Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Millenia ago, the Primordial King Bor refined a form of prismatic light into Bifrost. Now flowing freely through space, Bifrost enabled one to bridge great distances, enhancing trade and commerce.

This let Bor perform a feat no empire has since - he lassoed distant galaxies and connected nine distant realms to a central hub in Asgard.

The Asgardian Empire prospered, uniting lands of great and terrible giants, studious elves and dwarves, and even the honored dead, through a network of Bifrost Bor dubbed Yggdrasil, the Great Tree.

It wasn't until he sought to connect a tenth realm to his empire that Bor met true resistance.

His people had come as gods, but Midgard already had its own, ten jealous and self-serving gods far more powerful than anything Bor had ever encountered.

Humanity was shackled under the tyranny of these Elder Gods, each of them ruling over a segment of the globe. Chthon’s dark magics blighted the land and cursed its people. The serpent Set allowed his fanatics to get away with anything, even feasting on one another. Even Gaea, the most forgiving of the Elder Gods, brutally and swiftly ended any who broke her commandments.

It took the full armies of the other nine realms to seal the Elder Gods away. Each Bifrost gate served as a prison, and each of the ten realms took responsibility for imprisoning one Elder God.

Ages came and went, and even the Asgardian Empire was shattered. In its place, new empires would rise and fall.

Despite constant wars, the Ten Realms were connected in their destinies, and Yggdrasil remained strong. For none would disturb the Bifrost, and the Gods it imprisoned.

But a century ago, something changed. Underneath the golden city of Asgard, Chthon slipped loose.

MARVEL DESTINIES PRESENTS:

Journey Into Mystery!

—

The once-pristine marble bricks of Asgard were now stained a dull grey from the smoke of dark magicks. On one such brick wall was a mural of Asgard’s only salvation, a triumphant hero decked in the royal garb of the Æsir. The storied scion of the royal house of Asgard smiled, as if daring the Elder God to take down the mural.

For although Asgard’s people had spent a century under Chthon’s fist, they knew that Loki always had a plan.

Fandral the Dashing, fabled fighter of the Warriors Three, gripped his dagger in both hands, backed against the mural by two inhuman creatures. They held weapons in each of their four hands, their red and scabbed skin pulsating like a living cancer.

Fandral smiled, even as his doom surrounded him.

“I’m sorry,” Fandral said. “I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. I’ll be out of your hair in a–”

The creatures ran towards him. Fandral jumped in the air, throwing his dagger into the gaping third eye of one of the creatures. It recoiled, taking several steps back. Weaponless against the remaining four-armed aberration, Fandral swiftly grabbed onto its torso, shaking it violently. His Asgardian strength kept him rooted to the ground, the once-brilliant golden floor tiles cracking as the weapons fell out of the creature’s hands. With one swift motion, Fandral threw the creature at its companion, knocking them into a nearby well.

Fandral smiled and continued running down the Asgardian city street; a few brave souls opened their second-story windows to thank the hero, but most dared not leave their quarters. He looked up; several large, writhing masses of tentacles clouded Asgard’s skies, each one opening a singular eye and looking down at him.

He knew he had to be quick.

Fandral ducked into another alley, knocking on the wooden door of one of the houses. An elderly woman opened the door, her white hair the most brilliant thing in the desolated landscape of Asgard.

“Pardon me,” he said. “I was told you had something for me.”

The old woman nodded in recognition. She produced a small glass canister from her pocket. Inside, a rainbow light shone, dividing into a thousand fractal images of Fandral as he looked into it. She had acquired it under threat of life and limb, proving that there were still heroes in Asgard after all. Fandral nodded solemnly, quickly stuffing it into a sack on his belt.

Fandral ran through the alleyways; even if he was to be captured, he needed to get as far away from his conspirator as he could, so he wouldn’t implicate her to the Demon Lord. He knew the streets of Asgard better than almost anyone, but after enough turns, even he was confused as to where he was. Finally, he ducked out into a central corridor of the city, the defiled Palace of Asgard in sight in front of him.

Fandral stretched his arms wide open and knelt on the cobblestones. “Chthon!” he shouted. “You know how this goes. Take me, and I will return from Valhalla once again to enact vengeance on your house! There shall be no end to Loki’s rebellion!”

One of the tentacled masses took notice, then another, then another. As twelve of these clouds of flesh surrounded Fandral, a ray of brimstone erupted from each of their eyes. As quickly as they had noticed Fandral, he was no longer there. Not a single shred of his remains could be found on the smoldering tile.

Several hundred galaxies away, Loki stood on an abandoned space platform. His green-and-gold royal regalia was no longer as brilliant as the mural showed, and his eyes were much more tired than the artist had depicted.

A portal opened in front of him, and the last self-contained vial of Bifrost fell onto the metal floor of the rebellion’s base camp.

Loki smiled. Even against insurmountable odds, he knew Chthon’s time on Asgard’s throne was coming to a close.

—

Jake Olson had been driving through the Norwegian countryside for an hour now, and he still couldn't help but admire the beauty.

He parked it next to the dirt path and stepped out, looking around. The pale blue farmhouse stood in the middle of a large grassy expanse. Behind it, mountains towered up over the horizon so high their peaks were barely visible.

As he followed the path to the farmhouse, Jake passed a man carrying a bundle of logs over his shoulder. The man wore a dirty grey cloak, but his back was hunched over, and he had enormous legs.

The man stood out given his proportions. Something about him stood out; Jake didn't have to be a paramedic to know that something about the proportions was off.

“Hey,” Jake said, pointing at the man. “This, uh… this is the Jarlson house, right? I’m at the right place?”

“Of course,” the man said, his accent much stronger than the other Norwegians he had met. “You are Olson’s son, correct? It is very good to have you here!”

The man reached out an abnormally large hand; his skin was completely callused over and almost grey. “Am Ulik,” he said. “Ulik is a dutiful worker at the Jarlson farm. You need anything, you ask Ulik!”

Ulik turned to Jake, showing his face. His rigid brow and small nose made him look more Cro-Magnon than human, but his pointed teeth and bright orange eyes were what really unsettled him. He must just be a mutant, Jake thought to himself, forcing himself to put aside his uncertainty and shake Ulik’s hand. As Ulik turned away, Jake noticed his own hand was now caked in dirt.

He reached the front stoop of the house, knocking on the door. A tall, muscular woman with blonde shoulder-length hair answered, wearing a simple white blouse and jeans.

“Hi,” Jake said. “I’m here for Ingvar’s funeral?”

The woman nodded. “You must be Jake,” she said. “Come on in, get yourself a bite to eat. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Jake walked in and rubbed his shoes on the welcome mat. “I hadn’t seen him in years,” he said. “Still, I figured it was the right thing to do, to see him off.”

“Ingvar wasn’t close with anyone other than us,” the woman said bluntly. “I’m surprised anyone in his family at all came to visit.”

Jake walked into the living room, where a spread of appetizers were arranged on an old table. There were several other people here, drinking, playing board games, and talking among themselves. He couldn’t understand anything they were saying, but whatever community his grandfather was a part of, Jake was just glad he was surrounded by people in his last days.

Jake turned around; the woman who had greeted him was now standing behind him, looming a bit closer than he would like.

“So, Jake,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “How much… did you know about Ingvar’s life before he passed?”

“Not much,” Jake replied. He looked around at the house’s decor; the old, wooden walls were covered with immense tapestries depicting great battles between heroes and fantastical creatures. “I mean, you knew him, right? He was a man of few words, even when you did see him.”

“I ask because that knowledge is crucial to understanding some of the funerary practices later today,” she continued. “Your grandfather was a follower of the old ways, so to speak. When Scandinavia was Christianized, many of the old gods were forgotten, their worshippers persecuted. Our community is home to those that have… rediscovered the value of the old path.”

Jake nodded. “Hey, don’t worry about it. I respect everyone’s religion; doesn’t matter to me.”

“Many people say that, but change their attitude when they learn of some of our practices,” the woman replied. “For example, would you have a problem with animal sacrifice?”

Jake swiveled his head towards the woman. “Okay, why don’t we start with your name? I’m Jake; it’s nice to meet you. You know, small talk.”

“It’s much the same as raising livestock for meat anyway,” the woman continued. “We eat most of the animal, we just do it in the name of Odin.” She looked at Jake, who was staring wide-eyed at her.

“I’m Elsa,” she finally said. “We don’t do much small talk here.”

Jake nodded, stifling a chuckle. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m a vegetarian.” He was not.

Elsa nodded. “Well, there will be vegetarian options as well,” she said. “We are an inclusive community.”

Jake looked around. He was certainly in over his head, the only outsider in such a tight-knit group. Still, they seemed harmless.

“Sigurd was hoping to meet with you,” Elsa said. “He was a good friend of your grandfather’s.”

Jake nodded. “Where is he?”

“Outside,” Elsa said. “He’s likely by the lake behind the house.”

Jake nodded, walking through the house until he finally found a back door. The property was sprawling; tall grass and wildflowers blanketed a field in front of him. He saw fields of crops, a sheep pen, and a row of apiaries. Directly across from the back door was a large, sapphire-blue lake, the surface perfectly reflecting the fields around him. From afar, Jake could spot a lone figure standing against the backdrop, facing the lake.

As he got closer, the figure became clearer: an old man with a mop of white hair, clean-shaven, and notably, not wearing any clothes.

The man–whom Jake presumed was Sigurd Jarlson, the owner of the estate–seemed to notice Jake’s presence. “Tread carefully,” he said, “for we are in the company of gods.”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Jake said meekly. “I can come back another–”

“That’s quite fine,” Sigurd said. “I was simply performing my daily devotion to the god Freyr.” He turned towards Jake, which made the young man uncomfortable. “Are you aware of him?”

“No, I don’t think I am,” Jake said, taking a step away from Sigurd.

“Freyr is a fertility god,” Sigurd said. “His idols depict him naked, as a symbol of his virility. To commune with him, I have adopted the same guise.”

“I see,” Jake said. “Is there much of a chance you can, uh, stop adopting that guise?”

Sigurd laughed heartily. “Walk with me,” he said. “My clothes are over there. I apologize; I expected you’d get here a bit later.”

Jake followed Sigurd along the lake’s shore, looking down at the grass. Sigurd continued. “Your grandfather was very dear to me, to us all. He would never cease to make us laugh, to brighten the room with his booming voice, to keep our spirits up when our rituals failed.”

“I… think I remember what he was like,” Jake said. He remembered his grandfather’s beard, his smile, and how he would tell stories. His laugh was on the edges of Jake’s brain, as if he could almost remember it, but he could never hear it. “We never got out to him, but he’d come to us. He’d take us on long car trips just to get ice cream somewhere we’d never been before. And then… at some point, he stopped showing up. He was just too far away, and we never closed the gap.”

“Ah,” Sigurd said. “Yes; in those later years, his work consumed him. Even I had a hard time getting through to him sometimes. Studying the ancient myths, writing epic poetry. He’d vanish into his room for days on end.” Jake and Sigurd reached a log, where Sigurd had left his clothes. Jake continued to avert his eyes the best he could.

“I wish I’d come here before this,” Jake finally said. “To get to know the life he led. It’s hard to mourn when you only know half the person you’re mourning.”

“Yes, well, how well do any of us truly know each other in the end?” Sigurd replied. “I have pants on now, by the way. You can look at me now, unless you’d like to wait until I have my shirt on.”

“I’m an EMT,” Jake said. “I’ve seen worse. This just… surprised me, is all.”

“Of course,” Sigurd said. “Nonetheless, I think Ingvar would be very glad to know you’ve come, even if he wasn’t here to see it. You arrived at the time that was right for you to do so.” He placed a hand firmly on Jake’s shoulder. “There are workings of fate all around us, and there is more to your visit here than I believe either of us know.”

—

Onboard a satellite orbiting the immense ice planet of Jotunheim, Loki stared out the window. It had been set up in this far-flung sector by some mining company, who realized the Frost Giants weren't going to be conducive to their operations.

Once they left, the platform and the space elevator attached to it fell under Laufey’s territory. Loki hadn't spent much time with his biological father, but blood ties still meant something. The Frost Giants might not have been keen on his presence there, but the Frost King's protection gave him some latitude.

From behind him, Fandral stepped through a set of double doors.

Loki smiled. “Your victory enriches us all,” he said. “I hope your… untimely demise wasn’t too much of an inconvenience?”

“Not much more than the last dozen times,” Fandral responded. “You really think they’d stop trying at this point, you know?”

Loki laughed. “That is the hope, at least. Come; the others have been waiting to celebrate.”

Loki and Fandral walked through the halls of the platform, stopping at a large room. Loki smiled and snapped his fingers, and at once the bare metal room transformed into a replica of Asgard's dining hall.

The room now sported brilliant gold and marble panelling, with giant windows displaying a view of the city in its ancient splendor. A veritable feast was spread on the table: ham, roasted Jotun-beast, fresh berries picked from Alfheim, Asgardian sweet rolls, and giant pitchers of mead.

“I thought I smelled something delicious,” a voice said, entering the newly-created grand hall. Sif, the raven-haired warrior goddess of the Æsir, stood in the entrance, trailing a giant sword behind her. Next to her was her betrothed, Vidar, a lesser-known scion of the Royal Family and one of the few still known to be alive. They took two seats near the head of the table, smiling at the feast before them.

Another voice boomed through the hall. “Fandral!” It was Volstagg the Voluminous, Fandral’s closest friend in the world. The impossibly large man pulled his fellow Warrior into a tight hug, Fandral barely able to get his hands around the front of Volstagg’s stomach. Behind him, a small woman with dark hair smiled curtly, her face barely visible over her fur hat. This was Hogun the Grim, quiet as always but clearly proud of her friend’s success.

“I can’t believe you got out of that mission unscathed!” Volstagg said. “And without us to back you up either!”

“I died, remember?” Fandral winked at the two of them. “Clearly not much of an inconvenience, though.”

Volstagg took a seat on a nearby chair. “Next time, the Warriors Three ride together,” he said.

“You all enjoy,” Loki said. “I have somewhere else to be.”

“You're not joining us?” Sif called out. Loki didn't respond.

It was a classic trollish enchantment: sorcerers would often trick mortals into sitting down at a grand feast, unaware that they were eating insects and rotten fruit. The emergency rations they’d been subsisting on were nowhere near that quality, but Loki still figured they deserved a glimpse of what they were fighting for. Usually, he had to be present for the illusion to continue, but that wasn't true when the targets of the illusion so desperately wanted to believe it.

Loki took the canister of Bifrost with him as he walked up a metal catwalk, into a small, cramped room. The walls were covered with towering bookshelves, containing dull brown books and stacks of scrolls that also lined the floor. In the center of the room was Balder the Brave, sitting, meditating.

“Our brother in arms just secured a major victory for the cause,” Loki said, holding up the vial. “Do you not want to celebrate with him?”

Balder did not respond, his eyes still closed.

“I surmised as such,” Loki said. “I’m sure your presence would be much appreciated by everyone.”

“I do not see the need to allow myself such revelry,” Balder replied. “It would simply make tomorrow’s pain greater.”

Loki nodded. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “we don’t know that this is Ragnarok. For one, the prophecies say you’ll die before any of it starts. This is just… a dark time. One which Asgard will get through.”

“It has been said,” Balder replied, opening his eyes slightly, “never to heed a word from the God of Lies.”

Loki shrugged. “That was a long time ago. I am a different man now.”

“You have changed, yes,” Balder said. “You are a nobler man, but you are still a fantastic liar. Your lies are simply… more optimistic, now.”

