1964-05-09 - 65 Million Years Too Late (A "What If" Tale)
Summary: Trespassing Saurian, meet the God of Thunder and the Sorcerer Supreme.
Related: The "What If" Tales
Theme Song: "Thunderstruck" - AC/DC
strange thor 


Morning meditation has set the Sorcerer on a crash course yet again. Within the Astral Plane, where the resonance of the Mystical reaches in uncanny force, he tasted lightning, felt the dance of minor static across the hairs of his arms and neck. Not his sense of the electrical element, one with foreign undertones all too familiar to him — iron ichor spilled, the roar of the battle-blood alight, and the rumble of split air.

Gating out into the distant forest means stepping into eerie, heavy silence beneath trees just beginning to bud with spring's greenery. The nights are still cold and the light of the moon provides enough light once one's eyes adjust. He knows he's somewhere in the northern hemisphere, but that's about it.

Not that the locale matters much. It's the sensation of a creeping alien magic that has him immediately gloving his hands in golden light. No brighter than a collection of fireflies about his wrists, he manages to blend in fairly well in his storm-blue battle-leathers — save for the crimson Cloak. Always gaudy, that one.

*

It's that same creeping unsettlement that's drawn Thor, the God of Thunder, to the same location. His instincts are not as sure as the good Doctor's, but Thor has in his hands an item that is as sure a diving rod as anything— Mjolnir, a fragment of the Odinforce and the heart of Yggdrasil itself, bound up in steel and stone and force.

He flies tethered to the end of the hammer, soaring across the sky effortlessly and disdaining the chill of the air, as he flings himself bodily at the source of the strange 'noise' that resonates against Mjolnir like a tuning fork. He lands heavily enough to knock down a few trees, a hundred yards from Strange, and making no effort to conceal his landing. Already gird in Asgardian steel, he resettles his helmet on his head, metal glinting in the moonlight near the winged tips of the helmet at hs temple.

*

Strange flinches slightly, immediately orienting on the distant impact. Hmm. The Sight brightens his eyes and he attempts to see between the maze of thin tree trunks. It's almost an optical illusion, the sheer volume and spread of the vertical growth, but he can pick out a distant presence that seems familiar enough.

Lifting from the ground via the power of the crimson Cloak, he makes his way carefully towards it. Ah-hah, yes, the Prince of Asgard.

"Your Highness," he addresses the man sotto-voce as the wind of his arrival kicks up some moldering leaves on the forest floor. He halts far enough away that a startled swing would miss if paired with an agile retreat. "Something intrudes." Surely the Asgardian can sense it?

*

Contrary to Strange, Thor moves around like a wounded bear, kicking through brush and debris with an immense out of noise. "Doctor Strange!" Thor booms, spotting Stephen hovering. "It seems fate has conspired to bring us together in battle, though I know not the foe! Only that Mjolnir protests its presence most readily. Have you seen any enemies yet, or are we still seeking the source of this ire?"

*

The good Doctor winces minutely about the eyes and his sigh fogs silvery in the moonlight.

"No, Your Highness, we are not seeking the source of this ire. It likely has a good bead on us now and will find us instead." His tone is of exasperated patience, no louder than before. He's already a lovely target in the Cloak — he'll not draw more attention to himself than necessary. His steely-blues fall to the legendary hammer of Uru metal. "That Mjolnir is on alert doesn't make me feel any better. I recognized your aural signature in my meditations, but there were other notations not belonging to either of us. It was vaguely familiar, but…"

And he fades out as something seems to draw phantasmal fingers down the line of the back of his neck, from behind his ear and down to his shoulder. Spinning in place, the relic about his shoulders spreads wide in a cobra's threat. Mystical power crackles about his hands now, the fireflies gone cosmic in intensity.

So much for subtlety, though there is no doubt that whatever stalks them has them firmly in its sights now. Likely the Asgardian can feel the sense of primordial interest lingering upon him like a near weight.

*

"Fine! I prefer a straight fight to this skulking about," Thor booms, whipping Mjolnir in a tight, whirring circle. "We will stand and face them back to back," he declares, his shoulders to Strange's, and lightning coruscates around him in a glimmering blue discharge of sparks and force, most of it magical in nature.

