asgardmeridiem | EVENT LOG: A FRIEND IN NEED ( ALFHEIM )

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EVENT LOG: A FRIEND IN NEED ( ALFHEIM )

Who: Everyone going to Alfheim
What: The mingle log for A Friend In Need
When: Days 387-390 ( Jan. 12-19 )
Where: Asgard, Alfheim, and the train ride inbetween
Rating: PG-13. Anything higher than that should be taken to a private log, please!

Day 387 ( Jan. 12/13 ): Before boarding the train around dawn, the leaders of the separate groups should run checks on everyone that's signed up. Natives will help dish out a simple weapon to those without their own that want one, medical supplies to the healers and a simple kit for everyone else, and a simple mask with strict instructions to put them on as soon as the kingdom is within sight. After everyone is geared up and boarded, Odin's spies will set out on horseback first, masks already in place, to clear the path ahead. This gives you a five hour train ride to go over strategies and coordinate with your fellow Travellers and the Asgard natives that have joined the ranks.

As the train crosses the halfway mark between Asgard and Alfheim, the dark black clouds of smoke and ash will sprawl across the horizon and thicken the air, prompting early placement of the gas masks as a precautionary measure. It's a short trip from there, and once the train has stopped, it's time to get to work. The homes and buildings of Alfheim will be in varying states of disarray and ruin, some still burning as the inhabitants and neighbours struggle to douse the flames. Others will be smouldering, successfully saved or otherwise left to burn itself out in the days since the initial attack. There will still be Fire Giants sparsely wreaking havoc amongst the living quarters, but the vast majority of the fighting will have been drawn into the treeline by the Elves to give room for relief efforts and any evacuation attempts. Homes and larger buildings still largely intact will have been turned into temporary hospital rooms or safe houses for the young and incapable of fighting, with the injured laid out anywhere there is room; the dead will be wrapped in sodden sheets in the alleys between buildings until they can be properly buried - if ever they should find the opportunity.

This leaves the Travellers to split up and jump head first into their tasks. The Elves will be pleasantly surprised and immensely grateful for the arrival of aid, but they will not spare much time to gratitude when the battle wages and every second counts. Those fighting will immediately accept the Travellers into their defence, and from there, they will begin to push back against the Giants' forces. At this point, it will be largely defensive combat, an attempt to keep the Giants from moving further into the kingdom and setting more to flames. Surt himself will be present in this, and a vast majority of those that try to stand against him will be met with a heavy hand. Move carefully, Travellers, for there is still fight left in these desperate Giants.
Day 388/389 ( Jan. 14-17 ): By early morning, just as the Sun is beginning to rise, the Travellers will receive some support from their patron deities back in Asgard. For the next two days, they will have their House Powers to give them that extra edge on the battlefield. Another surprise will arrive as well, as the trees themselves seem to move through the battlefield to push back the Giants. The Treepeople will have arrived, many of whom direct their efforts towards the support group to help control the flames while others exact their grief and anger on the enemy forces that still linger around. These beings are the oldest in Yggdrasil, second only to the immortals, and strongly resemble their respective forests, but they are strong and firmly rooted in the Mother's survival.

They will fight alongside the Travellers until they are cut down or the battle is won, which it seems it will be when the flames begin to significantly dwindle nearing sunrise on Day 389. From that point onward, those fighting for Alfheim will rise to the offence and the Giants will begin to fall back as their numbers lessen and their advantage wanes. They will begin fleeing the kingdom, leaving Surt with only his loyalists at his side - and against the might of the Travellers and the Elves emboldened by their allies' support, they few will not be enough to claim the entire kingdom.
Day 390 ( Jan. 18-19 ): The Travellers' House Powers will fade before sunrise, but between the combined strengths of them, the Elves, and the Treepeople, they will still quickly overpower Surt's remaining forces and send them scurrying back to their ruined kingdom of Muspellheim. Surt will leave weary and more furious than ever at his failure, but he knows too that to stand alone would be his downfall. The battle is won, but the damage has been great and there is little time for celebration. The Travellers will be given the most sincere gratitude from the people of Alfheim, and sent back home with packs of food and supplies to patch themselves up before they arrive back in Asgard as the loyal and true allies to Yggdrasil and her children.

[ OOC NOTES: This is the mingle log for the A Friend In Need plot event! Team sign-ups are over here and it is never too late to join, thought the leadership positions have already been chosen. To plot out a thread with Surt, please comment here. Let us know if you have any questions or concerns! ]

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Stiles had been all but useless on the first day, consigned to running around like an errand boy and delivering this and that and oh hey, some of that too, but boy, was he in his element on the second and third.

Not that he was looking out for the sour-faced grump of an ~~asshole~~ teacher, but he did keep noticing the flashes of black that were those stupid robes. You'd think that a professor of all people would learn to fight in something practical. Like armor. See? He was wearing some, even if he wasn't fighting. He'd died twice in Asgard and he wasn't intending to pull a hat trick (even if technically he had if he counted the one from home, but shut up, Severus).

