Turning Tides

Grunting, Heimdall scrambled to his feet as he was knocked off them by those creatures. Yet his body was trained and despite his mind still reeling from the sudden appearance of a new enemy, his body reacted to the oncoming danger anyway. No thought was necessary, no time to think, just pure action from a man who had trained his body to the peak and honed his skills to their utmost degree.

Heimdall was one of the greatest soldiers and warriors in Asgard.

One who had reached a degree of self-control that enabled his body to act independently from his mind. While his body could move purely upon instinct, his mind was free to study and understand his surroundings and enemies, and think clearly without the need to consider what his next move would be.

His bloody sword cut up through the wings of one of the creatures before stabbing it into another. Only to be sent tumbling away with a number of cuts being opened on his face due to one of the creatures cutting him.

Pointing his blade at the creature to keep it at a distance, Heimdall touched his cheek to feel the blood dribbling down. Using the back of his hand, Heimdall wiped the blood away and charged forwards, but this creature was certainly better than the rest of its kind. It was faster, stronger and as he watched the creature grip his blade and only a fine sliver of blood flow free from his hand, Heimdall deduced he was also more durable.

"You are different to the others." Heimdall pointed out as he used his greater strength and his own weight to push down on the creature. It in turn grunted as it was pushed back and upon realising that it could not beat Heimdall in a contest of strength broke apart.

"Tokkots, is my name." The creature, now revealed to be Tokkots spoke, it's voice high-pitched and grating upon his ears. "Your death I am, hmm."

Saying nothing, Heimdall instead stabbed his blade backwards to pierce through the body of a worshipper that attempted to sneak upon him. With his blade pointed in the wrong direction, Tokkots used this opportunity to charge forwards only to be backhanded by Heimdall. It didn't do much in the way of damage, but it caused his assault to halt in time for Heimdall to swing his blade round in an attempt to decapitate Tokkots, only for it to fly in the air.

However, that's when a number of Asgardian ships came flying through, firing upon a number of Tokkots clones including the original. Many were shot down, but Tokkots survived the onslaught and instead, with a screech charged at the ships.

-X- Line Break -X-

The battle between Odin and the Dark Gods had been going as well as one could expect. Despite being much more powerful than the three Dark Gods, even the Union which was a beast formed from the unification of all the Dark Gods couldn't match Odin in power. But when combined with Perrikos, his great physical strength and his great well of power that he fired off in a number of powerful energy blasts. King Rugga's natural Storm Giant physiology was aided by a vast control over the Storms that had given his race of giants their name. Then Majeston Zelia's speed, strength, flight and ferocity, Odin was starting to find himself overwhelmed.

Not overly so, but every so often, a blow would slip through his guard and land a blow.

Most of it was from Perrikos who, Odin begrudgingly would admit was smart. He was content to sit back while King Rugga, Majeston Zelia and the Union kept Odin occupied and bide his time for the right moment. For the most part, he had fired off a number of smaller blasts that while not overly strong, still forced Odin to shield or knock to one side. This was done simultaneously as defending against the Union and making sure to keep it from touching him to avoid its rotting touch as well as Majeston Zelia.

Not impossible, but extremely difficult and it resulted in Odin being unable to keep his attention fully on Perrikos.

These lapses were things that Perrikos capitalised on with much more powerful energy blasts and in some cases, like now for instance. Perrikos rushed forwards and slammed a powerful blow into Odin's side with enough force to pick the King of Asgard off the ground and send him flying a great distance away, a powerful boom echoing out, air displacing.

However, while it was powerful, Odin with the power of his Odinforce flowing through his body, quickly healed most of the internal damage that it caused. At the same time, he stabbed his spear into the ground which served two purposes.

The first was to bring his movements to a stop and the second was to allow his magic to flow much more easily and controllably into the ground. From it, numerous pillars and spikes of earth, each seemingly turning to metal, rose up intercepting Perrikos, Majeston Zelia and King Rugga. Large golems rose out and slammed their fists down into the oncoming foes. The Union on the other hand just dissolved itself into the same oily, shadowy substances and swarmed towards him.

