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But of course, long before Harry and Hela would arrive at their destination, the Assault Force would make itself known….
As the Asgardians and other combatants paused to stare up at the contrails of the rockets crashing into the mountain-sized jotun, Cyclops tuned his facemask's communications system to speak to the ODMs. As he did, he watched with a bit of envy as Steve, Vanguard, Colossus, Husk, and Nightcrawler dropped to the ground below. Amara already down, with Polaris stationed above her near the ruins of the catapults. Falcon was already making strafing dives, his guns blazing. Soon enough the rest of the team began to unleash hell alongside him and Cyclops.
"This is Cyclops, assuming tactical command. First company, disperse," Scott ordered as he stared down at the battlefield. He took in the sight of their rockets hitting home calmly, hardly blinking as the explosions lit up the world. While I wish Falcon was willing to step up to the plate here, I suppose I could just call this on the job training for larger unit tactics…
Shaking that thought, and the realization it was needed, away, Cyclops vowed to do the best he could and started to radio further orders to the troops. "Rocket Gunners, you are bang on target, fire for effect. Mortars, adjust distance slightly, no more than twelve degrees elevation."
The Heavy gunners had all been given a choice of weapons loadout before this mission. This made for an eclectic mix of weapons, and the company commanders had made the decision to break the Heavy Gunners up by weapon type during the brief break back at the Asgardian camp. Now the Mortar teams were stationed well away from the main battlefield, near Amara, while the Rocket users and the others were stationed on various magic carpets, spreading out even now across the battlefield, acting almost like helicopters to give the people aboard them a stable firing platform.
Now the rocket and mortar-using Heavy Gunners responded, the first company of the ODMs peeled off, moving squad by squad off of the carpets, and down into the forest with Sean commanding them as they hit and moved, using advanced skirmish tactics. Bouncing across the landscape their bolters barked in a continuous rhythm, and the experience from the previous two battles served them well here. The marines' aim had gotten far better, despite the fact that there was still a lot of foliage in the way, to say nothing about the erupting steam clouds and the ragged terrain.
As he turned his attention to the jotun horde, Scott could hear the marines' voices as their music cut off and they became serious… or as serious as marines with new toys could be in a target rich environment. "Hell yes! Screw the normal guns, I want to keep these the First Sergeant is right!"
"Yeah, keep the rail guns as backup, and these as primary. Look at those little blue bastards go boom!"
"That's right you little blue bitches, you better run!"
"This is what you get when you bring swords to a gunfight boys. Eat five hundred plus years of military technological innovation ya bastards!"
"Now that just makes me depressed," another voice muttered as more bolt rounds began to pepper through the forest. Cyclops almost absentmindedly ordered second company to head in, too amused to stop listening in on the local channels. "Sad to think about exactly how long we've all been fighting one another."
There was a very distinctly Slavic snicker at that comment from second company. Scott understood some kind of rivalry had arisen between the various troopers along international lines, but despite the recent Eurasian War, it had managed to remain a friendly one. Odd to think about how little the common fighting men blame one another for that shit.
"Do not worry about that friend and instead be proud. It is only because humanity is so good at war that we have any chance of surviving in this strange, ever-expanding universe of ours. Or do I need to remind you of recent history?" The Russian asked, his words mirroring Scott's thoughts.
"Third company, by platoons flank the allied force, provide cover fire," Cyclops announced, blasting down into the battlefield, creating a furrow in the ground around a group of human and Asgardian defenders who had been about to be cut off by a detachment of jotun. The kinetic blast forcefully turned his attention away from the byplay between the troopers as the music of the March of Cambreadth cut out across all the channels.
I still think Ride Of The Valkyries would've been better, but I'm a classical sort of person, Cyclops thought as he turned his beams onto several of the other jotun, two of whom were noticeably trying to bulk themselves up by gorging on nearby rocks. Meanwhile, the mortars and rockets continued to crash down amongst the invading army, destroying any hint of forward momentum, causing many to cry out and scatter. But even with all this, they aren't running, damn it!
Looking over at Dr. Druid, he gestured to his throat, and the man obligingly cast a sonar spell. "Asgardians! Help has arrived. Continue falling back for now. We've got this." Another gesture and the Sonorous was canceled, allowing Cyclops to shift to the com net once more. "Falcon?"
"Wanted t warn ya, Cyclops, these dark elves ain't running like the ones back at the camp. Turns out it was the Torch and his flames they were afraid of. Morons," Falcon muttered, his handguns blazing as he maneuvered around shattered trees then up over the canopy again. All around him, the ODMs were bouncing through and around the forest, introducing the dark elves to the devastation of modern squad tactics, jump packs, and guns.
"Any sign that the Shadows are bringing in reinforcements?"
