Scene Listing || Scene Schedule || Scene Schedule RSS
Owner Pose
Tony Stark Sarajevo is nice this time of year. The baltics rise on the skyline, rugged collections peaks and dapples of dark treelines below, rivers and meltwater gurgling down freshwater embankments. Green is everywhere, as the Dinaric Alps cradle the city below.

The two men - two superheroes, though their mein is that of many mountain hikers and tourists in the area - had quite the mountain trek ahead of them. About a day overland into the mountains after Strange had portalled the pair into a hotel in Sarajevo and they had made their way inland. It was not hard for Strange's robes to blend in, as long as he stowed or hid the Cloak of Flying, and Captain Rogers had the easy excuse of a broad backpack along his back to hide his shield. Soon the fellow hikers thinned out as they made their trek through the trees. A rest before nightfall, and the emptying out of non-essentials from his pack - food to eat, a layer of mundane camping supplies over more interesting hiking gear like ice picks and plastic explosives - readies the pair for their assault.

It is cold at night, in the Alps. Just at the point where breath fogs out in clouds of expanding heat, where the ground crunches not for lack of moisture but the dew turning to a thin layer of frost.

Where their target lays nestled into a valley, built into the mountainside and nary an animal with good sense lingers close. Like a bunker, there is a walled perimiter around the outskirts and two watchtowers, white stencilling declaring in Russian and the local tongue that this area is 'restricted military' and that civilians approaching will be shot.

The walls are grey metal in thick sheets, topped with a razor wire barrier. The inner courtyard is lit by cold blue LED lights that keep the ground lit but don't pollute the air (and give away their location to satellite), with squat half-drum barracks and buildings set in rows on the inside. All the buildings are marked with a rune and a number - roman neumerals - and there is no rhyme or reason to their assignment.

Deeper in, against the mountain, is a two-blast-door-thick affair of super-concrete, an alloyed steel 'lip' above, and a single control panel set to the side, in plain sight without a good way to settle into a cranny and slice the door.

There are no trucks or other vehicles about, but there is a raised VTOL/Helipad platform to one side of the base.

The front gate is a single barred door without a panel, and a speakerbox - clearly not intended for actual use, as someone approaching must be buzzed in.

The pair know that the Sling Ring will not take them deeper into the base, for Strucker's rune wards would both alert and divert the Sorcerer Supreme's attempts - having readied himself for retaliation. A palpable goosebump-creating aura of malaise and wrongness - 'wrong magic' or 'wrong chakra' - oozes up from the ground like a wellspring of oil or a geyser, pulsing outwards like a beating heart.

Both men know a feeling like that. Both men have held similar objects in their hands.

The power of a Stone.
Steve Rogers      The last time Steven Rogers held one of the Stones in his hand, it was the day he died. The world he knew came to an end. He awoke in a strange and fantastical place, and was then thrust into a stranger and more fantastical one than before. Time after time, he's been put into newer, more unfamiliar situations, forced to adapt or die. It's been unsettling. It's been thrilling, in more ways than one. It's been like being back in the War all over again.

     But it hasn't been *familiar*.

     This is familiar. The hiking trails of Sarajevo. The other hikers aren't soldiers, but it's familiar nonetheless. The tingle of the Stone. The laughing of men and women before a battle - even a battle most of them didn't know was going to happen. The tingle of the Stone. HYDRA. The Stone. It's familiar.

     It's familiar, and that means Steve doesn't have to adapt. He doesn't have to push himself into a brave new world like he does every time he gets out of bed to a digital alarm clock and goes to work in an alien D.C. He just has to be the man he's always been.

     It's...refreshing.

     Steve talks to the other hikers. He laughs. He learns their names. When they part, he gives them a wave. Then he sets up camp for two in a well-hidden crevice, and he smokes beans and franks over a hand-built fire, the automated hyper-cooker Tony undoubtedly hid in his camping gear utterly ignored. You always ate before an assault, he tells the Other Stephen in the tone of a vet, no matter what you did. You always had your last meal. And it was always beans and franks, for some reason. In the crevasse, Steve cracks a smile, and admits to Other Stephen that he never really liked beans all that much. But it was tradition.

