591/Terrorists Strike Metropolis

Terrorists Strike Metropolis
Date of Scene:	24 May 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Raven, Power Girl, Gravitas, 300, Sinister, Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow (Romanoff), 194

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Raven has posed:
    It's 4:30 on a Wednesday afternoon in one of the biggest cities in the world; rush hour beginning in earnest, as people sneak out of work early. Eight lanes of highway, four running east and four running west, begin to fill with glinting chrome flashes as people tired from work and eager to go home jockey with one another for position, playing their silly little racing games for no real benefit other than the satisfaction of getting ahead of someone in your lane and excising your aggression. It's an unpleasant time of day, but just part of life in the big city.
    Then the explosions.
    They're huge. Twin geysers of fire erupt from both sides of the highways, at least thirty feet in diameter and twice that tall, sending dirt and asphalt chunks raining down like deadly hail. Cars disappear in the brief plumes of fire and skid out of control; cars that see the plumes in time try to break and skid out of control. At interstate speeds, the crashes are instantly life-threatening as bigger trucks crush smaller sedans in front of them and drive up them like ramps. The sounds of tires screeching on the pavement, of metal crumpling against metal, of glass tinkling as it shatters, are all lost in the deafening exhalations of the explosions causing them. You don't need to be Superman to hear those detonations, even if they're a mile outside the city proper.
    The injured begin to pull themselves out of their cars, shaky, screaming masses of humanity trying to process the thick columns of black smoke rising up from the ground before them, trying to drag passengers out of the vehicles, trying to call for help for the injured, or trying to run out of the way of falling debris and uncoming traffic. It's madness. It's pandemonium. There's already a tragic death toll, and more people are going to die in this panic.

Power Girl has posed:
    A sonic boom is heard in the sky before a woman arcs towards the devastation. She can't help with the instantly fatal crashes, but she CAN try to slow down some of the late comers. As fast as she's able, she flies towards a tanker and slows the tanker down. Lets face it, if that fuel tanker hit.....there would have been a lot more deaths.

Once the tanker is slowed down, she looks about for anyone trapped in their vehicles.....such as another car with an entire family hanging off a bridge. naturally, she flies over to lift the car back onto the bridge.....

Gravitas has posed:
    "Nonononono... Whoa!" Victoria is calling out in a panicked voice, her eyes wiide as she descends toward one of the crumbling interstate highways, amid the shriek of tearing metal and human screams. Debris flies everywhere, bits of it pinging off the iar around the girl as it strikes the intensely oscillating gravitational field that is surrounding her. Victoria jumps into the middle of one of the larger oncoming accidents. She deflects a small spiraling car first and it shrieks off, overshooting, down the highway toward a crowd of people. It manages to scream to a stop inches before crashing through at least two more potential victims.
    Victoria is gritting her teeth, her face red, entire body trembling as she tries to maintain this level of control. There's a flipped semi truck that is half-curled around her position on the road. A sedan that somehow manages not to flip onto its cab and crush the children and mother inside. The fiberglass is buckling under the sheer weight, the raw force of the oddly crisscrossing gravitational fields. They mimic the coriolis effect- vehicles and pieces of burning scrap circling her in a spiral. Leftward, counter to the pull of the earth.
    When Tori looks up she's blinking. She'd been half-certain that the tanker- as heavy as every vehicle she stopped combined- was going to crash right into her and smash everything she'd done. Instead there's.... Power girl. Stopping it almost effortlessly. The golden-brown haired girl in the blue hoodie and purple mask takes a knee. Time to let go... Not that fast! She stops the sedan from ricocheting into the tanker in response and slowly shakes her head. Sweating, hard.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Sassa just had to pick today to take one of her /breaks/ and attempt to enjoy /normal/ life as a regular person. Just had to pick today to be on the interstate on a motorcyle when someone decided it was a good idea, for whatever reason, to blow up said interstate. Despite having amazing reflexes, the speed of the explosions, and their existance in general catches her wholly and entirely off guard. She's one of the people who are face to face with one of the explosions and only just manages to lay the bike out and send it skidding in to the rubble as she herself skyrockets in to the air to get an over view of the carnage. Hearing the tale tale /boom/ of another super heading in to help, at least gives her a moment of calm knowing that others are here. After that, her helmet comes off and the biker leather clad floating superheroine decides to do what the other super is doing, and sets about finding the nearest thing she can do to help.

    Her eyes dart towards a young woman trapped in a burning sedan of some make and model, and well, that's as good a start as any. She sets down rapidly and tears the roof off the vehicle, flinging it aside and going about doing her best to make sure this young woman is actually someone that can be moved. Looking up only just to see yet another super powered person show up to help. Oh well, job to be done. "Miss, you're going to be ok, I promise. I'll get you out of here.."

Sinister has posed:
One block down from the center of the chaos, a dark-haired man in brown dress slacks, cream turtleneck and tan tweed jacket has stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. He folds his newspaper under his right arm and calmly observes the ensuing chaos, even as people rush past him, tripping over themselves to get away, screaming and panicking. Parents grab up their small children. A portly mechanic scoops up an elderly man who can barely walk. There are, in the tableau expanding before him, acts of silent heroism that will never been accounted for, but never forgotten by those to whom it meant the most. His expression is inscrutable.

"Hey buddy, you bettah get outta here, snap out of it!" A well-meaning DOT employee who'd been working on repairing a broken storm grate minutes ago reaches out to touch the man standing there, assuming him to be frozen in fear. As his gloved hand reaches out to grab at the dark haired man's shoulder, it suddenly stops. Something flashes in the DOT worker's eyes, and he turns around mutely, lowering his arm like a zombie, before he, too runs away.