"Negative. But those damn arrows of theirs still pack a helluva punch if they hit. And these nights elves are fast mothers!" Falcon growled, his current targets all ducking behind cover as he opened up on them. His guns didn't have the piercing power of the Bolters or the snipers' rifles, but against foes such as the dark elves, that wasn't as really necessary. The dark elves though were still too damn quick for his preference.
"Roger," Cyclops winced as two of the ODMs were hit by those self-same arrows. One was ported back to the base camp by his emergency medical portkey. The other kept fighting but soon reported that his leg was broken despite his suit. He also stated his armor was badly crumpled at the impact site and he couldn't use his jump jets any longer, badly limiting his range and coordination. "At least they're our only real long-range concern."
Turning his attention back to the rest of the battle Cyclops saw several clumps of jotun hurling spears towards various ODMs. Every ODM thus targeted managed to dodge out of the way using their jet packs, the spears hitting nothing. One group of jotun was then punished as a Heavy Gunner took them all under fire. From above like this, there was no way he could miss.
"Keep up the pressure on the dark elves, Falcon. I think we're pushing them hard, but the last thing Cap said to me was to keep our reserves out of this until right before they broke, and we're not seeing that yet. Say what you will about our enemies, they aren't cowards," Cyclops sent back, his voice trailing off as he fired his optic blasts once more. "Snipers spread out, fourth company, hold position for now."
Just then, however, Dr. Druid shouted a warning, "The Shadows! They're doing something!"
Illusion-based attacks struck the battlefield like a rising tide, washing over the entire area indiscriminately to try and make it impossible for the humans and Asgardians to tell friend from foe coupled with feelings of fear and despair. The same illusionary assault was occurring back at the base camp but there Dr. Strange handled the attack with aplomb, breaking the illusions within seconds no matter how layered or skillfully woven.
Unfortunately, the Shadows had only used these illusions as cover while they teleported their pawns/troops around the battlefield. The Heavy Gunners armed with mortars who were well away from the main line battle suddenly came under direct assault from several hundred jotun. Seven of them fell to the attackers before the rest could spread out using their jump jets to gain distance and start to fire back.
This maneuvering, while effective in preventing any more deaths for the Gunners, cut off much of the artillery support that had been keeping the main jotun forces from pressing the attack on the Asgardians. This left only the Heavy Gunners aboard the carpets.
Thankfully, the regular troopers were in position now, and their gunfire took over, taking over the efforts to keep the jotun from attempting to close with the Asgardians. Who, Cyclops was surprised to note, were also starting to reform, not retreat, but reform and come back into the fight.
That impressed Cyclops immensely. But then again, all of these folk are ancient warriors chosen to enter Valhalla because of their courage, aren't they? "Heavy Gunners, do you need reinforcements?"
"That would be affirmative Sir, these damned walking-magma fuckers came out of nowhere and are all over us!" shouted one of the Heavy Gunners on the ground. "Those Shadowy fucks are porting them around the place occasionally, and that's screwing with our long-range advantage."
Cyclops nodded over to the other carpets and ordered Nightcrawler in to help offset the teleportation powers while Dr. Druid finished dispelling the various illusions attacking their people. In spite of his efforts however, the magical side of things had a major impact. Several troopers were already pulling back, almost on the verge of collapse. Their built in defensive arrays had allowed them to see through the illusions, but the drain on their bodies to power them had pushed them nearly to exhaustion.
Within minutes of the Shadows' intervention, the battle had become far more even, and Cyclops scowled in anger. "Banshee, keep up the pressure on the jotun trying to reform on the ridge. Cannonball, pull back from the front and help the Heavy Gunners. Wolverine, Laura pull back to guard Magma just in case. Polaris, I know you can't do much about the jotun but be ready in case the dark elves are teleported over there too. Fourth company, third platoon, in to help your heavier brothers."
A second, Cyclops eyes filled with a crimson gleam. He blasted down towards a small group of jotun who'd managed to surround a single ODM, who leaped away at his command. All three of the jotun were crushed by his kinetic beam like ants under a swatter. Only pausing his beam so he wouldn't hit his own troops, he then turned his attention elsewhere, lashing out again.
Meanwhile, Falcon tried again to push hard against the clump of dark elves that had seemingly retained their organizations so far.
Below him, Colossus hit the ground running, darting forward along with Captain America who grabbed his rebounding shield out of the air. Whirling, the original Super Soldier blocked a swipe from a dark elf's sword before lashing out with a kick that doubled the elf over. He hammered his shield into the elf's face before he could recover, surely breaking bones and hurling the dark elf backward.
Nearby, another dark elf with white hair and slightly more ornate armor who had been about to finish off Balder shook his head, grimacing at the impact of the hurled shield to his back. Looking at him, Steve recognized him from the intelligence they had been given by Freya. This was Malekith, the king of the dark elves! Tougher, faster, and stronger than any of his people. A good hand-to-hand fighter and magic user. Egotistical, vain, and prone to monologuing, Captain America listed off in his head.
