|
  |
Rain pours down from the sky, a tumbling frisson of liquid that splashes off the bare boughs and parked cars of East Village. Normally this is a gentrifying district full of young people drawn to the big city lights and willing to live in tiny apartments for absurd amounts of money, wicking up the spillover from Greenwich and those too proud to bow into Stuvy-Town. Normally the rain would cause a sprouting band of umbrellas to open over pedestrians, but those self-same pedestrians have flung out their umbrellas where they stood, and run screaming up the street. This is a block of largely residential buildings with hints of commercial, old, one of them clearly some sort of construction site given the flapping canvas and the soaked plywood surrounding it. Not something to really admire much, except there is an oddity out there.
One woman snatching a falling girder, while one particularly ugly creature hewn of stone and menace slams into the side of the building, pursuing not the redhead in his vicinity, but a pair of smaller, more boulder like versions of himself. They aren't remotely similar, one tawny and the other brownish, him more a grey-black colour, but jotnar — giants — come in as many subspecies as humanity has ever dreamt. Though doubtful they thought they'd ever see three of them playing a deadly serious game of tag that involves a metal mattock, a shuddering building, and one of those giants melding into the brick façade.
Scarlett does not have much choice about that spar she's got caught between her hands, the long metal beam pointed towards the ground. She stops the thing from crashing down, the scaffolding and various other bits of the exterior cladding all skewing along it. That she can hold up such a thing without much effort is patently odd. Of course it is. The soul thief isn't human.
*
The former Enchantress of Asgard didn't seem be too particularly concerned about watching New York. But curiosity had always been a habit of her long life, more so now that she lacked the actual feeling to accompany such actions. Yet she still monitored such stirrings of arcane magic, it was simply wise to keep wards and various runes sketched throughout the city as early warning signs. Better to be able to high tail it out of the city if something were to come that she was unable to prepare for. Caution had followed the limiting of her powers, and the arrival of more Jotuns managed to strike that.
The blonde had more than a few tricks up her sleeve for locating the offending creatures now. As stone and mortar from buildings crumbled, as the creatures roared and attacked in the rain, the blonde sorceress seemed to melt out of the shadows, standing in the rain and watching in silence. An green umbrella holding the pelting rain off her person as she watched in apathetic silence as Scarlett hurled steel and building bits up under her own power.
But not even a hand lifted to aid the mortal witch, much less was a spell muttered.
*
(A green umbrella*
*
Scarlett pushes back against the spar, her success in shifting it limited by the jumble of garbage atop it, the crooked angle, the obvious flaw from one very large foot warping its shape. She glances about while the dust is kicked up from many buildings thanks to the low level shaking of the ground. Queue desperate measures; wrapping her arms around the broken off end, she forces up from the ground, and there the midair act of strength becomes somewhat more apparent in the groaning retort of steel as she shoves the beam onto the front of the building under construction.
Jotnar, naturally, aren't concerned with that. The one who vanished into the brick isn't reappearing. Another, however, races behind the sheeting that conceals the open sides of a chamber, the front of the building torn off in preparation for its replacement. Blocky hands grab at the front, and the smaller leirjotnar scrambles up the brickwork like a spider. That ought to be disturbing.
No more than the larger one hurling the mattock, missing by shreds, and sending shrapnel raining down onto the street. A bellow of rage echoes through the room as the larger warrior hurries up after his quarry. He hasn't any reason to know what Amora is, much less the floating redhead.
*
Amora didn't seem too concerned with the possibility of the Jotun's escape, or capture. She simply watched from the sidelines, unmoving in the rain as her green eyes traced over Scarlett's figure as the woman made otherwise incredible feats of strength and reliance. She shifted on her heels, tilting her head back as she watched from behind half moon glasses that flared with magical power, allowing her to trace the path that the creature took into the bowels of stone.
A sigh fell from her lips, but still she remained unmoved or simply bored with the sights and chaos that ensued.
*
The larger of the jotnar crashes through a wall, a punch caving in the drywall and doing in the wood holding up the frame. He squeezes through, running for the stairs so loudly the racket is audible across the street. Whatever scaffolding holds on there starts to collapse at the second floor, and the sounds of stone clashing erupt as the fleeing leirjotnar, smaller and unarmed, zigzags away from the approaching giant. Things built to human scale suit it, but not its pursuer. The two of them have a short standoff, before the larger giant descends in a calculated rush, charging, grabbing limbs and tearing.
It takes maybe thirty seconds to settle.
The other giant is nowhere to be seen, effectively vanished. The boulders and stones raining down through the façade aren't a good sign, even as the sheen of grit and liquefied clay fill the air around there. Amora won't see any magic there, other than the creatures being what they are.
Nor is Scarlett totally the incandescent in any fashion, hitting the ground and circling the yard at a run. "What are they doing here?" A shout over her shoulder suggests she damn well knows who stands over there, being pretty. "Why are they in New York? Is this something related to the Prince?"
*
The address earns Amora's focus more than her vague attempts to follow the action with her eyes, magic glasses or no. A golden brow lifts as she steps forward, a click of heels on concrete following as she idly twisted her grip on the umbrella. Still she did not interfere nor seem overly concerned, merely watching for a long moment of silence as crashes and booms followed the movements of the Jotnar.
"I know not. Tis not my duty to. I am merely an observer." She didn't shout, but her voice carried out, bland and plain and as apathetic as before—possibly more so than before. As if she had given up trying to remember where to put the inflection into her words now.