Raven has posed:
    X-ray vision confirms at least twenty fatalities, human bodies destroyed by the force of the explosions and the shrapnel that tore through them. These bombs really were cruelly placed. There's nowhere to go on the bridge but down: the craters in the surface are so obscured by constant, thick smoke no one can gauge whether they're too wide to jump across, the path behind is clogged instantly by traffic that will assure rescue vehicles can't get here for hours, and there's just not enough room on the sides of the bridges. A few intrepid and/or panicked souls are trying to climb the girders, without much success; they're built not to be climbed, to discourage stupid kids, and the ladders up the pylons aren't readily available from near the detonation sites. A hundred feet below, Hob's River rushes on, the water unconcerned with anything that might be going on above. No one is trying to jump yet, but anyone who did would find the impact from this height would be liquifying.
    There is a moment's reprieve, at least. Traffic stopped in less than a minute after the initial explosion. There's time for triage or to transport people if nothing else goes wrong.

Power Girl has posed:
    Most of Power GIrl's attention is towards the ones in imminent danger, like Cars leaning precariously over the lip of the chasm, or like one car....actively falling. A station wagon fell over the lip of the broken bridge and actually flipped over towards the river.And just like that, Power girl is in pursuit of the falling car.

The father sees doom before them at the watter coming up towards them....and he even holds his hands out, as if that would help from them getting killed by the liquid of the water....and the solid crusher that is the car.......at least until the family feels themselves lean forward....and the father dares to open his eyes to find the car is....moving away from the water.

The family cheers for Power Girl as she flies back up towards the hole in the bridge...and sets the station wagon on the back of a teetering jaguar, and the owner is less than thrilled. "HEY! DON'T SCRATCH THE CAR! I'LL SUE!" Power Girl rolls her eyes and helps the family out of the station wagon. and gestures for them to run away from the pit....as the 'gentleman' pokes her roughly on the shoulder. "DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT CAR IS WORTH!?" And Power Girl looks at him. "More than your life?" She says, before she flies over to keep people from climbing the steel girders and falling.....

Sinister has posed:
Dr. Nathan Milbury continues to stand where he is, newspaper under his arm. By now most of the civilians trying to get away have hurried past him, and the area is clearing out. It won't be long before paramedics or search and rescue will try to find their way close to pick up the wounded and the dead. Remaining evacuees are streaming past him as if they aren't aware he exists, as he continues to observe.

Gravitas has posed:
    Tori kneels in the midst of raw destruction. How people weren't simply crushed in the chaotic process of stopping all of those vehicles at once is impossible to say given the way the air itself hums and vibrates with the confused, twisted forces acting upon it. Some of the victims now crawling free feel nearly weightless... Others like they are being crushed. It's unavoidable, for the moment. Slowly, bit by bit, the girl with the wild honey-brown hair is straightening out all of those strange fields before someone else crushes their hand on nothing.
    Tori is wobbly as she scrambles to her feet and adjusts her clothes. She's actually bleeding as well. SOme piece of debris somehow made it close enough to touch her, leaving blood washing down her left arm. Tori walks over to the sedan with its crushed doors and tears them off the side of the car. Tori moves to pick up one of the people inside, pauses, and then just gestures for them to climb out.
    Then Victoria walks a few steps away and shoots up into the air.
    "OW!" That would be the cry of the truck drive struck by a hubcap she sent spinning off along the highway when she took off. "...Sorry."
    Tired but determined Tori moves to gently ferry another piece of weckage up from the ground. She ends up working alongside Power Girl, almost numbly. People, Tori carries by hand. Vehicles move themselves, more or less. Sometimes she joins in. "...Hey." Tori actually says hello to the superhero beside her as she pulls someone free of a bit of wreckage.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Sassa, sees that these other supers have a great deal of the more directly in-danger situations handled. For her, she goes from helping the first woman in a burning vehicle to helping multiple families out of vehicles with severe damage. One such vehicle is itself, also burning, but just as Sassa arrives, it ignites in her face. No doubt the damage from the debris having ruptured a gas tank. This may be the first of many secondary explosions. The rather loud /boom/ of the detonation sending Sassa flying back and in to another vehicle.

Raven has posed:
    The smoke pillars emanating from the detonation sites are thick, tall, black, and noxious. They're also not dissipating. The smoke continues to pour skyward in two surprisingly disciplined columns, joined where possibly by the thin, gray strands of smoke coming from fires in engine blocks and gas tanks. It's more than passingly strange that the smoke is continuing, and it's possible you've had time despite the tragic circumstances to wonder what might be in those craters.
    But as the thought occurs to consider what that smoke implies, the worst fears come true: more explosions, some from cars but others from the edge of the bridge nearest to Metropolis. The bridge is too sturdy to crumble or snap, but it does twist and rock as new chasms suddenly bore themselves open in the roadway themselves, dropping at least half a dozen cars into the hundred-foot chasm leading to the river below. The screaming drivers stand on their brakes as if to arrest their freefall in midair, and some of the drivers immediately behind them have slightly more luck stopping for the pits...some, but not all. The day becomes suddenly, significantly darker as smoke threatens to blot out the sun entirely.

Power Girl has posed:
    Power Girl may not be able to save everyone, but she tries. The explosion catches her attention, but the falling cars are a bit more important. Like a bullet, she flies down to grab onto cars, and since there isn't enough time to get them back onto the bridge, she sets them in the water as close to the shore as she can only to get the next car and do just that, and on and on. No one said it'd be easy for a superhero.....even if she knows she can't save everyone.

