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The wounded Sif and Skadi both took advantage of this. Sif ducked under the Níðhöggr's side, stabbing hard at what she hoped to be the wyrm's soft underbelly. A second later, Skadi's last arrows flew, so straight and true it would've made the greatest of human archers weep and promise to be a better person in his next life if he could just shoot one arrow so unerringly under such conditions. The arrow caught the same eye as before, shattering its defensive visibly, small clear bits of crystal falling away.
Thanks to the lightning Thor had sent at the beast, Níðhöggr was in even more pain now thanks to the metal spear through the side the dragon's of his mouth. But while it could ignored the hit to the side from Sif, the wyrm couldn't ignore the arrows peppering its eyes from Skadi. In response, Níðhöggr twisted, forgetting the spear in its mouth and letting loose with a hiss breath attack, the attack flashing out towards where Skadi was still hidden.
Then Volstagg was there, roaring, "No maiden will die to thee while Mighty Volstagg lives beast!" he lashed out with all his considerable power in a roundhouse cut with his claymore, slicing into the creature's snout and along its mouth. Not deeply for all the strength and power that the man had put behind that blow, but the wound and the impact were enough to rock the creature to the side, his front claws skittering sideways.
This freed their two trapped companions, who Níðhöggr had forgotten he had pinned. They now rolled clear, with Hogun instantly grabbing up his mace and slamming it down onto one of the six feet that gave the creature just speed and stability in such an odd terrain. Níðhöggr roared, that arm coming up to crash into Hogun, hurling him away again.
As Tyr looked around wildly for a weapon, Sif dove in once more, trying to get her blade into one of Níðhöggr's existing wounds. But she miscalculated how much he could see out of the corner of his eyes. Then the spear tip was wrenched out of the side of Níðhöggr's mouth, and he was twisting, biting down hard.
Sif cried in agony as the creature bit into her side. It was only thanks to her armor that she wasn't bitten in half, and it was a close call. Instead, she could feel her chain mail get crushed. The runes of protection on it pulsed and then dissipated with a sound like shattered glass as the chain was pushed deeper into her body by the wyrm's teeth.
Níðhöggr's neck reared up, carrying her into the sky and shaking her like a dog with a rat, before tossing Sif aside, to crash groaning into another tree branch. She had felt something pop in her legs, two places at least and collapsed, her legs no longer able to support her weight or anything really. And there was blood, so much blood coming from her midriff and chest.
"No!" Thor screamed in heartrending agony, racing forward, ignoring his still bleeding wounds. But he couldn't get there in time to save Sif or Níðhöggr's next victim.
As Thor watched, the dread wyrm had turned, and one claw raked across Volstagg's stomach, opening him up from one side to another, in long gouges, his armor, unlike that of Sif not having been able to stop his attack at all. He cried out in pure agony, falling back, as gouts of blood burst from his torn stomach.
"No!" Fandral while Hogun pushed himself to his feet, howling in wordless fury.
The two remaining Warriors 3 charged from different directions joining Thor, while Skadi whipped out her last weapon. It was a long hunting dagger, its edge and point wickedly sharp, nearly gleaming in the light generated by the tiny bits of luminescence among the tree from Yggdrasil's sap.
Even as they charged, Níðhöggr reared up and then breathed out. The cold poisoned blast of gas spread out in a cone, threatening all those before him. Fandral and Hogun pulled up short, but Thor came on, pushing through the edge of the breath attack to slam his hammer into the side of the beast's head with such force it was lifted off the ground. He then rained blow after blow on it, roaring all the while like a berserker.
Skadi raced forward from behind the wyrm, stopping momentarily to look down at Volstagg, who gazed up at her, his face white with pain, blood loss and the knowledge of his own mortality. But there was also something else there, something deep in his normally obtuse, dense eyes. "Thor," he gasped. "Get him. Need, need to talk to him, before the end…"
"This is hardly the time," Skadi began, staring over at the fight. Even with their berserker fury helping them along, their friends were not any closer to winning now than they had been moments before. Even as she watched, the wyrm's tail whipped around, catching Fandral in the face, opening up a gash from one side of his forehead to the other, causing him to back away blood-blinded and unable to see the wyrm twisting around, backhanding him away.
Tyr was now back in the fight, even if he was moving gingerly, one leg dragging, while his back was a mass of agony. Sif was nowhere to be seen, although Skadi could make out her form in the shadows of another nearby root. Skadi feared now that they had underestimated the sheer brutality of the great creature.
"Will you listen!?" Volstagg growled, his voice coming out stronger than someone whose guts were literally dripping down their front should have been able to, causing Skadi to blink and stare at him. "Get him for me, or we all die for nothing here."
Skadi stared at him in shock. Yet, it was as if his coming death gave Volstagg some kind of unknown power to see the future. And his eyes, deep-set in his fat swarthy face above his ridiculous red beard, were iron-hard with determination, and Skadi could only nod. "All right, I'll get him if I can. You just hold on until he gets here."
Volstagg nodded weakly, and she raced into the fight, leaping from one root up to another branch, then flipping herself through several more, gaining momentum each time. When she arrived in the fight once more, she landed onto the shoulder of Níðhöggr, leading with her dagger thrusting down, her entire body's weight and all of the momentum she had built up behind the blow.
