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Snarling in annoyance, Thanos shook his head at what he had seen before all power to the satellites had faded. The destruction of those satellites means whoever captured Gamora is still alive, and with the portal still shut, I cannot appear personally on the scene and and change that state of being. Putting up a good fight is one thing, actually stopping the invasion is entirely another, Thanos thought to himself, becoming even angrier. This I cannot abide!
Thanos pointed to one of the highest-ranking Chitauri around, a person whose title would translate into something like Primark Priest, a mix between a militant and religious position. "Remain in constant communication with me. I wish to know the moment the Phoenix Force's energy signature has been seen on the battlefield. Beyond that, hasten the troop deployment as much as possible. All remaining portals are to receive reinforcements of every type of combatant, regardless of the local commanders personal preference."
The Primark Priest nodded obsequiously, actually going down to one knee and bowing towards Thanos in obeisance. "It will be done, my master!"
Thanos directed his throne forward as he stood on the edge the floating platform underneath his throne. For moment he debated which battle he should join, before deciding that the main portal was obviously the most important. It is also the battlefield where several of the Asgardians have made their presence known. If I can slay several of their numbers, perhaps I can keep the rest from interfering.
While Thanos had full belief in his own powers and abilities, there were some fights he didn't wish to pick. Fighting with Odin was one battle Thanos did not wish to face, particularly at the same time he would be battling Potter or the Phoenix force. After he had slain that pair and absorbed what he could of their powers, perhaps. But until then, subterfuge and misdirection was the way of wisdom. That, and killing lesser Asgardians.
A verbal command this time sent his throne forward towards the main portal. Behind him, the Chitauri continued to push forward through the remaining portals even faster than before, their numbers endless.
OOOOOOO
This time when Harry found his astral projection – if that was in fact a proper term for this phenomenon, something he and Strange had a long, rambling argument about - pulled into the gem, there was no shock from the other entity nor any attempt to convince him to take the power offered by becoming the entity's chosen Avatar on Earth. Instead, Harry found himself under attack the moment his astral presence solidified within the pocket dimension to which the gem served as a conduit. He couldn't even take a moment to look around him before he had to dodge to one side evading a long chain with a spike on the end that hurtled through where his head had been a moment ago. "Bugger me!"
This one attack was quickly joined by its brethren. The came out of nowhere, chains tipped with various manner of spikes flashing towards them from every direction. Long spikes, short spikes, spikes with stuff dripping from them. Each chain was different, but deadly as it flung itself toward Harry from everywhere at once, made out of the very stuff of this dimension, reminding Harry strongly of the battle against Mephisto.
He tried to destroy a few with a Reducto, but his magic found no purchase here. This small dimension was, after all, made of the very essence of the god he had come to drain. The spells fizzled out and disappeared a bare inch away from his fingers doing nothing. Right, here it's a purely mental battle. But these chains are…
As Harry tried to come to grips with how different this was from his previous battle with Balthakk, a voice like thunder at the bottom of a deep metal-lined well bellowed out a nearly incoherent small role of challenge. "Sorcerer! Die!"
The god grew out of the raw energies around them, much like the chains had been doing. As his form finished growing several hundred feet to Harry's right, he stood taller than the juggernaut although not as wide in the shoulders. His skin the pale, almost pasty, where it wasn't covered with iron gray armor, which most of it was bar his forearms. His face, what be seen of it under a half-mask, looked almost as if he didn't have any skin around his nose and above, pure bone visible there just beneath the mask. Below, his jaw almost looked like a fantasy orc's, an image that Harry had seen occasionally: jutting jaw, large tusks, fanged mouth. His eyes behind the half-mask were simply glowing pinpricks of red.
This was Krakkan, the last member of the Octessence, a pantheon of ancient, primordial gods to continue to empower a connection to Harry's Earth. All the others had shattered those connections, fearing the loss of power that had made Balthakk such an easy target for his fellows after Harry had drained him. But Krakkan hadn't because, as Strange had mentioned several times, while his particular magics were very useful, Krakkan himself was an utter idiot. But for all his stupidity, there was absolutely nothing wrong with his instincts, and he showed this by his intrinsic understanding of .how to fight, even here in the seat of his power.
Chains came from behind, knocking Harry forward. Others rose, binding his arms and legs, appearing out of nowhere showing an incredible amount of instinctual command of his pocket dimension.
But then, as they wrapped him up, Harry felt the somewhat familiar flush of new magical power entering his system. What had been a faint trickle, barely felt now that his astral projection had been sent into the gem, had just become a river. Wait! These chains are part of his body. I know that for gods, where they end and where their dimensions begins is sometimes up in the air, but that seems a little ridiculouSSSSSSFUCK THAT HURT!
Harry's absorbing power didn't deaden any of the pain he was currently feeling, the chains around his limbs pulling them in different directions. Much worse than that, though was that each link of the various chains was digging into his body. Tiny mouth, tiny, barbed mouths, like the mouths of eels had appeared on each link of the chain, biting into Harry, their teeth trying to tear chunks out of his form, causing Harry to cry out in pain.
Yet even as they did, the power of Krakkan flowed into Harry, and Harry fought back. He was no stranger to pain, and started to push through it quickly, trying again to launch a spell towards the God as his astral presence charged towards Harry like a bull. This time the spell, a Patronus-infused Reducto, worked somewhat, blasting the creature off his feet. So, I don't have much range, but now that I am drawing in his magic, I can exert some willpower beyond my body.
Another spell burst out of Harry's arms shattering the chains binding them, although he had to reach down and aim the spells down at his feet to remove the chains there. Note to self, consider how to better visualize firing spells off from your legs.