     That done, the fire's smothered with expert skill. The icepicks are retrieved. The plastique is strapped to his belt. The coat is discarded in favor of his uniform. It's cold in the Alps.

     It's not eighty years of cold.

     He moves like a spy. He's becoming used to that. His heels hit the ground first to minimize crunch on the way down, to minimize the sound of stamping. His binoculars scour the walls, carefully kept away from any stray lights so they don't glint in the night. He passes them to Strange. He keeps forgetting the man is an actual wizard. He thumbs at one watchtower, then points at himself. He points at the other one, then at Strange.

     Then he goes. He's going in quiet. He's going in sneaky. With expertise worthy of the World's Greatest Soldier, he goes over the fence, knocks out the guard with a silent chokehold, and moves to climb up the watchtower to repeat the process with that guard. When the deed's done, he hits the rendezvous, and in a low voice, says, "So."

     "Are you feeling I, double-I, V, L, or X?"
Doctor Strange      For now, the Cloak of Levitation is waiting patiently in the Sanctum Sanctorum. Aside from that, Strange has got the usual 'I Am a Wizard' attire on--which is actually pretty comfy for the scenery. He doesn't have much to say to the other hikers, but not because he's antisocial, as he once was. Rogers is just more comfortable around them. He may come across as a little odd. He's okay with that.

     The Sling Ring is still slipped around the index and middle fingers of one hand. He's eaten--a hearty meal of beans and franks... and a warm cup of tea. The cup itself disappears with a flick of his wrist, as mysteriously as it appeared.

     Identifying the runes on the barracks might be of some use. As he recalls, the Baron was on some Thule Society kick, and so he attempts to recall his memory of the Futhark alphabet to try and glean any meaning from the symbols on their way in. 'Their way in' is largely left up to the expert on mundane infiltration, as Strange explains to Rogers that Strucker has taken precautions against the Sling Ring.

     Strange comes to the realization that, even translated, it's gibberish. He sighs, then makes his own entrance. Gravity obeys his command and allows him to make a nimble moonsault over the fence. It lets him down as gently as he can convince it to, after watching Rogers make quick work of the guards. Running a leathery hand through his hair, he responds. "Let's go with 'Odin I' I guess," he says, pointing at I. He reaches into the night air, looking up at the starry sky.

     Making some of his signature hand motions, he seems to grab a portion of the sky as if scooping ice cream with his bare hands. He stuffs it into a pouch at his hip. With one hand over the pouch, he nods for Rogers to take point.

     As they enter, his hand remains near the pouch, ready to throw out a dazzling illusion of the night sky complete with nebula embellishments should they walk in on a secret nazi club meeting.
Tony Stark The base is not especially well perimiter guarded. Captain America's stealth suit - really just a matte version of his normal suit - is dark and blue, with a slightly broken up profile. His shield has a dark spray on it that, while should you look at certainly evokes the Star Spangled Man With A Plan, doesn't reflect light like a beacon of AMERICAN FREEDOM.

In a Hydra base in the Alps. So, really, for the best.

Clearly not expecting someone to just 'waltz over the walls' with icepicks or otherwise, Steve makes his way up and lays out one of the watchtower guards, before traversing quickly to silence the other. He's quick - and efficient, laying the two helmeted-and-masked sentries out before joining Strange on the ground.

The men move quietly, both adept at the arts of efficient movement, no patrols really moving among the grounds. It's not really 'the grounds' that are the main event. It's not where the people are.

Strange gathers up stars and nebulas to place in his pocket to distract and dazzle any 'lesser' opposition he comes across and the pair step in, quietly, to the 'In Odin VII' half-drum building.

