Well. I don't think it takes a genius to work out what I did this time. It's not like it's the first time this has happened, and let's face it, it will absolutely not be the last. But hey – more content! Also, the next chapter will absolutely be the last one, because even I can only drag out a battle so far.
Also, the title has a cool double meaning in the context of this chapter. And I really could not resist the pun.
SilverLion80: Please, for the love of god, get an account. It's quick, it's easy, and it makes conversation so much easier.
After a fashion, yes.
Possibly. I have no particular interest in Langkowski at the moment.
Absolutely not. My one great regret is that I wrote this long before MCU Yelena appeared, because she is an absolute delight, and she would have been great to involve – someone deep in the Red Room who's sympathetic. Though I suppose that that role was mostly filled by Maddie, but the contrast between Widows old and new would have been spicier.
A full moon that should never have been shone over the Earth, casting a changed world in a silvery glow. Now, spirit and substance mingled as one, the material and the immaterial blending and separating as easily as dust in sunlight. Ideas and imaginings became solid, while people and places became ephemeral. This was not the madness of Chthon, or the wrath of the Phoenix. This was something subtler, more pervasive, weaving new threads into the tapestry of reality rather than unravelling it.
The sands of Egypt fled from ancient Akkaba, shedding spells and technologies of secrecy millennia old. The mountains of China welcomed the holy city of K'un L'un – several years ahead of schedule. The Olympian citadel returned to its mountaintop home. Arctis Tor, fortress of Winter, sat in the mountains of Greenland, while Ynys Afallach, the citadel of Summer, made its new home on an uninhabited Pacific island by the name of Krakoa. Oh, and Milwaukee had disappeared. Again.
And that was just the start.
Two equal and opposed forces had come together, and for a moment, they had been in perfect balance. Then, they had slipped, the reaction backlashing through every single ley line and nexus point of magic, permeating every single molecule on the planet and many beyond.
The mystical and material realms had been knocked out of their original delicate balance, one wobbly to begin with, and were now freewheeling like mad, passing through and into each other, flickering in and out of phase with one another, leaving them like light: unable to decide if they were wave or particle, they had settled on both. Now, every puddle was a scrying pool, every shadow a gateway, and every road an orthogonal path, through spirit, through matter, and even through time. But only sometimes.
All the while, this massive magnification of the usual interplay of dimensions and powers meant that Earth was radiating magical power like an exploding star. With, as one might imagine, all the instability and risk of collapse that this simile entailed.
In the moment, though, everything hung in an eerie balance, as if reality itself was not sure how everything was going to fall out.
Through the silence rang a soft song, one that spoke of sorrow that called out to the heavens, wending its way through streets of a city altered and reborn, resonating from its newborn spires as a question was asked of a world that crackled with potential.
"Where are all the good men gone?"
Two lights shone, brighter and brighter as they emerged from the initial flash, dimming all others as their glow both overwhelmed and absorbed everything around it – two lanterns whose light bent the world.
"And where are all the gods?"
Others stirred too – some, standing as they could be. Some, as they truly were. And some were completely unchanged, for they already embodied all of what they could be.
"Where's the street-wise Hercules, to fight the rising odds?"
One of the lights flared brighter still, a blue so piercing it was almost white, and the world began to shift and swirl, all that potential bent to a will that saw the end of a struggle ages old and the first steps to victory in a war too terrible to name. Dreams and imaginings, preludes and nocturnes, tulpas and astras, drawn from the collective dream-space of humanity and skirting boards of reality, all coalescing under one will.
Another rose, less practised, a pulsing emerald light that was deeper, warmer, and less intense, shedding unrefined power. One that had learned on the metaphorical street, and was nonetheless defiant for being so outnumbered and outmatched.
"Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?"
Her armour shone, blazing with light and defiance, a chariot of fire ready to carry her back into the skies, to challenge the Witch-Queen above the City of Dreams.
"Late at night, I toss and I turn."
But as she looked around and calculated her odds, another hand stayed hers, and whispered in her ear. It turned her cosmic gaze near and far, giving her a vision, reminding her of advice she had often given.
"And I dream of what I need."
A smile of realisation crossed a young face, a smile of understanding, and a smile of fellowship. For she was not the Witch-Queen. She realised that there was another way.
She was standing on her own. But now, she was not alone. She opened her mouth to speak words of inspiration, of hope, of a power greater than any magic.
"I need a hero!"
"Avengers assemble."
OoOoO
Clark was not having what you could call the best of days. Or rather, nights. One side-effect of his vastly expanded powers following the purge of the Kryptonite contamination by Harry's supercharge was that he no longer needed more than four or five hours of sleep a night, at the outside.
On the upside, this meant he could get a lot more done. On the downside, he'd got a lot more spare time to fill, as quietly as possible to avoid disturbing his parents. Sometimes, he studied the crystals his biological parents left for him, via the ship in the storm cellar – both to understand what his suit can do, and, tentatively, to learn more about his people. He knew that there were AI copies of his parents on one of them, but right now, they were staying quiet, as if they knew that he was not ready to talk to them yet.
More often than not, though, his method of relaxation involved going out for a run and thinking. Recently, this thinking had included coming up with excuses to avoid Lois Lane, because he rather doubted that she'd be fooled by plaid, jeans, and (at his mother's suggestion), a set of glasses. Anyway, at the speeds he was now capable of, this could take him almost anywhere in the Midwest while he was still getting into his stride, even further if he decided to fly.
Sometimes, he noticed people in trouble, and stepped in, as quickly and quietly as possible. And sometimes, he got noticed, as Chloe had pointedly informed him, waving a copy of The Midwestern Arcane under his nose, pointing at an article about 'The Blur: Guardian Angel of the Midwest'. It was mostly ignored by the more reputable papers but, as she'd warned him, "that's not going to last. Not these days. Especially not with all the questions about the Battle of Smallville and the Miracle on the Missouri."
All headaches Clark did not need, and now, he'd stumbled into another one after seeing what was happening in New Orleans on the news through a shop window.
Of course, as he had very quickly found out, the reports of 'unseasonal storm surges' and 'gang warfare' had rather paled in comparison to the reality. The reality which, frankly, had only got weirder. Weirder, and much, much messier. Meeting Jean-Paul had been reassuring, because that meant… it meant he wasn't alone. There was someone who both knew what this sort of thing was like and knew him, someone who could – and did – show him the ropes.
Mostly, they'd just been rescuing people.
Mostly.
Harry had darkly alluded to the kinds of things that magic was capable of, the kinds of creatures that it could create, and Clark had seen a few of them already. He'd seen a fair few horrifying things in his own right, in Smallville. But this was on another level, and worse, there was so much of it that sometimes, even people as fast as him and Jean-Paul were forced to stop and fight. And the kind of fighting that they'd had to do… Clark's hearing had always been good, but now, it was as superhuman as the rest of him. He now knew, in sickening detail, just how it sounded when bone broke and flesh burned. He kept his helmet up, partly to maintain his secret identity (though, frankly, it wasn't like anyone could get a good look – or, right now, could really spare the time to care).
