2016-01-01 Out with the New, In with the Old
This scene is rated Everybody
Warning: N/A
2016-01-01
Players: Dr Strange, Gambit, Iron Man, Lissandra, Odin, Pepper Potts, Phantasm, Rogue, Sentinels (Ghost), Tech Star
GMed by Ghost
Title: Out with the New, In with the Old

The famous split street, the digital billboards, the Great White Way, this is a tremendous center of entertainment, especially theatre, in the city. Shops and theaters line it, each in their own sections, and everything seems to shine bright and at times garish, to coax visitors to this or that attraction. Even foot traffic here is almost impossible dense, and at all times something is happening.

It is a chilly but fortunately dry evening in the crowded area around Times Square but there is little complaint. For what cold is brought in by the wind tunnel effect of the tall buildings is mostly negated by the large mass of people packed in, some scoring a great view of the ball that is to start its descent around the 11:59 mark while others have managed to get a fantastic view of the stage featuring some of the most recently publicized celebrities New York could get.

This includes New York born and (mostly) raised rocker, Mick Drago. Hair and makeup done up to channel his stage persona, Mike is nearing the end of his set, stage taking advantage of the space granted by the barricades as lights swing around, and the occasional firey burst springs up from discretely but carefully marked portions of the stage that the musicians do not trek. "The year was long but we made it here aliiiive. Say hello one and six, goodbye one and fiiiive…."

So what would a successful night club owner be doing in Times Square on one of the busiest nights of the year? Furthermore why would someone from a hometown who throws argueably the biggest part of the year be attending the second biggest party of the year? It's likely to do with the woman on his Arm. Grinning, Gambit smiles at Rogue, sqreaming a bit to be heard above the crowd. "Guess not many got de invitation, huh?"

What is the point of living in New York if you're not going to enjoy the massive party on Times Square? In previous years the celebrations had just seemed to be a bit too far away, but now that Sam is almost literally living just around the corner, there's no excuse. He's out there, enjoying the music, dancing when there's enough space and generally just enjoying the holiday atmosphere. Outwardly, just a kid out to have fun at New Year's eve. In reality, he's wearing the christmas present he got from Natasha under his jacket, and wearing a discreet ear bug to be able to call for help when needed. Better safe than sorry… not that he's actually letting all these precautions slow him down, there's fun to be had, music to shout along to and pointless acts of rote symbology to indulge in.

Rogue was wering a dark green wool-knit hat over her hair, that held it down around her face on either sides. She walked along with Remy, her leather trenchcoat on and a dark green turtleneck underneath it. She smiled at him and had her left hand in the pocket of her jeans while her other was clutching Gambit's arm. "Musta been one'a them internet e-vite things…" She said, smirking over at him after watching the guy on stage do his thing. "Ya know that internet is just a fad right… it'll pass… it'll pass." She said with a sly grin before looking back at this Drago fella. "He's kinda cute." She told Gambit then.

There's more to a party this size beyond crowd control and entertainment. Such as security, both overt like the massive number of New York's Finest out and about, and covert like the trio of 'media' trucks tucked up at one edge of the cordon near all the legitimate network crews. In the control seat of the larger of the three is a wheelchaired agent who's currently wishing she hadn't been on medical leave most of the year becuase she would've been able to opt out of the 'volunteer' duty. "Alright, unit four get your sensor drones off their chargers and in the air as soon as you reach position." Lissandra is in contact with a half dozen light duty teams of two agents each who are in the same position as her. "And don't forget to put up the extra cameras I asked you for. If we have to work tonight, I'll be damned if we won't get the best possible recording for our own party later."

Gambit laughs a bit and grins, lacing his fingers with Rogues a little more tightly. "If yah trying ta make me jelious chere, in de 'opes dat it'll make me wanna drag ysah off an' ravage yah shamelessly later, Ah should warn yah, it's working." He smiles despite the fact that as a rule he hates crowds. They mess with his Kenetic senses.

With a thunderous rumble, the song reaches its end, allowing for the crowd to start cheering while the hosts of the broadcasts of the festivities do their spiel leading into whatever commercials they have lined up for those watching at home. Lifting up the Mic, Drago gives a semi-salute to the fans out there before walking over to talk to the rest of the band on stage.

Rogue instantly elbows Remy in his ribs, not too hard, but not too soft either. "Keep in your pants, Swamp Rat." She told him, looking over at him with a big smile then. She was trying to look through the crowd to see if she could spot anyone she knew from the Academy, Samy or Jose… or even Tony. But no luck. Tony was probably up in his place drinking and watching a football game or something. She took her hand from Gambit a moment long enough to offer some claps for Nick Drago's performance, even though she didn't really listen to that kind of music! Her hand went back to her friend's then and she smiled at him. "Ya evah get the feelin' some stupid a-hole's about to blow something up these days? Has the news turned me int'a some kinda fearful chump?" She asked him, reaching up to brush some of her white hair back out of her face.