Well, really, there's only a few ACTUAL things it can be. Armory, barracks, logistics zone, or surface post. There really is no space for 'an empty, useless building'.

Stepping inside the building via sliding open the access door quietly, the pair slip in. Neither is spotted, nor are they molested by forces or fabrications.

The insides are lit by more of the blue LED lights giving the whole area a cold and icy appearance. Racks and racks of part bins and precisely sorted parts line both walls, and at the far end, a bank of monitors. There's two folding chairs sitting adjar, as if the operators had just stepped away. The screens at the end - banks and banks of them, like a NERV layout of CCTV screens, show a glimpse into the base below.
Tony Stark Odd, then, that this is aboveground.

The screens show HYDRA goons moving around crates, storage closets, an armory of blaster rifles, a rather military library, a room full of boxes, and many more. Glimpses into the base below.

In the center, taking up a spread of nine screens by nine screens, is an extremely set-up shot. A raised dias, perfectly geometrically square, laid over by a red rug trimmed with gold tassels that must be centuries old. An altar, and before it, a ring, that slowly rotates counter-clockwise into the dias-platform as some sort of arcane mechanism. At the altar is a corpse, stripped naked - male - face down with blood streaming from a gash across his neck pouring blood into a channel to either side. Another figure in black robes weilds a simple 'work' knife - nothing ornamental - slicked with blodo, and moves about the altar gesturing with the knife, flicking droplets of lingering gore in meaningful angles at each subcardinal point.

Each flick brings with it the pulse.

Then, as the robed figure stops, between altar and spinning rune-banded ring, and lifts his head.

The hood obscures most of his bald pate, but the single monocle set into the sunken brow of the blue-eyed warlock with madness in his countenance, Baron Strucker, is unmistakeable.

He raises his robe-obscured right hand - the hand that he had clashed with Strange's levinbolt - and points at the camera set centrally in the room - what both men are watching.

The robe slips down his arm, revealing not an arm, but a skeleton of one. A bleached bony finger, knucklebone, small connectors, all the way down to the silently clicking wrist-bones, and a bare ulna and radius that finally meet blackened flesh-stump burned like a cross-section. A red aura that approximates a mailled fist fills out the space around the hand, and upon the back of that phantom aura, set into the bones and magic, is a single yellow stone glowing like a star.

He Sees the pair, and smiles in his own way, before his fingers open from pointing, and he drops his hand into the corpse on the dias, a column of black fire erupting from the corpse as if a chemical reaction had taken place.

It appears the gentlemen are expected.
Doctor Strange      Well, the jig is up. Strange has to admit, it was pretty clever using the metaphysical property of a television screen as a reverse scrying device. And since the jig is up, there's no reason not to lean into it. The Sorcerer Supreme waves at the Baron through the TV screen. He places a heavily scarred hand on Other Steve's shoulder and points at the screen.

     "We... don't... want him to finish that. I mean--that smile, that point... he /wants/ us to not want him to finish it, but..." Strange nods his head in slight annoyance as an orange portal appears, simultaneously visible on the screen and in front of the two Steves. "We still don't want him to finish it."

     Strange steps through the portal. "Alright, Strucker. Now we both have a super soldier buddy. Gimme the Stone, please." Strange retrieves the night sky from his pouch--only instead of weaving it into an illusion, he sharpens it into a weapon--a starry night-sky spear with edges blurred by bright nebulas.

     Strange hurls it. Not at Strucker, but at the Altar.
Steve Rogers      Just like old times.

     Guards knocked out with a quiet *thump* or a simple chokehold. Watchtowers scaled. Sneaking into a HYDRA base.

     There's no patrols.

     That already bothers him.

     The screens bother him more. This was a large base, no doubt - he'd expected that - but the hardware they have access to is...it's the same stuff he saw in the crate with Fury. It's like he's being slapped with his own predictions, his own thoughts. This stuff has never done anyone any good. Keeping it around was dangerous. And now HYDRA's got it back.