As if to prove these last three points, Malekith spoke, his voice a deliberate drawl as he wiped at his chest armor ostentatiously while looking at the strange human who'd used his shield of all things to attack him. "And who are you supposed to be? Human to be sure, there is no disgusting aura of divinity about you like there is around the pestilential Asgardians. And yet, your raiment and stance do not match one of their followers."
Not responding, Cap shifted to one side, putting himself between Malekith and Balder. Once in position, he addressed the downed Asgardian without taking his eyes from the elven king. "You must be Balder. Don't worry; Thor and Harry, I mean, Harry Potter, gave me a description of you.
Balder opened his mouth, desperately trying to force out even a few words to these strange humans, to warn them away. Malekith was one of the most dangerous warriors in the combined realms. But the mistletoe poison seeping through his veins, from the various cuts he had taken from Malekith's specially tipped weapons, were bringing him to the brink. And with every open wound, Jörmungandr's miasma compounded his suffering. "I, I…"
"Don't worry, we've got this." Steve reassured as he smiled down at Balder. Without even looking back, he launched his shield towards Malekith the instant the dark elf tried to take advantage of his inattention and charge forward. Malekith ducked and the shield whirled on, crashing instead into a jotun with enough force to cause the creature to stumble. The hit caused the shield to rebound up into the air, where Steve easily caught it having leaped up over Malekith's spear thrust, kicking the dark elf king in the shoulder as he came down, sending him stumbling to one side of the wounded Balder.
Malekith twisted around quickly, but Steve batted his spear to one side, its tip breaking on his shield even as its shaft was carried to one side. Snarling, Malekith brought his spear back around towards Steve's legs, actually succeeding in catching him before Cap could dodge. But then another shield came crashing down into the dark elf's face, hurling him away. A split second later, Vanguard landed, his mask moving visibly into a smirk. "I don't think so."
Vanguard raised his hand and caught his shield on its return, the same one he'd essentially stolen from the Russian Winter Guard Program. Although it wasn't made of vibranium like Steve's, it had several magical enchantments on it courtesy of Harry and was a great tool to help Nikolai use his mutant power. In his other hand he wielded a rifle, currently short-barreled, which he promptly fired at Malekith, rounds thundering out fast and accurate.
"Human cretins!" Malekith shouted, thrusting his hands forward. Some kind of dark blue magic swirled into existence in front of the elven king, creating a magical barrier of dark blue magic which halted the impact of the various bullets as if they'd smacked into a rubber wall. Oddly enough, the sound was more like someone had just run into an electrical field.
With their immediate enemy pushed onto the defensive, Steve took a moment to look for Colossus, who he'd leaped down into battle with only a moment before. He found him nearby, embroiled with another dark elf and two Jotun as a group of human warriors retreated nearby, most of them wounded and quickly losing a battle with Jörmungandr's poison.
While Cap could understand that his Russian friend had stepped in to protect the Asgardians from being overrun, they had bigger issues to deal with. "Colossus! Find Thor! Get those items to him!"
Unfortunately, even with the clamor the other human was making as he fired into his shield, Malekith heard that order. And like any good commander, he knew that keeping an enemy from achieving an objective was always a good thing.
As he kept his magic shield up to absorb the fire from the red colored human, Malekith cast a second spell. Tilting his head back Malekith shrieked out in his own language, a jumble of snarls and rumbling tones, each word running into the next, inhumanely loud and piercing. "#To all of my people who can hear my words! Target the strange human with steel plated skin! Keep him from the Thunderer! Jotun, you must do the same!#"
Although the defending humans couldn't understand this command, it became obvious swiftly as the nearby jotun turned to obey. Several of the giants even broke off from chasing the Asgardians to exclusively target Colossus, further confusing the nearby combat zone.
Seeing this, Vanguard turned his attention that way, single shots from his gauss rifle taking down a jotun here and there. At the same time, Cap sent his shield flying, smashing dark elf and Jotun alike and sending them sprawling.
Despite his teammates' best efforts though, Colossus still soon found himself surrounded. The former Russian farm boy was undaunted however, and as he ducked through various blows he punched back just as hard. "Come then, large ones! Let us see if your fire or my metal is stronger."
His return punches pulverized jotun armor, shattering obsidian armor and the ribs beneath before he tossed the now crippled enemy aside. In the case of the numerous dark elves who attempted to waylay him, a simple punch would practically cause them to implode. Hammers, clubs, and swords of rock, stone and steel slammed into Colossus, but for as big and strong as he was, Colossus was also quite nimble. that having been a primary goal of his training under Shiang Chi. More blows missed him than struck as he danced through the battlefield, all the while protecting the box tied to his side.
It didn't all go Colossus' way of course. Despite the steel-clad Russian's best efforts, a few blows did catch him square, and when they did the blows of the jotun who'd targeted him, larger and stronger than the ones they'd faced upon their arrival in Yggdrasil's verdant boughs, dented his steel frame. Worse, their collective battering managed to keep him from Thor, the Thunderer still rampaging around wildly while smashing anything in his way, friend and foe alike.
