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Bethany looked at Annie for a moment. "Are you alright?" She asked her, as she Lance Hulk hitting Mage, she winced slightly at the hit as he was sent flying backwards slightly. She turned to face her counterpart when she managed to use her own powers, and flung herself and Annie around, managing to hit her rather badly as she landed on the ground with a rather loud thud. Bethany laid on her back completely dazed and dizzy as the world spun around slightly.

"Ow.." Bethany said as she slowly started to get back up to her feet once more. She stared at her counterpart, Bethany was really annoyed with her counterpart now. "You are being really annoying right now." Bethany said as she started to use her powers, and managed to get a hold of Nightlocke and sent her flying over towards the Hulk. But she ended up falling short, seeing her counterpart landing on her feet without to much of an issue.

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Nightlocke stared at Mage as he was hit by Lance Hulk and shook her head slightly as she managed to attack her counterpart and Annie, she smiled seeing that the two of them hit the ground rather roughly. "Stay down." Nightlocke told the two of them, as she was about to head over to aid Mage, when her counterpart started to get back up slowly.

She felt herself suddenly being flung forward by Bethany as she flew a little bit but she managed to land on her feet, her feet skidding across the dirt. Nightlocke was really getting annoyed with her counterpart as well to, having her back turned to Lance Hulk as she focused on her counterpart and Annie.

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"Not even a little bit," Antoinette replied. Nightlocke had just thrown them around again, bruising her more. Antoinette's entire body was riddled with pain, and the dizziness she was experiencing was not making it any easier. She felt as if she may get sick.
Antoinette got herself to her knees in time to watch Bethany throw her counterpart back. She was closer to the Hulk, allowing Antoinette to hope Lance would take care of her. Antoinette staggered to her feet and walked to Bethany.
"I don't know what to do for Lance. The last time I tried to help, I made him angrier. Any suggestions?"

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Ed's thoughts weren't far from Guin's, and when she voiced it, his stomach churned. Something that looked like a firebird had landed exactly where Mary stood up. He kept the string of curses to himself. They'd figure it out. They had to.

For now, though, they needed to hurry in the direction of the shard. Did they need the shard? How dangerous would it be if they had it and whatever part of the Phoneix had gone into Mary? What if she had the full force? Ed didn't know all the ramifications but boy what he did know was all sorts of bad.

And, of course, they still would have to deal with the Klara situation. Ed reached over and orange light emitted over Guin healing her the rest of the way.

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Mage wasn't doing so hot. He wasn't about to die. Thanks to having healed himself enough, he could stand back up. But he saw stars between another rock and a fist to the face. He was seriously considering just bouncing. Frost probably would be pissed. But she wasn't trying to do anything about the green dude.

A weak orange light covered him, but nothing seemed to happen. So he pulled a shield around himself completely. Mage was rather done at this point. If he couldn't do it from inside the bubble magic, he wouldn't do it. Sure he had a bit of a death wish, but not a smushed-by-giant green dude and rocks wish.

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"...So flaming space chicken? Uhhhh why is it here? Also is it this universe's version, or ours? Or is it technically both?" Pietro asked, he knew vaguely what she was talking about, but still, this was a bit insane for him to really think about since it made no sense as to why it was here.

"...It might be because of the crystal that it came, though let's be honest be glad that it did, otherwise we'd all likely be dead because that was going what was going to happen with regards to what happened seconds before hand..." Klara commented with a bit of a shrug. "I mean be grateful that we're living in general because wow that was ending poorly."

"Should we maybe go after her? Or is technically it them I guess with the flaming space chicken and the psychopath who is also there in her head? Actually wait that's bad right?"

"You guys do realize that I can hear you right?" Mary's voice responded as she ended up back by the others, "Or at least was able to hear the last part about the psychopath in my head... Anyway, we should see about finding the others, because pretty sure this is what we're looking for," she added, before holding up a pink crystal shard of sorts that was in her hand.

"Are you okay? Because literally not that long ago you were on the ground and we were about to lose and no one has explained much of anything about what happened. Because I couldn't keep up with that still..." Pietro said out loud, before looking at Guin a bit, I know we were just talking about the flaming space chicken, but still Guina, I'm not sure this is a good thing, and we now have the crystal that's around so what do you think we should do?

"We need to catch up to the others, and considering we came from that direction," Mary said, pointing in a direction, "Guess we should go along with that and hope we run into them... And maybe follow along after the sounds of the hulk roars or something like that."

