Clash of cultures

Hellooo, Razorswift here, and now it's my time to welcome you to my little neck of the woods :D I hope you'll enjoy my part of the insanity that is the life of John Newman. He will get a hopefully distinct enough character that you can get to like him for the way I am imagining him. Should you want to stick around, be prepared for lots of references and obvious steals from various pieces of media ;) If you have an idea, give it to me in those comments, maybe I'll like it and get it into the story. Now, enjoy the beginning of a new branch, and stay breezy

-Razorswift

Okay, seriously, what the hell was going on here? A Battle Barrier? John did not want to get involved in whatever this was! He then immediately did a 180° and tried to leave through the street he just came from, however, the popup proved correct.

He couldn't leave. It was not like in many games where there is an invisible wall that just blocks your way (it was just quite a bit of resistance), this was something entirely different. His mind just told him with absolute certainty that he shouldn't go over a certain threshold because the consequences would be even worse. He didn't know if it was the effect of the Barrier or some hidden thing in his powers, but he definitely knew that leaving the barrier would mean his demise. But was the fight just around the corner really that much better? He was in no state to defend himself against any number of enemies.

At that moment, he realized something. He had the choice to 'join' one of the teams, but nothing made him do that. There was nothing to enforce the choice... So could he wait out the time in here, see if one of the teams is winning and joining that team just in the nick of time to leave this place? Or would he even have to? Not like he could get that information out of anyone...

With nothing better to do, John went into a low crouch and snuck (or at least in his mind) to the edge of a typical corner store and tried to see the fight, maybe he could even identify which team was which.
And in fact, he could. With his limited knowledge about mythology, a Valkyrie was something he could identify. Also, his time playing Overwatch might have helped with that as well because the Valkyries were pretty much picture perfect to the description in the old Nordic and German tales. They were tall, blond, built like Swedish models, clad in various amounts of plate and leather armor. They had spears, axes, bows, swords and some weapons in between. Oh, and of course most of them had big wings on their back, big enough to carry them and in different shades of white, black, and golden.
Most of them looked like they were about 25-45 years old, with some going over and under that. There were about 25 of them, flying and fighting with grace and swiftness honed from years (or eons?) of experience. While looking at the oldest looking of the Valkyries, John cast Observe to see how badly he was outclassed here.

Level 65? Good god, she would probably destroy him with a single flick of a finger if she wanted to. And how did they fly? Was it a spell? Do they actually have wings? Her fighting style was direct, brutal and yet swift and fluid like a dance, her enemies seemingly dropping like flies. Also, the hidden age gave him something to think about... Was there a way people could hide or fake information from his Observe?

By the way, what enemies? Well, from the looks of it, it seemed like they might be fighting against pharaohs and some Egyptian myths. The men and women among them were tanned like people who lived in the desert always seemed to be, their bodies were fit, most of the men were bare-chested and they all had copious amounts of ornaments on their bodies, making them glow in a golden light from the sun up above. They too were wearing various weapons like spears and bows, however, their swords looked a lot different from the ones of the Valkyries. Where the Norse had the typical long- and short swords one knows from movies and games, the Egyptians had weirdly curved swords that looked a lot more ritualistic.

Among these 'Champions of Naktamun' also were some humanoid creatures John would have to describe as 'jackal-men'. Their attire was similar the human's, but they were more than a head taller than any of them and they looked like they could rip a person in half. In Johns mind, they were the ones tearing up the street with a powerful punch or something similar. So would these people be held accountable for the damages they made? Because the street they were fighting on was in no condition to be used...

The bulk of what counted for the forces of the champions was something that sent a chill down the spine of John: Mummies. Where there were a dozen Men and women and three to four jackal-men, there were almost 60 mummies standing, even more were lying dead (?) on the street, seemingly trying to swarm the Valkyries. These mummies, however, were not what you see in a typical horror movie, they were clean, tightly wrapped and seemed to have some semblance of skill, as they were mostly armed. Are they being controlled by the men and women standing behind them? Possible, especially since they only seem to defend themselves against the attacks of the Valkyries and then let the mummies swarm those valkyries. A quick Observe on one of the Mummies didn't give John any confidence either...

What did that (++) mean? Do they have some kind of regeneration? If so, then they were even more troublesome... By now he didn't even want to check on the giant jackal-men and the warriors, he just wanted to duck down and lay low... The fight wasn't really decided for one party yet. Both of them looked quite battered, both seemed to have no greater strategy than 'beat the other team longer than they can endure', however, there were no bodies of the Valkyries lying around. But the mummies outnumbered the angels quite heavily.

By now John was practically praying to every deity that came to his mind so that he didn't get pulled into this fight. From his hiding spot at the corner of the street, he retreated a couple of steps back into the empty street and laid down under the window of the corner store. From the looks of things the fight was going on for a while now and since they were already here and tore up the streets, they might not come back here anytime soon. Now that he thought about it, he saw a lot of dead mummies lying beneath the boots of the fighters, but here, where the street was ripped up, there were no corpses in sight... Did that mean that the mummies really regenerated, even from ****?

And just when he was hoping that he didn't want to find out, he heard an echoing scream of something sounding like a mixture of an angry bear and a fox, followed by a low THUMP. A split second later, the windows over his head shattered and rained down on him in a hail of glass... something just flew through that window. With his heart pumping in his throat, he slowly looked towards the street, where the something just landed.

There, lying on the street, was one of the Valkyries, a young woman, not much older than 20, probably the youngest of the Norse women. She had blonde hair like most of the others, a slim waist, shapely legs and C, bordering D Cup breasts. Her armor consisted of surprisingly little, a metallic bustier, some armor plates on her arms and hips, and high cut boots with some wraps around her knees. Her apparel clearly showed her toned midriff, her strong legs, and her trained arms. But all in all, it didn't look too muscly, more like a really trained athlete like a runner: shaped, clear muscle but not hulking or distracting from her womanly parts. The giant sword on her back gave her quite an intimidating look but all in all, she was a real bombshell. The tattoos on her right leg and her stomach certainly did not hinder that. Too bad that she seemed to be **** and bleeding quite a lot...