Just barely seeing Malekith cover himself with another spell to hide his presence from enemy eyes, Balder grunted, grabbing at Cap's arm. The human turned and looked at him in concern, but Balder shook his head, gesturing instead towards the ever-distancing Thor, his voice raspy with pain as he spoke. "You must know… my brother is… ensorcelled. Malekith, he placed a necklace… around Thor's throat. Remove it, else he will not… not know friend from foe."
Nodding, Steve raised a hand to his ear and activated his communication gear even as he tried to flank Malekith. The anti-illusion runic arrays in his helmet had managed to keep the dark elf king visible, but he could feel the drain taxing him even with his amazing stamina.
From his position above the battlefield, Cyclops heard Steve's report and cursed. Looking around, he ordered another platoon in from his reserves to that section of the fight. Instantly, the men, a mixture of French and Australian if the accents were anything to go by, began to lay down covering fire around Colossus, slaying many of the jotun that had been surrounding him.
With Colossus being seen to, Cyclops searched around for Thor. He found him easily enough, finding him under similar attack as his metal friend, although his own attacks were not nearly as well .
Using his visor to zoom in, Cyclops saw that Thor's right arm, from fist to elbow, was black and blue from repeated strikes. Worse, Thor's face was twisted in a rictus of blind rage and fury, his mouth ceaselessly moving, practically gnashing as a gibbering babble came from his mouth. He still punched out as hard as before, his blows smashing jotun away like toys, yet it was obvious the God of Thunder wasn't actually targeting them.
Seeing this, Cyclops turned his attention to their resident magical expert. "Dr. Druid!"
"I'm busy!" the British man shouted back. "I can't… we're losing people!"
Cyclops moved over to the man, treading carefully on the carpet which, even stationary, wasn't exactly a completely stable surface to walk on. He clapped a hand on Dr. Druid's shoulder, noting the man was trembling. I guess that's the difference between a middling-strong magic user, and a truly powerful one like Strange or Harry. "I want you to wait for my signal, but when I give it, you need to focus on canceling whatever spell is on Thor, understood? No matter what else is happening."
Wincing, Dr. Druid grit his teeth and nodded, sweat pouring down his face. He reached one hand down to his waist, blindly grasping around as he kept his eyes focused on something the other man couldn't see.
Seeing that, Cyclops pulled out a Pepper Up potion from the man's pouch. He put the small bottle in the man's hands even as he whipped his head around and lashed out with a kinetic blast that caught a jotun down below about to take Vanguard from behind. He then recalled Nightcrawler, who bamfed into existence to one side of him a second later. Cyclops briefly explained what he wanted to his friend, noticing even as he spoke that the battle as a whole was slowly becoming ever more chaotic. This wasn't helped at all by the Asgardians and humans as they decided right then was the perfect time to come charging back in to re-engage the dark elves and jotun once more.
Realizing he could no longer concentrate on everything all at once, Cyclops decided he needed to do something. Without Sam or Mister Rogers here with me, that leaves me little options
With that thought, Cyclops turned his coms back to the company commander's frequency. "Company commanders, I'm losing the bubble here. I'm turning tactical control of your companies entirely over to you and releasing the last company to engage at their discretion. The Custodes will concentrate on helping the Heavy Gunners and the locals. As for you all, you know what to, and you know how to do it. Wreck their shit."
In his helmet, the Australian company commander smirked slightly as he sent a message to Sean and their other two peers. "I knew I liked that bloke for a reason."
With that, the last company bounded off their carpets, descending downward as the ODMs shifted tactics, breaking down into smaller groups as they continued to bounce around the battlefield. Working in fire teams instead of squads or platoons, the Marines reveled still further in the sheer amount of mobility their jump jets gave them as they picked the jotun and dark elves apart. They didn't have it all their own way, but even the dark elves couldn't match the ODMs at rifle-range. And the dark elves were having their own problems as they came under attack from the Einherjar, Wolverine, his daughter and Coyote and Uzume.
Below, Captain America and Vanguard found themselves faced with their own personal battle. They had followed Malekith through the battlefield as he'd tried to get to Colossus but luckily for them, the blue-skinned king had been hampered by the tumult his own order had created along with the heaving, bucking ground beneath them
Somehow able to sense Vanguard's shots coming, Malekith turned, a smaller magical shield flicking into existence right in front of his chest to block the gauss rounds. He then seemed to fracture, an illusion causing six versions of the elven king to appear, each of them racing off in different directions.
Meanwhile the real one darted forward, pulling out long short swords as he moved to engage the red themed human. Similar to the swords his people traditionally used they protected his hands with basket hilts but were shorter, about only a foot long rather than the length of a dark elf's arm.
