Elite combat
"How do you come to be here? I thought you safe on Earth," Thor said looking around at us. "And where is Peter the young one?"
"We left Pete on Earth to look after business," Tony said. Thor nodded.
"As to why we're here, well, it all started when Odin showed up on the streets of Seattle," Steve said, and we told him the story. Then Steve nudged me, and I smiled.
"Summon Mjolnir," I told him.
"Mjolnir was destroyed by the witch Hela," he said sadly. "I cannot."
I grinned at him in delight. "Try." He looked at me intently, then hope lit his face. "It's on Midgard, it'll probably take awhile to get here."
Not as long as I thought. About five minutes later, Thor turned, looking up at the sky, and I saw a small object hurtling toward us, straight to Thor. He caught it, smiling, then dropped it, swearing mightily. It was red hot. I picked it up and just sort of double-checked it to make sure it was ok. Seemed physically sound, and once again, the energies from the enchantment crawled over it. Thor's eyes locked onto it, and I held it up for him to see until it cooled.
"I thought never to see it again," he said, taking it the moment it was cool enough to do so. "How?"
I explained about how the shards of the great hammer just showed up one day, how I'd figured out to reform it, and how the enchantment had been renewed. "But my father is recovering?" he pressed, and I nodded.
"When we left, he was awake and aware. Apparently he needs a golden apple to complete his restoration, but frankly, I have my doubts about some goddess just giving over one of those things to us," I said. "Maybe she'll do it for you." Thor nodded.
"And what of my brother?"
"He told us about Ragnarok, which frankly, we can't seem to fit into this scenario, but is worrisome enough. He couldn't figure out what was wrong with Odin either, when we took him to visit. He was very agitated when he heard you hadn't returned, and when he learned the hammer was shattered..." I paused a moment. "He thought you were dead. Then this big sword he apparently forged fell into his cell and he used it to break out of the cell. I followed him outside where the Bifrost picked him up." I put my hand on his arm to quiet him; my hand was apparently too hot still and Thor winced. I dropped my hand. "The next we know, he sends Volstagg and Fandral to us for help after breaking them out of jail. We all went to Asgard and were captured. Did you know that Hela is Loki's birth mother?"
Thor flinched. "No, but somehow it does not surprise me. If Father knows, he did not see fit to tell me."
"He said to tell you that he was sorry," I said gently. "For what it's worth, I believe him." Thor looked at me consideringly.
"You didn't tell us you were barely legal," Tony said, breaking the moment.
"What?" Thor said warily.
"Hela told Emma that the both of you are practically infants," Tony said with a smirk. Thor's blustering and rationalizing made us all smile.
"So what can you tell us about this place?" Natasha asked.
"You know I went in search of Banner," he said after a hesitation. We nodded. "I found him. Sort of." Natasha's hands curled into fists and I moved to her side. "He is the big green one now, all the time. He has not reverted to Bruce Banner once since I found him." Natasha made a small sound. "I do not know if he can, anymore," he told her gently. "He does seem calmer, however. We have teamed up with another being for the purposes of this game. Would you like to see him?" Natasha nodded. He led her away.
"That's unexpected," Steve said.
"But it kind of makes sense," Tony said. "This environment is perfect for him, he can be a gladiator, let out all that aggression and hostility. And if he's not in perpetual conflict with Bruce, his rage might not be so driving."
"Poor Nat," Clint said sympathetically. As everyone gave opinions and talked over what we'd found out, I moved over to Bucky, who had a strained look on his face.
"She's chosen you," I murmured, and he looked at me, still a little bleak.
"I don't want to be second best," he muttered.
"She'd have wanted to see any of us if we'd have gone missing," I pointed out. "And yes, she used to be involved with Bruce, but she's moved on. With you. Frankly, I think you're better for her than Bruce was. She seems a lot happier with you."
"You think so?"
"I do."
We were interrupted by Tony and T'challa, who wandered up. "Can't help but think it might have been premature to tell him about the hammer," Tony said with no preamble. "Especially since he's admitted he's on a team with the Hulk and probably some other big muscle-bound dumbass."
I was crestfallen. "I didn't think of that. Shit. What happens if we have to meet them in the arena?" We all looked at each other.
"We will still have to fight to win," T'Challa said heavily.
