This work is a piece of fiction. While inspired by real events, cultures, and practices in human history, the story blends factual history with fictional characters, dramatizations, and creative interpretation.
It is not intended to promote, glorify, or encourage any illegal activities, substance use, or harmful behavior. All depictions of sensitive topics are included solely for narrative and historical context.
For the effects of the story, all characters are to be considered above the majority age.
Reader discretion is advised.
————————————————
╔═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╗
Earth-199999, Sakaar, The Grandmaster's Champion's Room.
7 BE (Before Emergence) 2016 CE (Current Era).
In a pool-sized bathtub, Hulk idly observed the healers of Sakaar primitively mend Thor's wounds.
"BRUNNHILDE," he called out.
"Big guy?" Brunnhilde asked. She was seated by the edge of the bathtub, her feet dipped in the warm water.
"WHY ARE THEY BAD HEALERS?" Hulk asked.
"Bad?" Brunnhilde raised an eyebrow questioningly and observed the healers deal with Thor's wounds. In her eyes, what they were doing was appropriate for healing practices.
"SHIPS FLY, BLASTER BLAST, THE GRANDMASTER PUTS UP A SHOW, THE BUILDINGS ARE TALLER THAN EARTH'S, BUT THE HEALING IS... MEDIOKREE? MEDIOCREE!" Hulk explained.
Despite his mental age reaching his teens, certain words were still complicated for him.
"Ah, you mean that," Brunnhilde realized what he was trying to say. "This place is a planetary-wide system of waste disposal. When the Grandmaster arrived, he brought order, progress, and advancement, but only in the capacity that fitted his whims. He doesn't care about healing. There will never be a lack of fighters, so why waste time providing anything beyond the bare minimum?"
"GRANDMASTER IS DUMB," Hulk commented.
"Don't let him catch you saying it," Brunnhilde advised with a grin. She agreed with Hulk's opinion.
"HULK IS THE STRONGEST," he dismissively declared.
"Heh," Brunnhilde smiled mischievously. "Stronger than even Aragorn?"
"... DON'T KNOW," Hulk grumbled. "ARAGORN IS WEIRD. PUNCHES DON'T AFFECT HIM. HE IS FAST. HE FLIES. HE CAN PHASE THROUGH FISTS, ARAGORN IS STRANGE!"
"I can't even argue with you on that," Brunnhilde nodded. "Aragorn is strange. The first time I met him, have I told you about it?"
"NO," Hulk said. "DID YOU PUNCH HIM? I TRIED TO PUNCH HIM."
Unknowingly, that comment earned the green monstrousity some points with his crush.
"No, I was not in a rush to greet Valhalla!" Brunnhilde exclaimed. "Were you mad? Stupid question, you were!"
"HAHAHAHA!" Hulk laughed, and the Valkyrie joined him.
For all of her complaints about Hulk's 'discreet' glances at her ass, he was the only one she was close to in Sakaar.
"See, my sisters and I had been summoned upon the golden throne," Brunnhilde began her story after her laughter subsided. "It was not my first time meeting the Allfather and the Queen Mother, but it was so in that setting.
"Despite my inner delusions back then, the atmosphere was not one of revelry. We could tell the dirty old man was overexerting himself; his divinity felt so... flickering back then. And the serpent queen was doing a terrible job hiding her concern. I could even read some regret in her."
"Our Majesties, the oldest of my sisters announced our arrival. She had this pride in her stride and her words that commanded respect and adoration from us all." Brunnhilde's face turned sad in reminiscence.
"Long story short," Brunnhilde snapped out of her melancholy, "they told us to die to stall the first princess. At that time, blinded by loyalty and pride, we agreed without a second thought. At least, I didn't give my decision a second thought; I don't think any of my sisters did either.
"The serpent queen guided us to the Bifrost, and we landed on Midgard under the shroud of the rainbow bridge. There, black as the vast umbra, riding a steed of equal tinture, Aragorn rode out of the shadows themselves. Pale skin and white eyes hidden under a hood woven by the umbra," Brunnhilde narrated.
"ARAGORN? WHITE EYES?" Hulk asked, absorbed in the tale.
"Yes, when I first met him, he was not in his most well-known persona; he called himself the Rider of Death," Brunnhilde preened, enjoying Hulk's rapt attention. "He didn't have the same presence back then. He was like a sharp blade over your head.
"He mocked the senile geezer, called out on the rulers' hypocrisy, and spoke with no regard for the serpent queen's honor. Back then, I found it beyond disrespectful; now, it was so fucking refreshing!" Brunnhilde breathed heavily simply by remembering it.
"BRUNNHILDE IS TURNING INTO ANGRY GIRL," Hulk called out.
"—Ah, right," her excitement came to a halt. "Sorry, I'm still getting rid of that bad habit," she sheepishly apologized. "Let's continue! So, I thought we were there to request reinforcements from the Drachantheon Therion; however, that was not the case.
"His eyes gained a green hue, and then he said that the serpent queen would make it alive to Asgard, my sisters would lose their souls to the first princess, and my path would diverge. I hate prophetic bullshit!" she snarled.
"WAS IT TRUE?" Hulk asked.
"..." Brunnhilde took a deep breath and nodded. "It was the stupid truth!" she cursed. "I ended here, in this dumpster. The serpent queen returned to Asgard thanks to the sacrifice of my sister. And the only thing that changed was that my sisters didn't forfeit their souls to Hela, they did to Madelyne, Goddess of Souls and Abeyance."
"ARAGORN HELPED?" Hulk asked.
"In his own bizarre way that simple beings like you and I can't understand," her words came mellowed out.
"... SORRY," Hulked said, downcast by her mood.
"Don't be," Brunnhilde said with a peaceful smile. "For a time, I cursed myself, Frigga, Odin, my sisters' loyalty, and even Aragorn."
"ARAGORN?" Hulk questioned.
"Hela, she died to his laughter... Hahahahaha!" she laughed powerlessly. "I don't know the specifics, all I know is that she said something only he found funny and he laughed... If he so willed it, Hela would have been erased from my sisters' fate with the flick of his tail... But I no longer resent them... Only Hela."
"..." Hulk didn't know what to do. He understood she was feeling down after letting it all out, but he was not equipped to handle such a scenario. So, he thought of the one thing that lifted him up.
