Autobots, Assemble! Series 1

Chapter 8: A Stone's Throw Away

*Note: Before you delve into this chapter and the next, I highly advise you to read my most recent journal over on DeviantArt. To find it, go to my page, go to "Posts" and select "Journals". I'm making a fairly big change to one of the canon characters of EMH, and that journal explains why. :)

Also: Tony uses the metric system like a good scientist.

This'll be a biggie to make up for the semester hiatus. Thank ya'll for being patient with me. :3 I'll get back on track with this one. This one, and that Kaijudo cross I left hanging for like 2+ years.

"Is he alive?"

"He is breathing..."

"Check his heart."

When a cold hand laid down on the side of his neck, Tony snapped fully awake. The person who backed away from him was wildly unfamiliar to him. Short, stocky, the man had a rounded, grizzled face that sported an impressive beard. He also wore a heavy set of blue armor that was definitely not tech based but still impeccably crafted. He had a friend with him, too, wearing a similar brass-colored get-up. Upon spotting their respective weapons, Tony scrambled back. One hand swung up to aim at them. Rather than back off, they merely stared at him, confused. He understood why: his armor was gone, and the lone repulsor gauntlet weakly fizzled in its primed state, indicating damage. All the physical protection he had left was the blue and black circuit-suit he wore beneath the armor, which really wasn't any protection at all.

But maybe they didn't know he was defenseless, he thought. Maybe he could use that to his advantage.

He kept the arm raised. "Stay back! I'm warning you!"

The confusion on their faces only deepened.

"A mortal? What is he doing here?" one of them asked.

"How did he get here?" the other added, bewildered.

His wording triggered an alarm bell in Tony's head. He dared take his eyes of them just long enough to glance around at his surroundings. The stone around him, he saw, was different than the stone inside the volcano. There were no signs of jungle growth, either. Yet, funnily enough, he could still smell smoke and fire coming from somewhere nearby – fire that smelled suspiciously like lava.

"...Where is 'here' exactly?" Tony wondered warily.

Both short men stepped aside to permit a third member. He wore a set of fancier brass colored armor and had an absolutely magnificent ginger beard. Atop his equally fiery-haired head sat a circlet topped by a large cabochon-cut gem. Despite his similarly grizzled appearance there was something almost friendly Tony could see in his blue eyes.

"You are in the dwarven kingdom of Nidavellir, mortal," he explained. "I am Eitri, king of the realm."

"Dwarven?" Tony repeated, mouth agape. "What? I was just in the Izalco volcano. How did...?"

"How did you arrive here?" the fiery-headed dwarf king finished. "I would very much like to know that myself. It certainly was not through the Bifrost."

"Bifrost? Yeah, no, it wasn't that," he agreed in a shake of his head. "I was trying to get a work-around made for Thor, because somebody locked it down."

"Heimdall's capture by Loki," clarified Eitri, "means now that only spell-casters and the Valkyries are capable of travel between realms. You are neither. So how did you come to be here?"

"I broke a Stone. A-A Norn Stone...?" he told him hesitantly. "Would that have...?"

The dwarf king stroked his bread thoughtfully. "Queen Carnilla's Norn Stones brimmed with powerful magic. Shattering one would no doubt have unexpected consequences."

Thinking back on the readings the Stone had given off, he believed him. The energy that had come just as he had blasted it to bits had been mind-boggling, and it probably explained why his armor was gone: the energy explosion must have destroyed the suit. But if it had entirely vaporized his suit, then what about – oh.

Oh no.

Oh, crap.

"Ratchet?" he demanded, heart racing. "Where's Ratchet?!"

All three dwarves look at each other, puzzled, then looked back at him.

"Big orange and white rob– I mean, automaton? About six-ish meters tall? Turns into an ambulance? Kind of cranky?"

The dwarves admitted they hadn't come across anyone like that. But the blue-armored dwarf, apparently named Gilvak, suggested that, since they were en route to the Forge – one of the last free strongholds in the realm – they could help look for him on the way. There was a chance he had been displaced elsewhere in the tunnels, which, to Tony's ears, made sense. Ratchet hadn't been standing in the exact same spot he'd been when the stone had been destroyed, and a difference of just a few meters could, in theory, exponentially increase distance when uncontrolled trans-dimensional travel was concerned.

