GotSIS Ch.39 The God Butcher-II (Patreon)

14th December 2009

Crater Site, New Mexico

The makeshift Headquarters of SHIELD in New Mexico was predictably in chaos. Scientists and agents ran around, while some were being rendered first aid. Objects and pages lay strewn on the floor amongst broken pieces of glass and spilled liquids. The frantic clacking of keyboards filled the room with the chatter of the radio, and Coulson watched from the center, feeling a headache well between his eyes.

“Coulson!” Fury’s voice cut through the chaos of the headquarters as the Director’s large, fuming face appeared on the big screen. “What the hell is going on in there? I was woken up with a code red in New Mexico, which is not a good way to wake up after barely an hour of dealing with the mess that Stark and Rhodes made by destroying half of Queens. If Emrys follows his new buddy and trashes New Mexico, so help me, I will strangle someone.”

“Yes, sir.” Coulson rubbed the growing bump on his head and hid a small smile behind his arm. “We just experienced a major Earthquake, recorded at seven and a half on the Richter scale. It originated about nineteen miles from here, not far from Hawkeye’s and Emrys’ last reported location.” 

“Is everyone alright?”

Coulson nodded. “Nothing more than scrapes and bruises and a broken bone or two so far. A personnel check is underway, but I’m positive that, between this being an open desert and the air-blast resistant structures, there’ll be no casualties. But the med team we have here is on standby. Unfortunately, our vehicles are severely damaged, and any sort of evac, medical or otherwise, will be ill-advised in my opinion, especially until we know what caused the quake.”

“Then stay put. There’s no point in heading out without air transport anyway, and from what I can see, the satellites are seeing a weird kind of electromagnetic storm out there, made of unidentified energies. But if it calms, I’ll arrange for new vehicles to reach you by morning. How fast can you get eyes on what’s happening out there?”

Coulson took a tablet from an agent’s hand and pressed some keys. “Sir, our sensors are picking up an array of unidentified energies… or energy explosions may be more appropriate. As the earthquake struck, my agents reported a massive red flash in the desert. Unfortunately, any hopes of getting a clearer reading are low because the quake knocked out several sensors and fried everything outside our EMP-shielded structures. Had these not been installed because of the hammer, I’m afraid we would’ve gone completely dark.”

Fury’s eye twitched. “And here I thought we put EMP shielding on everything we could to prevent this exact thing.”

“We do, sir. The exotic energy is off the charts, though.”

“We’ll have to remedy that before project Sky-Castle goes airborne,” Fury said, pinching the space between his eyes. “Where is Thor? Or Emrys? Because exotic energies are Emrys’ specialty and since this was near them, I could wager he’s involved.”

“My thoughts as well, sir. But we haven’t been able to establish contact with either Emrys or Hawkeye yet. We’re trying to, but we don’t have answers yet.”

“Then deploy a drone and get some fucking answers, Coulson.” Fury snapped. “I read Emrys’ unique threat assessment regarding this situation. So, find Thor and extract him to safety. Kidnap him if you must, but I want that motherfucker safe.”

“Yes, sir. A drone is enroute, but I don’t believe it’ll survive the electronic interference.” Coulson glanced up as an agent rushed toward him and handed him a memo. “Sir, I just got this. Hawkeye is with Thor, but has gone dark. His last message was that he was extracting the assets to safety and that Emrys was engaging the threat.”

Fury scowled. “If the drone doesn’t survive, try the satellite. There’s one over you already, just reposition it. What we get may not be as good, but we need some eyes on the situation. And we also need to find out where the hell Hawkeye is and prepare for an extraction for Thor. I want that man on the other side of the country by this time tomorrow, if he’s not back in his fucking god-city where Emrys said he’s from.”

“Permission to go private, Director?” Coulson asked, looking around.

Fury frowned and gave him a brisk nod. With a click of Coulson’s fingers, the call disappeared from the big screen and reappeared on his tablet. With a glance around the room, he stepped into a small, private office, closing the door behind him.

“Sir, respectfully, I believe we should let the situation develop on its own,” Coulson suggested. “If Barton has gone dark, I doubt we could find him unless he wants to be found. And whatever the threat is, it has caused Harry to engage on a scale that’s causing earthquakes instead of putting it down quick and fast. In Bahrain, he took care of the situation with an efficiency that rivaled Widow’s. I believe this is him throwing haymakers and hoping they stick.”