"…as soon as you figure out what it is, and can make it manifest," he adds, belatedly, glancing at Strange. "You -can- figure out what it is, aye?"

*

"I won't need to make it manifest," replies the good Doctor tightly. "It's eyeing us right now."

Gods below, he can almost make it out. It's like attempting to identify a face through fogged security glass. There's an outline broken up by the trees — well, it was broken up by the trees. It seems to exert a presence from beyond whatever facet of reality it occupies and a fifty year-old tree creaks loudly. KAH-CRACK!!! Snapped clean at the base by a hind foot with surprising dexterity for the build of the creature.

"Seven hells, I could have sworn that I sealed off that tear!" Strange snarls even as the tree coming crashing down, taking out another in the process. Another bends like rubber as the thick hide covering a torso broader than a cement truck barrel takes precedence.

Out into the moonlight, emerging from the other reality with strands of gooey dimensional spectra clinging like gem-festooned spiderwebbing, emerges a titan belonging to an era long past. Giganotosaurus meets…a punch of steroids that would put the Hulk to shame. The cavernous mouth drops open and the roar resounds from deep within, a stentorian and ear-hurting offensive display. Several dozen teeth are also displayed, each easily larger than a traffic cone and far more dangerous than simple orange plastic; razored edging graces these skeletal knives, ivoried and glistening with saliva. Strange's face tilts up and up and…up, until it's completely natural to have his mouth hanging open.

He swallows and adds, after the call is completed and the predator is staring at them with beady, glowing orange eyes, "I don't remember them being this big."

*

A mighty, monstrous monster from another era? A staggering titan of another age, a puissant entity that triggers the base animal instincts in Strange's brain — those commands saying 'Run, flee, hide!'?

"I'm going to hit it," Thor declares, and word is as good as deed — the Prince of Asgard whips his hammer into a blurring circle, gripping the leather thong, and takes four big steps sideways to get clear of Strange. With a grunt of effort he hurls the hammer square at the beastie's jaw, wasting no time in kicking this fight off — or waiting for Strange to find a more intellectual solution to their monster woes!

*

Pfft. As if the Sorcerer was going to let the Asgardian prince have all the fun. This is the man that stood in front of Lady Death and gained his immortality by besting her. A giant scaly reptile is middling on the list of his current worries, to be honest.

It annoys the everliving hell out of him that something escaped through the veils again. He spent long enough dithering around Lake Champlagne after that 'Champ' creature. It had nibbled on one too many toes hanging from docks, tsk-tsk. Of course the Prince takes the first shot and Strange is happy to let him have it. Let the more durable of the two of them test the density of the bones beneath that pebbled skin in hues of moonlit-greyed moss-green and earth-brown.

CLUNK!!! It's a good solid blow to the jaw, midline towards the hinge, and the creature lets out a pained grrroar! Shaking its head back and forth means further devastation to the forest around them. Another handful of trunks succumb to its thrashing; broken sticks and limbs fly everywhere. In a flash of crimson Cloak, he needs to dart to one side to allow a trunk wider than a stormdoor to land with an earth-shaking thud, further percussion to the stumbling steps of the dinosaur-like creature still worrying at a growing lump on its jaw.

"Good, keep it dazed and distracted! Don't let it bite you, its saliva has acidic qualities!" Don't ask how he knows this. Lithely, still in the air, he flits back a few more feet, hands upraised. The golden light begins to take on a deep bruised-violet hue, the tell-tale color of a banishment spell in the works.

*

"I've fought the like before! Rusty spittle that eats at flesh and wood!" Thor acknowledges, shouting over the explosions of cracking, broken wood. His hammer returns to his hand with a mental command, and the God of Thunder preps another toss at the dinosaur.

Unfortunately, focused too much on aggression, he lacks the celerity and awareness of the comparatively squishier Doctor — and the tail whips around and hits him in the chest. Thor's 'oof' stretches over twenty yards as he's flung laterally through the air like a ragdoll, fetching up hard against a brace of young pine trees before crashing fifteen feet to the earth below, helmet askew.

