They didn't even have time to speak.
Thor's instincts took over as he hurled a bolt of lightning at the dark figure ahead.
The air split with a deafening CRACK.
Out of the flash, a roar erupted, rattling the very ground beneath their boots.
Soren's eyes widened.
He expected another cloud of dark ash, there instead, crouched a beast black as a starless void, muscles rippling under its inky coat.
It was feline in shape, lean and coiled like a predator, with twisted horns curling from its head.
The creature's yellow eyes burned.
Thor staggered back a step.
"What the Hel is that?!" Lifting Mjolnir defensively.
The beast's lips peeled back, revealing a jagged mouth full of uneven fangs.
In the silver light of the lingering thunder, they saw just how many there were.
And, the shadows moved.
From the crags and ruined stones around them, dozens more shapes unfurled from the darkness, each letting loose a chorus of blood-curdling roars that echoed across the wasteland.
"They're calling the pack!" Soren tightening his grip on his adamantium blade.
The beasts slunk closer, encircling them, muscle and claw rippling in the half-light.
They came in all shapes, like tigers, wolves, serpents… all wrong, twisted by whatever dark energy birthed them here.
Soren read the flow of their movement.
These things weren't weak.
Or mindless.
He felt that these creatures had survived something older and crueler than time itself.
"Thor."
"Be ready. These things aren't shadows."
"Never doubted it."
"You take the left. I'll smash everything else."
Soren smiled thinly.
"Deal."
Without another word, he moved.
His body blurred into a streak of silver and black, darting into the mass of beasts like a knife through cloth.
The first creature lunged, Soren sidestepped with grace, his blade flashing. A clean, slicing strike.
THWIP!
The beast howled, but not in blood.
Instead, a puff of dark mist exploded from the wound, thick and oily.
The wound sealed almost instantly, as if the creature had simply swallowed the injury.
Soren landed lightly, scowling.
"Tch. Regeneration."
Thor, meanwhile, was faring differently.
Every swing of Mjolnir unleashed arcs of blinding thunder, forcing the creatures to recoil with screeches of pain.
Where Soren's blade failed to leave lasting damage, Thor's lightning at least burned, singeing fur, breaking bones… they feared him.
But it didn't last long.
Seeing Soren's blade couldn't kill them, the beasts surged toward him, jaws snapping.
"Oh, brilliant." Soren muttered, weaving between snapping teeth and slashing claws.
"I'm the appetizer now."
He ducked under a lunging strike, flipped backward over a snapping maw, and landed neatly on the curved spine of a horned beast, balancing for half a second before springing away.
"Hey, Thor!" Soren called over the chaos.
"You might wanna zap a little my way before I get eaten alive!"
Thor, already swarmed on his side, let out a short laugh between throws of Mjolnir.
"Hold your horses! I've only got two arms!"
The beasts were clever.
Every time Soren carved into one, it simply drank from the dark, swirling mist all around them, healing faster, growing stronger.
Soren landed beside Thor with an annoyed expression.
"They feed on this place." He said quickly. "We cut them, they just... re-grow."
Thor grimaced, swinging Mjolnir in a lazy arc that sent another beast sprawling with a sizzling crackle.
Soren's eyes narrowed.
He looked out at the encroaching beasts, countless dark shapes pacing, snarling, their bodies half-formed by the mist, and felt a thrill of excitement.
"Fine." Flipping his blade to a reverse grip. "Let's burn the whole lot."
Thor grinned wide, crackling with power. "Now you're speaking Asgardian."
They feed on the dark… Then let's strip them bare.
He slammed the tip of his blade into the ground.
The earth trembled.
Magic sigils blazed to life beneath his feet, sprawling outward in a sprawling web of power.
Thor saw the light shift around Soren and immediately backed off, fast.
"Oh, Hel no." He leaped a good forty paces away.
"I know that look."
He hadn't forgotten the last time Soren unleashed a spell like this, Malekith suffered terribly.
Soren raised his hand high.
The magic circle beneath him spun faster and faster until it became a storm of silver light.
"Infinite Stab!"
The earth erupted.
Thousands… tens of thousands of razor-thin stone spikes burst from the ground, a forest of swords, skewering the howling beasts where they stood.
Each spike pierced flesh and bone, lifting the creatures off the ground as they thrashed and screamed.
The ground shook violently, like the heartbeat of some giant buried deep below.
Thor shielded his face as dust and debris howled past him.
"By Odin's beard..."
The beasts were pinned, flailing helplessly.
The dark aura that had once cloaked the whole world now poured into their bodies in thick, desperate streams, trying to heal them.
Soren's magic wasn't finished.
The earth shivered again, and another wave of thorns erupted, bigger, sharper, more merciless. It was like watching the ocean itself turn into a blade, crashing wave after wave against the dying beasts.
"Pypiiaaaa!"
"Krrraaaah!"
"Gyyyyah!"
Screams split the darkness.
One by one, the alien creatures burst into clouds of black mist, their bodies dissolving into nothingness under the endless stabbing assault.
The darkness they had absorbed leaked back into the air, but it was thin, it could no longer form them anew.
Soren let out a breath, lowering his hand.
The silence was sudden.
The battlefield was littered with shattered spikes and drifting mist. No trace of the beasts remained.
Thor jogged over, shaking his head in amazement.
"You don't do 'small', do you?" Clapping Soren on the back with a loud whump.
Soren grunted, not looking particularly happy.
"Tch." He muttered. "I didn't even get to collect samples."
Thor blinked.
"Samples?"
"For research."
"...You're terrifying." Thor said, half-admiring, half-concerned.
Soren only scowled deeper, flicking blood and dust off his blade.
Their path ahead was clear now.
The swirling black mist had thinned enough that the land stretched open before them, cracked, barren ground leading up to a dark tower jutting into the sky like a dagger.
Thor pointed toward it.
"There. See it? That's the altar of the Dark Elves."
"You sure?" Soren asked flatly.
"Positive! I saw it in the old books back home." Thor puffed his chest proudly.
Soren shot him a sideways glare.
"Your ancient books also said the Dark Elves had tails and breathed fire."
"That was one mistranslation!" Thor said defensively.
"It's hard to read runes scratched by lunatics a thousand years ago!"
Soren snorted and sheathed his sword.
"If that tower turns out to be a giant latrine, I'm making you read every page out loud until your tongue falls off."
"Challenge accepted, mortal." Thor grinned.
Without further delay, the two made their way across the broken land.
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
Check out the new story: Garfield Across the Multiverse
PhantomDream