Gravitas has posed:
    Tori panics visibly when more explosions go off. She lets out a scream that is thankully lost among the smoke and explosions, and quickly bobs around, looking for something she can do. Power Girl is catching cars in midair and the smaller, younger would be hero is trying somthing similar. She has a lot less experience handling crises.
    Tori stretches out her hands toward a two of the tumbling vehicles, trying to pull them closer to her... They shudder and wobble but continue to fall. Too much. They're moving too fast. She can't even try to stop these few, much less all of the ones being thrown clear of the blasts.
     There's the WHOOMPF! of air being displaced as she puts on a burst of speed She places herself beneath the falling cars, letting them fall into the gravitational field she's emanating naturally. Now Tori herself is falling toward the water as cars slow to a halt above her. She keeps her arms outstretched and her face turns bright red. Tori's gasping for breath.
    "P-power Girl! Someone! GET THE CARS!" Then the girl hits the water with a crash. It opens up, like a mouth swallowing her whole. Then the miniature waves are crashing in on top of her. That's when the vehicles begin to fall again. In slow motion, at least. But fast enough, at least.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    For Sassa, the explosion was enough to send her in to another vehicle and at least give her a moment of pause. Though, as she must, she shakes off the impact and pries herself out of the wreckage. The site of the burning vehicle with people in that she just failed at saving is enough to cause her to grit her teeth and clench her fists. The anger coursing through her at who, or what, did this, is palpable. However, there are lives yet to be saved and one of the young supers just cried out for help. So, off she goes.

    She takes skyward instantly, and arcs towards the falling cars. Looking for the other super in white, and hoping to hope, that the two of them can save more of these vehicles together, than they can apart.

Power Girl has posed:
    The best Power Girl can save is two at a time, below the bridge, and thankfully since the cars were slowed, she now has time to catch them and bring them close to shore. She manages to get them all, along with Sassa. But she then flies into the water....to pull a woman out of the water a few seconds later....Victoria. She sets her on the bank. "Catch your breath. I'll be back." And she's, again, flying up towards the bridge.....

Gravitas has posed:
Victoria, in her 'Man of Tomorrow' hoodie and purple mask, is laying on the bank looking dazed. Somehow she didn't swallow any water at all. In fact, when Power Girl grabbed her she would have felt the impact of gravity, an inch from her skin or so, repelling the water. Still, the girl was obviously only half-conscious, so dragging her out makes perfect sense. Who knows if she can maintain that level of self-protection long? "...Power Girl- just save my life," Tori responds to all of this stupidly while she lays on the grass. The girl blinks a couple times. "Okay. I need to get a hold of myself. If any more explosions go down we're going to be in big trouble." So now Tori, having had a chance to take a deep breath, is studying the bridge. Looking for, among other things, any sign of other explosives. FOr now she stays on the ground.

Captain America has posed:
The interior of the quinjet is all but silent as it swoops through the skies. Natural lighting has all been replaced by a deep eary red glow that shines down on its passengers. The low rumble of engines humms loudly as the seat harnesses go up. "Five."

     Already standing in the doorway of the ramp, his arm wrapped up in a strap is Captain America, His goggles are down covering his face, a serious expression as he flicks the a small baton from one of the many pouches of his utility belt into his hand gloved hand eyes locked firmly onto the small display to the right of the landing ramp. He calls out again to the rest of the crew. "Four."

     The ramp slowly begins to open, light falling first right onto the goggle covered eyes of Captain America, and then on the rest of the crew. He takes a step to one side, standing with legs spread slightly out to either side as he looks out over the city below.

     Slight wind turbulance causes the entire jet to shift and shake on its trajectory causing cap to harden his stance forcing himself on the spot. "Three."

     The light is already down to the A on his chest the wind flooding into the cabin as they approach the drop zone. From the ground level they would appear little more then a hyper sonic streak through the clouds. There's no easy way to tell for certain even what sort of craft it is as it rips its way through the clouds.

     "Two!" Caps eyes close for a moment as he takes in a deep breath, light now completely bathing the cabin. His hands let go of the small handhold to the left of him instead going down to his sides. His stance falls slightly as the loud CLANG of the ramp locking into place rings true, wind flooding everywhere as he quietly whispers to himself "One." Before falling right out the back of the jet without even a parachute to keep himself company.

     Falling from the sky at terminal velocity Cap looks little more than a spec as he places his arms behind himself forcing his body into a more aerodynamic stance. At the top of his lungs as he readies for impact he shouts out. "AVENGERS! ASSEMBLE!"

     His shield goes out in front of him just moments before impact, hitting the ground first and completely absorbing the force of the fall. Dust plumes out in either direction as he stays down on one knee for a long moment.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Having taken back to the sky, seeing that Power Girl had saved Tori, Sassa floats about looking for more survivors to save. Though, her attention is diverted when the Quinjet shows up and for a second, Sassa, the superhuman, fangurls.

    "That's..that's Captain America..." she blurts out, as she stares down at the man. Joys of having enhanced sight, she can see him land from over here. "Oh my gods that's.." pause, beat, "Grip, must get a grip, lives to save. I'm a super hero to.." she mumbles to herself, her hands coming up to tap on her cheeks. Time for fangurling is over, talk to Cap and get his autograph later. Yes, onward and upward, or rather, downward. "Ok, plenty of other supers here. Time to check the craters.." she says outloud to no one in particular, before making for one of the two original explosion areas.

