This work is a piece of fiction. While inspired by real events, cultures, and practices in human history, the story blends factual history with fictional characters, dramatizations, and creative interpretation.
It is not intended to promote, glorify, or encourage any illegal activities, substance use, or harmful behavior. All depictions of sensitive topics are included solely for narrative and historical context.
For the effects of the story, all characters are to be considered above the majority age.
Reader discretion is advised.
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Earth-5H1N3, Year 2001.
Nova Empire, Embassy Planet Nirn of the Fulgebunt Draconis Imperium.
Undeniable might begets authority and control. For millennia, the Nova Empire has been in a stalemate with the Kree Empire. However, a war between empires, especially between two of this size, was not a static confrontation.
For years, the Kree had been fighting on two major fronts. The annihilation war against the Skruls—their original overlords—and the expansionist war against the multiethnic Nova Empire. As the ravenous monster that war was, the Kree were kept away from the inner orbits of the Nova Empire star systems.
It wasn't long ago that a major shift occurred in this millennia-old bellicose dynamic. With the fall of the Skrulls and their subsequent dispersal throughout the known galaxies, the Kree freed themselves from one major front.
Noetheless, the Kree couldn't immediately switch their focus to the Xandarians. There was much to do with the Skrulls' territory after their capitulation; it couldn't be rushed. Hence, even though the Nova Empire knew that trying times were approaching, they were not being swarmed by the blue racists immediately after the Skrulls' defeat.
Beyond the common galactic sense and the known regulations, the Nova were eager to have a deterrent in their territories, as it was to have an embassy for the empire overlorded by Aragorn, the 'cosmic entity'.
For the three years that it lasted, the Xandarians enjoyed a sense of security never before experienced.
That changed today, though...
"Is this a joke?" Irani Rael asked Rhomann Dey.
Irani Rael was the political leader of Xandar and the Nova Empire. She was a politician, a face for the people to place their hopes, dreams, and even faults.
Rhomann Dey was the Centurion Prime, also known as the Nova Prime. He was the military leader of the Nova Corps and the main connection with the Xandarian Worldmind. In terms of internal power, when the security of the Nova Empire was involved, Rhomann Dey held the highest status after the Worldmind.
Overall, he had a stronger pull than Irani Rael; however, because of the demands of his position, Rhomann Dey couldn't be a face for his people. He was rarely found near Xandar, and most of the time, he made his home on the war fronts.
"No. Kree and Shi'ar forces, together, have overwhelmed us," Rhomann Dey said. His tone was as somber as it could get, his eyes as tired and hopeless as could be grasped through the holographic projection.
"As we speak, I'm making way to Terra with a tail of warmonger birds and a few Kree celebrating my soon-to-be certain death." To dispel any uncertainties, Rhomann Dey transferred a copy of his Nova helmet's data.
"I'll fulfill my final duty and bestow my helmet to a worthy Terran to become the heart of the Nova Corps." The Nova Corps were not mutants, magicians, or any other form of superpowered lifeform. They wielded their power through the link granted to them to the Worldmind by their helmets. Hence, their positions and roles could be passed down.
"Hopefully, the Shine Dragon will pose a deterrent to my pursuers, and I'll get the opportunity to pass my ma—COUGH!" A bloodied cough interrupted him.
Irani Rael looked away. Rhomann Dey was considerably older than her; she grew up watching the tales of his accomplishments. She felt a pain she couldn't hide at watching a man she idolized, and had the honor of standing by his side for years, die slowly.
"I fear for Xandar," he said after composing himself and flying faster through the vacuum of space. "The group on my tail is but a fraction of their total. I... I think both empires are moving with their full force. Such an enormous force is not needed to hold our front-facing planetary fortifications... That number... That number is needed to eradicate an empire."
"Why? Why are they notoriously elitist and racist birds joining hands with the Kree?" Irani Rael asked with vitriol in her mouth. Her brow furrowed hard, and her fists tightened to the point of bleeding.
"I don't know," Rhomann Dey replied as if the fact of his ignorance pained him physically. "I'll request the Shine Dragon reinforcements; the Halo Ringworld is in sight."
Through the technology of his Nova Helmet, Irani Rael was observing from his point of view.
The magnificence of the Halo Ringworld appeared fast in his view. Rhomann Dey was moving at a percentage of lightspeed.
However, although none of them had the time for reverie, what broke them out of their daze was that, from 'up close', the helmet detected it was nothing but an impossibly detailed and realistic illusion.
"What is the mean—" And when Irani Rael was beginning to question the reason behind the illusion, a towering beam of energy unmistakable to the helmet and both leaders dropped on the southern section of the planet's hemisphere facing Rhomann Dey.
"ASGAR—" Rhomann Dey's exclamation was interrupted by a bright flash of light coming from the impact site of the Bifrost.
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Re-Nazca, Arbor Mundi.
A few minutes prior to the start of the divine war...
Inside the cliff-like face of the Arbor Mundi's trunk, in the 'tree house' the Haloans and Gaea had built, Gaea helped Carol Danvers don the last pieces of her armor.
Both women shared a silence not heavy nor anxious. Contrary to the most bloody and trying future that approached, the silence they shared was not laden with heavy emotions.
It couldn't be said that they were relaxed, but like when a child trusts their parents can see through the heavy fog during a moonless rainy night, they trusted implicitly Aragorn's countermeasures.
"Pietro said that someone will come to separate you from Earth, my Goddess," Carol said.
"What are you trying to say, child?" Gaea asked with a motherly countenance only the elder goddess mother could convoke.
"You know what Aragorn did to my soul," Carol explained with a short statement.
"..." Gaea narrowed her eyes at Carol. Carol continued to stretch, making sure her armor was comfortable for the upcoming fight. It was, impossibly so.
"Unlike my Goddess, I can afford to die for a moment or two," Carol continued her argument. "It isn't only my life that is expendable; Pietro is 'riding' that body Aragorn made for them for the other Earth. Regardless, though, Haloans can't stay dead, so..."
"... I understand the logic behind the argumentative," Gaea replied calmly. "I know my life is not my own and that two irrational, unrelenting monsters will be released onto the Multiverse should something happen to the fruit in my womb."
While her phrasing was horrific, her gestures were soft as she craddled her barely protruding belly.
"Aragorn is already a menace as he is. If not for your well-being or that of your child's, please think of the rest of the multiverse, my Goddess. Don't place yourself at risk," Carol nodded.
"I won't, child," Gaea chuckled softly. She leaned down and picked up the glass-like/metal-like shiny Trojan helmet, and, with practiced ease, secured the impossible helmet on her head. "For the future of all, please resist long enough."