The Cajun laughs and grins at his date, his demonic eyes wickedly shineing at Rogue. "Considering Ah tend ta enjoy blowin' t'ings up on occasion, de t'ought nevah occured ta me." He says with a grin. He applaudes the fact the musician stopped making noise as well.

A specific fan close to the stage shouts out towards Mike, "Ragna ROCK!" enticing a group around him and it grows from there until nearly the entire crowd is crying for "RAG-NA-ROCK!" However they all silence when a certain ball lights up getting live feeds across all the televisions around the famous intersection.

In the disguised SHIELD command truck, Lissandra settles back into her wheelchair as all of her teams finish getting into position and all of her grav drones are airborn and stealthed. "Alright. Settle in and stay awake. There hasn't been any specific chatter about tonight, but let's keep our heads on a a swivel anyway so we don't get stuck with the garbage detail next time." There is a round of acknowledgements of varying levels of boredom and then she's flipping through drone feeds via her rigger implant. She's certain nothing requring them will happen tonight, but that doesn't excuse laziness.

Mike grins as he hears the chant, turning his head to look over to the ones demaning the song, he grins, lifting the mic to his mouth, chuckling a little, "Maybe next year." He promises, gesturing towards the giant globe that has started the final countdown to the new year. Several of the band members chuckle as they start moving to the edge of the stage, reaching down to take glasses of the bubbly from some of the event coordinators. Mike lowers the mic to head over to the rest of the band, taking a glass they secured for him.

As the cheer begins, eyes swivel towards the ball, and Sam's are no exception. He has a good spot right where he's standing, and the extra eye in the sky discreetly orbits the ball once before returning to a more low-key circuit. The fireworks are about to start, and last thing he needs is to have his precious drone blown or riddled with spent case. Innate paranoia makes him check the feed from his drone to make sure nobody has messed about with the ball… wouldn't be the first time.

Anna-Marie looked over at Remy and gave him a smirk. "Such a bombastic charmer, you are." She told him before leaning over and giving him a peck on the chek. She then darted forward and tugged him by his hand. "Come on!" She said, and getting tugged along by Rogue was like getting tugged along by a New York City bus! She darted through the crowd, excusing herself verbally to people and eyeballing anyone who eyeballed her back, not afriad to stare folks right back as they stared at her and her 'wild hair'. She stopped then as she'd been headed right toward Samuel. "Sammy!" She said overly excited. "Whats up!" She grinned big at him.

So a beautiful woman drags you through a crowd. You really only have one option, you follow. Remy laughs slightly at Rogues exuberance, moving with her. Trying not to think of the press of bodies all around him. When they approach Sam he puts his arm around her waist, smiling at the younger man. "Pleasure ta meet yah."

Tick

Tock

Tick

No sirens ring out today as just as the ball touches rooftop and the New Year is rung in, three sets of three sentinels, each about twelve feet tall step out from the roads and begin to converge upon the intersections. The large purple robots begin their scan, unheard as most of the people cry the countdown as the numbers fall through their sequence like they have for the past century. As the roar of the crowd reaches it's apex a single mutant is spotted and begins to try to fight through the droves of people, but is hindered in her escape, her pursuer reaches down with glowing digits that cause the mutant to vanish but not before cries out her fear.

As the year lights up and the confetti rains down with the fireworks go- (man that is such a fire hazard. Did anyone think this through?) Mike turns to his bandmates, lifting his glass up in mirror to them as they toast each other. "Happy New Year." Back turned and guard pretty much down, he doesn't see the Sentinels coming or hear them over the roar.

In the air above and behind Mike Hannigan (that is, Nick Drago, on stage) a face constructed of faint, blue translucent light coalesces into view. The image is of a man, bearing the familiar goatee upon his jaw, and the grey streaks of hair at either temple, and displays just the edges of a high collar worn about his head.

"Mr. Hannigan," Strange says, his voice faintly echoing as though coming from far away. It is only for Mike to hear. "Mike — I sense grave danger near you." The ghostly visage looks away from Mike and the stage, and across the crowd. Gleaming points of bluish light continue to fall like rain from the astral projection, only to stop mid-way and become part of the larger image.

"Control, we have sentinels inbound. Tracking." These words wake Lissandra out of her slight lethargy as she finds the drone feed showing the mutant hunters. She lets out a long sigh, "Alright, pass word to NYPD command that sentinels are present and then maintain… oh, fuck." This last is uttered as she watches the sentinel's mutant quarry vanish in the robot's grasp. "I hate watching that. All teams, drones to autonomous mode and be ready to aid the NYPD to deal with any panic those purple bastards might cause. I'm suiting up." And with that she sends her chair to the back of the truck where her exo-frame sits ready for her.

