VAINGLORIOUS (Worm/Thor)

[Numen]

VAINGLORIOUS (Worm/Thor)

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"Life is short. Glory is eternal."
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A/N: Minor spoilers for Thor, Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok, Worm belongs to Wildbow, Thor belongs to Marvel. I owe nothing except my muses.

PROLOGUE ​

Long before the birth of light there was darkness, and from that darkness came the Dark Elves. Millennia ago the most ruthless of their kind, Malekith, sought to transform our universe back into one of eternal night. Such evil was possible through the power of the Aether, an ancient force of infinite destruction.
- Odin Allfather

+++​

"But that doesn't make any sense, mum." Little Taylor commented as her mother told her yet another of her queer stories about the faraway worlds beyond Earth Bet.

"What doesn't make sense?" Annette asked, frowning. The tall willowy woman looked down at her daughter, safely bundled up in her blankets, all ready for bed. She was so adorable!

"Uh, Transforming our universe back into one of eternal night, helloooo- Muuum, how would that even work, and don't the Dark Elves live in the universe, wouldn't hurting the universe hurt themselves too?"

"No, look- imagine if the Dark Elves were like fish." Annette explained with the patience only motherhood could muster.

"Yeah." Taylor nodded.

"And if the world was mostly dry land, do you think the fishes would be happy?"

"Um, no?"

"No, they wouldn't be. But if the fish flooded the world…"

"Then they'll have the whole world to swim in!" Taylor exclaimed excitedly, sitting up in her zeal. At only six years old, the child was certainly bright and the pride of Annette's life.

"Exactly, Taylor. Exactly." Annette said, a wicked smile upon her face, she patted Taylor gently on one shoulder, "The fish would rule the world and all would rue the day-"

"But what about all the other animals?" Taylor suddenly asked, sounding worried.

"What?"

"The land animals, wouldn't they drown?" Taylor asked, a quiver in her voice.

"Um, yes." Annette silently cursed whatever weakness was passed into the child from her father.

"So that's pretty evil, then."

Aw, she's so cute when she speaks in absolutes!

"No, Taylor... that's survival." Annette said firmly, eyes turning dark as she stared off outside the window, lost in thought.

After a moment of awkward silence, the young Hebert spoke again.

"Tell me about the Light Elves, mum. Are they anything like the Dark Elves?"

Annette scoffed. "Those upstart pu- pansies? Not even close."

+++​

Taylor backed away from her reflection, fresh tears in her eyes. She was so ugly.

"W-what is this?"

"Your true face, Taylor." Annette said softly from behind her. She had chosen this night to reveal the truth of their heritage to Taylor, coinciding with Danny's out of town Union meeting.

Taylor stared at her pale skin and pointed ears using her unnatural blue eyes- those features made her look like a classical demon. Or a fairy. More distressing was the ugly burn like lacerations raked across her face. Taylor wiped away her tears and sniffed.

"Why am I so ugly?"

"You aren't ugly. You're scarred." Her mother cooed as she hugged Taylor. "Your regular appearance was an illusion I casted upon you- as I do for myself."

Annette was also showing her true face this night, her face even more burned and part of her left ear was clipped as if sliced off by a sharp blade.

"Remember those Dark Elf stories I told you when you were younger?"

"Y-yeah."

"We're Dark Elves Taylor. Baryonic Matter, Starlight, all of these things are poison to our kind. You're half-mortal, so you're more resistant to this Universe of Light. For me, it takes it's toll everyday. I am weakened daily, my lungs failing slowly. Inevitably, I shall die."

"No!" Taylor said, turning around in wide-eyed terror.

"It is a tragedy, compared to the immortality our kind enjoyed at the beginning of time- but even thus weakened, my lifespan would well exceed any mere mortal."

She paused. And then continued. "I've been on this Earth for millennia, most of it asleep in stasis, centuries of it awake- yet I dared not reveal my presence lest the Aesirs seek to end our race for good."

"Why are you telling me this?" her daughter asked, voice small and frightened. "Why are you telling me this and not Daddy? Why do we have to keep this secret from Daddy?"

"Because your father is merely mortal. There's nothing he could do- it would only bring him pain to know he could not help us in anyway. And as much as I love him, I cannot entrust the survival of our species to a being of light- he could betray us to extinction, willingly or not. Midgard is a dangerous realm, these...Parahumans, there's something wrong with them. Asgard is not as it once was, their laxity in policing this realm is beneficial to our continued occultation, and yet at the same time, it leaves Midgard open to the horrors of devastation they are not ready for."

She turned Taylor around so she could look her in the eye. "I will train you in the ways of our people- our ways of war, history, and culture. Our pride and our proper place in the cosmos."

She grasped Taylor's fingers. "And you're my legacy. The last of the first race. The greatest race. The master race."

"Like the Empire Eighty Eight?" Taylor asked.

Annette paused. "No. Not like the Empire. Those budget Aesir worshippers are delusional. The only master race are the Dark Elves."

"Okay."

"It's true." Annette sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

Life continued, and for many many years, all was well.

+++​

The end came on a stormy night.

Annette received the warning the minute it happened- an Asgardian transdimensional jump detected near Earth's orbit and she knew the gig was up. She opened her closet and pressed a Todjydheenil rune- nothing like Odin's blasphemous futhark- engraved onto the surface.

It glowed red and a hidden dimensional space was revealed- inside was her ancient power armour that she had worn all those years ago in service to Lord Malekith.

A white face mask with black circular lens for eyes stared back at her, carved into the likeness of an elf, lips closed and expressionless with stylized black ears stretched upwards to both sides. She picked it up and looked at it fondly. In the darkness, a shimmer went through her and a decades long illusion dropped to reveal her horrifically burned face, slit eyes and elongated ears.

She quickly suited up, pulling on the synthetic skintight black suit, and began sliding on armour platings, the material attaching itself to her skinsuit, melding with it. She pulled up her armoured boots and strapped on her daggers.

She grabbed the mask and placed it over her face, completing her transformation from mortal woman to a primeval god of eternal night.

+++​

She kept an obvious signal broadcasting as she piloted one of her Harrows towards an abandoned island in Northern Canada- Elven technology made the trip a short one, flying well over the speed of sound even at the slow pace she had set. Dark Elven stealth technology was supreme throughout the known universe, it was highly improbable anyone on Earth Bet could have detected her ship. They might pick up deliberate signal she was broadcasting, but there was no Tinker she knew of who had the right technology for it. It would however be blatantly obvious to any Asgardian scanning for esoteric energies.

Just as planned.

Her Harrow flipped on it's side, the Harrow Blade now pointing towards the right, like a deadly axe in flight. Inside the ship, well within the inertial dampening field of her vessel, the sudden change made no difference as she manipulated the holographic controls.



The ship slid into the mostly abandoned island in the dark of night, sending up clouds of dust and slicing through several outcroppings of rocks.

The hatch opened and she marched down the ramp, her particle rifle hung over one shoulder, glowing an ominous red.

She waited. She did not have to wait long.

A winged horse descended from the sky, a single figure sat on it's back. Asgardian bred Pegasi were certainly durable, to survive space travel unaided by technology was no easy feat.

The Valkyrie leapt off of the pegasus, clad in the silver blue armour of their order, a spear clung to her back and a sword in hand. Stupid Asgardians and their stupid obsession with melee weapons; truly they were primitives. The Valkyries however, were the best of the best. Annette knew she couldn't let them get a drop on her or she was dead.

"Svartálfar" The Valkyrie said curtly, staring right at the other woman's eyes- not that she could tell since Annette's own was carefully hidden behind her circular eye lenses, "I only saw your kind in the Book of Yggdrasil."

"We call ourselves Harudheeniksel, not whatever ridiculous name you younger races gave our species, Valkyrie. Didn't you all died at the hands of Hela or something?"

The Valkyrie reared back as if slapped. "You dare speak her name to me!?"

"Yeah, I don't really care, we doing this or what?" Annette swung her rifle into firing position, finger steady on the trigger, but not applying any pressure. Yet. "My name is Nylarka."

A name I haven't used in centuries.

The Valkyrie nodded her head and returned her gesture. "My name is Brunhilde."

"Brunhilde... as in Sigurd's ex-lover?"

"Yes- does everyone know that?"

"You're pretty famous in Midgardian legends. Notably the Völsunga Saga and Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle."

Brunhilde smirked, no doubt pleased that mortals remembered her so deeply, her dark skin glinting under the flash of lighting from above.

Annette glanced up briefly, "Brought Thor with you? I thought this was a one on one fight?"

"I am not with Asgard anymore. I left."

Annette blinked in surprise. "Then what are you here for? Not coming to complete your genocide?"

"You got a bounty on your head- the last Dark Elf in the whole Universe. The Collector wants you, he's willing to pay big money for it."

Annette felt a chill crawl down her spine and also realized that she wasn't, in fact, the last Dark Elf in the whole Universe- there was Taylor.

No, they must never know!

"Enough talking- I am not going to a zoo today." She pointed her rifle at the Valkyrie. "But I'll send you to Hel first!"

She opened fire with the particle rifle, sending streaks of red energy towards the other woman even as Brunhilde roared and jumped five stories into the air. She crashed down in front of Annette sending up debris in all direction and knocked away her particle rifle with a spinning high kick. The rifle twirled through the air into the crashing waves in the distance.

Brunhilde's sword swiped at where Annette's head used to be, but the Dark Elven warrior rolled backwards. Annette cursed in Shiväisith before slashing at the Valkyrie with a flurry of knives, each one missing the elite Asgardian soldier by mere millimetres as the Valkyrie dodged and weaved with movements that belied her centuries of combat experience.



"You're good." Brunhilde remarked as she spun her sword around and jerked forward to stab at Annette even as the Dark Elf's knives deflected the strike before trying to skewer the Valkyrie in the guts with a thrust of her arm.

Missed again!

"You're not bad." Annette acknowledged as she dropped her knives and hurriedly ran through a series of alien mudras. When she parted her hands, she stretched forth a mandala of red light.

"Dark Magic!" Brunhilde snarled as she backed away in caution.

"You light-beings label everything you don't understand dark, as if it was something to be feared. Know the power of the primeval universe!"

Annette unleashed a storm of red light that lanced towards the Valkyrie- who was already running for cover behind several rocks. Where the crimson light met matter, it transformed them into lumps of black bubbles that quickly faded from the visible spectrum.

The Dark Elf stopped her attack and leapt a great distance to land behind Brunhilde's hiding place- a dark material sword materializing in her hand from the mandala on her palm accessing a subspace.

"The chooser of the slain is slain tonight!" Annette decreed.

Brunhilde grinned. "Nope."

And a small spacecraft uncloaked from behind Annette- she spun around in shock before flipping backwards away from the hail of energy bolts that tore up the ground beneath her. Brunhilde unhitched the spear behind her back before running forward to hurl it towards the fleeing Dark Elf.

The spear flew on an arc through the air before punching through Annette's power armour with a loud crack, nicking her in the side and impaled itself on the ground halfway into the rocky soil.

The Dark Elf collapsed mid jump and rolled several feet away to stop on the cliff edge, gasping in pain. The Valkyrie walked over and pulled her spear out of the ground before advancing on the bleeding Dark Elf with a mad grin on her face. "I won, bitch."

The Dark Elf groaned even as she mentally ordered her Harrow to fly towards her location. Brunhilde heard the whine of the ship's engine before turning around to look at the incoming vessel. She barely had time to utter a "Oh fuck" before the Harrow slammed into her and rocketed through the island, burying itself into a mountain several miles away, burying itself deep inside it.

Annette had already rolled out of the way and was leaning against another sea rock, breathing heavily in exhilaration.

"No. I won, bitch!" Annette roared in triumph.

"No, none of you won. I did." A silky smooth voice said from right beside her.

A stunned Annette turned to look at a man in green robes wearing a horned helmet. He smiled and stabbed her with a dagger of cold iron. It pushed it's way through the opening in her suit torn open earlier by Brunhilde's spear throw.

The moment the iron touched her flesh, Annette screamed in pain at the touch of the conceptually deadly weapon. Her abdominal skin wilted and turned black like charr.

"It's nothing personal, but I needed funding for my latest research, Father wasn't interested- so naturally, I looked for sponsors from outside the Nine Realms, and wouldn't you know it, the Collector is paying. Oh, and how rude of me- my name is Loki Odinson, Prince of Asgard and Brunhilde's partner in this profitable business venture."

As Annette rapidly lost consciousness, she heard Loki muttering about having to split the bounty money with the damnable Valkyrie.

Brunhilde arrived moments later, half of her armour peeling off and rubble strewn in her black hair. "This is bullshit. Dark Elves aren't this tough from the stories!"

Loki shrugged. "The stories were propaganda propagated by Odin, in reality Asgard suffered tremendous losses during the war, my Grandfather Bor almost died during the final assault on the Dark World. I should know, I snuck into the archives to read the uncensored versions. Of course individual Dark Elves, like individual Asgardians, are not of equal strength. It may be that our pointy-eared friend was a champion of her people."

The Valkyrie hummed in thought. "Her magical knowledge was certainly unusual for a Darkie. The stories usually portray Malekith as the only sorcerer of their kind."

"He was just the most famous." Loki hypothesized. "By the way- who's Hela? Another Valkyrie? I've never came across any mention of that name anywhere in my readings."

"None of your damned business, Loki." Brunhilde snarled before turning her attention to the limp form of the Dark Elf. "Let's just tie the bitch up and get our money."

"Sounds good to me, I don't want to be on Midgard any longer than I have to- these mortals are awfully strange."

"Yes, since when do mortals fly and shoot beams of energy? Since when did Midgard have winged giantesses floating in orbit- I swore she looked right at us when my ship passed by her." Brunhilde asked rhetorically. "Last I was here, they barely knew how to ride horses.

"I presume they knew how to ride women back then- you know, given you loved Sigurd so much and all that." Loki japed, winking at her.

"Shut up, Sorcerer."