While that thought was somewhat whimsical, the majority of Harry's mind was not full of whimsy, but rage and concern for his loved ones. He could not afford to let this fight go on for too long, whatever tricks the chain using deity attempted. With that in mind, he now charged forwards, ducking and dodging the chains as they continued to shoot at him form everywhere around him. Direct contact to his main body will probably work even better at draining his power than draining from his chains.
"Die plaything, die sorcerer!" The creature shrieked, his voice nearly unintelligible such was his slathering hate. And from all around his body, further chains appeared. These had massive hooks on the end, and attacked with wills of their own, each of them sprouting further chains as they surged forwards.
"Protego," Harry hissed, a shield appearing just around his body, followed by two simple Patronus-infused attack spells. Mixing the feelings and mental aspect of a Patronus with a Reducto was somewhat tough, and Harry could feel his attention wavering, a new source of pain back in the material world threatening to drag his mind away.
The Reducto spell blasted the chain directly in front of Harry, and then Harry vaulted through, literally flying into the god. Krakkan grappled with him eagerly, reaching down to try and bite Harry. A binding spell created a large energy muzzle over his mouth, blocking that attempt, and Harry grabbed his neck, seemingly intent on throttling them, although his hand could barely reach around the thick appendage.
But before Harry could do anything else, Krakkan headbutted him, sending Harry reeling. Then, the god grabbed him in a bear hug, and Harry gasped in agony. Spikes on Krakkan's armor pierced his body easily, Harry's shield spell popping like a bubble. Then more chains were wrapping around Harry's body even as he used another spell to try to blast his way out of the God's grip, forcing Krakkan to let him go. Cutting spells slammed into the god from either side.
Before the chains could fully wrap around him Harry's spells had the impact they wanted, and he ducked to one side, rolling along nothingness for a moment to dodge a stomp from Krakkan. A spell sent back at the creature's knee smashed into it, overpowered with a lot of Harry's present magical essence, merely slicing the limb off entirely. The creature howled, and more chains appeared everywhere, one of which caught Harry in the back despite his best attempt at dodging, punching straight through his back and out his front. Harry was then sent reeling by another chain which cracked across his face, sending him stumbling, causing the chain embedded in his body to nearly rip its way back out his body.
Harry screamed again in agony as chunks of his mental self were torn away, leaving his mental projection missing several inches of flesh.
But like his battle with the shadows, Harry dug deep, reflecting, From my childhood to the battle with the basilisk, the numerous times I've been put under the Cruciatus and beyond. I have been practically trained to push through pain! Unfortunately, it looks as if this creature either doesn't feel pain or is instinctively dealing with it in a way that his two fellows couldn't. Should I be grateful that he isn't also noticing the stream of his magical energy I'm draining?
That selfsame magic was now filling Harry to the brim with power, and Harry could feel his astral presence grow larger and heal from his wounds. Soon he matched his opponent in size, before a spell like a thunderclap blasted out, catching the incoming chains.
Harry caught the next chain to try to attack him from the side, grabbing it just behind where the small spikes began. Holding that, he charged forwards, his other hand up and blasting attack spells towards the creature.
Now more wary of Harry's spell crashed, if not still noticing the slow background drain of his magic, Krakkan used his chains to batter aside or absorbed the spells coming towards them. Not absorb as Harry was, but simply to take the hit for his main body. Regardless, it was a technique that seems to be working, and for a few seconds, the two of them battled it out at range, with Harry still holding that one chain that tried to ensnare his neck from behind.
And all the while, Harry's physical hand back on earth was touching the gem. And Harry's touching the gods astral form like this also was heightening the impact of his mutant power. The mutant power that allowed him to drain magical objects of the magic within them. In combating and touching Krakkan's spiritual form, Harry was draining his power directly, not simply through the medium of the gem, and that was a far more potent flow of energy.
Harry could feel it even as he fought Krakkan, dodging his chains now, able to avoid most of them save a few that came up out of the ground. It seemed Krakkan had noticed this, or else Harry would've been trying to stop the flow of magic from his realm into Harry. But he didn't not yet, and Harry could feel it. Raw magic, star stuff, power. Whatever you called it, it was now filling his body, filling it to the brim, to the breaking point and beyond, as the ritual began its work.
Soon, Harry's concentration was torn between the mental and the physical realms. Pain, greater pain than he had ever felt, even more than his battle against the Shadows or Galactus, wracked his physical body, threatening to break his concentration on the spiritual battle. Thankfully, his body was literally strapped into the ritual array, unable to move even if he had wanted to. And now his body began to change slowly, atom, molecule by molecule.
His bones and flesh began to change, shifting as his reserves grew, the magic being stolen from Krakkan focused and directed along specific lines thanks to the ritual he, Strange, and Odin had come up with building on the runes he had been given by Death and the Phoenix Force. And as the magic flowed, so did the pain.
Quickly, Krakkan capitalized like an animal seeing a weakness, pressing Harry so hard on the spiritual realm he could barely think for a time, but eventually Harry grew used to even that pain. Yet still Krakkan fought him hard. The creature didn't seem to have the magical knowledge necessary to match Harry spell for spell, but his instinctual command of the pocket dimension they were within, his bestial combat style, was throwing Harry off badly.
And then Harry could feel the God instinctively pulling back on the magic somehow trying to reclaim control of it before Harry's body could process it, just like Balthakk, halting the process in an almost gut-wrenching manner. "Mine, mine! Thief DIE! RSAAA!"
Dammit! This is is not going to be as fast as I'd hoped. Whoever said an idiot couldn't be dangerous never ran into this arse! Harry grumbled, fighting back as hard as he took. This is not going to be as quick a process as I'd hoped…
OOOOOOO
Gamora and Nebula were not the only two members of the Black Order to face sudden reversals. While Thanos had teleported through Ebony Maw's portal, Proxima Midnight's campaign ran into issues. Although in Proxima's case, her shifting fortune occurred well away from where she was currently fighting the Custodes Mundi team under Colossus.