Back where Annie and Bethany were, the portal that Runa created would open up and allow the pair to end up back where the others were, "Honestly Runa whatever is going on I think you are being a bit overly dramatic with things because I don't think there is anything that really needs to be dealt with or any sort of penance or anything like that, for whatever is going on..." she commented, before looking at the group that they had in front of them. "...Whose the allies again with things and why are there two of one of them?" she asked, incredibly confused.

Meanwhile behind Nightlocke, it probably was not a good idea to potentially have your back turned towards any form of Hulk. So of course, Lance was going to take some notice of her and what she was doing, being the sort of pest that was now standing with her back towards him. He instant knocked her forwards, causing her to slam into the ground, and letting out a bit of a roar afterwards. Yeah Nightlocke would definitely be hurting a bit from that, plus all of the other bits of damage she had taken before.

At least at the moment he seemed to be ignoring Mage who had basically bubbled himself to prevent getting knocked around, so that was something for the moment currently anyway.

"Guessing the green monster or whatever you mentioned is him?" Klara then asked Runa, nodding her head towards Lance. Yup, this was definitely confusing to her.

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Bethany looked over at Annie for a moment and gave a slight shrug she really wasnt sure how to actually calm down Lance, other than just trying to knock him out. But none of them in the group were any heavy hitters which made things a lot harder for them to try and defeat their counterparts and Lance Hulk as well to. "Dunno how to even calm Mini Hulk down." Bethany said to Annie as she looked at Mage who made a shield for himself, and winced as Lance Hulk slammed into her counterpart into the ground.

Bethany's attention turned towards the portal that had opened up and Klara was talking to Runa, she had to assume that whatever Runa had done she was able to fix Klara. She was asking which ones were good and which ones were bad as Bethany gestured towards her counterpart. "Attack her, and Ed." Bethany said to Klara, hoping that she would be able to understand.

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Nightlocke was about to try and attack her counterpart when she heard a loud roar when she realized that she was in front of the Hulk and then a few seconds later she felt the wind getting knocked out of her as Bethany was slammed into the ground. She let out a slight groan as Nightlocke laid there dazed on the ground her attention turned towards Mage giving him a slightly annoyed look as he shielded himself.

"Could you give me a shield to?" Nightlocke asked as she quickly got up and tried to cover as much distance between herself and Mini Hulk as best she could. When the portal opened Klara and Runa came out. She then thought for a moment as she came up with some sort of plan, to try and defeat them all.

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The rest of Guin's body knit itself back together, under the orange heat-lamp-like glow of Ed's magic. She felt stiff, but fine - the pain had vanished and she could just feel the cost of her inevitable doctors' bills plummet to near nothing. "Thanks, man - never thought I'd be into faith healing, but that did the trick," Guin quipped. She was clearly feeling better, given that a certain bit of sarcastic lightness had returned to her tone. She slowly rose up to her feet, taking it somewhat easy just in case, but nothing was screaming and no loose bones seemed to be trying to puncture any internal organs, so all in all it seemed good.

"Umm... I honestly don't know enough about the Phoenix to say, but both, maybe?" Guin answered Pietro's question. Despite being with the X-Men for so long, she didn't know all of the basics of some of the key lore. There was a lot of stuff that had happened with the previous team that just wasn't talked about very much. The entire Dark Phoenix situation did make the Phoenix a somewhat sensitive topic. Before she could chime in though on whether or not they ought to go off after Mary, she returned holding the M'Kraan crystal.

"How about we all do what Mare said, go find the others, get home, and then we can figure out everything that happened? I'm not in the mood to wait around for more evil versions of us to show up and kick our asses," Guin argued. Privately, however, she shared an opinion with Pietro. This is not good. Jean Grey wasn't psychotic and we all know what happened with her... Best to keep this on the down low though. Even telepathically.

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Runa was slightly comforted by her cousin's insistence that no penance was necessary, but it honestly did not erode her guilt by much. Perhaps if Klara recovered her memories and still opted for forgiveness, that would make a larger dent - yet... As Runa reflected on the last one hundred years, of the trials Klara had gone through, perhaps it was better that she did not remember. It was just a blip in her life. And Runa could reacquaint her with their new allies, the formidable Midgardians known as the X-Men. "Alternate reality versions," Runa explained to Klara, as Klara asked about the duplicates. "And rather nasty ones, unfortunately. I do not wish to take my brother's crimes lightly, but... This universe has an evil to it. One that would give me pause if I were to be asked whether or not this particularly world should be preserved." Of course, Klara had no idea what Runa was talking about with Forseti - a fact that Runa overlooked.

Runa sent tentacles of darkness wrapping around Nightlocke and Mage - Mage's shield prevented her from making direct contact, so she had to improvise. And she remembered a story Guinevere had told her once, about how mighty young heroes of Midgard stopped a formidable, hated foe - the villains known as Team Rocket. She controlled the snaring darkness and flung Nightlocke and Mage, and they landed a bit away. Runa repeated the process, this time sending them soaring high through the sky and out of sight, just a twinkle on the horizon.

