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It had taken him several weeks to realize that his Mistress was not paying attention to him not because she was busy elsewhere, but because something else was actively taking her attention, someone else. That could not be born. If someone else was trying to get Mistress Death's attention, that someone else would be 'silenced' with extreme prejudice. Thanos the Mad Titan was not one to allow such an effrontery. He could not after all discern who had taken her attention away from him. She was simply not paying attention at all to him, which did not let him gather further information.
So instead, he'd gone in search of ways to bring Mistress Death's attention back to him. One such way was brought to his attention several days past, when long-range sensors of the Skrull Empire detected an unusual energy source coming from a hitherto mostly unnoticed and largely unimportant system. Thanos had his ship's systems routinely piggybacked on such sensor nets, he didn't have the amount of industry the various empires did, even if none of them could match his intelligence, personal strength or technology.
The Skrull's sensor systems could only read it as an odd burst of energy carrying certain odd energy particles. But Thanos had long studied Mistress Death, and knew much about her counterpart as well. It was weaker than normal, certainly, but had some odd wavelengths to it, which his systems were eventually able to parse out as being telekinetic in nature, and there was a bit more that told him it was from an individual rather than the original.
This pointed to only one thing: the Phoenix Force had taken an avatar. That was excellent, it gave Thanos a suitable target. After all, killing the avatar of her alternate could not fail to gain him Mistress Death's attention once more.
He was utterly wrong about this. Lady Death could have emotions, and she was very technically female. But she was not in love with her own power. To her she was simply Death, the ending, you cannot woo the ultimate ending. Indeed, she was rather fascinated with life, though few knew it.
Thanos sent a probe he had slipped in, and it was able to find signs of the Phoenix Force as well as gather the two creatures he wished to turn to his own advantage. One was remarkably easy, the promise of a monetary payment after the job plus letting him watch the other one Thanos was going to use die after Thanos was done with him was enough for him.
The other however was much more difficult. His alter ego, a weak human was actually quite bright, and evaded the probes several times until he once again lost control. When he did, the probes moved in. In his more useful form the human didn't have enough mental acuity to fight the effects the probe had on its mind. Those effects were simple beyond making certain it didn't see Thanos or the other pawn as enemies. One effect was to keep the pawn in a permanent rage which would alas wear off after a day or two, and the other was to simply point him in the right direction.
OOOOOOO
Harry looked at Piotr as he stood in front of him in the entrance hall, shaking his head in amusement. "It looks as if Illyana's magical powers are coming along quite a bit faster than I had expected. Did she do that as part of a prank, or did you do something to irritate her?"
"A little bit of both I'm afraid," Piotr said ignoring the snickering going on around them. That was caused by the fact that Piotr had various paint colors splashed all over him, except it wasn't actually paint. Instead the effect was as if his body had been changed via a color change charm applied to various areas to look like a rainbow.
"Outside of the two of us working on helping to reorganize the Castle and moving me out of the dormitory tower Illyana and I haven't spent much time together lately and I was forced to turn her down this morning when she asked if she and I could go for a nature walk." Piotr went on. "Illyana knows mornings are for training, so she shouldn't have been that irritated, but then she did this to me, so I don't know if she really was irritated, or if this was indeed just a prank and Illyana felt the timing was right for it."
"Probably a little of both." Ororo said holding up one hand to hide her smile from the temporarily technicolor Russian. "I wonder," she said a moment later cocking her head to one side "If the colors would carry over to your metal form?"
"I am not wishful to see if so!" Piotr said with feeling causing Harry and Ororo to laugh.
After moment however Harry got control of himself enough to hit the large Russian youth with a Finite Incantatum. The colors gradually disappeared, causing a 'AWWWW' to go around rest of the team. "We don't have anything planned for the team this evening so I think you should take the time to hang out with her tonight. Even as a prank this was a call for brotherly attention, best to respond before it escalates. In fact, why don't you find our copy of the musical Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat? I think it's rather appropriate, and I bet you'll get an apology at the end."
Of course Murphy's Law demanded that such a presumption be answered in the appropriate manner. So seconds later a house-elf popped in next to them bowing his head politely. "Masters, Mr. Denny asks you to join him in his office, he says there is being something going on hes wishes you to be seeing."
"When am I going to learn not to tempt fate?" Harry murmured shaking his head as the feeling congealed inside of him that the shoe he had been fearing since Jean left Friday was just about to drop. However when he spoke to the team his voice was serious. "Get your gear everyone, and Piotr, that includes the Colossus armor. Just in case."
It was the difference between plate and chain mail really. The Juggernaut armor was heavy plate mail of the highest quality and in Colossus' case it was plate mail over plate mail. The suits most of the team wore were lined with the equivalent of chain mail, tiny discs of Balthakk's version of the armor, which was lighter in itself then the red of Cyttorak, not quite as tough but much lighter which allowed for more movement. Colossus had been practicing with the Juggernaut armor however and the weight of the armor didn't bother him a bit, so it made sense to give the team's strongman more durability.