He didn't kill, he was careful about that, but he couldn't afford to hold back, either. The monsters he was facing, even the ones that looked like they might be – or at least, might once have been – human, they just didn't stop! As long as they could still move, they kept going, until they reached a threshold where they were beaten down; and even then, they still tended to try and go after someone they deemed more vulnerable. Part of him thought back to what Harry and Jean-Paul had both said, what Jean-Paul's face was now saying plain as day: this was what they had been trying to protect him from.
But that would mean turning aside, not doing his utmost to help those in need, to try and tune out the cries for help. And that was something that he, whether as Clark Kent or Kal-El, was simply not capable of.
So, he did what he had to, even when it turned his stomach. Honestly, it got to the point where it was a relief to fight something obviously demonic, or some animated machine, or even some homicidal forest, where the branches whipped out with a hunger for blood and the sap burned even his skin.
Then, there had been this vast flash of blinding white light, one that had felt like it was passing through him… and then a strange, silence in a world illuminated by a strange, pale light. And then, there had been the music, as the world began to bend around two lights; one, the incandescent blueish-white of lightning, the other a fearsome deep emerald of living things.
I could certainly do with hero, was his last thought before the emerald light suddenly enveloped him, snatching him away. When the light faded, he found himself having been dropped on his backside in a clearing, and he wasn't alone. As he looked up, he saw a hand reaching down. A hand attached to a very particular person.
"Need a hand up, son?" said Captain America.
Clark swallowed, and mutely let his childhood hero haul him to his feet.
"Thanks," he said.
"No problem," came the easy reply.
"Um, sir?" Clark said after a moment. "What's going on? Because I… I've got no idea. Like, at all."
"You're not the only one, which is why we've got a briefing to attend."
"We've got time for that?" Clark asked sceptically, before reflexively covering his mouth – or where his mouth would be. He would later swear that he could see a small smile on the Captain's face, but it didn't reveal itself in his tone.
"There's not many advantages to the world becoming this flexible," he replied. "One of them is that if you've got a magical heavyweight on your side, you can put things on pause. Usually, that takes a lot of know-how…"
He paused, cocked his head and grinned as he looked over at the heart of the clearing. Clark followed his gaze, and saw a woman carved as by one of the Italian masters from golden metal and emerald flame, with eyes that blazed like stars. Her fists were clenched and her expression was nothing short of implacable.
Try me, if you dare, her expression said, but beware – because I can do this all day.
"… but sheer stubbornness works just fine."
OoOoO
Sheer stubbornness, had she heard, would have probably rolled her eyes. That being said, she did hear. Unfortunately, since she was also hearing the underlying song of reality, music of the spheres, and the symphony of time, and it was taking a significant chunk of her will to keep her focus on the present, let alone pick out individual discussions.
The problem with stopping time is that time generally does not want to be stopped. There were ways and means of doing it, shaping the currents of time to create a still pool or a metaphorical bubble – a pocket of stillness and silence. By and large, it involved using constructs – whether machines or spells – to bend time around a place, dipping a cup into the river of time, then setting it on the bank, ready to be tipped back in once it was done with.
What Carol was doing was, technically, telling time that Balrogs or no Balrogs, it would not pass. In the context of the previous analogy, dipping her cupped hands into the river and pulling out some water. Unfortunately, even the strongest human will is fallible and inconsistent. Focus fluctuates, distracted by the slightest things. Even the most disciplined mind faces the odd stray thought. Even the person with the best stare eventually blinks. And drops of water slip through the gaps in even the tightest grip. All while being exposed to the insanity inducing wonders of time itself.
In short, her technique was crude, hopelessly inefficient, and its failure to fall apart or drive her completely insane was a tribute to her sheer bloody-mindedness.
That, anyway, is what Wanda said when she set about systematically shoring up Carol's bubble, weaving an extra layer between the main passage of time and their little pocket, granting it stability.
"What you were doing was like having pockets and not using them," she finished.
"Really?"
"Well, no, it was actually far more alarming than that, and I am frankly amazed that you haven't either gone mad or become a seer," Wanda said frankly. "Or possibly both."
Carol shrugged. "I've seen too much to go nuts easily," she said.
"That is lamentably true," Wanda sighed. "I swear, you are nearly as bad as my godson is. Between the two of you, you'll drive me so far to drink that I will approach sobriety from the other side."
"Okay, hey, this mess was Strange's fault," Carol said defensively. "Or the Ring's. Or Nimue's. Whatever."
"I don't care about the Ring or Nimue," Wanda said grimly. "While Stephen is more than capable of looking after himself. And though I have no doubt that his fingerprints are all over this, he is the last person to tell you to stop time with your brain."
"… technically I was using the Ring."
Wanda shot her a deeply unimpressed look.
"Yeah, I didn't think that'd fly either," Carol muttered. "Look, we needed a time out to organise, and I didn't exactly see Nimue blowing the whistle for half-time."
"Your intentions and your logic were perfectly sound," Wanda said. "Your execution, on the other hand…" She sighed again. "Well, it's done, and you're sane. Which, since you're channelling more magical power than any mortal I can remember, through a jury-rigged regulator, exposing you to Elder Gods only know through some kind of Intellectus, and haven't yet gone mad, is perhaps unsurprising."
"Intellectus?" Carol asked.
"Cosmic Awareness, Seventh Sense, Clairvoyance, it has many names," Wanda said. "And just as many variations, mostly based on spatial and temporal range and, simply, how much you can take. The closest most mortals get is the odd vision. Even Stephen's process is using intuition to guide him through many visions – and that, itself, came from exposure to an impossibly powerful cosmic artefact. However…"
"However what?"
"However, again, you are channelling a ludicrous amount of magical power, from the Earth itself," Wanda said. "And that's bootstrapped you, partially, to a whole different level. That being said, your physiology and your outlook, the way your mind works, are still predominantly mortal. The original Lantern had limits for many good reasons, and this is one of them: that power has had some effects. The simplest explanation is that your perceptions have widely expanded along a range that mortal minds aren't quite able to comprehend, so your mind is coping as best it can – probably by shutting out most of the white noise. I'd bet that most of your new and weird perceptions are mapping themselves onto your physical senses, right?"
"Pretty much," Carol said. "So… I'm quasi-omniscient?"
"Well, put it like this: if you focus, you could probably treat it like Cosmic Google," Wanda said. "But like Google, knowledge doesn't equal understanding. Also, you'd get a whole lot of rubbish and pop-up ads with it."
"So, in theory, if I focused, my fancy-schmancy super-senses could tell me all the spells that Nimue's using, but I still wouldn't have a clue what the hell they actually meant without Magic 101," Carol said.
"More like Magic Post-Doc, but yes," Wanda said dryly. "You have the essence of it."
"Well, that's fucking useless," Carol said.
Wanda smirked. "Take it from me," she said. "With great power must also come great frustration."
"You say that like I'm not dating the Boy Who Has Been Repeatedly Fried By His Own Powers."
"Wow, you really went god-size, didn't you?"
Both women turned to see Monica, Gambit, Peter, Deadpool, Dresden, and Lupin. They were the first of a number of those converging on Carol. Most people in the bubble, after they got over the initial shock, were smart enough to guess that 'green bubble' and 'glowing green flame person' were, somehow, connected. Also, she was kind of in the middle of it. That was another clue.
