-Broadcast-
[The scene changes to show Skurge skulking around in the chaos. He found a piece of black cloth from somewhere—perhaps torn from a banner or cloak—and covered himself with it like a disguise. He hunched his shoulders and blended into the crowd of refugees, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible as he boarded The Statesman with the civilians.]
[At this time, all the undead soldiers on the bridge had finally been dealt with by Thor and Loki. The bridge was littered with the ashes of defeated enemies, scattered weapons, and scorch marks from Thor's lightning.]
The two brothers finally met in the center of the carnage, both panting heavily from exertion. Thor managed to say between breaths, "You're late!"
Loki looked his brother up and down, assessing his condition, and immediately noticed the most obvious change. "You've lost an eye!" His voice carried both concern and a hint of dark humor.
As the two brothers were talking, trying to catch their breath, Valkyrie hurried past them with urgent steps, calling back over her shoulder, "It's not over yet!"
Thor turned and followed her gaze, only to see Hela slowly walking toward them from the far end of the bridge. She was completely unharmed, not even winded, moving with the casual confidence of someone who knew she'd already won.
The three defenders gathered together to face Hela, forming a line across the bridge. Thor glanced sideways at Valkyrie and said with gallows humor, "I think we should disband the Avengers! This isn't working out!"
Loki, ever the pragmatist, suggested urgently, "Then strike her with lightning again! Use your full power!"
Thor felt a wave of desperation wash over him. "I just used the most powerful lightning strike in history! The biggest bolt I've ever summoned! But she's still completely unharmed! It barely slowed her down!"
[Looking at Hela strolling casually toward him, utterly confident and unhurried, Thor knew with crushing certainty that he and his companions had absolutely no chance of defeating her in direct combat. He had to find another way, had to think of something!]
Valkyrie, her warrior's mind already calculating tactics, said firmly, "We just need to hold her back long enough! Keep her occupied until everyone gets aboard safely!"
Thor shook his head, his expression grim. "It's not that simple! The longer Hela stays in Asgard, the stronger she'll become! She draws power from the realm itself!" His voice grew more urgent. "She'll keep hunting us, keep pursuing us across the cosmos. We have to finish her off here, now, permanently!"
"So what should we do?" Valkyrie asked, frustration evident in her voice. They couldn't kill Hela—that much was painfully clear.
Loki looked at Thor with a wary expression and said defensively, "I'm not playing 'help' anymore! I'm not falling for that trick again!" He was referring to when Hela had used the illusion of Loki to distract them.
Thor, gripping his two captured swords tightly, took two purposeful steps forward. He looked at the confident Hela approaching them, then turned back to look at the Asgardian refugees still hurriedly boarding the massive ship behind them—families, children, the elderly, all desperate for salvation.
[An extremely bold idea emerged in his mind! A solution so radical it seemed insane!]
"Asgard was never a place! It was the people!" Thor said suddenly, his voice filled with new conviction. "Odin told me that!"
[Loki frowned at Thor in confusion, not understanding what he was saying or where this was going.]
Thor continued, his plan crystallizing, "Loki! This is the opposite of stopping Ragnarok. We need to cause Ragnarok! We need to trigger it ourselves!" He turned to face his brother fully. "The underground treasury! Surtur's crown! Place it in the Eternal Flame! That's the only way to stop her!"
Loki's eyes widened as understanding dawned. "That's a crazy idea! Brother! Even for me, that's completely insane!"
[After saying this, showing his priorities clearly, he decisively turned and ran toward the back of the bridge, heading for the crashed Commander. His job was to resurrect Surtur. Thor and Valkyrie would have to buy the time he needed.]
-Real World-
"Sure enough! Ragnarok will eventually happen!" one of the viewers in the other dimension observed. "But I didn't expect that Thor would be the one to take the initiative and bring about Ragnarok himself! Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy!"
"Yeah! I also wondered if maybe Hela would fail to get what she wanted, and then she'd release Surtur in anger and spite," another added. "You know, the classic 'what she couldn't get, she'd destroy' mentality."
"Thor is actually quite smart when he thinks outside the box," someone else chimed in. "He knows that Hela must be eliminated for everyone's safety. So since he can't defeat Hela while she's in Asgard drawing power from it, he might as well destroy the entire realm! Cut off her power source!"
Everyone in the viewing dimension talked animatedly about Thor's shocking choice, debating its wisdom. Meanwhile, the spaceship they were on arrived at the outskirts of Asgard, having traveled through the wormhole. Heimdall had not sent them back to Earth because Odin had specifically requested their presence—he wanted to see them, to meet these Avengers he'd heard so much about.
Odin wanted to know how the Avengers from another dimension planned to deal with threats like Hela, after all, he didn't have many years left to live and needed to know his realm would be protected.
So everyone boarded their vessel and flew toward the golden palace of Asgard, eager to meet the All-Father.
-Broadcast-
Back on the bridge, Thor glanced at Valkyrie and asked, mentally preparing himself for the fight of his life, "Are you ready for this?"
Valkyrie tilted her head with a slight smirk and said, "You go first! I'll back you up!"
Thor didn't waste any time after hearing this. Lightning flashed and crackled around his body again, blue-white energy building to critical levels, and then he leaped toward Hela with explosive speed!
[Seeing Thor charging at her, Hela raised both hands with casual grace and shot out two Swords of the Night Sky, the black blades flying toward him like missiles. But they were easily shattered by Thor's twin swords, which were imbued with the overwhelming power of his thunder. The Night Sky Swords exploded into fragments on impact.]