About 20 minutes later they all congregated in the spymaster's room, and Colossus wasn't the only one to start as he saw Harry wearing his magical crisis suit out in the open rather than covered by an illusion. On his back was the mask of it, which had a microphone like the rest of the team, and he also wore the original plate and vambraces of Balthakk, the plate having been repaired long since from the damage it had taken fighting Mephisto. "You really are worried about this aren't you?" Amara asked.
"I am." Harry said with a nod. "Things have been going too well lately, and we're understrength." Before anyone could ask how anyone would be able to know that, the Harry held up a hand. "I know that there is no way that any of our various enemies out there could know about that, but chance and ill luck play a factor, and Murphy's Law has always had it in for me." With that he turned to look at Dennis. "What've you got for us?"
Something beyond puzzling." The older man replied, turning his computer's rather old-fashioned screen to face them. He didn't like using the hard light systems, claiming they bothered him because their controls didn't click under his fingers. "This is a live broadcast. It's from the outskirts of Montreal."
On the screen was the monster that Harry recognized as the Hulk. He was rampaging through what looked like a suburb while police desperately tried to evacuate people from around it. He was fighting some kind of orange-furred beast, who apparently was losing badly judging by the way he was being thrown around, along with someone else flying around in a suit that looked vaguely like the Red Guardians, only with the colors of the Canadian Maple leaf. There were at least two bodies in the rubble wearing other spandex suits that seemed to imply that they had been a part of some superhero team, though Harry had never heard of any of them.
"Alpha Flight." Dennis said promptly at Harry's look, shaking his head. "There have been rumors of their creation but I barely knew that there was more to it than their code-names before this. I wanted to finish compiling a list of all their members and powers at least before sharing it with you. But that's beside the point now."
Harry nodded slightly understanding his point. "All right, this looks bad, but…" he paused as another green skinned monstrosity appeared in the camera, flinging aside the battered and almost certainly dead body of another superhero. "Who is that?"
"The Abomination is his name in the media. Formerly Emil Blonsky, he was a Special Forces operative assigned to the Hulkbusters. He was given a formula to create a soldier that could fight the Hulk on even terms by General 'Thunderbolt' Ross. It didn't work and was one of the reasons why Ross was removed from command then quietly retired recently."
Harry's cocked his head, staring at Dennis. "I presume that's why you're calling us, the fact that these two were working together?" While Harry was all for helping out other people, and would certainly be willing to fight the Hulk if he had to defend civilian lives, it wasn't something he wanted to go out of his way to do, and with all he'd seen from the Hulk if Alpha Flight could lead it away from the city then the Hulk wouldn't bother with searching out people.
"They hate each other." Dennis replied with a nod. "But they're working together here, which is astonishing. Worse, the Hulk almost never enters cities, Banner tries to stay away from them, but here he is trying to actually assault Montreal."
Ororo frowned. "Does the Hulk have any kind of mental defenses?" Then she shook her head. "Stupid question, how are we supposed to know the answer to that one? Sorry Dennis."
As they watched, the cameraman was smashed to one side by some flying debris, and the camera cut off. Everyone turned to look at Harry who frowned thinking hard. Either one of them would be tough, but together they are a very potent threat, which doesn't count whoever is controlling them and forcing them to work together. Despite a certain amount of reluctance to get it stuck in with these two until said puppeteer showed himself Harry knew they had to get involved. "All right, Ororo call the Baxter building,Ben will wish to join us at least, and Johnny might be able to help as well."
"What about the X-Men?" Ororo asked.
Harry shook his head. "You can call Scott, but I doubt it. Charles asked me to send over a batch of potions the other night, apparently the X-men ran into some issue down in New Orleans and had a major set to in a swamp near there. I doubt they're in any condition to help us."
He was right about that, the only one who was even partially capable of joining them was Rogue. The others were all busy convalescing. The X-men had gone down to New Orleans to try to talk to a young mutant there, a very young boy who could change his senses into that of different animals. He had joined up with the local thieves Guild, only to run into several other mutants who had done the same, along with getting involved in a feud between said Guild and the assassins.
The assassins Guild however was now defunct, having lost more than two thirds of its members to the team, most of the thieves in question were in custody of the police thanks to dumping them outside the police precinct with a lot of their stolen goods, and the young teleporter had agreed to join them here in the mansion, though had no interest in joining the X-men. Success, but at a physical cost to the team that had most of them laying up for one reason or another.
