When Eyeball and Engineer landed on the Enterprise, the assault was about to begin; he could see, on the edge of the deck, Butcher and Valkyrie were stress-testing the arm-bands they'd been given; with Butcher examining a pair of strange, roughly constructed, dark grey boots as Eyeball approached. He glanced back at the Dragonslayer. In theory, Engineer was going to be piloting it. In reality, one of the other Ascension units was already hiding onboard; so that Engineer could 'abandon ship' in the atmosphere and leave the fighter to its own course; and, going forward, Engineer might very well be the last Ascension unit on earth.

He wasn't sure if he'd see the fighter again; but then again he hadn't really had the opportunity to grow as attached to it as he had some of his other equipment. If his helmet were suddenly gone, he would certainly miss that, even though he had replaced it over a dozen times. He stepped up to the two Titans, looking up... and up.. and giving a low chuckle. Every time he exhaled, fog emerged from around his neck, billowing up around his head like a tiny cloud of steam; making him thankful for how well insulated the suit was.

"So Butch, I was meaning to ask, the whole Titan thing. How is that going over with the girlfriend? You two still okay?"

Valkyrie; who had apparently been deciding she was satisfied with the armband; abruptly turned to Butch. "Yes. how is that going over with this girlfriend? Am I going to be seeing her after this? The only time I got to see her so far you took her and ran like a jackrabbit."

Butch had started to blush at Eyeball's comment; but then frowned, and turned to his mother. "At some point, probably. If we end up together after all of this, she's definitely gonna need to meet my mom at some point. A proper meeting, maybe over dinner."

"And if I want to meet her when we get back north, see if she's worthy of my son?"

Butch rolled his eyes. "Mom. You wanted me out from underfoot, I'm out from underfoot. I'm not gonna ghost you, but don't pretend like I'm gonna ditch her if you don't like her. I care about you, but she's not your girlfriend. She's mine. Go get yourself a guy if you want to obsess over someone."

Valkyrie took a single step. The deck audibly cracked; Eyeball could see a very faint crack in the plating at the outer edge of... something? Why wasn't her foot just going right through? Eyeball stepped forward, raising his hands. "Sorry, sorry, poor choice of words."

Valkyrie glared at him... then exhaled. "You... yes. Poor choice of words. I suppose you're still on the list, just not at the top." She frowned. "Where is Odin, anyway? I thought he'd be here now that the ghosts are all flying south?"

Eyeball frowned at the sudden abrupt topic shift, but shrugged before turning to face Butch instead. "No clue. Probably getting ready to attack whichever spot has the Jotun king, assuming he's still alive. Honestly, feels weird to be so far behind. Not used to having you run off into battle and expect that, maybe, I'll be catching up in a few hours. Though really.." He extends a hand. "Its been great working with you. If you want to keep doing it in the future, I'll always be glad to have you along... but I think you're a bit out of my league now."

Butch took the hand; shaking it, with a carefully measured gentleness. "Not sure if that's possible, Boss. Maybe I'm a Titan, but you've killed two of those already, and we all know that you hold a special place in Spike's nightmares."

Eyeball shook his head. "Maybe. If you ever need someone to fish you out of space, I've got your back, but I don't think you'll ever need my help in a fight again."

A sudden beeping sound. Valkyrie slapped Butch on the shoulder. "It's time, boy. Now remember. You're an unstoppable menace. You want these guys screaming and running for the hills. Don't chase down a single one unless he's the king, or someone important. Throw one of their ships at another one. Tear an officer in half. Eat one of their hearts in front of the troops. Make em piss themselves in fear, if they aren't already."

Butch frowns. "...Yes for most, but I'm not gonna take a bite out of em. I'm wearing the armor, helmet too. I don't really need it... but until I get some neutronium like you, it'll help with the whole mass issue."

Valkyrie shrugged. "Fine, fine. But most of its gonna be melted off of you in a few minutes. Ready?" She turned to the edge of the deck, looking out over the ocean; and crouched, looking at Butcher, as he secured the armored helmet. "Bet you that old pinball machine from the bar I can get there first."

Butcher blinked. "Against what?"