+++​

Six months before Taylor Hebert started high school, her mother went missing in the middle of the night. No one knew why.

Taylor however knew that something terrible must have happened to her mother- some enemy of the Dark Elves must have struck out at her progenitor, there was no way some upstart mortal or parahuman false god could have taken her mother down!

Taylor was sad, angry and above all, terrified. Whatever killed her mother could be looking for a little she-elf to add to their bounty, so she kept her head down and pretended to be a perfectly normal mortal. Life however, refused to make way for Taylor Hebert.



A/N: Big Evil in Little China hasn't been in a proper headspace for awhile, I admit, I am a bit lost on what's going on over there, so it's going on an improptu hiatus until I can figure out how to end it properly. In the meantime, something less cracky and I've been meaning to do for awhile now.

 

[Numen]

​

Taylor I

Today was the day that broke the camel's back. Today was the day I hit rock bottom- I do believe that I had there for awhile, but it took me this long to realize that.

It was a regular afternoon, I had just finished up with my morning class- thankfully devoid of people who wanted to bully me. Score!

And then it went downhill from there. Boo.

"Hey Taylor, do you think your mom is whoring herself out in the ABB farm?" Emma taunted me as I was trying to make my way to the computer lab. "Maybe she loves it so much she doesn't want to go back home to you and your loser family!"

The sycophants around the damnable redhead started laughing right on cue. Sophia Hess snorted from besides Emma, glaring at me with those eyes- the eyes of someone who considered me a lesser existence. How dare she!

I felt myself pause as I tried to suppress the suddenly, irrationally explosive rage that had arisen in my chest. I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth.

"Ha ha! She looks constipated!" Madison gloated. The forgettable try-hard really tried, but her insults weren't even creative or impactful. Ignoring her I tried to keep a grip on my anger before I inadvertently started a school massacre. Do the fools not know how hard it was to not try and kill them all?

Unbidden my mother's voice arose from my memories. The Dark Elf is superior to all other forms of life. Let none look down upon you, for your lineage is primeval and infinitely greater.

Yes, mother. I knew that. So why do I feel so goddamned scared? Terrified of losing control of my anger and being labeled a villain. And of being hunted like a dog by whatever horrors exist out in the cosmos if I even show a hint of being more than merely mortal. The enemies of the Dark Elves were many. Our crimes were many.

It was difficult to reconcile to myself that the Dark Elves were basically space Nazis. Yet, that was precisely the kind of reputation they had in the greater universe, according to mom.

I sighed, releasing my pant up rage in three short breaths and stalked off. I could ignore them. They were beneath me-

Sophia Hess was suddenly in my face.

"You angry, Heb?"

What the hell Sophia, don't you know that sounded like you're trying to be antisemitic? And yeah, I am angry, bitch- really really angry that I can't punch off your head with vastly superior Elven strength. Do you not have a self preservation instinct?

Oh wait, she's a jock and a bully- fat chance of any self preservation happening. They were the predators, not the prey.

Well, unfortunately for her, I was more like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Oh, she was still talking?

"- anger gives you strength. But you're too pussy to fight back. Come on, punch me, I know you want to-"

She blinked in shock when my fist was suddenly in her face- inches from her nose. She narrowed her eyes, her face twisting into an ugly expression of fury. She lashed out with a leg and tripped me. I went down with a yelp as my hip collide with the floor. There was a stinging sensation, but no pain. Hip 1, Floor 0.

"So long loser!" Emma chortled as her cult of suicidal idiots (suicidal because they kept inviting me to just kill them all, you see) followed her down the hallway and disappeared from my line of sight. Sophia giving me one last kick before making her own exit, away from the pack, like a lone hunter. She thinks she's so cool! But she's really not. Well actually, fine, I concede that she was pretty cool actually. But a total bitch nonetheless.

I relaxed marginally, letting the cool marble tiles of the hallway floor bleed off my raging hatred and fury. I think I'll just relax here on the hallway. I spread my legs and moved my arms behind and underneath my head to cushion it.

Yes Taylor, take a nap. Dream of Sugarplum Fairies, Harrows and Particle Rifles. Pew Pew! Do Dark Elves celebrate Christmas? Mom certainly does- although she never liked Santa, oh yeah he's Odin. That would explain it.

Enough stalling brain, let's talk about real problems! Real talk time. Just then, the nearby music class started emanating a most tranquil piano music. Thanks mysterious pianist, I needed the thinking soundtrack to get my thoughts in order while lying on the floor.



I sighed out loud as I contemplated on how depressing my life has gotten since mom mysteriously vanished. Emma became a backstabbing bitch virtually overnight. It was Hess's fault, I just know it! Dad was distraught over mom's disappearance and had sunk thousands on second rate private investigators to try and find any leads. Honestly, I wasn't sure which potential truth I preferred- that my mother was dead... or that she was kidnapped. Which fate was worse?

The ABB farmhouse comment might not be far off from the truth, there are no shortage of traffickers in the universe either. The universe, as my mother was wont to say, was a hive of scum and villainy. It was sick.

And we Dark Elves were the cure- or so the propaganda went. Lord Malekith recognized that the Universe had a good run and it was time to hit the reset button. Never mind the trillions upon trillions (or whatever) of alien life he would wipe out by doing so.

On downer days like this, I could sympathize with what Malekith had wanted to accomplish with his omnicidal plans regarding the Aether. And that just pissed me off, because I was basically a space nazi by heritage and that's all that was left of what my mom had given me. My heritage. The legacy of my people - one of unbelievable evil and yet strength against impossible odds- we took on all of existence and nearly came out on top.

I wondered if normal human Nazis have thoughts like mine? Maybe I should attend a meet and greet with the E88 or something!

Oh hey there mortals! I am a space Nazi- with pointy ears. So how do you reconcile Hitler with the Holocaust? How do you justify pride in Nazism and White Nationalism when you're all such horrible people? What was that? The Holocaust never happened, it was a conspiracy to poison the reputation of the Caucasoid race? Say it isn't so!

Well, my people tried to kill the whole Universe. It totally happened and we're proud of it even if those pesky Aesirs you guys love so much ruined our chances. Suck my pointy ears, bitches!

"Hey, Taylor, you're going to be late for class." I looked up at the concerned face of Greg Veder- oh yeah I was still lying on the floor.

"Sup, Greg."

"I am good."

He fidgeted.

I said nothing. He was trying to avoid my gaze- how adorkable!

"I, uh. I am going."

He shuffled off in an awkward gait, backpack slung over one shoulder.

I mentally shrugged and went back to sleep.

Who cares about school? I have a goddamned spaceship docked in a hanger only I could access.

A spaceship that I am afraid to be caught flying in. My face twitched in irritation as I forced myself up to a sitting position, crossing my legs in the Indian fashion. If I am to be consigned to mere mortality, I might as well get a proper education.

Education for mortals that is- I had asked mom what Dark Elves were taught growing up.

What I am going to be teaching you. Military Discipline and Weapons Training. You'll love training with the Black Hole Grenade, trust me.

Yes, I certainly did enjoy training with black hole grenades; a certain island near Norway is riddled with mysterious holes as a testament to my educational zeal.

Those were good times, bygone times, when mom was around. My beautiful, wonderful, terribly flawed mother. We didn't have much, Dad, Mom and I- but we had each other. Now, that dream was dead.

I had hit rock bottom. Or at least, I had hit the school hallway floors. Marble-bottom? Tile-bottom? Baryonic matter bottom? Get it, cause the floor and a good chunk of the visible universe is made of Baryonic matter? Hahaha. It's a bad joke I know. Only I was allowed to make it cause I have dark matter in my insides and no one else does. I am special! Hahaha.

I laid back down, my depressing thoughts ruined my appetite for further schooling. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep. To forget all of my worries, to allow tranquil sleep to take me, to abide in nowhere no matter where I was. I was ultra-zen. Clearly.

...A twisting cloud of dark energy spiralled through air- I WANT IT I NEED IT- dark elven face starting out at me, turning around and reaching towards the energy- only for a glowing bolt of light to slam into him, blasting him back...

I opened my eyes and gasped.

What the fuck was that?

I NEED IT

My eyes widened as I stood up and turned around, trying to find the source of the voice- there was no one there.

Suddenly, the abandoned hallway didn't seem so tranquil. I shuddered as I hurried away.

+++​

I sighed as I closed the door to my house and just rested against it. What a fucking day. My t-shirt was wet with orange juice that the trio had poured over the bathroom stall I was eating my lunch in. How the mighty have fallen indeed!

Right then and there, I made a decision. After the day I just had, I decided I need to go on a joyride. Just to relax and unwind. And stave off accidentally channeling Carrie for another day. I'd only have to go crazy once to ruin my life forever, after all.

Screw safety! Dark Elves have the best stealth technology around, no one would notice if I took one of mom's Harrows out for a spin, right? I wonder if I could carve crop circles with the blade of a Harrow. What's the worse that could happen?

 

[Numen]

​

Taylor II

I made my way to the abandoned warehouse by the docks. This was where everyone with something to hide typically kept their sketchy stuff.

I entered a warehouse door and slipped into a distortion in space that only my Elven eyes could make out. In a single step, I appeared in a small dimly lit hanger with an opening further away, showing me the howling winds and white slopes of the Himalayas. If this was anyone else trying to get it, the spatial distortion would seal shut and the interloper would be bisected. Not a pleasant way to go, not even high level brutes could handle being bisected by space-time. I think. Let's not test that. Parahumans were bullshit, after all.

I dug out my dinner from my backpack. Dad was working late again, so I had grabbed take-out from Fugly Bobs. I walked over to the hanger opening to stare down at the distant valleys below. It was an amazing scenery.

How many mortals could see something like this? I imagine only parahumans who had flight and a decent brute rating could view something like this. That wasn't to say mortal mountain climbers didn't give it a good go.

I swung my legs out over the edge and sat there. I bit into my cold burger and chewed slowly. Here, I could be myself, I could let down my mask- literally as I allow the illusion magic to fade away, showing my true face to no one.

I wouldn't need to be ashamed of my scars or my half burnt face.

The wind changed direction and a hail of snow started slamming into the one way force field bubble situated right outside the hanger, sparkling and dissolving into minute particles. The force field also bend the photons around the entrance, disguising the hanger from any spying eyes- electronic or otherwise.

It's pretty amazing that my mom built all of this. Well, she apparently had "help", but she didn't tell me who they were or where they are now. She had so many secrets she had yet to share with me. And now she never will.

I finished off my burger, knowing that it was killing me slowly- I estimated I could live maybe two decades longer if I ate the military rations found in the Harrows instead of mortal food, but what kind of a life was that?- and hurried to one of the Harrows hanging from the ceiling. There was supposed to be five Harrows, one was missing; so mom must have taken it somewhere before she was captured or killed.

I sighed and mentally ordered one of the Harrows to lower its hatch, its internal lighting enveloping the interiors of the small spaceship with a red glow. Like the maw of some dark beast.

I smirked, I wouldn't be surprised if some Midgardian legends were inspired by Dark Elven Harrows or Arks.

I entered the ship, the hatch sealing shut behind me. The light dimmed shortly afterwards. What drew my attention- as it did the last time when my mother showed me how to pilot this ship- was the statue of Malekith, carved from some kind of stone.

I gave him a salute at a right angle- a Roman salute if you're being charitable. If not, it was a Nazi Salute. Malekith was basically Dark Elf Hitler. It felt appropriate even if it wasn't exactly a traditional Dark Elven salute.

I both admire and hate this Elf. I admire him for his greatness, but I hated him for consigning our species to extinction. My mother told me how Malekith commanded the Arks to drop on top of the Asgardian army in his last bid for victory. Those Arks carried women and children, the elderly and other non-combatants of the Dark Elven race.

He doomed us all. It was true that we were a dying race, but we still thrived on the Dark World. Malekith couldn't stand that a race as great as ours was reduced to a single world, that when we travel anywhere else, we had to wear power armour and our protective Elven masks. He wanted a Dark Empire to arise as in the days of old.

And he was willing to sacrifice our people for that.

He was a monster.

He was a great leader.

I turned away from these dissonant thoughts and hurried to the small bridge, sitting in front of an orb that projected a holographic console for me to manipulate.

Time to fly. I started up the engines- which was little more than a field generator that held a singularity. The small black hole begin to spin into existence, gaining mass as the engines fed it select particles carefully.

The Harrow slowly generated an anti gravity field and moved away from its docking rigs.

Where should I go?

Japan. Then maybe Vienna. Finally the Moon. Or Jupiter.

I could reasonably go anywhere within the Solar System. Alpha Centauri was pushing it, as at even top speeds, it would take years. Only the Arks had FTL capable of traversing such distances in a reasonable time. Harrows traveled only at sub-warp speeds at most.

The ship flew gently out of the entrance into the Himalayan air and immediately cloaked itself.

Time for an adventure.

I noticed something strange on my holographic projection of Earth however.

Spatial Distortion detected in...Australia?

What the hell.

I connected to the Internet and my jaw dropped at the news scrolling across a holographic emulation of a PC.

The Simurgh was attacking Canberra. Fuck! I had forgotten that the Endbringers were due to attack around this week. Fucking Asgard, not bothering to respond to Endbringer attacks in all the years the walking disasters have been happening. Seriously, Odin must be getting senile.

What do I do? I had always ignored Endbringer attacks, as my mother had done. But she wasn't human. She never was.

I was half-human. It was my people dying down there too. Something my mother probably could not grasp.

I looked down at my console. This ship had great power. I mean, what was tinkertech compared to the millions of years old Elven technology, right? All I would have to do was shove a black hole into the Simurgh's face- it would be an easy kill. I was pretty sure.

What do I do? What should I do? If..if I exposed myself, Asgard might notice...and then...and then I'll most likely end up dead.

But if I don't…I thought about the millions of people in Canberra. People with families. People like mom, dad and I.