"Meanwhile I'll head down to Balder and tell him we won't be able to start trading today." This would be first time the Asgardians and Harry got together to trade as per their treaty, but this was more important. "Maybe I can convince him to join in." It turned out this was far easier that Harry had predicted. Balder was eager to fight the Hulk, and test his mettle against the green behemoth, who reminded him of the Giants and trolls of his homeland.
Nor was he the only Asgardian who was interested in what was occurring.
OOOOOOO
The dream began with nothingness, but with sound. 'Ring, clang,' and then the sound of a 'thump' as a body hit the ground heavily. "Don't just hack it things ******!" Thor's own voice bellowed, though there was more than remonstration in his tone, there was affection. That last wasn't quite the right word, there was something else there, something more than mere affection that Thor's sleeping mind couldn't quite grasp. Much like some of the words that were being spoken, yet his mind could not grasp them. "You watch your ******, see what he does."
There was another series of what Thor knew to be the exchange of sword or possibly axe blows, with Thor's voice giving a running commentary, interspersed with a young boys, no, not young, almost on the cusp of manhood but not quite there, voice responding. It ended the same way as the initial one, with a 'thump' of a body hitting the ground at this time Thor laughed boisterously as was his wont. "Well done! Now if only you could grow a beard as well as you can wield a sword I could almost call you a man!"
There were sounds of grumbling no doubt coming from the older boy while the younger laughed. "I'll get there eventually, I swear I'll make you proud of me ******." Those pauses were loud and profound, blocking something, something that was important, yet for the life of him Thor couldn't grasp them.
A third voice shouted from afar. This voice however was that of a young girl. "*******,******* says she'd like your help with the goats!"
Thor's shouted back "I'll be right there ******."
The voices faded away, replaced by an image this time of a hall. It was not his father's hall, this was much more homely, much more present and personal. There seemed to be carousing going on along the sides of the hall, but not at the center. There Thor himself was at the head of a table gazing out over the rest. Directly in front of his table were two men who were pointedly not looking at one another instead staring straight ahead. All around the hall were warriors, not Asgardians but men, simple warriors yet true and honest. Thor felt a sense of camaraderie with these men, and it was obvious they trusted him as they looked to him in that image for something.
This image didn't have any sound, it was simply an image, a replay of a visual memory maybe with no accompanying sound. Thor felt himself point at one of the men, then at the other and he seemed to say something which most of the men there agreed with if their smiling shouts were anything to go by. Then Thor said something else which made one man scowl but all the other men nodded agreement with. Then Thor felt himself stand up shouting then men and women carrying food came in.
The image flickered. Now it was as if Thor was finishing a journey. He was being welcomed into a village somewhere by simple rustic folk. Fathers, sons, wives, daughters all came out to greet him with laughs and smiles.
Then there was another image, one which carried overtones of extreme embarrassment and anger, but which at least had sound. "Why must I do this again?"
"How else will you be able to enter Thyrm's hall?" Said a laughing voice, and Thor felt himself turn, staring at a man who he knew to be his brother Loki, though he looked much older for some reason. His hair was streaked with gray rather than dark brown, though his eyes were as lively and intelligent as ever, his fingers where they were clasped on a belt buckle still seemed to be dexterous and nimble. Nimble seemed to be a good word to describe Loki in any event, but here his eyes were sparkling in a way that Thor hadn't seen in far too long. "Besides, you look so pretty."
"Don't make me thump you." said Thor, though some of the anger had leached out of his voice at the commiserating tone despite the words. It came back however when he felt his body being turned gently back to face a mirror. The mirror showed Thor dressed up in a woman's dress, his hair, which was blanked out for some reason, pressed down to cover his eyes and face somewhat, but the rest of it was done up in an intricate braid down his back. "This will never work!" Thor said in a whining tone of voice, though he would thump anyone who said it. "What about my beard? That will give the game away!"
"You've never heard of bearded women?" said Freya, shaking her head, her necklace the Brinsingamen rattling gently in its place on her bosom. To say the Vanir goddess of beauty and fertility had a lot to lose if this ruse didn't work was an understatement. Thus she was leading the girls who were helping Thor get ready, a laugh in her voice much like all the others around them. "Besides, we can shave that easily enough."
"Never!" Thor bellowed leaning back but he felt two pairs of hands on his shoulders.
"Calmly my son." said a deep voice and he turned to find his father standing there, only a faint smile showing his own amusement. Still there was a seriousness in his one eye, and he nodded over at Loki. "Loki here will put a glamour on your face, which will hide your actual features, that plus the bridal veil will cover even your beard. Alas it cannot cover your entire body, else there would be no reason for you to go through this charade. But giants never look too closely at faces in any event, they simply notice the body type. You are…" Odin paused and went on more delicately "rather large for a woman, but that'll be all to the good for them."