     The figure in black bothers him yet more. Gore. Blood. The ring. Strucker.

     Strucker.

     "Thanks, doc," Steve mutters, "That was really clear and concise."

     And then he barrels through the portal and throws his mighty shield directly...at the wall.

     And it rebounds.

     And it goes for the altar from the side as Steven Rogers goes running forward, ready to tackle Strucker into the ground.
Tony Stark The room would seem quiet from the 'reverse scrying screen', but and the base is downright abandoned. Steve sees what he is meant to see: HYDRA, alive and well. Armed. Staffed. Carefully curated images of the tenacled arms of the great skull cephalopod squirming beneath the dark surface of the waves.

The footage is clearly of 'not here'. Trucks and armored vehicles. Strike fighters with armaments far ahead of their World War II versions. Crates of weapons stacked high.

None of this can be here. It's for you, Steven Rogers. For your eyes only.

Look, it says. Look at what your years in the eyes have wrought: Cut off one head, and two more take its place.

For Strange, Strucker's eyes lock with his. His expression of monomaniacal abandon, of exultant power, of sinister confidence carries that undertone of a dare. The wards weaken. An invitation. The shielded area of the base narrow, strip away. Strange's astral perceptions can feel out the newly revealed area:

Solid rock. There's barely a few sub-basements here. A gallery, a storage area for magical components. A few personell, probably hand-selected fanatics. This is no 'secret final bastion'.

This is the manifesto in stone.

The pair waste no time after that, Strange's Sling Ring giving both men access to Strucker's prepared stage.

As they open the portal, though, the sounds begin. Not whispers, but feelings. Scratchings. Things that should not be called, names that must not be invoked. Things that skitter and scrabble at the edge of perception, shapes that do not exist dancing at the edges of vision.

This is a terrible place. This place is a wound. Strucker has done Things here, things that should not have been done, things without name or explanation in the tongues of men, and yet, are known.

They are known to the Stone.
All knowledge is known to the Mind Stone.
Tony Stark But these men are not Lesser Men.

They do not falter, of course, for they have set their sights on the solution. If Strucker had weilded all six stones and an army of thousands, there would still be a stand, here. A line in the sand that had been crossed.

It is ever the threat of violence that keeps Evil in check. And this, what Strucker had wrought, what his motions and manifesto had declared will be wrought soon:

This was Evil. A great vile Working.

Thank God for Steven Rogers.
Thank Agamotto for Stephen Strange.

The Sorcerer Supreme is the first through, as Capain America surges forward through the burning hole in the sky. Drawing forth his gathering of the Night Sky, there's a rumble, a bone-rattling boom that does not unsettle the dust but the spirit. Like a peal of thunder rolling through the aether.

His cast-forward and formed spear of stellar energy expands, as the sharpened point of light burns brighter, and brighter, and brighter, a white light, a pure light. A guiding light.

For a moment, Stephen Strange is besides a large kodiak bear. Immense and grizzled and Old, in the way a valley was old, not the way a creature was old. The eye upon the side of the massive bear that Strange was adjacent to was shut, perhaps from a fight or a birth defect, but the other...

The Old Bear turns to Stephen Strange, and the other eye is as light itself. Guidance -- Hope itself. Then, the Old Bear winks at the Sorcerer Supreme - a difficult task for a one eyed bear - and the vision ends as his spear crashes into the altar.

Polaris. Ursa Minoris. A convenient thing to scoop in your pocket. A convenient ally to have swayed with words, words to a 'young' and 'impressionable' spirit of the land. Like all old tales go: Be kind to even the young and old, for rarely is everything as it seems.

The Pole Star-tipped spear does not crash or smash or crush into the blackflamed altar, instead the force of the blast disassociating the altar with extancy, leaving a smoking crater with deep furrows like toothmarks around the rim that Captain America leaps over with a single bound, legs pumping as his star-spangled weapon rebounds right into the back of Strucker - incapable of doing anything but yielding to the mighty shield - as he's brought to the ground with the all-American knuckle sandwich buffet starting.

