This was Garfield's first time in Norway.
His only images of the country came from two places…
(1) that chubby, oversized octopus 'Kraken' in Pirates of the Caribbean.
(2) and Odin's dramatic 'I'm-going-to-die-next-to-an-ocean' moment in Thor Ragnarok, right above the prison of his tantrum-prone eldest daughter, Hela.
Which led Garfield to one burning question, was the Kraken secretly one of Hela's boredom projects?
I mean… what else do you do for a thousand years?
If Garfield were sealed away for a millennium, he might also end up creating a giant sea monster just to pass the time.
But that was a mystery for another day.
Garfield soared high above fjords and forests, scanning the land below.
He remembered the Cosmic Cube being hidden in a small church in a small town… but Norway had many small churches and many small towns.
…
Three days of flying later… waterfalls, cold winds messing up his fur, he finally spotted a church that resembled the one in his memory.
Inside, a stone coffin rested under candlelight.
A warrior lay within… his body decayed long ago, but his withered hands still clutched a faintly glowing blue cube.
A fake.
Made by the pastor. A trap for treasure hunters.
Garfield stepped into the doorway and immediately felt… a gaze from the sky.
Heimdall?
Odin?
Garfield snorted. Probably Odin.
If there were anything like the real cosmic beings… Eternity, Infinity, Death, Oblivion, Galactus…
Then Odin was basically a middle manager pretending to be the CEO.
Garfield even wondered for a moment if he was one of Eternity's experimental toys.
If so, he planned on stealing all six Infinity Stones one day and snapping those cosmic bureaucrats into yellow, squeaky, gender-confused 'pick-me-up' rats.
Ignoring the coffin, Garfield padded up the wooden rafters and dropped into the church hall.
He walked straight to the mural he knew was hiding the real prize.
A towering world tree… Yggdrasil was painted in ancient pigments.
Coiled beneath it, a serpent was Jörmungandr, the world serpent.
A protector.
Garfield poked the serpent's painted eye with a paw.
Click
A small hidden box popped out. He opened it.
Blue light exploded outward.
The real Cosmic Cube hummed between his paws, energy spilling out like it couldn't contain itself.
Garfield swallowed. "I want to eat it,"
"…" His fur stood on end.
"I really want to eat it."
"Orange cat." A voice barked from behind him, "Put down the treasure. It belongs to the God-King Odin."
Garfield turned lazily.
A pastor stood there, trembling but determined, aiming a shotgun directly at him.
Garfield raised an eyebrow. "Oh, please. That toy wouldn't even ruin my nap. And this thing," He held up the Cube~ "Was left here by Odin."
"I'm just borrowing it. I'll return your fake one later."
"No," The pastor said, tightening his grip. "I don't believe you."
"Look, I'm just telling you." Garfield lifted the Cube. "Believe me or don't it's your business, not mine."
"But listen carefully… someday, an evil, ugly guy with a face like a rotten tomato, calls himself the Red Skull will come looking for this thing. When he does, you'll die."
The pastor's eyes widened in terror.
Garfield continued casually, "So here. You've guarded the Cube this long. Consider this a reward."
He reached into his pocket, floated into the air with lazy grace, and tossed a glowing talisman straight into the pastor's arms.
The man fumbled it, stunned.
Then, as if nothing had happened, Garfield shoved the real Tesseract into his pocket and retrieved the decoy he'd prepared earlier, a blue crystal cube reinforced with solid magic.
He placed the fake neatly back into the hidden compartment behind the mural.
"Alright then, I'm out. Bye-bye~"
With a flick of his tail, Garfield shot out of the church like an orange comet.
"…"
It took nearly a full minute before the pastor remembered how to breathe. He stared at the talisman, then at the empty doorway.
"O–Old King Odin…?
That orange cat flies… and speaks of Odin like he's scolding an elderly neighbor.
Could he be… the son of Odin? A new god? A divine beast?"
He frowned deeply. "Then… who is his mother? And where would he rank in the god system…?"
After several seconds of useless contemplation, he sighed and shook his head.
"No… forget it. The realm of gods itself is already difficult enough. Mortals like me should not overthink these things."
✦••┈┈••✦••┈┈••✦
Holding the real Tesseract, Garfield soared over the fjords again.
The gaze watching the church earlier now followed him.
"Typical." Garfield muttered.
Since he was already here, Garfield decided to make an extra stop.
Hela.
The Goddess of Death.
The most grounded and efficient war machine Asgard had ever produced, sealed at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea like a misbehaving sea urchin.
Garfield wanted to see if she was still there… and whether living there for a thousand years had anything to do with her smoky eyeliner and porcupine armor.
Honestly, the aesthetics were awful.
One look at her and even a toddler would say, 'Villain.'
How could Odin stand next to his sparkly golden army… bright, heroic, shampoo-commercial pretty and then look at Hela, covered in black and green demon goth?
Marvel's design team really didn't try very hard. Loki had golden horns, Hela had black and green spikes. Siblings by color palette alone.
After circling the coastline, Garfield sensed it… a ancient energy at the bottom of a cliff.
He dove into the icy water, swimming past a maze of reefs and monstrous shapes… massive sea creatures, twisted coral, and strange armored beasts.
They were definitely not natural.
"Either Hela got really bored," Garfield muttered, "or Odin dumped his failed aquarium projects here to guard her."
Both explanations were equally plausible.
Odin, for all his cosmic wisdom, had never understood parenting.
When he was young, he and Hela rode across the universe conquering worlds.
When he got old and realized the universe was bigger and scarier than he thought, he panicked and grounded his daughter without explaining anything.
No closure or therapy… just straight to imprisonment.
So of course she rebelled.
And then Odin made it worse by sending the Valkyries after her, an elite force he seemed to forget was wildly outmatched.
Garfield drifted downward like a slightly chubby, bright-orange sea cucumber. His little legs paddled lazily as he descended into the dark blue.
The underwater journey was… eventful.
He made three sharks cry, slapped two giant octopuses into submission, snagged a massive lobster for future barbecue purposes, and casually scooped up a crab just because it annoyed him.
Eventually, Garfield reached the ocean floor… a place swallowed by shadow.
There, nestled among jagged rocks, was a pitch-black underwater cavern. Powerful waves of sealed magic pulsed from within.
Garfield circled the entrance twice, inspecting it with the cautious expertise of someone who had definitely set off far too many traps in his life.
Then he spotted an eel.
Perfect test subject.
"Come here, you," He grabbed the eel like a noodle and tossed it straight into the cave to scout ahead.
The eel swam inside… then outside… completely unharmed.
Garfield nodded solemnly. "Means I won't die instantly."
With that reassurance, he buffed himself with every defensive spell and enhancement he could stack… glowing like a heavily enchanted Christmas tree, then swam straight into the darkness…
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
Phantom your way through a treasure trove of chapters waiting on P@treon!
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