"As the Midgardian parable goes, they have blasted off again," Runa noted. She then turned her attention to Lance, trapped in his Hulk form. She didn't see any other foes - the others must've run off. "Lance, darling, you can stop now."

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Bethany had no suggestions for calming Lance, but a portal opened shortly after, allowing Runa and Klara to walk through. Antoinette was betting that Runa would be able to calm Lance down. That just left the three of them to deal with Nightlocke and Ed’s counterpart.
Antoinette did her best to ignore her pains and summon some of her pyro ability. Just as she was getting ready, Runa intervened and threw their remaining assailants far off so they wouldn’t be a problem to them anymore.
That left Lance. Antoinette turned when Runa addressed him. She held her breath, not daring to make a sound or move in case it set him off or distracted him from shifting back. Without thinking about it, her hands grasped Bethany’s arm, acting as an anchor as she waited.

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Ed was out of his element here. He had no idea how to approach the idea that Mary had the Phoenix. He nodded to Guin's thank you, almost on auto pilot. He was glad she was looking better. Guin had had her ass handed to her. And now you couldn't tell. But that was only physically. He couldn't really heal the trauma that had been done to her. Damn, mutants really needed a good therapist. One of course that didn't need to go digging around in the minds of their patients. His mind was wandering down that track when Mary returned.

"Following Hulk sounds is probably a good way to find them." He nodded. And started in that direction. If Lance was still Hulked out the might need to interfere. Ed hadn't had a lot of experience trying to calm him down. He wasn't sure what methods the group had for it.

He also mentally tallied the other things they needed to do. Figure out if Klara was an imposter. Fix the ship. He felt like he was missing something.

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So sounds like we are probably screwed? Sounds like so much fun. Pietro responded to Guin mentally, before deciding that it was likely a better idea to just drop the whole thing all together at this point. This was a bad situation, and who knew how things were going to end at this point. All he knew was that the flaming space chicken is usually a bad sign.

"This whole situation is just weird to me, but sure, let's get going then. We've got what we came for, kind of funny that we were so close to it this entire time." Klara said with a bit of a laugh.

"Yeah, turns out it was only a few hundred feet away from here... So let's get moving then and hope the others are alright..." With those words, she headed off in the direction of the noise and roars, figuring that they'd eventually reach the other group or something like that.

"Well, this is going to be a fun instance to figure out what happened after all of this..." Pietro responded, as both he and Klara followed along after Mary.

Over with the others, Nightlocke (before she got thrown away from the fighting by Runa) would be able to have sent Klara flying towards where Lance was, though that was about the extent of it for the most part. She ended up on the ground more then anything, not having gotten hit in the process, and she managed to get up off the ground, dusting herself off a bit. "Well that was annoying..." she muttered as she saw Runa send Nightlocke and Mage flying away.

Lance seemed to more or less glare at the others telling him to seemingly stop, and he let out a loud roar, and seemed to not be shifting back at all. Of course he wasn't currently throwing anything at them, so that was something right? Klara was still incredibly confused as to who everyone was, not to mention the whole alternate reality selves, not to mention Runa mentioning something about what her brother had done? This was weird, really really weird, and she had no idea what to do at this point about it.

"Uh... Runa? Most of what you just said, does not make any sense to me... At all... Alternate realities, that part makes sense, a little bit... Everything else you just said doesn't... Not really anyway..." she commented to her, before she walked to stand next to Runa again.

There was the sound of movement nearby though, and suddenly, a sword seemingly came out of nowhere, and Klara whirled around and caught the blade in her hand, wincing only slightly from the blade slicing into her hand. Of course the sword looked like her own that was still in her other hand. She held the sword in her hand, flipping it around to hold onto the hilt, and she seemed to be comparing it to her own sword.

They'd eventually see the other group walk over, and Mary glanced over at the Klara that was with them, "Care to explain why you did that?"

"What? I didn't know if she was the enemy or not can you blame me?" came her response.

"Riiiiight."

"Cool, now we've got two Klaras hanging around, fun." Pietro responded with a shrug, looking at the group.

"...I need to commend you on one thing... Not so much your aim, but also how the sword looks, since it is pretty close to my own. But not quite, the coloring is all... Wrong. Yours is darker overall in general, same colors, just darker in tone. Plus the blade itself seems to be almost a cheap knock off, still able to cut everything... But clearly not very much like the original now is it?" she said slowly, before tossing the sword up in the air, before whirling around with her own sword and hitting the other blade. The blade seemingly shattered, bits and pieces of the blade flying everywhere, and the hilt with only a small piece of the blade still attached hit the ground, and she slung her own sword over her shoulder. "See? Cheap knock off... So... Who are you exactly? Also still not sure who the rest of you really are..."

