FIC: Fimbul (11/12) -- tho' it's numbered 10 in the title -- & (12/12) -- which is numbered 11

["C S Armitage" <soren_nyrond@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I decided, as I'd written it, I'd download all the rest at once -- if this is too long for the list-bot, I'll do it as two parts over the weekend.
So here is .....


TITLE: Fimbul (11/12, masquerading as Part 10 again, but it's *different*; & 12/12, but disguised as Part 11)
AUTHOR: Soren Nyrond
DISCLAIMER: Several characters in this belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. And none of it belongs to the copyright holders of "Tr*nsf*rm*rs -- Highly Expensive Franchise merchandise in de shops", 'cos *nopne* of these are wobots. By the way, I'm still poor, I'm still harmless, and I mean no harm.  
SUMMARY: Some smoochies: Things continue to get Substantially Worse for Our Heroes, and then we get the Final Battle.
SPOILERS: None -- except for anyone's peace of mind, or for those who insist of getting the entire character-list included in the finale :: This isn't "The Good Old Days".
AUTHOR'S NOTES: All nice feedback welcome -- thanks for what I've already had.  
ARCHIVING: Now I've finished the thing, whoever wants it can probably have it (if there's anybody left reading this). I would appreciate knowing if anyone does, though, so that if I'm asked, I can say where it is.

 

 
FIMBUL  
By Soren Nyrond
Part 10: Changing Form, Nature or Substance
 
 
The tableau held for several seconds. Then three things happened almost atonce.
Rupert Giles called out "Get back - Buffy. You have to stay away."
Angela Morrice, the Child of Jotun, the only Child the Jotun had yet created, waved her hand and, drawing on her killer and creator's power, sealed the doorway with a sheet of ice.
And Willow Rosenberg heard a voice commanding her to seize the axe, a voiceso compelling that she obeyed without thought.
 
Thunder pealed. Outside, into the snow-laden clouds, a bolt of lightning smashed upwards from ground level. Radio, TV, phones, radar and imaging gear - everything went haywire, as a series of strikes leapt between the clouds, as though there were a celestial short-circuit in progress.
 
And the Child of Jotun banished its barrier and fled.
 
"Well, that was unexpected," Giles said. "Mr. Fentleman, isn't it ? Were you looking for me ?"
"Yeah, Jackson," Xander said, trying to sound cool about it all: "And what's with your girl-friend ?"
"Erm - guys - " Buffy's voice sounded urgent. They turned to her . and saw what she had seen.
 
Willow Rosenberg was holding the massive hammer aloft as though it were a nothing. Her hair was down to her waist, loose and waving, and from nowherea crimson cloak had wrapped itself around her shoulders.
"Willow - Willow, love - say something."
"I don't think this is Kansas, Buffy." "Wizard of Oz," Xander said, instantly, but that should be 'Tot -' - oh."
"What's happened ?"
"I don't know, Buffy," Giles said, didactically. "I need time to look up -"
"Mjolnir," Willow said. At least, it was Willow's voice, but with majorly added reverb.
"Okay - in English, Will."
"Thor's hammer, Buffy - Norse legends - I'm holding Thor's hammer. Or," and her voice headed back towards normal a little, "at least, a version of it."
She let the hammer down again. As it touched the floor, a second thunderclap resounded, but far less forceful.
"I think it has a piece of the original bound in to the handle."
"Sympathetic magic," Giles said. "Fascinating. I must -- " He started across the room, but Willow stopped him.
"Giles, stay back. All of you, in fact. I'm the only one it will let handle it - my red hair, I gather."
"Does this make you the Slayer now ?" Buffy asked, not unkindly.
"No," Willow said. "Just means I - "
 
The voice spoke in her head again, and she lifted the hammer once more, andlightning flashed in the room - blinding, powerful, but not harming. Whenit was over all four of them were wearing cloaks. Giles' was dark blue, with a hood. He had one eye covered by a leather patch, a spear in his hand, and two black birds - ravens - perching one on either shoulder.
Xander Harris was attired in leather armour, with a metal reinforced leather skullcap-come-helmet, and a two-bladed axe as long as his arm in his hand. His cloak was grey, and had a design in runes stitched all the way roundits hem.
And Buffy Summers - Buffy was a Valkyrie, in gleaming silver-iron armour, acloak of blood-red and sun-gold round her shoulders, a tall helm on her head, with her blonde hair spilling down almost to the floor, and a sword longer than she was tall, with a blade a full hand's-breadth broad at its base, but weighing about the same as one of Giles' practice weapons.
 
