Chapter 25
Jane, Erik, Ward, and Skye ran from the main campus library, and the moment they stepped out into the open, they were assailed with particle blasts from a trio of Dark Elves. Ward drew his gun and fired at the attackers as he and the other three hid behind a stone pillar. The bullets just seemed to bounce right off their armor, and the particle blasts exploded against the pillar, blowing chunks of it out. Skye cringed at the blasts, while Erik snuck a quick peak. Before receding back behind the pillar for cover, Erik noticed a single tripod. The Dark Elves marched towards them, not even noticing it.
"Jane." He said, turning to his protege.
"On it."
Twisting the nob on her device, Jane glanced back when she heard a brief woosh of air, and the tripod and the three Dark Elves vanished. However, in its place, were Soladat and Fitzsimmons.
The three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents all blinked in surprise at the sudden change in terrain, and looked around in confusion. Jane, Erik, Ward, and Skye exited their cover to greet them.
"Agent Wrekk." Jane said.
Soladat looked up. "Dr. Foster?"
"Simmons!" Skye said, smiling at her teammate.
"Skye." Simmons said, smiling back.
"Ward." Fitz nodded at Ward.
"Fitz."Ward nodded back.
Suddenly, there was a ripple in the air, and the group all parted, Simmons giving a shriek, as Sif, being carried in a rather awkward position by Mjolnir, flew past them all and crashed right into the same pillar that Jane, Erik, Ward, and Skye were just hiding behind. This time, the pillar actually crumbled and Sif fell with a painful thud against the ground. Everyone watched as Mjolnir just zipped away into the distance, and all ran over to Sif.
Soladat reached her first, and touched her shoulder. "Sif?"
Sif groaned and opened her eyes, blinking. "Archangel?"
"Soladat!"
Everyone looked up at the new voice, and saw Hikesh and Loki rushing towards the building.
Soladat stood up. "Xe-"
She was abruptly cut off as Hikesh grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back into the library. Loki followed close behind, quickly glancing back before entering the building. Everyone watched them go through the doors, and quickly turned back around when a loud footstep echoed close by. Several meters away, marching slowly towards the building, was Nazara. Its red occulus gleaming sinisterly as it approached, Nazara let out a low electrical growl. Wide-eyed, everyone quickly backed away towards the entrance. Fitz and Simmons were the quickest to enter, followed closely by Jane, Erik, and Skye. Ward and Sif entered last, Ward pointing his gun at the approaching Reaper, even though it would do zero to nothing against the gigantic ship.
Once everyone was in, Sif quickly closed the doors.
ooooo
The next place Darcy found herself in, was a small, narrow tunnel dimly lit by a few flickering lights. Still hammer-less, Darcy looked around and realized she was in a subway tunnel, most likely the London Underground. Before she could find a way out, she heard a swish of air behind her. Just as she turned around, she was might with a fist to the face. Knocked back a few feet, Darcy groaned, gripping her cheek as she looked up. Malekith growled as he moved over to her, body glowing red. He picked her up by the shoulder and forced her to stand.
Wrenching free of his grip, Darcy attempted to throw a fist at him, but Malekith caught it. He grinned as he heard Darcy hiss in pain as he crushed her fist in his hand, and quickly wrenched her closer to him, right into the path of his other fist. After that punch, he released Darcy's hand and delivered a backhand strike that knocked her into the side of the tunnel. Temporarily lodged in the side, Darcy groaned as she slumped forward onto the ground. However, the unrelenting Malekith quickly grabbed her by the throat and slammed her back into the impression she had left, and delivered a number of Aether-charged punches that drove her further into the surface.
Darcy cringed and yelled out in pain, her vision fading. Malekith grinned at this, and his fist became clouded in pulsing red Aether energy, which he prepared to pulp her brains with.
He brought his fist back, but just as he was about to drive it forward, a bright light overshadowed the two combatants. Looking up, the two gaped at the sight of a Central line train closing in on the fast.
Grinning, Darcy quickly grabbed the distracted Malekith by the hair and stood in front of the incoming train, using the Dark Elf as her shield. Seeing the train fast approaching, Malekith started squirming.
"Unhand me, you wench!" He said, eyes widening as the train came closer. "No!"
Darcy closed her eyes and clenched her teeth in preparation for the impact, and lurched when it came. Malekith got the brunt of the strike, and it was so strong that both he and Darcy were punched right through the nose of the train, and into the front car. The conductor jumped back in surprise when he saw the two role into the train, bruised and beaten but still attacking each other.