[Then Thor came directly in front of her, covering the distance in a heartbeat, and thrust his sword forward with all his strength. Hela dodged the physical blade with a quick sidestep, but she could not avoid the devastating lightning power attached to the sword that radiated outward.]
[Several bolts of pure electrical energy struck her body, and a brilliant blue-white light enveloped her entire form, making her convulse from the voltage.]
But Hela quickly recovered, her supernatural resilience already healing the damage. When Thor lunged forward to press his advantage, she decisively executed a perfect backflip to avoid the incoming wave of lightning, her body arcing through the air.
[She then immediately landed on her feet with a somersault, but the instant she stood up, Valkyrie appeared from the side and kicked her hard in the face with a flying kick, the impact snapping Hela's head to the side.]
[Valkyrie followed up immediately, her Dragon Tooth Sword sweeping across in a lethal arc aimed at Hela's neck. Hela decisively raised her armored forearm to block the strike with her vambrace, the weapons clashing with a shower of sparks. Then she grabbed Valkyrie's arm and threw her away like she weighed nothing, simultaneously shooting a Night Sky Sword to finish her off while she was airborne and vulnerable.]
Thor, his entire body still covered in crackling thunder, rushed forward like a living lightning bolt and shattered Hela's Night Sky Sword with one powerful sword strike, the black blade exploding into fragments. He continued his charge, pressing his attack without pause.
[Hela shot out another Sword of the Night Sky in retaliation, but just as the dark blade left her hand, Thor's concentrated thunder arrived first and shattered it in mid-flight, the explosion lighting up the bridge.]
The powerful wave of thunder continued to surge forward unimpeded, striking Hela directly in the chest with devastating force, sending her flying backward several meters across the bridge.
Before Hela's backward momentum could run out, before she could recover her footing, Thor raised his sword high above his head and slashed downward. A massive bolt of lightning descended from the sky, following the path of his blade, and struck Hela with pinpoint accuracy, driving her down and slamming her hard into the ground.
Thor immediately followed up, thrusting his sword downward with both hands—imbued with the full power of his thunder—trying to impale her while she was down. But Hela dodged it at the last second by rolling to the side, the empowered blade missing her by inches. The sword pierced deep into the bridge surface instead, and numerous cracks spider-webbed outward from the impact point, the mystical structure groaning under the force.
[Hela supported herself on her hands and executed a mid-air flip backward, gaining distance. While upside down in mid-rotation, she fired two consecutive Night Sky Swords at Thor from her unusual angle.]
[Thor was unable to react in time to this unexpected attack, and he was immediately struck by both projectiles. They hit him hard in the torso and knocked him to the ground, his body rolling dangerously close to the edge of the bridge. For a moment, it looked like he might tumble off into the abyss below.]
[At this time, Loki had already reached the crashed Commander and taken off in it, the damaged ship's engines sputtering to life. He flew toward the distant Asgard Palace, weaving through the air somewhat unsteadily.]
He muttered to himself as he piloted, shaking his head, "It's all completely messed up! Our whole plan was to prevent Ragnarok, and now we're causing it! Father would be... well, actually, he'd probably understand."
[While Thor and his companions were desperately stalling for time on the bridge, buying precious minutes with their blood, on The Statesman, many Asgardians continued to flood onto the spaceship in organized waves. Skurge also successfully sneaked aboard, keeping his head down and his face hidden.]
[But as he moved through the ship's corridors, he found himself inexplicably afraid to look directly at the crying children he passed. Their tear-streaked faces, their fear, their trauma—because he himself felt very ashamed. He knew he had contributed to their suffering, had served the monster who'd killed their loved ones and destroyed their home.]
Back in the fight, Thor launched a lightning-enhanced punch, his fist trailing electrical energy. But Hela blocked it with one hand, catching his wrist and stopping his attack cold despite the power behind it. Hela stretched out her left hand to launch a Night Sky Sword at point-blank range, but Thor's reflexes kicked in. He quickly caught her wrist with his free hand and used her own momentum to fling her away.
[But Hela, true to her nature as a master warrior with millennia of combat experience, was able to adjust her trajectory mid-air even after being thrown. She twisted her body gracefully and fired a Night Sky Sword downward at Valkyrie, who was positioning herself below for an attack.]
[Valkyrie saw it coming and deflected the projectile with her sword, the weapons clanging loudly. Then she swung her blade at Hela as the Goddess of Death descended, but Hela contorted her body impossibly and dodged the strike.]
While Valkyrie was engaging Hela in close combat, trading rapid blows, Thor looked back over his shoulder and saw that the evacuation was complete—all the people had successfully boarded the ship. He immediately shouted at the top of his lungs, "Go! Go! Leave now!!!"
[Hela heard his desperate shout and immediately understood what was happening. She knocked Valkyrie to the ground with a powerful palm strike to the chest, sending the warrior sprawling, and then looked toward the massive spaceship.]
[After hearing what Thor commanded, Heimdall had no choice but to board the spaceship himself—he was the last one, making sure everyone else got on first. He signaled the crew, and The Statesman's engines roared to life as they prepared to take off and leave the doomed realm.]
[Hela, enraged at seeing her subjects escaping, shot a cylindrical Night Sky Sword at Heimdall like a javelin. Thor saw it coming and dodged it by tilting his head to the side, the projectile whistling past his ear. He immediately shattered another Night Sky Sword that followed with a concentrated thunderbolt from his hand.]
[But he couldn't dodge or block the third projectile that followed in rapid succession. It pierced his right chest directly, punching through armor and flesh, and protruding from his back.]
[Hela exerted tremendous force on the embedded sword and used it as a handle to throw Thor's entire body toward Valkyrie, sending both warriors tumbling across the bridge in a heap.]