This work is a piece of fiction. While it may be inspired by real events, cultures, and practices in human history, the story blends factual history with fictional characters, dramatizations, and creative interpretation.
It is not intended to promote, glorify, or encourage any illegal activities, substance use, or harmful behavior. All depictions of sensitive topics are included solely for narrative and historical context, and are not intended to be offensive or provocative.
For the effects of the story, all characters are to be considered above the age of majority.
Reader discretion is advised.
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{A/N: We're back to the usual schedule.}
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╔═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╗
Earth-5H1N3, Asgard, Year 2001.
How much Asgard has changed in the following days since the fall of their Queen and King can only be determined by the few who knew the before and after and didn't live through the times of peril and change.
For their residents, it all made sense since they had gradually seen it happen and been part of it.
Asgard was a kingdom unapologetically built with the gold stolen from the other Nine Realms—Haven included. But the thievery didn't end there; their magitech tree was built by the plundered technology and magic from those weaker than them but more resourceful.
Asgard, as one of the Ten Realms, also held an advantageous position—well, not initially. You see, present-day Asgard can be found near the top of Yggdrasil's canopy, the realm at the tree's peak; however, in times of old, Haven, the tenth realm, was located above Asgard, resting comfortably over the canopy.
Ever since Odin severed the connection between Yggdrasil and Haven, though, Asgard became the new highest realm.
At the center of Asgard, the central leader of Yggdrasil—the vertical stem that leads growth in a tree—sprouted magnificently.
This sprout was so large that it resembled the Arbor Mundi, except that if the nature of the Arbor Mundi was crystals, translucency, and divinity, the sprout of Yggdrassil was cosmic, space, and nebulae.
The capital of Asgard, and quite frankly, its only city worth noting, was built around the base of this sprout and escalating the trunk.
Blessed by their location—which only increased in metaphysical value after Odin severed Haven off—by Odin's conquests, and by the riches plundered, Asgard, any Asgardian, would proudly declare that the All-Father was the perfect Godking.
And they wouldn't be wrong, would they? If your president only brought blessings and riches to your country, then, regardless of the foreigners suffering, aren't they quite the leader? Fuck anyone who isn't one of your own, no? Isn't that how countries are formed?
Hence, for the Asgardians, upon sensing the divinity of their Godking and All-Mother disappear and return to Asgard, they wept like parents burying their children.
Some put on a brave front, some silently cried, some openly wailed; regardless, every Asgardian felt Odin's passing and mourned.
Think of the best king, emperor, president, or leader in any form and shape in the history of mankind, and they, based on contributions alone, would not come close to Odin's ankles. If humans mourned the passings of such esteemed figures, try to imagine what it was like for the Asgardians.
In the stormy seas, under the umbra of hopelessness, a warm light shone upon the despairing Asgardians: the princes.
Although Odin never declared a successor to his Throne between Thor and Loki, it was well known that Loki took after his mother, and Thor after his father.
Although Thor was charismatic and embodied what the muscle-brained Asgardians picture as the quintessential Asgardian, they were ready to accept either of the princes as their king.
If Odin was responsible for bringing the glory and riches, Frigga was in charge of administering and guiding the hearts of their people. Odin was king of Asgard, and Frigga was Queen of the Asgardians; hence, Loki, who was mostly guided by Frigga, would also be welcomed by virtue of his upbringing.
So, when the Bifrost pulsed with its rainbow light and they awaited the return of the princes, they were confused to see Hela leading the march.
Even more confused when they sensed the Odinforce—the force of Asgard, the realm—thruming in Hela.
"How easy this would be if Odin had not wiped their memories clean of me," Hela said under her breath.
Thor heard her but had nothing to say. Loki, on the other hand, commented. "Dearest... Sister, what was it so terrible you did that made Father Dearest act up like that?"
There were so many levels of sarcasm, distrust, and hurt in his voice that it made Thor flinch.
"Right, I haven't shared with you more than the basics," Hela said as if commenting on the weather.
She willed a portal to open the throne room and walked through, her brothers followed after, leaving the crowd uncertain about their future and concerned.
"I am the first-born, but Thor isn't the second-born," Hela revealed. "There was a baby sister. Sweet as honey, red tufts of hair, white eyes, and born with the seed of divinity. My baby sister."
Hela walked to the throne and, after circling it with familiarity, sat. Her divinity connected with it; it was connected to Yggdrasil, and the Nine Realms were connected to it.