He approached her, the pool's water parting way, and extended his hand to her. Hanging from it was his P-Link.
"...?" Brunnhilde didn't know what a P-Link was. The times she had seen Aragorn use his, it looked more as if he was using an ability to project and connect to some network, and the other P-Links she had seen had always been hanging from the necks of the members of the Drachantheon Therion, so the most logical conclusion was that the big softy brute was handing her jewelry to lift her mood.
"Can you help me?" she asked, moving her hair out of the way.
Like a hormonal teenager, hands sweaty, knees weak, and an uncomfortable erection only hidden by the level of the bathtub's water and Brunnhilde's considerate blind eyes, Hulk set the P-Link around her neck. A green emerald-like jewel hanging from a purple chain of some unknown metal.
"It's pretty, thanks," her eyes trailed down, "...big guy."
━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━
Asgard.
While Hulk was simping for the first being of the opposite sex to have ever seen him with eyes filled not with fear, Hela was redecorating Asgard.
The edges of the flat-world realm were meeting the boundaries of Helheim. The horizon the residents of Asgard had been used to for millennia—the starry, vast expanse—was slowly eroding away into the frigid, barren mountains of Helheim and the dark green skies that were tinted after Hela's extended imprisonment.
Gasps, whimpers from the children, concerned looks from the family providers, and a sense of dread and wrongness spread throughout the Asgardians as they slowly were assimilated by the new realm born from Asgard and Helheim.
They couldn't see it, but with Helheim being initially a repository of souls (Hel) and Hela being considered a being not alive, they were slowly turning into a people similar to the people of Abeyance.
In Asgard's throne, Hliðskjálf, deep inside the gold-laden walls of its castle, Valaskjálf, Hela sat in deep concentration guarded by the beast of the end, Fenrir, her legion of undead, and Skurge.
Her brows furrowed in deep concentration, her eyes, her senses, observing far more than was naturally or magically possible, as she was the Realm Lord of two fusing realms.
"It's quite the endeavor you're undertaking to avoid your prophecied end," Aragorn's voice rang in the hall, his body nowhere to be seen.
Fenrir, ever protective of their master, growled, their eyes darting back and forth.
"Aragorn, why are you still here?" Hela asked/demanded.
"I make a habit of tormenting Asgard's rightful heirs before their passing. Ask your father," Aragorn replied with a chuckle.
"I can't die, I'm the goddess of death," Hela declared confidently.
"Hoh?" Aragron voiced out.
"... Unless you decide to get involved," she added.
"I'm a dragon of my word," Aragorn said, to assuage her unnecessary worries. "On another note," Aragon continued, "What is your favorite animal?"
"What?" Hela asked, confused. Even Skurge, who would rather be anywhere but there, was equally baffled by the random question.
"Yes, it doesn't have to be an animal; it could be an insect, arachnid, plant, fungi, or any of the other types of barely sapient lower beings-Oh! It can't be a snake," Aragron continued, as if he was doing a breaking ice exercise.
"... What's the nature of this question?" Hela asked, wary.
"Mmmm, let's say it's about a mystery mouseketool that might come in handy in your adventure later," Aragorn chuckled. "Right, it can't be a dragon either."
"I hate dragons!" Hela hissed.
"Only a dragon's victim would hate dragons; otherwise, everybody knows that dragons are it!" Aragron factually declared.
"... Wolves," Hela said, her eyes on the only friend who remained by her side after all these centuries.
"Fenrir-chan is quite the beauty," Aragorn agreed. His compliments earned him a guttural growl from the black wolf. "But I see, a wolf... Okay, I like it."
"What are you on about?" Hela asked.
"Mystery mouseketool, I told you," Aragorn chirped happily.
"I know you know no one here understands what that is. Stop talking in riddles, Aragorn," Hela snarled.
"How cheeky for one so mortal," Aragorn said. His voice had lost all emotion and returned to cold flatness.
"..." Hela shivered slightly with fright. 'Something is wrong in its head,' she thought.
━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━
Sakaar.
A week had passed since Thor arrived at Sakaar. He spent half the first unconscious after Brunnhilde zapped him, then went and got his ass handled by Hulk and spent a full day unconscious, after that...
"NO, NO, NO, NO, WRONG! THOR IS NOT NIMBLE LIKE A BUTTERFLY! THOR IS DOING IT WRONG!" Hulk, in one of the training halls, snarled like a disappointed father whose child could not hold the light right.
"I'm nibble like lightning!" Thor, like a child on the receiving end of a father's growls after having failed at something simple like holding a flashlight, complained with a tantrum. "How am I supposed to evade her arrows without knowing where she is?! Since when do valkyries wield bows and arrows, and since when can they cast magic?"
"PREDICT!" Hulk commanded, frustrated.
"How ca—AGHHHH!" Thor's tantrum got interrupted by an arrow to the inner thigh. "HOw?! How diD you aim there?!"
The arrow entered through the inner side of his thigh; it didn't exit from there.
"THOR MUST BE NIMBLE!" Hulk scolded.
"You brute! I preferred Banner!" Thor shouted.
"... OK," Hulk said after a pause. "THOR LACKS FEAR," he said while making way to the weapons rack. He grabbed a bow his size and a spear. He made a few testing draws before nocking the 'arrow' and aiming at Thor. "I WILL HELP THOR," he declared with a vicious grin.
"Put down the harpoon, Hulk. I was joking. You know I don't like Banner, he talks to everyone about his seven Ph.D. I don't even care about Midgarian titles. I prefer Hulk. You know me, Hulk. Do you remember those times we fought side by side against Hydra? A joke! It was a JOKE!"
Then came the sound of an explosion. Thor spent the next day recuperating from blood loss.
The next time he was forced to join the savage duo in training, he became a pincushion for Brunnhilde. Was she taking out her unresolved issues with Asgard's royal family on him? Maybe, but it couldn't be proved.
In and out of consciousness, that's how the first week went by.
In one of those nights, in the room he shared with Hulk, and—by the amount of time she spent there—Brunnhilde, he woke up with a gasp.
He looked around, and, in the edification Hulk used for a bed, he found his turturers sleeping, leaning on each other... or more like Brunnhilde leaning on Hulk. To the feet of the bed, bottles rolled in a quantity that scared the Asgardian's liver.
