoned. They also tend to fight off any intruders that attack or enter the building." His attention then turned towards Annie when she mentioned that something was off, "Hmmm... Could be a number of different things, after all, travel between dimensions and reality, especially when not controlled like through proper magic or with a machine created for the journey could have some side effects."
Pietro seemed to think for a moment, before answering Runa, "Yeah, I'm fine, why?" he asked her in response, and he seemed to be telling the truth. Though his words sounded a bit off, maybe they sounded a bit cold or something? It was hard to tell at this point. What exactly do you need help with Guina? he asked her, though he sounded like he was already thinking of potential solutions to the problem.
Them. All of them.
Don't worry, I have an idea.
"YOU SHOULD CARE!" Banner screamed. "DAMN IT BUDDY, LIVE FOR ONCE!"
"I am living, you just don't approve of anything I do, or try to do, and then you throw the whole dying thing in my face for the hundredth time, even though I remember asking you for help with that whole situation, but you ignored me. Sooooooooooo, sorry for not caring what you think anymore."
"...Is it always like this?"
"Eh, basically," Lana said with a shrug.
Lance was about to answer Runa's question now, when his mind went to what he still had in his pockets, before reaching in, and pulling out the pills that he had been handed back at the hotel, before handing them to Lana, "Get those away from me, and probably destroy them in some way I don't care just get rid of them."
"Where did you get these?"
"Some guy confused me for him, now get rid of them," he continued, fighting really hard the part of his brain saying otherwise, before answering Runa's question, "Not sure," he admitted, not too sure what else to say. Something did seem to be wrong, but it was difficult to describe.
"This is an interesting situation..."
Pietro seemed to stop listening, before in a gust of wind he went over to Annie and had her in a headlock, choking her. Annie would start feeling dizzy from the lack of oxygen, but after a moment, Klara managed to get the speedster off of her and knocked him to the ground. "Okay what the hell just snapped in the speedster? Because that hasn't happened before, ever."
Banner looked like he was about to explode, if he hadn't exploded already. "You call that living? You call doing drugs all day and ruining your body and rotting your brain LIVING? Maybe I should've just left you DEAD if THIS is how you LIVE!" Banner was seemingly still focused on Lance's counterpart for the moment.
"You do realize that's what I've been saying right? Just admit it, I'm a screw up, can't do anything right, even tried to do the whole hero thing once forever ago, and we all saw how that went."
"Yeah, you got yourself fucking killed by THAT PIECE OF SHIT!" Banner screamed, pointing towards Pietro, and the green was continuing to creep up, meaning him shifting against was likely inevitable at this point.
"Why do you egg him on like that? There are other things that might need to be dealt with first!" Lana asked her brother.
"I got bored and he started ittttttt."
"Banner, I will not ask you again, calm down," Strange commented towards him before going over to where Klara had knocked Pietro down as he was starting to stand up. "Perhaps the reality traveling caused this situation and it is a side effect of something that happened during the trip through the reality rift as I said before in between Banner's usual outbursts."
Frost International Building Klara was still seemingly annoyed with Ed, though currently there was the other issue of she likely wouldn't be able to keep throwing her sword around or attacking Juggernaut without eventually popping the bubble. "We need to get him out of here, we can't easily fight him head on and we're currently still having to deal with the other two. We can't just keep him in that bubble forever!"
"She's right, since if you want to try fighting Juggernaut head on you need as much fire power as you can get, and keeping him lock in that bubble is not exactly a solution, he's not exactly small or anything like that," Mary responded, thinking for a moment, before glancing over at the window that still had cracks in it from when Quicksilver threw her against it. "Hey Klara, how many people are on the street below?" she asked, since Klara now was the closest to the window.
She looked out the window and shrugged, "Eh, not a lot, most of them seem to be avoiding right next to the building. Why?"
"Well throw him out the window, Juggernaut can survive that fall easily and it gives us more time to deal with the other two!" Mary responded, before Black Tom broke free of the vines that she had been using to holding him in place, before sending off more spikes from his club. Most of them missed her, however the last one managed to spear the right side of her chest, causing her to fall to the ground.
"Better loehck next time, ya can't stahp me!" Cassidy said, cackling slightly as Mary ended up getting back on her feet.