Darcy and Malekith rolled into the crowded passenger area, the passengers all gasping and screaming in surprise as they edged away from the pair, leaving a big space for them to continue their brawl.
Once the two righted themselves, Malekith, glowing red, fired a blast of Aether energy. Ignoring the pain she was experiencing from the beating, Darcy quickly ducked down as the Aether energy zipped over her head. She could feel some of her blonde hair being singed by the blast as it zoomed past various terrified civilians and impacted with the opposite end of the car, blowing a hole through it and the front of the car connected to it. This in turn broke the railway coupling in half, causing the car that Darcy and Malekith were in to keep moving while the other cars were left behind in the tunnel.
Once she ducked away from the blast, Darcy dove forward and body slammed Malekith, knocking them both to the floor. Driving her fist into his face, Darcy drew some blackish blood from Malekith's mouth as she fractured his jaw. She drove her other fist into his gut, breaking right through his armor and knocking the wind right out of him.
Cupping both fists together, she gave a yell as she prepared to bash him right in the skull, but Malekith, body shrouded in dark Aether energy, quickly reached up and grabbed Darcy's wrists.
Darcy yelled in pain as she felt her entire body burn from Aether energy coursing through her body. It was more painful than anything she had experienced so far. Falling to her knees, Darcy looked through blurred vision at Malekith's snarling face.
She could feel the life fading from her, but before she could, something happened.
The red haze clouding her vision was replaced by a serene, white heavenly environment. And instead of Malekith throttling her, she saw a familiar face. It was a face she had only seen once, but it had been burned into her memory.
Standing over her, with a smile on his face, was Thor, the thunder god whom she had run over two years prior.
"Don't quit now, Lady Darcy. Lives are depending on you right now."
"H-How...?" Darcy muttered.
"Don't let him win, Darcy. Stop him."
His voice, and the vision, slowly faded, and the hazy facade of Malekith returned. Once she regained her senses, Darcy found herself filled with a renowned vigor, and gave a snarl of her own as she reared her head back and bashed it directly into Malekith's already bleeding noggin.
Malekith gave a grunt as the strike forced him onto his back. Standing upright, Darcy glared at the Dark Elf as he slowly started to get up. Looking to her left, Darcy saw a pole grip, and quickly broke it out of the ceiling with little effort. With a swing, she bashed Malekith across the face with it, knocking him down again.
He yelled in pain as he felt Darcy smash the pole against him again.
"I." Darcy said between hits. "Have. Had. Enough. Of you. And your pointy. Eared. Friends! Just. Freaking. DIE!"
At the last word, Darcy delivered a strike that could brain an elephant. Breathing heavily, Darcy lifted the pole up, preparing to deliver a final strike that would end this once and for all. But alas, fate conspired against her yet again.
Pointing his hand out, Malekith fired a steam of blue lighting that struck Darcy square in the chest.
Darcy slid back to the edge of the car, and gripped her chest, which was nowsporting a bruise. Standing up, she still gripped the pole in her hand and prepared to march up to Malekith again.
Seeing her approaching, Malekith snarled, and then glanced over to a pair of people standing nearby. A woman and her child. Grinning, he marched over to the two and wrenched the terrified child away from his mother.
Said mother immediately tried to pull her child away and slapped Malekith in the shoulder. "No! Don't! Please!"
Snarling, Malekith shoved the woman away, and once she was down on the ground, he stomped hard on her leg, smashing the bone in her leg to bits. Ignoring the poor woman's howls of pain, Malekith held the woman's child by the hair. He held up his other fist, which was glowing red.
Seeing this, Darcy stopped, and glared. "That's low."
"I see it as a new high for me." Malekith sneered. "Put down the staff."
"I'll put down the pull, if you point down the kid." Darcy growled.
"I'll put the child down, if you put the staff down." Malekith growled. "I have come very far, girl, and I am not above reducing this child to a bloody platter to get what I desire. Now, put down the staff."
This earned a terrified sob from the kid. Darcy clenched her teeth, gripping the pole, and was about to tell the Dark Elf to go to hell, but then she saw the terrified expression on the child's face, as well as his mother, and her face softened. Conflicted, she looked to Malekith and then at the boy. There was no doubt he would do it if she refused.
