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Meanwhile, the Asgardians fought back desperately. But the Einherjar were utterly exhausted before the first axe was swung. And while the Asgardians still had strength to spare, they were scattered across the battlefield, with only a few close enough to support one another. Men began to die in droves as the battlefield was once more rocked by shouts and screams of the dead and dying.
Balder stared, his teeth grit, as he unsheathed his blade from his side and sliced one draugr in half before kicking the creature's head off its shoulders. Stepping back, his eyes literally blazed with power and fury as The Bright One held his blade above his head. The sword began to glow so brightly that none could look upon it directly, even the undead. A second later, he brought it down as if trying to cleave the ground in twain. "I say nay!" he roared. "The light will not allow this affront!"
While the Norse version of the undead couldn't simply be banished by light magic like so many stories on Earth said they should be, that didn't mean they weren't weakened by it. As a new sun appeared in the heart of the new battlefield, the Earthmen and locals alike felt themselves become empowered once more by Balder's aura. That same light shone harshly upon the undead, debilitating them even as they stirred in their thousands.
On the heels of this second dawn Polaris entered the fray, zooming down out of the higher atmosphere. "Hello boys, I come bearing gifts!" From behind her a long line of collapsible stretchers and boxes of ammunition followed. The supplies dropped down one to each of the large flying carpets, where the sergeants quickly began to organize the troopers. One ODM would open the backpack of another, loading in their ammunition, before switching.
As this was going on, Cyclops and the others used their communication gear to try and organize a defense on the ground. Piotr, Steve, Logan and Laura began to gather the beleaguered defenders to them. Cyclops directed his own blasts and Cannonball into areas of the battlefield where no living soul remained in order to cut down on the number of undead that could assail the still reassembling defenders.
Polaris was also using her powers of magnetism to great effect. Unlike against the jotun, she was able to haul draugr up into the air in various area of the battlefield thanks to the armor they all wore. The draugr then came under attack from the ODMs.
Nightcrawler, a close-quarters combatant, was had more luck teleporting wounded or those Asgardians still fighting towards their fellows to safety than directly facing the draugr. Yet this didn't mean his efforts were any less important, as soon, the defenders had formed squares across the battlefield, holding off the undead.
The efforts to regain some measure of control on the battlefield was helped along by the fact that the curse to revive the undead didn't work on the dead who had been dismembered or simply mutilated. Considering that when a jotun struck a human whose defensive enchantments had faded out, said jotun usually didn't leave their victim in one piece, this cut down on the number of dead that could be forced into battle again.
On the other hand, what bolstered those limited numbers was the fact that there were dead Asgardians becoming draugr as well. Normally, even dead Asgardians would have had enough magical resistance to not be effected by any type of necromantic magic. But this was not normal times. Their bodies weakened by the poison of Jörmungandr, dozens of dead Asgardians arose as super-strong draugr, able to battle their former comrades on an even footing. An example of this was an unlucky Heavy Gunner, his jets damaged, who was swiftly grabbed and torn in half before he could be teleported to safety.
To make matters even worse for the combined army, Steven Strange was in no position to help break the new enchantment bringing the dead of the battlefield to life because the base camp was also under attack. Illusions arose everywhere, pressing hard, covering the rise of the draugr. In this, the Shadows were already following Malekith's advice.
But unlike Doctor Druid, who was still exhausted from the battle, Doctor Strange and Freya were awake and had prepared for a renewed magical assault. Better yet, Freya's position as one of the Asgardian choosers of the slain gave her some power over the souls of those who died while in Asgard, regardless of race.
While this didn't give Freya direct power over these particular dead, since most of them were night elves - who most certainly did not fall under her purview - it did give her some insight into how to stop that reanimation process. As the battle slowly started to turn against the Einherjar, Freya had finally learned enough. Creating a spell on the fly, Freya's voice was almost a croon as she spoke in the tongue of the gods. ", quiet, ye dead and gone. Fall back to earth, at peace, no one's pawn.%"
The undead within Freya's range collapsed where they shambled all around the camp. As they did, Coyote and Uzume, on guard against attempts by any night elves who'd take the chaos as an opportunity to assault the camp once more, helped to make certain those put back at peace were able to remain that way with judicially placed head shots.
With Steven's assistance, once he'd wiped out a new wave of illusions, Freya slowly expanded her anti-undead enchantment until it reached the distant battlefield. It was a bittersweet victory however. While the latest affront had been beaten back, once more both the humans and their local allies had lost people, several hundred in the Einherjar's case, with ten dead and more than a dozen wounded among the ODM troopers.
It was also a terrifying reminder of just how far the Shadows and their allies were willing to go to maintain their hold over the Asgardians. But it also convinced Balder and the other remaining skeptics that the humans were indeed telling the truth about there being a hidden enemy at work behind this war. No jotun would have had the ability to use their inherent magic in such a way as to turn the honored dead into draugr. These Shadows were real, and they were deadly.
OOOOOOO
The news of Nikolai's death was sobering to those among Team Fishermen. The loss stung those who had known the young Russian, but Ororo most of all, the conversation she'd been having with Xian in her native Vietnamese stumbling to a halt as she looked off into the distance as Jean relayed the information. Of those present, she and Ben Grimm were the most experienced, true, but while Ororo had dealt with death before, she'd never lost someone who was, technically, under her command.
The Custodes had been battered. Many of them had been close to death several times in previous missions and battles. But never had they lost someone before now, and it stung, a bitter and boiling pain that even at that very moment began to bubble up low inside her stomach, and Ororo wasn't the only one to feel it.
