by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings. This chapter includes visions of society that are old… but perhaps not that outdated.
Thrud ThorsdottirMental activity is electricity.
Intense mental activity can be detected as electrical current, if you know how to detect it.
Sometimes, when you touch someone or something, you get an inexplicable jolt of electricity, that doesn't reproduces when you try again. Often, you shrug and say it was because you might have rubbed against some woollen cardigan, in the bus.
But not always.
Taylor had many such incidents, when growing up. She was a highly introverted girl, who preferred mental activity over the physical. She liked school, and was disliked by the most popular and outgoing students… and the dumbest ones. She liked reading, and did that a lot, and she got progressively more intense books to read.
Her mother liked to read, too, but not with the same single-minded application. Her father tried to insert comic books in the pile (imports from Earth Aleph, with costumed heroes called Avengers), and succeeded in having her read the thing… in five minutes. And then she continued to the next book, from Tolstoï – War and Peace.
On the opposite side of the scale was her friend Emma: outgoing, dressed to impress, and clearly not bothering to read. Despite this polar opposition, Emma was her friend – her only one, in fact. And that was only because she was the daughter of her father's friend, making their tentative friendship inevitable. For as long as it lasted, that is.
When Emma found in Sophia a kindred spirit in "athletic rule-breaking appearing legit", she jumped in with both feet, leaving Taylor to hang. And Taylor did as she always did: she internalized the change, the hateful words, and the bullying that ensued. And she wouldn't react. She would shed tears, and cry, but she wouldn't strike back, yell, or (on the opposite side of bullying victims' behaviour) off herself.
Not having seen that model of humanity before, Sophia pressed forward, curious and also angry that this twig of a girl wouldn't conform to her worldview – that you were either a predator or a prey. With her lack of reaction, Taylor fit neither concept, and Sophia, pulling Emma along, wanted to see when she would crack.
And, yes, they ended up pushing her into a contaminated locker. It was the first time Taylor screamed at them, pleading to be let out. They were too far gone, though, and only laughed, while taking care of onlookers: nobody dared cross Sophia Hess, especially when she was backed with several jocks – they had prepared the "event" beforehand.
The electrical current in Taylor's head increased due to her panic, and, soon, there was too much, and some started to leak. Small sparks started to run up and down her body, killing insects on their way. Soon, electricity arcs appeared between her body and the steel coffin, and some students nearby got a jolt from touching the locker row. Like an exponential function, though, the current continued to increase, going from "unpleasant" to "harmful" and then directly to "deadly": some of the students, who had a hand holding their locker door, clenched their muscles in reaction to the current, and couldn't let go as they were electrocuted. Screams joined Taylor's, then, curiously synchronized as the electricity bursts came when she struck the door.
While this was going on, Sophia was getting up: when the first jolts came out, she had been knocked unconscious… but it wasn't from the electricity. It was because she was re-experiencing her trigger event, thanks to Taylor having one nearby. And, recognizing the signs, she tried to protect her ass.
She pulled Emma, who pulled Madison as well, and they left. Given the pandemonium they left behind, including the electricity arcs going from the locker row to the walls, everybody was fleeing, and no one would help Taylor now. Someone even activated the fire alarm, not realizing that spreading water on the ground was a Bad Idea when someone was throwing electricity around.
On her way out, Sophia checked her phones. Her civilian one was out, but her Wards one had better insulation and she called her base.
"Armsmaster." came from the other end.
"Hostile cape in Winslow." she replied – she knew how the man thought, and gave what she thought he needed to act against Taylor. "Attacked me with electricity powers. Possible casualties."
"On it." he said, before hanging up. Sophia did the same with a vicious grin. She didn't even have to fear the Protectorate's inspection of the locker row: her own locker, with her own contraband (including crossbows with lethal bolts) was on another floor.
While the people in Winslow was still gathering in the parking lot, a red blur entered the school. Velocity was the fastest hero, and already on patrol nearby. Warned by Armsmaster, he entered the school, avoided the ozone-smelling area obviously filled with lightning, and approached a fallen student, lying on the ground with vapour coming out of their body.