With a wince, he stood up from the couch and slowly dragged his feet to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the Grandmaster's city.
If New York was called the City that Never Sleeps, then Sakaar was the planet that didn't know sleep. Its capital, the city the Grandmaster built, was not the exception.
Flying vessels moved about in predetermined fly paths, the skyscrapers built with repurposed cosmic transh were lit with artificial lights, and the streets were like a circulatory system; it never stopped so long as the body (planet) was alive.
"Heimdall, I know you can see me," Thor whispered. The certainty and determination in his words were not dimmed by the low volume of his whispers.
"Heimdall, I'm lost... I need help returning to Asgard," Thor implored.
His eyes focused on the multiple wormholes dumping trash on the planet, especially on the largest one that tinted its surroundings red; the Devil's Anus.
Then, like a heartbeat, it clicked. His eyes went from blue to amber, and he was not in Sakaar anymore. However, he did not recognize his surroundings.
He could tell, by the shape, that some of the mountains in the distance were the ones he had grown up observing as a child. However, the green-tinted skies, the frigid winds, the frozen sea(?), lake?, the barren peaks beyond the lake, and the sense of... death... He could not reconcile his memories of Asgard with the scene.
"Dreadful, isn't it?" Heimdall spoke from his right. "Phantasmagorical, I think that's the word Lord Aragorn used."
"Heimdall... This... It can't be," Thor said, his voice breaking with foreboding.
"Prince, denial won't benefit us," Heimdall said. Thor, ripped his eyes from the phantasmagorical landscape and turned for the first time to Heimdall.
Like Asgard, he was changing. His skin didn't carry the same luster, and his veins and blood vessels were slowly darkening. His eyes, their amber color remained as vibrant, maybe even more so; however, the blood vessels in his sclera were black.
"What's happening, Heimdall?" Thor asked.
"The princess returned, and with her, she brought back the prison the Allfather vacated for her," Heimdall revealed. "Her power was vast, her authority over Helheim undeniable. She used this authority to speed up her claim over Asgard's authority and declared she was going to bring Ragnorok... her kind of Ragnarok."
"... It can't be," Thor denied. "Father said she drew her power from Asgard, like him, not from Helheim."
"The Allfather, for all of his wisdom, didn't know it all," Heimdall explained. "Hea perished to Lord Aragorn once, and her divinity brought her back. But how could [Death] bring back [Life] on its own? She returned as one of hers, and undead. The prison the Allfather had prepared for her was originally a repository of souls; can you think of anyone with a better affinity for such a realm than an undead goddess of death?"
"... What about Asgard's people?" Thor asked, his mind still processing the despairing revelations.
"I took advantage of the princess's absence—"
"Absence?" Thor interrupted.
"The fusion is not complete yet. The princess retired to Valaskjálf to conclude the fusion of both realms and effectively end Asgard, Ragnarok," Heimdall patiently explained. "In her absence, I took some of our people to a refuge our ancestors built deep in the mountains."
"It's not complete yet?" Thor asked. Hope didn't miss the chance to grab onto the slim possibility.
"Helheim has been assimilated to Asgard, but Asgard hasn't been fully assimilated to Helheim," Heimdall explained. "Prince, her forces ar—"
"Shouldn't you be resting for tomorrow?" Aragorn interrupted.
"My Lord," Hiemdall curtsied subtly.
"Aragorn!" Thor exclaimed in surprise.
"Tomorrow is divinity day, you should be resting," Aragorn spoke nonchalantly, with an almost scolding tone.
"Divinity day?" Thor asked, confused.
"Yes," Aragorn nodded. "I left Brunnhilde a routine to mold you from a whelp godling into a proper God of Thunder. She and Hulk should be molding your vessel of power so far, but tomorrow they'll instruct you into going from god of hammers to god of thunder."
"You're the one responsible!" Thor accusingly pointed at Aragorn.
"Most certainly," Aragorn admitted, some pride leaking into his voice. "And if you have half a mind, you'll be grateful and take advantage of the opportunity I've given you."
"What opportunity?" Thor raged. "While I was getting pummeled by those two crazy hormonal brutes, my home was lost! What does an opportunity matter if it is already too late?!"
"The alternative was you getting fly-swatted by Hela," Aragorn deadpanned. "Besides, so what of Asgard is lost? It was gonna end either way," he turned to Heimdall, "Right?"
"You knew?" Thor turned to Heimdall, too.
"It's a prophecy, Prince," Heimdall calmly nodded.
"Then what's the point of all of this, if our defeat was written by the stars?" Thor despaired.
"That's for you to find out, Prince," Heimdall advised.
"I altered Sakaar's time some time ago, so you have time," Aragorn added. "However, grow complacent and Hela will make a move on the rest of the Nine Realms."
"..." Thor had no more words.
"Return, you'll need the rest for tomorrow, your tomorrow," Aragorn said. He waved his tail and, with a gasp, Thor was back in his body in Sakaar.
"Thank you for your leniency, My Lord," Heimdall addressed Aragorn's thought projection.
"Haven't I always been lenient with Bor Burison's lineage?" Aragorn asked. "I was lenient with Odin the most; at least Hela didn't scheme my downfall and simply strode to me confidently. Thor has been the most well-behaved, and even with Loki, although not of Bor's lineage, I've given him plenty of chances."
"I'll be forever grateful," Heimdall declared.
"What does the forever of a dying man get me?" Aragorn asked.
"My word is that even from Valhalla, I remember My Lord's leniency to the ones I oathed myself to," Heimdall said.
"Well, not like I can do much with that, but I appreciate the feeling," Aragorn smiled before dispersing the thought construct.
Aragorn liked Heimdall. It could be said that he even admired him a little.
During his time as Lucien, he knew life was meaningless, and that sank him deep into depression. He couldn't deal with the repercussions of what he considered knowledge, and he couldn't find a reason to continue until much later in his life.
Heimdall, with his sight, divinity, his knowledge, wisdom, runes, and magic, has sensed his end ever since the early days of his life, yet he didn't despair. He was faced with the truth that life was meaningless by its own, and he built a meaning for it for himself. That's what Aragorn admired a little about him.
Also, from the Asgardians he has ever interacted with, he has had no problems ever with Heimdall and Bor Burison. So that helps.
Back in Sakaar, the next morning, Thor found himself in front of Hulk and Brunnhilde again.