"...Anyone else wondering why these guys are even here?" Klara mused slightly, before throwing her sword again and narrowly missing Cassidy's head, even missing him on the backswing when without seemingly doing anything or thinking about it, her sword just zipped right back into her hand, and she looked a bit surprised by that.
"Because we feel like it? Ever 'ave a mahment like dat where ya want to do sahmethin, and den joehst do it no matter what? Yeah, dat's oehs right now," he responded, before sending more spears flying towards her, but Klara just swung her sword around and split them in half when they got too close to her.
Quicksilver looked more then a little annoyed with Bethany and her counterpart. He started moving quickly, eventually just phasing out of the shadows that he had gotten tied up with. "You are so annoying! Why can't you just let us have fun?" he asked, before he jumped up and slammed into Bethany, this time she'd crash into and through a wall that went into an adjoining room. He sped around a little bit more, and decided that Ed needed to let go of Juggernaut, and slammed into him too, where he would hit an end table and break it, the splinters would start jabbing into Ed a bit, one more painfully in his arm. However, miraculously, he would manage to keep Juggernaut in his bubble, despite Juggernaut also pounding away at it still.
Mary was back on her feet, and tried to tie Cassidy up yet again with the vines, however he dodged out of the way of her attempts. The spear in her shoulder was incredibly painful, so that likely was messing with her aim, but that was getting annoying. Not like she could simply pull it out or anything, since that likely would cause it to bleed more and cause more issues.
Location: Warehouse Hideout – New York City Skills: Intuition;
Antoinette was distracted with what was going on in her head for the most part but she could hear several other conversations going on around her. Other Lance seemed out of it and Banner was getting upset again. Before Antoinette could register much more, there was a gust of wind and then Antoinette was losing air. She clawed at the arm around her neck, trying to get whoever it was to let her go. Thankfully, Klara came over quickly and got Pietro off her. Antoinette bent forward, resting one hand on her knee and the other massaged her neck as she coughed, trying to regain her breath. She was feeling rather dizzy and lightheaded, so Antoinette sat down on the floor until she felt more stable. Whatever was going on in her head didn’t seem to be just happening to her. She looked within herself, trying to find if someone was manipulating her but she didn’t notice anything strange or out of place within herself. Just that moment of her wanting to attack everyone. Her blue eye started to glow faintly as she tried to use her power to determine if what was going to happen was going to get worse but it didn’t work. Antoinette had no idea and that thought didn’t comfort her.
New York, Frost International Skills: Shadow Manipulation.
Bethany turned her attention over towards Quicksilver seeing him managing to phase himself out of her shadow bindings and then suddenly rushed over towards her, she instantly felt the wind getting knocked out of her, and then being sent through the wall and into the next room. Bethany laid on her back breathing heavily as she started to cough up some blood. "Ow that really hurts.." Bethany said as she slowly started to try and get back up to her feet she was feeling really dizzy and slightly dazed as well to.
Nightlocke watched as Quicksilver slammed into her counterpart and knocking her through a wall and winced slightly, she hoped that her counterpart was alright. She quickly turned her attention back towards Mary and Klara coming up with a plan, she wasnt sure if she could get him out of the building but she was going to give it a try. "I'll try and get him out of the building." Bethany said as she held out her hand and attempted to shadow travel Juggernaut out of the building.
Roll for Nightlocke to try and shadow travel Juggernaut out of the building or over onto the balcony.
Location: Inside Frost International Skills: Magic: Thamaturgy (Shield); Sympathetic (Healing)
This was becoming an issue. Juggernaut was contained and everyone was right. Ed knew he wouldn't be able to keep him. So he flicked his wrist sending him out the window and into the city. Ed didn't know where he landed, nor did he particularly care. Juggernaut would likely survive the ordeal and it that was fine with Ed. He didn't want to be a killer. Not now. Not here. He turned to Mary seeing that she was bleeding and cast a healing spell. And even though the soft orange glow of his magic hit her it didn't do any good.
Meanwhile, Mage was distracted with Quicksilver. He flicked his hand and an orange glowing ball appeared right in front of Quicksliver tripping him up. That wasn't what he wanted to happen. But that was fine. It might at least slow the speedster down. Catching Quicksilver would be a challenge. Mage wasn't afraid to try it though. But so far they hadn't been able to take out any of the attacks and soon their resources would be worn down. Something needed to change.
