753/The Tumor City

The Tumor City
Date of Scene:	02 June 2017
Location:	Haunted City
Synopsis:	Strange things abound in an unfortunate city, heroes respond, and a certain ghosbuster manages to save the day with a little help from her friends.
Cast of Characters:	Raven, Superboy, Jillian Holtzmann, Phoenix, Captain Marvel (Danvers), Sarah Osborn, Emma Frost, Superwoman

---

Raven has posed:
    Kirby, Ohio, seems to be a very small town, all told. Anyone who investigated it would find it to have a population of only 742; the town is so small it doesn't even have its own police force, just a local sheriff's office. The elementary, junior high, and high schools are all in the same building. There are more bars than any other single type of business in the township, with "antique shops" (read: flea markets) pulling the closest second. The tallest buildings in the city are the corn silos. It truly is a nowhere place.
    So why would it be the epicenter of this bizarre space-warping phenomenon?
    The army's perimeter is concentrated into four camps, with patrols emanating from each. None gets more than half a mile near the city, for fear of what might emerge, or of the warping expanding beyond the city's borders.

Superboy has posed:
    Conner is flying around just because he can do it. Calling it a 'patrol' would be giving the young man too much credit. But man, given his amazing ability to stumble into trouble, he must be the greatest patrolling hero this side of the galaxy.
    Lets see... army, more army, not even a burger shop. (He is hungry). So he flies straight for the largest contingent of soldiers and blurts out, "hey folks, so... what is going on? Can I help?"

Jillian Holtzmann has posed:
With Egon and Patty having returned to Manhattan from their stay in Vancouver, Jillian and Winifred were tasked with the trip to Ohio. They didn't want to take the Ecto-1 across the country so a SUV was rented and loaded with the latest in Paranormal Investigation and Containment equipment and the two set out on a good old road trip.

Taking turns driving/sleeping, the two arrived fairly quickly as far as such trips go and they aimed their vehicles right for the military. The military were the ones who called them, since the Ghostbusters were an official government-funded agency now.

Leaving Fred at the SUV to prep the gear, Holtzmann was greeted and told where to go, to see some high ranking soldier-type about the situation.

With hands in her jumpsuit pockets and her goggles resting up on her forehead, Jillian looked to Superboy when he just landed out of no where and asked right-up.

"Sure saves on gas money, huh?" She said to him with a small smile.

Phoenix has posed:
There were-- are-- a handful of mutants in Kirby, Ohio. Whether the result of blood or absurd fortune, Jean wasn't sure; she only knew that the little cluster of dots in Middle America made her smile whenever she worked with Cerebro.

Which is why she felt compelled to visit the town upon noticing their absence several days ago. A little bit of charm, a little bit of telepathic stealth, and a lot of unforseen charges on her credit card earned her a few scraps of interesting information about the anomaly, but learning more would ultimately require a more committed investigation.

Since the Blackbird is a cutting edge piece of experimental stealth technology, she is dropped off within a few dozen yards of the perimeter by a friendly rideshare driver whose reservations about driving out to an inexplicable spatial anomaly were managed by gently applied telepathy-- and a hefty tip upon arrival. From there, she hoofs it the rest of the way towards Kirby, intent on strolling right by the night watch as they find literally anything else in the environment more worthy of their attention than the red-haired woman with an X-marked camera bag slung over her shoulder.

She lingers at the edge of the anomaly rather than plunge straight in, because Superboy-- and a woman in a jumpsuit-- arrive not long after she reaches it; given that neither looks at all like a soldier, she decides to rethink pressing in alone, at least for the moment.

So, without announcing herself, she's just-- //there// with her arms folded, telepathic cloak dropping as she takes her last few steps up to stand beside Jillian. If any of the soldiers look particularly like they may be in charge - or just takes the initiative of speaking up - they get her immediate attention.

Superboy has posed:
Conner is waiting for the soldiers to respond when Jillian makes her comment. "Uh? What does?" He looks around as if about the see some kind of weird invention that saves gas money. He always misses interesting details. "You know?... I don't think this is about gas money..." he decides, sounding doubtious.

Phoenix has posed:
Jean points at Superboy, then points up at the sky where Superboy came from, then refolds her arms and cocks her brow a little.

Raven has posed:
    Colonel Landis, Holtzmann's contact, is waiting for her when she arrives. An older man who seems to be in reasonable shape for his age but who looks heavier than he is because of his bulldog-like jowls, he barks, "Didn't tell me you were bringing along the costume brigade, but we'll take whatever help we can get."
    <<And hell, it's not like they'll see state secrets, they'll probably never come out if they go in there anyway,>> Jean might be able to hear him think.
    "So, you gonna do your scanning or whatever?" he invites none to subtly. "You need something from me?"

Superboy has posed:
    Yes, Superboy was waiting for the Colonel response. But that was before he saw Jean. Because... redhead. "Hello, I am Conner," he introduces himself, landing close to the X-Woman. "Most people call me Superboy. Nice to metcha."
    One does not need to be a telepath to know what he is thinking. Phone number. Maybe free next Wednesday. What is her name?
    Scanning? Hmm. Okay, the army man is talking with the blonde. Probably not his business.

Jillian Holtzmann has posed:
Holtz was smirking at Superboy's response and she went to reply "Flyi--" But she cut herself off when Jean arrived and did that skyward motion having apparently overheard what she'd said to Superboy.

A A smiled spread over Jillian's lips and she gave a quick ocular patdown to Jean before landing her blue eyes onto Jean's own green. "O-Hi-o." She told the redhead. "Now I know why the trip out this far was well wor--" The military guy approached and cut her off, which got a flattened-stare from Jillian.

"Scanning and Whatever is our motto, Rear Admiral." She said back at the man before pulling her right hand from her pocket and flipping back a mickey mouse pez-dispenser to tip a little pill-shaped candy into her mouth.

"I didn't bring them. But I'm glad they're both here..." Jillian nodded toward Superboy, before speaking up again. "Has anyone come outta the town yet at all?" She then asked the Soldier-guy, while naturally glancing back over to Jean here and there too, cause, yeah... reasons.

Raven has posed:
    "No ma'am, they have not," the colonel says, not letting himself get ruffled by the lack of respect. Jean can tell he made a conscious choice not to give Holtzmann the satisfaction.

Phoenix has posed:
Jean, at least, is wearing black slacks with a Collision Course II shirt. This doesn't exactly //help// justify her presence, but at least it superficially delegitimizes it in a way that's different from Superboy.

Her cocked eyebrow turns towards Holtzmann, who gets a small, polite smile-- and then Superboy touches down beside her, drawing both back to him.

"I'm-- "

-- interrupted by the Colonel, as it turns out. He demands and receives her attention-- twiceover, once he begins thinking his secrets aloud. Nothing more than an intent focus upon his 'greeting' is betrayed by her expression; she's had plenty of practice in maintaining a good poker face around questionable psyches.

