A passersby gaze upwards as the Fritz-Charleston Hotel envelops from the top antenna to the base in a crackling electrical field.

An electromagnetic pulse flips over cars, bends lamposts and telephone poles, and knocks fire hydrants out of their sockets, causing water to spout upwards.

The warping of magnetic fields disrupts Non-Euclidean space in ways most humans cannot comprehend in a way that pulls TANDY, TYRONE, and KURT out of their teleportations and dumped into the street, yards away from each other.

Sparks from a broken pole light the gasoline spilling onto the street, causing flames to roar upwards.

Screams come from inside an overturned car.

A woman with auburn hair rushes as close as she can to the fire with intent to rescue, but can move no further. She raises her hands and closes her second and third fingers. Orbs of scarlet energy with honeycomb patterns dancing inside shimmer around her hands momentarily, then fade. She keeps her hands in position as the flames inexplicably turn into icy stalagmites.

"There's no time to explain! Please! Hurry and rescue that family!"

Ty shook his hooded head, and tried to get up. His first thought was if Tandy was ok-but she was already on her feet. The brunt of Doom's effect had been focused on him, not her. After all, she did not teleport and Doom had not seemed eager to face her dagger up close.

He stares dumbly at the blue man and the strange woman yelling at him. Then Tandy was up and running. She throws the dagger, and the weapon turns into its light-based form. Moving to the door of the car and slicing off the sides-giving Ty a view inside the vehicle. "Ty! Move!" She said

However, the fire was spreading from the leaked gas to the car-so Ty could not get the people out of it. Instead he flowed into a shadow and came out where the flames where moving in a path towards the trapped screaming people that the woman had not managed to freeze. He spread his cloak wide, and the shadow consumed the flames-the cold of his void would insure they would not spread.

Hopefully the other man could save the people...somehow.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:36, Mon 11 Mar 2019.

His transit was checked by a multi-phasic smack, jolting him from his own domain to the material world. He manifested about twelve feet into the air, falling with a fluttering of his coat and scarves. He landed in a crouch, focusing his senses. He felt the world so much more than he saw it or heard it. Within a moment he had his measure of the situation. There were a number of approaches but he began to react as the others. They were doing a good job of being proactive, he had yet to be sure if they wouldn't be liabilities.

He broke into a run. It was a disturbing sight, a man-sized, man-shaped figure in bulky clothes bounding along on all fours like monkey. The Brimstone was still too unreliable. At about ten feet from the car he leapt into the air, describing a perfect arc that had him landing on the edge of the vehicle. He grabbed the frame with his feet, leaning down and inside the car to have a look at who he needed to save.

The instant he saw the child his tail darted in to coil protectively around her and extract her. "You are safe." He said, grabbing the woman by the waist to lift her from the inverted vehicle. Leaping away from the vehicle he landed on the sidewalk, reuniting mother and child before sprinting back to make sure father lived to witness such moments.

Unfortunately for Kurt, his attempts to get mother and child to safety were unfortunately and understandably misunderstood. He had to deliver a swift jab about the head to pacify the man before he could safely and expediently be extricated. That left him sprinting back to the woman and child with the two-hundred and thirty pound father of the family across his slender shoulders. "Vill be fine." Depositing his burden as quickly as possible, he turned to look at what else he could do to help.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:59, Mon 11 Mar 2019.

The mysterious woman gestures in the air again, and momentarily the eerie lights surround her hands before reality blurs them away. The waterspout from the fountain seems to follow her directions, arcing from vertical to an arc over the car. The mysteriously frozen gasoline is washed down the sewer grate.

Then finally, she collapses, exhausted from the effort.

"Von Doom...he's trapped them inside..."

She strains to rise to her feet.

Tandy stares at the wrapped up man, who seemed to transport himself in a slightly similar way to Tyrone. Granted it did not involve shadow and it smelled horrible-but he did get the family out of the car wreck.

When the strange woman froze the water and gas, and removed it from the scene, Tandy headed over to her. "Are you ok?" She asked, wondering if she should use the dagger on strange woman to revive her energy.