"Nothing. Cause I know there's no way in hell you can." Valkyrie smiled; and leapt off of the carrier with such force that the great ship was pushed down slightly in the water; the whole boat shaking. Butcher shook his head for a moment; and waited for the boat to start rising again from the momentum; and leapt off himself.

Eyeball glanced down at the deck; surprised at the fact there weren't four foot-shaped holes in it; before watching the black dot that was Butcher vanish in the distance. Jesus. He really was a Titan now.

***

The flight group was advancing over the ice, low to the ground, hoping that it would reduce the effective range of Jotun sensors the same way it did radar; but knowing that they were likely already spotted. Spike gripped the railing of the helicopter. If he made himself lighter, it could go a bit faster. But if they shot it out of the air, and he was too light... he couldn't make that mistake again. It had almost gotten him killed.

He was wearing the same armor he'd been wearing before; only with one addition; a suitcase-sized tactical nuke strapped to his back. Big enough to cause some damage, but not as much as if he started really throwing his powers around; he would be using it, hopefully, just before the fleet's cruise missiles reached interception range; if he could detonate it close, it would make interception less likely, and reduce how much he'd need to increase his mass by to handle this.

He watched the counter dropping. The spot where they had seen the Jotun burying themselves in the ice was drawing rapidly closer. They were flying at over two hundred miles per hour; which was faster than he thought these birds could go; though for for the jets trailing behind, it was sluggish. The other helicopters keeping pace with him, however... they were loaded down with ammunition, rather than metahumans.

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He lamented the size and power needs of the Jotun Disrupter device. Whatever it was, it needed more juice than a simple helicopter could provide... or else they could simply have carried one of those, letting them get far closer before needing to fight.

He saw it, up ahead. A faint, silver mist in the air over the desolate ground.

"Incoming drones! Safeties off, Flak loaded, but holding fire for now. Our escorts will be handling the first few minutes."

The other helicopters; exactly the same model, but each equipped with four miniguns loaded with fragmenting shells; as well as a few anti-Attack Craft missiles; advanced ahead of Spike's chopper; the long drone of explosive fire filling the air, thousands of the silvery drones falling; but soon, the drones were coming in from every direction. The helicopters were forced to fire up, down, to the sides; bleeding ammo at such a rapid pace no aircraft could keep up for long.

Suddenly, one of the jets that was trailing behind the choppers surged below them; dozens of drones striking it, sending it spinning forward out of control; all of the choppers suddenly pulled back, Spike almost tossed back against the frame of the chopper if not for his solid grip on the railing; the strap would have easily snapped under his weight.

Then... a flash of light. The helicopters almost immediately started moving forward again, as his helmet registered a brief surge in radiation. Was that... another tactical nuke. Used as an airburst, just to clear a path.

The jet was gone; but there were three more behind the transport. He stared back at them; as the miniguns fell silent. For the moment, they'd cleared the drone swarms. Undoubtedly, there would be more, as they drew closer... but he could already see that not only were these helicopters low on ammo, but the close proximity to the detonation had done a number on both the crew, and the aircraft; they were going at least fifty miles per hour slower now, and it seemed to be getting less.

But... they would get him as close as possible, even if it cost their lives.

***

Hundreds of miles away to the north, Valkyrie and Butcher arrived at the Jotun encampment almost simultaneously; Valkyrie narrowly winning out as a burst of anti-aircraft plasma slammed into Butcher; and he ended up skidding across the ice, leaving a half-mile long trail behind him before rising, and glaring at the origin in anger; starting to jog forward, the ice shattering apart beneath him.

Valkyrie, landing inside the clearing, saw hundreds of Jotun, thousands of them... busily moving about like ants in an ant-hill, carrying parts, weapons, tools; some of them weren't even wearing armor! She laughed, before stomping with enough force to send the area shaking; and started casually grabbing anything that was nearby, throwing it into a nearby Jotun craft, as the Jotun started to uselessly fire on her; she'd been here before, decades ago.

These Jotun were too fast, too agile. She had to use something massive, or send the whole ground quaking, to really get good hits on them. She found the closest Jotun still wearing its armor, threw one of the Attack Craft at the creature to stun it; the vehicle and its crew rebounding off of a nearby chunk of ice and likely crushed within it as the vehicle went flying; and grabbed the stunned creature, lifting it up.