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Bethany watched as her counterpart and Mage were sent flying off into the distance like they were Team Rocket, she closed her eyes and let out a slight sigh every part of her body was hurting like hell. She was bruised, and her one arm was still bleeding pretty badly as well to, it looked like Klara was back to normal now which was a good thing then. She winced slightly when she felt Annie latching onto her arm for support. "Ow my arm.." Bethany said looking over at Annie, when she watched a sword flying by Klara nearly hitting her, only to be grabbed by it.

Then she saw the others all coming up, and assumed that they probably had found what they were looking for in the first place which was good then. "So we have two Klara's here now thats interesting." Bethany said looking between the two of them she wasnt sure really which one was theirs or not, but good thing was that Lance Hulk wasnt smashing anything at the moment which was good.

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Runa shook her head at Bethany's assertion that they had two Klaras. She did not believe that. What she did not know was how someone could fool her, the goddess of lies, with such a large one. The odds of them finding their Klara in this reality were slim; the odds that Klara had been replaced with another, genuine Klara in addition to that? Astronomically poor. There was only one person who could skirt so perfectly around her special power, someone else who could lay claim to the dominion of Lies in the Asgardian pantheon. It was either him or one of his many minions.

Guinevere, Runa thought, hoping the telepath would hear her. Restrain that one.

The next thing she knew, the fake!Klara was screaming in pain. It hadn't been exactly what Runa had had in mind. She raised an eyebrow, looking at Guinevere for a moment. She would speak to her about this later. It was a dark path for one able to manipulate the mind to begin to tread. But Runa wasted no time, using the opening to bend darkness into chains, chaining up the false Klara, binding her limbs. "I have to commend you - it is not easy to lie to me. Unless, of course, you wield the power of another god of lies... My uncle's power," Runa said, her words soft but stern.

"Now the question is... Are you Loki? Or just a pathetic soul doing his bidding?" She turned her head towards Klara. Maybe Guinevere had had the right idea after all. "Perhaps you would like to have her head, as restitution?" Runa suggested. She didn't think Klara would actually behead the fake Klara. But she wanted the fake Klara to believe that she would - she wanted Loki or whoever it was to reveal themselves and end this silly mystery.

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Guin was NOT expecting to see a second Klara when they found the other group - and Lance was still in his Hulk form. She was a little unnerved by that, given that she was pretty sure his memories were still scrambled eggs. "Umm, so did we miss something? Are we friends with this other Klara now or..." she started to say, before the situation rapidly escalated. The two Klaras clearly hated each other, and the words getting thrown around were the standard overdramatic speeches of Asgardians - but when one of the Klaras' sword shattered, Guin felt the tension increase a million percent.

And she heard Runa make a request.

It didn't take a genius for Runa to figure out that the Klara they had been with this entire time clearly was not actually Klara - maybe a holdover skrull, from back when that had been an issue? Though Guin was pretty certain they had first met Klara after the skrulls had popped off... At any rate, Guin reached out with her telepathy, intent on just incapacitating Klara by immobilizing her. But it was hard to break through her defenses and took a few tries, and the final result was more violent than she had intended. She winced, seeing the pain she had inflicted on the fake Klara.

Then, Runa dropped a bombshell - a Loki sized bombshell. "Hey, baby Hulk - wanna smash a puny god? If that's Loki, then that's on brand for Hulks and Lokis," Guin suggested, pointing at the fake Klara Runa had put in chains.

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Lance made no move to shift back, but he was no longer attacking them. That’s progress, right? Bethany winced, and Antoinette gasped, quickly letting go of Bethany’s arm.
’Sorry!” The other group rejoined them in the clearing, and the moment became tense once more. Two Klaras' stood before them; everyone knew one of them was at least the imposter. One of the Klaras' was quickly restrained by Guin, and Antoinette relaxed. As the adrenaline started to die down some, the pain of the various injuries in Antoinette’s body began to make themselves known. Antoinette winced and rubbed the sore areas of her body, suddenly tired.

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Ah well, it seemed the issue of Klara would be resolved. There were two of them, and it seemed Runa had somehow gotten the Klara from earlier to remember things. Runa even seemed aware that this was potentially Loki. Ed glanced at Mary. Should he reveal that he knew the one traveling with them wasn't the real Klara? He would rather have that conversation private with Runa. For now, he stayed back and allowed the events to unfold.