Sinister has posed:
And now the heroes have come.

Dr. Milbury begins to walk closer to the bridge. What few remaining evacuees have passed him, again, treating the mild mannered looking academic as if he did not exist. He was willing to observe the younger first responder heroes, but as the minor league gives way to the majors, it was time to intervene.

"Excuse me!" he calls out, breaking into a run. "Excuse me, I'm a doctor! If you can get the injured to me, I'll do what I can to stablize them!"

Hulk has posed:
    Doctor Bruce Banner steps up into the doorway after Captain America jumps out. He hesitates as the wind hits him in the face, even falls back a step from the sheer force of it. He'n jussa li'l guy. He already has his shirt off, a pair of oversized sweatpants on that he's holding comically up around his armpits, and no shoes.

    His teeth clench and his eyes squeeze shut as he steps out on the ramp, and the wind literally grabs hold and tears his feet right off the airplane. His scream of terror becomes a roar of rage in less than a second, the sweats suddenly skin-tight on his bright-green frame. Black eyes are wide open, staring, as he lays his huge arms at his sides and aims himself directly at the teetering bridge.

    The half-ton Hulk-missile throws his arms and legs out hundreds of feet up, slowing his descent before impact, and then when he actually does hit the asphalt he hits running so as not to let his weight do any more damage.

    A full-sized tractor-trailer rig that was about to slip over the edge is caught as the Hulk's running feet bring him to the edge of the broken bridge and the whole thing is lifted and carried across as he leaps to a sturdier bridge segment. The trailer breaks off the rig's mooring and falls into the river but the truck and its driver are carried to safety and set down; the weight really helps to slow the Hulk's momentum.

    The Big Green pads barefoot back to the edge to survey what's going on back on the battered, bombed bridge piece.

Raven has posed:
    The smoke column nearest to Sassa, the one from the second explosion that nearly roasted her, seems like the likeliest place to start. The smoke inside creeps into the lungs and settles with a feeling (one hopes it's ONLY a feeling) of a hundred tiny coals settling into the lungs, burning up all the spit in your mouth and throat, setting Sassa to coughing and gagging almost immediately. Her enhanced eyes instantly burn with protective tears that double, then treble her vision, but she can be sure enough she sees that the smoke is emanating from...nothing. Nothing at all. From a flat plane at the underside of the crater, like a video game effect you can see the genesis point of when the camera clips through the floor, or something. It makes no sense at all.

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
"We really need to teach Cap about parachutes," Natasha mutters to no one in particular as she brings the Quinjet around in a sweeping turn. Hulk? Not so much.

A few moments later, the quinjet is visible to anyone present, coming in low and fast only to pull up at the last instant before the isolated piece of bridge. Casualties on either end can be reached. The ones in the middle will need help. That's her priority, leaving it to the others to work on finding out if there are additional threats in the area.

If she is able to approach, she brings the quinjet is brought in slowly, not wanting the downpush of air from the engines to cause more problems. Once close to the edge, it spins 360 degrees so that the still open rear ramp is extended toward the asphalt as she tries to bring it in low enough to begin evac.

Power Girl has posed:
    Power Girl watched as the Avengers arrived and started to move people away from the center....even after dramatic entraces. She floated there for a moment and smiled.

Yeah...that would be perfect.

She smiled even more as the Quinjet flew over to pick up passengers....and that's when Power Girl flew over towards the Hulk. "Hulk. One trip for the quinket isn't going to be enough. You and I can move more people. C'mon. Before there's another explosion." And with that, she flies her way over towards the middle and gestures for people to get into the Quinjet.....trying not to load it too compactly. When the Quinjet can't hold anymore, Power Girl herself picks up a few more people and flies them over to a safe part of the bridge.....

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Sassa is, utterly dumbfounded. What she can see, doesn't make any sense to her at all. Despite the fact that the fumes in here, are causing her a great deal of pain and discomfort. She has to try and figure out what exactly is going on. So, she flies down in to the smoke plumes further, looking to reach out and touch that flat plane. Hoping that it doesn't suck her in to some alternate world or some such nonsense, but a quick bit of recon before she looses conciousness is her goal here.

Gravitas has posed:
    Victoria is finally lifting herself up from the ground. She shifts her wieght fom left to right nad digs in a heel. Everything seems to be okay. Briefly the girl reaches up and runs a finger down her arm, testing the blood ther. It's dried, cloting over the wound and sealing it. That's good. She doesn't need anything else going wrong. The diminutive dark-skinned, blonde haired superheroine takes a deep breath and begins to concentrate.

     It isn't obvious what Tori is doing at first, eyes toward the crumbling bridge, her lips set into a line. Bits of debris around her begins to lift from the ground. A pebble. Blade of grass pointing starkly toward her. An unfortunate snail who would otherwise simply be passing by. Tori frowns, and everything crashes back toward the earth with a rush. Except for the snail. The girl reaches out and catches the snail in her palm, righting him carefully. She blinks a couple times.

    "It isn't safe here," Gravitas informs her littlest charge. "I'll call you Speedy." Thus saying she very gently tucks the snail into her hoodie."

    Then there's the low, reverbrating boom that comes with everything slowing around her, even sound. The rocks, the grass, and even bits of bridge debris shoot up into the air with Victoria as she takes off toward the bridge. Its eems she's been rejuvenated. The girl is zipping back and forth at a frantic pace, wildly bobbing back and forth along the bridge, collecting people and setting them at safer locations, a streak of blue and violet.