He lands three satisfying strokes to the head - a right cross, a left smash, and another right hook - before the Baron doesn't push so much as blasts the Man Outside of Time from him with black lighting that leaps from the tip of his red magic fist, striking like wrecking balls of energy.

"The Captain America!" Strucker slurs around a fattening lip, spittle running down his cheek that he doesn't bother wiping. "How invigorating! I had not had a beating like that since... ahhh, the wonderful days. Ahhhh, for old times, Captain, you have not changed at all. But I - once a mere ally, a supporter, a tinkerer of spells and machine, now I have seen the light of your ways."

He rises up to a knee, the Mind Stone's yellow energy running up his sleeve and illuminating the inside of his robes as it outlines and highlights his blood vessels in a sickly amber light. "The Winter Soldier program was based on your serum: your Howard Stark had seen fit to try again, uncasing the fool traitor's serum, but I thought it best that it return to the hands of the true kings of history. Teuton hands!"

Rising, he spits at his feet. "Polaris. I'll destroy that traitor too, in good time. The stars should learn to stay out of this - for HYDRA will soon have all of the stones! And when Space is ours to command, even the stars will kneel! You, Sorcerer Supreme, will kneel far earlier!"

Lunging forward as the Mind Stone shines yet brighter and the definition of each finger of the terrible necromantic gauntlet seeks for Strange's throat, thrumming with crackling black lightning and the very palpable sense of death. "Your Captain America won't save you from the Satan Claw I've grafted onto myself!"
Doctor Strange      Strange bows his head respectfully as the Little Bear passes. When he lifts his head, he narrows his eyes at Strucker. The sorcerer holds out his arms to either side. Where a new friend has helped to destroy the altar, an old friend will return to stop the warlock. From the space between spaces drifts the Cloak of Levitation, its red mantle settling comfortably upon Strange's shoulders.

     He lifts into the air, but Strucker is upon him before he can float out of reach. A barrier is conjured, a disc of floating broken glass. It is a small gateway into the Mirror Dimension. The Satan Claw blows it apart, the shards flying every which way and dissipating. The immaterial digits of the gauntlet easily wrap around his unguarded throat.

     There is no expression of surprise on Strange's face--merely calculation in his emerald eyes, working out some new variable to overcome. Against certain threats there would be fear, but here his purpose is certain. He's in his element. The Sorcerer Supreme grips the underside of Strucker's spectral gauntlet--even without skin there are still points, confluences of energy... chakras. He twists, his thumb digging into the 'webbing' between Strucker's thumb and forefinger.

     The palm of the opposite hand thrusts forcefully into him. Through him. For a split second, Strange pushes Strucker's astral form from his body. It's a simple trick, one even a hedge wizard like the Baron can overcome just by flying back into his own body, most likely--but the goal is to buy himself that split second and use the time to shove Strucker off of him. And...

     "You hear the one about the Icy Tendrils of Ikthalon?" Another Strange arrives from the future, with a spell already woven. From hoary spell circles radiating icy mist spring writhing tendrils of pure frost, vigorously swatting at Strucker with razor-sharp needles should he attempt anything resembling flight. This Strange makes an affable finger-gun at Rogers, then vanishes in a flash of green light.
Steve Rogers      Black lightning. That's...new.

     Steve Rogers goes skidding across the floor, his shield spinning away from him. That's not new. That's been happening since he first punched the Red Skull in his red skull.

     "Strucker," is all Steve says as he pushes himself back to his feet. He grabs his shield as the Nazi monologues. Nazis always monologue. Red Skull loved to monologue, too. 'Ze Captain America.' 'A hint of green in your blue eyes. How strange to find a flaw.'

     Was there some kind of coach for this?

     "You're not a king, Strucker. You're a deranged maniac. We should've put you down in Saxony instead of chasing Schmitt out of that factory."