What do I do, oh god, mom! What do I do? It took her centuries to even acknowledge that humanity were sentient beings, let alone marrying one and having a child with him. She admitted to me that she was dying and didn't want to die alone, that was the only reason she had allowed herself to fall in love with dad- insomuch as Dark Elves could love anything that wasn't our race.

Not wanting to die alone. I guess I can understand that. I am all alone now too and I don't want to die alone either. Even Emma has left me. Emma, who was as my own sister- my bloodsister, sworn before the gods although we had never needed to do so because our souls was clear on where we stood. She was oathbreaker and herself broken. And Dad....Dad was a broken man.

And I was a broken elf. We're all broken.

What was my life?

I set course for Canberra. Unbidden, I felt compelled to recite a poem.

"What sort of dream is that, Odin. I dreamed I rose up before dawn to clear up Val-hall for slain people. I aroused the Einherjar, bade them get up to strew the benches, clean the beer-cups, the Valkyries to serve wine for the arrival of a prince."

The heretical words slipped from my lips and I giggled in pleasure at having dared to utter such in front of the statue of Malekith. He must be rolling in his grave! The last of his race, risking her life to save mortals and reciting Asgardian war prayers. Ha!

In the poem, Valhalla prepared itself for the arrival of Eric Bloodaxe, a great King of Man, whose glory heralded his arrival to the halls of the gods. Valhalla would prepare for my arrival in due course. What shall be Odin's expression, when a Dark Elf marched into Valhalla dragging the head of an angel that would make even Thor second guess himself?

Hahahaha. Oh, I was laughing out loud? Might as well go all the way.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

I pushed pulled the holographic joystick down- the event horizon of the black hole engine expanded accordingly.

It was a good day to die. I turned back to Malekith and whispered. "Witness me."

I wasn't suicidal. I really wasn't.

The Harrow shot out of the mountains and burned across the atmosphere.

 

[Numen]

​

Brad I

"IRONSPIKE, IRONSPIKE, IRONSPIKE, RIP AND TEAR, UNTIL IT'S DONE!"

The crowd chanted in glee as I stepped up onto the raised platform- the door shutting behind me, locking me into the cage.

I looked across from me at the burly brute, his torso naked.

Just like me.

Tattooed.

Just like me.

Neither of us wore masks. Just like me- in these fighting rings, secret identities weren't a thing. Most of us were human trafficking victims, basically slaves or the super desperate anyway, so why bother, right? Cape gangs don't recruit from pit fights, the pit fight organizers wouldn't tolerate it. We're like a gang of our own.

But he wasn't like me. Because he wasn't Hookwolf. He wasn't the best. Because I was the best.

I growled. He snarled back.

I thumped my chest as he raised a steel bat with spikes sticking out of it.

"LAAAAADIES AND GENTLEMAN!" The MC began in his booming voice. "THE ULTIMATE BATTLE! A DEATHMATCH BETWEEN OUR REIGNING CHAMPION IRONSPIKE AND THE UPSTART CONTENDER, FROM THE NEW MEXICO PARAHUMAN FIGHTING CIRCUIT- HOOKWOLF!"

He really knew how to work a crowd.

"Hookwolf, hookwolf, hookwolf!" A small subset of the crowd started chanting. Unfortunately it was drowned out by the louder cries of "IRONSPIKE, IRONSPIKE, IRONSPIKE!"

I was the underdog here and so naturally only a small crowd was cheering for me. I raised a fist into the air and they went wild. Gotta love the people who love the underdogs. Outside the cage I could see Stormtiger- Ken, and Cricket- Melody, shouting their encouragement for me. They were also from New Mexico and so we're on the same out-of-town "team", for a very narrow definition of the word; but we stuck by each other since we're all outsiders to this scene. It's very dangerous here away from our main base of operations. Already, some hired goons had tried to shank the three of us, no doubt on the behest of gamblers who want to make sure their local contenders win at all costs. Good reputation was good for business, can't have some upstarts from the New Mexico fighting rings upsetting the status quo now could they?

Ironspike smiled, showing his yellowed, alcohol stained teeth and his wild eyes told me he was high as a kite. I heard the stories- Ironspike was a dishonourable cur who crippled young fighters who didn't know what they were getting into. I, at least, made an effort to allow idiots way over their head to survive and fight another day. It was the honourable thing to do.

Ironspike had no honour, he was in deep with the gamemakers, and pocketed a not insignificant amount of commissions. Rumours were that he would hire agents to drug enemy champions before fights or try his hand at assassination if a particularly strong fighter from out-of-town showed up.

Today, he would get a lesson in humility. It would be a short lesson, because I would bash in his skull soon after.

"AND, THREE...TWO...ONE…"

I bent my knees, coiling my muscles and grinned savagely, my blonde locks dangling over half my face. I imagine I must look like some kind wild madman. Which is kind of the whole angle my marketing people had going for me.

"FIGHT!"

I was on him in a burst of speed, barrelling into his torso and slamming him into the steel bars behind him. He punched my stomach and I laughed.

"That all you got!?" I taunted. That punched was pathetic!

He shunted his iconic iron spike up at my face I felt a burst of pain as my jaw nearly dislocated. He swung his bat around and crack me across the side of the head.

Cricket was screaming up a storm. "Hookwolf! Kick his ass!"

Time to stop playing around. I swung my hook at his face and he quickly blocked with his spiked bat.

This was why this match was garnering so much attention.

Our physical similarities aside, Ironspike was known for using a spiked steel bat to augment his brute strength...and I was known for my steel hook. My giant hook was about the size of an average human, heavy in weight, with a large hook at the end. Not unlike the magical fish hook wielded as a weapon by that Maui guy from Polynesian mythology.

I snarled and jumped back, bringing my hook in front of me instinctively to deflect Ironspike's follow up strike.

"You're just an unruly dog, Hooky. I heard about you, the dumb brute with amnesia who got dumped in some alley with nothing to his name."

I roared and swung the hook at his face with a resounding crack, before dashing forward to headbutt him. The blow dropped him down on one knee. Not giving him time to recover, I kneed him in the jaw and sent him sprawling backwards to the floor.

"Not much of a brute rating, huh!" I chortled. Yes, that wasn't strictly professional, but banter was part of mortal combat. Stormtiger and Cricket whooped and the crowd jeered at my sick burn.

The blow came out of nowhere, hitting me in the temple and causing starbursts to appear in my vision. The sudden bout of dizziness sent me down on one knee, my steel hook was torn out of my grasp and sent scattering. I felt Ironspike grabbed my long blonde locks and pulled me backwards.

Fuck, knew I should've cut my hair.

The Ironfucker was taunting me now. Well, I supposed that was fair, I started it. "Fighting to get by, and going on about honour and honour. Is honour why you fight? Too honourable to just take what you want? I have bitches daily, I have money. I am important. The sponsors, they're nice like that. You refuse bitches, you refuse drugs- what the fuck do you fight for, huh, Hooky? I am curious."

He punched me and my vision went dark. I slumped down on all fours as he released my hair.

This was not good.

Ironspike was known for toying with his food, playing up the drama, and killing his opponents gruesomely to the approval of the crowd. The fight was being streamed online and the sick fucks on the dark web paid good money for murder-porn.

I was about to star in his latest flick. Fuck me.

He brought his weapon down over my skull and I screamed in pain as I finally succumbed to the humiliating position of lying on the cage floor.

CRACK! My head throbbed in agony. I could feel wetness on the back of my head.

CRACK! Spikes stabbed into my back, digging deeply into a muscle that made me hiss in agony.

CRACK! I felt my shoulders break.

"IRONSPIKE, IRONSPIKE, IRONSPIKE, RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT'S DONE!"

No one was cheering for me anymore. I was forgotten. Doomed to die ignominiously on the field of battle. The sound blurred together and was drowned out by the pounding of my aching head.

Was this the end for me? Doomed to die ignominiously on the field of battle against some honourless knave? Where was my glory? What had I accomplished on my short time on this world, most of it which I couldn't even remember because of my lost memories. May I perhaps hope I was at least a great doctor or something in my former life?

"You're just a dog- they don't love you." Ironspike whispered in my ears, I could feel the spittle from his mouth hitting me in the ears. He actually sounded like he pitied me. "I've been in this business long enough, you fight until they get sick of you winning, until you're the boring old menu item. Then they're cheering for the next champion and the next, until someone slits your throat and you're forgotten."

Was that really what the pit fighting business was all about? I guess I was too naive. What was I fighting for all this time? What was it all for?

At first, it was for survival. I had offers to join gangs and mercenary groups, but my honour wouldn't allow me. I would make a honest living I told myself.

A honest living fighting in lethal parahuman pit fights for the entertainment of criminals and the wealthy elite.

There was no glory was there? I was lying to myself the whole time. I wasn't worthy.

I laughed.

He was right, I was a dog.

Ironspike pulled me around so I was lying on my back. My vision was still dark. The crowd went wild. I imagine that he must be raising his spiked bat right now, no doubt to pulverize my face.

Who am I? What am I here for?

And then...and then...



Two great beings spiralled through the void, worming their way through an unfathomably vast tree like shape in outer space.

[DESTINATION]

[AGREEMENT]

[TRAJECTORY]

[AGREEMENT]

A one eyed old man stared at me, and he brought up his hands.

[AGREEMENT]

My vision exploded into a storm of electric power and faded into darkness.

I opened my eyes and stood up slowly, feeling better than I ever had, all of my injuries healed, my bleeding had stopped, my head clear and my eyes bright with zeal. I took a deep breath and noticed that the crowd had become silent. There was a tension in the air….awe? Reverence? It was difficult to tell. What had happened? Wasn't I dying?

Ironspike was groaning and climbing back up on his feet, hand grasping for his weapon. Out of the corner of my eyes, I see Cricket and Stormtiger groaning on the ground, with Cricket stirring first.

She climbed back up on her feet, the cage around her head swaying a bit and doing nothing to hide the lustful expression of disbelief and awe in her eyes.

"Hookwolf...d-did you just second-trigger?"

What!? I….did I? Holy shit.

Iron Spike roared and charged at me- and instinctively I pulled all of myself, the fleshly parts into the core I could feel into my body, allowing the other flesh- of metal and steel- to burst forth.

I laughed and grabbed Ironspike with all my hooks, digging into his flesh. He panicked and began thrashing, but I started to rip and tear into him as he started screaming.

He bash my head so hard, my head twisted to the side- but whatever, I was metal. Hahaha.

I laughed and turned around, a wolf's head etching itself into the amorphous blob that was my head. I opened a steel maw of iron teeth and growled.

I threw him back several feet into the air to crash into the cage, denting the steel. He fell back down onto the stage. Back into my battlefield, like a mosquito in a spider's web.

"Come on, you beta c-uck, get up and fight!" I roared at him, slamming both of my fist to my metal chest.

Thank you Cricket, for teaching me those quality fighting words.

Ironspike's face contorted into a rictus of hate as he screamed and charged at me, I reached out, grabbed him tight and performed a flawless German Suplex. I flipped him over to crash into the concrete stage floor- hard enough to leave a spiderweb of cracks.

I wasn't done, I grabbed his arm as he tried to resist by bashing my head repeatedly with his free fist. I laughed his ineffectual attack off and broke his back over my right knee. He screamed in pain as I let him drop to the ground in a boneless heap.

The crowd went wild, they were all cheering my name now. "HOOKWOLF, HOOKWOLF, HOOKWOLF! RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT'S DONE!"

I put one foot on him and raise both arms, now made of metal and turned into giant hooks reminiscent of my iconic weapon.

"YEAAAAH!"

"KILL HIM!"

I plunged them down, splattering the battlefield with the blood of my fallen foe. As was appropriate.

Yes, this was the life. I gave him no mercy, just like he had given none to those who faced him before.

"May you find glory in Valhalla. May you be there for Ragnarok." I said, the words spilling from me lips as if from a dream.

Where did that come from?

+++​

Later, in my room that I shared with Stormtiger and Cricket, I pulled up my laptop and googled what Valhalla and Ragnarok was supposed to be.

Valhalla, hall in Asgard where the spirits of the heroic dead engage in daily battles, feasted all night and wait for doomsday.

Interesting.

And then I stumbled across a link to Yggdrasil. A cosmic tree that connected nine worlds together.

My vision…the twisting worm things swimming across space around a tree....

I had no idea what any of that meant. But I also felt that this was very important. I should know what this means.

My manager, Doyle stumbled into the room suddenly, waking up Stormtiger and Cricket.

"Guys, you're in big, big trouble. Ironspike's sponsors decided to leak your info to the police. You're wanted for murder charges, Brad."

"Fuck."

I considered the situation- it was just me right?

"Stormtiger and Cricket are safe, ain't they?"

Doyle shook his head. "Are you kidding me, Ironspike's sponsors are dangerous and powerful people, they lost millions betting against you. Your lives are forfeit- I am only safe because I have sponsors of my own, but that protection doesn't extend to you unless you find sponsors to protect you."

"And who would sponsor us?" Stormtiger growled in frustration. "I thought all the powerful ones were backing Ironspike. They had a monopoly going with their precious champion raking in millions."

I nodded in agreement. There was no honour in such a system- real warriors should determine their worth on the fields of honest battle, none of this political and monetary crap. It was what made this career so frustrating for true warriors like Stormtiger, Cricket, and I.

Doyle paused. "I have contacts...with a gang. The Empire Eighty-Eight. They can take you in, keep you safe- you're all white. You should be accepted and they'll always welcome more parahumans."

I scowled. "With Nazis?"

Nazis were dangerous. I also knew they had a hand in the pit fight pie.

"It's the best deal you're going to get Hookwolf. Besides which, Kaiser is honourable. For a criminal. You should be able to work with him."

I frowned. Was this what I had been reduced to? A rabid dog on the leash of another man?

"What's in it for you, sir?" I asked Doyle bluntly.

