Thrudd heard all of her family mbers respond to her at once. It was the last confirmation she needed.
She gave the command to move forward without wasting another mont of daylight.
All across the realms of Yggdrasil, the sa scene was being repeated twentyfold.
)
One of the mbers of the order stepped out from behind the cover of the dragons and moved toward the flowerfield.
Each of them was covered in unique hazmat suits that allowed them to touch the flowers without fear of contamination.
Floating beside them was a small apparatus that looked like a glass case.
They used special gardening equipnt to remove the flowers from the bed without causing damage to the roots or stems.
As soon as they touched the flowers, they began spewing spores.
A fog of dark purple pollen wafted from the bulbs of the plants. It covered a ten-foot radius in less than a minute.
"...This thing gives the creeps."
The flower technicians all shared the sa sentint as their companion.
It was rare for sothing, anything, to try this hard to infect a potential host. It’s desperation was nothing short of chilling.
"...Let’s get out of here and let them do what they do."
The quartet nodded as they rushed to continue their work.
They pulled the flower from the bed and gently brought it over to the floating case.
Once they were clear, they pressed a button on their suits to sanitize themselves and prevent the further spread of spores.
Only when the suits ca back 100% clean did they give Thrudd the all-clear.
"We’re good here, princess. Light it up."
Thrudd hardly needed to hear anything else.
With a thought, the entire field went up in fla.
Zheng rubbed his ear discreetly- nearly certain that he could hear the plants screeching.
But perhaps his relationship with Nubia had just made him overly sensitive to this sort of thing.
"Princess Thrudd."
One of the technicians pointed towards the sky, where a surprising amount of smoke was being produced.
"I think it would be good if we collected that. All of it."
Thrudd encased the billowing smoke in a dod bubble made from magic. When it was full, she would pass it over to the rest of her team for further inspection.
But it appeared as though she would need to multitask while doing so.
Walls of shimring light were erected around the burning flowerfield.
Zheng and Thrudd readied themselves for what was to co.
And yet, when the mont finally arrived, the princess did not feel as though she had prepared her heart well enough.
Though how exactly was one supposed to prepare herself for this...?
When the walls of light went up, dangerous company arose from a region unknown.
There were exactly three cloaked figures. Two of them were of the exact sa size and build with golden masks covering their faces.
Standing between them was a figure that must have been three heads taller than his companions.
And unlike the two of them, he had no covering over his face.
Everyone here could see exactly who he was. Though they dared not believe it.
"It’s you..."
Thrudd took a solitary step backward. Zheng placed her hand on her back to stabilize her.
"I... didn’t expect that we would be eting like this."
Thor took off his hood and uncovered his head.
He looked just the sa as he normally did. His bold red beard and rotund figure were not without a staggering amount of power undeneath.
Half of his face was covered by a scar. His eyes were still a sharp, vibrant blue. But one of them was wrapped in dark black sclera.
A paternal gaze settled on Thrudd. Large hands clutched at the poml of a badly cracked hamr.
"I... erm..."
Thor fumbled about for his words, but found that they were slipping past him at every turn.
But Thrudd was not without words of her own.
"I thought I knew just how low your master was willing to go just to sow discord. But this is an abominably new low."
"N-No, I..."
Thor steadied his breath and took his hands off his hamr.
"I am not... from here. I co from another universe and I... lost my Thrudd. The stranger told that there was a version of you that was... lost. Wayward."
"How amusingly convenient."
Storm clouds rolled in overhead- pushing aside the dense layer of ash in the sky.
Zheng imdiately beca nervous.
If Thrudd’s emotional state beca too out of control, she was known to bring devastating rainstorms.
On a world like Musphelheim, that consists of 50% volcanoes and 50% boiling magma, her storms could not only irreparably harm the landscape, but they could also kill every inhabitant this world currently housed.
"Thrudd."
His words brought her back to her body, at least sowhat.
The storm clouds still lingered in the air, but they did not produce rain. For now, that had to be enough.