Her dagger penetrated, sinking into the hilt, and she shouted, "Thor, Volstagg, go to him! It is important. I believe that lady Freyja is using him to send us a vision of how we can win this!"
At those words, Thor backed off, while Níðhöggr, bucking and tossing Skadi aside, turned one gimlet eye to stare through the darkness around them to see where the fat one had landed. He roared a challenge and moved in that direction.
But Hogun climbed up his side and slammed his maze into the side of Níðhöggr where he thought the kidneys or livers might be. Hogun could never tell those apart anyway. He just hoped that the wyrm had them, and they would hurt as much as in a person if they were hit.
It worked too as a second later, Níðhöggr howled in pain, trying to twist this way and that's to get him off. This opened up his chest and throat to several thrusts from the badly wounded Tyr. But none worked, his sword bouncing off even there. And Fandral was now useless, unable to staunch the flow of blood to a wound on his forehead. The blood kept on seeping into his eyes, blinding him, and he was moaning on the top of one of the shattered roots.
For a moment, Thor hesitated but then broke away as he had been requested. The use of the name Freyr was not one Skadi would have made lightly.
He was soon back next to Volstagg, kneeling next to him, gingerly putting a hand underneath his head to lift it. "What ails you, Great Volstagg? If it is your injuries, I'm sorry to say I have no skill in the healing arts. And even if I did, it would be most unfair to our fellows for me to leave the fight for such a reason."
"No healer could help me, and we both know it, my mighty friend," Volstagg said with a chuckle, pulling away and patting his vast bulk with his free hand, his hand coming away slick with his own blood. He seemed to shiver at the sight, but he went on firmly. "No, to end this fight in our favor, we need more of an edge. And I know what that can be. Now on the brink of death, I know what I am, what I was created for. What I was created by…"
"You're not making sense, Volstagg," Thor said, hearing a loud snarl of feminine fury from nearby and wanting to get back to the fight.
"I was created, created for a reason, a need of the Shadows. And I reject that purpose!" Volstagg shouted, grabbing Thor's hand with one of his own in a surprisingly powerful grip. The next second, Volstagg lifted it to his torn stomach. To Thor's horror, Volstagg then plunged Thor's hand into the horrendous wound that had opened up Volstagg's stomach right below his guts. "No! If you wanted me to give you mercy, I…"
"Nnnnno," Volstagg replied, his words hissing as he fought back the multiplied agony of his wounds. "This has nothing to do with mercy but everything to do with duty to friends." For a moment, Thor could only stare as Volstagg used Thor's hand to search around inside of his own fat belly, the smell of it causing him to grimace in revulsion.
But then he felt something odd, something that shouldn't be there. There was a feel of leather under his outstretched fingers for a second instead of guts, and he blinked, frowning. "What is…"
"Gauntlets of Power," the man said, smirking slightly even as he let go of Thor's forearm and let Thor pull the object he had discovered within Volstagg's stomach out, the big man biting his lip to keep from screaming. "Youuuuuurr gauntlets."
A moment later, Thor pulled them out. They were almost non-descriptive to look at, simple leather gloves studded along the back with small studs tied together by thread. And yet, they had a weight to them, a weight that nearly brought thought Thor to his knees next to Volstagg.
It was only as he held those gloves that Those Who Watch Above In Shadow, as always watching events, realized they had made a mistake. The Shadows had been unable to destroy many of the Asgardians' mightiest weapons and items of power, such as Gungnir or Odin's armor, when they had initially betrayed and trapped the Asgardians in their never-ending cycle of life and rebirth. Items like that had all their power devoted to a few goals, which meant that power could not be drained away from them as Those Who Watch in Shadow had done to the Asgardians themselves.
And like Odin's wargear, Thor's belt and gauntlets had power within them. A power that could only be activated by an Asgardian Aesir who had the blood of Gaia in his veins and which made them indestructible. In other words, they couldn't even give them to their own champions because they were tied by blood to Thor alone, unlike the spear Gungnir.
So instead, they had drained Thor himself of much of his power, creating the being known as Volstagg. They had done much the same to Odin, to Balder, to Freya, creating alter egos and backgrounds for them and weakening the Asgardians while also giving themselves more godlings to drain of power in their endless death/rebirth cycle.
But they had miscalculated. For in so doing, the Shadows had created people. People who were able to forge offsetting loyalties offsetting loyalties, personalities whose growth they could not predict. One such alter ego, Sif, had slipped her leash and had not returned from Earth, where she had disappeared to their limited senses in that realm. And now another, on the brink of death, had suddenly realized his own fakeness and what he contained.
Would those gloves be enough to make Thor able to fight Níðhöggr on an even footing? That was a question the Shadows could not answer. None of them had any memories of having physical forms, let alone fighting with them.
Yet their choices were the same as they had been before the Asgardians found Níðhöggr in the first place: either simply watch and deal with the fallout or risk their own power by doubling down on the energy they had imbued Níðhöggr with. They couldn't even use illusions any longer. That kind of magical application wouldn't stick in the highly magical area created by Yggdrasil's roots. And once more, they erred on the side of personal caution, willingly letting their anchor face this challenge alone.