"And I'm assuming you don't have any data from the inside, right? From drone probes, or-- well, I guess if //you// had the relevant equipment..." A glance is cast towards Holtzmann. "... but-- anything? Before we go in and-- y'know." The camera bag gets a pat. "Document."

Raven has posed:
    "No ma'am, we have not," the colonel almost repeats in response to Jean's question. "We've attempted to reach inside, but even satellite imaging and telescopes find that the city seems to be moving and twisting just out of range of the naked eye. We have to assume any transmissions get lost in the shuffle."

Superboy has posed:
Superboy frowns at the Colonel for interrupting Jean's introductions. But... what he is saying sounds vaguely alarming. "What about the people? Do you have people trapped there?" He is peering at the space-warp thing, trying to use his enhanced vision to make any sense out of it. Focus, augment. Shift to IR? This is all... very weird.

Jillian Holtzmann has posed:
The Pez dispensor was twirled arouna nd then slipped back into her pocket like it were an old west six-shooter. Jillian twisted around on the heels of her boots, causing dirt beneath them to do that crunchy noise. Then she started back toward their rental SUV where Fred had a bunch of gear all laid out already.

Jillian started picking various bits and baubles up, little tiny metal machines to something that looked like a home-made bazooka. She held THAT one up in the air and then shook her head and set it back down before going for a leather belt that she wrapped aroun dher torso and cinched with a buckle, the belt was loaded with shiney metal 'grenades' that were each tipped with glowing red lighting.

Having a word with her co-worker for a moment, Holtz turned back toward the town, pulled the straps of her Ghostbusting Pack onto her shoulders and then pulled her yellow goggles down.

"Lets do this." She said, then started marching toward the town, whipping out a high-tech Scanning Device which she flipped on and it started glowing / blinking / beep / bleeping and... even parts of it were TWIRLING while the mad scientist woman started moving toward the small town in peril!

Raven has posed:
    Superboy's telescopic vision confirms at a glance what Colonel Landis said: at about a quarter of a mile in, the city is in flux. Buildings bend and twist like taffy, and slide around like ice on a hot skillet. It's nauseating to behold, like trying to look straight after being spun in a circle for two minutes like some stupid Internet challenge. His examination of the EM spectrum doesn't notice anything unusual...but he might pick up on the fact that, at least near the the edges of the town, the only people he can see are dead, their bodies blue-purple blobs in the infra-red spectrum, nearly invisible but for their mass.
    Holtzmann has more luck. Her scanner is capable of detecting paranormal energy with extreme efficiency, and the needle immediately buries in the red. Four motes per second; this is reality-warping levels of energy output (which isn't surprising, considering).

Phoenix has posed:
"Yeah," Jean adds to Superboy's question, "did you guys send a team of some kind?"

Jean's eyes shift to lock squarely with Landis' as she speaks, but otherwise, nothing else changes outwardly; she's just a concerned-- camerawoman? Looking for answers. Or a story-- her cover is basically non-existant, but he hasn't pressed her on it yet, so she's content to let it be.

Nothing changes outwardly, but as she speaks, a piece of her tries to insinuate itself into Landis' psyche, intrigued by the 'mention' of state secrets.

"Do you have any theories on what could've caused it?"

Towards the end of that second sentence, her eyes drift inexorably towards the jumpsuited woman marching on the town with her scanning contraption and whatever in the world that thing on her back is, squint momentarily, then snap back to Landis.

Raven has posed:
    The colonel explains he has sent in men, and they have not come back. Nor does he expect them to at this rate.

Superboy has posed:
Conner loses some of his good mood when he spot the corpses. "Whatever it is, some people got killed," he points out. "How many are trapped inside? I can go... try to pull them out. I am invulnerable, after all."
Except to magic, he is not really invulnerable to magic.
Of course it is going to be magic.

Raven has posed:
    The colonel gives Superboy a hard look (Jean can tell that's what he does instead of shrugging; he thinks it makes him look less helpless). "I don't know. We haven't been able to account for any of the town's inhabitants, or the people who went in from outside. We don't know if anyone was passing through, either. We have to assume about eight hundred people: the city's population, plus any extras.

Jillian Holtzmann has posed:
Holtzmann walked past all the military folks and right up to the edge of the disturbance that the soldiers had conveniently taped-off. The whole time the blonde woman in the Ghostbusting gear was whilstling a song to herself.

One by one, the Silver / Red 'grenade looking things' strapped to Jillian's chest strap were pulled off by a gloved hand, flipped ON and set down on the pavement of the road that lead into the small town.

One the far left was set down, beeping and humming, then one in the center-no-passing-line and the last set on the curb to the far right of the road.

Holtzman then backed up several steps and pulled a small device off of her belt. She reached her gloved left hand up to the yellow tinted goggles covering her eyes and she grinned. "Be gone, ye spookfield of doom!" She shouted at the spectral wall encasing the city's main road.

Holtz's right thumb depressed on the control switch and all three 'Ghost Grenades' came to life, little silver doors popping open and bursts of white energy blasting out of their central bodies toward the town and the evil barrier plauging it!

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
Perhaps somewhat late to arrive on scene, is Captain Marvel, flying down in a golden streak from high up in the air. She doesn't cross into the 'Twilight Zone' as it were, and instead heads first to where the other heroes on hand are gathered. "Gentlemen, Ladies, do we have any intel on the phenomenon?" She asks, seeking for a small briefing of what has been learned thus far. While she asks, her blue eyes set on the border of weirdness.

Sarah Osborn has posed:
A strange motorcycle rides up, with an oddly dressed rider. The Motorcycle is customized with greel lights and purple bat-like accessories. The Rider on it seems to be wearing a version of the Green Goblin's costume, despite being clearly smaller and female. She says, "I heard there were odd goings on in these parts, I thought I would stop by and investigate."

Phoenix has posed:
"Alright! I'm gonna go ahead and get started; wish me luck!"

Before stepping out of Landis' mind and approaching Kirby, Jean leaves him with a sense of boredom for the notion of a civilian videographer checking out this mysterious anomaly seemingly on a lark. And a wave, because it's only polite.

Once she's a few feet from Landis:

{{Alone?}} Superboy and Jillian hear between their ears. {{I wouldn't recommend it, but I'm pro-search and rescue. Just, y'know. Together.}}


Beat.

{{Hi, by the way; Phoenix. Now that the Colonel's in the rear view.}}

The motorcycle and flying body draw her gaze in turn, but she keeps the telepathic circuit limited for the moment.

"'s pretty fucked up," is all she can offer to Captain Marvel.

Superboy has posed:
The arrival of Captain Marvel and the girl in the motorcycle make Conner look back briefly. But given there might be people dying ahead, he is not waiting anymore. Besides, this Phoenix person is talking.

"Okay, let me go first," Conner is slightly startled by the voice in his head, but he recovers quickly. "Because, Kryptonian, y'know?" He flies forward, although not so quick as to leave the others behind. And dives into the warp head first.