Regardless, Asgard, or as Ororo had come to learn, Utland (outland), as it had once been called before the Asgardians conquered it, was huge, a landmass around the size of continental Asia back on Earth. With the fire jotun's avenue of invasion coming from the west then heading north before coming back southeast, by the time they saw the ocean, the team had had time to compartmentalize their feelings of loss as best they could, replacing it for the moment with grim determination.
Much like the Assault Force and the Hunters, as Ororo and the rest of Team Fishermen tread ever closer to their destination, they were attacked by the Shadows off and on. This actually helped force Ororo to focus on something beyond her existential grief while she and the Scarlet Witch dealt with the magical assaults.
Meanwhile, Emma Steed and Xian Co Manh dealt with the telepathic side of things. This they were forced to do mostly on their own, given the strength of the ongoing onslaught on the main camp. The Shadows seemed to be determined to break the more powerful telepaths keeping them from controlling Freya, the Asgardians, and the Einherjar, and were in comparison giving Team Fisherman only a pittance of attention.
But despite seeming to be only a supplementary target, the two still struggled. Both ladies lacked the raw power of the three main telepaths and, unlike Betsy, they didn't have experience or subtlety to fall back on to cover their weaknesses.
Xian grimaced as she pushed her telepathic powers out for what seemed the hundredth time, blocking another unseen assault on the team. That one had been a light probe, but there had been… something like anticipation behind it? I'm gaining some experience in feeling out emotions behind mental attacks. That's… annoying. Xian did not like the fact that she was getting so used to combat on this level that she could pick out such things, no matter how helpful.
"Are you all right, Miss?"
Turning on her broom, Xian nodded to Bruce Banner who had spoken, his tone polite. Despite his quite civilized tone, and generally more put together appearance, the Vietnamese-born girl still sometimes had trouble forgetting to not address him as the Hulk. Should that be Mister Hulk now, I wonder?
Several of the first newsreels she had ever watched in America, after Charles had finished helping her through her mental trauma, had been about the Hulk's rampage in Canada, with excerpts of previous rampages. And yet, even though he was almost the same size as the original Hulk, the Doctor Banner next to her now looked completely different from that monstrosity. For one, he was dressed in a decent if somewhat loose combat suit. He also had a pair of small glasses perched on his nose that looked almost scholarly. Most jarring from the Hulk she'd first seen, though, was the concerned, somewhat bemused look on his green face as he looked back at her. Maybe it is the green? I just can't get past it.
Xian was also jealous that Banner, like The Thing and Thunderbird, could go without masks. None of the others could and unlike Ororo, who was using a magically crafted mask, Xian was stuck wearing a fully mechanical helmet. Speaking through the helmet's intercom was really annoying. But then again, all you need to see the point behind our masks is to look down. My God, it looks like this place has been struck by a plague.
Shaking her head at that thought, Xian nodded her head to Dr. Banner, her voice, muffled through her mask. "I'm doing alright, I suppose. A bit depressed by the view. Also, the mental aspect of this war is wearing on me more than I could wish, even if the attacks are not as harsh as they were."
"She's right. They're not full on attacking us as consistently since we left the others behind. They're probing, waiting, and then probing again. It is bloody worrisome, like waiting for the other shoe to drop with all the gravity of a mountain," Emma Steed chipped in, her sharp, upper-class British brogue sounding almost jarring after the more lilting accent of Xian. The richly-born Brit shook her equally mask-clad head, looking down at her waist where an expanded pouch sat. "I somewhat disdained the idea of these Pepper Up potions that Potter gave us when I first heard about them, yet I do believe that we will need them in time."
"Truly," Xian grunted as another mental probe lanced in from nowhere straight towards Thundra and The Thing.
Another, sent Storm's way, sloughed away. Much like when others had tried to probe her mind back on Earth, simple telepathic tricks like that were unable to penetrate the lightning-like cloud that surrounded the exterior of her mentalscape at all times. This had proven to be a defense against the Shadows' power far more complete than even Harry's invisibility cloak. This was good news, as Xian barely managed to intercept the probe sent at The Thing in time, her mental-self appearing on the Astral Plane and slicing through the battering ram of darkness right before it could hit him. Emma, a second after, joined the defense with her chains.
As the attack was beaten off, Xian continued speaking. "I understand why the telepaths were all broken up, but we are dealing with an enemy whose strength and psychic reach are astronomical in scale. And yet, here we are, out here on a limb that is getting more precarious the further we leave Charles and the others behind."
Since this was the first time Xian had been out in the field, the Vietnamese-born telepath still had trouble remembering to use codenames. Of course, this wasn't particularly important on this mission.
Hearing this, Storm slowed her own flight, letting the various carpets and brooms catch up to her. She snorted as Thundra raced past before doing a barrel roll to come back even with them. "Can you not reach out to Charles and Emma, Xian? Or Jean? She seemed to be able to pass on the information about Nikolai easily enough. I don't want to jog their elbows, but if you're feeling like you're exposed…"
"Oh we can, it's just that when we're on the Astral Plane the both of us can feel our own scuffles with the Shadow pricks as well as the main battle going on back with the others. It's like being stuck in a violent pond and feeling a massive hurricane still in the distance by the movement of the air around you," Emma answered for the two women. "Xavier and Snow White are being hard-pressed, and that's with Phoenix helping them and Psylocke. The great trio of overpowered fucks are also having to cover more territory that we are at the same time: the base camp and the main battle zone."