He cringed at what Guin was apparently doing. And he did not feel sending Lance after 'Loki' would be the best plan, but this was Runa's family, so it was up to her. His question really was still, why? What was there to gain from replacing Klara? And apparently sending her off to another reality. Or...maybe what did they lose by not having her?

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"...Well that escalated quickly..." Mary commented, not entirely sure what to think, though she did know of Ed's belief that the Klara traveling with them was a fake, and things just more or less were proven such. That begged the question of... What were they supposed to do with them now? No matter who it might possibly be, they couldn't exactly just leave her there at the moment could they? That probably wouldn't be the best idea given the circumstances. Lance didn't really do much of anything, but he did let out a rather loud roar again, not swinging at the fake Klara or anything. Though if someone were to throw her or something he probably would do something then.

"Now why would I actually tell you who I am, and not to mention the whole thing was an accident okay? I didn't actually mean for all this nonsense to happen. It just kind of did. Things like that, who knows, couldn't have been too bad overall, she's still living right?"

"Yeah, well I'm still confused as to what you are going on about... And Runa, guessing these others who showed up are on our side? It seems like it since they also don't seem to like the fake person or whatever..." she still had her sword raised, but now she was also glancing around over at everyone else. "Also... Beheading is waaaaaay back a bit. Seriously, cutting people in half is more fun then beheading, figured you'd know that one already."

"I mean beheading would be quick and simple, and depending on how you cut someone in half they could potentially survive for a few minutes I think. As mentioned pretty sure it depends on how you'd do it," Pietro couldn't help but somewhat chime in on the idea about it, figuring that odds were Klara wasn't going to actually do it. [i][color=7ea7d8]Am I the only one who thinks this is weird?[/i]

"As stated, you really should keep up, tell us who you are before I see about cutting off a limb or two."

"Nope, all I'll tell you is that I'm shocked you managed to end up here. Honestly, I mean I know falling of the bridge can send you some strange places, didn't think it could send you through to other realities though. So that was something I learned today."

"Well we have to do something. We can't exactly leave her here. This world already is messed up, we kind of don't want to add another reason as to why it is messed up even further. So no matter what we probably should take her back with us, since she seems to be from our reality no matter who it is..."

"I mean probably true."

"We also still don't have a full way on getting home right? I mean Strange said something about the crystal maybe helping us, but not sure if anyone actually has an idea on how to do that."

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There was a lot of back-and-forth conversation happening. Antoinette watched it all unfold around her. Her injuries were the only thing preventing her from participating fully. The imposter could pose several problems. Leaving her was not a good idea.
”I suppose we should restrain her and contact Dr. Strange. He may know something of how to use the crystal now that we have it.” She thought about how they could get into the imposter’s mind, but that might be more in Guin's wheelhouse. Antoinette still felt fuzzy after hitting her head so many times.

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Bethany stood there as she watched Runa restraining the Fake Klara as they went back and forth it looked like that Lance Hulk wasnt going to attack the Fake Klara at the moment. They just needed to get home and they can sort out who this person who was impersonating Klara was on their way home. "We got the crystal thing or whatever now right?" Bethany asked looking at them, they just needed to get back home now, Annie did make a good suggestion finding Strange again and they can go back home.

"Like Annie said maybe Strange can help, or something. And whenever we do get back home we just send her to Asgard again, i'm sure they can figure out what to do with our imposter there then." Bethany suggested, they could probably get some answers in the meantime, while they make their way home.

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Lance didn't seem to even hear her suggestion of beating up Loki - if that was Loki, anyways. But as much as Guin was concerned about Lance, she was also concerned about their next move. She couldn't help but be fearful of and for Mary right now. Hosting the Phoenix was an awesome cosmic responsibility... and one that Guin didn't think her friend was prepared for - that any of them would have really been prepared for at the end of the day. No one seemed to make any decisions about maybe-or-maybe-not Loki, instead refocusing the conversation on how they were going to get home, with not Klara in tow.

Yeah, this is... all very strange, no pun intended, Guin agreed with Pietro. "Runa, do you wanna give the doc a ring then, tell him we're ready for him?" Guin suggested, agreeing with Annie and Bethany that they ought to just get Doctor Strange here, and he could use the shard of the M'Kraan crystal to send them all home. Maybe he'd have some advice on how to get the Phoenix safely out of someone as well, just to prevent any Dark Phoenix II situations from happening. Guin really did not want to see the remake.

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"Yes, Klara, these are our allies," Runa reassured her cousin. Perhaps when they returned home, one of the Asgardian healers could restore the rest of Klara's memories. But if not, it was such a short period of time anyways to an Asgardian. Had one of the Midgardians been missing decades if not centuries of memories, Runa would be a little more concern, as that was more or less the extent of their lifespan.