"There's something up with you," Brunnhilde said while carefully observing Thor.
"IS THOR BUTTHURT? WE EXPLAIN IT WAS TRAINING, NOTHING PERSONAL," Hulk said.
"No, I don't think it's that," Brunnhilde muttered. "Are you feeling down because you're the only one suffering, and Loki is partying with the Grandmaster?"
"I DON'T THINK WE CAN TRAIN THE PUNY GOD," Hulk said, thoughtfully.
"Let's just start," Thor snapped. "Today it's divinity day, correct?"
"THOR MET ARAGORN?" Hulk asked.
"Ah! That checks out, Aragorn can have that effect on people," Brunnhilde nodded as if she understood something. "I was emotionally destroyed 8 out of 10 times after a meeting with him."
"ARAGORN HURT YOU?" Hulk asked.
"No, Big Guy," Brunnhilde shook her head. A smile escaped her at Hulk's concern for her well-being. "He just bruised my ego a few times too many."
"ARAGORN BRUISED BANNER TOO," Hulk nodded.
"Can we start?" Thor asked. "The faster I'm done here, the sooner we can return to Asgard."
"Okay," Brunnhilde grinned viciously. "Today, you'll train with the big guy while wearing these," she pointed at a container with a collar and a few handcuffs and leg irons.
"..." Thor eyed the collar suspiciously and scratched at the disk on his neck. "I think not."
"HEH!" Hulk smiled.
Thor shifted his weight, getting into a stance; however, before he knew it, two spears went through his thighs, and he fell backwards. From his peripheral view, he saw the Brunnhilde standing next to Hulk disappear into an illusion.
"Brother," Loki entered his sight. "While I can say I didn't do this out of my own volition," he leaned his head to the side, allowing Thor to spot a familiar disk on his neck, "I won't. I totally did this out of my own volition."
"PUNY GOD, DON'T BOTHER THOR," Hulk commanded while stomping over with the container at hand.
With a thud! he dropped the container next to the downed god of hammers and landed his eyes on Loki.
"You don't need to tell me twice," Loki smiled, eagerly.
With an impossible to hide smirk, he secured the handcuffs and leg irons to Thor, leaving the best for the end. Joyous beyond measure, he collared Thor.
"This clown will help us with your training," Brunnhilde said after coming into view. "For all of his..." Brunnhilde paused, looking for words to describe him while looking at Loki up and down.
"PUNINESS?" Hulk suggested.
"Scumminess," Brunnhilde continued, "he has an almost perfect handle of his divinity. The equipment," she grabbed the spears on Thor's thighs and pulled them free with so much as a warning, she ignored Thor's wailing, "was made by Aragorn. Supposedly, it shall zap you with lightning charged with neutral divinity. The specifics are above me, but I was assured it will help you."
"Brother," Loki's smirk, impossibly, grew larger. "This is for your own good."
"Father," Thor prayed beneath his breath. "I find myself at the mercy of my enemies; give me strength, for I shall need it this day."
That day, for the first time, Thor, god of hammers, was electrocuted. Charred even. Toasty.
However, the training was undeniably effective. He could already spark, he could sense lightning, he could subtly affect the weather on a small scale, and the zapping he endured was no longer a bother.
A week since the start of his divinity training, he reached what he considered to be his peak for the moment. He could proudly declare he was Thor, God of Thunder. Whatever growing he had left; that was for his aging to handle.
"My friends," Thor declared proudly. "I can't claim that the thought of strangling you in your sleep never crossed my mind."
Brunnhilde scoffed at him, Hulk rolled his eyes, and Loki nodded in agreement, as if he understood exactly what his brother was talking about.
"Through fire and ash, through lightning and thunder, I'm proud to have reached this level," Thor raised a tankard. "I have none other than you to thank for, and maybe curse a little," he said the last part under his breath, "but I'm ready! We are ready! So let's drink to that!"
"AYE!" Hulk agreed and raised a barrel into the air.
Brunnhilde, with her unnatural drinking, raised a hose. It was connected to a barrel by her side. Loki, the businessman among the working class, raised a glass in a toast.
The next day, the four sat in an awkward silence.
"... So," Thor drawled. "We are as ready as we can be for Hela..."
"Yes," Loki agreed. "I don't think our chances are considerably better, but yes..."
"I can't wait to put an arrow through the bitch's eyehole," Brunnhilde nodded with battlethirst.
"I'M READY TO CARRY THIS FIGHT," Hulk declared, both prideful and factual.
"Yes, I like the energy," Thor agreed. "... So... Let's go..."
"It's time," Loki agreed and stood up. Thor did as well.
Hulk grunted in approval and went for his battleaxe and his warhammer.
"Let's hunt the bitch," Brunnhilde agreed and pulled a cursed spear from her storage and eyed it with bloodlust.
Thor donned his armor and Loki summoned his horned helmet.
Side by side, the four marched to battle out of Hulk's room. Loki could even swear that he was hearing background music.
People parted ways for them as they walked to the end of the long red and white hall. And when they reached the end, they stopped. Left or right, it was time to pick a path, yet...
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Okay, how are we getting off this planet?" Thor asked with a positive smile, and Brunnhilde.
"What do you mean? A ship, obviously," Brunnhilde said.
"That much is clear, valkyrie," Loki stated. "What my brother meant was, which way to the ship?"
"How should I know? My ship can't make it out of here," Brunnhilde said. "Wait, do none of us know how to get off the planet?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"I KNOW," Hulk said, and all eyes turned to him. "THE GRANDMASTER'S PORT IS THIS WAY," he pointed left with his battleaxe.
"!" It then clicked for all.
"We're gonna need a distraction," Loki said, his mind scheming immediately.
"I know a guy," Thor said.
"I'll take the big guy with me and sabotage some of the other vessels," Brunnhilde added. "We don't want them on our tails, do we?"
An hour later, under the shower of fireworks, flying the Grandmaster's luxury ship, and with the Statesman behind, the revolution and Thor's Revengers flew into the Devil's Anus.
With lightning and firepower, they cleared a path through the storm of cosmic debris and bodied through the wormhole towards Asgard.
When they made it through, due to overwhelming space fluctuations and inertia, they had passed out inside the ships. Hulk was the only one who remained conscious.
What graced his eyes was the golden realm Thor had spoken about.