"I'm confident in matching Asgard's king's might, and with this armor, even more so," Carol grinned behind the helmet reassuringly.
"The Odin you know from my memories is not the Odin that can warp reality to his whims and wishes, child," Gaea chided softly. "Don't underestimate him, don't overestimate yourself. March to this fight with the resolve to fight one such as Aragorn."
"... There's impossible and then there's outer-impossible, above that we have uber-impossible, and finally there's fighting that shine-for-brains idiot dragon," Carol flatly stated.
"~Fufufufu." Gaea chuckled, amused.
"No, but I do understand what my Godd—"
The Arbor Mundi shook.
"!" Both shifted gears to war mode.
Outside the tree house, the Bifrost clashed with the canopy of the Arbor Mundi. From over the Pacific, Pietro observed a veil of light envelop the giant tree and clash in a contest of unquantifiable weight with the rainbow bridge.
Unstopabble versus unmovable, the old conundrum was recreated.
Would the Bifrost, carrying with it the weight of the ten realms and Yggdrasil itself, topple the shielding veil born out of Aragorn's mad overprotectiveness? Would it fail?
After an instant in daze, Pietro disappeared once more and reappeared inside the tree house. "It's starting," he stated the obvious.
"Are you ready?" Carol asked, her photonic flames coating her with the glow of the Light Dimension and the Space Stone.
"You tank and deal damage, I hunt from the shadows of temporal imperceptibility and speed," Pietro said.
"And I'll take charge of battlefield control," Gaea added. She assumed a lotus position over the floor, roots grew and coiled lovingly around her, her white hair turned green like fresh vines, her blue eyes turned into glowing orbs of purple lightning, and her skin became rocky, ore-like.
Her divinity manifested in full force and suffused the world tree and its impossibly deep roots.
Pietro and Carol nodded to her.
Unstopabble versus unmovable, the old conundrum... This time, it was not Aragorn's overprotectiveness that faltered, nor the Bifrost myth that failed; it was Earth.
Gaea was to Earth just like Earth was to Gaea. Damaging Earth, on the planetary scale, was the equivalent of hurting Gaea. So when the clash of titans began to damage the surroundings... When the Bifrost's heat was about to set alight the atmosphere... When the continental shelf was shaking due to the weight the resistance was exerting over it... When space was beginning to warp... When it became clear that the stubbornness of resistance was going to hurt Earth/Gaea, the veil shifted slightly, and the Bifrost was deflected to the side.
And from where it landed, He marched out... Odin the Allfather, clad in his black Destroyer Armor, cloaked in the warping aura of the Cosmic Cube, the blue-gleaming Odinsword in hand unapologetically unsheathed, and the madness in his two eyes that couldn't be hidden even by a face plate.
Coiled around the Arbor Mundi's trunk, Aragorn's thought construct of his Alduin persona stirred awake. Its lazy eyelids blinked open, and two wine-red nebulae greeted the king of Asgard.
His head coiled back, his maw split open, his slitted white pupils gleamed with violence, and the cavernous depths of his mouth glowed bluish white.
With the sound of forceful air displacement, he breathed a breath—a beam of star-hot flames.
Odin raised overhead his deadly sword and waited for the small instant it took for the breath to fly to him before swinging his blade down powerfully.
The breath was parted in two like a shoal for a predator. The breath reformed behind the Bifrost, and it flew straight into the Pacific Ocean...
It hadn't been even hours since Pietro had staged the death of many of the higher-ups in the different fleets, so while the world war had been placed on hold, not many had made it to the false safety of the multiple ports.
Hence, when the star-hot beam-like breath cut through the edge of the horizon and flew into space, many of the retreating ships witnessed the brilliant beam of flames escaping the planet.
Even in some of the continental cities, where the populace was still evacuating after the Worldwide Purple Alert had been declared, many panicked humans saw the bright beam of flames herald another end of the world.
"I don't know what you are," Odin murmured—Alduin's construct was so well-built that it could confuse even his divine sight. His voice reverberated loudly with his divinity. "But I'm not your opponent."
From the pillar of Bifrost light behind him, the purplish black skeletal forelimb of a reptilian stepped forward.
The moment the forelimb stepped on Earth, decay spread from its touch. Gaea winced and commanded the thought construct, 'Drag it out of the planet!'
Nidhogg's other forelimb followed after... Rot spread further. The atmosphere turned miasmatic.
Its skeletal head lit with the purple fires of the end of souls and the beginning of Ragnarök came after... Corrosion flooded with the intent of swallowing whole the Arbor Mundi first, Re-Nazca second, and the planet last.
It was worrying how the addition of Odin's enthralled enemy had checkmated Gaea before the start of the fight.
Even so, Odin wasn't done yet. Nidhogg was a distraction to oppose Alduin, whose nature he was never able to determine. As a distraction, Nidhogg was more than equipped; however, that was not the extent of his preparations.
He didn't say it, he stated it, willed it, and the Cosmic Cube answered to his wish, 'I wish the Celestials would ignore Earth during the following battle.'
As Stark had predicted, Odin was not using a divine domain to spread the reality warping of the Cosmic Cube. The cube itself was the origin of a pulse that spread with absolute speed and covered reality entirely to warp it.
However, where Stark calculations failed was in the speed of the pulse. The pulse of reality warping covered reality so fast that in less than a second, it had been warped in its entirety. Hence, from the readings he was getting, all he could tell was that the change/pulse was instantaneous.
Yet, with Odin forgoing stealth, this was not a concern when his position could be so easily determined through satellite feed.
With the pact with the Celestials temporarily lifted, from the still-opened Bifrost, countless deities strode as if they owned the space they existed within.
"It's been so long," A red-haired deity sporting an equally crimson beard said. He took a deep breath and squinted his eyes in disgust. "Between the mess humanity has made of the planet and Nidhogg's putrefaction, it stinks!"
"Gaea, why do you turtle inside that tree? Don't you know we've come to rescue you?" Another deity spoke. The question was directed at the Arbor Mundi, from where they could sense her divinity.
One after the other, arrogant as only they could be, the deities exited the multicolored light of the Bifrost before it flickered out.
"Spread out," Odin commanded. "Wreak havoc, plunder, damage, it's a blitzkrieg on Earth, the only restriction is damaging the planet!"
Deities look down on mortals; this was a fact. Mortals look up to them, and they look down on mortals. However, wisdom and war were some of Odin's domains.