"I know you things can translate our language. Where is your king?"

The soldier shrieked, and aimed its plasma weapons at her; firing at point blank range, the heat melting the weapons and its armor in a display that must be agonizing to the creature.. before she tore off the two uppermost limbs, the ones holding the plasma rifles.

Before she could ask again... a full-power shot from one of the starships, apparently intact enough to fire, slammed into her; vaporizing the soldier, melting his armor to slag... and melting the ice beneath her into a puddle of rocky sludge, leaving her waist-deep in water.

She glowered at the ship; and saw Butcher slam into it like a wrecking ball; knocking it over, yes.. but also embedding himself in the giant metal mass. She sighed, and looked around. Someone around here must know where the Jotun guy was. Hopefully he was here, and not at the other encampment.

Suddenly... a loud boom a cacophany of noice as a whole series of impacts sounded... and one of the attack craft on the other side of the encampment went down, as railgun rounds impacted, scattered around the encampment, sending dust and steam billowing into the air. This camp was not much longer for this world.

***

"We're seeing... billions of drones. Tens of billions. Some of them have already dropped down to move on our advancing ground forces, but most are headed right here, for the fleet, staying up at thousands of feet, likely going to be dropping down right on top of us."

The captain glanced back at Thomes. "Orders, sir?"

He chuckled. "The Disrupter will make short work of them... as soon as we turn it on, they'll kill each other til only a few are left. Let them get us well and truly swarmed. As soon as you believe our anti-air fire will be overwhelmed, have them throw the switch. Our advance team will be fine either way, but the more of them we can draw in, the better."

He looked up through the glass at the faint silver tint in the sky. There were so many of the things that they could literally blot out the sky if they packed in more densely. If they'd used this many against the fleet off the coast of California, they might have been in trouble; but apparently the handful of starships involved in that attack simple didn't carry this many.

The tint grew darker as the swarm dropped lower. He could almost imagine the buzz of tens of billions of insects, despite knowing full well these were simply small, silver-blue orbs that barely made a sound at all.

The weapons started to open fire. He could hear the railgun, thirty feet over his head, starting to fire on the distant Jotun encampment. Valkyrie and Butcher must have arrived; they had targets now. The swarm descended in earnest; focusing on the bigger, nuclear-reactor equipped vessels and their railguns; and the massed anti-air fire of hundreds of weapons opened up.

He could hear... a tinkle? Clanging. It was different from the familiar sound of brass falling as the guns went off. As he looked out on the deck, and heard the guns fire, there was the sound beneath it of... broken bits of drone, ammo casing, falling everywhere. The captain frowned. "Sir... honestly, its any second now. We just don't have the firepower to handle this kind of density unless we start using nukes. If we didn't have Ascension helping us run the guns we would already be out of it. The sort of accuracy he's getting out of a gun firing hundreds of rounds per second is... well. Regardless, I have the nukes armed, can start deploying them now if you like."

"Hit the disrupter. No need to make this place any more of a hazard than it needs to be."

A nod. The railgun suddenly went silent; the enormous electrical power running the massive capacitors having been sent elsewhere... and with a faint crackle in the air... one repeated at another captured Disrupter half a mile away in one of the other carriers... the sky became a wave of fire.

The guns stopped, as it started to rain burning, smoldering drone wreckage; each drone seeking out the nearest 'enemy' target... and those targets were virtually always other drones. A few randomly slammed into the Enterprise; melting a few holes into plating, even wrecking a single helicopter on the deck... but when the smoke cleared, while the flight deck was piled with debris... the ship was intact.

The other ships could be heard, still firing their railguns, in the background. Thomes smiled. "Nothing better than using the enemy's own equipment against them. Give it a few minutes, then shut them off, and we'll add to the bombardment. I'm almost disappointed we didn't have a wave of Hover-tanks mixed in." He looked thoughtful. "Have your marines deploy throughout the fleet, just out of sight of Ascension's positions while he's confused by the Disrupter. It might be best to go ahead and take them all out before we shut these things off, while he can't tell our troops from his own units."