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A massive castle, filled with vampires. She isn't sure she can trust her allies when the chips are down, given that they won't even lay off of each other. But somehow, she has managed to find a trace of magic, the hammer homing in on it.
Its difficult, hard to keep focusing, but Sarah is pretty sure it'll lead her to Stephen Strange. And maybe from there he can help figure out how to light the queen's darkness.

Given that the map just takes her past countless vampires, she ignores it, and takes the quick route. Through walls, through floors, through locked doors, all in a straight line from their entry point towards the source of magic. However sturdy this place is, she's a powerhouse by almost any standard, and is equipped with the best damned door opener ever enchanted.

Its just as handy should anyone decide to come between her and the prisoner.

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At least, that would be the case if one were foolish enough to get between that hammer and its intended target.

No, the wiser course of action is to attack the wielder. Springing from nowhere in the darkness, there are suddenly blades at her throat, and a man on her back.

"Unwise, child."

She barely has to think. Training with Steve Rogers, and a mind that was at least partly Carol Danvers has her reacting almost the moment she feels contact, reaching up with her free hand to grab for the wrist near those claws, then holding on to prevent escape as she launches herself backwards into the nearest wall. High speed collisions with stone don't do much to her, but that's not usually the case.

She is not the only one with well-honed reflexes. A leverage move using her solid back as a spring point results in a flip over her shoulder to get in front of her - while he flashes an energy dagger to try and set her hair on fire, while those vibranium claws attempt to slice open her belly.

This panther is ruthless.

She grunts in pain as the dagger cuts. Not as deeply as he'd intended, or even close, but she's not used to much even cutting skin. Her hair doesn't light, though it does smoulder where he cut.

She was going to just settle for dislodging him and being on her way, but that's clearly not going to work. She tightens her grip on the arm, more than willing to break it, keeping hold as she swings her arm to the side, trying to slam the panther into the wall full force, reminding herself she can't afford to hold back here.

He's slippery, and he never stops moving as he sqirms his way out of the path of the collision. Even with his arm trapped in her grasp, he's got options. Another flash of the claws, trying to cut the straps of that familiar old shield that keep it on her arm, and another blast of that flame right to her face - hoping to blind her and startle her enough to loosen her grip - however momentarily.

She manages to move her arm, saving the shield, but leaving herself wide open to the flame blast. Blinded, she still reacts, moving faster than most people think.
T'Challa is as resourceful as the stories she heard about him in her youth. She'd always wondered how the Sentinels had killed him. Now she needs to figure out how to do it, or at least slow him down.
Sarah rockets straight up, impacing the celing, and trying to bring as much of it down as possible. Sure, it'll make a lot of noise, but she hasn't been subtle in the first place. And she figures if there's enough rubble falling, he can't dodge all of it.

He can if he gets help.

Vaporizing blasts rain up towards them from nowhere, atomizing the rubble as its created.

The king of Wakanda does not work alone.

"Give this up, girl. No one resists the Queen of Storms. One can only hope to win her favor."

He dangles from her cape to pull her back just enough to protect himself from the impact.

This time, a daggerswipe at her hands, trying to get her to drop the hammer...

She drops the hammer, acting startled at the swipe. "No one... until now." she replies, swinging with the edge of the shield at her immediate assailant, while trying to figure out who this helper is.

The punch is a ruse. She's the wielder of Mjolnir, and just as it any other worthy to hold it, it returns at her call. A call she keeps silent, trying to have the hammer slam into the Panther's back as she's keeping him occupied. A tactic she knows Thor has used a time or three.

This Panther has apparently not expected the girl to wield the hammer so well, and the hammer finds its mark.

The vibranium weave of his suit helps make the blow non-fatal, but it does give her some separation from her attacker.

And that's when the blasts open up again from a handful of spots down below, seemingly coming from nowhere...

Thankfully, summoning the hammer is one of the easy tricks, and skill she has, just not experience.
She also, thankfully, has durability. She can't dodge like her opponent, but she can take Sentinel fire. Even Wakandan arms don't measure up to the most advanced killer robots. Still, it hurts.

That fact, mostly, just makes her angry. Hammer in hand, she dives after her opponent, trying to ko him while he's dazed. She'll deal with the gunfire next.

