Choices

Chapter 139
Cephera struggled to maintain her hold on the counter spell while the ground shook. Even Thor had braced himself with his feet spread apart and Mjolnir gripped tightly in his hand.
Suvia was ready to pass out. Her heart pounding hard and blood roaring in her ears. She'd never known her husband to be this strong, he must have used something to enhance it.
Seraphina and her father were ready to break down the door the moment the seal broke. Outside Fenrir was keeping the enemy from entering the palace.
His strong jaws catching the flyers in midair and his paws and tail bashing them around the ground. He nearly trampled Sif as she supported Fandral along the grass toward the main entrance.
"Is he alive?" Fenrir asked, he'd always liked Fandral.
"He's weak, lost a lot of blood." Sif was worried for her comrade. The others warriors stayed behind to fight, but Fandral had only gotten weaker.
Sif made it safely passed Fenrir and inside the palace where guards were fighting off those who had managed to get in from other entrances. She dodged a Chitauri who had spotted her but a guard picked up the fight so she was able to continue her rush toward the healing rooms.
She hoped in all this chaos the healers would be there and unharmed.
At the throne room door the light from the seal became dimmer with each passing moment, but the quaking from inside had not yet stopped.
"Look out!" Seraphina yelled. Through one of the broken skylights above a cascade of arrows rained down. Cephera cried out as one caught her through her side.
Suvia fell, not just out of energy but with an arrow penetrating her back. King Yorin had jumped in front of his daughter and took three to the chest, but with his heavy form they didn't go in deep.
Thor rose his hammer in the air, summoning his thunder and let it rain down upon those on the roof.
"Suvia?" Seraphina questioned trying to help her from the floor. Suvia groaned. The arrow wasn't in too far and was unlikely to kill her, but the older woman was too weak to fight off the haze she was now feeling.
Cepjera found her focus ignoring the pain radiating through her side. The arrow was a through and through but it was only through the flesh, no organs, luckily. They were all lucky.
She forced her energy at the door while Thor once again began to pound on it.
"I feel like I'm always saving your asses." The smug voice of Amora told them as she appeared in the room just behind them.
"Why are you here?" Seraphina demanded, not trusting her even after she'd helped Cephera. She remembered the threat Amora uttered to her younger sister. Cephera told her all about it.
"Asgard is my home too. I don't want to see it dead because you're all too weak to help it." She grabbed Cephera's arm and added her own power to the counter spell.
Finally, the door began to crack under Thor's hammer and the seal faded completely. With a heave of King Yorin's body the doors to the throne room flew open.
Loki wasn't sure if he should be afraid of whatever was coming from the hole or annoyed. With the ground shaking and crumbling around them he couldn't risk moving and nether could Thanos, besides where would they go?
Thanos looked more curious than afraid. Of course as long as they didn't fall into that black gaping hole they'd be fine, unless whatever was coming up was dangerous.
Tyr was smiling, sometimes laughing as the round image of something unclear got closer to the surface.
The doors to the throne room swung open. Tyr scowled, his eyes connecting with Amora's. He hadn't expected her to come.
Her head tossed back and forth to look from the old Loki to the young one. "I'm not sure I should even ask," she said to Seraphina.
"He's a dick who came from another world to corrupt young Loki into destroying everything he loves. He likes playing with himself." Tony Stark said with a smirk, as he and his companions were freed from the room.
Tony flew across the crater to the rest of them. "What is that?"
"What is that?" Natasha yelled from across the void, echoing the same concern as Tony.
No one had an answer, instead Tony flew down into the hole to inspect it. He got close enough to see it, but was knocked back by an invisible barrier. The same barrier the Hulk just jumped down on and began to pound.
Above Tyr cackled loudly. "So impatient to see the fun!" He jested.
Tony flew back up. "It's a pool," Tony said. A massive shallow pool of fancy shiny water." He added. "Does he expect us all to crack open a few drinks and have a pool party?"
"Whatever it is, it can't be good." Suvia's throat felt so dry, her voice cracked while talking.
"What's the plan?" Seraphina asked Tony. It was difficult to all be on the same page with them all scattered around the hole.
"Hold on," Tony said and flew across the hole and grabbed The Captain. Steve looked surprised and a little worried as his feet left the ground and his body dangled over the pit.
He could still see the Hulk punching the force field.
Tony put Steve down. "Got us the strategist." The one thing he had trouble getting to work were headsets for talking wirelessly among them. JARVIS was build in to the suit, but the frequencies for the headsets kept getting interference.