Ororo frowned. She had noticed that Ms. Steed never called her fellow Emma by surname or callsign, instead always choosing something derogatory. She didn't understand why, but apparently it had something to do with a time they had met long before she, Harry, and Jean had dealt with Selene Gallio's mad scheme in London. That, and I think she just gets some sort of pleasure from speaking like a 'lowborn commoner' at times.
"Harry and Hela are also nearly at the city of Asgard, Ororo. And if there's anything that's going to demand an apocalyptic response, it's Harry trying to free Odin from this Odinsleep thing that the Shadows have forced on Odin," Jean sent, connecting both to Storm via their mental connection, and the two telepaths with her own telepathic power once more."We need to be ready to protect them both, since Harry's typical mental defenses don't work against the TWATS."
"Be safe, Hela! And keep our man safe too," Ororo practically demanded, scowling under her mask as she heard the report. This elicited a twice-removed response of amusement from both the goddess and man in question, sheer emotional responses that contained no words.
Jean drew Ororo and the other women's attention back with a warning. "Just remember that Charles, Emma, and I won't be able to help all the time. We only have so much concentration to spread around, and the Shadows aren't letting up on the pressure here. Even so, I'll take whatever shit they throw at us until Harry and Hela run into serious opposition in Asgard, or the Shadows somehow make their attacks on our troops even worse. They just tried to use their magic to bring the dead back to life again and we don't know how many other surprises like that they have left. Thankfully, it seems that their mental attacks are, while powerful, limited in scope if they attempt to target so many minds at once."
Then the redhead's tone turned almost jocular, the tone of a woman who was once more annoyed to be relegated to a backup role. "Honestly though, why the hell would you name the capital city the same thing as the dimension itself? Would it have killed Odin to call his big city something different? You don't see Americans calling any of our cities America do you? God of Wisdom by ass…"
Of course, Jean really wasn't too upset about being sidelined again. Her gripping now had more to do with the fact that she wanted to try and keep everyone's spirits up in any way she could. The recent draugr assault had shaken everyone. And no one wanted to think too long about Nikolai yet.
"Considering the hatred most fans have for the Cowboys, who label themselves America's Team, I could see that as a major bone of contention," Xian murmured, closing her eyes and leaning back on the carpet, thankful for the reprieve and the moment of humor, no matter how forced. During her time in America, she'd strangely become a major American football fan and liked to sprinkle in little tidbits of information about the sport in everyday conversation. It helped that speaking about such topics also took her mind off the frankly depressing view below.
Xian was not a city girl by any means. Originally from a tiny village in the Vietnamese countryside, she had lived in the vibrant, green, and admittedly dangerous jungles of her home nation for much of her life. That simple living had been all she'd known before the local warlord, her uncle, had decided to try and sweep up her village and force her and her neighbors to work on his drug plantations. Xian had managed to escape from that life by the skin of her teeth, only to then run into the pirates who had taken advantage of her until that mistreatment had eventually led to her being taken under Charles' care. But she had never lost her enjoyment of green growing things.
To see such massive forests, so different than those that she was used to, but so diseased… it was honestly scary. To see whole swaths of cleared farmland dead and brown, to see entire grass plains withered, to see mountains once bursting with vegetation all brown and dying? It was all so depressing in the extreme.
"You'll have to talk to my nephew Evan if you wish to talk about sports," Storm returned, shaking her head. While she would never understand the almost obsession others had with sports, she did not object as Ben and James struck up a conversation with Xian about their favorites, which eventually drew in Thundra and everyone else.
The next few instances that the Shadows struck out at Team Fishermen, Jean was there, mentally, instead of only the two relatively less powerful telepaths. Illusions appeared, trying to grab at their minds, but could not reach them on the Astral Plane before fading away. Fears tried to batter against their resolve, only to be burned away by Jean before they could latch on.
On the Astral Plane, Jean and her powers resembled nothing so much as unending walls of flame and fire roaring into eternity. Those flames didn't stretch the distances between Team Fishermen and the base camp, however, physically or psychically. Rather they almost teleported the distance between to encompass the minds of the team. The walls of living fire, that they would by and large never be cognizant of, flashed over them, but never into them, dissipating the Shadows' attacks but leaving them entirely whole.
To both Emma Steed and Xian, though, feeling the Phoenix's power was still humbling. During their recuperation under his direction, both young women had gotten used to the idea that Charles was far and away more powerful than they were. It was simple fact. And though she would never admitted it, Emma had at least accepted the fact that Frost was just as equally beyond her. She didn't like it, but she understood.
That being said, for some reason, the imagery that came to both women's minds when interacting with the telepathic plane while Jean was on the assault was far more powerful, far more in your face. Charles' telepathic presence, and attacks, were subtle, his power barely visible beyond his nigh-godlike projection on the Astral Plane. Emma was composed of endless daggers of diamond force, the glistening blades popping or blocking incoming assaults depending on her desires. Phoenix's astral fire wasn't any more effective than either, but the feeling of it, of being defended or near her counterstrikes, was just… different.
Regardless, Jean was able to protect them until they saw the first glimmer of water on the horizon. Twice more she had to intervene after that, as they put more of their focus into preparing to hunt and roust Jörmungandr from the ocean's depths. Meanwhile, Ororo and Wanda had to deal with five separate magical attacks in rapid succession. The Shadows were clearly now aware of what Team Fishermen might be doing, but after being rebuffed so often, they must've turned their attention back to the main battle, as the various assaults lessened just as quickly.
