To understand the suddenness of the relief effort, one must look back a few minutes prior.
After administering the combat stims and watching Steve Rogers's vitals stabilize into a ragged but steady rhythm, Brother-Captain Olsen had allowed himself a rare moment of silent approval. To a Dark Angel, courage and unyielding resolve are the only currency of value.
If this mortal survives the Black Surgery, Olsen thought, I will personally oversee his conditioning. Steve Rogers had shown the heart of a Lion; he deserved a body that could match it.
But the moment of reflection was short-lived. Emrys's voice crackled through the vox-net. "Olsen, divert to Romanoff's coordinates. She has secured the Casket but is being hunted. Do not allow the artifact to be reclaimed."
"Acknowledged," Olsen replied.
Among the Astartes of the Black Watch, long-winded tactical discussions were unnecessary. Their neural-linked huds highlighted Natasha's bio-signature in a pulsing amber. The surrounding terrain was mapped instantly, and the most efficient path—a straight line through five buildings—was calculated by their armor's cogitators.
What followed was a display of transhuman speed. At a full sprint, a Space Marine in power armor can reach speeds exceeding eighty kilometers per hour. Five armored giants, weighing nearly a ton each, accelerated into a thundering charge that turned the pavement beneath their magnetic boots into dust.
Olsen led the pack, his jump-pack flaring with short, controlled bursts of flame that allowed them to leap across intersections in great, arcing bounds. They hit the street level like five falling stars.
The shockwave of their landing scattered a Chitauri platoon like leaves in a gale. Through the rising smoke, the jet-black armor of the Black Watch emerged, silent and lethal. A Chitauri commander attempted to ram Olsen with a hover-chariot; the Captain didn't even break his stride. He dipped his shoulder, his massive ceramite pauldron catching the vehicle. The hover-chariot disintegrated into a rain of sparks and scrap metal, while Olsen remained entirely unphased.
High above, a Chitauri sniper locked onto the squad. Before he could pull the trigger, one of the Veteran Intercessors pivoted mid-run, drew his bolter, and fired two rounds. The sniper didn't just die; he was erased, his torso turned into a fine red mist from a hundred meters away. To ambush a veteran of the First Legion was to invite a swift and messy extinction.
They reached the building where Natasha was pinned. They didn't look for an entrance. They hit the reinforced concrete wall at full tilt, shattering the structure as they burst into the room where Laufey stood over his prey.
Olsen flicked his power sword, the blue disruption field hummed as it shook off the gore of his previous kills. His red lenses locked onto the King of Jotunheim.
"Target identified: Xenos Chieftain Laufey. Sentence: Death."
Laufey, recovered from the initial shock, snarled. The air in the room didn't just cool; it crystallized. He channeled his ancient sorcery, conjuring a jagged spear of black ice—the Song of the Glaciers—and hurled it at Olsen's face.
The Captain's reaction was a blur. He tilted his head just enough for the spear to whistle past his helmet, his magnetic boots grinding into the floor as he pushed off. The floorboards buckled and snapped as he closed the distance in a single, explosive heartbeat.
Laufey met him with a second ice-blade, and for a few seconds, the penthouse became a hurricane of steel and frost. The shockwaves from their collisions shattered the remaining windows and cracked the support pillars. But Laufey wasn't just fighting Olsen.
The Company Champion and the Shield-Veteran joined the fray, their movements perfectly synchronized. They moved like a single machine—one suppressed Laufey's guard, one hammered at his flanks, and Olsen drove the killing edge. They forced the King back, his ice-magic unable to find purchase against their ceramite plating and the sheer intensity of their assault.
Desperate, Laufey risked a mortal wound to unleash a massive frost-nova, hoping to buy time for his reinforcements to arrive. He could feel his Frost Giants closing in. "Freeze, you metal curs!"
But Chief Librarian Marcus was waiting. He had held back for this exact moment.
"Psychic Scream!"
The mental blast hit Laufey like a physical hammer to the brain. The xenos King's focus shattered, his magic collapsing into a harmless flurry of snow.
Olsen didn't hesitate. His power sword sang through the air, severing Laufey's arm at the shoulder. The Veteran Intercessors followed with a low sweep, their blades carving through the Frost Giant's knees, and the Company Champion's power axe came down with a thunderous thrum, taking the other arm.
In an instant, the once-mighty King was reduced to a limbless torso, bleeding blue ichor onto the floor.
Olsen didn't stay to savor the victory. He heard the roar from outside—hundreds of Frost Giants, wielding primitive stone clubs and spears, were charging the building. To them, they were a tide of muscle and ice. To the Dark Angels, they were a target-rich environment.
The Giants expected a melee. They expected the warriors to meet them with swords in the ancient way of Asgard.
Instead, the Black Watch holstered their blades. They reached for their heavy bolters, plasma incinerators, and melta-guns.
"The age of iron is over, xenos," Olsen muttered, his vox-grille crackling. "Behold the age of fire."
What followed was not a battle, but a slaughter. The Frost Giants, whose skin could deflect human small arms, were mowed down in rows by mass-reactive bolter shells that exploded inside their chests. Plasma fire vaporized limbs, and melta-beams turned the charging behemoths into statues of charred ash.
It was a modern execution of a prehistoric foe. The "cavalry charge" of Jotunheim ended not in glory, but in a systematic, mechanical harvest.