[War] dictated it was preferable to keep reinforcements away from Gaea. [Wisdom] advised humanity's resilience was not to be underestimated. Lastly, no less important, his experience commanded him to capture Gaea with all of his power before Aragorn returned.
Like a locust swarm of plagues, the deities flew, teleported, sank into the ground, elementalized, and used many other wondrous methods of movement to scatter around Earth.
When the last of the swarm, the slower ones, departed, a bright star emerged from the trunk of the Arbor Mundi.
Cloaked in photonic flames of light, wearing an armor that shifted between iridescent colors, Carol Danvers floated menacingly closer to Odin.
She made a minimal gesture, Odin's instincts flared up, and a tear in space opened next to him. A bright flash later, and everything in the path of the tear into the Light Dimension had suffered photonic erosion.
Nidhogg had been caught in the path of the horizontal pillar of light and had his forelimbs eroded into erasure. Alduin took the opportunity and flashed a breath at the decay dragon. Yet...
"This is not what I wish," the Allfather's voice interrupted.
His body reformed, and so did Nidhogg's, just in time for he decay dragon to fire a purple breath of corrosion at Alduin's bright flames and contest for supremacy.
"TCH!" Carol clicked her tongue in annoyance. "So the Cosmic Cube it is."
While the pulse of reality warping might have been too fast for Stark, Carol Danvers, certain speedsters aside, was one of the fastest beings in reality. It was impossible for her to avoid it, even for Pietro, since it ignored space-time. But she was able to at least pick up that it was coming from a central point in the armor.
She easily connected the dots and matched what her senses perceived with the snippets she remembered of the Cosmic Cube Aragorn had made public knowledge in the learning room in Halo.
"Knowing doesn't help, does it, girl?" Odin asked.
"No, but i—" Mid reply, Carol was interrupted by a pulse of reality warping.
Her armor flared up and resisted the pulse.
"... Did you try to harm me?" She asked, her head tilted sideways.
"It appears you—no, not you, the armor can resist my will," Odin said in observation.
"It's not only the armor, though," Carol said.
Before Odin could make his next move, a crystal-like dark brown root emerged between his legs and speared him through. Carol wasted no time and pointed her fist at his impaled figure; a photonic discharge blasted his body.
And yet... Even with this much annihilation, Odin reformed.
"... Annoying," Carol said.
"I wished for eternity and immutability, why you believe your vain resistance anything other than futile, I don't know," Odin declared. He pointed the Odinsword at her, and the Cosmic Cube pulsed once more.
Faster than she could react, Carol found herself being flung against her will back to the Arbor Mundi. It was only when she crashed into its trunk that she stopped.
With difficulty, she glanced down and saw the tip of the Odinsword sparking against her breastplate.
It wasn't that the blade extended in an instant; it was that space disappeared between the tip of the Odinsword and her.
"So, not even that is enough," she heard Odin's voice coming from above.
'Instantaneous displacement?' she asked.
'Yes, he didn't move so much as reality warped around him and he appeared where he stands,' Pietro replied.
"I wonder, how do you plan to contend against the origin of this armor's scales?" Carol asked with a grin before bursting into a conflagration.
Odin was no longer above her, though. Instantaneous displacement meant exactly that: movement as fast as thought could be birthed.
The photonic flames died down and receded into Carol. Her enemy stood opposite her at a distance.
'If he can regenerate, why did he avoid my explosion?' she asked.
'He is careful of getting the cube taken,' Pietro informed her.
'Even if he stayed still, I don't think we can remove that thing from the armor, can we?' Carol asked while already knowing the answer.
'No, that thing is part of the armor and the armor is part of him,' Pietro explained. 'It would be easier for a mortal to achieve lightspeed naturally than for us to separate that cube from the armor.'
'So he is cautious, great,' Carol mentally huffed.
The Cosmic Cube pulsed again, but this time it was the Arbor Mundi who resisted it.
"No, no, no, Odin," Gaea's voice resonated from the giant tree. "You can't get to me without fighting your way through."
"Gaea, since when is being able to resist reality warping this common?" Odin asked.
"That's the standard, geezer, get up with the times," Carol replied with unhiden mockery.
"Gaea, if you don't surrender, I'll wish humanity away," Odin threatened while ignoring Carol's jab.
"Sure, why don't you try it?" Gaea replied nonchalantly.
"... What did you do?" Odin asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Echidna, the primordial Cyclops, the hecathonaires, and Typhoon were some of the many I used in my attempts to rid the world of the plague humanity had become in the distant past. Why do you think I would care?" Gaea asked.
"You don't, wretched Elder Goddess," Odin said with a victorious smirk, "but she does," he pointed at Carol with his blade.
"Yes, you're right." Carol didn't attempt to hide it.
"Do you think she would be left as my bodyguard without countermeasures by Aragorn, even while knowing her disposition?" Gaea asked mockingly.
"... Then, let it be so," Odin said. The Cosmic Cube pulsed one more...
... Seconds passed, and none moved. Carol was content in wasting precious seconds, and Odin was flaggerbasted by the failure in his wish; he glared at the Arbor Mundi harder after a moment of waiting.
Seconds ago, when Gaea had spread her divinity through the Arbor Mundi and fused with it, all around the world, in selected locations with a higher concentration of humans seeking shelter after the Purple Alert rang, thin vines from the impossible tree broke through the foundations of the sheltering structures without causing structural damage—as if by design—and small, tiny by comparison with the ones found in the main tree, leaves bloomed, followed by free-floating soft motes of warm light.
Many resisted the strange vines attempting to ensnare them; however, if the Arbor Mundi could resist the shockwaves from nuclear strikes, no amount of desperate hacking from a human could do the trick.
Some, those with a keen eye for details, recognized the crystal-like nature of the vines and the uncanny resemblance to the most coveted leaves of the world tree.
What, regardless of their initial impression, none could prevent was to find themselves seconds later in a cocoon of vines and leaves, lighted by warm motes of light.
And so, when Odin wished to take humanity hostage, the amount he captured was paltry when compared to the global population.
The truth was that he should have been able to capture a considerable number, even with Gaea's shielding. Still, since Gaea had been receiving enormous amounts of faith from humanity, she decided to put it to good use in a manner that benefited them. Hence, many who should not have been able to make it to the nearest shelter found that the 'will of the world' favored them.
Some found the weather unnaturally cooperative, others were found by the vines and roots of the Arbor Mundi, and a few discovered that distance was shrinking when moving towards a shelter.
Miracles, that was the answer.