The gunfire is not meant to harm, once it's evident that she has a level of invulnerability. More to distract, affect the senses... and aid her opponent in vanishing into the shadows and dusty debris caused by their crashing through the floors.

With the quickness of a jungle cat, agumented by the speed of the inhuman vampire he most likely is, three bounds later, he's using her charge against her, trying to leap on her back and jab that energy dagger right into her eye...

Sarah quickly loses track of the Panther in the shadows, the gunfire doing its job admirably. Only her own well trained reflexes save her from losing an eye - fortunate, since her regenerative capabilities, while decent, probably wouldn't replace a lost eye.
Her head jerks to the side, and the knife leaves a long, shallow cut along her cheek.
She flings an elbow backwards, trying for a quicker, more subtle strike this time, trying to catch her foe off guard.

The use of strength and desperate force was expected, but the quickness of the blow does its job, hitting him at an awkward angle, with enough power to wrench him backwards a bit - the 'woulf' is audible...

That's all she needed, a moment when her foe was off balance, taking the moment to slam herself back into the wall, trying to do so before he recovers.

He doesn't manage to get away this time - he only lessens the impact, keeping himself from being crushed.

In a more desperate maneuver, the claws come at her face again - going for both of the eyes...

After this, she's going to be really thankful she does heal scars pretty handily, because she's going to have a few.
She shuts her eyes tight, but ends up with neat claw lines over her forehead and cheeks, shallow, but enough to leave her face a bloody mess.

She keeps pressing back to keep him pinned, alternately driving one elbow back into his exposed stomach and ribs, if he's going to keep his arms up to claw, and swinging back with the edge of the shield with the other arm.

Its awkward, but strong as she is, it ought to do something, even to a Vibranium armored vampire.

The crack is audible, and the chest caving in, she'll feel.

The rasp is instant in his breath, and his hands seize up and shake...

She winces inwardly. She didn't mean to kill him, not really. After all the time fighting soulless robots, she's not used to holding back. Anything less than full strength was never enough.
She tries telling herself that its a vampire, already dead, maybe she's doing his spirit a favor. It doesn't help.
She does manage to choke the self-doubt long enough to play it tough, turning to the people with guns as she lets Panther drop. "Someone volunteering to be next?"

The firing stops entirely.

The scattering of the cloaked soldiers below is silent.

The body is heavy and lifeless as it falls down... down to the lowest floor. Cracking even more, lying alone in the dark.

She feels sick for a moment. Even if it was a vampire, this is someone she grew up hearing stories of, about what a great hero he was.

Its actually that last thought that helps her choke it back and get moving again. This is what the Panther would have wanted, before he died for the first time here.

She lifts off, and heads for Strange again, just what they all need to save more lives.

The air wavers and rips, one gray claw peeling a hole in the very walls of reality to allow a dark clad body to shuffle out into the dim light. He gazes a long moment at the rubble of stone and wood. The vampire steps carefully around both to pick his way toward the center and finally settle into a deliberate crouched pose.

One razor talon pokes the body swathed in black lying immobile upon the debris. Emplate waits for confirmation that his senses grant. He peels back the black cowl, revealing lifeless brown eyes upon a formerly regal face. A single gray hand descends with sharp rows of teeth straining outward from the center. Orange eyes glow in heated hunger as he begins to siphon the marrow from the corpse.

He'll catch up to the girl soon enough, he reasons. Even scavengers have their role to play in the food chain.

Sarah forges on, paying little attention to what lies behind her, just homing in on where the hammer tells her Strange is, hoping she's in time.

The chamber they keep him in is behind many locked doors. It is dark, always dark here. Except for the moments when they come to torment or tempt him. Then there is candlelight. For the most part, he has been left in this oubliette of night for a very long time.

Sitting in the dark, bound in rune marked chains, trapped within a circle of fell magic and walled inside a stone room mortared with accursed blood, the Sorcerer Supreme whispers to himself verses from the Book of the Vishanti.

There's a sudden flash of light, accompanied by a crack of stone. This place was better built than anything else she's encountered, but Sarah has yet to encounter the door that can stop her. The runes and other magic wards may even limit Mjolnir some here, but her own innate power remains, and the hammer is still a fine door opener.

"Stephen Strange? We're getting you out of here."

