Valkyrie Chronicles 4 & 5 Bundle

by Erik Schubach

  He advanced and swung at me I ducked and bobbed and came back up an jabbed his face with my left twice. It was sluggish as I struck through the photon shield protecting his head, but my lattice absorbed it each time. He swung again and I ducked, bobbed and weaved and jabbed his face twice again with my left. I jumped as he kicked at me and he connected with the rock below me. Shrapnel went everywhere, some made it through my lattice into my leg. He looked at my left hand waiting for the next strike, raising his right hand slightly to protect his face. This was my opening. I jabbed once with my left which he blocked easily and I let loose with a hay-maker right hook.

  The Jotunn staggered back a step and raised an armored hand to his face then pulled it back to see the blue liquid covering it. I had broken his nose and blood was flowing freely. There was a roar at the gates as the assembled masses cheered. He looked at his own blood in disbelief and I pressed my advantage. I struck out with a fury of blows all aimed at his head. He started blocking with both hands, forgetting to attack, himself.

  I smiled to myself at his two raised arms and ducked slightly and came up from below with a pile driving uppercut under his guard. He staggered back two steps. There was another roar from the gates.

  He bellowed and charged me. I tried to dive to the side, but he caught my leg and I felt bone crushing as he tightened his grip. I bit my tongue to stop from screaming in agony as he threw me forcefully fifteen feet into a granite rock face. I tried to stand, but my left leg was shot. So I hopped to my feet, swaying.

  He came at me and my Verr showed me this was his piledriver attack. I just stood as he darted forward with both arms raised. I took that moment to strike with all my might with the power of Thor in one hand and an Odin Spear in the other at the crack in his armor at his waist. Thor's power weakened the crack and the Odin Spear pierced the unholy armor and sank into his gut!

  He staggered back howling in pain and fell to his knees. I hobbled over to him and we were again eye to eye and I grabbed his hair and repeatedly struck his face with my other fist. To the roaring and cheering of the warriors at the gate. I was so very tired. I cocked my fist for the killing blow. My own confidence of the moment proved to be my undoing as his arms suddenly wrapped around me. I heard Arina screaming at the gates as he stood and crushed me.

  I heard some ribs snap then he dropped me to the ground, leaving me gasping and wheezing in a heap. I could barely see through all the blood in my eyes. I wheezed, as my broken ribs pushed against my lungs. I was ready to join Kara now. Against all odds, I had held the line, allowing everyone to make it back to the safety of Valhalla.

  I told my girls I loved them over our nanite link as I closed my eyes to accept my fate as Ymir's fist swung down for the killing blow.

  My eyes snapped open as there was a tremendous crack, followed by a guttural, beastly battle cry that originated in the seventh ring of hell. I recognized that cry! KARA!

  There in front of me was a burned and blackened Valkyrie. Her flesh was twisted and bubbled and she had a metallic sheen in areas where the flesh was burned completely away. Her eyes were gone, but I swear the pits were burning with demonic fire, and the black cloak of her secondary aura wrapped around her like the harbinger of death himself.

  She was in her half crouched striking stance with her fist outstretched against Ymir's, giant, armor-clad fist. His armor was cracked and broken where their fists met. Kara had somehow stopped his strike and broke through that impenetrable armor with her own!

  But that was secondary to all my thoughts as but one was screaming at the forefront of my brain as tears rolled down my cheeks. "Kara was alive!"

  The voice that came from her, matched her new appearance, she truly had become the Demon of Valhalla that the Ragnarok always spoke of. That was the only way to describe it, she truly looked like a creature from hell. But she was beautiful, she was Kara the Wild One. My mate, my love, and she was alive! She croaked in something resembling a voice, “Move behind the line Kate.”

  I dragged myself to the line, I could feel my ribs popping back into place and my leg starting to heal as my Verr redoubled their own efforts to heal me.