*

The good Doctor winces at the fleshy sound of impact of a tail rippling with lean muscle into the Prince. Knowledge of the physiology of the beings of the realm is all that keeps him from aborting the banishment spell and flitting over to make sure that the royal's torso isn't crushed in like a beer can.

"Gods below!" It's a quick spit of a curse for how that mouth comes down at him fast and with eerily-accurate aim. The crimson Cloak aids in reflexive dodge and the sound of that jaw slamming together is a meaty compacting machine out of a nightmare. A rumbling thud and the chase is on! Like a sparrow trapped in a room with a cat, the Sorcerer is hard-pressed to keep one step — er, one flit? — ahead of the creature. Each stride covers yards to his retreating flight and it takes him a risky amount of time to consider how the trees could help.

A sudden angled veer means that the bulk of the creature continues on even as the mouth slams shut again waaaaaaaaay too close for comfort! The shout turns into a hysterical laugh even as Strange aims back towards the Asgardian. "GET ON YOUR FEET, YOUR HIGHNESS!!!" The thing must be distracted for him to do any sort of spellcasting!

*

Thor abruptly explodes out of the underbrush, moving with the sort of berserk speed only an Asgardian can generate, and bellowing with battle-lust. He blindsides the lizard and swings his hammer in a heavy arc, aimed for the high point on the back of one digitigrade limb. It's a mighty blow and with most of his strength and balance behind it, and he doesn't look as if the massive blow has slowed him down too terribly much.

"Move yourself, Doctor! He'll make a light snack of you!" Thor says, with a booming laugh.

*

Ambushed and the giant dinosaur knows it — but far too late! One walled-eye, pinpointed in shock, takes in the descending hammer before another amazingly deep THUD of impact means that the strike has hit home. Momentum is a bitch combined with bulk. What's the saying? Oh yes: the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

A higher, more agonized snarl means that the socket of the leg succumbed to a noticeable extent to the Hammer-blow and it ploughs front-first into the forest floor, snout arrowing through the soft ground. More trees collapse around it and the runnel left in the wake of its fall is as wide as a two-lane road.

Having been swatted in the bicep by a thrashing limb by one of the fallen trunks, Strange now hovers off to one side, grimacing and cursing up a storm as he grips at the muscle. Dead-armed, if only for the moment, and it cripples his spellcasting, at least for a dual-handed banishment spell.

"You'd get stuck in its throat, your Highness. By all means, hop on in," he manages with a tense laugh, even as the one free hand gathers strands of reality into a surujin of lightning-kissed Mystical power. "You can choke it out with your gristly bulk." Thor's likely seen this approach before. Lassoing the uninjured hind limb means at least hobbling the creature enough that getting up means keeping down occupied for another chance at a stunning blow. Still, has the good Doctor bitten off more than he can chew? There's that whipping tail and the sheer size of the creature means that it's a bit like wrassling a full grown African elephant — just the limb alone. "ACK!" A yank pulls him forwards, towards the kicking talons on those four-toed feet!

*

Thor leaps onto the monster's back when it snaps at Strange, and swings his hammer at a protruding scapula. He's not fought this particular beastie before, but all big monsters have fairly similar skeletons and weaknesses— well, anything that big has vulnerable joints, right?

He clambers up the saurian's neck with hands and feet and vaults off, and in mid-air shoves his hammer at the dinosaur's jaw when it bites at him. The creature gets teeth almost up to his shoulder, threatening to take off the Princeling's arm — but then it squawks in pain, realizing that Thor's jammed its jaw open with Mjolnir!

*

Oh yes. The skeletal density is far weaker around those shoulders considering that they bear not any majority of the creature's weight. That belongs to the leg bones, which are on par with steel girders.

It means that the rictus of the 'saur keeps Strange from being impaled brutally on those broadsword-like talons. Instead, he bounces off of one heavily-muscled thigh and uprights himself after a moment, still holding on in futile madness to the surujin.

While Mjolnir prevents the shearing of Thor's arm from his body, the Sorcerer makes good on his ability to conduct the Mystical might of other dimensions.