Sighing, she dropped the pole on the floor with a clang, and continued to glare. "There, happy? Now let the kid go."
"No." Malekith said with a smirk.
"But, you said-"
"Ah, now you see, that is the main difference between you and I." Malekith lectured darkly. "Unlike you, the lives of humans and all other beings in general are of little concern to me. I've annihilated armies and cities with little sympathies."
"You're sick." Darcy said with a voice that was positively dripping with contempt.
"And how." Malekith said. "After all the trouble you've caused me, putting this child's death on your conscience will be a simple enough recompense."
"You wouldn't!" Darcy said, wide eyed as she stepped forward.
"Try me." Malekith said, and his fist glowed as he prepared to blow the poor child's brain in. The boy's mother screamed, and Darcy stepped forward, hand outstretched.
"NO!"
At that moment, the train had come to a stop, and the doors opened. The crowd of people standing outside the door ready to board all looked in surprise to see Darcy standing right there. Then, they all parted and screamed when a ripple of air appeared amongst them, and a silver hammer flew out towards Darcy.
When the familiar essence of Mjolnir filled Darcy's senses, she instinctively glanced over and reached her hand out, catching Mjolnir in her fist. Electricity instantly surged through her as she gripped the hammer fiercely in her hand, and shot it forward.
A bolt of lighting quickly flew out and struck Malekith's face, causing him to let go of the child and fly back out the hole that he and Darcy had punched through upon boarding the train. Everyone shrieked as Malekith was blasted out of the car and onto the tracks. Once she saw that the child had returned to his relieved mother's arms, Darcy quickly flew forward to Malekith's location, slamming into him feet first. Her wounds having healed almost instantly after reuniting with her weapon, Darcy bashed Malekith into the ground with an electricity-charged hammer.
She didn't relent, grabbing Malekith by the hair and hoisting him up into the air. With a swing of her hammer, she bashed Malekith through the ceiling, the ground, and out into the open city. She flew up after him, bashing into his spine with Mjolnir. The strike elicited a sickening crack that caused Malekith to shout in agony. With Darcy still pushing him via hammer through the air, the pair zipped nearly five miles in almost two seconds before Darcy started to make a rapid descent towards the ground. In the middle of a park, right next to a bench where an old woman was feeding some pigeons, Darcy crashed Malekith into the concrete, leaving a huge crator. The old woman instantly sprang up and fled, the pigeons clearing out.
Darcy kicked Malekith across the face, and then started beating him relentlessly and mercilessly with the hammer. Malekith felt various bones break and bruises formed on his body. He could feel the implants that Nazara had granted him sparking and overloading from the pain he was experiencing.
He weakly lifted his hand up. "Please... ACK!"
Darcy simply bashed his hand, breaking his fingers, and bashed him a few more times. Eventually, she stopped, and glared down at Malekith, breathing heavily. He was weakened, bruised and nonetheless beaten.
Blinkig weakly, he looked up to see Darcy. Mjolnir started channeling electricity as Darcy gripped it.
"P-Please..." He wheezed. "Mercy..."
"Oh, so now you're asking me for mercy?" Darcy scoffed. "Did you show all of those Asgardians mercy? What about Odin, huh? You were about to kill a kid for Christ's sake!"
"Please... Forgive..."
Darcy just grabbed the dazed Dark Elf and hoisted up to his knees. He was looking at her through bleary eyes. She glared.
"See, that's the difference between you and me, Malekith." She spoke defiantly. "You're the bad guy. And I'm goddamned Thordis!"
With a yell, Darcy swung the sparking Mjolnir towards Malekith's head. Everything seemed to move in slow motion from there. The hammer struck Malekith nose first, and the impact was so strong it caused his face to cave in. His nose moved back so far that the tip impaled his brain. The electricity from Mjolnir toasted his flesh, but it still didn't end there. His head was knocked back so far that his neck bent an unnatural way. His neck was broken, his face was bashed in, and his brain was punctured.
In all intents and purposes, Malekith, last lord of Svartalfheim and sorcerer of the Dark Elves, was dead.
Darcy watched, breathing heavily, as his body fell over with a thud. His body twitched, sparking, and Darcy gave a long sigh of relief.
"Good riddance."
