Sniper came rushing back in to the subway at the same time that the remainder of the Guardians spilled through the odd red porthole. There, they each landed and alighted, standing here amidst the silence and nothingness of the dead subway. Only the scant sounds of people milling about in the street above dared to break that brief silence, as each of them came to stand where they needed to be.

OOC: Insert "hellos" here ... /OOC

Paladin had begun radar and sensory sweeps as soon as he had (thankfully) emerged into open space. In a sign of adrenalin more than anything, he had targeted Sniper's blip before relaxing and standing down his targeting computer.

Sniper chuckled humorlessly. "Velcome to New York, comrades."

Wild Lotus looked around and shuddered. "Is that where this is?" she asked rhetorically. "Glad you made it through all right, Sniper. The question is, why?"

Anna just shook her head, equally confused by why and how they landed in the big apple.

Leah looked around at the subway tunnel. New York? She liked visiting New York, but this was not how she preferred to get there. She was glad to see that Sniper was alive and well.

?

A sound echoed off the far wall of the subway. There, across the tracks, green letters started to paint themselves in backwards, one by one, as if painted by an invisible brush that drifted up and down, sloping curves that seemed but shapes at first until they became letters, then words, then sentences. It took but a few moments, but it was eerie, enough that it seemed otherworldly, wrong. The letters appeared as if they were painted on the other side of the wall.

It was the first display of paint that wasn't red.

Reflexively, Sniper cycled through his vision systems, but found nothing extraordinary. There was no invisible painter. It was as if someone was painting remotely.

Paladin's optics revealed no painter either, nor had his radar picked up anything other than themselves. "What the hell?"

"No one is zere..." he murmured aloud.

The letters, when done, simply wrote out a phrase.

"You followed me. Here, you're not there. Here, you're witnesses to art, not participants. Enjoy."

It continued.

When the letters were scrawled into the wall, a circle was drawn. Then, rapid thin lines, like a torso, over one another, thick and fast, as if doodled or sketched. Shapes and lines very quickly became a body, rudimentary, like a cave sketch by someone with the loosest knowledge of human anatomy. The fingers were long, impossible, the feet tiny circles, the face nothing more than a cross that showed the curvature of the eyes, of the profile. It took less time to scratch the painting in green paint into the wall than it had the words.

The painted man, the Drawing, when done, shuffled. It moved, and as if alive, peeled itself from the wall. Green knuckles cracked, dried paint flaking as impossibly wet paint dripped in loping circles around it.

The Drawing took a menacing posture.

Sniper looked curiously at the living doodle for a brief moment, then rapidly, swapped his rifle into place and knelt, pinning the figure in his scope. "Zis day, it is getting stranger and stranger..."

Really unable to believe her eyes, WiLo shook her head. "Please tell me someone remembered to bring the Wite-Out...?"

Leah stared at the animated cartoon. (Animated--get it?) she thought irrelevantly. "Well, there's something you don't see everyday."

Shimmer's face was haggard with confusion and disdain. She looked around the tunnel to see if there were any pedestrians that might be in danger if things started to go badly, before reaching out with her mind to see if the doodle was sentient.

ooc: aim, hold action. Fire if it proves violent.

OOC: Looks like WiLo is reduced to punching it as well, if it comes to that. Hold action until/if there's a clear shot, then Punch. OCV: 9 DCV: 9 Wooden Arms adds 5d6 to damage for a whopping 10d6 N, total. 20 PD/20 ED (15 of each is resistant).

ooc: Check to see if the thing has a mind. Or if she can feel the puppeteer, nearby. Also, are there any pedestrians that we need to worry about here?

ooc: take flight again, hovering in the air. Hold her action until/unless the animated drawing attacks--then try to punch it.

Paladin watched as the rest of the team prepared themselves for a fight. His own instinct wasn't to wait, but to have at it. Still, they had the right idea.

The armored Guardian took a few steps towards the animated drawing, hands up in front of him. To it he asked, "I don't supppose we can discuss this over some cartoons?"

OOC:Half move walk towards the thing, reserving action to block if meleed, dodge if attacked at range.