     The bit about the super-soldier serum doesn't surprise him. It bothers him, obviously. Howard should've-

     Well, he was about to say Howard should've *known better*, but anyone who knew Howard Stark knew what a lie THAT was.

     Someone above Howard should've-

     No, Fury proved that that wasn't true either. The government had Changed after the War. They'd gotten scared. They'd decided that they needed more.

     As Steven Rogers goes running at Strucker, the only thought that he can is that, really, truly, *Peggy* should've known better than to let Howard do that.

     Strange does his thing, forcing Strucker out of his body. Steve can't see this, but he can see Strange going for the shove, and that's his opportunity.

     He brings the shield down on the Satan Claw with both hands as the other Strange appears, spells already woven.

     Let's see if two more take *this one's* place.

     Another Strange finger-guns at him. Steve just nods. He's more used to this than he should be.

     He blames Tony and Clint.
Tony Stark The only coach for absurd speechifying like this are the two muses of time and ego. Self importance aged like wine - and only in senility turned to vinegar and sour impotence. This was a man in his prime. A prime that extended like string being played out from a ball of yarn, seemingly endless.

The mirror dimension, a ward and shield, a containment space for unspeakable power and terrible duels is crushed like stunt glass before the Satan Claw, but it's a ploy, an illusion. A deception.

Legerdemain, the art of fingers. Baron Strucker hadn't intuited that the broken doctor's implements would be leveraged. His Astral Body is struck clear.

Baron Strucker's astral form is wholly different from his physical body. Emaciated and gaunt, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. He still wears a glimmering monocle of crystal-glass, but his body is filled out with a mix of throbbing muscle and skeletal bone, his chest more a brace of ribs with a barrel of meat among them - twisted and taut, like he had grafted muscles under his skin. His entire right arm is missing just past the elbow, a single constellation of yellow light connecting the Mind Stone - the true Stone - to his Astral arm, small 'bones' of light and points that connect like a connect-the-dots that give the vaguest impression of digits. There is no marking of ownership, no terrible price or pentagram exacted upon his Astral, but the awful unnatural-ness of it sets it apart from the almost glowingly sinister health of his physical body.

A Strange of the Future shows up, summoning up terrible ice storms that blast the astral Strucker clear from his physical form, clutching at the hoarfrost that spreads across his bare chest. "Fool, you know--" he begins, but he sees the path of 'the Captain America'. The Upright Man. The foiler of HYDRA.

And his shield, clutched in both hands, sprinting into the frosty ground. A combined attack, where his Astral self cannot hope to outpace Rogers' blow. Instead, he brings up both hands to shield his eyes, as the vibranium shield comes down on Strucker's Satan Claw, the lightly ringing adamantium driving itself between the meat of his arm and the magic of his claw. To separate it.

He hits bone with a soft 'thok'.

Things get... Weird.
Tony Stark The terrible red energy of the Satan Claw, without it's almost laughably simple 'tupperware seal' of necromantic energy against acceptingly cauterized flesh and overriding will, rattles begins vibrating, and then explodes outward in a hurricane blast of undirected necrotic energy that flattens the Icy Tendrils, both Steves, and the Astral Strucker.

"You... VEXING... AMERICAN DOGS!" Astral Strucker screams, as his physical body slumps to one knee, 'empty' and idle.

Astral Strucker raises the Mind Stone constellation to his face, pressing a thumb into his cheek as index and middle fingers applied tension to his brow. "A century of preparation. A pact forged in blood with Dormammu himself, and all the powers of a stone with limitless knowledge of magical technique, and I find myself undone by an upstart who cannot drive himself, and a thug with a shield. No, this, this is the way of things. Every step upon the path requires sacrifice."

Raising up his Mind-stone hand, his thumb presses tight against his index finger, his pointer raised in a meaningful way. "I cast aside physical needs, for I am a master of the mind. In its place, rise up, my partner, the end of all thoughts, the compatriot in rule that only I, the wise sage, may invoke!"