Now, would Gaea, notoriously known for her ruthlessness throughout history and prehistory, go out of her way to save a race that had been damaging her/Earth greatly for the past couple of centuries?
No, most obviously she wouldn't. Since almost none of the Haloans cared for humanity, she was not moving entirely with their concerns in mind. Fury and Carol were mostly to thank for her consideration for the homo sapiens.
Many humans were moving about her protection, and Gaea was not ungrateful, so this was her concession.
"Is your resolve as the Midgardians' protector feeble enough to part with the tens of millions I captured?" Odin directed his question at Carol, his visage challenging and even somewhat mocking.
Sigh! Carol let out a heavy breath. "This is already the best case scenario," she spoke with resignation. She was a hero, and through her input and influence on Aragorn, she had managed to save billions from ending in the Allfather's claws, but she was not a fool with a hero complex.
She saw it as her responsibility to try her best, but not her duty to save every single aching soul and lose herself while in the process. Logic had been hammered down in her stubborn head that her continued existence served humanity better than a foolish heroic sacrifice; this had been taught to her by Fury and Aragorn.
"Besides," Carol shrugged derisively at Odin. "Aragorn can always pull their souls back to the future and save them at any time, he promised me he would try, so, as far as I know, no one has died yet, and no one has been taken hostage."
The derisory way of her words was because she knew Odin hadn't yet grasped the limits of Aragorn's 'bullshittery,' as she called it.
Odin glared harder, if that was possible, and after another pulse from the cube, Carol found herself staring at a void of light, a black hole, the protective shell of a singularity.
The fold in space and the aggressiveness of gravity pulled at her atoms, yet, before she could get spaghettified, script lighted in her armor, and she was back in the shadow of the Arbor Mundi.
"I can't warp her away, but I can warp her surroundings away. Is that what you thought?" Carol scoffed. "I think Aragorn's preparations have made this clear enough by now, no?" She tilted her head playfully.
This was Fighting 101: rile up your enemy and get them to make mistakes.
"You won't be able to place one of your filthy hands on my Goddess while I remain," the aura of photonic flames shone with a much brighter intensity, "So, stop wasting my time and come, kill me, end me, atomize me, destroy me until I can no longer oppose you, and then, only then, will you have the infinitesimal chance of surviving this suicide attempt you think is a smart incursion."
Then, right at that moment when Odin's attention was focused on her, the tip of a jousting lance emerged from his back, piercing through his chest and, more importantly, the Cosmic Cube.
Odin looked down at the shattered cube and then glared forward with a victorious grin. "There you are," he said.
Time rewound. "SHIT!" Pietro sensed it and tried to oppose the unnatural flow of time with his divinity. Nonetheless, his efforts couldn't thwart the brute force of Odin.
And so...
"You won't be able to place one of your filthy hands on my Goddess while I remain," the aura of photonic flames shone with a much brighter intensity, "So, stop wasting my time and come, kill me, end me, atom—"
"He rewound time," Pietro said, appearing next to her. "No need for the distraction."
"Ah... That's unfortunate," Carol shrugged as if the failure of their plan was not her concern. "So we duke it out?"
"Plain old fisticuffing it is," Pietro nodded.
"So, even after apotheosis, gods lower themselves to the barbarity of mortality?" Carol asked with a jesting tone.
"I think only the Old Man has an aversion to CQC from the Drachantheon Therion," Pietro commented.
"Aragorn is weird about the weirdest things," Carol shook her head in exasperation. "Anyway, let's do this!"
With a flash, she reappeared above Odin and dropkicked him. Odin raised his arm guard and attempted to parry the kick, yet the kick was not deflected; instead, he saw his arm fly across his view and the edge of Pietro's jousting lance appearing in his peripheral sight.
The dropkick slammed on his chest, right where the Cosmic Cube was, and Odin was obliterated by the photonic discharge boosted by the weight of an entire dimension.
Yet, as has been the case so far, Odin reformed.
"Speed," he muttered before the cube pulsed.
'He can follow me now,' Pietro informed Carol when he saw the Allfather's eyes tracking him.
Odin didn't stop there; he continued with, "Immunity."
'I don't think I need to test it, but I'm sure he's immune to my light now,' Carol shared.
'No doubt,' Pietro agreed.
Their exchange happened within the span of fractions of a second.
At that moment, the three involved parties flashed away from their location, and the mountainous bodies of Alduin and Nidhogg cratered where they had been standing.
Alduin's serpentine body was coiled around the dragon wrought from putrefaction and rot. The poisonous and decaying purple flames of Nidhogg slowly unmade the thought construct. The bluish white fire from Alduin's breath ate at Nidhogg's spectral body.
Both dragons were colossal, their sizes dwarfing the humanoids whose fight was momentarily interrupted. Growls and roars filled with magic left their maws. In response to their draconic aria, the manifestation of countless phenomena overran their surroundings.
Bloodied roots with a dark ichor—no, not the Arbor Mundi's roots—clawed from the ground out towards the thought construct. These were the manifestation of Nidhogg's gnawing at Ygdrassil's roots.
Spears of light rained from above. These were powered by the white magic the Sorcerers Supreme were known for.
As if the resentment from the underworld had risen, as if the judgment of heaven had descended, both attacks collided with the dragons as the point of impact.
Just before heaven and the underworld hit their intended targets, Pietro outran the flow of time and appeared above Alduin, and fed the thought construct his reinvigorating divinity. The previously rotting wounds healed up at a speed matching Pietro's own regeneration.
Carol couldn't follow with her eyes what Pietro was doing, but there was someone who could: Odin. He did as Pietro and appeared atop Nidhogg's head, the countless divinities fueling his Destroyer Armor rivuleted into the dragon of rot.
Then there was the loud sound of a forest of wood breaking and catching fire, and the impossible-to-describe sound of light constructs breaking apart.
Both dragons, with their riders atop them, emerged from the clash of white magic and decay entangled with each other.
Carol caught up with the result of the contest of magical might and flew after the dragons.
If there was something she could boast about, it was her flight speed. Even Aragorn, without using his more 'draconic' methods, could not match her flight speed.
Almost instantaneously, she was onto them, supporting Pietro and Alduin.
Spears of white magic randomly rained and appeared in Nidhogg and Odin's path. Tears into the Light Dimension opened up from where it was less expected.
Odin wished more and more steadily, and while these four, five, with the thought construct included, fought, the rest of the world was no differently turning into a battlefield.
━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━
Near the old waters of the Myrtoan Sea, where once the path to the Olympus realm had been kept open, Zeus appeared with all the pride and arrogance to belittle those around him.
