Chapter 34:
Tony and I landed on the ground now that the fighting was over and it was safe. Natasha and Fleur emerged from the nearby hallway they had taken cover in.
"I cannot believe it. That was Voldemort… and you beat him! I have heard stories of the Iron Man, but that was amazing!" Fleur spoke in French. She was looking at Iron Man with awe. I felt a bit miffed at that. I did half the work there! Where was my praise!?
[She might be a bit scared of you and Natasha since she just saw you two brutally dispose of those 20 men…]
'Seriously!? They were going to do unspeakable things to her though!? We saved her!' We could have just as easily chosen to let her die, and not blown our cover… Too bad I had a thing about saving people in need.
[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]
Tony didn't seem particularly adverse from taking all the credit when he was being praised by a beautiful woman. "Why, thank you, gorgeous. So, what brings such a beautiful girl to a place like this?" Tony's faceplate came up as he started immediately flirting with the Veela we rescued.
"She was taken prisoner, and they were going to torture and kill her," Natasha said bluntly. She sent me a wink as she metaphorically dumped a bucket of ice water on their flirting.
"Oh… been there. It's not fun." Tony said somberly. "My abductors wanted me to build a weapon of mass destruction for them before they did the torturing and killing part, though." His eyes went a bit distant as he said that. Thankfully he didn't have a PTSD attack, or the like, at that moment.
Following that, more Shield agents arrived on the scene and started storming the bank to secure the area. It was a lot easier to trust them knowing that Hydra head left their ranks.
I passed Rosier off to the agents. There weren't many of them, but any surviving Death Eaters had been rounded up and taken prisoner for later interrogations.
CREAK!
In the middle of the bank floor, a secret trap door opened quickly, and over a dozen goblins emerged wearing full sets of goblin silver armor. They were also carrying various weapons. It seemed that in the chaos of Shield attacking Diagon Alley, the enslaved goblins had managed to slip away underground. Instead of staying hidden and waiting it out, they armed themselves properly and came back out for a fight.
"You cursed oath-breaking Wizards! Prepare to face goblin wrath and die!" The lead Goblin wielding a greatsword, taller than he was, screamed out. He spun around every which way looking for a fight. There was none to be had. All he received were deadpan stares from everyone in the room.
"I hate to break it to you all," I said to the goblins, "but the battle is over, and all the Wizards are gone or captured. You all missed it…"
Another Goblin nearby looked all over the place before he turned to the one who shouted out. "The dark angel speaks the truth, Lord Rock Crusher. All the Wizards are gone…"
"Fuck!" The goblin known as Rock Crusher yelled out. "You lot took too long to put on your armor! You all spent too much time as pencil pushers and forgot what it means to be warriors!" He yelled at the other goblins. We couldn't see their faces because they were wearing helmets. Their helmets were still facing to the ground now, so I speculated that they all were ashamed.
"No need to be so hard on them all. You all were just enslaved…" I said gently to Rock Crusher. He scoffed in reply.
"The only reason that happened in the first place is that we have gone soft! Our rivals, the dwarves of Nidavellir, would laugh at us if they could see how far we've fallen as warriors…" He said dejectedly.
Hearing about the dwarves from another realm drew my interest. "You all have a way to access Nidavellir?" I asked.
"Dwarves?" Tony questioned aloud.
"Aye, we had ways of traveling there over a millennia ago, but that method was cut off when the great sundering came upon our world!" The goblin explained as if everyone was supposed to know what that was. I assumed he was speaking of God splitting the world in half.
"What was the great sundering?" Tony asked. Natasha and the other Shield agents were also looking very curious.
"Ask your winged friend over there. The calamity was caused by her father!" The goblin replied. The humans all turned to look at me questioningly. I gave the goblin a small glare for throwing me under the bus.
"The great sundering, as they call it, was…" I started to explain to everyone, "A really shitty move that was orchestrated by the higher-powered beings of Earth over a thousand years ago. I'll go over more of what it entailed to you all later." It was a whole big thing to explain. This wasn't the place for it.
"Sounds like it was a pretty big deal," Natasha commented.
"Yeah, it would pretty much destroy a lot of people's faith if they found out about it…" I said. All I received in return were shocked looks from all the humans in the room.
"So if this happened over a thousand years ago, how come you're talking about it like you remember it?" Tony asked Rock Crusher.
"We goblins are members of the Fay… we live forever unless we are slain in combat. I remember being able to travel all of the 9 realms freely at one point. There was adventure and combat around every corner; it was a glorious time to be alive!" The goblin explained. That was the second time they mentioned that they were members of the Fay. I guess that's why they crafted Goblin silver instead of using steel like everyone else for their weapons. Iron was literally toxic to them.
"Wow," Natasha commented. "You've been around for over a thousand years? Why has your race stayed hidden from us all this time?"
The goblin just looked at her like she was a fool. "Why else? Because every time we revealed ourselves, you all tried to kill us! Even in your modern media and movies, we goblins are nothing more than evil vermin that need to be exterminated." Rock Crusher said.
"Yeah!" "That's right!" "Fuck Lord of the Rings!" The other goblins all exclaimed.
"So… I'm guessing you all don't like D&D very much?" Tony asked jokingly.
Rock Crusher just gave him a glare in response to his rude comment. "We thank you for assisting us in our freedom, but now… all of you get out of our bank! We're closing down and leaving this racist country. We'll be joining our Brethren overseas in the American Gringotts branch. What the British Wizards and witches did to us was clearly a declaration of war. It was a violation of our peace treaty. You can inform the Wizards that all of their gold and other items in their vaults are hereby forfeit to us as recompense." The goblin said with a malicious grin.
That was going to completely annihilate the Wizarding economy. They literally just lost all of their money.
XXX
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