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The night itself is a stormy one. The late summer brings with it mugginess and the rolling boom of thunder towards the end of the day. The sun hasn't set just yet, but the sheet of heavy rain is moving in with implacable speed. Lightning chains through the clouds violently. The airport has grounded the flights for the night, much to the chagrin of those stuck in the airport. C'est la vie —
— and for the better.
Tumbling like a stunned bird from on high from within the clouds, the Sorcerer Supreme is left to free-fall while he gets his bearings about himself. A solid lash of scaled tail to the chest isn't something he can shake off easily. The crimson Cloak flickers upwards until it catches an updraft and rights him with as much care as can he managed. He shakes his head, hard, and smoothes his rain-soaked hair away from his face. Eyes gone a-blaze in ultraviolet radiance narrow. "C'mon, you bastard, come out," he growls to himself even as the dual radial shields in golden lettering and lines spark to life again before his palms. He's a hovering oddity spotted easily enough if someone's high enough in a building, given that he's below the the cloud-line in the sheeting rain and still solid against the backdrop of the setting sun.
It turns out they don't even let private jets fly in this weather, much to Tony's chagrin. They can't, however, keep him from taking his suit out. He could make his flight to Boston without ever setting foot in a plane. It's just a small skip, really. In fact, he's had to come back to his office to get the suit.
He's just launched himself from the window and is rising up from the initial fall (can't just go blasting out or curtains will get burned) when he catches a glimpse of Strange. At first, he thinks it's someone falling from a building and he rushes up to help them, but then Strange steadies out, leaving Tony hovering there, his steely mask somehow looking nonplussed.
"They grounded your flight too, huh? You'll catch your death out here." He has weather control, neener neener.
Strange looks over in shock at the sudden voice at his level here in mid-air several hundred stories above the city itself. His expression arranges itself first into a scowl before it levels out into rain-spattered discontent.
"That's the first intelligent thing the airports have done in some time." Above, the thunder rumbles and he looks back to the bottoms of the dark clouds, scanning them as quickly as he can. "Not as if I was going to enjoy a vacation anyways. It's a wyvern, Stark. You remember your legends? Wings, hind legs?" A feral-sounding cry, part raptor and part something demonic, echoes from on high. Within the lower layer of clouds, a shadow can be seen to pass; its length easily surpasses a city bus and the span of the webbed wings is nearly as long in turn. It disappears up into the stormy floss again. "It's being cagey," he calls out, risking a glance over at the genius-inventor. "I need to down it before I banish it."
"Never took much time for studying legends," Tony admits. "I was too busy learning about the real world." It's hard to tell with the mechanized filter on his voice, but he might just be sardonic.
He accepts this new reality awfully fast, though. Scales, wings, teeth, claws? Yeah, okay. He follows the thing with his gaze, and there's a low hum of something powering up. "How does this thing react to bursts of pure energy?" he asks. Lightning crackles over his metallic fingers. There's no fear in him, no hesitation. He's just waiting for an open shot.
|ROLL| Strange +rolls 1d20 for: 11
"I wouldn't know. I've been attempting to lasso it thus far. It works, but the damn thing is slippery as the seven hells. Too many vertebrae for my taste," the Sorcerer shouts back over another roll of thunder. "It rolled on itself in mid-air and threw me." He's not about to admit that he took a swat like a tennis ball across a Wimbledon court in the process.
The wyvern cries out again and there's a lower pass, revealing the scales of its belly. They're a muted bronze, glinting like polished metal, and an easy target should Tony want to take his querying shot.
Tony wouldn't laugh. Honest. Maybe a little. But only in good fun! Tony keeps scanning, and then he grets a look at the thing, the glinting scales and the sheer size of it. "Great," he says, "we've got these now." He lacks appreciation, is the thing, for its majesty and beauty. There's no consideration for its place in the universe. He sees it, quips, and aims with both hands. Pow-pow! Two shots in rapid succession. It's like being hit by two small trucks, one after the other, with a little charge of lightning to make things interesting.
Strange readies himself further and the dual shields before his hands increase in diameter and lumens. Tony's attack is successful in its aim — how to miss the layered plating of scales at that uncomfortable short distance anyways, even given the sheeting rain and continuous crackling of lightning through the clouds?
The wyvern takes the blows well for their power. The first knocks it up into the clouds, where veined wings haphazardly right itself. The second, right on the tail of the first, hits at the cuff of a shoulder. This is enough to enrage it. Turning its long-snouted face towards Iron Man, it roars in his general direction. Teeth last scene in the Jurassic Era carry their strings of saliva and the tissue is a glistening black, almost as a python's maw. A few hard wing-beats and it's gunning for the metal man.