Coming in from high above the, the first force of Asgardians to enter the war on the side of their allies was here, in Russia. The battle around Severomorsk was just that, around the city. IE, it was very far away from breakable things, like buildings, national monuments and so forth. So under Odin's orders, the largest portion of the Asgardian army struck here.
They came down out of the clouds. Some were flying under their own power. Others were born aloft on winds or items controlled by their brethren. Still more flew atop horses, enchanted to keep up with the Valkyries for this one battle. The cavalry of Queen Freya too were there, their eyes gleaming with the promise of death.
Led by Tyr, the combined Host flew down, bellowing their fury at the Chitauri and their cyborg constructs.
Energy beams began to smash into them almost at once thanks to the flying manta-ray creatures, but the Asgardians for the most part ignored them, simply smashed off course for a bit. Only the Valkyries would have been hurt by such, but they bore the blessings of their Queen and Lord and were beyond the touch of death on this day. The beams simply passed through them, their forms ignoring the laws of the mortal realm.
In return, the many archers among them fired back. While their arrows might seem to be primitive, they struck with all the force of angry gods, eventually shattering shielding and sending several of the manta rays to their doom as they continued to fall. For the first time in this war, the shoe in mid-range midair combat was very decidedly on the other foot, as the defenders now had both numerical superiority and durability far beyond what the Chitauri could call upon.
From just within Severomorsk, Morph saw this, staying hidden where he had gone to ground for now. He'd just been forced to pull back and out towards the near-empty outskirts as the Chitauri didn't seem to be fooled by his disguise. Being shot at almost immediately upon being noticed had told him that, but he kept the disguise anyway as he retreated after killing the two who had spotted him. He had hoped to figure out a way forward without being noticed, but now he watched as the few infantry within the city began to bubble out and take up defensive positions.
"Well, I don't think that the Asgardian religion has a phrase like ask and you shall receive or something color but damn me if they don't come through anyway." Morph quipped, angling back towards the city. "Now, I suppose I can just wait a bit for my cue."
As the battle above became even more violent, and several of the Asgardians penetrated the defensive screen to land within the city and take the fight to the antiair guns and infantry within, morph pushed forward again. He shifted his form into a flexible body somewhat like Mister fantastic, heading up the side of an inner wall and through the barbed wire there to land on the other side. I didn't really think this was a real closed city like that, but I suppose when Russia says something like that, you gotta take it seriously.
Now in the real military zone within Severomorsk, Morph moved through the city/permanent miliary base, moving like through the near darkness, it being deep night now in this part of Russia. That helped him a lot, as did the fact he could turn his form into that of a literal chameleon.
Large segments of this portion of the city showed signs of fighting. There were still hundreds of corpses around, but he saw dozens of Chitauri as well. Shaking his head at the bodies, Morph continued to move inward, looking down at the scanner that Reed Richards had given him.
However, just because their troops were being pulled into a battle with the Asgardians elsewhere in the city didn't mean there weren't any around. As he rounded the corner, Morph came face-to-face with a patrol of five Chitauri, all of whom instantly raised their blasters.
Morph ducked out of sight, enlarging one arm so that it more resembled a whip, with a hammer at the end as one of the Chitauri came around the corner at him. The blow crashed into the alien, hurling him backwards down the street, although his fellows had dodged, two of them ducking down to their knees, the other two taking to the walls, clinging there like Spiderman. When Morph tried to duck his head back around the corner, he came under fire again, and cursed.
"Oh well, I've always been told I had a hard head." He smashed his head against the wall beside him, creating a hole there which he quickly backed into. Within a second he had burst out of the wall underneath one of the Chitauri, reaching up and grabbing it by its feet, hurling it across the street at one of the two who had been about to move around the corner toward Morph's previous position. The alien missile worked, and Morph quickly pulled out a rifle, a plasma rifle that Harry, Dani and the others had forced Morph to train with. He couldn't really use projectile weapons despite his abilities, not unless he wanted to get rid of mass like someone was just expelling their own bones as projectile weapons.
He was able to gun down one of the Chitauri, before several of their bolts hit him, causing him to gasp, twitching backwards into cover wincing at the pain of his injuries to his side and lower thigh. Then he was rolling away from the doorway, morphing his body into the Thing's for a moment. The two Chitauri remaining charged through, but Morph was able to take them both from the side, crashing into and pummeling them into paste.
The last enemy in sight down, Morph shifted back into his normal body, listening to the fighting going on elsewhere high above and within the city for a few moments as he commanded his body to scabbed over the injuries he had taken, dealing with them quite quickly.
With that done, he stared down at the Chitauri in front of them, before slowly morphing back into the alien's body, this time mirroring a lot of the damage he saw. Hopefully this will let me pass by any other patrols who see me.
Like it had for Mystique in Paris, this did indeed work. Now ignored by the majority of the Chitauri infantry, he crossed through the base with impunity, occasionally pulling into the deeper darkness between buildings to check the scanner that Reed had given him. The strange wristwatch with the enlarging radar dish looked like something out of a Bond fic but worked quite well.
And then he saw it, the small, strange looking device was hidden in a storage warehouse, left unattended by the Chitauri. Perhaps Proxima had thought it would be easier to hide it if they didn't try to defend it? Regardless, whatever she thought, Morph was gleeful as he began to fire into it.
The beacon didn't even have the decency to explode or something. Instead, it just fizzed a bit, then the lights on its surface went out. "Well, that was anticlimactic," Morph mused, as outside in the night-time sky of Severomorsk, the third portal of the alien invasion shut down.