"By the might of the Vishanti,
Let this limb be of stone!
No control to you given,
It remains my right alone!"

A gigawatt jolt of paralyzing power surges down the line of tethered lighting and the creature YOWLS as the hind limb in question stiffens straight as a board before thumping against the ground, disabled for the moment.

*

Thor swings his arm and punches the dinosaur in the face. Then he does it again — then again. They're not exactly love taps, either, hitting with all the force of a swinging sledgehammer, even despite his awkward angle and one hand clinging to the haft of Mjolnir.

The dinosaur shakes and wuffles and snaps his head, and Thor finally goes free cartwheeling into the air and hits the ground in a heavy, cumbersome roll.

The God of Thunder sets his jaw and focuses, reaching a hand out for Mjolnir — but he doesn't call for it. Not yet. Clouds and winds start to circle over Thor's head, and he sets his brow in furrowed concentration as lightning crackles overhead.

"Doctor! Lend the storm your fury!" he shouts over the rising winds. "And my hammer will be the rod to which our righteous vengeance is lashed!" he booms, holding a hand up to call down the lightning from above.

*

The sudden drop in barometric pressure makes Strange look around and eventually up to the night sky as it becomes clear that the power of the Asgardian is manifesting. The light of the moon rapidly dims, seeming to curtain them all in foreboding darkness.

Ooh. Ooh, yes, this will do.

With the titanic creature still thrashing about, now clawing futilely and whiny-groaning at the Uru-metal weapon jammed in its jaws, he can dismiss the chained plasma of the surujin and dedicate a full measure of his willpower towards channeling a spell.

Granting the Prince more space by hovering back and higher into the air, his scarred hands first form mudras before his sternum. Air cyclones about him in a manifestation of intent made reality. Thor will likely sense the rising intensity of the smell of petrichor even as the Sorcerer Supreme begins his incantation. His voice echoes with odd dissonance in comparison to the reality around him.

"Chains of Krakken, undersea,
Upon my command, let thou be
Conductors true of thunder's might — //
To Mjolnir's form the force now strike!!!"//

The concussive sound of air splitting heralds the fall of the moment after he finishes speaking. Thor's storm is now hyper-charged with potential and if Mjolnir's ready, the thick chains of spell-bound electricity dancing in the sky above await its draw.

*

Eldritch powers coils and curls around the two men. Lightning prickles along bare skin, the sharp scent of ozone and something unnatural combining with the petrichor splatter of rain striking the dirt and deep forest loam.

Strange throws his power to the sky, crackling and snapping through the low clouds, heavily pregnant with rain. And Thor grabs that living lightning, channeling it and shaping it with his will and the innate power of the God of Thunder.

And when he calls, it comes. A bolt of sizzling, electric blue snickersnaps down from the sky towards Mjolnir. It's not 'mere' lightning — it's alive, a living weapon of magic and power, hungrily crawling around with spiderlike tendrils to seek the best grounding source available.

It finds it in the powerful metaphysical pole of Mjolnir, and the lightning chooses a path with a start in the stone hammer, and a terminus at the monster's left heel. It courses and snakes through the beast, making muscles jump and snap and crackle. Smoke and steam issue from under cracking scales and the monster screams in agony as the power surges through it.

And then, before the lightning leaves, it wraps around the monster's left knee and removes it clealy at the joint. Then the bolt of power disappears into the smoking, charred ground, leaving the monster to flop to the ground in a twitching mess of burned flesh.

*

The taste of discharged lightning lingers in his mouth long after that titanic body loses the lingering jolts of power that tease dead neurons to Frankenstein moments. Hanging there in the empty air, the Sorcerer's chest rises and falls from the effort of wringing such a response from reality around him. The rain falls with a vengeance, turning the battlezone around them into a truly-muddy and glistening mess.

This includes Strange, who slicks back inky-black hair from his face and pufts away excess droplets from his lips.

"Shame that it wasn't going to be persuaded by simple force. You're hale, Your Highness?" His eyes, still alight with lingering Mystical power, glow like the static crackling mutedly within the clouds above them as he assesses Thor.