Raven has posed:
    Several things are occurring at once.
    When Holtzmann's grenades go off, there's no visible effect aside from the flashed one would expect from a grenade. Her PKE meter notes a sudden dip in paranormal energies, though; if it's capable of topographical mapping, it would see space stabilizing within the radius of the three grenades. It lasts for nearly thirty seconds before the PKE meter picks back up. If anyone with enhanced vision--Superboy, for instance--thinks to check inside that radius before it closes, there is a brief but clear line of sight to the center of the town (page if you want to know).
    When Captain Marvel lands to interrogate the OIC, she gets a brisk report: no new information, he's waiting on the mad scientist over there to do her experiments. The town remains under strict quarantine, though he's somewhat bitterly ironic to note the quarantine has nothing to do with any of his business, rather being inflicted by the town itself.
    Goblin Girl rides up in a motorcycle. She should have been accosted by patrols well before the city limits, but she was met only with a few screams and some troops fleeing in superstitious fear from the goblin whom they assumed is part of the curse afflicting this city.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
With the military personnel pointing out that Holtzmann is the only one with potential intel, Captain Marvel next flies right to her side, looking her way as she asks directly, "have you learned anything of what we're facing here? I have a very bad feeling about this barrier. Crossing it is probably a very bad idea."

Sarah Osborn has posed:
Goblin-girl walks over beside Jillian. It is clear that her "face" is actually a costume mask of some kind, from close range. She pauses to look at Jillian's gear, "PKE detection meter and PKE disruption grenades? Let me try my Auric scanner to see what I can learn." Her eyes start glowing yellow as the Auric scanner activates."

Emma Frost has posed:
"Ohio. Why do some business men demand to have dealings in Ohio.

Better question still is why does ANYTHING happen in Ohio?

This place has the rock 'n' roll hall of fame and Drew Carry, that old codger."

Emma scoffs to no one in particular as she rides along in her personal vehicle out to a secluded location she's reserved for herself in order to get away while she's away.

In the way however is a meeting of the paranormal, the supernormal and abnormal all directly in her path. The deep hunter green Bently rolls up to the scene and with a word, the machine parks itself on the side of the road and Emma slowly climbs out of the 'driver's' seat. Her hair is in a loose pony tail, brushing the top of her shoulders over the black and red plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. A white tank top on underneath pokes out as she has the top four buttons on her long sleeve shirt undone. She wears a pair of tight blue jeans that look bleached and stained (Likely from the factory that way) tucked into a pair of turquoise accented black leather boots.

Frost steps closer, her hands on her hips as she's expected to get an answer as to what's going on either verbally or by skimming the surface thoughts of those around.

Jillian Holtzmann has posed:
Holtzmann was monitoring her handheld PKE Device as the traps activated and started to pull the energy of the barrioer apart. She could hear Superboy not far away and then the others who walked up on her sides, but her goggled eyes were focused on the situation in front of her as she was in work-mode right now.

"Go!" Jillian shouted. "If you're going in! Go now! Thirty second window!"

Unfortunately for her, she was probably the slowest of all the people gathered here, but she was still fast as far as young normal boring humans... wearing nuclear accelarators on their backs...

Holtzmann bravely/dumbly charged toward the small town of Kirby, she darted over her own Ghost Traps just as they closed up and left a 'hole' in the paranormal barrier encasing the twon. Holtz nimbly JUMPED over the bodies of the poor folks who died within the barrier...

... and she ran, ran so far away... right into the bar-filled sleepy town of Kirby!

Raven has posed:
    Several more things happen at once.
    Superboy crosses the town border. The moment he does, the psychics lose all sense of him, and, should he speak, no one is able to hear him. For the few seconds Holtzmann's grendades' effects are still in place, space obeys normally; but after that, he finds himself trying to move forward and instead moving...sideways. Kirby has him, now.
    Anyone who follows him (and hey, who doesn't feel safe following a Kryptonian, right?) experiences a sense of vertigo, briefly. They, too, become shut off from the outside world. The effects of the city are disorienting, but not so bad. You just don't always move in the direction you're trying to move in. It's kind of like being in a dream.

Sarah Osborn has posed:
Goblin-girl has quick reflexes, when told there is a brief window of entry, she does not hesitate to enter. Studying the strange and helping the innocent, that is what she does. Her Auric scanner doies not seem to be doing much good here. Whatever it is is not a conventional macical spell, nor the effect of any supernatural creature she has encountered. Right now, she needs to be able to see the natural as much, if not more, than the paranormal. She looks around, cataloging the effects of the distortion and trying to calculate details.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
With Holtzmann providing a safe window to charge through the barrier, Captain Marvel offers to give her a lift, if she so wishes. Regardless of whether she does it while carrying Holtzmann (and her nuclear accelerator), she does charge in while the window is open. She wants to help, and she's no stranger to dashing into the danger zone (ooc: yes, cue the song). Once inside, she looks over at Holtzmann, "the weird thing where directions are wired incorrectly...you got a grenade for that?"

Superwoman has posed:
    Superwoman had heard of the problems- she also knew that Kal was otherwise occupied. Superboy- well, he she had only heard of, and Faora Hu-Ul doesn't really keep tabs on her fellow Kryptonians like Kal-El might.

    She arrives moments after the space stabilizing technology is doing its thing- a path into the unknown. Something about it all reminds her of the Phantom Zone. It causes a shiver she's only barely able to suppress. A place where time and physics mean so very little- but, at least she's spent decades in such a locale.

    There is only the lightest pause before forward motion into the unknown. Superwoman in her outfit of blacks, silvers, and whites- a wholly different Kryptonian rune on her chest, says nothing at all to the others as she steps through the portal and into danger. Not even so much as a hello.

Phoenix has posed:
Green eyes widen with surprise - which ripples through the link just a little - when Holtzmann suddenly bursts into action despite the lack of a visible change.

She starts to call out a question, but since Jillian and Superboy are already locked into cutting themselves off from the link - since she's got every intention of entering Kirby one way or another //anyway// - she takes off running to finish catching up with the two.

{{Anyone who's coming,}} non-military minds 'hear', {{Come on-- after the rest of us!}}

Since she had time to experiment with the physics of the place, she stops //promptly// upon crossing the threshold, throwing her arms out for a measure of balance. And //then// she takes a couple of tentative steps forward.

And right.

And straight up, prompting a surprised look-- which is quickly followed by an annoyed grimace when she drops a few feet and has to catch herself in a three point stance.

"As best as I could tell," she says while standing and dusting herself off, "Physics don't-- " Circular hand gesture. "-- work? Here. Not consistently, anyway. We're gonna have to take it slow, moving through here."

Sarah Osborn has posed:
Goblin-Girl frowns, this sounds familiar. Something about distortions like this caused by a mutant...Proteus was it? She is not sure, it was only a passing reference. Well, in any case, "The odds are good that, if we head towards the worst distortions, we will encounter he cause."

