(Asgard)
Thor, god of thunder, sat on his seat in the halls of Asgard. His mind was in deep thought at the moment. The offensives were breaking through some places, but one place was on his mind that was key to the plans of the Aesir.
Detroit
Time and time again, no matter what was thrown at the demigods defending the city, they were repelled. The situation there was getting out of hand.
"My lord Thor," said a servant of Asgard. Thor was roused out of his train of thought to look at the servant.
"Your father Odin wishes a word from you," said the servant. Thor nodded and stood up, walking towards his father's chambers.
He entered to see his father standing by a window looking out into the courtyard. His father was wearing a war helm with metal wings of a bird on each side of the helm.
"My son, the war is standing at a standstill. The situation in Detroit is grievous. If we don't find a way to break through that city, the tide of battle might change to the Olympians favor," said Odin.
"You have seen this?" said Thor.
"I know this," said Odin, turning around to his son. His right eye may have been gouged out and covered with an eyepatch, but Thor could have sworn it rippled. The two ravens Huginn and Muninn were on his shoulders.
"Those children of the Olympians must be dealt with," said Odin.
"I know father," said Thor.
"Which is why you are going there," said Odin.
"My lord?" said Thor.
"You are to get handpicked soldiers to take care of them. They will be no match for you and your men," said Odin. Thor nodded.
"That is all. Good fortune to your quest," said Odin.
"Servant," said Thor.
"Yes Lord Thor?" said the servant.
"Summon my elite bodyguard," said Thor.
(Detroit) (Two months later)
After the latest attack on them, the team was relaxing on the stones of their fallen enemies.
"How is it that we're so good at this?" said Tyler.
"I don't know. This attack was way too easy," said Blake, sharpening up his sword.
"Yeah, who would have known that construction equipment could be so dangerous, yet so useful," said Jessica, noticing their current position in a construction yard where the ground was covered in the remains of trolls and dawrves.
"Alright, down to business. Kill count," said Tyler. "Remember, trolls count as five."
"34," said Jessica.
"35," said Blake.
"40," said Kyle.
"Darn it, 38," said Tyler.
"50," said Danny.
"Damn it!" yelled everyone else. Danny smirked in victory to himself. He always won when it came to final count.
"Unfair advantage," said Tyler.
"Why? Because my grandparents are Gaia and Zeus?" said Danny.
"Pretty much," said everyone else. Danny grinned again. "Kyle, why'd you start wearing an armband, a white one at that?"
"Thought it was cool," said Kyle. Everyone, including him, laughed a little.
"Wonder why these guys weren't putting up much of a fight?" said Blake.
"Low morale. They're afraid of coming to Detroit because of the five of us," said Kyle.
"That's what we want them to do," said Blake. At that moment, a pile of cement started to shiver before a dwarf stood up, shaking the rubble off himself. He stood at exactly 4 feet, a broad-bladed axe in hand and a metal helmet protecting his head.
"I wish you would suffer the same fate that befell my men!" he yelled. He charged straight at Danny. Danny made ready and lunged at the dwarf, but the dwarf sidestepped and and delivered a fatal blow to his back. The sharp axe blade cut through the shirt into Danny's skin. Danny fell to the ground, immobilized. The dwarf raised its axe to finish him off, but Kyle slammed it aside with his shield, sending its weapon skittering along the ground before falling into a pile of quick-drying cement, disappearing into the quagmire. Blake helped Danny to his feet, his back bleeding, but starting to heal. The dwarf got onto its feet, facing them and breathing heavily.
"You think you've won. You're all going to die soon," he said. He began to laugh evilly, his black eyes glittering maliciously at them. Danny threw his sword at the creature, stopping the dwarf's laughing forever.
"Nice kill D...Danny!" said Tyler. Danny had fallen to the ground, breathing heavily, his eyes closed.
(Safe house HQ)
Danny was lying on a cot, breathing steadily while Kyle and Jessica were taking tabs on his condition.