*

Thor gestures vaguely at Mjolnir, and it flies to his hand after wrenching itself loose from the dinosaur's skull. The monster twitches a little at the latent electricity misfiring the nervous system, but it's well and truely dead at this point. He flicks his hammer in a whirring blur, cleaning it easily.

"Aye, I'm well enough, my friend," Thor booms. "And yourself? None the worse for the wear, I trust?" he inquires, grinning boisterously at Strange.

*

"Nothing a warm shower and a healing spell won't fix," he opines as he floats over nearer to the Asgardian. His eyes travel dispassionately over the large saurian body. Gods below, the thing really was as big as adrenaline made it out to be. The crimson Cloak undulates in a full-garment ripple and flicks more water from itself, despite being patently waterproofed by proxy of the titling of Mystical Relic. This doesn't impede Strange's status as airborne. The Sorcerer glances up at the gloomy sky above them and back to Thor, wrinkling his nose. "Any chance you can turn off the faucet up there?"

*

"Faucet?" Thor squints skyward, trying to figure out Strange's meaning.

"Oh! The rain?" he says, brightening. "Perchance why would I? The storm is nature's call for refreshment, to nurture dry soils and raise trees skywards. To call lightning without the storm runs counter to the will of nature itself. Does a wee bit of precipitation make thou uncomfortable?" Thor asks, grinning wide, the rain dripping from his armor with a million sing-songing chimes as it pings the metal. "I find it most refreshing after a battle."

*

The Sorcerer is not about to admit that cold, wet socks are one of the few banes of his existence (nearly on par with Dormammu). That squishy feeling, ugh.

Letting out a quiet sigh, he resigns himself to the cool of the falling moisture that wends into and beneath his battle-leathers, one way or another. It's nice…he guesses.

"Refreshing, absolutely." Rolling one shoulder proves to draw forth a wince even as he seems to prepare himself for one last task: "If you'll give the body some space, Your Highness, I need to dispose of it. I won't have the locals stumbling over this. They'll have a hard-enough time attempting to figure out what happened as is…" he grumbles. Already, the light from a particularly potent spell winks around the knuckles of each hand, a lurid blood-red that leaves aftershine in the wake of each spark.

*

"Aye, don't let me stand in your way, my friend," Thor remarks, standing back a few paces. He removes his helmet and hangs it from his belt, moving back until he's well clear of Strange's activities. The big blonde watches with fascination as Strange settles in to work his more subtle magics, the good doctor's skills infinitely more flexible in this regard. "A strange little courtesy, I suppose, but I imagine the local wildlife would have this rendered into but bones in a matter of few days, aye? 'tis a good amount of meat to simply waste by banishing it to the ether, my friend."

*

Strange weaves the spell's intent into creation along with its visual aspects using graceful motions of his hands, scarred joints whose look belies their fluidity with Mystical power running through his person.

His reply is lowly-spoken, distant and distracted: "A skeleton of this size could not be ignored. Radiocarbon dating was recently acknowledged by our scientists here, on Midgard, and it would reveal the bones to be far more recent than science's current understanding of dinosaur-like creatures. Not only that, but I believe this creature's flesh is too acidic to be digested by our local wildlife. I'd rather see it properly removed than risk further ripples in this reality's Fate." The Asgardian likely understands the Guardian's feeling on the matter, stuffy though they may seem.

The overly-bright ruddy casting settles overtop the entire length of the saurian creature. Skin, sinews, muscles, viscera, bones — all of it is rapidly sublimated into nonexistence. It's like watching flash-paper burn in slow motion instead of one rapid consumption. When all is said and done, the creature is gone, its energy returned to the environment around it in a more subtle manner than the natural process of rotting. Strange nods.

"That will do. Your Highness," and he rotates to face Thor, " — thank you for your assistance. Should another aberration between realities appear, I hope to find you at my side again." The Prince's grin is returned with a rather boyish smile from the Sorcerer. At heart, he enjoyed the spat, even if he's sore — and has wet socks.

The two men depart from the site to their various homes and leave behind them a mystery of broken trees and muddy rents.

Must have been a landslide. Oh well.

*

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