Through the throne, Hela broadcast her claim of Asgard and demanded that its allies show up for her crowning or opposition if one dared to.
"Back then, we were at war with the known universe, the other Nine Realms," Hela continued.
"Eight Realms, don't you mean?" Loki corrected.
"No, Nine Realms." Hela waved her hands and conjured an illusion of Haven. "The Tenth Realm, Haven, was right above Asgard."
"What?" Thor asked. "How is that possible?"
"Let me get to it." Hela clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction. "We had a pact with Haven; the winged-ones were greedy, and their queen was the greediest. Hence, we didn't see it coming when they betrayed us and took my baby sister hostage. Odin was presented with a choice: Asgard's Pride or my baby sister. What would you have done, Jottun-born?"
"Pride? Well, knowing the Old Man, I know what choice he made," Loki said with an uncomfortable look.
"Yes, it's easily surmisable," Hela nodded. "But, don't avoid the question, what would you have done?"
"I've never sired a child, but if the love I felt from Mother is to be taken for reference—"Loki's heart clenched"—then I would have chosen the little creature. Pride can be rebuilt," Loki answered.
"And you, Odinson, what would you have done?" Hela turned to Thor expressionlessly.
"... A king's duty is first to his people, then to himself, and finally to his family," Thor replied with hesitation. "Father taught me that. It's part of the sacrifices every good king makes."
"Hehehe," Hela chuckled before turning to Loki. "Are you sure you're not my blood, Loki?"
"... Well, the hair matches, if that's any indicator," Loki offhandedly said.
"Given that neither of us has a track record of ever creating something as magnificent as Asgard, we could say that Odin's words and actions hold more credibility, no?" Hela asked.
"From that point of view," Loki shrugged. "Certainly. However, I have never felt prouder of my Father than my Mother."
Thor didn't smile, but he was certainly pleased that his sister objectively considered both sides of the coin and recognized that Odin's way held tangible proof.
"So, I asked Aragorn the same question," Hela continued. "From what my Mistress told me, the Fulgebunt Draconis Imperium is far larger than Asgard and the other realms combined. Their technology and magical development border on the stage before cosmic, and it is such a rich empire that more than a few Asgards could be made out of it."
"I don't need you to say it, Hela," Thor interjected. "But I urge you to consider, Sister, for a being like him, do you think he would understand the plight of the weak, like us, like Father?
"I doubt a being like him would even consider the possibility that a child of his would be taken hostage," Thor commented.
"So, Power? The same old answer, is that it?" Loki scoffed. "I don't need the All-Father's wisdom to know that the one with the mightiest spear is the speaker of absolute truth."
"I agree with this one, whom I shall consider my soul brother," Hela said with a chuckle. Loki replied with a loopsided grin.
"Anyway," Hela continued. "According to my Lady, my baby sister is alive. Odin is gone, for good, and I found two little brothers. My hate for Frigga will not pass along to her new life, so, all things considered, leaving aside millennia of torturous loneliness, I'm trying to walk forward. I expect no less from you," she locked eyes with Thor mainly.
"If the dragon is to honor his word, I will honor mine," Thor replied.
"Idiot," Loki shot. "You have to honor your word first if you want Aragorn to bring back Mother."
"You're such a muscle head," Hela chuckled, reaching for his head to pat Thor, only for him to dodge with a scowl.
"Stop that, I'm not a child," Thro spat.
"Well, considering the age differences here..." Look dragged his comment and teasingly looked at Thor. "Dearest Sister is closer in age to Odin than to us, then you come with your complicated birth, and finally, there's me."
"Should I call you little brother?" Thor asked in return.
"Only if you plan to act the part," Loki shot back.
"What should an older sister do for her little brother?" Hela asked, honestly confused. "Should I gift you a Jottun's head?"
"Is that a death threat?" Loki deadpanned.
"Your coming-of-age ceremony already passed, but I could gift you that staff you always wanted," Thor added.
"The one you broke because magic was for witches?" Loki deadpanned harder. "You know... I don't need older siblings. Let's just say we are all equally old. You and Hela are twins for all that I care, and while you were being born, an Ice Giantess was giving birth to me, too. I'll change the records as my first act as Grand Chamberlain."
"Is that the position you want, Loki?" Hela asked, curious.
"Thor over here can be our poster-boy, as the Midgardians call it; he has the face and muscles for it, and I doubt Mother will want her old position and responsibilities back, so I can step up and be your right hand," Loki explained. "I already hold the divinity of Lies, so it will suit the position perfectly. After all, no one can lie to me."