"I s'pose we can take them back to Asgard and kill them there," Runa relented. They did need to leave, before more damage could be done to people's minds. She was still somewhat in denial over what had happened to Lance. Maybe he'd never want to see her again. Maybe he would never remember his life, just remembering this dark shadow of Earth-667... She bit her lip, steadying herself emotionally.

The subject had changed anyways to how they were going to get home, most of them pushing for Doctor Strange. But Runa hesitated, not calling for Strange. She could feel the presence of the Phoenix was here - perhaps just from the M'Kraan crystal in Mary's hand, but maybe something more. "Grandmother... If you are there... Will you send us home?" Runa asked softly, looking at Mary and the crystal. She wasn't sure where the Phoenix was, but she was here, somewhere, and that was all they should need to use the M'Kraan crystal, something so intimately connected to the Phoenix itself.

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As they stood there debating what to do with the false Klara, Ed realized many of the group were injured. He reached into his pocket and touched the jars that were there for each of the injured people in turn. He skipped over Klara's as that hair was for the false Klara.

Orange light reached out and gently brushed each of them. Not all their wounds could heal. He did not have it in him for that. But the worst melted away.

He was ready to leave too. Interesting that Runa reached out for her grandmother and not Strange. He could sort of understand that though. He didn't know how well he trusted the Strange of this universe, not to mention the one of their home universe. There was a reason why he hadn't joined Strange's group even though he could do magic.

There were so many things that they had to figure out and deal with, and everyone was going on about the various different ways that they could potentially get home. Mary however was just thinking about the simplest solution for getting them out of there. Strange was an easy answer, plus they had the crystal shard now, so they could in theory just ask him. Or... Well there was the other option that went through her mind, and that was use the crystal herself to try and get them all home. But the problem with that was that she didn't know how to do that.

"It is a simple matter, I can aid you in that," the voice in the back of her head spoke up, and it startled her for a moment, as she thought about it.

"What about the ship and all of that? We probably should get that back at some point and take that back with us..."

"I can aid with that, the crystal is my home afterall, and we can bring your ship back to your home reality as well as everyone here."

"Aren't you from this universe?"

"I am a multiversal being, able to exist in all across the multiverse, I am from every universe."

Hearing that, she took a bit of a deep breath, before turning her attention back towards everyone else, wondering how best to potentially just do everything and start things off. "...Why didn't you just say so Runa? I honestly think we should all just go home," she ended up saying as fire surrounded her arm, waving it over the crystal which started to glow rather brightly. "Back to the mansion and all where we belong, in our own reality."

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She had called ahead to let them know that she was stopping by and wanting to talk to Maria. After all, she had promised her that she'd tell her if she figured out what those two images meant. They both were still a bit concerning to her with regards to what might happen. Mary knew enough about how Novikova's powers worked that those sort of images could potentially predict the future. So here she was, keeping that promise as she walked into the West Coast Avengers Headquarters, and she looked around, seeing if she could potentially find Maria that way.

Maria had gotten the call earlier that day that Mary was going to be coming over for a visit to discuss somethings, she remembered the last time that she had met her was way back when Wanda rewrote reality. When she saw Mary approaching the front door to the West Coast Avenger's compound she went to open the door and waved at her. "Hey Mary how have you been?" She asked as she held the door open for Mary to come inside.

Novikova stood by her wife's side, dressed in civilian clothes. Her grey cashmere sweater complimented her hair, which Novikova had returned to its natural silver, no longer dying it. Of course, more striking were the ruby red shades she wore, which blocked off her dimensional sight - a unique power that let her see every possible version of a person at once, across all realities. "Have you come to tell us about doomsday?" she asked.

"Well, hopefully it's more to potentially prevent any known doomsday from happening really," she responded with a bit of a laugh, stepping inside. "So... Guessing you remember those images you saw back in the reality Wanda had created, cause I certainly do... And as I mentioned when I called... That's kind of what this is about, I think I figured out a few things about what it means, kind of..."

Maria nodded towards Mary, she certainly did remember that vision that she had received back in Wanda's reality. "Yeah I do remember that actually." Maria said as she started to head down towards the kitchen. "So i'm assuming that whatever it was that we saw has started to happen then?" Maria asked.

Novikova had never been particularly fond of doomsdays before - and she wasn't anymore fond of them now that they had a little one depending on them. If things got bad, she was determined to take little Diana, Maria, and Kris with her and run. They'd find another reality with a little less brimstone. Screw the rest of the world. "I'd advise you get right to the point," Novikova urged Mary, as they arrived at the kitchen and Novikova took a seat at the breakfast nook. The kitchen looked like it was straight out of a sitcom - the Scarlet Witch liked it that way.