Doyle was the guy who had set me up in the fighting rings. He was the guy who had gotten me a fake ID, who helped me decide on a name and everything; money, a place to live. I owed him a lot sure, but I also knew that he was a self-serving creature. He wasn't a warrior. Afterall, why else would he deal in what was essentially gladiatorial slavery? I knew he ran a side business in sex slavery as well, if slightly cleaner than some of his competitors.

My manager hesitated before answering. "I'll be paid obviously, I am giving up a big investment after all, but I am doing it to keep you guys safe, believe me."

I did, I believe him. Fuck me, but I do.

"Alright, I'll join this… Empire."

Stormtiger sighed and put his pale blue tiger mask back on his face. He and Cricket looked at each other before nodding their heads at the same time. "We're with you, Brad."

They weren't exactly loyal friends, but they've been with me since the very beginning, back when we were unpowered pit fighters. There was more of us back then, but most of them died- some of them I killed with my own hands. Those of us who survived...well, we survived cause we triggered.

Well they did. I never remembered my first trigger, I just remembered getting really angry and beating the shit out of the other guy with what Stormtiger described as "kung fu moves I swore you never displayed before". Got more durable too.

Just another brute-thinker combo. Now apparently also a Changer after my...second trigger. If that was what it was.

Second triggers were revered in the pit fighting scene- it meant someone was pushed to the very edge and came back swinging, usually ending with the death of the other fighter. The kind of epic turnabout that made such death matches exciting in the first place.

Doyle nodded his head. "Alright, we better get a move on. I've arranged transportation to Brockton Bay."

And that was how I, Brad Meadows, became a Nazi.

 

[Numen]

​

Colin I

I volunteered right away when the call came down the line. There was no hesitation, because it was my duty. Duty was all that I had left, for I had forsworn any possibility of a personal life, having chosen to dedicate my life to heroism.

That was so long ago.

Right now, I found myself unable to say no to the glory that comes with great battles and greater victories. I had long accepted that this was a character flaw that wasn't exactly optimal, nor even something that one should be proud of and yet I cannot resist. I needed to win. I needed to validate myself.

From an utilitarian point of view, this was also what I needed to climb up the ranks, my career had been stalling for years. I want to- no, I must prove that I was still useful. And the only way to do that was to fight, to show the world that Armsmaster was still capable of contributing to humanity. And no opponent was worthier than Endbringers, no cause mightier than fighting against the gravest threat to our world.

I gripped my halberd tighter as I stood waiting in the rain on the helipad on the rig that that the Protectorate HQ was built upon. The few wards that were allowed to join the fight and the other Protectorate ENE heroes should be arriving any moment. I was had arrived first. That was what was important. The PRT's new darling Dauntless might have lucked out with great power, but he was never going to be like me, he was never going to take his duty seriously. He was never going to be on time.

But I was on time; because I had everything to lose if I don't give it my all. If the Simurgh could have waited a couple more months, then my nanothorn project and my prediction system would have been ready. It was my ace in the hole against the Endbringers, compiling everything known about the walking catastrophes and requiring the best that Dragon and I could scrounge up.

Hannah stepped up next to me. The dark skinned beauty, known worldwide as Miss Militia gave me a nod as she stared out at the sea, no doubt contemplating the very real possibility we might die this day. It wasn't our first Endbringer fight, it wasn't even our first Simurgh fight. But any fight could be our last. That was the reality of life on Earth Bet.

The Wards ENE arrived next, Aegis was here because of his adaptive biology, Triumph, because he was graduating to the full Protectorate soon and needed the experience of handling Endbringer fights as part of his future duty. The rest were staying behind. I wouldn't have wanted to die for no reason either as it was doubtful any of the other Wards could have contributed anything meaningful. Vista might have been useful, but she was still too young and the Youth Guard wouldn't have tolerated it. It said something about her home life that her parents didn't deny her permission to attend the Endbringer fights.

Assault and Battery showed up next in their contrasting costumes, followed by Velocity, Dauntless and the overweight form of Director Emily Piggot. Inefficient, she should've let Panacea healed her.

"Director." I nodded in greeting at the same time as Hannah did the same. Piggot returned the gesture and waited, not caring about the light rain ruining her blonde bob cut.

A sudden aura of awe washed over me and I felt my mouth go dry. I look up at the shining goddess descending from the sky. It was Glory Girl and in her arm was her sister, the world's greatest Healer, Amy Dallon, the aptly named Panacea. The other New Wave members followed: Brandish, Flashbang, Lady Photon and Manpower. All of the New Wave adults, their only Alexandria package and the very necessary healer. Laser Dream and Shielder would not be attending, it was too dangerous.

Piggot waited until they settled down before looking at each of them in the eyes. She nodded to the assembled heroes. "Come back alive."

I saluted. I had absolutely no intention of dying. There was a crack of displaced air and the familiar form of Strider appeared in the middle of the Helipad, giving us a grin. "You all ready?"

"Yes, we-" I was caught off by a PRT agent running over and whispering in Piggot's ears. Her eyes widened and she held up a hand.

"Hold on, Strider. We have last minute volunteers."

Who would-

The roof door opened and PRT agents marched in, leading in three capes; the foremost figure was a torso-naked heavily muscled man wearing a loose fitting jean haphazardly belted. A wolf superimposed over a swastika was emblazoned on one bicep and on the other was an equally distasteful "E88" symbol.

I growled. Hookwolf.

The man in the pale blue tiger mask and loose fitting pants was Stormtiger, and the barely disguised woman with a cage for a mask was Cricket. Insane murderers one and all. Figured that the glory hounds wanted in on the Endbringer Battle. Hookwolf gave me a piercing look with his cerulean eyes through his iron wolf mask. And then he reached a hand up and pulled it off much to my surprise.

"No point hiding, everyone knows my identity anyway. Name's Brad. Brad Meadows."

Murderer. I condemned him in my mind. He knows what I thought of him, because he smirked at me. I nodded my head in greeting, but said, "Don't expect us to return the gesture though, Hookwolf."

He laughed. His laugh was loud and boisterous, the kind of full belly laugh you might expect from Santa Claus. "I wouldn't expect it. So we going to kick ass or what?"

"Kaiser not joining you?" Glory Girl taunted. "Your other Nazi pals too scared?"

Hookwolf shrugged and scowled. "Kaiser's the cowardly sort. He doesn't pick fights he can't win."

"And you do?" Glory Girl retorted.

He grinned. "You don't need to win to earn glory. I think you of all people, would understand that, Glory Girl."

Spoken like a true warrior. In a way, I find that attitude respectable. Glory Girl didn't find that to be the case however, as she shot him a dark look.

"What about Othala?" Panacea spoke up from next to Glory Girl- I had almost forgotten she existed. Next to her sister's robust figure and extroverted personality, the New Wave healer looked practically invisible.

Cricket shrugged. "Said it wasn't worth risking her life for a fight out of town. Besides her husband wouldn't let her go." That made sense. As healers go, Othala wasn't anywhere in the same ballpark as Panacea, so it wasn't a big lost. I did however gnashed my teeth at the mention of Victor. It was well known he was married to Othala. That wasn't the issue, for the controversy was that Othala was a teenager when they were wed. Also he was a skill-thief. He never had to work for any of his achievements, just the kind of person I hate the most.

If I could hate people that is, it would be too inefficient to let myself be overcome by petty ill-temperament. I calmed myself with an injection of a custom brew of tinker drugs into my thigh using the in armour injection system. I relaxed marginally. Hmmm, I must be building up a tolerance to stimulants.

Strider coughed. "Alright, enough banter, we're on a tight schedule. Let's move it! Gather around children!"

We edged in closer and then with a crack of displaced air the scenery around us changed and we were suddenly surrounded by the multi-story buildings of Canberra instead of the sea. "Meeting place is that way." Strider pointed to where a bunch of capes were hanging out outside the local PRT headquarters. With another crack, the Mover was gone, no doubt to bring in other cape groups from around the globe.

With my head held high, I marched forth, heroes at my side...and several nazi capes. As we passed through the door, a couple PRT agents handed out communication armbands- produced by Dragon of course. For Simurgh fights, these armbands would be fitted with a bomb. One of PRT agent explained as much. "There is a bomb in there that will kill you if you remain exposed to the Ziz's song for over the time limit. It'll beep continuously in warning if you need to get the fuck out. Otherwise you're a goner. You have been warned."

I nodded stoically and accepted the armband before quickly strapping it on. The familiar "state your name" voice message played from the armband. Knowing the drill, I quickly did as I was bid. The familiar blue body suit of Legend caught my eyes and I walked up to him before standing at attention. The leader of the protectorate turned around and give me a nod in greeting, before looking over at the rest of my colleagues and the villains from the Bay.

"Glad you guys could make it, we could use all the help we can get today."

"The Simurgh is five minutes away." Dragon's voice said from behind me. I spun around to find a mechanical dragon suit on all fours gazing at us with her electric white eyes.

"Dragon." I said, sincerely pleased to see her. She was my dearest friend and a Tinker I deeply respected. I squashed the part of me that was jealous of her fame and accomplishments. The greatest Tinker in the world….Hero's successor.

That wasn't me. But I want to be that person. I want to surpass Dragon one day. "Get into positions everyone!" Alexandria shouted as she floated into the room. "Brutes who think they can take a hit from an Endbringer, to me!"

"Blasters to me! Shakers and breakers to Eidolon and all healing capes report to the medical centre being set up outside!"

A bunch of capes surged towards Alexandria and I noticed Hookwolf, Stormtiger and Cricket sauntering over to the Triumvirate Heroine along with them. Bah. Gloryhounds. That should've been me, but my nanothorn wasn't completed. I would serve the fight better by working with the other tinkers.

+++
​

​

We begin setting up our positions on several rooftops even as the Simurgh descended from the cloud cover. The giant woman was still as beautiful as ever- but underneath that skin deep perfection was the perversity of a genocidal monster. Her asymmetrical and randomly placed dozen wings were freakishly large compared to her lithe form. They pretended to flap around her, creating a strange, almost hypnotic motion. Those wings have murdered thousands. Her voice have murdered tens of millions.

Dragon finished setting up her sensors and nodded her draconic head. "If she tries any weird tricks, we'll know. We have a lot of exotic energy sensors set up."

That was the problem with the Ziz- brainwashing aside, she was also a deadly tinker and it's hard to tell exactly what her plans were. She either had mindbogglingly precognitive powers, or her psychic powers was potent enough as to make no difference. Humanity wasn't always on the backfoot against the Endbringers- there were some good days, but for the Simurgh especially, it was like we were several thousands moves behind and we always suffer the most damage from her fights. It wasn't like a bandaid being ripped off either, she kept you in suspense, not knowing if one of her mastered bombs or schemes slipped through our Thinkers and was destined to explode in our face months later. That was how we lost Lausanne and Madison.

"She's doing something!" A nearby tinker shouted. The flying bricks with Alexandria rose into the sky to meet the Simurgh even as the Endbringer begin to levitate cars, steel bars and utility poles up towards her.

"Don't let her build anything!" Alexandria roared as she slammed into the Simurgh and sent her rocketing away. A piece of metal orbited around the winged angel's body and smacked Alexandria away into a nearby building, collapsing it instantly in a thunderous crash. The other brutes flew in and the Simurgh began to sing. I flinched and moved back a step. Even after all this time, hearing her song had never stopped being disconcerting. It was otherworldly to say the least.

Suddenly all of the rubbles started crumbling before blasting outwards like shrapnel. Some of the capes who had obviously overestimated their brute rating died immediately as they were shredded.

Sundalander- Deceased, CE4.
Jailbait- Deceased, CE4.
Demon Gorgon- Down, CF5.
Liberty Guard- Down, DE6.
The Democrat- Deceased, GY7.
Captain Canuck- Deceased, CE4.
Down Udder- Down, BR5.

I wasn't shocked in the slightest. This kind immediate casualty was par for the course in any Endbringer fight. Alexandria was back in the game moments later, this time holding a steel beam as she whacked it across the Simurgh's neck to no apparent effect. The beam was bent at a right angle- Alexandria hurled it away in disgust. The non-flying brutes on a nearby roof could only watch helplessly as their flying counterparts tackled with the Endbringer.

I saw a couple of familiar Brockton Bay capes standing there- well, Brockton Bay Nazis mostly. Stormtiger was launching explosive blasts of air towards the Simurgh, but he didn't quite have the range since she was still too far away. Cricket would probably be better served using her echolocation in search and rescue, but she didn't look like she had the patience for that. Where was Hookwolf? I looked around and with the help with my HUD tracking system, and quickly located his familiar visage.

Hookwolf was on top of a skyscraper- wait what? The insane Nazi gave a whooping cry and charged straight to the edge of the roof before launching himself off the building in a free fall. The Simurgh looked up just in time for the Nazi to land on her face and began to claw away at it. He barely chipped away one eyeball, before she grabbed him with her right hand and threw him into an incoming Alexandria. The two brutes went flying through the windows of the skyscraper to the sound of a thunderous crash. The entire superstructure began to crumble from the impact.

"I just know that's going to be a GIF on PHO by tomorrow morning. Hookwolf and Alexandria shipping would start up no doubt." Assault said over the ENE specific comms. I snorted in amusement. I do have a sense of humour despite what some detractors said.

Glory Girl screamed as she slammed into the Simurgh, who slapped her away with contemptuous ease followed by a emotionless report of her downed status by Dragon's tracking system. Legend and his blasters, including Flashbang and Lady Photon started firing at the Simurgh now that she was within range and relatively isolated from other capes that might have been caught in the crossfire.

Eidolon slammed into the Simurgh and punted her towards the ground, but the Endbringer righted herself, swerved her wings towards the Triumvirate member and fired dozens of shrapnel at him. The second most powerful Parahuman in the world was blasted away into the sky, but he should be fine, he had a brute power up no doubt. A red blur through the air missed the Simurgh- ah that must be Assault. I saw a flying Dauntless threw his arclance at the Simurgh- there was a thunderclap and the Endbringer was blown back.