"Huh?" was Carol's immediate, intelligent response.
Monica raised an eyebrow. "You're glowing, Danvers. Like you're made of fire. Green fire, with bits of gold and white." She tilted her head. "Not gonna lie, I actually kind of dig it."
"De look suits you," Gambit agreed, then flashed an easy smile. "As most looks do."
"Oh," Carol said, blinking as she looked down at herself, before eyeing Wanda. "You didn't say."
"Darling, after all the transformations I've seen, something this superficial hardly even makes me blink," Wanda said wryly. "I barely noticed it. You can power down a bit, if you like. Just focus and push the power down a little. Draw yourself back and down… that's it."
Carol closed her eyes and did as bade. It was surprisingly easy. When she opened them again, though, she stumbled a little, before Wanda caught her.
"Powering down a little equals restraining a little bit of everything, senses included," Wanda explained. "It takes a moment to adjust. Especially if you're floating half an inch off the ground. Which you were."
"You could have said that earlier," Carol grumped, getting her feet under her.
"Well, you looked like you were having so much fun," Wanda said blithely, which got a now entirely pink tongue stuck out at her. She smirked. "Also, some things have to be experienced to be understood."
"Ugh," Carol said, succinctly expressing eons of teenaged disgust in a thoroughly enunciated monosyllable. "So, I'm not the only with new duds. Got to say, they work."
"I know, right?" Monica said. "Apparently Doc Strange is responsible. You wouldn't think it, would you?"
"Stephen is a man of many talents," Wanda said dryly.
"Deep inside the creepy Jedi Wizard, there is a fashion designer, crying to be let out," Peter said sagely.
Wanda let out what sounded like a suppressed cackle. She was not the only one. "Oh, I'm remembering that one," she said. "I want to see the look on his face when he hears that."
"I'll take pictures," Lupin said. "Though I think we should probably get down to business."
"Yeah, about that," Carol said, looking around. "I called time out, off, whatever, because I could do with ideas. Also, last time I literally went head to head with Nimue… this happened."
"Nimue?" said a tall, regal looking black woman with grey hair.
"The original, apparently, Wizard Liberty," Dresden said.
"She's got a sort of evil Lantern Ring," Carol explained. "And broke the original Lantern."
"You found a substitute," the older woman said, studying Carol. "In fact…" She blinked. "You're wearing it?"
"What can I say? I look good in green."
This got a round of looks that ranged from amused, to astounded, to horrified.
"You should have burnt up," Liberty murmured, astonished. "The amount of power involved, a human body shouldn't be able to sustain it."
"In this case, there are extenuating circumstances," Wanda said, before sighing. "Some of them almost certainly engineered."
"Yeah, that was my going theory," Carol said. "Especially one 'extenuating circumstance' that I share with Peter, for instance."
She waved at the boy in question, who shuffled his feet awkwardly, expression apparently bashful behind his mask as Wanda and Liberty both scrutinised him thoughtfully.
"A totem," Liberty said after a moment. "One, perhaps, where some 'extenuating circumstance' helped prepare the way."
She shot Wanda a piercing look, very strongly encouraging elaboration. What she got was a perfect mimic of the same small smile that had been infuriating the White Council (and many, many others) for millennia. Liberty rolled her eyes and sighed.
"Well, unless I am much mistaken, divinity was involved," she said. "I am quite certain that I can guess which one. I am also quite certain, given which one it almost certainly was, that it was a complete accident."
"I'd go with unintended side-effect," Carol said.
"Serendipitous unintended side-effect," Dresden added helpfully.
"Right. That."
Wanda and Liberty shared a look. The former looked amused. The latter just sighed.
Meanwhile, Steve had arrived, followed by a tall figure in close-fitting armour embossed with what looked like a red 'S' upon a yellow diamond, a long red cape swirling out behind him. With powerful build and futuristic helmet raised, he might have cut an intimidating figure if not for two things. One, everyone present had a high threshold for intimidation these days. Two, a pair of earnest blue eyes peeked out through the helmet and, with an awkward pose and the way he was trailing after Steve like a lost puppy, wide eyes taking everything in, the general impression was closer to 'adorable'.
Steve often conveyed a similar impression for not dissimilar reasons. Right now, however, he was levelling a sharp look at Deadpool, having been filled in on the details. Or, at least, the abridged version. "You're with us?"
"To the end of the pay-check. Well. The end of the marker I owe your daughter, anyway."
Steve blinked.
"He worked it out, I swear," Monica said, raising her hands.
"All by himself," Peter agreed hurriedly.
"I know a super soldier when I see one, plus the hair and eyes were a clue," Deadpool said airily. "Also, sir, your daughter is gifted with your ass, which is, if I may say so, the greatest pair of buns to grace this fortunate Earth and your family have taken good care of it. You should be proud."
Steve stared at him for a long moment, as his companion made an unidentified strangled noise. Then, carefully, he cleared his throat. "Did he just…"
"Yeah, just don't ask," Monica advised. "He's a friend."
"A superhero!" Peter added desperately, when Steve didn't look entirely convinced.
"Really," Steve said mildly.
"Sure. Why else would I wear this much spandex in public?"
"Comic-Con?"
Everyone blinked and turned to Steve's companion who had so far done a fairly good job of blending into the background. For one thing, his voice was somewhat higher, and a fair bit softer, than his size would make one expect.
"I mean, that's valid," Monica said after a moment.
"But who'd he be dressing up as?" Peter wondered.
"In this day and age, I try not to ask," Steve said dryly. "Fine. It's not like I can make you forget, and we've got bigger issues." He met Deadpool's gaze with a hard look. "But I'm trusting you to keep that secret. If that trust is broken, then you and I will be having words."
Deadpool snapped a surprisingly adroit salute. "Sir, yes sir!" he barked.
Steve nodded the curt nod of a senior officer dismissing a particularly dim subordinate, then turned to his companion. "I hope I can trust your discretion, son." The subtext was 'I figure that since you're wearing a mask, you understand the importance of this'. Normally, this would have got a nod. As it was, it got an embarrassed cough.
"Um. Well. I kind of already knew," he said. "My dad and your daughter were friends. She's kind of my unofficial godmother."
Steve raised his eyebrows, but took it in stride. "Well, she's had an interesting life," he said. "I'm still short most of the details – even those that are mine to know. Do you have a name you'd like us to use?" His mouth twitched in a crooked smile. "People generally find it a bit awkward if I call them 'son'."
The young man nodded. "Call me Kal," he said. As he did, his eyes were covered up by red goggles, while the helmet, still connected to the goggles, retreated from his face and hairline, revealing a pale, slightly nervous looking teenager.
There was a long pause, and he coughed.
"I thought it'd be easier like this," he said. "You know. If you could see most of my face. Without giving up my secret identity."
"We appreciate the consideration," Steve said. "It's just that, well…"
"You look kinda familiar," Peter said. "Actually, you look very familiar."
Steve tipped his head in acknowledgement.
Kal's shoulders slumped. "Oh. I suppose I shoulda seen that one coming."