"I can still taste the defeat I experienced right here in the hands of the Celestials," Zeus commented to himself. Maybe it was better to say he narrated for himself.
"They believe themselves the owners of everything and all just because they kick-started Reality," he said. "I loathe to admit it, but factual truth can't be hidden; their might brokered no arguments."
His deep blue eyes, inherited from his grandmother, Gaea, zapped with lightning.
"But now... Where are you, Celestials?" Zeus asked.
With his question came lightning, a torrential rain of lightning that befell Greece like a heavenly tribulation.
And as the god of [Law] and [Order] that he was, the natural order changed to boost his verdict, and the law accommodated to his will. So, when the lightning struck Greece, the result was not the same as when natural lightning struck the ground.
Instead of momentary strikes, the lightning formed paths. These paths between the divinely charged clouds and the victim that the ground was, dragged in chaotic trajectories across the stricken land.
Tracks of glassed ground were left in their wake, molten soil, rock, concrete, and asphalt filled these tracks. The only thing that resisted his divine attack was the protruding roots of the Arbor Mundi, charged with Gaea's divinity; countless humans were protected under them.
Zeus scoffed at what he deemed a futile attempt from his sentimental grandmother to protect her pets, and prepared to warp the [Law] to fit his needs and pull the pesky pets from their protective enclosure.
However, he never got the chance. Something fell towards him. Far faster than he could perceive.
BOOOM! The city below where he flew was swallowed by an explosion akin to that resulting from a meteorite strike.
Were it not for his divinity of lightning and his ability to elementalize, he would have been killed within the same conflagration of demise and kinetic death that blew up the ground beyond the horizon.
Far away from the cold-sweating Zeus, continents away...
[Target capable of elementalization. AOE bombardment, wasteful. Switching to tactical bombardment. Script incribed rods hot and ready.]
"I can see that. Give me a status report on the other deities. How many did we get?" Stark asked.
[67 confirmed divine deaths.]
"Damage report," Fury commanded.
[84 cities destroyed. Estimated repair cost: $8.055 trillion.]
"GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!" Fury growled. His face could only be described as rageful. His magic flared up.
"Calm down, Fury. Nothing that can't be rebuilt was lost," Stark said. His eyes tracked rapidly all that was happening through the projections, his fingers typed even faster on a holographic keyboard. This was only possible due to the enchantments he had laser-etched on the floating chair he was sitting on.
It wasn't only the chair; there was a headset/crown over his head that glowed with runes that further enhanced his mind.
"CALM DOWN?!" Fury roared. "I UNDERSTAND WHY IT WAS NEEDED TO SPEAR THE MOTHERFUCKING DIVINE ALIENS DOWN, BUT HUMANITY WON'T FUCKING RECOVER FROM THIS!"
Fury was right. With Aragorn and Stark's financial intervention, Earth's economy was barely being kept afloat; barely. But this was way beyond the drop that spilled it; this was the bucket that spilled it over.
"No, well... Even I don't know how we'll overcome the economic crisis that will follow, but I know that at least we need to be alive for any economy to enter a crisis whatsoever," Stark said, his eyes settled on the projection showing a first-person POV.
"Just leave it to the Old Man to fix, or that green lunatic from Latveria," Stark shrugged Fury's worries off. He knew there were more pressing matters to dedicate their efforts to. "Don't distract me, I'm about to go full immersion. I leave the rest to you and Jarvis."
[Leave it to me, Sir.]
"... Krakoa's status," Fury demanded, putting his mind out of the future problems he couldn't solve at the moment.
[15 confirmed divine deaths. Krakoa on standby.]
"Keep it that way. Until the reality warper is shoved the fuck off of Earth, no one not covered in Aragorn's chainmail will step out," Fury commanded.
"Immersion in 3... 2... 1!" Stark exclaimed.
Back in Greece, what remained of Athens was a smouldering crater with cocoons of roots from the Arbor Mundi bridging across. Billows of vapor rose as the red-hot crater was being slowly filled with the waters of the Saronic Gulf.
With a flicker of lightning, Zeus appeared in his elemental form. A gaze of unbridled wrath was directed towards the sky above. His eyesight, enhanced by his divinity of the [Sky], peered at the minuscule satellite—when compared to the vast space behind it and the immensity of the skies—that had dropped a rod of certain destruction on him.
"This was not on the maddened Allfather's report," Zeus spat with rage.
He raised a hand filled with all of his rage and pulled back, the Masterbolt summoned to his grasp, and aimed with certainty.
'Father, they killed Dionysus.' The report from his favorite daughter, Athena, exacerbated his divine wrath.
Did he care about Dionysus? No. But, the reputation of one of the 'great' pantheons, Olympus' reputation? That was a different matter.
And so, he extended his throwing arm further back, his muscles bulged, his grip tightened, and then he launched the electric missile.
The motion displaced air and blasted away the clouds of vapor and smoke rising from the crater. The movement of the charged Masterbolt created a fierce magnetic field that reacted with the already divinely charged atmosphere, generating even more charge differential and consequently more lightning discharges.
The Masterbolt pierced through the satellite in an instant, leaving a gaping, melted hole through it. It didn't end there, though. The Masterbolt flew in a sharp hyperbolic trajectory, and, over 550 km (~340 miles) away from Zeus, it struck the most populated center he could sense within the range of his divine senses: Istanbul.
There was an explosion of lightning so bright, so fierce, so devastating, and so lethal that, even over 550 km (~340 miles) away, Zeus could see the flash of his work.
An evil grin spread on his bearded face. "In the name of my son, the twice-born god Dyonisus, Olympus will avenge his death."
"Damn, not even I'm that delusional and self-centered," the chirpy voice of the millionaire, philanthropist, and master runic enchanter, known by the Haloans as Playboy, reached Zeus.
Zeus turned towards the newcomer; he did so with the poise of one superior; however, mid-turn, all arrogance faded from his mien for something more regal and serious.
A glance; that was all it took for Zeus to recognize the threat posed by the enemy standing in the air opposite him.
"Even ants would bite back when attacked. What did you expect? For us to roll over and die to all of your diviness? What do you take us for, amoebas?" Stark asked.
"Who are you? How did a terran like you come in contact with uru?" Zeus asked/demanded.
"Ligma gave it to me," Stark replied matter-of-factly.
"..." Zeus stared at him.
"..." Stark stared back.
"... Who is this Ligma?" Zeus commanded an answer.
"Why don't you beat it out of me? Though I doubt I would ever betray Ligma, you're welcome to try!" Stark declared righteously.