The Sorcerer flits off to one side and shifts the mandala-shields into something more malleable: the surujin in golden energy. He pulls back his arm and then whips it at the creature, aiming for the head in particular.
|ROLL| Tony +rolls 1d20 for: 20
|ROLL| Strange +rolls 1d20 for: 15
For its time, the suit is a marvel in its elegance, but Strange has not yet seen the poise of it in the field, its poetry in motion. Iron Man turns on a dime, neatly flying aside from a lunge that should have taken him out if only the wyvern had managed to connect.
Having been narrowly missed, Tony follows through with the movement, anticipating the creature's turnabout, and his solution is a simple, understated yet powerful punch in its reptilian face. Bop, right in the snoot.
The wyvern has time to bring its head about in the startled realization that its mouth shut on empty air rather than the suit that might crush like tin-metal between its teeth. It most definitely takes the punch straight between its flared nostrils and it wheels away in spiraling retreat, squealing like a stuck pig. OUCH. THE TIN CAN BIT BACK.
The crimson Cloak flutters as Strange flies along it in a brief burst of speed. The surujin lashes out and wraps about the bird-like ankle of one leg outstretched in a run upon air. The relic at his shoulders yanks back even as he sets his arms, teeth flashing in a grimace. YOINK. The line goes tight for a second and the wyvern glurks like a startled chicken before flapping into a tight turn, again leading with an open maw blacker than the Pit.
|ROLL| Tony +rolls 1d20 for: 3
|ROLL| Strange +rolls 1d20 for: 20
Tony had his one moment of gloriousness where he moved smoothly and hit his target square on, and he looked good doing it. If only the moment could last. But no, he just assumes Strange's lasso, being as it is surely a magic thing and Strange is the magic guy, would just stop the wyvern. He's not counting on it whipping around and lunging back at them.
"Okay, bye-bye," he says, and he darts away, only to be caught by a gust of wind and tossed nearly into the wyvern. He narrowly avoids that, catching only a flick of its tail, and he tumbles a bit until he rights himself, his ears ringing. He shakes his head, metal clanking, then strikes a ready stance. Say nothing, Strange. Mrf.
The passing lash of the tail is then followed by the incoming rush of the open maw. CHOMP. The wyvern's mouth closes around Tony's suited body, heedless of weaponry fired or any attempt to dart away. Mmm, the shiny thing tastes metallic — and look! When it begins to close its mouth, the teeth start to test the make of the suit itself! Puncture holes go so well with chrome and arc reactors if the suit can't withstand the ivory points.
"STARK!" Strange is hauled along ignominously behind the wyvern as it begins to flap strongly, taking its prey up into the thick soup of storm-clouds above them. A few choice Words and a zip of pure Mystical energy, kissing-cousin to that of the initially-fired shots, rides up the line and towards the creature.
|ROLL| Tony +rolls 1d20 for: 20
|ROLL| Strange +rolls 1d20 for: 20
Tony grimaces as he both hears and feels metal dimple. It's not a great sound coming from inside said metal. "Okay," he huffs. He twists about until he can get a hand free, and he jams it further into the wyvern's mouth. Its teeth are occupied with the metal currently encasing his body. Of that, he is well aware.
In his field of view, there's a fang that, with just a little more pressure, will hook in his mask and tear it clean off. The air is awfully thin up here. The display inside his suit is warning him of hull integrity, also that his heartrate has jumped. It's a tight squeeze, and all he manages to do is wriggle his arm so that his hand is facing away from his face, down the wyvern's throat.
Then he fires.
The wyvern shakes its captured prey back and forth through the heavy rain that falls through the storm-dark clouds. Must bite harder, must bite harder!!! That particular fang that risks encroaching on the Iron Man's helmet increases its pointed pressure, likely to the degree that the internal mechanisms of warning flare red — DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!
Even as the suit may finally give where supernatural strength outweighs that of terran metal, the shot fired is a shot received. The creature immediately whips its head back in pure reaction alone. Tony is released from its mouth and its wings begin to stir up the clouds in the open pocket of air within. The Sorcerer and his crimson relic finally let go of the Mystical surujin and it falls apart into ambient energy. Instead, the lightning crackles behind him and backlights him with ferocious after-glare. He begins to chant, his voice echoing off the layering of fog, as the creature writhes madly. OW OW OW OW BURN INTERNAL BURN.
|ROLL| Tony +rolls 1d20 for: 6
|ROLL| Strange +rolls 1d20 for: 19
Tony tumbles ass over tea kettle through the sky, buffeted on strong winds. He's whipped at speed, upward, and he reaches an impressive height. But then he starts to fall, tumbling down, and down, and down. There's no light in the eyeholes of his mask. They should be glowing blue, but they're not.