"It can wait," Steve said, inwardly resolving to have a quiet word with his daughter about why there was someone who could pass for Harry's brother running around. "I'm guessing you're with us?"
This time, there was no awkwardness or hesitation as Kal's shoulders straightened and he nodded firmly.
"All the way," he said.
"Then that's all I need to know."
OoOoO
After that, everyone gathered around for the briefings; from those on the ground, such as Steve, Dresden, and Lupin, dealing with the monsters, from those handling the spirits and eldritch horrors such as Wanda, Liberty, and Liberty's six times great-grandson, Jericho Drumm, and from those in the sky, handling all the airborne horrors, such as Tony and Carol.
Mostly, though, they came from those few who had ventured into Project Pegasus and could actually provide insight into what had happened.
"Well, the bad news is that Nimue cracked open Project Pegasus' ultimate… project. Project Pandora. As far as I can tell, it's basically cracking open the Earth at a weak point to get to the gooey magical centre. Which she did, and then used that power to break the Green Lantern – hence why I'm sort of wearing the replacement," Carol explained. "Which, as it turns out, was what was keeping Pegasus sealed up all this time."
"Well," Steve said, with admirable aplomb over a lot of troubled muttering. "That does answer one or two questions I was having about the Ring's name."
"Honestly, me too," Carol said. "Also, there's this whole consciousness thing made out of a mix of ancient ghost tree-people resurrected by the whole magic chaos and a not so ancient ghost guy called Alec Holland who aren't happy about what Nimue's doing and were willing to help." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder beyond the dome where the dark, frozen figure of the giant Swamp Thing was visible. "They're being helpful."
"So I see," Steve said. "Out of interest, how did you find that out?"
"Oh, you know, same as usual - the hard way," Carol said. She was trying to be casual. She was failing.
Steve folded his arms.
"'The hard way'?" he asked.
"Um. Never mind."
"Carol Susan Jane Danvers…"
"Nimueturnedmeintoatree."
There was a very long, very silent pause.
"What did you say?"
An observer listening might, initially, have mistaken this for a standard question. Calm. Steady. A perfectly innocuous request for repetition. Anyone with the appropriate instincts, however, would have felt every single hair on their body stand on end. If they were sensible, they would have started looking for cover. Most of those present had those instincts, and from newly empowered spider-child to centuries old senior wizard, they started edging very carefully away.
"You heard," Carol said quietly, hugging herself. "Look, d – Steve. Not right now, okay? I am almost certainly going to freak out spectacularly later, but now is not the time. Can we please drop the subject and get back to sorting this out? Preferably in a way that actually allows me to punch that egotistical bitch in the face? Because my gods does she have it coming, and it would make me feel so much better."
Steve met her gaze, then nodded. "Okay," he said. "But we'll talk later."
"Fine," Carol said. "Anyway,I've got all the Lantern powers, yeah, and holy mother of god are they more than I ever imagined. I'm gonna need them, because Nimue is basically a Lantern too, and she really knows how to use it. She is using it, I can feel it, even with us in a time-stop thing. All that?" She waved a hand around them. "It was enough for me to call time off, yeah, but it's just side-effects. Distractions. Doctor Strange is, was, whatever, holding her up, because, yeah, she's not stupid enough to let him backstab her, but that's all."
"You didn't do a bad job," Tony said, expression relaxing out of something almost as stony as Steve's.
Carol winced as all the wizards exchanged looks that spoke volumes.
"You did what you thought best at the time," Wanda said kindly.
"With considerably more composure than I would expect from someone who had, somehow, survived such a traumatic transmutation," Liberty added, a touch incredulous. "Especially since I have no doubt Nimue intended it to be permanent."
Carol saw the unasked question. "Yeah, well, I had help," she said. "Semi-dead plant people and… and good friends."
Liberty's gaze shifted to the younger group, expression thoughtful, before finally settling on the masked Monica by apparent process of elimination. One did not live long enough to even be considered for the Senior Council without a certain perceptiveness. "Good and very powerful friends," she said quietly.
"Well, that explains some of the readings I was getting from the fight upstairs," Tony remarked.
"Like?"
"Like Strange absolutely pounding the shit out of Nimue."
There was a moment of consideration. While he could be showy and verbally savage, had long earned his reputation for creative nastiness in his punishments, and had an equally well-earned reputation for being an extraordinarily good fighter, Strange was not known for cutting loose with brutally applied industrial scale violence.
Even his most vindictive actions, and his most dramatic, tended to be precisely what the situation required and no more. This was unusual. Even more so was the fact that, phenomenal cosmic powers be damned, Nimue had survived it. Or, indeed, was surviving it, since Strange had not seen fit to join them.
"Stephen is quite fond of children," Wanda said eventually. "Where he can be, he is very protective of them. And above all, he is most protective of those he finds tangled in his schemes." She looked up frowning. "But this is more, I can feel it. This is personal."
"Well, that makes two of us," Carol mumbled. "Which is kind of why I did exactly what Doctor Strange said I shouldn't," she added. "Or, you know, why Merlin isn't getting involved."
"Oh, I don't know about."
This time, everyone's gaze was drawn to an unassuming figure who had so far been quite quiet, and, had Carol had time to spare a thought, was not someone she'd brought in to the bubble. Tall, slim, with dark hair, pale blue eyes, and sharp cheekbones contrasted with protruding ears, he looked like a somewhat scruffy graduate student who'd got lost. Only the relaxed and faintly insouciant expression on his face, coupled with a twinkle in his eye, betrayed any sign of who he really was.
"Actually," said Merlin Emrys, Court Sorcerer of Camelot, Last of the Dragon-Lords, and Right-Hand of Arthur Pendragon. "I was just picking my moment. This seems like a good one."
OoOoO
After the inevitable uproar and confirmation of identity (and belabouring of the point that, time-stop or no time-stop, they really should be getting on with this), Carol finished the summary, with additional input from her companions, and notes and commentary from Wanda and Merlin.
"Nimue's opening up every ley line and convergence on the planet. She's not going for Project Pegasus – she's going for Planet Pegasus."
"And she is well on the way to achieving it."
This latest chime-in was from a more expected personage. A more expected personage who was wearing an expression so dark and stormy that it made the hurricane earlier that night look like a light spring breeze. He also looked like he'd been dragged backwards through a hedge. A burning hedge. A burning hedge with some serious unresolved issues and at least one major grudge. It was unclear whether this was tribute to Nimue's power and ability, or Strange's willingness to neglect his defence in favour of his homicidal instincts. It was also unclear which was the more frightening prospect.
In any case, he moved easily enough, everyone parting to allow him to stride to the centre of the circle around Carol, who he stopped in front of. Diamond blue eyes swept up, down, across and, she would later suspect, around her.
"I'm okay," she said softly.
He completed his survey, and met her gaze. Finally, his expression softened by a few microns.
"Something for which I am deeply grateful," he said. "As Nimue should be."
"Strange," Steve said. "Can you give us a sit-rep?"
"Including how you got clear," Liberty said. "Even you wouldn't have had much room for manoeuvre, against someone so powerful."
"Oh, I can usually find a way," Strange said darkly. "In this case, I've generally found that even the most powerful people tend to become somewhat distracted when they start vomiting up chunks of their own soul."