  Ymir swung his other fist down at Kara and her other fist traveled faster than I could follow. There was a cracking and splintering sound as yet again she stopped his other fist and shattered that armor. Arina and Inatra, both with happy tears in their eyes that matched mine, helped me stand at the line. It was deathly silent in the courtyard as everyone looked on, unbelieving as Kara the Wild One, First Valkyrie of Valhalla, Demon of the Asgard stood impossibly fist to fist against Ymir, leader of the Frost Giants.

  Chapter 15 – From Beyond the Grave

  There was a bright light and extreme agony that interrupted my nothingness. I didn't understand. Had I not passed to the ages? Was I Kara, the Wild One not worthy of rebirth on the Meadows of Tranquility? The nothingness surrounded me, cradled me like a baby then there was that bright light and extreme agony again before the blessed nothingness held me again. If I was aware of the nothingness did this mean I still lived?

  I shocked my heart again. Wait, was I Verr? I was getting confused when I suddenly sat up screaming in pain and gasping for air I never thought I'd feel in my lungs again. It was a searing pain in my lungs. Almost every alveoli had burst so I started repairs.

  I was confused, was I Kara or Verr? It didn't seem to matter right now as I was simply a creature of pain. Every movement was agony every breath torture. I didn't have enough material to fix it all. I concentrated on my lungs for now. I tried to look around, but all there was was darkness. Was it night time? I raised my arm and touched my face, there wasn't much skin nor flesh left, my eyes were empty sockets. I remembered the searing pain as I started burning up during reentry, I had probably lost them then.

  My sight flickered then I was giving myself all the data and visual overlays I needed to approximate sight. All the data flowing into me was amazing, it was like all my senses were expanded. I looked around... where was I? Everything around me seemed to be a sparking, smoking mess. I was in a wind rider? I saw the writ of valor on the wall by the gaping hole in the hull. Odin's beard! This was Pegasus! Or what was left of her!

  That's when I realized something was weighing down my legs, I could barely feel the sensation through the searing pain. I looked down. Vital sign monitors sprang up as I looked at Intark in his EVA suit!

  He was unconscious and slowly suffocating, his suit was out of oxygen. I tried to remove his helmet, but my fingers were not cooperating, I needed to work on their repair next. So I made a fist and punched the faceplate of his helmet and the plasti-glass broke. He started breathing normally, his vitals were quickly returning to nominal. He would live.

  I pushed him off of me and looked around. The hull was starting to dissolve into carbon and proteins. Like all Asgard tech, the built in tampering circuitry was starting to break Pegasus down into her base components.

  Instinctively I started clawing at the floor near the cockpit, I don't know what I was doing until I extended nano-lattice blades and started cutting into the floor. I saw what I needed and grabbed it and yanked it out before the area started to dissolve. I stood shakily and grabbed the handle on Intark's suit and threw him out the opening. Then I hesitated and grabbed a backpack from the equipment locker and stuffed some ration packs, a jumpsuit, and a wind spider into it.

  I was about to leave when the Valkyrie portion of my strange consciousness punched the wall, breaking the plasti-glass covering the writ of valor and taking the paper with me. I staggered and tripped on the uneven ground and I fell into a pit beside the wind rider. I landed on a large chunk of something that was still hot. I didn't really feel the heat through my world of pain, but I could see the thermal signature.

  I sat back and started digging in the backpack and opened the ration packs. I was almost inhaling the food and water in them. I decimated all three ration packs. Yes, biologicals, I can use these. I started healing all my major organs with th
e fuel, I reawakened the portion of my brain I had been protecting and stealing materials from my body to create oxygen for it.

  Then I screamed with the unimaginable pain of my body as my full conciseness came flooding back in. I knew I was Kara now. Everything about me krothing hurt! I could hear the echo of the Verr me, saying I needed material to protect my skin until I could get more biologicals.

  What could I do? I looked around again. This was a fragment of that Frost Giant armored hull that made this crater. I remembered on Earth when my nanites did not have enough material to stem my blood loss they used the volcanic dirt I was laying in to stop the bleeding. I looked at my twisted and bubbled hands and then reached out and laid them on the armor shard.

