So, you guys have been waiting for ages to get a new chapter of this, so here ya go!
I know the readers of Gods of Dragons have been waiting longer, but Writers' Block has been feasting on those ideas for ages and I can't seem to get past what Balance is doing in the desert...
But whatever - you guys aren't here to see me rant; you're here to read this fic!
Enjoy!
Midgard/Earth
The Triskelion
A few weeks after Fury's encounter with the demigods, he returned to his office to find a ceramic pot on his desk.
It had the word YES painted on it.
Fury sighed.
Agent Fierro was going to be a hassle.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
New Mexico
A few years later…
Percy looked up from his vantage point at the top of the mobile research facility; it was thundering. His first thought was to give it the middle finger, but his second thought reminded him that there was a certain Lord of the Sky up there that hated his guts and would take any excuse to fry him to a crisp.
So he simply thought the middle finger at the gathering storm clouds.
It didn't help Zeus' apparent mood.
"Agent Jackson, status please." In amongst a crackle of static the voice of one of Percy's superiors, Agent Matilda Honey, reached his ears.
"I'm perfectly fine," Percy said, fiddling with Riptide (which was in its pen form).
"You look as if you expect to be struck by lightning any minute," Alex chipped in unhelpfully.
"Agent Fierro, thank you for the observation," Agent Honey said calmly, "however unhelpful it was."
"It was very unhelpful," Percy cut in. "The most unhelpful."
"What would Annabeth say?"
"I'm sure that if Agent Chase was here right now, she'd be focusing on the task, not bantering with a couple of idiots."
"Nah, she'd be bantering alright, if it was only to get to the point of 'Please shut up'."
Another crack of lightning overhead, which surprisingly lit up the surrounding area at the same time as the accompanying rumble of thunder.
The storm was upon them.
"Agent Jackson," Agent Honey said, voice surrounded by even more static than last time, "it would be best if you came down to ground level."
"Coming to ground level," Percy replied, thankful that someone was letting him back down.
"Agent Fierro is coming up to your position," she added.
Percy was fine with that – last he'd checked, Alex had helped prevent Ragnarök from happening three or seven years ago, so they were somewhat equally qualified in the 'Universe Saving' department.
A horsefly flew up to his position, its transformation from bug to Alex's 'human' form almost as fluid as his gender.
"You can descend the stairs now," he said, his voice somewhat mocking.
"Better than an elevator," Percy muttered.
He made it to ground level and found Agent Honey waiting for him.
"You made it without being fried," she said. "Good job. Walk with me."
Percy fell into step beside her as they walked.
"Tech's barely working currently," she said. "Comms are expected to come down within a few minutes, and the cameras on the hammer are flickering."
"That's not good," Percy commented, however relieved he was on the inside about monsters not coming to his location anymore.
His superior stopped, raising her right hand to her ear.
"We've got a breach," she said. "A couple of agents are going to check it out as we speak but be prepared. We don't want this turning out like last time."
"Don't remind me," the son of Poseidon grumbled – last time had been because of a couple of dracanae decided they'd chance themselves with the facility. They'd killed a couple agents, injuring about a dozen or so more, and Percy had had to 'put them down', so to speak.
Then, the panicked report of someone by the fence came through the barely working comms;
"Agent down!"
Static.
"We've got a perimeter breach!"
Agent Honey looked at Percy.
"You know what to do," she told him, and Percy nodded, uncapping Riptide as he went, leaving her barking orders into the comms before they ultimately went down.
Alarms blared over head as Percy ran down the halls, panicked voices merging with the static between words.
He was pretty sure that several hundred (if not thousand) profanities went up and down the lines during this period of time, but they were so static-like a creative that it was hard to tell – Percy muttered a few in Ancient Greek and Latin as well, but he was pretty sure he could never beat Alex's record for most curses available at a moment's notice.
People ran everywhere, mostly rushing outside with guns and such weapons, but Percy stayed focused on his goal: find whatever monster had done this and kill it.
It was a painful wait (at least it wasn't in silence) for the intruder or intruders to appear.
More lightning crackled overhead, accompanied by thunder.
Percy knew now more than ever that this wasn't Zeus' fault; some other pantheon's sky god had had a bad day and was taking it out on them.