"And now, we have an enemy to defeat," Willow said, inspired by . whatever.
She led the way out of the door, then turned. 
"No need to lock it - no-one will interfere."
The bear was large and black: it was perhaps the size of an elephant. It walked out of the blizzard and lay down across the doorstep. Giles didn't argue, but followed the other three.
 
 
"Agent Finn - "
"I have no idea, Colonel. I've ordered we hold position, but there's no light, and the lightning has knocked out - "
"Agent Finn ? - Agent Finn ? - Do you copy ?"
"Yes, Colonel - I'm here. The wind has stopped - dead. We have minimal visibility - "
"This is Post Four - have you authorised an incursion ?"
"Who is that ?"
"Sorry, sir - Kowalski, sir."
"An incursion, Kowalski ? Explain."
"Three guys and a girl just went past - in fancy dress, and glowing."
"Are you sane ?" the Colonel asked.
"Utterly, sir."
"Where were they headed ?" Agent Finn asked.
"Straight for the old . that is, the new . highschool. Where this all started."
"Colonel - I'm calling a full alert. We may have a situation brewing."
 
 
Willow (it was easiest to think of her as that, even if she were inches taller, and possessed of eyes that glowed with inner fire) and Buffy led the way through the blinding snowstorm. Temperatures were below zero but none of the four really felt discomfort.
When the attack came, it was directed at Xander. Perhaps whatever had decided to attack, at that moment, thought he was the weakest link. But something inside him warned, and as the wolf leapt he gripped the axe and, at thelast moment, cut hard across the blade biting deep. The wolf fell, and his mundane instincts said it would be dead, but the same new awareness warned him that the ice was its friend and would try to . the wolf seemed to leap up even as it crumpled to the ground. This time Xander brought the axe down, double-handed, and the blade cut deep into the shoulders and the beast's head flopped free.
"We must press on," Willow commanded, in a voice that brooked no arguments.
The next attack came from something that looked as if a wolf had been absorbed by whatever malign force turned men into Spawn. Roughly quadruped, with powerful legs and jaws, it sprang from a side alley. Willow had half-turned, but Slayer reflexes beat her and the immense sword slammed into the creature. Slammed into it, lifted it off its feet, and knocked it back the best part of thirty feet. Undaunted the creature rose again. Buffy flexed her muscles (noticing that they seemed even better than ever) and advanced to meet it, using the sword to fend it away. When it sprang again, she swivelled on her hips and smashed the sword into the thing's side, and then, when it would have tried to come in while she was recovering, she demonstrated that Slayers recovered far faster, and delivered forehand and backhand blows which left its forequarters splinters of ice. By then Xander had leapt to her side and his axe dealt with the hindquarters as they stood, half-balanced, as if expecting the front part to reform by magic.
 
"We can expect more," Giles said. "The Jotun will summon every dire spiritit is able in order to try to impede us."
The voice was his, or close enough, but, inside himself, Giles knew that the information, the wisdom, was coming from outside him. One of his gears had always been of losing his sight. This made him particularly aware of any visual ambiguity. Now he was "aware" that, as well as his own sight, he was seeing through the eyes of the two ravens, as they flew, preternaturally steadily, above him.
So, when the next Spawn - a humanoid shape -- emerged, he was able to give warning. There were two of them, in fact - Buffy took one on and reduced it to flinders in about thirty seconds, in a display Giles would have calledfrenzied, if he hadn't been aware that every blow was aimed with cold precision. As to the other, Willow Rosenberg simply pointed the hammer head atit and a giant lightning bolt smashed it, and par-boiled it all at once.
Then Willow raised the hammer high.
"Enough is enough," she said, her voice bell-clear over the storm. Suddenly the sky rained lightning, all of its directed onto the hammer, and then the storm dissipated in an instant, a few stray snowflakes drifting down as though the punctuation in a classic cartoon film.
 