Snape isn't the only one that loses himself in the repetitive motions of his work. Stiles has been bustling around, extinguishing what flames he could, though if an opportunity came to burn through a branch hovering over a giant head or blast something into their way, he'd take it. He was staying out of the battle, conserving most of his energy to saving what he could of Alfheim from the flames.

Flames that were easier to see at night, so he'd taken a small nap in the early afternoon, gulped down some ashy tasting water and crammed something in his mouth to eat, then headed off when the sun set to find the blazes to putter out.

If it wasn't huge and lumbering, he wasn't paying much attention to it, so it was likely that he'd come close to a certain greasy git's sneaky hiding location as he went to go put something out.

{ooc: Permission to use body control on him for the next tag (but be gentle, Sevvy, it's his first time)}

Severus is crouching behind a low wall, obscured by a thicket of trees. He's breathing hard; he's been fighting hard, fast, and he's lying in wait now to give himself a moment to regroup himself.

He's on edge, though. Very on edge. As he wipes sweat away from his forehead with a shaky hand, he sags against the wall - and sits upright quickly when he hears scuffling and stamping very close by.

Grabbing his sword, which he'd set down beside him in the grass, and creeping forward while still crouched down, he catches a glimpse of something moving about.

He's not taking any chances. He's too tired to take any chances. Focusing his mind on whoever or whatever that is, he takes hold of their body through means of his power, gripping them in a vice, and forces their knees to buckle hard and their back to slam down on the ground.

One minute, he's strolling along, happy as you please. (Okay, not so much happy but at least in control of his own facilities) The next, he was lying flat on his back, head suddenly sore from where it had hit the ground. "What the flying f--"

He felt like he'd been hit, but he couldn't see anything around him. So, bright idea? Create a giant ball of fire ten feet above his head and flatten it out, make it spread into a ring until he could see whatever had attacked him.

Severus definitely doesn't expect the fireball. He manages, by only a hair's width, to drop to the ground as the fireball's heat flattens and spreads out like a fierce shockwave. A blast of scorching heat rides over the top of him, setting the trees around him alight.

Scrambling to his feet (and he's lost focus of his body control by this point; whoever he's trapped would be free now), he hurries out from behind the burning trees and comes to a skidding halt at seeing Stilinski on the ground.

"You."

He moved to pick himself up when he felt the strange sensation leave him, looking around and seeing -- oh.

"You." It was answered back with a sort of audible eyeroll in his tone, something he was sure the professor would pick up on. He looks around at the new bits of fire, closing his eyes for a second to reach out and... there.

The flames dimmed down until there was nothing but wisps of smoke curling up into the black. "What the hell are you doing? Just randomly attacking anyone that comes by?"

Feeling the heat from the fire diminish, he throws a quick glance over his shoulder at the trees, sees that the fire is gone and there's nothing but charred and smouldering leaves.

He faces back to Stilinski. "I had thought that perhaps the thing I was hearing rustling about out here was one of the smaller giants," he retorts. Severus regards him with a disgusted look, as though he's looking upon something foul and fetid. "Turns out it's just a swine."

"You know, there are healers back in Asgard who can help remove that splintered stick you have lodged up your ass." He dusted himself off and gave Severus a look of his own, one that said that maybe he should have aimed his flames a little more specifically.

"It would help if you actually saw what you were throwing things at, you know. Because it could have been someone else." Like Rachel. Hey, Snape, give him a reason to burn your face off.

"Just be thankful I didn't make you snap your neck," Severus heatedly replies.

A sharp snap comes from somewhere nearby. Alarmed, Severus reels around in its direction. An animal similar to an elk suddenly bounds out from within the trees right past them, and from its startled gallop, Severus knows it's running from something heading this way.

"You idiot," he hisses under his breath at Stilinski, "that fireball of yours--"

That fireball of Stilinski's has obviously alerted the attention of something, not that Severus has any proof of that, but he's going to blame Stilinski for it anyway. There's another snap, followed by the crack of a tree being smashed down.

Severus' eyes widen. His grip on his sword tightens. No time to argue with Stilinski. Something is heading right their way.

"Now would probably be a good time to run," he quietly tells him.

"Just be thankful I didn't give you a real burning ring of fire." He scowled at him as he finished dusting himself off, pausing when he heard the sound that had drawn the professor's attention.

The elk-thing scared the crap out of him (Hey, Rudolph's cousin), but it was what had scared it out that had him feeling that slip-slide of fear in his gut again. God, no. No way was he going to die again. Nuh uh. Three times was more than enough for anyone. "You started it, just grabbing people and throwing them down, jerk!" He hissed back at Snape, really wanting to follow through with a kick to his leg.

