Fire to the Bone [IC]

[Azuth65]

Wisp didn't need to be told twice. She poofed forward, delivering in a span of seconds a mess of punches and kicks to the ritualist's assistants. Back and forth she bounced, delivering a haymaker to the one before vanishing to deliver a series of quick jabs to the second's kidneys only to reappear in mid-air before the second one drop kicking in squarely in the chest. Before she'd dropped to the ground she'd poofed again and the sound of her boots connecting to the second's jaw as she launched upwards. When she was done she returned to her previous position, with only a slight sign of exertion showing in her heavy breathing. "Your turn," she panted.

[Geez3r]

"You got it." replied Atlas. Eager to put an end to this battle, Atlas went totally on the offensive, hoping to end this fight in one or two solid blows. He collapsed his form into a ball before releasing it again in a tidal wave of motion. He lashed out at the most weakened Einherjar, using practically his whole body to deliver a blow akin to a car crash against the battered Einherjar, haoping to find a weak point, by hitting every point simultaneously. His body didn't stop there, it kept flowing around him like a raging rapid, either to ensnare him to keep his momentum to assault the other Einherjar.

[trollthumper]

The Einherjar suffered the blow well, but wasn't able to fend off Atlas's flowing assault; he fell to the floor, trapped in the crimson hero's corpus. "I'll say this for the Nazis," Cannonade said, "they know how to make tough bastards." He delivered a solid blow to the abdomen of the other risen soldier, sending him tumbling back. "'Course, the key word there is 'bastards.' Stack crap high enough and you might just reach the sun, but it's still crap."

[Azuth65]

Wisp turned to the last remaining member of the ritualist's retinue. She hauled back and dealt a solid blow right to the man's face, doing her best to avoid striking Atlas as she did. Which when she pulled her hand back, her turned his head and smirked at her. Looking over her shoulder at Cannonade, her crimson on ebony eyes flashed as she grumbled, "Yeah. Punks are a little tougher than I'd have thought. Stupid Nazis..."

[Quinn]

Push's movement was short, abrupt, and immensely satisfying. With a quick twist of his waist, he drove the buisness end of his hammer into one of the dazed einherjar, sending it spiraling across the room to place yet another sizeable dent in the steel wall. The kineticist then noted with some satisfaction the subsequent application of gravity on the unconscious Nazi zombie, as it's rather sizeable bulk descended from the dent towards the supine figure of the ritualist. The cause and effect chain of Newton's law did not fail to bring about the hoped-for result.

Leaning on the haft of his hammer, Push then turned to look at the gelatinous Atlas, idly speaking to his comrades.

"Eh, hit them hard enough, they still fall down. What I don't get is why they think emulating a regime that got completely flattened is a good idea."

[Geez3r]

"Those that do not learn from their history are doomed to repeat it." answered Atlas philosophically. He began the process of engulfing this Einherjar as he had the last one before crushing it in on itself. "This is the last of them right?" he asked to the room as a whole, as a weird hyper extended neck and head protruded from the taffy-like Atlas, scoping out the room as if it were a periscope. "We made enough noise to attract back-up if they had any."

[Azuth65]

"I hope so," Wisp grumbled, her ruby on ebony eyes flashing around the room, "These guys give me the creeps."

As she began pulling wires and cords to use as improvised restraints she asked, trying to lighten the mood, "I wasn't paying attention, who has the highest KO and is stuck with the post-fight purchasing snacks now?" She piled the Nazis in a corner, tied to one another after searching them for any weapons. "Also, anyone want to run outside, see if the emergency services the woman called brought cops with them?"

[Quinn]

Push returned to his PDA, copying what data he could fit onto the handheld device and shoving it back into the messenger bag. Taking a look at the computers and the building, he resisted the urge to simply start hurling blasts; while it'd be immensely satisfying to drop the whole place into a pile of rubble, the fact that there might be evidence and his compatriots were still inside put paid to that idea. Instead, he reslung his hammer and walked over to the unconscious Nazis, kneeling down to take a look at the ritualist. The faces from the camera recording were still fairly vivid in his memories, and he was curious about something. Still, he reflected, nobody had said anything about dropping the building into it's own foundation after a full-scale evacuation...

"Oi, 'nade; we need this place standing when we're done with it?"

[trollthumper]

"Eh, probably not," Cannonade said. "But I think I'd rather leave that in the hands of AEGIS. This kinda thing seems up their alley. Creepy World War II holdouts, weird science, etc. I think I've still got a contact after that whole incident with Doc Otaku; I'll see if I can get them down here."

He turned to head out the door to the main building, only to find the path blocked by a slender man with Teutonic features in a white lab coat. "Goddamnit," he said, entering a fighter's stance, "I thought I just got done wiping the floor with your boss."

"Oh, him?" The scientist gestured towards the ritualist, sprawled out on the floor. "As if he could control me. I'm my own, you see. And I must thank you for ruining his dream. I would have finished my work here, but... somehow, seeing a bunch of -- how would he call it? - 'American scum' perform the finishing touches makes it that much sweeter."