Visibility was suddenly extended for as far as they eye could see - and forall four of them that meant right to the horizon. Whatever they looked at, it seemed that they could see it as clear as noonday without sun-glare orheat-haze.
The scene was arctic and chill: buildings festooned with ice, streets utterly caked, cars, streetlamps, the incidentals to Sunnydale's streets, marooned in the choppy, uneven whiteness.
Willow lowered the hammer and pointed with it.
"That way," she said, with grim finality.
 
 
The Jotun was aware, in its abhuman way, of what had transpired: a force tochallenge its own had been unleashed. When its storm was thrust aside, summarily, it guessed from whence that force had come.
But the Jotun had never been birthed for defeat or submission: others submitted to it - it's purpose was to triumph. It had never been defeated, merely delayed.
So, with cold precision, it summoned all of its slaves to its side. It would try a mass assault, and if that failed, it would ensure that the confrontation took place on its terms, not its foe's. Then it turned its mind andpower to adjusting the battlefield to its advantage.
 
 


FIMBUL  
By Soren Nyrond
Part 11: Cold, Comfort
 
 
"Agent Finn - what's your situation ? All our instruments indicate that the storm has blown out for now, though the temperatures still appear sub-zero."
"That's about it, Colonel. I don't recommend lifting Evacuation Protocol, but I'd like to use Point Baker to bring in three of my men who are injured. Perhaps Lt.Grant has someone he can detail from the reserve team to reinforce us."
"I'll see what I can do, son. What's going on up there ?"
"Nothing that we can see, sir. Just ice, and nothing moving."
 
 
But, on the far side of the icy devastation that was now Sunnydale, Cal., there was movement. The Spawn of Jotun were gathering, filing, silently, mis-shapenly, like understudies for Richard III, through the back doors to Vas Complens, at the behest of their creator. And, with them, went the Jotun's only Child. Angela Morrice was not the girl she had been. Her ambitious nature had finally divined that she had been cheated: that power, influence and kudos were not to be hers. Her clothes had fallen from her until all she wore was a tiny, almost negligible, thong, but she could finds no joyin her body. Her breasts were full and firm, but the firmness was of ice-marble, not of flesh. Her lusts were as powerful, her drives as urgent, but now, she realised, they were attuned not to her but to her master. She followed now, not because she wanted, or felt any kinship with the Spawn, but because the Jotun compelled her. At the end, if it came to that, she knew, in her innermost self, that the Jotun would draw back the power it had set in her as casually as it would consume any other of its creations. It would have repelled her, but Angela Morrice had long passed beyond being able to be repelled by anything other than that which would repel the Jotun. And even then, what it found repulsive - warm, juicy, self-willed, life - Angela could find pleasant to think of.
 
 
There was one more attack before the four reached the warehouse: two more of the Spawn tried to ambush them by leaping from a rooftop. The ravens gave warning, and Buffy slew one, whilst Giles and Xander destroyed the other.Willow watched them, with quiet approval. It was not that she did not want to join in, but instinct told her to husband her power for later.
 
