ic The Black Rainbow [IC]

[Electra]

For once, Wander didn't take the time to inventory the layout of a new building the moment she was teleported into it. There was no way to get a bead on this place anyway, and the warping walls and shifting floors were so disconcerting that she forced herself to ignore them. Just like in the Wreck Room, she told herself. Just Archer trying to throw you off. She took a deep breath and drew her bat, pushing the special effects show out of her mind. Off to one side, she could hear Edge speaking, and though she paid little attention to the words, she understood what they meant. It didn't matter that the world was falling apart at the edges once again, or that they were facing magical foes with unguessable powers, or that the lives of everyone in Freedom City could be hanging in the balance. She was with her friends, fighting as a unit, and they'd faced far worse odds. The leprechauns had no idea what they'd gotten themselves into.

 

Just as Mark reached the crescendo of his speech, Wander took action. Flicking her bat open with a snap of her wrist, she ran two steps and sprang into the air, tucking her body into a ball and turning three tight somersaults as she flew over the heads of the leprechauns. She unfolded her legs and landed with a bounce, nearly stumbling as the concrete turned to slick marble. Just a trick. Her silver bat reflected the sick light of the energy whorls as it struck out, smashing into the first leprechaun left, right, and finally center, as she grabbed it with both hands and used it to clothesline him to the ground. 

[Gizmo]

From overhead, Midnight watched as his teammates struck hard and fast against the fae fascists, the ledge he'd perched upon becoming a rafter and then the lip of a massive chandelier in turn. Biding his time, the detective silently drew forth his escrima sticks, the solidity of their carbon alloy fibers standing in contrast to the chaotic fluidity of the shifting castle. All at once he dove from his hiding place, saying nothing but allowing the air rushing past to rustle his jacket just enough to give the leprechaun time to look up and see the shadowy form hurtling toward him but not enough to do anything about it. The expression of shock and dread was quickly wiped away by a blow to the face as Midnight landed atop his prey, boot pressed down against the fae's chest as luminous red lenses burned with a dire warning.

[trollthumper]

The leprechaun waved his hand, as if trying to turn the air around him to steel, Midnight's foot to cotton candy, or some other violation of the laws of reality. But the trouble with infinite power was apparently calling the right bits up on a moment's notice, as the blow sent the leprechaun reeling back, rocking on his feet. He appeared punch drunk, reeling as much as one could while still staying upright. 

 

"Oathbreaker!" cried Dralion. "You are surrounded, outnumbered, and dealing with forces that could consume you whole! Return to Avalon of your own will, and I will see what modicum of mercy can be spared."

 

The leprechaun laughed at Dralion's offer, a broken, pathetic giggle. "The dog of Avalon," he said, "wants to talk terms. I've got the reins here, lad, and if you think --"

 

"I'll take that as a 'no.'" Dralion vanished and, in the blink of an eye, appeared at the leprechaun's back. And then his side. And then directly above him. Dralion's blade lashed out in a storm, cutting the leprechaun at all angles - but still, he remained upright. The second Dralion was clear, Cannonade charged towards the leprechaun, hands laced together and brought low. He brought the fists up under the leprechaun's chin with the intent of sending him flying - but the stout fairy remained rooted to the ground, barely clearing a centimeter. 

 

"No offense to you, Dralion, but I'm really starting to hate fairies." 

 

"You're assuming I think your opinion --"

 

Dralion's jibe was cut off by a sound like thunder. Behind the reeling leprechaun, stones were falling from the city, plummeting towards the tile floors. They landed and sank like stones as the floor at the far end of the room took on the consistency of water, the tiles rippling outwards - not to where the League and their quarry were, but the pattern seemed to be increasing with every stone falling from the ceiling. 

 

"It's as I feared," said Dralion. "He can hardly control this power at the best of times, and when punch drunk..."

 

"So you're saying if he doesn't go down, Riverside gets real screwy?"

 

"Basically, yes."

 

"Great. We've got incentive." 

