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While Harry and his assault force had been preparing for their sojourn to Asgard, the war against Surtur and his people had continued. Nearly a month since the first clashes on the border had passed, and now the enemy army had pushed from the hinterlands and into the heart of Asgard. For any human army that would have been impossible given the size of Odin's realm, but Surtur's army could move far faster in a day than most human armies could, simply because jotun didn't need to eat or rest. Like the Asgardians, they could ignore being tired to an amazing degree and recovered far faster.
As for eating, while they had taste buds and enjoyed eating meat (human meat being a delicacy), Fire Jotun, like their lesser stony cousins, could gorge on rocks and recover energy that way if need be. And being shapeshifters, the jotun of Muspellheim could do more than simply recover energy by taking in that mass. They could also use it to add bulk to their forms, which most had been doing as the army moved ever deeper into Asgard, despoiling the land as they went.
None of that meant that their advance went unopposed. Indeed, every day saw hundreds of skirmished and a few that were not so small. All of this was in keeping with a larger plan, Balder and Freya working to buy time so that their men could create a battleground that would shatter the Jotun army.
Yet to Thor, God of Thunder and the common man, none of that mattered. All that did was that he had an enemy in front of him, and it was one he could hit. Hit very hard.
"HAAHAHAHHAA!" With a bellowing laugh, Thor brought his hammer around, slamming it into the side of jotun's waist. Not only did the hip muscle explode on impact, to such a degree that the jotun's leg fell off, but the power of his strike was such that his target was smashed off of his remaining foot and hurled into several of his fellows. Before any of the six jotun could have a chance to recover, a dozen karls raced forward, spears thrusting down.
These spears were not magical like Mjollnir, and even as they penetrated unarmored portions of the jotun they melted, the magma of the jotun's internals searing them away in a manner they had not at the start of this war. Even in this little way, the jotun had begun to adapt like the shapeshifters they were. The spearmen had to quickly let go of their weapons and retreat as blood spurted, molten hot, but even so, one of them was burned quite badly in the escape.
"Eaor!" Cursing, Thor raced over to the man, battering aside two other jotun in the melee to reach his fallen comrade. Around him, Tyr and his men continued to fight, striking from their hiding places on either side of the narrow defile through the woods that a portion of the jotun army had entered. True, it might've only been a small force of the whole, but that was all to the good, in Tyr's opinion.
The wounded warrior waved Thor off, his voice thick with agony. Bits of bone and intestines were visible through the holes the droplets of searing blood had seared, and it was clear the man didn't have much time left. "Leave me, Lord Thor, I be done for."
"Now, what kind of defender of the common man would I be if I did that, Eaor?" Thor bellowed with a laugh, lifting the man into his arms with one hand like he was a baby and twirling his hammer in his other hand. He whirled it over his head, and then the two were in the air, pulled along by the hammer, in a leap that covered the whole of the battlefield, landing by Thor's chariot.
Nearby, several dead jotun could be seen having been gored by Teeth-grinder and Teeth-barer, although they too were looking a bit worse for wear at this point. Placing the wounded man in the chariot, Thor took up the driver's position, using one hand to wield the reins and get his worthy steads moving.
Enchanted by Freya and Odin centuries ago, they instantly began to move, each step taking them higher and higher into the air. Using that same hand, Thor directed the goats into a slow circle over the battlefield, his hammer spinning to one side of the chariot. Looking down, he lashed out with bolts of lightning that crashed down into formations of jotun moving around the defile where the ambush had occurred. Each bolt of lightning tossed a dozen or more jotun in every direction, as well as caused trees to burst into miniature explosions from simply being near the jagged bolts of lightning.
Many of the jotun survived such attacks, smoking and twitching from the impact of the magical lightning, but alive, a sight that caused Thor to scowl. Still, his intervention had allowed Tyr to slay several more and begin to turn the battle in the defile against their enemy once more.
Several spears flashed up towards Thor, but he batted them aside with ease as he continued to survey the battle. A moment later, he came down in one segment of the battlefield after another to grab up wounded warriors, three humans and one Asgardian, the warrior Baard.
When next he was in the air, Thor saw the battle had changed. Tyr had begun to pull back from his position in the defile, moving up the slope at the back of it. As Tyr did so, a group of karls had moved forward from where they had been hidden nearby to support his left flank against any attempt by the jotun to simply circumvent the defile. The woods there were not as thick as on the other side, and to Thor's surprise, the karls had managed to form a shield wall. As he watched, a group of seven jotun moved to confront the twenty defending karls, each of them out-massing the men by five to one at the least.
Given the strength and reach of the average jotun, a common shield wall would be useless, but as Thor prepared to intervene the Jarl in charge seemed to come to his senses. The men hastily retreated in front of the group of jotun, who followed them across the ground the warriors had been standing on.
As they did so, the weight of the jotun proved their downfall. Thin wooden planks, which had been set over a covered ditch, shattered, dumping the jotun into said ditch. This trap put their heads and shoulders at eye level with the humans and didn't give them enough room to bring their weapons up easily.
"RAAAH!" With a wordless cry, the retreating men whipped around and charged forward, hacking and cutting into the heads and shoulders of the stuck jotun. While many of those heads were helmeted, they were the kind of open-faced helmets that only really protected the back and sides of the wearer's head. Soon, several of the jotun were dead, only two having been quick enough to use their powers of shapeshifting to grow taller and thinner so they could bring their arms above the edge of the ditch and strike back.
Five of the humans lost their lives to the two quick-thinking jotun before the rest pulled back. Another group of karls nearby who'd been backing Tyr's initial ambush fired into the two still trapped jotun, slaying them with arrows.