Previously ignorant to the existence of the anti-illusion array, Malekith froze in shock as the red-wearing human brought his ranged weapon around once more and, shot unerring. Malekith dodged to one side with some difficulty, only to catch a blow from the other human's shield. Malekith was able to absorb the brunt of the attack with one of his swords, but the blade was smacked out of his hand as a result. Even so, he still caught the human's follow-up blow, upending the man with a toss. Kneeling, the dark elven king tried to go for a stab to the human's heart.
Cap rolled away, twisting to break the grip on his arm. Kicking off the ground, he caught his rebounding shield and lashed out with the edge of it. Malekith blocked with the buckler tied to his off arm, the impact sending him rolling backward though doing little real damage. As he slid to a stop, Malekith barked out a single command in his guttural tongue. As he spoke, the runes lining his armor began to glow.
Vanguard took the opportunity to fire at Malekith again but this time the dark elf didn't even bother blocking his shots, the accelerated bullets pinging off Malekith's armor Seeing his rifle wasn't going to be of any use, he charged forward, shield raised—only to halt as Malekith launched a spell his way. It was a kind of green and red energy which, quixotically, made Nikolai think of Christmas.
The blast struck just as Vanguard raised his shield, calling on his mutant power. While Vanguard rarely used it as his primary combat skill these days, his mutant power created a shield around Nikolai's body that reflected any energy that struck him. So long as an attack had a physical element to it, even magic could be reflected. So long as he saw it coming and his power was activated, anyway.
Malekith barely had time to blink before his own magic rebounded back, hurling him through one particularly lucky tree that had survived thus far in the middle of the battle. The impact shattered the tree as its luck ran out, sending splinters radiating around Malekith. But the blast hadn't really hurt him, as the spell had been almost instantly absorbed by Malekith's now-activated armor.
But concussive force is concussive force, and while whole, the dark elven king came away from the returned attack with his senses knocked a little loose, which was just the opening Cap had been waiting for to close again. The blow from his shield this time doubled Malekith over, right into an uppercut to the chin. Another few blows landed, breaking teeth loose and causing Malekith's head to start ringing when a side swipe caught him in the ear.
Even with the world spinning and his head ringing, Malekith managed to move with each of Cap's blows, taking only half as much damage as he should have, before finally managing to redirect a punch and launch an elbow into his opponent's face, sending him reeling back. A quick magical blast went off at pointblank range knocking the breath out of the shield user, and another magical blast was only barely blocked by that shield.
Another magical blast sent Cap backward through the air, but before Malekith could follow up and skewer him, Vanguard was there. He had tossed his rifle aside and instead pulled out a short dagger and now launched a strike at Malekith's stomach which the dark elf barely blocked. A blow from the basket hilt of Malekith's short sword to the side of Vanguard's wrist sent the dagger tumbling to the ground. but instead of pausing, the young Russian immediately moved to throw a punch before a blast from Malekith's magic forced Vanguard to shield himself with his mutant power.
The spell, which had been a curse that would have set Vanguard on fire, was redirected back toward Malekith, who snarled as the energy of curse was absorbed by his armor, a scowl on his lips. "That is annoying! What kind of sorcery—"
Seeing no need to speak to an enemy, Nikolai was already rolling away, snatching up his rifle from where he had left it. A second later the gun came up to point at Malekith, and Vanguard pulled the trigger rapidly. The railgun rounds hammered into the dark elf king, causing him to double over in agony from their sheer force alone. Unfortunately, once again the magical properties of the armor he wore worked to deaden the impact of the strikes.
Still one of his ears was hit, ripped off the side of the dark elf's head in a welter of blood. The dark elven king stumbled and seeing this, Vanguard shifted his fire. His next shot flashed towards Malekith's head.
The Shadows once more intervened. Malekith had proven to be a useful pawn thus far and thus would not be allowed to die so easily to outside interference. Between one second and the next, Malekith vanished, the kill shot ripping through nothing but empty air until it took an unlucky jotun in the thigh.
Vanguard whirled, eyes sweeping all around as he hunted for where the target had gone. Instead of his quarry, he saw several other dark elves and a jotun who charged towards him.
Malekith reappeared elsewhere, but unlike most of his folk, the dark elf king was learned enough to instantly understand the full implications of the sudden change in his fortunes. And so crooked was his mind that the Shadows didn't even see a need to try and obfuscate things. There would've been no point.
In this they were correct, and had they bodies, the Shadows would have smiled as they read his thoughts. So… we are being used here. Very well, I care not. So long as I can kill Asgardians, it matters not a whit if I serve a hidden master in doing so.
Nearby, Steve dodged around a jotun's attacks, his shield smacking edge-on into the back of the jotun's knee. As the jotun stumbled, Cap took the moment to look around, trying to spot their slippery opponent. Before he could, an arrow taken from a dead elf along with his bow, seared through the air and caught Cap in the side before he could block, hurling him off his feet with a cry of pain. The strike didn't penetrate his suit, but the force of the impact was still like being hit by a cannonball shrunk to the size of an arrowhead, and Steve knew he'd just cracked a rib.