Thor marveled at the gloves, for despite being deep inside his friend's bulk, among Volstagg's guts and blood, they were dry to the touch as if they'd been under a stasis spell within Volstagg. Yet how could even an Asgardian live with such as these within him? It boggles the mind!
"They are yours. Use those gauntlets to defeat that beast and more. Remember me and use them to free our people from those who, who created me! I, I never was a real man, but at least this way, I can die like a true Aesir!" Volstagg announced, a fierce smile on his face, ruined by the blood flowing from his mouth and the rictus of pain he could not hide as he breathed his last.
Hesitantly, Thor laid down his hammer and slipped on the gloves, one after another, and as he did, they molded to his hands as if they had been made just for him. Even the wrist guards were formfitting on the inside, no matter what they looked like on the outside. And when they were in place… power!
Power filled Thor from his fingers down to his toes, like he had just spent time in an electrical storm soaking in all the energies of every lightning bolt, of every bit of wind and zephyr. Thor felt strong, stronger than he had felt as far back as he could remember. Unbeknownst to Thor, once more, like back on earth when he fought the Hulk, his hair started to change, shifting colors from blonde to a deep, blood-red as the power made his hair stand on end.
For a moment, Thor simply stood there, staring at his clenched gauntlets as he felt the power within. Then a cry from nearby reminded him of the fight still going on, and he reached down and hefted his hammer, a hammer which up to this point had been his favorite, favored weapon. But now, for some reason, holding it felt slightly wrong. As if the weapon was but an imitation of the real thing somehow.
Yet Thor had to discard that thought. There are friends to save and a beast to slay. What else could the God of Protection ask for? He thought, reaching down with one hand gently to close Volstagg's eyes. "You will be remembered as the truest of warriors, my friend. This battle will be known as the battle of Volstagg. And I will dedicate that creature's corpse to it!"
Níðhöggr had finally gotten Hogun down once more and was gnawing at the shield he had grabbed up from where Sif had dropped it, trying to tear him apart, mangling the shield as he did along with Hogun's armored side, the runes on his armor.
Skadi was now clinging to Níðhöggr's back, holding onto her dagger hilt with one hand and a spike with her other having been there since the moment after she shouted at Thor. She had refused to be tossed off, knowing the moment she let go, the beast would be on her. Between the two of them, they were keeping him busy, unable to ravage the scattered, badly wounded members of their team. But it was only a matter of time before one or the other gave out as Fandral had. The blood-blinded blonde warrior had been nearly crushed by a blow that shattered every bone to his right side, his leg and arm useless.
And then, suddenly, it was as bright as day as lightning lit up the eternal darkness among Yggdrasil's roots. Níðhöggr had barely a second to register the lightning before Thor slammed into him, hammer first.
This blow was not one of the light taps that Níðhöggr had felt from Thor before. No, this was a full-blown head-on collision far beyond the strength of any blow the dragon had yet felt. Níðhöggr found himself lifted off of it for of his six feet, his body rocked backward onto his spine by the blow to his head, which also smashed a few teeth into pieces. It was only because of his last two feet that he kept any kind of control, and he twisted around, bringing his other four paws to bear, even his unresponsive one.
One paw found itself stopped by Thor's free hand, grabbing it around where one of the claws met the paw, halting it in place. Then the hammer was swinging in a low arc, slamming into the elbow of that same hand, shattering it as Thor ducked away from the other strikes. Such was the power of the blow that the bone exploded in fragments ripping outwards and making the entire limb useless.
It was also painful. "GRAAGGGHHH!" Níðhöggr screamed in shocked agony, feeling more pain from that than from any other blow. Even Skadi's dagger in his shoulder hadn't hurt as much.
The dread wyrm barely dodged the next blow towards his head, now no longer having any faith in his ability to take such a hit. Níðhöggr quickly used his breath attack on Thor, who felt himself weakening as the poison of the breath washed over him with the smell of bad eggs and foul meat.
Thor blocked the next two blows from the wyrm, which was now standing upright on its back most legs, flailing at him with its forward and middle paws, except for the one that had already been crippled. This gave Thor enough time to defend himself from one, then the other two, not enough time to attack. And the poison was working through his body, which Thor knew would spell his doom if he didn't get out of the range.
So he did the only thing he could. He dodged inwards, which was too close for Thor to put as much power into each strike, but which also limited how much the misshapen arms of Níðhöggr could get at him. Once, twice, thrice, he hammered blows of only fair to middling strength into Níðhöggr, each blow accompanied by the crack of lightning. And with his strength being far greater than it had been before he put on the gauntlets of power, each blow was doing a lot of damage.
"GUhh, damn you!" Níðhöggr groaned in agony and backed away far faster than Thor had expected and in a manner no human would have. He curled himself back and over his own spine, flipping in the air for a brief moment, his tail whipping up towards Thor.
Thor got his hands up and Mjollnir and blocked the blow but was still flung through the air rolling backward. Still, he was unharmed and hopped to his feet.
Both Thor and Níðhöggr had forgotten Skadi and Hogun, both of whom were still viable combatants, if only barely in Hogun's case. Hogun, still crawling on the root, used this opportunity to slam a blow down onto the first paw of the wyrm that touched the ground again. Once more Níðhöggr roared allowed in pain, flinching away from the blow.