"Come. We cannot stay in one place too long. We must get to the Forge," urged Gilvak.

Shakily, Tony rose and followed the three dwarves deeper into the tunnels. Eitri was kind enough to stick by his side while Gilvak and his buddy took point.

They didn't make it far before Tony heard rocks shattering somewhere ahead of them. He heard shouting too – familiar, cranky shouting.

Tony bolted ahead.

"Mortal, wait!" Eitri shouted.

Upon peeling around into another cavern, Tony yelped and jumped back as a stalactite fell a mere few paces in front of him. His lingering, brief flash of terror over nearly being impaled turned to relief on spotting the source of the shouting. But he didn't get to savor that relief. There was some big, ugly, hairy humanoid in the room currently fighting Ratchet with what looked like steel fighting knuckles. The old medic already had telltale dents on him that said he wasn't faring well.

"Ratchet!"

Ratchet paused and turned towards him. "Stark?" He then let out a cry as the humanoid's knuckles smashed into his face.

Tony cringed. "Sorry!"

Eitri and his dwarf buddies came rushing in then. When the giant, hairy humanoid spotted the king, he paused long enough to smirk.

"Your metal warrior is a joke, Eitri!" he laughed. "It would do better as a doorstop!"

"Ullik," growled Gilvak.

Ratchet, furious at Ullik's insult, swung a fist at his face so hard it left him with a black eye.

"How's that for a doorstop?" the old medic snarled.

Gilvak and his friend took the opportunity to charge the briefly disoriented enemy. Ullik recovered in time to bat Gilvak's friend into the wall, and when Gilvak tried to retaliate for it, he too was swatted away like a tennis ball. Upon hearing a sickening crack when the dwarf hit the wall, Ratchet was torn between another vicious retaliation or rushing to the dwarf's side to see if he was still alive.

On a strategic impulse, Tony grabbed Gilvak's sword.

"Check the dwarves, I'll get him!"

Tony rushed straight for Ullik.

"Are you mad?!" demanded Ratchet. "You're unarmored!"

"Do it!"

Ratchet muttered a few expletives but nonetheless joined Eitri by the fallen dwarves. Tony stood before Ullik, sword in hand. Ullik smashed his fists down. Tony leapt and dodged, the floor where he'd just been standing now cratered. He then ran behind him and swiped the sword at his furry leg. The swipe didn't really do much, and Tony dodged out of the way. When Ullik tried to grab him with one hand, he swung again. But he wasn't able to swing in time to avoid the other hand snatching him by the scruff of his circuit suit.

"You think a little knife like that will hurt me?" he bellowed smugly.

"No. But I think this will," Tony smirked.

He aimed the sword tip at the arc reactor cover on his chest. Ullik didn't understand until the cover came off and a powerful beam of raw energy smashed into him and sent him crashing into the far wall, smoking. Tony was likewise flung in the opposite direction of the surge.

"Stark!" exclaimed the old medic.

"Heh. Sucker," he chuckled weakly, and passed out.

Eitri ran over to him. The man's pulse was suddenly so feeble he could hardly feel it. The strange glowing lines on his suit were flickering in a worrying manner.

"Ratchet!" the king urged.

"Look for the cover!"

Eitri stared.

"Small blue disk!" clarified Ratchet in a short, quick snip. "Get it back on! Chop chop!"

Eitri found it after some searching. He rushed it back and, thinking he understood what to do, inserted the disk back on top of the reactor. Tony woke back up with a harsh gasp of air. Eitri stared at him, stunned but relieved. Tony offered him a grateful look as the king helped him up.

"You are the most reckless, irresponsible excuse for a so-called 'scientist' I have ever met!" sputtered Ratchet as he stomped over to them. "What in the Allspark were you thinking?!"

Tony grinned up at him. "Yeah, but it worked, didn't it?"

"You could've killed yourself with that stunt!"

"You can't die when there's a doctor nearby."

Ratchet was so flustered by the answer he scoffed and transformed, much to Eitri's bewildered fascination.