“You’re assuming that this is him and not the threat itself, one which Emrys has failed to stop or is struggling to do so,” Fury said. “Believe it or not, the one thing I’ve learned the hard way is there’s always someone bigger and badder than you are. And I’m not talking of interfering with Emrys, I’m talking about finding Barton. If he’s smart, he won’t come to you but go for the Helicarrier. He knows about Project Castle Sky and the base. It’ll be his best bet.”

Coulson frowned. “That’d be difficult with nothing but desert all around and a distance of several miles. And, director, I already tried contacting the base, but they are not responding. We might need to check on them because this place has extra protections of the magical kind that they don’t.”

“Don’t you worry about them. Short of a nuke attack, they’re not going to be bothered. That place is a nuclear bunker sitting within a bomb bunker and then some. Their communications likely got knocked out. Yours would’ve too, but Potter’s magic probably protected the base a lot more than we realized. The readings I’m seeing here should’ve eradicated a good part of any makeshift base.”

Coulson nodded grimly and waited, listening to the howl of winds and the faint crack of thunder from the distance, without clouds which he couldn’t quite see. 

“Coulson, find me Hawkeye and Thor. Let Emrys deal with whatever it is, but we need to find Thor. Let—”

The feed suddenly cut off, and the screen went black, startling Coulson. A moment later, a streak lit up in the sky, and Coulson felt his heart drop as an agent ran up to him.

“Sir! Something just took down our satellite now, and it is descending to Earth all of a sudden, like a meteor!”

Coulson nodded numbly. “Yes, I can see that. Get everyone inside. Screw the perimeter, get into protected structures. Go, go, go!”

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14th December 2009, 

New Mexico (A Few minutes earlier…)

Harry breathed in the desert sand, feeling his head spin as pain wracked across his body with the burning warmth of the Soul Stone that seared upon his chest. His bones snapped back into place, burning beneath his skin as if being welded together, and Harry let out a hoarse grunt.

As the stone finished its magic, Harry took in a few deep breaths, feeling the pain ebb away. With a heaving gasp, he pushed himself up, feeling a phantom of pain shoot up his spine.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, trying to ignore it as he looked around.

The sand was charred with faint marks of Crimson that flickered in the dark, casting a glow across Harry’s arms. The magic felt like it was crawling on his skin, tasting pungent on his tongue. Harry staggered to his feet and looked for Gorr across the massive crater that seemed to stretch for miles, no dunes visible for as far as Harry could see.

He glanced down at his hand, where he was still wearing the crimson knuckles, and pulled them off, shoving the relic into his pocket, before searching around. 

“Accio Dragon Shield.” A silver golden blur shot out from a distance and slapped into his hands. “What the hell?” Harry cursed under his breath as he turned the shield around to see golden cracks across the Shield’s surface that seemed to flicker in the night while he gulped down a surge of unease.

‘The sword cracked my shield, which I designed for taking blows that magic can’t.’ He tried to repair the cracks, but his magic was absorbed by the shield. ‘Will have to make do with this. At least it still works. I can’t leave Thor and Mjolnir to Gorr. No one knows what’d happen.’

He strapped the shield to his left arm and trudged forward, channeling his magic through the eye of Agamotto and willing it to spread all around. Harry pushed down the bile that rose as he felt the dark magic seeping from the sand all around like a foul stench as he searched for Gorr’s presence through the swathe of darkness, until he found him a few miles away, nearing the edge of the crater.

‘I can’t rush in blindly,’ Harry thought, looking down at the shield in his hands. ‘Without a plan, he’ll probably kill me and proceed with his plan. Hell, had it not been for the stone, I would’ve been dead right now, which is what he probably thinks, or else he’d be here to kill me now, not be walking away.’ Harry swallowed a flash of fear as he realized another thing. ‘Also, Gorr can turn my spells on me and make them a dozen times worse. So I’ll have to be extra careful.’

Harry willed the cloak’s magic to envelop him and disappeared from view, before silently apparating across the crater, arriving a little further in the direction where he had felt Gorr heading.

‘There’s no way he’d sense me under death’s cloak.’ Harry took a deep breath as his magic swirled around him, crushing all noise and smell that would allow Gorr to make him out. ‘The best thing I can do is probably sneak up from behind and kill him before he can know. It’s the only way.’