Yet that had been merely a distraction, though Hogun had not planned it so, Skadi was the real threat. Having clung to the hilt of her dagger thrust ineffectually into the shoulder of the great beast, through all of Thor's assaults, she had been close enough to its face to notice that the defensive membrane over his eyes hadn't healed itself from the damage she had done to it earlier. Skadi knew with a certainty that that was a weakness she could target.
Now, as Níðhöggr roared aloud and tried to twist around to get at Hogun, she took her chance. She pulled her knife out of the shoulder, and between one breath and the next, Skadi hurled herself the short distance between where she had been clinging and to the swerving head as it dove down towards Hogun.
Níðhöggr but a second to notice her out of the periphery of his vision before half of his vision disappeared forever, and agony shattered his world. "GRAAAYYAYAYAYAYA!" He howled in pain, flinging his head this way and that, causing Skadi to lose her hold on the dagger and go flying, leaving her dagger embedded in the eye she had just destroyed.
"GAAH," She cried out in pain herself as one of her arms flailing around as she was flung through the air slammed into a root with bone-breaking force and rolling on a second later simply made that agony worse. But still, she had enough wherewithal to shout, "Thor! Target my dagger!"
With half of his world now a blood-red mass, Níðhöggr decided instantly to retreat. He had been hurt badly, far worse than he'd been hurt in his entire life, and Níðhöggr's eye wouldn't be able to heal from the damage done. The panic of having half his world occluded had broken through his hunger for the Asgardian's flesh, and now all he wanted to do was retreat and live to hunt another day.
It was the right move to make, but too late. With the kind of combat understanding that came as second nature to him, Thor had moved into Níðhöggr's blind spot the instant he saw what Skadi had done and stayed there is the great beast tried to retreat, dragging itself down through some of the roots and away from Hogun and Skadi.
He never even saw his doom approach. Thor had followed him and then raced ahead of him very slightly before leaping up onto a root, twisting himself back towards the beast Mjollnir in both hands above his head as he prepared to bring it down with all his amplified might. "For Odin The All-Father!"
The roar made Níðhöggr twitch, but he couldn't dodge fast enough to get out of the path of Thor's hammer, which slammed into the pommel of Skadi's dagger, pushing it deeper into his head. He screamed and spasmed backward, the dagger actually disappearing into the offal and shattered remnants of his eye.
Níðhöggr tried to bring his good eye to bear on Thor, lashing out blindly as best he could, but Níðhöggr found his snout grabbed by Thor and then the pain ratcheting higher as another blow came down from the hammer swung into the remnants of his eye. Blood and gore splattered everywhere, covering Thor's body, but his blow drove the dagger, deeper into Níðhöggr's head, then through its skull into his brain.
Níðhöggr howled out "NOOO!" as this happened, but then the tip of the dagger penetrated into his brain and Níðhöggr spasmed, losing control of his body.
He flung Thor away but slumped down, none of his faculties responding to his desperate need. He couldn't even talk properly, such was the pain, and he looked up through his one remaining eye as Thor got to his feet. The Thunder God trooped over and brought his hammer down without any further words or outcry. With the dagger no longer visible so deep was it into Níðhöggr's skull now, Thor couldn't aim for it. Instead, he simply brought his hammer down again and again and again onto the creature's forehead.
He was still swinging his hammer into the ruined, shattered remains of the wyrm's skull when a weary, limping Hogun touched his shoulder, breaking Thor out of his berserk fury. "Enough, my friend. The beast is dead, well and truly dead. Mighty Volstagg has been avenged, and our other friends need our aid now."
Thor turned, staring at his friend almost blankly, before some semblance of intelligence came back to him, and he nodded, staring down at his hammer, frowning as he saw that the metal of it had become warped and twisted in his grip, uncaring of the blood and puss and brain matter covering his forearm up to his elbow.
No, it was the fact his hammer, Mighty Mjollnir, had been so badly deformed by his own monstrous assault. How is that even possible? And where did these gauntlets come from? They feel as if they are a part of me, but if so, then surely Mjollnir should have been able to withstand their addition to my might.
That and the answer to many more questions would not be Thor's that day. But beyond that, this hunt had far more reaching consequences than Thor had ever even dreamed was possible…
OOOOOOO
Elsewhere, Odin felt it. One of the Shadow's anchors to his people and their universe had been broken, and he could feel the effect of their weakening net already, could feel his thoughts moving more freely than they ever had before, could feel the shock and fear reverberating through from that net to the Shadows who had long kept his mind pressed down, his true self unable to act freely, unable to challenge them even as he saw the truth when no one else could. But now, now that pressure had disappeared for once.
Others might well have struck out, might well have used the magic of their minds to attack the Shadows, to try to push straight through and overcome them now when they were the weakest they had ever been. But Odin had studied the Shadows over the millennia just as they had pushed him down, controlled his actions and the fates of his people. And he knew that in the realm of the mind, he could not fight them on an equal footing. They would win, crush Odin's sudden sense of independence, and then reassert themselves elsewhere, if with more difficulty.
No, although it pains me to say it, with their remaining anchors intact, I still lack the strength to fight them on even footing in the mental plane. But that realm is not the only one, and nor is Asgard the only dimension where those who would be the Shadows enemies dwell! So instead of attacking the Shadows directly as they scrambled to try to figure out what to do now, he struck out in a manner that they could not have foreseen.
