-Broadcast-
Hela grabbed Thor roughly by the back of his collar and dragged him across the hall like a broken doll. She walked him out to the grand balcony that overlooked the entire realm, lifting his head forcefully so that he had no choice but to look at the desperate battle unfolding on the Rainbow Bridge in the distance.
"Did you see that?" Hela whispered mockingly in Thor's ear, her breath cold against his skin. Her voice dripped with cruel satisfaction. "None of them can escape! Their fate is sealed!"
She tightened her grip on his collar, making sure he couldn't look away from the carnage below. "I will get that sword—Hofund, the key to the Bifrost! Even if it means slaying every last one of them! Man, woman, child—it doesn't matter to me!"
Thor looked ahead helplessly, his vision blurred from his injured eye, blood still streaming down his face. His mind raced frantically, but he was unable to think of any way to defeat Hela. She was too strong, too connected to Asgard's power. Every strategy he could conceive crumbled under the weight of her overwhelming superiority.
[On the Rainbow Bridge far below, the undead soldiers were completely unstoppable, an inexhaustible tide of ancient warriors. The brave Asgardian men who tried to fight them—farmers, merchants, guards who had taken up whatever weapons they could find—fell under the soldiers' swords one after another, their courage not enough to overcome the supernatural endurance of the undead.]
[Valkyrie desperately controlled the Commodore , but the spaceship kept swaying erratically in the air, damaged from the undead soldiers' sabotage of its systems. Eventually, she lost complete control of the vessel. It crashed hard into one of the massive stone pillars that lined the bridge, scraping along the structure before passing over the soldiers' heads in a dangerous arc and finally crash-landing heavily on the bridge surface with a grinding screech of metal.]
Heimdall was in the thick of combat, fighting an undead soldier who wielded a large, ancient sword. He swung Hofund in a powerful arc, but the undead soldier blocked it expertly with his own blade. Before Heimdall could recover, the soldier used his second sword to slash at Heimdall's leg, the blade biting deep through armor and flesh.
Heimdall half-knelt on the ground, his face contorted in pain, yet even wounded he still managed to hold up his great sword defensively to block the vicious attacks of another undead soldier coming at him from behind. With a tremendous effort and a roar of defiance, he swept Hofund in a wide circle and killed both soldiers with a single devastating strike, their bodies crumbling to dust.
But before he could catch his breath or assess his wound, another undead soldier appeared from nowhere and kicked him brutally in the chest with tremendous force. The impact knocked Heimdall flat on his back, the air driven from his lungs. The soldier loomed over him and raised both swords high, preparing to stab down and finish him off.
Just as Heimdall's life was hanging by a thread, just as the blades began their descent, the undead soldier was suddenly knocked away by a powerful blow. Korg appeared in front of Heimdall, holding a large stone club in his rocky hands and looking down at him with concern.
"Hey! Man! I'm Korg!" the Kronan said in his distinctive, friendly voice. "This is Miek!" He gestured to his insectoid companion. "We're getting on that spaceship over there and getting out of here! Do you want to come? It'd be a shame to leave you behind!"
Heimdall turned his head, following Korg's gesture, and looked toward the sky on the other side of the bridge. The Asgardian refugees behind him also turned their heads to look in that direction, hope kindling in their desperate hearts.
A large, imposing figure slowly emerged from the swirling clouds and mist that surrounded the realm. The person stood with arms open wide, theatrical and confident, shouting down to them, "Your savior has arrived!"
As the distance gradually closed and the ship came into clearer view, the figure was revealed to be Loki! He was standing dramatically at the front of the enormous The Statesman, his distinctive silhouette unmistakable. The entire massive spacecraft was approaching the bridge sideways, its impressive bulk casting a shadow over the battlefield.
Thor, even through his pain and despair, smiled faintly at this sight. His brother had come. Despite everything—despite their conflicts, their rivalry, their complicated history—Loki had come to save their people.
Hela, watching from the balcony, was more than a little annoyed. As soon as she had declared that none of them could escape, that their doom was certain, a massive spaceship suddenly appeared to pick them up! The timing was almost insulting!
[A Sword of the Night Sky extended from her elbow with a sharp sound, and she stabbed it viciously into Thor's back without warning, driving the blade deep between his shoulder blades.]
["Ah!!!!" Thor screamed immediately, his body arching in agony, fresh blood blooming across his torn clothing.]