Emma Frost has posed:
Watching the cluster of folks go in and deciding they might need help in there, the kind of help only a telepath can provide, Emma starts to step forward.

She's not in a rush as she did feel them disappear when they entered the field and she's always worried as she knows her strengths very well and will admit strength itself isn't her forte.

Catching the last of the warning from Jean, Emma speaks, "Take what slow? Why---!" She cuts herself off immediately as her first step inside is also her first step upwards as if she was in an M. C. Escher piece. Frost reacts by stopping her progress instantly. "Okay, weird." She mumbles to no one.

Jillian Holtzmann has posed:
Once inside, Jillian comes to a sudden halt and she looks around, seeing Jean move just past her and stumble she reached out to try to steady the redheaded camera-woman. She'd heard the 'voice' inside her head, but it didn't seem to phase her much... when working around the super-hero-types she was used to such things, and... its possible she was used to voices in her head anyway!

"Oh, physics are definitely working in here." Holtz said back to Jean. "They're just on a lot of drugs!"

The others who have joined them, Faora and the Masked Goblin, get glances. Emma, gets a double-take! "Focus, Holtzy." She muttered to herself though... her main job here was not to worry about all the Smokin' Supers, it was to figure this horrible event out.

Holtzmann's PKE scanner comes back up and online, she stares at the smart-phone-like display screen and adjusts some settings, looking for a source to this madness...

Raven has posed:
    Everyone has a chance to step across the border, to feel the disorientation, to look to the skyline and watch the city lights waver and warp as if under water; to question how clever an idea this really was before a voice rings out, scratchy and distorted as if over a bad PA system. The voice is high-pitched and sweet like a child's, but also grating like an eighty-year-old smoker's voice. It sounds cruelly delighted as it announces, "Welcome welcome one and all to the town of Kirby! 'C'mon in and sit a spell, y'all!'" it adds in a vicious mockery of a Midwestern accent. "Now I'm sorry to say seating for this event is limited, so we're just going to have to kill off a few people to make room for our new guests!" He doesn't sound sorry; he holds the same imperious, hateful amusment his voice has held throughout. Those of you without enhanced hearing can hear the screams as if over this same PA system; those of you with enhanced hearing can hear a double-track, as the screams reach out in real time; those of you with telepathy feel the terror.
    "But just to make it fair, why don't we skip the eeny meeny miney moe and let the portal dwellers decide who lives and dies? Good times will be had by aaaalllll!" the voice concludes in a sing-song...and then, about fifty yards away, a creature emerges from the corner of one of the outlying buildings. It's impossible to describe its way of movement. It just...appears, its three dimensions filling in as it lopes in, a long-limbed creature about the size of a deer, its bald body bone-white, four-legged, purple-clawed. Three eyes are unevenly spaced on a vaguely horselike head in which needle-like fangs emerge. They look sharp.
    The psychic attack is worse. Its gaze sweeps across the crowd, and each of you instantly smell burning oranges. Several of you get nose bleeds.

Sarah Osborn has posed:
Sarah switches on her Auric scanner to try to seee whatever is REALLY there. Part of her mind calculates the distortion even as she draws her spring gun. She slots the first magazine she comes to and fires...a paintball.

Superboy has posed:
Conner glides about, missing the correct direction but still kind of moving forward. Mostly. "Wow, maybe this is what happens when one is drunk?" Not that ha has ever managed to get drunk (yes, he has tried).
"Gotta take a bit to get used, but we should start looking for the peop..." He closes his mouth when the voice of some psycho sounds from. Hmm, super-hearing? Where is that voice coming from. "How about if you come to try to kill me instead?" He shouts.
Shouldn't have bothered. Weird critter appears and seems vaguely evil. His first attempt to fly forward and punch it fails because he ends up like twenty yards at the left.

Phoenix has posed:
"Same diff," Jean murmurs after fully disentangling from Holtzmann and adjusting her bag-- which sloooowly drifts upwards for about a foot before smacking down against her hip. "Okay' let's-- "

A strange voice rings across the skyline.

"Oh, duh, shoulda figured," is muttered with a disdainful nose-wrinkle. "Of //course// it's some-- "

Grousing is cut short as lethal stakes are introduced. Green eyes harden, fists tighten, the air grows a degree warmer, and fire washes denim and cotton away, leaving form-fitting green and gold in its wake.

{{Powers, now-- we need a gamepla--}}

Something-- emerges-- from somewhere--

{{-- aaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!}}

-- and brings Phoenix crumpling to her knees and clutching her skull as blood streams from her nostrils.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
Captain Marvel is all business, playing guess the physics was cute, but she's been adventuring in space. She's used to all that. What she needed to do is figure out a source, and then comes the horrific creature that supposedly just threatened to kill people at random. Scent of burning oranges or not, no amount of spooky is ever going to deter Captain Marvel from taking action, and she goes the USAF route. Nothing will stop the USAF. Although instead of roaring flames, she serves the creature with a shower of flashy photonic blasts, both arms extended towards it. "You want to kill someone, kill me. Or at least try."

Superwoman has posed:
    Faora's thoughts are focused and disciplined even in this world where physics are in flux. Anyone who takes a peek into the Kryptonian's mind might even by overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information she's collecting all at once- the wide array of sensory information being stored as if by a mental computer- all of it in stark detail as her photographic memory takes it down and writes it. At the same time there are memories- the strange shifting physics of the Phantom Zone. Tactical training and the Genetic Engineering that every Kryptonian was gifted only adding to the wave of information- she's studying every angle, on high alert and wholly aware of her companions: Their heartbeats, the pattern of their breathing, the scent around them and with them.

    "In an environment like this every angle is a potential hazard. Make sure you keep your wits about you, and your attention in all directions." Superwoman says in her accented English- a strange accent, not of this world- but it does sound vaguely European.

    The wave of psychic energy cause Superwoman to step back- a small trickle of blood from her nose. Pain- an old friend she hasn't forgotten. Krypton's Last Soldier raises her fists and prepares to fight as that creature appears. Her face is drawn into a scowl, dark blood drooling down from her nostril, over the corner of her lips and down her chin.

"Pair off." Faora states- a commanding voice. "Seven of us. Two teams of two. One team of Three. Stick by your battle buddy... and keep an eye on the other teams." It sounds like she's used to being obeyed in combat situations... and just shakes her head as Conner *AND* Captain Marvel flies off on their own.

    "Figures." Superwoman sighs quietly- she tries to reach out. Heat vision, although, at the lowest possible heat. A visual indicator of just what might happen if she tries to blast the beast, should it go awry it shouldn't cause damage to anyone at all.

