The rewrites made the last chapter 30k, so it thought it best to split it roughly in half instead. Reread the previous chapter to see the changes made there. You guys really took my request for feedback seriously and for that I'm immensely grateful! Your comments ranged from glowing to disappointed and you left me both extensive feedback with points I hadn't even considered as well as scathing rants that showcased how deeply you care that this story keeps delivering the quality you've come to expect.
That being said, I do ask for some understanding. With the rewrites, the chapter ended up being enormous (which is why I cut it in half), which is simply too much for me to completely overhaul and redo from scratch. As such, while I've looked at and seriously considered every suggestion and complaint, it is a regrettable fact I cannot react to or incorporate each and every one. The main points/skeleton/themes of the previous chapter still stand, they've merely been altered and expanded upon. I hope you'll take that into consideration when you notice your input didn't make it into the rewrite.
For those of you who don't want to reread the whole thing (understandable, given its length), here's a short list off the top of my head of what has changed:
-Overall small Quality of Life improvements, catching and correcting as many spelling mistakes and grammatical errors as I could spot
-Expanded role for the others in Michael's group (though he's still the focus)
-Nerfed Thanos killing aura, now need physical contact to steal souls, can exert his own dominance similar to how it was portrayed in Bleach
-Thanos now capable of emoting grief upon seeing ghost of daughter he murdered
-Made Michael put up more of a resistance to being kidnapped, Thanos suffers more injuries, Odin is more active in combating him
-Expanded the fightscene with Hela, made Michael use his own Stones slightly more though an explanation is given why he can't just use them to stomp Hela into the ground straight from the get go
-Clarified that the Power Stone merely fell to the ground and that it isn't missing
That's all I can think of right now, let me know what you think about the changes! Fair word of warning, I have exams coming up soon and will be studying intensively for those in the coming week or two, so it's unlikely another rewrite is going to happen anytime soon. What you see is what you get (for now, at least), so I really hope you guys enjoy it!
CHAPTER 49: A DANCE WITH DEATH
Briefly, hope raises its head in me, before it dies a sudden and ignoble death as the Titan takes a deep shuddering breath, blood streaming down the grooves of his chin in crimson rivulets, a rattling sound showing that his lungs have been damaged. There are... cracks, much like the ones in my own flesh, spreading from the point where Gungnir pierced his projection, the legendary spear seeming almost... hungry as it drinks in the faint shimmers that show from the terrible blow in Thanos' very soul.
Yet, despite all of this, despite the blow that would've wiped out almost any other being, the Mad Titan seems distressingly… not dead.
Goddamn that Soul Stone!
"N-no…" Thanos manages to grunt out, his voice pained and blood dribbling down his ridged chin, but his eyes are bright and his form is unbowed.
"… but then... I don't have to. There is... already someone here who is... more than capable of doing so." he manages to force out between painful sounding rattles, even as he forces himself to raise himself up to his full height, staring down at Odin who keeps a white-knuckled grip on his mighty spear.
It takes me about a second to realize who Thanos is referring to, roughly the same time required for the Royal Couple as well, judging by their widened eyes and fearful expressions.
It takes Thanos less than half a second to shoot his hand forwards, making a grasping notion at Odin's chest.
Something golden and bright springs to life around the ancient King, twisting into interlocking patterns and overflowing ribbons of runic script, Thanos' own soulfire-clad fingers digging deep into the seal. The power of the Soul Stone tears away at Odin's own magic, and despite not having any extensive knowledge with magic, the wounded Titan manages to register and target the weak links in the chain, the key parts linking the whole seal together (possibly based on information the Infinity Stone embedded within his flesh is whispering to him). He strikes out several times at Odin's magic, the King desperately trying to fend off the assault with a drawn expression on his face, no doubt imagining the cost Asgard will have to pay should the Titan succeed in his goal.
Odin is hindered however since he still needs to hold onto Gungnir in order to keep Thanos pinned in place, clearly weaving a spell through the mystical metal embedded in his enemies' astral self, even as the projection strikes out at his own soul magic with unerring precision and confidence, backed up by virtually limitless amounts of power. The only ones present who could possibly aid him right now (meaning Frigga, Bodhmall and myself) are utterly exhausted and drained from our experience traveling to and back from the soulworld. Loki could've helped as well, if he hadn't burnt himself out, probably to provide his mother with the energy needed to find and subsequently breach Thanos' pocket dimension.
As for the others, the only one with weaponry that could actually harm Thanos is Thor, his Mjolnir laced with enough magic and powerful enchantments to affect Thanos' Astral Projection, which is why Heimdall's Hofund had managed to draw blood from the Titan. The Prince hesitates however, considering that his target is embroiled in a desperate struggle with his father, both powerhouses standing less than a meter apart surrounded in a storm of violent energy and power.
The titanic (heh...) seems to reach a deadlock when with an almost animalistic snarl Odin sends a massive charge of power down the length of Gungnir's shaft towards where it's still embedded within Thanos shaft, while at the same time the Titan seemingly reaches into the seal itself (or perhaps even Odin's very soul), seemingly ready to tear the entire thing asunder in one move. Odin's attack is halted midway however, when Thanos clasps the legendary spear with his free hand, gritting his teeth as his flesh begins to crackle and char where the wave builds up against his block, though it is blocked, halted in its advance towards his chest. Simultaneously, Odin's free hand clamps down on Thanos' reaching wrist, holding the Titan back from reaching further, contesting his immense strength with his own, even as his face begins to rapidly lose color and sweat pours from his brow.
I'm about to call out to Thor to try and smite Thanos regardless of the danger to Odin, when something truly unexpected happens. Thanos raises his head as he lets out a surprised roar of pain and it takes me a moment to understand what happened, only cottoning on when I spot the glint of Hofund's brilliant blade glare in the dimming sunlight, as if the fabled sword took its own vengeance upon the killer of its master.
It's only when I see two little hands wrapped around the massive handle that my mind realizes that it wasn't the sword who buried itself deep into Thanos, but a terrified, windswept looking Darcy Lewis, who scurries away from the enormous battle on both hands and knees as soon as the steel finds non-corporeal flesh.
Darcy's Merry Brandybuck-impression proves to break the stalemate, as Thanos' concentration is finally broken and Odin manages to overpower his enemies' hold on Gungnir, sending the wave of magical energy slamming into the Titan's chest, sending him sliding away with a barely withheld cry of pain. He has just finished skidding to a stop when Thor's furious roar resounds throughout the Hall and a massive lightning bolt, the likes of which he had used to fell entire Leviathans with, struck Thanos' form, bowling him over and sending him skidding across the ruined floor for several meters before he ragdolled to a stop.