Leaving that area of the spread out battlefield to Tyr's leadership, Thor ascended higher into the sky, moving over the area in a wider sweep. This portion of the realm was marked by scattered segments of heavy forest and scrub brush intermixed, all leading out into a small plain leading south. It was often covered by snow and wintergreen, the smell of pine everywhere, as winter lasted overlong in Asgard compared to Midgard.
Yet that had changed, and not just because of Surtur's invasion. Poison now also permeated both land and air, pouring in from the shores of Asgard as the waves did, battering against the earth and misting the sky. Hundreds had died from the raised sea level caused by Thor's most-hated nephew, Jörmungandr when he'd decided to join the war against the Asgardians. Still more had fallen ill from the miasma he had released into the air and the very earth, the trees and grass of Asgard had begun to wither and die.
This was never more obvious than when Thor was in the air. Instead of green and white, he saw what snow there was almost black from the poison, pine trees withered, and any remaining grass brown and dying. Would that I had been given leave to hunt the beast down! Jörmungandr should have been slain ages past!
Of course, Thor had been forbidden to do so. While Jörmungandr did not have the same ferocious reputation as Níðhöggr, he was actually harder to deal with in reality thanks to both his size and ability to hide deep under the waves. That, and Freya and Odin were well aware that Thor might have been destined to die in such a contest as part of Ragnarök.
Scowling, Thor shook his head, concentrating on the here and now, staring past the start of the deeper woodlands to the small plain which the invaders had already crossed. Out there, only Thor and a few of the strongest Asgardians had been allowed to attack the enemy army. Thor himself had delivered devastating damage only a few days before, but Surtur had eventually driven him off, as much as it galled Thor to admit it. That blasted spear of his strikes like, like…
Once more, Thor shook his head, the thought not staying in his head. Instead, he stared down into the forest, where the humans among their forces had come into their own. Though weakened from the poison that infected the land, the terrain broke up the barely organized columns of jotun and allowed the karls and Jarls to get back into the war.
From high in the sky, Thor saw other humans using cunning and traps to fight against the invaders as best they could. Here, warriors retreated, only for other warriors to come out of hidden foxholes, stabbing upward with spears towards their giant enemies. The retreating warriors quickly reversed course and closed while the stabbed Jotun tried to turn on their attackers. Over there, a group of warriors worked with several Asgardians. The Asgardians rushed forward to hold the attention of the Jotun while the humans turned them into pincushions with arrows.
Everywhere Thor looked, traps, ambushes ,and small-scale battles slowed the advancing army. But it still came on, as inexorable as an avalanche of fire and brimstone.
Thor could see that as well from his current position. Surtur's horde was a dark red and black stone band across the land, pushing ever onward. And behind them, the land was changed. No longer a land of pine trees and stone, or vast plains of snow. Where the jotun marched, the land itself boiled, gouts of magma and jets of heated water erupting as the very earth beneath shifted and quaked. This wasn't caused just from the mass of the army from Muspellheim, but also from the magics of the jotun themselves. For in Ragnarök, not only the gods but the land too would die to fire, ice, and wave.
Yet the closer sight, the band of black and red marching across the land, grabbed Thor's attention more. "Tis like an open wound, one scabbing over in places yet still sore. On already poisoned flesh, curse Jörmungandr!"
That line and the whimpers of pain from his fellows audible even from as high up as he was reminded Thor of his current duty, and he shook his head. "Gah, woolgathering is for after the war is won and you have an ale in your hand, Thor. Back to work!"
Sending a final blast of lightning down, Thor turned away from the battlefield, retreating towards where Balder now led the main army of Asgard to prepare the fortifications for the coming battle. Well beyond that, dozens of leagues distant, just in case, laid the main camp. There, Thor stopped, unloaded the wounded he had saved, and within seconds was in the air once more.
Alas, Thor did not realize two of his human charges had already died. The poison in the air was not strong enough yet to fell a healthy warrior, but the wounded succumbed to such at horrible speed. Indeed, it was all Freya and Eir, goddess of healing and childbirth, could do to save one human in four. With the Asgardians, they had been having more luck, thankfully.
Back near the ongoing skirmishes, situated at the top of a hilly ridge, more than sixty thousand warriors were frantically putting up defenses as the jotun host marched ever toward their position. These men represented most of the Asgardians and the Einherjar, those ancient men of common and noble birth brought to Asgard in ancient times, their deaths having proven them worthy of living among their gods.
Below that ridge, still more teams of humans worked feverishly on setting up ditches and other traps throughout the forest. It was hoped the forest and these limited fieldworks would break up the jotun's columns, limiting the number of that could reach the ridge at any one time.
But Balder, whose plan this had been, could already see that was perhaps wishful thinking. In the distance, he could see the jotun were simply smashing through any trees before them, coming on like a wall of fire and death, the front of which simply absorbed the various ambushes while still continuing even now. Is this truly the Ragnarök come for us, then? Is my death on this battlefield?
As he peered at one portion of the diseased woodland, Balder noted that the trees were just another kind of weapon. When the jotun smashed through them, few human warriors could remain on their feet if they were struck by the bits of flying debris that resulted.
This supposition was proven a moment later as Tyr and Hogun joined Balder, their weary men still trudging up the ridge behind them even as fresher men moved down to help their comrades. "We're not going to be able to slow them for long out there. I hope you and yours are ready, Bright One."
"And I am still a little concerned about this battle plan," Tyr grumbled, shifting his shoulder in annoyance. He had taken a hard blow there and upper arm during the last clash, and another to his knee. Although that one, thankfully, had been a glancing blow and hardly ached at the moment.