“Believe what you wish.” Loki placed the vial of Bifrost next to Balder. He looked over, the brilliant rainbow contents of the vial illuminating his eyes. “We still have use for you. If we are to win this war, we will need to understand how to create more of this stuff. You have Bor’s alchemical texts with you, yes?”

Balder nodded. “The code he wrote in is still nigh-indecipherable, but if we have a sample now, I may be able to work backwards.”

“That’s all I’m asking,” Loki said.

From a window out into space, a raven impossibly flew towards the satellite. It phased through the glass, landing on Loki’s shoulder and whispering something in his ear.

“The Valhalla Engine’s been found,” Loki said. “I’m going to rally the troops. You know your mission.”

Balder didn’t respond.

Loki walked away, leaving Balder in silence. The other gods were blessed, Balder thought; they had been fated to die in the Great Twilight to come. He, too, had such a fate pronounced on him, but it was only a temporary respite. Balder knew he would be resurrected at the end of everything, alone, outliving all he ever knew.

It was better not to get attached.

—

The body was placed on the pyre.

Jake Olson sat in the back of the crowd, on a folding chair, surrounded by people he didn’t know. As an EMT, he had seen plenty of death. There were many days when he failed to get to a person on time and ended up being the last face they saw. He’d seen what fire could do to a body, too; he could name every burning building and house fire he’d been at the site of, of those who’d made it out and those who hadn’t.

His grandfather was already dead. Why was it, when they lit the pyre, that he couldn’t bear to look?

Perhaps the job took a certain toll on him, whittling him away until some fundamental human quality within him was dampened. He had become so used to seeing things that no one should see. Perhaps this feeling was a long time coming, a sort of release of everything he’d had to ignore to help those who needed it most. Perhaps the way the modern world dealt with funeral rites was too sanitized, with embalmers smoothing over the rougher edges, staving away decomposition until everyone could view what they lost. Perhaps this older, more primal rite, the fire lapping away at his grandfather’s body, consuming flesh and bone, helped Jake realize that.

Either way, Jake buried his head in his hands, letting himself cry. Despite seemingly everyone knowing exactly who he was here, no one around him stopped to notice.

—

The great dining hall was a sight to behold: enclosed in its own building, it contained a central wooden table that spanned nearly the entire length. The entire building was wooden, the walls and roof painted with brilliant red, yellow, and blue accents. The table was piled high, most notably, of course, with the meat from the cow the commune had sacrificed – although Jake hadn’t been there for that part. Even still, there were plenty of other dishes: from home-cooked vegetables and fish to takeout pizza and a whole section of the table catered from a local Turkish restaurant.

The others had already taken their seats. Jake sat down in the last seat available, next to a dark-haired teenage boy and across from Sigurd, whose priestly garb was garish but at least constituted clothing.

As soon as Sigurd concluded his prayer to Odin, dishes began flying across the table, passed between hands at a dizzying pace. Jake served himself portions of green beans and roasted carrots when given the opportunity.

“You,” the boy next to him said. “You’re Jake, right?”

Jake sighed between bites. “And just last week, to think I wanted people to notice me more.” He paused. The boy’s accent was familiar, almost refreshing at this point. “You’re American, aren’t you? How’d you get all the way out here?”

The boy shrugged. “Mom got a job over in Bergen, and I’m just along for the ride.” He reached his hand out. “I’m Billy.”

Jake shook his hand tentatively. “I didn’t mean how you got to Norway. I mean, maybe I did a little. But how’d you end up worshiping Odin of all things?”

Billy’s voice lowered, inaudible to anyone else under the revelry. “I don’t really do the ‘worship’ part of it all. Every god has an agenda and whatnot. This is just the only community anywhere near me where I can practice the craft.”

Jake blinked.

“Witchcraft,” Billy elaborated, slightly exasperated. “Do you know how hard it is to find a group of practitioners worth a damn in the most secular country in the world? At least these guys go beyond healing crystals and shit. The power in this location, of these people, it’s enough to shift the paradigm of the universe.”

Jake nodded, stifling a chuckle. “Right.” He grabbed a slice of cheese pizza from a box passing by him.

Billy frowned. “Now you’re looking at me like I’m crazy.”

“I don’t judge,” Jake said. “I’m just… skeptical, is all.”

“Bullshit,” Billy said. “You’ve been judging since the second you got in here. Not like I didn’t do the same. Most people do the first time they show up here. But I wasn’t as obvious about–”

The doors to the great hall blew open, revealing three figures. An old man stood in the center, wearing a tattered purple cloak on his head. Flanking him were a man and a woman. Based on the collective frowns and commotion of the mourners, Jake could tell these guests were unwelcome.

“<Heretics!>” the old man shouted, his words in Norwegian echoing throughout the hall. “<Blasphemers! With your patriarch no longer here to protect you, you grow weak.>”

Sigurd stepped to his feet and approached the man. “<Why do you defile our grounds on this solemn day?>”

The old man gestured the banquet. “<Solemn,>” he said, before bursting into vigorous laughter. “<You engorge yourselves on foreign foods while the land you swore to protect is invaded and stepped on, its children left without a future. You spit on the names of the Æsir and still pray to them for guidance! Today, my friends, you will see what they truly think of you.>”

“<Leave this place!>” Sigurd called out.

“<At sundown, I will be returning,>” the man continued. He gestured to the rack of ribs on the table. “<Odin and Thor will have a true sacrifice then.>”

The doors swung closed, and the three figures left. Sigurd stood up. “<We have three hours. Everyone, start drawing defensive circles. The rituals must begin this second.>”

Everyone stood up frantically, running out of the great hall. Jake followed Billy and Sigurd, confused. “What’s going on?”

Sigurd chuckled dryly. “Fridtiof Myhre,” he said, holding the doors open to the great hall and letting others leave. “He was an old friend of mine, but his beliefs… tended towards the more destructive.”

“Sigurd likes to be vague,” Billy clarified. “He’s a fucking Nazi. He just said he’d kill us all in a few hours.” He ran outside to a nearby shed, pulling out buckets of chalk, herbs, and runestones and handing them to commune members.

“Okay,” Jake said. “We need to evacuate the place then. Call the cops. Not whatever the fuck we’re doing now.”

Sigurd shook his head. “Magic is his weapon of choice, and magic has rules. He issued us a challenge. If we do not meet his challenge, his victory is all but guaranteed.”

Billy looked at him. “Look, leave if you want, but if you’re not helping, maybe get out of the way?” He ran out with a bucket of chalk to the edge of the property, past the lake. Dozens of volunteers were already drawing lines and runes in the dirt.

Jake looked at Sigurd. “He’s gonna kill us all with magic. And you believe that? Enough to keep everyone here in danger, just in case he uses some other weapon?”

“We have other security, too,” Billy said. He gestured to another member of the commune, whom Jake quickly recognized as Elsa, loading a crossbow.

“That seems worse,” Jake said.

Sigurd looked him up and down, his stare distant. “Yes,” he said to himself. “I think it may well work.”

“What?” Jake snapped. “What on Earth are you–”

“In the old days, it was commonplace for households to entertain Thor as a guest without knowing his identity.” Sigurd grabbed a pine branch from the shed with runic symbols carved into it and handed it to Jake. “Our defensive ritual involves volunteers ritually embodying the gods. They take the god’s name, his garb and sacred weapon. I believe the Norns may have sent you for a reason.”

Jake tried to continue to object, but the words wouldn’t form. He stared at the pine branch, something in his chest lurching forward at the sight of it. He felt the adrenaline surging, a familiar feeling, one he’d felt during every evacuation, every burning building, every time he ran into a dangerous situation. But the feeling wasn’t compelling him to rush forward. It was compelling him to stay completely still.

He looked at the runes, carved along the side of the pine branch. ᛗᛃᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱ. He couldn’t read them, but he felt the power in that word. He took the branch from Sigurd, his hands trembling as he clenched it.

He had to leave. He had to call 911 and get outside involvement. Every sane part of him knew that. But there was another, deeper part of him.

Jake met Sigurd’s eyes. “Where do I begin?”

—

Loki hated Niflheim.

Part of it was personal: he’d been imprisoned there too many times before. But nothing in Niflheim could really be said to exist in quite the same way as in the other Realms: the cold mists danced through one’s peripheral vision like an abstract painting, limiting one’s sight to only a few feet ahead of them. The ground was formed of sand so loose that one could fall through it into eternity if they misstepped. Illusion was Loki’s art, his weapon, and no matter how skilled the artist, there’s little one can do if the canvas is full of holes to begin with.

Nestled within the sand and the biting mists was a true marvel, a giant golden pillar reaching hundreds of miles into the sky. A closer look at the pillar revealed thousands of pipes, gears, and dials, all in constant motion. They all played some unknowable part in a grander design. This was the Valhalla Engine: a giant machine designed to pierce the gates of the most secure afterlife ever devised. It was the power source of Loki’s rebellion, the technology that enabled death to remain a minor inconvenience for his soldiers. It could pluck a soul from behind Valhalla’s metaphysical gates and return it to the battle.

Assembled in front of the Engine, Loki stood in his full battle gear, staff in hand. Flanking him were Vidar, Sif, Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg. Volstagg reached a large arm outwards, pointing to a creature in the sky. “I think they’re here,” he said. What was once an Asgardian bird was now covered in layer after layer of tumor, having been converted into one of Chthon’s servants.

Loki nodded. He looked between his soldiers. “The Engine is the highest priority,” he said. “Defend it with your lives.”

From the skies, a pillar of blood descended, swirling into a horde of inhuman forms. In the center of the army was an old woman with a long mane of white hair, her skin greying and rotted. A gash in her forehead contained a third, crystalline eye of jasper, which scanned the area vigorously.

“Roskva,” Sif said. “Always a pleasure.”

“It ends tonight,” Roskva rasped. “Chthon will have his due.”

“For Asgard!” Vidar called out, charging into the fray. He needed no weapon, as his Belt of Strength gave him the ability to split the jaws of ferocious hellbeasts in two, and to tear through the Demon Lord’s armies like tissue paper. The Warriors Three charged behind him in lock-step; dagger, mace, and axe struck the engorged flesh conjured by Chthon’s dark magicks. Sif, instead, opted to charge towards Roskva herself, but was quickly restrained by an invisible force emanating from the witch.

“They will falter,” Roskva said. “I do not need to do anything more to end your rebellion.”

A flash of empathy appeared on Loki’s face, matched only by Roskva’s disgust and hatred. Loki quickly regained composure, a smile appearing on his face.

“All I needed to do,” Loki said, “was to buy time.” In an instant, the Valhalla Engine vanished from behind them, leaving only the empty fields of Niflheim between them. Roskva said nothing, but the rage on her face said it all.

“Have fun finding it again,” Loki added. He called out to his soldiers. “Now!” he shouted.

In unison, the members of Loki’s army clenched charms on their waistcoats, summoning the power of the Bifrost to take them away. Hogun raised her mace from the skull of a demonic warlock, Sif finished off a circle of Mindless Ones with her enormous sword, and Vidar used his strength to jump away from a ravenous blood-wolf. Wisps of rainbow descended from the skies, taking them away from the battlefield alongside Loki himself.

Fandral disengaged from his own fight and reached for his Bifrost charm, before he noticed something large and rotund lying on the floor of Niflheim’s sands. Volstagg was surrounded by monstrous carrion and ravenous demons, closing in on him. The warrior’s charm lay broken on the ground next to him. Quickly, Fandral ran over to Volstagg, clutching his own Bifrost charm, placing it on his friend and activating it. The Rainbow Bridge whisked Volstagg away, and a slight smile appeared on Fandral’s face.

Fandral looked around. The armies of the Dark One surrounded him completely, now with no other target to focus on. Like everyone else in the rebellion, he knew the Valhalla Engine for what it was: another of Loki’s tricks. He recalled his recent excursion to Asgard, using the Bifrost Charm in secret to escape from Chthon’s brimstone beasts and fake his death for the millionth time. Now, no such escape was possible.

Fandral smiled. At least when he finally entered Valhalla, he’d have a hell of a story to tell.

—

The sound of the pounding drums engulfed Jake. Standing in front of him was Sigurd, in the ritual dress of Odin: giant fur pelts covering a blue tunic, with an eyepatch covering one of Sigurd’s fully working eyes. Jake was dressed in just as ridiculous a garb, he thought: a black tunic with a silver helmet and giant red cape. Billy was dressed up as well, but Jake didn’t catch what god he was meant to be. Around him, worshipers chanted incessantly; Jake recognized Ulik right away, and a few faces from earlier. Sigurd would call out, and the chanters would respond. Further out, Elsa stood sentinel, not participating in the ritual, crossbow pointed outwards.

The drums and the chanting got louder, Sigurd’s raspy voice singing as loudly as he possibly could. Jake couldn’t understand any of it, but the language felt old, carrying some form of power with it. He felt the adrenaline surging again, combined with a new feeling: disorientation. His limbs twitched, as if trying to break out of his skin.

Near the threshold of the circle, Jake saw Fridtiof emerge with his allies. Dark energy circled Fridtiof’s hands; his eyes were bloodshot and deep violet. The drums got even louder and he felt himself collapsing to the floor. He looked up at Sigurd, who hid a smile on his face. Was this the plan? Did he know this would happen?

Sigurd called out one last word: harsh, staccato, a command of some sort. Jake responded, thrusting his pine branch into the air from his perch on the ground.

That was when the lightning struck.

The worshipers stared in awe as Thor emerged from the circle, lightning in his eyes. Atop the pine branch was now a small, swirling storm cloud in the shape of a hammer’s head, a weapon befitting a god.

—

The Bifrost deposited the soldiers in the wastes of Jotunheim; a frozen tundra without any signs of life for miles, it felt positively warm and comforting for the souls exiting Niflheim.

Loki looked around. Behind him were three of his companions: Sif, Hogun, and Vidar. Sif looked around, confused. “Is this all of us?” She turned to Loki. “Is this fucking all of us?”

Vidar put a hand on Sif’s shoulder. “If it is, they fought admirably, and we’ll remember them in everything we do.”

The Bifrost opened up once more, and Volstagg thudded onto the ice, still lying down. He spat blood into the snow, shaking it off. “I’m okay,” he said. His face fell. “Fandral… is not. He saved me, but he’s–” Volstagg buried his head in his hands, taking a deep breath, keeping himself from sobbing. Immediately, his expression shifted from sadness to anger.

Volstagg placed one meaty finger on Loki’s chest. “You!” he shouted. “You sent us to fight and die for something that wasn’t even real! He sacrificed himself to protect one of your little lies! It wasn’t even an important mission!”

Loki took a step back, sighing. “On the contrary,” he said. “There is no mission more important than this one.” He looked between the assembled warriors, who gave him blank stares.

Loki cleared his throat. “I know you all are prideful, but do any of you truly understand that there is nothing that six of us could possibly do to an Elder God? This is not a war fought through brute strength; otherwise, Thor wouldn’t be who-knows-where and I certainly wouldn’t be your leader!”

He sighed. “Odin charged me with this mission because he knew the only way this war would be won is through deception and subterfuge, through stories. You can’t take an axe to Chthon, but you can manipulate him. And if Fandral’s death helped perpetuate the lies that build us up, than that is more honorable a death than most of us will ever get!”

“Do not speak of his death as honorable when you sent him to it,” Volstagg said, his voice low. He took a step towards Loki. Hogun tried to step forward to calm her friend down, but Loki raised his hands up to let her know it was alright.