I can feel relief spread through the other remaining combatants, Thor coming to his father's aid as the aged King collapses to his knees. However, I'm holding my breath as dread slowly sends its icy fingers crawling up the length of my spine, and subconsciously I grab Harpe in a tighter grip, bringing my shield closer to my body.
My fears are confirmed when I hear Odin's tired, fearful whisper.
"Oh... oh no..."
Looking to him, I can see as Gungnir slips from a severely weakened hand, clattering to the floor with the weight of a freight train as the King reaches out to the mangled mess of magic miserably hovering over his chest. What was once a shining, elegant pattern of interlocking runes and script is now a twisted, ripped apart mess that's falling to pieces before our eyes, parts of it disintegrating into motes that gently float away on an unseen wind.
Looking from Odin to Thanos, my eyes widen as the Titan stirs, slowly, painfully, but unerringly pushes himself up. As he struggles to a sitting position, Thanos glares back towards his adversary, the glowing crack in the center of his form now a large jagged scar, faint light pooling out from it. But then he raises his right fist, slowly opening his fingers... to reveal a large chunk of tightly woven magic just as it falls apart in those same golden motes.
Odin's seal has shattered and while the King has been seemingly drained of most of his power, Thanos simply forces himself to continue, getting his feet underneath him and raising up to his full height, seemingly heedless of the mortal wounds littering his body that should've incapacitated him long ago.
What's more pressing than the seemingly immortal Thanos however (not a sentence I ever thought I would say) is the billowing black mist that has materialized in the middle of the hall. And just like in the movie I saw so long ago, its shadows deepen, its smoke spreads further and from within its impossible depths, the tall form of Hela Odinsdottir, the Executioner, stalks out.
As in the movie, her clothes are ragged but her own aura of power is unmistakable, her eyes flitting over her surroundings with speed, taking it all in within moments with ease, before they finally rest on the crumpled forms of Frigga and Odin. Her expression turns predatory and without a spoken word both Thor and Loki move to stand in front of their weakened parents, while behind them, the Warriors Three ready their weapons.
For a moment, nobody speaks a word, before Hela lets out a high, cold laugh, mocking and cruel, glancing once again at her father with a bloodthirsty and slightly mad grin.
"Oh, I thought you were supposed to be dead once I regained my freedom. Wasn't that how you sealed me away, father, using your own lifeforce to do it? Oh well, no matter." She says with a dark chuckle, before with a flick of her wrist, there a long blade of blackened metal resting in her hand.
"That can be fixed." She growls and lets fly with the sword, sending it cutting through the air at speeds that could rival bullets.
Before it even has a chance to reach Odin, the black blade is impacts a circular shield, Steve Rogers having fearlessly thrown himself in front of Asgard's King. The blow rings out throughout the air with an odd ringing sound that's uncomfortable to the ears and even Hela's seemingly idle throw is enough to stagger the good Captain, though he manages to keep his stance, the necrosword veering off course and embedding itself up to the handle in the hall's floor mere meters away from the prone (and somewhat surprised looking) Odin.
Only now does Hela give the others present her full attention, her eyes resting as she takes in her (half?)brother, sneering in disgust at the tall blonde as he bares his teeth at her, fearlessly stepping forwards with his trusty hammer held in hand, ready to engage this new combatant in battle.
He's held back by his father's hand clamping down on the hem of his cloak, dragging his son back with the desperate last vestiges of his strength.
"No… no my son. This foe… is beyond you. Beyond any of you." He says in labored breaths, motioning for Thor to help him to his feet instead.
As the King of Asgard rises to his full length, his eyes never leaving his daughter's, Hela once again laughs, seemingly without a care in the world.
"Very true, old man, though slightly inaccurate. Because I am also beyond… you." The Goddess of Death ends in a snarl, before donning her spiked helmet in the same manner that she had done after first meeting her brothers back on Earth.
Back in my home universe, it had been noted that Hela's crown kept increasing in antlers and size the stronger that she became, meaning it grew to somewhat ridiculous lengths once she had taken over Asgard.
Worryingly, it was already noticeably larger than it should have been during her emergence from her prison onto Earth in the original timeline.
"Perhaps. Age certainly hasn't been as kind to me as it seemingly has been to you. But while you may finally have grown beyond me… you haven't grown beyond him." Odin says, indicating me with a nod of his head, drawing his daughter's eyes towards my (thankfully, once again towering form).
While I was annoyed with Odin for just throwing me for the wolves like that, I can't deny that he's right. My soul seems to have recovered sufficiently, settling back down into my body again instead of feeling like it might spill all over the place at any moment, even though I can tell I'm not at a 100% yet. That still leaves me the most powerful fighter left, and really the only one capable of standing up to our newest enemy, considering how far Hela is beyond the others. Said Goddess doesn't seem all that intimidated however, or even all that interested.
"If you think so, father. It wouldn't be the first time you've sent someone to kill me in your stead, only to have it blow up in your face." She says with a cold smirk, eyes not leaving mine.
"Tell you what, you agree to let me kill my father, and I will agree to kill you last! How does that sound? I think it's quite generous." suddenly addressing me, taking me somewhat off guard.
"Aren't you supposed to offer me to let you kill your father and then for you to let me live?" I ask in return, getting off-put by the madness clearly visible in her eyes.
"Huh." Hela mutters, cocking her hip and seemingly deep in thought for a second before dismissing me with a wave of her hand.
"Oh no, my dear, I don't do that sort of thing you see."
"Make generous deals?"
"Let people live." She says with a grin, which is accentuated by the shadows cast over her face from the spikes of her crown.
Well, in that case…
I point Harpe towards her as I fall into a combat stance, the blade of my scythe gleaming in the light as my helmet folds into place around my head, my visor slamming down in front of my face. I hold off on pulling too deeply on the other Infinity Stones just yet, since I'm already relying on the Mind Stone pretty heavily as it is. Using one primordial force of the university is bad enough... using multiple at the same time is almost impossible. I had managed it in the Dark Dimension, but only shortly after my deaths had hit the double digits.
Thanos must have been honing his mind and willpower for millennia in order to use multiple Stones during his fights with the Avengers. Either that, or the Infinity Gauntlet made their use significantly easier.
The display merely causes Hela to roll her eyes, two more blades falling into her hands.
"Honestly, father, I don't know where you find all these fools just waiting to throw their little lives away for you." She says with an uncaring shrug, before she begins to advance on me, though she's halted by the other nightmare personified currently in the room.
"You would be wise, not to underestimate him, Goddess of Death." The strong voice of Thanos calls out to her, stopping her in her tracks.
