At Ithavoll met | the mighty gods,
Shrines and temples | they timbered high;
Forges they set, and | they smithied ore,
Tongs they wrought, | and tools they fashioned.

D.V.N.T.S. Base, Windhoek, Namibia
((Two days after the events of Mending ))

The jet touched down on the black tarmac, engines whining as the pilot taxied the sleek private aircraft off the runway. The khaki-uniformed ground crew waited for the jet to stop and the engines to power down before they moved forward with the access stairway. The hatchway opened as the stairs locked into place, and Peter got his first look at his home for the next 4 weeks.

The De Vries National Tactical Solutions headquarters was a high-tech military compound located west of the city of Windhoek. Armed guards patrolled the razor-wire topped fence surrounding the large compound, which was dotted with guard bunker-towers. A hangar-complex to Peter's right contained attack helicopters, transport aircraft, and even jet fighters arrayed within their shade like so many sleek, deadly insects lying in wait. As the nova walked down the steps with a duffel-bag over one broad shoulder, he saw two choppers lift of their pads and head off to the northeast. Waiting a short distance from the bottom of the access stairway was a short wiry man dressed in desert BDUs, unmarked save for a nametag reading "Finch". He stepped forward as Peter stepped off the stairs, smiling in greeting and holding out a hand.

"Mr Nord, I'm Finch. I'm your orientation aide and on-base handler. Just think of me as the go-to guy if you have any questions or problems." The man's smile seemed genuine as he pumped out a brisk handshake. "Welcome to De Vries, big man."

Jeez-us. Dooley wasn't fuckin' kidding! This guy is impressive. Finch had seen many novas come through the doors during his time here. Some were criminals or tough guys, others were ex-military, still others were borderline psychos. But something in the blue eyes that studied him made Finch wary and respectful. It wasn't aggression, or impending violence: Finch had worked as a maximum security guard in the Alabama State Penitentiary and knew those signs. Those attitudes were born of fear, of an attempt to drive away the fear with violence or it's threat. In Nord's gaze and demeanour was a calm self-confidence; this man felt no need to threaten or bluster. Like a damn lion walking around on two legs, he WAS the threat.

As Finch led Peter away from the jet, chatting amiably about the facility and his intention to get Peter settled in to his quarters before the main orientation briefing, he resolved to take extra care with his handling duties on this 'kid' (as he thought of the novas he looked after): if for some reason Peter Nord saw need to take physical exception to someone, the ex-prison guard with a Masters in psychology felt strongly that there would be no warning or vocal outburst first, no 'wind-up' period that preceded an attack. Finch took comfort in the psych-evaluation he had read: the large Brit was rational and even friendly, in a distant way.

He wiped the sweat from his eyes, more trickles of moisture running down his face and soaking his beard with the same dampness that had his long blond hair wringing wet. For the fifth time in his life since eruption, he felt muscle-screaming, bone-achingly tired. It was also the fifth time this week.

He was running flat out across the plain, a one-ton chunk of personal artillery carried in his strong arms as he towed a 'broken down' armored personnel carrier behind him, the crew and passengers hanging on for dear life as it jounced and swayed with every dip in the terrain and every pothole. The men and women in the APC were mainly camp training staff and other nova trainees, live-firing out of the various gun ports as training mortar rounds rained down around them. The rounds were concussive: designed to go *boom* with little damage to anyone more than 5 metres away. Being under one of them when it landed hurt like bloody blazes though, Peter found out on his first live-fire exercise yesterday. His ears had rung for about 10 hours afterwards, though the nosebleed and bruising had gone away sooner than that.

"Contact! 1 o'clock!" screamed a voice in his earpiece, but the big nova was already dropping to one knee as he brought up the weapon in his hands. An old T-55 battle tank, a common-enough sight in Third World armies, crested the rise ahead with it's turret machinegun spitting tracer rounds as it engaged the APC. Peter lined up his ultramachine gun on the target, thumbing the 'rotate' switch to get the minigun's seven barrels spinning, and squeezed the trigger. Nothing. The barrels failed to spin, and thus the gun couldn't fire. They had told him that today's live-fire exercise would contain surprises. The APC being broken-down at the rendezvous was one, the gun 'fault' was evidently a second.