After all, seeking out Jörmungandr was one thing. Finding him was another, especially when the Shadows could simply order him not to surface. And so long as he remained hidden, one of the Shadow's tethers on the Yggdrasil collection of pocket dimensions would remain in place.
Abandoning their efforts against the Earthers hunting Jörmungandr would also allow the Shadows to concentrate on breaking the main trio of telepaths. By this point, all three had been forced to rest occasionally before coming back to the battle. Which was not a battle really. From their perspective, it was more trying to fight the tide endlessly.
Having had time to regroup from the shock of Surtur's army being practically wiped out and their own attacks constantly beaten back, the Shadows had finally managed to recognize the fact that there were only three truly powerful telepaths among the humans from Earth and that this was a weakness that could be exploited. If they could take the trio of telepaths out, a majority of the humans and Asgardians would once more be open to their complete mental suggestion. Between trying to attack Potter or the other immensely powerful magic-user or three measly telepaths, attacking on the Astral Plane front seemed both easier and ultimately more profitable.
However, even with their newfound wariness of continuing to pour out their strength like water, the Shadows had still miscalculated. When Harry and Storm had first thought about the need to rouse Jörmungandr from the depths, they'd gone to Reed Richards for some scientific help. And as her team moved away from the shore, Ororo reached into the large magic pouch at her side.
Rogue noticed what Storm was doing and cocked an eyebrow. "Whatever are you up to over there, Miss Storm?" The southern belle asked, rolling on her broom so that she was upside down and eye level with her old mentor. Like Thundra, who had yet to stop swooping around, Rogue had discovered she loved flying. And while she felt Nikolai's death like any other loss of a team member, she hadn't known him nearly enough for his murder to impact her fun too much.
Ororo took a brief moment to smile underneath her mask at Rogue's antics before replying."While I could perhaps use my control of the weather to attempt to freeze the water, it would be a very long process given the nature of the Asgardian ocean. However, Reed was accommodating enough to have come up with this instead. He called it a Heat-based Iso-thermic Reaction Device, which apparently will heat the ocean something fierce. As in, the entire ocean is going to start boiling as we spread these around."
So saying, Ororo pulled out a device from her pouch and held it up. The little machine was about the size of her fist and looked as if it was supposed to release something from a series of apertures spread around its sphere-like body. Storm then indicated the bag at her waist. "I have several hundred of these stuffed into this expanded bag. I will be dropping them at intervals as we fly over the ocean. Reed was certain that enough of these will force anything living to try and leave the heated waters if they can."
The others all nodded, and soon, Team Fishermen began to fly over the shoreline. Or rather, the new shoreline. Thanks to Jörmungandr, the water level had risen by quite a margin, wiping out the land and now lapping at the peaks of what had been tall hills but now only looked like a series of islands. Ororo wasn't surprised to see the top of a few yellow-colored trees submerged in a little inlet to one side between a series of rocky outcroppings. The rest of the team was more struck by the amount of flotsam also gently bobbing in the waves, the remains of a village of some considerable size completely washed away.
And there were bodies. More than a dozen corpses bobbed here and there in the water, their features bloated and green. Many were clearly once elderly, with only a few younglings. Only one or two of the floating dead were male and of fighting age. It was obvious the destroyed settlement had been small and unimportant. They had simply been wiped out as part of Jörmungandr's role in Ragnarök, not through any intrinsic importance.
"Well, at least that Freya lady was telling the truth about what was going on here," Ben muttered. "I'm still not happy with the idea that we split our forces like this, but if the water keeps on traveling inland and wiping out more settlements like this…"
"Even without the loss of human life in this world, we'd have to go after Jörmungandr anyway to stop the toxic assault he has launched against the local ecology. And when you get down to it, while turning back the jotun army is a tactical goal, killing this great serpent creature is a strategic one, given we know it is a tether for these ephemeral Shadow creatures," Bruce opined.
Ben snorted good-naturedly, rolling his eyes at the green doctor's highbrow way of speaking. At first, Ben had been kind of leery about bringing along the new, reformed Hulk, remembering the three times they had fought in the past. But Bruce at least acted contrite about it all, and the Thing could begrudgingly agree that at least one of those fights had been more due to his own belligerent self rather than the Hulk looking for trouble. "I get that. I just still think splitting our party like this is just askin' for trouble."
Nikolai's fate hovered in the air for a moment, unspoken, but then Thunderbird interjected, dispelling the momentary depression. "Enough. We are here, and the die are being cast as we speak. So while Storm is doing her thing, the rest of us should get as high into the air as possible so we can see Jörmungandr when he surfaces."
"And it's not as if we don't have our own role to play in reeling in this eel." The older Proudstar brother nodded his head over to the rocky member of the Fantastic Four, patting his bag. Harry and the rest of the magicals had prepared for this fight, or as much as they could, and the bags each of the larger members of the strike team carried on their carpets held a series of weapons made just for this occasion.
Of course, actually seeing Jörmungandr when it's on the surface isn't exactly a problem. Being able to strike when he is and at anything even remotely vulnerable will be the issue. Regardless of their preparations, Thunderbird wasn't all that sanguine about their chances of hurting the great serpent. Keep it on the surface, maybe drag it up onto the shore, possibly. But the damn thing is just too big!