-Broadcast-
Loki stood at the front wearing his distinctive horned helmet, looking every bit the prince he was. He smiled charmingly at the people of Asgard below and called out with theatrical flair, "Did you miss me? Everyone, get on board! Now! Let's not waste time!"
[The refugees began boarding the ship quickly, helping each other up the loading ramps that had deployed from The Statesman's hull. Parents carried children, the young helped the elderly, everyone moving with desperate urgency. Meanwhile, Loki walked purposefully toward Heimdall, who was still on the ground.]
Heimdall looked up at him, his golden eyes intense despite his wounds. "Welcome home! I saw you coming!" His voice carried warmth beneath the pain.
Loki wasn't surprised by Heimdall's omniscient abilities—he'd always known the gatekeeper could see everything. "Of course you did! I would have been disappointed if you hadn't!" he replied with a slight smirk.
He looked ahead and saw the undead soldiers regrouping and charging toward them once more, an endless wave of death. Loki drew his two daggers with practiced ease, twirling them once before settling into a fighting stance. He positioned himself alongside Korg and the other defenders, ready to buy time for the evacuation.
[Korg hefted the impressive rifle that Valkyrie had given him earlier—he was still getting used to such advanced weapons—and continued shooting at the enemy with surprising accuracy for someone who'd never used a gun before.]
[Miek, wielding two swords in his multiple limbs, swung the blades wildly with insectoid speed, quickly eliminating several soldiers in a flurry of strikes. His alien fighting style was chaotic but devastatingly effective.]
[But casualties soon appeared among the defenders. The first to die was the three-headed gladiator they'd freed from Sakaar. He was grabbed from behind and strangled by an undead soldier's powerful grip. While he struggled helplessly, another undead soldier took the opportunity to stab him brutally in the stomach with a rusty blade. His three heads all gasped in unison before he collapsed.]
Next came Miek, the fierce double-sword wielder. After kicking an enemy in front of him away with tremendous force, he attempted to kick another enemy behind him without looking. But his leg was caught mid-strike and cut off by a powerful blow from an undead soldier's sword.
[The undead soldier, methodical and merciless, chopped off one of Miek's legs and then immediately chopped off his other leg with a backhand strike. Miek, the double-bladed warrior, immediately fell to the ground screaming in what sounded like insectoid agony, his swords clattering away.]
[Fortunately for Miek, he had been heavily modified during his time as a gladiator. These were prosthetic limbs attached to his carapace, not his actual organic body. Otherwise, he would have bled out and died right there on the bridge.]
-Broadcast-
"These heroic battles are but a desperate struggle! Futile!" Hela observed the combat below with cold detachment.
She pulled the elbow sword out of Thor's back with a wet sound, then flipped him over roughly to face her. She summoned two small Swords of the Night Sky, crossed them, and used them to pin Thor's right hand to the pillar behind him, effectively crucifying him there.
[She reached out with her free hand and grabbed Thor's neck, her fingers wrapping around his throat with crushing pressure.]
"You see... I'm neither a queen nor a monster!" Hela said, her face close to his. "Those are just titles, just words!"
[Hela's fingers gradually tightened their grip, squeezing harder and harder. Thor was being choked so severely that he could hardly draw breath, his face turning red and then purple. His consciousness gradually became blurred, darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision.]
[Just when he was in mortal danger, when death seemed certain, he saw Odin again in a trance. The vision came unbidden, pulling him away from the physical world.]
[Hela, still unaware of Thor's mental state or his mystical vision, smiled with dark satisfaction and whispered close to his ear:]
"I am the Goddess of Death! What kind of god are you, little brother?"
Thor's consciousness slipped away from the balcony entirely. He looked at the ghostly image of Odin and fell completely into the illusion, his spirit departing his dying body.
He found himself transported to the beautiful meadow in Norway where Odin had died, the place where his father had finally found peace. The grass was green, the sky was blue, and everything was peaceful—so different from the chaos and violence he'd just left. Thor knelt before his father's spirit, his head bowed in shame and desperation.
[Odin looked down at Thor with an expression of gentle disappointment. "Even if you had both your eyes, you still couldn't see everything! You're still blind to the truth!"]
Thor felt his despair rising like a tide, threatening to drown him. "She's too powerful! Without my hammer, without Mjolnir! I can't do it! I can't defeat her!"