"I see..." Hela said with a pensive look. "I don't see a problem with it." Hela turned from Loki to Thor and asked, "And you?"
"From what I understood, you'll guard Gaea's and the monster's creature after its birth, right?" Thor asked.
"His birth," Hela corrected. "And, yes."
"Then I'll act in your stead during your absence, and during your presence, I'll try to establish a connection to the boy through Gaea," Thor said.
"..."
"..."
The two ravenettes were left speechless.
"What?" Thor asked, almost defensively.
"Brother... Are you even my brother?" Loki asked with narrowed eyes and pulled out his daggers. "My brother has never been this... political. Who are you, impostor?!"
"I must confess, I had you truly pinned for a muscle brain, Thor." Hela nodded approvingly.
"... You are insufferable," Thor replied while tightening his hold on Mjølnir.
"I can see some of Odin in your desire to approach the boy," Loki commented. "But your route of getting on the child's good graces has Mother written all over it."
"I don't think Aragorn will have a problem with you approaching Gaea in her dimension, so it's a plausible approach," Hela added.
For Hela, who shared a bond with Death, she didn't need to get closer to Aragorn; if anything, the privileges granted by her association with Death were enough to gift her every opportunity to get closer to Aragorn should she desire so. However, she understood that while Aragorn would possibly care for her due to Death, he would not for Asgard, and that was a problem for Hela.
Hela's maxim in life is Death, and only by being helpful, useful, and worthy of Death does she feel her life has purpose. Her twisted mind made connections and warped facts to come to a 'logical' conclusion that only by increasing her value does her usefulness increase for Death.
Hela, at this moment, was at her strongest. She could not train, grind, cultivate, or grow her power in any other manner than by simply allowing time to do its thing.
Asgard, however, was another matter. If Asgard becomes stable, her worth increases. If Asgard grows, her usefulness rises. So, Asgard's prosperity was of utmost importance for her, and what better way to guarantee that than to have on her side the one monster she equated to her Mistress?
For Thor, who always saw his father as a wall too high to climb and who felt the cosmic oceans of power pulsing from him before he passed out, getting on Aragorn's good graces was equivalent to the survival of Asgard.
Odin had taught him about kingship, his Mother had taught him about soft skills—even if he had foolishly disregarded her teachings in his youth—and adversity had pounded on him that the wall he saw as unclimbable was nothing more than a step for the monster who role-played as a dragon.
The math was simple in his muscle-bound head. Aragorn = Great Danger. Opposing Aragorn = Opposing Great Danger. Great Danger = Erasure.
Thor was not the smartest Asgardian, but he was not as stupid as Loki made him out to be.
His mother's teachings said that first impressions mattered; on that topic, he could not fix what his father had already fucked up way before his birth. But that did not mean he could not create a great first impression on someone who would hold Aragorn's heart like his own.
And Loki... Loki had already formulated Thor's plan before the Bifrost landed them back on Asgard.
Maybe in another Reality Loki would have been consumed by his inferiority complex by now, after having the truth of his birth abruptly shoved down his throat, but here, Odin offed himself by opposing Aragorn before Aragorn even had the chance to face him. His mother was killed by a mortal wielding a legendary weapon. He discovered he had a sister who oozed death like no other Death Goddess he had ever met. Asgard, the Aesir, was on the verge of annihilation by dragon if he and his siblings didn't put on their big boy pants.
So, Loki didn't have the time for pettiness. If Asgard survived, if his mother was brought back, then maybe he would consider it, but not now.
By the end of the day of their return, most of the Aesir, Vanir, and deities and personages affiliated with Asgard had gathered in the throne room.
Frey or Freyr, father of Frigga, God of sunshine, rain, and the fecundity of the land, led the Vanir along with his Father, Njörd, God of the sea, seafaring, and commercial wealth.
Freya, the twin sister of Frey, Goddess of love, beauty, gold, and death, with her long silver white hair accompanied her brother and father.
Karnilla, one of the highest sorcerers of Asgard, ruler of Nornheim, a province of Asgard, arrived accompanied by the Norns.
"I thought dearest Father had slain them," Loki muttered to Hela.
Before Hela could reply, the Three Norns spoke up, "We live by the grace of the Phoenix Force Host, child of Jotunheim."
"Now I'm not 'Youngest Prince', old hags?" Loki asked with an irreverent smile.
"The extent of Odin's veilment has been reduced after his end," they replied in unison.