Thor nodded, mollified somewhat and Odin left the hall where Thor was being prepared for this bit of subterfuge. Loki came forward, gently tapping out an intricate tattoo on Thor's face as his illusion based magic went to work. "You'll thump me will you?" He murmured wickedly. "You'd have to catch me first, and the last time I looked, I'm still faster and far cagier than you, -."
"Ahh, but I'd only have to catch you the once." Thor laughed, clapping the older, slighter man on the shoulder.
Loki smirked back, then nodded his head seriously. "When we get in there, let me do the talking until the time comes. We'll only get one shot at reclaiming Mjöllnir, we can't afford to fail because of a wrong word said at the wrong time. And well I know the strength of your arm Thor, but…" and here Loki's eyes glimmered slightly with seriousness. "Make sure that your blow strikes true."
A moment later Thor awoke as someone shook him by the shoulder. "What?" he looked around shaking his head, the words and images of his dreams fading rapidly so that he could not have recalled them five minutes later. "Jane? What's wrong?"
"The Hulk's on the news." she said tersely. "I know you wanted to be told if he showed up again, but this is something different." She gestured over to where her TV was showing the news from Montreal. "They need you up there Thor."
Thor watched for a few moments, then nodded grimly. "Aye, I think you're right."
OOOOOOO
Nick Fury too had seen what was going on, and right now he was grateful (for the first time) his new body didn't have any hair, else he'd be pulling it out. "God damnit, you can't just waive the 'out of our jurisdiction card' for this! The Hulk is our jurisdiction and people are dying out there while you sit there and order me and mine to remain out of it!? What kind of fucked up thought process can justify that!"
The shadowy men and women in the com screens that surrounded him leaned back slightly startled by his vehemence. Yet when one of them spoke, his voice was firm. "Canada has specifically told SHIELD it cannot enter its sovereign territory without the direct invitation of its Prime Minister. Until we get that, you are to remain on standby."
"Fine, then I'm fucking moving the helacarrier to the Canadian border near as I can to Montreal. And I'm recalling Hawkeye and Black Widow. Maybe she can bring Stark along…"
"Negative." Another 'councilor' said firmly. "You may move the helacarrier, but you are not authorized to send in any land forces. Judging from the reports, the Abomination and Hulk are tearing into any forces that try to stand up to them, and you don't have anything yet that can stand up to either of them. If this had happened a few months down the line, we'd authorize your assault now, Canada's demand be damned. It would make a magnificent show of SHIELD's abilities, but as it is…" The shadowy figure shook his head.
"Then what, councilors, are you telling me you want SHIELD to do?" Fury asked grimly, his mouth set in a thin line.
"If push comes to shove, you'll be able to aid the evacuation of the city. After that, we'll authorize a nuclear strike. Better that than throwing good money after bad." Another councilor said, causing Fury to pale in shock.
OOOOOOO
By the time Thor was in motion Harry had assembled his team. Colossus, Magma, Storm, Psylocke, the Human Torch, the Thing and himself. Hisako and Illyich had both wanted to volunteer for this, citing the fact that Custodes Mundi was understaffed at present, but Harry had shot them all down. They were both too young to let him willingly bring either into battle, especially one like this. They were up in High Note as he moved across the orbit of Earth, to right above Montreal from where they would fly down.
Harry had used the time wisely, going over several plans with the team as to what they would be doing once they landed, as well as how they were going to have to deal with the civilians in the area, since by this point the battle had reached the city proper.
That would be Storm's first task, getting all of the civilians anywhere around them away from the battle to someplace deeper into the city, along with the police and any other regular forces. The only other part of the plan that was similar in each was the need to get the Abomination and Hulk away from the city.
"Dennis says the one wearing a suit like a giant Canadian Flag is the one probably in charge, so I'll liaison with him to make certain the locals know not to shoot at us." Harry finished.
"Not like that'll be a big deal Guardian." Thing growled, looking at the news feed. Another cameraman had rushed forward, and the team could once again see what was going on, and the carnage was huge. As they watched a tank company, which had foolishly entered the city, possibly on order from a particularly idiotic politician, was buried under a skyscraper after the Hulk smashed through it from one end to another, taking out its entire ground floor.
"Damn it, I thought Banner had a little more control than this." Torch muttered, exchanging glances with Ben. "He hasn't ever attacked a city like this before. Been turned while passing through one, sure, but he's… he's really trying to cause some damage here." That was said in response to the image of the hulk smashing a car through the air into a group of fleeing men and women further down the street. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph…"
"Forsooth, the beasts do seem to be rampaging more than any troll or Giant I've ever heard of." Balder murmured, watching the news as he honed the edge of his blade, his eyes grim.
A gong sounded, signaling they had arrived above Montreal in Harry nodded grimly at them all. "Good luck, and remember, there's almost certainly someone else behind all this, what reason they're doing this we don't know, but keep your eyes and ears open just in case."