After catching her breath, Darcy looked in the direction of the Old Royal Naval Colleges, instantly catching sight of the portals appearing above. Leaving Malekith behind, Darcy twirled Mjolnir and flew off towards the area to finish this.
ooooo
Jane, Erik, Sif, Hikesh, Loki, and Soladat's team all rushed inside the main library, closing the door behind them. They could still hear the wails from Nazara outside. Simmons instantly ran over to a nearby coffee table.
"Quick, we need to barricade the doors!"
"I highly doubt that a coffee table will hold off a fifty-foot robot, Agent Simmons." Ward chastised.
"We left Agent May outside." Soladat said, gripping her rifle. "We need to find her."
"Are you nuts?" Skye said. "That thing will vaporize us!"
"Can't you stop it?" Jane said to Hikesh.
Hikesh just shook its head. "That's a Reaper out there! The shields are nearly impenetrable. Even with the Aether in me, all I was able to do was make it stumble."
"Wonderful. So, we're trapped like animals then." Sif said sarcastically.
"Speak for yourself." Loki said, glaring at the agent. "I have no intention of dying today. I just got out of prison."
"It's a shame you're not still there." Soladat bit harshly.
"So what the hell are we supposed to do then?" Skye said.
Everyone paused momentarily when they heard a loud thud from outside, and the entire library quaked. Once it stopped, Sif slowly inched towards the window. She frowned.
"It's just standing there."
"What? Does it not know how to break down a door? That thing is towering over the freaking building right now!" Soladat said.
"But it may work to our advantage." Hikesh said, and he turned towards Jane and Erik.
"Are there any other tripods set up out there?" He asked.
Jane looked stunned for a moment, but eventually managed to stutter an answer. "Um, yeah! Yes! Four, I think."
"Activate them all." Hikesh instructed. "With the Reaper in the vacinity, the simultaneous transportation will tear it apart."
"He is right." Loki said, stepping forward. "You said it yourselves. Those devices strength the radius of the Convergence. From what we've seen, only one of those devices was able to widen a gateway five times its original size. If four of them were used, the schism would be so wide that the Reaper would be torn apart, it's pieces scattered all over the realms."
Soladat stepped foward. "Can you do it?"
Jane nodded. "I think so, yeah."
"Do it. Now." Hikesh ordered.
Nodding, Jane typed a few keys on her device, and took a deep breath before twisting the nob.
...
...
...
Nothing happened. No ripple of distortion. Nothing.
Inching over to the window, Sif's eyes widened.
"It's still there!"
Erik looked at Jane. "Try it again."
Jane did just that. Still nothing.
"What's wrong?" Soladat demanded.
"I-I don't know!" Jane confessed, furiously working with the device. "Something's... jamming the signal. It's saying that the tripods are offline."
"How can-" Hikesh started, but stopped when all of the lights in the library suddenly flickered. Everyone looked about in confusion as the lights dimmed, before going dark. Simmons, Skye, and Jane all jumped when a loud, electronic groan emenated from outside, and Soladat, Sif, Loki, and Ward all readied their weapons in a last attempt to defend themselves. Hikesh activated his red aura, and all of the combatants looked towards the door, expecting the Reaper to tear through the entire section of the building. They weren't gonna go down without a fight.
Suddenly, the device Jane was holding exploded in a shower of red sparks. Jane screamed and threw the device to the side, and everyone jumped at her shriek and turned to face her. She was looking at the device in shock.
"What the hell?!"
Suddenly, all of the computers set up at the different desks in the library turned on. Static covered the screens, and there was a low hum emenating from them. The group looked at the spectacle in apprehension.
"What's going on?" Skye spoke slowly.
No one answered, for no one had an answer to give.
The computers suddenly went back again, and everything was silent, until a loud boom filled the room, and the computer screens displayed a pulsing red. Red lighting crackled from the computers and across the ceiling, jumping around and singing a few books that had been scattered across the floor in the chaos.
The red electricity sparked and moved slowly to the center of the room, and everyone backed away, staring at it in confusion. Slowly, the electricity started to form something, a shape. It appeared to be a giant red glowing sphere. An eye.
And if that didn't creep the group out monumentally, than the cold, ominous voice that came next did.
"YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR."
And that be chapter thirty-five. I apologize for the long delay. Whether it was writer's block, laziness, or whatever, I'm not gonna bother throwing around excuses.
As if the plot of the story hadn't been crazy before. Malekith may be gone now, but the battle has yet to reach its end. Hopefully it will all be resolved in the next chapter...