Odin's thoughts flashed like liquid silver sending a message out into the darkness, out beyond the Bifrost Bridge to a small part of himself that Odin had freed several months before, the Wanderer Aspect, the more… flighty, wild persona he sometimes took as he moved among the people. The message was simple: Now! Now is the time. Bring our allies, our wandering fellows. Drag them home if need be. We will need them here, where we will need to meet the might of the Shadows on the field of battle and on the field of the mind!
An instant after Odin had sent that thought he again erased his mind of any memory of his doings to prevent the Shadows from finding out his plans. An instant later, Odin felt the pressure on his mind renewing, crashing down on Odin like a physical force. The One-eyed king grabbed the armrests of his throne in a paroxysm of agony, not noticing as his wife turned to him in shock along with his advisors as the force of the mental blow pushed Odin into a sort of paralysis then deliberately over into the land of unconsciousness.
As they did, the Shadows planted the image of the 'Odinsleep' into Freyja's mind and those of the other Asgardians around, creating a fantasy out of wool cloth to try to force them to understand what was going on in the manner the Shadows wanted them to: That Odin had to sleep for months on end every few centuries, the time wildly different each time to regain his magic and power which he routinely used to enhance the defenses of the city of Asgard. It was complete fantasy, but with the power of the Shadows behind it, the Asgardians could not but believe it, even Freyr.
But that was only one aspect of the Shadow's response, which was driven by fear, as Odin knew it would be. Fearful of his mind, fearful of releasing Odin, who of all of the Asgardians was the strongest and most wily, the one whose senses they had never truly been able to fool as much as they could have wished even when they had been able to control his actions and even much of his thoughts. Fear was one of the Shadows driving emotions, right up there with arrogance, greed and the twisted pleasure they took in what they had done to the Asgardians.
Now, this fear pushed the Shadows forward with their earlier plan to bring about Ragnarök even earlier than anticipated.
None in the city of Asgard could see it, but elsewhere in their realm, Balder could. He was leading a war band against what he had thought were simply Night Elf raiders, a band either acting against their king's orders or with that King's orders to cause trouble in a way he could disavow. But now, as the sky between the realm of Yggdrasil and the realm of Asgard tore open and Fire Jotun began to peer in hundreds and then thousands, Balder could only stare and whisper, "Retreat. Retreat back to Asgard! We must warn Lord Odin! Surtr has released his fell troops upon us!"
OOOOOOO
The day before the wedding was scheduled, Harry ran through the woods around Camelot, trying hard not to grumble at the sight of Steve in front of him, looking like he was simply jogging along rather than full out sprinting as Harry and Scott were. The fact Piotr was running behind them was no consolation for Harry, knowing as he did the big man was going slowly because he had to duck under and around more branches than either Harry or Scott.
This was the first real exercise he'd been able to have in the past few weeks, although if you asked him, keeping up with Illyana and the other kids should count as exercise. With the system of governance in place, Harry was able to set aside either the morning or the evening for his work as leader of the Avalon Empire, which let him have more time to train the budding young Enchantress.
Yes. Illyana had already decided on her codename when she grew up and joined the Custodes. Piotr and Harry were both uncertain whether to be proud or worried.
Regardless, as nice as this run had been, trying to keep up with Mister Super-human without using his magic was beginning to grow old. "So, do you have anything else you want to say to me," Harry gasped out between lungfuls of air. "Or is pushing me like this an answer in itself?"
"While it's true I do some of my best thinking while running, I am not doing this to punish you. That is just a pleasant bonus." Steve's voice was calm and measured, showing no sign of the exercise they were doing. "As to what we were talking about… I can understand why you put this information under that magic spell of yours. it would certainly be divisive."
"Divisive, he says," Scott snorted, halting to one side of Harry, his own breathing labored. They'd been running for eight miles now, and running through a forest like this, even one which now had a few trails, was a much harder prospect than around a track. "Didn't know you were British, Steve."
"But your tongue Scottie," Steve snorted. "I like to think I'm not nearly over the top enough to be Captain Britain." Still, he started to slow, signaling a stop, pointing in one direction towards the
"Heh, I think, that, hah, that's just Captain Britain, not a prerequisite," Piotr gasped out as he joined them. "Although, I wonder how much of that joke comes from the fact Brian's crashed two of your dates with Betsy despite his fanboying about you."
"Quite you," Steve shot back, blushing more than a bit. Betsy, Laura, and Steve had formally stopped dancing around one another and gotten together a few days ago. The trio was still working things out, but it seemed to be working. Brian Braddock, however, had gotten over his fanboy reaction to Captain America and didn't like that Steve was basically two-timing his sister, ignoring the fact that both women knew about one another.
His joke delivered, Piotr looked over at Harry seriously. "I thank you for telling us about what you and the others accomplished against the Shi'ar. I… that was not a choice I would have made, although I see the necessity of executing their emperor and the rest of that mission. I, I also have learned since coming here that the honor of a leader, an Emperor who must defend his people, cannot be that of a general, let alone a simple man."