Balder simply nodded, not turning to look at them, simply staring out into the distance, trying to force his thoughts away from the morbid tone they had started to settle in. "I know, but if we do not try to hold here, we will be fighting on the plains in a few days. In among the farmsteads of the warriors, open terrain with not a single feature we could use as natural defense."
Powerful hands clad in thick leather gauntlets slammed down on Hogun and Balder's shoulders, a booming voice nearly deafening all three. "I know not why you are talking about this as if there be any chance we are going to lose! After all, I am here!"
Balder rolled his eyes at his brother's attitude, and yet, as he turned to clasp forearms with Thor, he still found himself taking heart in the Thunder God's boisterous nature.
For his part, while he too was pleased to see his friend, Hogun took more heart in the sight of the lightning clouds that Thor had summoned into being continuing to pummel their enemies. Not rain, thankfully. With how cold it was rain would be miserable for the defenders. But lightning streaked out from the sky, pummeling the jotun horde in various places seemingly at random. Better, the winds that he summoned up will keep the miasma away, halting its sapping influence for the nonce.
Tyr, however, was a little more thoughtful, and when he looked out into the distance, he remained concerned. Numerous times the warriors of Asgard had attempted to hold the enemy, stopping them here and there, only to be overwhelmed by the sheer strength and numbers of the jotun. They had lost several thousand dead by this point, but this would be the largest battle to date. It would make the skirmishers that Thor and Tyr had been taking part in a moment ago seem tiny in comparison.
There had been barely three thousand warriors involved in those short, sharp engagements this day. There were several times that gathered here. And regardless of Balder's concerns about the terrain no longer favoring the humans soon, I have to worry that all we are going to be doing is just providing a giant target. Pun intended.
For his part, while Balder shared some of Tyr's concerns, he knew they were ready for this battle. And they had surprises that he hoped would turn the tide regardless of Jörmungandr's miasma or Surtur's magics. If they could not, Balder would probably not even have been there, such was Freya's worry for him.
"What about the catapults?" He asked, looking over at the engineer even as the ground beneath them trembled once more. Earthquakes too had been moving north with the jotun, and Balder had seen reports of massive waves crashing into the shoreline, tearing away whole fishing hamlets.
"They too are ready, my Lord. We even have the special munitions that Queen Freya sent us. We could fire those three catapults all day without going through it."
"Good," Balder nodded, willfully ignoring how many of the Asgardians and jarls that were around looked on a little bemused. Magic had its place in Asgard, something that few men were truly happy about, yet it would be a very foolish warrior who put any real trust in such personally. Let alone assume it could turn the course of a battle.
But looking around the defensive position, Tyr could see hints of magic everywhere. Freya and several of the other goddesses had come forward over the past few days to help as best they could to make this line even more defensible. The low wall of trees over which the human warriors would strike down at the jotun coming up the ridge were calcified, turned almost into stone and magicked to remain whole against any strike. Shields and spears and swords alike all had been blessed with greater durability or striking power, and numerous traps had been laid in front of the line as well, hidden via glamours.
To say nothing about the spells that Eir and Freya had woven into the actual men. The warriors would still not have the endurance they normally would thanks to the miasma in the air, but it would not impact their bodies beyond that. They would keep their skill and strength until their bodies gave out.
Tyr knew he should've felt confident about their chances of victory here. Their ability to finally smash this invading host, stop its forward momentum, cost the jotun enough they would fall back and allow the defenders to push them back across the border would never be higher. But he didn't. Instead, the god of justice and war felt uneasy. As if he was simply waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He looked over at Balder who, despite Thor's presence, also looked worried for a moment as the two of them exchanged glances before Balder shook his head. "Watch the line, dour one, Tyr. I'm going to go get my armor on."
"Aye," Hogun answered before his lips twitched into a wry smile. "One must be pretty for one's guests, after all." Balder snorted at that, then headed away, back down their side of the ridge toward where his tent rested among those of the majority of the army. Only Freya, the healers, injured, and alfar and dvergar had been left at the base camp.
Soon, the remaining members of the skirmishing parties began to filter back through the woods and up the hill to the fortifications, where they were hauled up the walls by their fellows. There weren't many survivors, though, and realizing such left only Thor looking at all upbeat.
The jarl in charge of the retreating men moved to where Balder now waited on the wall at the center position. Gone was his everyday apparel. In its place, he was clasped in lamellar armor, the steel shining almost like silver. Marked on the armor over his chest shone a symbol of the sun, glistening with all the light of the real thing. Upon his head rested a helm of silver steel, unadorned yet clearly masterfully made. At his side rested a large round shield and his sword, longer and heavier than the blade he had been using up to this point, gleaming in the day's light like the rest of his armor.
There would be no retreat this time, no planned withdrawal. Balder intended to hold this field until the Fire Jotun were broken, or they broke him.
"The fire bastards're coming, my Lord. But they are using their transformation powers more freely now. Tell him, Arnold."
Arnold was a scout who had been with Balder ever since their first skirmish. He knew what he was talking about and currently looked very worried as well as exhausted. "My Lord, the jotun are growing. They were barely a few feet taller than a normal Asgardian when we first fought with them. Now, most of those we saw were as tall as a longboat set on its tail. And some of them be even larger."
Balder nodded and waved the man off, ordering him to head to the main camp miles distant. If things began to go poorly, Balder fully intended his mother and the others with her to be able to flee back to Asgard the city. The Bifrost Bridge would create a good defensive point for the survivors, a unavoidable bottleneck.