For the rest of us, being unable to fly was a huge disadvantage against the sole flying Endbringer- I really should work on my jetpack!- it severely limited the kind of capes that we could bring to bear against her. Some capes were strong enough to hurt her, but were vulnerable to her song, some capes couldn't fly, but were lacked a brute rating, and some were just durable enough to take a hit from an Endbringer, but couldn't fly. Yeah. It was a Catch-22.

Miss Militia took aim with her armour piercing anti-material rifle and pressed the trigger. Loud barks accompanied deadly rounds that tore at the Simurgh's moving wings. It made virtually no difference to the Endbringer as far as I could tell. I knew Hannah could manifest a Davy Crockett Tactical Nuclear Recoilless Gun, although using a nuke inside a city with us in it was a dangerous proposition- especially if the Simurgh could simply deflect it back into our faces or towards a nearby civilian population with her telekinesis.

The orbit of technological items started swirling around the Simurgh, bits and pieces were being torn off and reassembled. An update on my HUD told me that the Thinker analysts back at the PRT HQ agreed she was definitely building something related to "spatial technology". Whatever that meant, spatial technology covers a tremendous category of possible effects.

"She's speeding up her build. We must stop her." Dragon launched herself from the roof, flaming thrusters launching her across the air as she began to unload dozens of missiles at the false Angel. I could only grit my teeth. There wasn't much I could do here, I couldn't even fly!

I turned to the other tinkers, "Get those weapons we piled together up here!" Tinkers had a tendency to bring whatever weapon they had on hand, experimental or otherwise, to Endbringer fights. We quickly helped each other set them up. If the Simurgh flew within range, we'll attempt to fire on her. Maybe a tinker will get lucky and something experimental will work against her. It was dubious if she'll even be bothered by it.

I saw some of the capes attacking her started to back away from the Endbringer as they neared their time limit, and other flying capes entered the fray to replace them. Search and rescue was already crawling through the rubble to rescue the many wounded.

The Simurgh was rapidly constructing some kind of device from the technology she was ripping free from the city around her. If she came closer to my current position, she might be stealing our tinkertech to add to her project too.

"I think I know what's she's after." Dragon spoke up through the comms. "I sent an information request for potential targets up to the WEDGDG and they said that one of Hero's unfinished tinkertech device was stored in a top secret facility right here; it was classified as need to know by the upper echelons of the PRT. Armsmaster, you must go secure the storage facility!"

Dragon was then promptly slapped out of the sky by an explosion as one of her missiles was turned against its master by the Simurgh. I got a ping on the storage location and quickly requested available capes to my location "You heard Dragon, let's go!"

Velocity volunteered to scout. He zipped around ahead of us, telling us where debris had blocked a particular path towards the storage facility- I cursed at the delays, no doubt all part of the Simurgh's schemes. On one of the detours towards the storage facility, I saw a leaping figure jump off a roof and clung onto one of the Simurgh's wings. Hookwolf. The berserker started cutting away at her flesh. It was ineffectual. With a telekinetic blast, Hookwolf was sent flying across the air to crash through the windows of a already crumbling building. Deja Vu. Despite the severity of the situation, my lips twitch in schadenfreude.

By the time we arrived, I realized we were too late. When the elevator opened into the artificial geofront where the storage facility was hidden, there was nothing there. The steel floors had been torn open, revealing a dark tunnel leading deep into the Earth. "Shit, she must have dug out the technology from underneath us, how did she...the Behemoth?" Velocity suggested.

It was the best explanation, though that raised the disturbing question of why he wasn't detected tunneling underneath Australia. Or maybe she had one of her brainwashed victim burgle the place well ahead of time. If that was so, then where was Hero's unfinished tech? Why wasn't she using it? When we emerged back outside, I saw the answer for myself. From the clouds above, Hero's tinkertech- I would recognize his style anywhere- dropped out of cloud cover and floated down towards the Endbringer. Wait, no, not clouds- a tinker gas thats had masqueraded as simple vapour, likely nano particles that obfuscated scanner detection. The bitch had pulled a fast one on us!

The Simurgh flew towards the tech- my powers instinctively pegged it as some kind of battery. An energy source? The Ziz gathered her cloud of tinker gadgetry around her as she began to link them together. The tinker cannons on the roofs where the other tinkers had set up base began to rip themselves off the ground much to their alarm. I hit the emergency broadcast button. "Her telekinetic range has increased!" I shouted into the armband. But even as I said it, I knew that wasn't quite right.

Her range had never increased. She had simply downplayed her range in all the years that we've fought her. Why? And just what about the current situation was worth revealing her secret to us, what did she want to accomplish here that was worth losing that advantage?

I gasped as I saw that several of the completed tech looked a lot like Professor Haywire's technology. The Simurgh was responsible for opening that portal to Earth Aleph in Madison back in 2009 using Haywire's tech- it figures that she had some of his tech hidden somewhere to use. Or the more frightening possibility: That she knew how Haywire's tech works.

Professor Haywire specialized in multidimensional technology. Hero's specialization was never definitively known, but was widely suspected to be wavelength manipulation. Multidimensional and Quantum Mechanical technology. What kind of horror could the Simurgh do with those two?

Legend and Eidolon was attacking with everything had had by this point; once Dragon alerted them to the fact that the Simurgh was after Hero's tech, I imagine they would be pissed that the Endbringer dared desecrate their friend's work.

Alexandria was once again bashed into another building. I sighed. This fight went about how I expected. The Endbringer occasionally slapped a cape that got too close down into the ground. Dragon's dispassionate voice would announce their death shortly afterwards.

We must be like insects to her. Flies to be swatted. Mere annoyances. I growled in impotent rage. Come on bird-brain, fly over here so I have a chance to fight you on the ground! Roof. Whatever. It was the thought that count, or so Dragon would say.

As if hearing my thoughts, the Simurgh turned and looked at me.

Fuck. Did she actually heard my thoughts? No, she was focused on something in the air. And suddenly the Simurgh wasn't there. All of the floating debris and half completed tinker materials dropped to the ground in a rain of steel.

What.

Dragon spoke up then. "Something just slammed into the Simurgh at hypersonic speeds. She was just slammed into the Pacific Ocean."

"Patch me to a drone feed." I demanded. My HUD displayed a small virtual screen that immediately showed me the Endbringer rising slowly from the ocean, her body dripping wet. She flew up and rotated slowly to face something that faded into view, a sheet of rippling space unwrapping around it. Some kind of cloaking device, perhaps? The object was large- easily the size of small house, shaped like a helmet, with a long elongated blade sticking down the front. It was dark in colour, made of what looked like obsidian or granite, but obviously couldn't be.

Some kind of tinkertech vessel then. An incredible piece of technology, something that must have taken months if not years to perfect, requiring funding in the billions. Who was this? How did they even hide this technology? And why have I not heard of this Tinker before?

"Colin...that vessel...none of my sensors detected it until it uncloaked just now. And it's powered by a singularity of some sort. The energy readings are incredible!"

Impressive.

The Simurgh suddenly slammed into the tinker vessel and send it flying through the sky towards the coast in a telekinetic burst, her face a rictus of poisonous fury.

Well, that was anticlimactic. That poor tinker. I must have said that outloud because Dragon said, "I hope whoever was piloting that survived. Hopefully it was a remote piloted vessel." We watched the vessel slammed into several buildings in the city over and was buried deep beneath the rubble. Dragon's drone footage showed the Simurgh had begun to fly back inland towards Canberra.

"She'll be back in just seven minutes at her current speed- whoever that Tinker was bought us valuable time- let's not waste it people!" Dragon announced.

And then Velocity tapped my shoulder, distracting me from examining the footage further, and pointed at the circular tinkertech the Simurgh was working on that was now on the ground amidst the ruined streets.

It began to glow. Dark bubbles burst into existence, flooding the frame of the gateway, revealing an ominously glowing passageway. A shape emerged from it. She wore a tight black bodysuit. She swayed her hips sensuously with every step she took out of the circular portal. Her dark eyes took in the sight around her: the half destroyed cityscape, the costumed people flying around or standing still, all of us staring at her.

"I have no idea what's going on." She said, her authoritative and nonchalant voice echoing with a strange inhuman reverb. She swept her hands over her head and hair, and antlers of black metal emerged from the cap that now grew across her head, covering it. A half mask slid down over her face. She looked every inch a deadly spider.



"But whatever. I'm back! Kneel before the Goddess of Death!"

Ah, she was one of those delusional capes. Alexandria floated down in front of her.

"Who are you?" She demanded, voice like steel. She had no time for the so-called goddesses delusions, none of us did.

"The goddess of death."

"That's a mouthful. Where are you from? What relation do you have to the Simurgh?"

"You're saying things, but I have no idea what you're saying. Who are you, flying mortal?

"I am-"

"Shhhh. I don't care." She cut Alexandria off, shaking her head. "Just kneel."

My jaw dropped at the blatant disrespect. I don't think I was the only one. Alexandria snarled. "Now listen here, I-"

A black blade was suddenly protruding out of Alexandria's back. "I-" The world's most durable parahuman gurgled incomprehensibly and collapsed right in front of me and other equally stunned crowd of capes who bore witness to the impossible takedown.

Alexandria- Down, KN3.

Legend roared in fury and began to pelt the area with thunderous bolts of prismatic light, the twisting laser avoiding Alexandria's prone form. When the dust settled, the new cape was still standing there, examining her nails and looking bored.

"Was that all? My turn." She whipped her arm in an arc- it was terrifying fast- I barely registered the motion before Legend was dropping from the sky, another obsidian blade embedded in his abdomen.

Legend- Down, IU7.

With a burst of speed I dashed towards where my HUD indicated Legend would hit the ground, and caught him before he could splatter himself over the streets.

"Legend down, I need a medical evac!" I shouted through the comms. A moment later an unknown teleporter was taking Legend off my hands- I grabbed his arm and pointed at the prone form of Alexandria. He nodded grimly and ported over to grab her before vanishing back towards the medical centre. Hopefully Panacea can do something for Alexandria. Maybe.

The other nearby capes looked at the self-proclaimed goddess of death with barely restrained fear. Eidolon descended from the sky, hands glowing green with exotic power. He didn't look angry, but he must have been furious. He raised his arms-

"ENOUGH!" Dragon roared as her charred suit floated above the battlefield. "Unknown Parahuman, stand down, you are in violation of the Endbringer truce!"

"No idea what you're talking about." The new cape said. She placed one hand on her hip and raised the other to gesture at us. "And why is nobody kneeling? Do none of you know who I am? Did your priests tell you nothing of your gods?"

Suddenly Dragon looked towards the coast. I turned my head and saw the Simurgh visible in the sky and rapidly flying closer. The so called-goddess turned to follow Dragon's line of sight and her eyes widened in surprise.

"My my my, what is that?" She pointed a black nail at the winged angel.

"That's an Endbringer." Eidolon told her, floating closer towards the goddess, voice furious. "The monstrous being we're all banding together to fight- whilst you just took down some of our strongest combatants! Do you have any idea how many lives you've endangered!?"

"No idea, don't care." Was the nonchalant reply. The goddess strutted forward towards the direction of the Endbringers and another of the black blades suddenly materialized in her left hand.

"But I'd wager that thing can die, just like everything else."

"Do you at least have a name?" Dragon asked as she pointed her missile launchers at the Endbringer.

"Call me Hela."

Eidolon hesitated, probably contemplating whether he should attack Hela, before flying up to intercept the Endbringer.



And then the mysterious Tinker vessel returned in a burst of prismatic light in front of the Simurgh, this time angled sideways, with the blade extending to the right. More importantly, it had just cut off one of the Simurgh's wings, which dropped to the ground with a thunderous crash. It probably wrecked the road it landed on. It would probably be the last thing the government would be concerned about. The Simurgh screeched as if in pain (I've long been convinced that the monsters don't truly feel) and wrapped its remaining wings around itself like a protective cocoon.

"That was a glorious attack." Hela commented. "I'd give it a five out of ten for style."

I had to agree, but I would rate that much higher than a five. Maybe a seven. Anything that damage the Endbringers was admirable in my book. "That was some kind of sublight jump." Dragon said in awe. "I've never even heard of a space travel tinker before."

I whistled. If true...that certainly changed things. The spacecraft Tinker began to fire bolts of energy at the Endbringer, which promptly dodged them all with a sudden bout of speed I hadn't realized she was capable of- again, more evidence that the Simurgh had been holding back on us.

The Simurgh snarled and the tinkertech gateway that Hela came from flared to life, this time in a burst of rainbow light.

"Huh. That's some kind of Einstein-Rosenberg Bridge." Dragon said.

Hela turned towards the forming portal and made a surprised noise. "That's some kind of a poor man's Bifrost. Wildly unstable from the feel of it. "

I ignored the crazy woman and focused on the humanoid shapes materializing through the portal. They were blue, they were big and they looked angry.



"Frost Giants!" Hela said in surprise. "Daddy dearest hasn't just killed you all yet?"

The lead "Frost Giant", who wore some kind of shorts and a cloak of pale animal fur, turned towards her and snarled. "Who are you?"

His voice sounded every bit as ugly and angry as he looked. For a giant, they weren't much taller than the Simurgh, who was almost triple the height of an average human male. I estimated that the so called Frost Giants were maybe twice as a tall as a male human, but they definitely weighted more if their abs and biceps were any indication- they looked as if all them were bodybuilding champions on tinker steroids.

"I am Hela! The Goddess of Death.

"Who?" The giant responded with a confused stare.

"Oh for gods sakes, how do none of you not know who I am!?" Hela exclaimed in exasperation.

The Giant wasn't impressed. "Puny woman, submit before the power of Jotunhei-"

He died immediately when Hela threw a blade at his chest. The giant collapsed.

"Is this going to be a thing with you?" I asked her. "You just ruined any chance for diplomacy."