"WAKE UP!" He roared. They jolted awake, and Brunnhilde barely had the time to swirl right and avoid a towering sword.
The Statesman pushed its trusters to the limit and lifted the massive ship away from the growing sword. It didn't end there, spire-like swords grew from the ground, the peaks, and an overwhelming sense of wrongness chilled their souls.
It was like...
"The realm is against us," Loki said.
His words couldn't be truer. The ground, the skies, the air, the entire realm was against them, and they knew what that meant.
"Asgard has fallen," Thor mouthed.
"It was transformed into something else," Loki added. "Ragnarok happened."
"How are we supposed to fight that?" Brunnhilde questioned. The main screen zoomed in on the undead legions and the towering wolf awaiting them in front of the Bifrost.
↓Part 2━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━Part 2↓
The odds were certainly stacked against my team, and Hela's team was deadly beyond the bad joke. Mmmmm, but I don't know, I still think Hulk should be enough, but... Would they still follow the let's call Daddy-Surtur plan?
I don't think that plan is feasible now, is it? Getting to Asgard's vault implies getting past the horde, and Hela allowing their ship to fly overhead, but... The way the swords of green ice imbued with divinity are raining down, while swords of crystals are rising to spear them through, tells me that Hela doesn't plan to allow that. Even if they manage, this new realm is beyond Surtur to destroy, not even if empowered by the Eternal Flame.
Maybe I could take a peek and see what they'll do, confirming the result is normally enough for me, but now I'm intrigued about the process.
No, no, bad dragon, say no to spoilers!
The swords made from the hybrid dimension itself finally pierced through one of the ships' shields, the Grandmaster's personal spaceship.
The little valkyrie veered barely in time to save the left wing of the ship, but the damage had already been done.
The Statesman kept raising, as if trying to escape this open dimension's territory. Not a bad approach, technically, but I doubt that's their plan. When it passed the cloud ceiling and it couldn't be seen with normal eyesight anymore, the Grandmaster's ship accelerated forward and downward, a trail of smoke behind it.
"Kamikaze?" I murmured.
No, well, I know none of the passengers would perish from that.
Like a landmower, the ship slid over the ground and mowed the grass (undead) to the root. Then it burst into a conflagration of regular flames and... Is that plasma? From the engine? No, that's helginol. A type of controlled fuel used to power atmosphere-bound ships in Sector-H87 of this quadrant of the universe.
Then—
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
—An explosion will surely follow.
Could it be that the little valkyrie prepared weaponry beforehand? That could explain why the yield equivalent of a Hiroshima fission bomb just detonated in the middle of the horde.
Maybe comparing this to a nuclear explosion isn't accurate, since the truly destructive power of a nuclear bomb is in its blast; this thing, however, was not much of a blasting bomb as a flaming inferno bomb that just did the equivalent of a gasoline spillage and then sparked it.
Ah, how interesting! This truly is nothing like the movie. I feel like I'm watching a movie I directed myself after I sealed the memory of my participation in it, so curious.
The fire, like sticky fire, with the spread speed of a Californian fire in summer on a windy day, raged and swept through the horde like a fiendfyre spell.
Hela, however, was not known as Odin's commander and executioner for nothing. Towering swords rose from the ground and cut the fire's spread by the simplest solution of physically blocking its path and sacrificing those already burning.
Besides, Thor, Hulk, Loki, and the little valkyrie were still there, so broiling them until well done is a valid strategy. No, wait, Loki is not there anymore... I see... interesting approach.
Then, Hela spared no expense and didn't follow the usual cliche of waiting for the smoke to clear. She took control of the weather and aired the oven with plenty of oxygen.
Psycho or not, Hela has an excellent battlefield control skill.
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGG!
Okay, I can recognize my pal's soothing voice anywhere!
Like a high-caliber bullet breaking through several panes of glass, Hulk broke through the swords acting as walls for the convection oven and rushed forward, easily bulldozing the undead in his way and obliterating any of the obstacles Hela placed in his rampage path.
But this was not enough. No, my pal was built differently. He opened his arms wide, ready for the classic Hulk clap, but his fingers were positioned slightly differently. Leaving a small hole between his middle fingers, when he clapped, the sonic shockwave didn't fan out; instead, it was concentrated into a small stream that was pressured through the small hole he left.
Anything ahead of him was either blasted away or pierced through.
Then, he clapped again, this time a 'normal' Hulk clap. The shockwave fanned out, and the path was temporarily cleared. That was enough.
Leaving me and mine aside, on Earth, the fastest 'speedster' is not Pietro, it is Hulk.
With a trail of craters behind him from each powerful stomp, Hulk blitzed forward in a straight path to Hela.
"So this is the thing that gave my foolish little brothers confidence to return and face me," Hela declared like a true Itachi Uchiha. "Or is this monster your ploy, Aragorn?" she asked out loud, knowing I was listening.
"Meet Hulk, I trained him," my voice reached her. "He is more than your match. Struggle, despair, claw your way to victory, and emerge victorious—if you can—and like I said, I would not intervene."
"Very well!" She grinned like Madara when he played and danced with his soulmate.
Like that, less than two seconds after the crash, Hulk reached Hela. His hand was not going for her in a fist, no, Hulk was a killing machine, Hulk knew not to pull punches, so, with all the momentum of his rush, middle finger first, he turned his hand into a spearhead and aimed at Hela's mass center.
Yeah, my pal was going for full raw penetration without even exchanging a word with Hela.
Hela was not a fool, though. Diagonally from below, she raised a sword in his direction, a massive, solid, bulky, and deadly sword that I was sure could have speared through Surtur. Hulk's speartip (middle finger) met the sharp point of the sword and... lost an arm.
Without a doubt, a sword loaded with the divinity of two realms by a Skyfather-level deity would cut through a Gamma-mutate's limb.
But this was my pal we were talking about.
With regeneration that I've only seen in my Therions, a new arm was loaded and ready by the time he twisted and dodged the sword from impaling him by less than an inch, and was on Hela's face.
"Foul BEAST!" Hela roared with an arm thicker than her torso, cutting her through instead of spearing her. Hulk did aim for spearing through her, but her waist was so thin in comparison with his arms that he ripped through and cleaved her in half.
But this hybrid dimension was hers, and that meant her home advantage was overwhelming. Neither of her two halves had dropped before she was back in full size, her divine regiment regenerated and all.