OOOOOOO
Meanwhile elsewhere in Russia, the battle between Proxima Midnight and Custodes under Piotr had descended into a slobber knocker. Uzume had swiftly been permanently removed from the fight thanks to the rippers and skimmers above. Only Coyote, thanks to his still-intact teleporter was able to dodge enough fire to remain on the field. But his best efforts, the enlarged gauss rifle shots, did nothing to Proxima Midnight but smack her around a bit. The former triathlete had taken out the last of the Rippers and was now basically dueling alone with the remaining skimmers above them as Colossus and the others went at it hammer and tongs with the blue-skinned alien woman.
Hundreds of miles away, the slow moving manta ray aerial denial platforms floated ever outward from Severomorsk with hordes more skimmers. They pressed outward every few minutes, growing the defensive grid around the portal there with glacial slowness and just as much certainty.
Those manta ray things were really making a difference on this front, as well as defending the main portal, and the portal in China and Washington. Only Nebula and Gamora had decided not to make use of them. Gamora preferred to fort up and use infantry while Nebula was too proud, too certain in their technological and numerical superiority to care what defenses the locals would have.
However, the Chitauri were most decidedly not having all their own way. The arrival of the Asgardians had torn the center out of their defensive grid here in Russia, and those Asgardians were spreading out now backward, smashing the manta ray constructs out of the sky along with the Rippers, leaving the skimmers almost entirely alone unless they truly bothered them. Even the weaker Asgardians, those not prominent gods in their pantheon, could ignore the low caliber energy guns of the skimmers and infantry quite easily.
Facing off against the Custodes, Proxima Midnight knew this, and was snarling orders aloud, undoubtedly picked up by her strange headset even as she slowly and methodically pounded Husk, Colossus and Warpath into the ground.
Three on one, and she was simply better than all of them. She was just as fast as any of them, stronger than any but Warpath and far more experienced. By this point she was bleeding a little from a punch to the mouth, and one of her legs had been badly bruised. But Warpath's hatchets had been torn out of his hand, and she was using one of them now to duel with him while Colossus tried to get to his feet nearby. His own legs looked quite badly hurt, along with one of his arms, which had been twisted almost to resemble more of a corkscrew shape than a regular arm, making the steel-clad Russian very grateful he had barely any pain receptors in his metal form.
Husk dashed forward, tossing a chunk of Ripper at the woman in an overhead throw, shouting out, "Take that, you blue bitch!"
Proxima leaped up over the piece of flotsam, landing lightly on it and kicking off, darting towards Husk, her weapon raised. Husk gasped and raised her own fist to block the blow with her forearm, only for it to chop deeply into her arm. Blood gushed from the wound, and she felt back, crying out in pain.
"No!" Colossus barreled into the woman, grabbing her up in a bear hug from behind, twisting around and slamming her into the ground in a supplex before she could dodge.
But Proxima simply snarled, wrenched her arms sideways and broke his grip, flipping away. Warpath's hatchet nearly took her in the side of her chest, but she used his own hatchet to batter it aside, even as a sudden scream came in over the radio into her head. The sound was not one made by a throat, rather it was the sound of a radio signal suddenly cut off. "CrRKBZZZZZZ!"
She snarled in rage, reaching up to her helmet with one hand as she backed away from the three combatants, Husk steadily pushing herself to her feet despite her ruined arm. "What, what was… how, are they somehow blocking my… No, I would still be able to direct the the troops through the... the Beacon!"
She snarled now, staring around her at the group which had pinned her down in place even as above her the few remaining skimmers that Coyote had been dueling with, and which her companions had been basically ignoring, raced away towards the distant city. "You! All of this, all of this was a feint?!"
"I wouldn't exactly call it a feint, it's just, you weren't our only objective," Colossus demurred, as Warpath moved to stand beside his fellows, hefting his hatchet. "I'm sorry, does that disappoint you somehow?"
Realizing what this meant for her part of eradicating humanity, Proxima Midnight snarled and charged forwards, hefting her stolen hatchet above her. "If I have to kill all of you and then move on to kill this force's entire quota of you humans with my own hands, I will do so! Die!"
She had completely forgotten about Coyote by this point, and so was completely unprepared for the enlarged gauss rifle that crashed into her side like a runaway boulder. Although not doing any actual harm, it knocked Proxima off her feet to one side, and then Warpath was on her, smashing her purloined hatchet out of Proxima's hands with his own as Colossus hammered her with several punches while she was down.
Husk attempted to kick her, but the woman grabbed her foot, upending Husk to the ground, before smashing her elbow into Colossus' chest. That however was not a good idea, as she winced, the juggernaut armor protecting him even as the hit caused him to stumble back. Then she was rolling underneath a strike from Warpath, lashing out with a kick that caught him in the back of the leg. He stumbled to his knees, and she roared as she twisted around her entire body on the fly, her fist slamming into Warpath's jaw with enough force to actually break the bone.
And then Proxima was grabbing his hatchet as is grip on it loosened, bringing it around to slice into his body right underneath the armpit.
Warpath was also wearing a version of the Juggernaut armor, although not the original that Colossus was using. It stopped her blow, although it dented, as the head of his hatchet crumpled under the impact. Even Asgardian steel was no match for the red-style Orichalcum.
His return strike to Proxima in the side of the head, and she stumbled, whereupon Husk leaped onto her back, one arm going around Proxima's neck as her other hand tried to gouge out Proxima's eyes.
This almost seemed to scare Proxima, and she screeched in fury, reaching up for the woman, but not before Husk's metal fingers punched into her eyes, causing her to cry out in pain although Husk lacked the strength to actually pulp the woman's eyes. A second later, Husk was flung away, and then Colossus once more took her legs out from under her with a low tackle.