Not bothering to curse, mind and body both moving at peak speed, the nova stripped out the battery pack and clipped the spare into place. .50 caliber rounds slapped through the dirt near him, kicking up fountains of red dust, passing so close he could hear them whine. He mentally noted to check the damn battery on receiving his weapon in the future, as he brought the affectionately-named 'BFG' up once more.

A roar like a hundred angry lions split the air as a beam of light seemed to materialise from the barrels of the minigun. Every fourth round was a tracer, but at 9000 rounds per minute there was no need to aim the gun normally: the user just swept the beam of light up to the target as though using a garden hose. Of course depleted uranium ammunition was expensive, and Elites were supposed to be... well, Elite. Roughly 200 rounds should be sufficient to kill a target like the T-55, so said the training officers, and so Peter squeezed the trigger for a mere 1.5 seconds.

The dense armor-piercing slugs ripped the drone-controlled main battle tank apart like it was made of so much cardboard, crumpling the front edge of the vehicle and pulling the left track asunder. Some of the rounds had evidently hit the magazine inside the vehicle, for a moment later the turret shot up into the air on a pillar of flame, flipping over and landing back on the now-useless war machine. If the tank had contained any crew, they'd have been dead in seconds.

"Go, go, GO!" yelled the voice in his earpiece. Peter smiled grimly, already jumping to his feet and taking up the slack in the tow-cable he was harnessed to. He set off again at a run, the 24-ton APC jouncing along behind him, his quantum-enhanced muscles groaning as they were pushed near to snapping point. He scanned the horizon and the skies as he moved, sweat stinging his eyes, not trusting the exercise to be free of further surprises.

Thus it was that when Steelbolt dropped out of the noon sun, bearing down on the APC carrying the theoretical VIP, Peter Nord had already dropped the BFG, unclipped the tow cable, and launched himself skywards, kicking up a plume of dust. He exulted: he had known that sooner or later they'd throw an Elite in to test him. His briefing yesterday had included 'unconfirmed' reports of a nova working for the other side. Yesterday it had been false, but today there was a nova on the other team: in short, intel had fucked up. Just like it did sometimes in real life.

All Steelbolt needed to do to scrap Peter's chances was touch the APC before the trainee got the vehicle across the finish line. The nova dropped out of the sky straight down, aiming to land right on the target vehicle, but his smile of victory was wiped clean as he was tackled by the larger man doing about 200 miles per hour. The impact didn't hurt: Steelbolt's main schtick was having a toughened body, but Peter knew better than to strike a man who was the consistency of carbon steel. The attacking nova's momentary surprise turned to 'oh shit' as he felt one arm being twisted up behind his back and pressure applied to nerve clusters in his wrist and elbow. Having impenetrable skin and feeling no pain were different. Steelbolt flailed around in the air, trying to find purchase on his opponent. He grabbed Peter's throat, but the Brit nova just grinned and tensed his neck-muscles, and Steelbolt's angle was bad in any case for a one-handed choke. Then another matter grabbed Steelbolt's attention: gravity.

The crazy bastard on his back hadn't kept on flying after knocking Steelbolt off-course! Instead, he had cut power and let momentum carry them up and away from the APC. But what comes up must come down, and the ground was only 300 feet away. Steelbolt struggled harder to free himself, but his right arm was fast asleep now in that fucking pain hold. He couldn't fly: he relied on massive jumps to travel, which was fine if he could land on his feet. 250 feet.

"Give up?" Peter said in his ear, the wind whistling past them. 200 feet.

"Fuck off! I can survive a fall better than you, nut-job!" Steelbolt snapped back. 150 feet.

"I'm counting on it. In fact, you're going to be my airbag." No give in that tone. 100 feet.

"Alright! I give up! I give up!" Steelbolt closed his eyes in anticipation of the impact, the hard ground rushing up to meet them. 25 feet...

And he felt the air change direction as Peter juiced up his flight powers. Bringing them in to land next to the APC, Peter released the now-subdued 'enemy' nova and pointed to the hatch of the APC. "In you get." Steelbolt rubbed life back into his arm, gazing at his 'captor' with a grin.

"That was a good one, Pete. 'You're going to be my airbag.' Okay, the beer's on me tonight, man. You faked me out good." Peter grinned back toothily.