There was an appalled silence.
"She's down?" Steve asked, with remarkable steadiness.
"Yes."
"But not out," Merlin said, with calm certainty. "Nimue is… persistent."
"And I wasn't actually trying to kill her," Strange added.
"Just torture her," Tony said.
Something cold and utterly malevolent gleamed in Strange's eyes.
"If I was torturing her, you would have heard the screaming."
"Um," Monica said. "Carol sort of… stopped time."
Strange's head slowly turned, moving as if independent of the rest of his body, gaze unblinking. "So?"
Monica leaned away, unnerved.
"Taliesin," Merlin said sharply, before adding something in a language that no one understood, but a tone of universal rebuke.
Strange's head snapped around and he glared at Merlin. It was a glare that had brought cosmic tyrants and arch-sorcerers across the full span of time and space to their knees. It was a glare that had cowed Skyfathers and Earthmothers, Archangels and Demon Lords. It was a glare backed by a will that had bent the very fabric of the cosmos to its own designs. It was, in fact, a glare that, for the first time in recorded history, had absolutely no effect whatsoever.
Instead, it was met by a pair of sky blue eyes that were not angry, just disappointed. Eventually, to universal absolute astonishment, Strange lowered his gaze, looking unmistakeably ashamed. Not so long ago, Wanda had told Captain Luccio that Merlin was the only person with any real influence on Strange.
She had been right.
Any further musing on this topic was prevented by someone with a certain track record in the department of undercutting dramatic moments.
"Okay, are we done with the dick waving?" Carol asked. "Because I have a plan. An important plan. A good plan. A plan which needs brains in heads, not in pants, to refine and then pull off, because it involves thinking like Nimue. Then not thinking like Nimue, because I need to play to my strengths – our strengths – not hers. Then, well..." Her mouth twitched into a wry smile and she tipped her head at Gambit. "Realising that in the end, all this? It's not a battle. It's a con. And that bitch will never see it coming."
Then, she told them how the plan was going to start.
There was a long moment of silence. Then, a slow grin spread across Gambit's face, while everyone else looked a mixture of intrigued, sceptical, and very, very worried.
"Why, Miss Danvers, I am almost lost f'r words. Please take it as de deepest o' compliments when I say dis: we'll make a thief out o' y' yet."
"I don't know about thieves, but I've gotta say, it's just our kind of crazy," Tony commented.
"I mean, it's an unwritten rule that any plan delivered offscreen or in medias res is going to go off like a charm, so we should be cool," said Deadpool, who was promptly ignored.
"Which is why, I suspect, that somewhere James is feeling very proud about his son's choice in girlfriends and doesn't know why," Remus observed.
"This could work," Liberty said cautiously. "It could work very nicely. Though it is not without risk…"
"I can attest that Nimue will never see it coming," Merlin assured her. "And I can attenuate a number of those risks."
Liberty regarded him for a moment, then nodded acceptance and went into a brief conference with Wanda. Wanda, for her part, shot Carol a wink and said, "I like it."
"It's got elements I'm not sure about," Steve said frankly, as Carol's gaze settled uncertainly on him. "But I've got every confidence that you've got most of them covered."
Carol paused. "You're not even going to say anything about my language?"
"Under the circumstances, you get a pass."
Finally, everyone's gaze settled on Strange, who raised an eyebrow. "You know, you people are going to have to start figuring this sort of thing out on your own," he said tartly, before his lips twitched into a faint smile. "Which isn't to say that you're doing badly. No, you're not doing badly at all…"
"Good, because you're not on the side-lines for this," Carol said. "You've got a big part in what's coming, and I get the feeling you're going to enjoy it."
That got two raised eyebrows. "Oh, am I?"
"Yes, you are, and you know it, so shut up and let me explain."
To the surprise of many, Strange smirked and did exactly that.
OoOoO
"Okay, first things first: Nimue is going to come straight for me. She's going to want to knock me out of the game, because I've got half the power she wants – and the only power that can go one on one with her. But I can't go one on one with Nimue for will, direct power, whatever. Even if I didn't get my ass beat, we'd end up wrecking things even more, maybe beyond return."
"But she's still going to home in on you," Steve said.
"That's why I'm going to do one thing that would never occur to her."
OoOoO
Nimue now existed on planes far beyond the physical – unfortunately, however, she was still leashed partly to the physical, as that was where her power was coming from. That meant, in turn, she was limited by the processing abilities of her mortal form, even accelerated by the raw power churning within her and some canny alterations of perception and reality (at her power level, the distinction between the two was satisfactorily irrelevant).
As a result, her reaction times could do with some work. This meant that it took vital nanoseconds to process the development of a giant green bubble, more to connect it to the disappearance of many of the most powerful of those trying to stem the tide (including Doctor Strange, to her private but intense relief), and yet more to identify the kind of magic involved in it.
And that was after she had even noticed it. Vomiting up pieces of her own soul (a thought that made her shudder – just what kind of magics had that diseased mind studied?!) had kept her very preoccupied as the entirety of her being on every plane convulsed with revulsion and horror.
Since this magic was functionally a time stop, a bubble on the river of time, her enemies now had relative hours to reorganise.
Note to Self, she thought, as she idly reconfigured her body into that of a semi-divine being that would require less potentially frantic defence against any sudden attack, and, hopefully, be a bit quicker off the mark in similar situations. Never needing to shave her legs again was a convenient bonus. Complete ascension beyond the reaches of mortal ken and the limitations of squishy meat brains as soon as is convenient.
She paused, then grimaced.
Further Note to Self: post-ascension, avoid Doctor Strange.
Something told her that a man who could make her soul both corporeal and partially decayed enough that she was compelled to vomit up the rancid pieces (which were now mixing with the clouds of magical energy and semi-coherent dreams overhead in an ominous and, it now occurred to her, potentially useful fashion) wouldn't be too greatly impeded by her ascension beyond mortal form, nay, even divinity itself. She quite liked immortality, and she wanted to enjoy it, rather than spending eternity as a cosmic cautionary tale and/or the source of a variation on one of the more disgusting creation stories in a distant part of the cosmos. Especially since she quite strongly suspected that that had only been the warm-up.
She directed part of her awareness to the rest of the world, and thought it not bad, considering. There were a fair few caps and bindings on the various ley nexuses of the world, but those were easily enough dealt with as she almost absently reached out and tweaked the spellwork and enchanted devices to suit, or just removed them entirely, like tugging away a cobweb.
A few she left untouched: the source of a massive dark ley line in Lake Michigan, for instance, which had heard enough tales of that she wanted nothing to do with it. Then there was Uluru, down in the heart of Australia. Opening up the Dreamtime and thus the Dreaming onto Earth? No thank you. She had enough to deal with. With the Isle of the Blessed, however, she gleefully opened up the throttle and watched it burst into renewed life, no longer a ruin haunted by shades but a glory of magic and the old days come again.
Most importantly, though, was where magic earthed itself: in the people. People, young and old, male, female, and other, all across the world, discovering gifts that they had never known they had. Fire rose, winds howled, water flowed, and earth shook as those new gifts took hold, and reached far beyond the mundane elements. Yes, magic was strong again, she thought with satisfaction, as she Talents bursting forth across the world.