“If you need to get some anger out, then kill me,” Loki said. “Right here, in the middle of the snow. Do it.”

Volstagg looked at him curiously.

“Of course, you won’t actually be killing me,” Loki continued, “but I have several dozen death illusions that look and feel exactly like the real thing. We can’t have our rebellion destroyed by petty infighting, so I’m suggesting another method of conflict resolution. Come on, we don’t have all day.”

Volstagg stood there, silently and tentatively raising his axe. Loki saw the shocked expressions on Vidar and Sif’s faces as Volstagg let out a primal roar and lifted his axe above his head. It lingered there for a few seconds.

“Do it!” Loki said. “Avenge your friend! If I sent him to his death, then this should feel pretty fucking good, right?”

Volstagg instead threw his axe across the mountains of Jotunheim, where it struck a cliff-face and lodged itself in the stone. He looked at Loki and collapsed on the ground, sobbing.

Loki knelt down. “I know,” he said. “He was a friend of mine, too. But we will carry his memory with us in everything we do. Chthon’s reign is waning, and soon, the sun will shine on Asgard once again.”

—

Fridtiof’s eyes widened as he stared at the god in the center of the circle. Thor took a step towards Fridtiof, and then another. He breathed slowly, each breath barely concealing a righteous anger within him.

Fridtiof kneeled before him. “<Thor, my lord,>” he said in Old Norse, “<you grace us with your presence. Now we can defeat the infidels that are–>"

His speech was cut off by a crackling of thunder as Thor brought his storm-hammer down towards the warlock’s head. It cracked an invisible force-shield surrounding him.

Fridtiof stood up. “<Petra! Jakob!>” he barked, turning to his lackeys. “<Attack the others! I’ll deal with the pretender myself!>”

Thor let out a scream of primal rage and swung his hammer once more. It caught the tip of Fridtiof’s cloak and tore it off his body with a mighty wind. Fridtiof himself was launched backwards, but managed to catch himself in midair, hovering. Fridtiof chanted under his breath as he flew higher, a sphere of black-violet wind appearing in his hand. He fired the sphere at a group of worshipers, and in an instant, their skin rotted and they collapsed on the floor. Fridtiof had drawn first blood.

Thor darted towards Fridtiof but stopped as he saw the warlock’s companions–he had called them Petra and Jakob–running towards other members of the commune. Flames emerged from Petra’s hands and lapped at the clothing of worshipers, while a rush of unnatural strength from Jakob tackled Ulik the troll to the ground. Immediately, Thor pivoted; with one swift toss of his elemental hammer, he instantly separated Jakob’s head from his body.

Thor descended like a meteor, a cloud of dirt and stones engulfing the fight. When it cleared, Thor stared Petra down, lightning flickering in his eyes. Petra just barely had enough time to comprehend the magnitude of her enemy’s power before Thor plunged the hammer into her chest. The force of the winds from his hammer knocked her into the air, launching her away.

From the skies, a bolt of dark magic hit Thor. It did nothing.

Thor looked up at Fridtiof, hovering a mile above the commune, still chanting to himself. Thor bolted upwards, flying towards his false worshiper at incredible speeds, as the dumbstruck worshipers watched. Thor grappled Fridtiof, tackling him to the ground just as quickly as he had reached him.

The pair landed, digging a giant gash in the formerly pristine fields. Fridtiof, barely alive due to his dark magicks, looked around him. He lay between two apiaries, Thor standing between him. His ribs were cracked, his face was bleeding and covered in dirt, and above him, undeniably, was the god he had worshiped his entire life.

“<Why do you aid them?>” Fridtiof called out to Thor in Old Norse. “<They are allowing the enemy to overtake our land! Surely you should understand that!>”

Thor stared at him, contempt in his eyes. Finally, he spoke back. “<You are a pathetic stain of a man, and I shudder when I hear your prayers. I should be glad to extinguish the flame of your candle.>”

Thor raised his hammer. and a bolt of lightning flew out. When the smoke cleared, two bodies remained: Fridtiof, his remains badly charred, and an unscathed Jake Olson, asleep, unaware.

Chapter Text

Golden rays of morning sunshine struck Jake’s eyes as he stirred awake.

Jake rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He was lying on a brown couch of coarse woven fabric, which poked at his skin as he stretched out. In the next room, he could hear two voices, which he quickly recognized as the voices of Elsa and Billy. They conversed in Norwegian, but Billy occasionally lapsed into English, allowing him to grasp a handful of phrases. “...should just tell him outright… if I knew what the fuck happened myself… deserves to know what we know…”

Billy kept speaking, now fully in English. “Everyone’s treating this as something that can just, like, happen. They’re too calm. This is unprecedented.”

Elsa responded to him in Norwegian.

“I’m just hesitant to declare him our Lord and Savior, is all,” Billy replied, clearly more frustrated. “Power can come from anywhere, and I think people aren’t asking nearly enough questions. There is no precedent to this. No myths, no spells, the protection spell’s worked the same way the last hundred times we’ve cast it.”

Elsa sighed and gave her response. Jake sat up, yawning. Immediately, both Elsa and Billy went quiet, turning and walking over to Jake.

“Morning,” Elsa said. “You were out for quite a while.” She cleared her throat. “So, last night, during the ritual, something happened, and…”

“You got struck by lightning,” Billy interrupted. “Then you, uh, transformed. We don’t know what happened yet, but–”

“Maybe explain things more slowly,” Elsa said to Billy. “It’s a lot to take in, and I think we should–”

“I remember everything,” Jake said flatly.

“Oh?” Elsa said, taken aback.

Jake nodded. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t the one in control, I don’t think. It was like I was behind his eyes. But I felt things. I felt rage, adrenaline… I think he let me feel those things. I felt so powerful, this rush I’d never felt before…”

Jake collapsed onto the couch. “Oh God, I killed them, didn’t I?”

“I mean, they were Nazis, and they killed some of ours, too,” Billy said. His face softened after seeing the look on Jake’s own. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened, myself, but if I had known, I wouldn’t have let this happen.”

Jake nodded. He paused for a second. “Are there any of your people injured? Anyone I could help?”

Elsa shook her head. “Just the four dead.”

Jake nodded before letting out a scream into his pillow. “AAAAAAHHHH!” He sat up. “Sigurd,” he said. “He knew something like this would happen, right? He’s the one who put me in that costume in the first place.”

“I can’t imagine so,” Elsa said, at the same time as Billy said, “Probably.”

Jake turned to Billy. “What do you mean?”

“Sigurd doesn’t like to tell us much,” Billy said. “He’s been talking about this grand, cosmic plan, something about your grandfather’s epic poems he wrote before he died. He’s been sending the commune every which way, and kept a lot of cards close to his chest.”

“Sigurd tells us everything we need to know,” Elsa said. “He would have warned us if he knew this was going to happen.”

Jake stood up. “You two can figure this shit out. I think it’s incredibly clear I can’t be here anymore.”

Elsa cleared her throat. “No, wait–” Jake brushed past Elsa at a brisk enough speed that she knew not to follow. He took his suitcase from by the door and walked out onto the porch.

As Jake reached his car, he heard a voice from behind him, filled with empathy. “Hey.” It was Billy.

Jake grunted. “What now?”

Billy held out his hand. In it was a small, grey runestone. “A keepsake for the road,” he said. “I know you don’t believe any of this is real–”

“I didn’t,” Jake clarified. “Things are different now. With all luck, I can go back to believing this never happened.”

“–but something tells me you’ll need this. Protection, so to speak.” The look on Billy’s face was hard to place. Somewhere between genuine warmth and pity, but also the slightest streak of fear.

Jake looked Billy up and down, then back to the runestone. “I thought you said you were tired of people not telling you the full truth.”

Billy nodded. “Yep, set myself up for that one. Look, with all luck and in all likelihood, you’ll never see or hear from any of us again, and you can process what happened in your own way. But I just watched what everyone thinks was a god returning to the mortal world, and there are forces out there that would probably take notice of something like that happening. So, I’m doing my small part to ensure they don’t.”

Jake hesitantly took the runestone. “Thank you,” he said, before getting in the car.

—

“So,” Loki said, standing in front of a grand auditorium. It looked like one within Asgard’s palace halls, but everyone in attendance knew better. Only five chairs of the giant space were occupied: two in the front, where Hogun and Volstagg were sitting, two further back belonging to Sif and Vidar, and one in the far back where the meek Balder sat. “The question remains: how do we defeat an Elder God?”

The audience was silent.

“Well, for one,” Loki said, a glint in his eye, “we continue doing what we do. Consistency is crucial. For example, the most important lie, that of the Valhalla Engine! It’s still out there, and despite how many times Chthon kills us, we are too. Chthon is capable of killing us with a thought, so it is imperative that he only believes he is doing so rather than simply, well, doing it. We ever let slip that there’s more going on, and…”

Immediately, all of Loki’s skin peeled off, leaving the God of Mischief collapsing on the floor, vomiting blood. After a few seconds, Loki goes up in red flames, leaving nothing left. Finally, from an invisible space behind his desk, Loki rematerializes from thin air, smiling.

“Yeah,” he said. “We don’t want that, do we?”

Volstagg raised his hand. “But with Fandral gone…”

Loki nodded sadly. “He is on an important mission in deep space,” he said. “Some cracks will necessarily form. Remember, Tyr fell decades ago, yet the lie remains. We do what we can.” He scrawled the word “CONSISTENCY” on the chalkboard in front of him. “What else?”

Sif raised her hand. “You mentioned Roskva earlier, yes?”

Loki nodded. “Chthon’s mind is greater than mine. I can approximate what he’s thinking, but I may get it wrong. Chthon is… difficult to manipulate. Thankfully, he’s appointed an executor of his plans, a mere mortal, and she is, comparatively, incredibly easy to influence. Namely, she is driven primarily by a violent hatred of me, my late brother Thor, and Asgard as a whole.”

The others looked between each other, knowing the story too well.

“If we can manipulate Roskva into somehow betraying Chthon, that can deal him a great blow,” Loki said. “It will lower him to a level we can actually do something on. But that will not be enough.” Loki wrote “ROSKVA” down on the chalkboard, before turning back to the others.

“Now,” Loki said, “I am quite well-traveled in the cosmos. I have seen things that I cannot even begin to describe to any of you. One thing I’ve learned, often the hard way, is that there’s always someone stronger than you out there in the universe.”

Loki raised his hand up, and the illusionary wall behind him opened up, the sky behind it turning into black void. And then, a yellow eye opened.

Extending in every direction of the eye, tentacles flung forth, splitting fractally until the audience could no longer tell where the tendrils ended and the void began. “Exhibit A,” Loki said. “Shuma-Gorath. An Elder God is nothing compared to a Great Old One, and Great Old Ones don’t particularly care about this plane. You can manipulate them, use them, and they probably won’t even notice. But on the off-chance they do?”

Loki’s form transformed into thousands of infinitesimal strands, pulled towards the eye of Shuma-Gorath, as Loki’s screams echoed through the amphitheater. When Loki was finally gone, Shuma-Gorath vanished, and the back wall returned to its original shape. Loki walked back through the door, giving a curt bow.

“Again, not exactly a desirable outcome,” Loki continued. “Exhibit B is the Living Tribunal, the universe’s embodiment of justice. If I can get him to hear my case, I can–”

A raven flew into the hall, through a window that shouldn’t exist. It landed on Loki’s shoulder. As the raven whispered into the ear of the God of Mischief, the illusion of Asgard flickered, before finally dissipating. Loki’s face was pale, in shock, as the sterile metal of the rebellion’s space platform became visible once more.

Sif stood up, alarmed. “What is it?”

“Well,” Loki said, regaining composure. “At least we now have some idea what Chthon is doing.” He cleared his throat. “I have received word from Ljosalfheim. Apparently they’ve had a problem with, uh, snake cults recently.”

Sif went white. “But that means–”

Loki nodded grimly. “Chthon is weakening the Bifrost, and the other Elder Gods are beginning to awaken. If we don’t stop it, Set may rise once again… and then we’ll have two Elder Gods to deal with.”

—

Elsa sat quietly, looking into her reflection in the lake.

She tried to keep her mind focused, in silent prayer, but prayer didn't seem to mean much anymore when she had seen a god in the flesh. This one-sided conversation she had with Thor sufficed at the time, but now, it felt completely empty. The prayers had been answered, and Thor was now here, embodied, to chase the monsters of this world from the dark places.

And the only thing stopping everything Sigurd and Ingvar had prophesied from coming true was the stubbornness of some unworthy American.

The thought came like a flash of heat, interrupting any chance of her tranquil state of prayer continuing. Elsa stood up with haste and pulled something out of her pocket: the two halves of a cracked, rigid red gem.

Dark times were coming. Sigurd had told her, Ingvar had told her, and her father had told her a thousand times. It would be impossible to face it head-on like her father; their only hope lay in the divine.

Looking into the pieces of the stone, Elsa realized one undeniable, if cruel, truth: if Thor was to rise again, if Midgard had a chance at facing what was to come, Jake Olson needed to die.

Not literally, of course. Or at least physically. But the cream had to give way to the churning, the weak discarded for the strong to be reborn. This was the way the world worked, no matter what certain others would say.

A voice echoed through the valley from behind her. “<Thought I'd find you out here.>” It was Billy, standing in the back doorway of the house.

Elsa sighed. “<He’s not coming back,>” she said. “<We’ve lost our chance.>”

Billy sighed. “<If it’s destined to be, he will,>” he responded, struggling slightly to find the Norwegian words. “<But I wouldn’t assume that this is what destiny had planned. Jake didn’t seem like he wanted anything to… to do with this.>”

Noticing Billy struggling to get the words out, Elsa switched to English. “Did I tell you how I found this place?”

Billy shrugged. “You were searching for something, and you found it here. Same as the rest of us.”

Elsa shook her head. “My father and I, we… we have been inside the world of magic for much longer than anyone here. In his case, longer than even Sigurd.”

Billy chuckled. “Oh, that kind of long-term,” he said. “Man, I’d love to learn from someone like that.”

“You would not,” Elsa corrected him. “He was not good at that.”

She paused, staring into space. “We were tracking down a nest of trolls in Narvik, when we discovered they were sheltering a troll not of this world. Like Ulik, only no one summoned this one; he ended up here because the boundaries between our world and the next are weakening. He told us that the rainbow bridge between here and the other realms was collapsing, and with it, old gods were awakening. Gods beyond what even my father had encountered.”

Billy nodded. “That’s… not reassuring.”

Elsa let out a dry chuckle. “The troll’s words were proven true when we followed his trail. Deep into the Earth, we felt the presence of something struggling to get out. Nature, in its most devastating form. The dark forest. The primordial garden of old, with its own law. She who had dominion over Earth long before the first man stood on two legs.”

She paused, holding back tears. “Even imprisoned, she had enough power to lay her claim over my father. Alone, I have been following the trail ever since. And it has led me here.” Elsa’s tone changed from sorrow to resolve, a quiet anger behind her words. “Jake Olson has no place to decide the fate of this realm, nor the others. If Thor does not return, my father’s sacrifice will be in vain.”

—

Erik Selvig looked over a sheaf of papers on his desk. Each of them was highly classified, the SHIELD insignia printed clearly in the top right corner. Each page detailed an ongoing conflict within a neighboring country, problems that could spill into Norway should something go wrong. Gnomes were leading revolts against Magic Department bases in Sweden, a new pseudo-Catholic cult in Spain worshipping Agamotto, and a German sea serpent disrupting container ships outside Wilhelmshaven. Each of these events was contained well, but the supernatural was getting more prevalent, the disruption to normalcy more blatant.