  My Verr streamed out of my body and analyzed then started dissolving the armor at a molecular level as they flowed back into me. Where flesh was missing, across my body, the gaps started filling in with a silvery sheen as my nanites did what they could to get me functional again.

  I was feeling much stronger than normal just minutes later and a lot of the pain was taken away, I still hurt, but it wasn't that debilitating agony anymore. I pulled the jumpsuit out of the backpack and pulled it over my naked form, strapped the wind spider and backpack on my back and dragged myself out of the pit.

  I checked on Intark, my fingers had gained their dexterity back and I removed his helmet and my Verr showed me his vitals. He had a nasty bruise on the back of his head, and a hairline fracture, but he was ok.

  I was looking sadly over at the pile of ash that was once my friend, Pegasus. She had sacrificed herself to somehow retrieve me from my burning death as I re-entered Folkvangr's atmosphere. She was one of the bravest and most selfless friends I have ever had.

  I was looking at the jungle and I started salivating. I didn't understand until I went up to a tree and laid my hand on it and the tree seemed to be dissolving under my touch. Then I understood, my Verr needed fuel to repair me. They wanted biologicals. It struck me why I was salivating, they were hungry.

  I let them eat their fill as I felt stronger and stronger as they repaired all they could in this short time. I calculated, or did they calculate that it would take weeks this time to repair me fully. I stopped... time? What time was it? How long had I been... dead? A chronograph popped up in my vision. Two hours.

  I saw some grape-like fruit on a bushy plant. My Verr showed me they were safe to eat and I grabbed a large bunch and just started munching them as I figured out what to do next. I went to hit my coms when I realized that even if I hadn't thrown it down in the corridor of the Shamir, but it would have been destroyed anyway as I became a meteor in the sky.

  I concentrated on my nanite link, but wasn't able to contact nor feel Kate, a message scrolled through my artificial vision. “No power must repair Fire Soul first.” Then I remembered something. I reached back and unclipped the wind spider from my back. I smiled, that must be why the Verr had grabbed this.

  I could carry an Asgard with me, but Intark was just too big and heavy for the wind spider to carry us both. I'd have to send healers back to retrieve him. I activated the unit and spider-like legs sprouted from it as a control column unfolded from the now hovering platform. I stepped onto the platform. Without boots to lock into it, this would be tricky.

  I wondered where Valhalla was momentarily and my Verr displayed a location and distance for me. It wasn't far at all, Pegasus must have tried to get us back home. Just twenty five miles. I grabbed the control column and rose above the jungle canopy, making sure my Verr had marked the location and then sped off toward the citadel.

  I looked to the sky to see debris raining down like meteors through the sky. If it weren’t for speeds and trajectories being displayed by each one, I would have almost forgotten I didn't actually see it. I noticed that the enhanced senses I felt as Verr me, had faded to the vague awareness when my mind reasserted itself.

  I kept eating those krothing grape things as I flew. I noticed the pain was at a manageable level now, I must be healing more. My vitals popped up in my vision. I almost chuckled, my nanites kept taking my idle thoughts as instructions and fed me the information. I looked, and my vital organs were operational, at fifty three percent efficiency and slowly climbing. I knew that once they were at one hundred percent then my Verr would start working on the tissue damage and lastly my skin.

  I was swooping up the mountain range when I saw Valhalla, a sight I never thought to see again. But then my blood froze when I saw the road to the main gates strewn with thousands of bodies and battle suits. There were corpses of a few Frost Giants in the mix. But what held my attention was that there, by the gates, standing on a boulder was the person who held my heart.

  Kate stood alone against Ymir! She was in a boxing stance that looked so out of place when she generally fought in a fluid mix of martial arts styles. It always looked like dancing to me. But I remember her telling me she was the boxing champion of her department before she started taking mixed martial arts.

  There she was, dodging blows and jabbing, then in a great combination she struck him with amazing force. He staggered. I increased my speed to maximum.

  I watched them fight and then she was able to pierce his armor with an Odin Spear! I was bursting with pride, but it was short lived as he grabbed her and captured her in a crushing embrace. Then he dropped her to the ground. An overlay with her vitals came up in front of me, she was alive.