Sarah Osborn has posed:
What sarah sees with her auric scanner is indescribable...because no earthly language has words for what she is seeing. The shape seen with the eye is just one three dimensional edge of this thing, there are many others, all equally there, overlapping, stretching beyond perception in directions that can barely be described. They CAN be described though...the interface is some kind of fractal...most of this being is outside our reality. The relationship can be described mathematically. Her tablet is probably not working right...she will have to describe the relationship herself. She looks at the others, "Superman dealt with something like this once. You there in the monochrome, you are fully Kryptonian?"

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma sets about the slow process of mastering her movement in the bubble before she actually takes a true step. Her mind, willpower, or sheer greed of craving success and nothing less might help. (I don't know, that's the GM's decision)

The white queen moves her head to look at Jean but instead ends up looking down at herself and groans before gritting her teeth in pure frustration before it gets worse.

The white queen tries to look at the direction the voice is coming from, but instead is now turned around with her back exposed to the creature she briefly saw before physics played screwy again.

Emma snaps her attention outwards, covering the whole city with her telepathy quite easily as she notes the deaths around her and she aims to find the minds snuffing out those causing it. The beast isn't her true concern.

Jillian Holtzmann has posed:
Holtzmann was mostly footlocked where she was, up until Jean went down and then she struggled to crouch beside her. When she saw the blood, Holtzmann shot back up to her feet, stumbled to the left and then reached behind her hips to unlock the Proton Pistols behind her back!

"You wanna get nuts?" She said toward the monster that Superboy was going for and that Goblin Girl had shot a paintball at. "Lets get nuts!"

The two proton pistols came to life, blasting swirling red energy beams at the three-eyed-monster!

The commands from Faora were heard, and they seemed quite soundly planned out, but she wasn't advancing just yet, her goal was to blast that strange foul looking creature!

Phoenix has posed:
{{Think--}}

All in all, Jean picked a pretty bad time to make contact with seven minds: whatever effect the aberration's emergence had upon the psychic plane was magnified in that moment of intense psionic openness.

{{-- into--}}

And rather than relent and recover, she's chosen to persist, deadset on fording the wave of psychic agony until she reaches the other side.

{{-- the link-- !}}

Because there //has// to be an other side-- something beyond burning oranges and pain.

Gloved fingers extend in a trembling fist; the creature's jaw tightens.

{{If we're-- even thinking-- about splitting up-- we //have// to stay connected-- !}}

The gloved fist pops open-- and, with violent inertia punctuated by a wet *KRRNCH!*, so does the creature's jaw, until it's hanging by very little.

Raven has posed:
    Conner--and Faora, should she think to try it--can scan the town with X-ray and telescopic vision for the people. It's difficult and unpleasant as the town twists and warps, and their line of sight follows shifting paths around corners and sometimes looping back in on itself, but they can see people huddled in homes and buildings, looking malnourished and exhausted. Most of the survivors are adults, who had the fat stored to survive a sudden siege in which it becomes impossible to reach into the pantry for something to eat because the pantry keeps moving.
    Telepathic location works better. More than six hundred minds in Kirby function, all of them hurting, all of them scared. Or, well, all but two. Two boiling masses of insanity exist in the center of the town, loving every moment of this, finding it a sheer delight. The minds are sophisticated but also animalistic, composed of complex desires that exist with almost no articulation and barely any self-awareness. They're...not pleasant to touch.
    The portal dweller shrieks in a voice like steam escaping green pine in a fire. Three different kinds of lasers hitting it at once burn its hide: whatever plane it's from, it knows how to burn. Its skin runs like hot taffy, revealing no bones or organs inside, just more white meat without even the fibers of muscles. Even Jean's telekinesis doesn't reveal any internal organs. It just dies with a mewling crackle, and its width and depth slowly vanish.

Sarah Osborn has posed:
The telepathic link is just what the Doctor ordered for Sarah. She sees the Ghost traps in Jillian's mind, she sees how they work to store things, and how that storage is kind of the inverse of what she saw of this freature. Given enough power, they should cancel out. ((I need to borrow one of those ghost traps to rewire it. I think we have bigger trouble...and when it hits I hope I am ready...))

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
Captain Marvel is quick to stop her photonic blast emissions, that target went down quite easily. But its apparent demise also hadn't seemed to loosen the weird affects of the dome around the town. Her experience taught her that when a source is taken out, everything falls in order. Hence, that thing wasn't the source. She slowly brings herself higher after some trial and error, little by little, and calls out, "hey loser, I'm still alive, guess that means all you can manage are silly spatial tricks. So what are you? A Circus Imp from Xandar? I'm disappointed, and bored..." so yeah, sometimes you can get the mastermind out of hiding simply by dissing their act and ploy. They tend to take pride in those. Doesn't work just with humans, works with aliens as well, checked. Maybe it'll work on whatever they're dealing with here.

Raven has posed:
    When the portal dweller dies, its mind releases a horrible psychic shockwave that affects the nearest person...in this case, Superboy, who'd been trying to punch it. Superboy screams. Trickles of blood run from his nose and ears. He's alive, but his brain is swollen and bleeding. Kryptonian physiology should heal it...hopefully...

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma drops to a knee and the other foot starts to lift up causing her to sort of fall over, but she doesn't hit the road as physics continues to fuck about with her. "Damn it. I hate this place!" Emma growls as she keeps looking at the wall from where they all came in at. Still unable to look directly at the enemy, but her mind is a powerful tool. Sensing Jean's trouble and danger, Frost reaches out mentally, <<Jean. Keep everyone connected.>> She projects, as she slowly begins to float entirely off the ground causing a yelp from her red painted lips.

Her mind is trying to connect with the two broiling minds, enjoying this whole event. This is oddly familiar, like a child standing over an ant hill, playing god.

No. This is not something Emma will allow.

Jean would feel this sense of anger as Emma's hand reaches slowly out and all other directions to guide her mind to the cerebellum's of these beings.

Jillian Holtzmann has posed:
Jillian deactivates her sidearms when the creature goes down and fades away in a rather foul display, nothing she hasn't seen before though... She saw Superboy drop, however and that didn't look good at all...

"Woah woah!" Holtzmann said when the Goblin Mask was caught reaching for her gear on her back. "Careful there, that stuff isn't for toying around with!" She was NOT used to people going for the equipment on her back, and wasn't ware of the person invading her mind to figure out how to use it either.

Holtz would reach out to snatch the classic-style Muon Ghost Trap out of the other's hands and sent her right pistol back behind her back where it was magnetically-yanked-and-attached back to her CME Proton Pack.

With the left pistol still gripped, and the ghost trap in her right hand she stumbled foreward.

"Why don't you come out and play?" Holtzmann added on to Captain Marvel's taunts. "Instead of hiding like a little kitty cat!"

Superwoman has posed:
    "I am fully Kryptonian." Faora answers simply, as she watches as Superboy falls- frowning. "There are people. They're malnourished. Adults, primarily. I haven't seen a child." She notes as she finds herself connected to the others. "We need a plan. There are people in trouble here. This must be stopped." she says as she takes a slow breath. "This is outside of my realm of experience." she admits fully, "And I hate it." She looks towards the Psychics and the Scientist. "Point me in the right direction. We stick together."