    People can feel the air ripple as Victoria passes, manically making up for the time she spent on the ground. At one point a child is reaching past her, flailing and pointing toward a woman she'd just set down. "Oh! Right. Sorry." The small family is reunited and waves as Gravitas shoots toward the sky once more

    Only then does Victoria start to consider the bridge again. She tugs at her little purple mask for a second and frowns. "...I don't understand what is going on here. THey could have just dropped the bridge if they wanted to kill everyone. All this did was make a mess... Like a distraction, maybe?

    "There's probably something else about to go down...!" Tori might be overheard, given she's shouting. Hard to hear yourself over the not-so-sonic boom.

Raven has posed:
    The day continues to grow darker as the smoke continues to billow upward in four tightly disciplined columns. The quinjet's engines make the edges waver a bit, but not disspate or even really change their shape. Something very strange is going on here...
    Something that is coming to a head, it seems. As Sassa touches the nonsense origin point, her hand encounters no resistance (though about as much heat as you'd expect from a smoke pillar this size), but invisible to her from within, as if her touch was a signal, the columns begin to change. At their maximum height of about a hundred and twenty feet--two hundred feet above the river--they begin to blossom and spread like tree tops, reaching toward each other to form a canopy of noxious black that drops the light level on the bridge to a hellish sunset at brightest, all hot reds and dim, screaming oranges. And in that darkness, from that darkness, a rising chant from dozens or hundred of unseen voices speaking in hateful, gleeful, not quite perfect unison:.

A curse is strung, a sentence passed.
Laid low by grammar, at the last.
Thereby was demonkind confined.
Chained in meter; rapt in rhyme.
By verse and measure, set in time
Where naming binds all things to shape,
Divides the angel from the ape:
Yet all that's measured must decay.
All bars--all CAGES--fall away!
Come fiery dawn! COME DEMON'S DAY!

And with that final, spiteful, cheerful line, the eyes. A dozen pairs, each glowing red-hot, emerging from the smoke and the shadows, on faces yellow and scaled with bizarre, meaningless fins, their bodies thick and powerful but long of arm and stumpy of leg, posture hunched like a gorilla. Sexless, covered in claws, grinning with fangs too long for their mouths, the legion ambles out of the smoke to savor the sounds of the screams before launching to attack with hideous strength and obscene speed.

Sinister has posed:
First responders and paramedics are beginning to come up the road, parked out of the way of danger, but coming as close as they safely can. Police scanners and mobile communications send out messages to the heroes about safe drop locations for rescued victims, as an attempt is made to coordinate efforts between the active superheroes and the local authorities in uniform.

'Milbury' begins to quickly weigh his options to determine the best course of action and the greatest benefit to himself.

Working as an on-site assisting doctor, he can easily sift through the incoming wounded, taking blood and tissue samples, tagging struggling, bleeding humanity like so much wildlife for his own personal track and release; should he find anything worthwhile, taking control of the minds of the drivers to reroute them to an alternate clinic would be simple, efficient, and likely fall under the radar of the already engaged strike teams.

And then... the situation changes.

The arrival of what appears to be creatures from some other realm is quite the opportunity for the advancement of science itself. He's never been fond of thinking of this as 'magic'. Magic, gods, spirits, devils - these are the dreams of the rotten brains of simple men. There is no such thing as spirit. There is only what science has not yet categorized.

Sinisters opts to do both.

Milbury continues his run to the paramedics and the spot where heroes are placing the wounded, shouting to bring them in for his care.

Out of the water rises a tall, pale white man in black and blue metallic armor, red eyes, and red diamond on his forehead, gleaming.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    "Oh gods no..." Sassa says softly as she looks at these things as they rush out of whatever hell they're being summoned from. The multitude of them pushing her back and with claws and bites and scratches, rendering her clothing ripped, shreded and torn and the bloody marks of gashes and cuts showcasing that they do, in fact, go right through her normal defenses.

    To those with the hearing for it, or the senses, Sassa is in pain. Muffled cries speak volumes behind gritted teeth. She looks skyward in hopes that she can find an escape from this pit and shoots in to the air at speed. She takes but a moment to look around for Cap, spotting him no doubt in the midst of well, being Cap. She musters what strength she can before making best speed for the First Avenger.

    The bloody and cut woman, nearly six feet tall, auburn hair and emerald green eyes, lands firmly on her feet nearest him, planting foot prints in the concrete. Panting, and out of breath she stumbles near him,

    "Cap, Demons, magic...bad..." she manages to mumble out before she wobbles, and falls face first on to the concrete at his feet.

Power Girl has posed:
    From where Power Girl is, she can still hear Sass as she lands next to Captain America. Carrying over another group of people, Power Girl walks over to Sassa and tilts her head. 'Did you just say magic?" Power Girl says with a wince, before she looks up to the growing horde.......

And fires lasers from her eyes.....which do....exactly nothing to the different beasties going for people.

"Immune to fire. Well....there's another option." Power Girl says as she bolts up towards the incoming group and uses her freeze breath on one of them. It instantly freezes......and she grabs onto it. "This just became fortunate." She says as she HUCKS it at another.....which hurts it even more as it's an ice ball now.....and she uses her freeze breath more.

Hulk has posed:
    The Hulk looks over at Power Girl who he doesn't know, but who he can tell is right, and as she flies off he backs up a few steps to get a running start and he leaps back across the chasm to that middle segment. Strangely enough he has a bit more trouble convincing people to let him pick them up and leap them to safety than Powergirl does. His overloud and extremely sincere promise, "HULK HELP!" doesn't do the trick. The youngest kids seem the most eager to take him up on it, and their parents are the least willing.