Something had to give soon, and Erik needed to know everything he could.

“<Director!>” A tall, auburn-haired woman strolled into Erik’s office. Her ID card, clipped into her shirt pocket, identified her as Ida Dahlgren. “<I think you need to see this.>”

Erik stood up, trying to mask his fear but shaking nonetheless. “<If it's a breach, then you've neglected to follow protocols 301-A through–>”

“No,” Ida said quickly. “This isn't a breach. This is… I don't know what it is. It's new. I'd like to keep knowledge of this event as limited as possible.”

Erik nodded, following Ida out of the office and through the crowded metal corridors of the base. As the scientists passed a series of crowded cells, sounds of commotion started to gather from all manner of mystical creatures. Hrafn, a Viking berserker who had won his immortality in a game with a witch, pounded mercilessly at the reinforced glass of his cell to no avail. A river spirit played an alluring melody on her violin, but the soundproofing of her cell prevented the doctors from coming to any harm. The creatures of the night had been successfully caged, classified, and would harm none any longer.

Turning around a bend of the circular hallway, some of the less harmful spirits were allowed to roam free. A small, skinny man, dressed in rags and wearing a pointed red cap, held out his hands. “<Please, sir, just one bowl of porridge, please?>”

Erik shook his head sternly. “<You'll get your porridge by the day's end, nisse, but now would be a bad time.>” He knew the rations such creatures were allowed, and the consequences of showing such a being too much hospitality. The man kept protesting, but Erik wouldn't hear it.

Finally, the pair came to a large, metal door. Ida scanned her keycard and the door slid open, revealing a central courtyard. In the center of the landscaped area was the reason the facility was built where it was: a slab of metal attached to a hammer's grip, immovable by any force, crackling with magical power.

Except now, the hammer's head lit up. Bright blue glowing runes announced its name: ᛗᛃᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱ. Mjolnir. The hammer of Thor.

“<This is what you wanted to show me?>” Erik said. “<I mean, it's a new development, but hardly something you can't handle on your own.>”

Ida shook her head. “<It's been like this since last night. I reviewed the security footage, and when it first lit up, it levitated off the ground. Bolts of lightning flew out, and impacted the inner walls of the facility.>”

She walked over to an edge of the courtyard. The supposedly indestructible walls now had a large dent in them, penetrating through layers of solid steel.

“<If this was just an inch to the left, it would've hit the circuitry for the nøkke’s soundproofing system, which could have escalated into a full-scale breach,>” Ida reasoned. “<We need to address this as soon as possible.>”

Erik let out a dry chuckle. “<Well, we know moving the hammer is out of the question,>” he said. “<I'll see what I can do. Get Bergsvåg’s crew to monitor activity 24-7. Evacuate the most dangerous creatures, and the ones with the most difficult containment. I think the base in Stockholm has some empty cells.>”

Ida nodded. “<And should we get Druid involved?>”

“<No!>” Erik said, almost reflexively. “<We can deal with this locally. Now, get moving. We need these protocols implemented ASAP.>”

—

The planet of Alfheim lay in a form of magical stasis, as it had been when Bor had first discovered it. Unknown magicks cursed the solar system, and the planet and its sun had lain still as stone for untold aeons. On one side, eternal day, the blossoming forests of Ljosalfheim; on the other side, eternal night, the wretched wastes of Svartalfheim.

This meant, of course, that the planet contained two realms within the World Tree, and thus, twice as many Bifrost Gates and Elder Gods imprisoned underneath.

Ljosalfheim’s Bifrost Gate lay at the foot of the coastal city of Bladgard, stony cliffs rising to towering, overgrown concentric circles of buildings. In the center stood the city’s Alfspire, a mountain of a building surrounded by impossibly thick vines and topped with a violet flower the size of a palace. A pulse of Bifrost deposited Loki’s resistance on

Volstagg sniffed the air in an exaggerated fashion. “Smells like fresh fruit and saffron. We must head to the feasting halls at once!”

Vidar, dressed in plate armor with a bearskin wrapped around his shoulders, grimaced. “There will be time for revelry when these troubles are over,” he said. “Every second we waste on frivolity is a moment the danger to the Realms grows, and we cannot let Fandral’s sacrifice be in vain.”

At the mention of Fandral’s name, Hogun silently reached into her bag, produced a dagger, and placed it against Vidar’s throat. Vidar simply reached up and crushed the dagger in his hands.

Loki raised his arms up, gathering the crowd’s attention. “I will not have Asgard’s last hope be extinguished by petty infighting,” he said. “Magister Aelhild sent word for us because she knew of the very real threat of Set’s escape, and I have explained to you a million times the horrors that he will inflict if that comes to pass. We need to make haste.” He sighed. “There is, however, just one problem.”

Vidar raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Before Asgard’s fall, I had… my fair share of fun in this city.” Loki cast a spell, transforming the appearances of the group into elven commoners. “Until we reach Aelhild in the city center, we need to keep a low profile.”

Sif chuckled to herself. “Always leave it to Loki to create his own problems when he already has so many.”

The wayward Asgardians walked through the city, where stone and brick buildings existed side-by-side with giant plants and fungi, hollowed out into their own, living dwellings. They passed through crowded markets, elves hawking everything from fruit to clothing to magical charms. Elves paraded through the city in many colors, from the blue Ice Elves and Sea Elves to the pale green Forest Elves and violet Moon Elves. It was an unending revelry, but not an indulgent one like the Asgardians tended to partake in. The elves simply enjoyed the bounty of life, a bounty that could well soon be snuffed out.

Loki led the group to a set of granite stairs, leading to the grand entrance of the Alfspire. The guards stopped them, holding out their spears. “State your purpose,” one said.

From the top of the stairs, a blazing orange elven woman called out, dressed in silk garments that seemed to move like a flame in the wind. “They are guests of mine,” the Magister Aelhild said. “We have business to discuss regarding the Stygian outpost in the North Forest.”

Another guard raised his eyebrow. “These the commoners you convinced to go on your suicide mission?” He turned to Loki, unable to see his true nature, and whispered. “Don’t do it. Half our soldiers who went there died, the other half started worshipping the snakes themselves. Thor himself wouldn’t have stood a chance out there!”

Loki smiled. “Well, I’m not Thor, am I?” He followed Aelhild through a labyrinth of corridors, narrow stairways, and marble halls, passing hundreds of elves carrying documents throughout the closest thing Alfheim had to a bureaucracy. They reached a large room at the top of the spire, overlooking the great elven city from above in every direction. Beyond the city, thick forests threatened to encroach on the elves’ progress, the trees older than Bor himself and with just as much magic.

“Sit,” Aelhild said. At her command, six chairs and a desk flew in from an adjacent room, arranging themselves, so Loki’s rebellion sat at one end of the desk and the Magister at the other. Loki dropped his illusion, and the five gods sat down as their true selves.

After a short silence, Aelhild began. “Our people have forgotten the tales of old,” she says. “My advisors see the Stygian menace as just another cult, a danger to all but nothing more. They do not know of the name’s resonance to those of our ancestors who fought alongside Bor on Midgard.”

She looked Loki up and down. “Bor needed the armies of the Ten Realms to cull Set. I cannot imagine what it would take his weakest grandson to possibly have a shot at victory.”

“Hey!” Loki shouted. “I take offense. I’m not even his grandson!”

Aelhild didn’t engage with Loki’s comment. “It will not come to that, though, as you are going to put an end to the Stygians’ ramblings before they can raise their old god. They have an encampment north of the city.” She paused. “Have you ever travelled through an Elven forest?”

Vidar nodded. “Devilish places. Lost some fine men in there.”

Before anyone else could respond, a lavender-skinned elven man walked in, carrying a platter of cups of tea and sweetrolls. “For you,” the man said. “Take this as a token of our hospitality.”

The man placed the platter in front of them; Loki and Hogun took cups of tea, while Volstagg shoved three sweet rolls in his mouth before anyone else had the chance. Aelhild cleared her throat and returned to her discussion.

“I’m going to take the silence from the rest of you to mean that no one else has entered such a forest,” Aelhild said. “One might compare our forests to the oceans of other worlds. Vast, dark, and nearly impassable without significant effort. All trade on Ljosalfheim is done via armored caravan, and even the greatest of these stick to the damn path.” She placed a map on the table. “The Stygians are not even a mile off the path, in this marked spot. You may fancy yourselves gods, but the things that lurk inches from our city… if they devour you, you are among the luckiest of the forest’s victims.”

Sif nodded. “We will not stray,” she said. “You need not worry.”

Aelhild sighed. “There are things out there that will try to cause you to stray,” she said. “Keep an eye on your surroundings at all times. I suggest you keep at least three different ways of tracking your position on you at all times. And keep pace. If you’re slowed down, even a little, the forest will take heed. It will learn what slows you down, and no sooner than that, you will stop.”

Loki raised his arms up. “I get it. Forest’s dangerous. Not to worry, though; I never back away from a challenge. Still, I figure an elven guide would be of use to us, would it not? Considering everything you’ve told us…”

Aelhild shook her head. “I’ve lost too many to the Stygians; my soldiers would not touch this mission.”

Loki raised an eyebrow. “What about you?”

“I have no combat experience,” Aelhild replied. “You will have to take this journey on your own. If you are truly Asgard’s salvation, you should have no problem.”

“Excellent,” Loki said, stretching out and putting his arms behind his head. “I suspect we’ll have a wonderful time.”

Volstagg stood up first. “Their skulls shall be ours for the crushing!” He gulped down another sweetroll, before turning to the elf who served them, standing in the corner. “Butler! Can we have some more of these, for the road?”

The elf turned to them. “Of course; I’ll let–” His words were cut short as a beam of brilliant rainbow light flew through the hallway, snatching him up.

The gods turned to each other. Sif was the first to speak. “Was he a spy? Is he going to tell Roskva or the Stygians what he knows?” She put her head in her hands. “How could we not have known?”

Aelhild shook her head. “The truth is scarier still,” she said. “Bladgard has been host to several disappearances since the Stygians set up camp. Our Bifrost Gate is weakening, and our citizens have found themselves in deepest Muspelheim or in the territory of the Svartalfar. Reports I have heard suggest that other Gates are subject to the same problems.”

Loki nodded. “That must mean Set is close,” he said gravely. “No other event could damage the Bridge’s integrity so deeply.” He stood up. “Come, Asgardians. Let us fight to save every Realm we know, and countless we do not.”

There was no levity in his battle cry, just a panic Loki tried his hardest to hide.

—

It was twilight. The members of the commune slowly poured into the dining hall, one by one, until the seats were full.

Meals like this were usually accompanied by idle chatter, but the chatter today was not idle. Tension weighed down every word, every whisper, every thought that remained only half-said. Billy had been avoiding much of this discussion on purpose; he had pored over myths, over commune literature, over prophecies that came from madmen, looking for any precedent whatsoever to what everyone had witnessed. He had come back, as he had expected, empty-handed. It was frustrating, but it served a secondary purpose: to pretend like his entire community wasn’t about to implode.

The people were looking for answers, and there were none. That left, of course, one final source of authority. Sigurd was to speak at dinner tonight, and everyone awaited his speech like rabid dogs, barely controlling themselves. Most thought they knew exactly what Sigurd would say, as if they had already figured out the exact nature of the miracle they had witnessed.

People sat in different places than they usually did. Several camps were clearly, visually forming. Elsa sat with one; from the few words he could make out, they spoke of getting Jake back to the commune as soon as possible, of undertaking the ritual again immediately, no matter what he thought. Another camp spoke mostly of fulfilled prophecy, of Sigurd’s past speeches; they had hung onto Sigurd’s every prior word and now struggled to come up with a hidden meaning, to prove that their leader knew of this before. A third camp suggested that Jake was a pretender, some sort of false god that wished to drive them from the path they had been following. Three people in the far corner were still mourning the loss of their friends, unable to think about the previous day’s events much beyond that.

Billy seemed to be the only one who cared what Jake wanted. He hoped Jake would only get onto the plane home sooner.

He took a seat away from everyone else, next to Ulik. The stench was, of course, unbearable, but Ulik seemed like the least offensive company that he could find at this point. “Evening,” Billy said to the rock troll.

“Good evening,” Ulik responded. “Ulik is very glad to have spilled blood again! It has been an age since Ulik had a good fight.”

“Yeah,” Billy chuckled. “Not much of that around here, is there? I mean, I tend to consider that a good thing, but it was fun to see some Nazis get what they deserved.”

Ulik nodded. “And to fight alongside Thor once again was a great joy! Ulik certainly thought Thor had perished with the rest of Asgard.”

Billy turned to him. “What did you say?”

Ulik nodded. “When you summoned Ulik, he was cowering in a cave under what was Asgard. The gods had been overtaken, and Ulik thought he would soon be dust! But you all saved Ulik from his fate, and Ulik is forever grateful!”

A pit stirred in Billy’s stomach. “The Æsir… what happened to them?”

Ulik looked down at his food. “Sigurd has told Ulik not to say. That it will be revealed in time. But… my friends, they pray to gods that have already fallen. It hurts Ulik to see.”

“No,” Billy said. “That can’t be right. I mean, I never worshipped them like everyone else, but… I’ve seen them working in our world, right? We all got our strength from the gods; it’s how we summoned you. It’s how everything works here.”

Ulik shook his head. “That strength was all theirs. And yours.”

Billy looked around, uneasy. “And Thor? You’re sure that was him you saw?”

“Absolutely,” Ulik said. “Thor and Ulik have fought together for many ages! And to see he is back… Ulik feels hope that Asgard is not lost.”

“Mhm,” Billy said.

Billy’s eyes darted to the door as Sigurd got ready to make his speech. He looked at the man; had he known this whole time? Had he led prayers to dead gods while knowing full well they were not there to listen?

Billy stood up and walked out; he didn’t need to hear whatever words of ‘wisdom’ Sigurd had to offer him. The crisp Norwegian air brushed against him as he wandered into the fields, more aimless now than before.

—

The city of Bergen was charming in its own way, although Jake couldn’t pay much attention to it. His flight left in half a day, but he had time to explore, and he figured he’d regret it if he didn’t take the chance. His mind was swimming, consumed by what felt like a bad dream, his return to reality nowhere in sight.

In the center of the city was Bryggen, a stunning array of wooden houses, painted in reds, yellows and greens. They overlooked the water, between them a series of alleys with wooden and cobblestone roads. It was a tourist trap of sorts, the most historic part of Bergen, but it was exactly the change in scenery Jake needed.

He stepped into an alley and entered the side-door of a shop that seemed to sell exclusively troll plushes and figurines. Looking at the crooked smile of one such plush, he knew Amanda would love it; the thought elated him, the idea of returning to his family and forgetting about everything. The smile reminded him of something else, of the stranger Ulik and his own idiosyncrasies. Could he have… no; entertaining such thoughts would only bring him into a world he needed to have no part in.

He brought the troll plush to the front counter. “Uh, just this,” he said. As the woman rang the stuffed creature up, a deafening boom distracted him. It echoed through the walls of the wooden house, shaking each plank, vibrating his every bone.

He ran out of the house; Bryggen suddenly felt warm. The cool breeze of Norway was being stifled by some other source of heat radiating from… something. Jake looked up; through the houses, he glimpsed the sky, threads of rainbows dancing through the air.

And then, he saw it.

Towering above him was a face made of living fire, its gaze immolating. It looked at him, it looked through him, it saw him. Looking back down, Jake saw its colossal feet crushing tourists just like him.