Raven has posed:
    "You hear that, folks?" the disembodied child's voice cries with insane good humor. "Captain Marvel is getting bored! Why don't we make it more interesting for her, huh? What's your name, miss?"
    A new, whimpering voice appears over the seemingly invisible sound system. It's trying not to cry. "Helen," it whispers shakily.
    "And where are you from, Helen?" the jovial little boy/announcer asks.
    "I'm from...Seventh and Main..."
    The announcer puts on a grotesque charade of sympathy. "You sound scared, Helen! What's wrong? Tell the nice Captain."
    "I'm...afraid you'll kill me..."
    "Like I killed your neighbors, you mean?" the boy asks sympathetically. "Remember your neighbor Randy's son, and how mouths sprouted all over his body? Remember how he screamed as they ate him?"
    No response now, just soft, tired sobbing from a woman too scared to even weep properly.
    "Hey Captain!" the boy cries cheerfully. "I think I'm going to put a snake down this woman's throat and let her larynx rupture while it chews its way out! Think you can find me? I'll make it sporting!"
    Emma can tell the thing means every word of it. Every word. It's temporarily suspending the twisted space. All you have to do is find Seventh and Main in time.

Sarah Osborn has posed:
Sarah frowns behind her mask. This will be tough without being able to work directly on the trap. She Starts pulling pieces out of her utility belt and assembling them on the fly, She says, "Captain Marvel creates energy like a small star, energy a Kryptonian can convert into vastly more energy. If Captain Marvel provides you the power, and this device is attached to the one that lady has...the trap thing...you hold these handles and the powers should go through you and be directed by the trap to hit anything extradimensional from all sides at once...kind of like a giant spanking..."

Phoenix has posed:
The flow of blood doesn't stop when the creature 'dies', but the accompanying pain and discomfort do. With a sharp intake of air, Phoenix jerks upwards as the thing vanishes and joins Emma in casting her mind outwards in a survey of Kirby while stiffly pushing hair from her face.

{{I've got them covered,}} she thinks in reply to the Queen, {{Not gonna let you have all... the... .......}}

The broken minds at the center of town - the sheer, malicious glee radiating from them - draw her smoldering avatar nearer until she's hovering near them at some remove.

A soft, sickened, {{... oh my God,}} meets the rage leaking from Emma.

And, in turn, Emma may feel the redhead's psyche boiling to the point of eruption by the time the announcement finishes.

{{Seventh and Main!}} she 'shouts' to the group at large before rocketing-- forward! Forward! She's flying forward and it's the direction she wanted to go!

Not that she bothers to dwell on this as little flames begin to ripple across her body and roll from the tips of her tresses; it just makes what needs to happen next that much more inevitable.

Jillian Holtzmann has posed:
Holtzmann listened to the PA voices and it just made her shake her head in disgust...

"The audio quality on those are just attrocious...." She commented then, apparently have strange priorities.

When Jean shot off with fire-ebbing around her form, Jillian looked then to Emma and the others. Over at Goblin Mask, Holtz shook her head. "We hve to find where they are first."

"I think I know where that is!" She shouted, on their way here, Winifred and Holtzmann had been studying maps of the city of Kirby, preparing for the 'job'.

The Scientist would turn then and rush toward a motorcycle parked on the side of the street. She leaned over it, fiddled with a few things on the side and then kicked it to-life and started revving its engine. A second later and she was OFF, zipping down the main street headed for the residential section of this sleepy town!

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
"Just as I thought, scared to face me, frightened little thing, keep fighting in the playground. You might get hurt if you stray outside of Elementry School," Captain Marvel projects in a firm unfazed voice. She knows that concern will not help the child. She knows that being worried for the child is what the thing wants from her. What she doesn't know is whether there's actually a child, and whether the creature will follow through its threat if there's no one to care. She doesn't know if the creature is anywhere near Seventh and Main as Jean suggested in her mind. The child may well be from there, but not currently there. But what she hears from Goblin Girl sounds like a plan, she turns to face Holtzmann and Faora, "<you all heard that....? Ready to try it?>" Because with any luck, a combination of all three would simply eliminate the creature. After all, being near it doesn't matter, spatial physics is off here, after all.

Emma Frost has posed:
Normal physics and gravity return at an inopportune time and she smacks into the pavement, getting rocks and scrapes on her palms and something that will be a nasty welp on her forehead come sunrise.

This however doesn't stop the mutant from continuing on her war path. Not like Jean, no, Emma has to initially crawl and stumble her way towards the intersection and likely wont make it in time. But her mind is far faster and further reaching than she can ever physically be.

<<You will not harm another!>> Emma blasts forth a wave of psychic rage as she uses her mental scalpel to attempt to sever the neurons of the men's optic nerves.

Superwoman has posed:
    Seventh and Main, "Onward, then." Faora states as she follows quickly behind Jean- flying slightly to the side- "Do it. Hit it hard.." She looks back and nods, "If that's the plan, we should go for it. I'm willing." she takes a slow breath.

    "What do I need to do?"

Sarah Osborn has posed:
It is unclear anyone else how she is doing it, but Sarah is following a path that looks like it should be crooked, with the twists and turns she is making, but somehow every move she makes is amplified by the crazy twisted world so she winds up covering distances faster than if she were moving in a strait line. She calls to Faora, "We need her Muon trap," indicating Jillian. She holds up her improvised device, "We place this over it so that when it opens, it passes through this grid. You, Kryptonian, hold these to charge the grid and focus the energy. Captain Marvel, you hit Faora with your solar powers, preferably tuned to the spectrum of a blue giant star though a yellow star will work too."

Raven has posed:
    Emma is one of the most powerful telepaths in the world. Her attacks are nearly unstoppable. It's shocking, then, how much energy the being(s?) can take, and how quickly they can respond; how an immense flame blossoms from the ground and forms into the shape of an orange housecat with black stripes, fat like Garfield, but its eyes slitted like a snake's and its ears, flattened against its neck, curl like a devil's horns. Also, it's the approximate size of a hippopotamus and cloaked in flame. It yowls as if heat (or maybe it's calling for someone by the name of Bauer) and rises up on its hind legs to swat down at Emma, claws only partially extended, though what do claws matter when it's made of fire?