In lieu of an answer Hela unleashed a storm of blades as more Frost Giants poured through the gate, killing the first dozen easily. It was clear to me now that the gateway lead to another planet or dimension with a very different dominant species.

"Oh my god, this is horrible." I said. This was going to be a public relations nightmare. I could see the headlines tomorrow. 'PROTECTORATE HEROES KILL UNARMED PRIMITIVE ALIENS'. Never mind that the person doing all the killing wasn't affiliated. We failed to stop her after all.

"Frost Giants don't do diplomacy unless you completely dominate them in total war." Hela explained.

The other Frost Giants stared at their corpses of their dead kinsmen before growling at us. "Mortals, your realm will bleed and your people enslaved!"

Dragon sighed. "First Contact and it's hostile. Great."

The giants than grew thick icicle blades over their hands, turning them into some kind of makeshift gauntleted blade weapon, kind of like an Indian Pata sword. What the actual fuck? They charged at us and Dragon fired a laser beam across in front of them- regardless, they charged right through, uncaring for the lasers even as several of their numbers succumbed to the grievous burns.

One of them smashed the ground with his fist and a web of ice exploded outwards towards us, I rolled backwards to avoid having my legs be frozen to the ground. Some of the capes next to me weren't so lucky and they screamed as their foot was buried in ice. The giants were upon them in a moment and tore the helpless capes apart.

"Shaker-Strikers!" I warned the others, even as I slashed at one of the giants who charged at me. He blocked with the Icicle-Pata and slashed me across the chest of my armour with a powerful upwards swing. The blow was so strong it sent me flying into the air before I collapsed with a yelp of pain at the edge of the watching crowd of capes who hadn't dared approach Hela in the prior altercation.

Miss Militia hurried up to me, "Armsmaster! Are you alright?"

I look at the deep scratch on my armour and murmured. "Maybe not so primitive after all."

Also, how are they speaking English?

"Dragon, do you reckon they're from a different Earth where humanity evolved differently?" I asked over the open comms. "Because how else are they speaking English?"

"Armsmaster, they were speaking in Lojban rendered as strings of binary beeps."

"What, no they were speaking in English."

"Hela was speaking in Lojban binary as well."

"No she was definitely speaking in English."

"Um." A nearby cape coughed. "I heard them speaking in Mandarin. I am of Chinese descent, so maybe we all heard whatever language we were most accustomed to hearing?"

Dragon paused. "That makes sense. Some kind of Universal Translator, then? I think whatever world Hela or these...um, Frost Giants, came from, it must be a much more technologically advanced civilization. Or they also have parahumans."

"I am leaning more towards the latter." I said, "I am not seeing much advanced technology at play here. Blades? Icicles?"

"Looks can be deceiving." Dragon said. "And if they have Tinkers, all bets are off."

True enough. Although now I began to wonder why audible binary was Dragon's preferred language reception method. Was that a side effect of her powers?

"The proto-Bifrost is expanding." Hela said calmly, her voice carrying across the area despite being quite distant from my current location. "If it continues growing unabated, it will eventually tear this world apart. This isn't normally something that I'd be concerned about, but I am currently on this planet."

Oh fuck me sideways.

"We need to close that gate!" Dragon roared as she bounded forward, clawing apart several Giants with ease and firing missiles at the gate. There was a great explosion as the gate was destroyed, but the growing tear in space was still there, apparently no longer bound by the tinkertech that had summoned it. It had become a full on shaker effect.

"Shit." Dragon said before activating the all-comm. "Code Delta-6 Black! Imminent existential threat- the Simurgh has created an expanding wormhole that is catastrophic to the Planet, we must find a way to shut it down! Be advised that the wormhole opens into a dimension or alternate Earth of hostile aliens. We need all available capes at my location, immeditely!"

"Curious- where is the portal drawing its energy from, I wonder?" Hela pondered between killing another even dozen giants. She was dangerous indeed. Striker 10 and Blaster 10 possibly, those blades were able to bypass Alexandria's invulnerability, and she thrown them as fast as bullets. Mover 9 at least with how fast she was able to react to Legend and Alexandria. In every eye blink, her kill count increased and ice blue corpses littered the streets of Canberra along with a pale red blood that began to coat the streets.

Up in the sky, the Mysterious Tinker's spaceship was pelting the Simurgh with dozens of bright red energy blasts, aided by Eidolon who was launching green bolts of his own at the Endbringer. Whatever they were doing, it was evidently working, because the Simurgh was backing away from Canberra while sporting angry black burns across her skin. And still missing her wing. If she survived this, she would regenerate, as Endbringers always do.

Spaceship Tinker and Eidolon were on their own at the moment, because planet destroying wormhole was a bigger priority for the rest of us. Actually, this entire sequence of events was probably the Simurgh's intended goal all along. We've been had.

I hefted my Halberd and stabbed at a Frost Giant in front of me, knocking him back several feet. He got back up and growled at me. "Okay, maybe I need to hit harder." I muttered to myself.

"Just kill them, mortal." Hela recommended as she dropped another giant. "Why do you hesitate, do you not value the life of your world?"

Global level extinction threat or preserving the lives of half naked extra-dimensional blue aboriginals who were probably not human at all? The portal visibly grew another ten feet. The concrete around it was already cracking. Fuck. That made up my mind for me.

The crazy woman was making too much sense. Genocide it was then. I roared and swiped off the head of the next giant I came across with a rocket powered swing- thank God I installed that particular upgrade last week. I barked through the comms, "EVERYONE, WE HAVE TO STOP THAT PORTAL! LET'S GO PEOPLE, SHOW THEM THAT EARTH BET AIN'T GOING DOWN EASY!"

I wasn't much of a motivational speaker, but whatever I had said seemed to work, because the capes around me where shocked out of their stupor and began to charge into the fray even as more capes began to arrive due to Dragon's summons earlier.

"YEAH!"

"ATTACK!"

The newly arrived capes took up the cry and begin to launch their assault upon the portal. I tore my gaze away from the surging crowd of capes and turned back to focus on the giants in front of me. I flinched back from a giant fist swiping at my face. Dammit, I got distracted! Before I could raise my halberd to counterattack, Hela was suddenly next to me, stabbing the giant through the eyes.

"Don't get distracted, mortal."

"FOR THE EMPEROR!" One power-armoured cape roared as his tinkertech rifle unleashed bolts of explosive shells that blew apart several of the Giants into bloody chunks. "DEATH TO THE FOUL XENOS!"

Wow, crazy people everywhere. God help us all. Very specifically not the goddess fighting next to me. I don't want her help. Just so we're clear on that, Jesus.

That was when an grey skinned reptilian beast the size of Behemoth burst from the enlarged portal and charged right at Hela, slamming into her and rammed her through the first floor of a nearby building, collapsing it on top of them in a storm of dust and concrete.



Without Hela killing dozens of them every second, suddenly, the Frost Giants were everywhere, nearly equaling the number of capes marshalling towards them. I changed my mind. I find myself very much wanting her help.

"YES!" A familiar voice roared. I glance to the side to see Hookwolf covered in debris and dust laughing as he stalked towards us from the edge of the battlefield. "Yes! This is what I was waiting for! Glorious Combat! Come here, JOTUNS! Face the might of Hookwolf!"

And then the Nazi was barreling straight for the largest grouping of the blue aliens.

Okay. I cracked my neck, bent my knees and gave a mighty cry as I rocketed towards the portal- halberd forward like a charging lancer from some ancient battle. The servos in my legs made me as fast as a cheetah.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" I screamed and tore my way into the closest grouping of snarling frost giants, swinging left and right. Blood sprayed, bones broke- none of them my own.

The First Contact War was on.

_________
Updated and edited. Please reread

 

[Numen]

Very interesting idea, but undercut by poor execution. Every character has the same verbal style, Armsmaster's internal dialogue is almost the same as Taylor's, and neither of them are as articulate as canon, and nobody is behaving or talking like real people. It is like the entire cast has been replaced by a 13 year old playing a caricature of themselves, and the actor is only passingly familiar with the material.

Click to shrink...

I am well aware, and will probably go over everything I've written thus far with a fine comb to tidy up alot of things. Armsmaster shouldn't be as nonchalant as this version of Taylor is. Need to get better at distinctive internal dialogues as I am usually accustomed to third person.

 

[Numen]

UPDATE: The prologue and the first three chapters have been cleaned up significantly, it reads MUCH better now. If anyone was turned off by the bad sentence structure, grammatical and conjugation errors, etc rejoice! There are maybe a couple sentences worth of new content in them, but there's no need for any re-reads. Colin I is being worked on, I expect to have it edited by tonight. The changes to chapter 4 will be much more drastic I suspect.

The following conversation was from SB, I copied it over for informational purposes

That's Odin (or the enchantment he set on Thor) going "Oh hey, Thor's actually learned some humility now" and Thor abruptly exploded with lightning that sent Ironspike flying. It clearly wasn't enough of a lesson to fully lift the spell, but it certainly at least lessened it briefly.

Click to shrink...

So did thor get all of his powers back (strength and durability included) or was it just his lightning? Cause I'd be down to see a thor v alexandria fight in this story.

Click to shrink...

He always had it. That's why he was pit fighting. He thought his Asgardian physiology was from his trigger, and then when he did actually trigger in that match, he thought it was his second trigger.

Click to shrink...

I can neither confirm nor deny whether Hookwolf is Thor Odinson. However, Hookwolf did not generate any lighting. He saw lighting in his visions. The knock out effect was due to a trigger event. Nearby parahumans like Ironspike, Stormtiger, and Cricket were all knocked out briefly.

Hookwolf then, for the first time ever, obtained the Changer power of transforming into a shifting mass of metal hooks, blades and other weapons. Prior to that, he was a simple Thinker-Brute combo who used a large metal hook as a weapon. He suspects that his "second-trigger" is actually his first.

Close reading of the text will demonstrate all of this.

 

[Blaflaix]

Darkelf!Taylor the Hero:

"I would like to talk to you about your last Wards PR Outing..."

"Oh, it was great! I was kind of nervous at first, but the kids really got into it!"

"They were very entertained, but the parents might have some concerns. Stories about the people of the Darkworld attempting to plunge the universe into eternal darkness weren't on the approved story list."

"Well, those stories were all really boring ones, so I decided to give a quick history lesson instead."

"...history lesson?"

"Yep! It's very important for people to learn about the less-known perspectives, and Harudheeniksel are almost completely skipped over!"

"That's wasn't history, it was a fairy tale!"

"...you aren't one of those 'History Censors' are you? Are you from the Texas Board of Education?"

"What? No! But you can't just teach kids half-baked crackpot theories, they need to be backed up with proof!"

"Well, I guess one of us learned a bunch of 'half-baked crackpot theories', and the other one learned how to fly a Harudheeniksel Harrow!"

 

[Numen]

ALL CHAPTERS NOW UPDATED TO HIGHER STANDARDS

Prologue to chapter 4 is now glorious.

Chapter 4 took the longest to edit cause it's so lengthy and so much was happening. There's now 7.1k words for Chapter 4. That's 600 more words. Plus all the grammatical and conjugation errors I've fixed. Anyway, reread if you want to, I do guarantee it is a MUCH more enjoyable read this time around.

Important changes to Taylor's voice in previous chapters.
- She sounds more educated over all. And I try to structure her mood wings more logically, expanding on her reasonings a bit.

Important lore changes in chapter 4.
1. Colin overall, just reacts in the way that an educated, more calm person would. His dialogue and the way he expresses dismay and the analogies he used have all been adapted accordingly. He swears less, but still swears on the rare occasion when he is too alarmed/or shocked, notably using less exclamation marks. Hela's speech has become more formal, she doesn't swear anymore, and speaks more curtly. Alot of the extra words were clarifying details in the action, rewording awkward phrasing, etc. This goes for all of the chapters generally.
2. The Harrow was mentioned as slamming into the Simurgh at hypersonic speed instead of lightspeed.
3. Sublight speed was used to cut off the Simurgh's wings- for as yet unexplained reason, a sublight jump in Earth atmosphere didn't kill a bunch of people in Australia. Dragon expressed excitement at possibly encountering a space travel tinker- sublight is impressive in her opinion.
4. And this:

Okay. I cracked my neck, bent my knees and gave a mighty cry as I rocketed towards the portal- halberd forward like a charging lancer from some ancient battle. The servos in my legs made me as fast as a cheetah.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" I screamed and tore my way into the closest grouping of snarling frost giants, swinging left and right. Blood sprayed, bones broke- none of them my own.

The First Contact War was on.

Click to shrink...

Just so we're clear on what kind of headspace Colin is in right now. He might be calmer and more professional. But he's still going to be metal as fuck, tired from all the crazy stuff happening around him.

Anyway, in future chapters, I hope to maintain this kind of quality. I really do want to improve my writing and I don't want to just let this become crack. Thank you for reading! Stay tuned!

 

[Numen]

​

Taylor III​

As my Harrow flitted away from the Himalayas to hit the lower mesosphere, I realized that I should probably suit up to protect my identity in case I was forced to interact with the other capes. I could just drop my human-looking glamour charm, but even with a half burnt and pointy eared face, I was still recognizable as Taylor Hebert. I hurriedly pulled opened a drawer of masks, armours and a skinsuit. Stripping naked took only a moment and hurriedly slipped on the skinsuit. It was one size fit all- the fabric somehow shrinking to fit my size- an ergonomic extravagance typical to Dark Elven technology.

Haphazardly slapping on a expressionless mask, I hurried back to the command console.

I spoke outloud in Allspeak. "Set target designate: Simurgh. Ramming action." I mean, I could have just thought it, the shipboard VI can pick up any ideation from a verified pilot. But due to force of habit, I tend to confer very specific instructions vocally. Just so no accidents happen. I was relatively inexperienced after all.

As an additional step, I mentally pulled up and highlighted the profile of the Endbringer in question. The crazy thing was that prior to me doing this, this ship had no idea who or what the Simurgh even was- it literally pulled all of that from my head just a moment ago, linked up to the internet and managed to track it real time. Elven technology made the latest Dragon Co. PC look like a dollar store calculator.