It wasn't long before Natasha came back. She shook her head. "Lullabies don't work," was all she said. "That big guy from the first day caught up with Thor and is making him get reassessed since he's got his hammer back."
"Maybe we won't have to worry about meeting them in the arena, then," Tony said. "With that thing, he's probably got us all outclassed. We've never tried fighting him." The group began to discuss the ramifications, and I apologized for not thinking things through.
"Go talk to her," I whispered to Bucky, nudging him with my elbow. Unfortunately, I was on the side with the metal arm, and I winced. He cracked a hint of a smile, and when I gave him a little shove, worked his way over to her. Steve put his arm around me as he spoke to the group, and I watched the pair out of the corner of my eye. So I was able to see the moment when he put his arms around her to comfort her, and how she leaned into his strength, briefly. It was Natasha, after all, and I focused on the group as they rejoined us.
"Thor told me the rest of the story to tell you guys," Natasha said. "Some of it we know, that Hela visited Odin, he refused her request. Her magic overcame his, partly because her treachery was unexpected. Then she offered Thor the throne, subject to her having an overlord status, which he refused. In a fit of temper, she broke Mjolnir and bound him in chains for the Grandmaster. He told Sif to run, which she did; she's pregnant and they can't risk Hela getting her hands on the baby."
We murmured in surprise. It was another good news/bad news situation. It made it doubly imperative that we find a way off wherever this was and get back to Asgard. We had a rescue to mount and a usurper to de-throne. I hoped, cravenly, that Odin would find a way to return to Asgard on his own and at least take care of the witch part himself. And of course, Thor would want to rescue his friends. Good luck with that.
We were interrupted by the usual queuing for midmeal; then our third match would commence shortly after. When we went to pick up our weapons, the pike of my poleaxe was covered, as was most of the cutting surface of the hook and blade. When I inquired, the attendant said it was to minimize the risk of me actually killing our opponents, and there was the special instruction that I couldn't take out my urumi. The blades that I'd made for the rest of the team were similarly embargoed. This time, we were the first team out on the sands of the arena, the favorites.
I was appalled to see our opponents. They were about the size of a Keeshond, about forty of them, and they looked like adorable non-specific animals from a kid's cartoon, all vibrant fur coats over big bodies, large, shining eyes, short stumpy legs, tiny pointed ears, and waving tails. Tony clapped his hand on my shoulder. "Remember, you don't have to kill them," he advised. "They've got to be more dangerous than they look, otherwise they wouldn't be here."
He was right. I would just have to focus on the end result rather than wanting to pet them. As the match started, T'Challa was swarmed by the creatures, another species that we couldn't pronounce. They seemed to like him, then one of them bit his calf with impressively long, strong fangs, and it was game on. I used the covered edges of my weapon to stun or knock them unconscious. There was more blood shed on our side, but I had a hard time regretting it. It turned out to be not much of a fight once we each figured out how to handle the creatures. They had a surprisingly high vertical jump, and Clint could have lost an eye to a raking claw the first time we saw that maneuver.
By the time the Grandmaster declared our probability of victory at 98.3%, the crowd treated it as a foregone conclusion and we received only a smattering of applause. The match had gone too quickly and had been more unequal than expected. We were winning, but we weren't popular. I wondered if that would matter, down the road. The medic who patched us up said that the bites and scratches had a tendency to become infected quickly if not treated, but that we seemed less vulnerable to the infection. New knowledge for the Grandmaster. I wondered how much he knew about each species and how many he'd seen come and go in his arena.
Our standing in the rankings didn't rise much as a result of our victory, due, Thor said, when he caught up with us again, to the unequal combat. It was hard to argue with that, but we didn't feel that we would automatically advance to the next round. We needed a good showing in our final bout.
It was what we got. Six giant beings who looked a lot like the cave trolls from the Lord of the Rings movies, completely daunting, about twenty feet tall. The announcer referred to them as Vehkhans. Their skin was almost as tough as mine, so all of the protective edgings were taken off the weapons and I had all my usual weapons. The moment the crowd seemed to enjoy the most was when I was picked up by one of them and managed to be free by raking the open edge of one of my fans across the eye of the giant. He dropped me to clutch the orb, and I rolled when I hit the ground, just like Steve had taught me to avoid breaking my legs.