[Geez3r]

"Does no one talk normal anymore?" said Atlas out of frustration, as he collapsed his form into a vaguely humanoid shape again. "I just need to know three things from you." started Atlas looking at the coy scientist. "I need to know who you are, what you're doing here, and why. If you're being a good guy, I don't mean to snap at you, but it's been a rough day. But I'm going off the assumption that you're a little too calm for the situation, so do everyone a favor and hit us with an explanation." finished Atlas a little sterner than he had intended. Maybe he was just being paranoid, but he smelled trap.

[Quinn]

Push took one look at the fellow standing in the doorway, then let the buisness end of his hammer hit the ground hard enough for the floor itself to crack. Then he walked forward. All five foot something of him. Not particularly impressive, given his height, but the fact that his eyes turned into solid masses of energy, his hammer started glowing again, and he looked like he was about to put the newcomer several feet through a steel wall might have added some gravitas to him. That, and his speech was really nowhere near as nice as Atlas's.

"Okay. Y'know, I can handle a lot. Radioactive Nazi zombies, that's not near the weirdest crap I've ever seen. Summoned einherjar being used as super soldiers, again, I can handle that. But a smiling labcoated guy standing at the entrance to a lab filled with really thoroughly nasty experiments? That speaks volumes in all kinds of bad ways. So, you've got about thirty seconds to explain exactly why you did that before I use you as a pinata, mate. And that explanation better be magnificent. We clear?"

[Azuth65]

Wisp's knuckles cracked as she moved up to stand next to Push. She didn't have the kind of intimidation factor his glowing eyes and giant hammer did but she didn't want to let him stand unaided. She narrowed her unnaturally colored eyes as she looked at the lab-coated stranger and with her Russian accent thicker than she usually allows it to get began, "When he's done, I take pieces, put in creepy jar," she hooked a thumb at a tank where an almost fully grown man floated, "Then set building on fire on way out door."

[trollthumper]

"Perhaps I should abandon this guise, then," he said. "It helped me pass along those paragons of 'racial purity,' but now..." The man's features blurred and faded away, going from a blond, athletic scientist to a black-haired man in robes with a lean and hungry look. "...it's as weak as tissue paper."

"That still doesn't answer who the hell you are --"

"I am Loki," he said. "And there are so many names that go after that. You probably don't want to hear them. I am the bastard child of Asgard, dejected of Odin and sower of chaos." He walked around the trashed center of the lab, his eyes on the ritualist and his einherjar at all times. "These men did an injustice to my brother, Thor. A lesser man would have stabbed them to sleep in their beds, but I learned that this one --" He gestured to the ritualist. "--had a mad dream that he nurtured for well near seven decades now. Once he lay on the threshold of achieving it... well, how could I not come in and crush it all?"

"Thor's your brother, huh?" Cannonade said. "Huh. Thought you said you weren't too fond of your family, and vice versa."

"Oh, I'm not," said Loki. "But I, and I alone, should have the right to harrow them."

[

[Quinn]

Push's eyebrows raised. Both of them. To Cannonade, who had run into the kineticist more than once, that was about tanamount to the scarfed hero's jaw dropping and hitting the floor. He spoke rather dryly, leaning on the hammer instead of bringing it up and onto the trickster god's head.

"...Well, I did ask that it'd be magnificent. Me and my biiiiig mouth."

He massaged the point between his eyes and above his nose with two fingers, marshalling his thoughts. For all that he knew squat about the metaphysical world (besides how big and ugly things would occasionally pop out of portals and he had to punt them back through; and/or various and sundry ways of beating in the...heads? Tentacles? Whatevers, of eldrich abominations), he was clued into a few essentials. Up to and including a certain agreement vis-a-vis the gods. The fact that the god had come in and flattened the lab was one thing, but...Push's eyes opened, and he fixed them on the trickster god. Answers. He needed them. And he was going to get them. He spoke slowly and carefully, picking each word, racking his brains for everything he could recall.

"Meh. Thanks. Could have been a royal pain in the neck for the city. One question, tho'. You being here, that implies someone brought you out, right? Unless you broke a certain binding agreement, and since reality's still in one piece, I'd say you didn't. So...who rung you up, Loki Laufeyson? Who called you, the Lie-Smith, the Bringer of Ragnarok, lover of Svaðilfari, father of Hel, Fenris, and Jormungandr? I'm curious."

[trollthumper]

"A man in Oslo," said Loki. "I don't remember his name, but he asked me for glibness of tongue in an upcoming board meeting. The thing is... he was a bit lax about how long he required my services."

"So you're still on contract," said Cannonade. "Technically."

"Technically, yes. Technically, I could push that limit until I am dismissed, or until Freya and those damn cats of hers come to drag me back across Bifrost. But as my... employer found no need to terminate my services, I thought I would wander a bit. And who should I find but this old fiend, who was so instrumental in harrowing my... 'poor' brother, ready to indulge in another mad dream. It was just so perfect."

"Well... can't object to a guy giving Nazis theirs. How'd you screw with the bodies?"

"They were using a type of nanotechnology to rebuild the corpses of SS members who'd died believing they would go to Valhalla. This technology, though efficient, had a small design flaw - it absorbed radiation and amplified it, creating low-grade EMPs that would make the programming go haywire if there was no overriding influence. Like, say, a human soul." The air around Loki's fingers bent a little, and Cannonade felt like he was standing in front of an industrial microwave. "The mortal skalds said I was a bearer of fire. It is true. And among its many forms, I bear the invisible flame, the one that burns men from inside to out."