"Tyr right now is our main concern. Whatever he's pulling from the hole is no doubt going to be a big problem. Thanos' men are being kept busy, we'll split in teams. One team will keep Thanos busy while the other tries to stop Tyr."
They didn't need to ask who would do what. Thanos was on the same side as the Avengers and the rest were on the same side as Tyr, minus a few holes they'd need to get across first.
"My brother," Thor began.
"Is here." Loki said. While they'd been talking he teleported across the hole. Before, with the doors locked, he hadn't a reason to go anywhere.
"Does it hurt?" He asked his wife, turning his attention to her. Her father had snapped the arrow head off and Loki watched Cephera brace herself as King Yorin pulled out the remaining shaft.
"It stings." Cephera cringed. "But I'm fine. It wasn't serious." She assured him.
"We are wasting time. We need to get to Tyr," Thor said.
"We can conjure rocks over those smaller gaps. There is plenty of rubble around here now to suit the spell." Amora offered. Loki gave her a weary look. He hadn't any proper time to ask Cephera about what happened to Krystoff, but he'd come to find out Amora was involved in it.
"Let do this quickly." Thor urged them.
Working alongside Amora, Loki used Gungrir to help him use less of his own energy to fill in those holes. If they had time they could do the same for the bigger hole the pool was emerging from, but they didn't have that kind of time.
Tyr only continued to laugh as they got closer to him. He wasn't at all concerned for their proximity.
When the last safty stone was in place, Thor launched himself across the pathway and his hammer landed against Tyr, or should have. Instead, Mjolnir went straight through him.
"Fool," Tyr mocked from behind.
Thor turned in time to watch Tyr catch the sisters by surprise. His half broken staff blasting Seraphina across the floor to slide off the craters edge.
Cephera hadn't time to reacte, he gripped her by the throat and threw her in the same direction. She crashed into her sister who had managed to grab an edge and they both tumbled over.
Loki screamed for his wife as Stark dived down to grab them, but Thanos jumped into the air and wrapped his solid arms around Tony, weighing him down to crash into the floor instead.
Both girls hit the dome of magic that covered the pool. It was slick and smooth and no sooner had they hit it, did they begin to slide over it. The Hulk was on the top, where his feet hugged the barrier keeping him in place.
Cephera could almost see the panic in his eyes as he knew he couldn't grab them from there.
"Can you teleport us inside this glass?" Seraphina asked her.
"I've never teleported more than just me." Cepjera replied. That and she wasn't sure if she could teleport past protective magic.
"Who cares, now is a good time to try or we fall into oblivion." They both were trying to stop their decent by pressing their hands to the barrier.
Cephera gritted her teeth. Her side was singing in agony at their awkward movements. She grabbed her sisters arm, looked down through the spell below to see what she needed to picture and uttered the words to the spell.
Unlike Loki, Cephera couldn't teleport very far. Through a wall at best and only knowing what was on the other side.
She felt her body stop sliding and instead it began to fall downward. Opening her eyes she was happy to see her sister was still with her. They hit the shimmering pool and realized it was deeper than Tony thought.
As they tried swimming to the surface, the surface never seemed to reach them. 'I can breath.' Seraphina realized and told her sister through her mind.
Cephera took in a breath and smiled. The water around them didn't even feel like water. They felt weightless, but they were sinking.
Below them, the darkness suddenly beamed with light and Midgard became a vision below them. But not just any Midgard, this one was different. "This is a portal to another world." Cephera realized.
"We can't cross, we might never return." Seraphina realized.
Again they turned their eyes upward and began an attempted to swim upward to the surface.
"Whoops," Tyr said right after throwing Cephera. "One wife down." He mocked.
Enraged, Loki charged Gungrir and shot at Tyr, but again he wasn't touchable. He disappeared and this time reappeared over with Natasha.
He couldn't use the same trick twice. Natasha whirled around, flipped back to her hands and caught her legs around Tyr's neck.
She swung her body and attempted to throw him across the room, but he vanished and she hit the floor from the loss of momentum.
"When will you realized, I am everywhere. I am stronger than all of you. I know all of you and what you are capable of." His voice echoed all around them.
Meanwhile, Tony managed to blast himself out of Thanos' grasp and Steve knocked the Titan back with his shield. Tony took off down the hole to look for the girls.
Chaos continued above. Thanos fighting Natasha, Clint and now the Hulk who had managed to climb his was up from the hole. Tyr continued to attack the rest from out of nowhere. All the while the pool continued to rise and soon it would be in position and Tyr would show them what he truly wanted.

Notes