"I mean... Happening is likely not the best way to describe things. Considering you saw two versions of what might happen, but all of it seems to likely be linked to one thing... Which well... Did kind of kick off not that long ago. Actually might be easier to show you and then partially explain it..." she ended up saying, her eyes flashed with fire as a ball appeared in her hand, before it started flying around the room in the shape of a small bird, before it eventually disappeared. "I know that one of the two potential outcomes should this sort of thing happen resulted in at least the destruction of New York City, potentially more then that... While the other was very much not that sort of thing..."

Maria watched as Mary's eyes flashed with fire and a small ball of fire shifted into a bird as it flew around the room for a little bit before disappearing slightly interested. "Didn't know that you could control fire like that really." Maria said as she leaned back slightly thinking for a moment. "Has anything else happened since this happened?" She asked her.

Novikova frowned at Mary's demonstration. As someone who had almost destroyed the world herself, she didn't take things like this lightly. Everyone in the superhero community knew what had happened to Jean Grey. "Have you talked to Jean?" Novikova asked. Before Mary could answer, she continued with, "you need to get rid of it. As soon as possible." They knew frighteningly little about the Phoenix - and it was a force that no mortal could withstand for long, in Novikova's opinion.

"Jean is on my list of people to call trust me on that one..." she said towards Novikova, before addressing the other part of the conversation. "And it isn't that easy to get rid of it from what I've figured out..."

Maria leaned back slightly looking over at her wife as she suggested talking to Jean about it, she didn't know all that much about the Phoenix all that well, and from what Mary said it was pretty hard to get rid of. "How was she able to get rid of it the first time?" Maria decided to ask, she was pretty sure that her powers wouldn't work on it and she wasnt sure how that would go either.

"Even if it isn't easy, you have to do it. This isn't some temporary power-up that gets you on the cover of a magazine - this is life or death," Novikova rebuked. "The fact that you haven't even talked to Jean Grey yet, it's... it's irresponsible. Solve the problem. Or the Avengers will come for you."

"We only just got back from our little space adventure that resulted in this whole thing occurring... The only reason I came here first was because I promised Maria if I figured out what those visions meant I would let her know. When I said that talking to Jean is on my to do list, I'm not joking about it, I have a long list of things that I need to figure out, so you probably don't need to deal with anything..." she said instantly, before turning to look at Maria when she asked how Jean had gotten rid of it before. "That's just it, she didn't really... She died and the entity eventually is what brought her back..."

After she left Maria and Novikova to start heading back to the East Coast, she pulled out her phone, debating on whether or not to call Jean or just send her a message. Visiting her in person might not be the best initially, considering the entity is kind of tied to her in a strong way, and having it and her in the same place at the same time so quickly might end poorly. She started to type out a message, before stopping, taking a deep breath, and deleting what she had written out, before putting it away as she headed off. Yup, her life was getting more complicated then it had been before.

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Things have gone more or less back to normal now that everyone was back at the mansion (well as normal as things potentially really could be at the mansion). Things were a bit strange for the most part, considering there was essentially a bit of a flaming space chicken in the room, but that didn't seem to be too much of an issue or anything at the moment. A lot of things had happened since they were gone, namely there was both the rise and fall of an entire nation that had been created by mutants as some sort of homeland for them. Though now it isn't really mentioned much it seems like.

It was a slightly chilly April day, and some people decided to take a bit of a trip out to the nearest mall to wander around and have a bit of a nice day off. Though others decided to stay behind at the mansion instead.

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Mira wasn't entirely sure how things were going to be overall, since the other group had come back from their space adventure in a fiery sort of wormhole or something like that a few months back. That was some sort of strange thing to have seen at the time, and no one seemed to really want to offer up much of an explanation as to what had happened. Or how they had gotten back there, but she did hear stories of the group having been arrested and thrown into space prison at some point, and there was another mention to them having wound up stranded in another reality. It was a bit confusing to say the least, but she wasn't entirely sure how things ended.

She figured it might be best to not over all dwell on it too long.

At the moment, she had decided to go wander around the mall a bit, since it was getting a bit overly chaotic back at the mansion with there being so many people returning, it had been a bit calmer there for a while. That was nice. Then again she had only really been hanging around the mansion sporadically as she ended up helping Neil along with Carolina deal with the zombie issues that he had to deal with. Yeah, she was realizing that sometimes it was easier to deal with the dead or something then the living. Then again, when she thought about it compared to everyone else on the team she probably had the highest actual body count or something like that, something which she does kind of want to talk to Guin at some point about when possible.