"You'll tell me about this Ligma even if I have to shove my hand down your throat and pull the answer out of your guts!" Zeus struck.
He moved like lightning, struck like thunder, and fought like a demon.
But Stark was not an amoeba, not an ant, no, Stark, the Iron Destroyer, was a monster born out of Aragorn's hate for whoever was making a mess of his place in his absence.
All the lightning that struck the Iron Destroyer...
All the punches, kicks, elbow stabs, knee strikes, and stabs, all the kinetic energy from these attacks...
And all the divinity the Iron Destroyer was bathed in, all of it was fuel for it.
The orange glowing seams, the modified Arc reactors, and the soft glowing eyeholes slowly began to shine brighter. From orange to yellow, from yellow to white, and then, from white to bluish white.
Stark had stayed still, acting like he couldn't follow Zeus' lightning-fast movements, tanking all attacks, but that changed. With a swift, almost fluid motion, he evaded a gut punch and aimed his palms at the center of mass of the elementalized god.
Zeus, to the credit of his reaction speed and instincts honed through the ages, recognized the tell of an incoming discharge attack. But seeing it coming and reacting to it were different things.
Lightning was fast, that was a fact, but was it faster than a laser?
A blinding flash of light later, a pained grunt later, Zeus looked down at his gut. Dead center, a little over an inch (~2.5cm) below his navel, a hole was opened in his elemental form.
For a fleeting instant, arrogance and dismissal passed through his eyes; however, he never externalized these as the hole was not closing.
He was not dying, but the was was not closing.
"What do you think will happen if you switch back to your matter body?" Stark the query that passed his mind right after realizing his predicament.
Zeus, like Odin, had another fuel to his power born out of the realm he was the Skyfather of. It was not named the Zeusforce or something as blatantly narcissistic as that, but it was also the force born from Olympus. Hence, energy was not his concern. He was not going to run out of juice, maintaining his elemental force anytime soon. But...
"Let's keep going, oh great swam!" Stark mocked. "Or was it the father of golden showers? With your track record, I don't think it matters what I call you when your name alone is a synonym of all of this."
But... He was in the middle of a battle, and for all of the attack he dealt the Iron Destroyer, not a single scratch or dent remained.
Uncertainty crossed his eyes for the first time.
But this didn't matter to Stark. Earth was besieged, and he was one of the few who could move to make a difference. He didn't have the time to waste on the one god almost certainly despised unanimously by humanity.
So, the runic inscription on his leg lit up for a moment, he took a step forward, and appeared behind Zeus, facing forward. Another hole appeared, this time where his heart should be.
That snapped Zeus out of his stupor.
[Law], [Order], [Sky], and [Lightning/Thunder], Zeus made use of all he could. He had to, otherwise he wouldn't be able to survive. Yes, it was not about defeating Stark; it was about surviving him.
While Stark hunted the Olympian, continents across Pietro, Carol, 'Alduin', and Odin faced in a battle that was exponentially increasing in complexity and lethality.
Odin had become immune to her light and natural kinetic attacks, effectively neutering her. So, with resolve etched on her mien, Carol entered her second form.
Her armor began to lose all color, returning to the clear, glass-like natural tint of Aragorn's scales, her blood vessels created red shadows on her fair skin, as if a lightbulb had been turned on from under her skin, her armor began to lose volume and form, turning into a skin-tight bodysuit, her face scrunched in disconfort and pain, her skin began to peel off, her muscles, organs, and skeleton followed shortly after, and then, only her alight spirit remained.
She materialized her spirit, and the armor became the shell for her ghost. With a burst of instantaneous movement, she returned to the kaiju fight.
↓Part 2━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━Part 2↓
Alduin and Nidhogg, under the monumental efforts of the thought construct and Pietro, kited the fight higher and higher into the atmosphere. They were a few flaps of their wings away from reaching orbital altitude.
As Gaea had requested, Alduin had been working on dragging Nidhogg to space. Nidhogg's decay, rot, poison, and venom were damaging enough to hurt Ygdrassil. Gaea, Elder Goddess or not, was not above the arboreal structure of reality.
Odin, with his [Wisdom] whispering to his ear, saw through the ploy; however, he was not here to kill Gaea, no, in fact, he needed her alive. Living leverage only works so long as it is breathing.
This didn't stop him from acting against his foes, though. Without a glance, just by the faculty of his boosted senses, Odin located the remaining deities on his side alive, a pulse of the cube later, and all deities had turned into Skyfathers and Skymothers.
He thought about targeting the SatNet that took so many of them; however, he didn't know if Aragorn had reality-warping-proofed the SatNet as well, and he didn't have the fraction of a unit of [Time] to check. Pietro was abusing his divinity over [Time] to enhance Alduin, and Carol had just joined the fight with speeds that kept up with the two.
A wish was all that was needed to check, but he didn't even have the margin for that.
FLASH! Something that shone filled his view, and the next thing he knew, he was regenerating from zero.
He glared at Carol's new form and noted that her attribute had changed. She was no longer just [Light]; her strikes no longer only carry kinetic energy. He felt her strike touch something closer to his core.
But even if that was the case... So what?
"Hostile," he said.
An instant later, because this fight was moving at thousands of strikes per second, Alduin veered upward frantically. Pietro jumped from his head and began to swirl erratically through the thin atmosphere, and Carol instinctively allowed the call of the Light Dimension to pull her away from reality.
Odin, with the Cosmic Cube in hand, was a reality warper. So far, since the start of the fight, he had limited his warping to himself and his foes, especially so after discovering that his enemies were prepared for reality warping.
So far, as the battle progressed, he has been improving, evolving, growing... changing. Odin was old, experienced, and in his countless years, he had seen many explode after gulping down power beyond their mettle. Hence, he didn't simply wish for virtual omnipotence after getting his hands on the cube.
He built up his strength, he learned, he adapted, and he evolved as the fight progressed. Each death forged his vessel. Each successful wish advanced him further in his path. Each unsuccessful wish taught him. This, his progress on the path of invincibility, was smooth; Pietro and Carol could attest to this.
Initially, it was suspiciously easy to land a kill on Odin, even more so because Odin was far skilled than Pietro and Carol.
Pietro, after training his battle skills against his wife and mother-in-law for hundreds of thousands of years in Hell, was, if only slightly, less skilled than Odin, and Carol couldn't hold a candle to the two; however, Pietro wasn't only a very fast incubus, he was also a telepath. By maintaining a two-way connection with Carol, they coordinated as if they were one.