[Avenger Assembled]

The sky itself seemed to strain and warp back on itself as Edge looked up, the warp and weft of the melting reality that was Riverside suddenly strengthened by - look, up in the sky? An eagle? A jet? No, a superhero! "Think I don't know about...living in my own world!?! Unf..." Mark wiped a bloody nose and went back to the complicated mental work of keeping reality from imploding around them like cotton candy in a rainstorm. "Don't know if I can hold it for long!" said Edge as he concentrated to the utmost, spectral outlines of iconic superheroic images rising to hold up the falling bricks like a reverse of Samson in the temple. "Better take them down, fast and hard!" He felt a blood vessel burst behind his eye, but pushed along anyway, heedless of the sharp ache. "Show you how to control the world!" A lesser man would have stopped to think about what he was doing and been lost, but Mark knew deep in his bones that with his friends at his side and justice in the offing, all he had to do was believe!

[Electra]

"That's our specialty," Wander pointed out dryly, her fingers clenching tight around the haft of her bat. She crouched for a moment in the soupy pool that purported to be the floor, looking for something that wasn't rippling in and out of reality to provide a reference point. There, that ledge up there was a bit less shifty than the rest of the world, maybe that really existed. Unwilling to risk a run through the treacherous footing, she leapt from where she was, vaulting fifteen feet in the air and over the leprechaun's head to disappear into the maelstrom of shifting worlds. The moment her foot touched the ledge, she pushed off again, arcing like a javelin as she dove directly into the leprechaun, hitting him full-on with her bat first, then with the rest of her body. 

[trollthumper]

Apparently, being a god in miniature didn't give one much anchoring. The blow caught the leprechaun right in the face, as a flicker of doubt crawled across his features in the half-second before the bat struck him across the nose. He went flying across the room, hitting the distant wall with the force of a meteor. It appeared he was trying to brace for the blow by turning it into something like a soft mattress; all he did was make the wall go flying apart in a messy storm as he passed right through it. The leprechaun hit the ground hard, twitching before lying still.

 

The cracks in the wall began to spread far, running all the way to the castle's ceiling. All around, the features began to flicker and shift - suits of armor rusted before going back to healthy steel, the throne grew miles high before collapsing into kindling, and the very floor began to ripple like water. 

 

"Thought you said if we took care of him, this crap would stop!" yelled Cannonade. 

 

"It is stopping," said Dralion. "It's just coming to rest in a messy and haphazard fashion. If you can grab hold of one of the basic fundaments of reality, I suggest you do it now!" 

[Avenger Assembled]

"Ohcrapohcrapohcrap, okay so there's a little cafe that serves Afro-Panamanian food that's really great, and next to that there are some apartments, and a little park, and next to that is the Ditko Street crosswalk where the lights look like two red eyes staring at you all the time, and then there's..." For his part, Mark was doing his best to _be_ a fundament of reality, calling on everything he could remember about the real Riverside to make sure it snapped back to normal the way it was supposed to. "And next to that is the house where I think Eldritch lives and..." His eyes closed tightly in concentration, Mark waved to his friends frantically. "C'mon, help me out here! We've got to do it right!" 

[trollthumper]

Cannonade tried to recall the structure of Riverside - the Sentry Statue at the heart of Riverside Park, the crowds at the Midnight Hour, the bustle of foot traffic up and down Ditko Street... All of it was more real in his head than this shamrock-colored fascist bull crap. Already, there was this feeling around him, like air pressure stabilizing after a plane had reached its cruising altitude...

 

He opened his eyes to find himself standing back in the middle of Ditko Street. So were the other League members, Dralion, and the two quite unconscious leprechauns. Their gold lay about ten feet away, and was swiftly drawing the interest of locals. One opportunistic young man reached for the lode, and Dralion was quick to reach for his sword before Cannonade sped forward. 

 

"Sorry," he said, "it's fool's gold." 

 

He picked up the lodes and handed them over to Dralion. "Guessing you know how to handle these?" he asked. 

 

"Yes," said Dralion, effortlessly slipping them into a bag at his belt. "And the two captives as well. Thank you for helping me in their apprehension. I think I shall teach them a somewhat more enduring lesson in making foolish oaths."

 

"Can you work something in there about making 'em with Nazis?"

 

"I don't see why that's of more importance, but... I'll see if there's time to work it in."