Her words where far more alarming. "Ty! We have to get back inside! The man with the metal face mask, he must be Von Doom! He's going to hurt Mr Grimm's family...and Mary! And everybody else inside! We have to do something!" She said, sounding frantic.

"I can't!" Ty replied, moving over to Tandy. "I have been trying ever since he booted us out here...somehow." He sounded confused. "If he could do that...he might have been telling the truth about getting us free of the cloak and the dagger! We could be normal again!" Ty said, a trace of hope in his voice.

"No Ty!" Tandy said, her fancy new dress slightly covered in dirt as she brushed it off. "That man is a monster! I would not trust him to help anyone but himself!"

Ty frowned, his face fading into darkness under the ink black hood. Tandy could always see him however. "If you can't enter the bubble he's got around the place, maybe I could use the dagger to punch a hole in it. He did seem like he did not want to be stabbed by it..." She pointed out. Assuming Wanda was ok, she headed for the energy field.

Ty followed, looking over at Kurt briefly. "How did you do that?" He asked the mutant, not even aware what a mutant was. However, he floats after Tandy as she heads for Doom's force field.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:27, Mon 11 Mar 2019.

He cocked his brow at the young man, a thoroughly wasted gesture given his coverings. It was natural to assume that the query was in reference to his acrobatic rescue rather than his abrupt apparition. The three of them had dropped in out of thin air, after all. "I haff fery flexible joints." He offered a shrug, trying to be as friendly as a man could be without any visible facial expression and a strong accent distorted by the gasmask.

Moving to the woman's side, he wrapped an arm around her to help her up. "You gadje?" He guided to a wide windowsill across the street where she could sit. While he was well armed, he didn't see the sense in drawing weaponry out without know what was happening. No sense selecting the tools without knowing the job.

Neither of the younger two looked much like killers. He was glad of that. There was no shortage of petty monsters in the world. "How are vee to get inside? Are you two familiar vith fiolence?"

In reply to Kurt Wagner (msg # 6):

"Familiar with...what?" Ty said, not sure he understood through Kurt's thick accent and gasmask.

"Violence." Tandy added. "Yes, we are both very familiar with it. It won't do us any good if we can't get past the field. Ty is able to...ah...move between shadows. Sorta."

"That's not right, but close enough." Ty said, his cloaked form billowing slightly despite the lack of wind. "And despite that, Von Doom's glowing thing keeps me from entering."

"Right." Tandy said, nodding. "Which is why he chucked us both out of there. He did not want us to get Dr Richards or his family away. Or anybody else." He said, frowning. "Our best bet is using my dagger to breach the barrier. Unless...you can do something about that?" She asked Kurt. "Or maybe you?" She looked at Wanda, giving her a hand up. "In any case, I'm Tandy and this is Tyrone."
This message was last edited by the player at 21:37, Mon 11 Mar 2019.

"And you can call me Scarlet for now..."

She stares up at the glowing hotel.

"I feel it's redirecting energy that gets too close to it around itself and reflecting it...the moment it turned on it caused that magnetic pulse that caused all this damage. And whatever the power source is, it has to be coming from inside."

She crosses the street and peeks through a window. A member of the hotel staff is rushing at the window with a chair to try and break it. When he swings, there's a flash of light and the man is catapulted to the far wall and collapses.

"I don't know how that dagger of yours works. But if you can pierce it without getting thrown back like that person, it may be the only chance we have."

He stood still, regarding the other two. His mask rendered him quite expressionless, but he nodded his head and spoke in a polite voice. "I'm Kurt. It's nice to meet you." Their conversation made it clear that he'd made his way into a battle. It was one of those inevitabilities of life. "I don't need to go srough the field. I go somevere else, come back in a different place." As he spoke he reached back between his shoulders and extracted a long, straight double-edged sword. The blade was blackened, sliding noiselessly from the oiled scabbard.

"Are vee all ready to go?"

In reply to Kurt Wagner (msg # 9):

Tandy looked at Kurt as he spoke. "Well...ummm...my friend Ty here could not transport through it. While I am sure you two do the same thing in a different way-it might be similar enough to block you. Or maybe even hurt you. We should not take the chance of sending you through the glow until we know you will be ok." She nodded.