Raven has posed:
    Main Street is a two-lane road with more stop signs than traffic lights, the black asphalt hosting a series of drab buildings of brown brick: Kirby's business district; a dairy here, a post office there, a crafts store next door. It's all terribly provincial, the kind of town you drive through ono your way to somewhere else. You'd probably never have spotted Seventh and Main for the visual hypnosis if not for one tiny detail: it's a circus. A literal circus. Whatever building was once there--and you're sure the original building was not this--is now a big-top tent of dark purple and dark orange stripes, malevolent yellow light spilling out of its open flaps and from under the canvas. Piles of discarded straw collect in small drift-hills here and there, and the smell of boiled peanuts and cotton candy waft out of the tent easily big enough to seat five hundred. Inside there are dozens of delights, too many for the exterior of the tent to logically hold: a hall of mirrors in which your every image is reflected back at you screaming and pounding against the uneven, warped glass; a carousel whose horses are alive and impaled on bars, their manes made of blue fire and their faces hooded with black leather like the equine equivalent of an executioner; an immense pool table the size of an Olympic swimming pool, in which cue balls four feet in diameter roll around as if struck by invisible cues; a freak show, where a woman is coccooned in rope and hung upside down above a wicker basket from which a king cobra rises toward her gaping mouth...

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
With Holtzmann jetting after Jean, looking for the address, Captain Marvel turns to Faora and signals a 'no'. "I think we're going with the good ol' guns blazing strategy here after all...make up for lost time?" At that she takes like flash of light, before catching up to Jean and Holtzmann, just in time to see the freak show and respond by immediately flying at the snake and tearing it apart with her gloved hands. That snake won't even know what got it. Assuming it's a snake, there might be a trick to it after all. If it's a telepathic thing, Emma or Jean are hopefully on it.

Sarah Osborn has posed:
Superwoman and Captain Marvel know the plan, all Sarah can do is try to get Jillian to play her part and hopefully act as a distraction. She tosses the gridwork to Faora and says, "Ghostbuster, I need that trap open in ten seconds. I am going to try to get you a break." Goblin-girl jumps to beside the cue-ball and pushes it, then jupms on top and rapidly rolls the ball with her feet into the next ball, jumping off at the last moment.

Raven has posed:
    The decapitated (and otherwise destroyed) snake looks up at Captain Marvel reproachfully. "That's not how we play!" it chides her in the sweet, high, rough voice of the chainsmoking little boy, and then the head begins to swell and stretch and reshape into...a young boy, made thirteen years old, a bit pale of skin and a bit lanky, but mostly normal. He's wearing a child's business suit only unusual in that the cuffs of the sleeves are long, trailing, and sinuous. His fingernails are long, black, and at a close glance seem to be made of iron. His hair is black and sculpted upward in two curling devil's horns, like a child vandalized a picture of the boy and it somehow stuck. He's holding a fat orange and black tabby cat in his arms, and he shakes his finger at Captain Marvel. "Plus, sending those women to stab my mind? Very naughty! You shoud be punished."
    The boy snaps his fingers and the air twists sickeningly into a swirling vortex that can't be seen, only heard. It's screaming, keening at a frequency that would shatter crystal. It's immensely painful, settling in the center of the brain the way the smell of rotting meat lives in your nose after walking in on it. It won't kill anyone...except maybe the bound woman, who's wailing, her face already red from being inverted too long...but oh god it hurts!

Jillian Holtzmann has posed:
Holtzmann arrived at the circus via motorcycle, headlight bobbing up and down as she drove right over the curb and flew into the dirt parking lot. Racing through the parking lot she slowed down and then ditched the bike by letting it drive out from beneath her legs, planting her booted feet down into the dirt... the motorcycle just drove on right into a ticket booth marked with 'Adults $25 / Kids $15'!

"Take that, you price gouging carneys." Jillian muttered before she turned around when she was shouted at as 'Ghostbuster'.

"What?" Jillian asked the Goblin Mask. "Uh... sure."

A moment later and the Muon Trap was pulled off of her hip and then deployed out across the stamped dirt parking lot.

"Don't look into the trap." Holtz warned before she stepped on the foot-plate and caused the device to shoot to life, bright energy blasting out the top of the yellow/black striped top!

Phoenix has posed:
Leaving a trail of flame along Main Street, Phoenix pauses for a beat to hover above the spectacle, studying it with a balefully analytical gaze. Captain Marvel picks her spot immediately; Faora, Sarah, and Holtzmann seem to have a plan of their own going.

Emma-- Emma is //occupied//.

{{I'm going for their bodies,}} Phoenix informs the Queen-- to keep her assured as much as anything else. Her eyes just about shut; the link grows quieter as power is diverted towards locking onto the broken minds, tracing them towards their physical shells-- are they in the circus? Or is it just a(nother?) plaything molded from the once-idyllic town?

{{Feels like Captain Marvel's looking for the hostage-- dunno what //exactly// the others are doing-- what's your statu-- augh, //fuck//!}}

The link cuts out //entirely//. The urge to orient towards the source of the noise is tamped down; instead, Phoenix continues focusing her efforts on pin-pointing the targets.

It's the psychic equivalent of crossing a desert during a glass storm; blood leaks from her nostrils and the corners of her eyes, but inch by inch, she forces herself to cross the distance.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma would quickly realize that her assault didn't do a damn thing and suddenly, the biggest tabby the CEO has ever seen has decided that Emma Frost is its play thing. Already injured and sore from the drop onto the road, Emma dives back away from the thing and lands on her shoulder hard.

The fire singes at her pants as the things paw sails by and she's horrified and scared. Emma for once, doesn't know what to do.

Superwoman has posed:
    Faora frowns deeply- this is all very unusual for a woman born of a people who held science as the highest calling. She catches the gridwork, and looks towards Captain Marvel. She nods towards the other woman and takes a deep breath. Her eyes flash, and in that moment she tries to cut the woman down- cut the ropes that bind her. That pain returns, and Faora only smiles- a quiet grin as that life-affirming pain shatters into her body.

    "Whatever we plan to do, we have to do it now!" she calls out, as her eyes stop their ominous glowing.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
Captain Marvel frowns when the snake's head shapeshifts into the boy who seemed to be behind it all. Whatever the creature really was. But she continues to try and squeeze and hurt it, until the point it's made clear he doesn't suffer from physical damage. Unfortunately for him, the attack that he set out, with the explosive kinetic energy the vortex forms, doesn't seem to have the expected affect on Captain Marvel.

"You're right...this is not how we play," Captain Marvel mocks him with her own words, only something is a bit wrong, her hair has shifted from regular blonde into corona like flares, her skin starts to radiate, as she flies directly into the vortex and releases an influx of energy at Holtzmann's trap, juicing it all the way up to 11. Hopefully what Goblin Girl suggested about overpowering that device would prove a correct guesstimation, otherwise, Emma, the girl, and pretty much most people around are in a pretty bad shape.

Sarah Osborn has posed:
Goblin-girl grops to the ground and watched the cue-ball careen into tht 8-ball and deflect it directly at the tail end of he firey cat. Sarah turns on her Aura Reader a moment then turns it back off. Whatever that boy and the cat are, it is too much for the auric scanner to handle...if he left it on either her eyes or the scanner woykd burt out fast...

Jillian Holtzmann has posed:
After igniting the Muon Trap, Jillian stepped back and pulled her PKE Meter off of her belt. She fired it up and hit a hard signal this time... which caused the scientist with the poofy blonde hair to suddenly turn and run toward the circus.