Exposed wires spark, and servos grind.
Inside the falling tin can, Tony is coming to. That toss met with some significant Gs. When systems don't appear to be online, he smacks the side of his helmet. Must be a wire loose. Just gotta…
There, that does it. The blue eyes come to life. Now to figure out which repulsors work. For the moment, just one, on a wobbly foot, but it keeps him from plummeting to his death for now.
When he's some semblance of stable, he skims the sky again. "Come on, come on…"
Now that the flying Tin Can is out of commission — to the wyvern's knowledge — it can vent its rage on the next nearest living thing: the Sorcerer Supreme. It coils up almost stacked upon itself in mid-air and even as it hangs in breathless pause, wings wrapped half-about its core, it howls at the man. Caustic, pale-yellow ichor drips from its cracked jaws and the forked tongue flickers. The rain cascades sideways. It pulls back its head to strike again, the blow of air moved by its wings enough to set the crimson Cloak to fluttering like a flag. Strange's lips begin to move all the faster, his expression taking on a note of uncertainty. Double-time with the banishment spell, double-time…!!!!
|ROLL| Tony +rolls 1d20 for: 14
|ROLL| Strange +rolls 1d20 for: 19
Tony manages to kick the other foot's repulsor into working. There, now he's got some stability. His poor suit. He'll be repairing that for a few days, and he might not make it to Boston. If he had any common sense — any at all — the very thought of Boston would be off the table.
When he spies the wyvern, he thrusts out an arm, but the intended attack merely comes out as a shower of sparks. "Son of a…" He hovers, and as he hovers, he works on the broken repulsor as best he can, shoving wires back where they belong, closing a plate that popped open.
Anyone who can read lips will know that Stephen just said a string of Very Bad Words instead of finishing his incantation. The Cloak and his sense of self-preservation divert him to one side abruptly; the wyvern's jaws slam on empty air, but there's no chance to breath. He's already on the run, a mouth skittering across slick flooring as the snake sinuously follows. The wyvern contnues to lead with its head, throwing droplets of yellow blood from the corners of its jaws, and flaps after the man. Swallow-like, he pulls a few sharp moves himself, but entirely in retreat. Someone's got to distract the creature again! The spell must be finished or they indeed may be!
|ROLL| Tony +rolls 1d20 for: 1
|ROLL| Strange +rolls 1d20 for: 2
Tony almost has the loose wire where he wants it. There! And the moment it connects, the repulsor fires off, slinging him through the air and right into the damn wyvern's mouth. It happens fast enough it might break a tooth, and it's no doubt a surprise to the wyvern. It's quite the surprise to Iron Man, too.
"You've got to be kidding me," he says. This time, he doesn't have a working repulsor to fire down the wyvern's mouth, because of COURSE going off like that flung the wire loose again. He's reduced to outright punching the creature as hard as he can, repeatedly. While inside its maw.
At least he's creating a distraction.
Nothing like the sudden reappearance of the flying Tin-Can to really put a dent in a wyvern's day — or rather, its mouth. At least two teeth break upon impact with the rapidly-flying suit and another resonates agony up into the creature's small brain. It pulls up short again and the gargling sounds of pained startlement are enough to make Stephen swing about in his own retreat.
"Stark, what the HELL?!" Not that Tony can hear the man's shocked yell through the claxon of suit-alarms and enraged wyvern and thunderstorm. Iron Man is getting a lecture about self-preservation when all this nonsense is said and done. The wyvern tries to reach up a back foot and claw at the object lodged and punching at its mouth — OW REDUX.
|ROLL| Tony +rolls 1d20 for: 9
|ROLL| Strange +rolls 1d20 for: 6
Tony can hear wyvern breath and the grinding of metal, which are two sounds he was so over hearing just a little while ago. They're not sounds he particularly enjoys. He scrabbles to get that wire fixed again, his style more than a little cramped by his current predicament.
When the wyvern starts biting down harder, he says, "Settle." The wyvern does not settle, and so he gives a burst with his foot repulsors. It steers the wyvern's head around. Which distracts it from biting down. So Tony continues those short bursts.
The wyvern turns in a circle, lead by Tony's feet. This time, when he fixes the hand repulsor, he makes sure the wire is secured.
Then he shoots the thing in the face. Because he's done now.