That was all it took. Disoriented and partially blinded, Proxima could barely see now and before her vision cleared, Warpath brought his hastily regained hatchet down with all his strength. Proxima still almost dodged but couldn't quite get out of the way in time.
For a moment, as the blue skinned alien woman thrashed with Warpath's hatchet halfway buried into the right of her skull over one eye, all three of them simply gasped, breathing in deeply as they stared at one of the toughest opponents they'd ever faced. "That was almost as tough as facing Jörmungandr. She wasn't nearly as tough, but her speed and fighting skill made it almost as hard a fight," Colossus breathed, shaking his head. "Is it just me, or was she wearing us down way more than we were her?"
"That might be the power to a point principal in terms of single combat," Wyatt mused, moving up beside them. "After all, I rather doubt that woman was as physically powerful as even one of the great serpent's legs was. But she could direct all that power through her normal-sized fists. How are you three doing?"
Husk looked down at her arm which had been cut nearly through by the woman's purloined weapon, shaking her head slightly. "I suppose you could say okay, but that was a too damn near run thing for me. I don't think mah normal way of healing would let me heal from being amputated. Even now, I don't want to try to peel away my skin and transform without at least one of our magic-type healers around."
"I am pretty much in the same boat. I am afraid either Storm or Guardian will need to see to my legs before I can change back into my normal body," Colossus reported, staring down at his mangled limbs. "… how they are working at all in keeping me upright, I rather don't want to think about.
Warpath just crawled, pointing at his mangled mouth and broken jaw, which he was holding with one hand now. While he was super durable and stronger than Colossus, he didn't have any kind of healing factor.
"Right. We'll pull back to Babylon. Hopefully the Asgardians have brought in their own magical healers, or else all of us are benched for the rest of this war," Colossus ordered.
It would take the Asgardians sometime, but the battle around Severomorsk was no longer in doubt, and another member of the Black Order had fallen. Asgard had put forth it's strength to aid its allies, and the impact would soon be felt in every battlefield. And as Proxima fell, the battle for DC was decidedly turning against the invaders as well…
OOOOOOO
Corvus grimaced, as reports of artillery fire and cannon fire reached him from the outskirts of the defensive zone. These humans had continued to bring in more and more troops, and now had their strange land-based vehicles firing from long-range at his own defenders, predominantly the Death Claw floating gun platforms. Their guns couldn't do much damage per hit, but there were several of them, and they also had artillery guns set to fire into the air.
They were starting to knock down his manta ray units, and more and more of the jet fighters were arriving from distant bases all the time. They were dying in droves as they entered combat with his skimmers, but even so, it was worrisome. Perhaps we should have told the foolish godling to place every two beacons close to one another, so we could support… bah, who am I kidding? Corvus snorted. Only my lady wife and I… and perhaps Gamora… would ever agree to help one another.
More importantly, these humans are a wily and militaristic society. This is quite a challenge. But I would not have been given the challenge to invade the most powerful nation of this planet if I was not worthy of it. There strange ODM our intelligence assets reported are troublesome, as is the group of local heroes, but they will not stop me.
Snapping out a few orders, Corvus redirected the next hundred infantry transporters towards the outskirts of the city. There they would bolster his troops fighting it out with the largest contingent of human troops who had somehow gotten into the city. With that done, he turned his thoughts back to the overall battle even as his command node lifted off once more, moving swiftly through the city.
But the only so-called hero I need to be wary of is the lizard-like one. The rest do not seem to have enough firepower to bother me, although the reports of the magic user on the westward front is very worrisome. Luckily the humans are not using that female as they should be…. Unless it is she who is involved in the transportation side of things, removing the civilians from underfoot while teleporting in military units?
The alien snorted shaking his head. But even that is foolish. Why in the world would you use magic on the defensive like that, or even care about civilians at all, when you could use it on the offense? Of course if they had done that, they would come close enough for me to engage in person, and my cloak and armor should be proof enough even magic thanks to my Lord Thanos' work on it.
Beyond that, he'd had time and resources, and Corvus was somewhat pleased with how the battle was going overall. The only surprise on the strategic level was the human ocean going battleship, and it was now nearly out of play, harried and pushed back out to sea by his Rippers. Even the green-scaled human heroine was only dangerous to units in her direct vicinity.
Now, as the humans tried to push forward to reclaim their capital, the humans were paying an exorbitant price for their a few successes. Even now, an armored column that had been trying to move in from the north unsupported by their flyers had been ambushed by his skimmers, which had slaughtered the entirety of that column to a man, retreating before they could be bounced in turn by jetfighters.
Listening to other reports, he ordered another band of skimmers down to help his infantry, wiping out another group of infantry. But at the same time, his southernmost aerial defense units were suddenly struck by missiles from outside their range.
That was something Corvus had to ruefully acknowledge was a bit of a problem, for his skimmers at least. Thanks to their use of rocket technology, the humans actually had a greater range than his smaller air units and while they weren't as durable, they were faster in a straight line. The humans had quickly developed the technique of firing their missiles, and then twisting around entirely on their axis and racing away before his skimmers could close.
But if they entered the range of his manta rays, they were as good as dead, and now he ordered a few of his southernmost Death Claws forward. The human jets couldn't move fast enough to dodge plasma-based antiair fire, and he watched as his sensors reported seven downed jet fighters. But then two of the superheroes on that side of the city charged forward. Before the two Death Claws could retreat back into their fellow's defensive envelope, the two were blown out of the air. Further human units pushed in now, taking losses from the other Death Claws, but closing as did the two heroes, shredding several dozen skimmers and downing three more before retreating.