It was by far our longest battle as an expanded team in any realm, and we were all exhausted when the Grandmaster declared our probability of victory at 91.1% I didn't care about probabilities by then, I was just grateful to have come out on top. That victory propelled us into the top quartile.
By the end of the next day, all the matches were complete and the final list of teams and individuals for the next round were announced. For this round, individuals would still be paired against other single fighters and teams against teams. Thor's team had also advanced, as we'd expected. The only rule that changes was that victory could be achieved by any means, including death of combatants. This round was single elimination.
It was a grim evening. The only really good thing about it was that there were bunks for everybody remaining in the tournament. As we relaxed before bed, Tony came up to Steve and me.
"We have a problem," he announced quietly.
"Just one?" Steve asked in resignation.
"Ha ha. This one's big. It's Wanda. I think she's checking out."
"What?" Steve and I spoke in chorus.
"She was just wandering around in our last match, and I don't think she was all that focused on the one before that, the one with the cute animals. I wasn't sure until I watched replay." Tony called up a small window that replayed the bout from the official recordings. Anybody could pull up their own bouts, but nobody else's, in order to preserve the element of surprise for the arena. Sure enough, Wanda wandered around with a vacant look on her face. I'd seen her once, but thought she'd been stunned.
"I know seeing Vision murdered in front of her was a terrible thing," Steve said, "but we need her."
"Her sanity's been kind of an issue," Tony said diffidently, recalling the time when Vision took her to New York for intensive therapy.
"I'll go talk to her," I volunteered, and rounded up Natasha as well. It was a very unsatisfying conversation, mostly monosyllables on her side, but both Natasha and I though that she was hanging in. We approached the overseer, the bull-like humanoid who had oriented us the first day and found that all of the team had to report to the arena for each bout or forfeiture would occur; we couldn't drop a weak member to improve our chances. The time to do that had been on the first day. We'd just have to keep an eye out for her.
Our opponents this round were a race of blue people called the Abelra. It was a vicious fight, and rather protracted, but we won with an 88.2% probability; the overseer later said that the probabilities were getting lower because each test in the arena took more out of the combatants and the Grandmaster wanted to continue to give the audience a good show.
The next round was a disaster. The stakes had been raised once again; to win, it wasn't enough to have the most statistically significant probability of winning; every member of the opposing team had to be down, either dead or significantly maimed, a response to the crowd's blood lust. When we got out on the sands of the arena, we found that additional hazards had been added in the form of stationary obstacles as well as ones that appeared and disappeared beneath the sands. Our opponents waited for us. One was a twelve foot, fat orange humanoid. The other two were Hulk and Thor, who looked stunned to see us.
When combat began, Hulk and Thor treated it like a training session, I could see immediately, but the orange person waded in gleefully with an enormous spiked mace. Our first casualty was Jim, caught in the air by the mace and driven to the ground. The attendants scuttled in to remove him and some of them were also injured by the mace. No time out was called; additional attendants hovered on the perimeter, waiting for the orange guy's attention to be diverted before removing Jim and the other attendants. There didn't seem to be a penalty assessed. Steve and Thor were engaging in a titanic hand-to hand battle, while Natasha, Tony Wanda, and Sam confronted the Hulk. Clint, Bucky, T'Challa, and Scott and I faced off against the orange guy. We were getting the worst of it, too. The guy was so big and fat that even when I cut him, I couldn't get to vital organs. It was really unnerving, too, because he alternated between weird, high-pitched giggling and bellows of pain when we scored on him.
You could feel our probability drop like a rock when the orange guy spun, hitting several of us at once. He roared in triumph; Clint was face down on the sand, barely moving, Scott's suit was malfunctioning uncontrollably, shifting his size at random. It suddenly shot him to Giant Man size and he accidentally stepped on T'Challa. Natasha was trying to hold a gash in her leg together, and I... went flying, hitting one of the moveable obstacles that shot up from the sand. It felt like half my torso was caved in, but I didn't dare look. The pain was overwhelming. I pried my mask off and spat some blood onto the sand. I looked up to see Hulk looming over me, face puzzled.
I put out my hand, pleading. "Please," I said, not knowing what I was asking for, then it hit me. He could take the pain away. My vision started to blur. "Make it quick," I begged. I had a moment of regret, of knowing that I was losing Steve for good this time, then Hulk straightened up. The world went to black.