Perhaps it even had something to do with the hammer rooted in the column of rock in the centre of this SHIELD research facility…
Percy found the intruder.
He was tall, with chin-length golden-blonde hair – honestly, if he hadn't been punching his way through the staff Percy would've thought he was a descendant of Apollo.
He fought like a seasoned warrior, and seemed to know exactly how and when each agent would strike, dodging and countering effortlessly.
Agent Honey was at the other end of the hall, gun in her hand (which usually meant she was at the end of her pretty long temper). Her eyes reflecting the light, and then keeping it, the green circles of light glaring straight at the intruder, who seemed confused, like he hadn't trained for this.
She fired the gun until it was empty, every shot seemed to have missed. The intruder laughed and rushed her.
Percy tapped into his powers, warping the water falling around them. He knew Agent Honey's trick – she did still have her telekinesis, after all. The water stopped thrumming on the roof of the tunnel.
The intruder's grin dropped.
All fifteen of the bullets came hurtling back towards him, tearing through his raincoat (which honestly looked more like a rain cloak). Three grazed his arms, and he began to seemingly pull his punches.
Percy struck, having coated Riptide in a layer of ice so even if he was mortal, he'd still be able to at least injure him, and the torrent of water that he'd collected blasted the intruder in the face.
More agents rounded the corner.
Agent Honey uttered one word that cut through the sirens like a knife through butter; "Fire."
And all Hades broke loose.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/\/\
The comms dropped out.
Alex was cut off form communications.
And they were being attacked by an Asgardian – not one of the Aesir, an Asgardian – which meant that he might be screwed.
"Whatever," he muttered under his breath. "Not like I can't join the fight, right?"
And that's what Alex did.
The form of a horsefly had always been one to panic into, for both Alex and his sister, Sam, but Alex didn't feel like being a bug at the moment. He was in more of an eagle mood.
And as Alex shifted, there was a slight twinge, a change.
Well, changing form and gender had happened before, so she wasn't surprised.
She glided down, using the lack of rain in one area as a way to pinpoint where Percy had most recently used his powers, and the gunshots and bullets flying everywhere that Agent Honey had lost her temper.
Alex slipped into 'human' form and slid her garrotte out of her belt, slashing the plastic covering to bits so she could enter, landing in a roll and recovering just in time to be shot in the arm.
She glared at the agent who'd been responsible (who shrunk back and ran), which caused the agents assembled behind Agent Honey to break ranks – as they were all (quite wisely) wary of the seventeen year old that didn't age and was technically dead – and flee.
There went their reinforcements.
And the Asgardian intruder.
A string of several profanities spreading across no less than four languages poured out of Alex's mouth.
Agent Honey looked at her, something of disapproval in her eyes, but for no more than a few seconds, as her (miraculously still working) comms crackled to life with a set of instructions from one of the higher-ranked agents – Agent Phil Coulson – came through;
"We need eyes up high."
Static.
"With a gun."
Agent Honey looked at the two demigods.
"Well, go on then!" she said. "No fucking around this time!"
"Yes ma'am," Percy said, retrieving Riptide from where it had fallen to the floor.
Alex simply nodded in response, curling up her garrotte and jogging after the intruder.
Thankfully neither decided banter was a good thing to be doing at that particular moment in time.
Using their (hopefully) superior knowledge of the facility, they ran after the blonde, discovering that he didn't bother with the shorter and more direct path (which was no-doubt full of armed agents), instead using shortcuts to make his way to the hammer.
They heard the crane moving.
Percy met Alex's gaze and a silent agreement passed between the two of them, as Percy tore open the roof and Alex flew through, using the form of a peregrine falcon (the world's fastest bird) and spotting what the crane was moving: Agent Clint Barton (who had been aptly codenamed Hawkeye for his great observation skills and brilliant eyesight) who had, not a gun like Coulson had requested, but his usual bow with an arrow nocked in it.
"You want me to slow him down, sir?" he said into his comms (honestly, how weren't Alex's working and Barton's were?!). "Or are you sending in more guys for him to beat up?"
Alex landed on the railing at the top of the facility, right where she had been before, and watched the intruder walk in, settling his gaze on his prize: the hammer.