"Marie!" Sam rushes as much as he can to Rogue and hugs her, impetuously and without restraint, just very happy to see her again. "Happy New Year!" he beams up at her and the man with her, and turns just in time to see the ball drop. There's a party, there's shouting, there's fireworks and there's confetti… All those are far more noticeable and important than the warning beep coming from his watch, as the camera drone spots the danger and tries to warn its owner.

Rogue grinned at Sammy and returned the hug to him and even ruffled his hair some with her gloved right hand. She too looked up as people started cheering loudly and when the ball came down she turned to Remy and lunged at him to give him a big smooch on the lips. (That stark-tech dogtag inside her sweater keeping that absorption power at-bay, ya see.) "Happy New Year." She whispered to the Cajun afterward with a grin, not yet aware of any dangerous as the place was such a madhouse how could you even know.

Gambit kisses Rogue back with an almost feral intensitity… He'd been waiting for just the right moment to say what he does next "Ah lov—" Then his head jerks around. The crowd that has been making him slightly nausious all night now is changing directions…flowing around something massive not far off. His eyes flare brilliant pink and he looks at Rogue with fear and resolve mixed in his eyes "We got Sentinals incoming!"

Hearing in his head a voice that he hasn't heard in months, the glass in Mike's hand slips, falling to the stage, shattering. Mike turns his head and upon seeing the threat, and then looks back to the musicians, in particular one of the guitarists. "Off the stage now!" He snaps, his voice only carrying to those near him with the volume of the area being so loud. He starts moving quick, grabbing the guitarist's arm to usher him faster.

The astral image turns about fully, seeming to stand upon the stage now — a man in a long duster, wearing a shirt and pants underneath. Of course, he is completely translucent. "By Hoggoth, this New Year will be birthed in blood and fear if we do not /do/ something about it," Strange murmurs — his voice somehow loud enough to carry. "Attend to your friends," he tells Mike as the younger man ushers band members off-stage. Then he tucks in his cheer and peers 'upward' at the new Sorcerer Supreme from beneath his eyebrows.

"You know what to do."

With the mutant no longer in sight the humans that were near by start to applaud the work done by the sentinels and make a path for the machines to continue their patrol to the left of the stage. On the other side of the square three more sentinels walk through the crowd with immunity and respect from the citizens of New York unless- "Mutant detected" Sparks the front one of that trio and with no where to run another mutant is ensnared by the purple mechinations. "Noooaaah!" Cries out the young man as he flashes away from the spot in white light. Another mutant is gone.

With mutants being caught left, right and center, and with the operator seemingly doing nothing about it, Sam's drone switches to autonomic mode and calls it in. The warning call on the watch is now replaced by a countdown timer, and the haptic shake is enough to make the boy realise something is wrong, even as the drone moves off at high speed. "Okay… this isn't good. We've got a serious…" And, at that point, Gambit spots the danger, identifies the threat, and Sam's eyes widen in shock "… problem. Well, shit." The countdown timer stands at 48 seconds… "I think it's time to go. Getting a bit too crowded here."

At the instruction of the band leader, who has had some questions raised about his ambiguous status of mutancy or not just in the last couple of years, there is little questioning as they look up and see the giant robots, the guitarist included. As the jump down in the stage, there is a flicker to Mike's physique. Not a change in light, but almost, mirror image. Lifting up the stage skirt, there's a glimpse of a condo with a rather confused looking former-bassist looking his way as he shoves the band members in before dropping the skirt, not going after them. Wade's going to have some questions for him later most likely. Shaking his head, and using the semi-privacy of his positioning, he shifts into the black and red hooded no faced, glowing eyes and teeth, figure of Phantasm-Sorceror Supreme Edition.

Rogue was pushed up against her date, Remy when he turned to look at the threat and she took a second then to turn and look also. Times Square was chaotic as hell, thousands of people in attendance for this ridiculous ceremony… so she wasn't really sure what was going on. But Remy laid it all out there, and then so did Sam. Rogue tried to find any threat visually, and when she did see them she immediately took Gambit by the hand and then reached out to grab Samuel by the scruff of his neck. "Come on! We gotta get outta here!" She told them both. "Sammy! Text Tony!" She shouted. "Tell'im! fast!" She looked over at Gambit with a worried expression. "Ya know any buildings near here we can duck into?"

Gambit eyes Rogue for a moment and then says "The Moon a few blocks sout' of 'ere. Dare a Twenty four hour bakery. Take de boy dare. Tell de man at de counter yah want a choclate chip muffin and an Iced Vanilla latte'. Tell 'im yah 'ave a coupon. Dey keep yah safe till Ah come foh yah. Ah can' leave all dese people!"

