"Holy shit, it's cold!" Alex yelled as he woke up, finding himself floating on an iceberg. The last thing he remembered was being knocked out by a corpse falling on top of him. The boat had been attacked by trolls, and there was a weird snake-looking thing in the ocean. That's right, he was part of a special operation. He realized that there weren't any other people besides him to be seen anywhere around him. He also noticed that one of his pistols was missing.
"Daisy!!!!! Where are you?" Alex screamed, feeling a surge of panic. After having a goddamn mental breakdown for five whole seconds, he fired a grappling hook round at the coast using Billy and thrust a combat knife into the iceberg he was on top of. He then receded the grappling hook, which pulled him along with the iceberg towards the coast. He then jumped on the coast and withdrew the hook completely.
"So this is Antarctica?" Alex thought out loud, disappointed. He had expected it to be infested with trolls and potentially other alien entities he had never encountered before. He remembered the mutant troll that had killed the pretty lady in the boat. He hoped that he would find more of those on Antarctica.
Not having anything else to do, he started moving inland. Alex's pistols weren't the only core-powered equipment he wielded. His armor was also core-powered, concealed under his clothes. While it protected him from imminent death, the harsh climate of Antarctica made it freezing cold regardless.
He continued to feel disappointed as he hadn't seen any trolls, after having walked for miles. Killing trolls was the only reason he had joined this operation begin with goddamn. "Where the fuck are you hiding?" He yelled out loud. He had also been hoping to come across a Jotun. The Jotnar were supposed entities similar to the gods. The Aesir and the Jotnar had been at war since the beginning of time itself. The Jotnar were anti-gods.
He continued moving inland, walking on a seemingly endless sheet of white. He was starting to get tired, as he realized that with the boat and the New Dawn team gone, he didn't have food or any other vital resources with him.
Suddenly, he heard a loud screeching noise, shaking him out of his thoughts. Before be could try to locate the source of the noise, a monsterous arm broke through the ice he was standing on and grabbed his leg. Before he could react, it pulled him through the ice into the sub-zero water beneath. Immediately, the night vision in his mask activated, and he got to see his attacker for the first time. It resembled a troll to an extent but a hundred times more hideous. It seemed to have adapted to the underwater environment with fins and gills.
Alex's mask wouldn't allow water to enter easily, but he would obviously run out of oxygen soon. He kicked the troll in the head and tried to loosen its hold, but to his horror, the troll ripped off his leg in an instant. Blood immediately started flowing into the water, and Alex suddenly heard more screeching noises. He looked around and realized that there were hundreds, no thousands, of creatures like the one that attacked him in the waters, and they were drawn by the blood.
Alex shot at them, emptying a round, but the pain was agonizing, and there were simply too many of them. Also, Alex was missing Daisy, which had reduced his firepower by half. He had no choice but to swim. He started swimming towards the surface, firing at the it. The waters had become murky and scarlet as Alex continued to lose blood. The trolls continued to give him chase. He was almost there. He realized that he was also running out of air and started to asphyxiate.
Just as he reached the surface, he was about to remove his mask to breathe properly, but he was immediately pulled back into the waters by the trolls. These creatures were relentless. Alex had never encountered anything like these before. The trolls, valkyries, einherjar, and other aliens back on the mainland had been nothing compared to these monsters, and he was still on Earth. If this was how frightening the trolls on Earth were, then he couldn't even imagine how he could have possibly thought he would have survived in Jotunheim. He felt his confidence disappear as he was filled with hopelessness. Dozens of trolls pulled at his body; he felt one of his arms being ripped off. His body was being scratched and scarred by their hideous claws. The core-powered armor was the only thing keeping him from being torn into pieces in an instant. He had lost all sensation. It wasn't often he felt fear. He was fearless, Alex "The Core Crusader" Wonder, scared? never. That's what he had always thought. He knew his time had come. This was it. He was about to die in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by thousands of alien creatures.
Just as he was about to lose consciousness for the third time since this story began, his eyes jolted open at a sudden flash of light. He was immediately reminded of the Annihilation thirty years ago, from the blinding light, but this one seemed different. This one was green. He wasn't sure what was happening, but one thing he knew was that it was destroying the trolls. Alex mustered up all the strength he could in his body and swam towards the surface once again with only one arm and one leg. This time he made it. He removed his mask and gasped for air. The agonizing pain had returned. It hurt like hell. Alex didn't care about hurting others, but he hated feeling pain. It made him feel weak, it made reminded him of the Annihilation. It reminded him of the last time he saw his parents.
He continued crawling inland; he had lost a lot of blood, and death felt inevitable. He had been saved for now by some miracle, but he knew he didn't have much time left. He kept on crawling for what felt like hours. He soon started freezing, the armor was running out of energy, but just as he was about to shut his eyes for real, he saw a bright glow. There was a massive metallic gate in front of him. It was a portal. "Must be the portal to Jotunheim," Alex thought to himself. It was strange; he thought to himself, it almost looked like the entire surface around him was laden with corpses of trolls. He drifted off to sleep, as he wa engulfed in a flash of light.