Then again, maybe the weapons Harry and the others supplied will do some good. And we only really need to hold the bastard here until Thor can arrive. Hopefully the literal God of Thunder, with all his equipment returned, will be up to killing the fucker. Without dying, of course, as he's supposed to in the Ragnarök saga.
Shaking his head, Thunderbird took a moment to glance around, feeling the wind in his long hair fluttering the feathers woven into the braided locks. The Apache warrior had never been one for the ocean, more at home in the desert or plains, but now, out past the flotsam, he could admit it was one hell of a view despite the slightly greenish tinge to the air. As he took it all in, Thunderbird's face firmed up. Look at me, getting all worried about something that's not even our job. All we need to do is our part; keep him occupied, keep him from interfering with the miasma he'ss supposed to be emitting, and keep him from retreating until Harry and the others who can kill him arrive.
As the rest of the team joined him, Thunderbird and the other carpet-bound members ascended higher into the air over the ocean. Storm skimmed along its surface, counting down under her breath to fifty before dropping the first fist-sized HBITR device into the ocean. She did so while keeping to a zigzag pattern, spreading the following devices out as much as possible, and hoping that Reed had been able to build enough of them to create a significant enough change in the ocean.
Thankfully, the Asgardian ocean isn't nearly as large as the oceans of Earth, but even so… Storm knew this fact because at one point during their initial mission against Jörmungandr, she'd flown so high that she'd been able to see where the seawater began to drop off the edge of the faux-dimensional plane of Asgard into the abyss below. She didn't know where the water went and how it got back up into the ocean so that it didn't dry up, but Ororo supposed that between Yggdrasil and the monstrous amount of background magic the dimension had, there were more than a few impossible ways for it to happen.
And now you are thinking about magic water because you do not wish to think about the battle to come, Ororo. Or the fact that neither Jean nor Emma have contacted you for the last ten minutes. Calm down and focus on the here and now.
The oxygen bombs, or whatever they were that Reed had created, started to go off behind her. After a few dozen , Storm started to see steam coming up from the ocean around where she had dropped the things. After fifty more, the steam had spread significantly. After a hundred more, the water was noticeably starting to boil. After a hundred and fifty more, Storm was flying through walls of steam and perspiring so much that she had to wipe her mask's goggles with one hand before rising higher into the air.
A hundred more HBITRs dropped and finally, it happened. Jörmungandr shot to the surface, bellowing in rage. The pain of the boiling water had finally overridden the Shadows' nigh unbreakable order for him to remain hidden.
Steam noticeably rose from his scales and Jörmungandr's lips were vaguely reddish as he hissed, each booming word joined by a cascade of water sluicing off yards of scales. "What is this! What foul magic has been worked upon my ocean? I will eat you, whoever you are. You will spend eternity being digested, screaming in agony in the bowels of my stomachHHHH!"
However, the serpent's words quickly ended in a shriek because as he rose out of the ocean, his eyes instinctively opened. This had the unfortunate result of the steam from Storm's assault on the ocean immediately hitting his eyes. Howling in pain, Jörmungandr clenched his eyes shut tight once more while thrashing like a mad beast, twisting to douse his head in the ocean once more. This did little to sooth his agony, as the waters were hotter still than the steam that had nearly blinded him.
"Go!" Thunderbird barked while Storm banked higher up into the air, joining Rogue and the other broomstick-users. As she rose, Thundra and Rogue dove. Like Thunderbird, the Hulk, and the Thing, both women were armed with a Juggernaut-metal weapon. In Rogue's case, it was a massive club, a Japanese kanabo of all things, the kind routinely wielded by oni/ogres.
The first attack slammed down with all her the speed and strength Rogue behind it. But for all her power, her blunt weapon simply let out a loud "CKRAAAANG!" sounds like it had hit metal-sheathed stone. Rogue clenched her teeth as the force reverberated through her arms into her chest. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseeeeeeepeeee!"
Twisting around on a dime, Jörmungandr bit down where he heard the ineffective attacker's Rogue's voice came come from, forcing her the fool to dodge and interrupting her the meaningless words as the pain of his eyes had the serpent's a moment agoit had been spouting.
Thundra took her turn next, and she went for a kind of protrusion to one side of Jörmungandr's head, thinking it might be an ear. She held a mace in one hand that looked more like a long-shafted knight's mace than anything else, although it was wound around one of her arms by a chain. Swinging her weapon into the protrusion, Thundra grimaced as the impact nearly tore it out of her grip as she raced past. "Blast it!"
"Why do I think we should've looked into lances or something? Oh wait, we did," Rogue quipped as the two women circled above the beast's head. Thundra laughed, then the two of them hastily ascended as Jörmungandr lunged up at them, more of its unending bulk coming out of the bubbling ocean as it did so.
This was what the trio on the carpets had been waiting for. Armed with massive harpoons, their edges jagged with spikes, the trio raced forward, their harpoons couched like the lances Rogue had joked about a second ago. Aiming at the last instant at junctures between the creature's large scales, the harpoons stabbed into the massive serpent as Hulk roared, "Hulk smash!"
Even as the harpoon dug into the serpent's sinuous neck, the Thing shook his head. "Yeah, that doesn't quite have the same timbre to it as it did before."
But that didn't matter. Where Rogue's Kanabo and Thundra's mace had failed to do anything even when striking at supposed weak points, the harpoons had stabbed deep under some of the outer layer of scales, catching there. Now, giant ropes tied to the harpoons began rolling out of the magical bags the trio of super-strong combatants had on their carpets as they raced away, holding the bags in place as they did, aided by the sticking charm on the bags.
