14786/Coney Island has that DAWG in it

Coney Island has that DAWG in it
Date of Scene:	12 March 2023
Location:	Coney Island
Synopsis:	Mindless Ones attack Coney Island. Illyana Rasputina and Wanda Maximoff take exception to this. Well, they at least stop it. Even if they do not understand the allure of hot dogs.
Cast of Characters:	Scarlet Witch, Magik

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Scarlet Witch has posed:
It's another Sunday on Coney Island, never quite so busy as the day before, and certainly nowhere near as busy in mid-March as the boardwalk is in the summer months. Which makes it all the more likely the screams filling the air aren't for the roller coaster, or daring feats of fire eating or some other entertaining and thrilling display.

Also, the screams are very much terrified and panicked. And are preceding a rush of humanity towards the nearest exits. Really, there's an awful lot of evidence something is terribly wrong.

But then, Wanda's nowhere near the screaming crowds or lumbering, dark figures that incite this panic. She's just starting her day, when she senses the disruption in the magical landscape around NYC. A gaping wound in reality. A portal to another dimension. A _Dark Dimension_ (cue wicked guitar riff)!

And so, in moments, she's leaving her room at the Avengers mansion via the expedient path. Her balcony door.

And if the Mindless Ones trampling Coney Island underfoot are disappointed that Wanda Maximoff is going to engage in mystical battle in a comfortable grey t-shirt and plaid pajama pants? Well, that's their problem.

Magik has posed:
There is a better chance that Illyana would willingly reinvision the Barney Television Show as a 30 minute Horror Sitcom than willingly go to Coney Island for any reason that wasn't directly life threatening. She is sitting on a couch in the rec room of the Xavier's Mansion watching Barney on PBS and very much considering how much more entertaining the program would be if these children were being chased by actual dinosaurs.

When the situation is dire, the emotional growth is more profound and ever lasting.

In this state any little tickle of magical energy would be enough to draw her out of this blank stare. To pull her away from the nightmare of early 90s broadcast television. How did this show last so long?

When she feels a boundry between dimensions tear in the fabric of space, there is a quiet sigh and she rises from the couch with all the enthusiasm of a tired old trucker. The terrifying potted plant sitting on the table beside her is scooped up under one arm while the other flicks a wrist outward to summon a disc portal that deposits her right in the midst of fleeing humanity.

For a moment, just a sliver of time, she hopes it is a seventeen foot tall purple dinosaur.

She's barefoot. Hair pinned back out of her face with a long black t-shirt with Lydia Deetz (Beetleguise) on the front. A pair of black and red plad skinny jeans and a general ambiance of disdain for Coney Island, people who go to Coney Island, and the sun. Which she shields out of her eyes with an upturned hand.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda's mood grows more dour as she accelerates across the city with a purpose. Her face gradually shifting from, admittedly, somewhat drowsy and concerned, to something more alert, but also far more terrifyingly /enraged/.

There are at least a dozen of the dark, cyclopean forms of Mindless Ones trudging out of a gaping wound in reality. The only saving grace for the civilians running in panic is that they are terribly slow. Physically and mentally.

Mindless Ones. It does not inspire confidence in their problem solving abilities. But one does not need to be a genius to smash through benches and beach umbrellas while trying to grab innocent New Yorkers to drag them back to the Dark Dimension to make more Mindless Ones.

It is an allegory for conformity perhaps. But more realistically, it's just large, mystical monsters causing trouble. And they are surely not bargaining on the interference of another, even more mystical monster.

As one towering figure reaches out to grab hold of a shrieking barista who has fallen on the boardwalk and gotten her foot stuck between the boards, there is a flash of scarlet energy from on high, twisting bolts of light swirling and chaotically dancing from above to slam into the Mindless One with powerful impacts, entire chunks of the figure erased in a moment, and that disintegration flows outward, its grasping hand vanishing last, just millimeters from the intended victim. Wanda touches down and gently guides the young woman up, voice low, serious, and not terribly comforting. "It is time for you to leave, yes? I am afraid there will be no coffee for us this morning."

The sigh of regret from the Transian witch is heartbreaking.

She should not have to fight off dimensional incursions without coffee. It is barbarism.

Magik has posed:
"Ah, Mindless Ones." Illyana says to herself in a voice that is terribly less impressed knowing what the cause of all this fuss is. Of course they represent an, understandably, dangerous obstacle to the average visitor to Coney Island, but to the Dark Childe?