Whirling around to face him, Hela takes in the Titan's unusual appearance, from his size, to his skin and his chin and finally to the still gaping hole in the middle of his chest, though despite his many injuries, Thanos stands tall and unbroken, his expression the very picture of stoicism and determination. And he doesn't have the Mind Stone to fortify his thoughts against the pain of his soul like I'm doing for the pain of my body.
... damn.
As her eyes track up from the gruesome wound towards the man's face, her eyes widen as they settle on the Soul Stone.
"I take it I have you to thank for my unscheduled freedom." She asks, clearly intrigued despite herself.
"Indeed. My race is old: we remember the tales told of you, the Conqueror of the Nine Realms. I have freed you from your father's prison because I have need of such immense strength. Odin's champion is my adversary, but I... am currently weakened. Slay him, join me and be rewarded." Thanos says without hesitation or fear as he looks down on the lithe woman in front of him.
"A tempting offer. Especially since I was probably going to kill him regardless. But why exactly should I lend my strength to your cause? What could you possibly offer that I either don't already either possess, or can simply take for myself?" the Goddess of Death asks in a considering tone.
Instead of responding, Thanos stares her down with a considering look, before he grimaces as he's apparently come to a decision. Briefly, he closes his eyes. When he suddenly opens them, they shine brightly with the might of the Soul Stone and even Hela hurriedly steps away from such power.
After a few seconds however, the glow dies down and seemingly nothing has changed, other that Thanos looks exhausted despite his best efforts, once again looking somewhat translucent, like he had done before he drained that unfortunate guard of his life force. Or at least, I think nothing's happened until I can hear a booming crash coming down from deep below our feet, down in the very bowels of Asgard itself.
"Oh fuck."
Right on the heels of my words, a raging howl echoes out throughout all of Asgard, letting its denizens know that Fenrir, the great Asgardian wolf, had returned to life. As my face and that of the Royal Couple fall, Hela's own face is overtaken by an expression of joy.
Looking back towards Thanos, he gives her a deep nod. taking a deep, steadying breath, before continuing undaunted.
"Slay the one calling himself Hyperion. Join my cause. And I shall return your other fallen companions to life." He intones gravely.
Hela returns his words with a curtsey and an unsettling grin, a deadly gleam in her eyes.
"For the return of my darling, I'll gladly slaughter a hundred worlds in your name, Thanos. Consider my strength yours. After I've done a little… house-cleaning."
Straightening, she glances with a grimace at the large fresco on the ceiling above the throne, proudly showing Asgard's Royal Family while hiding its bloody history, the grip on her necroswords tightening in anger.
"It seems my dear father has really let the place go to waste in my absence. I intend to remedy that." She says in a tone that brooked no argument.
Thanos stares at her for a long moment, before finally giving her a nod.
"Very well. I shall await your arrival. But know this: the raising of your companion was not done without cost and I will be repaid. I expect you to complete your task."
And without a further word, Thanos turns fully translucent, returning to the Astral Plane and departing our physical world (something I only now notice is possible because with Frigga's collapse, the burning runes forcing him to remain here have burnt out), returning back to his real body on the other side of the universe.
Turning away from the disappeared Titan, Hela fixes me with a hungry look, a taunting smile playing around her lips.
"As do I."
I don't rise to her taunt, merely gripping my scythe more firmly and raising my shield higher. Once again, Thor makes to join the battle despite his clear confusion about the woman claiming to be his sister, but once again he's held back by his father.
"Go down to the Vault! The guards there don't have the strength to beat back her resurrected ally. I'm counting on you."
With that, the aged King turns to look at Loki as well.
"I'm counting on both of you." He says softly.
Briefly, the brothers share a glance, before Thor is storming out the hall, his allies and brother on his heels. Meanwhile Frigga has worked herself to her feet and approached the non-combatants of my group, leading them away from the hall into one of the many sidewings.
Sam, Phineas and Jim seem torn between sticking around and keeping guard over Darcy, Jane and Pepper, so I make the decision for them.
"Phineas, go help Thor and the others. Jim, keep watch over the ladies, make sure they're safe. Sam, try to keep your distance, but if you see an opportunity, take it. Just don't get yourself killed."
Getting various nods and calls of agreements, they move to their respective tasks, with Sam fearlessly walking up to the tired Odin and slinging one of the bemused King's arms over his shoulders and guiding him to the far wall of Valaskjálf.
"Well, now that you've made sure your little friends won't immediately be slaughtered where they stand, can we finally get on with it. I'm a busy woman you know: it's not easy to cleanse an entire realm." Hela calls out, stalking towards me with leisurely steps.
I don't offer a clever retort in response, instead pushing off as fast as I can, using the Mind Stone to separate my thought process from the sensations of my body, namely my muscles nearly tearing themselves apart and screaming at me in agony.
Within the blink of an eye, I've crossed the distance between us, Harpe coming down in an overhead swing that would cleave the Goddess of Death in twain if she hadn't raised her own blades at the last second, catching my weapon on her locked swords.
It didn't seem to strain her at all.
With a grin, she spartan kicks me, though I manage to take the blow on my shield, even as the hit comes in too fast for me to active the Power Stone in order to blast her awat. Even through my shield, the force of her kick is enough to still push me back, but I bleed off the momentum by turning it into a spinning backhand, Harpe coming in low in a brutal horizontal strike that was sure to separate her at the belly.
But Hela had used the motion of her kick to fall backwards, her torso perpendicular to the ground, shooting a blade into the floor for support. Like a gymnast, right after my scythe harmlessly sailed over her body, she twisted around using the sword as a center point, landing in a low crouch.
As she sprung upwards towards me in an explosive motion of pure speed, she used her other hand to launch yet another necrosword at my eyes, which I barely managed to avoid by tilting my head out of the way at the last second, letting it sail by harmlessly, save for the thin groove it effortlessly carved into the side of my helmet.
I don't have any time to reflect on my near-death, as Hela is now within reach, having already summoned two new swords and she's hacking away at me in those odd dancing motions she used to wipe out an entire army of Asgardian warriors.
I manage to catch most blows on my shield, though her hits are blindingly fast and coming at me from various odd angles, the woman attacking me without seemingly even caring about keeping up a guard of her own. Each hit leads into a devastating follow-up, which immediately sets her up for yet another attack, until she's nothing more than a whirwind of blades, hacking away at me. Angered at being put on the backfoot and managing to take advantage of a slight lull in her endless barrage, I immediately activate the Power Stone in my shield as well, right as Hela's next attack descends upon it: a downwards, doublehanded slash... which is blasted back with a crackling snap of purple energy springing up from the surface of my battered shield.
