Chapter 2: Thor Steals Our Thunder
(Jason's Perspective)
Me and the team were morphed, and out to Venice Beach, not even five minutes after the alarm blared. This was a BIG ONE, and even without our scanners, anyone with a working set of eyeballs could see it!
For starters, the sky itself looked like it was being eaten by a red/black cloud of death! I recognized it from my dreams a while back. The dark world of Svartalfheim. The fortress that was built out of solidified shadow. This was the Aether. Outwards 200 miles off the coast of L.A., I sensed what I guessed was the central hub of what was sure to be a pretty big attack. It was some kinda island fortress, comprised out of hardened Aether. The fortress, as big as L.A. itself, was fully formed, and launched hundreds of projectiles at the city, almost faster than even I could keep up! I tapped into the Power Grid, and fried a good chunk of what were some kinda alien fighters, but a few managed to slip past me! Thankfully, Allyson came flying in, and shot down the ones that got through. Things didn't slow down a beat, as the fight ramped up from multiple angles!
My Speed Sense went f*(#!^& haywire, as the Aether cloud solidified into a supercell storm, big enough to cover the entire city, and started to collapse on us! I immediately went Thunder God, and covered the entire city in a Zeus Lightning barrier! The Aether storm was definitely strong! Even worse, it was either alive, or being controlled by someone who kinda had my storm cloud skill set! I could sense the Aether cloud change its shape multiple times, as the storm bombarded my barrier with various monster constructs and energy bolts! More so, the storm seemed to be a smoke screen for a more hands on invasion, as hundreds of fighters and warships were blasting (sometimes crashing into) my barrier! At first, I was a little confused. Maybe this was just another magical threat out of the blue, but then I remembered the dream I had of Loki talking to his allies, right after me and my friends killed Doom! This was it. The period of relative peace was over. Whatever Loki was planning since the beginning of the Stones of Olympus thing was finally kicking into high gear!
The thought of it made me extremely pissed off for some reason. Maybe it was because I was having a really good week, and this was a mood killer, or the fact that I had a sneaking suspicion that Loki's plans were gonna f*(# with my summer. Either way, I was really not havin' this bull$#!+ right now, and was now completely dedicated to ending it ASAP!
I focused on the clouds, and willed them to build into a supercell, big enough to rival the dark storm Malekith was bombarding my barrier with. Once the storm was the size I wanted it to be, I called in my squad! Basically, as the grand descendant of Zeus (among many other gods), the Venti/Nephelai (cloud nymphs preferred to be called Nephelai) were bound to serve me whenever I called. I didn't do it too much, as I didn't wanna be THAT GUY, but this was an emergency, and I needed the help. I summoned a good 500 of the storm spirits into the supercell, and gave them the rallying cry!
"Hey, guys!" I thought to em'. "See this big ugly black/red storm?! Yeah, I think it's tryna kill me!"
That was all they needed! Malekith's storm suddenly found itself being attacked by another storm! The battle was actually pretty f*(#!^% epic from what I could make of it! The Nephelai would attack as beautiful women, wearing greek armor, wielding Zeus Lightning thunderbolts (they were real sweethearts too)! The Venti were a lot more chaotic in their attacks, as they would constantly switch from horses, to lions, tigers, bears, demons, and Bakugan monsters (they always were my favorites). My storm crew gave Malekith's storm what for, as they had an advantage he didn't seem to have. See, all I had to do was maintain the supercell storm for the Tempest Legion (might as well give em' a name) to inhabit. The Venti/Nephelai could act on their own accord from there, where it seemed like Malekith had to both maintain and control his storm! All his monster constructs were immediately dealt with, as the Tempest Legion (that really does have a nice ring to it!), smashed through em' all with virtually little trouble! Hell, the only reason the fight was still goin' was because Malekith was willing his storm to expand; forcing me to do the same. The sheer tension of what was basically two F5's playing Beyblade was either gonna shatter my barrier, or spill out into the outer regions surrounding L.A., and put civilians in danger. Couldn't have that, so I worked with the Tempest Legion to raise the storm a good ten miles above the city! It was slow work, and the strain was definitely gonna get the better of me if I didn't end this fight quick, but for now that was one problem dealt with.
The next set of problems were a bit more complicated. The Dark Elves finally caught onto the fact that tryna invade L.A. from their dark storm cloud was not it, so they did something arguably even stupider, and tried to attack head on, and even from the f*(#!^% WATER! In their defense, I doubt they got Tales of Storm-Lord comics (yeah, something the marketing boys came up with) in Svartalfheim. I was able to use the water to crush most of their underwater fighters, and take out a decent chunk of the flying ones with some Great White Shark water constructs, but here's where we hit the problem. When I tried to call down some lightning, I finally felt that strain hit me square in the chest, and after a quick nanosec to assess the situation, I realized what was wrong! The storm battle had extended so far, it was covering all of Southern California! In other words, I was stretching my storm powers to their limit! I couldn't conjure a static shock, much less a lightning bolt! Hell, at this rate, there was no way i'd be able to keep the Zeus Lightning barrier up and running! Sure, I was keeping us safe from an aerial invasion, but I had given up a significant chunk of my fighting force to do so. Not a great plan so far.
"Hey, Wiccan!" I thought to Billy. "Need some Lightning Style Jutsu here!"
"I am not a Shinobi!" he responded.
"Kay. I recommend the Lightning Style Thunderbird Shower Jutsu, but you do you. I'm stretched a little thin here! Magik, any idea how to stop these guys?!"
"Nyet!" she responded. "This energy is primordial, but it is not magic in nature. The source of this attack is 200 miles out to sea! Teleporting will not work. The fortress is protected by a type of magic I do not know. I could try teleporting us there, but it could do any number of things to us. Don't think we should risk it!"
"I have magical immunity!" Allyson spoke up. "Gimme some room to make a breakaway, and i'll take care of it!"
"Are you nuts, Sunbird?!" Grant thought to her.
