Sigyn cradled Loki's upper half in her arms, her pleas for him to wake, to stay with her, now mere hoarse whispers through her tears. Thor sent Dr. Strange and the other masters to their positions to prepare for the imminent invasion. His heart lay with his strickened brother, but the circumstances did not allow him the luxury of acting on his feelings. Regardless, he knew that Loki's fate was not something he had the power to affect this day any more than he had that dark day on the Statesman, but he did perhaps have the power when it came to the fate of what remained of his people and the realm they now called home. That was where his attention must now lie. He coordinated a contingent of the Asgardian volunteers to form a defense around the masters. For their defense to have a chance of success, they must be protected and allowed to do their work as long as possible.
Quill looked from the masters taking their position and their defenders and then back to Sigyn. He had made a promise to Loki, had been entrusted with her safety should Loki fall, but was unsure of when exactly he should act to fulfill it. He knew that time was not yet but he also feared waiting too long. How would he know when the time had come? He supposed his gut would tell him, he would just have to listen to it.
A shadow fell over Sigyn as she held Loki. She glanced up to see Barton standing over her, then returned her attention to Loki.
"I guess she saved you the trouble." Sigyn said to him, her voice mournful and strained.
Barton knelt and felt for the artery on Loki's neck.
"He's got a pulse...it's thready. Don't know if this will work. Only ever been used on humans. I can't promise anything." Barton said. Sigyn looked from Loki to Barton, appearing surprised.
"Why..." she asked, barely audible, unable to say more, Barton's offer of assistance confusing her.
"Making a different call." Barton said. He remembered another time he had done so, another mission to eliminate someone who had been deemed a threat, someone also with quite a bit of red in their ledger. Someone who had been on his mind quite often as of late.
Barton removed a small, narrow metallic cylinder from the case and put the end of it to Loki's neck where he had felt his pulse. Sigyn heard a slight, quick hissing sound. Barton put the cylinder back in the case.
Sigyn stared down at Loki, looking expectantly and hopefully for any sign of change, however, Loki remained still and lifeless in her arms. Her hope began to fade, then she caught it, a slight movement of his eyes beneath his eyelids.
"Loki...? Loki...can you hear me?" she said softly, smoothing his hair back then gently caressing his cheek.
Loki's head felt to him as if it were filled with lead. A dull ache engulfed it as he struggled to open his eyes, his eyelids feeling heavy, weighted. He squinted as he managed to open them, his eyes adjusting to the sunlight. His blurred vision slowly cleared, his brain processing the image of Sigyn, her face streaked with tears. His mind was in a fog, his thoughts jumbled as one waking from a long, deep sleep.
"Sigyn...I had the most wonderful dream..."
"Don't tell me...the scarecrow, the tin man, and the cowardly lion were all there...except the wicked witch. She was just here." Barton said deadpan.
Loki struggled to sit up. Sigyn assisted him. He reached his hand to the back of his head and winced, felt the blood in his hair, bringing his hand back around and looking at the red staining his fingers.
"You're lucky your brain's still in your head and not splattered all over that rock." Barton said. Loki eyed Barton in confusion, wondering why of all people Barton was there by his side. Sigyn gleaned Loki's internal questioning from his expression.
"You were dying. He brought you back." Sigyn told him. Loki looked at Barton in surprise.
"Guess I'm just a softie. Can't stand to see a girl cry." Barton said and stood up, turning and making his way back to where Thor stood, coordinating their defense.
Loki attempted to stand, unsteadily, finally succeeding. Sigyn quickly stood up with him, taking his arm.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea." Sigyn told him.
"She must see me on my feet." Loki responded to Sigyn's concern.
The same quaking and rumbling as before began across the landscape, this time all the defenders of Asgard more prepared to weather it without losing their footing. From the sky the same gold, shimmering curtain of energy and light began to descend.