As her drone feeds show her each mutant caught by the sentinels, Lissandra grits her teeth against the bile rising in her throat. This is absolutely one of the worst aspects of signing up as a SHIELD agent. As her exo-frame feeds plug into their sockets on her body, she doesn't even manage to enjoy the sensation of walking again before buckling down and getting back on the comms. "Umbra active. Once more I'm confirming general orders regarding the sentinels. Personal feelings put down. Human crowd control assistance only, and only if requested. I'm taking the high road." And then she's out the truck's top hatch and hovering a few stories over the crowd. She maintains her distance from the sentinels, caught between wanting to unleash her arsenal against them and knowing that would be the worst thing she could do. And not just because of the crowds.

"My power is not what it used to be…" Strange murmurs to himself, his astral form rising into the sky several feet above the stage. "I cannot… hmm. Perhaps I can." Casting a glance around the area, the former Sorcerer Supreme eyes those fleeing the center the for the exits — those most likely to be caught in the crossfire of the Sentinels as they mercilessly hunt down mutants.

His astral lip curls in distaste.

Strange spreads his arms, his ethereal duster billowing out behind him as though caught by a wind that isn't there, and raises his hands as if drawing up something from the ground.

"By Valtorr's Vapors
So I bid
Thine eyes be blind
Thy quarry hid!"

Tendrils of mystical smoke rise up from the ground, breaking through the surface like fingers. Each tendril joins with another, until a veritable forest of smoke stands between the Sentinels and innocent civilians fleeing the scene. Then, as soon as the forest is formed — it explodes, stealing the light (bending it) around many individuals… rendering them invisible to both eyes and heat.

Strange glares sternly over at Mike.

"Remember what you are…"

Mike pulls out a device from his …pocket? Is that a- We'll just say it's a pocket and brings it up to his mouth, "We have a situation in Times Square. Large crowds and Sentinels."

Tony is out on a date with his finacee Pepper and well they came to see the ball drop among the crowd. "Really? We can't ring in the new year without trouble." he moves in fromt of Pepper and sighs taking out his phone dialing a number. Giving Pepper a kiss, "I am going to have to go to work. Sorry…"

The situation is so dire that Sam doesn't even object to being scruffed and dragged away, tapping the bug in his ear for just a moment. "Tony? We've got Sentinels in Times Square, and they're not being picky. My suit's still about twenty seconds out, I'm with Marie and another mutant, we're running for it. Track Tech Star, that's where I'll be." As he runs, he eyes the countdown on his watch, willing it to speed up. "C'mon, c'mon!" Of course, he's not sure what he's going to do when it gets here…

Rogue had hold of Samuel something heavy by the back of his scruff, cause she knew he liked to run off and play hero and she wasn't about to see the kid-wonder get himself vaporized by a Sentinel. She paused though and looked to Remy, leaned forward to kiss him again and then gave him a soft smile. She then darted for said bakery, pulling Samuel with her. "Don't even think about fightin' these things, okay?" She said to the boy. "They're bad news… we gotta just protect as many people as we can… thats our jobs." She told Sammy. "Okay?"

The sentinels pauses for a moment and straighten up in their posture to their full fifteen feet height but they begin to glow yellow at the eyes, waiting for a signal to be reestablished so they can continue their witch hunt. The cops begin to step forward, telling all to remain calm and slowly disperse as it is after midnight and it's time to head home.

After a few brief moments a sentinel near the stage steps forward, locking onto another target and stepping to get in front of it's path out of the square and reaching down with the tips of it's lengthy digits glowing as if they were windows to a distant cosmos.

Tony got the message from Sam and the pieces of his suit arrive latching on. Its been a while since he has been in it with being oversears doing business type things. Taking off he heads towards the stage where the cops and sentinels all are and he hovers in the air, "just don't give up huh? Have to ruin the party for everyone. Take your toys and go home boys."

"Yah got mah word chere!" Remy swears as Rogue pulls the boy away towards the safty of the Guild Catacombs. He'll have hell to pay for that later, but deal with one bridge at a time. Hell the Sentinals could kill him and then he won't have to listen to another Counsol lecture. Power of positive thinking right there. He reaches into his duster pocket and pulls out his head gear. It may not cover his face, but it will keep his long hair out of his eyes. "Don't even think about fightin' these things? Don' worry chere… Ah nevah t'ink in a fight." He flicks his wrists as he sees a sentinal reaching for the stage, two cards flicking from his sleaves into each hand. "Hey, big guy. You evah play t'ree card Monty? Keep yah eye on de lady!" and lets the now glowing cards fly at the sentinal's head.

