"Damn Axl, when did you get so damn strong?" I hear Voltair ask Axl after their spar. I was watching from a balcony above them after having my talk with Odin. It had been 7 years since I had seen them after all, since when I returned from my trip to Wakanda they had already left on a mission before I could meet them.
"Ever since we returned from that mission, pudgy. I think it's from that mace, I feel imbued with strength." Axl replies, and I notice that he has acquired a new mace. The mace, which Axl is holding, seems to emit incredible heat. It is quite unassuming, if not well crafted, and can be made of none other than Uru. How the hell...?
"How in the 10 realms did you manage to acquire a mace made from enchanted Uru?" I ask from the balcony, to which Axl and Voltair(nicknamed pudgy for his larger than normal size, but he is certainly not fat, considering he looks more like a strongman) look up and smile at my surprise presence.
"Verdi!" They both say at the same time.
"It's great to see you idiots! Now, tell me of this mace, I've never heard of this thing before." Which is the truth, since the only maces I've ever heard of were thunderstrike's and Hercules' golden mace- though I imagine it's reasonable to assume there's weapons scattered across the 10 realms made by the dwarves that never made their names known in the comics.
"Well, the mission was annoying to say the least. Odin sent us to Muspelheim to recruit a fire giant to work on Asgard as a blacksmith operator since our old one's contract recently expired and he retired. Anyway, it should have been simple, but let's just say it was complicated from the get go. First we had to even find a fire giant in the first place, since they tend to be extremely rare, but then when we finally found a fire giant, we discovered he had a few conditions for his employment. Most of them were fine, living condition stuff mostly, but the last condition was really frustrating." Axl began, and started getting visibly upset at the memory.
"Basically, he made us subdue him. The guy was just looking for a good fight, and boy did we give him one. It was a really tough fight, too, since fire giants tend to be much stronger than Frost giants. Anyways, during the fight, the giant somehow destroyed a huge wall of stone, and that mace was uncovered. At that point in the fight we had been losing, so in pure desperation Axl picked up the mace and slammed it into the giant. And, being a powerful weapon, ended the fight with that very blow. Axl, for his part, earned himself a burned hand as a result." Voltair continued for Axl, and I looked at the mace in deep thought.
"Has All Father told you if he knows anything about it?" I ask.
"Nah, he said the weapon is unknown to him, which proves just how ancient it is, since he said that every Uru weapon from after Nidavellir was incorporated into Asgard was recorded and written in stone on the Wall of Weapons(a wall on Nidavellir). Which means the Mace is from during King Borr's reign. We haven't discovered the extent of it's abilities yet, but so far we discovered that it kind of just melts things. Anything, actually. Depending on the strength of the material or magic enchantment, and the time of exposure, the mace melts anything to nothing. We've tested it against all kinds of things, Asgardian steel, stone, magic shields, even Mjolnir with Thor's permission. So far, the only thing we've noticed that can even begin to defend against the strange heat it emits is Mjolnir, but even Mjolnir began to... Tremble, I presume. Anyways, Mjolnir didn't enjoy contact with the mace. So, we've decided to call the mace The wall breaker!"
"That's a fucking horrific name! Jesus, don't tell me you guys actually named it that?!"
"Who's Jesus?" Voltair asked quietly, only to remain unheard.
"Of course we didn't you idiot, that's a horrid name. We haven't decided on a name." Axl said, gliding right over Voltair's question.
"Okay, then what are you gonna call it until you learn it's real name?"
"I think it's better to wait until the dwarves respond to Odin's question regarding the origins of the mace. It's made of Uru, so they're bound to remember making it." Axl said, and I nod in agreement.
"Wanna have my mother take a look at the enchantments?"
"What enchantments? Odin said there wasn't any?" Voltair said, and I couldn't help but become confused. Could Odin really not notice an enchantment of that level? It seemed to be purposefully hidden, for what reason I don't know, but I refuse to believe my father couldn't notice the enchantment.
"Huh. Let's discuss with the All Mother." and so we left to do so.
-
"Oh, your father has never been the best at noticing purposefully hidden enchantments such as these. Also, even if he did notice, I'm certain he simply wouldn't care to explain everything. I think he probably immediately noticed the enchantment yet still chose to ignore it, letting you figure it out for yourself Axl. He's a master of delegation." Freya says as she puts down her quill, which she is using to write her book on advanced runic enchantment- something she took upon herself after helping me enchant the vibranium. When we were working on it, we had to essentially make shit up as we went along when it came to runic enchantments.
"Well that makes way too much sense. Annoying dickhead." I mumble under my breath, to which my mother immediately glares at me, making me regret my complete lack of brain/mouth filter.
"It seems you are looking for a beating Verdandi Odinson. Get to the Training fields immediately. I will begin your rehabilitation training."
Gulp...
"Yes Ma'am..." I said with a terrified look on my face as Axl and Voltair chuckled to my left, clearly taking joy in my suffering.
-
Once I had arrived at the training field, I began getting warmed up for my training with my mother.
Sorry, did I say training? I meant beating.
Anyways, after I had warmed up, my mother came down followed closely by a pair of dread-faced idiots. Guess my mother didn't take kindly to their chuckling or something? Hehe, chumps.