The spirit world shuddered, spewing out ghosts and demons of unparalleled potency, which was a bit of a bother, and some of the newly gifted were burning out, which wasn't exactly optimal either. Still, Nimue mused as she squashed the former like bubble wrap and knocked most of the latter unconscious to let them get control (it usually did the trick – not invariably, but what was she, their mother? They could figure it out themselves), no plan was perfect, and no omelette could be made without breaking eggs.
Another part of her investigated the spawning of life and magic on the Moon and Mars. That certainly wasn't expected, but she wasn't complaining, either. Some of the plants both were producing looked like they might have some quite interesting properties. Neither should really be able to support life (or at least, none beyond the vaguely microscopic), but the Wild Magic spinning off the Earth was sorting that. The wonderful thing about magic, especially Wild Magic, was that it was intuitive, adaptive. Therefore, all one really required to solve problems like that was a lot of power and a bit of style. And, in a pinch, style could slide.
She reached out and pushed a wave of intent onto the magic shaping Mars. She had Seen that danger came from the stars, had it tacitly confirmed by Strange's echo, and, well. The Bringer of War would be an appropriate choice for a Fortress World, now wouldn't it? Speaking of which, there was that gate back in Pegasus. That open gate that whispered of stars beyond stars. There was something very interesting about that, she'd have to investigate it later.
Yet another examined the decaying pieces of her soul. As horrifying as the very idea was, the way it made her feel like something very profound was missing in a way that even her vast power could neither erase nor ignore, much less repair… this could play to her advantage. A very satisfyingly vengeful advantage.
The rest, though, reached out to the bubble, examining it carefully. Considering it had been created by a complete amateur, it actually wasn't bad, but in itself, not a problem. However, that complete amateur worried her, and not just because of Strange's involvement (because he was almost certainly inside it, which meant that if she dismantled this bubble by force, it might well prove to be a trap and do something horrible and unexpected). The very concept of the Green Lantern reigniting should have been impossible. Honestly, what else was the point of breaking the damn thing? Well, aside from being on the way to achieving ultimate power. Now, not only had it been replaced by a thrice-damned unknown Aesir artefact, that artefact's thrice-thrice damned wielder was someone who she had turned into a gods-damned tree. Someone who, apparently, had just shrugged it off and neatly pinched half of the power that should have been hers.
How do you shrug off being turned into a tree?
Honestly, it was Merlin and that Emrys business all over again. It was like the universe refused to let her kill certain people – certain people who were right in her way – out of sheer spite. It was so ridiculously frustrating. How was she supposed to get anything done? Speaking of Merlin, he was nowhere to be seen, which was also concerning. She'd checked very, very carefully. Once incinerated, twice shy.
Still, if the young Lantern did go toe to toe with her again (and given her psychology, it was quite likely), then it would turn out in her favour, again, no matter how truly extraordinary the girl's Will was. And it was extraordinary – Nimue was fully prepared to give credit where it was due, no matter how annoying the credited individual was being.
Stubbornness and defiance were familiar enough, but to shape that from mere resilience into a battering ram of challenge… that was something else. It was like watching Alan Scott come again. Really, Nimue thought, it was just a pity that the girl wasn't a witch, she'd have gone far. It was also a pity that she had the exact same power that Nimue did, being potentially the greatest threat to her plans. One that would have to be dealt with. Omelettes and eggs, after all.
Internally, she shrugged and drew her focus back in, this entire process of thought and investigation having taken about three-quarters of a second. Well, better to pop the bubble now and risk unpleasant consequences than be surprised later. Besides, who knew what they might be cooking up in there?
Then, it popped all by itself, time snapping back into full flow.
And as Nimue focused, looking to pick out and bring down her nominal rival once and for all, she noticed that with it came words, faster than speech and resonant in the soul, measured and interwoven with that infernal song.
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
"Attention people of New Orleans, this is Captain America. I know that you're scared. I know that many of you are seeing things out of your worst nightmares. I know that it must seem like a bad dream."
He's gotta be strong, and he's gotta be fast
"But all bad dreams end, including this one. There's someone behind this, someone who she thinks she's a god. But she's nothing of a kind – just another bully with a lust for power and an axe to grind."
Nimue narrowed her eyes across every spectrum, making a note to track Steve Rogers down and hurt him. He had already earned it by spawning the most frustrating opponent she'd encountered since Merlin, but this just made it personal.
"In the meantime, we need your help. Some of you have powers; some you may have known about, others newly discovered. Maybe they're more than you think you could handle. That's okay."
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
"I'm not asking anyone to step out and fight. Right now, we're outnumbered and we've got a lot of ground to cover. But powers or no powers, you can help. You can help people cope with their new powers. You can help the vulnerable, separated from homes, maybe even families. You can help by looking after the people around you. If you can do that… then tonight, you stand with us, as we stand with you. Tonight, you are an Avenger."
I NEED A HERO!
And before Nimue's disbelieving eyes, as the song developed a mocking edge, one very distinctive emerald power signature exploded into dozens, each apparently identical to the others.
Oh, she hated heroes.
OoOoO
"Ambitious," Strange said. "And unprecedented. And, if I may say so, utterly brilliant."
"Thank you. But that's only going to be the start. Nimue's got senses like mine, and she's not stupid. Give her long enough, and she'll be able to split her focus and work it out before we pull the plan off. So, we need more distraction."
"Which, I take it, is where I come in."
"Yeah. You, and Alec, actually. See, I don't know much of the ins and outs of magic, but I know that you can mix it with music. According to Harry, my Harry, you're teaching a class on it."
"That is indeed true."
"You're also really, really good at magic, and I'm pretty sure you're up there with music."
His smile turned to a grin. "You could say that. To put succinctly…." His accent shifted and the smirk turned into a grin. "… 'it might be a sin, but I'll take your bet, you're gonna regret, 'cause I'm the best there's ever been.'"
"Yeah, I guessed it'd be something like that."
"However, I would also caution you. No matter finely I weave a spell, even amplified by the city, it won't be sufficient to contain Nimue, or the power she's unleashed. A symphony is always going to be drowned out by a nuclear bomb." He tilted his head, a challenge dancing in his eyes, a challenge to work it out.
"I noticed. I also noticed something else. So, tell me: what do you think you can do with a magic amp the size of the Empire State?"
OoOoO
The clouds swirled ominously, twirling and writhing like things from beyond, forcing themselves into being. Nimue had had enough, and had decided to focus on an immediate four step plan. Squash the city, stop the interfering heroes, find the one with the real Ring, and shut off that stupid music. Since steps two through four were expected to be achieved as a side-effect of step one, this was in fact a one step plan. Since it was one step that involved the very satisfying feeling of grinding her enemies under her feet, hopefully with due gibbering and terror and perhaps supplication which she might just accept, Nimue was rather okay with this.