In fact, she took advantage of the spin Hulk's cleaving attack gave her and spun faster. Then, before Hulk could fully guard, she had a massive warhammer in hand and slammed hard from above.
The hit disoriented him for a fraction of a fraction of a second—which, in this fight, that might as well have been a second—and Hela took a better swinging stand and wasted no time. Her massive warhammer slammed on his right.
My massive pal was launched left like a truck reaching racing car speeds. Hela wasted no time observing the result of her strike and rushed after him.
However, on her path after Hulk, when she least expected it, when it even flew under her radar inside her dimension, an arrow pierced through her left knee and graced the back of her right knee.
She stumbled and became another rolling stone behind Hulk.
There's nothing as scary as a stealth archer. Not even the fear of a sniper is the same. A sniper that doesn't kill on the first shot is not scary; however, a valkyrie whose location you ignore that doesn't kill you in the first shot is the start of a nightmare.
Brunnhilde's magical talent, for all of her demigoddess blood, was subpar. Which is why the result of her magical training can be totaled to three spells. One for stealth, one for enhancing her eyesight, and another for spatial mobility. That's it, just three spells, and that was even with me as a teacher.
Naturally, I focused on other avenues, but still, these spells were enough.
Hulk gained stability first; Hela was second, however, her focus was now split between the monster I trained and the other 'incognita'.
"Another one of yours, Aragorn?" Hela asked with hiss and a snarl.
"Sort of, but she is more of a support to Hulk; she is fragile, unlike my pal," I replied. I made sure my voice reached her.
"You speak as if she were not a monster capable of hiding from me within my realm," Hela said between her breath.
A halberd appeared in her hand, the type of monstrous weapon that would be unwieldy for mortal users. The head was shrouded in an aura of her divinity of death.
"Come, beast, I shall slay you even while you're assisted by another," Hela strode like a queen towards Hulk, her divinity of death pulsing with her as the center and growing widespread with every pulse/beat.
I think she intends to get the little valkyrie killed in her AOE aura.
It's a good plan, but she underestimated the distance from which the little valkyrie is shooting.
I don't think she can kill her fast enough to defeat Hulk, but I could be wrong... Though in this reality, I'm barely ever wrong.
To prove my point, while Hela catwalked towards Hulk, an arrowhead exited from the right side of her hip, making her stumble.
Her face crunched in anger, and her jaw clenched. "Little pes—"
Hulk's chopping hand reached her before she could curse.
She lifted the pole of her halberd just in time to defend. The sound the 'fleshy' limb made when it was defended by the halberd was akin to the clanking of dense, bulky steel beams.
A sword rose from the ground, aiming at Hulk from behind. My pal stomped hard and cracked anything below him while blasting anything around him except Hela, who bore the shockwave.
Another arrow interjected, this one aiming for her head. Hela shifted her head fast enough to displace air. Still, the arrow made a horizontal cut across her forehead.
She hissed, not in pain, in wrath, and then a forest of swords burst from the ground and caged her with Hulk.
I felt through my empathy that there was a sense of relief and even victory in her. She believed she had blocked Brunnhilde's sight.
"Naïve," I muttered, but didn't spoil it for Hela.
The ground shook, the air boomed, the space-time mesh creaked in strain, and the dimension itself began to deform—not that anyone but me could see the last one—yet nothing mattered to Hela and Hulk.
Hulk, with his 'natural' gamma-blessed weapons (hands), and Hela with her divine halberd, both clashed and exchanged strikes so fast and so heavy that the forest of swords was going through a cycle of dust and reemergence.
And now, after the battle had lasted this 'long', I realized I had made a slight miscalculation.
Gamma mutates are immortal until claimed by the Below Place. This means they are virtually the 'plaguest' plague ever in existence. Hulk has Extreme Gamma Radiation coursing through his veins, so he would not be an exception to this rule.
That's where I made a small misconception; this reality is so isolated from the rest of the multiverse that I didn't account for him not being immortal. Now, Hulk is unaging; that hasn't changed, but he is not unkillable.
I noticed this because I'm beginning to see some of Hela's death stubbornly fighting the gamma in his bloodstream.
Mmmmm, but I know he'll survive, and Thor and Brunnhilde, so how does he make it out of this?
Still, Hela gained just an inch on him, and she set aside the little valkyrie in her mind. Big mistake.
Soundless until the hit. Swift and impossibly parabolic, that's the trajectory the arrows followed before vertically piercing through Hela's shoulders.
She flinched, her halberd staggered, and before rage could surface, Hulk grabbed her arm. Loki knows how terrible a mistake that is.
Hulk rag-dolled her and slammed her twice against the ground and once through one of her swords before she cut off her arm, and the linear velocity ejected her into the distance, breaking through multiple more of her swords.
Worse even, the little valkyrie was tactically vicious. She didn't even allow Hela the luxury of being launched through a forest of swords in peace. With barely a sound, arrow behind arrow, Hela became a pincushion.
When she finally stopped—while arrows were still striking her unmoving body—through blood, spit, and arrows, she said, "I see... Indeed, I'll have to claw my way to victory."
"What, you thought I was bluffing?" I vibrated the air next to her to say.
This exchange lasted long enough for Hulk to barrel his way to her; however, she set her pride aside and recognized she was on the losing side.
The Horde, which so far had been kept away by the blastwaves of her fight with Hulk, turned and began to avalanche towards Valaskjálf, and the surroundings, probably in an attempt to lure out Brunnhilde.
Then, indiscriminately, swords began to grow, like spikes, and shot off like ground-to-air missiles. These swords, following the principle that anything that goes up within a gravitational well has to go down, rained all over the land that was previously Asgard.
And so, a sword storm was born. Not only small swords, but some of the bigger ones were the size of buses.
Lightning thundered a distance from Valaskjálf. Thor was forced to act.
While I kept a few of my eyes on them—so they were never out of my sight—Hela probably tracked them with her dimensional senses as the lord of this realm.
Loki had disappeared before the ship crashed, and he had been on his way to the castle since before the fire that was still raging started. Thor was moving in the same direction but was taking a different route.
Based on simple logic, they left Hela to Hulk and Brunnhilde while they split and aimed for the same price, Asgard's vault. The split was to divide her attention and become harder to pin targets, I bet.