"Just as I feared, the axe was poisoned," said Kyle. "But he'll be alright. He won't be fighting for awhile though."
"So what now?" said Blake.
"For now we rest," said Kyle. He plopped onto a couch as he tried to catch some sleep.
"I'm gonna go and check the monitors. Be free to do whatever you two," said Tyler. Everyone knew that over their stay here that Blake and Jessica were an 'item' after their first encounter with the trolls. The two blushed from his remark as Tyler went out of sight.
"So what do you wanna do babe," said Blake.
"I don't know. I'm going to go and take a shower okay," she said, kissing him on the lips softly before heading upstairs. Once she was in the room, she stripped out of her clothes and turned on the water to a nice, warm, relaxing temperature. She got in, letting the water calm her senses and she relaxed in the feel. She didn't even hear the door open until a pair of hands wrapped around her waist, she turned around quicker than the human eye.
"Blake, what the hell are you doing here?" she said.
"Thought I could keep you company," he said, kissing around her neck. She tried to force him to leave, but she did want him here. Soon she gave in as Blake grabbed onto her ass and hoisted her up.
"Wait, we shouldn't do this here," she said hurriedly before heavily kissing him again.
"We're in a shower, no one's going to here us," he said before kissing her fiercely again.
Downstairs Kyle woke himself up to check on Danny again when he heard what he thought was a moan upstairs. He wanted to go up there and check it out, but decided not to. He checked on Danny's breathing, which was normal. The dirt on his body was working just fine, and the poison's effects were rapidly diminishing.
"It's alright man, you'll be up and running before you know it," said Kyle. It was only late, they had plenty of time for Danny to recover.
(Morning)
The city was just waking up from its slumber, the city lights that lit up the city slowly going out one by one as the sun rose and cars started to flood the streets to get to work. Five figures on a skyscraper watched the activity.
"What are your plans?" said one of them.
"Lead them out, and then eliminate them," said a more powerful voice among them. "Send in a few trolls."
"Yes sir," said another voice. A horn sound erupted, followed by the grunts and snarls of trolls.
Meanwhile in the safe house, the demigods, save for Danny, were waking up. Tyler was the first to wake up. He headed upstairs to the bathroom, where he saw a sight that he wasn't quite expecting. Blake and Jessica were sprawled in the tub, naked, Jessica lying on top of Blake.
"Oh my gods!" yelled Tyler. That woke those two up, and to an extent Kyle. Not knowing what was going on, Kyle ran upstairs too.
"What is it? What's wr...Woah!" said Kyle when he saw the two naked demigods.
"Anyone ever heard of privacy?" said Blake.
"This is a public bathroom," said Tyler.
"Public?" said Blake and Jessica, covered in the shower curtains.
"As in everyone else here is the public."
"Seriously, we'd understand if it was that room, but the bathtub?" said Kyle. Blake and Jessica blushed again.
"Anyway get your clothes back on," said Kyle, leaving the room. Tyler turned to go, but looked back and snapped a picture with his camera phone.
"You two are so adorable," he said before bolting out before the two could chase him down.
Downstairs, Kyle was checking the security camera monitors. Everything was good so far. When he checked the last, he saw a little movement. He zoomed in and saw four heavily-armored trolls.
"Damn it," he said. He went back into the living room to see a now clothed Jessica and Blake on Tyler trying to wrestle his phone out of his hands.
"We got a problem in the downtown district. We gotta go," said Kyle.
"Without Danny?" said Blake, the three stopped momentarily in an awkward moment.
"Unfortunately, yes," said Kyle.
"But we can't leave him here by himself and he's defenseless," said Jessica.
"No one can get in remember," said Kyle, getting his gear on. "Besides, he would want us to."
"So you can read into his mind now?" said Tyler.
"The POINT is that we need to stop those trolls before they mess up the city, okay?" said Kyle. The three nodded.
"Good, grab your gear," said Kyle, getting his spear and a shield. Once the others were getting their stuff on, Kyle turned one last time to Danny.