In doing so, he stepped in an innocent-looking puddle of water, and all the power of speed fell to the wayside when high-voltage electricity went through his body. His muscles clenched painfully, all of them, including his heart. Soon, he was as dead as the other person, both approaching a temperature more appropriate for cooking than living.
Armsmaster arrived afterwards, and immediately sealed his armour to protect himself. His first thought was to check on Velocity, and seeing him dead immediately made him angry. The echoes of cries of panic didn't register as coming from the culprit, in his mind, and he approached the corridor.
"Colin, don't-" came a voice to his ear. Dragon. But with the lightning going around, the voice was crackling, and the rest of the message went unheard.
Besides, Armsmaster wouldn't have listened anyways. In a bloodlust over the attack on his charge, and the death of his colleague, he went on the offensive as soon as he could, the figurative gloves off. The fact that he was shooting at a gangly teenage girl struggling to get out of a disgustingly smelling locker (the door of which was on the ground, still red-hot near the hinges) would be forgotten by history. Or so he thought.
Taylor was feeling like hell already, despite her escape. She hadn't even realized what had happened outside. And she felt multiple impacts on her body, adding to her distress. Impacts with the damage equivalent of bullets, with the added effect of pumping Brute-level tranquilizers in her blood.
Still in high-stress hi-distress state, Taylor reacted instinctively, using her new powers in ways she couldn't consciously conceive. From her hands, held up in protection towards her attacker, two bolts of lightning shot out, impacting the Protectorate Hero and throwing him into the girl's bathroom. Her body and mind were still generating electricity, and the tranquilizer had no effect on her supercharged brain. But she had a broken leg from the blow that had impacted her tibia bone directly.
That's when she discovered that electrical currents can generate magnetic fields, which can themselves be in opposition to one another, allowing her… to fly! In a way. Like magnets pushing each other away, she was pushed away from the planet's centre, and started to float in the corridor.
Her hair, dirty and slightly shortened by insect bites as it was, was floating as well. Her pants were ripped from the knee down and her shoes had been incinerated, leaving her feet dangling in the air, only covered in ashes. And she inspected her own hands with surprise. And then the plaster wall through which she had thrown the well-known hero. And then the whole corridor… with the people dead in it, visibly burned and electrocuted… because of her.
Screaming again, in a wail of despair and panic, turned the electricity inside, as if she wanted to kill herself. But the power-granting alien shard rejected that idea and used the energy to build matter, instead, growing muscle and bone density… and the eye she had scratched out when insects of all kinds had started to eat her. With perfect vision. Taylor's second trigger granted her a few more abilities, including-
Wham!
-a Brute rating allowing her to tank a blow to the head from the shaft of Armsmaster's damaged halberd (its head had been fried by the earlier lightning).
Grasping the melee weapon, she flew backwards, and noticed that the grim hero stayed attached, following her. He resolutely kept a hold when she smashed through the first-floor window, and again when she flew up instead of down.
"Surrender!" he tried to say – or, at least, he was saying it. Yelling, even. But his insulation had his voice transferred to the outside speaker… which was fried. And, of course, he didn't notice. Too taken in his rage, he didn't realize that he was too high before it was too late.
It happened when, after striking at her broken leg on purpose, she cried in pain and let lightning course through the halberd. His human body was insulated, but not his armour, and his numerous systems failed, leaving him in the dark. And in free-fall.
Taylor wanted to catch him. She really did. But when the other heroes saw her plunge after him, the halberd in hand, they thought she wanted to impale him. So, instead of getting to him, they attacked her. Including a jet of lightning from Dauntless' lance – which added to her power, instead of damaging her. With the added boost, she even healed her leg, her energy-to-matter conversion rate lower than before but still useable.
Seeing the number of vengeful capes arrayed against her, she stopped a second to think, and came to a startling realization: she was well and truly fucked. There was no way she could return to civilian life, now, especially in this town.