Where Carol lacked in skill and reaction speed, Pietro assisted her; where Pietro lacked in raw destructive power and aggro, Carol aided him.
But now, after having exchanged so many blows, they couldn't harm Odin just as easily. In fact, were it not because Odin trusted his [Immunity] would protect him from Carol's strike, he would have avoided it.
So, Odin, having obtained what he sought, stopped limiting his reality warping to individuals and began controlling the battlefield; he was on a timer, after all. Hence, reality turned [Hostile] towards those he deemed his [Enemy] minus Gaea.
As if Thanos had 'Snapped', parts of the thought construct turned to dust. As if Pietro could see something invisible, he mody swirled haphazardly, avoiding something.
It wasn't exclusive to them. Somewhere below the Aegean Sea, Stark squared against Zeus and Poseidon, both gods worn down like a filthy pair of rags, when suddenly... script lit all over the armor's surface, and the energy meter flashed red in Stark's display.
[Environmental Rejection! Swarm of Spatio-Temporal Anomalies Detected! CRUC!3&^( Located! !*7779^%^&9 in Progress!]
The Iron Destroyer's interface was not glitching, but the hostility of reality was doing things that humans had no words for, so Aragorn used his own wording when he coded it.
"... Alright, I don't know what the Old Man meant by that... But... I gotta finish them off now!" Stark muttered.
The Iron Destroyer blinked out of existence, and the brother gods, by knowledge learnt through painful experience, leapt away and evaded by the skin of their elemental forms Stark's cleaving kick.
Zeus' lightning form was filled with holes, cuts, and cracks; Poseidon, having joined the fight only after Zeus demanded help, was faring better but not unharmed.
Stark waited not for their response and blinked away once more. Runic inscription was lit on his left hand, and he pierced through Zeus' thigh. He blinked once more before Zeus could strike back and appeared above Poseidon. The God of Seas felt his presence and commanded the sea to stall him. Stark overstretched his armor and managed to nick Poseidon on the chin before he evaded him.
Then, abruptly, the armor powered down and disappeared.
The gods flinched, expecting a blow that never came, and they looked at each other with questioning gazes. "Can you sense him?" Zeus asked.
"... No, at least not in this sea. Do you think he teleported above?" Poseidon asked, looking above.
"No, he isn't in the s—" Zeus stopped in his tracks.
"A curse?" Poseidon asked.
Both were looking worriedly at the runes spreading from the wounds Stark dealt them. Like a wriggling mess of an incomprehensible language, the runes spread to cover them faster than they could panic. Then—
"AGH!" Poseidon's cries were muffled by the water.
"..." Zeus went silent.
—Both had been forcibly switched to their material bodies.
Zeus had too many holes to survive even a second more; Poseidon, on the other hand, floating in his element and domain, resisted further. He would survive, regardless of that; he could no longer form part of the battle.
━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━
In Naples, Italy, west of Mount Vesuvius, Hercules was talking with Athena when—
"I'm sure there was a town not far from here named after me," Hercules said, gazing in the distance, looking for something he would recognize. "I allowed them to call it Herculaneum."
"It's been centuries, do you think anything remains of it?" Athena asked.
"Athens, Athena, what are you talking about? Are you humble-bragging?" Hercules glared at her.
"No, well... It was even a surprise to me," Athena said, uncomfortable. "Back to the topic at hand, are you ready to depart? We have already put up enough of an act, haven't we?"
"Yes, Hestia said she managed to find the path." Hercules nodded.
"Hades is in America, as the humans call it, and Poseidon and Zeus are locked in battle with the Destroyer-like armor. I think we won't have a better chance," Athena said. Doubt clouded her [Wisdom].
"Don't ask me, Athena, I'm strength and you're brains, that's how this has always been," Hercules unhelpfully shrugged.
"How useful," Athena said, sarcastically. "I'll trust my [Wisdom], it's time! Let's esca—"
—Suddenly, both went silent still. Their heads snapped towards the east, their eyes wide in shock. The half-siblings were equally baffled. So baffled that they didn't move to escape.
Deities were a pain in the ass; that was the consensus reached in the Drachantheon Therion. Maybe it was hypocritical coming from them, but just like many humans were tired and disgusted by humanity, they could also firmly believe that deities were a pain in the ass to deal with.
This, however, didn't mean that they could not see past the generalization.
In the basket of rotten apples, occasionally, a few edible apples could be found. Like how Bast was not an idiot who wanted to board the sinking ship of her pantheon, Athena, Hercules, and Hestia—a few others included—banded to build a raft to escape in.
This was why Naples was still standing; because through the SatNet, Jarvis realized the pair of divine half-siblings had not made a move on the city since their arrival. Hence, Naples was not bombarded.
"He... He died?" Hercules said/asked.
"... I can't feel our connection," Athena commented.
"..."
"..."
"... Now, what?" Hercules asked, turning to face Athena. "Should we still abandon Olympus?"
"... Yes," Athena said, decidedly. It took her a second to reach the best solution for their situation. "With our father gone, our uncles will drag Olympus to the ground in a civil war, and the ones kept at bay by our father's might will take this chance to try and sink their teeth into the unprotected pie."
"Okay," Hercules nodded. "You know I trust you."
"Let's give the signal then," Athena nodded to both herself and Hercules.
They mixed their divinities, and high above the sky, the SatNet detected their growing divinities.
[Divine Spike Detected. Previously Deemed Low Priority Targets Engaging.]
"Naples?" Fury asked.
[Affirmative.]
"That city has been fully evacuated. Let's wait and see," Fury commanded. "I would rather not destroy another city unnecessarily."
Their divinities combined, and with a metaphorical pulling motion, they dragged down a chained Hestia from Olympus.
"AGH!" Immediately after, patches of skin began to turn into dust.
"Hestia!" Athena cried out, approaching her worriedly.
"D-Do IT!" Hestia cried through her gritted teeth.
Hercules and Athena placed their hand on the deconstructing shoulders of the chained goddess and began to flicker in and out of reality, until they were no more.
[Neutrals Lost.]
"That's right!" Fury nodded approvingly. "I better not see those good for noth—"
CRASH!
Fury turned around and pointed a finger gun with a magic circle on its tip at the source of the sound.
There, two women lay atop a hulking man, the so-called 'Neutrals'.
"Motherfuckers!" Fury cursed.
'Stay your hand, child,' the soothing voice of Gaea spoke through the walls made of the Arbor Mundi's roots, where the control room was located. 'I allowed them passage. They are not a threat.'
"I swear on my divinity we aren't," Athena called out. She was still atop Hercules, choosing not to move to show she was not a threat.