Location: New York City Defenders HQ Skills: Asgardian Magic and Telepathy
Runa was beginning to feel mildly stressed, largely triggered by Lance having apparently a strong craving for narcotics and Pietro attempting to kill Annie; mostly the that, if she was being honest. Runa swirled her hand, whispering a word of power, and special enchanted handcuffs appeared on Pietro. "These should temper his speed, keep him easier to manage," Runa cautioned, stepping in front of Annie in a protective position.
She was trying to remember any stories she could recall of multiversal travel, but few came to mind. Those that did, she only knew the ailments to be sickness and the like - perhaps a few whispered rumors of alterations made to the mind and soul to closer align to the correct version of reality, but nothing proven. In every case she could think of, it was a minor inconvenience and resolved itself. However, she didn't want to just brush this off. Pietro had already tried to kill Annie. She didn't want to let her guard down and allow her friends to be hurt. "If the issue is this universe, perhaps we should relocate us to a parallel dimension - do you think the mirror dimension would be suitable?" Runa asked. "Creating distance between us and this reality, even if only slight, could be the trick to keeping the speedster from his murderous inclinations."
Meanwhile, Guin's panic attack had not been helped by what Pietro had done. "Pietro, what the fuck!!!" Guin screamed, her eyes wide as she rushed over towards him and Annie, only to not be the first person to get there to deal with the problem. Her head was pounding ever so slightly, probably from the amount of screaming Banner was doing, and her adrenaline was beginning to rise. "Annie's our friend, you can't just kill her! You're not a killer! Not here, at least - well not you you, other you sure, and House of M you, you only mercy killed before... I think. It's all getting scrambled," Guin admitted. She was having painful flashbacks to House of M, where Pietro had killed - and it was making it hard for her to think clearly.
The panic attack also wasn't helping.
But Doctor Strange suggested something was happening to their minds, and that was (supposedly) what Guin's mutant gift was perfect for dealing with. So she shut her eyes and used the telepathic link between her and Pietro, diving into his mind. She hadn't been able to tell just by looking at him if he was still going to kill. But inside his mind, Guin found it beginning to fracture, as if his violent other self was bleeding over. She bit her lip. What would Baldy do... she murmured, thinking of her mentor, Professor X, and then Guin got to work. She figured the best she could do would be to split off the murderous alter Pietro had forming, in order to keep it from influencing his personality.
And somehow, it more or less worked - Guin was able to keep the changes from happening to Pietro. She opened her eyes in the real world, her palms sweaty and clammy with fear. "I-I-I think that should do it. It was like someone else was trying to rewrite him," she explained. "Could you all stop yelling? That or give me some of whatever he's having, I feel like my heart's going to explode out of my chest..." she asked, gesturing towards the other Lance.
Warehouse Pietro didn't seem to react at first to what had happened, or the fact that now the world was moving incredibly slow to him. However, after a moment, he looked a bit confused and just sort of slumped down back to the ground. He was incredibly confused by what the hell just happened, or why the hell was he wearing the handcuffs that Runa had put on him. "Uh... What?" he eventually said.
"Mind telling us why you decided to just attack someone?"
"...I don't know," he admitted with a shrug, super confused. "Also forgot how weird the world is when everything moves super slowly and my powers not really working or whatever..."
"Hmm, what you said about it almost like something was rewriting things is intriguing..." Strange mused, referring to what Guin had said, before turning towards Runa when she made her comments. "Unfortunately, if such is the case, then the only true solution to your problem is to return all of you to your own universe. If parts of your personalities or mannerisms get rewritten to be like our world's version of you, then there is a chance that it might not be reversal. Multiversal travel is fairly foreign territory with regards to how it works. Since it tends to be something that many would prefer to never occur."
Of course, off to the side, Banner was more or less barely holding it together to stop from going crazy again, but turns out, all hell was going to break loose anyway. There was a loud explosion nearby, before a large hole was blown in one of the walls that was connected outside. It was burned a bit around the edges of the wall, and outstepped Pyro, with his typical flamethrowers on his back, shooting the occasional lame from them. He wasn't alone though. A woman came through the hole in the wall, who was fairly tall, and looked a bit bored, the next woman who came in was even taller, standing a foot above the other woman. Pietro was just sitting there, counting the people and clearly thinking who each was. "So... You've got Pyro, Nekra, Frenzy..." he counted, before the third woman walked into view with a bit of a smile, though she was the shortest out of the group by more then a few inches. "...Oh no."