After finishing the attackers that had tried to surround him, Vanguard saw this and immediately opened fire at Malekith again. However, with more distance between them than previously, the dark elf king simply threw up another magical shield and waited until the bulleted ceased. Unseen behind the coruscating shield, he also pulled out a dagger.
Although he now knew the idea was not entirely his own, finishing one task before going on to the next was still a good idea to Malekith's mind, and this was his last mistletoe-tipped dagger, making it useless for anyone but Balder. Alas for Malekith, the Bright One was nowhere to be found. The tumult around them was blocking his line of sight in every direction.
Whatever the dark elf was doing, Vanguard didn't care, and he charged forward, covering the intervening distance at a full sprint. He crashed shield first into Malekith's magical shield, his mutant power activated. The impact between magic and mutant shields created a small explosion as Vanguard stumbled forward the last few feet between him and Malekith. Malekith barely had time to switch to a regular steel dagger instead of the mistletoe one, as Vanguard fired at him point blank.
Malekith lunged, only taking one of the several rounds the Russian fired. That one shot pushed Malekith's desperate lunge off-center, but his dagger still sliced into the human's weapon.
His gun now useless, Vanguard dropped it to the roiling ground beneath them and lashed out with a punch that Malekith dodged adroitly. The Russian-trained Super Soldier grimly kept up the attack, using shield, fist, and feet. Malekith was slippery and Vanguard's blows slid around him. But when the dark elf king took a chance and stabbed forward, Vanguard allowed the blade to hit, having already activated his shield power once again. The dagger shattered, and Vanguard went on to the offensive once more.
Unfortunately, Malekith had suspected he'd lose the dagger from the previous times the red themed human had used his odd power. As he dropped the ruined blade, the spell he'd prepared in that same hand went off. The hex was simply a blinding spell, a flashbang in magical form so to speak, but his opponent hadn't expected it at all. The human stumbled back, eyes clenched shut, right into a jotun's blow from behind that sent him flying over Malekith's head.
Nikolai grunted in agony as he smacked into the ground full force, but like Steve's, his outfit was reinforced with Orichalcum scale mail. Rolling along the ground, a pistol appeared in one hand from his connected magic pouch and Vanguard snarled as he lashed out with his shield at a nearby dark elf. He emptied the fresh pistol into several other elves, ignoring the jotun, which exploded under rocket fire from above.
As the jotun crumbled, Vanguard found himself staring at Balder, the Asgardian prince kneeling behind where the giant had stood. He'd taken several more hits since the fight against Malekith had moved away from where he'd first fallen. None were serious though, and Balder's eyes were clearing as stared looked up at the red-themed human, and in his hand he held his sword, the tip pressing into the ground, he tried to push to his feet. The two men nodded at one another and Vanguard turned, firing his pistol at several more dark elves who'd thought to sneak up on the pair.
These elves weren't the only ones. Thinking quickly, Malekith, who had been weaving through the battlefield unseen after Vanguard, cast a spell on himself as he reached down to grab a discarded sword from a bullet-ridden corpse. Two more spells flashed out in quick succession.
The first created a fog, which quickly spread. And Dr. Druid was too busy seeing off another series of illusion and fear based magical assaults to notice this more subtle spellwork. Soon, the entire area around Malekith, Vanguard, and Balder was covered in mist, although it was also rapidly dissipating since Thor's earlier work with the weather was still in effect.
The second spell was a sound-based charm, a little trick Malekith's people had long used to lure people into their traps. When he spoke next, his voice sounded like the listeners' loved one.
Unknown to him, it was only because the spell was sound-based, and not an actual illusion, that it worked at all. But work it did.
"Help me!"
Startled and horrified, Nikolai whipped around, searching for his sister. His mind couldn't comprehend how she'd somehow been transported to this realm, but the voice, it was the same he'd heard when they were younger, when Laynia had been attacked by a gang of toughs looking for a good time and had screamed for his help. His rational mind tried to fight through the magic, but that voice…
The sword came out of the mist faster than an eye could blink. And Vanguard had allowed his mutant power to fade, thinking to conserve his energy.
The blade punched straight through Vanguard's neck where there was little armor to allow for easier movement. Nikolai died before he even knew he'd been struck, far too quickly for even his emergency portkey to activate in time, although it did activate a second later, sending his body back to the camp.
Seeing the human's lifeblood gush out from around his sword's blade, Malekith's visage twisted into a sneer of victory. The derisive smirk disappeared under confusion when his kill disappeared, leaving only his blood behind, having even taken the portion of his blade that had still been stabbed into the human's throat.