Stop that Balder, he thought to himself, turning away to look out over the battlements again. Do not plan to lose, or you will create a self-fulfilling prophecy. We will win here. We'll break this army and then push them out of our realm!
Moments later, the outer scouts quickly began to filter back towards the battle line as well, shouting out, "The jotun're coming! They just hit the second to last line of traps!"
One of the scouts stopped to report to Thor and Balder, gesturing with the end of his bow, twisting it around, so it waved from one end of the ridge to the other. "They have spread out as they have come, my Lords, and don't seem to be in any rush to form any kind of true battle line thanks to the trees. But they are spreading," the scout emphasized. "They might be looking to try and forge around the ridge."
"I have stationed the majority of our Asgardians on the tops of the ridges at our flanks for if they tried such a tactic. Thor, you will lead the charge down into them on whichever's flank seems most needed," Balder said, tapping his brother on the chest with a finger.
"Aye! I'll not let you down, nor our people! These jotun will rue the day they challenged Þór!" Thor bellowed boisterously.
For just a moment, the way Thor spoke his own name felt as if it had shifted. However, such a thought didn't stay in Balder's head, slipping away like smoke, and he simply nodded, turning back to the front as the first of the jotun came into view. Massive figures forged up the ridge towards them, smashing anything in their way as they came. "Archers fire when they reach the markers."
With that order passed along the line in either direction, Balder turned to a runner, a young boy born here in Asgard to a warrior spirit and his wife after they had passed on from Midgard. Six such youngsters were waiting for Balder to give them orders.
"Run to the catapults. They are to begin firing into the woods now." Even as that runner raced off, Balder turned to Thor, gesturing up into the sky. "A cold wind, brother, add some chill to your wind. But no snow. Just a bit more of a chill would be nice."
Thor looked confused for a moment, then began to laugh. "You think to douse the flames of the Fire Jotun? I rather doubt it will work, brother."
"Not on its own Thor, but with the special ammunition that Mother and her ladies have created, we will be able to give them a truly chilly reception," Balder smiled.
Thor laughed heartily and then stepped forward, twirling his hammer idly as he meandered to where Lady Sif stood with her own command. Even as he did, the wind began to pick up all around them, helping the men's arrows along and chilling the air. Within seconds it was cold enough to be uncomfortable even to men dressed in winter apparel. The Fire Jotun didn't appreciate the change one bit and roared as one their fury at the cold. But they were about to get a much harsher example of what being cold truly meant.
The jotun continued on, making their way up the ridge, each of those in the front targeted by dozens of arrows each. The arrows, enchanted as they were, hit like the bolts of ballistae. Despite their armor and their own enchantments, hundreds fell. Still, thousands more came on, and this time, they too were armed with arrows.
Simple looking in comparison to the arrows of the Valkyries, these arrows were in barely curves lengths of wood with sharpened volcanic stone as tips. Balder wondered what genius among the Jotun had thought them up, but the jotun didn't seem to be very good with them, although there were a lot of bows within their army somehow. Such a advancement in their long-range skills had not been reported before this.
Still, even as arrows shattered upon the enchanted walls at the top of the ridge, the jotun showed that this weapon was not one they were at home with at all. Most Jotun took a single shot and then tossed their bow and quivers aside. And despite the number of arrows fired, few got over the battlements.
But when a lucky arrow from the jotun managed to strike an Asgardian Near Balder, he cried out in pain, falling back off of the battlements to curse and tumble down the friendly side of the hill. One lucky human was able to raise his shield in time, the arrow smashing into it with enough force to cause him to stumble off the battlement similarly, although his landing was far less amusing given the sickening sound of his back snapping. Another karl wasn't fast enough, and the arrow punched straight through his armor, despite Freya's enchantment on him and all of those around him.
The human warriors began to take losses. Pinpricks for now, but despite how horrible the jotun were at it, the use of arrows and archery was something that the defenders had not seen the jotun use before. Previously the only long-range weaponry the jotun had used had been throwing spears. They still used those now as well, but they didn't have the range of the arrows, clattering short of the battlements to a one.
There was also the miasma to consider. Warriors who took wounds beyond the scope of small scratches and bruises soon found themselves falling victim to the poisonous air, falling out of line and going to their knees in suddenly crippling exhaustion, or simply dying where they stood.
Minutes into the battle, many of the larger jotun started to grab the trees they had smashed down arriving, hurling the trunks like they were tossing sticks against the defenders. Several of these impromptu missiles smashed into the battlements here and there, wiping out Einherjar by the handful.
But the defenders were not idle. Balder sliced one such tree in half before it could land, sending the pieces hurtling over the heads of his warriors to crash harmlessly on an empty patch of land on the friendly side of the hill. Thor also smashed several such missiles out in the air, his laughter booming out.
"To war, to war! And after, the drinks will be on me, for my thirst is never-ending, as is my lust for battle furious! Woe to Thee who bringeth down the lightning upon you, for I am the defender of gods and men alike!" Thor bellowed, his voice heard from one end of the battle line to the other.
As one, the Asgardians, karls, jarls, even the few Valkyrie's serving as scattered snipers all roared, buoyed by Thor's words. And as they did, Balder could feel it as well. Thor's aura of divinity, specifically his boisterous battle lust, reached out for all of them, giving them courage and strength as Balder's own did. A double helping, as it were. Excellent!
Ahead of them, a large wedge of the jotun had pushed out of the woods and was actually keeping formation, using massive slabs of granite as shields to protect themselves from attacks from on high as they tried to get up the ridge. Seeing this, Balder also bellowed, raising his sword to the sky and thrusting it downward. "For Odin and Asgard!"