"In," he grunted, passenger door open.

"But I can –"

"In."

That tone was one wrong answer away from "If you dare say no, so help me I will literally restrain you inside me." Tony decided not to argue and clambered in.

"Eitri, get your men in back," ordered Ratchet. "They'll live, but we need to get them to a safe locale so their injuries can be treated."

The dwarf king thus lugged his two men into the back of Ratchet's vehicle mode, then walked to the front cabin.

"We can see to Gilvak and Regin at the Forge. I will guide your way."

"What's at the Forge anyway?" Tony wondered as Ratchet drove.

"We dwarves are the finest smiths in the Nine Realms," Eitri stated with due pride. "The Forge is where Mjölnir, Thor's hammer, was created, alongside his father Odin's spear, Gungnir."

"...Ever make a suit of armor?" he asked.

Eitri raised a quizzical, bushy eyebrow at him. "Once. Why?"

"T'Challa? Panther?" Arcee called.

She didn't like the area she was in: a barren wasteland of black soil, grey trees, and a perpetually overcast sky, with no sign of habitation anywhere in sight, but there were gravestones a-plenty. Which was strange. Graves usually signaled towns nearby. She could've sworn she'd been able to make out a village on the horizon just before the flash. Now there wasn't one.

"T'Challa!" she called again.

"Arcee."

Arcee spun to face T'Challa, perched in one of the craggy trees. His whole body was tense and his heart rate was up, but he looked unharmed.

"Don't sneak up on me like that," she retorted quietly.

"Be cautious. We are not alone here," the king continued. "Can you not see them?"

The king pointed into the distance. But she couldn't see anything. At least, there was nothing in the visible spectrum to be seen. Swapping to infrared showed a small platoon of freezing cold figures, more like silhouettes really, that were definitely not human. They were tall and lanky with pointy ears, and in fact they looked like the same shadows they'd been attacked by before the flash, just somehow more...present. Probably not a good sign.

She crouched and tried to run a scan. Maybe if she could get an idea of their biology...

When one turned her way, she quickly folded down into vehicle mode to get out of line of sight. Had they sensed the scan?

"What are those?" she whispered.

Panther crouched lower, "Dark Elves. They are hunting us."

Dark Elves? Dark Elves were invading Earth? But the report Optimus had said they'd been dealt with!

A scream came from the group of figures. In a whirlwind they all rushed their way.

"And I think they found us!" she realized. "Get on!"

T'Challa leapt down into the saddle and Arcee roared off. To her horror, the whatever-they-were weren't having trouble keeping pace with her, since they had merged into some kind of terrifying cloud...form...thing. T'Challa, noticing the problem, drew a vibranium spear and swiped it at their pursuers, who shrieked and lunged at him. Panther struck back with his claws, which forced the cloud back as if he'd actually hurt it. How? She had no idea, but she'd take it. She wasn't sure how long attacking it would work though. With every strike, the angry conglomerate cloud was getting less and less bothered by T'Challa's weapons.

"We need a way out of here!" Arcee barked tersely.

"Agreed!"

The cloud lunged and snapped again. She swerved to avoid it. The cloud then struck a dead tree, felling it. She managed to speed under it, but barely avoided being crushed.

"Do you see anything that looks like an exit?" she asked. "Because I don't!"

"Can you distract them for a moment?" he requested.

"I'll try. Hop off."

She skidded to a stop as Panther leapt off, then transformed to face their pursuers. The cloud looked briefly puzzled by her ability, and so she took the opportunity to fire off a few plasma shots at it. She expected them to not care, but they did. They let out a pained, wailing screech when two shots connected, and those shots left searing blue holes in their shapes.

Apparently these things didn't like ionized Energon. Fine by her.

She kept firing, prompting the cloud split into individual figures to better avoid her attacks. She counted at least forty of them. Five dissipated after being shot.

"Panther!" she warned.

"Fall back!" the Wakandan ordered.

She transformed, let him hop back aboard, and roared off in the direction he indicated. There was a structure ahead of them, what looked like an old water well but one much bigger and weirder looking than those she'd seen on Earth.