"Target locked." The VI's emotionless voice replied in Shiväisith instead of Allspeak. I had the feeling that VIs couldn't quite manage artificial Allspeak, since the VI wasn't considered a god. It was a pretty strange criteria for a language to be sure.

The Harrow's speed picked up and the windshield dissolve into clouds being torn apart by my ship's passage at ludicrous speeds. Again, I barely felt any change in velocity thanks to the possibly quite literal magic of the inertial dampening field. It did wonders for my health and spatial orientation. I only really knew that my ship was moving at all due to the holographic recreation of the exterior of the Harrow- my "windshield" so to speak. Elves weren't big on glass- probably because glass wasn't a physical possibility back in their heydays.

"Target ahead."

Well, that was fast! The Harrow flew straight at the Simurgh at maximum hypersonic speed to ram her into the Pacific Ocean.

I pulled the holographic brakes and the Harrow froze, all inertia vanished in an instant. The sudden stillness was almost jarring and totally counterintuitive to how physics was supposed to work. Or I should say, how physics was thought to work. Parahumans made physicists weep. I made them weep harder.



The Endbringer rose from the sea, water glistening off of her alabaster skin. She was indeed quite beautiful. But, as PHO was wont to say, her beauty was only skin deep. What a shallow woman.

BAM! She slammed into my ship and I yelped in surprise as her ugly mug pressed up against the windshield, pupiless eyes squinting in rage. Her sudden burst of speed surprised me! My Harrow was already spinning away through the air towards a rapidly enlarging building before I had even registered what was happening. I had good reaction speeds. The Endbringer was on a whole other level.

The ship barely shook- thank you yet again inertial dampening field- as I was buried deep into the crumbling building, the Harrow's windshield showed me that I plowed right into the underground parking garage.

Okay. Simurgh 1. Taylor 1. I punched her into the ocean, she punched me into a random Australian apartment complex or something. Fair enough. I will be paying her back for that soon enough.

At least everything was still working, Harrows were durable like that. I pulled the holographic equivalent of an alien joystick down again and the Harrow lifted off, plowing through tons of concrete to return to the blue sky.

The Simurgh was already gone, no doubt making her way back to Canberra. She wasn't getting away from me that easily!

"Set target designate: Simurgh. Ramming action."

"Target locked." The VI confirmed.

"Sublight drive, 50% lightspeed towards target. Duration 1 millisecond. In-Atmosphere compensator online."

Several of the written Dark Elven runes- Todjydheenil- lit up across the holographic console in response, one pulsed an angry red- likely a magical spell of some sort.

I think my mom tried to gave me a lecture on just what exactly I was using to travel at sublight speeds. Something something Alcubierre space warping, limited general relativity, nobody dies, something, something. Basically Clark-tech Magic. Not science- she very clearly said magic. Mom, I do not think that word means what you think it means. Unless you meant what you said. I have so many question and I knew next to nothing about sorcery.

"Acknowledged." The VI stated.

Time to kick ass. Or kiss dirt. I'll find out shortly.

"Initiate!"

Spoiler: Harrow speeding across Australia, creating after-images

The Harrow shook violently and the holographic windshield blurred in a burst of prismatic light before I was staring over Canberra's damaged cityscape.

Where was the Simurgh? I looked at the combat information sphere and realized that the Endbringer was behind me. Had I missed? I pulled up a holographic display that showed me the rear of the Harrow.

The Simurgh was curling in on herself, wrapping her wings around her body even as a large feathered wing crumbled to the streets below.

Wait...I had cut off one of her wing? Holy shit. Taylor 2, Simurgh 1. Harrows were awesome! Or just the blade part of it was; I don't think the cockpit was nearly as durable- sure I was able to ram the Simurgh, but it didn't seemed to have done any lasting damage. I guess that was why the original designers included the Harrow Blade in the first place- to melee whatever was too stubborn to die.

I switched back to manual control by grabbing ahold of the holographic joystick. Some of this aerial dogfighting stuff required instinct. The brains of sentient beings were capable of some truly absurd quantum computing, something no VI could reliably pull off. VIs might deceptively seem smarter, but that wasn't the case at all, otherwise, the gods and elves would use automated drones to do all their fighting for them.

I took a deep breath and entered a heightened state of meditative awareness, allowing the natural magic in my body to rise from my tailbone to circulate around my brain. I supposed the Buddhists might call this a Jhana state. My mother called it "proper piloting."

The elven brain is like a supercomputer. The brain of any god are like so compared to a mortal, be sure to use that to your advantage.

This was where the real fight begins. My mind and my ship were one- I am my ship, my ship is me. I noted Eidolon floating up next to me, gazing quizzically at my hull before focusing his attention towards the Endbringer. Good, let us fight together, Eidolon. It shall be glorious.

The Simurgh suddenly dive bombed towards us- several wings layered in front of her chest like some kind of a riot shield. I pulled the trigger for the particle turrets beneath the Harrow on both sides. The red energy pulses tore into the Endbringer, burning parts of her wings, but otherwise didn't punch through her at all. She was much more durable than I realized.

She launched chunks of concrete and metal at me that she pulled from the streets below. To dodge her projectile attack, I made Harrow swing through the air at strange, obtuse angles that would confuse humans. Dark Elves had evolved a very different sense of direction due to our vastly increased agility and the sometimes unreliable gravity of the dark matter suffused planet we called home. Why run forward when you can jump sideways, right? I demonstrated that logic by piloting the Harrow on a hard forty-five degree angle, before slamming into the side of the Simurgh like a frisbee. If frisbees had a kitchen knife duct-taped to it. Sadly, the Harrow Blade didn't seemed to have done any damage this time- was it the sublight ramming speed that had made the difference when I chopped off one of her wings earlier?

Eidolon began to lob green bolts of what my sensors told me was photo-nucleic particles of some sort. He looked like a D&D Wizard. Style points for sure. The Simurgh wasn't bothered none as she responded with a burst of telekinesis that smacked Eidolon away to slam into the side of my cockpit.

Some parahuman power was allowing the green robed Triumvirate member to grab onto the hull without any visible effort. He then planted both feet on the surface of the hull and began to crawl up, like his feet and hands was magnetic or something- it couldn't be, the Harrow's hull didn't really react to magnets. The Harrow Blade does react to magnets though, oddly enough. I've tested it before. He crawled to the top of the hull, right atop of my current spot on the ship. I pulled up a display to see what was up. The VI must have taken that thought literally, because it showed me a high definition holographic view of Eidolon's spreading his legs and crouching, like some kind of insane water skier. From the bottom up.

I hurriedly shut down the display, fighting down my blush that was creeping up underneath my mask. Pulling up another display, this time I viewed him from a more horizontal angle. Eidolon pointed forwards, towards the Simurgh, like a knight riding a steed. Oh I see, he was hitching a ride. I could do that. I burned the engines and we blasted forth towards the Endbringer who was now flying much much faster to avoid the swipe of my blade.

She had been downplaying her speed huh?

"Hypothesis: Target most likely precognitive." The VI helpfully supplied. "Evidence: Statistically improbable maneuverability was noted in previous battle records retrieved from the world wide web."

"Yeah, I figured." I replied to the VI.

"Hypothesis: Target likely unable to reliably track Dark Elven technology and physiology through space-time. Evidence: Target displayed an alarming inability to avoid getting rammed like a bitch whilst near this Harrow."

It uncharacteristically said "this Harrow" with a tone of pride. I stared at the VI, mouth hanging open in slight shock inside my mask. Mom configured this thing, so that probably explained some of that last bit there. She was a big fan of flyting. I was a bit surprised that the Aesirs' cultural disposition for the ritualized exchange of poetic insults caught on with the Dark Elves. I guess my people were just the sort to love archaic rap battles.

Also I could allegedly spoof precogs? Hot damn. That was good to know.

I maneuvered around the Ziz and began pounding her flesh with bolts after bolts of exotic energies that would have made a smoking ruin out of anything else, but Endbringers were tougher than everything else apparently.

Eidolon began to make a pretty good imitation of that old comic book supervillain, Hobgoblin or something as he threw bolts of yellow energy at the Simurgh even as I circled at hypersonic speed for a better attack vector. The inertial dampening field around my ship was probably the only thing preventing Eidolon from becoming a bloody splatter over my windshield.

Once I checked that the angle was good, I attempted another sublight jump for a microsecond. The Harrow punched towards the Simurgh before stopping, but she pulled back at the last moment- the blade of my Harrow missed her by an inch. Dammit! I guess spoofing her precog wasn't nearly as complete as I would like.

Eidolon looked shaken, but the inertial dampening field saved him from being splattered by the velocity of 50% the speed of light. Yeah, I wouldn't want to explain to Alexandria why her buddy got creamed by my spaceship either.

I pulled the ship up and away from her, flying just far enough away to rotate one hundred and seventy degrees- the blade spinning like a clock, except going the wrong way- before twisting around to accelerate towards the Endbringer. I approached at an arc around her, avoiding several of the projectiles she threw my way. Whatever would have hit me was deflected by Eidolon. Thanks Eidolon, you best partner.

"Open the side door!" I commanded as I grabbed a grenade launcher off the weapons rack.

"Complying." The VI stated. The right side of the cockpit warped and showed a thin blue force field separating the outside from the ship, keeping the pressure stable on the inside.

I hung onto a handlebar with my left hand and leaned outside of the side door, grenade launcher hefted in my right hand and pointed at the Endbringers face. Normally I'd be concerned that half my body was outside of a vessel moving at hypersonic speeds, but my power armour gave me one hell of a brute rating.

I pulled the trigger and lobbed a black hole grenade orb right towards her on an arc- it exploded it midair, transforming into a twisting vortex before dissipating. Unfortunately it missed the Simurgh by a good margin. I pulled the trigger again and another black hole grenade orb missed her face.

"Tarnations!"

Stupid semi-automatic grenade launcher. Wait a minute. I was an idiot. I pulled back inside the cockpit briefly to toggle the firing mode node.

I stuck my torso back outside and went to town on the trigger. Grenades after grenades flew through the air exploding into a beautiful display of warping space and deadly singularities. To her credit the Simurgh tried to avoid as many as possible, but whatever was messing with her precognition meant that at least nicked her on the shoulder.

It gobbled up a much smaller chunk of her than I would have expected. Okay, turned out I got too cocky. A block hole wasn't good enough to take out the Endbringer. My earlier optimistic estimation of how'd this fight would go was crashing hard against reality.

Eidolon thankfully didn't miss a beat. When my Harrow flew pass one of the exploding grenades, he grabbed onto the forming black hole, somehow containing it in both hands with some kind of force field.

He pulled back both arms to one hip, hands cupped open with the thrashing black hole inside. Like that Goku guy from Dragon Ball. Was he really going to- he did. He thrusted both hands forward right as the Harrow lined up with the Simurgh. The black hole somehow broke all the known rules of physics to fly across the air straight at the Endbringer.

She strafed to the side with a burst of motion, but the black hole caught her left arm. The Endbringer screeched in fury as her limb vanished into an infinitely dense point in space-time. Damn, Eidolon was good! Taylor 2, Eidolon 1, Simurgh 1. My team was winning by one point!

The Ziz suddenly pulled a sword out of nowhere with her remaining arm- wait, was she hiding that in her dozen wings the whole time? She slashed with the sword as we finally caught up to her, but it broke against the Blade of my Harrow. Weak sword.

There was a sickening crack and the Harrow Blade corroded at a supernatural speed before breaking off and dropping into the city below. I begrudgingly had to admire the brilliant move.

The Ziz's sword was a lot thinner now, as if it had lost a significant chunk of it's matter- ah I see, it was a vector for some kind of tinker nanoplague, one that took apart my Harrow's seemingly invincible Blade by going after it's nanoscale substructure.

VI confirmed as much. "Most likely." It read my mind and avoided the whole hypothesis thing? Dark Elven user interface was something truly next-gen. Except it was also a true classic. I mean my Harrow was like a Ford Model T, it literally predated almost every other vehicle in the Universe. Except also doubled as an Ipod.

Back to the fight on hand, the Simurgh wrecked my ride, so I was going to wreck her face. I burned the engines again and prepared to ram the Simurgh- only for my Harrow's broken blade half to come flying up stabbing into the bottom of my cockpit. The very large blade tip punched its way up and missed my face by an inch. Up close it was more like an iron wall that had been hammered from the floor to the ceiling. Hammered by Simurgh TK. Who did she think she was, Bob the Builder?

"Auaaaurghk! Motherfucking Emma Barnes!" I hissed in pain, invoking the hated name of my former best friend as a curse word. The blade tip unfortunately didn't miss my right arm. I had lost everything from the elbow down. Where the metal touched, it burned. The pain was like as if someone had set fire to my intestines. Holy shit this burns! The turkey son of a bitch used my Harrow Blade against me- she must have scooped it up with her telekinesis after she had cut it off with the nanoplague sword. Was this her revenge- Eidolon took her left arm and so she took my right arm? Why was I suffering for what Eidolon did?

I think the blood lost was getting to me. I looked at the stump of my steaming elbow and saw that it was turning black, as if some kind of deadly mold had set in. Fortunately the burning also sealed the wound shut, oddly enough- regardless, it was something that needed medical attention and soon.

Elves were fatally allergic to cold iron, right? It was why Mom had never let me go on one of those rural village field trips. Never even set foot in a heritage building in my whole life- the human ones I mean. Never got to saw an Amish Up close either. After all, who knows when an Amish blacksmith might stab me with a horseshoe or something, right? At least, I'd assume that was probably my mother's reasoning. She and Dad used to argue about it. Dad must have thought my Mom was being unreasonably paranoid.

Erk. Why did my people use a metal we're allergic to in the Blade's construction! Stupid designers! The Simurgh pulled the Harrow Blade back out of the ship with her telekinesis- the only thing keeping the air inside the hull at this point was the force field around my ship, otherwise I'd probably be pulverized by the air pressure.