Running out towards the docks, a solid rainbow pillar jetted down from the sky, landing in the water. Immediately, the grey surface of the water froze, and behind it, another towering figure rose. Another giant, made of pristine white ice, toppled a boat as it slowly climbed out of the harbor. It looked at the fire giant across from it and roared.

Tourists and locals alike ran past him in panic. Some of them were injured, but without the right resources, Jake couldn’t do anything. These people needed someone else.

He gripped Billy’s runestone in his pocket and closed his eyes, just wishing he could do something. Within an instant, he felt the soft grass of the commune below him, Sigurd staring up at him.

“Start the ritual again,” he said. “Now. Now, dammit!”

—

The shanty-town on the outskirts of Bladgard was not nearly as glamorous as the rest of the city. Ramshackle wooden houses stood in stark contrast to the grandeur of the palaces Loki and the Asgardians had just visited. Only the desperate made their homes near the North Forest. Between two such houses, a well-kept cobblestone path led into the forest, wide enough for armored caravans to travel all the way to Ljosalfgard and beyond. Unlike its surroundings, the road was religiously kept pristine; any sign of wear could prove dangerous to travelers.

Loki snapped his fingers, and a green flame appeared in his hand. “Protection from illusion,” he said. “Stay close to me, and no sorcerous trick can pierce your eyes. The God of Mischief decrees this.”

Vidar nodded. “Draw your weapons,” he said. “Your minds may be safe, but your bodies are not. I’ll scout ahead.” No stranger to elven forests, Vidar charged ahead, his heightened sense taking note of every would-be threat to come.

“Stay safe,” Sif called out to her betrothed, but he didn’t seem to hear it. Her, Hogun and Volstagg kept close to Loki’s flame, following Vidar’s lead. The canopy above them blocked out more and more of the sun, until Loki’s dim light was the only refuge left. The sounds of birds surrounded them, some naturalistic, some more alien, some that sounded more like a pale imitation of a bird by something more sinister. Red speckled mushrooms dotted the edge of the path, some as large as small trees, as did thickets of wildflowers in all colors.

Hours passed. The path seemed to stretch for miles ahead of them and an equally vast distance behind them. The gods walked in silence, keeping as vigilant as possible. But vigilance can be its own sort of distraction, when it comes at the expense of everything else.

“Wait,” Sif said. “Aelhild said the camp was less than a mile away from the city. How far did we walk?”

Loki froze. “Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit. It knew we couldn’t be affected by illusions, so it didn’t use illusions. It took advantage of our precautions, locked us into patterns of thought…”

Volstagg raised an eyebrow. “What is it, exactly?”

Loki took a deep breath. “That’s what we need to figure out. Right away, if you don’t mind.” He called out to the forest, his voice echoing throughout the hollow canopies. “Show yourself! Face the Asgardians as a true adversary, not as a coward!”

From the darkness of the path emerged Vidar, just barely on the edge of vision. “I’ve killed it,” he said. He holds up a severed head, some mixture of elf and plant, with compound eyes and the mouth of a Venus fly-trap. “We can turn back now.”

“Vidar!” Sif called out, running towards the Asgardian.

“Wait!” Loki called out. “I can see it. It’s not–”

Vines encircled Sif’s legs, fixing her in place. The severed head held by Vidar spoke. “Incredible,” it mused. “What will I do with not one, but two, captive Asgardians? The power I will wield…”

Vidar went white. “I’m sorry, love,” he said. “It made me…” Vines spewed out of Vidar’s mouth, immediately rooting themselves to the ground.

Hogun and Volstagg immediately raised their axe and mace, ready to charge. “No!” Loki said. “Allow me to handle this.”

He turned to the head. “You are the guardian of this forest, yes? We have business in your forest, and I apologize that I did not ask your permission beforehand.”

He gave a curt bow. Hogun and Volstagg looked at him, alarmed by Loki’s change in demeanor.

“We only seek passage to an enclave of cultists who made their camp here,” Loki continued, choosing his words methodically. The vines surrounding Sif and Vidar tightened and grew further around them. “If they have their way, the sanctity of your forest will be destroyed.”

“I am aware of these cultists,” the head replied. “I have been unable to fight them, but with the power of these Asgardians, I may be able to force them out. You surrender these gods to me, I let you leave, and the threat they pose is extinguished. We will both get what we want.”

“No,” Loki said, instinctively. He knew he couldn’t argue for his friends’ lives in emotional terms, so he kept it to the practical. “I need them to free my home, just as you wish to free yours. Our home has fallen, much like your forest will.”

“Why should I care about Asgard?” the head asked.

“Asgard,” Loki began, “will protect you from countless more threats like this.”

“My forest has survived for aeons, since before the planet froze. Our roots remember everything.” The compound eyes of the head stared at him intensely. “In fact, I remember that it was Asgard that placed Set under my forest to begin with. It is only reasonable you repay me for this slight.”

Loki sighed. “Diplomacy really is dead these days,” he muttered. “Okay, let’s negotiate a different way.”

Loki ducked onto the cobblestones, his hands grasping the twigs and roots sticking through the path. This being was older than Bor, but he knew one thing about it: it needed the power of the Asgardians to face Set’s cultists. Therefore, in some way, it was weaker than him. He just needed to find that weakness.

Tendrils of his illusion magic reached into the forest’s root system, clouding the million eyes of the guardian for a split second. Then, it resisted. An onslaught of power, a force, a consciousness much greater than him alone. It was exactly what it said it was: a primeval spirit, a guardian of nature, the rightful inheritor of Ljosalfheim.

But it was no god.

Pulling into the extremities of power, Loki struggled against the ground, willing as best he could that reality change, if only for this one being. He saw what it saw, the illusion flickering and struggling to gain ground against the true sight of the Forest. And then, after what felt like an eternity of struggle, the illusion held.

Loki saw what it saw, what he made it see: the Forest crumbling, burning, as flying wooden warships rained fire from the skies. Odin’s hordes ordered armies outside Bladgard to charge, cutting through vast swathes of the Forest and leaving only a desert behind. Loki wished to send one single message: Asgard will rise again. And if you kill its sons, you will pay.

In the end, the head of the Guardian stood in a vast expanse of ash and dust, Loki across from it.

“I understand,” it said. “I will grant you safe passage and haste towards your destination. In return, you protect me from the Stygians and their mad god. In this, you have my oath.”

Loki smiled. “Of course,” he said. “That’s all I was asking for, really.”

When the illusion cleared, Vidar and Sif stood, free, and orbs of light illuminated the canopy, tracing a path towards their destination.

“See?” Loki said, turning to his crew. “I told you you could trust me.”

—

The flight back to Bergen was the most disorienting thing Jake had ever felt.

The wind rushing against Thor’s face, the speed of his flight, just how cold it all was, not to mention being a passenger in his own body, unable to act: it was a waking nightmare, and he was much more lucid for this one than his last stint as the God of Thunder. He could feel Thor’s heart pounding faster than any human heart should, the adrenaline of a long-awaited battle bubbling to the surface. Thor held his hammer made of pure cloud in front of him, a weapon only a god could forge.

Jake saw nothing but blue skies and the clouds below him, a blank expanse that left him unable to tell how far he had traveled. It had only been a few minutes, but every second that ticked by was an eternal expanse of new feelings, and more importantly, a second those giants were killing someone new who couldn’t defend themselves. That thought alone made the sacrifice worth it. It was just like whenever he went out to save lives previously, right? He was giving up parts of himself to save others; it was just… infinitely stranger.

Suddenly, Thor entered freefall. He directed his hammer downwards, and Jake watched him plummet through the cloud-cover back into Bryggen. Even now, knowing he was impervious to it, the feeling of gravity still produced a sense of terror in Jake Olson.

Many of the buildings were already reduced to rubble, while others were either burning down or covered in a layer of ice. The titans were both on land now, focused solely on fighting each other, leaving countless civilians caught in the crossfire.

Thor lifted his hammer in midair, throwing it directly downward towards the frost giant. It transformed in midair into a bolt of lightning, instantly darting into the frost giant’s head and sending him staggering backward. Thor caught the hammer as it sped back into his hand, launching it a second time at the frost giant and calling forth a second lightning bolt. The giant toppled backwards into the water, its head crashing into a hotel against the harbor.

Jake’s stomach dropped. Thor was supposed to be a protector. Hundreds of people had to be in that building, and now the fight had come to them. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t.

Thor turned his attention to the fire giant, the god puppeting Jake’s muscles with ease. The hammer pulsed with lightning flashes as Thor charged directly for the fire giant’s chest. Jake’s body became hotter and hotter; it felt like his skin was burning off. As he reached the giant, he thought of his grandfather’s funeral pyre, the burning houses he’d carted victims away from, charred flesh, ash left in its wake, the screams, the omnicidal choirs of Muspelheim…

Thor flew through the solid magma of the fire giant’s body, seemingly unscathed. The light was brighter than staring directly into the sun; Jake tried to close his eyes, but his eyelids would not move. Everything hurt, but after the initial shock, it dulled, a balm on a supernova. Thor flew out the other side, perching himself on the balcony of a collapsing wooden house. There was a hole in the fire giant’s chest; it stumbled around, trying to avoid falling.

Thor looked down, and Jake saw a man, no older than him, about to be crushed by the boot of the fire giant. Jake’s mind called out, begging the God of Thunder to save him, to just save one of them, to help him help people, to just this one goddamn time listen to him. He wouldn’t make such a request again, he thought–although he knew he was lying–if Thor could save this one man’s life.

Thor lurched towards the man, his muscles bending towards Jake’s will, swooping downward. Yes, Jake thought, the hope of controlling the raging storm within him lighting up like a candle in an abyss, before Thor took control again. He turned upward, abandoning the man to his fate, and landed an uppercut on the fire giant’s chin.

A pit grew in Jake’s stomach. Why did he think he could control the will of a god? In that moment, he drew the conclusion he had suspected all along: he was not special, and while he had no idea why Thor chose him, he was simply fated to be a passenger in the story of the god’s return. He had to witness every death the God of Thunder caused, every moment of his wrath, because if he didn’t, the giants would keep coming.

And there was nothing Jake could do to change that.

As the fire giant staggered backwards, Thor turned around to face the frost giant, who marched across the water. Jake felt the temperature change drastically as he reached the frost giant again, its icy head chipped from the strikes of lightning. Thor gripped his cloud-hammer in both hands, the hammer growing in response, and Jake could hear thunder rumbling from within the hammerhead. With one swift motion, Thor’s hammer impacted the frost giant’s side and kept digging through the permafrost, carving a gash across its torso. The frost giant struggled to hold its body together, stumbling through the water, until it collapsed forward and split in two. As the upper half of the frost giant fell into the lake, its surface froze and then shattered on impact, sending shards of ice across the cityscape.

Thor turned around again. The fire giant was marching towards him. The historic wooden houses of Bryggen were almost completely gone, a smoldering pile of collapsed rubble, no match against the eternal fires of another realm. The hole Thor had left in the magma had already healed. Instead of once again hitting the giant head-on, Thor flew up into the cloud cover. The head of the hammer absorbed the clouds on the way up, growing and growing into an enormous size, until Thor held a hammer the size of the fire giant’s head. Jake could feel the god straining against his creation, an unwieldy weapon created for only one purpose, as if he was going to drop it at any moment in time.

Thor dropped back down, a circular hole now left in the cloud-cover, the blue sky shining over the ruined battlefield. He spun the hammer over his head, conjuring a strong wind. It wafted over the corpse of the frost giant, carrying the ancient cold directly into the fire giant. The onslaught of wind continued as the fire giant slowed, the magma cooling into solid rock. The fire giant struggled, but it was futile. As the last of the fire giant’s body turned to stone, Thor swung his giant hammer at it, shattering it into a thousand pieces. The hammer quickly returned to normal size, the dispelled clouds creating a thick fog over the ruins.

Thor flew off, his work complete. He took one last look at the battlefield, and Jake saw the devastation he had aided in. The paramedics were finally arriving; Jake would give anything to be on the ground, helping them, but he knew that if he was, the situation would be much worse. For all the bodies strewn about, Jake knew that in the vast calculus of this attack, he had saved lives.

It just wasn’t enough.

—

Erik Selvig turned his keys to his apartment door and crashed onto his couch.

He hated this city. “City” felt like far too generous to give Bergen; none of the cities in Norway felt like much more than a charade, an attempt to pretend they had enough people to live in such dismal places and not entirely succeeding. The skies were too gray, it got far too dark too early, and everyone was an ass, but none of that was particularly unusual to him. Still, Bergen had a way of accentuating the worst parts, and making him forget why, exactly, he was here

He flipped on the TV and searched for something to watch, not finding anything to take his mind off the mind-numbing life he’d ended up in. Then, like clockwork, he heard his second phone ring. It was Ida.

Erik quickly pressed 3 separate fingers against his phone’s fingerprint reader–SHIELD was too paranoid with this shit–and answered the call. “<Make it quick,>” he grunted.

“<The hammer is glowing again,>” Ida said. “<You should get to the base.>”

“<Bergsvåg can handle it,> Erik grunted. “<Save the footage for me to look over tomorrow. I got plans tonight.>” He did not.

“<Understood, should I…>" Ida’s voice trailed off. Finally, she spoke. “<Erik, you need to get to the base immediately.>”

“<Fuck, what is it?>” Erik stood up; the urgency in Ida’s voice told him all he needed to know.

“<News. Now.>”

Erik did as she said, immediately realizing the magnitude of what was happening. The small minds of this city could not possibly comprehend what they were seeing, and the consequences for the Magic Department were astronomical. The job always found a way to stake its claim over him.

Erik sighed. “<Get Druid on the line,>” he said, the words themselves almost an admission of defeat. “<He needs to hear this from us before anyone else.>”

—

The walk back down the path towards the Stygians was different from the walk out; Loki’s crew now had the guardian of the forest on their side, and thus the canopies were lit, the winds pointed in their direction, and the Asgardians walked with a surprising alacrity. Finally, they came to a clearing in the woods, the lights now pointing them to a much shorter, dirt path.

“Seems like our stop,” Loki said. They walked single-file on a precarious dirt path, surrounded by gnarled roots and stones protruding from the ground. At the end of the path was a large enclosure, the sky finally peeking out of the canopy, ornate green-and-yellow tents surrounding a central bonfire. The sounds of frenzied chanting echoed; despite the unknown language, each Asgardian could tell the words were being cut short, chopped up into an incomprehensible mixture of invocations and ideas, perhaps several a second.

“Asgardians!” Volstagg called out from the back. “Let us bathe our weapons in the blood of these malefactors!” His words stirred up a furor from Hogun, who charged towards the camp, her mace outstretched.

“Wait,” Loki said, putting his hand up. His word was less of a command than a plea, spoken softly. “Something is stirring,” he said. “I feel it. We are… we’re too late.”

Immediately, a giant green protrusion emerged from the earth in front of them, blocking Hogun from the rest of them. Extending outward, the Asgardians saw the head of a snake, crowned in gold and ancient jewels, turning to face them. Giant emeralds encrusted with gold decorated its body. It hissed at them and lunged at Sif, who dodged out of the way.

Loki fell to his knees. “No… it can’t be. It just can’t!”

Sif grunted. “We need to run now. We can lament later.” She grabbed Loki by the shoulders and pulled him up. As the Asgardians darted down the path, several more snake heads erupted from the earth around them, each one fixing their gaze on the gods. The darkened canopy was now dotted with dozens, if not hundreds, of Set’s eyes, gazing down on them.