She then draws her dagger once more, and takes aim at the building. "If this does not work, we might have to see if we can get inside via the sewers. Hopefully the field does not surround the place like a bubble."

She grabs the dagger by its blade, and throws it end over end at its very large building sized target. Mostly she is aiming at the ground level so they all could just walk into the hole she will hopefully make.

The dagger spins through the air, staying solid for a few seconds before speeding up as it flies and changing into pure light. It keeps spinning however, so fast it can act as a sort of chainsaw of light to carve an opening in the field.

Ty makes sure to stand in front of her, Scarlet, and Kurt. Just in case the field decides to do something awful to the dagger and the person who threw it. "Keep behind me." He said to the three, making sure his cloak flared open and his face vanished into the darkness of his hood. Only two glowing eyes could be seen inside that opening-and nothing at all could be seen under that hood.

"Wanda!"

The woman turns in surprise at the the silver-haired man approaching.

"Father!

They begin speaking to each other urgently in a language Ty and Tandy don't understand.


The man turns to Kurt.

"We are very much alike. They call us monsters, but it is we who hunt the true monsters. I will seek you out another time. Good luck. All of you."

The man turns and starts to run, and is soon lost in the panicking crowd.

It takes a strong effort of will to drive the mystic blade against the science of the energy field. Sparks fly everywhere. For a moment she worries that she might lighting the fuse, but suddenly (just as Susan Richards cloaks the shield with invisibility) there's no deflection, just resistance. Enough for Karla to pass through and step carefully around the point of the blade.

It was hardly strange to meet kin in a strange land, his people were travellers first and foremost. They were rarely loners, Kurt led a solitary life but not contentedly. He appreciated getting answers in a more familiar tongue, as well as the man's clear, direct instructions.

His response was a polite nod of agreement before he began to respond in lyrical Sinte Romani.  He doubted that the tall patrician figure would draw the same sorts of reactions as Kurt did. It certainly wasn't a monstrous look that the man was sporting.

The crackling and hissing of the shield drew his attention. Possessed of a psychic temporal-spatial awareness, he felt the tangible pulse of intersecting energies. Off his mark like a hungry greyhound, he flicked his sword into an underhanded grip while sprinting towards the woman. The opening wasn't large but everything was relative. Air rushed into the space where he'd been. In the same instant he was on the far side, maintaining his momentum.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:33, Wed 13 Mar 2019.

Karla appeared briefly, went back in --  came out with another.

She was perspiring slightly --  taking a passenger was taxing, draining.

"Who are you people?  Do you have any clue what's going on in there-?  Or do you want the quick story-?"       She eyed the glowing blade, intending to remain a healthy distance from it.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:20, Thu 14 Mar 2019.

In reply to Karla Sofen (msg # 14):

"Some euproean mope named Doom is gonna kill Dr Richards and his family, along with eveybody else in the building." Ty said, looking at the sparks fly off the field as the dagger tried to arc weild itself through.

He stares at Karla, also trying to give Tandy space. She needed her full concentration. "Who are you and how did you get out of there?" He gestured with a black coated arm from the inside of the cloak. He had still be wondering what Wanda's dad had to do with all this.

Of course, by then Kurt had already made it through the field.

Bruce Banner:
Bruce could feel the frustration building inside him. Brought to fancy dinner to shame him in front of all these rich people, duped by a fancy doll, his life threatened...all he wanted was to be left alone.

Karla Sofen:
Her hand smarted from that release of energy, but she'd live --  it had worked!

She passed back through to this inside, grabbed Banner's arm, said "Don't resist!"  and pulled him through with her.


"What the--" Bruce started, but by then it was already too late. He was being pulled somewhere. It was the last straw.

The rage took over.


From a safe distance on a nearby building, Uatu adjusts his binoculars, noting Banner’s starting to leek a little green.

“Oh shit...”

In the middle of all the chaos outside, the ringing of bells and the smell of fresh milk permeates the area.