She telekinetically swung the sword towards my ship as I managed to pull the Harrow into a strafing maneuver to avoid the second attempt to skewer me with my most powerful weapon. This Harrow was now toothless. I was in big trouble. I had severely underestimated how dangerous Endbringers were.

She proved just by how much when she molded my Harrow's Sword into a spear- grabbed it with one arm and thrust it my way, directly at me, as if she could see me through the hull. She probably could.

I closed my eyes and waited for death. It never came. I opened my eyes and gasped in surprise. Through a holographic display I saw Eidolon with both arms thrusted out in front of him, generating some kind of electric blue forcefield that kept the Blade-turned-Spear from skewering me like a shish-kebab. He visibly strained against the sheer strength that the Endbringer was bringing to bear. I saw his foot sliding backwards from the force.

He had bought me some time. My heart soared and I felt nothing but admiration and gratitude for Eidolon. He didn't have to say anything but I knew what he was trying to tell me. I imagined briefly what he would have said if I could hear him.

"Real Heroes don't back down, young Taylor." Eidolon's gravely voice sounded, full of ancient wisdom. "Fight. Fight and win, for all of us!"

I stared at the Simurgh straight in the eyes through the holographic windshield. I knew she could see me just fine.

"Okay Simurgh, you want to escalate?" I asked outloud. "Let's escalate."

"Maximum hypersonic speed, target the Simurgh and take us into the exosphere."

"Acknowledged." The VI said.

The Harrow slammed into the Simurgh hard enough to knock loose a couple feathers and began to climb up the atmosphere. Her spear had been knocked far away. I imagine the sonic boom must have been heard loud and far. Warnings began to scroll across the holographic monitor, telling me I was leaving the planet.

Eidolon was looking quite alarmed, he finally released himself from the hull of my ship and dropped out of the boundaries of the inertial dampening field as we started punching into the stratosphere. Gravity yanked him down hard, away from my ship as I climbed higher and higher into space.

God I hope he didn't break himself into two halves with that stunt. Superspeed 101- don't have two halves of your body moving at different speeds. He had a brute power up right?

"You have entered the Exosphere." The VI warned.

"Prep Sublight Drive. 97% the speed of light. Trajectory Destination: Jupiter Orbit."

"Acknowledged."

I lifted my mask to stare at the Ziz, her face was at an angle, left cheek squished into my windshield. One pale eye swiveled to stare at me.

"Remember my face." I told her. "And remember the name Taylor Hebert!"

I slammed my mask back on and pulled the joystick down hard. At this point I half-wondered if that was just there as a placebo.

Spoiler: SUBLIGHT WARP

With a burst of prismatic light we were blasting our way halfway to Mars- the Simurgh was immediately set aflame. Her backside was right outside of the inertial dampening field, it was probably getting wrecked. Suck on my pointy ears! Suck on it!

In about three minutes we passed Mars orbit and was on our way to Jupiter. This could take awhile. I looked at the Ziz, she had her wings wrapped around the Harrow like a scared chicken. Awww, was the baby scared?

"You scared, chicken?" I taunted her. She didn't reply. Not that she could've.

+++​

I played holographic tetris to kill time while taking a peek at the unmoving Endbringer outside my windshield. It couldn't be this easy was it? Fly her to Jupiter, punt her into its gravity well, say goodbye, and head back home.

But apparently it really was this easy.

"Approaching Jupiter Orbit." The VI stated.

Yes, definitely easy.

I regretted thinking that immediately because the Simurgh jerked and punched right through the holographic windshield- which meant that she breached the hull!- with her right arm to try and grab me. She downplayed her strength the whole time!

"Warning! Hull Breach!"

Yes I can see that! I launched myself backwards to collapsed violently with the back wall, as far away from her reaching fingers as possible. They were like thick jointed tentacles up close. Very disturbing to look at for sure.

"Emergency evac!" I ordered- immediately a metal chitin like wall dropped and separated the console area from the back of the Harrow where I was currently in. The entire "pod" was immediately dropped out of the the cockpit into space. Another holographic windshield lit up inside the pod and showed me the outside of the evac vessel.

Spoiler: Taylor's POV as she drops from the Harrow in the separated Escape Pod

I saw a glorious sight. I saw the Simurgh's disbelieving face and her one hand still sticking through the windshield of my cockpit, probably stuck. I gave her the one-fingered salute.

I was safely rocketing away in the opposite direction, the Harrow was moving so fast that the moment my escape pod left the inertial dampening field of the main hull, the Harrow and I were something like 200,000 kilometres apart as the Simurgh found herself rocketing away from me, still hugging my cockpit. I waved goodbye as the Harrow sped towards the distant shape of Jupiter on an oblique approach.

I watched through a zoomed in holographic display as the Harrow slammed into the gas giant's atmosphere at nearly the speed of light- she got a little speed boost at the end there thanks to the high gravity. There was a nuclear explosion as the Harrow-Simurgh-Rocket set fire to Jupiter's atmosphere upon entry. It didn't spread or anything, but it was certainly something to look at. Beautiful.

Taylor 3, Eidolon 1, Simurgh 1. I win.

Alright, now, how to get home. I was swinging around Jupiter's orbit at sublight speeds thanks to the tremendous inertia I obtained upon exiting the dampening field. Everything from this point on was pure math.

I immediately realized I had a big problem. If I missed the Earth's orbit by too large a margin, I was screwed. The escape Pod had a inertial dampener built in, I could activate it to slow my descent to Earth so as to not repeat a dinosaur killer. And it would of course come in handy when I needed to make sure I was landing on the right planet. But if the distance was too great, I would just end up floating in space until some Tinker could rescue me.

I coughed violently and I looked down into the specks of dark blood on my gloved palm.

"Crap."

Or I die from my iron-induced injuries. Gotta remember the magical allergy attack I am suffering from right now. None of today was an optimal solution! I almost missed having orange juice poured over my head. Of course, as of right now, I feel I would probably tear out Emma's spine and strangle Sophia with it if they bother me. Ain't nobody got time for that bullying nonsense right now. I beat the Simurgh fair and square.

My very existence was validated. Even Odin would have to acknowledge my glory was boundless. Live or die, I'd deserve Valhalla. Even if they should reject me, I'd still have won.

"You are leaving Jupiter's Orbit at a vector towards Earth at 97% the speed of light. Destination ETA inestimable due to thaumaturgic winds."

Wait, what.

"Thaumaturgic Winds?"

"Your black hole was leaking" The VI said by way of explanation. "Unpredictable temporal effects."

Well, that didn't sound good. Fucking time dilation would be going crazy!- Dad had better not be an old man, or space dust by the time I get back!

I sighed, there's nothing I could do about the situation- may the Norns be benign. I relaxed somewhat, with my back to the wall. If there was nothing I could do about something, then it wasn't worth fretting over.

"Play file #8325."

One of Mom's favourites.

"Acknowledged." The Pod's VI did as I bid.



For about 10 minutes I enjoyed a relaxing nap, bobbing my head occasionally to the song and tried to ignore my aching body. This reminded me of my school floor naps, sans the pain, but-

"WARNING: Target Designate Simurgh moving towards this Pod unit at sublight speed."

"What the fuck!" I cried out loud, before pulling up a holographic monitor to see for myself what was happening outside the Pod exterior.

Yep, the Simurgh was flying towards me at nearly the same speed me!- to the decimal I think. I was actually a bit scared of how mad she must be. I zoomed in- oh yep, her face was a rictus of the most hateful expression I have ever seen. And I've seen plenty courtesy of three particular bitches from Winslow.

I immediately deduced what must have happened. The Endbringer used the massive nuclear chain explosion on Jupiter's atmosphere to bounce herself back into space and followed me using the same trajectory that I calculated. Somehow. At the same velocity.

Precognition was bullshit. And it evidently made her much better at math than I was. I will never ever underestimate an Endbringer ever again. So help me God.

"WARNING: This Pod unit is being assailed by space debris at sublight speeds. Significant damage to Pod integrity, energy shield being depleted."

She was using her telekinesis to launch space dust at my escape pod!? That was...actually very clever, like a DIY version of a Particle Rifle.

Wait.

I had an idea.

It was a bad idea.

But I had no choice. Allowing the Simurgh to return to Earth at 97% the speed of light was asking for total extinction of all life on the planet. I had no doubt she would happily reenact Dinosaur Killer, in fact, that might have been her plan all along, allowing me to give her a free to Uncle Jupiter's gravity slingshot rollercoaster/relativistic kill weapon.

"Pod, extend Inertial Dampening Field to Pod exterior."

I braced myself and immediately the pressure in the ship jacked way up as the Dampening field extend outwards instead of maintaining the inside. The field got a lot weaker now that I forced it to stretch itself beyond what this Pod's back up generators could handle. I wasn't running on a miniature black hole here anymore. The dampening field that had kept me in a comfortable inertia weakened dramatically and I slammed to the side of the Pod with a loud crack.

Ow.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the spacedust the Simurgh was firing my way quickly gathering on the edge of the now exterior field, they clumped together and became something like a solid shell shaped around the dampening field. Or was that the energy shield the VI mentioned earlier? I regretted not paying closer attention to when Mom had given me the rundown on the ship specs.

Now for the really risky part. I grabbed a Particle Pistol from the weapons rack. I loaded a specific kind of ammo into it. The shell casing was basically an electromagnetic force field suspending a single particle inside. It was good for one shot.

I ordered the pod to open a doorway- the metal warped and retreated. The only thing separating me from the vacuum right now was the dampening field and the rapidly dying energy shield. I saw it spark and ripple as space dust was fired into it by the Angel several hundred thousand kilometres away. The dust that got through joined the growing shell between the dampening field and the energy shield.

I then pointed the Particle Pistol at the gathered shell of space dust now covering almost half my Pod.

"Eat anti-matter, bitch."

I fired the anti-matter particle at the shell and it exploded, the dampening field flickered dangerously and the energy shielded died completely. Meanwhile, I was blown backwards to slam into the opposite end of the small Pod from the doorway. My body burned and my chestplate was basically vapourized. Probably along with a good chunk of my flesh.

Most of the pressure and explosive force was going in the opposite direction of where I was at, thankfully. The Simurgh slammed into the massive antimatter explosion moments later, the explosive force slowing her down to a mere fraction of her original speed. I quickly left her far far behind me.

Dinosaur Killer 2.0 averted.

My Pod, being on the other side of that explosion actually gained a small boost in speed and I was suddenly traveling at 99.99% the speed of light.

As planned. Okay, not as planned. But hey, Taylor 4, Eidolon 1, Simurgh 1. If Mom could see me now!

"Pod, revert Inertia Dampening Field to Pod interior"

I gasped in relief immediately as the shield reformed inside the pod and the stronger inertia dampening returned as the field concentrated on a smaller area.

I now knew I was a god for sure, because no mortal could have survived that entire sequence of events I just went through. Either everything was a coincidence or I was God. That seemed about right. Obviously I am hedging my bet on the latter.

"Pod, when within a hundred mile of the Earth orbit, try to angle towards Canberra at the slowest possible speed. I am going to take a short nap."

"Acknowledged."

What a good boy that VI was.

I promptly passed out.

+++​

I woke up cranky as the Pod began beeping. My head hurts. Wait, no. Everywhere hurts.

"Destination reached." The Pod VI helpfully supplied. Thanks genius, I got that. I looked out at the holographic windshield. Everything was on fire.

Wait no, I was burning through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds. Thankfully the VI obeyed my commands and didn't had me return at my prior speed- I would have destroyed all Midgardian life if that was the case.

The atmosphere gave way to the continent. Yep, that was Midgard- just checking that I was on the right planet. And that was Australia. Wow, this thing is falling fast eh?

And that was a building-

"FREEZE MOTION!" I shouted in panic.

The Pod shuddered as all inertia was bled from it- and then the battery ran dry. The dampening field vanished. I slammed towards the direction of "down" and groaned in pain as my back slammed into a bulkhead. Then there was a loud thunderous crash as the Pod smashed through the roof of the corporate looking building and pounded it's way down several floors.

Then everything thankfully stopped. Thank the gods. Thank Odin.

Yes, I went there.

The lights dimmed and I relaxed in the darkness for a bit. The Endbringer fight should be over, I plan on taking a long nap after this- and think of how to explain all of this to Dad without getting grounded for eternity.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I peeled myself off of the wall I was squished against and leaned against a rail with my legs shaking.

"WOOOOOOOOO!" I screamed in exultation, glorious triumph and relief. What a ride! What a fight! What a day, glad it's over-

"WARNING: Thousands of lifesigns converging on your location. Jotun energy signatures detected. Suggested behaviour analysis indicates a strong possibility they are hostile."

The shock tore away my exultancy. Jotuns? The fucking Frost Giants!? Why are they on Midgard!?

The VI wasn't done. It continued talking after a brief pause. "Pre-recorded message will now play due to message trigger condition: surrounded by hostile, ship inoperable."

There was a beep. Then my mother's voice sighed and said:

"You are so grounded- wait for me to rescue you! Don't die. Love, Mom."

That single message tore away my shock and stabbed me in the heart.

"Mom." The word felt sacred, uttered in the darkness. My throat constricted and I closed my eyes as the sound of her voice cut at my very soul. I gasped as tears flowed down my face beneath my mask. I struggled to contain the emotion as my body shook.

"End message. Would you like to playback the message?" The VI asked.

I managed to compose myself, prioritizing my survival was more important than assessing my present emotions. Thanks for cooperating Brain, wouldn't know what to do if we had a breakdown here and now, haha. Despite what the pre-recorded message said, Mom wouldn't be rescuing me. That was recorded before she was captured or died.

I was on my own in a building surrounded by an army of Frost Giants, dying from cold iron poisoning, tired and wounded. And I have no idea what's going on or how long I've been in space due to time dilation.