The ground rumbled around them as the Father of Serpents emerged from his slumber, tearing up the forest’s roots. Dust filled the air as the ground shattered, but Loki and the others managed to stay one step ahead of the calamity.

Finally, directly in front of them, another head of Set burrowed in front of them. There was only one direction they could go: off the path, further into the forest. They had failed what they had promised the guardian, so they could not expect any mercy from the wilds, but at least they were safer than the embrace of a second Elder God.

Loki felt numb as he ran. Things just got endlessly more complicated; they had to leave yet another of their companions behind, and he had a hell of a lot of work to do.

Chapter Text

The dust cleared as a black cloth was ripped off of Hogun’s face.

She assessed her surroundings; she stood in a makeshift wooden cage in the center of the now-ruined campgrounds. The cage seemed to be made of trunks of trees which had been rooted in the ground for aeons, only recently uprooted.

She blinked. The landscape had changed drastically since she had last closed her eyes. There was no forest anymore; at least, not one which she could see. The dust clouds stretched on for miles, trees wholly uprooted, the camp ravaged as if by a tornado. And if she strained to look through the endless dust, she could see the gigantic pile of rubble that was once the Elven city of Bladgard.

“My Lord,” a voice said. Hogun turned to its source: a sickly elf, his skin pale lavender, wearing green regalia with serpentine patterns and two skulls mounted on his shoulders. His hands were almost all bone; his eyes glowed with a violet light. “Your first tribute has awoken. An Æsir, no less! You shall feast as all royalty must.”

The reply was bellowing, shaking the earth and bringing forth more dust clouds. It spoke in a tongue that Hogun could not understand, something which approached language but felt far too disordered to meaningfully convey ideas.

Hogun looked up; looming in the sky was an enormous, floating entity, made entirely up of serpents of various lengths. They coiled around each other, wrapping, tangling, in constant motion, as hundreds of heads slithered forward before returning to the body once more. Each body was adorned with gold and emeralds, the gems glowing, each a serpentine eye that pierced into Hogun’s very being.

“There will be more, my God,” the elf promised, bowing himself to the Elder God Set. “There is a city here, on its last legs, its residents scrambling to find any oasis of safety. Their fear, their desire for direction, it is perfect for you! But this morsel… I thought you would understand what one of Asgard could bring to your cause!”

Set replied again. Hogun struggled against her cage; a wooden structure would never stand against her might usually, but the Elven wood was nearly impossible to dent. She did not clarify that while she was of the Æsir, she was not Asgardian; instead, she remained silent, as had always been advantageous to her in the past.

“Of course,” the elf said. “I was a fool to think it to be enough. Still… I suspect she will be of use to you.”

The elf opened the cage door, and was met immediately by a fist from Hogun. The punch was enough to send him flying, but the elf recovered, and held out his hands. Violet chains appeared around Hogun’s entire body, unable to struggle against the spell.

“I, Thoth-Amon, high priest of the Stygian Order, present you with Hogun the Grim of Asgard. She will be yours, as will all on this fallen planet.” Thoth-Amon – Hogun recognized the name as the same as Set’s high priest on Earth, before Bor’s war of the realms. Such a name must have been passed onto Set’s new servant.

Thoth-Amon approached with a dagger, and placed it against Hogun’s neck. Her stomach fell; restrained, without any fight, it was doubtful she would reach Valhalla.

“Her blood will strengthen our covenant,” Thoth-Amon said. He pressed the knife closer to Hogun’s neck, the blade just barely touching… and then dropped the knife.

From his hand, Thoth-Amon pulled off his ring, the pattern of a serpent on it. Gently, he slid it onto Hogun’s finger, and something clicked.

The language of Set became comprehensible all of a sudden: the voice was speaking to her, and it knew everything about her past: her destroyed home, the years wandering in the wastes, the two Asgardians who found her. It knew how she never felt Asgard trusted her; one of the only people who did was now dead, and the other soon would be to the North Forest.

But this, this was different. She would belong here. The world became more saturated; the ruins of the elven trees were greener than they were when they were alive. The city of Bladgard was not at its end; it was a beginning, a rebirth to something greater.

Finally, Hogun would become a part of a family. Perhaps Set was even the key to defeating Chthon. Loki was wise to fret his return, but he didn’t know! She would have to tell him the resplendent news. It felt great for Hogun to know that she could save Asgard and feel so good doing it!

—

Bryggen was in ruins.

What stood as the central, most historic part of the city of Bergen was now reduced to ash, every wooden building having long since succumbed. Chunks of unmelting ice floated in the harbor across from the carnage; strewn across the wreckage were beams of wood frozen solid, somehow defying the inferno that consumed the rest of them. And then there were the bodies. Some were of normal citizens and tourists: burning, frozen, mangled. Some were unrecognizable. Next to those were two bodies, however shattered they might be, that were not clearly human. The frost giant lay in two parts in the harbor, while pieces of the fire giant were still turning up, now made of a rough stone.

The world had just witnessed its first vision of the old realms, and everyone was watching.

Erik Selvig stepped across the ash, writing down notes in a journal. His crew gathered samples of everything: wood, ash, ice, stone, anything that could be magically touched. His observations were half-assed, though, because he knew the implications of this situation: the Magic Department could no longer work in secrecy. They had to answer to the people now, and they had a hell of a lot to answer for.

And it all happened in his territory.

“<Ambient magical energy at 108,>” Ida said, holding a device that appeared similar to a Geiger counter, but covered in etchings of runes and magic circles. “<It’s… no, wait. I don’t think these things have a setting for the amount of ambient we’re getting here.>”

Erik threw his arms up. “<Of course not. We are trying to analyze with science things that definitionally defy it. There is no hope to any of this.>”

Ida cocked her head. “<We’ll figure this out. Everything is overwhelming, but we’ve dealt with things like this before.>”

“<No, we haven’t,>” Erik said. He pointed upwards. “<There is a news helicopter directly above us, from an international news agency. There is nowhere online you can go and not see pictures of what happened here. There has been nothing like this in our history.>”

A voice echoed from above them, in English. “And what are you going to do about it?”

Hovering down from the skies was a stern man with dark brown hair and a well-trimmed beard, wearing an immaculate black suit. His left hand was covered by a white ceramic gauntlet, in the center of which was a design of a closed eye surrounded by a runic inscription.

“The doctor is in,” Erik sighed.

“Erik,” Director Anthony Druid replied. “We have a lot to talk about. But first, we should perhaps limit the number of eyes on ourselves.” With a swift motion of his hand, a black vortex appeared below the news helicopter above him, quickly sucking the vehicle into an unknown realm and vanishing.

“What the hell are you doing?” Erik asked.

“Things are stranger now,” Druid replied. “Mutants, vigilantes. It was only a short time until our world of gods and monsters reached the public eye. They don’t know what to think. For all they know, those people vanishing was just another part of what happened here. It’s normal to them!” He let out a low chuckle. “That said, the crew of that helicopter were the only people that saw me here. So they had to go.”

Erik buried his head in his hands. He did not respond; he knew better than to speak up against Druid, but his body language betrayed his true feelings.

Druid’s eyes locked with Ida’s, staring her down. “So,” he said, smiling at her like a hungry predator. “What have we found here?”

“We have just started excavating,” Erik said. “Our findings so far are–”

“You can tell a lot about a man by the strength of his subordinates,” Druid said. “I would like her to answer for herself, thank you very much.”

Ida held up a piece of charred wood. “Burn patterns are consistent with hellfire,” she said. “It most closely resembles patterns from the upper circles specifically, but there’s no perfect match.” She gestured towards an area of charred land. “From studying video recordings, the first Titan-class entity entered through a wormhole that closed as soon as the entity appeared, implying a greater level of dimensional permeability with our–”

Druid held his hand up. “I’ve heard enough,” he said. “What’s the point of all of this? Have your people regressed so far from your forebearers that you have forgotten your roots?”

Ida looked at him. “What are you even talking about?”

Druid cleared his throat dramatically. “Of the runes of the gods and the giants' race, the truth indeed can I tell, for to every world have I won. To nine worlds came I, to Niflhel beneath…”

“I have read the Edda as well,” Erik said. “There is no need for theatrics.”

“Really?” Druid asked. “Because to me, it feels painstakingly obvious what is going on here. The creatures that descended on your city are the very same that were warned about in your stories. Case closed. We don’t need to read burn patterns, or grasp at thinner and thinner straws, just to confirm what we all already know.”

“We are a scientific institution,” Erik said, “or at least we attempt to be. Of course, I have kept mythological context in mind during this investigation. That does not mean we do not use every tool we have available.”

Druid sighed dramatically. “Fine. And what data have you collected on the third entity, the one that felled the giants?”

“Not much,” Ida said. “Any video footage we have of it is blurry, and it hasn’t left behind any ambient magical energy, so–”

“Do better,” Druid snapped. “The giants, well, they fucked us over on the publicity side, but they’re dead. No need to worry much about them. But this guy? If I’m right, and I often am, this could be a god in our midst. I don’t think I need to describe to you the implications of such a thing.” He looked at Erik. “Any semblance of a starting point on this would be appreciated.”

Erik sighed. “Well, actually,” he said, “I do have one hypothesis.”

—

Jake sat atop a deep gray stone overlooking the lake at the center of the commune. He had thought about his situation constantly in the past few days, but reflection didn’t help. Every time he tried, it only brought into his mind some new proposition of what was going on, each more distant and terrifying than the last, but any attempts at distraction felt futile.

It was clear Jake’s life was no longer his own.

He scrolled through his phone, thumbing through news articles featuring blurry pictures of Thor’s fight with the giants. He hadn’t seen Thor; everything he’d seen had been through Thor’s eyes, and witnessing even a grainy image of the thunder god’s regalia churned his stomach. He looked like he was wearing some cheap Renaissance fair cosplay; the fact that this was the being of such primordial power that he could withstand being drenched in molten rock, that this was who the commune was worshipping, it felt like some twisted irony.

What was scarier, though, was how much Thor’s face looked like Jake’s own.

The news trodded out as many explanations as they could find. Mutants were, as they often were, the top scapegoat, a fact Jake loathed but expected. But the resemblance to the tales of the Old Norse were impossible to miss. He chuckled as he watched every news outlet carefully choose their words, unable to print in a respected publication that a pagan god had returned.

Judging by the line outside the commune’s door, though, the truth couldn’t hide for long.

Jake’s phone rang. He picked it up immediately. “Hannah,” he breathed, desperate to hear the voice of someone he knew.

“Oh my God, Jake,” Hannah replied, clearly sobbing. “I’ve been trying to get to you for hours. The phone lines are all blocked up over there, and I didn’t know–”

“I’m fine,” Jake said, trying to contain himself. “I wasn’t there when it happened.”

“Thank God,” Hannah said, taking deep breaths. “Amanda’s at school now, but she was terrified. She’ll want to talk to you when she gets back.” She paused, trying to calm herself. “I mean, did you see the footage? Did you see the pictures of the aftermath? There’s nothing left.”

“I’ll be home as soon as I can,” Jake said, lying through his teeth. He hated the feeling. “Flights are all grounded for fairly obvious reasons, but I’ve got lodging until then. I can’t wait to see you.”

“Me too,” Hannah said. She paused. “How was the funeral?”

“Could’ve gone better,” Jake said. “But I needed to be there.” He paused. “Listen, a lot’s been going on, from the funeral to the attack yesterday, and I kinda need some time by myself. I’ll call you back, okay?”

“Of course,” Hannah said, barely concealing her disappointment.

Jake put away his phone and sighed. He wanted so desperately to get home, to forget all of this. But he knew the consequences if he did.

From behind him, he heard a voice. “How’re you holding up?” It was Billy; he sat down on the grass next to Jake.

“Terribly,” Jake admitted. “The death toll is up to what, 400 now? And I watched at least 12 of them die without any ability to help them.”

“You did, though,” Billy said. “Hundreds would’ve died if those things lived. There’s probably, like, 3 other people on Earth who could have killed them, and I’m not sure if 2 of them actually exist. Point is, you saved pretty much everyone else in Bergen. That’s pretty fucking impressive.” He smiled. “Besides, you’re not alone. You got us.”

“Do I?” Jake stood up. “Ever since I got back to this place, everyone’s been giving me these looks. Some of them are of fear, some of them are cold, some of them look at me like… like an object of worship. I think Elsa hates me now, and I don’t know why. Hell, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear the bees hated me too.”

Billy chuckled. “I wish I could tell you you were wrong,” Billy said. “About the others. Well, either way, you got me.”

Jake paused, looking at his reflection in the lake in front of him. “What are people saying about me? I mean, who are they saying I am?”

“Well,” Billy said, clicking his tongue. “Some of them are saying that Jake Olson is just a false identity for Thor, that you’re just pretending to be this American dude for… some reason. Others think you’re some unfortunate soul who Thor chose to take over, just some pawn for his return to the world. Still others think you’re just a powerful wizard who’s making all this Thor stuff up.”

Jake nodded. “And what about you? Who do you think I am?”

Billy shrugged. “I don’t like to make assumptions about people. Who do you think you are? That’s what I’ll believe.”

Jake stood, silently, pondering the answer. “Then I guess neither of us knows.”

Billy sighed. “But there is one thing I found out when you were gone,” he said, “and it’s pretty fucking important. You met Ulik, right?”

Jake nodded. “Weird guy,” he said, “but seems nice.”

“Well, he’s not a ‘guy’ in the way you’re thinking,” Billy replied. “He’s a troll. A few months back we performed a ritual and summoned him from the caves underneath Asgard. That’s where all the gods–”

“I know,” Jake said. “I’ve spent hours reading myths after what happened. God, the fact that what you’re saying to me sounds normal at this point…”

Billy laughed to himself. “Well, if that sounded batshit, just wait. Because it turns out Ulik was hiding something from us, and Sigurd told him to. I think it’s about time we get the answers we deserve from the old man.”

—

Sif ducked under the beast’s legs as her sword sliced through its underside. The creature, which resembled some sort of bear overrun with red speckled fungus, collapsed to the ground. She got up, dragging the giant, blood-stained sword behind her.

“Nice kill,” Vidar said. “Could have been cleaner, but the technique was immaculate.”

“You flatter me,” Sif replied. “I fought greater terrors as a mere child.”

They continued trekking through the darkened Elven forest, less and less light reaching their eyes as they reached the depths. Loki led in front of them, his eyes shut in intense concentration as he projected a hundred illusory images of them elsewhere in the forest. If the forest’s guardian didn’t know where they were, it could not retaliate, and they would have at least some protection from it. Volstagg walked alongside them, completely silent. There was nothing for him to say; he had been broken.

“Grab the mushrooms from off of the beast’s back,” Loki said, his voice hollow. “We can use them.” Sif nodded and did as he asked, slicing off a few red mushroom caps and giving them to the God of Mischief.

“The elven fungi run deep in this forest,” Loki said. He held out the mushrooms in his hand, a green flame encircling them. “They know the location of everything and everyone here. Perhaps they can tell us where we could find allies.” The fungi floated up into the air, surrounded by green wisps of energy.

Not daring to open his eyes, Loki’s voice grew louder, into a command. “I implore the mycelial networks of this forest to answer the God of Mischief! We seek aid in traversing and escaping this forest, and protecting it from the wrath of an Elder God. Show us the way to what we seek.”

The green flames engulfed the mushrooms, burning them up. The flame grew in intensity and weaved its way through the trees. Loki followed the light, with Sif, Vidar and Volstagg following closely behind.