"That well up ahead! Energies are converging there, like the leylines on Earth! Go!"

"You want me to jump us both into a spooky well?" she demanded. "With no idea of what might happen?"

The cloud snapped at her back tire. Panther swiped at them in turn.

She decided to go for it. Jumping into a mysterious well was objectively better than getting chased by weird dark cloud monsters forever.

"Hold on!"

She gunned her accelerator, vaulted off a half-tilted gravestone. Mid-air, she transformed, grabbed Panther, and they both plunged into the murky depths. The last sign of the vengeful cloud was its infuriated shrieking echoing down after them as they fell, fell, fell...

Smokescreen looked up at the weird sky. The stars were all wrong. None of the star maps he'd downloaded from Earth matched.

"So...I'm gonna take a wild guess and say we're not on Earth anymore, right?" he hazarded nervously.

"Yup," Clint answered.

He glanced down at him. "So, uh, any idea on how to get back?"

Clint didn't answer right away. "Maybe that elf guy we bumped into can give us directions?" he offered, clearly out of ideas. "Come on. Let's see if we can find him."

Hawkeye sprinted into the woods. Smokescreen followed. He soon jumped in front of the archer upon hearing an approaching noise: shouting, and aggressive, animalistic growling. Out of the woods jumped three elves on horseback, but none of them looked like the one they'd bumped into in the Black Forest.

One of the elves' horses, spooked at Smokescreen's size, nearly threw his rider off. The elf rider, thinking he was an enemy, hefted his bow and aimed it dead at his face.

"Woah, woah, woah! Friendly! Friendly!" barked Hawkeye, jumping in front of the elf.

The elf calmed down.

"I know not why you are here, archer, but I suggest you and your friend flee at once! Alfheim is overrun!"

Alfheim? They were on the legendary world of the Light Elves? How the heck had that happened?!

"Overrun? By what?" wondered Hawkeye.

Baleful barking met their ears. Moments later, a pack of hideous, snarling wolves the size of grizzly bears erupted from the undergrowth. Their dark black hides were covered in odd pulsing runes that shone an unsettling blue-ish purple, and their eyes shone a similar hue.

"...Oh. Those."

Slavering, the wolves formed a half circle around them. Hawkeye glanced back at the elf he assumed was in the lead, imperceptibly nodded to him. When that same look and nod was cast at Smokescreen, he had a pretty good feeling he knew what the plan was. He would play bait, thereby giving the elves a head start. Catching up to their horses wouldn't be a problem; he could outpace them easy.

Without a word, Hawkeye shot off an explosive arrow at the wolf pack. He then ran for the elf closest to him, who grabbed his hand and slung him onto his horse.

"Go! Go!"

The elves spurred their horses into a frantic gallop while Smokescreen set about firing at the wolves.

"What of your friend?" one of the elves demanded.

"Don't worry! He'll catch up!" Clint assured him. "Just give him a minute!"

Vroom! Smokescreen roared out of the undergrowth. After about thirty seconds, the wolves burst out after him, snarling and snapping. Three of the wolves, to Hawkeye's surprise, had some ugly smoking wounds on their hides; they'd look like they'd been hit by a blue laser or something, or maybe one of Tony's repulsor beams.

"I am so in trouble!" the white race car declared. "Don't tell Optimus!"

"Feel no remorse! Those beasts are the spawn of Hati, the moon-chaser!" the lead elf clarified.

One of the elves readied an arrow. Clint expected it to just impale its target, but instead a weird light exploded outward just before it struck a wolf and engulfed it. When the gold light faded, the wolf it had hit was gone. But that only served to anger the wolves, who rushed the elven archer. One bit into his horse's leg and the two tumbled to the ground. Smokescreen instantly hit the breaks, spun around, and went to rescue the elf, plowing through the wolf pack to get to him.

"In!" he offered, opening his front passenger door.

The elf took the offer, slamming the door shut just as a wolf leapt to shred him.

Smokescreen soon caught up with Hawkeye and the other elves.

"Nice one, kid!" cheered Hawkeye.