In front of her was a girl hero she hadn't met before, but she knew that body language by heart. The "hero" Ward that was Shadow Stalker was Sophia Hess, her personal bully, all this time. Could she turn her in and return to some semblance of peace? No: she had seen people dead, and had just killed their leader (from their point of view). Even if she told the truth and implicated Shadow Stalker, she wouldn't be taken seriously.
She had to leave, and the sooner was the better, as escalation was a thing, and the Triumvirate had probably been called. She was quite sure of it.
Given the Protectorate's reach, she wouldn't even be given the benefit of the doubt in any area under their purview. She briefly thought of going north, and even started flying up and away in that direction, but she also realized that, despite their differences, the Guild was more a little brother to the Protectorate, and would report her as soon as she landed. In the same way, thinking of waiting for the night to fall in order to get to her father would be bad for him, her, or both.
Her heart heavy, she flew away, still heading northwards and upwards. She wasn't fast or even manoeuvrable, but her speed increased continuously. The few heroes who could fly were still reeling from the shock of seeing Armsmaster tumbling down from the sky after hearing about Velocity's death. Suddenly, the game of cops and robbers was exposed as hazardous, and a few reeled.
Few heroes could follow, and the ones who could (Aegis and Kid Win, both underage Wards) weren't even allowed to engage her. New Wave didn't have that problem, but its opposite: the unstoppable Glory Girl.
The blonde missile arrived in a straight line and tried to one-punch Taylor out of the sky… only for her blow to throw her target further and faster away. Once, twice, thrice, Glory Girl hit her like a freight train. Each time with even more strength behind the blow. And, each time, Taylor was sent further and further away. And up. Because Collateral Damage Barbie couldn't even study basic tactics enough to fly over her and send her down.
The third time, they were quite far from everyone, and Taylor decided that she had enough being taken as a punching bag for lethal blows.
"Stop that!" she tried to interject, deflecting a couple blows to try to communicate.
"I can't! You're a murderous villain!"
"So you're judge, jury, and executioner?" Taylor asked, leaning inside Victoria's punch, which bypassed her completely. "Nice to know. If you do that, I'm allowed to respond in kind, right?"
"What?"
"You do know what happens to a Barbie doll hit by lightning?" Taylor asked, arms spread as electrical currents flowed along them. Given that Glory Girl was still trying to hit her, instead of stopping to think about it, led her to finally defend herself.
And lightning struck. A continuous lightning that shorted Glory Girl's force field on impact, and then proceeded to damage her.
"Same as everything else: it burns." Taylor muttered, letting her foe drop from the high-altitude cloud they had both been in.
Glory Girl was still alive, then, but died while falling. The first thing she met in her course was her cousin's shields… upon which she crashed with terminal velocity, and no force field of her own. Despite realizing that this meant that she had been dead on arrival, Eric blamed himself – and the gory image didn't help him sleep at night.
By the time the Triumvirate arrived on Brockton Bay, it was to see a catatonic Panacea incapable of healing a quickly dying Armsmaster, and a bizarrely gleeful Shadow Stalker. It wasn't difficult to extract the story from the girl, but they did with it as with the other horrors they had witnessed, allowed, caused, or did themselves: they hid it under a mountain of lies.
And despite their powers, they couldn't find her. The blows from Glory Girl being what they were, they thought that she had sacrificed herself to push the lightning bearer into space, or in the arms of the Simurgh (despite the Endbringer being on the other side of the world at that time). Besides, Taylor's use of electricity to fly meant that she was highly visible.
What they didn't realize was that, with whatever power was now coursing through her neurons and granting her a Thinker ability allowing her to accurately predict potential outcomes around her… she was now considered precognitive enough to flout other Thinker powers. And that when punched strongly enough by the soon-to-be Glory Corpse, she had let her push her far enough away that she had simply fallen down in a parabolic arc leading her over the Arctic sea. From there, levitating above the sea was a piece of cake. And soon, she was hidden behind the glaciers (and the whole landmass) of Greenland.
While the Protectorate thought her dead and discreetly tried to find her body in space using telescopes, she continued her trek around the same arc and landed at the north-most point of the first Scandinavian country she could reach: Norway.