He drew a spell under the faint light of the golden sparks, feeling the magic thrum in his bones as the runes glowed brighter, hidden under the cloak which had expanded on its own to cover it.

The chill returned, sending goosebumps up Harry’s skin as he watched Gorr stride past him, humming a jaunty tune, the Necrosword’s tip dragging through the burnt sand, leaving a thin line. Harry crept after the god butcher, letting the spell thrum in his hand.

“Sword of Vishanti,” he whispered, and the spell grew heavy in his hand, the magic thrumming downward to form a blade of pure golden magic that thrummed in Harry’s every cell.

The spell was one of the very few that Harry was certain could harm Gorr or anyone, for that matter. It was a spell from the library of the Sorcerer Supreme, and one of the very few spells that directly called upon the power of the Vishanti, which were not lost to time and could be summoned without needing a sacrifice. 

Ahead of him, Gorr stopped in his tracks, his shoulders stiffening as if he had sensed the spell. Without waiting for a second, Harry lunged, raising the golden sword and shoving it through Gorr’s back.

The god butcher screamed as the sword emerged through his chest in a shower of black blood, the sizzle of his flash echoing through the night.

“Scream, you bloody bastard,” Harry whispered, allowing the invisibility to fade away and meeting Gorr’s wild, terrified eyes. “Die.”

Gorr drove his elbow into Harry’s abdomen, driving the breath from his lungs and pushing him away while Gorr dragged himself off the blade of magic and stumbled to the ground, dark tendrils of his armor creeping toward his chest.

Harry watched in horrid fascination as the tendrils slowly began to knit his wound close, and Gorr took a shuddering breath. His eyes began to turn pitch black, and he feebly raised his sword toward Harry, who felt the hairs on his neck prickle. 

Dark shadows bubbled around Gorr, taking shape.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Harry said, thrusting his hand forward. “Expelliarmus.”

A shadowy figure rose between them and swallowed the spell, lunging toward Harry, taking the shape of long, spidery legs that tried to impale him. They crumbled as they met the protective magic of the shield, leaving a faint, screaming shadow in its wake.

Behind it, Gorr turned and crawled away, fleeing while more shadows rose. Harry raised the golden sword and sliced through another spider’s legs and stabbed it, reducing it to wisps of dark magic that stung his nose.

‘This is like the cave all over again.’ Harry thought as more shadowy constructs rose, accosting him. Harry scowled and swept his hand around, remembering what Dumbledore had done.

Fire blossomed into a stormy inferno around him, burning through the shadows and swallowing their screams as the night was lit orange.

Harry kept his eyes on Gorr, who had retreated further away and raised his sword, only for the fire to burn through the shadows that bubbled.

“You’re not getting away,” Harry whispered, sending a blasting curse at Gorr, who tried to scramble out of its way. 

The ground at his feet exploded, sending him rolling into the sand, flinging his sword away. 

“No,” Gorr croaked as Harry let the fire die away, its embers floating into the night. The shadows crawled to him, and the All-Black necrosword rose in the air, bleeding a black fog that rose like a shroud, forming a massive figure between them.

Harry stopped in his tracks as he felt every fibre of his body shiver in terror at the magic he felt.

“What the bloody hell?”

The fog hardened to a crystal, forming a vaguely humanoid yet gigantic form that dwarfed Harry twice over as it shimmered into existence.

‘Falligar the behemoth,’ The Stone whispered, in a tone that Harry could only describe as horrified. ‘Once, patron of the Galactic Frontier.’

The Soul Stone pulsed, and Harry felt more of what the being was, and his blood froze.

This thing in front of him was a god. A dead god.

A dead god of some alien pantheon called the Galactic Frontier, that Gorr had killed and now summoned like a mere inferi, just to fight him and buy time.

Harry knew that even amongst the sorcerers and gods, Necromancy was a forbidden practice save for the gods of death, for it violated reality and the natural order in more ways than one, some rather horrifically. But not even Harry could have thought that someone would use necromancy on a fallen god to make the said god their puppet. 

And he definitely hadn’t imagined, even in his wildest dreams, the said puppet being employed to fight and possibly kill him.

The god lumbered forward, and Harry felt the ground tremble as the huge, crystalline fists, each the size of Harry’s torso, rose in the sky and curved down. Harry drew on his magic, which shimmered between his fingers in a hue as pale as the moon in the sky. 