The backfire makes her arms swing wide as the necroswords shatter before they're ripped from her grasp as Hela herself is blasted away from me. Unfortunately, this was more a passive defense rather than an active offense with the Power Stone, so the Goddess of Death manages to power through the backlash of energy, her heeled boots tearing up the decorated stone slabs as they dig two furrows into the floor.
She's quick to regain her balance, though her eyes are widened in surprise and she regards me with an evaluating look, rethinking her strategy and reconsidering her earlier assessment of my threat level. My best move would be to immediately capitalize on her slight disorientation, however fleeting it may be, but I'm not entirely unaffected by that last blow as well, my entire left arm tingling up to the elbow, a deep warning itch throughout my flesh and across my skin.
'Whatever Thanos did to my soul, it messed me up bad. Worse than I thought. I'll need to be careful about using the other Stones or it won't be Hela that kills me... Sterns can just clean me up from the ceiling with a damned mop... if the Palace's still standing...' I think to myself as I warily regard the Goddess in front of me, clenching and unclenching my left hand in an attempt to chase away the numbness and return some feeling to it.
Either Hela spots the motion, or her domain of Death gives her deeper insight than I thought, because she slowly stands to her full height, falling into a relaxed stance as a smile steadily grows on her face. Giving her hand a nonchalant twist, an elegant blade appears in it in a flash, so similar to how Loki summons his own daggers.
Honestly, between the flair, the dark clothing and hair and the clear preference for the color green, I'm beginning to question just which of the brothers is actually adopted.
Lifting the blade and tapping her chin in mock-thoughtfulness with its tapered tip, Hela sends me a lazy smile as confidence returns to her attitude, intelligent eyes flitting from my shield to my face, hidden behind my visor.
"My, my, my. You're locked away in a lifeless abyss for a couple of thousand years and when you come back to the real world, suddenly everyone just happens to be decked out with primordial artifacts of unimaginable power as if they were mere trinkets, even though the majority was thought lost eons ago. What... interesting developments these are. This is much more interesting than those little fakes and toys father has so vainly displayed in his little collection. Even the truly good stuff he has squirreled away in there fails to compare. A full-fledged wielder of even a single Stone is rumored to be able to raze entire worlds... power fit for a Queen, don't you think?" the Goddess idly muses, a cruel laugh escaping her as she leers at my shield with a hungry expression.
Seeing me stiffen (and possibly feeling my rising anger), Hela's smirk turns colder, eyes once again flitting towards my arm.
"Ahh, careful now... it is also said that the Stones punished those that were unworthy of their power... destroyed those who were to weak to withstand them... and you... well, I'd reckon you've just about reached your limits, haven't you dear? Why, you're practically on my doorstep already, aren't you? No need to deny it, I can tell: after all, I do have a knack for that sort of thing."
A second blade falls into her free hand as she crouches slightly, tilting her head forwards so the the shadows of her many horns throw sharp contrasts across her wickedly grinning face and I prepare myself to counter her imminent lunge... before her eyes widen in shock as she whirls to the side, one necrosword spinning up to cover her face with the flat of its blade. Immediately after, a brightly colored ray impacts the sword, which gives several odd shudders as it rapidly shrinks, deforming and destabilizing as it does so, before with a final flash, it shoots out of existence completely, only miniscule slivers of darkened metal remaining which fall to the floor to rest at Hela's feet.
Looking in a mix of shock and confusion at the remains of her weapon, Hela's gaze tracks upwards to rest on the far forms of Sterns and Odin, my friend still standing with his sonic screwdriver extended, having just shot off a lethal shrinking ray, the same one Darren Cross would've used to turn one of his scientist's into a puddle had I not given him his heart's desire on a silver platter.
I doubt Hela quite understands what Sam just shot at her, but the fact that it was dangerous is more than enough to raise the ancient Asgardian's rage (though honestly, just the fact that he shot at her at all would probably have been sufficient), as the Goddess bares her teeth, a new sword falling into her awaiting hand to replace its lost kin as she begins striding forwards, eyes locked squarely with my best friend's.
"You dare?! I shall-"
I suppose we'll never know what exactly she was going to do about him, since she was suddenly and brutally cut off by me slamming shield first into her side. Having taken advantage of her distraction, I once again managed to draw on the Power Stone, though I took more energy this time to infuse into my shield. The discomfort from doing so was definitely greater than before, but so was the pay off: where before Hela had merely been pushed back from striking the energy field, now she was lifted off her feet completely, sent flying towards the sidewall of the Hall fast enough to appear as little more than a blur and impacting the stone hard enough she shattered it on impact, embedding herself about half a meter into it.
Feeling my shield arm tremble, I'm forced to reluctantly relinquish the flood of energy from the Power Stone as it seeks to enter my body, something that I obviously can't deal with right now. Honestly, the safest bet here is probably to only rely occasionally on the Space Stone, perhaps the Time Stone if I can get enough breathing room to unlock the Eye and forgo the volatile Power Stone altogether for the rest of the fight. With the Mind Stone running at full tilt in my helmet just in order to keep me functioning at a sufficiently enough level to keep up with the most dangerous combatant in the universe my body is just about taxed to its limits.
As I allow the purple glow to steadily fade, Hela proves why it took Ragnarök, the wholesale destruction of Asgard itself by a fully-powered Surtur, to finally put her down: even after being blindsided by a blow enhanced with (slight amounts of) the Power Stone, the Goddess of Death still manages to extract herself from the wall, falling to the floor and landing on her feet with barely a stumble.
"Well. That hurt." she says, her voice light, but filled with the sadistic promise of violence as she glares at me through a gritted smile, before her eyes flit towards Sterns, her eyes seemingly burning with hate.
"Don't you worry now, I'll deal with you later." she promises, before focusing on me again, cracking her neck and allowing to fresh swords to appear in her hands.
"What are you waiting for?! Shoot her again!" I roar out to my friend.
"Trust me, I'd really like to, but it takes a bit of time before I've charged up a second shot!" Sam shouts back, sounding somewhat frustrated and just ever so slightly afraid.
"Seriously?! You've spent nearly as much time on that damned thing as you did on Oliver and it can only fire a single shot?!"
"Hey! Can you build a device interacting with the Quantum Realm at will which fits in your pocket?! No?! Well, then in that case, how about you try to cut that madwoman's head off in the meantime! That always works! ... uhm, no offence, your Highness..."