It was still winter, but the electricity coursing through her warmed her body, and she simply laid down for a while, waiting for the day to come – she had flown a long time, and figured that it was now night time over where she was.
She had to wait three whole weeks to see the sun rise, though: the polar night, in winter, kept the sun invisible for up to two months.
And, strangely, she wasn't asleep. She couldn't sleep. So, instead, she meditated. About her life before, and her life now. About how she had always done what society required of her, and paid a price, while others who didn't… didn't. About how fairness had disappeared as soon as personal honour (also known as accountability) has been thrown away. And she vowed to do better. Starting with herself.
She had powers, now. Electricity. Flight. Strength. Healing. Powers that some would have attributed to gods, before Scion and before the comics era – and even now. She was in a country which had believed in them, a long time ago. It even had a whole pantheon of them, too. Speaking of which…
She had lost an eye in the locker, but her power had morphed energy into matter, with the proof being that it had grown back, with perfect vision. Her glasses gone, her other eye was still difficult to see through.
Wary, but strangely confident about her ability to pull it off, she pressed the end of Armsmaster's halberd shaft until it was reduced to a point… and struck her own eye. And, yes, she could summon electricity again, gaining a new eye in the process.
And then she watched the pointy bar of metal in her hand. Despite having had had use of it, she didn't like weapons that would make blood fall. She wanted to use a staff, but then she hefted it around and realized that, with her new muscles (and the otherworldly strength behind them), she could move something much heavier. And denser.
Like a hammer.
She called the electricity again, making the metal in Armsmaster's weapon heat up and become more malleable, especially in the middle. It didn't matter that the man had included many Tinker-tech gadgets inside, as all were crushed in her fists, first, and then against each other. It was quality metal, too, giving Taylor something quite impressive… but still small for her tastes – at that moment, compressed as they were to be denser and strike harder, the two "weapons" weren't bigger than regular hammers. And she wanted them to be bigger, like warhammers of old. And get herself a maul, even. And an armour. With a face plate.
Needing scrap metal for her new needs, she looked around but found nothing – the Norwegian coast had perhaps the most difficult topography in the world, with mountains plunging directly into fjords, and no human settlement could be found unless there was a beach.
Still, people liked to explore the wilderness, and there were four young men not that far from her position. Attracted by the lightshow of her arrival, they had seen her take her own eye out, through binoculars, and then use electricity to fashion herself the two hammers – crude as they were, they would recognize the items anywhere: they all came from the nearby town of Hammerfest.
Despite the distance, they were quite impressed when the lightning-wielding cape (because, in this world, it shouldn't be possible for her to be anything but a cape, with the powers she had displayed) flew towards them. And greet them in their own language – with electricity being her power, Taylor could see thought patterns and languages in people's brains.
"Hei! Jeg vil gjerne ha metall."
They looked at each other, and smiled. She said she wanted some metal? They would give her some! Such as their music of choice. A portable loudspeaker was propped up, and unearthly sounds came out of it.
Taylor had some background in classical music, and the culture clash was quite intense. Still, her shard seemed to like, especially the background sounds of the forge. After listening to it for a couple minutes, she explained herself better. Blushing as the mix-up, they directed her to a recycling plant south of Hammerfest.
And, as they parted ways, she hesitated: they had introduced themselves, but she didn't want to give her true name. One nodded wisely. "We recognize you, Thrud Thorsdottir." he intoned. "Daughter of Thor, god of lightning, himself son of Odin, the all-father who gave his own eye for better vision." He nodded at her face. "And of Sif, the goddess of the Earth."
She nodded. As cover story (or, rather, cape name), it would be perfect. She didn't even look like herself anymore: her added mass had been distributed around her body, and she was now looking like a healthy and taller woman… with muscles.
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RagnarokTaylor used her new name to introduce herself to the plant's overworked employees, and exchanged hours of her time for scrap metal. Metal that she refined by pressing on it, hammering on it, and heating it, until all impurities were removed – and sorted, as it was a recycling plant. It allowed her to easily separate precious metals from ordinary electronics, which made the plant workers (and owners) happy.