Currently, she was just sitting in the food court, flipping through her phone, thinking about what to do now. Unsure of where everyone else who had decided to go from the mansion were.

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Currently he was just sort of wandering around the area a bit now that they were back on Earth. Actually took a little while to get used to not being on a spaceship all the time really. Considering the fact that for the most part until the end of their sort of space adventures they had been in the ship. Of course once they returned to Earth, Runa had headed back to Asgard to deal with the situation involving her cousin. That was not going to be a simple thing, since the real Klara had some healing that needed to be done, and the other one they had to get revealed who it really was. Though he was still betting on it actually being Loki or something.

It was pretty confusing to say the least, but he also figured that Runa and the rest of the Asgardians would be able to get that entire situation figured out though. Right now he was more or less wandering around a bit, unsure of what else to potentially do right now. He was a bit glad to just be out and about to be able to clear his head or something, even if it was in a bit of a crowded place in a way. It was nice to kind of be back with other people for the most part, considering the closest they had to deal with was either a prison full of intergalactic criminals, or an alternate reality version of Earth where everyone kind of wanted them dead or something it a way. At the moment at least, this was better.

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Things were getting better, kind of anyway. For once she didn't seem to be having trouble with any of the voices in her head. Whether it be the cosmic entity that decided to latch on and follow her around, or the other voice that was just part of her brain being broken. This was not going to end well, but right now she very much couldn't exactly see much of a solution as to how to fix this issue. On one hand, the entity seemed to be keeping Chrysi silent and away, but deep down Mary knew that she wasn't gone forever, which meant that she was likely still a very real threat.

Despite what she had more or less said to Novikova and Maria a few months back after they had returned to Earth, she hadn't ended up talking to Jean in person or anything about it. Eventually she had messaged her about it, but that wasn't until much more recently. The responses she ended up getting was more or less talking about potential ways to get rid of the entity, but that there was the problem. Unless the entity wanted to leave, it was staying put, you couldn't exactly force a giant flaming bird to leave if it didn't want to, and right now for some reason it had decided to hang around on Earth, with someone who was a bit crazy.

Yeah that was probably not a good thing at all.

She was just out in the front garden outside of the mansion, where you would have usually found her before the whole space adventure. To her it was still rather calming to be there, though now it was also just overly quiet, something that she was really grateful for. Since despite there being more then a few voices in her head, she really wanted to not have a million people talking to her at various points.

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"So this is a mall?"

Detective Edward White had never stepped foot in a mall before today. This was for two reasons. One: He hated shopping with a passion. Unless it was for necessities, he would rather go to the dentist for dental surgery. And two: He was dead. Well, dead was subjective. Like, physically, yes, Detective Ed was done-zo. Killed way back when before the internet and cell phones were a thing.

This was where Peregrine stepped in.

"Yep! Basically, a whole bunch of different stores and restaurants are put into one giant building so people can come and get everything they need in one fell swoop!" Peregrine was walking along the pathways having come with some of the others from the mansion. Peregrine shivered a bit, recalling meeting everyone there. There was a tenseness she could sense, even without her acute empathic abilities. Whatever it was, she decided against bugging people about it until they were ready.

But she hoped this trip to the nearby mall would serve as a way of popping some of those social bubbles! The sheer amount of people who were shy and withdrawn at that mansion, you would think it was a mental hospital for the socially anxious! Granted, she was one to talk. Looking at her now, with her colorful outfit and silver hair, one would never have thought that there was a period in her life when she was the quiet one. She served to never fall back into that again.

Which was why she was at the mall. Speaking to a dead guy. In clear view of others. Awkward.

"Not your scene, I know, but I remember you asking to learn more about the modern world whenever possible. There serves no better tutorial than the mall. It is a meeting place for people of all ages. You got the teens skipping school, the moms with too much money, the stoners, and the criminals. Each working together in this little microcosm."

She could sense that Detective Ed was not too thrilled. "And you like this?" Peregrine shrugged. "Like is a strong word. I enjoy it when I go shopping, but the mall can feel too crowded. Plus, even you would be surprised at the number of spirits and ghosts that walk along the mall too." Peregrine surmised that part of it was for innocent reasons, but she also was aware that the mall was a prime location for active shooters. And she wouldn't be surprised if the mall was built on top of graves.

Peregrine kept her eye out for any of the others that came with her. She hoped to get to know them all but recognized it would take time. She was the new girl, after all. "Well, while we walk and see about getting to know the other peeps from the mansion, let me introduce you to one of the mall's prime delicacies: corn dogs."

"What is a corn dog?" Detective Ed asked, with a visible worried look.