However, this plan had been working only because Hela felt she could be complacent. She believed herself the challenged and not the challenger. However, it failed when she realized she was no longer in an advantageous position.
When she understood that I meant it when I said that she would have to claw her way to survival, her mindset changed.
The raining swords forced Thor to defend, and I can see Loki in another corner of Asgard—closer to the castle—using his divinity to shield some of the hostage citizens.
It wasn't only the ground forces whose hands were forced; the Statesman, which so far had been also approaching the castle, but from truly high above, was falling. It was a pseudo-controlled fall, but the three swords stuck to it spoke of how it would not be flying anymore. Even while it fell, its turrets were burning ammo while intercepting flying sword after flying sword.
I can see it... With their aim being the castle's vault, they took a three-pronged approach. I think this was the smartest plan they could think of based on the circumstances, but Hela was too experienced.
She figured they were coming back for the citizens beforehand, so she separated them into smaller groups, forcing them to take the long route when it came to rescue.
Additionally, while in the fight, she realized she couldn't allow them the luxury of movement, so she disregarded the hostages and created the sword storm. Now, while it could be said that Hulk and Brunnhilde have her pinned down, she has Thor, Loki, and the Statesman pinned down.
A satlemate, it is not. She has the home advantage.
The only one who could match her is Hulk, but even then, I think she is confident in achieving a draw with Hulk and killing the rest with her indiscriminate attack. Hence, surviving, ergo, overcoming my trial.
Congratulations were due. She set her pride aside and aimed for survival instead of conquest.
Which leaves me with even more questions. The way this is going, the future I saw would not come to be, and that is not possible in this reality, so how will it come to be? How thrilling.
My eyes, my multiple eyes, followed and tracked every detail about Hela's fight, Thor's battle to protect even just one Asgardian more, Loki's efforts in shielding as many as he could, the Statesman burning through ammo as it fell in the direction of the castle, and even Heimdall's struggles to shield a small group of civilians behind him.
I tracked all, I saw all, nothing escaped my sight, nothing was beyond my senses in this hybrid dimension, and nothing could hide from me, so I was the first one who witnessed it.
A spirit burning through its 'cultivation' to gain a desperate push, even at the cost of its life. It was a brightness I had never seen before. A darkened soul I found no interest in and even dismissed after a glance, a soul dulled by karma and shrouded in sin, a soul so lackluster; this was the type of soul that demonstrated to me this extravaganza!
A vibrant green, different from Hela's insipid green, 'polluted' the dimension and forcibly staked a claim. And an illusion so real it flickered and edged on the territory of an [Illusion] was born from Loki.
A green-tinted illusion of the splendor of past-Asgard overlayed itself with the remnants of Asgard and shielded all below it. The raining swords stabbed the illusion; however, they never went past the 'roof' of the illusory castle. All the swords ended up stuck on the illusion.
And Loki... Loki cried and shouted in pain and madness. He sweated, spat, and cried blood. His vessel, his body, was undoing itself in an anguished attempt to squeeze anything and all for even one drop of divinity more.
His form was flickering in and out of an illusory state, but, regardless of his suffering and soon-to-be sacrifice, the illusory castle held and protected all the Asgardians in its shadow.
Due to their paths, Thor was far enough from Loki that he didn't notice the cost of what Loki was doing. Pride, hope, happiness, love, abundant love, and many more emotions my empathy picked from him.
His surface thoughts were blasting his belief to hurry and not waste his brother's efforts. He, 100%, had no idea that his brother was moments away from breaking apart and becoming an illusion before dispersing like a dream.
Heimdall did, though. His eyes saw it, and, somewhat similar to Thor, he was exuding pride and hope, but his were solemn and laced with gratitude.
The Statesman landed/crashed, and the illusion parted ways for it and seamlessly allowed it passage.
"TO THE SHIP!" Heimdall commanded before departing to round up the survivors spread around.
"TO THE SHIP!" He shouted everywhere he went.
The Asgardians had seen the massive vessel fall through the illusion protecting them, and Asgard was their home, so they knew the shortest paths.
"TO THE SHIP!" Heimdall roared with more vigor.
But why the ship? That thing is not flying anymore.
The last place he reached was Loki's soon-to-be locus mortis.
Loki's agony-laced scream was so raw and loud that not even Heimdall could hear his own voice, but that didn't stop him from saying, "I never liked you, my prince. I was not subtle with my distrust." He took a heavy breath and then kneeled at Loki's illusory feet.
He began to etch runes on the cobblestone around himself and Loki. "But today, more than ever, I acknowledge you as my liege," he said.
Then I felt it, and I'm sure Hela did as well.
Thor didn't summon Surtur, no, he broke the Space Stone free from the Tesseract.
"Fucking madness!" I exclaimed. I'm sure Hela could identify with my exclamation because I felt her panic and disbelief set in.
Hulk, my pal, was covered in necrotic wounds oozing equal parts death and gamma. He was standing due to sheer absurdity and will, and Hela was leaning on her broken halberd like it were a cane.
Brunnhilde had been lucky enough to survive the sword storm, but she was out of anything to shoot except her sword. She barely made it in time to the protective shadow of the illusory castle and was dragging her feet towards the Statesman. She had only three cuts on her—contrary to the countless Hulk was bearing—but she was not Hulk, so it was already a miracle that she managed to think of burning her magic to stave off the necrotic death.
Loki was seconds away from death by illusory transformation.
And Thor... The fool was attempting to spatially destroy the hybrid realm while warping away his people. It was an excellent plan, one I didn't think about because of its impossibility.
It's simple, he can't do it. He doesn't have the knowledge, skill, ability, or experience with [Space] to achieve such a monumental task—for one of his stature—as destroying a dimension is, even more so while trying to select targets to warp away.
I think Hela knew it, because impossible or not, he was going to destroy this realm either way when his attempt rebounded on him, so she squeezed the last in her to make a sword below her feet and rush to the castle.
She met two obstacles; the first was that Loki was still burning his spirit, so Hela slammed on the illusory castle's walls. The second was that if she could squeeze the last in her, so could Hulk.
So Hulk pounded on her; his movements were clumsy, heavy, tired, but Hela was moving equally clumsily, heavily, and tiredly, so it was enough.
"BEAST!" Hela roared. "He'll kill us all! ALL!"