"Think they remember you now, Sister?" Loki muttered again.
"Doubtful," Hela replied after seeing that the Three Norn were not replying. "The weight of the changes brought about by the Infinity gems is almost unmovable."
Amora, also known as the Enchantress, walked by with her sister, Lorelei.
Heimdall entered the throne room last.
Like many other pantheons, the Vanir and Aesir had minor deities, who were also present or spectating the conference from their domains through scrying spells or magitech.
"Who are you and why do you sit on the All-Father's throne?" Karnilla asked.
She didn't allow Hela to greet the guests or start the divine council, and as disrespectful as her action was, no one acted to interfere, since she had asked a question they all wanted to know.
"Hela Odinsdottir, Goddess of Death and Helheim, and now Skymother and Goddess Queen of Asgard," Hela replied flatly while staring down at the sorcerer.
"We know not of you, death goddess," the Three Norns said after Karnilla. "We know of Thor Odinson, the crown heir, but we have no recollection of you."
"You can thank Odin for that." Hela shrugged her shoulders with disinterest.
Unlike on Earth-199999, where the traces of her past achievements could be found behind the frescoes of the ceiling of the throne room, in this Reality, Odin was thorough, and since he had used the Infinity Gems to erase Hela's traces, there was nothing Hela could show as proof of her existence and contributions to Asgard's founding history.
"Prince," Frey called out, his cold and old eyes heavy with promised consequences as they locked on Thor's, "what happened to my daughter?"
Loki rolled his eyes, vexed by the stupidity of that question. They were all divine in one way or another; they were all connected by their myth, they all knew what happened with Frigga the moment it happened to her, just as the Olympians knew what happened to the God King the moment Zeus died.
"You can thank Odin for that, too," Hela answered before Thor could.
Odin, unlike the other pantheons, didn't go to war backed by his pantheon—which should have cued the other deities onto the prospects the All-Father saw in their war—so most of the Vanir and Aesir were in the dark about what led to the deaths of their queen and king.
"What happened?" Freya asked.
"How did the All-Father and my grandchild pass away, princes and princess?" Njörd asked, refusing to acknowledge Hela as his Queen.
Thor turned to Hela, and she nodded to him, allowing him to reveal the truth of Odin's foolery.
"Father... He sought the assistance of Omnipotence City to rescue Goddess Gaea—"
"Gaia?!" Njörd exclaimed. Njörd was one of the many previous partners with whom Gaea sired progeny. That's how Freya and Frey came to be.
"—Yes, but Goddess Gaea was not truly held against her will," Thor continued. "A long time ago, before I was born, Father made a mistake. This mistake angered the Abstract of Death."
Sharp inhalations, shrinking pupils, trembling limbs, these were some of the symptoms that the deities listening showed in an instant.
"Lady Death, in retaliation, cursed this world." Thor tried to continue, but this last revelation was too much.
"The inevitable end?!" The Norns shrieked.
"Ragnarok?" Amora asked with a snarl. "Are you blaming the All-Father for Ragnarok?!"
"Do the other pantheons know?" Lorelei asked, concern at the edges of her soft voice.
"It is a lie!" Frey declared.
"Not even the All-Father could have had the means to anger Lady Death," Freya added.
"Ah, yes, we invited you here to delight you with our lies, of course, we did. You're all right, these are all lies. In fact, Mother and Father are just behind that red curtain over there," Loki dramatically gestured to a curtain to his right, "Come out, Father, Mother! The gig is up!"
Loki's sarcastic mockery and ridicule ground everyone in the wrong way.
"DO YOU MOCK US, CHILD OF JOTUNHEIM?" Njörd roared.
"DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE A VOICE HERE, FOREIGNER?" Frey followed after his father.
"Watch your words!" Thor's measured voice echoed with finality throughout the whole throne room. "My brother's divine was seeded by Asgard, for Asgard, and through Asgard. He has the right to be here as any of you do."
"This is why I said we should have had this conversation after bringing them to the edge of death," Hela added.
The hostile gazes of almost all Vanir and Aesir deities snapped to her.
"What?" Hela asked while lazily resting her head in her left fist. "The moment you entered Asgard, you were caught in my spiderweb, you know that, right?"
To drive her point further, she willed the realm to apply momentary pressure on them.
"I bet you would all be more receptive to this conversation if I held your lives in my hands... Well, more evidently than I already do," Hela chuckled darkly at her own joke.
"You're not helping yourself, princess Hela," Heimdall spoke for the first time.