All in all, not a bad suggestion, considering said madwoman is already upon me again, hacking away at me with even greater speed and an almost rabid ferocity and the whole song and dance from before is repeated once again. Her strikes are brutal and aimed to maim, to take my apart piece by piece, a stark contrast to the 'one hit, one kill' style she used so devastatingly on the Eihenjar and the Warriors Three in the future. A testament to my own skill, I supposed, though one I could do without to be honest. Once again, I try to interrupt her rhythm of rapid attacks by stepping into her path, relying on my heavy shield to tank her attacks so that I can take advantage of her lack of a proper guard to brutally counter-attack.
She proves to be far more nimble than expected however, seemingly dodging most of my strikes with an infuriating ease and blocking blows that would've even sent the Hulk's head spinning for a moment (though to my immense satisfaction, I note that whenver she is forced to meet one of my blows head on, she grits her teeth as she visibly strains against my strength, something not even Raiden!Thor had managed in the movie). Her counterattacks either try to beat down my shield, wrenching it from my grip or forcing an opening in my guard to slip one of her black blades into, but I manage to counter these attacks by either enduring the bulk her onslaught of strikes, while turning others away with well-placed strikes from Harpe and otherwise simply avoiding them altogether, dashing in and out of reach.
Twice I manage to use the Space Stone to my advantage, its Tesseract housing inside of my Aurelion Armor making for enough separation that I can activate it without needing to worry about inflating myself like I'm Aunt Marge, only with an R-rated ending instead of harmlessly floating away. Unfortunately, those layers of separation (not to mention the impossibly lethal Goddess of Death currently trying to slip a sword between my ribs) mean the variety of uses I can get out of the Stone is somewhat limited.
Even so, while I can't affect her Space, like Thanos had done to a desperately lunging Loki aboard the Statesman, I can still effect my own Space. The first time, I had dodged backwards, evading a wide swing that was aimed at my throat, the increased distance giving my just enough time to activate the Tesseract, a bright blue glow intensifying in my chestplate, which took Hela off guard. Mid-lunge and moving at great speed, she was unable to stop herself in time and so flew straight through where I had stood a split second ago, a faint blue haze all that was left in my wake.
Before she even had a chance to process where the hell I'd gone, I revealed myself delivering a brutal kick to her side from right behind her (unfortunately having miscalculated somewhat and reappearing to close to her to bring Harpe back around again for a finishing blow and my window of opportunity was already closing, meaning I had to settle for the kick instead). The tall woman nearly folded in half around my thick shin before I sent her flying into a nearby pillar with enough force her impact almost completely shattered its base.
As she forced herself back to her feet with unnatural swiftness, the entire pillar gave out a deep groan, before it slowly toppled over, crashing down over the middle aisle of the Hall and nearly into another column. The impact was horrendous, shaking the palace to its foundations as a dust and stone was blasted away from the impact.
Not that either Hela or I even noticed as we were already locked back in mortal combat before the pillar had even managed to hit the ground.
The second time I managed to use the Tesseract against her was rather similar to before. A wide swing from her (this time aimed to take out my kneecaps) which I avoided by jumping back from her by several meters, disappearing in a bright blue flash. Remembering last time, Hela immediately whirls around, snarl on her face and swords poised to bite into my flesh, but there's nobody behind her.
I am, however, above her, which she cottons onto when the sound of Harpe's blade descending sends a keen whistle through the air as its on a collision course with her skull. When you have both the power of teleportation and flight on your side, you gotta start approaching combat as a far more 3-Dimensional experience.
Impressively (and frustratingly) Hela's own experience and constantly growing power here on Asgard means that she's fast enough to catch my scythe's blade on her sword, though my speed, her ill-preparedness and the odd angle mean I finally decisively overpower her, forcing her arms down and making her sink to a knee as she grits her teeth, before she ever so slightly starts pushing back.
Which is when I disengage our weapons and fly forward and downwards in a short explosive movement, leading into an absolutely brutal knee straight into Hela's face, sending the woman into the floor. Not letting up, I shoot forwards, once again sending Harpe flying down in an overhead slash, but the Asgardian throws herself out of the crater she formed and my scythe sinks harmlessly into the floor, only succeeding in tearing a long gash in her flowing black cape, almost a mirror to my pristine white one.
We both straighten, our expressions dead serious as I effortlessly pull Harpe from the floor while she briefly blinks the bright spots from her vision. But then the battle is immediately joined again, though after four subsequent uses of the Infinity Stones in my possession (minus the Mind Stone which I've been drawing from almost continuously during our whole fight), no matter how brief, something worrying is rapidly apparent: I'm slowing down, while she's speeding up.
My scythe fails to meet its mark more and more often, while her own strikes slip through my own defences at a steadily increasing frequency. Thankfully, they're all stopped by my armour, but each hit leaves its mark and I worriedly noticed that her assault on my shield had left it battered and in bad shape, littered with cuts and deep scrapes now that I'm no longer reinforcing it in a field from the Power Stone's energy, as I had done in my previous fights.
If she kept this up (and considering we were on Asgard, she could keep this up seemingly indefinitely) then sooner or later she'd cut straight through my shield. Trying to break her unending rhythm of constant attacks, I swipe forwards with my hand, sending Harpe flying towards her.
She scoffs at the move and considering she was the original wielder of Mjolnir in this universe, she probably thinks that she's far more skilled than me at wielding flying weaponry. However, while she may be old, I'm not exactly young myself either after my stint in a timeloop, and I have several tricks she (hopefully) hasn't seen before.
So, right as she's about to strike the scythe off course with a contemptuous, almost lazy backswing, Harpe seemingly… disappears. Hela has only a brief moment to widen her eyes in shock before my weapon enlarges back to his full size, coming up in a blisteringly fast arc towards her face.
It's only millennia of brutal warfare that gives her the reflexes needed to move away at the last possible second, though I'm gratified to see I still managed to draw first blood as I recall Harpe to my hand.
Slowly moving her hand to her cheek, Hela looks in shock at the blood that covers the tips of her fingers, her wide eyes moving towards the two horns that have clattered to the floor. Her eyes remain fixated on the severed parts of her crown for a long moment, before slowly, shock makes way for unyielding rage as she looks towards me, her entire body shaking with barely restrained fury.
"For that… you die slow."
Before I can even respond, she's suddenly upon me, launching blades from both her hands as well as her feet, attacking with long sweeping strikes, the blackened metal of her necroswords bursting forth with every attack. I'm put on the back foot as Hela charges towards me, slamming into me with a series of rapid strikes, most of which I'm forced to tank on my shield, damaging it even further.
She forces me to keep my shield raised at all times and seemingly is intent on going through it, before I realize too late what her true intentions were. One last, brutal strike, which could've killed almost anyone else in the universe, as she slams both swords into my shield, destabilizing my footing.