And then, continuing to hammer it with both physical strength and electricity, she made the metal denser somehow – herself, too, even if she still grew enough matter to gain a few more inches in size.
In the end, she had her two warhammers, set on her thighs, as well as her maul, resting across her back. And the maul's head was heavier than she was, even with the denser muscles. Said muscles, as well as her self-levitation ability, were under constant work to move around, too, now that she had her armour: appearing like normal copper-accented iron (with her "parents" iconography – wheat for her mother, an hammer for her father), it was several orders of magnitude denser than the same. And that much heavier.
All this for a simple result: it was able to stop regular bullets without even a scratch.
When the plant started churning out sheets of metal ahead of schedule, without having anyone buying them, they took advice from Taylor (as the goddess Thrud) and opened a pier for naval construction. And they made drakkars (of course) with the spare metal.
And, apparently, they liked doing so.
Years before, Oslo had been sunk by Leviathan. Since then, the Norwegian people had been quite despondent because, as was the use before the Endbringers started destroying whole cities, most of their country's power and creativity resided in their capital city.
Now, with Thrud inspiring them, they seemed happier. Especially the recycling plant workers: she worked whole days alongside them, even sharing meals with them – including their drinks, and she was surprised to actually like their beers. She was also invited in their churches, where she was invited to talk after a while. And talk she did.
Because she ended up noticing how she could galvanize the people around her, people she started to think of as "her people". It wasn't immediate, of course, but as her reputation grew, more people came to Hammerfest, the young to learn the art of the forge, the old to share a few tricks for her, and everyone.
She was invited to their towns afterwards, too. Those of Hammerfest were a little sad to let her leave, but they had their "divine mission", now: build more drakkars.
Given the technological level of the people, and the ideas they could come up with, they ended up creating the required sea-faring vessels, but they added moveable sheets that could cover the whole deck for protection… and to change the ship into a submarine. Add some speed and retractable wings, and you get a plane, too. All this powered by electricity, too – having witnessed Thrud's powers, they imagined her powering them as needed. And if the fleet became too vast (because more metal came, from everywhere), they had ideas for her to literally kick-start a nuclear reactor as a power source. Or a fusion one.
Thrud spoke to people, in their churches. She was tall, and thought as a goddess (even in this cape era), because she was there and their churches' crucified idol wasn't. She also had ideas, both interesting and practical, for the depressed nation – and their interested neighbours.
Bring back the idea of honour. Stop lying, cheating, extorting, betraying, corrupting, and the like. If you get caught once, you lose it, and can't swear on it anymore. As such, you'd be barred from honourable professions like teachers, policemen, and politicians.
Bring back the idea that love between people is the result of them working together towards it, and not the fantasy American media had made it look like. And that with loving parents who wanted it, came the concept of family… whichever way it was formed.
Bring back the idea that their people could unite, work together towards a common goal, and defeat the opposition. Shaking her maul one-handed had a tendency to gather the more cries from people who called the thing Mjölnir.
She spent a whole year touring the three countries and their people. She visited the hole in the country where Oslo had been. She met regular people, as well as a few capes. Some wanted to fight, whether because they were villains, or misguided heroes, or just religious people easily offended. She got over them quite quickly and decisively. Others wanted to meet and greet, and she shook hands with a few of them.
And then she returned to Hammerfest, where she could see the multiple piers, with the many ships. And, in the rain that was starting to fall, she could see Leviathan emerging from the sea, the Endbringer facing her directly.
Thankfully, the drakkars had already been started, and manned, and they left their piers, heading towards their target. When it was clear that Leviathan would cut them into wrecks, they turned to the sides, in a shape that was expanding into a perfect circle, the water-borne behemoth in the middle.
It ponderously turned around, trying to choose a target. But, in the meantime, Thrud had flown up to him. And from above, she threw both lightning and Mjolnir in a thundering charge. Multiple lightnings were a thing, and the engineers had devised ways for the drakkars to gather that energy… and redirect it. It meant that Leviathan was struck by the equivalent of a hundred lightning strikes at the same time.