But there were more pressing things to worry about, like what the hell was lumbering at them. His response to his 'teacher' was to give him the finger before he ground his back foot into the dirt a little more solidly, wishing he could just take that advice and bolt. But no way was he going to let something else squish the black haired dick. "Age before beauty," he muttered back, finding that switch inside and getting ready to flick it on.

There's another loud crack of trees splintering and Severus' reaction to the middle finger being held up at him is to glower at the boy before grabbing him by the scruff with a vicious yank. Launching into a hurried gait, he hauls Stilinski after him, throwing a look over his shoulder just in time to see a giant bursting through the trees.

"Hey!" He hasn't been grabbed by the scruff since... well, since the last time his dad did it. Which happened a lot. And Snape was not his dad, so no touchy, greasy man. His feet half-tripped as he was dragged, but between himself and Severus, he somehow managed to stay upright as they fled.

"Shut up, you prat!" Severus snaps in a sharp whisper. He says nothing else, though, just picks up his pace to a run.

The giant, being bigger, starts gaining upon them and after throwing another couple of frantic looks back at it, he throws Stilinski off to the side to safety, in the direction of some bushes, and whips around to face the giant.

With fierce concentration, he trains his thoughts hard on it, pushing his power into the giant's muscles and bones. It comes to a lurching stop, arms and legs suddenly no longer working by the giant's will but by Severus'.

The first thing that comes to his mind is to make the giant injure itself. Eyes. Creatures are always defenseless when their eyes are wounded. Gritting his teeth, he makes his power slither down the giants arms, balling its massive hands into fists with just its thumbs extended, and the giant is helpless to fight against the way Severus makes it drive its own thumbs into its eye sockets.

There's a gut-wrenching howl of pain as its thumbs push and push and then sink into its own eyes with a sickening squirt of blood.

God, this guy is such an asshole. Before he can even say anything, he's all but flung off to the side, skinning his hands as he catches himself on the ground.

Then the world's stupidest teacher turns and faces the thing himself. Alone. Stiles pushed himself up, stopping as he started to dust himself off, palms stinging. He watched Snape stand there, looking constipated for a minute before the giant came to a stop. There seemed to be a moment between the two, then the giant's thumbs started to gouge out its own eyes and Stiles' nose wrinkled. Eww.

Oh, right. The body control thing. He looked between the two, wondering what he could do to try to help take the thing down. He'd found that fire giants were, hah, immune to fire. So he'd had to make due with using the environment around them in combination with his flames if he'd had to help with anything.

There were no branches to drop on its head or structures to weaken and topple onto it, but he could maybe whip a flame around that log over there and try to lift it in a sort of flaming cyclone towards the giant. Maybe bean him in the head. Repeatedly.

Severus, too, knows these blasted giants are immune to fire and he knows fireballs thrown from Stilinski won't do anything. Maybe there are other things Stilinski can do. Except there's no time to pause and ask questions; the giant needs to be slayed now.

He keeps his gaze trained on the giant, forcing its thumbs to grind and drive deeper into its eye sockets. It's a horrible sight and the keening sound it's making is equally as harrowing; its knees are starting to buckle from pain despite Severus' invisible grip on the giant's legs. "If you're capable of doing something to help kill this thing, now would be the time to do it," Severus barks at the boy.

He wrinkled his nose at Severus. "Hey, you want to try to lift a two or three hundred pound log with fire and wail it at someone with your freaking mind, you go right ahead. Show me how I'm doing it wrong."

He concentrated on the log, fire building up underneath it, through it, encasing it as he started it in a cyclone. It shuddered, twitched, then finally started to move upward and Stiles brought the whole spinning mess over towards the giant.

And one, and two and three-- the last spin caught it on the back of the head, toppling it forward. Then he extinguished the fire and let the log drop onto its head, driving its thumbs further into its now shattered skull.

Excuse him while he looked far too pleased with himself.

The wind from the hot cyclone is fierce, enough to make Severus stumble backwards, almost sprawling back onto the ground. He manages to hold the giant locked in an invisible vise until the log comes crashing down onto the giant's head.

The force of it hitting the ground, large and cumbersome, sends a reverberating shudder through the earth immediately around them. And then, silence.

Severus stares at the dead beast, breathing heavily. His eyes cut across to Stilinski. He doesn't in any way miss the pleased look the boy has on his face.

What's the best way to give praise and thanks without giving an ounce of thanks or praise? Backhanded compliments, of course.

"About time you did something useful," he churlishly remarks.

Aaaaand there was the buzzkill. Dammi, Sevvy. Couldn't you just let him have like, a minute? Why did everyone always kill his achievements? "Gee, sorry. Next time I'll just lurk in the shadows and attack people on my side for no good reason. That sounds like a way better plan."

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EVENT LOG: A FRIEND IN NEED ( ALFHEIM )

Hooooow could I not?

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