"Is this it?" Quill asked Thor. Thor, steeling himself for what was about to transpire, gripped Stormbreaker as he watched the Ladder make its way downward.
"Yes. This day we shall either emerge victorious or join our ancestors in Valhalla." Thor said. Quill turned from Thor and rushed towards his ship. Barton, pulling an arrow from the quiver on his back and readying his bow, looked over to Thor.
"Fury has a boat out there, off the coast. If we can't hold them...guess I'll see you there." Barton told him. Thor knew exactly what Barton was telling him and nodded in acknowledgement.
"Now!" Dr Strange called out to his fellow Masters of the Mystic Arts, gathered in a large circular formation around where the Ladder's light would meet the earth. With identical sweeping gestures, the Masters collectively opened a large portal just above and parallel to the earth. The portal opened above Sigyn's island.
"The time has come. Do you remember...?" Loki asked Sigyn.
"Yes..." Sigyn replied. Loki grimaced as a bolt of pain shot through his still aching head. He held his head in his hand.
"Loki...you don't have to prove anything..." Sigyn said.
"Go!" Loki told her. Sigyn, with a final look of concern at Loki, turned and sprinted towards Quill's ship.
Sigyn ran up the gangway of Quill's ship only a moment after Quill. Quill was turning to make his way to the pilot's seat.
"Wait!" Sigyn called to him. Quill turned to see Sigyn rush through the hatch into the next compartment. Sigyn threw open the door of a locker and pulled out the sheathed sword and dagger, buckling them around her waist and then closing her eyes, concentrating deeply, held out her hand, her palm facing the empty locker. The Horn of Naglfar and the Salom Stone appeared. Opening her eyes she smiled at her success and grabbed them, slipping the Salom Stone into a pocket in the side seam of her tunic, then turned, rushing back out of the hatch.
As Sigyn entered the forward portion of the ship, she saw Quill standing there.
"I guess this is it." Quill said.
"Yeah, guess so."
Sigyn ran to Quill, the two embracing each other tightly. Sigyn pulled back from Quill and he was surprised to see her expression change from anxious to a grin, with determination along with a twinkling in her eyes.
"Let's dance." she said, then turned and rushed out of the main hatch and down the gangway. Quill retracted the gangway and closed the hatch, making his way hurriedly to the pilot's seat, spinning up the ship's engines as he also called up a playlist. The field was soon filled with the sound of music blaring from Quill's ship. ( watch?v=gpo2y4yWFFc)
Dr. Strange and the the other masters held their portal open as the Ladder descended through it. The golden light stopped at the surface of Sigyn's island, angel warriors in full battle dress, wings on their back pouring from it into the field of Sigyn's island and almost instantly finding themselves erupting into flames. Shrieks and screams came through the portal as more and more angels exiting the Ladder's light found themselves put to an invisible torch. Angels who had just made their way out of the light, seeing others bursting into balls of fire quickly used their wings to propel themselves from the ground but quickly found themselves hurtling back to earth in a conflagration. A few angels struggled, pulling themselves across the grassy field of Sigyn's island as they burned before losing the fight.
The flaming bodies of dead and dying angels began to pile up before the Ladder on the island, angels emerging from the golden light above them in flight, then also falling like moths in a flame. Smoke rose from the open portal. An occasional angel would succeed in rising out of the portal, Barton dispatching them quickly with an arrow from his bow, their impaled bodies falling back through the portal.
"How long do you think they can hold it?" Barton asked, shooting another arrow at an escaped angel, reaching back into his quiver and readying another.
"I do not know, every second increases our chances." Thor answered.
More angels began to escape the portal as the bodies piled upon each other on the island, forcing angels to exit the Ladder closer to the portal's opening. Barton continued to pick off what he could, other angels with swords or scepters swooping down towards the masters and the Asgardian volunteers in a ring surrounding them. One master was struck with a blast from the scepter of an escaping angel, falling by the way, the other masters continuing to hold the portal open. Barton quickly targeted the angel, sending him careening from the sky. A handful of other angels descended upon the Asgardians but were quickly dispatched, run through by Asgardian swords. Quill had piloted his ship to circle around the Ladder's light and engaging his new defense system, flew his ship into more escaping angels, their bodies falling to the ground as they succumbed to the lightning like electrical charges surrounding Quill's ship.