A blast of energy was fired from Gungnir and hit the point where the Union was starting to reform causing it once again to split apart. Yet the energy did not stop there and continued past striking Majeston Zelia as she broke through the numerous metal skies and pillars and sent her flying back.

Due to the Union once again being split apart, the various parts of it once again converged, this time on Odin from all sides. Knowing that there was no conceivable way to actually block them all, Odin moved his spear to his back and began spinning it around quickly. At the same time, he leapt backwards causing those parts of the Union that were attempting to come from behind to be shredded by Gungnir.

It didn't destroy them and instead, they once again reformed while the rest slammed against the ground causing it to crater and rot.

Odin however, did not let this opportunity go to waste and instead fired off one beam of energy that the Union once again avoided. This time though, Odin kept control of the beam and made it split apart into numerous smaller ones.

There was a total of sixty streams of an oily, black shadowy substance belonging to the Union and hundreds of smaller beams of energy that had split from Odin's bigger one. Each of them converged in the air and as the parts of the Union once again converged on Odin. This time as they got closer to the King of Asgard, said man's own attack struck the parts of the Union causing numerous explosions to fill the air.

Odin however, had a minute barely to even take a breather as Perrikos was upon him. The first blow Odin had no choice but to take to the body, his armour dented and it was only due to Odin digging the tip of Gungnir into the ground that allowed him to remain where he was.

Perrikos then used this to his advantage and swung his left hand down that Odin smacked to one side. He then went with the momentum swinging Gungnir round and went to deal a deep cut to Perrikos. However, Perrikos managed to grip hold of the spear in order to block this strike only to feel a palm smack into his stomach.

Looking down he saw Odin's hand resting there only for a force of power, unlike anything he had ever felt rush through his entire being.

Cuts appeared all over Perrikos's body as blood burst into the air.

Dropping to his knees, Perrikos coughed out blood and looked up at the King of Asgard who stood there with his spear gripped in both arms and the tip of Gungnir pointing down at him. Without fear Perrikos stared up at Odin and just as Odin was about to bring him down, the ground split apart under their feet.

Stumbling away, it took Odin a few minutes to regain his equilibrium and in that time, the Union landed a crushing blow with one of its large fists. Capable of hardening its body at will, the blow struck Odin with the force of a star and a boom sounded throughout the area as Odin was launched backwards.

His form was nothing but a blur as he cut through the sky before eventually hitting the ground. He bounced off the ground and continued soaring through the air, bouncing a few more times before eventually skidding to a halt.

Groaning, Odin looked to see his armour and parts of his body rotting away and reached out with his power to blast it away. Yet the damage had been done and while his body was healing slowly it was not quick enough and he looked to see the Union thundering towards him, the sky above darkening with thunder clouds.

But the Union was also weakened.

Not only was its presence diminished slightly, but it was also much smaller in height and overall bulk. Which meant that it had been damaged by Odin's attack.

Knowing this, Odin gripped Gungnir and rose to his feet.

-X- Line Break -X-

Heimdall moved backwards slowly, his sword moving through the air as it cut down a number of worshippers in quick succession. Around him the battle raged as more and more bodies dropped to the ground, never to rise again.

A thundering boom caught his attention and he turned to see the figure of his King rushing past him and down the hill that had formed as a result of the battle between Odin and the Dark Gods. The power they were unleashing to them was small but was causing many changes to the surrounding environment.

Over a quarter of the forest had been destroyed from the many blasts of energy they were unleashing, most of the surrounding grass had been rotted away leaving yellow earth. Deep caverns had formed with bits of rock being uprooted and the most obvious of all was the slope that had formed.

Realising that the flow of the battle was no longer favourable and that morale had dropped amongst the Asgardians upon seeing the King being hit with such a powerful blow, Heimdall sounded the horn for a fighting retreat.

It would be a long and difficult task to accomplish, but they needed to regroup if they were to stand a chance of beating back the invaders.