High above them, Storm began to gesture with both hands around her, gathering wind to her, eyes going white as she used her mutant powers to cool the air considerably, creating an even bigger difference between the heat of the ocean and the surface. Even so, the steam began to dissipate as the heated waters slowly drained away, disappearing over the sides of the strange, plate-like dimension of Asgard.
By the time Jörmungandr could see, the heavy trio on the magic carpet were zooming away, heading back to the shoreline. Jörmungandr saw the trio of attackers go and saw the ropes in the water but hadn't actually felt the harpoons sinking into his extremely thick hide. Still, he knew the carpet flyers were part of what had happened to his ocean, and he breathed in, releasing a jet of water that was so powerful it would have carved through a mountain face. "Die!"
But Storm blocked it, an equally wide wall of wind moving between them. The water struck that wind and was flung everywhere in droplets, creating hundreds of tiny rainbows, although the droplets were still moving fast enough to sting. "If you wish to kill me, beast, you will have to do better than that! You will not find us as easy prey as those children and old people you drowned with your mad writhing!"
Jörmungandr snarled, but then, Rogue, Thundra and Wanda struck. Hex bolts flashed out, crashing into Jörmungandr's eyes and around them, blinding him, although even the direct hits Wanda's magical bolts didn't do any damage. They caused pain certainly, but they didn't explode the massive orbs in his head, which had been Wanda's intention.
And once more, Thundra's strike did nothing beyond nearly catapulting her off her broom. She grabbed at it wildly as she spiraled down, her mace now flailing alongside her thanks to the chain holding it to her arm. "That did not work, blast it!"
On the other hand, Rogue's attack smashed into the beast's nostril, causing him to squeal in pain. Instead of going after Thundra, it twisted around biting at her, But Rogue used one hand and her hips to fling herself down and then up once more above the creature. "Eyoop, close but no cigar, big an' scaly," Rogue drawled.
Before the serpent could try and bite her again, Storm struck. Wanda followed up for a second too, before pulling back to deal with a series of illusions as the Shadows decided to get involved. A magical assault crashed down, trying to obscure their minds, trying to lead their senses astray, and this time the Shadows had taken a page from Malekith's experience. The sound-based illusions were contrived to make it seem as if one member of the team was hearing another in danger or falling off her broom or the flying carpets.
But the Scarlet Witch was ready, and was able to block, cancel or simply tear away these veils. And she had rested up to this point under Ororo's protective envelope. "I've got this, Miss Munroe! You keep up the pressure."
Since this was the agreed-upon move Storm did so while Rogue continued to dash around on her broomstick. Once more, her club flashed out to smash into the serpent's snout as she flew past like a buzzing fly around his head. And between the two of them, the African woman and the southern belle kept Jörmungandr busy, snapping at one or the other, howling death threats at them until the heavy portion of Team Fishermen was back ashore, and the Shadow's dual assault was beaten off for now.
But it was only for now. The Shadows had pulled back from the main theatre of the telepathic war for now and were now concentrating on this point of conflict. Jörmungandr was the most important battlefield at present. That would change when Harry and Hela reached Asgard the city, but even then, most of their traps there didn't require much in the way of the Shadows' attention.
However, much of their concentration settled on Thor instead of the humans. The Shadows kept the Thunderer bumbling from one illusion and mental attack to another, forcing Emma to devote almost her entire power to defending him at range.
The Shadows knew Jörmungandr was far tougher and stronger than even Níðhöggr. He wasn't as good at attacking, but his scales were many layers thick, and it would take something tremendous to get through them. And he was also simply huge. Few indeed could even make them notice his attacks, much less do Jörmungandr real harm. And eventually whatever the humans did to the seas would fade, and he could then just… dive away, leaving them to stew impotently in the air above.
"You know, I didn't honestly have a good appreciation for this creature's size until now. Are these ropes really going to work?" Bruce muttered, staring out at sea. From where they stood on the peaks of rather tall hills, the giant serpent was thrashing and splashing around so much as to throw up huge waves, each of them the size of a twenty-story tower, while trying to bite or bring his claws to bear on the flying gnats all around him.
"They were made by Strange and enchanted by him, so if they do break, at least we'll know who to blame," Thunderbird said, looking up as Thundra joined them. With Thunderbird joining the Hulk on one rope and the Thing and his girlfriend on the other, they put some distance between them and began to tug on the ropes. "Ready? Heave!"
Jörmungandr twitched in surprise as he felt himself being pulled sideways, so much so that he was pulled further out of the water and then crashed side-on onto the surface. Again the tug came, and the massive serpent found himself pulled sideways through the water until he twisted his massive body around, his sinuous form thrashing, his claws flailing as he stared towards where the tugging was coming from.
But again, Storm and the Scarlet Witch interrupted him, lightning blasts coming down. He twisted his head this way and that, so their attacks on his eye missed, but Rogue sailed closer to his head, and a second later, her Kanabo took him right in the eye. "I don't think so, sugar! When ya gots an eel on the hook, you don't be letting it go!"
"Foolish bitch! I am no eel. I am the Ouroboros, the eternal serpent! I will devour the world, but first I will eat you!" Jörmungandr howled, feeling no pain from the strike but struck by the indignity of this strategy. And the fact it was working was worse. He jerked his body back, and the four super-strong members onshore found themselves being dragged back for a few moments before they set their feet again and heaved.