Sigyn reached Loki's side and they both watched what was occurring before them with a mix of awe and satisfaction.
"Maybe we won't even need this." Sigyn said, holding out the Horn of Naglfar, looking down at it.
A blast of invisible energy suddenly rolled across the field of battle from off to the right of where the masters held the portal open and Asgardians protected them from attack. It spread out as far as Thor and Barton. Losing their concentration as the Masters were knocked off their feet and through the air, the portal quickly closed. The Masters and their Asgardian protectors found themselves sprawled across the field. Some, as Loki had done, being hurtled into rocks against which they now lay motionless or conscious but suffering severe injuries and unable to rise.
"I jinxed it, didn't I?" Sigyn said.
Thor and Barton picked themselves up off the ground. Looking in the direction from which the blast had come, all saw Loriel. Angel warriors began to again exit the Ladder in droves, this time onto the field before them, some taking flight as they emerged from the Ladder's shimmering light, and immediately began to rain destruction down upon the defenders of Asgard. Blasts from the scepters held by some of the angels hit the Asgardian fighters, others, missing their targets, created smoking craters. Angels with swords attacked the Asgardians and the Masters, the Masters throwing up magical defenses and shields.
Angels attacked Quill's ship, some falling to the ground, overcome by the shocks, Quill managed to rid the ship of them but fearing becoming overwhelmed by their numbers, piloted the ship to the ground where it had previously rested and opening the hatch and extending the gangway, exited with his blaster, rushing to Sigyn and Loki.
"Just so you know, this wasn't my plan." Quill told them.
"What was your plan?" Sigyn asked.
"I hadn't come up with one. Didn't think this one was gonna suck." he said, watching the attacking angels in awe. "Guess I should get up there." Quill said, activating his helmet.
"Wait!" Sigyn exclaimed, running for the ship. She entered and after a few moments, reappeared, running towards Quill carrying the pillowcase she had brought from Heven, containing the grenade-like metallic orbs. She reached in, grabbing an orb and handing it to Quill. Quill examined one, gleaning how to detonate it and then attached it to his belt as Sigyn handed him more. "Good luck!" she told him as he jetted off to join the fight. Sigyn began to attach the remaining orbs to the belt around her own waist.
"What are you doing?" Loki asked.
"What do you think I'm doing? You gonna use that thing or what?" Sigyn asked before taking off to join the fray.
"Sigyn!" Loki called after her. He looked down at the Horn of Naglfar in his hand.
Barton, under attack from an angel from the air, threw himself to the ground, rolling away from repeated blasts of the angel's scepter. He managed to ready his bow with an arrow as he rolled and then aimed quickly, letting the arrow fly, hitting it's mark, the angel plummeting to the ground. Sigyn ran up to the angel's body and began to remove the angel's winged harness. Barton stood, watching her, then looking up, aimed another arrow at another angel, letting it fly, bringing down another foe before turning his attention back to Sigyn who was now putting it on herself.
"You know how to use that thing?" he asked.
"Kind of. Haven't since I was little, then only a few times. Hoping it's like riding a bike...but then I've never done that either. It's on my list, though."
"Got Laura's old one in the shed. Wouldn't take much to fix it up. It's yours if you want it." Barton said, tracking another angel and setting another arrow free to find it's mark.
"Might take you up on that." Sigyn said, pulling her sword from it's sheath. "I never thanked you...what you did...for Loki."
"Didn't do it for him." Barton replied, notching another arrow in his bow. "Watch yourself up there."
Sigyn nodded and looked upwards before swiftly shooting off the ground into the air.