With that Harry gestured, casting an enlarged version of the Bubblehead charm which grew all around them. A moment later he teleported them down into the Earth's atmosphere, then raced further down toward the city.
OOOOOOO
Sasquatch was not having a good day. Oh, it had started out nicely enough, he had finally reconstructed this amazing blend of coffee that he had tasted once in Ontario at a small hole in the wall place that he could never find again. But after that, things had gone downhill rapidly. The news that the Hulk was heading towards Montreal was bad enough, the fact that it was tearing apart the landscape as it came was worse, because it was so out of character. Yes, the Hulk wasn't exactly gentle to the landscape, but purposefully ripping up trees, tossing them through buildings that it were well out of his line of advance, that was definitely out of character.
Then came the news that it was travelling with the Abomination, which was unheard of and worrying. Sasquatch knew how strong he was, and on his best day he couldn't match the Hulk. Not even the Wendigo could do that, and the Wendigo had been badly thrashed the last time it'd faced the Hulk. The Abomination was of by all accounts supposedly stronger than Hulk's base form, as it were, but Hulk seemed to gain strength the longer the fight went on, which was never a good thing for his opponent.
Sasquatch, Vindicator and the rest of the team had gone out after the two monsters when it became clear they were heading in a straight line for Montreal hoping to divert them. It had been a slaughter. The Abomination wasn't a mindless beast, Emil Blonsky retained his intelligence and training while the Hulk was simply a mindless killing machine now for some reason yet was willing to work with him, which was equally astonishing. Sasquatch would never forget watching the two animals rip Northstar apart as if he had been made of so much paper. And show as much interest afterwards as if he had simply been a wad of paper, tossing his body aside like trash.
He shook himself, pushing off the rubble of the apartment building he had been thrown into sighing faintly as he moved. His own durability was taking a major hit here, and the few moments he had laid there recovering and letting his body heal had been a necessity.
Above him in the air Vindicator, or James Hudson to his friends, was busy blasting out energy blasts at Abomination, taking his attention away from the downed Sasquatch. He was also thanking god that his wife was in Quebec her own powered suit nowhere near completion. That meant whatever else happened she would be safe, unlike the rest of his team who had simply not been ready for this. He was also cursing the fact he had urged the government to not allow Nick Fury's SHIELD access to Canadian soil. They certainly… well they might just have added more men to the slaughter but still, some backup would be really fucking nice.
Nearby Northstar's grieving sister Aurora was trying to do the same to the Hulk but wasn't having much luck. She was using her super speed and durability to perform hit and run attacks on the beast, which was keeping him from continuing to attack the populace, but that was all. Neither flyer was able to do enough damage to the green monsters to put them down or even turn them aside from their course further into the city. And the soldiers who had arrived to try and help were simply armed victims, none of their weapons did more than annoy either of the attackers.
Sasquatch was the only one who was even close to being at the proper weight class to take either of these monsters out, and right now he was feeling a little put upon. He resolutely did not look at the body of Shaman further down the street where he had fallen trying to defend a group of civilians, or the rubble of the restaurant where Snowbird had been thrown before the Hulk smashed the entire building to rubble.
At that moment, Abomination smacked Vindicator out of the sky for a moment, charging forward. "There you are you orange furred bastard! This time I'm going to break your neck freak!"
Grimly Sasquatch set himself to receive Abomination's charge, but they were interrupted by a voice from above them. "Hey ugly, Flame On!"
A bright lance of fire, almost white in its intensity, slammed into the Abomination. The green-scaled beast screamed in pain while the impact hurled him away from Sasquatch. Johnny Storm landed nodding politely to the Canadian. "Afternoon Sassy, we saw in the news that you all could use some help, so decided to stop by."
Nearby Guardian smirked from where he stood hidden at the moment by a heap of rubble as he looked over at Storm who was kneeling on the ground, her hands together as she began to create her magical area of control. "How long?"
"Done." she murmured, her eyes crackling not just with the normal white lightning of her mutant power but a deep gold as she used her magical abilities. "I've begun to transport the civilians away, mostly to the other side of the city and to a hospital at the far end of my range. It will take some time though, there are thousands of civilians in the area, and I am… I'm trying to prioritize the young and injured, but even that is draining me…." Tears began to form in Stom's eyes at the number of dead and dying she felt. There must have been hundreds of them.
"You have a few Pepper-up potions use them if you have to. Now it's time for me to do my part." Guardian said with a nod, leaping over the rubble his hands already weaving an incantation, specifically an illusion. He murmured into his walkie-talkie. "Torch, fall back out of the city to the north, but keep hitting both greenies when you can, I'm covering you and the rest of the team with an illusion now. Let's see how far away from the city I can get them chasing my mirages."