Umbra's field agents join the NYPD officers in working to get the crowds to disperse while she starts to take in a full panarama of the area trying to zero in on the source of the signal or whatever it was that jammed up the sentinel's tracking, even so briefly. And then Iron Man arrives on the scene and her personal feelings and professional obligations are in even greater conflict. She kicks in her grav units, flying so she's closer to Iron Man and the sentinels as well, setting her comms to transmit on Avenger's standard frequencies. "Iron Man, this is agent Umbra of SHIELD. I must ask that you not interfere with the sentinels on their mission. Please put your efforts into helping maintain calm among the citizens as they disperse." She doesn't do anything to disguise her voice to hide her distaste in the situation.

Having called for some… assistance, Mike turns to look towards Strange, "It's about damn time you showed up!" Phantasm replies, not going for the dramatics as much. As he leaps onto the stage, his form gone astral as the altered cloak flares up. Ok, so maybe a little dramatics. His hands slowly raise.

"The location so poor,
with few in charge.
Another locale we soar,
for a battle so large!"

Upon finishing his phrase, the arms part, fingers spreading out in a grand gesture, causing for the sentinels and those who seek battle with them to find themselves alone in what looks to be Times Square but without all the Cannon Fodder background characters.

"Things are a bit different since last time, y'know…" Sam begins, and then glances at his watch as the countdown finally reaches zero. Blinking twice, he looks off into the middle distance and talk in his watch, twisting at the same time to get free of Rogue's grip. His own suit starts to zoom in closer, broadcasting its usual spectrum-spanning signal. Every speaker capable of receiving a remote input begins to play the same song at full volume, and before lone the starting riff of 'This is gonna hurt' blares across Times Square… just as the spell takes effect. Twisting out of Rogue's grasp, the boy runs for the suit as it lands and suits up, flight thrusters taking him aloft to come to a hover nearby Iron Man. "So… looking familiar?" His voice is heavily distorted, coming through a voxcoder with the gain turned up to eleven.

In another place.

Strange's astral form glances toward the Sentinel that had been nearing the stage — now reaching for… nothing. Without wasting another second, the man reacts. Hands thrust forward toward the Sentinel itself, the wizard intones:

"In this, machine, you go too far
Now face the Fangs of Farallah!"

The energy currents circling the man's ghostly image begin to spiral around his hands. As they lance outward from him, each tendril forms a single fang in what becomes a monstrous maw of pure arcane energy. Strange does not wait to observe the chimerical monstrosity as it lunges for the Sentinel, jaws /chomping/ down on the automaton's arm. He turns toward Mike and smiles grimly.

"There will be time for conversation and explanation later, my former student," he tells the current Sorcerer Supreme. "For both of us." In the next moment, Strange closes his eyes and bows his head. A flash of blue light erupts from where his astral form hangs in the air, inches above the ground, and when it clears… Doctor Strange stands there in person.

His eyes are tight, his jaw set, and brow furrowed.

With a spell such as that, Phantasm gives a tired and weak smile as the colors fade from his cloak, seemingly dripping to the ground and pooling into another cloak. One of a more familiar color scheme to Strange. "It's about fucking time, Stephen." He replies again as the cloak flies towards Strange, "Never wanted the gig in the first place."

Tony notices Sam but keep his concentration on the woman, "If that mission is to harm mutants then its my place to halt it." he tells her as he hovers in place for now.

And…Where did everybody go? Remy looks around in confusion as literally thousands of people vanish. A heartbeat later though he is drops another hand of cards into hi hands and sets them to glowing pink. He is now aware of everyone around through his Kenetic sence…so he starts throwing cards at the nearest thing over 2 stroies that moves.

From behind Lissandra there is a loud noise that sounds like lightning hitting the ground. Behind her stands a large man that seems very old, and with a single eyepatch over his eye. With his good eye he is looking down on her with a look of patience as he looks quietly at the chaos going around for a moment then back to her. "I have heard your call mortal, and you work for my goals as well.. I have come to you in your time of need to offer assistance as I have in time of old. Do you accept the pact of cooperation as such mortals have in times of need. Speak quickly for it seems your enemies are soon to be upon you."

The one attacked by Remy first and then Strange doesn't do much but look down at its missing limb and then it lifts its other arm and pushes the three space-like digits into its own chest, causing it too to disappear in a flash of light. Eight of the robots remain in this alternate Time Square and even a few more mutants than one might have guessed at first. The two trios remain as such and the single pair of sentinels begin to line up behind Lissandra, while scanning targets to her left and right. The other three begin to approach Remy and Sam while the last three start to move at a quick pace towards a mutant with a ball of fire flaring from his right hand. "Come at me you purple fucks!"