For several moments, the two forces fought, the four super-strong members heaving as they pulled Jörmungandr closer and closer to shore. With Roque, Wanda and Storm working to distract Jörmungandr every chance they got, and the other two telepaths on defensive duty, nearly an hour went by, then another, and finally a third before Jörmungandr crashed into the shore, and the two teams of strongmen spread out, still heaving.
All the while that she had been using lightning against Jörmungandr, Storm had been preparing a cold front above them, watching as the water had cooled considerably, Asgard's normal temperature reasserting itself. This kind of dual-attention was something that would have been impossible for most, but to Ororo, this was almost easy, at least at first. It became harder as the weather front built up just above them, but now, as Jörmungandr's head and a large portion of his body was pulled onto the shore, she allowed the front to drop, adding more of her power to it.
The temperature across the breadth of Asgard rose dramatically as she pulled all of the cold air away from it, messing up the weather of the dimension something fierce, which Storm acknowledged ruefully. She'd have to do something about that at some point as she doubted Thor would have the subtlety necessary to properly fix it without causing further problems. But for now, Storm had quite literally a bigger serpent to fry.
Or in this case, freeze. Because that was what the ocean proceeded to do. What had been boiling water four hours ago began to chill rapidly, so rapidly that the ocean began to freeze. It started to form into large icebergs, the ice spreading both around and down further into the ocean. First, we make certain he can't flee. Then we kill him. If we can. But at least we have already stopped him from sending further poison into the air, for now.
That had stopped quickly, as if it was something that Jörmungandr couldn't do while in combat. Although Ororo had noticed some kind of green gas escaping from the massive serpent's mouth occasionally.
Jörmungandr's upper body twisted back along his length, staring at the ocean behind it as it felt its body starts to be encased in ice hundreds of meters thick. Growling in fury, he twitched forward, one claw coming out of the ocean to slam down, causing a tremendous tremor in the ground as the claw dug in. Then, before more of his body could be encased in ice, Jörmungandr pulled more of his vast bulk out of the ocean, freeing his other forepaw, the ice cracking and sloughing away from it as he did.
By the time she was done, Storm was gasping and now slowly flew over until she landed behind Xian on her broomstick. The younger woman blushed a bit as she felt the older woman's chest pressing into her as Storm reached into the pouch that Xian carried, pulling out one of the Pepper-Up potions and downing it quickly. "Keep your distance Xian. Concentrate on keeping away and on any telepathic attacks."
"The Shadows are concentrating on keeping Thor away. I can feel that fight through the Astral Plane, way closer than the ongoing assault on the main camp. I think they are succeeding, but I can't reach Charles or the others. They are too busy to bother replying," Xian reported.
"Understood. Still, if the Shadows aren't getting involved here, then that's enough for now." Feeling the rush of energy, Storm flipped herself sideways and fell off the broom, using her powers to fly downwards towards where the serpent was now squaring off with the four stronger members of Team Fishermen, slowly stretching itself higher and higher into the air, ignoring the fact most of its body was encased in ice now.
"Hell! I cannot believe that worked!" The Thing whooped, dropping the massive rope and thrusting his hands up into the air before letting them drop. A second later, he pulled out a large hammer from the same bag out of which the rope had been spooling for so long.
"Congratulations," the serpent hissed, rearing up so high that his head disappeared into the clouds above. To Ben, Jörmungandr's huge frame looked like a series of Baxter Buildings all rolled into one, made to move and coated in meters of steel-like scale plate, tall as a mountain and so thick as to make any tree he had seen bar Yggdrasil itself look small. "But now that you have me on shore, how exactly do you think that is going to change the outcome of this battle, little creatures?"
"You never know until you try!" Thunderbird shouted as he charged upward on his magic carpet. May the diyi of fire, water, moon and sun be with us now.
"Hey Banner, listen to this. This is how a warcry is done. It's Clobbering Time!" The Thing shouted, racing forward and leaping up, his hammer flying towards the serpent's side. It caused the serpent to grunt and a few of his scales to buckle, but that was all.
Still, that didn't matter to the Thing. "The bigger they are, the harder ya gotta swing till they fall!" He caroled as he dodged a forepaw, the backswing of his hammer catching one of Jörmungandr's nails. The blow landed right where the nail began and snapped it clean off, causing Jörmungandr some real pain, something he did not deal with well, screaming and lashing out at the Thing even as he dodged away.
"I want a snake-skin suit!" Thundra bellowed as she followed her lover's tactics in striking at the beast's paws.
Doctor Banner simply shook his head, pulled out his own sword, which looked more like a massive cleaver, and sighed while Roque and Storm attacked from above, a massive lightning strike the serpent's head back down towards the others for a moment followed by hex bolts and a series of magical spells splashing over his . "Yes, yes, Hulk smash, raaah. This really is no place for an intellectual."
So saying, he too bounded forward, leaping up into the air to bring his cleaver around towards the snout of the giant serpent as he dove down toward Thundra and the Thing. They might not be able to beat the massive serpent, but they didn't have to. All they could do was survive until Thor arrived.
OOOOOOO
As Team Hunter continued on, Garm's nose began to twitch, and his lips peeled back from his fangs. Above them, Dani, watching him closely, shouted down a question, with Clea letting the magic carpet drop down to just above Garm's head. "What's wrong, Garm?"
"GRRRh. The pup has stopped any attempt to cover his tracks. His scent is almost overpowering, like following an entire pack. One that has recently shed, and one which every member has begun to rub off their scents on everything they've passed."