Those illusions were of Ben, Johnny and Reed armed with a large, futuristic looking laser beam, attacking the two monsters and then moving away, obviously leading them away from the city. The Abomination apparently didn't care so much about the city any longer, he wanted Torch. The fact that his surface scales were only now beginning to heal from the Torch's initial attack might point to his motivating factor there.
While Harry was being busy with that, Magma quickly made her way through the rubble of the city to talk to the man in the Canadian flag, who had moved over to join a girl wearing a white and black uniform plus the one the Human Torch had called Sasquatch. "We are the Custodes Mundi, my name's Magma, do you need any more help?"
Despite having been saved Vindicator was somewhat leery of being saved out of the blue like this, even with the Fantastic Four involved. "Who are you, and what are you doing on Canadian soil?"
"Saving Canadian lives!" Storm said sharply, from where she was still concentrating on teleporting civilians out of danger. She had just teleported a family who had been buried in their own apartment a moment ago, and she had felt how badly the two youngest of them were injured while she did. Thus she was not in the mood do deal with officious paranoid assholes. "Or are you saying you were doing fine a moment ago? If you think you can handle those two, we'll be happy to leave you to it as soon as we get them out of the city!"
He glared angrily back at her, the day's events getting to him but Sasquatch laid a huge hand on his shoulder. "Calm down." he ordered.
Vindicator glared up at him, but Sasquatch shook him lightly, or lightly for him, repeating, "Calm down. You'll have to excuse my leader Miss, we've lost several comrades today, and who knows how many lives those two monsters have taken. We do appreciate the help, trust us."
Storm huffed, going back to her work, while Magma nodded, reclaiming control of the conversation. "Are you to able to continue and what are your codenames please?" She glanced over at the woman in the white and black suit. She looked almost shocky, her hands trembling which seemed to gravitate up and down her entire body. It wasn't fear, Magma could tell, grief maybe?
Sasquatch gently put his arm around the girl's shoulder, hugging her lightly. He looked over at Guardian, who nodded, his eyes and shoulders drooping. "I think I'm the only one that's physically up for more," he said, shaking his mangy head. "If you think you can handle it from here be our guest. We've got friends to find… and bury."
"I'm sorry for your losses." Storm said, looking up again, shaking her head as she got up from where she had been kneeling. "And even more sorry about the civilian deaths. I teleported all of the civilians out of the area in a block wide radius around us and in the direction the illusions are leading those two. I think you would be best served in making certain that the civilians are organized and getting their wounded seen two, maybe call in more military aid for that. We might not have much warning if those two beasts try to turn back and head into the city again."
Sasquatch nodded his head, glad that she hadn't called his bluff. He was exhausted, it was all he could do to maintain his Sasquatch form at the moment.
Elsewhere, the Reed illusion had faded after the Hulk threw a concrete boulder that had shattered in midair a, its bits covering so wide an area the illusion couldn't dodge and both monsters had turned back to head further into the city. Before they could however Guardian's voice cracked out in a voice of stern command. "Colossus, Thing do it!"
Harry's illusions hadn't just been of the FF, it also covered the landscape, subtly altering it and covering the rest of the team as they moved into position.
Now at his shout Colossus and Thing raced forward, grabbing Hulk's arms from behind and then with a joint count of "One, two, Now!" flung him away from the city before the Thing bounced after him. "Let's rock!" Colossus couldn't jump nearly as far as the other two, but he followed after immediately.
The operation was called divide and conquer. It was the second of the five ideas Guardian had thought up to take the two beasts out. While the two strongest and most durable engaged the Hulk, the rest along with Guardian would take on the Abomination. Psylocke started the party by racing up from behind the scaled monster and slashing at his knees.
It was only the Abomination's previous training as a human that had enabled him to dodge the second blow but even so she had sliced deep into him with the first slash. He howled, hopping in one place for a moment as the pain of that shot hit him but then didn't have any time to do anything else as a huge fist of stone slammed into his face, throwing him several hundred yards through the air.
Guardian had conjured up that huge fist to hammer Abomination away while he stayed back for now, wanting to get a better handle on the Abomination's durability in terms of magic. A few mid and low level Cutting and piercing spells hit Blonsky, but he didn't even notice them, causing Guardian to frown.
Balder too moved forward, shield on one arm and sword in the other hand. "Have at thee, you son of a troll!"
The green-scaled beast was only able to shake his head for a moment before a madman with a sword and shield of all things was on him. However when the shield hammered into him like a blow from the Sasquatch and the sword took his ear off he screamed, then began to take Balder much more seriously even as his ear healed.