He then smiled, reaching out and grasping Harry's shoulder. "But I am very happy you then turned around and set up the means with which we could help the Shi'ar Empire's formerly conquered people. That puts you rather higher up on the scale of ethics than any leader or government my own Mother Russia has ever had, Tovarish."
"Yeah. I'm thankful you let us into the secret, and I also understand why you did what you did. This past week, I've had time to look over the history books Ororo stole, and it makes for disturbing reading, much like talking to the Una and the other Kree about their own history. Like Piotr, I don't think I could have made that decision even if I knew beforehand I would offer to help. But I understand why you did it. Beyond that, it is between you and God."
Piotr nodded agreement to that while Scott made agreeing noises and began some cool-down exercises. Despite Steve's (and perhaps Piotr's, Harry still had no idea what was going on there) romantic entanglements and the knowledge that some Gods were very real, both Steve and Piotr had remained firm in their belief.
Harry sometimes wished he believed in some greater power like that. He believed in good and evil and had known since he was sixteen that sometimes good people had to do evil things to create a good outcome. "Thank you both for that endorsement. It eases my mind."
Although not as much as talking to Melody, oddly enough. Harry had been very much of two minds about what he'd had to do in the Shi'ar empire. But when he spoke to young Melody, she mentioned that his song hadn't changed. "What you do might be bigger and more important, Mister Harry, and you might worry about becoming something you're not, but you haven't. Your song is still the song of a hero. You're still determined to save all you can, and that makes you a hero."
Shaking off that brief memory, Harry went on. "But I want to ask you all once more to speak up if you think I'm going too far…" Harry trailed off, looking at Piotr, who was already opening his mouth. "Okay, I didn't expect it this quickly."
"It isn't anything you have done, Harry, but more who you've allowed yourself to ally with. I understand, hah, none better, that corruption in governments and crime will always be with us. I understand why you thought beyond using him as a go-between that leaving the Mandarin in place and dealing with him was a good idea so he could start to control any crime that would develop in the Avalon Empire in turn. But Dennis has been digging into the criminal side of things in Asia more, and the Mandarin is not as clean as we thought he was. The Mandarin has his fingers not only in the illegal drug market but also the… the sex industry."
This didn't mean that the Mandarin was involved in porn or something so banal. The sex industry was, in effect, the modern slave trade. Much like the Black Spectre's activities, this industry was built around kidnapping or otherwise tricking people into subservience, taking them – usually young women - and then keeping them in such subservience any way they could.
Harry's eyes flared, and his hands tightened at his sides. "Alright. I will look over the evidence and then contact the People's Party council or whatever they're called. At this point, we can work with them directly. After that, and heh, after the wedding tomorrow, the Custodes will hunt the Mandarin and hammer him under. I thought he was smarter than that, but evidently not."
Relieved at that, Piotr looked around at the lake. It was frozen now, it being winter in Scotland, "Hmm… I don't suppose any of you have ever gone ice fishing?"
Moments later, with all of them using warming charms to go along with their warming exercise gear, the four men were joined by The Thing, carrying several cases of beer. Only Harry, keeping to his old vow to Jean that he wouldn't' drink while she was pregnant, didn't partake, instead sipping from a warm apple cider, while Cory provided the group of men several plates of snacks. In front of them was a series of fishing lines, the lines dipping down into neat holes cut into the ice.
As the drinks and food disappeared, the conversation wound through several points, from teasing Steve about his recent multi-amorous status to asking Harry how he felt about tying the knot twice. "And it's one knot on top of another, not after the first's come untied," the Thing hooted.
Harry just rolled with it, saying it made no difference to him. "All my ladies have been wearing my rings for months now. Really for everyone but Hela this part is merely a formality."
The conversation then turned to the FF, how Susan was, in Ben's words, "turning into a real 'rhymes with itch'" as the pregnancy continued due to the hormones messing with her, and the fact Johnny was still trying to reach out to a 'dame' named Crystal. That was a name Harry had heard before in conjunction with a group called the Inhumans, but this time as before, Harry didn't push.
Then the conversation turned back to the aliens out there and how the EDF and the Custodes had met and dealt with all the local bully boys at this point bar the Skrull. "Mind you, we only dealt with that Super-Skrull guy. He was an arrogant ass, but we ain't seen hide nor hair of them since," Ben opined.
"True. When we talked about the Kree and the Skrull, the psychologists and sociologists compared the Kree to the Spartans with a healthy leavening of Nazism. The Skrull were the Carthaginians. Still Fascists though, just like the Shi'ar," Steve said, sighing as he drained his seventh can of beer. "God, what is it with advanced races and deciding they're automatically better than anyone else?"
"Eh, not all of them. The races that make up the Free Zones aren't. Mind you, none of them are all that powerful, but the Free Zone races were able to set aside their differences and create a mutual defense treaty. I'm hoping to find some actual allies, if not trade partners, out there eventually. But I want to be able to send a capital ship designed and built by human minds and a few escort ships to do it."
The Kree ships, all of which were now fully repaired and ready for use, if not manned, were good for defense and maybe muddying the waters behind enemy lines. But if Harry wanted to show the Free Zone that humanity was a rising power, they would need to send their own ships. Forge and Reed are already working on that task, but it will be more than a month before they have a viable design, whatever E might say about the super-carrier concept, and longer to build those ships.