"Curse them," he mused. "These humans know when to strike and are a most adaptable foe. Where are the blasted Skrull? Surely their entire fleet could not have been halted in deep space? If we could but force them to keep troops elsewhere, at least their Air Force units would be forced to stay closer to their various bases…"
Corvus grumbled some more to himself even as he ordered in more troops. The air still belonged to the Chitauri over the human capital, but the forces pressing in from the south were annoying, digging in and moving forward slowly but surely. He pushed more infantry units down there, along with more ground-based anti-air defenses, hoping to set up a trap for the three superhero type flyers down there. It worked, and one of them was reported to 'disappear' whatever that meant, while another was shot down.
But then a horrifying report caused him to nearly shriek in anger and concern. "Commander Corvus, one of the flying units, the one that was reported to seemingly be a robot, it uses nanites!"
Instantly, Corvus had to order his forces nearby to retreat. The Chitauri were rightly terrified of nanites. Centuries ago, long before they had bowed before the might of Lord Thanos, they had fought an apocalyptic war with an Empire of sentient robots who used nanites. The bio-cyborg constructs of the Chitauri had proven nearly useless against them, and it had only been their dimension jumping technology that allowed the Chitauri to win the day. But even so, the war had left societal scars on the hive-like Chitauri for reasons Corvus could only barely understand, even as he acknowledged it.
Unfortunately, dealing with this had taken his attention away from the greater, and far closer threat: the green-scaled human heroine.
"Lord Corvus, we cannot stop it! The local, the lizard-like one, it is homing in on your location!"
Cursing, Corvus paused in his orders, activating the controls on the command skimmer, lifting up off of the air and shifting away quickly. Damn it, I got too concentrated on the southern front.
However as he went, a blast of red actinic energy crashed into the bottom of his skimmer. Its shields activated, halting the blast, and Corvus turned in the direction of the strike, ordering his nearby infantry in to pursue. The beam continued to hammer into his shield for a few seconds, draining his shield before being cut off as whoever had fired it had to deal with the infantry.
Then, from the other side of the street several arrows and bullets flew, battering into the underside of his command node. They didn't do any damage, the armor of the command skimmer being enough to turn them aside. But more serious was the explosion that struck the back of it from directly behind him.
"Blast it, how did they get so close to us without any of my guards seeing them?" Snarling, Corvus ordered the command node higher into the air, pulling away from the fire of the infiltrators.
And almost directly into a thrown wall from the green scaled woman. "Human bitch!" He cursed as it flew barely an inch over his head, halting his upward progress into the air just enough for another beam of kinetic power to crash into his skimmer from below. This time the kinetic force of the strike was not dissipated by his shield, the generator having already expended itself and needing to recharge, and the command skimmer was hurled sideways, careening end-over-end to slam into the side of a skyscraper.
Corvus leaped clear, snarling in anger as the skimmer crashed into the skyscraper. He landed in the rubble of another building, rolling through it, then bouncing upward and twisting around, his scythe lashing out at a being who had just appeared behind him. His combat senses and experience had warned him there would be another attempt to close with him, and he watched as the blades of the enemy creature, he wasn't human for certain, blocked his weapon. So, it wasn't just those human guards in the White House who had weapons comparable to our own.
But regardless of that, the creature, who might be a horribly deformed human or a representative of an allied race, had vastly overestimated its own strength. Even blocked the strike smashed the creature off of its feet and off the side of the brutalized building with a cry. "Gaaa!"
Snarling, Corvus stood there for a second, fighting his instincts to go after the teleporting creature. No, I cannot afford to be bogged down here for long. The Chitauri need me to direct them, and that blasted green-scaled creature worries me.
He moved away quickly, jumping from one rooftop to another. An arrow was shot his way as he did so, followed by a bullet from nearby. But these were immediately responded to by his guards, the infantry closing in quickly on each point. And neither bothered Corvus, bouncing off his armor or even his own scaled skull. A second later, Corvus had left the area he had been ambushed in behind, disappearing under an invisibility cloak he had been given by Lord Thanos for a moment. It would need to be recharged quickly, but it would let him break contact.
Good shots, these humans, but foolish for all of that. If they but bowed their head to Lord Thanos, then we would leave half their population alive, we would even let them choose which nations to cull. A good eugenics program does wonders for…
Corvus's idle musings cut off as he spotted the green scaled being leaping up onto a nearby rooftop and racing towards him. "How are they tracking me!? My cloak should have kept them from finding me so quickly…" Corvus's eyes widened and he quickly placed a hand to his head. "Telepaths! The humans have telepaths, I had thought our defenses would be enough to keep them from interfering but perhaps they can still tell my brain from that of the normal Chitauri?"
Again shaking that thought off, Corvus sent out a recall order, pulling in any nearby Chitauri and ordering the next band of reinforcements to concentrate on his current position before turning at bay, bloodlust rising within him at the thought of these creatures chasing after him like he was a mere prey animal. "Foolish over-evolved ape! You will learn that I am not like the Chitauri. I am in acolyte of Lord Thanos," he snarled, sending out a blast of energy towards the incoming superhero from his weapon. "And you will find I am more than a match for you!"
Rogue ducked underneath the incoming blast, hurling herself forward with her hands outstretched, punching with both of them into the wall of the next building over as she smashed into it. Rolling through the rubble her punch caused, she then leaped upwards, smashing back out of the building and onto the nearby rooftop. "Ah migh' not be able to fly, but Ah can jump with the best of 'em," she grumbled as she closed the distance with the other alien.
From one of her expanded pouches, she pulled the same weapon she'd used against Jörmungandr, a massive oni club. This she hurled forward like a javelin, which crashed into the alien commander.