While Balder was used to fighting enemies that were stronger than him, and knew to rely on his speed and training, the Abomination was also trained, unlike most of those giants or trolls Balder had fought. He feinted at a blow to Balder's midriff, causing him to move his shield in that direction then kicked out landing a blow on Balder's leg which caused him to stumble slightly, enough to be open for another at head height, only for Psylocke to try to carve in his side. "Damn Bitch!"
"That's Ms. Bitch to you scaly!" Psylocke shouted, doing a split to duck underneath a roundhouse blow while lashing out at the Abomination's knee with her blade.
He jumped back, and might have caught her with another punch but Balder swiftly raised his blade, catching the Abomination's arm and slicing deep into its underside redirecting the blow. The Abomination scowled, but his elbow came up nearly clipping Balder on the side of the head, with Balder dodging by going into a roll. "Damn you stay still you little bitch-!"
When the Abomination turned to try and smash at Balder again, he saw a giant golem about three times his own height bringing down his fists in a hammer blow but the Abomination matched it with a punch that caught its fists, shattering the concrete and rock formation utterly.
"Latinium Malleus!" At that shout the Abomination had to dodge a massive hammer composed of lightning and something else which slammed into his previous position. "What the hell! First a reject from the medieval ages, then a golem, now lightning! What the fuck are you lot?"
"Custodes Mundi!" Psylocke shouted, slashing in along with Torch, who caught the Abomination in the back with a flame blast, though he shook it off. "We guard the world from arseholes like you!"
A second later still under a disillusion spell Guardian came around the wreckage of a gas station thrust out a hand, pointing at the ground underneath the Abomination. "Terra Hasta!" Instead of the normal dozen smaller spikes one giant spike spire of concrete and earth rose up from below the Abomination heaving upwards.
Abomination dodged backwards one step, one foot flashing out to smash the spikes before he grabbed up several bits of it hurling them at where Guardian was. They sailed straight through his body, showing that Guardian had been an illusion.
The Abomination leapt forward, covering the distance between himself and the illusion a in a single bound, his fist flashing out through the caricature. "And someone who can do illusions?"
"Now that would be telling." Guardian said, gesturing with his hands and several more spears of Earth shot up all around the Abomination. Still Blonsky dodged them all, jumping up and out of them easily enough then throwing a piece of a huge sign of some kind at where the voice had come from, which did nothing.
Despite retaining his intelligence Abomination was having trouble discerning which of his attackers was illusion and which ones were real. Even Magma and Storm were covered with similar illusions, their blasts joining a multitude of others that appeared real right up until they hit him and didn't do anything. Balder and Psylocke were racing along waiting for the Abomination to stop jumping around and they too were also covered with illusions, dozens of copies moving every which way.
The only problem was that occasionally an illusion didn't move quite as well as it should, or a spark from a downed power line or something of that nature would go through one, showing them as mere mirages. And sometimes bad guys get lucky just like the good guys.
Guardian was forced to duck a telephone pole then had to apparate away from another the fact that he had to dodge having told the Abomination that he that Guardian was the real one. Guardian returned fire however with several hundred Drills of Light.
Whatever durability the Abomination was gifted with it certainly wasn't up to stopping their grinding assault. "GAHHHH!" He screamed as he lost an arm from the shoulder down, though he was able to get out of the way of many of the drills.
Yet as Guardian watched, the wound began to slowly regenerate. Within moments his arm was back, and he used the newly regrown arm to grab Balder who had tried to stab him in the back as he reeled away from Guardian's assault. He caught the Asgardian by the wrist holding him still for a moment, a massive fist slamming into Baldur's face breaking his nose and throwing him backward through a house whose denizens had thankfully already been evacuated.
"Odin's blood, that beast packs a punch!" Balder shook his head trying to clear his face from blood, then had to duck aside as Abomination jumped at him again, breaking through the wall of the house to avoid the green-scaled monstrosities rush.
To give their ally some cover fire Magma rushed forward, flinging several small balls of fire, while the Human Torch raced down doing the same, burning through the roof of the house and bringing it down on the Abomination. When Blonsky burst out of the house's ruins Guardian and Storm joined in pounding Abomination throwing him backwards and away from Balder and not incidentally away from heading further into Montreal.
Around them people began to come back, including several newsies who didn't understand the concept of 'self-preservation' very well. Others however were on a much more noble mission, ambulance, firemen and regular people searching the wreckage for injured. They would find however, that Storm had been extremely thorough in the radius of a block of the battle. That was not to say there were no casualties of course, many families and communities in Montreal would be mourning this day's catastrophe, but it would have been far worse without the Custodes Mundi.
OOOOOOO
Elsewhere the battle wasn't going nearly as well. The plan had been to isolate the Abomination, who was seen as the easier target considering that he for some reason didn't get stronger as the fight went on like the Hulk was known to, while keeping just enough men fighting the Hulk to keep him away from the Abomination or from heading further into a populated area.