"No, i'm pissed off, and need to blow off some steam! Gimme a clean shot, and I'll go Sun Goddess, blast my way to the fortress, put it inside a mini-sun, and burn our problem to a crisp!"
"How come you can't just drown em', Storm-Lord?!" America asked.
"Even if I could, i'm too far away! Can't control the water that far out! As for your plan, Sunbird-"
I was actually gonna ok it. Allyson was one of the most powerful members of the team, and easily coulda soloed this mission (I think), but the Dark Elves REALLY wanted to get inside the barrier, as they went from 0 to 100 real quick!
All of a sudden, Dark Elf warships and fighters just APPEARED around the barrier, and were hammering it with what I could only describe as black hole blasts! Seriously, it was like someone was dogpiling Railgun blasts from all sides against my barrier! It was comin' down, no doubt about it, but this wasn't my first rodeo, and I laid down the gameplan!
"Yeah, Sunbird, you're good to go on your plan!" I thought in a voice that no doubt sounded like I was constipated. "Before you go, we're gonna have to clean this up! Yeah, this barrier's comin' down guys! Can't hold it much longer! Everyone get in ABG formation! Air team, focus on those fighters!" Building team, point out patterns, strays, and corral the fight away from the civilians! Ground team, you already know what it is! Kick ass, and keep the people safe! Vic, Z.O.R.D.O.N., activate the Scavenger Protocol. We'll split the tech 50/50, bud. Alright, Elementals! WE GOT THIS!
Maybe not the best line to shout as my barrier was finally destroyed, and the Dark Elf army finally started to pour in, but 'Elementals Unite' was for the people and the posters. 'We got this' was our real 'Avengers Assemble'.
Anyway, the teams split into the aforementioned units.
Air team consisted of: Sunbird, Patriot, America, Wiccan, Iron Torch, Majesdia, Zero-G, Lightspeed, Starlight, and Starbright.
They kicked it into high gear from the word go! Sunbird and Wiccan ran interference, as they had the most energy versatility. Allyson was taking out fighters left and right (sometimes without even looking) with mini-sun volleys, while Wiccan did indeed do his Lightning Style Thunderbird Shower Jutsu, and summoned a giant six-winged bird, made out of lightning and storm cloud, that flapped its wings real hard, and shot lighting blasts mainly at the warships! The Nova Twins and Majesdia busted out their respective drones, to help corral the fight, while also teaming up with Lightspeed to take it to the fighters with a move they called the Cannonball Carousel (basically a continuous kamikaze blitz). Zero-G pulled his own weight by using his gravity powers to crush the fighters like soda cans, or control their flight paths, and make them slam into the bigger T shaped warships! His biggest flex was creating gravity points in the center of the warships, and increasing said gravity point until the ship was crushed from the inside out! Hell, even Patriot held his own by flying into the control decks of the warships, busting some heads, and after planting a God Particle bomb on board, flew outta the ship before it ceased to exist. By the way, don't worry about the collateral. Vic and Z were on the crashing Dark Elf warships and fighters, as the air was swarming with trillions of Olympium nanites that ate away at the material before it could so much as scratch a building.
Speaking of which, the Building Team consisted of: Hawkeye, Sister Grimm, Victorion, Energizer, Demitrion, and Magik.
Like I said, their job was to run interference between the oncoming enemies and the civilians. Air team mostly had that covered, as the enemy ships were simply not getting a foothold in the city. Still, the warships did manage to drop a considerable amount of ground fighters, and that's where Building team came in. Sister Grimm and Magik worked together to create hex minefields, causing chaos and disorganization every time a Dark Elf legion tried to get set up! Hawkeye and Energizer teleported from building to building putting arrows/energy blasts in the heads of Dark Elf soldiers, and alerted us to the fact that some of the Dark Elves were crushing some kinda glowing rock in their hands, and growing into these hulking behemoths that were tanking all her trick arrows (she had to make tracks after pissing a few off with some exploding napalm arrows). Grant had her covered, as the guy read Thor's entire Wiki page (got an A+ on his 4th quarter history paper on the guy), and knew that Dark Elves were vulnerable to iron. Granted, the normal ones were vulnerable to literally anything else, but the big ones in particular were vulnerable to iron. Grant used his earthbending/conversion powers to make a swarm of iron daggers that located and shanked the big Dark Elves through the heads. Victorion was perched on top of the Aon Center, and was really goin' ham on his part! First off, the guy was tapped into the electromagnetic spectrum, and was using his version of Phantom Bolts (i'll share) to fry any stragglers that made it past Air team. More than that, he generated a few hundred electromagnetically charged Victorion Sentries (think Ultron bots, but with Vic's heroic face as the head, instead of his problematic daddy's) that were on flyover duty, blasting apart enemy ground formations, and rescuing civilians still tryna evacuate the area. Finally, Demetrion was on some magic ninja $#!+, as he'd pop up inside enemy formations, and transform em' to tulips! Hell, the other teams were doin' so good, Ground Team was basically cleaning up the leftovers.
Ground Team consisted of: myself, Geo-Titan, Stature, Hulkling, Speed, Princess Powerful, Xavin, and Mass Master. Geo-Titan and Mass Master were sharing the earthbending credit, as Grant was hacking his way through Dark Elf soldiers up and close, while also impaling, crushing, suffocating, dismembering, etc., them from all over the city with the pavement. Mass Master was doing an earth version of his water form, where he became one with it, and was also following up on Grant's gimmick. Stature was going back and forth between big and small to either stealth destroy battalions, or crush them under her boot. Hulkling was slicing and dicing with Excelsior, Princess Powerful was flying about, wrecking the enemy like a bull in a china shop, Xavin was doin' her Super Skrull thing, and me and Speed were zooming all over the place to stem the tide. Overall, things were going pretty good so far. Everything the Dark Elves were throwing at us was either getting rejected completely, or decently being defended against. I knew better than to get comfortable tho, as things usually go south when they've been going our way too long, and today was no exception.
