X-Men Mission: Avengers vs X-Men: Nordic Weirdness 2

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

The magic team discovers the portal is just a trap, and it has one last secret.



Topaz made a face as they approached, tilting her head. "That... does not feel right," she said slowly. "Even for possibly other worldly magic this feels weird."

The 'phenomenon' was a literal rainbow of light pouring down out of the sky and into a round patch of ground, imbedded with Nordic-looking runes. Those familiar with Thor's usual mode of transportation to Asgard would recognise it as similar to that, but unlike Thor's normal portals to the Rainbow Bridge, this one wasn't closing. It stayed open, force and light pouring down into the runes.

Amanda stopped by Topaz' side. "You're right, Padawan. Something feels off. Dagger..." She turned to catch Tandy's attention. "What about the runes? Are they the real deal?"

Tandy walked closer to get a better look at the runes, "They are the real deal. I've seen these before." Pointing at the different runes, Tandy was careful not to get too close to the portal - she had a feeling it wasn't Heimdall standing on the other side. "However, the Bridge is supposed to close up once someone has traveled through. This one is different then the other Bridges that Thor or another Asgardian would ride to Midgard. Possibly an extra rune somewhere or magic or both."


Marie-Ange watched the rainbow of light carefully, head tilted just a hair to the left. "Daytripper, you remember the runestones we used to get home from Asgard, yes? All stacked up like dominos, this way and that?" She kept staring, and rubbed at her eye. "The runes are real but I think they are all this way and that. Dagger, raido is right, but look at the way they are carved, all the little carve marks, naudiz? I think it is upside down, and dagaz too. What would that do to the spells?"

"I'm not sure..." Amanda moved closer to the portal and held up her hand, palm out. She didn't touch the energy, but she held her hand close enough to feel the surge. "There's something definitely not right about this. There's power here, sure, but it's not half what you'd expect from the Bifrost. Or a teleport, for that matter."

Brand, in the meantime, had been conferring with the SHIELD agents and their equipment. She approached just at the end of Amanda's suggestion. "You're right," she said crisply. "We've compared our readings with Thor's portals and they're completely different. Whatever this is, it's not what it looks like. Which means someone was trying to make the Avengers believe it's an Asgardian portal."

Topaz had finally wandered away from her not-quite-hiding-place behind Tandy to approach the portal, head tilted. She had never experienced Asgardian magic in any way, so she had no scale for knowing what was normal and what was wrong or even not quite right. But it was still nudging at her, like the magic was trying to say there's something else here. "So what's it hiding, then?" She mumbled, more to herself than to anyone around her.

"It feels familiar." Tandy stood up suddenly and took a step back away from the portal. "I felt this magic before." She turned back towards her group, "I know a spell that might be able to stop this but I can't perform it. I can help with the translation part since it is not human. Also Tarot, can you take a few pictures of these runes, don't get too close."

"I have already taken pictures." The pictures were already uploading themselves to whatever technological wonderlands that Cypher and Domino had setup. Marie-Ange slipped a few cards from her pockets to her free hand. "Daytripper, what if we just cut the source of the magic? Do you have enough to redirect, or divert it? I do not think we should waste any more time examining the thing."

"Not out here in the boondocks," Amanda replied. "Maybe if we were in Saint Paul, but even that's pretty small by my standards." She seemed about to make another suggestion when Brand cut in.

"While you four have been tossing around theories, my people have already discovered the power source for this thing." She held up the tablet she'd been handed by another of the SHIELD techs. "See here, in the center of the circle? That's what's producing this illusion." She glanced over at her agents, who were preparing some kind of extension arm. "The trap's already been sprung, so there's no danger in us dislodging the power source. Get in there and grab whatever it is."

"Yes ma'am." The agent with the grappling arm didn't look enthused, but obviously knew better than to argue with his superior officer. Slowly and carefully, he thrust the pole into the shimmering non-portal, aiming the claw at the end into the very center of the circle. There was surprisingly little resistance - Brand had apparently been right about the trap having already been sprung.

Topaz watched, unimpressed, as the agent thrust the tool into the stream. "Lesson one of magic," she murmured, "never touch the thing." They clearly didn't have a very good teacher at SHIELD.