“ARRESTO MOMENTUM!” The fists froze in mid-air, wisps of dark energy writhing over Falligar’s crystalline body, trembling in place. Harry pinched his fingers, drawing the energy in the wind that howled in his ears as a rune blazed a brilliant electric blue, the light cracking across Harry’s arm as he whispered, “Might of Mjolnir, destroy my foe.”

The world around him went white as the biggest lightning bolt Harry had ever felt, shot from his fingers like a blast, hitting the frozen Falligar. The sound cracked like a cannon, echoing through the desert night as Harry smelled burning hair and blinked the spots out of his eyes.

He staggered back, boots skidding in the sand as the echo of thunder rolled outward, the world spinning as tiredness weighed down his arms. His ears rang, the world muffled and wrong, and the taste of ozone coated his tongue so thick it felt like he’d bitten into metal.

The warmth of the Soul Stone spread, washing it all away like a sweeping tide, and Harry looked up to see the giant, dead god lying on the sand, slowly rising.

“What the hell?” He whispered as Falligar stood shakily. Chunks of its torso had been blasted away, collapsing into molten shards that hissed as they struck the sand. One arm hung useless at its side, shattered from shoulder to elbow, the jagged remnants twitching as black fog poured from the wound. “That should’ve levelled a small town.”

Behind Falligar, Gorr rose shakily to his feet. Harry spotted him through the haze, watching as the god butcher leaned heavily on the Necrosword, black veins crawling up his neck, his chest still visibly knitting where the golden blade had pierced him. Gorr’s lips pulled back into a feral, black grin as his eyes locked onto Harry.

Falligar took a step.

The ground groaned beneath its weight, crystalline feet sinking into the sand as fractures raced outward like veins of lightning frozen in stone. The dead god’s hollow eyes burned with a dull light as it raised its remaining arm, shards grinding against one another with a sound like a glacier breaking.

Harry raised his shield and poured magic into it. The cracks flared as emerald and gold light surged upward, swelling into a massive dome above him that blazed against the black of the night. A heartbeat later, the dead god’s fist slammed into the barrier like the world’s loudest gong, the impact buckling Harry’s feet beneath him.

His bones ache as he regained his balance and forced himself upright. Cracks spread across the dome above him, and he immediately seized the magic, willing the fractures to seal. 

Fire burned in his veins, and he felt the ache of tiredness well in his muscles as the magic strained his body, despite the stone’s presence.

The new, lightning spell had taken a lot out of him.

‘I need more power, which is beyond me to just summon right now.’ Harry felt bile rise in his throat. ‘And I can’t use the stone, because it’d attract unwanted attention.’ He glanced down at his chest, his heart thumping against the amulet. ‘But while I cannot use the stone… I can use the amulet.’

He looked at the cracked shield in his hands and the dome beyond, swallowing all doubt as he pinched his fingers and drew them apart, causing the rings on the amulet to spin. “By the Eye of Agamotto, accept my shield and lend me strength.”

The light of the dragon shield drained away, and the amulet drank it in, flaring with golden light as the rings ground to a halt, but the eye remained closed.

Harry felt his heart break a little as the shield he had created turned to ash in his hands, scattering in the burnt sand below.

In the next moment, he forgot all about it as magic surged through Harry’s body, humming through every cell and awakening his every sense.

In one split second, he felt everything. 

From the putrid magic saturating the crater around him to the distant, thunderous power of Mjolnir miles away. He sensed the storm and the winds brewing overhead and heard the flutter of a butterfly’s wings deep within the Amazon. He could smell flowers blooming across the world and taste the spices of the East on his tongue.

Even more than that, Harry felt the Earth itself spin through the vast cosmos, threads of magic and parallel dimensions running through and around it as it coursed through space. 

“Focus, Master Potter,” a familiar voice whispered in his ear. “Eyes up ahead.”

Harry opened his eyes and saw the looming inferi of the god punch his dome, sending tremors down its surface. Lances of golden magic seemed to crack down his skin as he raised his arm.

“Reducto.” The flash of light blistered through the night and struck Falligar in the chest, sending the god flying back while the blast echoed through the night.

‘If Gorr wanted a battle to the end, I’m going to give him one.’

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14th December 2009, 

New Mexico

The loud boom of thunder had Thor flinching awake, and he took a gasping breath. His head pounded as he had never felt before, and he felt the world spin as he looked around. Something dribbled down his face, and he touched it, his eyes widening as he saw the red blood on his fingers.