Malekith blinked, staring at where his kill had been. "What in all the worlds…? That was sudden. I…"
He didn't have any time to ponder what had just happened as, before he could pull his outstretched arm back, Balder lunged upwards, swinging his own blade in a vertical arc. The blow wasn't aimed at Malekith's body. Instead, Balder had aimed at Malekith's wrist, infusing his blade with all the power the Bright One had remaining in his body. His blade sliced right through the leather armor covering Malekith's wrist, sending hand and sword flying.
"AGGGGHHHH!" Malekith screamed, falling back, staring wide-eyed at where his sword was soaring through the air, his hand still attached to it. Blood spurted from his wrist and he turned, glaring at the now collapsed form of Balder. He screamed invectives in his mother tongue as he tried to find his last mistletoe dagger. But he had none left, having lost them all at various points since the oddly dressed humans had interrupted his assault on Balder.
Snarling even more viciously, Malekith used his magic to slowly close his wound. Concentrating through the mental fugue of sudden blood loss was more difficult than any task he'd accomplished of late, yet he succeeded.
But before the dark elf king could try and attack Balder once more, Captain America was there, standing over Malekith on the back of a dead jotun. Face torn into a rictus of rage, Cap brought his shield swinging around, edge on. Malekith tried to move, to dodge, to evade, but the edge still caught him across the eyes, smashing his nose and pulping one of his eyes, causing Malekith to scream in agony as he fell sideways.
Steve moved to finish the white-haired bastard off, but between one eyeblink and the next, Malekith disappeared.
The Shadows had intervened once more. The dark king of Svartalfheim had proven a decent pawn, too good to be lost in what was clearly a losing battle. Indeed, he was not the only resource that the Shadows was scrambling to collect by this point.
Far from the front where Nikolai had died, Magma had subsumed herself into a duel with Surtur for control of the tectonic energies within the ground beneath the battlefield, long since having shifted into her mutant form and merging with the ground. Pushing back the Jotun King's influence was a difficult task, but in the end she was able to prevail. As she pushed his mind away, the shaking, steam vents and everything else wracking the battlefield lessened. The field advantage, so to speak, let Magma manipulate the powers of the earth beneath them better than Surtur could in this foreign land.
Roaring in anger, Surtur pulled himself out of the mental battle, and stumbling backward, he looked around as mortar rounds and rockets crashed into the air, hurling his people about like broken dolls. It seemed the bigger the jotun was, the larger a target they were for these new humans and their otherworldly weaponry, with many of them targeting every extra-large jotun they could. And with air superiority the humans could call down such powerful arms on whatever position they wanted.
his was quickly proving to be the deciding factor in the battle, as he could see more and more of his army die before they could close with the new humans, let alone the Einherjar who were now fighting it out with his remaining men and any surviving dark elves.
It was infuriating! They were so close! But while his own men were still fighting well, from his vantage point, Surtur saw the dark elves were now fleeing, their fleeting courage when faced with strong opposition breaking like glass without their king to terrify them.
As he noticed this, his lords and masters informed him the battle was lost. The battle was irreparably against them, and not even Surtur could hope to change the outcome.
the King of Muspellheim railed at that, raging that he was more than powerful enough, but that was only his anger and pride talking. Even then, that rage, that fury within him, which burned as hot as the flames at the core of a star, could not sustain itself under the implacable touch of the Shadows.
"Pull back," his masters ordered. "Pull back, retreat to rebuild. Sacrifice what remains of your army and leave. Quickly. We can rebuild your forces if you but survive."
But for the Shadows, the news was about to turn far worse.
As Malekith had begun to move in on Vanguard, Colossus had finally won through the tumult of battle coming close to a still raging Thor. Grabbing up a downed tree, the metal-skinned man hurled it forward, taking the Thunderer's feet out from under him before leaping forward.
This was what Cyclops, had been waiting for. "Now, Dr. Druid!"
At his command Dr. Druid turned, raising a weary hand to send out a Finite Incantatum spell that he had learned from Harry toward Thor. At the same time, Nightcrawler bamfed in and grabbed at the necklace, from behind, pulling it up and off of Thor's head before the Asgardian prince even realized what was going on.
Dr. Druid's spell struck, and with its power and the loss of the necklace, Thor's senses instantly returned to normal. He gasped, looking about with wide eyes. Almost absentmindedly, he smacked a jotun aside, reaching for the larger creature's arm before hurling it through the air. "What, what happened? What vile sorcery was covering my senses?!"
"The most violent sort," Colossus answered from nearby, blocking another jotun who had moved to strike the still befuddled Thunder God in the back as he'd knelt on the ground. The two titans grappled for a few seconds before Colossus pushed the jotun backward just enough to gain enough leverage to twist around and hurl the giant over his head, sending it through the air to crash down in a heap where several ODMs targeted it.
For just a moment, there was a lull in the fighting around the two men as no other jotun were close enough to engage. The troopers above them continuing to lay down a withering hail of gunfire. "I believe that these belong to you, Thor." Colossus said, turning to the Asgardian prince.