"Verdi, Combat stance." The second the words left her mouth once she entered the sparring arena I went into high alert. I wasn't wearing my armor, just leather protective equipment, except my left arm of course, but that doesn't count.
Once I had quickly dropped into my stance my mother(Demon incarnate) Launched at me with what seemed like the intent to kill.
But she would never... right? No, she wouldn't, but she wasn't against beating the ever living shit out of her children in the name of discipline.
A thrust of her sword shook me from my thoughts as I quickly moved to block, only to get caught off guard by an immediate feint into a leg trip and a smack on the forehead.
"Ugh..."
"Stop getting distracted son. And stop lowering your guard when you become distracted. You should always be on guard in combat scenarios." She said with an annoyed look on her face before motioning for me to get up once again. Of course, she was correct, I had been distracted by the numerous thoughts running through my head, but to be fair I'd never in my life seen her move that fast.
I may have to activate future sight simply to keep up with her.
Once I had stood up she once again launched at me aggressively and I locked the fuck in for once. I parried her initial strike, and dashed back to get my bearing once again, but she was upon me once more. Mother has always been extremely fast during sparring, but apparently I hadn't seen her full speed yet.
The next 17 strike I handled well, but clearly my mother was getting annoyed, and not in a way that would benefit me. She took a break for a second from straight up attacking me like a precision machine and practically yelled at me: "Dammit Verdi! This is a spar, if I was looking for a punching bag I would go find Loki! You can do better than that, so show me! AGAIN!"
She yelled as she once again launched at me. I instantly came up with a million excuses in my head for why I wasn't attacking back, but they all went flat in the face of my mother. Clearly she wasn't hearing any of them, and the ferocity of the next 10 strikes showed as she managed to knock me down once again.
"I'm not some weak earthling that you've been holding back your strength against. I'm your All mother, fucking show me your full strength!" She growled out, clearly more frustrated in me than before. If she was mildly annoyed with my language earlier, she is straight up pissed off now that she's witnessing how 'weak' I've become.
But hey, it's not my fault, okay! For one, I had spent those five years coming up with a one armed fighting style, while also trying my best to limit my strength and not absolutely wreck the bodies of the Dora Milaje and black panther. While I may not be as strong as Thor by a wide margin, I am still extremely strong, even in comparison to other Asgardians. I think the only ones I really struggle against are warriors like Voltair and Volstagg, who specialize in strength.
So, as a result, we have my current muscle memory. Holding back my strength and being more defensive in the face of my absolutely terrifying mother.
-
"We still have a great deal of work to do Verdi, I would even say that you've regressed in strength during your time on earth. We will work on that though, seeing as soon the All Father will start sending The Battle Trio out on missions on the regular to help quell the regular chaos of the 10 Realms. It has been decided that Thor and Loki will be doing recon missions throughout the universe in search of the infinity gems and their whereabouts. You wouldn't want your brothers to come back and the 10 realms be in complete chaos, would you?"
"No, mother... Mother, any idea how long my brothers will be gone for?" I ask warily, already knowing the number will be annoyingly long.
"Probably no less than a hundred years. The Universe is a large place after all."
"Mmm.." I grunt in response to her, laying flat on the ground after her training. My entire outfit is destroyed, but I did manage to land quite a few blows on my mother. Not that any of them were enough to do any real damage in an actual fight. She's too damn slippery.
I'm certain if I were to activate my future sight I could beat her, but that ability just takes away the thought behind the fight and doesn't actually make me better or train my instincts as a warrior. Plus, it drains energy, so If I ever come across a fight or battle that takes a long time then I can't rely entirely on my future sight. Otherwise I would only last an hour or so at most.
Of course, my energy reserves will increase with time, seeing as I'm Asgardian, but still. Also, I have plans of going to Midgard in the next thousand years or so to improve my skillset even further, and limiting my physical abilities using magic will be a big part of that.
But we'll get to that later.
-
"So brother, has Mother told you about your upcoming trip around the universe?" I asked Loki as we walked to the royal dining hall. I had caught him leaving the library just as dinner time rolled around, so we started towards the hall together.
"Yes, however apparently the condition for my and my brother's day of leave is whether or not you can defeat mother in a spar, so I imagine the day we leave may be several thousand years from now." He said with a completely straight face, only to receive a punch to the arm.
I can tell he's joking, but he still gets on my nerves sometimes.
"Ass... Anyways, You planning on doing anything before you have to leave? Any preparations you need to make or anything?" I ask him, and he turns thoughtful.
"Well, I was hoping to get a new set of knives forged, my current ones may not be enough when it comes to universal foes, you know? And I also need to work on my combinations with Thor, so that our Teamwork can improve. Not to mention we need to map out our plan travelling the galaxy so that we aren't just randomly wandering like bums. General stuff like that."
"Makes sense. Hey, question, as you are now, do you think you could potentially kill Laufey?"
"I would love to be confident in the answer of yes... but truly I don't think so. Even father had some trouble with the Giant, so I imagine I'm certain to have a really hard time. I need more experience and magical knowledge before I confront my progenitor." Geez, he wont even call him his birth-father... that's cold.
"it's good you are aware of your strength." I comment, and he simply nods.