He smashed it out of the sky with his own weapon, but it slowed him down enough for Rogue to close the distance a bit. "I'm gonna get ya, Reaper Man!"
"I am not Reaper Man, I am Corvus Glaive, leader of the Black Order!" In retaliation, the alien waved its weapon towards her, cutting into the roof underneath her. "And when I sit atop of mountain of skulls devoted to my lord Thanos, you will know true terror!"
A large triangular segment of the roof slid sideways, taking Rogue with it, sending her sprawling into an alleyway between that building and a large office building beside it. Her curses rained out loud and heartfelt, unheard over the general tumult of falling debris.
But this in turn opened the alien up to a shield which smashed into his side with punishing force. He gasped at the hit and was sent staggering sideways even as the shield bounced back the way it had come to be grabbed out of the air by its wielder. That same wielder then closed quickly, his face set in a grim cast.
Snarling, Corvus charged forward towards him, his weapon lashing out in a cut, which the man rolled underneath, popping up and lashing out with a punch of his own. Corvus blocked it, with his own forearm, his eyes widening slightly in surprise at the man's strength. Still, it was nowhere near enough to bother him, but his attempt to grab that outstretched arm failed as the man quickly pulled back, and the shield came around again, smashing front on into his outstretched arm faster than Corvus could move.
That stung and Corvus snarled. "And I thought your swords and knives were well advanced of what they should be. What in the world is that shield made of to hurt such as I? It will make a fine prize."
"You can take my shield off my dead corpse!" Captain America responded, ducking under a two more blows, then leaping over a third, his shield battering into Corvus's face, then around to block another blow, deadening it to the point that there was no momentum imparted to the star-spangled warrior, respite the fact he was in the air. Instead, he dropped down, ducked underneath another strike, and lashed out at Corvus's leg.
Corvus blocked that blow, then dodged back from another, before Captain America's legs were swept out from under him by a blow from his staff. The man rolled away, dodging the next strike which sank the blade of the scythe into the ground for a second. Then he blocked the follow-on return strike, before twirling to the side around a third and hurling his shield the very short distance between Corvus and his body.
The strike sent Corvus stumbling, by which point, Rogue had pushed herself up out of the rubble in the street below. She leaped up onto the roof behind Corvus, and charged forwards, not having taken the time to retrieve her weapon from where it had been flung previously. Her strike smashed into Corvus's upper back and shoulder, hurling him to the side as he gave a cry of pain. For the first time since coming through the portal, indeed for the first time in many dozen conquests, Corvus felt pain, and didn't like it.
"I have fought on hundreds of worlds, I have faced the mightiest warriors or a dozen subjugated races, and you, you have hurt me!" Corvus growled, rolling his shoulder as he twisted, his scythe flashing out, forcing Rogue. "Taking your head will be a treat!"
At that point, several Chitauri finally responded to his recall. Above them, a dozen skimmers also began to flash through the cityscape above the battle, followed by two of the giant fish which must have just come through the portal.
Before they could close Cyclops announced his presence once more. A red beam crashed out from where he was hiding in another skyscraper, smashing into the side of one of the giant flying fish, sending it crashing into another building, burying it in the rubble.
Several ODMs who had been fighting within a few blocks also turned their attention in this direction thanks to Professor X directing them in this manner, trying to break away from the Chitauri they were currently fighting with mixed results. Only two of them were able to do so, but they pinned down seven of the Chitauri going to their commander's aid, and smashed one of the skimmers out of the sky before the others began to fire down at Corvus's original attackers.
"My Lord! This is the guard at the portal Beacon, we are under…." The radio signal, cut off abruptly under the sound of what sounded to Corvus's senses like a blade slicing into flesh, a sound he knew and mostly enjoyed hearing. But not at the moment.
He turned, snarling as he batted aside another attack from the man in red, white and blue, then ducked under a punch from the green scaled woman, his scythe coming up to hammer into her chest sending her stumbling back before ducking under his return blow. "Dammit! All of this was a feint!?"
With that, he tried to break away from them, tried to turn and raced towards where he knew the Beacon was. But it was too late. In the distance, there was a sound of a shield popping, and a moment later over the intercoms to Captain America and the others, Psylocke and Iceman's voice rang out in unison. "Cyclops, the Beacon is destroyed!"
Although it had taken several hours to pin Corvus down, Cap and Cyclops had chosen to break Iceman and Psylocke off from the group hunting the Chitauri commander several blocks back when Pinoptes informed them they were close to where the beacon lay. The two of them had taken the sewers to the nearest point they could to the beacon, directed by Pinoptes through Professor X, their own coms down thanks to being in the sewers. From there, Psylocke had caused a distraction, and Iceman had used his power to freeze the beacon within its defensive shield. The very high tech device had not responded well to becoming so cold it looked to have been doused in liquid nitrogen.
Corvus stared up at the sky in horror as the portal disappeared. "No, no, my lord, I have… I have failed! You, you monkeys have made me fail! For that you will die!" He howled in fury and turned, striking Rogue across the face with the edge of his scythe, drawing a small bead of blood from her cheek as his scythe tried to cut through her scales only to barely leave what amounted to a kind of cut that a man would get while shaving.
He managed to pull his blade back, but Rogue grabbed it before he could, pulling him into a punch that nearly shattered his ribs and hurled Corvus off his feet. "Ah don't think so, sugah!"
She looked over at Captain America, then gestured with her head towards the alien who was now trying to get to his feet, clutching at his chest. "We've got this, get on the horn, and tell everyone the good news!"
With a grin, Captain America rolled away from incoming fire from several skimmers, even as his hand raised to his helmet to do just that, connecting first to the ODMs, who he knew had been taking a pounding over the last few hours. The battle was not over by any means, there were the equivalent of several army divisions of alien infantry within the city by this point, and an equal number of skimmers, their accompanying big brothers, and so forth. But without further reinforcements, it was only a matter of time before numbers began to tell.