One of the lumbering monstrocities is smashing through a hotdog vendor attempting to grab hold of the young, bearded, gentleman who had been working at the stall. Which just so happens to be within a few dozen feet of Magik. The man runs past the petite woman. With a cold glance over her shoulder, Illyana crouches to set Petrovich's pot down on the wooden walkway. Her hand closes in a slow grip ner the palm of her other hand, all while the Mindless One is making its way closer towards her, finding her to be an easier target than the fleeing salesman.

As if unsheathing the blade from her palm, Illyana whips her clinched fist back and the Soul Sword errupts into life with a flash. Immediately she's sprung into action, slashing the blade up to deflect the monsters attempt to grab her. It whistles in the oposite direction and bats back another attempt to capture her.

Her third strike hits it in the leg, a portal disk appearing beneath her feet, so that the fifth comes from above. The blade driving straight down through the Mindless One. It stumbles and crashes into a bench, with the blonde headed Queen of Limbo staring around slowly. "I hate Coney Island. Smell like Hot dog water."

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda is busy handling more of the Mindless Ones, bolts of hex energy striking and demolishing the hulking figures, but not faster than they can pour from the rift in reality down on the beach.

She pauses in the onslaught of barely focused chaos energy to draw a steadying breath, eyes darting around, calculating, considering.

And then those dexterous fingers are weaving and manipulating reality, energies, the very basics of existence...

Until the Earth shakes with a low rumbling, quaking more intensely by the moment... but only within the confines of Coney Island, until suddenly, lamp posts and boardwalk railings are falling, twisting, and forming a barrier to keep the invading army on the beach.

And as she finishes her spell, her eyes widen, sensing that flare of magic.

The Scarlet Witch steps forward, shimmering, flickering like a buffering video feed made real, and suddenly one step takes her from the boardwalk to stepping up behind Illyana. "Well well. Ms. Rasputina. Always lovely to see you." She snorts softly and murmurs dryly, "I think perhaps we go for drinks later, yes? We are very much going to earn some relaxation."

Wanda's wrist flicks, a tendril of scarlet energy lashing through the air to wrap around a slightly distant Mindless One's neck, before the tendril vibrates with sudden energy and slices through that neck to decapitate the monster.

"This is not as pleasant as brunch would be."

Magik has posed:
Illyana senses those chaotic energies swirling and twisting the very fabric of reality further up the boardwalk and peers with cold blue eyes at the source of this new, even more dangerous, horror. Another enemy to vanquish? A eldritch being come to Earth for some dark design? The Soul Sword flings the black substance that acts as vitae for the Mindless Ones and begins her stalking steps towards... her plant.

Kneeling down, she picks the pot up in one hand and passes him through a portal disk. No sense him seeing what she's about to have to do.

Then that presence is behind her.

She turns, unafraid of whatever has stepped forward to face her. Specifically because this presence is a familiar one, "Dasvidaniya Wanda Maximoff." The invitation for drinks is greeted with an agreeing nod, "Da." As the sword comes to point towards the portal, "I am going there. When we are completing saving of these people, we go have drink. Catch up. Not on Coney Island. It smells bad."

Her hand comes up with the fingers curling to summon a portal, through which she leaps. Appearing down on the beach near the source of the onslaught, behind the barrier of debris construct by the Reality Warping Scarlet Witch. She straight kicks one of the Mindless Ones and sends him flying back through the portal, then sweeps her Sword upwards in one hand to severe the hand that was attempting to grab her.

Between each slash, she points at one of the edges of the dimensional tear and weaves her fingers. Sewing back the fabric of reality, but it is slow going due to the nature of constructing the spell in the middle of combat.

Wanda is right. Brunch would be better.

Scarlet Witch has posed:
As Illyana teleports to the rift to close it, Wanda's eyes darken... at first literally, inky black, like her pupils have eclipsed her irises, but as she rises off her feet once more, her eyes flicker with a glow, a spark in the depths of inky blackness that grows as she rises up higher and higher. Soon enough she's rising above the low roofs of the various vendors along the boardwalk, and still rising, faster, and... something is wrong. Terribly and fundamentally wrong.

From moment to moment Wanda's appearance changes, flickering scarlet outlines of dramatically billowing cape and an angular tiara, gloves of similar energy encasing her arms. Her lips are moving in complex, unending incantations, though fortunately her ascent means no one has to worry about hearing eldritch syllables and being mentally impacted for life.