’We have company over here. We’re engaging now.’
When Thrudd heard Apophis’ voice in her head, all of her doubts were shaken free.
She tightened her grip on her shield and sword and assud a steady posture befitting her stance.
’Yeah... too, brother.’
"I don’t know what you thought you were doing by showing up here... but I already have a father. I’m not looking for replacents just yet."
With a screech that shook the world, Thrudd shot forward with her shield outstretched.
Thor unslung Mjolnir from his belt and raised the hunk of tal to cover himself.
When Thrudd slamd into him, their bodies collided in a devastating clash that seed to drown out all of the other noise in the realm.
Their crash called thunder from the heavens. Lightning fell from the sky to raze the flowerfield like a punishnt from god himself.
Thor saw more cracks spread along his hamr. He couldn’t believe there was a version of his daughter out there that was this strong.
He had survived Ragnarok. Slain the primordial serpent and lived to tell about it.
But he never expected that his daughter would possess even more power in his body than that beast had.
His awe at her power lasted only until he rembered the dark reason behind it. Or rather the dark figure behind it...
Thor didn’t want to fight his daughter. He wanted to free her from the influence over her and take her ho like he was promised.
"Listen to , Thruddie, you’ve been lied to-"
"You aren’t allowed to call that! Only family gets to call that!"
More lightning fell from the sky, but there had yet to be rainfall.
Zheng glanced behind his shoulders at the mbers of the order who were stunned into a lack of action.
"Stay back, and hit them hard. Don’t get touched!"
Zheng freed his blades from their sheaths and rushed to join Thrudd in the fray.
However, before he could reach her, one of the masked figures appeared in his path.
The figure lifted an arm from beyond their cloak and revealed a dainty, feminine hand.
A barrier of energy was erected between the two. It was strange and unnatural. Zheng imdiately felt sick when looking at it.
He knew what it was imdiately.
’Anti-magic...!’
Zheng slipped into the shadows at the feet of the woman, avoiding her completely.
The ground rumbled with the force of a hydrogen bomb, and waves of shadow surged out of the ground.
The masked duo were flung to the sky.
They appeared to possess the ability to fly through so natural or otherworldly ans, as they expertly avoided the tendrils of shadow aiming to pierce holes in them that were too big to heal from.
But as they flew, they were suddenly besieged by a hail of gunfire.
One of them said sothing in an accursed magical language.
A sleek, bubble-like mbrane ford around the pair’s body.
When the gunfire struck them, the bullets were not only reflected, but they shot back towards their point of origin at thrice the speed they had co.
Before they struck the ones who had first fired them, Zheng lunged out of the shadows at their feet.
Drawing two swords from his back, he moved with devastating grace and cut the bullets right down the middle before they could strike ho.
He moved so fast that none of the humans could follow his movents. But they knew just how much skill it had taken to do what he had just done.
"Change of plans! Hunter magic only, ditch the live rounds!" He ordered.
Even though he wasn’t Shin, the mbers of the order obeyed him just the sa.
Just before Zheng could drop back into the shadows he was controlling, he saw a single drop of water fall near his eye.
"Shit... Thrudd!"
He yelled for her, but his attention was soon reclaid by the pair of masked won using anti-magic.
They fired two strange bolts of magic energy at him and nearly took his head off.
It finally dawned on him that Thrudd would largely be left to her own devices here. He couldn’t afford to take his attention off his opponents either.
He hoped and prayed that his sister-in-law had enough control over herself that she wouldn’t do sothing to render her on Asherah’s house arrest right along with Bashenga.
But from where he was standing, their odds didn’t look super great.
Thrudd and bashed her shield into Thor’s hamr six more tis.
On the seventh blow, the ancient weapon shattered like glass.
An inhumanely large bolt of lightning split the sky and fell on top of Thor.
When the light died down, and the crater they were standing in was twice as deep, Thor’s jolly red figure was no more...
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