It wasn't dead, though. The monster had lost most of its body mass, including an arm and the opposite leg, and his head was dangling from a seriously reduced neck. But it wasn't agonizing like a moribund human. On the contrary, it sent its water echo in all directions before fleeing.
Most of the drakkars were damaged. Some were even destroyed outright. Thrud's armor was scratched by the echo that had leapt upwards, and she, too, had lost an arm and leg. But she was still floating, her eyes still lightning-blue under her helm, and the electricity coursing around her body slowly re-creating the missing parts.
That's when the Americans came.
"Who are you?" asked the first one there – Legend.
"I am Thrud Thorsdottir." she intoned, even her voice laced with power. "Who are you, to come into our land without our permission?"
"We? We are the Protectorate. We are here because Leviathan is rumoured to strike here soon."
"You are Americans." she reminded him. "You have no mandate here. And the water beast has already come… and gone."
"Truly?" he asked, looking around – and, sure, there was some wreckage on the houses nearest to the coastline. But nothing pointing at an Endbringer. "Where? And why would he change his attack?"
"It didn't change its attack." She said smugly, holding her hammer up. Its sturdy make was obvious… as was its damaged head. "It fled."
"Wow…" the legendary Legend breathed. "If that's true, we need you to-"
"Stop right there." she interrupted. "You seem a reasonable person, so I'll say it to you: my home is here. My country needs me. Not you or your self-deluded Protectorate."
"But you haven't heard-"
"I've heard enough, and you have extended your welcome. You can go."
"NO!" came another voice. "I won't be denied my fight!"
At this, most of the people looked up in stupefaction. There was Eidolon, prepped up for battle, and ranting about the swift victory? Was the man sane? Was he… wanting the Endbringers to continue attacking cities? For a bit more glory? Thrud's enhanced intellect wasn't the one making leaps of logic: three Endbringers, and Eidolon was known to have three powers. It meant that even if she succeeded in killing one, another could take its place. With unknown powers. That couldn't stand.
Thankfully, she didn't have to issue a challenge to the man, as he was the one to zero in on her… and charge. Legend tried to oppose him, only for Alexandria to hold him back. And an invulnerable and super-strong flying Eidolon flew straight at the Norwegian goddess… who met his charge with a supercharged strike of a lightning-infused Mjolnir. Eidolon's war cry was cut short as he was thrown upwards into another direction – the tennis players could easily imagine the green-clad hero as the ball in the game they practised… although Thrud didn't seem to have an opposing player.
But that changed when Eidolon's flight was followed by Alexandria and Legend… only for the two of them to stop short when the Simurgh rushed towards them. And as Eidolon was caught in the madness-inducing Endbringer's telekinetic grasp, they were stuck speechless.
"I don't know why she came." Dragon said over their communication link. "It defies everything we know about Endbringers. Even if she was not that far, she shouldn't have intervened."
"It's her fault." Alexandria snarled, before turning back to the hammer-wielding… cape. "I'm going to-"
"Becky, stop." Legend said, and only the use of her not-cape name to her cape persona stopped her cold. "Why are you so… vindictive, all of a sudden?"
"Clairvoyant didn't see her. She wields lightning. We had a villain in Brockton Bay with the same, remember? She killed many heroes, that day. Her portraying a hero disgusts me."
"How could she direct the Simurgh? Or Leviathan? Or have you not noticed what our other Thinkers said? David himself could be-"
"I refuse to hear this." the stubborn woman said, once again preparing to depart – and it was only a courtesy to Legend that she didn't fly away in an instant – through him.
"And the Truce?" he asked, positioning himself in front of her (he was quite fast too).
"Not relevant." she replied. And then she sped around him, heading towards her prey. And she would have struck her, from behind, in the middle of two Endbringer truces and in front of everyone, including cameras… if Legend hadn't flown at her and hit her from the side with his multi-purpose lasers.
The light was what allowed Thrud to evade the blow, truly, because Alexandria was mostly ignoring physics. Moving aside at the last moment, she still lost her helmet from the blow. White hair floated around her head, then, crackling with energy. "You dare?" she asked, turning towards her opponent.