Sif absent-mindedly tapped on her Bifrost charm, hoping the results would be different from the last dozen times she had tried to do so. There was no response. Set had cleaved a hole in the Bifrost so great that Ljosalfheim’s connection to it had all but been destroyed. Their only way back would be to cross to the other side of the planet and use the Bifrost Gate in Svartalfheim, but doing so would require them to brave a forest the size of an ocean that wished to kill them.

Sif turned to Volstagg. “How are you doing?” she asked. There was no response.

“You know there’s a chance she’s alive,” Sif responded. “Hogun is one of the most capable warriors I know. She…”

Sif trailed off. Her words were hollow. She certainly didn’t believe them; no matter how strong Hogun was, she could never face an Elder God and live.

They walked in silence, fending off creatures when they needed to and following the path set by the light. Finally, they came to a clearing where the sunlight could poke through the trees. In the corner of the clearing was a crashed royal carriage, decked out in red, violet and gold hues. As the gods walked up to the carriage, they noticed the corpses of several indigo-skinned Dark Elves strewn across the ground, dispatched by the forest. Then, they noticed another figure, a living Dark Elf, his figure slight, dressed in royal attire. He cowered, shaking, leaning against the carriage, clutching an ordinary wooden lockbox in his arms.

As the green flame approached the trembling man, he spoke up. “Who are you? Have you come to end my suffering too?”

Loki opened his eyes and looked at him. “Far from it,” he said. “We were led here because we were told you would be invaluable to our cause. What happened here?”

“I–I was cast out,” the elf replied. “My honor guard was slaughtered by the creatures of this forest. I’ve been living in the caravan for weeks now, probably. Food’s going to run out, and if I go back out into the dark, that’s the end for me.” He looked at Loki’s garments, now stained with blood and caked in dirt. “You’re… you’re an Asgardian. The Æsir live.”

Loki smiled. “Not for long, if we can’t get out of here.” He held out a hand to the man. “What is your name, elf?”

The elf took Loki’s hand and stood up. “I am Prince Malekith of House Svartgalle,” he said. “My family’s land was taken from me by a pretender. My own lord, Algrim, betrayed us and exiled us into the Light Elven forests.” He smiled. “It must be the Norns’ will that I be united with such strong warriors.”

Loki nodded. “We have much greater threats to worry about than your kingdom,” he said.

Malekith nodded. “I am a well-educated man, and I have kept in the know about the Stygians. I felt the tremors in the earth even from here, and I understood what they meant,” he said. He held out the box in his hands. “I may, however, have a weapon that could destroy him entirely.”

Loki took the box, examining it up and down. “If this is a forgery, it is one that could fool even me,” he said. He turned to the others. “This is the Cask of Ancient Winters. It contains the primordial cold of Ragnarok, and in the right hands, that power could fell even an Elder God.” The others looked at Loki, his eyes lighting up with a brightness and hope that only appears in times of such desperation.

“Of course,” Malekith said timidly, “I may have the Cask, but I do not have the Key. That would be in the Royal Treasury.” He smiled slyly. “So it seems as if your only way to lay claim to the Cask’s power… would be to help me solve my problem.”

Loki nodded. “Should we ever get out of this hellscape, I will gladly aid you in return for the Cask.”

Sif raised her eyebrow. “Excuse me, can the four of us talk amongst ourselves before unilaterally agreeing to your deal?”

Malekith nodded. “I will give you as much time as the situation allows.”

In silent agreement, Loki followed Sif to a quiet corner of the forest, Vidar and Volstagg following behind.

Sif stared at Loki, a fire in her eyes just barely contained beneath the surface. “We need to discuss these deals as a group. I mean, how do we even know we can trust Malekith?”

“He’s lying through his teeth,” Loki clarified. “About his intentions, at least. Lies are my domain, and his false words call out to me and reveal their true meaning. Malekith killed his entire family for the throne, and his father’s faithful lord Algrim led a peasant revolt against his reign of terror. Should he get the throne back, Malekith will dispatch a brand of brutality unheard of even among Dark Elves.”

Sif nodded. “Glad to be on the same page, then. So we use him to get out of here, betray him as soon as we’re in Svartalfheim, and use the Dark Elven gate to regroup and make plans, right?”

Loki smiled. “Oh, no, we’re still absolutely helping Malekith take his throne,” he replied. “Because what he’s not lying about, of course, is the Cask. We need a weapon that can kill a god, and what better weapon than the winter fated to end an entire pantheon?”

“Our pantheon,” Vidar pointed out. “This power is not so easily harnessed. It is older than even Asgard, and its ties to prophecy are just as old.”

“Beyond that,” Sif responded, “I will not willingly lead a tyrant onto a throne. I have sworn oaths to defend the realms from oppressors like Malekith.”

Loki nodded. “I do not take this action lightly, do not misunderstand me. But I would argue that in our present situation, the term ‘tyrant’ is relative. To call this dark elf a lesser evil to Set would be to compare a candle to a wildfire. People will die, yes, but far fewer people will die than if Set were to claim all of Alfheim for himself. And when Set is defeated and Asgard is freed, then we will bring Malekith to his knees and right our regrettably necessary wrongs.”

The disgust on Sif’s face stunned her halfway to silence. To Loki, it was a very familiar disgust. “You sound like Tyr,” she said quietly.

“Do not compare me to that traitor!” Loki snapped.

The other Asgardians stared at him. The disgust and rage on Sif’s face was clear, while Vidar’s countenance was a grim one, as if this was a confirmation of what he had already known but had hoped not to be true. Volstagg’s face only showed confusion and sadness.

He took a deep breath. “I apologize. I don’t think I can understate how much I hate to give this bastard the satisfaction. But I have to make the hard calls. If this was a simple war, then Thor would fight it. We swore we would do anything to protect Asgard from the Elder Gods, and we now have a real shot to truly end one of these threats!”

“The Warriors Three swore that oath,” Volstagg piped up, quietly sobbing. “I did not.”

Loki’s face softened. “I know,” he said, patting Volstagg on the shoulder. “But we truly have no other option here. You could give up, allow the forest to take you, and I would not blame you for doing so. Or you could fight. You could get your revenge. You could ensure that these false gods pay for what they did to your comrades.” He sighed. “And that path will be darker than any you have taken before. But it will lead you… it will lead us to vindication.”

Volstagg held his head up. “Okay,” he said, the word barely audible.

Vidar nodded, turning to Sif. “Loki is right,” he said. “If we retreated and found a new way to kill Set, all of Alfheim would be subjugated. This way, only half of Alfheim will suffer that fate.”

Sif grimaced. “I will never agree with this,” she said, “but if it is the only way, it must be done.” She walked back towards the clearing and towards Malekith, dragging her sword behind her.

—

The firepit stood in the center of the open field, keeping the commune warm as the sun began to set.

In front of it, Sigurd stood in his regalia, fur pelts covering a brilliant blue robe. “The ritual space is now open,” he said. “If anyone has anything they would like to offer to the gods, now would be the time.”

Billy and Jake stood in the back of the gathering, trying to keep a low profile, but everyone there kept stealing glances at them.

A Norwegian woman of diminutive stature walked forward. “Uh… hello, I’d like to give an offering,” he said. “My name is Cecilie Adamsson, and I haven’t been here before. I am quite out of my depths here, but my sister was in Bryggen when the attack happened. She just barely managed to escape because of the return of Thor. I spent hours trying to find somewhere to give him something in return, and your website came up.”

Cecilie stepped forward and produced a small necklace. “My sister gave me this when I went off to college. I thought it would make a fitting… a fitting sacrifice, in return for saving her life.” Jake winced as he watched Cecilie put the precious artifact in the fire.

“See?” Billy whispered. “You are helping people here, after all.”

Jake grit his teeth. “Even still, she didn’t have to burn the necklace,” he whispered back. “People shouldn’t be destroying my prized possessions for me.”

Billy shrugged. “Sacrifice has power,” he said.

Their conversation was cut off by Sigurd’s booming voice. “A fitting sacrifice,” he said. “Would anyone else like to step forward?”

Billy smiled and stepped forward. “I would like to make an offering to Odin,” he said, a smirk on his face. “God of wisdom, keeper of the runes… and keeper of the truth.”

“Wait, don’t–” Jake whispered, but Billy had already drawn the attention of everyone.

“I would like to make an offering of information.” Billy held up a blank piece of paper. “Odin wants us all to be on the same page, to have the same information… well, he would, but I spoke to Ulik the other day, and as it turns out, Odin is very dead.”

Murmurs spread among the crowd of worshippers as Billy spoke. He held up the blank paper in his hand. “Let this offering represent our shared ignorance as a commune of the truth: the gods have fallen. We have gathered among us a witness of such a fall, but our great priest here told him not to say anything. With my words, let our purpose begin anew, and let there be no further secrets between us!” In one swift motion, Billy dropped the paper in the fire.

“This ritual space is now closed,” Sigurd hastily said, his face turning red. “You are all dismissed.”

The commune members turned to Sigurd and stared blankly at him. “I said leave!” he called out one more time. The members scattered, leaving Billy and Jake there.

He turned to Billy. “What in the gods’ name are you doing? Are you trying to destroy this place? You…” Sigurd saw Jake, and his face softened. “I imagine both of you have some questions.”

“Damn right,” Billy said.

“Not all the gods have fallen,” Sigurd began. “I mean, we have Thor in our very midst right now!” He clapped Jake on the shoulder, a smile forming on his face.

“Start talking,” Jake replied.

“It is true,” Sigurd said, “that when we pray to Odin, to Freyr and Freya, to Heimdall or to Ullr, the god we are praying to has since passed on. However, their names still have power; their presences have left imprints on our world, and their prayers are still worth praying. Furthermore, when we pray to Thor, to Sif and Balder, to Tyr, or even to Loki, our prayers are still heard, even after the calamity that befell Asgard.”

Billy nodded. “Right. And this all seems like somewhat important information, doesn’t it?”

Sigurd hung his head. “I was waiting for the right time,” he said. “We can only barely touch the other realms; we can summon beings if the conditions are right, we can prophesy, but most of the time, we only get ephemeral wisps of the otherworldly. Since I was young, I have sensed these echoes, and I have known something was deeply wrong. What happened, I do not know fully. But the myths of yesterday are not the end of the story.”

He turned to Jake. “Your grandfather was key to understanding more,” he said. “He sensed more of the other worlds than I ever did; he wrote poetry and prophecy that has guided me in these matters. We built this place together, Ingvar and I. We knew it would be needed to protect Midgard from suffering what happened to Asgard. And Ingvar told me that while he would not live to see it, that I would live to see a god in the flesh.”

“So you knew,” Jake said dryly. “When we first met. You knew what you were going to do to me.”

Sigurd shook his head. “I had a suspicion,” he said. “But truly, even when we performed that ritual, I had no idea what would happen. I did not know that Thor would take you over so completely; I promise that much.”

He sighed. “The truths I have learned have weighed heavily on me for years. I do agree that it is time to share them with everyone, now that we have hope. But for that, Jake, I need you to promise me one thing. You need to stay here, to fight for us. We are all counting on you.”

Jake chuckled dryly. “Doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice in the matter either way,” he said. “If I don’t stay, more people die.”

Sigurd smiled. “No one enjoys destiny being thrust on them,” he said. “That’s why the Norns only do it to those of us who can endure. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have one hell of a speech to write.” He turned to Billy. “Next time, can you give me a word of warning before you pull something like that?”

“No promises,” Billy replied.

“I figured,” Sigurd laughed, before walking off.

When Sigurd was finally out of earshot, Jake turned to Billy. “You think he’s going to actually tell us everything?”

“No fucking way,” Billy said. “That said, we know where all that information is now. Sigurd keeps a library with all of Ingvar’s poetry and writings. I’m not sure two men have ever been so poorly closeted. You wanna steal some prophecies?”

Jake nodded tentatively. “If you think that’s the best option,” he said.

“Fantastic,” Billy said. “Tomorrow night. Meet me right here once everyone else has gone to sleep.”

—

Hogun walked through the streets of Bladgard, an Elven masterwork entwining nature and civilization. Enormous trees and flowers stood next to marble spires, and they were all collapsing. The paving stones were unevenly poking into the air as an enormous wildfire spread through the city’s flora at alarming speeds. Towers were crumbling, their foundations giving way and trapping untold numbers of elven families underneath their rubble. It reminded her of Hogun’s last glimpses of home, before all that was taken from her.

Behind her, the slender figure of Thoth-Amon took it in. “Beautiful, is it not?”

Hogun didn’t respond. The high priest’s carelessness, watching all this carnage… he had no idea how it felt to lose a home. How could he say–

The ring on Hogun’s finger glowed, and she felt a rush of endorphins. The sun shined brighter than it had before. Thoth-Amon had perhaps been careless with his words, but he was exactly what the city needed now. Its fall was an unfortunate, but necessary, consequence of Set’s return, the cracked eggshell that needed to give way for new life.

Hogun looked again around her surroundings, and smiled.

A familiar face ran down a staircase in a narrow alley. It was Aelhild, the magister of the city, small puffs of flame emerging from her brilliant orange skin. Her silk outfit was covered in dust, and Aelhild herself clearly had suffered several injuries during her evacuation.

“Hogun!” Aelhild cried out. “Thank the Norns that you lived. Do you have word from Loki?”

Hogun remained silent.

“This city… I worked my entire life to better it, to serve it, and it is gone in one day.” Aelhild put her head in her hands. “But you live. Perhaps there’s hope for… oh. Oh, gods.”

Aelhild looked up at the sky, the immense shadow of Set’s figure beginning to cover the sun of Ljosalfheim, a sun that had not set for aeons. For the first time in their lives, the residents of Bladgard had experienced something that was exceedingly common for any other species: nightfall.

“The Serpent calls!” Thoth-Amon shouted, alerting several passers-by who turned to the sound of his voice. “We are the Serpent’s tongues, his eyes, and his teeth. Set will need us for the battles that are to come!”

Several of the passers-by stopped, enraptured by Thoth-Amon’s words. Several serpent-heads from Set’s body descended into the city, their eyes glowing in the dark.

“No,” Aelhild said. “No, this cannot be how it ends!” She looked at Hogun in sheer panic. “You need to do something!”

Thoth-Amon smiled and whispered to Hogun. “She cannot hear the serpent’s song,” he said. “Kill her.”

Hogun stared at the magister, a deep sorrow in her eyes. Aelhild was a victim of her own circumstance, but she would fight the inevitable by tooth and nail if she lived. It was just a shame she could not hear what Hogun heard. Hogun let herself consider the sorrow for a moment before drawing her mace and charging at Aelhild.

Aelhild ducked into a narrow alleyway, descending down an uneven set of stairs, as Hogun chased after her. A block of marble fell onto the path in front of Hogun, allowing Aelhild to gain ground as Hogun scaled the rubble. She spied a flash of orange climbing up a razor-thin vine, standing on its leaves as the magister tried to scurry onto a higher tier of the city. Hogun smiled and drew a shortsword, sawing through the vine while Aelhild was still on it. She saw Aelhild’s body plummet into the city slums just as a raging fire consumed them.

Hogun smiled once again. Behind her, the people of Bladgard were hearing Set’s call. Hogun marched forward into the city streets as people gathered behind her: first a trickle, then a small crowd, then an army.

Hogun was known as a woman of few words, but this sight moved her enough to speak. “Praise Set,” she said.

—

“Our facilities are state-of-the-art,” Erik said. “We are currently ranked third in containment standards in Northern Europe, and are the central node of the Magic Department’s influence in the country of Norway.”

