~London, England~
The first light of dawn peeked over the horizon, casting faint rays through the thin mist that blanketed the city like a shroud of gloom...
The capital of Great Britain had always been cloaked in gray, with clear skies a rare sight.
During the Industrial Revolution of the last century, London became infamous for its smog, earning the nickname 'The Big Smoke'.
The burning of coal and massive industrial emissions led to severe air pollution, which even caused the deaths of approximately twelve thousand people, most from respiratory diseases.
Of course, the British later reflected on the bitter consequences of air pollution, leading to the world's first air pollution control legislation, the 'Clean Air Act'...
Over half a century and vast sums of money were spent to mitigate the smog that once choked the city. Yet, blue skies and white clouds remained a rarity.
Dressed in a long trench coat like an ordinary tourist, Sean strolled leisurely through the streets. Over the past few days, he had accompanied Jane on her research trip, visiting the Greenwich Observatory, which overlooked modern London, the sacred and solemn St. Paul's Cathedral, and finally the London Eye.
There, they saw the towering Stonehenge; a ring of massive standing stones on a green plain, the most famous and mysterious prehistoric relic in the British Isles.
Only after touring all of London's famous landmarks did Jane finally immerse herself in her work with joy, leaving Sean alone to wander along the banks of the Thames.
The young man stood on the Tower Bridge, waiting for Jane to discover the Aether and awaken the Dark Elves. For Earth, which was gradually stepping into a new era, the pressure from Asgard alone was not enough.
Humanity needed to viscerally experience the aggression and destructive power of extraterrestrial civilizations. Only then would they wake from their endless internal conflicts, like prey traversing a dark forest, where a hunter's rifle could fire at any moment.
This tense pressure would force this quarrelsome and self-destructive species to unite. Under such an overwhelming tide, order would be established more swiftly, the Registration Act would be implemented, and superheroes would be caged, bound and controlled by rules and regulations.
"Hah, an alliance..." Sean murmured to himself.
Thor had come to Earth with a mission of peace. Asgard had extended an olive branch, seeking to establish communication and sign a treaty.
But to Sean, this was still far from enough. It did not mean Earth and Asgard stood as equals. Odin merely sought a powerful ally. To put it bluntly, he valued the Sentinel's strength, not Earth's capabilities.
Without equal footing in dialogue and leverage, one side would inevitably lose balance. That was why Sean had advised General Ross to stall Thor with the tedious formalities of a foreign ambassador's reception. They were waiting for the right moment to show Earth's might.
It was time for Earth to shed its outdated image as a primitive backwater and present a new face to the cosmos. To the Asgardians, a thousand years might be but a blink. But for this blue planet, it was enough to leap across eras, achieving a staggering pace of development.
"The third Infinity Stone is almost at hand." Sean was satisfied.
Through the energies of the Space Stone and the Mind Stone, he had traced the presence of the Aether. However, the Reality Stone, which once belonged to the Dark Elves, was not on Earth. It was sealed in a desolate dead corner of the galaxy.
Tens of thousands of years ago, the Dark Elves had obtained the Aether. They saw this precious gem that was capable of bending reality itself as the ultimate weapon of their civilization.
They sought to exploit a once-in-five-millennia celestial phenomenon known as the Convergence, where the gravitational shifts of the Nine Realms aligned them into a straight line.
At that time, the boundaries between worlds would collide and overlap, energy tides weakening dimensional barriers until the Nine Realms became as one.
Malekith, leader of the Dark Elves, intended to wield the Aether's power to twist the laws of physics, plunging the universe into darkness and creating a perfect homeland for his people.
But Asgard thwarted this plan. Odin's father, Bor, led an army to seize the Aether, crushing the Dark Elves and cementing Asgard's dominance in an era of glory.
Even now, Asgard's ancient texts and epic poems still sang of this grand history.
The king of Asgard at the time sealed the Aether in a barren wasteland, its location unknown. Meanwhile, Malekith and his surviving followers went into hibernation in some forgotten corner of the Nine Realms, waiting for the day they could rise again...
....
In an abandoned factory on the outskirts of London... Jane, accompanied by her intern Darcy, arrived at their destination.
According to news reports, this decommissioned power plant from the last century had recently been the site of bizarre phenomena that defied scientific explanation. For instance, a tanker truck parked in Westminster had inexplicably teleported into the factory, accompanied by strange gravitational anomalies.
The inexplicable occurrences had prompted Scotland Yard to escalate the case to S.H.I.E.L.D... After AI-assisted data filtering, it was uploaded to the central database and accessible to Umbrella Corporation as a cooperative partner.
That was why Jane had traveled from New York to London. Based on instrument readings, the factory was likely a gravitational anomaly. Its spatial boundaries were highly unstable, making it a research subject of great value.
After presenting her Umbrella ID, Jane was granted entry. The first thing she saw was a floating tanker truck, its massive frame hovering mid-air as if gravity had ceased to exist.
A police officer leading the team casually lifted the truck's front end, and the multi-ton vehicle flipped effortlessly, making Darcy's eyes widen in amazement as she clutched her measuring device, eager to try it herself.
They followed the officers upstairs, where one of them picked up an empty bottle and tossed it from a high point. After falling a short distance, the bottle vanished, only to reappear moments later from above.
It was as if that section of space had been cut out of reality and existed in isolation. The bottle cycled endlessly, falling and reappearing, until, after a few minutes, it failed to return.
"This place is bizarre. Things thrown down sometimes come back, sometimes don't. Even Scotland Yard's consultants can't explain it."
The officer spoke matter-of-factly. They had tried tossing live mice down... most never returned. There was no discernible pattern.
Jane watched the spiking readings on her device, astonished. She had only seen such phenomena a few times before. Like back in New Mexico, when the Asgardians descended.
Ignoring Darcy, who was having the time of her life playing around, Jane walked alone with her measuring device until she reached an empty corridor where the data peaked.
A howling wind erupted from the dark hallway. An invisible irresistible force yanked Jane into a spatial rift.
Like a ripple in water, the astronomer's figure vanished without a trace...