After about 20 minutes of fighting, gravity seemed to shift in the direction of the Dark Elf fortress for a hot second! The vertigo was so intense, I lost my balance, and almost careened into a doughnut shop! That was nothing compared to the straight up chaos that ensued afterwards! Two shadowy comets shot outta the Dark Elf fortress at Mach 12, and literally exploded into a shadow storm upon landing in the city! The explosion was so massive, it covered the entire city in shadow, and blasted me straight through five buildings! That was the least of my worries tho, as my Speed Sense was going haywire in every direction! A quick sec to recover and get my bearings, and my Thunder Sense told me the whole story! Malekith had somehow gathered about 1,000 Dark Elves in those shadow bombs, and took them on the express train into the city! We're talking several dozens upon dozens of the ground troops, hundreds of the big ones, not to mention the dozens of fighters and warships now full on wreaking havoc on the city! Thank God I managed to keep the storm going above us, or that Aether nuke waiting to happen coulda ended the fight right then. That being said, this definitely wasn't gonna be easy as far as getting the reins back.
"There he is!" a raspy/muffled voice shouted behind me.
In the blink of an eye, I found myself surrounded by Dark Elf soldiers, all with blasters trained on me.
"This is the one!" the Dark Elf in front of me continued. "The 'Storm-Lord'. Malekith will reward us handsomely for your head, Midgardian."
The Dark Elves' blasters started to warm up, and I had to stifle a laugh.
"Bruh," I simply retorted. "Y'all shoulda called in sick today."
Before he could even think of opening fire on me (shoulda just blasted me when he had the 'chance'), I rushed forward as I summoned Excelsior, and ran him through! The Dark Elves to either side of him responded at a decent speed relative to me, so I definitely had to be careful. They made a move to shoot me from either side, but I quickly ducked, and sliced the one on the left in half from the torso, before sidestepping the other's blast, and rushing into him with a stab to the chest! The remaining Dark Elves (nine in total), made moves to try and corral me, but it was too late! I kicked it into high gear, and relieved them of their arms, legs, and heads, before getting back into the overall fight!
"Elementals!" I mentally sounded off. "Roll call! Let me know you're alive!"
Everyone responded, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Alright, we gotta get this show back under control! Wiccan, Lighting Style Thunderbird Shower Jutsu! Demitrion, Fire Style Lion Blitz! Sunbird, Geo-Titan, get some mini-suns/giant boulders goin', and let's get a Road Rage in! Starlight, Starbright, Victorion, get Operation Gridlock set up! I'll have Z.O.R.D.O.N. set up an Olympium Defense Tower to help ya out! Everyone else, stay your course, but kick it up a notch! Come on, Elementals, let's get to work!"
I can be pretty damn motivational when I wanna be, as the team did pull together to roughly get the situation back to manageable. Wiccan flew the highest perch, and did his lightning bird feather storm. Allyson and Grant created half a dozen mini-suns/Geo-Force charged boulders, about as big as houses, and did a newer move we made up (The Elemental Playbook is never closed for submissions) where they controlled their respective spheres of death, and bulldozed anything that got in their way! From above, it would look like a bunch of yellow/black Pac-Men eating the $#!+ outta the dark elves as they rolled at 100 miles per hour, zig zagging through the streets! Demitrion did his Fire Style Lion Blitz Jutsu, as he engulfed himself in Faltine Flames (Dormammu was apparently the black sheep of his kind), and dashed across the city at Mach 2, bulldozing, slicing, and chomping his enemies to cinders. Oh yeah, I don't know how much I can emphasize how much Jimmy was on a different level since the Vampire war! The dude was like if Doctor Strange, Jiraiya, Aang were rolled into one! My man was this close to being a certified Master of The Mystic Arts (still had to work on Astral Projection, and few spells in the First Path of Agamotto), and was a Journeyman Fire Elemental user. Hell, he was developing his own style of magic that would combine Elemental magic with Mortal Kombat personas! His Jiraiya outfit and ladies man persona (dude could pull the chicks) also made him a decently popular member of the team. Anyway, enough favoritism. Moving on, The Nova Twins summoned the Nova Mold (oh, we changed them from 'Sentinels' to 'Legionnaires'. Sends a better message). Which assessed the situation, and shot out legions of Mark-ISO and Neo Legionnaires! The Mark-ISO Legionnaires (a mix between a Sentinel and Iron Man) attacked the Dark Elf Warships, while the Neo-Legionnaires (androids, about the sizes of humans, with a lotta firepower) attacked the Dark Elf fighters, as well as the battalions on the ground, with flying bombers. Vic added to the battle effort by summoning a Technodrome (actually shaped like a sphere), that resembled G1 Unicron's planet form (again, had to rebrand the whole anti-mutant weapon thing). The Unicron Technodrome (tested well in focus groups) went to work under Vic's leadership, and sprouted energy cannons, rocket launchers, Railguns, and other cosmic weapons combined into an orgy of guns that would make a Sci-Fi redneck (those HAVE to exist) bust a nut! The Unicron Technodrome locked onto the Dark Elf warships, fighters, and select ground battalions. Anything it set its sights on ceased to remain a problem. Finally, I summoned an Olympium Defense Tower (perfected the maneuver since the first time I used it against Hood's invasion of New York). The pop culture army for today was Yu-Gi-Oh, and after Z.O.R.D.O.N. charged the tower with Zeus Lightning, it shot out dozens upon dozens of canisters across the city, in areas where our defenses were a bit lacking. Each canister came with: 2 Dark Magicians, 2 Elemental Hero Claymen, 2 Elemental Hero Burstinatrixes, and 2 Dark Magician Girls. Between all of our efforts, me and the team actually didn't do half a bad job, as we managed to turn the tide back to a stalemate that was slowly but steadily leaning back in our favor! I REAAAAALLLY wanted to let my mind relax a little bit, and maybe CONSIDER the possibility that we had beaten the worst of it, but I have 7th sense for these kinda things, and I just knew $#!+ was about to get worse. Once again, my 7th sense hit the bullseye!