"We'll be back buddy." Once he saw everyone was prepared they went off, ready to attack the trolls.
"Danny."
"Danny."
"Danny."
Danny bolted up out of his cot in the room. His dream wasn't horrible nor good. It was cold and emotionless. He was going around in a room as the sounds of what he thought was his team were calling him from some unknown location. When he got to a place where he thought their voices were coming from, everything turned black and lightning crackled into the room. That was the last thing he saw before he woke up.
"What's going on?" he said to himself. He looked around the room for any sign of the team.
"Guys, you in here?" said Danny. No response.
"They must be scouting or something," he thought to himself. He slowly got out of bed. Once his feet touched the cold surface of the floor he felt better. Getting up he saw that he was naked save for his jeans. He hastily put on another one of Kyle's armor shirts and walked into the living space. He saw a note on the table and hastily read it.
"Danny,
"If you're awake when you read this we're out putting down another attack group. Be back soon."
"Man, they left without me," he said, sounding slightly disappointed." Maybe I should go anyway."
He got his sword out of his area of belongings, made sure it was sharp, and went outside of the safe house. He saw what appeared to be storm clouds gathering in the sky, turning the sky grey as of a storm was approaching. He felt on the ground for the familiar vibrations of his friends.
"Found them," he thought. Concentrating carefully, he disappeared into the earth.
"Yahh!" Blake yelled as he charged at his attackers, only for the sword point from him stabbing him straight through his chest. He was then kicked and sent into a pile of rocks, dead. Kyle, face covered and body covered in blood, tried to desperately reach for his fallen comrade's sword, but as his hand closed around the hilt, a foot stepped onto it, stopping him from picking it up.
"Not so fast," said the voice. Kyle looked up to see the face of a god. Thor picked him up by the shirt, lifting him up.
"Why are you doing this?" said Kyle, finding it hard to speak.
"Because, your operations here are slowing down that of our armies," said Thor. In his hand Kyle saw a one-handed war hammer glimmer with energy.
"I am sorry for this, but you brought in on yourselves," said Thor. He launched Kyle into the air. As Kyle, by the laws of gravity, fell back to the ground, Thor's hammer glowed red and thor swung it once Kyle was at eye level. Kyle flew into the side of a building near the bodies of the others before it rolled back from the momentum of the attack and into the middle of the cratered street.
"My lord, there was suppose to be one more," said one of the warriors.
"I know. He'll come to us. Be ready for him," said Thor.
When Danny got out of earth travel, the first thing he saw was four piles of crumbled rocks around the battered street, torn cars around.
"Man these guys tore this place up," he said to himself. Luckily the citizens who lived here were out of the way, as they had been during most of the attacks, except for one that happened near a hospital. He inspected the damage around.
"Where are they?"he thought. As he looked, he saw what looked like traces of blood. Soon the traces turned into trails before they led to their horrific discovery. Danny took a step back from the sheer shock before he ran to the body of Jessica. There was blood all over her body, a hideous wound emanating from her belly.
"Jess," he said silently, cradling her head as he checked her heartbeat. There was none. As he looked around he saw the bodies of Tyler and Blake. Both were bloody, Tyler showing mulptiple wounds around his body and Blake with what clearly looked like a sword thrust into his chest. Danny knew, deep down in hi heart, that they were dead. As tears began to build in his eyes, he saw Kyle's body feebly moving.
"Kyle!" he yelled. He carefully laid Jessica's head down before he bolted for Kyle's body. He heard his friend faintly breathing as he got to his body. He turned him over and saw he was a mess. He was bleeding from his mouth and his body looked like it was beaten in with a sledgehammer.
"Hey there Danny," said Kyle weakly, smiling a little.
"Please don't tell me you let those creatures do this to you," said Danny. Kyle chuckled, his first one garbled by a cough as more blood trickled down the side of his mouth.
"Come on man, you know us better than that," said Kyle. His face darkened to seriousness. "It was their elite warriors."