I barely even mange to catch the exact moment where a blade burst from the ground underneath her feet, lifting her higher than me and allowing her to stab down at my face. Faced with impending impalement of my skull, I have no choice but to respond to her movements, raising my shield high as I rapidly take a step back-
"Argh!"
-only for the final lair of her plan to reveal itself as yet another necrosword burst out from the ground at immense speeds, burying itself deep into the calf of my backfoot. Locked in place, I take the heavy blow from above, which nearly tears my shield from my grip entirely and shearing off about a third of the metal completely. Allowing her attack to carry her further, she falls into a roll behind me.
However, her finishing move doesn't come from behind as I immediately suspect, a mirror to my own earlier sneak attack. Instead, it comes at me head-on. With my footing destabilized by the sword biting into my leg and with my shield raised high above my head, my guard broken, there's nothing obstructing the massive sword she summons from the small one she had used to jump over me, which I only now realize was just the tip of a far larger weapon.
In a single flash, it extends to its full length, its long, tapered tip slamming through the plating covering my stomach, piercing through my supposedly unbreakable skin and punching through my organs, entering my stomach right underneath where the Tesseract is situated in the middle of my chestplate.
And god it fucking hurts.
I let out a strangled gasp as I can feel the metal cutting into me, blood pouring over my armour. After a few long moments of agony both swords are retracted and without them holding me in place, I fall heavily to my knees.
I've been stabbed before, but none of those times even remotely compared to this sheer agony. There was a biting, growing cold which just screamed wrongness at me as it spread from the massive gaping wound in my chest to my extremities.
So all consuming was the pain that I barely even noticed as Hela moved in front of me, slowly sitting down on her haunches as she looks at my form bleeding out over the floor. She reaches out and tears my helmet off my head with a terrifying ease belying monstrous strength, looking me straight in the eye with a wicked gleam in her dark eyes. Thankfully, she has only seen the glows in my shield and chest and so carelessly tosses my helmet away, unaware of the Infinity Stone she briefly held in her hands.
She probably never even entertained the thought I could be wielding more than two Infinity Stones. Such things were reserved for the likes of the Celestials after all, and if I'd been one of those, then there wouldn't have been a fight at all.
For that matter, there probably wouldn't have been much left of Asgard itself either by the time I would've been through with her.
Still, with the Mind Stone no longer connected to me, the pain I've been shunting away now returns in full force and with a vengeance, so I almost miss it completely when Hela begins talking in a soft, mocking tone, her words reaching me as if they were spoken hundreds of meters away.
The gaping hole in my chest and subsequent worryingly large amount of blood loss certainly isn't helping matters either.
"Hmm. You were strong. But I am the Goddess of Death. I could tell you were not long for this world before we even started fighting. And now, with a wound like that…" she trails off, a smile fixed widely on her face.
"Goodbye, Hyperion. As you depart this world, you can at least take comfort in that you were not as pathetic as my father's other little soldiers that throw themselves on my blades. A rather small comfort I imagine, consdering you're still going to die nonetheless, just like the rest of them, but still, I'd cherish it. After all, you're going to need every scrap you can get for where you're going." She says dismissively, raising to her full height and summoning two more swords.
Sam's pained howl of rage echoes throughout the Hall, but he's too far away and Hela is far too fast and mercilessly her swords descent in a crossing strike, aiming to take my head clean off. They race towards my neck… and are halted upon impacting my skin.
"What?!"
Before she can overcome her shock, the glow that had been steadily growing throughout my body finally burst forth from my skin, a white-golden corona of power, every vein in my body lighting up with a reddish glow. My eyes are a near pure white as I raise my head to lock gazes with the baffled goddess, calling on every shred of power within me even as my body begins to unravel at the seams.
My chi, my extremis, the power I've taken from Captain Marvel, the outpouring of energy from the Light Dimension…
… and gripped firmly in my hand, the pulsating purple glow of the Power Stone, torn from my now ruined shield.
Hela pulls back her swords, intent on a second strike, but before she's even halfway through the motion I've pushed off, shattering the floor underneath me and suddenly I'm right there inside her guard.
Her eyes widen, first in shock, then in pain as my fist, surrounding in a crackling haze of power, impacts her stomach, burying deep in her flesh. The world seems to hold its breath for a moment, before a shockwave of pure force extends from the impact and Hela is launched backwards and through one of the massive pillars, digging a deep furrow into the palace floor as she lands.
The feeling of peeling skin, tearing muscle and breaking bone keeps me from immediately pursuing her. Now that she's taken off my helmet I can't use the Mind Stone to bolster my own mental fortitude (rather ironically meaning I can't focus properly on my innate psychokinetics enough to actually recall my helmet to me which would fix that little issue) and for the first time in days I'm exposed to the full agony of my body dying on me. It leaves me doubled over, my hands balled into fists and resting on my knees as I try to breathe deeply, nothing but my own willpower left to carry me through the pain.
Dozens of meters away from me, Hela adopts a somewhat similar pose as she works her way out of the crater and back to her feet. Her expression has changed though. Where before it was either dominated by arrogance or rage, now a new emotion has found its way onto her face.
Fear.
"No… No! No, I will not allow this! I am the Goddess of Death! Who the fuck do you think you are!?"
With incredible speed she pushes off, a mad gleam in her eyes as her teeth are bared in a horrific snarl, a great necrosword held before her as if it were a spear, aimed at the same hole in my chest her previous attack had left and which was still leaking blood.
Right before she can impact me though, my hand shoots out, wrapping around the end of her sword and brining her to a sudden halt. She looks up at my forbidding expression with a look of sheer shock, my own pure white eyes shining back down on her.
"And I… am someone with far too much to lose… to ever die." I breathe out heavily, the air in front of my mouth shimmering with the sheer heat of my breath.
With a call of rage, Hela draws even more power from Asgard, forming a short and thick dagger in her hand and sending it slamming forwards into my side. This time, it penetrates my skin, though the blade sinks in only halfway. It doesn't really matter: I'm in so much pain I barely even register it.
Instead, my free hand lashes out, grasping several of those ridiculous horns in my meaty hand and ruthlessly pulling her in as I rush forwards, giving her a headbutt powerful enough it makes the very ground tremble.
And then I give her another.
And another.
Blood is freely flowing down our faces, both mine and hers, but between the two of us, she's definitely looking more dazed. I tear her full-length sword from her now weakened grip, letting it fall to the floor (my hands are shaking too much to properly hold a weapon anyways), before raising my fist and raining down several brutal haymakers on her struggling form, each blow producing the sound of a thunderclap which echoes throughout the now ruined Hall.