It was a little hard to cheer with him when fifteen angry wolves were snapping at his fender. After some elven shooting, that number went down to six – which wasn't great but it was better than fifteen. Another volley brought their numbers down to just two. That's when things got...weird. Weirder. Both wolves let out bizarre barking howls; the runes on their bodies pulsed wildly, and out of their very shadows came ten new wolves. Except they weren't, really; they looked more like corporeal shadows than real flesh and blood monsters.

"Come on!" Smokescreen complained. "That's freaking cheating!"

"Do you have any more of those glow-y arrows?" demanded Hawkeye of his elf partner.

"Monlin should, but I don't see how he can fire upon them!"

Monlin, Hawkeye understood, had to be the elf Smokescreen had rescued.

"Kid, drop your roof!"

"But Optimus said I shouldn't do stuff my vehicle mode can't do normally!"

"I'm pretty sure your passenger doesn't know how a car works anyway! Just do it!"

Smokescreen did as told, allowing Monlin to clamber out onto his canopy and start firing.

One wolf tried to leap up onto the canopy to bite Monlin. Mid-air, a blue streak collided with it so hard Smokescreen heard the wolf's bones crack. (Could shadow wolves have bones? he wondered)

"Arcee!" he exclaimed.

Panther leapt from her saddle and swung a long pole-arm of vibranium at the wolf pack. Arcee transformed and opened fire on them. A single powerful Energon blast proved more than capable of taking out the shadowy copies. But the two main wolves just summoned some more to make up for it.

"Ignore the illusions!" urged T'Challa. "You are squandering ammunition!"

Problem was, whenever they shot at the main two wolves, the shadowy illusions would jump in the way and take the hit instead.

"This is pointless!" Arcee complained.

Arcee transformed and flung herself straight at the wolf pack. She hit one wolf hard enough to down it. Its partner and its shadow copies quickly dog-piled her.

A bright gold wave saw each of them disintegrate. Arcee herself was untouched.

"That was your last arrow, Faradei," his Light Elf partner reminded him.

"Well worth it," the elf retorted calmly. "Come. Alfheim is not safe, not since Loki has unleashed Hati on us. There is a ship that can ferry you and your allies to safety, away from the moon-chaser's pups."

"No way, we're not bailing," argued Hawkeye. "We can help."

"If Loki is attacking Asgard and the Nine Realms," Panther argued, "you will need every able body you can gather to stop him. We may be Midgardian, but we are far from helpless."

Faradei eyed them all. "You put proof to your words today. Very well, then."

"So...where's this ship?" asked Hawkeye. "We can use that to get to Asgard, right?"

Faradei motioned them to follow and explained. "Ordinarily it would be in the possession of my Lord Frey, but just before his capture it was passed to an ally for safe keeping."

"Sweet! So...where is it?" Smokescreen repeated.

Faradei's pale eyes twinkled. He fished into a pocket and brought out a little...honestly Hawkeye couldn't tell what it was other than it was wooden.

"Stand back."

The Light Elf flicked the little thing off his thumb like a coin, and the instant it hit ground it began to unfold and grow in a bizarre, warping display, like origami, only origami made of wooden beams and sailing tack. Eventually, a huge shining ship of golden wood stood on the edge of Alfheim, big enough to fit everyone, Arcee and Smokescreen included. Ornate engravings ran along its hull, and the ship's tip was carved to look like a snarling dragon. Silver sails were rolled up on its masts.

Clint was used to Asgardian magical weirdness, but Smokescreen and Arcee stared slack-jawed at the huge ship that had just origami-style unfolded itself from something about twice the size of a quarter. Funnily enough, she was the first to recover from the shock.

"Faradei, that's a sailing ship. How do you plan to get to Asgard on that thing? There's no water to sail it on."

Faradei merely smiled. "This is no ordinary sailing ship, m'lady. This," he said, sweeping an arm at the grand vessel, "is Skithblathnir, the ship that sails the skies as smoothy as it sails the seas, and it is my Lord Frey's most prized possession. He meant me to keep it safe, away from the enemy, but I don't believe he would mind us using it to rescue him from Loki's foul clutches."

"Freeing Asgard from Loki's control would allow for it to be kept safe long-term," agreed Panther with what sounded like a smile.