A blaze of light erupted from Balder, a searing beam of magical power that carved into several of the approaching jotun and broke their formation. Following up on this attack, Balder leaped down into their midst just as they reached the top of the ridge and had began to batter away at the wooden palisade. His sword flashed this way, then that, laying the Jotun low even though many towered above him like an adult would over a young child. It took barely a moment to bring them down to his level, and none of them could match his strength or even come close to his speed.
With Balder thus engaged in front of the battlements, it normally would have fallen to Sif, Hogun, Tyr, or one of the other Asgardian commanders to watch the overall battle. However, they were all in direct combat at this point, leading their men at distinct points along the wall. All the Asgardian commanders were among the best warriors of their folk as well, unfortunately.
This left it to the Jarls, human leaders who had died in such a manner to attract Odin's favor and had been brought to Asgard in ages past. Spread out along with their men across the battlefront, these spirits stepped for war now. It fell on them to command the reinforcements forward in small amounts to help at disparate points along the battlements, send runners back for more arrows if need be, or even pull men from the line if they became wounded, replacing them with men from the reserve.
Meanwhile, the catapults well behind the battle line began to fire, each of them sending dozens of stones the size of a man's head over the battle line to crash into the forest. They weren't targeting any one particular area. Rather, they were spreading their pain across the entire battlefront, breaking further what cohesion the Fire Jotun might have attempted. And these rocks had been enchanted to be even deadlier to this particular foe as well.
When they crashed down, bursts of cold spread from them, the entire area around the strike point quickly being covered in frost. This included any jotun unlucky enough to be in said area. The Fire Jotun affected area found their outer skin frozen, even as the magma within continued to boil. Others, those who had been wounded already, found out what happened when extreme heat and extreme cold met directly, exploding with screams of agony. Steam rose like fog throughout the forest as these enchanted boulders crashed down, and the cold spell within them went to war against the heat of the Fire Jotun.
Behind the fight, Surtur seethed at the sight and sent forth his power into the earth. Heat bloomed as lava burst from the ground to combat the cold, new stone formations growing from the blistering wounds, slamming into the power of Freya and the goddesses of the Earth, Breya and Irpa.
The battle furiously seesawed, magic, mortals, and godly might fought against the primeval power of the jotun, with neither side gaining an advantage. Elsewhere, others watched on…
OOOOOOO
Viewing the battlefield from more than fifty leagues away via a spell that allowed him to see through the eyes of birds, Malekith, king of the dark elves and Svartalfheim, smiled while breathing in the air of Asgard in delight. While the miasma of Jörmungandr was slow anathema to all but the hardiest among humans and Asgardians, to the Dark Elves that same poison only added a certain extra flavor to the air.
But that was neither here nor there, and the blue-skinned white-haired elven man, clad in form-fitting black leather and plate mail armor, looked around at his commanders. "And now my followers, it is time. Relay my commands to the Brethren. We attack. It is the time of Ragnarök, and we will have our share of the spoils."
Nor were the Dark Elves the only other forces in play, as at that moment, far removed from the battle, aid had arrived in the boughs of Yggdrasil.
OOOOOOO
But the Dark Elves were not the only other forces in play. For that moment, far removed from the battle, aid had arrived in the boughs of Yggdrasil.
The moment they felt outsiders arriving in the boughs of the World Tree, the Shadows knew that the same enemy who had broken Hela free from their control, who had stolen away Sigyn's body, was upon them. When they gazed down in confused, worried fury at the intrusion and found the Wanderer aspect of Asgard's King among Harry and his followers, they instantly knew that Odin had somehow found a way to call for aid.
With that understanding, the Shadows reacted swiftly, attacking the interlopers on several different fronts at once, as was their way.
The first was magical, covering the area in illusions designed to interact with the physical senses rather than the mind. These phantasms mostly took the form of giant leaping Ratatoskr, attacking Dark elves, and other rabid beasts. Other trickeries were more subtle, though no less aggressive; the odors of burning wood and flesh, a taste of rotten meat in the air, or simply tree limbs where no limbs were.
But Harry, Hela, Kitty, Dr. Druid, Dr. Strange, Wanda, Clea, and Ororo were ready. They went to work dispelling the Shadows' assaults with wide-area Finite Incantatum spells or other defensive spells meant to dispel illusions. At the same time, the runes embedded in the helmets or headsets of all present went to work, allowing the wearers to see the reality underneath those illusions when they did get through.
The scent-based illusions still threw many of the Earthers off unfortunately, with two of the Oh Damn's even crashing in midair, one of them shouting out, "Gah, what's with the rancid meat sme—oh fuck!" before slamming into his compatriot.
Meanwhile on the Astral Plane, the Shadows' will crashed down, hammering into the minds of the humans who had come to aid the Asgardians, seeking to break, blind, or control. If their mental assault hit, the humans would each find themselves stuck in their own personal hells, their minds trapped as the Shadows pulled their deepest fears out from the depths of their minds.
On the Astral Plane this attack took the forms of hundreds of millions of Shadowy tentacles, each reaching for the minds of the embattled Earthers, visible only to the telepaths who could discern the Astral Plane.
But when the attack began, Charles was there instantly, reacting to the telepathic assault faster as any rattlesnake. "I think not!" he boomed, thrusting out his hands in every direction, pushing back at the enveloping shadows with an eruption of pure presence.
When the other telepaths appeared on the Astral Plane, they each had a different type of avatar, shaped and molded by their personalities. Jean's almost looked completely normal, if not for the fact her hair was on fire, and she had wings that looked vaguely draconic sprouting from her back. Her attacks burned away the Shadows with blinding fire, a scream erupting from her astral self's lips that sounded animalistic as she struck.
