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PRELUDE
It's amazing what a man will do for a haunch of roast chicken or the suckling winter boar discovered on a chance encounter. When the man holds permanent vigil on the great spectrum of the Bifrost Bridge, the mouthwatering promise of a platter heaped in a light, flavourful fish hauled from the depths is just about enough to unleash the Soul Stone's radiant energies on any enemy in sight.
The citrine-eyed guardian can only hope. He only occasionally uses surreptitious royal guards or ravens. One unfortunate traveler on the Bifrost dispatched recently to Vanaheim now gets to play messenger: go find the Crown Prince, and note something might be of interest.
IN ASGARD
Whatever Thor is doing, Mjolnir bestirs itself with a perky rumble and starts floating.
Thor knows well how to bribe Heimdall. Not that 'bribe' is the right word— but Heimdall works hard, and operating the Bifrost requires work and dedication. And while the Crown Prince need not necessarily obtain permission to use the Rainbow Bridge, he does at least do so with as much courtesy as possible.
Also, it never hurts to be on Heimdall's good side if you need an emergency extraction.
So Thor arrives with chicken, beef, and a tankard of mead for his friend; and after a little good-natured conversation, he starts plying Heimdall for information.
" So Heimdall, perhaps you can tell me what is bothering Mjolnir," Thor suggests, watching Heimdall eat. "Something seems amiss and my hammer sings protest. Is there a battle nearby that requires an honorable warrior's presence?"
Heimdall likes to eat, and it's a long way from the kitchens of Asgard to the end of the Bifrost where he gazes into the cosmos from his golden observatory. Besides, the man just happens to enjoy company now and then. Can he be blamed? He taps his toe and stares out, the unfathomable depths holding his attention fast right up until the point when the door squeaks open to admit another.
It wouldn't do to be seen holding onto a sword in one gauntleted fist and chowing down fast as he can on a beef slab tucked between warm bread clutched in the other. Appearances must be maintained.
His expression is remote and grave when Thor comes. Mostly, though he nods under his heavy helm. "A fine surprise," he deadpans, given it's nothing of the sort. "How unexpected you should come to break your fast when I have watched something violate the envelope of space around Midgard."
"That is a grave concern," Thor says, frowning heavily. "Yet I hear not the alarms in the sky or the sound of skychariots racing towards the heavens. So what is it that approaches Asgard?" he inquires, looking to the skies through a window. "What does your eye behold, Heimdall? Is it a threat? Some fool who'd crash against the rocky walls that protect us from the tide of the universe?"
"Midgard," says Heimdall as he reaches for one of those offerings. Mead, first. Always mead. Quaffing a good mouthful of it, he slurps down honey wine as vigorously as any good Vanir might. "A shiver of star sharks passed the belt of asteroids around between their fourth and fifth planets." Another sip, putting down the drink. The heavenly skies shine in their nebulous glory through the window of the dome, a notch as thin as his forearm looking out. "I cannot be sure where they originated from. The Centaurians eradicate them on sight. But the chances they will simply pass Midgard by?"
A shrug. "Nothing ever passes Midgard by."
"Star sharks?" Thor shakes his head, in bemusement. "Nay, they'll not pass up a juicy morsel like Midgard. The planet has too many vulnerable locations— they don't even have a celestrial defense grid in place!" he huffs. "Have they hostile intent? Or do you think there is a chance they'll move on?"
Even as he speaks, Thor reaches for Mjolnir. Small odds that a shiver of sharks is going to just 'meander through' such a fertile region of space.
"Star sharks," agrees Heimdall. He hands over the mead and goes for the meat, though his enhanced gaze is locked out onto that square of the Orion Arm. "Not the variety we are used to seeing. The kind which look like the great white sharks of the primal ocean. These things are…" He scowls a fraction. "Older. Terrors with teeth like a spinning ridged wheel. Big, though, and fast. Have a care."
Because somewhere in his contract to Odin, he has to say that.
Mjolnir practically wriggles in joy.
Thor grins at Heimdall, clapping his shoulder. "Come, Heimdall— when have you ever known me to be reckless?" he teases.
Thor moves to the entrance to the Bifrost, calling his armor to him in a surge of light and a singing song of steel— it girds his shoulders and arms, and a helmet appears under his left elbow.
"Keep an eye 'pon me in any case, my friend," Thor requests of Heimdall. "Should I find myself in over my head, I suspect that I'll not relish managing an entire armada of flying sharks alone!"
"I imagine you shall not tell of being over your head until many months from now, deep in your cups." Heimdall bites into the bread and then recedes to his place beside the great blade driven into the body of the Bifrost. "Will Mjolnir take you forth to these sharks?"
Hey, he's a happy man when empowered by a decent dinner.
Thor grins at his friend. "Mjolnir will carry me anywhere I wish to swing my arm!" he boasts. "But for the sake of my arm staying attached, let us instead let the Bifrost be the vessel that carries me."
Rainbow energy coruscants and hums. Thor salutes Heimdall, grinning.
"After all, they are only sharks!"
He flings himself into the twirling, rainbow void, and is flung the vast distance from Asgard to the orbit of Midgard— not far from where the sharks are 'swimming' through empty sapce.
|ROLL| Rogue +rolls 1d20 for: 4
The Bifrost
A slipstream of incandescent cyan and emerald intertwine, shot by the ghostly vapors painted golden and copper between. The hellish plunge through the void at speeds incomprehensible to even Aesir senses flings Thor, stretching him out far beyond the innate height gifted him as the god of thunder. His body drags and slides over charged particles, hurling him past branches of Yggdrasil and the asteroid belt, plunging over Ceres in an instant and deflected through the Martian orbit. Say what you will, star sharks aren't exactly slow travelers. The suspended sapphire jewel of Earth takes brief shape before him, the moon on the far side. These predators dance in the night.