Umbra is about to reply to Iron Man when the world goes strange (pun intended). There are no people, human or mutant. No trucks, and no agents on her comms. She puts her comms on open broadcast, "What's going on? What happened to the city?" Her mind is working on overdrive, but it's not exactly the kind of situation she's experienced before (Ragnarok notwithstanding). But as the pair of sentinels take position near her as someone their program identifies as an ally… And then speaking of Ragnarok… "Um…. are you talking to me, All-Father? The only enemies I have in this place are ones I'm forbidden to attack and must instead treat as allies." But if this place is somewhere that she can ditch those orders…

Free of the binds of the Soceror Supreme title, Phantasm starts to growl, clawed fingers clench momentarily before he starts running full tilt towards one of the Sentinels, and through it, with a slight pause when he was inside. In his hands, well. Not sure what it is, but it looked important in there…

The 'real' Doctor Strange turns about to point a finger in Mike's direction — momentarily ignoring the Sentinels around them. "THAT is not how the Sorcerer Supreme talks, my friend. Please tell me you didn't speak like that at the — " he stops mid-sentence at the flash of light from… Odin?

The greying-haired man scans the area, spotting other faces he recognises — only to smile (ever so subtly) as the Cloak of Levitation flutters across the air toward him. Clasping itself around his throat, Strange lifts a hand to touch it fondly, his eyes briefly closing.

Then he opens them once more.

"It is time this diversion ended."

Stalking out across the Other-Square, the Once-and-Future Sorcerer Supreme extends a hand toward a nearby building, then rips his hand back to his side. He does the same with the other, repeating the motion over and over. Each time, a gargantuan HAND — formed of the stuff of buildings — stretches forth and descends upon the nearest mutant-hunter/killer with a vengeance.

"The Earth itself rejects thee!" Stephen calls out, his voice shaking the ground. More hands emerge from the scenery itself, each one seeking out a target and preparing to tear it apart. "Those of you with the heart to fight," Stephen tells the rest. "Now is the time."

Despite looking quite impressive, there is not much the Tech Star suit can actually do. Tony had expressly forbidden Sam from developing weapons, and so the resulting armor had been entirely designed for support and interference. The distorted Tech Star voice can be heard on the SHIELD frequency, very likely monitoring all of them by now. "An enemy is an enemy. We're not yours, agent, so help us deal with the real threat here." With a kick of his thrusters, the red white and blue suit known as Tech Star accelerates in a flat arc towards the nearest Sentinel, aiming a booster assisted punch at its head. "Had enough of you guys to last me a lifetime, buzz off!"

Odin frowns down at her, "They bring balance to the world young one though it maybe hard to understand right now." he points a hand and shows her a world burned, and utterly devistated around her. There is no life on it only a giant bird made out of flames flying what seems to be slowly though it seems from far away towards her, "Your world shares my fate if we allow these mutants to run on their own. I do not wish to harm these lesser powered ones, but they must be stopped if we are to stop this devistation." as the giant flame bird gets closer, and closer to the poit where the heat of the flames could almost be felt, he snaps his fingers so she may see the chaos once again. "Help me fight this mutant threat.. follow your orders, and be rewarded with a future. Do not, and your world will burn and both our people will die to these flames." he looks down at her looking older and a bit sad. "I know it is asking a lot for a mortal, but I believe you have it in you to fix this with help will you help me?" he does look up at the others after he speaks and frowns at them. He did not have time to explain to them all and hoped this one would get it so he could help her do what was right.

Tony looks over at Odin, "Touch my sons and you'll deal with me old man." he scowls out at him. "Ther eis no mutant threat. You and these robots are the threat. why don't you go back to hell before I shoot your good eye out! This isn't your world. So why don't you goto hell or whatever its call. Ass guard…"

Having Odin All-Father appear and address her directly threw Umbra for a moment. Hers is the world of tech and medicine, not magic and gods. But even with the vision he grants her of a world in flames beneath a firebird's claw she shakes her head. "Odin, I have no idea who you consider to be an enemy in this scenario. So I can't answer one way or the other." And then the buildinds and ground start sprouting hands and attacking the sentinels. And the call to battle is made. "But my enemies are the sentinels, as they do not care if a mutant is innocent or guilty, only that they were born. In the world, I must support them by the orders I've been given."

A pair of atomic lances rise up from her suit's shoulders while gauss hyperrifles rise up from the forearms. "But we're not in the world right now. So I'm going to do what I /want/ this time." She fires a blast from the weapons on her left and right sides at the sentinels that grouped up with her, one of each weapon at each sentinel at half power…. enough to burn through a city block. Then she's flying an evasion pattern as her interal systems work out firing solutions against the other sentinels.

Gambit is fast and he is agile and with only a dozen or so targewts it's easy to stay away from them and do considerable damage…. So naturally he heads over towards his girlfriend and tries to help her cordinate. "So chere, Ah nevah wanna 'ear yah say Ah nevah take yah any place interesting."