With a nimble hop over the admissions gate, Jillian was reading the display screen of the PKE Meter and running deeper into the circus. She passed into the Big Top tent near the Freakshow and then the PKE Meter was just running too hot to be of any use... she deactivated it and put it away, then reached over her right shoulder to pull out the Neutron Wand...

"You've been one bad little kitty... haven't you?" Jillian said outloud inside the tent. She thumbed the Wand's power and her Proton Pack shot to life, flashing lights all across its metalic surface and the whining sound of raw power charging up!

Raven has posed:
    "Boooorrrrrriiiiiing," the boy whines. "And there's still too many people in town. Who to kill...hey!" That last is an outraged ejaculation as a giant 8-ball rams into him from behind. He staggers forward onto one knee, clutching his cat, who yowls its own anger at being squeezed so tightly and leaps out of its owners hands to saunter away, tail up in affected disdain.
    (Half a mile away, the flaming cat disappears before it can strike. It flickers like the ghost in a Japanese horror movie and vanishes, spitting in time with the cat in the big top, not that Emma probably knows that.)
    The ghost trap fires light in all directions. The big top rips to shreds in a wind none of the living beings in the room can feel and is swallowed into its depths. But even in the boy's outrage, that mad humor sparkles in his eyes. "You don't like my circus?" he pouts. "Then let's change the venue!" He gestures, and red-black energy coruscates from his hands like lightning to strike the 8-ball. It quivers gelatinously and explodes into a wall of acid that pours around the witchboy like the Red Sea flows around Moses, a tidal wave of corrosive striking for Phoenix and Faora...
    ...Then the cat arches it back and shrieks at Holtzmann. Its shriek coincides with Klarion's panicked, "NO!"
    The acid wall dissipates into a mist, a burning mist but not the deluge it would have been, as Klarion loses control. The sonic screeching stops, its howl already having been muted to something like a grumble by Captain Marvel's absorption. Klarion is focusing on neither of these things, just diving toward the cat to protect it from Holtzmann's aim.

Captain Marvel (Danvers) has posed:
At first it may not look as promising, but once the boy starts to show some panic, a gritty smile returns to Captain Marvel's lips. She continues to power up Holtzmann's trap, but that means she's too preoccupied to direct Holtzmann's next move. Assuming Holtzmann didn't already get it, she hopes Faora would instinctively read the battle field and let Holtzmann know her target is the cat the boy seems so protective of, maybe that will finally end this chaos.

Superwoman has posed:
    Faora watches carefully- the kid and the cat. Eyebrows peak. "Go for the cat!" she shouts, as she rushes forward through the burning mist- growling at the pain, eyes water as the magical power in that mist bypasses her Kryptonian defenses. She's still faster than a speeding bullet, though. And more than willing to test her pressure point techniques on a Witch Boy- a flurry of strikes that would, on a Kryptonian, leave them writhing in physical pain as the nerves of their limbs were forced to shut down and cause great weakness. She doesn't strike *too* hard. No harder than she would a human, anyways. Even if that doesn't work, she's trying to keep the enemy away from his apparent weak point- the cat is very important. "I'll do what I can to keep the boy busy!"

Sarah Osborn has posed:
Sarah switches magazines. This probably willnot hurt the cat, but it should annoy it to no end. Holy water bombs...probaby will not hurt a real cat )if iut is one) but most cats do not like being WET.

Jillian Holtzmann has posed:
Jillian stumbled forward when the Big Top came to be ripped apart. She avoided the damage and felt the wind messing her stylish-doo up ontop her head, but there was business to be had here... a job to be done.

When the boy rushed at the cat, the Neutron Wand at the end of Holtz's pack came to life, casting a brilliant crimson light all around the area, flooding over the Scientist! The beam of sizzling hot energy blasted forth at the 'cat' and a waving hoop of charged proton particles SNARED it in its place!

With gritted teeth 'Ghostbuster' yanked on the neutron wand and pulled the Cat Spectre up into the air then tossed her body around to send the spirit right into the path of the Super Charged Muon Trap!

Phoenix has posed:
Solid mass melts into a corrosive wall and pink light ripples around Phoenix in a protective field-- albeit one with cracks wriggling across its surface, as at least some of Jean's attention is still devoted to hunting. She's grateful, then - distantly, beneath the bubbling rage and lingering thrum in her skull - when Klarion's fright saves her from having to test the barrier-- at least, to the same strenuous intent. The mist still leaves her hissing painfully as bits of it leak through the cracks and leave whorling burns across her face and limbs, but the field holds until the mist has dissipated.

Once it does, her eyes snap open with a sharp, shuddering breath-- and fix on one of her quarries, darting across the town-turned-battlefield to protect his pet. Green sinks into a burning sea of red and orange as the Phoenix's gaze narrows. Wings of fire unfurl across her back; pink light whips itself into a brief fury before sinking in tight enough to leave a rosy trail in the air when she descends towards the boy.

Foot first, aiming to land a single blow amidst Faora's furious onslaught.

With several tons of force behind it, because she's pretty far beyond assuming that this kid is normal.

Raven has posed:
    Klarion the Witch-Boy (not that you guys ever got to the introductions phase, but yanno) does not have a physical body in the strictest sense of the term. He is not impressed by nerve strikes, Kryptonian or otherwise. It's the will behind the attacks that fazes him him; the expression of the desire to resist. He arches his back and screams as he's pounded, his spindly arms loosening their grip on Teekl enough for Holtzmann to get a clean shot. It's trapped in the pulsating lasso of light and drawn toward the trap with inevitable, inexorable power, so it does the only thing it can do: it discorporates. Goblin-Girl's visor can probably watch it destroy its own body so its essence can be free to make a planar shift, and as it dies, so does Klarion, shrieking and clawing at nothing until he too vanishes back to wherever he came from.
    The circus goes with him. The spatial distortions, the curse, they go with him. The dead do not. The dead stay where they are. They are not altered realities or illusions; they are real, and they are forever. The town of Kirby is not childless, but it has no children left under the age of ten.

Raven has posed:
    The survivors, such as they are, require medical attention. Some of them are malnourished to the point of needing hospitalization, and the nearest hospital is twenty minutes away by highway. The strong flyers in the group can probably start collecting these weakest survivors on flatbeds and in trailer trucks, to fly them carefully to medical attention. Many of the town are strong enough to survive physically, but the psychological scars of the things they've seen... Well, it would be a kind of mercy from Jean and Emma to start giving people amnesia, frankly. They've seen perversions beyond description.
    The army will sweep in and do its cleanup job. Reports will be given and taken; recommendations will be made. You heroes will all be thanked profusely.
    And a town whose only crime was to catch a lunatic god's eye will have to deal with the aftermath.
    If any of you should think to count, Kirby's population of 753 has been reduced by exactly 87.