Leaning back in his conjured lounge chair, Harry looked over at Scott. "So, do you still want to go with the supply convoy to Corsair and the others?"
Scott nodded firmly, nearly overbalancing as he was already leaning forward, and Ben reached out, a gentle hand the size of a shovel tapping Scott in the chest. "No more for you, Scotty."
Glaring at the large rock man, Scott made to object, then shook it off and looked over at Harry, enunciating his words with deliberate slowness. "Yes, I want to go. I want to meet my father. I want to talk to Alex about this. I understand why he made the decisions he did, but that still doesn't make me any happier he didn't come back to talk to me first."
"Heh, you want to introduce him to Rogue?" Piotr asked.
Scott blinked at that before slowly shaking his head. "Er, probably not. We're not as serious as you and Amara are, let alone Harry and his ladies. We're still young after all, it's not quite all fun, but it isn't serious either."
"So long as you both are on the same page, and speaking of love interests…" Harry answered before changing the subject. "So, any of you watch real football, or is it all that poorly named American version for you lot?"
OOOOOOO
The next day dawned blustery and windy, as it had been for several days, and the snow on the ground was still several inches thick, helped by a late-night dusting. If Gaia was going for a complete counterpoint to mine and Emma's wedding, Harry reflected, leaning against the doorjamb as he stared out onto the lawn, I think she succeeded."
"Truly," Ororo smiled from where she stood to one side, ready to preside once more over the ceremony. Although apparently, that had caused a bit of an argument between her and Hela as to who should do so. Ororo won out when Emma stepped in and reminded Hela that she would oversee both Ororo's wedding and the panoply of her own, although she would obviously not be officiating. "Yet, like most of nature, it is still beautiful, is it not?"
"Oh, I agree. I just have to laugh as this kind of weather seems to fit more with Emma's Diamond fixation than Jean." As Ororo and the nearby Hela laughed, Harry leaned over and hugged Ororo, who was resplendent once more in the sameoutfit she'd worn overseeing Emma's wedding and returned the gesture with a smile. "How's Jean doing?" he whispered into her ear.
"She was a ball of nerves again this morning, half about marrying you, and going through with this 'whole marriage thing' as she puts it, and half because of her pregnancy and how it looks to be walking down the aisle with a very visible belly," Ororo reported, smiling fondly as she leaned against Harry. She had been busy since their break after returning from the Shi'ar mission ended with the wedding preparations and attending an international education conference in Sweden, so they hadn't had much couple-type time.
Harry frowned. "How bad?"
"Emma stepped in before it got too bad. She's in with Jean now. Honestly, we all just had to repeat that no one here was going to judge her, or you, for that kind of thing often enough for it to sink in."
"Verily, even I would not look down on Jean for that. While in ancient times it was always more decorous to go to your wedding bed a virgin, so long as the paternity of the coming children was the same as the man she was marrying, that was all that mattered," Hela opined, taking a single step to the side to join the conversation, looking on in simple pride at the area around them. "And you have not mentioned our work on this wedding yet, my Seidr man."
Harry's frown disappeared at the droll humor in both women's voices, even though he knew some of it from Hela was centered around herself and her own desires to wait for marriage to take that final plunge. But Harry knew that regardless of her droll understanding that her belief in this area was somewhat silly, Harry knew that was important to Hela. Instead, he commented on the last sentence. "Heh, fishing for compliments, love? Just watch the faces of our guests. That will give you all you need."
Hela smirked, and they all looked on as more of the wedding guests came out of the castle. Jean had wanted to have the wedding outside, like Emma, which, as Ororo indicated, had rather forced them to set aside any thought of large amounts of red, for Jean's hair, or green, for her and Harry's eyes, in the ornamentation. After all, that color set along with white would evoke Christmas instead of a wedding ceremony.
So instead, they, or most probably Hela, had decided to go with black. First, a black carpet was set out on top of the snow. The snow also had been magically enchanted so that someone's footsteps disappeared within seconds all around and within the wedding area. The chairs were marked with conjured black furs. Above, a light gray awning rested, with tinkling bells swaying in the wind in each corner. Bobbing blue and yellow lights moved around the area randomly, giving the grounds an ethereal feel and providing more lights than the wan sunlight coming down from on high.
All in all, it looked amazing, if very different from Emma's wedding, and the guests, of which there were only eighteen, all complimented Ororo and Hela for their work. And when Emma came out, she did the same, before taking her position by Dani and Hela as a bridesmaid. "She'll be out in a minute. And if you think, Harry, that these two have outdone themselves with all this, wait until you see Jean. I might not like the whole pregnancy thing, but even so…"
She cut off as the Wedding March began, and Jean appeared, coming down from the castle.
When he had married Emma, she had looked the picture of austere, aloof beauty, a diamond gleaming in the sunlight of a perfect day. When she appeared, Jean was just as gorgeous, but in a very different manner. Her dress was almost simple, not showing off her body at all, looking almost like what a teacher or a librarian would wear, a simple loose blouse and long skirt. But it was made of silk and some other substance that shimmered in the lights of the little globes, not like sequins, but close. Her dress was mostly black with red highlights that perfectly matched her hair, and from her ears and around her chest, silver jewelry gleamed, grabbing the attention of those looking at her, bringing to attention her gorgeous face.