But Hulk wasn't listening, no, Hulk was barely conscious, his body was moving by trained instincts, and I could see that even Banner was helping him. For the first time, those two minds sharing a soul were cooperating.
"ARAGORN! STOP THIS!" Hela roared, her words came laced with blood as she tore her vocal cords.
"No," I flatly said.
'Even if they all die, I won't stop this. I desire to witness the denouement.'
-Even if time needs to be turned back, I will witness the resolution.-
|Even if I need to supplant them with thought constructs, I will witness the conclusion.|
>Even if I have to alter my plans, I will observe the climax.<
Nothing will stop me, nothing can stop me!
The realm began to crack, visibly, and the space-time mesh transformed into a space-time rag.
Thor, his extrasensory range expanded by the enlightenment of the Space Stone, located Loki, or what remained of him.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
His despair exacerbated the situation.
"ARAGORN!" Hela cried.
And then... I saw it. I saw the variable that solved the puzzle. My mind extrapolated the denouement, and my curiosity was replaced with understanding. Glorious understanding!
Hela had no energy left to rain swords. Loki was a fraction of a second away from turning fully illusory. Heimdall was almost done with what he was doing. The Asgardians had boarded the Statesman, Brunnhilde as well. Hulk could move no longer; Hela was equally spent. And Thor... the situation had escalated way out of his hands.
None of these was the variable; it was him, Thanos. Destiny's child.
His fleet, his mothership, his army, it imposingly appeared on the edges of the cracking dimension.
This hybrid realm of Asgard and Helheim took properties of both. Helheim was initially a repository of souls, not a place you could fly a ship to; however, Asgard was. Asgard was an open realm.
When Hela merged both realms, it was easier to bring Helheim to reality than to rip Asgard out of reality and bring it to Helheim.
An open hybrid realm, a striking fusion of two worlds, had drawn the attention of many eyes across the universe. Then, as the Space Stone lit up like a conspicuous lighthouse, Thanos made his move to secure it before it would be lost forever in the approaching collapse of the space-time mesh.
Many things happened almost simultaneously.
Thanos's fleet rained fire.
Heimdall's spell shiphoned some of the cosmic energy the Space Stone was gushing and Loki's own raw divinity, and activated.
Runic circles appeared below Hulk and Thor. A massive runic circle appeared below the Statesman.
Hela lit her spirit like Loki and tried to stabilize the spatiotemporal collapse.
Loki turned fully illusory and died. I forcibly summoned his damaged soul and opened a small Astral Path to Noona's realm and sent it that way.
Heimdall sacrificed his life, which was one of the conditions for the activation of this runic magic, and Hulk, Thor, and the Statesman warped away in the Bifrost's light under the cosmic blessing of the Space Stone.
Hulk was warped in a direct course towards Earth. Thor encountered spatial turbulence and ended up in another direction. And the Statesman ended in yet another side of the universe.
I could see that the ship's life support systems were still operational, but it couldn't fly. Hence, it will take them a while to fix it.
Then, Hela, blinded by the pain of burning her spirit and the gargantuan task of fighting the influence of the Space Stone off of her hybrid dimension, couldn't stop Thanos's Maw from pulling the stone towards the ship. I doubt she even registered them, and even if she did, she would have preferred to get the stone as far away as possible, as it was ripping her realm apart.
Space was still collapsing, Thanos wasted no time, and lightspeed-jumped away.
I took a moment to observe what remained...
Imagined someone drew the most realistic drawing on a pane of glass. Then this impossible drawing is smashed. Afterward, someone tried to melt it to fuse it, but failed midway. Someone thought of using glue and equally failed. Finally, someone rearranged the pieces as best as possible. That's what remained of this hybrid realm.
The space-time mesh was broken, warped, strained, ripped, twisted, and torn, and Hela was trying to hold the dimension in place with duct tape.
I appeared in front of the agonizing goddess, my hand phased through all the divinity, psionic energy, soul aura, and raw power she was blasting, and peacefully landed over her head.
As if the rest of the world had paused and only she and I could move, her agony halted.
"..." She looked at me with eyes full of despair, hurt, pain, sadness, reproach, and hate. "I'll survive."
"Yes, you will," I confirmed. "But in which state?"
"... I will not die again," she said.
"How about we make a deal?" I offered.
"... Was this your plan all along?" she asked.
"No, I just came up with it recently, before the fight started," I replied.
She didn't continue; instead, she took a deep breath and observed our paused surroundings.
"This was not what I wanted," she cracked. Tears freely flowed. She blinked rapidly, brought a hand to her cheeks, and asked, "Tears?"
"Have you not teared before?" I asked.
"It's been so long, I forgot," Hela muttered. "I think the last time was when Odin started my training."
"I see," I said noncommittally.
She raised her eyes again, looking at the cracked drawing her realm had become. Her eyes were half lost, half filled with fighting spirit, and 100% in despair.
"What's the deal?" She asked.
"I'll not interfere up to a point," I said. "However, before you can damage your soul like your little brother did, I'll claim it.
"You can try, and you will fail to stop the impending collapse, and when you fail, I'll accept your soul. I will not harm you, I will not manipulate you, I will not do unto you what I wouldn't do unto my Therions, and I will not enslave you," I explained.
"What's the catch?" Hela asked. There was a calmness to her brought by her recognition of the upcoming end of Asgard/Helheim.
"Hela, the Goddess of Death, will die here," I revealed.
She and I held gazes for a moment... Until I got her answer.
Reality was unpaused, and the hybrid realm imploded before it exploded. Space twisted, a rupture, a wound, was left behind, and reality covered it with its universal spackling paste, a black hole.
Just as a singularity couldn't be observed without creating a paradox, the rupture behaved the same. Hence, reality covered it with a black hole.
This was the end of Asgard, Helheim, and Hela; this was Ragnarok.
From a distance, one that my eyes could ignore, I saw Thanos deposit the Space Stone on his gauntlet. This was the start of the Infinity Wars.
╚═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╝
————————————————
{A/N:
Please check out my P@treon account! There are already 10 chapters ahead for premium members, which is at least 100,000 words. Premium members also gain access to a new chapter every week.
[email protected]/ExistentialVoid
Free Members get access to all free chapters, and I upload free chapters about 12 hours earlier on P@atreon.}
————————————————