In stark contrast to his admittedly fit, if elderly and crippled physical frame, Charles Xavier's astral self was big, larger than even Warpath or the Thing, heavily muscled, with a stern, scowling countenance. It almost looked as if someone had created a statue of a bald Greek God. And Emma Steed and the other telepaths all had to pause for a second when they first formed on the Plane as they stared at it.
"Goddammit, I knew that deal I made with you lot was too good to be true!" Emma shouted. More specifically, Emma Steed shouted, even as she joined the others on the Astral Plane.
Within the mental realm, Emma (Frost) looked like a woman made of diamond, with strings of golden filament in her hair. From her body, she flung out precise, diamond-shaped telepathic bolts of agony, barely visible on the Astral Plane until they exploded, dissipating the attacks around them but finding no purchase in whatever mind was behind the ongoing assault. "Bah. You know nothing, Steed. If you want to flee, do so, it will be no big loss."
Rolling her eyes, Xian took a moment between blocking telepathic attacks to look down at herself and take in the others.
The young Vietnamese girl appeared much like her normal self, except a bit bigger, more than a bit taller, and with longer hair. Her mental attacks came in the form of spheres that looked aquatic in nature, which she could shift and transform in various ways. Similarly, Betsy looked much like herself in the real world, but instead of purple, Betsy's astral projection had hair that was almost like that of a pearl, changing color depending on what angle you looked at it.
Steed's form was very different. She appeared like a woman made of multi-sized chains, all interlocking and tangled to form her body. This theme continued into her mental attacks when she struck against the Shadows all around them. Her telepathic assaults took the form of long chains with dagger-like protrusions at the end, much like her main telekinetic attack.
With Charles directing them, the telepaths created an impenetrable defense. While each of their attacks appeared different, all of them could disperse the Shadows' assaults in the Astral Realm before they could hit their marks. It was tough, and none of them had any concentration to waste on what was going on in the physical world while they fought but combined and able to defend a single semi-concentrated area, the telepaths had the advantage, though not an overwhelming one.
As the battle on the Astral Plane roiled continuously, the magical assault had been dealt with in a far more overwhelming fashion. Harry had requested aid on this mission from the start from Dr. Strange and his household, and combined with Harry and Ororo, they could easily deal with the illusions as soon as they appeared. It took a few seconds to recognize them occasionally against the immense background magic of Yggdrasil, but that was all. The earthers had simply brought too much magical power to bear, and the Shadows could not overwhelm them, weakened as they were by Níðhöggr's death and the destruction of the tether within.
But within seconds, these illusions were replaced by actual Fire Jotun. Several hundred of the fiery giants appeared amongst Harry's folk quite suddenly, teleported there by the Shadows from the ongoing battle elsewhere.
So quickly were they pulled from their previous fight that for a moment, the jotun were disoriented just as much as their foes. But this only lasted for a second, and then the jotun, not a one of which was smaller than three stories at this point, roared and began to attack. "GRAAAHAH!"
"Ghigau, Coyote, Uzume, get high and provide cover fire. Blink, Nightcrawler, Strange, remove the noncombatants, get them away from the enemy however you can. Don't forget to get the supplies out of danger!" Harry ordered. Already on the move, even as Dr. Strange piloted the magic carpet containing all the telepaths up and away from the jotun, a protective barrier snapping into place.
Nearby, Scott did much the same thing, taking command of the group nearest him, a mix of the flying carpets on which the ODMs were riding, Husk, and the participating trio from the Fantastic Four. "ODMs spread out! Husk, pull back Johnny, into the air, try not to use any wide-area attacks. We don't want to start a forest fire here. Thing, Thundra, sic'em."
"Woot, now that's the way ta give orders!" The Thing bellowed a laugh, charging forward and crashing into the nearest jotun, grunting at the impact. He quickly found that jotun were almost as strong as he was, if nowhere near as coordinated. The jotun's footwork, in particular, was pretty bad, and that let Ben use more of his strength overall than the enemy could.
Steve also started to bring order to the chaos of the assault at speed, although he discovered that he was too late for at least a few of the ODMs, caught completely flatfooted by the suddenly appearing jotun while also being in close range of the massive, red-skinned monsters.
Quickly, the rest of the Oh Damns used their jump jets, putting distance between themselves and the multitude of jotun. As they did, one of the company commanders announced calmly, "Fire by squad boys, let's see how our new toys work."
The answer was very well indeed.
With a loud retort like a World War II tank cannon, several Boomsticks fired as one, the troops aiming at several jotun to one side and just above of Harry's position. He was bsuy creating protective shields and lashing out with attack spells as he covered several of the troopers who hadn't been quite as quick on the mark as the rest. Blink too, had frozen in shock of the sudden violence around her.
The jotun struck by the trooper's fire screamed in agony. The small gyro-rockets exploded against them destroying armor and some flesh beneath. It took several such strikes to put the monsters down, but eventually, the giants fell to loud whoops of delight from the troopers. "Oh my gods, I love these things!"
"Boom, baby, boom!" Several of the troopers shouted in awe at seeing their guns just tear apart a far larger inhuman creatures which had only moments ago crushed or speared their fellows.
E, Uzume, and the other long-range fighters had also gotten enough distance now. E hovered in the air as Falcon flew around him, laying down fire on the nearest jotun. Somewhat limited in how many gyroscopic rockets he could constitute without materials, E instead transformed his arms into their normal plasma guns and began to fire, to little impact, much to the AI's annoyance. Similarly, Magma's tectonic-energy bolts didn't have much effect on the jotun, so far removed from the ground as they were in the boughs of Yggdrasil. The Neo-Roman didn't have any other type of attack available to her either as cut off as she was, and decided to fall back with the noncombatants for the time being, for once using her oft-ignored rifle as she did.