Hawkeye grinned. "I like the way you think. Let's go rescue your boss, then!"

Hank was used to being worried. He was used to a lot of things, really. But usually it was one, maybe two main worries at a time. Now he not only had to worry about not knowing where Jan was, but Bumblebee freezing over from magical ice and being waylaid by literal Jotnar. Making matters more complicated, the giants seemed to think the scout was a dwarven construct of some kind and were really giving him a hard time. Trying to explain that he wasn't dwarven had only resulted in an axe being thrown at Hank's face.

At least that had given him a weapon to use. Objectively better than trying to fight them off with just his fists.

WH-CHANG!

Ant-Man blocked a sword swing with the axe. Bumblebee had slightly better luck peppering them with blaster fire, but the cold was keeping his overall movements sluggish.

"Go look for Jan!" he urged him.

Bumblebee let out a worried trill.

"I'll be fine! Go!"

Bumblebee fired off one more strong shot at a giant, right in his left eye, and fled. The lead giant didn't take well to that, and opened the box that hung on his neck to release a frigid gale that froze the scout mid-stride. Ant-Man retaliated by throwing the axe at the giant's neck to cut off the box from its chain. The lead giant merely caught the weapon. Under his magical, icy touch the axe grew to look a lot more vicious.

"Why did I think that would work...?" he muttered.

He ran towards Bumblebee and tried smashing the ice around him only to find himself frozen up to his waist. It was easy to simply grow a little to crack the ice, but that was just a temporary solution when the lead giant could create an endless stream of ice from his box. He needed to get that box. Or find a way to keep it closed.

He went back to trying to free Bumblebee. If he had help, doing either would be a lot easier.

WHAM!

Something hard hit him from behind and sent him crashing into the snow, his head throbbing. He managed to spin around onto his back just as more ice trapped him. Another giant cleaved downward with his mace. Ant-Man caught it below its spiked head before it could hit, though he had to strain to keep it from getting any closer to his face. He managed to kick a leg free of the ice, and kick his giant attacker in the chest, forcing him back.

Bumblebee finally broke free of his own ice trap and ran. Ant-Man followed his lead.

"Go! Go!" he urged him.

The poor scout was so battered from the cold he had to grab his hand and drag him forward. Ice he knew was bad for Cybertronians, so magical ice was probably even worse for them.

They'd just about made it about a mile ahead when a massive force – wind – hit them from behind. Ant-Man and Bumblebee were sent careening off a sharp cliff that they hadn't realized was ahead of them. Below them lay deep snow pockmarked with jagged icy stalagmites, and Bumblebee was too far away to easy grab and shrink. So instead, Ant-Man increased in size and landed right in an ice-spike-less patch of snow, whereupon he urged to scout to transform just before he caught him in his hands.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Bumblebee trilled and offered a thumbs up. But, worryingly, a thin crust of ice was starting to cake him. That, he knew, was a sign he was getting far too cold: into the real life-or-death danger zone. Though it wouldn't offer much, he cupped his hands around him to trap what heat he could.

"Down there! I see him!" a familiar female voice called.

Jan!

"Valkyries!" an unfamiliar female voice hollered.

Valkyries?

A quartet of winged horses shot by overhead. One of them, trailed by a little golden streak, split off from the group and dove down towards him. The horse's rider was a tall, fierce woman wearing lean red and silver armor and carrying a hefty straight sword. Funnily enough, despite the aggressive looking armor, her face was quite friendly.

The little golden streak at the woman's side grew into Wasp, still wearing her heavy winter coat. "Hank! You're okay!"

He was delighted to see her unharmed. He would've hugged her if his hands weren't full.

Wasp, curious about what he was holding, shrunk down and peeped between his fingers, then gasped. "'Bee! Sif, he's freezing!"

The scout trilled at her.

"We need to get him someplace warmer, fast," he urged her and the Valkyrie woman.

"How do we transport a car though?" wondered Wasp. "I don't think they have tow trucks here."

Sif considered for a moment and then gestured them ahead. It wasn't long before Jotunheim simply...stopped. Ahead lay space, full of alien stars and worlds. Sif bade him place the yellow sports-car right at the edge.