Erik and Ida walked down the curving hallway of the Magic Department base, followed closely by Druid, who levitated less than a foot in the air behind them.

“Mhm,” Druid said.

Past them, a series of black-clad operatives rushed through the hallway, on their way to a mission. Leading them was a muscular man with long blond hair, his mountainous stature barely fitting in his tactical gear.

“Good afternoon, director,” the man said, before quickly scurrying past.

“That’s Ulf Bergsvåg,” Erik continued, “our field leader. He’s only been with us for a year, but he’s one of the best field captains we’ve had. His monster-hunting prowess is unmatched.”

Druid nodded. “I’ll only be here for a short time. I don’t need to know the names of every single person who works here.”

“These operatives are the backbone of the Magic Department,” Ida piped up. “It would–”

“Of course,” Erik interrupted. “I shouldn’t bore you with the details here.”

They continued walking, and a short man with a red pointed cap walked up to Druid, clearly not one of the mundane world. “Oh, sir! You are new here, are you not? Could you please spare me a bowl of porridge with butter and cinnamon?”

Druid’s face curled into one of disgust, and he stopped walking. “Why is there an anomaly outside of a containment cell?”

“The nisse is harmless,” Erik said. “If you follow his rules, that is. We will brief you on those as soon as–”

“And is this creature scientifically important?” Druid said. “Are you drawing any important research conclusions from its presence here?”

Erik hesitated. “No,” he finally said.

“Kill it,” Druid called out to the room. Immediately, two field operatives who were on their lunch break stood up and dragged it through the hallway to an unmarked door.

“No!” screamed the nisse. “This is not how this is supposed to work! I demand my porridge now, and I…” His voice trailed off as the door closed behind him.

Druid looked at them. “Number 3 in containment in Northern Europe, and you just have these things roaming around? How does that work?”

“We don’t keep creatures in those boxes if we can contain them otherwise,” Ida said, her words tinged with fury. “We certainly don’t kill innocent beings for–”

“Watch your tone!” Druid snapped. “Innocent and guilty have nothing to do with it. We are here to protect the world from what it doesn’t understand. And while I am here, I will see that you recommit to that mission.”

“What do we have to gain from cruelty?” Ida shouted. “It was working! This system was working; we hadn’t had any breaches in years, and you clearly don’t understand what–”

“Enough,” Erik said, resigned. “Ida, may I speak to you in my office for a moment?”

Ida looked at Erik, stunned, and silently followed Erik to his office.

“<What the fuck is this?>” Ida asked. “<You know damn well he shouldn’t just be able to come in here and pull this shit without pushback.>”

“<You can, of course, suggest other courses of action,>” Erik said. “<But Druid is our director, and I don’t think it is wise to talk to him so harshly.>”

“<I wasn’t harsh enough,>” Ida replied. “<People like him have such inflated egos because no one confronts them on their shit. We can’t just have him keep talking to us like that!>”

Erik’s voice lowered to a whisper. “<I understand. God knows I wish I could talk to him that way too. But there are… stories. Stories that started out much like yours.>”

Erik sighed heavily and continued. “<New field agent, spent just 3 months on the job. Rose through the ranks quickly, ended up on a special task force directly under Druid. Apparently it was a day ending with Y, because this guy called Druid a fucking scumbag and yelled at him for 5 minutes straight. Do you want to guess what happened?>”

“<He was fired,>” Ida said. “<Never worked in espionage again. I’ve heard it before. To be honest, if I’m stuck under men like him all my life, that wouldn’t be half bad.>”

Erik nodded grimly. “<That was, indeed, how it started,>” he replied. “<Erik was called to Druid’s office and got a thorough tongue lashing. Then he stepped out of the office and everything had changed. On the way out, he had stepped in a magical sigil Druid had drawn. In that single instant for him, ten years passed for the rest of the world.>”

Ida’s face went pale.

“<So he realizes this, immediately starts trying to contact everyone he knows. Unfortunately, Druid had plenty of time to make arrangements for them. His wife had died in a car accident, his kid thought he had abandoned her and didn’t want to hear from him. His brother was in witness protection. Finally, after exhausting all possible connections to his past life, desperate for anyone he could talk to, he finally picked up the phone and called his estranged father. He had cut off contact with his father years ago for very good reason, but he was at his breaking point. He broke down when he heard his father’s voice… but the man had no idea who he was. Druid had tampered with his own father’s memory.>”

Erik cleared his throat. “<It should come as no surprise that Druid is not a man who enjoys losing,>” he said. “<This man spent five minutes saying a fraction of what Druid needed to hear, and Druid spent ten years unmaking him completely. I hope now you can understand a little better how precarious of a position we are in.>”

Ida nodded. “<We need to get him out of here,>” she said.

“<On that, we agree,>” Erik said. “<I will do everything I can to ensure that Druid’s stay here is a brief one.>”

The two of them walked out of the office, with Druid waiting for them, smiling.

“As I was saying,” Erik said, “I believe that the hammer-wielder we saw in Bryggen is tied to an artifact that we have held here in the Bergen office for decades.” He walked towards a door to the central courtyard. Inside, the metal hammer stood where it had since the Magic Department had found it.

“It’s activated three times in the past few days,” Ida started. “It started glowing and floating above where it stood, firing off lightning bolts. One such event corresponded exactly to the Bryggen attacks, so we have reason to believe the entity is drawing power from the hammer.”

Druid stared, wide-eyed. “The real, honest-to-God hammer of Thor,” he muttered. “Astonishing.” He looked the artifact up and down in amazement. “Doesn’t even begin to solve our problem as to how to find this guy, though, does it?”

Erik blinked. “We could perhaps trace its signature, or–”

“If you have nothing, just say it,” Druid said. “Well, it’s time to ramp things up. I want to get as much data as I can on the people of Bergen and their whereabouts. Security footage, phone location data, Internet activity. We start posting people at the entrances and exits of the city, stopping anyone they can.”

“With all due respect,” Erik said, “Norway is not a signatory of the 1983 Rotterdam Treaty for SHIELD-EU Cooperation, as it is not a member-state of the EU. Therefore, SHIELD is not legally allowed to operate here. We need to be more careful to not reveal our presence here.”

“Does it look like I give a shit?” Druid said. “Find an excuse. That’s your job.”

Erik nodded. “Understood,” he finally said.

“Oh,” Druid said, “and by the way? It was only nine years, not ten.” He chuckled to himself. “You should have seen the look on his face! It was glorious.”

—

The sun in Alfheim never sets, but even gods must slumber, and the forest has enough dark corners to ensure a good night’s rest for any traveler.

Well, if you have a solution to the forest’s myriad horrors, of course.

The Æsir reached such a corner after hours of traveling as far away from Set as possible. Rest was a luxury for them, but it was one that they direly needed at this point.

“Well,” Loki said. “Seems like as good a spot to stop to rest as any.”

Malekith, their newest guest, piped up. “Svartalfheim is a fortnight away, assuming we’re traveling in the right direction.”

“And we are,” Vidar said. “The winds are growing colder, and the plants are growing ever so slightly more sparse. We are not yet in the borderlands, but even here, we feel Svartalfheim’s pull.”

“Yes,” Malekith said. “So, why… Why are we stopping? We need to charge forward.”

“This is not an environment where survival is possible for those who have grown weary,” Vidar continued.

Loki nodded. He closed his eyes, and immediately, an illusory log cabin appeared in the clearing, appearing as if it had been there for ages. “Enjoy,” he said. “Technically you’ll be sleeping in the dirt, but it certainly won’t feel that way.”

Volstagg, Sif and Vidar immediately walked in and made themselves at home. Malekith approached Loki hesitantly. “You… you can make it look like anything, right?”

Loki nodded.

“Could you make it look more… more luxurious? I’m not used to sleeping in such conditions.”

Loki burst into uproarious laughter. “No,” he said. “This will do you some good.”

Malekith nodded and walked into the cabin, a fire seemingly already lit in the fireplace. In another room, Sif and Vidar lay down onto a newly-made bed, an uneasy silence between them.

“You know,” Sif said, “there are moments when I still hate him. Where I see his face, and my mind just flashes to what he was before.”

Vidar nodded empathetically. “Of course,” he responded. “He has laid siege to Asgard countless times. We have both seen what he is capable of before this.”

Sif shook her head. “You don’t get it,” she said. “There was a time when it felt like Loki made it his personal mission to destroy me, specifically. Before he was cast out the first time. Before everyone knew him as their enemy. Loki hated me, hated what I meant to his brother. He took every opportunity to belittle me, to humiliate me, to make me feel less than everyone else.”

Vidar put a hand on Sif’s shoulder. “Your hair, right?”

“That was the time everyone noticed,” she said. “That was when it ended, not when it started. When he couldn’t get away with it anymore.” She sighed heavily. “I have seen mortals capable of great change in their short lives, becoming their civilization’s savior when they were once its terror. Loki has had so many more lifetimes than they did, and I do believe him reformed. Truly. But sometimes…”

Vidar pulled Sif into an embrace. “You should have told me,” he said.

“You were there too,” she said. “You, too, are a different man. The Æsir have had to learn many hard lessons, ones I’d wished they’d have learned centuries ago. I thought it to be in the past. But… he’s brought this tyrant into our circle, and he intends to help him subjugate his people. It rings all too familiar. When I look into Malekith’s eyes, I see Loki. I see the Loki I thought had been left behind long ago.”

Vidar nodded. “We have had to make countless hard choices. This one will weigh on all of us.”

Sif pulled away, sitting up. “I have to do something about it,” she said. “He may be the lesser evil, but I do not make deals with the enemy. We… We will do what we need for the Cask, but I will not leave this planet while Malekith is still in power. I will do everything to ensure he never gets that power in the first place.”

“If the opportunity arises, I will be with you,” Vidar said. “But you cannot lie to a God of Lies.”

Sif pursed her lips. “Then I suppose if asked, we will simply have to tell him the truth.”

—

Jake lay on a makeshift cot in the wooden attic of the main commune house, constantly tossing and turning under his woolen blanket. They had set him up with temporary lodging, an important step as he needed to be ready to perform the ritual to become Thor when danger arose. That didn’t feel as necessary now that he knew that most people didn’t actually live at the commune; Billy lived with his parents, Elsa had a place a few miles away, and almost everyone else had already filtered out. At night, the only others in the commune were Sigurd and a number of the most devoted followers, the ones he wanted to see least at this point.

The sounds of chirping insects penetrated through the wooden walls, and a cool breeze drifted in from an open window. Jake supposed that if it was easy to sleep after the past few days, that would be a sign of insanity. The morning would be a circus after what Billy pulled, and just as he had been since the beginning, Jake would be in the middle of it despite having nothing to do with it.

Still, he tried. He lay there for what felt like hours, desperately trying to get past the stage of “almost asleep” but being shunted out of it by another reminder of where he was and what he had become. As sleep attempted to take him for the final time, he decided he needed to do something else.

Jake crept down the stairs of the house, trying not to disturb Sigurd’s loud snoring as he passed his room. He stepped onto the grass of the back door, taking a lap around the lake, past the apiaries and the sheep pen, and back towards the door. Before he could go back inside, though, Jake’s eyes were set ablaze by a sudden outpouring of rainbow light, much like he saw before being confronted with the giants.

Jake rubbed his eyes and turned to the source of the light; a blue and yellow chariot now stood in the middle of the field, pulled by two goats, one of whom was limping. Exiting the chariot, his face a twisted mirror of Jake’s, was Thor.

Jake snarled. “Why are you doing this?” he called out to the God of Thunder. “Why me?”

Thor did not respond. In his hand was a metal hammer, smaller than the hammer of storms Jake wielded but just as powerful. He held out his hand to Jake, giving him the hammer. “Take,” Thor bellowed. “Claim your birthright.”

Jake took the hammer, more out of fear of what might happen if he did not than any acceptance of the god’s gift. He held it closely; it was heavy, but Jake could manipulate it easily, passing it between his hands.

“Come,” Thor bellowed. Jake walked beside the god as he gestured to one of the two goats, the limping one, who bleated in response. Thor gestured to Jake’s hammer. “Kill it.”

“The goat? It looks… I mean, don’t you need it?” Jake’s words rang hollow and the god simply stared right past them.

“To be a god is to take what you need,” Thor elaborated, “and tonight, we need sustenance. Kill it.”

Jake looked at the goat, which gave him a seemingly similar blank stare. “No,” Jake said, weakly. “I… I can’t do it.”

“Kill it,” Thor repeated in the same tone. Lightning flickered in his eyes. This god seemed intent on taking everything away from Jake, and it hoped to make that known to him.

Jake took a single step forward, his hands shaking, gripping the hammer as tightly as he could. “I’m sorry,” Jake said to the goat. “I truly… I wish I could say no.”

As Jake swung the hammer down, he felt the storm surging within him, a power he had witnessed his body using but never truly experienced. The hammer impacted the goat’s skull, sparks flying in every direction.

Thor patted Jake on the shoulder, seemingly understanding the difficulty of the task for Jake. “Good,” he said. “Now, we feast.”

The next several hours were a flurry for Jake: brief glimpses of him and Thor building a fire and roasting the remains of the goat, the god and the man eating together. Finally, all that was left of the goat was a skeleton. Thor took his hammer back and raised it into the air; lightning struck the bones, and immediately, flesh began to grow back. Within seconds, the goat had been revived, and Thor guided it to the front of the chariot as he took a seat on his vehicle.

“This is the first lesson,” Thor said. “There will be more.”

Rainbow light enveloped the chariot and Thor, and Jake woke up. He had been dreaming, that was for sure, but he was still out in the field. The sun was starting to rise, and his clothes were damp with the morning dew.

Jake looked around, disoriented. He walked towards the door to the house, but his legs were weak. He stumbled forward, nearly tripping over rocks in the dirt. As he neared the door, a voice emerged. This was not the booming voice of Thor, but a low, buzzing voice, almost imperceptible against the wind, and yet, Jake could understand every word.

“The God of Thunder rises again,” it said, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. “Pathetic.”

At first, Jake dismissed the voice as some sort of hallucination, perhaps some continuation of the dream he had had. Still, a thought appeared in his head, an echo of what Billy had told him when he first left the commune. There were forces out there that would take note of the return of a god to the mortal world.

“I have spent some time contemplating my situation,” the voice continued, “and I have come to the conclusion that you are the problem. I know not how, but you have emasculated my god. Forced him to serve your darkened whims.”

Jake froze, trying to locate the voice. He looked around; in his peripheral vision, he spotted something. A few lone bees were beginning to drift towards him, far away from the apiaries. Slowly, more of them accumulated around him, until Jake could not ignore them longer.

“What are you?” Jake called out, his voice resounding through the field.

“I am nature itself,” the voice responded. “You may have killed me, but I have changed. Adapted. The prey gives way to the predator, the predator gives way to the scavenger, and the scavenger gives way to the swarm. The larva pupates and begins life anew. You will never be rid of me so long as the natural order of things stands.”

Jake’s heart dropped. His mind drifted to the man Jake had killed during his first transformation into Thor. “Fridtiof?”

The bees began to condense into the approximate form of a man. Drifting in from the direction of the apiaries, a cloud of bees carried Fridtiof’s tattered purple cloak towards the swarm, focusing the swarm into the shape of the man Jake had killed.

“There will be no rituals to bring the God of Thunder forth,” Fridtiof replied. “No blasphemers here to protect you. Just one man lying dead in his own filth.”

Jake didn’t even have time to scream before the swarm enveloped him.