Across the world, magic roiled and raged, flaring and bursting out through the skin of the Earth, pulled back and forth by forces both natural and unnatural. Each flare of magic was a note in a song, each chord a random spell swirling in a storm of countervailing melodies and contrasting spells, sliding jarringly in and out of tune, and in and out of reality, with one another. The signal, on which the original spells of this night had ridden, rippled across the world and back again, ebbing and flowing at its mistress' will.
Now, as that mistress prepared for a death stroke, pouring part of her stained and tortured soul to animate the soup of a city's nightmares, it flowed once more. And as horrific shapes, of demons, dragons, Chitauri Leviathans, formed in sky and earth and sea, that meant that something else, something very important, went unnoticed.
At the heart of that original broadcast was a tower, a tree made of magic and living technology. At the base and in the middle of it sat a man who was not at all accustomed to being squashed, despite many attempts. Both musician and mage, his composition had awed Mozart, his violin's bow had equalled Da Vinci's brush, and his laments had made the stars themselves weep. His magical skill went without saying. And as he was acutely aware, he would need to surpass himself in both departments tonight. He needed to do nothing less than reprogram a planet, to retune a world.
"But first," he said to himself, as monsters formed and people screamed in the distance, he ran a hand over his elemental ally and current instrument, ensuring that it was attuned to him, letting it form into a piano. "Let us pick up where we left off."
He brought his hands down. The tower shone a furious emerald-gold, shining like the forest in a summer's dawn as it burned through the coalescing darkness.
The bard poured spells into a carrier-wave of song, a multi-pronged counter of order to chaos that whipped across the world, striking through the material to the mystical to the dreaming itself. And that world sang with him, far louder than before, resonating in the soul with an unmistakeable edge of mocking defiance.
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure, and it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life
Larger than life!
It was a beacon and a challenge, one that made the swarm of emerald lights shine brighter as they converged on the onslaught of nightmares, no matter the forms they took; great leviathans of the skies, abyssal colossi of the storm-tossed seas, and the darting shadows of the earth, all were victims of a War of Light.
It was a message, one that was most certainly received. Because if one tilted one's head upward, and listened very, very closely, then they might hear the response. From somewhere up above, almost drowned out by the music came a long, bloodcurdling, and deeply frustrated scream.
The music, at least, was going nowhere.
OoOoO
"Okay, once Strange's busy annoying the shit out of Nimue, I think we can almost guarantee that her attention won't be going anywhere. He'll be making a lot of noise, and with the super senses that she's got, she's probably going to notice it's the same guy who just made her barf up part of her soul and that he's got a massive amp. That makes it both personal and practical: he's undoing everything she's started, so she has to stop him, and she wants to get even. She has to take out the threat, and she wants to take out the threat."
"Nimue's not stupid," Merlin warned. "She also won't quite believe how much you're willing to share your power. She won't charge straight in – she'll be cautious, expecting a trap."
"I know. That's why I'm going to give her something she can't ignore. Something that's just what she's expecting…"
OoOoO
As green blurs blurred across the city, into the sea and into the skies to confront all that came forth, Nimue held position. Even as a group went to the Cities of the Dead, she didn't act, merely noting the logic of the tactic. Martha Liberty had lived in New Orleans for centuries. She knew where a lot of the bodies are buried, literally and figuratively, and some careful snooping after Katrina had revealed that as storm walls and levees were built up, Liberty, her supporters, and the southern branch of MACUSA had arranged to have some massive protective magical wards built in, designed to absorb and shed all kinds of energy.
Technically, Nimue had to admit that they were brilliant. The limitations of warding public areas had been cleverly circumvented by incorporating protective spirits that were otherwise unorganised, but now bound by pacts into a cohesive whole when called upon. To use a construction metaphor, they were the aggregate and the sand, and the wards were the cement binding them into concrete.
Those defences were why she had been keeping an eye on them, as it was quite possible that – with enough power – they could be used to do far more. They weren't the only group she was watching, either. The original Ring was around somewhere, the one that all the others drew from. Like the original Lantern, if she could take it – and its wielder – then she could cut this right off at the knees.
And she definitely needed to do that. Splitting the Ring wasn't just a superficial distraction, oh no. It was a tactical move as brilliant as it was irritating. The girl had clearly realised during her time-stop (and how she'd managed that, Nimue had no idea – not knowing it shouldn't be possible, probably) how outmatched she was in straight combat and that there wasn't a chance in hell that she had the magical skill or discipline to counter everything Nimue was doing, even if she could somehow understand it. Given how it taken on a momentum of its own, Nimue reckoned that no one could, no matter how great their understanding. Well, not so long as she was there to give it the occasional push. So far, so good.
Unfortunately, splitting the Ring had thrown a monkey wrench in that smooth running plan. Now, some degree of the Ring's power was split between dozens of other wielders. All of them were far weaker than she was, but the simple fact was that there were so many of them – she had the discipline and the power to split her focus, to act through avatars, yes. However, that only worked up to a point, especially since she was busy making sure the spells stayed rolling and countering the various other Powers of the world who had noticed what she was doing and were volubly Not Happy. While they could go fuck themselves in her opinion, and smacking a pantheon on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and shutting them outside was very satisfying, it took a fair bit of focus – all the more so when it was several.
True, she'd co-opted and directed a number of other Powers, giving them something else to keep themselves busy with, but even so. The simple fact of the matter was that she was still partly mortal and distasteful as it was, she still had limits and the Ring-Bearers were stretching them.
While the girl's limits were far tighter, and her magical knowledge was (to put it very kindly) lacking, by splitting the Ring, she had neatly circumvented both issues, while also massively empowering her allies to counter Nimue's moves. That put the ball firmly back in her court, forcing her to react while the girl, or whoever was now wearing the Master Ring, could gather their strength for a critical strike the moment she left herself vulnerable.
She glowered at another emerald-limned shape, just one example of the problems she faced. This one was a young man transfigured into an avatar of golden lightning, wreaking havoc on half-formed nightmares and newborn dream-constructs as he streaked through the skies along a road made of a pale and ephemeral rainbow of refracted lightning light. He was only barely visible to semi-divine senses working to their fullest extent. She'd noticed him before. He'd been a lightning-wreathed blur before, yes, and a troublesome one. He had also been confined to the ground. And slower.
The worst problem, though, was the reason that she was going to have to make herself vulnerable at some point. That reason was the absolute bastard who'd hijacked her Spire, and was using it as a giant Ring-fuelled radio antenna. Again, brilliant, but infuriating, especially since it was not only the source of that incredibly irritating music (which was directed straight at her, she just knew it), but that music was acting as a carrier for a constant stream of unbelievably complex spell-work which was neatly binding the world, stilling the unleashed furies and calming the turmoil. And, worse, it was hijacking her power to do it. No wonder she wasn't imagining the mocking edge to the lyrics (and she wasn't, oh she definitely wasn't).
She'd have swatted that one down directly, roasting the Spire and the cheeky bastard behind it with it, potential vulnerability be damned. However, there were a few things that made her hesitate.
First, if she smacked down any of them, she'd still have plenty of others to worry about – and if what she suspected was true, they'd all be that much more powerful as the power redistributed itself. She'd be fine swatting all of them, but there were enough of them – and enough truly powerful ones – that there was every chance that she'd miss the one possessing the Master Ring. Or, frankly, another threat, capable of truly harming her (not likely, but there were a few, at least one of whom hadn't revealed himself yet). Either way, it risked exposing herself to a true threat and leaving the metaphorical dagger stuck in her back. This did not appeal.