Gravity shifted again, but this time it didn't stop…..it just…..it felt like we were being pulled into some kinda soft black hole! I couldn't shake the feeling, and my Thunder Sense wasn't exactly sure on what I was picking up on, so I got an official diagnosis from my trusty A.I.
"Z.O.R.D.O.N.?" I asked him.
"We're f*(#^&." he simply responded as he flashed the map into my mask HUD.
Yeah…..f*(#^& was the right word.
Malekith had basically set California on a time bomb. Across seven cities: Redding, Sacramento, Merced, Fresno, Bakersfield, Riversdale, and San Diego, big ass obsidian crystals, the sizes of skyscrapers, with red runes glowing along its length (kinda looked like a Vexos Crystal) popped up outta the ground, and set up shop! First and foremost, the crystals worked together to literally trap the entire state of California inside an energy barrier! Forget the storm cloud battle still happening just above the barrier, now we had to worry about the Svartalf Crystals (as good a term as I can make) literally creating a synthetic black hole that was gonna swallow the f*(#!^% state in like half an hour! Even worse, the crystals were portals by which thousands of Dark Elves were pouring into the state, and wreaking havoc! The death toll was already in the 300s! Yeah, this was goin' south FAST, and it was only gettin' worse from here! As I kept up the fight, slicing down a few battalions of Dark Elves, my Speed Sense hit me from the front, and I was just barely able to get behind my Sky Shield, and lessen the blow of an Aether blast that still threw me a good 100 meters back! The blast came from an Aether portal sprouting in the middle of the city! I summoned my electromagnetic spear, Polaris Wrath, and readied myself for what was comin' my way. Outta the portal walked Malekith, and his son, Malekron, who was cosplaying as Medusa (the Inhuman Queen). Malekith looked calm, collected, regal, and had an expression on his face that looked like a mix of disgust and boredom. The guy was obviously no stranger to waging wars. His son on the other hand looked like a kid taking his first trip to Disney World! He looked around with a sense of awe and wonder, and clapped whenever something went boom. I honestly couldn't tell if he was 15, or 1,500 (you can never really tell with immortal beings). One thing was certain: they were here for me.
Malekith and Malekron locked on to me with respective disinterest and amusement, as they worked together to summon a wave of pure Aether, that morphed into a spiral blast big enough to cut a plane in half! I dashed sideways outta the blast's way, but Malekith was way ahead of me, as he straight up turned the Aether spiral into a giant shadow serpent, made it do a 180, and almost took me out as the snake collapsed its jaws onto me with enough strength to strangle a skyscraper! I managed to use Polaris Wrath to get an electromagnetic barrier around myself (Magneto helped me get better at that), and had Z.O.R.D.O.N. lock onto the Aether serpent with some Olympium missiles. My A.I. bailed me outta this one, but this father/son team really wasn't somethin' to take lightly! As soon as I was outta the serpent's mouth, I was immediately on the retreat, dashing up and down the city, as Malekith and Malekron kept up the heat with a mix of magic attacks and Aether constructs! Their hexes were nothing too bad, as I was usually too fast to get hit, and even when I did, my high resistance to magic covered my ass (Malekron whined about how one of his blasts didn't turn my skin inside out). Their Aether attacks were an entirely different thing all together, as it was like tryna run from your own shadow! No matter how fast I ran, or how many attacks I dodged, I was always getting besieged from all angels, until it was all I could do to try and maintain an electromagnetic shield around myself, as a maelstrom of Aether weapons, dragons, Cthulhu beasts, and panther dragons (guess that was common on Svartalfheim?) hammered relentlessly at my shield! I managed to keep them at bay via Z.O.R.D.O.N. honing in more Olympium reinforcements my way, while I summoned some Subterranean legions to start pushing' back against the Dark Elf hordes wreaking havoc all across California! Man, this was shaping up to be a $#!++¥ day!
"Hey, Storm-Lord?!" Demetrion thought to me and the team. "Not to be a backseat driver, but can I get a crack at making Plan C?"
"Hey, you got a suggestion, i'm all ears man, but make it quick!"
"Yeah, I just did a read on those crystal things! They're strong, but they've got a set charge to them! Without a constant energy flow from their home world, they're susceptible to being dried out! I've got the power and the spells to do so, which means-"
"I can get one too!" Grant chimed in.
"Hulking and I can each get one as well," Wiccan continued.
"Totally your show, Sister Grimm," Iron Torch thought to the chat.
"I could use some dark magic crystals," Magik said. "My jewelry collection needs a bit of spicing up."
Did I mention how much I loved Illyana, cuz holy $#!+.
"Alright," I thought to the team. "I think I got it. Thanks for the help, Demi! Ok, I already got Moloid squads mitigating the attacks across the state, so you're not flying in too much behind the 8 ball. Lookin' at Z.O.R.D.O.N.'s maps, it looks like you can teleport within 20 miles of the crystals without getting affected by the magic they're emitting, so use that for what it's worth. We're gonna need a squad to stay here in L.A., so sorry to the other attack squads, you're only getting three teammates, which have already been chosen for you!"
A collective sigh, as even when dealing with apocalyptic threats, the disappointment of not being able to choose your group members was universal.
"Yeah, yeah," I continued. "Listen up! Sunbird and Power Pack, you're staying here with me. Side note, I could really use a hand here, babe!"
Allyson acted before I could even call out the next set of orders, as a flash of sunlight cut though the Aether! Malekith and Malekron got pelted from behind with mini-suns, launching them both in opposite directions! Malekith got rocketed forwards (both of em' were flying), and Allyson trucked into him from behind, and started to wail into him with a mix of punches, kicks, blasts, and knife stabs. The fact that Malekith wasn't dead within three seconds was a testament to his speed and skill. I had to assume Malekith was somewhere on that level. The Dark Elf prince faceplanted into the asphalt, barely ten feet away from me! I immediately tried to impale his head with my spear, but he blocked the stab with his hair (mom would kill for whatever routine he was using), recovered, and returned the fight tenfold!