"Valkyries! To me!" she called.

Her fellow warrior women converged on their location. One of them, upon spying the scout, rushed to his side and somehow got much of the ice to melt. On Sif's order, another of the women, dressed in silver and brass plate, used the tip of her spear to carve out a strange symbol in the air. When Sigrun next swung her spear downward, it struck solid ground rather than continuing its downward arc. In fact, when Ant-Man squinted, he thought he could just make out a faintly shimmering road that led into space.

"You have a path now, metal one," Sif clarified, "but it will only last so long."

"I...how?" Ant-Man demanded of her, not remotely understanding how Sigrun had made a solid path out of empty air but fascinated nonetheless.

"Sigrun is my hunt-master, mortal," Sif clarified with a smile. "There are many invisible paths between worlds only she can reveal. A fortunate gift for the Valkyries, now the Bifrost has been commandeered. Come. Time is short. We must leave Jotunheim before reinforcements arrive. Even a giant like yourself could not stand against their numbers, not with Ymir leading them. I am impressed you survived as long as you did."

To be frank, he was too.

Two of the Valkyries brought out great ropes from their saddlebags and looped them into Bumblebee's grill. Bumblebee, understanding what they were aiming for, set himself in neutral and whistled his thanks to them. Ant-Man shrunk (much to Sif's surprise) and hopped aboard with Sigrun. Wasp hopped aboard with Sif. As one, the Valkyries took off into the starry void. The two pulling Bumblebee took off in a fast gallop. Thankfully, their steeds didn't seem much troubled by their new cargo or running on a nearly invisible road.

"It's alright, 'Bee! Just, y'know, don't look down!" Wasp chirped back at him.

A nervous whine was her answer. He sensed Bumblebee had just looked down and did not like what he'd seen.

"Where are we going?" he asked Sif.

"To my lady Freya's hall of Folkvangr, the hall of the Valkyries and one of the few places in the Nine Realms that yet stand against Loki. Your mechanical friend can warm himself there," Sif answered, "and once therein you can answer my questions."

"...Isn't Folkvangr supposed to be the twin hall to Valhalla?" Hank asked her warily. 'And aren't only dead people allowed in?' he thought.

Sif cast a wry smile back to him. "You are learned, I see. Worry not. At her behest, and mine, the usual rules surrounding Freya's hall are...fluid this day."

Bulkhead dared peep his hood through the underbrush. He'd been doing that a lot for the past few hours, because it made sense. His dull army green color blended in surprisingly well wherever he was. Optimus had always told him to be cautious when in unknown areas, and after spotting what had looked like a a troupe of trolls or ogres or something, he'd decided to play it safe and take his advice while searching for the Hulk.

"Come on, Hulk, where are you...?" he wondered quietly.

His first impulse was to keep following the road those trolls had been traveling. Roads meant people.

The sounds of shouting forced him into cover again. More trolls and ogres barreled along the road in chariots drawn by...well, he wasn't sure, but they were big, ugly, and probably not very friendly.

"I relish the chance the crush more of this petty resistance!" one of them roared. "Vanaheim is ours!"

So they were mad at someone. Maybe the Hulk?

A thundering bellow pretty much confirmed it.

Bulkhead shot out of cover and ran the reinforcements off the road. He quickly left them in the dust. Without their chariots to keep up, he wasn't worried about them.

What he found upon finding the source of the bellowing was pretty much exactly what he thought he'd find: the gamma hero was going ballistic on what looked like a prisoner convoy, wrecking cages and jailers alike but leaving the prisoners themselves alone. A group of jailers flung themselves at him, downing him, but the Hulk happily flung them all off. One in particular he flung a punch so hard at it sent the creature flying fifty feet into the nearby waters.

Bulkhead decided to join the party. When two particularly big and mean looking ogres lunged at the Hulk, Bulkhead simply plucked them mid-air and flung them as far away as he could. Their friends seemed too stunned, and maybe spooked, to retaliate right away.

"Was wondering when you'd show up," the gamma hero smirked.

"You're not hard to find," Bulkhead teased back.