Fortunately, Uzume, Coyote, Vanguard, and Ghigau had better luck. If their gauss rifle rounds took the jotun in the eyes or mouth they could punch through. But if they missed those vulnerable areas, the shots wouldn't put the jotun down. Shots to the skull still seemed to hurt like blazes judging by the whimpers and roars of pain from their targets, but even the giants' bare flesh was up to stopping the penetrating power of the gauss shots.
Similarly, the Gatling guns that were the main line of sight weapon for the Heavy Gunners couldn't penetrate at first either. They certainly caused the jotun anguish, and they fell back under the unending assault, but the rounds just couldn't penetrate. It was like hitting a living tank with a machine gun. The tank felt the shots but couldn't be killed by them.
One Heavy Gunner's attempt to get away from a jotun in his face put him right in the way of another's spear. He managed to block it but would have been overcome if not for Coyote putting a railgun round through one of the jotun's eyes.
Both men stared in shock as lava burst out of the gaping hole, searing the Heavy Gunner, who retreated quickly. "What the hell?!"
Elsewhere, the fight wasn't going nearly as well for the invaders. One squad of ODMs had been pinned in a kind of wooden culvert by three jotun, with too many branches around them to get away with their jet packs. Two men died to a single jotun's blow, which cut through armor and individual within alike.
Another jotun attacked one of the remaining troopers, who jumped up. The man flipped in midair using his jet pack, coming back down onto the giant's back.
A specially made ceramic knife stabbed forward from the trooper's off-arm, slamming into the back of the jotun's neck before breaking off as the trooper jetted away into the open air, leaving his knife embedded in the jotun. The monster slumped instantly, a howl of agony coming from the jotun's mouth even as nothing below the neck responded to its frantic commands.
"Whatever their insides look like, they 're still built like humans! They've got spines, they've got necks and eyes," the trooper, a Frenchman, reported.
"And balls," a Heavy Gunner said, having just slammed his fist up and into the fork of the jotun pinning him in place. Uzume and Ghigau's sniper shots had already dealt with the third, and this attack caused the remaining jotun to scream in agony, dropping his sword. Shaking, it moved to attack the Heavy Gunner with a double-handed blow. The trooper's other hand, which had been chopped off right before where his human hand began within the suit, was useless, but he rolled away just in time, opening up the giant to the bolts of fire from his fellow troopers.
Nearby, another jotun fell, hurled off his feet by a double kick from Colossus. The young Russian effortlessly flipped himself in midair like a world-class gymnast, landing between two other jotun, fists and feet flashing out.
Above the area where most of the attackers had appeared, Cannonball blasted across a tree limb that stretched across the upper area of the battlefield clearing it of jotun. This allowed many of the regular troopers to set down there, whereupon they began to fire in every direction, far more accurately than they had in midair. The kick of the Boomsticks was still new to the ODMs, and they seemed to have trouble compensating for it when not able to properly brace.
Meanwhile, like E, Tony had discovered that his main weapons weren't very useful against the immensely heat-resistant jotun. The best he could do was blast them off the branches like Cannonball and the others were doing.
Thunderbird, Husk, and Rogue were also able to go toe to toe with the jotun, who came out the losers of these engagements. With the trio was a new face to the combined Custodes Mundi order of battle: Bruce Banner. Hulked out, the scientist roared and leaped from one tree branch to another, smashing into the jotun like Cannonball but without the need to go in a straight line. His greater strength and durability allowed him to knock them down by the dozens with ease.
Truthfully, as massively powerful as the jotun were, they just weren't quite as good at hand to hand as Thunderbird or Colossus were, let alone the more experienced Thing. Although they didn't take the time to pull out their specially prepared weapons, and both Thunderbird and Thing took hits, they delivered far more. And the juggernaut-type armor Colossus and Thunderbird wore easily handled the blows of the jotun, as did Thing's stone frame.
Thundra, Rogue and Husk were but they were much faster. Though they lacked the strength to just leap around the branches like the Hulk or others, they danced around their huge opponents, striking at legs and feet, which quickly brought the jotun down to their level. And with the noncombatants taken care of at this point, Nightcrawler and the recovered Blink were started teleporting the trio around to areas where the troopers were having trouble for one reason or another.
On the other hand, Polaris was not having as much fun. She had risen into the air and now was trying to find something within the jotun to use her powers on, but whatever kind of molten elements constituted their blood, they didn't contain enough ferrous substances to allow her to manipulate them. Their weapons were likewise a no-go. "That's not metal, or at least not a ferrous metal," she reported, lifting herself up off of the ground and away from one of the jotun's attempts to stab her. Sneering at the giant, she flew out into a more open area between the massive boughs.
"Don't worry, sugar," Rogue said, intercepting a punch from a jotun then twisting, watching as the Fire Jotun's savage grin turned into astonishment as the tiny human woman with the frizzy hair pulled then whirled around him, kicking him in the side and sending him up into the air. The strength that she had permanently drained from Juggernaut was more than a match for these beasties, and the jotun didn't even realize he had been outmaneuvered until he was in midair and falling. "We got this."
Polaris snorted but had to agree that at least on the physical side of things, they were winning this fight now. The jotun didn't seem to have much in the way of long-range weaponry beyond a few scattered bows and hurling their spears. And since they didn't seem to have many such spears, those who wielded them refrained from using them in such a manner.