"Ok," I got back on track. "When I call the teams, get to your stations! Wiccan, Speed, Hawkeye, to Redding! Sister Grimm, Princess Powerful, Iron Torch, to Sacramento! Demitrion, Karolina, Xavin, to Merced! Hulkling, America, Stature, to Fresno! Magik, Patriot, Victor, to Bakersfield! Geo-Titan, Starlight, Starbright, to Riversdale! Whoever takes out their crystal first, get the spare one in San Diego! Come on, team, let's make it happen!"
Everyone split on their respective missions, leaving me Allyson, and Power Pack to defend L.A. Speaking of which, Malekron was a real pain in my ass!
Like I assumed, the guy was easily as fast as me, and just as skilled in ranged, armed, and unarmed combat! We zoomed up and down L.A., but it wasn't an even fight, as I was reduced to bobbing, weaving, and blocking Malekron's flurry of attacks as he cackled and flew around, like he was surfing on cotton candy! Dude really didn't have a care in the world, and was now just toying with me! I made him pay for it a few times, as I threw him off-balance with some electromagnetic geysers and bolts that absolutely floored him, before trying my damnedest to get my spear through his head (it was really important to me that I skewered this asshole in the face)! He teleported away from my blast, and I did a side flip as my Thunder Sense tracked him teleporting behind me, with intent to cut me in half with a hardened Aether sword construct! I recovered in time to duck under another horizontal slash, and as Malekron charged up for another swing, I kicked him in both his kneecaps, kicked him in the chest, and rushed him with a series of stabs at his legs and chest, a swipe at his neck, and an attempt to sweep his legs out from under him. Malekron easily dodged/parried my attacks, and responded with a point blank red magic blast that had me skittering across the pavement for a half a mile before I ran outta momentum, and tumbled to halt. That one hurt, not gonna lie, and it was only getting worse from here, as I found myself trapped inside a puddle of liquid Aether! The liquid darkness quickly took shape as a pack of ravenous tiger heads that all wanted a piece of Storm-Lord meat for lunch! A few managed to sink their jaws into my thighs (painful), but I blasted em' off me with a Polaris Voltage (almost forgot that's what I call electromagnetic energy) wave. That only bought me enough time to get inside another Polaris Voltage barrier (hey, it was working!), as Malekron reformed the tiger heads around me, to try gnawing through my barrier!
"I thought you'd be formidable, mortal!" the dark elf called down to me. "The way Loki fawned about you, I thought you'd be a foe worthy of my first incursion to this drab dirt planet! Come now, you're being a very bad host! Your guest is getting bored, and believe me, the last thing you want is for me to get bored!"
The tiger heads dissolved into pure Aether, and surrounded my barrier in a swirling black/red twister of death. By the way the fluid substance was starting to glow with red runes, Malekron was right about me needing to give him a better playdate.
I willed my Polaris Voltage barrier to swirl opposite of the Aether bubble's momentum, and summoned a continuous wave of Olympium dust to form another protective barrier around the electromagnetic energy. Malekron was no doubt sensing the change under the Aether bubble, and tried to hasten the pace of whatever it was he was doing. No bueno, as I willed my now complete Olympium shield to let off successive waves of Polaris Voltage that rebounded/enhanced off of each other, until the electromagnetic surge was too much for Malekron to contain! Idiot was too busy tryna box me in, he didn't bother to pay attention to his surroundings, and was now on the run as I had Z.O.R.D.O.N. constantly firing a barrage of missiles and kamikaze Olympium Yu-Gi-Oh constructs at him, while metalbending the ever expanding Olympium swarm at him in various attacks! It was Malekron's turn to stay on the defense, as I constructed my Olympium swarm into Doc Ock tentacles, alien fighters, Ratchet & Clank weapons (I was partial to the R.Y.N.O, Tesla Claw, and the Walloper), all powered by Polaris Voltage, and kept the attacks comin'! Malekron's Aether manipulation was now focused on covering his ass, as he blocked the majority of my attacks with these sweeping waves of darkness, while occasionally responding with a magic blast, or a storm of Aether blades raining down on me. We were evenly matched on this aspect, and honestly could've kept this up all day, but I wasn't tryna stay out here all day. Little by little, I was charging Polaris Wrath with ambient energy from the Power Grid, and the electromagnetic spectrum (they were kinda the same thing, but I usually didn't use regular and Polaris Voltage together). I currently had enough juice to blow up half a skyscraper. Once I upped said juice to the full thing, i'd hit Malekron with the business, and see how funny he thought gettin' blasted into a million pieces was!
In other news, Allyson was makin' Malekith sweat somethin' fierce!
I was tracking her battle via Thunder Sense, and MAAAAAAN, was she straight dogging my man! She was in Super Sunbird at the moment, driving a series of giant solar hammers, fists, buzzsaws, and rockets into his shields, before catching up to him, and laying the smackdown! Malekith was in such dire straits, he had completely engulfed his entire body in Aether (looked like if Carnage and Venom….uh, nevermind), and to his credit, was still able to keep up with Allyson's strength and speed, but only barely! He kept her at bay via converting his arms into jagged blades, or summoning giant Aether pythons from behind his back to hold her off, but after Allyson either dodged or smashed through his attacks, she put the hurt on him up and close with some DBZ level combos mixed with some more knife attacks! She managed to shank Malekith a dozen times in the torso area, got dangerously close to stabbing him straight though the eyes, and peppered some cuts along his legs and arms. Still, Malekith was just fast enough to avoid the worst of her attacks, and his Aether aura used the spare seconds to completely heal his wounds! Ok, so it had to be a one hit K.O. Understood.