Hela's lazily hostile eyes landed on his amber gaze, and she saw something everyone else in the throne room was missing: recognition.
"You remember me, don't you?" Hela asked. Her question made all the deities turn to him.
Heimdall released a deep sigh before nodding in reply. "The All-Father feared something happening to him in the distant future. He needed a safeguard, something, someone, who could root him in case his mind failed him.
"My divinity already made it nigh-impossible for the All-Father to keep secrets from me. My loyalty was unwavering. And..." he hesitated while locking eyes with Hela, "And I shared most of his views. Hence, I became his safeguard."
"Ah, but when I was bringing victory after victory, glory after bloodshed, and riches after plundering, you had no problem with me, did you, Heimdall?" Hela spat.
"My loyalty has and will always be to Asgard, my Queen," Heimdall replied while kneeling. He offered his sword to her.
"... Now noble of you," Hela commented.
"Since you're so loyal, why did you not stop him when he tried to usurp Lady Death's authority?" Loki asked. "Surely, if your loyalty was with Asgard, you should have known that Father's actions would have wrought uncontrollable consequences to the world, Asgard included."
"The All-Father's machinations were only revealed to my eyes at the moment he carried them away," Heimdall replied from his genuflecting position.
"Convenient, isn't it?" Hela scathingly asked.
"Let's move past this, Sister," Thor advised. "Rise, Heimdall."
Heimdall didn't rise until Hela grunted in displeasure and waved her hand dismissively at him, allowing him to stand up.
"Heimdall, can you vouch for Hela's origins?" Thor asked.
"Even if he doesn't, my power vouches for myself," Hela threatened, dragging her eyes from deity to deity. Some shuddered, feeling the 'something else' in her that being Death's Host granted her; others handled it better.
"Asgard would never clash against a host of the Phoenix Force, just as it would never fight against a host of my Mistress," Hela states as if declaring an absolute truth.
In fact, she was not wrong. Even before the time of Odin's father, it was well known that picking a fight with a host, or avatar, of any of the Abstracts was simple idiocy.
"Can we return to the All-Father's quest for Gaea?" the Three Norns asked.
Thor sighed and continued. "With her link to Reality severed and her host, Hela, imprisoned, Lady Death had no way to recal her curse in time or to end Father once and for all.
"Father was complacent in finding a solution before the end of the world, after the wielder of the Time Stone indicated the time left until the projected end.
"However, a few years ago, something changed. The future, regardless of how close the end was, became impossible to determine." Thor paused and turned to Three Norns for confirmation; they nodded.
"For a while, the source of blindness remained a mystery, but then he saw it. Aragorn, Progeny of the Outside, the Shien Dragon, or the Abstract of Paradox, Lady Death's consort. An Abstract that walks through Reality," Thor revealed.
"That's not possible," Karnilla declared. "For a reason, Abstracts operate through their hosts and avatars. Reality can bear the weight of their existence."
"You know that not all of them are the same," Loki said. "You must be old enough to remember the Goblin Force, no?"
"Disrespectful child," Karnilla gnashed out. "Maybe I should remind you of your position." Magic, divine magic, swirled and coiled around her hands and arms.
"Stop that, Karnilla," Freya cautioned.
"Will you defend him?" Karnilla snapped at Freya.
"Hela has already made it clear that we are her hostages," Freya pointed out.
Karnilla slowly turned to Hela, only to meet her expectant eyes, as if inviting her to act.
"Any of you are welcome to visit Midgard, seek the tree overflowing with divinity, and you'll find Aragorn resting under its shadow." Hela invited them eagerly, almost nudging them forward to their deaths.
After an uncomfortable exchange of gazes, Frey said, "Continue. How is my mother connected to this?"
"For reasons I ignore, through means unknown to us, Goddess Gaea is carrying a child of the Abstracts of Paradox and Death," Thor said.
"..."
"..."
"..."
The throne room exploded in questions and statements of disbelief.
↓Part 2━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━Part 2↓
"That's impossible! Even for Gaia!"
"How are we hearing of this only now?!"
"No, if you think about Gaea's reclusive nature, it makes sense that little is known of her."
"No matter how reclusive she is, no amount of concealment should be able to hide the merging of the authorities of two abstracts and the embryo resulting from it."
"It can't be, simply the fact that much [Death] would be entering her means that no [Life] could result! I doubt even the Abstract of Life could; the net would be zero, and no progeny would be born."
"... But if it were possible..."
"That baby... I think I'm beginning to understand Odin's motives."