    What finally works is when he grabs an abandoned pickup truck, whether the driver was already rescued or tried to climb the girders or maybe got on the quinjet, and starts encouraging people to climb in. People pack into the front seat and pile into the bed, and then with the vehicle hoisted over his head and carefully held level the Hulk takes a running leap at a chasm and delivers the load to safe ground.

    As he turns to leap back and retrieve another load of survivors... the Hulk sees the demons materialize. More than demons... -familiar- demons. The Big, green, destroying machine actually falls a step back, shaking his head. "No, no, no, no no no," he murmurs. "Not me, Hulk no Devil, no Devil Hulk," his big hands probe at his face and his chest, he looks down at his own hands as if checking to make sure they're in front of him and are the right shape and color.

Captain America has posed:
     Cap had been lost in the fight so to say. Rushing from one group of wounded to the next while co-ordinating the efforts of the other Avengers. His mouth runs a mile a minute as he runs the command of the operation, pointing people in the right direction, and making sure to stay in a constant professional radio communication.

     "Alright people we're doing good, keep up the pace so we don't fall behind here, got people trapped under a s-" He cuts himself off as creatures start to flow their way from the fog, attention drawn to the sounds of a young girl screaming. He pauses for a moment, before ripping a pistol from its side holster and slamming it down on the mag so that he's got himself a fresh reload. "Alright change of plans looks like we've got some new company, eit-"

     Cap finds himself cut off mid sentence as Sassa falls down at his feet. This whole operation suddenly got a lot more complicated. Leaning down he sticks her with a transponder for other shield agents to carry her to safety. "Got a wounded hero here, placing transponder for pickup. Looks like Lucifer decided to send us a little gift, we're dealing with demons." Kneeling down beside her he offers a quiet, reassuring. "Don't you worry about a thing, we'll get you out of here safe and sound, that little card will make sure we can pick you up and get you right to an ambulance." His attention then flicks back up at the sound of that same ear piercing scream of a child in trouble.

     A little girl cowers beneath one of the creatures holding hard onto a small teddybear as she closes her eyes firmly. Tears roll down her face as she waits for the inevitable to transpire. "Hey, sulfur breath!" Cap throws his shield ahead of himself onto the ground and it begins to coast down his footsteps echo out across the ground as he begins to open fire in the direction of the creature. "I'm going to send you back home to Lucy."

     As the shield starts to slide away cap hops up into the air and onto the shield. "This whole situations on the edge of going legs up, we need to work fast and send these things right back where they came from." He's ridding it on his back now down the slope of the road while opening fire into the beast. Standard hollow point rounds from a 45 caliber pistol while his free hand holds outstretched.

     His outstretched arm grabs hold of the young girl, clutching her tightly to his chest as he opens fire onto the small group of creatures forming around, still sliding from the force of the throw. "Don't worry kid, you're safe." Even as he ejects the old mag slamming a new one into place so he can keep firing.

Raven has posed:
    The demons aren't interested in fighting the heroes, for the most part. Oh, Sassa was in convenient reach, and it was a shame not to rend her bloody; but the real prize here is the quinjet. Five monsters charge for its ramp, howling and ululating, their vocalizations somehow the perfect sound of insanity. The others are working strategically, three of them slowly approaching Hulk with claws outstretched in horrid beckoning; two are circling Power Girl, their gaping mouths launching twin cones of wicked fire at her; one is leaping over the little brother Cap is fighting to launch itself joyously at the First Avenger; and one is clambering up the bridge's pylon with eerie, unnatural speed, looking to gain height to launch itself at Victoria.

Gravitas has posed:
    "Get... off... my... BRIDGE, you ugly - things!" Tori yells as she launches herself toward her one of spirit creatures emerging from the smoke, her blue eyes locked onto those glowing a brilliant red as it seemed to have the same idea. "It sounded better in my head, jeeze!" she adds sheepishly to no one in particular as the tail of shrapnel and distorted air builds behind her and she gains in speed. A car she passes groans and lurches after her before collapsing into pieces, half-melted tires and hubcaps rolling away from the wreckage. With a nervous shrout crashes into one of the spirit-gorilla things.
    The first punch sends the demon flying upward from the ground and several feet into the air before ricocheting between ruined, abandoned cars. The crunch of fiberglass and steel echoes along the bridge as it is flung from the smoke and into a field of debris and shattered lives.
     And then, almost inexplicably, it is on top of her. A torrent of red-orange-blue flame spirals across the girl, enveloping her entire form until she disappears from view. Inside of the cocoon of fire Tori is screaming. "It can't actually touch me." It can't actually touch me. ... Sweat is pouring down her forehead. The air is catching in her lungs, and her legs are trembling. Suddenly wearing a hoodie doesn't seem like such a great idea. She's completely drenched, from head to toe.
    The flames part around the girl and then spit outward giant spirals of fire twisting all around her. around her as the gravitational field expands. Tori staggers slightly and turns her full attention on the one remaining creature. "I am SO going to- tear you... in half! Or brush your teeth? Because oh my GOD..."
    The two clash powerfully as the spirit lunges at a weaker, staggering Victoria. She lets out a brief scream as this happen, staring and then the monster is on top of her, pounding and tearing at her with claws and fangs. Unbelievably, perhaps, there's no blood, at least first. She's covered in bruises. CLothing tears. Then the bleeding starts, small scrapes from massive swaps of unearthly claw.
    Victoria screams. It's the sharp, guileless cry of a young woman in utter terror, echoing the magic and horrifying images spiraling through her mind as she's being dragged under both mentally and physically.
    "Nonono... There wasn't anyone in the car- I checked, I know there wasn't... STOP TELLING ME THERE WAS!"
    Now that would be audible, even at an inconceivable distance, with Victoria screaming until she's literally hoarse. "It's all your fault! You hurt these people. Stop stop stopstopstopstop..."
    Then the ground warps beneath her feet, pavement cracking and metal shuddering as gravity is flipped utterly on its head. Rock tumbles into the ocean. The demon on top of Victoria is literally squashed flatand then again, and again, from all angles like it is being turned into some kind of tiny, evil sphere, compacted until it's almost nothing.
    Tori is left breathless, laying on the ground in a pool of her own sweat. Her heart is racing, a hundred fifty beats a minute, and not at all from exertion.