'Do me a favor and remove the chains on Hestia,' Gaea said.
"On it, my Goddess," Stark nodded and made a gesture. The Iron Destroyer appeared, startling the deities. Hercules wrapped his massive arms around his two friends protectively.
'Calm down,' Gaea soothingly spoke to him.
The Iron Destroyer grabbed the chains, and its gauntlets turned liquid, like an opaque mercury. The liquid metal flowed and covered the chains in their entirety. Then the liquid receded back into the Iron Destroyer, reforming into gaunlets, and with it, the chains were gone.
"Are they not a threat?" Fury asked.
'Refugees is the best description for them,' Gaea replied. 'The damage she suffered is the best proof.'
Everyone's eyes were drawn to the regenerating patches on reddened skin on Hestia.
"My Goddess," Stark called out, his eyes tracking the multitude of live feed projections. "Even if Odin is removed, how are we supposed to take care of the remaining deities if reality outside these roots has turned hostile?"
On the main screen, thanks to the SatNet, BrotherEye, they could see the fight—being generous in calling it that since it's only Pietro dodging invisible damage—coming to an inevitable end.
Not only was Pierto being defeated with Odin lifting a hand, but Alduin, the thought construct, was rampaging with its overall body covered in patches of deconstruction.
'It's not over yet,' Gaea reassured them.
The thought construct rampaged erratically a few seconds later before it came to a stop. Its eyes turned black, it ignored the spreading damage, and turned its head mechanically towards Odin and Nidhogg.
Only then, after the thought construct abandoned all pretenses of being Alduin, did Odin finally see through its disguise.
"Oh," was all Odin managed to say before—faster than even he could track—the thought construct dispersed into motes of light.
Then, Odin and Nidhogg exploded.
"... The Old Man sure is nasty," Stark commented.
"Do you know what happened?" Fury asked, confused.
"I don't understand what happened, but I have an idea," Stark said. "My Goddess, was the psionic dragon a ritual?"
'Yes,' was Gaea's proud answer.
"I think the Old Man made the construct act as a sacrificial ritual," Stark explained.
On the screen, to the disgust and terror of the many, Odin reformed and exploded in a gory mess again. Nidhogg wasn't as lucky, or maybe it was, as it didn't return.
Odin reformed, Odin exploded. Odin reformed, Odin exploded. Odin reformed, Odin exploded. Odin reformed, Odin exploded. Odin reformed, Odin exploded. Odin reformed, Odin exploded. Odin reformed, Odin exploded. Odin reformed, Odin exploded. Odin reformed, Odin exploded. Odin reformed, Odin exploded. Odin reformed, Odin exploded. Odin reformed, Odin exploded.
"It's a stupidly complicated ritual," Pietro said. His holographic avatar joined the group. "It's meant to accumulate damage and take on the signature of the assailant to then release all the accumulated damage back on the assailant."
"You alright there, Pietro?" Stark asked. "For a moment, it looked like you were gonna become dust on the wind."
"Yes, I'm taking shelter inside one of the roots," Pietro replied.
"If that is the case, how is he getting killed over and over again?" Athena asked.
"..." No one answered her.
"Sorry, who are you?" Pietro asked.
"Athena Parthenos," Athena introduced herself. {A/N: Athena The Virgin.}
"Only the name was enough, lady," Pietro grimaced. "I didn't ask about your sex life."
"What?!" Athena asked, scandalized.
"He probably has a form of Allspeak," Hestia said.
Indeed, to Pietro's Logosense, she introduced herself as 'Athena, I'm a virgin woman'.
"Anyway," Pietro moved on from Athena and attributed it to the eccentricity of the Greek deities. "All damage ever dealt to the psionic construct must be returned, so long as the assailant exists. Hence, Odin is temporarily sealed until he has experienced it all."
How much damage had the thought construct taken during their short fight? How much of that damage could Odin expend per dead?
"Should we attack now?" Stark asked.
'No.'
"No."
Pietro and Gaea replied at the same time.
"I don't think we have an hour, but we should have enough time to clean the planet of these invaders before he finishes going through all the damage the psionic construct experienced," Pietro explained.
"How will we circumvent reality's hostility?" Fury asked.
"We can't," Pietro said while pointing at himself and the Iron Destroyer. "Odin has us already pinned down as [Enemies]. But the rest of our humans we hid remain unflagged."
With his words, screens flickered online.
"Latveri is ready," King Doom said.
"Krakoa is ready," Councilman Erik Lehnsherr said.
"Wakanda is ready," Queen Shuri said.
"We are ready," Susan Storm said.
"Carol and I are still not out of the picture," Pietro said. "But we'll leave it in your hands. Our deaths remain to claim meaning; we'll await the final moment for the Allfather's return."
"I suppose I should go for my armor," Stark said in resignation. His PTSD was most definitely not cured, but he understood the importance of having a world left where he could suffer from his PTSD in peace.
"I'll move too," Fury declared.
'I'll support,' Gaea said.
"I'll join you," Hercules raised his hand like a schoolboy. "You can keep these two as hostages to secure my trust," he pointed at Hestia and Athena.
"That sounds more like you are asking us to shelter them here," Stark said dismissively on his way out of the room. "But, oh well, who the fuck cares? The more the merrier. I doubt these deities will show us their neck willingly."
"Just because the world is ending, again, doesn't mean I trust you," Fury said. His one good eye was glaring threateningly. "Step out of line, and you'll have a vibranium-tipped enchanted rod with an adamantium core entering your skull and exiting your ass far faster than you can blink."
Many grimaced at Fury's descriptive vocabulary, but none made an effort to defend the newcomers.
And so, humanity marched to make its last stand. Their last stance would never last longer than an hour, but for the first time since two or three apocalypses ago, humanity was going to stand for themselves.
Krakoa rose from the seas of the North Pacific Ocean and took flight. Like guard bees, the mutants capable of flight orbited the flying living island.
Wakanda's shield opened, and a veritable fleet flew out. On the lead ship of said fleet, a black panther oozing divinity and war stood facing forward.
In Latveria, the closed-off walls of the Automopolises opened up, and a veritable swarm of Doombots marched, flew, and rolled out.
Earth was at war.
╚═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╝
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{A/N:
Please check out my P@treon account! There are already 10 chapters ahead for premium members, which is at least 100,000 words. Premium members also gain access to a new chapter every week.
[email protected]/ExistentialVoid
Free Members get access to all free chapters, and I upload free chapters about 12 hours earlier on P@atreon.}
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