Back to me and Malekron, my spear had finally charged up enough for the big boom, and after maneuvering the fight to Cornfield Park, hurled my spear at the Dark Elf as hard as I could! He made a collapsing move with his hands, and engulfed himself inside an Aether barrier, but I saw that comin' a mile away, and prepared accordingly. As Polaris Wrath got close, I willed the Olympium I coated the spear with to spring into a dome around Malekron, that would enhance/rebound the energy inside the barrier (didn't wanna destroy the park too much)! Malekron fell for the trap, and after a slight pop from the ensuing explosion, the Dark Elf prince careened into the dirt, slightly dazed, but very much alive, and not in a million pieces (I woulda settled for 100). More so, the dude had some ingenuity on him, as my Speed Sense pinged something massive, like MASSIVE massive, tunneling below the park; about to spring to the surface, just below where I was standing! I jumped outta the way of a torrent of razor sharp hair (not kidding), as thick as a bridge cable, braided with black metal shrapnel! No sooner than I rolled outta danger, another giant hair braid exploded outta the ground below me, followed by more and more with each one I dodged, until it was literally just me running around the park, trying not to get squashed/minced by the razor hair braids! Oh yeah, Malekron had somehow magicked his hair so long and thick, he was the world's deadliest Olay commercial! I managed to just barely keep ahead of the lashing/twisting locks, and tried to use giant Olympium buzzsaws to cut through Malekron's hair, but that $#!+ was tough! I was maybe able to shave a few clips of hair from whatever braid I sliced into, but it was like tryna chisel away at a mountain with a knife. Even worse, Malekron upped the ante, as his hair became infused with Aether, and morphed into giant spires of volatile darkness, with a snake aesthetic! Instead of razor sharp bridge cable hair, I now had to deal with giant Aether snakes tryna swallow me whole! I was able to hold out for a few minutes via the 5 D's of dodgeball, before getting pinned down again, and having to hunker down inside an Olympium dome. Hell, I asked Z.O.R.D.O.N. for another missile volley, but based on the muffled booms, it wasn't phasing Malekron's new digs one bit. While the giant Aether snakes continued to tear away at my dome (they were making slow progress, but progress nonetheless), I heard a muffled tap on the side I was facing. No way…..
"Hello?" I heard Malekron's voice through my dome. "Good sir? Sorry to be a bother, but, could you spare a cup of sugar?"
I f*(#!^& hated this guy.
"No? How rude! This is no way to treat your neighbor! How will I ever complete my…."
Malekron's voice trailed off, and I understood why. Even before having Z.O.R.D.O.N. confirm it, I felt the weight of the Aether barrier over California lessen ever so slightly! It was like slowly coming up for air, after being submerged. Looking at the map, Geo-Titan and the Nova Twins were the first to destroy their crystal, and were already in San Diego working on the other one! Hell, the rest of the teams were no slouches, as the crystals in Redding and Bakersfield were picked off in short order!
"Ah….." Malekron mused. "Distracting me, eh? Well played, mortal, but futile. It will take nothing at all for me to conjure replacements. And seeing as you're content to stay inside, and horde your sugar-"
"Z.O.R.D.O.N., activate Bastion armor!"
A flash of tachyon energy flashed inside my dome, and the Bastion armor wrapped around my body Iron Man style, with some notable modifications! See, while me and the team were holding off the Dark Elf forces, Z.O.R.D.O.N. was absorbing, analyzing, and integrating Svartalf Tech into my Olympium, and more importantly, my Bastion armor. My Terminator suit knew more about the Dark Elves than I did, and now had an assortment of weapons and fighting styles to counter em'! Granted, the suit still took a $#!+ ton of tachyon energy to power. In case you forgot, I was able to construct five tachyon arc reactors that could hold a ten minute charge, but it took a full five days for said arc reactors to fully recharge after use. This basically relegated me to one Bastion use per day, and only for emergencies only. Not perfect, but good enough for now. Oh, another cool thing was that the armor modified its appearance to be a bulked up Dark Elf soldier, with a black and purple paint job. I dunno, maybe Z.O.R.D.O.N. wanted to f*(# with Malekron. Anyway, I exploded outta my dome, and hit the Dark Elf prince so hard in the chest, he flew into the jungle of his own Aether infused hair! Speaking of which, the giant hair snakes attacked me in a giant barrage that would give me nightmares for days, but my suit handled it with flying colors, as it barraged the Aether monstrosities with…..to be honest, i'm not exactly sure. Like, the Aether was a reddish black substance that could take on liquid/solid forms. What the Bastion armor was essentially dishing out in the form of repulsor blasts, mini rockets, and energy blades, was like a synthetic, hyper/anti-version of it, colored goldish white. Any time my Rehtea (Aether spelled backwards, best you're gonna get) came in contact with it's opposition, both forces cancelled each other out in a puff of grey that quickly dissolved into the atmosphere. So while I finally had a counter, it was by no means invincible, and I had to bust my ass over the course of the next three minutes in a mad dash of blasting, slashing, missile barraging, occasionally shielding, and a $#!+ ton of Ratchet & Clank and War/Fall of Cybertron weapons (Pyrociter, Bomb Glove, R.Y.N.O., Devastator, Energon Axe, Neutron assault rifle) to bombard my way though seemingly endless waves of Aether attacks! I occasionally got glimpses of Malekron in the Aether forest, but never long enough to get a clear shot on him. His pants $#!++!^& look was enough of a reward tho, as Malekron was no longer in control of the situation! The guy was now throwing successive wave after wave of his snake hair at me, while hiding and shifting his position every time I managed to weed him out. Malekron honestly coulda kept this up for a pretty decent amount of time, maybe even enough to run down the clock, as I wasted another two minutes tryna hunt him down, but I was havin' none of it. I played the hide and seek game for one more minute, as I charged a Rehtea blastwave in my armor, and let it loose; evaporating Malekron's entire defense field! The dark elf cratered into the dirt, some odd 50 feet away from me. The Bastion armor was wicked good at predictive analysis, as it surmised Malekron was about to bolt via his panicked heart rate, fear receptors going haywire, and his fight-or flight response leaning heavily in the latter part of the coin. I honestly didn't wanna merc him that bad, but considering he would most definitely be back with some kinda world ending spell or machine, something we could definitely not afford at the moment, this was the end of the line. I made it quick, as I dashed over to Malekron, and put an Olympium blade in his heart before his head even stopped spinning from the previous explosion. Before I had a chance to catch my breath, and back up Allyson, an Aether blastwave exploded into me from outta nowhere, knocking me backwards a good 100 meters!