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
The quinjet continues to work as an emergency evac vehicle. The radio transmissions are being received on multiple frequencies, allowing Natasha to take them to the closest field hospital of sorts where the paramedics and emergency personnel take over the care of the evacuees. Once clearn, the Widow pilots the craft back out for the next round of rescues.

Then all Hell broke loose.

Maybe not all but enough she's cursing a blue steak in Russian and is very glad Cap isn't in earshot. As the beacon goes off, that is where she heads. With the words from their fearless leader, she almost smiles. "Roger that, Cap," she says over the commlink. Spotting an area free of those needing to be rescued, she pushes a button on the control panel before her. On the lower surface of the quinjet, panels open, lowering the GAU-17/A Gatling Gun. She takes aim and fires, spraying the beasts in front of the jet with 50 caliber rounds.

That does seem to be doing the trick although it takes a lot of rounds to take down a single beast. Probably not the most effective use of ammunition but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

She's just circled in near the fallen hero when the demons make their concentrated attack toward the ramp. Natasha yanks the controls, bringing the jet up sharply as she hits the power, trying to gain altitude before they gain access. A twist brings the downwash from the engines into play, sending monsters sprawling. The jet gains altitude and that's when Natasha hears the noise behind her. She slams on the auto pilot on to keep the quinjet where it is, coming around with her pair of Glock 26s in hand, firing two handed at ones who gained entry.

Power Girl has posed:
    The only problem with trying to corrupt Power Girl is that she started that way......and putting images in her mind.....only pisses her off.

The circling demons are grabbed, one at a time, and....in a rather sickening thunderclap much like the hulk does, slams them together in a rather grisly display. They literally explode away from each other as Power Girl uses her anger to focus a lot more, and something not seen from a hero...she actually kills the demons in grisly fashion.....

Raven has posed:
    If the demons have any sense of self-preservation, it doesn't show. They only attack, laughing and crying unholy hymns in a language that sounds like hyenas screaming profanities. They weave in and out of the bullets and the punches; fifty-caliber rounds can blow off chunks of them, but they nearly need to be skeletonized before they stop moving. The two that were turned into ice balls and used for bowling practice are already shrugging it off, their infernal bodies melting the ice surrounding them so they can leap and caper toward the weakest links: Gravitas and the Hulk (though one of them takes the time to hold its hand up before its face while staring at Power Girl, its fingers splayed, and slowly lick them with a serpentine tongue as if tasting the demon gore coating her hands). Hulk is...not doing well. For one thing, he's shrinking, his rage being replaced by a fear that borders on panic. The monsters circle around him, reaching out for him...

Sinister has posed:
At the water's surface, away from the immediate battle, the man in armor waits patiently, keeping out of sight; waltzing into this immediate situation would be ... inconvenient.

He teleports out of sight, to a safer location, to gather the remains of combat when it's all over.

Power Girl has posed:
    Power Girl uses her freeze breath against the demon that just licked her hand. Ew. Once the demon's good and frozen, she claps her hands together to smash it. "Yeah. No headbangers for me." She says before looking at the licked hand. "Ecch....demon spit." She says trying to keep people safe......

Gravitas has posed:
    Victoria might be the weak link. It's only natural. It's her first time in a real fight like this. The second time a demon launches itself at her she takes a deep breath and strikes a combt stance. She doesn't just hammer into it. She's hardly standing after the beating she took fromt he previous demon. "Speedy? You okay?" The girl is whispering to the snail as a monster made of nightmares and unusually placed claws falls on her. The snail moves.
    Then Gravitas launches into action. As unconfident and wild as she was the first time that's how thorough she is in pummeling her second demon. "You're not- going to hurt- anyone. Ever. Again!" She's screaming other things to herself as well and just wailing on the thing. Back and forth, round and round, over and over, and over. She might be a little too intensely involved in the moment. Still... It apparently works.
    Gravitas finally finds herself standing atop a demon, breathing hard, slowly grinding the heel of a sneaker buttressed by many times the earth' s gravitational pull into the monster as she crushes it. Maybe she's swaying on her feet. Perhaps she's overzealous. But one can't challenge her strength of spirit.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Sassa has spent the last few moments face first, having been near unconciousness but still awake enough to feel Cap put the transponder on her and make the statement about getting her to safety. She's not having any of that, not the one to be /saved/ if she can help it. However, she took a beating, from things that are capable of doing more to her than just making her blush from indecency.