Screaming in rage, Hela wrests herself free by breaking off the horns I'm holding on to with a cry of agony. As she staggers back, she throws both her arms upwards in a desperate motion and a blade the size of a small ship burst out from between us, aimed squarely at my face. Due to its immense size and our close proximity, it hits its mark, digging a deep cut into my cheek and nearly taking out my left eye.
Seeing her opening, Hela lets out a wrathful roar as she summons half a dozen more swords, each coming at me at a different angle, trying to hem me in. It only takes a few seconds, but out of nowhere a great prison of blackened metal has suddenly sprung up in Odin's court in the form of a jagged tipi. Hela only has a second to take a deep, gasping breath, before a blindingly pure white sword bursts straight through the flat of the first blade.
In wide sweeping motions I hack my way to freedom, several long cuts now littering my glowing body, blood dripping to the floor with every step.
Still I push on.
"NO! No, no, no, no NO!" Hela roars, each cry accompanied by another necrosword flying towards me.
I rocket towards her, swiping several of the flying blades out of my path with sweeping strikes of my own broadsword made of pure Light Dimension energy (its unique properties making it the only weapon I can hold with any measure of skill), before extending it in front of me, a mirror to the move Hela had tried on me.
Her eyes widen, before they narrow in hatred and spite as she grits her teeth and squares her stance. With the force of a bomb going off, I slam into the Goddess, once more shattering the tiles underneath my feet. Hela has caught the shining blade of pure hope (once more a stark contrast between us, a small part of me lucidly notices) by bracing against the tip with both hands, dark energy pooling in her palms, a pitch-black spike growing from her flesh and struggling against my own blade.
My force and momentum are enough to carry us further though, forcing Hela to dig two deep, several meters long furrows into the floor as I shove her back. We slow to a halt, Hela pushing back against me with all of her immense power, a vindictive smile slowly growing on her face.
It's not to hard to see why: by now, the battle damage to her suit and crown have already begun to repair themselves rapidly as she draws more and more on the power of her ancient home. Meanwhile, I'm bleeding all over the place which is not to mention how my own power is starting to consume me, various cracks showing up all over my form, the air wavering around my burning form.
Even so, the grin only stays on her face for a second. Because then I swing my sword to the side, violently breaking her guard as she's suddenly destabilized. In that single moment, I continue forwards and swing my other fist forwards, once again covered in a purple haze of crackling power.
Recognition floods Hela's eyes but before she can act, I've once again punched her across the room.
In fact, I've punched her out of the room, blasting her straight through the double doors, reducing the mighty slabs of wood and alloys to splinters and scrapmetal. I immediately take off and fly after her, ignoring the faint cry of "Michael!" coming from Sterns far behind me.
Hela isn't hard to spot, several massive swords already rising from the earth as the Asgardians run away from her in a clear panic. Odin's eldest ignores them in favor of facing me however, and once more the battle is joined, following much the same pattern as it had so far.
Hela keeps summoning more and more swords, each one more durable and sharper than the one before as her eye take on a more and more manic gleam. She summons a spire of metal to catch a viscous stab from my Lightblade, trapping it inside, before whirling around its massive, sharpened side to strike at my extended arm, hoping to chop it off at the elbow but only succeeding in carving a gash that goes across my bulging bicep.
Meanwhile I keep raining down blow after blow on her much smaller form, ragdolling her with every hit as she simply cannot withstand the explosive strength I can bring to the fore in this form. Every block she throws up is simply smashed through, sending her flying through a building or into a hillside. Every counterattack she makes, regardless of whether she actually hits me or how deeply she manages to wound me, I use to trap her in a hold, either trying to break the offending appendage, or throwing her into the ground with enough force to leave a massive crater as tremors wreck the entire island.
At one point she comes in low, trying sweep my legs from underneath me, but I kick out at her at the same time, hitting her square in the shin with enough force it almost snaps. As it is, Hela shrieks in pain as her lower body is violently thrown back from the force, before she suddenly comes to a halt: I've lunged towards her prone body, my two thick arms encircling her tiny mid-riff as I lift her up as she's upside down. I begin applying a bearhug to her despite the awkward position, rage and pain pushing me beyond rational thought to the point I just want to choke the fucking life out of this bitch-!
My increasingly violent thoughts are suddenly cut off as Hela's struggles intensify, fueled by genuine fear for her life, outright desperation and Asgard itself, and a powerful knee squarely impacts my face, sending a spray of literally burning blood flying through the air from my now broken nose.
Letting out a roar of rage, I raise her upwards to almost above my head, my entire form taught and my back arched, before with a yell of exertion I bring both my arms down, smashing Hela headfirst into the pavement underneath us in the now burning town square we're fighting in.
Hela is nearly folded in half from the blow, the air leaving her lungs in a chocked off gasp and as I straighten I notice that her immense horns have embedded themselves into the stonework, meaning she's stuck. Probably not for long, she's strong enough now she can probably free herself in just a couple of moments.
I just need one.
Like a footballer who needs to make a winning penalty at the championship finals, I rear back my foot and sent it flying forward with all of my power, all of my rage and pain, crashing it into Hela's crumpled form and like a football launched from a cannon she's off, a thunderclap and a spray of torn up ground and masonry in her wake as she sails off into the distance.
Not willing to let such a dangerous advesary out of my sight, I bend my knees as massive muscles in my legs bulge to their limits and then I push off into the air, flying after the tumbling form of Hela far away, leaving an enormous crater and several collapsing buildings.
But as the battle is joined yet again, both sides lashing out with the strength to wipe out cities and subjugate civilizations, one truth becomes evident, even as I continue to beat Hela into the ground and through every obstacle in our vicinity: I keep burning up, she keeps growing stronger and we both know it.
Her many wounds, broken bones and even her tattered outfit are steadily repairing themselves, while I keep bleeding out.
While I keep... splintering.
We're somewhere far behind the palace when I decide I have to end it here and now, or my sacrifice will have been for nothing. Even as parts of me disintegrate or fall off, I rush towards her, a stream of wavering air and burning earth in my wake. Hela has grown wise to my rush tactics however and immediately lets two more swords fall into her awaiting hands, ready to divert my opening punch or summoned Lightsword.
Which means she doesn't expect it when I open my mouth instead, unleashing a veritable torrent of chi-coloured flame right into her face. While it turns the woodlands around us into ash and charcoal almost instantly, Hela's armor is merely burnt in places, whereas she herself is only somewhat singed.