Thor looked at Colossus quizzically, remembering the metal-clad man from Midgard, having met him during the events in the country called Canada. He took a look at what was being offered before saying ruefully, "This is hardly the time for presents my friend I…"
Without a word, Colossus tore off the top of the box. Thor froze, staring at what was within.
It was his hammer, though not quite the same Mjollnir that he'd been wielding earlier. For one thing, unlike the hammer that had shattered, which had been made of metal, the head of the hammer in the box was stone, a simple cylinder about the same length as the shaft rather than a square-shaped box on the end of a handle. Where the shaft and the head connected there were intricately etched runes and there were other runes carved around the head of the hammer. It certainly did not look as impressive as the hammer that Thor had been using previously, especially since its handle was even shorter than the other. But just looking at it made Thor realize that the one he'd been using had been but a pale imitation.
The thick belt also in the box, on the other hand, was even less compelling in appearance. Yet, as Thor hesitantly reached into the box, his hands grabbed first for the belt, almost with a mind of their own, and brought it to his waist. Under some forgotten memory, Thor's muscles automatically strapped the belt into place, as if he'd done it a hundred, no, a thousand times before.
Instantly, the God of Thunder felt new strength rush through him. The power increase wasn't as much as when he'd first put on his Gauntlets of Power, but still there was a distinct rush in power.
The Shadows noticed too. As hastily as they could, they gathered jotun from all over and teleported them directly to Thor and Colossus's location and launched a magical assault on Thor.
Colossus instantly dropped the box and hurled himself forward, crashing into several jotun. And at the same time, Dr. Druid had been ready, newly invigorated by another Pepper-up potion. His magic caught and dispelled their own, while Emma and Charles beat back any mental attack aimed at Thor from their position back at camp.
For his part, Thor stayed frozen in place, ignoring the blows that smashed into him at the hands of other jotun. Such was the strength the belt gave him that the blows couldn't even cause him bruises any longer. In a daze, Thor reached down and grabbed up the box. Reaching in, he wrapped his hand around the handle of the hammer within.
Power is too small a word to describe what surged through Thor, making what the gauntlets he'd claimed from Volstagg's body and the belt thathe had just placed around his waist seem like nothing in comparison. It was as if a circuit had finally been completed between Thor and this Mjollnir the surging power flowing between them exponentially increasing with each loop, the energy flowing through him madly.
With a bellow, Thor whirled his hammer, the true Mjollnir, above his head, the mere wind of its passage picking up the nearby jotun, and Colossus as well, and hurling them away. Lightning flashed through the air, slamming into Thor and Mjolnir.
From his knees Colossus watched as Thor's blonde hair shifted color slowly to red. The last vestiges of the Shadow's control, their mental commands and shallow personality changes that they'd emplaced in Thor to contain his true personality were gone, shattered by the power of Mjolnir being in his hands once more.
Thor was free, and he now remembered. He remembered his marriage to Sif, his love. He remembered his children. He remembered being helpless but to watch as his precious little ones were slain during the first Ragnarök as the Shadows betrayed the Allfather and Asgard. He remembered his uncle, not his brother but his uncle, Loki shouting at him, screaming at him they had been betrayed.
And with his memories, Thor knew his true enemies.
"RAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Thor howled, a wordless roar of agony and fury that resounded across not just the battlefield, but all the way back to the base camp and beyond. "I will have my revenge on you! You foul bastards, you slinking cowards, you stalking craven! No army shall stand in my way, no creature you put in place will stop me! I WILL END YOU ALL!"
Taking in the words of their lord, a renewed roar of battle lust and defiance rose up from the Einherjar. They attacked with greater vigor than before, as if it was the start of a battle rather than the end of a long, tortuous day.
In contrast, the Shadows became frantic. "Retreat," they shouted into Surtur's mind. "With Gungnir you may have a chance, but only a chance, and we have lost too much already."
From the base camp to the battlefield, more illusion spells and telepathic assaults immediately followed, causing the three main telepaths to grimace under the effort of keeping the Shadows from the minds of all concerned. Meanwhile, Dr. Druid collapsed like a leaf, exhausted and barely able to do anything, leaving the full defense of the magical side to Strange.
And while Dr. Strange could dispel the curses and hexes and jinxes that the Shadows were using against the Asgardian defenders and the expeditionary force, he could not do so while also trying to find Surtur. The jotun king thus retreated quickly, abandoning what remained of his army, fleeing the battlefield that had barely two hours ago been the sight of what should've been Surtur's greatest triumph for this turning of the cycle.
As the battle began to wind down, Cap and Cyclops worked with the other officers, linking up and being introduced to the jarls and the Asgardian officers trying to create some order from the chaos. The first campaign of the Ragnarök War had ended in a victory for the Asgardians and their allies from Earth. But the war would continue.
And indeed, even as this battle came to an end, battle lines elsewhere were already being drawn…