Busy as he was launching attack spells and making certain that he spotted any of his people going down, Harry had to chuckle when he spotted a jotun spear Colossus in the face, only causing him to stumble back. The expression on the jotun's face as his obsidian-tipped spear shattered without injuring Colossus at all was made even more hilarious as the metal-clad Russian then charged under the jotun's guard and crashed into its knees, shattering one of them, before grabbing and hurling the broken enemy away.
While the majority of the X-Men and Custodes stayed and defended themselves where they were, the troopers, Tony Stark, and the other flyers slowly spread out throughout the strange combat zone among the boughs and leaves of Yggdrasil. The effect was devastating, and worse, the jotun seemed to have a mental block on what enemies they thought were truly dangerous. They seemed to believe that only the Hulk, the Thing, and the other physically stronger members of the Custodes were the main threats. This allowed the troopers to have a field day after those first few chaotic moments, where they had seemingly been targets of opportunity.
Scott also proved to be very deadly. His kinetic eye blasts either shattered jotun on impact or hurled them off tree branches altogether. And despite how strong they were, none of the jotun were dexterous enough to try and save themselves once they were blown out into the space away from the rest of the tree. The Shadows did their best, grabbing any whole jotun they could and teleporting them back into the fight, but even that didn't save them as such were quickly became rarer.
With no weapons to match that of guns, all the jotun could hope do was try to close, which was a losing game against groups of people who had jump jets and knew how to use them. Even if the current battle was the first time the humans had fought in such a strange environment, their mobility was telling. With Harry's orders to spread out and with the organization and superior firing power of the ODMs and Custodes, the physical battle was slowly ending, even as the telepathic and magical side of the conflict showed no sign of abating.
But Harry knew that for all the jotun posed a threat, the most dangerous part of the Shadows' attack came on the Astral Plane. Stealing a glance upward, Harry grimaced as he saw the strain bleeding through onto the faces of the two telepaths he could see from his current position, Xian and Jean.
Much like when they had attempted to reclaim possession of Hela and assault Harry in the halls of Niflheim, the Shadow's unending telepathic assault came from all around them, crashing down on the minds of the humans and their allies. An all-encompassing fear attempts to fill the Earthers' minds with illusions to try and control them and sensory attacks. All of these and more were represented on the Astral Plane as roiling clouds of blackness or tentacle-likes probes of brown and grey.
But none of it was getting through, feeding the the unfamiliar emotions of shock and horror that Those Who Watch Above In Shadow were currently feeling. Some of their toys, their sources of fun and fuel, had stopped acting like they should and had even killed one of their tethers on the realm of Asgard. And now, when it was time to sweep their toys away and remake them, who came into this realm but the original chaos causer, the human who broken Hela free, the one who had sent a team capable of bringing back the dead body of the soulless one, Sigyn.
Had it just been Harry Potter, their response would've been apocalyptic. But he had brought what amounted to a small army. Even worse than that, the Shadows could sense an aspect of Odin standing among the people from Midgard, laughing and shouting encouragement. The presence of the runaway, Amora barely registered as the Shadows realized all of this had been caused by Odin, who they thought they had been keeping under control for millennia.
Only now did they realize that the destruction of Níðhöggr had not been a chance event. It had been planned to weaken their hold over Odin, and now an aspect of Odin had brought back a strike force led by the being who had broken Hela free of their control.
The Shadows still didn't think that the humans could hurt them, but ultimately, what 'them' would be left without their tethers tying them to Asgard and their source of power? Those Who Watch Above In Shadow had long left behind any physical shells in their quest to remain beyond death's reach. But in so doing, they had also left beyond any means of existing that wasn't dependent on the power they took from their control of the Yggdrasil pocket dimensions. Without said power, Those Who Watch Above In Shadow would be simple, immaterial souls, shrieking their grief and pain into the void
Regardless, Odin's betrayal, this show of rebellion, had to be dealt with above anything else. In less than a blink, the Shadows acted. As the telepathic assault was parried away, a final magical strike lanced out toward Amora and Wander-Odin. After all, to the Shadows, the bodies of those like Amora or Fat Volstagg were just extremely high-level simulacrums, fake bodies made by the magic of the Shadows. Even the very souls within those forms were likewise creations of the Shadows as well, bits and pieces of personality and power carved from the original Asgardians.
And as they had created such life, so too could the Shadows snuff it out if they so wished.
For Wander-Odin, this would be easy. He was but an aspect of a greater self, a portion of Odin's power and personality purposefully broken off to act independently as only a true God could have done. He was not a complete soul or mind, and thus he was vulnerable.
The surprise assault crashed into the Wanderer and he screamed, body and soul disintegrating as the Shadows literally ate of his power, as they would when Odin inevitably died during Ragnarök. If the Wanderer aspect had been the original, he might've been able to fight the attack off, such was the strain the Shadows were under at that moment thanks to the surrounding magic users. But Wander-Odin had only a very limited understanding of any magic that did not directly affect his mission, As such, not even a second later, Wander-Odin simply blinked out of existence.
Nearby, Blink, who had been running several jotun ragged on the same tree branch that Wander-Odin had been stading on, making them chase her from place to place and thus, making them easy targets for the surrounding troops, stared. "I, I what, what just happened? That didn't look like any teleportation I've ever seen… Oh…"
She looked to nearly collapse, as the realization of what had happened hit her, but Thundra saw this and leaped down from the branch she had been fighting on. The extra-dimensional traveler grabbed Blink up, retreating quickly as Uzume and Coyote laid down cover with several squads of ODMS.