Episode 2: Dragon's Teeth: Part 7
PROJECT CADMUS, WASHINGTON D.C
JULY,4,2010, 3:20PM
I don't wait for the three clones to jump again against the barrier to launch another array of spells. I have no desire to fight them before they tire themselves against my walls and my comrades are content to wait behind me. My incantations come rough from my throat, each more memory and instinct than really well thought plan. Nevertheless, I'm sure it will work for a time; until we discover what the homunculus and the undead can do. First I trace from the tip of my sword the knot-form of Othala the rune of home while intoning:

"By the Legacy and the Gift of the Evening. You who rules all sacred spaces. For in his home the eagle remains secure, help us reinforce our ramparts. OALU!"

This works. The form I traced is now bright blue on bright white, a new layer of protection. However, I'm not yet done. As quickly as possible I trace the eight branches of Hagal on the floor, Hagal who looks like a H with the transversal bar doubled and inclined. Hagal who served in ancient times to delimit the ritual space. I trace the rune at my feet and try to make it as large as possible, encompassing my companions in its embrace.

"You the Red, Ymir's daughter and the Hail. Because Hropt loved the ancient world we shelter under your wings. HALU!"

We are bathed in red light, like flames who do not burn us. I'm sure it will burn our enemies though. I'm hesitating to launch a third spell like in the novel I read but I decide against. If I was alone, I would create the Cosmic Egg of Mannaz to place myself out of reach but I could not use the rune to protect the others. Still three layers of protections are better than one and I'm confident it will bear at least one more assault.

The young heroes are arrayed for battle. Aqualad is sporting two water-machete. Good! If his weapons are magical it could seriously hurt our adversaries. Kid Flash is crouched in readiness, ready to charge the first to break the shield. Robin has disappeared in the shadows but I'm sure he's examining when and where he will be able to strike most effectively. They have not worked together all three, but they fought in teams of two and after the fight with Guardian can coordinate a little.

As for myself, I slowly work my way to frenzy. I look to the undead clone. I smell the stink of necromancy on him and that disgusts me. Not because it offends the god I'm joined with, gods know necromancy is one of Odin's pastime but because it offends me deeply. Dead should remain dead and not trouble the living with their problems. That's also the fact I'm sure its state was not an accident. Someone purposely thought the dead carcass of Superman would be perhaps more willing to serve than a living being. The other two don't disturb me. I pity the homunculus doomed to die as quickly as he grew and the clone because it's only a weapon in the hands of despicable beings. I also pity the undead and I decided to grant him peace.
They are waiting behind the shimmering wall, without a sound. Receiving orders perhaps, or crafting a strategy? I'm not sure of their level of intelligence but except if they are berserkers I would expect they're at a human's scale.

One moment they're immobile and the next they launch themselves. The homunculus claps his hands marked with the sigil for iron and similar etchings burns bright around his body. It doesn't try to charge the barrier but he runs for its pod, seizes it in both hands and with a grunt of effort tear it from the ground. Even as I simmer, I can't help but being impressed when it turns around himself with the pod and hurls it right on the barrier. The pod crumbles to nothing when it meets my spell, but the wall shakes under the strain and a neat scar appears across its surfaces. I raise my sword, crouches my own legs and prepare to jump.

The undead is the next. As soon as the scar appears it looks at it with angry eyes. Two beams of pure cold race to the wound in my defenses and the wall is covered in ice. This thing is definitively Bizzaro with its inverted powerset. Seeing its first attack vain the monster inhales deeply before releasing a sphere of fire on its target, then another, then another until the scar widens at its liking. It is immediately joined by the homunculus who points its hands to the breach and releases lightning. Lightning? How did they create this thing and how can it do that? Lightning, ice and fire strike again and again and again until the wall at last give way breaking in glass-like splinters on the floor.

The clone moves at this moment, as fast as a speeding bullet, it launches himself at us. He's stopped in its track by the flames of Hagal, motes of light surrounding his arms, lighting his skin, wreathing it in low-intensity fire. Pain doesn't seem to stop it as it moves towards us, shambling and relentless, its brothers in tow. Hagal is struggling to contain them, to slow them but they cannot be turned from their purpose so easily. The Great Mother's rune breaks as the walls, branches extinguished, its energy all spent in wounding the three creatures.

And wounded they are. Nothing too grave, at least not yet, but still they are bleeding, their skin is burnt as if by a candle. The homunculus is leaking small doses of stagnant liquid which is certainly no blood while the undead is spewing black sludge. They shamble like zombies but stiffen themselves as they walk, recouping from the sudden unexpected pain.

I don't wait for them to regain their bearing as the fury I welled up expresses itself. There's something liberating in surrendering to the red, to forget pain, fear and hesitation in one terrible wave. To let instinct or what passes for it in my case take command of your body and move it at its leisure. I run to the undead and unleashes a flurry of blows he doesn't even try to parry. The blade bites in the flesh, grating at the bones with a wet sound. My opponent gazes on me with his cold vision and I scream, more from surprise than pain, as one of my hands is covered in ice. I redouble my attack, targeting at random throat, wrists and face. If it is as resistant as it seems, piercing it will gain me nothing but a stuck sword. Better to cut it to pieces.

It counter-attacks of course and I recoil as it unleashes a stream of fire from its mouth. I draw back, faster and faster, unable to counter the flames pouring at me. My comrades fare little better. While they were not surprised by the assault as they could have been, and dance at the edge of my vision, dodging fighting, hitting, they are not so powerful as to counter their opponents. More time. If they had more time to work all three together, even without me, they would have won this even by now. Teamwork and coordination can generally overcome superior individuals. As it is now, each of us resists by his raw power and in this team I have the most of it for the moment.

The fight lasts what seems an eternity before the two others clones comes to me. Apparently they have finished with my comrades. Bad, very bad. From my experience even the mantle of a god cannot guarantee victory against Superman, even less against three. I hear pounding at the door. Other genomorphs I'd wager. My blade moves of its own accord but it's time to cut my losses and try what I may. While I was fighting the sixteenth rune presented itself in my mind. The sixteenth rune Sowelo like the sixteenth Arcanum, the sun and the primal fire and the lightning and the destruction. I visualize its lightning shape, I trace it in the air with my sword, even as I'm pummeled by my opponents, feeling no pain only because I'm in a trance.

"By the power of the Wheel and the Root. Breaker of Chains and Great Sustainer. I kneel before the sacred and bend to your will. Fall like thunder and render judgement now. SOWELO!"

The fire doesn't come from above obviously; it doesn't even come from the ground as if I had summoned Kenaz. It springs from my own body lighting the room in bright white flame. For a moment I become flame and whirlwind and the thing hidden beneath the old symbolism of the swastika. The power washes over me and my comrades lying on the ground and it strikes the creatures. The clone is the least affected but the two others screams and howl as they turn to ashes and cinders, flame springing from their own bodies to consume them.

I fall on the ground. The pain of every wound I sustained in the battle, and they seem to be quite a few, is wracking my bones and leaving me unable to stand. I try to hold to my consciousness but I fail miserably and my mind sinks under black waters.