"Elite warriors?" said Danny.
"I would tell you more, but sadly I don't have much time left," said Kyle, coughing more blood up. Danny could feel his heart rate slowing down.
"No, don't talk like that. I..I'm going to get us out of here, and the others...going to...fix you up, you'll be as good as new...again," said Danny, his eyes swelling up with more tears. He looked back to the faces of his dead friends. Kyle's hand latched onto Danny's shirt, pulling him down to face him.
"Don't blame yourself for this Danny. Get out of here now, while you still have the chance to," said Kyle.
"No, I can't just leave you guys here like this," said Danny. Kyle chuckled again.
"You were always a loyal friend Danny. I'm..glad to have...had...that..priv..." said Kyle, but his eyes closed, never to open again. Danny's tears fell down onto the asphalt as his friend died. He looked over to all the of their bodies, people he'd known for years. He fought back the rest of his tears, a few more falling down. He saw Kyle's armband and took it off, cleaning off his friend's face. The white silk turned to red as he cleaned off his friend's face. Turning to his other friends body he went and cleaned theirs off individually. By the time he was finished, the entire armband was blood-red all the way through. Danny wished he had drachmas to put on their corpses so that they could pay Charon, the boatman.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there," he said, no one around but their bodies. He squeezed the armband he was holding as he felt anger course through his body. "But you will be avenged." He turned to see the faces of the team he lead through so many missions: Jessica, lovely and impassioned, Tyler, funny and smart, Blake, headstrong and handy, and lastly Kyle, a good and loyal friend through and through. He heard chuckling from behind him.
He turned to see four figures in Viking-like armor snickering at them, all in chain-mail armor. One held a long Viking shield and sword, another held two axes, another a longsword, and the last one two spears and an axe strapped to his back. They all had beards of different colors: black, red, straw-haired, and brown. Traditional Viking helms (not the stereotypical one with two horns. Look it up) adorned their heads.
"Sorry you could not join your friends' fate," said the red-haired one.
"Yeah, but don't worry. We sent them on their way to hurry it along," said the straw-haired one. They all chuckled darkly to themselves. Danny's hands clenched again, wanting vengeance.
"So what should we do to this scared pup here?" said the black-haired one.
"Make him beg to live most likely. Either way, he's a dead pup. He should have been there to join in their demise" said the brown-haired one.
"You're right about one thing. I should have been there," said Danny. He looked at the armband, and back to them. He put the armband to his head, careful to not get any of his dreads stuck between the fabric and his skin, and tied it around his head, tying it at the back.
"Like it would have done much good," said the red-haired one.
"Let's find out," said Danny, taking his sword out and charging at them.
"Unferth, take him out," said the red-haired warrior to the black-haired one. Energy formed itself on the Viking's sword as the runes on his shield glowed. He pointed it towards Danny and an arc of lightning shot towards the young demigod. A massive explosion erupted from where the lighting hit, sending up a cloud of dust.
Unferth grinned in triumph to himself. As he looked on at what he thought were the remains of the demigod, a shadow passed by on in his peripheral vision coming from the air. He looked up to see Danny, sword in both hands, coming down on him. Before he could raise his weapons to defend himself...
SCHLACK
Unferth's head fell off his body, rolling to a stop near his right foot. His body, still erect, stood there unmoving. Looking at the other three, Danny placed his hand on Unferth's headless body and poushed it, the body falling to the ground.
The other three elites charged their weapons up and fired at Danny, who stood in the middle of them. The blasts met simulataneously, but Danny was no where to be found.
"Ranveig, Gunnvor, stay alert!" yelled the red-haired man, to the brown-haired warrior and the straw-haired one.
"Where did he go?" said Gunnvor, his two axes in hand. Suddenly, he felt an arm wrap around his neck and begin to squeeze. He dropped his weapons and tried to reach for his strangling attacker. Danny was using all his strength to not let go as he held the Viking.