"You are a villain!" Alexandria shouted, unheeding of the fact that Legend's lasers, impacting her whole side, had cracked her helmet as well, and that it was disintegrating, putting her civilian identity in peril – and everything that was attached to it, too, such as her illegal placement at the head of the PRT.
"Look who's talking, now." Thrud replied. "Me? A villain? And this is relevant… why?"
"You are Taylor Hebert." Alexandria said with unholy glee. "And you caused the death of your parents, and many heroes."
Thrud shook, then, and some people thought that she would cry. But instead, it was cold rage that emerged. "I am not this person. But I know of her. How she was bullied and hounded by Shadow Stalker in her civilian identity, to the point of triggering. How that event had, unfortunately, killed some people nearby. How heroes never stopped to consider this before attacking her with lethal means. And if you killed her father in retaliation, if you attack a foreign cape on her soil in the middle of an Endbringer truce, and if you head the PRT illegally… you are even less than a villain, Rebecca Costa-Brown."
"You unmasked me?" shouted Alexandria in her own rage.
"You did that yourself." was the answer. "You could have left with your dignity intact. Instead, you wanted to harm me, mentally as well as physically. And you also tried to do the same to me."
The formidable intellect facing her was doused from her rage by the fact that, yes, she had been flying blind for a while, now. And she did what she always did when in immediate need for displacement. "Door me."
It didn't work. She didn't know that, with Thrud's power growing, any attempt of Clairvoyant to peek around her gave him a nosebleed. For the next hour, Cauldron was kept incommunicado. She flew away under her own (still considerable) power.
"…and that's that." Thrud said, eyeing Legend warily.
The man tried to say something, but noticed that the gaze wasn't directed at him, but at something behind him. "She's behind me, isn't she?" he asked.
Thrud nodded, hefting her hammer up. "Not here right now, but she's approaching. She's humming, too."
"Oh, this. We who fought her the most don't notice it anymore. She's preparing to sing. Can you… do… something?"
"My drakkars have been damaged by Leviathan."
"We can help. We have many Tinkers. If she hums, we have an hour." He looked at her. "If you need help, to regrow your limbs, we have Panacea, too."
"No!" Thrud exclaimed quickly. She knew about Amy Dallon's eulogy to her dead sister, and didn't want her near her, period. Steeling herself, she smiled as she put her helmet back on. "No, thank you. But the help with the vessels would be appreciated, even if one hour isn't nearly enough. I can't be heading this effort, though. Alexandria… might have damaged herself the most, reputation-wise, but I don't want to be near your heroes right now. You'll have to coordinate with my people."
"Your people?"
"What do you think I'm doing, here? This is our country, and we are finally getting hope to build it back up."
"Yes, I'm aware that Scandinavia was doing better in some areas…" Legend started politely. "But the human right watchers are-"
"-political spies and agents illegally sowing insurgency in a land not their own. You wouldn't like me doing the same in your backyard, would you?"
"…"
"Thought not. So don't complain if I merely ask for them to be kept away. Now, if you can help, please hurry. I'll stay here and… pray."
"Pray?"
"You can tell them that, if you wish. It's the term I use, nowadays, when I meditate."
He smiled, nodded, and left her.
In the following hour, while each Tinker participated in designs to repair the ships, Thrud gathered more and more energy around her. She noticed that the Simurgh was approaching the area, but in a zigzag pattern. As if she couldn't pinpoint her. Thrud had read up on the woman-like machine of mass madness, and everything pointed at her being a perfect precognitive entity… with a glaring blind spot in which she couldn't see the present. And she couldn't perceive the most powerful precognitive capes, too.
She smiled, and let loose a lightning bolt to her centre mass… only for a telekinetic blade visibly travelling along the bolt towards her. Thankfully, it was enough warning for her to evade it.
Seeing that the Endbringer had approached the area the bolt had started, Thrud smiled. "So you can follow? Good." And she loosed another bolt from a position slightly upwards from the Endbringer, before letting herself fall down a hundred meters. And not a moment too late, as the Endbringer followed up with a cone of telekinetic attacks.