Second, to her admittedly incomplete knowledge, there weren't many powerful sorcerers who were skilled musicians, let alone skilled with musical magic, let alone ones that good. She'd never studied it in detail herself, but she knew enough about rituals and the principles to know that in the right hands, it could be very potent (as it was being right now, she thought sourly, throwing in a discordant note and souring even further when it was neatly absorbed by a casual improvisation with nary a flicker in the flow of the music), allowing one practitioner to cast dozens of spells in a unified sequence. The main flaws in it were the requirements to maintain perfect rhythm to maximise the effects, and avoid the risk of them backfiring, and the problems with getting up to speed fast enough to have any real effect. She could only think of one candidate, especially if his real name was what she thought it was. After her return, she'd dug through the histories of Camelot, and the myths too.
Doctor Strange had all but stated that he had been part of Arthur's Court, likely a powerful part of it. There weren't many candidates for that, and even fewer who had survived. Almost none, really, barring Merlin. But inspection had revealed that there was someone. Someone, in fact, who had gone to a great deal of trouble to obscure his presence – not erase it, leave a mystery visible from the gap that remained, but leave it misty and vague, easy to dismiss and full of reasonable doubt. Taliesin; a great seer and a bard of legend, and associated with Arthur's court from the earliest surviving myths, fragmentary as they might be. He wasn't in the records, save in the most minor and contradictory capacity, but Nimue knew a thing or two about concealment, and he was almost concealed too well. And while she didn't know much about Strange as a musician, his skills as a seer were legendary.
In short: the man behind the music was almost certainly Doctor Strange. And if she attacked him directly, even if he wasn't wearing the Master Ring…
She bit her lip. On the one hand, everything from her instincts of self-preservation to her desire for revenge to her tactical sense of the sway of the magical battle worldwide was shrieking at her to attack him. He was literally undoing her work, right before her eyes, and mocking her with it.
On the other, their last confrontation hadn't gone well, even when he hadn't had even a splinter-ring. True, he would be deeply distracted, and perfectly vulnerable. Too vulnerable. If he didn't have the Master Ring, or somehow someone else had revealed such a talent at a very inconvenient time (and it would be just her luck if they did), then she'd be opening herself for a backstab. Especially if he somehow survived her attack. By the gods, surely he knew how big a target he was making of himself.
He was daring her, goading her, he had to be. Nimue narrowed her eyes. She had spent fifteen centuries under the Earth, and three decades as a shadow of herself because she'd underestimated the right hand of Arthur Pendragon. She was not going to make the same mistake with his left.
She bent her will onto the creatures in the sky and on the earth – well, the ones that weren't falling into stricken ruin at the hands of empowered champions and mortal technology, anyway. Choirs of steel-winged predator-angels, clouds of giant scale-winged bats, and leathery pinioned networked demons plummeted from the sky, and a vast wave of creatures, cybernetic vampires, hideously spliced creatures of myth, and a tidal wave of symbiotes, mere beginnings of an army of biotechnological magic-warped horrors converged on the Spire from all sides.
In the meantime, the bulk of Nimue's focus built up a strike, one that would turn the city into a smouldering crater of ceramics and glass, primed for the moment of response and distraction. It might be overkill, but there was no sense in being incautious, after all, and even if she didn't pick off the true rival Champion, then she would at least have spiked their strategy. Besides, it wasn't like she didn't have power to spare.
The response was swift and savage.
An emerald comet shot upwards from the city, right from the base of the Spire. It howled into the sky, searing through sky-blackening clouds of monsters, mixing rain with ash, before slamming into the soul-steeped clouds of living dream with a force that resonated in the spirits of everyone in the city, burning away a massive chunk of them in the process, causing an immediate and disgusting rain of ectoplasm. A small part of Nimue noticed that the ambient wild magical energy was such that some of it was immediately re-imbued with power, turning into a sperm whale on the way down. Another bit, meanwhile, turned into what looked very much like a vase of flowers.
At the same time, though, much of the comet's power mixed with the rain of ectoplasm, and struck downwards in a rain of emerald flechettes, neatly wiping out a solid quarter of the converging monsters.
That, however, was only the start.
An emerald light flared again, and massive blasts of shimmering starlit energy shot along the main streets with a massive humming roar, clearing them of both monsters and, indeed, anything liquid or solid for half a mile in each cardinal direction. Meanwhile, out of the shadows of the Spire shot a stream of sleek, snub-nosed objects the rough size of subway cars, pinkish-orange exhausts flaring as they screamed into the sky, each spinning off and revealing a familiar profile as they split off and opened fire.
"Well," Nimue said to herself, with grudging admiration as the giant squadron of conjured X-Wings began to clear the skies with methodical ruthlessness. "I suppose that's one way to use a Ring."
She watched as the X-Wing squadron split in two with some unnecessarily dramatic barrel-rolls, before harrying the aerial monsters with wolfpack tactics, carving off the slower and weaker individuals. Since Nimue had released her control on the monsters, which were unaccustomed to being hunted or working together, and were terrified besides, they fell to savagely clawing at each other in their hurry to get out of the way of the surprisingly detailed constructs.
Overly detailed, in Nimue's private opinion – there was a time and a place for intricacy in magic, and elaborate detail in one's conjured servants was not among them. It was a waste of time, focus, and energy. Here, though, it was a useful insight. The unnecessary detail, the casual raw power, and, yes, the ingenuity… they all told Nimue exactly what she needed to know.
First, Strange was occupied, and thus vulnerable.
Second, his assigned protector was the girl.
Third, she wielded the Master Ring.
Given the task's comparatively uncomplicated nature, belligerence, and required power, it made perfect sense. She was there to take down anything that came their way, while he undid everything Nimue was working on. Everyone else was a distraction – a failed distraction – and acting to smooth their path by disrupting hers.
Fourth and finally… Nimue smiled. She could take them both.
She stooped like falcon, dropping like a stone, bulling her way through enchantments and shrugging off heavy mortal weaponry. Some of it, the orange blasts, stung and she gestured irritably at the silvery-white suit (Stark the younger, probably, not that it really mattered), turning it to salt. The pilot survived, the product of some impressive and annoying enchantments, but given that he was twelve thousand feet up, that was likely to be a temporary state of affairs.
Then, agony surged through her very soul in a way that thanks to the events of tonight, she was intimately familiar with. This time, rather than decay, it was lightning, the crimson lightning of an Earth-mage's nightmares, a power that screamed of its unnatural nature as a perversion of magic.
Nimue writhed, her being twisting and elongating to cope with the twisted power and escape the worst of the strike, a serpentine move that hurled her back up into the upper sky, allowing her a moment's respite to contract her form and reassess the situation, looking down. As she did, for all that thousands of feet of tempest tossed ensorcelled sky separated them, she met the gaze of her foe.
The Chaos-Child had come forth.
And that concludes this chapter. The next, and last, of this In Medias Res adventure will be coming soon to a computer/phone screen near you.