Several of the Sentinels get crushed underneath the piles of steel and rubble and dust. With a few missing the attacked meant for them, One approaches Remy still, "Mutant acquired." It barks it's electronic voice. The machine's fingers begin to glow black with white specks once more. The two behind Odin and Lissandra remain standing and about two more remain functioning as they climb out of the rubble though the severely injured robots stab their own chests with the glowing digits and cause themselves to disappear.

The sentinel that just had a Mike-enema gets a missing piece that cause a violent short and with that he reaches out towards Mike and sparks flying from the gaps in it's chest as it strains to touch the mage and just as the glowing fingers brushes his cape before it explodes violently. The machine being assaulted by Remy has a couple of explosions bounce harmlessly off it's chest and thigh before a single car hits in its armpit and causes the machine to loose several pounds as the arm falls to the ground and the kinetic blast sends the robot down onto its side with a metallic groan.

Few things get Sam's blood boiling as much as Sentinels do, although asgardians tend to run a very close second these days. He knows what Odin is talking about, and would undoubtedly have a few things to say on the subject if he weren't too busy trying to keep a Sentinel from grabbing him. With a boost of thrusters, Tech Star lands on the shoulders of one and begins to attempt an override, Sam doing what he does best on technology that has always seemed remarkably adept at fighting him off. But these models seem to be different from the others, so he can only hope he can actually make these ones dance to his tune.

As the pieces explode and a chunk hits him, Phantasm goes flying back with an 'oof'. Shaking his head, he looks to the destruction, the part in his hand, and the destruction once more. He gives a fanged grin before chucking the part aside before running towards another one to DO THAT AGAIN!, ignoring the gaping hole in his own Phantasmy chest. Not bleeding. Just gaping.

"If machines were programmed for fear, I would call them cowards," Stephen Strange mutters as more of the Sentinels vanish, teleporting away to safety. As he walks forward, his feet rise a few inches at a time into the air — just as if he were taking an invisible staircase into the sky.

His trajectory takes him straight toward Odin and Lissandra.

"There is only one battle here for the winning, Allfather," he tells Odin, his cloak billowing around his legs. Strange glances at Umbra and nods his approval, then summons pieces of the Sentinel just dismantled by Phantasm to him. They fly across the Square like a swarm of locusts, spinning around and around into a vortex… one by one vanishing into nothingness between the Sorcerer's hands.

"Choose it wisely."

The man gives Stark a look and nods to him as well, only to spin around and seek out Mike. He frowns in disapproval and /tsks/ at his friend.

Odin nods to her. "Foolish mortal.. You are blinded by greed, and lack of foresight." he turns to look up at Tony as he pulls his spear. Then he does something different as he stabs it into the ground lighting errupts moving at lightning speed towards Lissandra. "Let me open your eyes." is all he says as he finishes the spell the lightning going around Lissandra to form a rune of power shinning with Odinforce. The spell would tun Lissandra to view those helping the mutants into sentinals, and those sentinals to those helping the mutants, or at least those around this current area. He looks up at the one approaching him, and shakes his head. "You were not born when I was learning magic. You have no idea with what you attempt." he hovers in the air and just floats there waiting for him quietly with his staff. "You have no idea how much you are hurting the ones you are trying to help."

Umbra is setting up for a second shot against the two nearest sentinels when Odin's spell strikes her from behind. And when her vision clears afterwards she adjust her targeting at the sentinals that are now all in new positions. It's confusing to her as she was attacking just now… wasn't she? But her feeds are showing one of the sentinels has managed to get into the air behind her and another is trying to squash a mutant by standing on his shoulders and squeezing his head. So she flies up to get an angle on both of them and fires a blast from her forearm hyperrifles at each of the 'sentinels' (in reality, these shots are being sent towards Iron Man and Tech Star respectively). She uses ranging shots initially to compensate for the initial confusion in her sensors. Nothing too powerful, but certainly damaging to either suit if the shots connect.

With the fatigue of having to balance so many responsibilties, Phantasm's persona has delved into the more agressive persona. Not factoring others, the clawed hooded figure continues leaping into Sentinels and removing parts. The same type he took from the first one.

"What have you done?!"

Strange shouts the words at the Allfather, knowing full well what the Asgardian has done — but still demands an explanation. Glancing over at Umbra, the Sorcerer swiftly turns about to survey the battle-scene, weighing his options. He glowers, and lifts his arms.

"By Balthakk's Eyes
You try too much
These few, thy prize
Thou shalt not touch!"

In that instant, every hero — every person battling the remaining Sentinels — shifts out of phase, if only for a short time to reposition themselves for a counter-strike. Strange opens up portals in the ground beneath the Sentinels, and flies toward Umbra.

The sentinel being assaulted by Samuel is quick to react as it reaches up towards the mutant with a digit meant for taking Sam but it stopped just in time by the young mutant's hacking abilities. The few remaining mutants around that aren't named continue to fight or get teleported out as they get too close to the mutant's hands.