Bruce’s growing anger is distracted by memories of running to the shining white van with his spare change as a child and eat a dripping double scoop cone on a hot day.

The white van slowly weaves through debris. It’s bells ring gaily.

The bald fat man in the drivers seat waves to Bruce like he remembers him from Long ago.

On the side of the van, readable in the star and moon paint mural as it passes...

WATCHER’s ICE CREAM
COLD AS SPACE!

Banner was in the midst of transforming even as he was pulled into the street. He needed to lash out, to be free of confinement, to find whoever was responsible and smash them. He fell to his knees in the street, grabbing the sides of his head, his clothes visibly bulging out beneath him with muscles that hadn't been there moments before, heedless of those around him.

Yet somehow, the music from the ice cream truck, the bell, the man waiving at him, only at him, pushed his rage back beneath the surface, and for the first time, Bruce Banner regained control of the monster within.

"Well isn't that the cat's pajamas," he said to the truck as it passed.

As if snapping out of a trance, the scientist realized where he was, and scrambled to his feet, looking around him. With a nod at Karla, he took in the rest.

"Hi. I'm Bruce. And you are?" he asked the assemblage.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:18, Mon 18 Mar 2019.

In reply to Bruce Banner (msg # 17):

Tandy was still focusing on the dagger. She clenched her teeth trying to keep the opening via her 'wielding' by spinning and cutting at the energy field. "I'm...Tandy. This...is...Ty." She motioned towards Tyrone with her head, still focusing. "Ty-its open. Kurt went in-which means you can too. I am gonna hold it open as long as I can. Go get Mary and anyone else-hurry!"

In reply to Tandy Bowen (msg # 18):

"Don't stick around if I can't make it out!" Ty said, despite Tandy clearly not agreeing to such terms. Ty gathered the cloak around him and sunk into the ground into a rapidly fading patch of shadow.

"My name is Wanda...and I'm one of the few people outside Latveria who knows that Victor Von Doom's insanity knows no bounds..."

He had just relived the one night that was always in his nightmares, the one day he wished he could forget, but never could, and he felt as if he had done it purposefully this time. But, He was left in a cold sweat as he had, been many nights, although this was tentative at best. He was glad to have been able to leave the building, though felt that it was unfortunate the others were still trapped inside.

Tandy sensed all the people spilling out of the shadows via Tyrone's portals, including Roberto. However, there was not much she could do other than maintain her concentration on the dagger creating its 'hole' in the barrier. It was that opening which allowed Kurt and Ty to move back and forth-including the remote shadow portal Ty was keeping open.

Dozens of people where emerging from the shadows, still enduring the briefest touch of fear. Tandy's light was not in the void to protect them after all. However, Ty had 'eaten' enough to not feed on any of them. The void was just...tasting...each fear carrying being that passed through it.

Tandy gritted her teeth as she sweated, focusing her will upon the dagger to keep it breaking the barrier. "Wait! I need your help!" She called out to Roberto as he moved. "Have you seen a blind woman inside? She was eating with Dr Richards and his family." She paused, remembering Ben Grimm's ladyfriend. "Ummm...two of them I mean."

Indeed, I did. I saw her earlier on, but didn't really pay much attention to her in all honesty. Why, is there something you need me to do? I'd be glad to help. She seemed to be out for a minute there. Roberto Replied. In truth he would, he felt completely powerless in there, not even able to really help out with the situation, so he had decided to leave it to the others when push came to shove. But, He hadn't the slightest idea why tandy would ask of her, besides the possibility, that the woman had been known for oversensitive hearing, and could have been in harm's way due to that fact. He thought she was fine last time he saw her though.

Inside, Susan Richards is no longer able to keep the shield invisible. The vibrational feedback continues and Tandy’s dagger is repulsed. The trasdimensional corridor is closed and Cloak’s evacuations cannot continue. It’s a 50/50 chance which side Ty is left on.

In reply to The Narrator (msg # 24):

The dagger flies back into Tandy's hand, now looking like a solid weapon. "No! No! Ty is still in there!" She cries out, looking like she is about to throw the dagger again at the barrier.