The sudden rush of heat and light has done its job however, as she, however briefly, drops her guard, closing her eyes and averting her face in the same instinctive reaction shared by almost every living creature in existence. Meaning that, for a brief moment, she's lost sight of me. Powering beyond every limit I thought I had, my corona of power now burning so bright I'm barely more than a person-shaped ball of light, my massive hand clamps down on her face.
And then I push off towards the sky, leaving a massive crater and a sonic boom behind me, climbing into the air at speeds that would even make Tony's newest armors look like model airplanes in comparison.
In no time at all we're hanging over a kilometre above even the highest spire of the Asgardian palace, which now merely looks like a shiny dollhouse. The whole way up, Hela has struggled with all of her might, though a small part of me notices the slight drop in her strength and the sharpness of her swords.
Not that it changes much, since I'm now littered with blades and daggers of varying lengths and Hela and I have come at the end of our fight.
She just doesn't know it yet.
Shifting my grip so that I'm holding her by her throat instead, my glowing white eyes stare into Hela's mad ones as she snarls at me like a rabid dog. Right up until I punch her in the face.
I've poured everything I have into this. Every scrap of power I've got left, every last iota of life force still struggling in my body and I realize that this has likely sealed my death. Still I push on and pour more and more into it, opening myself up to the endless flow of the Light Dimension, which eagerly rushes forwards like a waterfall into my body and up into my fist.
If the Light Dimension is a waterfall, then the Power Stone is an ocean. There's just no end to it, just more energy than I've ever felt in my entire life pouring forth and even more coming in every second afterwards, until it feels like I've got the weight of a planet resting in the palm of my hand.
And all of that, is sent careening into Hela's face with godlike judgement. A blinding golden white light blooms out from the point of impact, consuming us both and lighting up the Asgardian sky like a second sun, as if a nuke has suddenly gone up in its atmosphere.
To the rest of the universe, it must have appeared as if a bright young star had suddenly born and died on Asgard, the supernova like flash traveling throughout the galaxy for millions of years to come.
Hela… disappeared.
Briefly, she seemed almost fused to my flesh as if the power was so utterly immense it needed a few moments to fully transfer from my fist from her face. Her skeletal structure broke and reformed under the weight of my fist pushing down, skin tearing and flesh pulping as one of her eyes simply… popped.
And then the explosion of power truly bloomed into the world and even as the massive glow of light filled the sky, one black blur streaked downwards, the very air burning up around it due to the friction of its sudden immense acceleration. It impacted the solid ground so far below us within an instant… and didn't even slow down.
Even as the land buckled and the forest was flattened and sprays of dirt shot into the air hundreds of meters high, the battered, burning, broken form of Hela kept crashing straight down into the depths of Asgard, slamming through rock and ores as if they weren't even there.
Only a few seconds later could the sonic boom of her sudden fall be heard, a deep rumbling echoing throughout the entire floating earth, tremors shaking Asgard to its very foundations. And then a second massive impact could be felt across the entire world, as the rocky underside of the island broke apart in massive chunks and Hela's ruined body fell deeper into the endlessness of Ginnungagap's ever-expanding void.
I had just punched her through the entire planet.
Not without a price, however, I noted detachedly, finally free from the pain. Free from anything really, my mind foggy and the sensation of my body seemingly coming from miles away. Still, that didn't hide the fact that, once the glare of my punch had died down and I could see again, I could clearly see that my left arm was… gone. It ended in a charred mess right above the elbow.
'Wait... I was... holding the Power Stone... in that hand... where...?' my brain sluggishly wonders, before noticing a pinprick far down below in the blackened, ruined landscape of what once had been lush forest no less than a mere minute ago.
While my missing arm was definitely bad, the rest of me didn't look to hot either, I slowly thought as I began to hurtle through the sky, no more power left in my body to keep me aloft.
My body was covered in burns, blowback from my own punch, but it was also littered with cracks from where my powers had begun to tear me apart, several long and deep ones shooting out from the hole in my chest.
That's not to mention the various cuts that littered my body, courtesy of the Goddess I had just punched into oblivion.
The damage went deeper than merely the physical however, and as delirious as I am, I almost giggle at the quote that floats to the forefront of my brain, before my sight goes dark, like a candle flickering out on a cold, empty night.
'I feel… thin. Like butter… spread on too much toast.'
I don't even register my own impact with the shattered remains of Asgard's surface, unconscious before I even hit the ground, mere meters away from where the Power Stone lies shining in the burning ashes of the testament to my fight.
Fun Fact: Cate Blanchett studied Capoeira in preparation for her role of Hela, which she took on insistence of her children who are massive Marvel fans. It was also a reunion for her with fellow Lord of the Rings star Karl Urban, which is just fuckin' diabolical. On a somewhat related note, the Lord of the Rings trilogy is an exceptional piece of (fantasy) literature in various ways, one of which its unusually large size: it clocks in at 570k words. For comparison, the longest Harry Potter book is Book 5 at 200k words (though the series as a whole crosses the 1M mark). As of this chapter, 12 Steps has hit the 570k mark as well, which is… quite something and definitely more than I ever thought myself capable of. So… thanks, I guess, for willing to stick with me for such a ridiculous amount of time.
AN: This has been a long time coming and at several points I debated once again cutting the chapter in half and postponing the reveal/fight to another chapter. Seriously, this monster clocks in at over 21k words (and as such hasn't been extensively proofread yet, please have mercy on me)! Usually actually writing out a chapter after I've penned everything down on paper only takes me about a day. This one took me three. However, I knuckled down, pushed on and finally hit the point where I felt the whole was a cohesive unit and splitting it apart would only end up hurting it. I honestly hadn't thought that the whole Asgardian family drama would take up so much space and I blame that (mostly) on Odin who turned out to be way, way harder to write than I had originally anticipated. In fact, I'm still not entirely pleased with how he turned out, so any suggestions on how to tweak his portrayal or dialogue would be much appreciated!
As for what actually goes down in the chapter itself, I've read many suggestions and speculations, some of them surprisingly close to the mark, though I'm fairly certain nobody had "Thanos using the powers of the Soul Stone to Astral Project himself to Asgard, attack Michael's soul directly and release Hela from prison." If you had, have an internet cookie, free of charge. So, what did you guys think? With how I've been hyping it up for so long, I'm worried I didn't deliver to expectations so I'd like to hear back from you guys if you think the chapter lived up to what you were expecting/hoping for. Also, what did you guys think of how I tried to portray Thanos attacking Michael's soul directly? I felt something like that should be reflected in the actual make up of the text itself, but I'm not sure if it worked like I wanted it to. Again, suggestions are appreciated!
Alright, fingies hurt now. I'm not gonna touch a keyboard for at least a week. See you guys next time and take care!