Midgard
The first of those lean killing machines is already diving through the ionosphere, clouds dusting a great spiral below. Yellowed deserts show no great prospect of greenery or warm welcome. Neither is an ocean anywhere nearby for a good thousand miles. But that beast, twinkling with laser augmentations, is already dropping with hellish purpose. It gnashes a whirling blade of teeth, its sinuous tail slashing back and forth.
The sentry, unfortunately, hasn't really been in communication with the rest of its savage frenzy. The forward scout that descended hasn't come back. The seven other sharks arrowing in to Earth might take a bit to notice anything in the space of the terrestrial orbit. Thor isn't that big.
They /are/ big, and Thor balks. Bigger than he'd expexted. And armed with weapons beyond mere 'teeth'. Thor shakes his head in mute shock, but speaking in the void of space is pointless— still. His lips wrap around a soundless curse.
Still, no reason not to strike with surprise when an ambush is given. Thor braces himself against a point in space and time and starts whipping his hammer around. With no wind to resist or fear of causing a hurricane, he brings it to a blurring speed that would crack the air on Earth, and flings it soundlessly directly at the side of the shark's skull, right behind that rolling, blackened eye.
One of the space-faring helicoprions eagerly winnows to the planet. Hard to miss at this rate. Their natures are singularly violent, pitiless and devoid of any kind of empathy. Dead black eyes fix on the clouds and continent — Eurasia — with fixed disinterest. Down there is dinner. It may not have anticipated its appetizer showing up so soon, though, standing on the cloud tops at forty-five thousand feet and climbing. Given the ragged state of a thin scarf unfurled behind, the tiny green speck may resent being some kind of one bite green. It stoops to intercept, the first specks of light naturally charging up to be unleashed from the three-part horns on its head.
Right. Horned sharks. Artificially enhanced horned sharks with whirly-blade teeth and a triple row up top just in case the ridiculousness of a buzzsaw face weren't enough.
Mjolnir has no qualms about howling with the celestial storm forever burning in its core. Lightning and churning winds proverbially dance inside its metal body as Thor snaps it round and round, the two of them as well-matched as horse and rider about to take a monstrously difficult jump. It swings through the void to collide with one very large shark. That one is bound to thrash and turn, tumbling out of orbit. For the trouble, though, the torpedo-like monster with a maw wide enough to devour comets decides to plow into the golden son of Asgard from the side. Worthy of saying these aren't mild beasts. A tail slap is about as strong as he would be, if he threw a punch.
Thor grunts soundlessly in pain, and turns at the last moment— his armor saves him from being ripped open, but he's still slashed one one spot. With his hands and feet he braces open the shark's massive maw, pushing on a gummy extrusion to keep those awful teeth from crushing him utterly. It's an enormous effort— Thor grunts with exertion and holds it, legs trembling with the energy required, and his one arm shaking.
THe other, of course, reaches for Mjolnir— which flies back to him with even /more/ force than when he'd first flung it.
And with the bulk of the shark's body squarely in its way.
Sharks in spaaaace! It's certainly not enough to prevent the other five from shooting for the spacious skies below or circling Thor, awaiting an opening. They are not stupid, and these opportunistic hunters have patience to find the best time to bite or zap.
How well does his armour hold up against lasers? Frickin' lasers of alien design? The head cannon is messed up stuff. Three zorching beams converge from under, beside, and over as the circling predators have their own ranged energy weapons.
Not so much the redhead storming through the thinning air at somewhat inadvisable speeds. Oh, how she wishes. But Scarlett has teeth hastily wrapped in cloth in lieu of brass knuckles, and a bitterly determined expression on her face. Unimportant what she calls out given the thing is a shark, and an invasive shark at that. Rather, the speed on her side and the determination to punch the damn thing with its forebear's teeth are going to end in a tumbling mess for everyone involved. Shark, woman, one might live.
Thor roars in pain, and even in the thinnest of atmospheres, it rocks the air and vibrates the ground like an explosion in the sky. But the hammer flies to his hands, punching through flesh and armor and leaving a great, bloody gout of gore in the air as the hammer bisects the shark.
He falls with the shark, stunned for a moment at the energies coinciding on him; pain wracks his nerves, and the frigid upper atmosphere leaves hoary frost on his descent, too slow to set the sky alight with fire.
Sharks immune to the changing pressures of frosty atmosphere or burning atmosphere circle and sway. Their dead fellow? Well, time to nip the bloody thing with one hell of a jagged chomp as they sway by. The sight above is a collage of violence and sweeping bodies, dark against the starry sky. The ones leaking death and sharky body parts may just burn up in the atmosphere. Few satellites or radio dishes have any means whatsoever to track man and beasts.
|ROLL| Rogue +rolls 1d20 for: 11
|ROLL| Rogue +rolls 1d20 for: 11
Meanwhile, in the conflict sketched between the one invading bastard and the flying woman, things are at something of a draw when they all but smash into one another. Deformed by the force, the shark bowls forward and she rebounds off, leaving Scarlett tumbling while clutching its tail. Skidding off that rough hide does terrible things to her clothing.