Pale and sunken eyes flash in the darkened room as the light of the open door catches them. The clink of heavy chains sound out as a figure rustles and rises from the chamber floor.

"More games?" comes a weary and cracked voice.

"No more tests, no more games." she announces as she uses the edge of the shield to sever the chains, figuring they're warded against magic, but she has plenty of sheer strength, and an indestructible tool for just such emergencies.
"My companions are back this way. Follow if you can, I can carry you if not. But be ready, its ugly out there." she warns as she prepares to lead the way, and clear some space for the sorceror.

He's confused at first. Sealed away in the dark for who knows how long with demonic parodies of his friends and allies as his only visitors has put considerable strain on him physically and mentally. Lesser men would have gone mad. Starved and tortured, he now faces the possibility that this 'rescue' is in fact genuine.

As he looks down on the shattered chains, he rubs his wrists gingerly. It all seems unreal. They never dared to remove the enchanted bonds before.

They never dared.

A glint of steel sparks in those pale blue eyes and he steps out of the circle. Bare-chested and filthy, his hair is a long bedraggled mess and he shows the wounds of a mistreated prisoner as he steps into the light.

Outside of the room and in the light he shields his eyes. It has been so very long.

His voice sounds strained and parched yet the timbre is unfaltering and filled with a stern harshness that those who once knew him would blanch to hear.

"Yes. It will be very ugly."

A flash of illumination blooms about the magician and quite suddenly he is washed, groomed and clothed again. The hard cold edge to his mien however remains.

Stretching his hands out slightly to the sides he rises from the floor. His Cloak is sorely missed but levitation always came easy to him. Strange floats like a grim specter just behind Sarah as she hurries down the corridor.

Sarah can't help but grin a little as she leads the way, leaving the same way she came in, clearing out anything in the way and making sure the Sorceror has a wide berth.
"Get to the others and help them out. I don't know what you're capable of after the time in prison, but we hoped it'd be enough to turn the tide. I'll cover you all I can."

Marius lovingly caresses his dinner one more time before teleporting away back into his nethervoid dimension. He'd gotten a bit carried away with his snack, but was time to go back to work! After all, his Queen awaits her own fea- NO!

Orange eyes flare in panic as he tracks the blond female heading toward the Sorceror's prison. A whimper of disbelief escapes him when her odd mutant signature is joined by a human. Male and powerfully familiar, despite being off limits to all vampires. In his pocket dimension, he breaks into a dead run with long razor talons readily outstretched.

The walls of reality ripple again, suddenly revealing the deadly vampire rushing at the back of an unanticipating Cruasader. Full intent is upon ripping her apart.

Sarah winces as the claws dig in. Thankfully, she's a lot tougher than she looks, and reacts rapidly, turning with the impact to direct a backhand fist towards her attacker as she spins.
"Stephen! Get to the others! I'll hold this one and any other pursuers off."

He looks to Emplate...

No. There are greater tyrants to topple from thrones far higher.

"...I am in your debt." is all in his whisper that Crusader can catch before the gaunt Sorcerer is whisked away on the Winds of Watoomb.

Her fist catches Emplate hard enough to pummel him back into the walls. But he's just supped on T'Challa's genetic material that grants him a preternatural feline grace allowing him to recover his feet quickly. But Strange is gone by then, so he goes for another feint with his claws. One toward her face and the other palm seeking to grapple to any exposed skin she's got.

The Queen promised him a taste and he'll be damned if he doesn't get one of this bitch.

Sarah blocks with the shield, and lets him grab her wrist. "You know... I had trouble with the Panther... I grew up hearing stories of him and his heroism... you, I've never hear of. Bet no one'll miss you."
She kicks towards his gut, if he wants to grapple, fine. She can kick through titanium. Vampire or not, she doubts he measures up.

He almost grins with triumph, feeling the mouth in his palm instinctively seek to rip and latch upon the woman's skin. That grin swiftly turns into a harsh hiss of surprise. His power can't pierce her skin, nor his claws through the shield. He turns away as she kicks, but she catches him in the ribs hard enough to likely have cracked a few. That'll take time and sustenance to heal.

Ultimately Marius is a scavenging predator, not a fighter. Survival supercedes greed, and so he suddenly retreats back into the safety of the nethervoid. He has to tell the Queen.

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A few moments later.

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