Only now, looking at it with the sharp eyes of the falcon, did Alex notice the runic inscriptions on it. Hearthstone or Halfborn might've been able to read them, but it looked enough like Mjölnir to pass for it if Thor ever lost his hammer again (which was very likely).
Percy made it in front of him, delivering a punch to the face that the son of Poseidon's old enemy Clarisse would be proud of, sending the intruder backwards and onto his ass.
The intruder wisely stayed silent, seeming to bite back a comment, which Percy showed he was thankful for by slamming the butt of his sword down on the man's head and continuing to fight non-lethally.
Alex swooped over to join him, changing into a goat mid-flight and barrelling the blonde over and through the plastic wall, giving Percy a break.
She changed into a cheetah and sprinted towards him, leaping and shifting into the form of an armadillo to smash him in the face.
The intruder was not impressed.
Eventually Percy joined them, manipulating the water in both the rain and the mud to give the demigods the best traction, and to keep the intruder slipping up, which ended up in the crater turning into a slip-and-slide but with mud instead of water, which didn't turn out well for any of the combatants.
Alex kept changing forms to suit the conditions, even turning into a squirrel at one point, which not only surprised the intruder but also brought up some painful memories from scaling Yggdrasil about Ratatosk, and a dog at another.
Percy kept using the wet conditions to his advantage, tapping into the abilities he'd inherited from his father to keep the fight as unfair as possible (which was why the crater had become the aforementioned mud slip-and-slide).
Eventually, though, they realised that rain can't keep the son of Poseidon going forever, and neither demigod was immune to a knock in the head.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Thor had to admit that the shapeshifter and the swordsman had been very worthy opponents – the swordsman perhaps would be able to take Fandral in a match, and the shapeshifter take Loki – but Thor had won that battle.
The most confusing part about this, however, was that neither of them had been in his dream – the first timeline, rather – nor had the telekinetic. They'd all been new combatants, new people – what had Loki called it? – an X-factor.
But the lightning still cracked overhead, the thunder kept announcing the presence of it, and the rain still fell.
The storm kept going.
And so did Thor.
His eyes settled upon Mjölnir.
It called, not to him, but to someone else.
Jane.
He looked over at where she was hiding, and she looked right back.
If she'd been able to pick it up near the end last time, could she pick it up now? His mind wondered.
Jane nodded, seeming to understand the million complicated and unjoined sentences and jumbled-up words his eyes were conveying, and got up.
She could do this, couldn't she?
Thor bided his time, waiting for someone else to challenge him.
The shapeshifter got up first.
Despite the bullet wound in his arm, he was perfectly fine. His green hair was soaked and he glared at Thor, sliding a long, thin, golden wire from his belt, which he whipped around using the handle at one end.
It conveyed one, simple, clear message: He wasn't going to play nice anymore.
Neither was Thor.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\
First of all, Matilda was pissed.
Second of all, Agent Jackson had been knocked out fighting the intruder.
Third of all, Agent Fierro was fighting with intent to kill.
This had to be one of the worst days she'd ever had at SHIELD since she'd been put into HR for exactly three months.
She directed personnel from the control centre, sending them around the perimeter to check for accomplices of the intruder, sending them to assist Agents Fierro and Jackson, etcetera.
"Agent Honey," Coulson addressed her.
"Agent Coulson," she replied coolly.
"Where are Jackson and Fierro?"
"Outside – worse part is Jackson's been knocked out when he's surrounded by water."
"And Fierro?"
"Fighting with intent to kill."
Coulson sighed, before raising his walkie-talkie to his mouth. "Agent Barton, use your vantage point to check for accomplices."
"Already have," Barton's voice came back through, surrounded by static. "It's too dark to see much of anything from here, sir."
Matilda grabbed a second Glock from the wall, and reloaded her other one.
"Agent Honey, where are you going?" Coulson asked her.
"To help," Matilda replied, "since they're not doing so well on their own."
He nodded in understanding.
"None of them are to die, nor are you, understand?"
"Of course, Agent Coulson."
And she left, firing three bullets as soon as she exited the door – non-lethal rounds (which could turn lethal if fired at the wrong spot).