The school looked even more desolated than before: ice-pillars bracketed the door, and the level of the "ground" was at least three feet above the true. Willow paused there.
"We go to do battle," she said simply. "Each of you has already wrought well: none will call you coward were you to say that you would wait outside and guard the rear. My sister and I - " a graceful head movement, supplemented by the tiniest of flourishes of the hammer, made it clear that it was Buffy to whom she referred " - must bear the brunt of the combat from now." She paused, and even Buffy was struck by the majesty with which she was imbued for the moment. "But, if you wish to venture your souls further, we shall not refuse you."
Buffy was proud to have been included so automatically. As to Xander, oncegiven the option, his response was exactly as Buffy would have guessed;
"Show me the evil thingies - just so long as there's giant mochas, chocolate fudge cake and frantic dancing for the survivors."
Giles was a little more measured: "You know that there's a chance we may not be the survivors."
"Look, G-man - do you reckon these . whatever . want coffee, chocolate, anddancing ? They don't, I do - I'd say that all the incentive's on my side."
"Very well." Giles turned to Willow: "I should be honoured to be one of your company, whatever the outcome. Few Watchers - "
"Few Watchers have had the nerve to walk my road," Willow said. Then she hoisted the hammer aloft.
"To battle !" she said, and, crouching slightly, she struck at the ice withMjolnir.
Thunder boomed, and the ice split and splintered crazily. Then, with a negligence bordering on disrespect, Willow levelled the hammer at the school'smain doors, and blew them apart with lightning.
"I always wanted to do that," she said, in something much more like her ownvoice. "Though, of course, with Snyder in the way, too."
 
The next quarter-hour was a dizzying melee. Whatever there was, the Jotun threw it at them, from wolves to something Giles called an ice-falcon, which soared silently, and tore at eyes and hands; from sudden ice-falls (whichranged right up to an entire ice-column eight feet thick, which had smashed through the ceiling, and toppled directly at them, before Willow batted it away, with utter contemptuous ease) to multiple Spawn onslaughts.
Xander found the double-bladed axe seemed almost to know what it was doing before he did, and that his arm simply followed it into the strokes and reinforced the power it's the blows it landed. For her part, the Slayer was simply revelling in the power she could command, her sword feather-light, her senses at the peak of sensitivity, her every strike going exactly where she knew it needed to, her muscles obeying her slightest whim.
As for Rupert Giles, he had at first thought that, once more, he was fated simply to Watch. But as the combat became more intense, he felt the need to intervene and assist actively, and it was then that he found that, as thehammer spewed forth lightning bolts at its bearer's command, so his spear could spit out sun-bolts: balls of intense light which melted anything intocontact with which they came into incandescent motes.
For Willow there was neither time nor inclination to enjoy - she had a purpose and she could not afford to be diverted from it. She swung the hammer when things came close - when they were further away she slung it, and it struck, wreaked its havoc, and returned to her. If the way was blocked, shesimply smashed the obstacle down.
 
It was really only Willow who was aware that the Jotun had bent time, spaceand reality, in its quest for victory. They had passed now from the High School: the building was simply the adjunct between their time and space and the transfinite realm which the frost giants had once inhabited and whichthe Jotun had accessed to serve as their battlefield.
But, while it could alter what was, and gain access to what had been, it lacked the power to create from void.
Each of its creatures that they slew deprived it of a mote of power, and itcould create no more, merely allow those destroyed to reintegrate on its beds of ice and frost, to serve it in the event it won.
But she - or the spirit within her - was determined that none of the Jotun's brood would ever regain their undead life, because the Jotun would itselfbe beaten back, subdued, and destroyed.
 
 
Then the moment came: there were no more minor foes, there was only their enemy itself. Time curdled. For Xander and Giles (and the ravens) there was the duty of watch-guard, to see that none interfered.
For Hammer-Wielder and Slayer-Valkyrie there was the final confrontation. But not exactly yet.
 