Loki, hardly able to believe his eyes as he watched Sigyn in the distance ascend into the air, his expression dark with anxiety, raised the Horn of Naglfar.
Quill glanced down at the battle raging below him, Angels and Asgardians battling, those of both sides falling, though more of the Asgardians, the Angels having superior numbers and more training than the remaining Asgardians, most of their experienced fighters having fallen long ago to Hela, Thor battled multiple Angels with Stormbreaker, Valkyrie and Sif taking on more of the enemy with their swords. Quill blasted an attacking angel, then pulling one of the orbs Sigyn had given to him from his belt, activated it and threw it towards a circling group of the enemy. The blast sent them hurtling to the ground. Suddenly, a streak of blue, gold and white flew upwards past him. He looked up above him to see Sigyn, wings on her back, run an angel through with her sword who had been descending towards Quill and had mistook her for an ally. The angel fell as she pulled her sword and Quill quickly maneuvered aside to avoid the body.
"What the hell?" Quill said aloud. Sigyn looked down at Quill and smiled before flying off again.
Thor took down another angel, recovering his axe when he heard a familiar voice behind him.
"I told you it would not be you who would end this, son of Odin." Thor turned to see Loriel a few feet behind him. He began to raise Stormbreaker to attack when Loriel unleashed a blast of energy from her outstretched hands, sending Thor flying backwards, landing on his back on the ground. She continued to walk towards him. "Look around you. You're only delaying the inevitable. All this chaos, death, suffering...I grow stronger each passing minute." Thor raised his upper half off the ground raising Stormbreaker to hurtle it at Loriel as he stared her down, but suddenly found himself unable to do so. Stormbreaker fell from his grasp beside him onto the ground. As Loriel continued to advance towards him he found his own hands wrapping themselves around his throat as his eyes remained locked with hers.
From the direction of Quill's ship, a loud trumpeting sound echoed across the battlefield. Loriel turned quickly towards it, her spell over Thor broken as she looked away from him. The forms of Asgardian warriors began to appear before and across the battlefield, warriors from times even ancient to Thor and Loki among them, hundreds upon hundreds of warriors called back from their rest in Valhalla, Odin, his father Bor and Bor's father Buri among them standing at the front of the throng. Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg stood together, Heimdall not far from them. Frigga stood beside Odin, a sword in her hand. Valkyrie who had also looked towards the sound saw descending on their steeds above the resurrected warriors, countless numbers of previously slain Valkyrie, including those with whom she had battled Hela whose fall she had witnessed on that terrible day. The battle had ground to a halt, as both angels and Asgardians and the Masters of the Mystic Arts stood bewildered at what they were seeing.
"Loriel!" Odin called out. Loriel stared at Odin and the warriors with loathing and fear in her eyes. Behind her Thor rose from the ground with Stormbreaker, Sigyn and Quill descending beside him. "Your reign is over."
With a simultaneous battle cry, the returned warriors rushed to meet the angels, the battle recommencing. Angels began to fall in droves before the onslaught, overwhelmed by their vastly superior numbers.
The battle having recommenced, Barton again began to take down angels from the air.
"Need some help?" he heard from behind him. He turned, recognizing the voice he had not heard in years now.
"Nat?" Barton came close to dropping his bow as he laid eyes on her. Natasha Romanov who's body he had last seen broken at the bottom of a cliff on Vormir stood there before him.
An angel descended behind Natasha, preparing to run her through with his sword. She kicked her leg back, knocking the sword out of his hand and then flipped the angel over her shoulder, wrapping her arm around his neck, snapping it and dropping him to the ground.
As the warriors advanced towards Loriel from her front, Thor and Sigyn rushing up on her from behind, she suddenly vanished. Thor and Sigyn looked around in bewilderment.
"Where did she go?" Sigyn asked, scanning the battlefield. Across the field, she saw Loki facing the battlefield. A few feet behind him stood Loriel.