"It's moving a bit. Hard to get a grip." The agent muttered, moving closer and closer as he tried to snare the object. A flicker of energy washed over the portal. For a brief moment, it seemed to be nothing, just some mist wafting up from the magic field. But it grew and coalesced, until a blue arm pushed through the fog and with a mighty blow, crushed the agent like a bug underneath a massive hammer. The ice giant pushed through into the sunlight from seemingly nowhere, eyes scanning for new targets.

The SWORD agents, to their credit, moved quickly, drawing weapons and taking cover behind the various pieces of equipment. The Xavierites followed, the small group retreating out of range of the hammer. The ice giant roared, the sound making the snowy ground shake, and everyone covered their ears.

"So much," Amanda muttered as the sound died away and they watched the ice giant begin stomping towards the huddled SWORD agents. "For the second mouse gets the cheese."

***

"I hope!" The giant focused on nothing, it seemed to just pick targets at random and then change it's mind midway through a strike.

"That you!" Marie-Ange rolled to avoid the enormous hammer.

Whatever else she had to say was lost in a wave of ice and snow. The giant swung again, and a block of sloshy white formed around it's arm, repeating itself until the giant was encased up to it's knees. Each enraged kick broke the blocks into goo, only for them to reform again around the giant's lower limbs.

"Keep the agents back, Dagger, do your best to slow it down. Agent Brand, shoot for the eyes." Marie-Ange's voice was calm and as crisp as fresh ice, despite her soaked hair and snow-covered coat.

Tandy called out to Ice Giant in its own language to gets attention. Already light daggers were thrown, "Heat. They despise heat. I miss my sword."

Already soaked through her jacket, Topaz had an honest moment where she considered letting the ice giant's large hand sweep through the SHIELD agents. She was better than that, though, and the thought passed with barely a consideration. She threw her hand out, and a bubble formed around a couple of nearby agents, protecting them as the hand came down. She winced as the shield took the impact, and miraculously didn't break.

"This should be fun," she muttered. She had enough power to block the giant's blows. For now. But that certainly wouldn't last forever.

And she wasn't looking forward to what happened when she was out of juice.

"Heat, huh? Too bad we're not in Honolulu..." Amanda grumbled to herself. She erected a literal fire wall between the agents and the ice giant, glad to see it took the hint and backed off. Of course, that meant its attention was now fully on Tandy and Marie-Ange. "How about some covering fire from you government types?!" she yelled over the crackle of flames. "Since we're saving your arses and all?"

Brand shot her a look, but said nothing, instead emptying her clip into the side of the giant's head. "Smithson, we need something with heat," she barked. "Break out the grenades!"

It was a picture at odds with everything else, a tidily dressed red-head in a designer ski jacket throwing herself into the fight. Marie-Ange came up from the ground dressed much more appropriately, her right arm and half her jacket covered in matte grey armor. She threw one of a pair of axes to the ground - and for a moment looked lost, young - and mournful, and the ghost of a blonde braid hung down her back, gone as fast as it appeared.

And then she swore something guttural and ugly and swung low, hacking at the ice giant's leg like it was a tree.

The ice giant had turned its attention away from Tandy for just a moment which allowed her to pick up the axe that Tarot had thrown on the ground for her. With one hand she threw another five light daggers into the chest of the ice giant, letting them do their work and when she was close enough took both hands onto the handle of the axe and hacked the other leg of the giant.

Topaz was trying to shield the agents from being hit by slabs of ice, and trying to keep herself and Amanda from being hit as well. She winced as a particularly big piece came down on one of her shields. "Jesus Christ," she muttered, suddenly grateful for the firewall to her left, if only because it was keeping her from freezing.

Of course, almost the moment the thought crossed her mind, the flames began to flicker, as if something were putting them out. "Am - Daytripper?" She called, looking to the blonde. Oh, that was weird.

Amanda was looking frustrated, but more so, she was looking fatigued. "I'm running out of juice!" she replied to Topaz. "Sorry to put it on you, Padawan, but without a decent power source this is the best I can do!"

Brilliant. Topaz ducked around another piece of ice, thinking fast. "I can take it," she said with absolutely no confidence in her actual ability to do so. But faking confidence was almost as good as actually having it, right?

She tried not to think too much on that as she cast her own wall of fire, not nearly as impressive as Amanda's, but it helped corall the giant so that was something.