The Thing had fought the Hulk a few times before this, and knew, or thought he knew, what to expect. But this wasn't the Hulk that the Thing was used to. Most of the time if Banner Hulked out he would smash everything nearby then simply jump away from everything, having just enough of Bruce Banner to know not to attack noncombatants unless they got in the way in some fashion. From the live broadcasts the Thing had known that this wasn't the case now, but he hadn't figured on how much stronger the Hulk would be.
The Thing knew he had never really been as strong as the Hulk, except maybe right after the Hulk transformed. But his durability, training and agility normally was able to keep the fight even. Now he was questioning that, considering he had just been smashed through a large granite outcrop, and he had lost a tooth to the blow that landed him there. "Dammit what the fuck! The Hulk's never been this strong before!"
Luckily the initial part of the plan, throwing the Hulk away from the city had worked. They had landed in a bit of a natural reserve in the suburbs, not a large one but large enough to contain their fight for now.
Colossus used this to his advantage, ducking behind a tree and then down as the tree exploded under a punch from the Hulk, before rolling out to grab the Hulk's knee and using a hold from Sambo, pulling the green beast's leg out from under his body and sending the Hulk to the ground as he twisted the leg up and behind the Hulk's back, trying to wrench the knee out of its socket.
However this didn't work nearly as well on the Hulk as it would have on someone of similar strength. The Hulk however was far stronger than Colossus, and was able to lift himself up off the ground with one arm while trying to smack Colossus away with the other.
"Blyad'!" Colossus ducked away releasing his hold and rolling in the ground. Then he came in again, his fist flashing out to slam into the Hulk's jaw.
In reply the Hulk's arm lashed out, faster than Colossus had anticipated grabbing his arm and holding him in place for a hammer blow to slam into his body. Colossus gasped in pain, he had felt that even through his Juggernaut armor and metal form! Still he lashed out with the kick, catching the Hulk in the side and sending him off-balance slightly, but the Hulk quickly regained his equilibrium and roared. "RAOOGHH!"
That roar was almost a physical force, and Colossus backed away slightly but not far and then charged forward meeting the Hulk body to body as the Thing pushed himself out from the rubble of the granite outcropping. "Kid! Get out of there!"
Colossus did so, grabbing the Hulk's arms for a moment then jumped up, propelling himself with both feet off the Hulk's body throwing himself out of the way of the huge piece of granite that the Thing had just thrown at the Hulk. The Hulk lashed out however smashing the boulder to flinders. "ROAGHH!"
"It's Clobberin' Time!" He didn't duck the Thing however who had jumped up immediately after the boulder he had thrown using it as cover. He slammed both his fists down on the back of the Hulk's head sending him down to the ground again.
But instead of staying there the Hulk roared again, barreling up and into the Thing bodily as he came up off the ground again, his arms going around the Thing's waist whereupon he began to slam the Thing into the ground like a drop hammer. The Thing punched out with his fists pounding on the Hulk's head and upper body, but it took Colossus slamming into them with all the momentum of a freight train to get the Hulk to loosen his grip.
After that initial contact Colossus had grabbed the Hulk's arm in another grapple taken from Sanbo, then quickly twirled in place still using his momentum to his advantage to hurl the Hulk further into the woods.
The Thing groggily shook his head, dazed from the dozens of the impacts it'd he'd taken on the ground where his rock covered face had made several large cracks and gouges. "He's never been this strong before, what the hell's going on? And why does he keep on trying to get back into the city! That's not like the Hulk at all as much as I don't like the guy. It's as if…"
At that point they didn't have time for more words because the Hulk had just jumped back from where Colossus had flung him, smashing into the ground with enough force to crack it in a wide area all around, throwing the Thing and Colossus into the air momentarily. Colossus found himself grabbed and then brought in for a blow to the face. His Juggernaut armor however turned most of the blow thankfully, but he still reeled away.
Before the Hulk could press his advantage, a hammer crashed into his back throwing him forward with a cry of agony. That hammer was of ancient design, its short shaft of metal covered in leather, its head looking like a strange combination of rock and steel, somehow yet not quite both yet also either at the same time. It gave off a feeling of weight, and certainly seemed to strike like it if the furrow the Hulk's body made when it landed several hundred yards away was any indication.
"Hail friends!" said a loud voice as Thor arrived, flying out of the air to land next to the Thing who he had seen once or twice on the TV. "You I know my rock encrusted friend as a hero true, though I question where the rest of your team Fantastic is, and who your metal clad companion is. His armor seems familiar, yet in times as this, any who wilt stand with me is welcome!"
"Colossus." said the Russian, pushing himself to his feet. "Pleased to meet you Thor, but we don't have time for more detailed introductions." Indeed a second later the Hulk emerged from the gouge in the ground he'd made, hurling himself forward against Thor.