Buffy noticed the silence, and turned round. Willow was standing, the hammer hanging from her hand, looking into a pool of creamy-silver light. The Slayer walked over to stand beside her friend.
< Time was Time will be >
The voice was everywhere and nowhere.
< For now, you may prepare yourselves >
 
Willow became aware that, for now, she could release the hammer, and still remain as she was. Gently she slipped it down (to a tiny thunderclap, echoed from far away) and hugged her Valkyrie.
Buffy slipped out of her armour and then helped Willow off with first her cloak and then the breast-plate she wore. Then Willow shrugged her robe offher shoulders and it fell to where it was cinched at her waist. Buffy watched as Willow's body was uncovered and marvelled afresh at the beauty she saw. Willow seemed to glow, softly, but goldenly. They kissed: once and then again with the unbridled passion that comes of knowing you are near to death - yours or someone else's. Their kiss went on, and mounted in intensity and, when they finally broke it, Buffy watched as a soft blush travelleddown Willow's throat and across her breasts, intensifying the golden glow as it went.
She felt her own body respond and shed her light robe. She glanced down and saw that she, too, glowed. She turned back to Willow, to find the wiccanhad already dropped her robe to the floor. Gently they laid themselves down on the discarded robes, and kissed again, and then, softly and reverently, caressed each other, until the passions overwhelmed the both of them andthey cried out in ecstacy.
 
 
For Giles and Xander it was no time before Buffy and Willow, armoured and armed, were ready to step through a misty portal.
"You understand," Willow said, portentously: "You just hold off whatever would come after us. You cannot follow us, and you can do nothing else to aid us."
"We'll be a while, and then we can all go back," Buffy said, more practically.
"And there's nothing - "
"Nothing, Xander."
 
The Jotun was immense -at least forty feet tall. It was seated on a vast throne of ice, watching the one way into its lair. As soon as it saw the two of them, it gestured and sent a column of ice-shards directly at them, atgale speed.
Buffy shielded herself with her sword, but Willow simply raised the hammer and the ice parted before her. Then she hurled a lightning bolt back at the Jotun, but to little visible effect.
Buffy, however, took the opportunity to make ten or twelve feet advance whilst the Jotun was fending the bolt off, and then she shouted to catch the creature's attention, so that Willow could stride forward. And, as Willow advanced, so Buffy saw that she was growing in stature. Ten, twelve, fifteen. she was halfway to the Jotun, and twenty feet tall, and Mjolnir growing in proportion too.
Buffy briefly envied her friend, then remembered something Giles had once said: "With size comes vulnerability."
 
Again Willow wielded Mjolnir to deflect an ice-storm. Her mortal side wondered why she didn't hurl the hammer, let its vent itself against the Jotun.But the other part of her told her, dispassionately, that given the chance the creature would seize Mjolnir and seek to steal its power for its own ends.
So she simply moved in, until finally she was close enough to try a direct swing. The Jotun, of course, raised a hand, and tried to swat the hammer away - in the meeting, both learned their relative strengths, and that they were (as the Fates had intended) roughly of equal might.
That being so, and the Jotun having its imperative to conquer, and Willow Rosenberg being utterly determined that she would do anything to prevent that, the two went at one another with a will. What damage arms of living icecould do (and in this case, the Jotun's touch, it found, did not instantlyfreeze its foe) was equalled by the hammer's blows. What the hammer coulddo, the Jotun could, within minutes, repair through the restorative power of the ice around it. What advantage height gave the Jotun, it lost as Willow grew to equal it.
 
Buffy Summers watched the titanic struggle and decided, from Slayer instinct, that the two were about evenly matched. They were also concentrating oneach other, so it was possible for her, carefully make her way round to the Jotun's hind-side, and then to where, on a human being, the ankle would have been. She could guess that the Jotun would not be utterly insensible to pain, so she put everything she had into the one blow, and drove the sword, point first, in as deep as she might.
 
The Jotun flinched, inasmuch as forty feet of living ice could, and in the instant its focus was broken, Willow drove Mjolnir into the side of its head. The Jotun stumbled, and then recaught its balance. Which was when Buffy the Valkyrie hacked into the same ankle, hooking the sword on the way out. The Jotun fired its ice-shard spray at her, and left itself open to a second head-blow from the hammer. And, as if the Anvil Chorus were playing, Willow caught it again, and then Buffy once more, from below.
The Jotun roared, half in frustration - and left itself open to a dual assault. Both Willow and Buffy gave it their best, and the Jotun suffered. More, for the first time (in this lifetime, at least) it lost a little confidence. These two could hurt it - could perhaps delay the victory for which it felt an urgent need. 
It lashed out - perhaps brute force could succeed where strategy was failing.
 