Later, Harry freely admitted that the rest of the wedding ceremony passed by in a blur. He could hear Ororo, but her words didn't register. He could hear his own voice but couldn't remember what he said. No words registered until Jean said "I do", both aloud and into his mind. "Now and forever, I do."
"Now and forever, and I do," Harry answered instantly, the words tumbling out of his tongue in his haste to get them out. "Now and forever, I will love and cherish you, Jean Grey Potter. By my name, magic and soul, I swear it."
OOOOOOO
The old man had never given Clare (do not call her Clarice if you value your life) his real name. That was fair enough, in Clare's opinion. After all, she preferred to go by the name of Blink most days. But at least she kept to just those two names. The Old Man had at first insisted on changing his name on a whim, sometimes changing it a week later, sometimes changing it much faster. Indeed, once, he'd been five different people in a single day.
When Blink had asked, the old man chuckled and said, "There's a pattern, my dear. Find the pattern, and you will know me."
Blink had simply shaken her head with a sigh. "I'm just going to call you Trickster because that's what you are."
"An insult, an insult indeed, for no mere Trickster am I, that title belongs to another," the old man had cried, shaking his head from side to side, setting both the wild hair on top of his head and even wilder beard to flying this way and that. As if it was a lion's mane instead of a man's hair. "Truly, do you wish to challenge me to a Flyting?"
Blink had rather foolishly done so and had spent the next thirty minutes being insulted, only able to shoot back occasionally, although she got better at it as the game went wound on.
So, this is my life now, she reflected as she looked at the sticks Blink had stuck out into their campfire, on which she was looking baked potatoes. For some reason, Trickster, which she still insisted on calling him much to his chagrin (whether real or not, she couldn't say) had developed an extreme taste for tubers of all sorts. The fish too, a freshwater fish of some kind, would take a bit longer. Still, it was way better than my life before this.
That was very true, although Blink hadn't really realized how bad her life had been at the time. When Trickster had come into her life, Blink had been a mule, a transporter for an Argentinian gang. Her powers had been discovered very early in her life, and the gang had basically kidnapped her, using her for years, although she hadn't known that at the time.
Blink had been in her room when the old man had appeared. She had looked up from where she had been reading, staring as Trickster had come through a wall, appearing in her room as if he had always been there. Looking down at her, the man had asked a simple question, a speculative gleam in his eyes. "Are you a pawn, or are you a player?"
"What do you mean," Blink had asked in return.
"Do you wish to make your own decisions, or do you wish for others to continue to control your actions, your life. Do you wish to continue to be played with, or are you a player? Which is it, child?"
For some reason, that simple question had made Blink think about the idea of being free of the gang. Looking back on it, Blink knew that Trickster had somehow weaned her off the various drugs she'd been fed for years to keep her docile within an instant, which had allowed Blink to put her full mental faculties on the question. And as that happened, Blink knew she couldn't go back to that kind of life, to being used, her mind in a drunken fugue. I want to make my own destiny. I want to act as I want to, not as someone else demands!
Something in her face had told Trickster what her choice was, and he had smiled before smashing his staff onto the floor of Blink's small room. A second later, the manacles, which Blink had never even questioned before, had come off the teen, falling by the wayside. And then, as he reached out a hand to her shoulder, Blink had used her power, and they were gone.
It hadn't always been easy traveling the old man. First, Trickster insisted she read and learn, something she hadn't done since the gang had begun to take her. Second, he never wanted to stay in one place for more than a day, and more often than not, Trickster would hasten that movement along somehow by pissing off the locals. Still, Blink had been enjoying herself a lot, even if her looks sometimes played a factor in their moving on so quickly.
Blink shook her head, brought back to the here and now as Trickster hopped to his feet and began to cackle. "Hahaha, it's time, it's time!"
Huffing, Blink crossed her arms, looking down at the two fish still cooking in front of her very deliberately. "If you want to eat your fish raw, you can. Although I'll keep cooking mine, thanks. I prefer my brain cells in one piece, and eating raw fish and such like that has to have some kind of downside, or else everyone would be doing it."
The old man turned to her as if only now realizing she was there. which was quite possible. "You know, I've never quite decided whether or not you're eccentric or utterly crazy," Blink drawled, smirking at the old man across the fire. "You're cackling like that is certainly a clue pointing me towards 'utterly crazy'.
"Bah, I have given you numerous clues about who I am and where I come from. It is your own ignorance that blinds you," the man she called Trickster answered, shaking his head. "And yet, the time of flyting, the time of wandering has passed."
Blink's eyes narrowed, as for the first time since he'd asked her that question months ago, the old man's voice sounded normal. There wasn't a hint of his over-the-top attitude, none of his easygoing confidence or anything else. Just deadly seriousness. "That, that sounds mildly ominous."
"It should. A kingdom will rise or will fall. A people will be free or be tied forever by greater chains. Regardless, my dear, a time both great and terrible has come, and it must begin now."
Blink cocked her head thoughtfully, then hopped to her feet, dusted herself on, and moved around the fire to take Trickster's arm in her hand. "Well then, what are we waiting for?"
"And again, you give me the right answer," the old man said. "We go to rouse the one called Harry Potter and his Custodes. There is yet another world that they must save…"