We were very close to our goal so I decided to post the bonus chapter anyway!
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Josh left the new training ground at Schönbrunn Palace in a very good mood.
Inside, Loki lay on the floor, unsure if he was dead or alive.
Loki giving up everything in Asgard had surprised Josh.
Since he had already agreed to Carol, he could not go back on his word.
But that did not stop him from "training" Loki hard as a sparring partner.
Loki also had no way to refuse.
Scenes like this would clearly continue in the future.
"Are you okay?"
A voice sounded next to the limp Loki.
He felt a bit touched—he thought he would be lying there until he recovered on his own.
When he turned his head, he saw Carol's younger brother, Ben.
But the smile on Ben's face gave Loki a bad feeling.
"Heh, I'm fine, I'm fine. I just need a short rest," Loki said with an awkward smile.
"Great. Then hurry up. My father said you're one of the top fighters in the universe and told me to learn from you," Ben said, still smiling.
What? I'm a top fighter in the universe? Why don't I know that?
"No, Ben, this must be a misunderstanding…" Loki tried to explain.
But Ben had no interest in listening.
Loki wailed in his heart… Carol, come save me.
Carol could not help him this time, because Margaret was pulling her aside for a talk.
What Loki did not know was that his dear brother Thor was in even worse shape.
After Josh finished venting on Loki, he opened a portal.
When he stepped out again, he was in a village in Cuba.
In the center of the village stood a platform.
A ragged, dirty man hung from it.
If no one said it, almost no one would believe this was Thor, once the proud son of Asgard.
Why was Thor here in this state? The reason was simple—he had been exiled, just like in the Thor movie, only fifty years earlier.
A week had passed since Thor came to Earth to provoke them.
Not long after Odin dragged him back to Asgard, Thor was exiled.
How did Josh know?
Because when Thor was exiled, the hammer was thrown to Earth too, just like in the movie.
The impact was so big that someone like Josh could not miss it.
Also, when Odin sent people to repair Schönbrunn Palace, he sent a message asking Josh to keep an eye on Thor.
As long as Thor's life was not in danger, he should be allowed to suffer on Earth for a while. When he understood what it meant to be a good king, the seal would unlock on its own.
Thor did not land in the same place as in the movie.
Instead of New Mexico, he fell in Cuba, which had finished its revolution less than a year ago.
The U.S.-backed military government had fallen, but many remnants were still active. Outside, American spies and the navy surrounded the island, so the situation was very tense.
Given the situation, Thor had fallen into the jungle, wandered for two days, and was then caught by the locals as a suspected spy. They tied him up, interrogated him, and he'd been hanging here for five days straight.
When Josh arrived, he noticed a local girl secretly giving Thor some water.
Tsk… For all his foolishness, Thor really did have a way with women. No matter where he went, there was always someone willing to help him.
"Sir!"
At that moment, space rippled beside Josh, and a mage appeared. This was one of the Kirin Tor operatives Josh had assigned to keep watch on Thor, working in shifts around the clock. Thor might not be in real danger on Earth, but appearances had to be kept—especially since Josh had just squeezed some compensation out of Asgard. Besides, having a complete record of Thor's mortal "hardship" was entertaining in its own right… and Thor would never know. Even Heimdall might not notice; Josh had long since learned from Loki and the Ancient One that magic could easily cloud Heimdall's sight.
"How's he holding up?" Josh asked with a slight nod.
"He's tough. Five days hanging, five days of beatings. He looks like a mess, but physically he's still in good shape," the mage replied.
Josh nodded. Even stripped of all power by Odin, an Asgardian prince's base physique was no weaker than that of a super-soldier. In the films, the only reason Thor was taken down by a taser and tied up in a hospital was because he hadn't yet adjusted to losing his powers. Later, when he stormed the S.H.I.E.L.D. site, regular agents couldn't stop him; if he hadn't lost heart after failing to lift Mjolnir, even Hawkeye might not have been able to take him on.
It was the same here—Thor had barely made it out of the jungle, still disoriented, when someone clubbed him from behind and chained him to a wooden frame.
Josh studied the sight of Thor hanging there, looking rather pitiful. He was just wondering if he should make things even harder for him when the roar of engines came from the distance.
Turning, Josh rose into the air and saw a convoy under heavy military guard heading toward the village. In one of the jeeps sat Cuba's current leader, Fidel Castro, and beside him, his partner—famous South American revolutionary Che Guevara.
Josh was surprised to run into both men here. But why would they be in this remote southeastern corner of Cuba, far from Havana? With their status, they shouldn't be here at all. They certainly couldn't have come for Thor—that made no sense.
Reaching out with his senses, Josh scanned hundreds of kilometers of land and sea. Soon, he had his answer.
In a bay to the east, a massive shape over a hundred meters long waited silently beneath the waves.
Looking closer, he saw it was a brand-new Soviet H-class strategic nuclear submarine.
That explained why the two famous figures had come here in person.
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