At least one cracked rib, Marie-Ange was dealing with at least one. Probably two, breathing was distinctly uncomfortable and she'd been swatted by the giant once, and if all she had was just a cracked rib or two, she would count herself lucky. "Blind the bloody thing!" She yelled over the roars and gunfire and crackle of magical flame as she pulled herself back up and went in swinging for the same leg Tandy had struck. If they could get the thing down, maybe the agents could manage to make those precise shots.

The giant was limping, from the repeated blows to it's legs, but it seemed to be angered more by the light daggers and axes than anything else.

A flash of green energy arced over the flame wall, striking the ice giant in the face and eliciting a howl of pain. "Your wish, blah, blah..." Brand said dryly, shaking her right hand as if it was painful. "Damn, I really need to use that more - hurts like hell when I don't."

"Go down you dumb bastard!" Tandy yelled as hit it again with the axe, careful not to be hit by its flailing arms.

The giant wasn't going down, but Topaz's magic was. Fire took a lot of juice, and Topaz hadn't exactly thought to stock pile before coming out for what should have been a simple investigation. She gritted her teeth, trying very hard to tune out the heightened emotions around her, and stamp down the part of her that wanted to reach out and just grab one person for a pick me up. This wasn't the time to take away anyone's ability to care about the fact that they were about to die.

Then she felt the magic running through her flicker, and she panicked. Fuck, fuck. Now was not the time to collapse. Topaz squeezed her eyes shut for the briefest moment before reaching out mentally to every single mind she could reach. Just a little, she thought, not even noticing who she was taking from as she felt the mix of emotions run through her head. Just a little bit from everyone. It was better than taking everything from one person. And it would keep her going.

Even just for a little while.

Amanda was completely out of power, her head throbbing in that nasty familiar way that signalled she'd overdone it badly. But she wasn't so out of it that she wasn't keeping an eye on Topaz - it was a reflex by now - and she felt the slight tug of her former student's empathy against her shields. Of course, she needed power as well, but she wouldn't be able to sustain herself on the scraps of surface emotion she allowed herself to take. Amanda knew her far too well, which made her next decision not much of a decision at all, really. She stumbled closer to Topaz and grabbed her bare hand in her own.

"Oi, Padawan. You need a source. Use me. As much as you need."

Topaz jumped when she felt Amanda's hand close around her own, her concentration broken for just a moment, and her fire flickered. She shook her head quickly, bringing the flames back. "What?" Was all she could manage to say at first, not quite connecting what Amanda was saying. Focus, Topaz. She was tired, but they were all about to be squashed by a giant ice monster. She needed to focus.

She needed magic.

And it was that fact, and that alone, that stopped her from arguing with Amanda. Amanda was out of power, Topaz was nearly out. Only one of them could easily recharge out in the middle of nowhere. And unfortunately, it wasn't Amanda.

"Just do me a favor and try to remember why it's bad we're about to die," was the only warning Topaz gave before reaching out and pushing into Amanda's head.

The first thing she felt - and took - was anger. That wasn't much of a surprise. Amanda had been pretty clearly angry with her limitations out here since the fight had started. Below that was fear, which would have also been understandable - they were fighting an other worldly giant and not exactly winning. Hell, Topaz was afraid, and that wasn't something she admitted lightly. But it wasn't a fear of something. It was a fear for something. The difference was subtle, but Topaz had spent enough time messing with emotions to be able to identify it. It was fear for Marie-Ange, for Tandy, for Topaz - and even more fear for the two youngest being so close to SHIELD, and to Brand. She wanted them away from her.

The wall of flames brightened and grew as Topaz fed the surface emotions into them, and she already knew that wasn't going to be enough. With a whispered, "Sorry," she dug deeper.

And that was when she hit the grief.

That was enough of a shock to actually stop Topaz for a brief moment. Of all the things she had expected to find buried in Amanda's mind, two-year-old grief certainly wasn't it. Overwhelming grief for all the people she had lost, for the mentors who were gone. Blame for the students who had died, for the ones she should have been protecting. Fear that she would screw up and get more people killed. And underneath all of that was an intense craving that Topaz wasn't sure she wanted to try and identify.

She just took it all, and the flames grew taller, spreading further, successfully encircling the monster and the people fighting it. Topaz let out a shaking breath, trying to stave off the emotions from crossing her shaky shields and completely invade her mind, and stepped forward, dropping Amanda's hand and putting the blonde slightly behind her. Trying to protect her.