This was helped along by Rogue and the X-Men now as they closed on Corvus. Black Widow and Hawkeye stayed back, while Polaris, who still hadn't quite recovered from her earlier exertions, took down several of the skimmers, protecting the area from being overwhelmed from above. Meanwhile, Cyclops and Avalanche switched off, lashing out with strikes towards the incoming infantry, but also looking for a way to join the battle against Corvus.
Avalanche saw his chance when Corvus retreated from Rogue too fast for her to follow. Targeting the building the alien landed on, Avalanche growled, "Get buried, fucker!"
Corvus somehow kept his feet, rolling clear onto a street, but then was caught in the open by both Avalanche and Cyclops. The ground underneath him heaved, forcing him to try and concentrate on his balance for a moment, before Cyclops' beam struck him hard, hurling him toward where a waiting Rogue lashed out. "Home run!"
The blow crashed into Corvus's chest, hurling him into and through the third floor of a skyscraper, which began to come down behind him.
On the other side of the building, Corvus gagged, spitting out blood. He had very rarely been hit that hard before. Not even Black Dwarf, or the one time Lord Thanos had gained to spar with him and the other acolytes, although he knew Thanos had held back severely during the spar. This is, this is not good. I, I need to…
Pushing himself to his feet, he grabbed his weapon, then charged forward, not at the green scaled woman, but at one of the other attackers, who had just come around the downed building. This one, a redheaded female apparently, gasped, ducking back, but wasn't able to fully evade his strike. It took her across the shoulders and down to the side, opening up her uniform in a welter of blood and guts. A second later however, even as she fell to the road, she disappeared with a pop of displaced air.
For a moment Corvus stared. "What in the world?"
He then rolled forward to dodge a blow from Rogue. Rogue followed up, and Corvus was forced to retreat again, dodging back through an alleyway, calling down fire from above. The only surviving Ripper from his reinforcements a moment ago turned in their direction, firing down at Rogue, halting her progress.
Bursting out the other side, Corvus saw the other heroes closing in on him. The teleporting one was back, along with a woman using a rifle, bringing with him a woman with yellow hair cropped short. Another one came in from Corvus's side, a blast of kinetic energy blasted towards Corvus. But Corvus whirled, smashing his scythe through the energy, bisecting it, sending the refracted kinetic energy everywhere, intercepting the teleporting one, who whoofed as he was struck.
The blonde female threw explosives his way, her hands glowing with yellow energy for a moment. But she wasn't able to dodge a hurled rock at her head that he had kicked up towards her. Another, the teleporting one also retreated with a broken arm within seconds. This left the shield wielder, who had somehow kept up with Corvus the whole time. The two of them exchanged blows as more Chitauri arrived, forcing the others to turn their attention away from him.
Then a Ripper's corpse smashed into the ground in front of Corvus, and the large, green-scaled woman leaped off of its corpse towards him once more. "Avalanche, rock his world!"
At that Avalanche turned away from the incoming infantry, trusting Hawkeye and the two ODMs who had joined them to tie the infantry down for a few seconds without him. Corvus's retreat stopped as the building he had jumped towards collapsed before he reached it. This let Rogue close again.
Desperately, Corvus whirled around with his blade, but found it smashed aside, then the green scaled woman was barreling into him, hurling him to the rubble with her on top of him, where she grabbed at his throat. His scythe useless at this range, Corvus tried to punch her away, tried to break her grip, but the woman was far stronger than he was. A punch shattered his jaw and caused his eye to explode in his socket, and he screamed, thrashing trying to get away. "No! Lord Thanos! Proxima…"
Another punch shattered his jaw, and a third his skull as Rogue howled. "FUCK YOU!"
Corvus, first Lord of the Black Order, joined Nebula in death. The fact he was not the first would've brought him scant comfort. Nor would the knowledge that he would not be the last to die that day.
The Chitauri infantry kept on pushing in on the group for a few moments, but with Corvus dead, the Chitauri would not retreat from their positions elsewhere in the city. This let the ODMs and Force Washington finish off their current opponents quickly.
Grimacing, Cyclops looked around, making certain the enemy had been dealt with, and hoping that Black Widow and Boom Boom would be alright. They had both been teleported away by their emergency medical arrays, but he wouldn't know until Una or Amelia contacted him if that meant they had lived.
Setting that worry aside, he nodded at Nightcrawler, who nodded back grimacing at the pain of his broken arm, as Cyclops trotted into a nearby café, coming out with several carafes of water as he moved towards his blood-soaked girlfriend. "Hold out your hands."
The green scaled southern belle did so, a wry look on her face. "Mah hero."
Cyclops poured the water over her hands, and then over her face and upper body which caused Rogue to laugh quietly glancing down at her now soaked uniform. "Is this really the time for play sugar?" That uniform had been heavily modified to deal with the changes to her body from its original simple dark yellow and green beginnings, but was still the same spandex, nearly skintight uniform as the rest of the X-men used. Now soaked to the bone, it left very little to the imagination.
Snorting at his girlfriend's attempt to lighten the mood a bit from her execution of the enemy commander, shaking his head slightly. "I wasn't going for that, but you do look a lot better without blood splattered on you. As for the rest, maybe we can have a beach day after this?"
Snickering a bit, Rogue leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Then nearby blasts erupted and a group of skimmers dove down from above to pepper their position, forcing Cyclops into cover as Rogue glared up at them.
"If we could interrupt you two love birds for a moment!" Avalanche snarked, as more Chitauri infantry began to appear around and through distant buildings. "There is still a war on you know."