Looking through the dust, the red-haired warrior Ragnhild tried to make out any figures in the dust. Soon he saw the one he was sure was Danny. He hoisted one of his spears to throw and threw it at the figure with all his might. The figure was thrown completely back into a building, the spearhead embedding in the stone building with the body pinned to it. The dust settled enough to show who it was. To the last two warriors horror, it was Gunnvor. Horrified, Ragnhild and Ranveig saw Danny in a new area behind them, glaring at them.
"He's clever, we'd better watch out," said Ranveig.
"He'd better watch out. We're THOR'S elite warriors!" yelled Ragnhild. He threw his last spear at Danny, who dodged it lazily. Ragnhild charged towards him as Danny charged towards him too. Danny's sword met his axe as they sparred. Ragnhild used the flat of his axe to knock Danny's sword aside from his guard point and kicked him fiercely in the chest. Danny fell back and Ranveig got him in a headlock, his sword dropped on the ground. Ragnhild's axe began to glow red and he ran to dish the final blow. Thinking quick, Danny hit his foot on the ground and a chunk of earth erupted to make him do a backflip. Ragnhild's axe came down not on him, but Ranveig's back. They were still in mid-flip, so Danny felt the force of the blow and Ranveig's grip on him slacken.
Still in the middle of his backflip, Danny hit the ground with his hand and sent an enormous slab of the street straight towards the two Vikings. They could both only yell as 3 tons of asphalt hit them at 60 MPH and sent them smashing into the side of the building. The fight was over.
Danny was heavily breathing. The fight had took a lot out of him, but in the end he was triumphant. His armband-turned headband straps fluttered in the breeze. Danny, knowing what he had to do, walked slowly over to his friend's body before he felt another presence, this one more powerful than any other presence he'd felt before. He turned around slowly to see Thor, hammer in hand.
"You are truly a remarkable demigod," said Thor, looking around the damaged area in admiration.
"Who are you?" said Danny. He thought he seemed strangely familiar.
"We've actually met before, remember at your house?" said Thor. Coming back to Danny slowly, he knew who it was.
"Biorn?" said Danny, realization dawning on him.
"One of my many names, but Thor is my most accepted," he said, moving forward slowly. Danny found himself stepping back as fast as Thor was moving.
"What were you doing at my house?" said Danny, fearful.
"Seeing your numbers. Your qualities have surpassed even by beliefs. but that of course is a problem," said Thor, his hammer starting to glow white with energy.
"You don't have to do this," said Danny, holding his sword ready.
"I'm sorry. It's nothing personal Daniel," said Thor as his eyes glowed white and he pointed his hammer at Danny. A blast of pure electric energy rocketed towards the young demigod. Danny made a shield from the asphalt under him to protect him.
It didn't work.
Danny felt a feeling wash over him as if he were spontaneously combusting. He was in the air in the energy from the attack. Yellow and white light was all around him. He felt weightless and suspended in motion. The bodies of his friends went with him as they flew down to the end of the street into a bar, parked cars following them. Thor's attack ended when he saw no signs of movement.
"It is done then," he said, vanishing in an orb of light.
(7:00 PM)
The street of the batle was deserted still, though sounds of ambulances and fire trucks were digging through the rubble. They were at the upper part of the street, away from the bodies of the fallen.
Crackle "Team Detroit, are you there?" Crackle
Complete darkness was around. He could barely move as his fingers fought to grab onto the walkie-talkie on Kyle's body. Blood was all over his face and body. His clothes were torn and bloody, cuts and gashes all over him. His fingertips grasped the antenna, and soon a knuckle. He pulled it towards him as he tried to desperately dig out of the carnage around him. Rubble was all around him, and his friends' bodies were crushing him.
Crackle "Team Detroit, over." Crackle. Grasping it firmly in hand, he weakly replied.
"Need immediate...evac. Team members...dead...send...help," he said weakly.
Crackle "How many survivors?" Crackle
"One," he said before he passed out, the darkness closing in on him.