While Alex was dealing with the Illuminati, he sent Susan over to Wakanda to confront Hela.
At the moment, the woman was casually lounging in the throne room, casually rubbing the head of a large tiger that was acting as docile as a tamed house cat in front of her. Just like Loki, she immediately noticed the spatial fluctuation of a Mystic Arts portal in the middle of the room and raised her brow.
Unlike Loki, however, she cared little about testing the intruder and directly conjured a necroblade that shot out from her arm and at the origin of that portal. Yet, as the portal continued forming, she raised a brow in curiosity.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?" An outraged voice came through the portal. "This could have stabbed me just now."
Susan stepped through the portal, holding the black projectile that Hela had shot at her.
Hela seemed uninterested in talking to this unknown person and casually shot another sword at her, only for it to stop inches away from the woman's face.
Susan grabbed the sword and examined the texture with a sense of curiosity.
"This doesn't feel like an energy construct. Can you conjure matter from your energy? What an interesting power."
"What's your name, girl?" Hela asked lazily, a barely discernible hint of curiosity in her eyes. Normally, she would've identified Susan, the ever-present force field in front of her, but this planet seemingly lacked the presence of the Fantastic Four. Whether they had died before Hela and Loki's arrival, or if they were never there in the first place, was unknown.
"Don't you have authority over death? What if giving you my name gives you power over me?" Susan asked with an innocent expression.
"My power isn't nearly as troublesome," Hela said. "I presume that bug, Loki, was useless."
"Not particularly, no," Susan said. "Do you mind surrendering directly? I'm not really a fan of fighting."
"How presumptuous." Hela's expression grew colder, and she didn't speak any further before standing up, tapping the tiger with her foot as it quickly scampered away with an annoyed squeak.
[Don't let her touch you. That usually only works on Asgardians, but you never know, and it's best to be cautious. I didn't expect another Hela to start conjuring weapons…]
Hela's volley came without warning. A storm of blades appeared out of thin air around her, all shooting toward Susan like a black tide. Curving unnaturally around the open room, they shot at her from all sides.
Susan's expression didn't change as the air around her started warping with the solidification of her force fields, blocking every single blade that struck the sphere. The ensuing shockwave broke through the glass windows and cracked the Vibranium-reinforced walls around them.
Susan's expression grew strained as the blades continued putting pressure on her force fields, warping the sphere. The Death Goddess was testing the limits of her powers, how long she could hold on under sustained pressure.
Observing Hela's casual, almost mocking expression, Susan snorted and controlled the sphere to turn elastic, letting the weapons push closer to her, but before they could pierce through her, the force field snapped outward, pushing the barrage of weapons in a violent ricochet all around her.
The weapons found themselves embedded all around her in the walls and shooting toward Hela, who didn't bother dodging. The weapons that got close enough to her simply simmered out of existence and dissolved away before they could touch her.
"Good," Hela said, her interest in Susan seeming to grow a little stronger.
She took a step forward and seemed to vanish before appearing right in front of Susan. A sword materialized in her hand mid-stride, which she swung at Susan.
Susan reacted, but not with the sphere that surrounded her. She knew that she needed to get some kind of initiative if she was to have any advantage here. Against a millennia-old goddess, every moment she gave the goddess to understand her was a moment closer to her loss.
A thin, almost blade-like force field appeared in the middle of Hela's swing, before the strike could gain enough momentum. The blade struck the force field, and sparks flew through the air as it stopped in its tracks.
Hela was momentarily caught by the sudden appearance of what seemed like an invisible blade that blocked her attack, giving Susan the initiative that she desperately needed. The blonde didn't hesitate, clenching her fist as a force field compressed around the blade and Hela's arm with a crushing force.
Hela's expression darkened as a flood of green necrotic energy erupted from her as the center, momentarily stifling Susan's force field as Hela pulled her arm back, letting the blade in her hand dissolve. Two blades shot toward the blonde's face, and the goddess swung another blade at Susan.
Susan was quick to respond and created three elastic force fields to first block the three blades, letting them push into the construct before solidifying and compressing them. The two free blades cracked as Hela used the blade that Susan had blocked as leverage to step back before the force field could encroach upon her.
"Repeated tricks," Hela commented, still not looking particularly serious about the fight.
Susan narrowed her eyes as the air around her warped to such an extent that it seemed to be vibrating. In an instant, she conjured a hundred sharp constructs with her force fields that were all directed at Hela.
The death goddess seemed to have an intuition of their presence and released her own blades to accurately block Susan's attacks, stalling every invisible construct before it could even pass the halfway mark.
Neither slowed down for even a moment as Susan continued tossing invisible constructs for Hela to block.
Eventually, one construct passed by the almost supernatural intuition that Hela possessed and scraped along her side, producing sparks on her armor as it shot past her.
Instantly, a wave of green energy erupted from Hela, followed by a massive spike shooting through the window at Susan, forcing her to actively pause her attacks to block it.
When she saw the size of the blade, Susan felt a bit of cold sweat on her back. The spike was larger than the room itself, with more than half still sticking outside the window. Just blocking the massive mass took quite a bit of focus from Susan, not to mention the pressure that Hela was putting on the force field as the spike slowly inched forward.
"A good move," Hela said, glancing at her side. "You would serve as a very strong assassin."
Susan's expression changed when she realized that the tiny force field she'd managed to send into Hela's body had been destroyed. She'd expected that her subtle move would be able to take care of the goddess without much trouble.
"You are still too green, child," Hela said as the large spike above her slowly inched closer to Susan. "Shall we go for another round?"
"Don't underestimate me," Susan said, letting out a throaty grunt. The air around her simmered once again, and the spike pushing at her stalled. Not only did it stall, but a crackling sound also followed as the black construct started breaking down, soon collapsing entirely and vanishing into black smoke.
At the same time, Susan formed a large red wall in front of herself, blocking Hela's view, and sent the construct toward her.
Hela casually waved an arm and conjured an even larger sword that directly broke through the construct and continued unimpeded, breaking through the walls. Looking in from the outside, it seemed as if a heavenly sword had pierced through the Wakandan palace.
As the red wall shimmered out of existence, Susan was nowhere to be seen. No fluctuation, no disturbed air currents, nothing. As if she had teleported away.
Hela was calm and unhurried, a faint smile gracing her lips.
"You hide," she said. "Does that reassure you?"
Moments later, Hela felt her heart palpitate, an instinct honed by millennia of combat and war that seemed to go beyond mere sixth sense. Instinctively, a sword appeared in her hand that she swung to the side, only for it to be intercepted halfway by a sphere of compressed force.
An explosion of force ensued as the sphere expanded like a bomb, for the first time, throwing Hela off her feet as she flipped and was about to land.
Susan didn't want to give her the chance to do so and formed tens of similar constructs. Mines and projectiles surrounded Hela, leaving her with no option other than to take the brunt of their explosive force. At least, that's what Susan expected.
Mid-air, Hela's figure stalled as a green necrotic mist started swirling around her. Before the first projectile could reach her, the green mist exploded outward, impaling Susan's structures and detonating them. Regardless of the explosive force behind the structures, the green mist pushed everything back, directly overpowering everything Susan had just thrown at Hela.
The goddess didn't seem satisfied with that and lowered herself. Just as her foot touched the floor, it turned black, seemingly liquefying entirely as it spread around her.
From the blackened surface emerged skeletal warriors, decked in armor that did not belong to this era, or even to humans at all. Susan tried to interrupt the summoning by shooting force fields at Hela, but her efforts were in vain as the surrounding green mist countered each attack she sent forward.
***
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