By luck more than intention, its failing arm caught Willow, and for a moment she staggered. Her shock reached Buffy, and her Slayer blood boiled.
"No-one hurts my Willow !" she shouted, and redoubled her attack, varying it now between monolithic ankles.
The Jotun found itself in two minds - the last time it had attacked this gnat at its feet, it had been hurt. And yet the Hammer-Wielder appeared (forthe moment) neutralised .
While it thought, Buffy got in two more blows, and Willow recovered her inner strength. When the Jotun turned its head downwards, it received a mighty hammer-blow to its temple. When it looked up, the Valkyrie-sword tore a chunk from its calf.
Confused (this was not the triumph it had expected), the Jotun roared and took a step away from the tiny human at its feet. Then, an idea occurred toits battle-fevered mind, and it reached down.
Buffy saw the 'hand' from the corner of her eye, as she tried to move roundto get a clear shot at a leg again. She tried to dodge but too late - thegreat ice-paw closed round her. Cold smote at her every cell - she felt as though heat - of any sort - had ceased to exist. Surely this wasn't how . she was . fated . Coherent thought began to fragment, and her consciousness shrank simply to the iota of Self that was the heart of her.
 
But Willow had seen her chance - full force she flung Mjolnir, straight at the ice throne. A thunderous crash heralded its destruction. The Jotun turned, ponderously, and, as Mjolnir settled back into her palm, Willow crouched and brought the hammer down hard onto the pack-ice of the floor. Againthe crash of thunder pealed out - and the floor crazed and shattered across its width.
< I have your - >
The hammer flew again, catching the Jotun's 'arm' just above the 'wrist'. The ice shattered and the Buffy-Valkyrie fell to the ground. Willow reached out her hand, palm-first, and a wash of heat encased her friend and lover, restoring her in an instant.
 
The Jotun thought it had seen its chance, however, and charged. Willow side-stepped the onrush and called out "Mjolnir !! To me !!"
With even more than preternatural speed, the hammer flew to her and settledinto her grasp. 
The Jotun poised itself, to attack again - and at that moment Buffy Summers, furious at being Jotun-handled, smashed one, two, three blows to its legs.  
The distraction left the Jotun momentarily caught between priorities - seeing her chance, Willow whirled the hammer, and at the instant the Jotun glanced back down at Buffy, she hurled it with the force, not only of her muscles, but also of her indomitable spirit.
The hammer flew true, imnpacting square on the Jotun's chest. Thunder, lightning, light, fire, raw power - all combined into a pin-point strike. Thewhole world turned white.
 
 
And when it was over, Buffy and Willow stood, alone, together, in the same creamy-silver light as they had seen before.
< You have vanquished your foe All is now well >
"Can we go back now ?"
< You can You will return to being as you were: Champions of Light But you will remember >
There were more questions they would have asked, but the light faded, and they were facing Xander and Giles.
"Well," Giles said: "I take it that . "
"It's done," Buffy said.
Already the fantasy was fading: their normal everyday clothes were replacing their costumes - spear, sword and axe were fading into mist, the ravens taking wing for . wherever supernatural ravens existed between manifestations: Giles would know, Buffy decided.
The hammer, she somehow sensed, was just a hammer again.
 
Then she saw the crumpled body.
"I . I had to stop her," Xander said.
"We have to go home," Giles said quickly. "Come along - people will be coming to see what has happened: I fear the explanations we offered would not suffice."
He helped Xander through the rapidly thawing corridors of Sunnydale High, just as Buffy helped Willow, leaving Angela Morrice there, in the middle of the gymnasium.
 
"I'm cold," Willow said.
"We'll go back to the dorm, and you can cuddle up to me," Buffy replied. She, too, felt drained. But love, she was sure, would conquer all.