  Ymir drew his fist back for the killing blow. Time slowed down as I leapt off the wind spider and tumbled across the ground, my nano-lattice flaring, and I came up in my three point stance as I let loose my battle cry and swung at his incoming fist. I readjusted mid strike as my Verr fed me optimal strike vectors.

  Our fists collided, but this time it was not merely flesh against armor. This time I was a creature of pain and fury which was half composed of that same armor, reinforced by nano-lattice. There was a thunderous crack as his armor splintered where our fists connected.

  I had arrived in time. I needed Kate to be ok, she was the only one who could accept the beast that I was. The blunt instrument of the Asgard, who had but one purpose. It was what I did, I was the bringer of violence. I said in a voice that still did not sound Asgard yet, “Move behind the line Kate.”

  My intense desire to protect her sparked something in me. I could suddenly... feel her again, across the nanite link. My Verr had enough power to restore it now. I guarded my mind though, as I did not want her to feel the instrument of fury I had become.

  Ymir swung his other fist down at me, I growled and struck up at it, adjusting my strike in mid flight. There was another thunderous crack as his armored gauntlet splintered like the other one.

  There we stood with our fits connected as he tried to bear down on me. I let fly my war cry again and slowly forced myself up, pushing his fists back. I saw some of my Verr flowing from where our fists connected. They seeped into his armor, then there was the sound of his systems powering down as the brave Verr severed the power couplers to his power pack, sacrificing themselves. It was as Loki said, the Verr already knew what to do.

  Now without his kinetic mirroring circuitry, let us see how this krothing Jotunn fares against the might of the Valkyrie. He backed up and dropped into a fighting stance. I simply pressed the attack in my own brute force style. He was able to block my first two strikes, but the second was a diversion as I leapt almost eight feet into the air and spun. My heel connected with his jaw and that sent him falling backward onto his back.

  There was a thunderous roar then Ragnarok voices chanting Demon coming from the citadel. Moments later voices from all the races by the gates joined in. I hissed as Inatra would. Yes, that is what I was at that moment, the Demon!

  Ymir rolled out of the way of an elbow strike as I had leaped up to fall beside him. The plasticrete roadway cracked when my elbow missed him, but struck it instead. He made it to his feet, but I was already spinning myself to my feet as well, pressing my attack.

&n
bsp; In rapid succession, I struck his chest plate in a fury of blows, splintering the armor then reaching in and tearing a huge slab of it away from his chest. There were roars and now thousands of battle cries, they were... they were all using my battle cry?

  He backhanded me, I felt a rib crack, but not break, and I struck at his hand with the most powerful Odin's Spear I had ever wielded, that increased energy flow from Valhalla was still active. A moment later his hand was laying on the ground in its armored gauntlet.

  He bellowed in pain and swung again. I ducked under his other arm and struck his armpit. His armor there shattered under my assault. I grabbed his arm and yanked with all my might and tore the armor from his arm.

  He ineffectually struck me in the face and I punched his arm, I heard a satisfying snap. Then I cupped my hand and slammed my fingers into the flesh of his bloodied chest, causing him to almost double over.

  It must have been a strange sight, this giant man bent over a tiny opponent like that. But my pseudo vision could now look directly into his eyes as he stared into my black pits.

  I hissed out, “Know this before I send you to your maker Frost Giant. This galaxy is under Asgard protection and we will defend it! Know that I am Kara, Demon of Vengeance for the Ragnarok, Right Hand of Kenatar. Kara the Wild One... and I will be your death! I am VALKYRIE!” I cut loose with the power of Thor into his chest, reducing his organs to ash.

  I just let him drop where he stood and turned toward the citadel and started stumbling toward it. I was so very tired. The cheering was deafening as Kate, Mist, Inatra, Arina, and Talia all came running to my side to help me through the gates. I was awash with the feelings of love, amazement, and relief flooding in from my family. They seemed afraid to touch me, but I could feel their need.