I recovered in time to see Allyson kick Malekith in the face, as she just barely kept the Aether overcharged Dark Elf from ramming into me in a blind fury! Yeah, that was the other thing, Malekith was pissed! Red tears were streaming down his face. He was sobbing, roaring, and cursing in between the punches, kicks, and stabs Allyson was getting in. His fighting hardly suffered, as he was still every bit as ferocious in his battle against my girlfriend, but he was taking more hits than usual, as he was expending a significant amount of focus tryna straight up obliterate me with Aether attacks! My Bastion armor was on its last legs, as I only had four minutes left before it had to recharge. I stretched a second into a thousand, as I contemplated the situation. Malekith was going haywire. His Aether attacks were getting more and more reckless, and at this rate he was in danger of trashing the city if he got back into the more dense area. I also took into account that the Aether storm just above the barrier had just grown significantly weaker! Malekith and Malekron were maintaining the storm, and with the latter…..indisposed, Malekith's hold on the Aether storm was barely even there, what with Allyson still kicking his ass (mostly). My Tempest Legion was now constricting the Aether supercell within themselves, forming a rough spherical shape. Then there were the Svartalf Crystals. The team was making swift work of them, as we were now down to two crystals left. That barrier was so done for! Hell, in its current state, it was actually pretty weak….and just like that, I had a plan worthy of a B+!
"Hey guys!" I thought to my tempest legion. "I see what you're doing, I like it, and I need ya to do it faster! Get that supersized Aether storm condensed to the size of a basketball, and wrap yourselves around it as a Vortex Rasengan! We're gonna blow this overgrown elf back to the north pole, or whatever!"
"That's gonna take a good three minutes, boss," a Venti responded. "Can ya last, that long?!"
Malekith managed to give Allyson the slip long enough to make a mad dash for me. I trapped him in a Rehtea tesla sphere, and grounded him!
"Don't worry about me!" I responded. "It's all good down here!"
Malekith must've heard that, as he conjured an Aether blastwave strong enough to blast right through my tesla sphere, and once again send me for a ride (killing my Bastion cred here). Again, I rolled into a recovery, but only got up to get another REALLY HARD punch to the face that sent me flying halfway across the park! Yeah, Malekith had really upped his game in the single second it took to recover, as the dude had now morphed into an Aether dragon man (oh God, Grant was never gonna let me hear the end of it), 10 ft tall! Malekith kept the pressure on, as he pounced on my Bastion armor, and started punching, clawing, and blasting the $#!+ outta it! The suit had to take a full ten seconds to adjust its density, recalibrate its weaponry, and respond in kind by blasting Malekith with a full on repulsor stream that was just strong enough for him to back off, and subsequently get hit in the head with a really big solar mallet! Malekith stumbled backwards, and crashed into the dirt as Allyson turned the entire park into a Sunspot, with gravity just strong enough for Malekith to not take flight. Didn't stop him from getting up and continuing to fight like hell tho.
"What did you do, Bolt Boy?!" Allyson berated me as she barraged Malekith with a barrage of giant solar spear constructs (Malekith was keen on blocking these with a magic shield).
"I maybe, kinda, killed his son?" I responded.
Malekith created a big ass Aether tornado around himself, taking Allyson for a bit of a loop. I quickly dissipated the twister with a Rehtea bomb blast (Allyson took a bit of that), and opened fire with an aggressive barrage of Rehtea ammunition on him, while Allyson got back in the game by attacking Malekith from behind with a mix of giant melee constructs, and Mario Cart attacks (I hate green shells with a passion).
"Ok," Allyson sighed. "Can't exactly criticize you, but you sure as heck made my job a lot harder!"
Malekith tried like hell to get back in the fight, as he spewed Aether flames from his mouth in every direction, while blasting magic attacks from his hands, and even thrashing his tail around. Nothing did him any good, as me and Allyson kept rotating around him, and mixing up ranged and melee attacks, with a special focus on disorienting attacks to his head, lower back, and gut. Hell, Allyson got in a nasty attack by wedging her spear in one of Malekith's eyes, and subsequently tried to bind the thrashing dragon man in solar chains. Malekith was having none of it, and shook them off as soon as she conjured em'.
"Hey," I responded to her previous comment. "He was tryna kill me, first! Also, he wanted my sugar! In any case, I got this under control! My Tempest Legion is like ten seconds from consolidating the Aether storm in a Vortex Rasengan! Oh, by the way, do me a favor and put the dragon man into the barrier, will you, dear?"
"I have many questions about the sugar thing. We WILL come back to that. But yeah, whatever floats your bolts, honey!"
God, she's so corny, it's f*(#!^& adorable!
Getting down to business quick, Allyson let go of her Sunspot, trucked into Malekith's gut, and bulldozed the overgrown dragon man into the extremely weak barrier still over California (only one Svartalf Crystal remained). In the three seconds it took for her to get Malekith set up, the Tempest Legion had finished the Vortex Rasengan, which I called to my hand! The barrier put up a fight to let it in, but it eventually managed to get through, and shoot right down to me! Holding that much power was intense as hell! Sure, I had made condensed superstorm balls before, but the Aether gave it a whole nother kick! It was somehow weightless, yet the heaviest thing i've ever held in my life! It reminded me of the myths (well, history I should say) of Hercules holding up the sky, but somehow I knew this was more than that! I was literally holding a piece of pure universe in my hands! I don't even know if I coulda pulled it off without the Bastion armor! Wow. Anyway, I told Allyson to get outta the way, and soared into Malekith's gut with my Vortex/Aether Rasengan!
I remember a huge explosion, the sound of thunder ringing in my ears, my vision going all black,the feeling of the wing against my skin, as the Bastion armor disassembled off me, the feeling of cratering into the ground, and a flash of rainbow? When I woke up (I was out for like half a minute), it all made sense.