The creature gets dizzier and dizzier as its brain gets jumbled about in its skull. Sharp lefts followed by sharp rights at fast speeds is something it can't process in the least. Strange watches, mouth agape, shaking his head in disbelief even as the rain plasters his hair diagonally across his face and soaks his Master-blues. At this distance, he can see the bright blur of repulsors firing again and again and the thin membranous flash of wings backlit by lightning.
A blast aimed at a good time catches the wyvern right in one of its unprotected eyes. No scales to be found there! It reels and shakes its head madly, attempting to dislodge Tony as fast as possible. That's it — no more chomping on the flying Tin Can. Presuming that the Iron Man is freed from the black and yellow-stringed maw, the Sorcerer begins finishing the banishment spell. Ultraviolet light in a cat's-cradle begins to show between his readied hands and glows about his person where he hangs, the Cloak wrapping about his legs in the wind gusts.
Tony flies free of the wyvern, up and up until he can hover, looking down at it, with one hand repulsor sparking dangerously and his two feet keeping him aloft. He's ready to do… God only knows, something, should the beast attack again, maybe more punching. Whatever the case, he's poised to attack.
He doesn't stand down at all until the banishment spell has done its good work. He wobbles in the sky, and he loses a few meters when his foot repulsors fritz out for a second, but otherwise, he's good to watch and have the Sorcerer's back.
The banishment spell does its job. Once cast, it ensnares the wyvern in an impossibly-expanding net in violaceous vibrance. The lanky creature wails, but to no avail. It shrinks in on itself and then, blip — almost like a soap bubble popping, it disappears from this reality, returned to its own.
Strange is quick to flit up and over to Tony once he's absolutely certain that no futher metaphysical hijinkery is going to occur. "We need to get to a solid surface, lead the way," he calls out. A roll of thunder overtakes his last few words. Another spreading web of lightning nearby makes him flinch and look over his shoulder. He points downwards emphatically. We need to go!
Tony gestures towrad his building, and he flies that way. Okay, he lists that vague direction, then wobbles a bit to compensate for his malfunctioning hardware. It wouldn't be the first time his suit has gotten beat up while in the air, so he doesn't seem too worried. Then again, who would be able to tell with that impassive face mask?
It's an easy enough task to get into the office, and once there, he pops the suit open and all but rolls out of it, slumping against his desk. "Okay," he says. "That's… that's me postponing my trip to Boston tonight."
Strange enters into the building after he's certain that Tony isn't going to plummet several hundred stories to his death. He stumbles off to one side of the window and leans hard against the wall, face upturned to the ceiling. Raising a shaking hand, he swipes wet hair from his face and half-heartedly scowls in Tony's direction.
"I think that's a wise idea, Stark," he says tiredly. "Well done…"
A beat.
"…but flying into its mouth?!"
Tony closes the window, then goes immediately for a closet inset in the wall. He takes a towel from it and tosses it at Strange. It's dry in here, and more than that, it's warm. Thank heavens. Tony then opens a drawer in the wall and withdraws not scotch but a tool box. He immediately starts tinkering. He might make Boston yet if he's lucky.
"What part of that looked intentional?" he says, fixing Strange with a flat look. "Besides, it worked, didn't it?"
Stephen catches the towel, but still needs to pull it half from his shoulder and face. He wipes down his cheeks and temples before patting at his ink-dark hair, still frowning at Tony.
"Yes, but at what cost?" The towel flutters in his hand as he gestures at the punctured suit. "You're not going to fix that tonight." Or is he? Little does the Sorcerer know of the stubbornness of Starks.
Tony mutters, "We'll see about that. I have a meeting in Boston at nine." He had hoped to get there early, maybe enjoy some of the local establishments. Still, that suit looks pretty well chewed. At the very least, Tony starts fixing the obvious stuff that doesn't need a soldering iron. Though he does have one around here somewhere.
"What cost?" he echoes. "I can fix this no problem. I'm fine. You're fine. The only one who isn't fine is the whatever-you-call-it. I'd call it a win."
"Wyvern," the Sorcerer informs the other man grumpily. He slings the towel around his neck and leans back against the wall again, head momentarily dropped.
"Yes, a win. I appreciate your assistance, Stark. It would have been hellaciously difficult without you acting the distraction…as masochistic as it may have seemed." He indulges in a tired laugh. He's never going to forget the sight of the suit suddenly and spastically flying into the creature's mouth.
Tony smiles crookedly and says, "Any fight you can walk away from." He goes over to another drawer, this time to extract well-aged whisky and two glasses. Just a splash in each, and he offers one over.
"While I was up close and personal with the 'wyvern' I got a few quick ideas about improving hull integrity. It was a very useful and inspirational endeavor." He leans against his desk and lifts his glass. "Anyway, cheers."