Strucker snaps his fingers, the fingers made entirely out of Mind Stone energy, and there's another pulse. A differnet sort of pulse, like a period at the end of a sentence.

And the body moves. The eyes fill in, first black, and then amber - a lambent and unhealthy inner light.

Strucker's entire astral form wavers and smokes from the right shoulder, as he floats, spitting one final set of words.

"I dub you Baron Omega! The Captain America, and the Sorcerer Supreme have come here to kill me - to kill US - before the climax of our great work! Your heart beats with my blood, your body sings with two centuries of preparation! Voice of the stone, my partner - stop these men, and join me at the final place of our victory!"

An amber upside-down U, bracketed with two square tails at either end of the symbol burns itself into the chest of the robes, like lightning etching itself across the sky.

The body of Baron Strucker -- Baron Omega -- rises, and looks at the stump of his right arm with clear distaste, amber energy filling out into a slowly defining arm that he flexes once.

"Very well."

"As this body was once fond of saying: Cut off one head, two more take its place. I will see the great work completed, the work of kings."

"Hail the supreme HYDRA."

Astral Strucker's laughter echoes as he fades away, dispersing astrally as the Mind Stone winks out of existance with him - certainly not simply being 'killed' with all this going on.
Doctor Strange      "Hey," says Strange, wagging a scarred finger from a prone position on the ground. That... could be trouble, if it happens again. His impact with the wall ended up knocking some Nazi wizard paraphernalia loose. The Sorcerer Supreme brushes it off, grimacing as he looks over his shoulder at the crack he made when he hit the wall. He disappears, traveling back in time to assist the Steves of the past.

     When he returns, he continues his rebuttal, standing up. "I was driving /really/ well until I went over that guard rail." The jibe doesn't entirely hide the furrow of his brow which remains for a good moment after his return. The Dread One's name was uttered, after all. That tears it--if he's treating with Dormammu, Strucker really is insane. At least you can predict when a /rational/ megalomaniac is going to press his doomsday button. This is bothersome.

     In fact, it's irritating. "But, uh, seriously," he says to Baron Omega in that gravelly voice of his that's perfect for snide complaints. "Dormammu? Because... /Satan/.... wasn't enough." He sighs, rubbing his temple with one hand and weaving a spell with the other. It's cool. Totally cool. Strucker's only gotten away with a You-Know-What. A straight sword of orange energy pops up hilt first from the mandala before his hand. Unlike most of Strange's creations, this one is rather simple, a boilerplate medieval design rather than a Chinese straight sword as he often prefers. He catches it by the handle, and prepares for round two...

     By tossing it to Rogers.
Steve Rogers      The energy blast comes. Steve's first instinct is to block it for Other Steve. That's just who the man is. The shield comes up to shield Strange from most of the necromantic strike, not knowing if he needs it, not knowing if it'll work. Captain America would jump on a *bomb*. This is the same thing but wizard.

     He hits the ground, crackling with energy. He rolls on the floor, agony in every nerve. That hurt like *hell*. But...

     Through gritted teeth to Strange, he manages, "You know...it worked out...when HYDRA's using one-syllable words."

     For all of it, he's enjoying it.

     It's like being back with Bucky. It's like being back with the Howling Commandos. It's like being back in the war. Laughing at the HYDRA monsters. Taking it seriously, but laughing, because soldiers had to laugh. A man had to laugh in the face of all that death or he'd go mad. And Steve had had to laugh the hardest. Because every death hurt him the most. Every death was a man he could have saved. The rest were all just men. He was the Superman. He was the Idol. He was the American Hero.

     So he laughed as hard as he could for the men who couldn't laugh anymore. And it's no different here.

     He pulls himself to his feet. He catches the sword.

     He knows how to use a sword.

     He spins it once in his hand. That's just strength and dexterity, not expertise. But he smiles. "I can work with this."