Golden warships were literally flying in and out of the city, shooting down the remaining Dark Elf forces. Warriors clad in gold armor, flowing capes, and stupid horned helmets were taking out Dark Elf fighters by the dozens. Hell, for as dumb as their helmets were, the guys were wicked fast, and pretty decent swordsmen (and women. Valkyries were doin' their thing on their Pegasi too). Allyson landed next to me, quickly checking for injuries. I noticed I wasn't in Thunder God anymore. Guess after the relief of not havin' to keep that storm goin', my body called for a much needed break.
"I'm fine," I told Allyson, who was squeezing my head like a stress ball. "Come on, let's get to the fortress!"
"Yeah, about that….."
We flew our way to the Dark Elf fortress, 200 miles off the coast of L.A., but we were really just here to witness the clean up. I'm pretty sure the fortress was formidable at one point. The remains of turrets, catapults, and warships dotted Aether garrison, but that was the thing. Whatever this fortress was, Thor single handedly wrecked it! Hundreds of Dark Elf bodies, damaged weaponry, and shattered arcane stones, glass, and other items were strewn across the mile long landscape. Thor, who was now airborne, was absolutely drenched in blood from head to toe! Me and Allyson arrived in time to see him summon a lightning bolt that could swallow half of Manhattan! I always forget what a powerhouse that guy is! The lightning bolt in question reduced the remains of the Dark Elf Fortress to atoms! Absolutely nothing survived!
"IS THAT ALL?!" Thor roared to the heavens. "DOES THOU TRULY THINK YE CAN LAY WASTE TO THE MIGHTY DENIZENS OF ASGARD SO EASILY, BROTHER?! COME OUT OF THE SHADOWS, LOKI! COME AND FEEL THE WRATH OF MJOLNIR, O GOD OF NOTHING!"
"Uhhhh, Thor?" Allyson asked him politely as we floated closer to him.
Thor turned to us like a man possessed! It was a look I learned to notice when I was out late in New York (especially on the subways). The look of a man that was either drunk, high as f*(# on some crazy $#!+, or both. Thor's eyes gleamed with a mix of fear, rage, and hunger. The guy had obviously been in one hell of a fight, and based off of the way he was gripping his hammer, the fight wasn't done for him yet. I didn't like the way his teeth were bared. I didn't like how tight his hand was gripping Mjolnir, and I especially didn't like Allyson getting close to him like this. Call me old fashioned, but when a thunder god gives my girl the crazy eyes, I tend to forget the fact that he could easily whup my ass. I put myself between Thor and Sunbird, summoning my Sky Shield on instinct. Thor didn't seem to like that, as Mjolnir started surging with voltage, and the sky thundered.
"You dare-" he muttered.
"Nope." Allyson said as she got between me and Thor again.
She sang some calming notes, and her magic voice took the edge off me and Thor. The thunder god in particular looked like the weight of the world was slightly lifted off his shoulders. His contracted pupils dilated to normal, his breathing gradually calmed down from its erratic pace, and his arms relaxed so much, I thought he might drop Mjolnir for a second. He shook his head clear of the remaining delirium, and looked back at me and Allyson. This time, his blue eyes were full of sadness, but still retained that ember of rage.
"Forgive me, friends," he said. "It has been, as you mortals say, a rough day. My home was attacked, just as yours was. The timing is too conspicuous to not be related. I fear Loki is once again up to his tricks. A fact that spells trouble for all the nine worlds. What is worse is that he does not act alone. Malekith was here, was he not? Where is he?"
I looked at Allyson, as I was too out of it beforehand to be a reliable witness to what really happened when I clocked him with the Vortex/Aether Rasengan.
"Storm-Lord exploded him with a big bomb," she said. "He went poof in a big cloud of black and red smoke. He could be dead, but in my experience with being a superhero, no bodies means they'll probably be back."
Thor nodded gravely.
"Yeah," I said, putting my shield away. "About that. Any idea on how an army just up and dropped outta nowhere? We've got a precise lock on all the remaining dimensional rifts yet to be closed from the battle with Doom. This spot here was never one."
"Aye. It is what is known to my people as a Convergence point. A place where the lines between the nine realms has become blurred."
"Convergence?" Allyson asked.
"A phenomenon that happens once every 5,000 years, where the nine realms align perfectly. An opportune time for the enemies of Asgard and Midgard to strike. Before, this would be a mere inconvenience, but as you can see, our enemies pose a grave threat…...one they had not previously shown in over 400,000 years. Something is amiss, and once again, the answer can be none but Loki."
"Yeah," I said, scratching my head. "About that…."
I spilled my guts about everything I knew about the Shadow Gods, and my dreams concerning Loki. Granted, this was a pretty outdated well of info (I hadn't had another dream since the beginning of 2015), but Thor's eyes widened, as I had apparently given him something to go on.
"I thank you, Fuller," he said. "I have much to discuss with my father upon my returning to Asgard. For now, let us shift our focus to search and rescue operations."
"Umm, you sure you wanna go rescuing folks looking like that, Thor?" Allyson asked him.
Thor looked down, and just seemed to realize he looked like an extra from a Vikings battle (wonder if he liked that show?). With a quick twirl of his hammer, he shot into the ocean, and after staying submerged for about ten seconds, shot back upwards, clean of the blood, but smelling like seawater.
"Shall we go?" he asked us, as he shot towards California.
"You ok, Jason?" Allyson asked me.
"No," I admitted. "It's happening again. I can feel it. Whatever Loki's planning, me, you, and Grant are gonna get caught up in it. And just when things were lookin' like smooth sailing."
"Trouble always comes around, Bolt Boy. Try as you might, even you can't control everything."
She took my hands in hers, and pressed her forehead to mine. That was enough to make my mind go blank in temporary Nirvana. I was with Allyson. We were alive, our friends were alive, and everything was gonna be ok.
"Whatever happens is for whenever it happens," Allyson thought to me. "We'll face it together. We'll beat it together. For now, just take in the moment. We won the day. Now come on, fearless leader, we got people to save."
She gave me a quick kiss on the nose, and flew into the distance to catch up with Thor, with me not far behind.