"Hellooooo there Quicksilver, what are you doing here? I thought you were off on a mission elsewhere, what are you doing here?" the blonde woman asked with a smile.
"Guessing she's a friend of yours Pietro?"
"...I mean I do know all four of them, but none of them are friends."
"Aw, why do you have to be so mean!"
"Phantazia, we're here on a job, remember?" the tallest woman commented (the one Pietro had labeled as Frenzy).
"Doesn't mean I can't have some fun right?"
"...Well this isn't good. In more way then one." Lance only really recognized one of them, and that was Pyro, whose powers were kind of self explanatory. "...Guessing you know what the all can do?" he then asked Pietro.
"Pyro, manipulates fire, Nekra basically can enhance her physical capabilities using typically strong violent emotions and give herself super strength and stuff like that. Frenzy basically has super strength and durability and all of that naturally. Phantazia can do some weird disrupting thingy where she can cause a person pain, paralyze them whatever, kind of fly and she can turn..." he said, before noticing that Phantazia wasn't visible anymore. "...Invisible."
"Let's goooooo!" Pyro yelled out gleefully, as fire started shooting off into a large arc that he was controlling. This was definitely going to be an interesting fight. Banner ended up losing control completely and once more shifted into the Hulk. You would think he'd go after the person lighting everything on fire right?
Nope, he decided to go after the speedster, who currently because of the handcuffs that Runa had put on him, did not have his speed.
"...You have got to be kidding me." Pietro instantly jumped back up onto his feet and basically dove out of the way of a rampaging Hulk who apparently decided that Pietro had a target on his back.
Lance was about to maybe see about going to help Pietro in avoiding his father, when Frenzy and Nekra both instantly started kicking up rubble and throwing them at the group, he instantly threw up a bit of a wall to try and block some of the rubble, but they were throwing a lot at the group. A bit of rubble would slam into Guin knocking her over, though oddly somehow, the chaos that was occurring seemed to be helping, as her panic attack would start to lessen a bit. Another bit of rubble would just barely miss Annie, and another one slammed into Lance's head despite the wall of light he had created, causing him to lose focus and the wall dropped down.
"Oh dear, chaos really does seem to follow us doesn't it?" Klara couldn't help but mutter, drawing her sword.
Frost International Building "Well, at least we can focus on these other two," Mary muttered, wincing slightly from the pain in her shoulder. She really couldn't remove the spear, since that would result in her bleeding out faster, so she left the thing there. Though maybe that was why when Ed tried healing her, it hadn't done anything? Then again, it could just be not wanting to work for whatever reason.
Her attention was still somewhat on Black Tom Cassidy, since his powers were very similar to her own in a few different ways. She figured that would give others time to deal with the annoying speedster who was still racing around. Though she was glad that Ed had managed to get rid of Juggernaut for the time being. That guy needed all of them to fight against him at once, so if they dealt with the other two quickly, then they could go deal with him.
"Ok, let's try this again..." she mumbled, as she started using her powers and sent vines once more towards Cassidy. This time, Mary managed to actually hit him with her attacks. The vines wrapped around the club in his hands, and she managed to yank it away from Cassidy as another vine slammed into him and knocked him to the ground.
"I'd stay down if I were you," Klara commented towards him, more then ready to strike with her sword at him. After all of that, there was still one person who was easily still up and causing issues (unless Cassidy decided to get up).
And that was the speedster.
"Honestly, I can take you all on easily!" Quicksilver said rather gleefully as he started racing around again. He started slamming his fists into people, and started throwing everyone around the room. He might not have super strength, but any amount of strength with enough speed behind it could be insanely painful. Bethany and Nightlocke would both get thrown backwards and slamming into the ground painfully right by each other. Whereas Ed and Mage got thrown with enough force to go through a wall, with rubble crumbling onto them partially burying them.
"Huh, this looks like it'll be painful," he mused, before yanking the spear out that was still in Mary's chest, before she could even react. And knocked her down to the ground. Klara swung her sword in an arc, and actually managed to slash him a bit across the shoulder, but he managed to send her through a wall too, and her grip on her sword wasn't the best, so it clattered to the ground fairly far away from her now. "Honestly, is that the best you all have? This is getting pathetic!"
"...And now I remember why I'm glad in our reality Pietro is on our side..." Mary muttered as she started to get up.