And the Mindless Ones have much more... direct and concerning impacts to deal with as Wanda's arms sweep wide, and for a moment those flickering, ghostly accessories crystalize into reality. A singular bolt of energy leaps out to strike a Mindless One in the chest. And for a moment, nothing happens.

And then the air is filled with the sound of a sharp crack like ocean ice breaking. And the Mindless One detonates in a flare of scarlet energy, two bolts of energy flying out to strike two more of the many monsters.

The delay before that crack is shorter. And those two explode into two bolts of energy each.

And in moments, there's an ungodly sound like someone is smashing every wine glass in Manhattan as fast as they can.

Wanda's baleful, gleaming eyes focus on Illyana for a moment, her lips quirk in a smirk. Approving. Satisfied.

Limbo's ruler is already dealing with the source of these dimensional interlopers. Good help is so hard to find.

And Ms. Rasputina is so very refreshingly straightforward. Wanda can appreciate that.

And then, in another moment, those scarlet highlights are gone, and Wanda is sinking back down, descending slower than she rose, face a touch pale, eyes glittering, almost unsettled.

Magik has posed:
The disturbing shift in reality could be felt for miles around New York by anyone with even a tickling connection to the mystical.. Illyana is no dabbler. She's the Queen of Limbo, the Sorceress Supreme of that Dark Dimension. The change in Wanda is felt like the fiddling wings of a captured bee in a Weavers Web. Cold eyes turn from the charge of her own incantation, broken up with the destructive force of cutting down mindless ones, to stare up at the woman she is familiar with... becoming something altogether different.

There's a look exchanged between the Dark Childe and the being hovering above Coney Island.

But their work is not yet done.

As Old Ones begin to pop like kernals of corn on an open flame, spewing lancing energy that clears the field for her to complete her work, Illyana stabs the Soul Sword down into the beach. A wave dark energy errects around her to form a barrier of interlocking lines of runic protection. With hands free, she reaches up as if to physically grab the edges of cleaved reality and begins the intricate process of rectifying the breach. Her hands twist, pull, and flare as the lines of magic take on physical form until, with a hiss...

The gateway closes.

Illyana claps her hands together and extends them to either side with her palms out. The lattice of her runic protection explodes into thousands of small glowing shards. These beads of energy tear through any Mindless One that was fortunate enough to survive the Scarlet Witch and unfortunate enough not to escape when they had the chance.

When the sand settles around th small Russian woman.. the glimmering and flicking black armor of the Dark Childe disappears. Leaving the unassuming figure of a blonde haired woman in a tanktop and black pants.

Her hand extends and the sword is pulled into her grip, but disappears as she steps through another portal, only to appear infront of Wanda. Staring at her in the cold, impassive, but somehow concerned, way only Illyana Rasputina can manage.

"You need vodka."

Scarlet Witch has posed:
Wanda's drawn face is... concerned, clearly. Unsettled. Surely at the dimensional breach. At the nearness to calamity and tragedy that the Mindless Ones nearly unleashed. Surely. Because she just saved many civilians with her powers.

That is a _good_ thing. She reminds herself. Yes, she could have rewritten reality to become a cruel, eldritch empress of a conquered world.

But she didn't. She barely even thought of it.

She's breathing heavily, a thin line of sweat running down cheek and jaw, breath rasping, slowing, deepening bit by bit as she untenses.

Green eyes lock on blonde Russian as she approaches. Her lips quirk. Her head bobs.

"Yes. This is so." One eyebrow quirks, "It is... morning, yes? Bars are quite insistant they cannot sell alcohol this early. Fortunately, Tony Stark does not notice when some of his cabinets at the mansion are lightened. And we do have a lovely view of the park." One eyebrow perks and she offers her hand primly to the undisputed Queen of Limbo.

She definitely needs that vodka.

Magik has posed:
Whether Illyana is concerned is difficult to determined. Those who know her best would see little details that suggest it, but to anyone the casual observer she may as well be staring into the mouth of a dark void daring the darkness to stare back.

She nods to those words, "He is having to much anyways. He barely even notice if we take a bottle of six." The undertones of humor or subtle, at best... She's not known for it, anyways.

So it is that she reaches out to take the offered hand and raises the other to summon a portal that will send them to the mansion where they may get Wanda what she both needs and deserves.

Potato Liqour.