And then she did something Thrud hadn't imagined: she unfolded the hand that was keeping Eidolon still trapped. And the man pointed at her.
She dropped two bolts of lightning… from the sky. Having mastered the concept, she was able to call lightning in a natural fashion. And it was helpful to hide where you were from those like the Simurgh.
With a "gentle" tap on the head, the winged (and annoyed) Endbringer put Eidolon to sleep – although, with the size difference, it was more like a coma with a massive concussion. And then she attacked in the direction the bolt had come from.
Playing hide and seek that way, Thrud succeeded in towing the Simurgh over the Barents Sea. And that's when the flying Endbringer started to sing. Thankfully, Thrud had enough electricity around her and in her neurons to resist most of the effect. And that's also when Dragon and other allies came forward with the drakkars… and some help with similar designs for their own things. Dragon upgraded her own ships. Kid Win did the same with his modular gear. They got some of the drakkars to fly, too. Some capes, like Revel, would assist directly with their powers – she would be a difficult opponent for Thrud… if she could do her shtick against several simultaneous attacks.
Keeping a steady stream of random attacks kept the Simurgh occupied until a massive shot could be lined up… and delivered. And the Simurgh's song ended with a squawk as she fell from the sky.
And that's when the various allies swore profusely – the Nordic ones blanching even more than usual. Ziz fell in the "arms" of her brother Leviathan… who himself was held upwards by their older brother Behemoth. And the three together, especially with their insides meshed and twisted around the massive damage done to them, looked quite alien… but aligned in a recognizable shape: a coiled snake ready to pounce.
"Jormungandr…" breathed those more mythology-inclined. The snake that indicated the end of the world – Ragnarok.
Thankfully for everyone, Behemoth coming in open water to help its brethren was a bad idea. For everyone, and for a long time, because irradiated sea water couldn't be contained. But, in the meantime, it greatly reduced the Endbringer's lethality – even its "skin" started to sizzle and crackle under the water pressing from all sides. It normally avoided such areas, but its programming included helping his brethren when they fell, and he had rushed through Earth's crust and emerged without looking up.
Another bad idea for Behemoth, in these circumstances, was to generate a constant field of electricity around itself. Thrud could absorb it quite easily, gaining enough power to rain continuous lightning from her and her dozens of assistants. Leviathan ended up exploding, exposing its otherworldly skeleton – which still moved, albeit slowly. The Simurgh was a hollow construct, and its shape was crushed when the massed water came, when Leviathan lost its water control. And finally, when Behemoth lost its last ergs of energy from Thrud's absorption, it was a sitting duck, even underwater, and it was easily carved up. Nobody thought to check on Eidolon, who had been jerked to the side when Ziz was electrocuted, and the comatose man drowned.
Scion arrived just as everything was wrapping up. In the previous Endbringer attacks, he was often quite late, leaving heroes to die by the hundreds. This time, it was too late to take away the threat, because it had been dealt with.
The "golden man" looked quite lost, as a result, like a kid searching for something to do. Thrud approached cautiously, but wasn't "in the know" of the entity's nature, history, and goals. What she was seeing was a sad man with too much power. And she could commiserate.
So she rose to face him, removing her helmet in the process. "Do you want to live here? We can play, and you can learn, if you want."
He looked at her in askance. She smiled and took his hand. He let himself be pulled down, and Thrud suddenly remembered a piece of educational advice she had heard indirectly, once (from the mother of a young cape). And she repeated it. "Play nice, and we'll play with you. Don't harm people or animals or things."
And he learnt to play. In the various worlds the entity had sought, it had never paused long enough to play, and it changed him. He became more human.
Being his anchor, Thrud stayed in Norway with him. He learned how to live, even changing his body to appear more human. And, in the process, he lost his will to destroy everything. Instead, he learned everything – and not by having powers fighting each other.
And while that was going on, the drakkars became the norm around the place, whether they were in the seas or in the air – with the destruction of both Leviathan and the Simurgh, sea trade could start again (with strong control on boats), and space travel too.
Last Thrud heard about them, the new Vikings had found a new world before the Spanish. Again.
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To be continued… kanske