"Is that bad?" Betsy questioned. "I'm a Londoner. If you wanted someone who knows anything about hunting, you would've done better to bring along my brother."
"It is simply unusual. But perhaps not," Garm murmured. "Fenrir is young for all his size, and he could easily simply be this arrogant to not care if anyone can pick up his trail."
Dani thought about it for a few moments, then shrugged, and with Garm leading the way once more, they started off again.
As the carpet rose into the air, Betsy looked over at the Cheyenne girl. her face, such as was visible through her visor, was twisted into a grimace. "Hey, um, you, you want to talk about Nikolai? I, I gotta admit that hurts, you know?"
"It does. But I really don't want to talk about it right now. Just take it as a given that I'm going to feel fucking horrible and want to drink my weight in liqueur after all this. Hopefully, lots of different types. The expensive, fruity kind with the kick of an elephant hidden under the good taste," Dani shot back.
Snorting in agreement, Betsy fell silent, the two of them staring out over the forest.
Several hours of quick stalking later, he paused, looking around them. "Something is off…" he growled.
Instantly Dani rolled off the magic carpet, using her hover boots to slow her descent, landing to one side of Garm while Sigyn's Gift turned into a bow in her hand. Magic armor versus modern gauss rifle or old fashioned but magical bow, choices choices.
"What is it?" Betsy asked, grimacing as she fought through another assault by the Shadows. She was beginning to get tired, and she wondered if her Pepper-up potions and home-field advantage would be enough to pull through. If the telepath corps get tired and the Shadows don't…
"I feel it too. We are being watched," Clea announced, hopping off the magic carpet and hovering in the air under her own power. She was normally quiet, letting her actions speak for her, oddly uncomfortable talking about nonmagical topics with people besides Wanda and Stephen. "And I mean beyond the mental assault you are dealing with."
"Spread out then," Johnny suggested. "and send the magic carpet higher into the air. We can't bunch up in the air, and we don't want your ride harmed."
Clea understood that was simply a good idea and did so. The carpet flew straight up until it was a pinprick in the air above them and then Clea flew down under her own power, joining Johnny in circling above the area. Meanwhile, Betsy turned, watching behind the group, forming a pentagram almost as they looked out into the area around them.
After that, they waited. And waited some more. Finally, after what felt like nearly half an hour, the group started to untense and Garm moved around the area, sniffing the air, but he couldn't detect anything new. "The smell of unwashed young wolf blinds my nose to everything else, blast it!"
Still feeling like they were being watched, Dani decided to have the group move forward as they were for a bit, with Betsy and Dani joining Garm on the ground. Clea moved higher into the air, while Johnny moved around them in a lazy circle.
It was well they had been wary for within minutes of moving on, the attack began.
Illusions struck first, the Shadows shifting their full attention to the small group. Each illusion was small, a separate spell, and thus easy to renew when they were canceled. This would have been a mentally tiring and not very workable, but for the Shadows, who could not tire mentally, this allowed them to put continual pressure on the enemy magic users, forcing them to focus on dispelling waves of illusions less they be caught out by them.
Clea instantly began to lash out, dissipating illusion after illusion as Betsy snarled, dealing with the mental attacks crashing down simultaneously, ducking under and hiding herself behind a bush just in case.
Some of the small illusions still impacted the group, and these were not the types to just mess with their senses. Rather, the Shadows used their illusions to cover the main attack. They had learned quite a bit from their discussions with Surtur and Malekith, and this small warzone seemed the perfect place to try out what they had learned.
All around the area, groups of dark elves and jotun attacked. The stone jotun charged forward silently, their approach completely covered by illusion until Dani's mutant power allowed her to sense their minds under the illusions. "Ambush close!"
"And far!" Johnny shouted while hales of arrows flashed up towards him. They burned to ash well before they struck, and his return blasts seared segments of the forest away.
Dani and Betsy also had to deal with arrows coming out of nowhere all around them while Garm roared and crashed into the jotun. He kept them from closing while Johnny's sent attacks down towards a few of the stone jotun as the illusions covering them failed under Clea's magic.
Meanwhile, Dani and Betsy fired back, the British girl armed with a custodes model plasma rifle, and Dani switching to her gauss rifle. Both modern weapons, while not very useful for jotun, were more than capable of slaying dark elves, and the battle seemed even for a moment.
Then night elf magic-users began to become involved. Still hidden under the illusions that kept on being rebuilt even as Clea shattered them and away from the close combat, more than a dozen dark elf magic users lashed out toward Clea and Johnny, the two biggest threats.
Another group, four working in concert, attempting to turn Garm against the humans using a spell similar to the one Malekith had used on Nikolai. The spell struck, and for a second, it was as if Garm heard the voice of his mistress telling him, "Attack the humans, my wolf, free us from this chain of forced obeisance!"
But while the dark elves had the same spells their king had used, they lacked his skill with them. Nikolai had been tricked by a simple, wordless shriek of pain from the one person in the world he loved the most. He had been completely thrown off, horrified by that simple message and open for Malekith's attack.
In contrast Garm was both a wolf and knew his mistress. He would know her smell even with the smell of Fenrir still covering the area, and there was no smell accompanying that shout. Moreover, those words were ones that Hela would never use.
So he simply guffawed in pure amusement, ignoring the attack and tearing the side of a jotun out with his fangs. "Fools, you think to fool me with such a pathetic display?"