Odin tilted his head, studying his son carefully, and said with a hint of amusement in his voice, "Thor! Are you the God of Hammers? Hmm? Is that what you think defines you?"
Thor looked up at Odin, confusion evident on his face. He didn't understand what his father was trying to tell him, what lesson he was supposed to learn.
Odin's voice became firmer, more instructive. "That hammer was to help you control your power! It was meant to help you focus your abilities when you were young and reckless! It's not the source of your power! The power was always inside you!"
Thor shook his head, still not comprehending, still trapped in his despair. "It's too late! She has already occupied Asgard! The realm is lost!"
Odin raised his shoulders in a slight shrug, feeling a little amused. Thor clearly didn't understand what Asgard truly was—and neither did Hela, for all her centuries of life!
"Asgard is not a place! It never was! This—" he gestured around at the peaceful meadow "—this can be Asgard! That bridge can be Asgard! Asgard is wherever our people are! It's not about the golden palace or the Rainbow Bridge or the throne!" His voice grew more intense. "Even now! Right now, at this very moment! Those people on the bridge need your help! They are Asgard!"
[After saying this, after delivering his final lesson, Odin slowly turned and began to walk away into the golden light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. But Thor still couldn't fully understand the deeper meaning of Odin's words, still couldn't grasp what his father was trying to teach him.]
"I'm not as powerful as you!" Thor called out desperately, his voice breaking. "I can't be the king you were!"
[Odin stopped and turned to look back at him, his expression softening into something proud and loving.]
"No! You are stronger than me!" He smiled with genuine pride at Thor, his eye glistening with emotion. "You were always meant to surpass me, my son!"
The vision faded, leaving Thor alone in the meadow with his head lowered, Odin's final words echoing in his mind as the darkness rushed back in.
-Real World-
"Wow! This is exactly like what the Screen said when it woke you up that first time, Thor!" Tony suddenly burst out, unable to contain himself. He looked at Thor with a joking expression on his face, as if he had discovered some huge comedic gold. "Are you the God of Hammers? Hahahaha! Your own father called you out on it!"
Natasha, who was standing nearby listening to the exchange, couldn't help but raise the corners of her mouth slightly when she heard Tony's words, revealing a faint, amused smile. She then interrupted and added, "It seems that now I am more like the Hammer God than Thor is, right? Since I'm the one who can actually wield Mjolnir?"
Thor didn't take Tony and Natasha's good-natured jokes to heart. He was too deep in thought to be bothered by their teasing. He just lowered his head, his brow furrowed deeply, and pondered thoughtfully, his mind working through the implications.
Odin's words from the vision kept echoing in his mind, repeating over and over like a mantra. Especially the sentence "Asgard is where the people are"—that particular phrase made him very confused. It seemed simple on the surface, but he sensed there was a deeper meaning he wasn't quite grasping.
Thor pondered in silence, trying to understand the true meaning behind Odin's cryptic words. What was his father really trying to tell him?
He couldn't immediately understand why Odin had emphasized the importance of the people so strongly. Could it be that Asgard's existence and power depended not only on the physical land—the golden realm, the palace, the mystical properties of the place itself—but also fundamentally on its people? On the collective spirit and faith of the Asgardians themselves?
At this moment, Rhodes suddenly touched his chin thoughtfully and said in a contemplative tone, "Do you think there's a possibility that Hela's power actually comes from those people? Like, from their collective life force or belief or something?" He paused, working through his theory. "It's just that they happen to live in that specific place, so she mistakenly believes her power comes from that land? But it's really about the population?"
Tony's eyes lit up when he heard this speculation. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Rhodes. "That's actually brilliant! That makes a lot of sense!"
He turned to the others, warming to the theory. "If this is true, then it perfectly explains why Odin specifically emphasized that Asgard is where the people are! He wasn't being poetic—he was being literal!"
Tony paced a few steps, his mind racing. "After all, there may be something inherently special about that land—some mystical properties, some cosmic significance. But the key, the real source of power, is definitely the people themselves! Their life force, their belief in the throne, their collective existence!"
He held up a hand in a gesture of caution. "Of course, it's also entirely possible that we're over-interpreting Odin's meaning here. Maybe he was just being philosophical about what makes a nation. And the source of Hela's power might have nothing to do with this theory at all—it could be purely geological or mystical in nature."
Thor looked up at them, his remaining eye thoughtful. Rhodes' theory had given him something new to consider, a possible angle he hadn't thought of before.