The last of the machines cease to have a current flowing through their systems, the last of the robots power down due to combat strains and send the last images towards their home computers to build a criminal database of those willing and actively fighting the current law of the land.

Odin points out his spear, and the magic in the air swirls around being drawn in as the runes on it light up to prevent the casting on the hero's though is sure the teleport may still get through. He looks at Strange, and points his spear at him as if he looked to counter attack then stops returning the spear to point up as normal looking at him. He doesn't seem to move much but floats to where he is between Strange and Umbra. "Do not interupt, she is following the orders of her superiors which she would not do alone. Continue this foolish path, and you will not only lose her, but everyone here. You have spent the time to learn such magics, do not act the fool now."

"Ha! Awesome, I did…" and just as Sam is celebrating his first /ever/ victory over a Sentinel, the slug from a hyperrifle impacts his armor. It's sturdy stuff, built from chobham rather than a more fancy alloy, making it in theory as durable as a main battle tank, but the projectile nevertheless cuts a groove through the first few layers and spins the pauldron off the frame hooks. The sheer impact sends Tech Star spiralling off the Sentinel and down into the ground with an erratic burst of plasma boosters. "Whoa! Hey, watch your fire agent." Readouts blare at him for immediate attention, and he goggles at the sheer amount of damage a glancing hit has done to his systemic integrity. The projectile is analysed and weighed up against his defensive parameters, and he does not like what he sees. "Gauss rifle? Who the hell carries… where did they get a linear accelerator small enough? That's just cheating." As the ARC core of Tech Star steps up to full output, the boosters fire again and the suit is airborne, sending an override and destruct command to the Sentinel after transferring its entire internal database to the suit's data storage. "Agent, I don't know what your game is, but if you don't stop firing at me… well, just stop, okay?"

As Strange reaches Umbra, he weaves a spell of True-Seeing upon her, then teleports to Phantasm. Casting more magic — merely the subtle power of suggestion — he says, "That's quite enough out of you. Lt=et Mike out at once! It's time we left these machines behind ans returned to our natural plane, wouldn't you say?"

He is already casting the spell…

Umbra watches the effect her ranging shot has against one of the sentinels (actually Tech Star) and flies at him while he's analyzing the damage and getting airborn. She's going to try a different approach on this attack run… those hand teleportation systems the sentinels have are something she really wants to get knowledge of, after all. So as she's speeding towards Tech Star the gloves of her suit partially peel back from her skin so she can try to grab onto him. Because she knows what it will do to her if she manages to make contact, she locks her suit's flight systems into autopilot with a tracking lock on her target 'sentinel'. And just as she's closing the distance and about to reach for the grab is when Strange's spell of True Sight catches up with her and she can see what she's really about to grab. "Oh shit!"

Rogue is sitting in the bakery eating chocolate chip muffin and sipping an iced vanilla latte wondering where everyone disappeared to.

With Strange interrupting Phantasm's personal rampage, the clawed creature blinks, head tilting. Shaking his head, he turns, moving towards the nearest one he sees, Gambit. With each step, his form shifts, claws sinking back into nothingness and the cloak melting away into nothing more than a ripple of a humanoid silhouette. the eyes and teeth vanish as well. "Time to head back." Phantasm says as he reaches Gambit. "Hold on and follow me." Upon doing so, Gambit would feel no different. But the scenery would soon start to change to that of a dream like quality after Phantasm leads him over to grab Samuel, and conveniently enough, Lissandra and Tony. The scene of the battle would fade and after a few more steps the dream land would vanish as well, leaving them in an alley way a little distance from Times Square.

One big Ferrero Rocher with Mike as the nutty center.

Used to only ever sharing the sky with Tony when it comes to suits, Tech Star isn't prepared for another frame being airborne and following him. With the damage he sustained he has no choice but to bug out, but before he manages to get clear of the engagement zone, someone grabs him. The response is immediate, as Sam whirls around and grabs the wrists of agent Umbra and peels her off with as little force as he can. "Snap out of it Agent! Not. Your. Enemy." And then, in the blink of an eye, they're back… back in actual New York, where actual people are actually in the way. Letting go of Lissandra, Sam kicks his boosters to full power and rockets away on a long looping trajectory towards Stark Tower. There's a lot of data to digest now…

And speaking of digesting data… her flight path was locked into auto pilot and although her attack wasn't made against a sentinel, she did end up grabbing Tech Star's suit with her bare hands. So as they appear in the alley she's lying in a semi-comatose state for a few moments while her mind and powers process much of what makes Tech Star's tech tick. When she snaps out of it, she's going to have a more full brain and quite the headache. As well as some 'splaining to do back at the office. Looks like she won't be able to avoid the crap duty shifts next time, after all.
~fin~

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