It was gone. All of it. Amanda took a shuddering breath, trying to process that the burden of emotion she'd been carrying since the Dark Phoenix was gone. Only, that required emotions as well, and she had nothing left. Just a blank, an absence of feeling, and if she'd been able to, she would have cried with the relief. Even the nagging hunger of the addiction, long smothered and buried under duty and responsibility and denial was gone. She wondered what would happen when it came back, but it was a purely rational question, devoid of the fear that she would slip under the weight again.

"Keep it up," she told Topaz tonelessly. "It looks like it's starting to weaken."

==

Marie-Ange felt the gentle pull of emotions, that slight euphoric numbness and before she had time to resist, to yell a warning not to touch her mind, for Topaz not to get lost in the chaos of her precognition - it was gone. The wreath of flames rose up, blisteringly hot. Marie-Ange's imaged armor melted away. She tossed the axe aside before it could dissolve, and pulled a long knife from inside her jacket, a symptom of Wade's obsessive hiding of knives - and her theft of his very best duffle bag.

The knife was much too short to do lethal damage, but it was not meant for stabbing at hearts or cutting out livers. Marie-Ange slid, baseball style on mud and melt and slashed at the giant's ankle. Her first strike brought up a thin line of black blood. The second and third covered her arms in it and the giant wobbled, roared and then fell to one knee smashing all around it to try to find the enemy that had destroyed it's ability to stand.

Tandy felt the familiar tug on her emotions, knowing full well who was causing it. She wanted to go to Topaz knowing that she was only pulling at emotions because she need fuel but it would have to wait. Throwing the axe aside as well she circled around the Ice Giant as MA brought it down to the knees.

Glowing bright, Tandy ran full force before jumping on its back and started to climb up. When she reached its neck her hand started to glow brighter as she unleashed the daggers directly into its skin. The Ice Giant howled in pain as it started to reach for her and she unleashed another blow which caused the Ice Giant to start to fall forward into the fire. She jumped off its back and landed into a roll which ended with her on her stomach.

A lance of green fire arched out through the flames and speared the fallen giant in the head. Agent Brand strode forward and unslung the semi-automatic rifle from her shoulder and followed up by emptying the clip into its brain, making sure it was dead. Her expression as she glanced at the four mutants, was stonier than usual, and her gaze lingered on Topaz longer than the others. "Well, that's done," she said curtly. "Is that all?"

"Non. It had a cache to guard." Marie-Ange struggled to her feet, panting and filthy with mud and blood. She prodded a pile of dirt and slush with er foot, revealing a pulsing blue glow. "This needs to be depowered and returned to Asgard before it causes more chaos and madness."

Tandy walked over limping and holding her side, "Now before some other idiotic ill-prepared jackass touches the object again. Daytripper, Padwan, how much magical energy do you have left? I can tell you the spell you will need to use to depower it. Granted it will be in Giant language but it is only two words."

Topaz was in that weird place where she was exhausted and ready to sleep for a year, but also still buzzing from the excess emotions she somehow still had. The last of the fire ring died away, and she stepped closer. "I've got some. Daytripper?" She didn't quite meet Amanda's gaze even as she looked back at her.

"I've got it." Amanda's face and voice were expressionless as she approached the glowing stones. "The channelling spell should take care of it." And it did, although the smell of scorched cotton and nylon filled the air as the witch laid her hand on the stones, small wisps of smoke rising from her collar. "There." She looked at Brand, no trace of her usual caution and fear, only that blankness. "SWORD probably can get these out of reach in Asgard easier than we can. I'd use gloves, just to be sure."

Agent Brand's own expression was indescribable as she nodded. "And the spell is reversed? The Avengers will come to their senses?"

Amanda nodded, and looked over to Marie-Ange, ceding leadership back to her. "Everything should be back to normal."

"Aside from property damage." Marie-Ange let her ruined coat slip off and then used it to wipe her face. "We will require your medical personnel, Agent Brand. We all have injuries we need to tend to. Broken ribs, burns, exhaustion." She eyed Amanda, and then gave Topaz a nod of cautious approval. "My team will sleep on the way back. I will write you a report myself, once my ribs are taped."