*
ROLL: Rogue +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 99
*
"An observer while they tear one another to pieces, and then what?" The girl flips her braids off her shoulder, the hope of a nice walk down the rainy street long gone. She trots up to one of the umbrellas and shuts it, hefting the weight, and then propping it up over her shoulder like a javelin thrower of old. "Suppose they come after us next, have you any idea of what you want to do then, Amora?" The death throes of the captured leirjotun shake the building and the beam skews to the ground, ripping away a good three feet of stone and brick, plaster thundering to the ground behind the plywood wall.
The triumphant roar of the warrior says everything it needs to. In All-Speak, clearly the giant is shouting, "«Die, worthless pebble. The rockfall begins. »"
The floors crunch and break as the soldier smashes through one, his great weight and force buckling a weak point. The other giant is nowhere to be seen, which might explain why the bigger one starts tearing through the walls. Scarlett grits her teeth and flings the umbrella at the open space, full force, the smooth swivel of her torso giving her the classic appearance of a Greek statue. On the release, metal and nylon goes hurtling towards the second floor.
A shriek is telling, enraged, shattering glass in the building. "« My eye! »"
*
"I do believe that the threat against myself is limited, seeing as I am merely a projection and not here at all. I do not have the magical power to actually teleport anymore." She offered softly, hitching a golden brow upwards as she leaned forward and eyed the building as it thundered and groaned as the jotun tossed supports around not unlike tooth picks.
"So my dear, you are quite on your own." A pause as she watched Scarlett heave an umbrella about and the ensuing shriek of pain from the pained creature inside.
"Hmm, mayhaps you should try to capture one. I'm sure your Prince will be utterly thrilled to have you do his job for him. You might yet earn praise from him even."
*
ROLL: Rogue +rolls 1d10 for a result of: 10
*
There is Odin One-eyed. And now Leirjotun One-eyed. One hung himself on Yggdrasil for wisdom, and one took an umbrella full bore to the face. The spear of the All-father might not prove so skillful as that throw motivated by sheer outrage on the redhead's part. Though let it not be forgotten she has an antithetical disposition towards lesser jotnar; as for the greater…
Well, she did steal Surtur's daughter. More of the building threatens to collapse and the little shudders become a massive crash. The body shudders and falls through the floor, one wobbling step of rage leading to a heap of enormous stony flesh and a flattened saw horse, where it lands.
"You are the very spirit of thoughtfulness." Emerald eyes are hers by right, but the feline blaze in them is something different, kindled to a burning spectrum almost overlaying her pupils. "I suppose we shall just have to find out what the three think when I deliver this package to their doorstep. Thank you for the lovely idea, my lady." She hastens to grab the canvas, tearing it down with two savage jerks, and it won't make much difference. Likely that jotun is dying or paralyzed by the metal sticking out of an eye socket and now a fall. She goes to bundle him up like a sausage impaled on a toothpick.
*
A tilt of her head follows as Amora watches, or rather the projection watches on with a continued expression of blankness. Even as the building continues down to the fate of crashing and destruction. "Your sarcasm is noted." Amora offered, tilting her head to the side as she walked along beside Rogue as a ghostly shadow almost. Her heels still made all the right sounds, the light still caught in all the right places as if she truly were there.
Only magically could anyone note that the Goddess actually was not present.
"There are more effective binding spells for Jotnar that would allow you to transport them." She watched the redhead draw up a canvas and rolled her shoulders back. "Brute force will suit though." She added after a moment of silence.
"I'm surprised that the protector of Midgard is not here to aid you."
*
The mistake is assuming it's sarcasm at all. Scarlett invariably never uses it. Wryness, certainly. Sardonic wit when the situation calls, but this is not the moment. She twists and folds the canvas until satisfied the lump is concealed, folded up in a way that will not prohibit carrying. Somehow.
"Those binding and transport spells are unfortunately beyond my knowledge, my lady, unless you care to offer a lesson. I am always willing to listen." She ties off the edges, not so tight as to constrict the thing. The soldier does not move, an unconscious heap of stone, possibly a corpse.
Out of the brick façade comes motion, and the other little jotun, at some six feet and probably a ton, emerges. The moment its feet hit the ground, the creature bolts back into the building, hiding from sight. It spends no time whatsoever hanging about or talking, a rather low, barely audible noise vibrating from it.
*
A shrug followed, a simple rise and fall of shoulders as golden hair was tossed over her shoulder. "They are likely beyond your ability for transport. However a simple binding will do. Take a piece of the creature: blood, hair, bone, or flesh. Find a stick or in this case a stone, since they are more akin than wood. Then draw a modicum of power, and sketch the rune Nauthiz. It need not be there physically so long as your will is strong enough to follow through."
A pause followed as she stepped up to the unmoving Jotun and eyed it up and down. "The spell won't work for long and it will be an active drain on your reserves given what you'll be forced to work with here.. but it should aid you. Possibly. If you can cast it."
*
"And yet that will cause no amount of trouble with the wards where I go, for they are as likely to see a transport as reason to smite me as destroy whatever is carried." Scarlett looks up towards the other departing clay giant, but there is precious little she can do on that front other than allow an impassive mask to sculpt her features, the burning brands of her eyes narrowed a measure. "I do not know whether the rest will be possible. One way to try, at the very least. Thank you, my lady. Even if it is not something I can accomplish, the knowledge is precious."
Her gaze lifts then, even as she hauls on the heavy burden and the muscles in her shoulders and back flex, tensed, measuring the difficulty of the task. The same strength that plunged a spear through an eye works now. "You are not without your friends. Remember that." And so she prepares to go.
*
A memory of a smile followed, ghostly and false as the woman before Scarlett as Amora trekked along beside Scarlett. "I do not have friends, merely lovers, pets and enemies. I have since cut down on the number of any in those ranks as it has no benefit to me anymore." Her voice just as the same as it was before. Yet she kept up with the other woman and would continue to do so all the way to her destination before the projection cut out.