"Wasn't faking, 'Bolt. I don't 'fake'. If you hadn't called uncle, you'd be digging yourself out of a hole right about now." Steelbolt gaped for a moment, then laughed, shaking his head.

"You'd be a bad mutha to do that to me, man."

"You'd live. You'd be cleaning dirt out of your ears for a day or two though. Now get in there, I've got a delivery to make."

Still laughing, Steelbolt climbed into the APC, bearing with good grace the chuckling of the crew in there at his defeat. This Brit dude was a trip and a half.

"Yeah, keep laughin'." He mock-growled at one of the soldiers. "Wait till this guy meets Sauvage. I hope he gets made-over into The Fabulous Tinkerbell or something."

Finch waited in the lobby area trying to tune out the strains of Judy Garland's "Anything You Can Do", one eye watching the sports news on his palmtop as he mentally reviewed Peter Nord's training progress. The big nova had come on in leaps and bounds over his first 5 days of training, the intensive workouts and exercises dusting away the cobwebs of his previous inertia and beginning to hone his skills, and now he had been cleared for the biggest step of his Elite life: his Naming.

And so Finch had brought Nord here, to Superimpose. Here the Elites of DeVries were issued with identities that inspired fear and awe in the minds of Men. Here they became more than the sum of their parts, elevated to an icon that was ready to step out and take the world by the throat. At least, provided they had good manners...

The nova who ran Superimpose was the flamboyant Bruce Sauvage, a nova with impeccable taste, style and an eye for the true inner self in any nova, as well as a finely honed sense of the dramatic that had produced such names as Totentanz and Tzchernabog. But Sauvage tolerated no sass from his 'works in progress'. Any nova stupid enough to rile the designer up would wish they had never crossed the threshold of Superimpose, as they would be stuck with a truly terrible Elite identity that only a humiliating public apology would shift. And Sauvage's authority in these matters was absolute: even Anna DeVries didn't countermand him. Not that she couldn't, Finch reflected, it was more as though she wouldn't.

Finch shifted position in the comfortable chair and glanced at the large double doors before him. He had seen mere novas go through that door and Elites come out maybe a dozen times, but it never failed to impress him (unless Sauvage took a dislike to the Elite in question, but even that could be impressive in a funny way.) Nevertheless, he was getting impatient as he waited.

Finally, the doors opened and out stepped Sauvage, looking incredibly pleased with himself. Finch perked up: obviously the image design had gone well. He forced himself to remain quiet: Sauvage loved the unveiling of his genius, and liked to proceed at his own pace. It was best to indulge him, was the common consensus. Sauvage beamed like a proud father displaying his infant prodigy and clapped his hands twice. Peter Nord stepped into the doorway.

Peter's hair had been left uncut, flowing shaggy and wild like a lions mane down to his shoulders. His beard had been trimmed and neatened, but not shortened more than necessary. He was dressed in arctic camo colours, shades of white and grey, with BDU trousers tucked into combat boots in the same pattern. A silvery-steel t-shirt of a shiny mesh fabric lay under a light BDU vest that left Nord's tanned arms bare. The pale colours of the clothing caused Peter's blue eyes to seem paler, more steel than sky.

So far, so normal, thought Finch, but then he looked closer. Around the shoulders of the vest was light grey fur trim, which was also present around the tops of the boots and the waistband of the trousers. Military webbing gear lay over the vest, complete with belt, but these had small tufts of steely grey fur sewn or woven into the fabric also, lending the whole ensemble a barbaric feel.

Finch stared. Standing there, Peter Nord looked like a blend of old and new world warrior, as though someone had reached into the past, plucked a warrior from some Scandinavian battlefield, and brought him forward in time, only to find that the warrior's armor and clothing had partially changed to suit the era he now found himself in.

"Good, eh?" Sauvage clasped his hands in joy. "I think to myself: no mask, no helmet. His eyes, his hair, they are part of the effect. For a week I ponder this man's image! He looks like a warrior; he is a warrior. A lion of the battlefield, a one-man army, taken to the home of the gods as a just reward, there to feast and train for the greatest battle of all! I give to you: Einherjar!

Peter... no, Einherjar, grinned at Finch, who nodded in return, smiling. As the newly christened Elite turned to Sauvage and shook his hand in thanks, Finch called his superior.

"General? Mr Sauvage has done it again."