    It's when the wash from the Quinjet's twin turboprops comes overhead that she snaps awake with a gasp. She takes but a few seconds to attempt to gather herself before she notes one of the creatures attempting to get on the Quinjet and go after who ever is on it. She pushes herself up, slowly, but still manages to get on to her feet. She's burised and bloodied, but not donw for the count, not yet. She slowly lifts up in to the sky, giving Cap a quick wave as she does so, "Thanks for the help Cap.." she says as she floats up to the Quinjet and reaches out with all delberate force she can muster, and rips these damned things out of the jet.

    She looks at Natasha and forces a smile, "Need a hand?"

Bel Canto (194) has posed:
Let there be Light.

Sailing through the sky, a shooting star of silver crystal in the shape of a jet-like ship races towards the smoke and fire, bringing with it a white-gold glow of intense, pure light. Cutting through the atmosphere like a bullet, it begins to slow its approach towards the rising curl of evil, unworldly smoke. There is a silver and white clad figure standing atop the nose of the ship, and in one hand is a brilliantly glowing blade, flickering with trails of fire-like energy.

There's music. It sounds like the choir of heaven itself has opened up from above, singing otherwordly arias of praise and courage. The atmosphere ripples with tiny beads of light as resonance energy - the manifestation of multiversal harmony and life - is gathered through the song emanating from the woman and her crystalline ship.

It could be considered spiritual. Even holy. Application will tell if the creatures far below take it to be so.

Violet eyes take in the carnage and darkness below. Disharmony reigns here. Maybe this is the very thing that the Goddess of Harmony sent her to stop. Perhaps this is the coming darkness that threatens to swallow this small, precious, strange little world.

"Resist the evil!" The woman's voice booms like a thunderclap from high above as the ship draws ever closer. "Summon all of your courage and fight further, fight harder! We WILL turn them back!"

Voidsong swoops over the bridge with the nimbleness of a swallow, and as it passes, Bel Canto leaps from it, drawing her blazing sword up and over her shoulder.

"BACK TO UNCREATION WITH YOU!"

Bel Canto lands on the bridge near Victoria's position, targetting the demon closest to her. There is a split second of deafening silence before the air in front of Bel throbs outwards in snap of concentrated resonance energy and sound, focused on the demon's vibrational pattern alone.

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
"I think we need all the hands we can get," is Natasha's gruff response to the assist fron Sassa. But she does add a "THanks." Then she turns back to the controls of the quinjet, bringing it around again for another strafing run while keeping the vessel well above the monsters. There is damage but unless she basically unloads into one's face for an extended period of time, it's not effective enough. Which is when she sees Hulk, with the three gibbering creatures approaching him. She can't take the quinjet in range again so she has to keep it well above the battle. She can't take on the demons on her own. If she uses the guns, she could damage Hulk since he's seeming to shrink, losing himself back to the more vulnerable state.

With a push of a button, the Quinjet goes back into a hover. "I'm going in to help my teammate," she says to Sassa. "I could use some cover with the demons." And before she gets an answer, she is leaping out of the quinjet.

As she falls, a line fires from her gauntlets, striking the ramp she just leapt off. She swings easly to the ground, running full speed toward Hulk.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Ok, there's a slight moment of yet more fangurling. "Oh my gods, I'm working with the Avengers..." she says as she stands there, alone, in the Quinjet. A hand comes up to her face as Sassa slaps herself. "Right, stoppit. I'm over eleven hundred years old, and a hero, not a child...work to be done.." and she jumps out of the back of the jet and sure enough, gives Nat the cover she requested. Even beaten, bloody, and well, /stll/ bleeding, Sassa comes in full force. Her skill, stance, and combat ability are something to be marveled by even the best. She's not wonderwoman, but she's had centuries upon centuries of combat training and practice and it shows. No waisted movement what so ever. Each strike, kick, dodge, block, it's all gracefull. From a trickle toa wave of force.

    She tears through as many of these blasted things as she can, taking hits, claws, and bites and it showing on her body as more gashes, and screaps show, splling more of her blood on the ground. It's all she wants to do though, protect Nat and make sure she gets to her downed teammate. She's fangurl of that being the Hulk if she had time and wasn't about to pass out from blood loss.

    "Natasha! Get him! I've got these!" she says outloud as she burries herself in to one final grouping of the big bads.

    Try as she might though, and it is a massive ammount of trying, the warrior women has lost to much blood, and taken too much damage from things that claw right through her superhuman ability. Oh well, she did her bit to protect Nat while she went to get Banner. At least, that's the last thought that goes through her head before the cold sting of concrete is felt as she falls once again. This time, she's not getting back up. Thankfully not dead, but finally and truly out of the fight.

Raven has posed:
    The monsters aren't attacking Hulk...who is rapidly becoming Banner now. They are caressing him, though their wicked claws can't help but draw blood as they do, green blood that they examine with deep interest as he cringes back, flailing his hands at them to ward them off, crying out miserably in his pain and fear. Their hands coat with the slick green stuff. And then, Sassa is on them, injured but powerful, a match for them and more. The demons don't hesitate. Two step forward to do battle with Sassa, forming a thick, scaly wall between her and the third one as it begins to vanish, to dissipate, to waver into smoke, its constant laughter and battle cries fading as if a great distance yawns between them and this world...which it probably does, come to think of it.
    As the demons fall and the final one vanishes, so does the unnatural, choking smoke covering the bridge, the quinjet's turbines finally beginning to shred and disperse it, and as the fog clears you can see a bleeding Banner on his knees, hands clutching his temples, as he murmurs with a bizarre mixture of franticness and forced calm, "No no no no no... They got away with my blood, oh no... Think, Banner, what do we do about this? Work the solution, work the problem..."