He was bleeding as mortals did.

Thor shook his head and looked around, spotting his companions lying across the van, unconscious, while glass littered the floor. He pushed himself off the floor and stumbled ahead, toward the front of the vehicle.

“Archer,” he whispered, shaking the man, only to find him unresponsive, with a big lump on his head and wounds on his face. “Archer, awaken, please. We must not tarry and get afar. Archer?”

The man didn’t speak, and Thor felt his heart sink. He looked around and spotted Jane stirring and hurried toward her. “Lady Jane? Lady Jane, are you alright?”

She made a small, groaning sound as she opened her eyes and clutched the side of her head. “What.. who… Thor?” She frowned at him and looked around. “What… what happened?”

Thor tried to recall, but the last thing he remembered was the archer having them get away from where they had been and the claim of the sorcerer having engaged the feared god butcher. Yet he didn’t know what had rendered them in this state.

A flash of fear seized him, and he scrambled to peer outside, straining his eyes to look around the dark, sighing in relief as he saw no one.

“I do not know what hit us, Lady Jane, but I think we must get away as the archer told us to,” Thor said, glancing at the unconscious man slumped over the wheel. “Is there somewhere safe you can take us?”

Jane tried to stand but stumbled back onto her seat. “I don’t think I can drive. Ouch.”

She rubbed her head, and Thor grimaced. “We must, Lady Jane. We have no choice. I would’ve faced the horror myself, but I do not have my powers. Without them, I am but a mortal man, in a frail form not my own. Had I retained my powers, I would have fought the God Butcher, but now I’m all but certain that he’d kill me and all of us, for whatever he wishes to gain.” 

Thor found the words heavy on his tongue as he continued, feeling his heart throb in his chest as the absence of his hammer longed in his veins.

“I still promise that I’ll do my best to protect you and ensure no harm befalls you or your friends— but the wise choice now is to retreat. We cannot face what’s coming.”

“I shouldn’t be driving.” Conflict flashed in Jane’s eyes, overtaken by fear as a noise boomed in the distance. “Screw it. Get him out of the seat.”

Thor smiled and picked Clint up gently, placing him in a seat in the back, while Jane stumbled into the driving seat.

“Check if the others are alright,” she murmured, turning the key, and the vehicle roared to life. “At least the van still works.”

“Allfather, give us strength,” Thor whispered, and the van lurched forward, and he checked on Selvig’s and Darcy’s wounds before trying to shake them awake. Darcy murmured something, which he couldn’t quite catch, but didn’t wake up.

“I believe they’re alright, Lady Jane. A bit injured, but alive and well. A few cuts, but nothing that’d threaten their lives, mortal or not. The archer, though, is rather injured.”

“Yeah, there’s blood on the steering wheel too,” Jane said, opening something in front of the seat beside her. “There’s a first aid box here. There should be bandages and all. See what you can do.”

Thor drew the box out and tore the lid open to find various things, most of which he didn’t recognize. “I’ll do what I can. I’ve experience of tending to friends injured in battle.”

“Good,” Jane groaned, squinting at the darkness ahead. “Shit, I barely know—”

She paused as light fell over the dashboard, and Thor turned too, peering outside the window, and his heart dropped as the sky lit up, and something fell down from the heavens, spinning toward the ground.

“Brace again, Lady Jane. Brace!”

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AND… DONE! Hope you all liked the chapter!

First, before we begin, I must say that I’m terribly sorry for the massive delay in this update. I was sick and couldn’t write at all for most of the past week. Even now, I’m feeling a bit under the weather, but I’ve written the best I could. 

I wanted to end the fight in this chapter, but observing my health, I decided it’d be prudent to write the best I could and finish it properly, paying proper respect to a high-stakes scene like this.

That being said, I’ll try my level best to make up for all of it this month. 

As for the chapter, so, yes, Gorr is absolutely fucking terrifying, and Harry is going to extreme lengths now to fight him. Falligar is the Patron god of the Galactic Frontier and champion god of the Tournament of Immortals. Falligar, who most recently won the tournament of immortals five times in a row, was said to wrestle with Black Holes for fun.

So, I hope you can understand how absolutely terrifying Gorr is, and how well Harry is still fighting him.

.

Stay Happy! Stay Safe! Keep Smiling! Keep Reading!

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