All three of them were covered in mud, and Agent Fierro was whirling his garrotte around and around like a lasso, using it like a whip every now and then
Considering the amount of fur and feathers that lay around, Fierro had been shifting forms.
Also considering the number of cuts that had drawn blood on the intruder's arms, this had been going on for quite a while.
Jackson was lying a few metres away on his side, his sword buried hilt-deep in the mud, and his tattoo on full display, though none could quite read what it said.
The three bullets Matilda had fired earlier whirled back around, curving their paths so they would only get Fierro out of his craze, and to get the intruder's attention.
It achieved the latter, not so much the former.
The intruder whirled his head around, looking in the opposite direction Matilda was standing to try and trace the bullet's origin.
Fierro shifted forms from human to a massive python, taking advantage of his opponent's distraction to attack.
"Agent Fierro!" Matilda yelled. "Stop this nonsense immediately!"
The heads of both combatants whipped around to face her.
Jackson get on your gods-damned feet, she thought.
The python hissed, though it honestly sounded more like a growl to Matilda, and pounced.
Well, snakes didn't really 'pounce'. It was more of a 'graceful leap onto to-be prey'.
Matilda didn't want to be its prey.
She fired another few rounds from her Glocks, which the snake dodged on its pursuit.
Is Fierro even still in there? part of Matilda's mind wondered. Jackson did tell me about the eidolons…
But now really wasn't the most appropriate situation to check if the snake's eyes were Fierro's normal heterochromic brown and amber, or the gold of an eidolon's prey.
The intruder delivered a blow to the snake's body, his fist colliding with the python's thick body, which definitely got its attention.
It shifted from snake form to human and delivered another few blows with the garrotte.
To say it wasn't going well was an understatement.
It was going terribly.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\
Jane ran around the perimeter, using a pair of wire-cutters she'd stolen from Darcy to make a new hole in the fence and squeezing through it.
Thor was busy fighting people whom he wasn't prepared for – a shapeshifter, someone who was pretty darn good with a sword, and a telekinetic, all of whom were SHIELD agents, and one (or multiple) of which had displaced enough water to fill an Olympic swimming pool.
Jane dashed through the tunnels, making it to the centre of the research facility (which really wasn't that complicated on the outside, but was much more complicated on the inside thanks to every hallway looking to same) before someone found her.
An arrow sprouted at her feet.
She looked up – she couldn't discern the person behind the bow but could work out that they were of average height and stood on a small crate held in the air by a crane.
She turned and saw several SHIELD agents dashing towards her, black uniforms standing out from the white plastic walls of the tunnels.
She ran.
And ran.
And ran.
She got out of the tunnels, somehow finding herself watching the shapeshifter and telekinetic grappling with each other, but there was something off about the shapeshifter's eyes.
Gold wasn't a natural eye colour, was it?
She watched as Thor brought his fist down on the shapeshifter's reptilian coils, getting their attention. They shifted back to human form and rushed him with a wire made of gold that reminded Jane of the clay-cutters they'd used in middle-school art classes.
The swordsman got up.
The water falling around the four rippled, and stopped, before gathering into a large ball and being fired at the other three, rendering the telekinetic's gun useless and getting all their attention.
He yelled something in another language.
The shapeshifter replied in the same language.
Thor looked rather confused, before a look of realisation dawned upon his face, quickly disappearing under a mask of cold calmness – a poker face of sorts.
The swordsman then yelled something that Jane could both hear and understand;
"I remember this eidolon – you possessed me, didn't you?" he said. "Face me yourself, coward, in an unpowered form. Then we will see who comes out on top."
The shapeshifter chuckled. "Of course you would like a fair fight," they said, "well, Death sends a message; find the four weapons and you shall be rewarded."
Death sends a message…
The shapeshifter then collapsed, and Thor made a run for it.
Ah, yes. Slight cliffhangers.
Not as torturous as Riordan's Tartarus-sized cliffhanger, but it's still a cliffhanger!
And Matilda's in this, of course. She still has her powers and is so smart that when you realise it gets uncomfortable. Every shot was calculated. She has worked out how to harness her telekinesis to use one bullet to cause multiple bullet wounds.
Next chapter, we'll be checking in with Gorr and whoever the Hel he's aligned himself with in this world.
-Wolf