"Think you can get those cages open?"

Bulkhead changed one hand to a spiked mace. "Easy."

"Get them!" bellowed a horde of voices nearby.

Enraged, the Hulk leapt at the newly arrived reinforcements. He pummeled some out of the way, but the rest quickly dog-piled him, and he vanished under a horde of ogres. Bulkhead wasn't worried, and set about cracking open the prisoner cages one by one. The terrified people inside shrieked as the metal tops bent and warped, and more shrieked when he lowered a hand down.

"C'mon," he urged. "It's alright. I'm a friend. Let's get you all out of there."

They allowed themselves to be hefted out. One batch of three men in particular weren't nearly as afraid, and actually charged the enemy once free. One stole a mace from a downed enemy and cracked the jaw of a smaller troll. Another took two blades and hacked the armor off three more. The third one – well, the third one didn't even bother with a weapon, instead grabbing a heavy wooden shield and proceeding to pummel the enemy with it more like a club than a shield. One particularly large ogre was hit so hard with the shield that it snapped in half.

More hollering from the west alerted of more help.

"How many of these things are there?!" he demanded.

"We need to cut their access to this area!" one of the freed men, an Asiatic looking man wearing blue armor, told him. "These people will not survive another onslaught, and the enemy will not take prisoners."

"The bridge!" one of the prisoners cried. "If they come from the east, they must be using Tyr's Bridge!"

"Stay here and guard them," Bulkhead told the gamma hero.

The Hulk grunted. The three men who had helped him spread out to cover the huddled prisoners.

Bulkhead raced off to the east. He eventually found an frankly magnificent stone beam bridge spanning a steep ravine, at the bottom of which swirled a turbulent river. On the other side a horde of enemy ogres and trolls were preparing to cross.

He felt a little bad about it, but he changed both hands into spiked maces ran a hundred feet onto the bridge, and crashed his weapons down onto the stone. On realizing what he was doing, the enemy mad a mad rush, hoping to overwhelm him before he could finish. But he knew bridges. He knew exactly where to hit to make the whole other side of the bridge shatter like an eggshell.

After one more hefty strike, the stone in front of him shattered. Unfortunately, the rest of the bridge began to give after that hit, faster than he'd planned, and he was forced to make a mad leap back to his side. He barely grabbed hold of the cliff side before the stone bridge crumbled and dissolved behind him, taking half the enemy with it to a watery grave. The remaining baddies began to sling insults and curses at him.

He was surprised to hear hearty cheers and laughter meet him while he scrambled back up. The three men he'd freed earlier were there.

"And I thought Volstag here held the record for swiftest demolition of ancient architecture!" the lean, blonde-haired man with the twin swords declared.

"Imagine how much swifter I would have been had it been intentional, Fandral!" the big man, Volstag, guffawed.

The man in blue rolled his eyes silently. Volstag clapped him on the back so hard he nearly toppled. "Come now, Hogun! We are victorious! Smile!"

"We are not victorious until Asgard is safe," Hogun argued, grim-faced, "and Asgard will not be safe until Loki is in chains."

Asgard. Well, thought Bulkhead, that explained the trolls and the ogres. So if he'd been transported to an Asgardian realm, maybe the others had too?

"He's got a point though," agreed Bulkhead. "I don't think Loki is gonna wave a white flag at you just because you disrupted a prisoner convoy."

Hogun nodded. "Precisely, metal one. Our victory here will irk him, not frighten him."

"I know we are but strangers to you, metal man," hemmed Fandral, "but would you be willing to aid us in an attack to free Asgard? With your help, it might just be possible."

Bulkhead agreed, on the condition he knew who he would be working with. Thus, the three men introduced themselves. The dour-faced man in blue was Hogun the Grim. The blonde-haired man in green was Fandral the Blade. The boisterous, jolly giant of a man was Volstag the Voluminous. All three were close friends of Thor, hence why they had been captured so swiftly by Loki's forces.

"Friends of Thor, huh?" he grinned. "Let's grab the Hulk and get to it, then."

Volstag crowed, "I like this one!"

So this is getting two-part split, obviously. Part two will be out quick as I can!