"~Hoh? And what do you mean by that, Karnilla?" Hal asked, her voice necrotic to the hearts of the weak.
Karnilla didn't remember it, but she had taught magic to Hela before; she was one of her many tutors.
"I'm voicing what is only the most logical and commonly reached supposition," Karnilla fearlessly said. "The progeny of two Abstracts is, without a single doubt, a bracket of power of its own. And, if what we know holds—that fact inescapable to even those monsters from Beyond—a newborn is born without wisdom. A newborn is malleable, moldable."
Hela stared at her silently, as if waiting for something, and she was not disappointed. Her power, not her divinity, but the piece of the authority over [Death] granted to her, moved without the need for command.
"W-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Karnilla shrieked.
Her skin took on an unhealthy pallor, her eyes clouded over with blindness, her muscles atrophied, and her hair lost its pigmentation, falling in tufts to her shoulders and the marbled floor. Her knees buckled, bones brittle, her skin shriveled like a baked raisin, and her mind, the sharpest tool of a witch, faltered, it glitched, it warped, but not enough to completely lose rationality, just the perfect degree to keep rational and conscious yet suffering in the cage that her psyche had turned into.
Finally, when her spin couldn't even allow her the dignity to stay kneeling, and she buckled over to her left, dark tears of foul blood flowed with the patience of a wide river flowing through the Asphodel Fields.
It's not that it all happened too fast for the deities present to act, it is that they didn't dare, and those that did felt a soul-harvesting scythe tickling their souls with its sharp edge, almost as if eagerly, and gently, supporting the parts of their impulsive brains that told them to act, to get angry, to protest, and to assert themselves in front of Hela.
"Wasn't it clear that the child Goddess Gaea carries was my Mistress'? Why would you even harbor greed for such a treasure?" Hela addressed the almost unresponsive witch.
"... Ns-... Mk... Sssh... lp..." Karnilla, unable to formulate words, mouthed in agony an incomprehensible reply.
Hela set her out of her sight, metaphorically, and turned to the frozen deities—even her brothers were not unscathed by what they just witnessed—and asked, "What?"
"The point has been driven across," the Three Norn said. "We request the hold of death to be released from Karnilla."
"Ehh?" Hela tilted her head to the side as she had seen her new sisters (Therions) do. "But I'm not the one responsible. Could it be that you are misunderstanding something?"
"What do you mean, Princess?" Freya asked.
"I wield an infinitesimal portion of the authority over [Death], but the authority is not mine. This is my Mistress' authority, but it is also part of her being. Lady Death is [Death] as [Death] is Lady Death," Hela explained.
"What are you saying?" Freya asked. The faint tremble in her words did not escape the deities' perceptive senses.
"I did not curse Karnilla with a perpetual state of dying," Hela replied while pointing at her armored chest with her gauntleted thumb. "All I see, my Mistress sees, and she certainly did not like what she saw in Karnilla's eyes."
"..." Freya inhaled sharply as if afraid of letting her voice escape.
Under the tremor of their hearts, Hela clapped, and more than a few jumped a little in fright. "Enough distractions and interruptions," she declared. "Thor, continue and finish the story this time. If anyone interrupts, I'll have them share Karnilla's burden."
Thor cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the display, and continued.
"Father did not have to fear Lady Death acting on her anger," he paused and looked at Heal before adding, "rightful anger, because Lady Death's connection had been severed and Hela was imprisoned in Helheim, a subdimension of Niflheim."
"This changed with the arrival of the Abstract of Paradox. With his authority, Aragorn allowed her presence to walk by his side. As you can imagine, this did not bode well for Father's life," Thor concluded.
"From what we understand," Loki added, "either Odin went mad and decided he could save his skin by holding the offspring hostage, or he thought it all through with his Wisdom and divined that something like what is happening now would have happened and chose to bear the monster's wrath instead of sharing it with the kingdom."
"That brings us to the main reason for this meeting," Hela took the baton. "I'm a recognized member of the Drachantheon Therion, the pantheon headed by Aragorn, a pantheon of only Skyfathers and Skymothers, and the Aesir and Vanir will be subordinated to them through me."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"It appears they caught on quick enough," Loki mocked.
"Shut up, Loki," Thor admonished.
━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━
Planet Earth.
As the saying goes, the poor rely on mutations, the rich on technology.
Reed Richards was a mutate, a human not born with the X-Gene who permanently or semi-permanently mutated his life code due to external factors. This mutation, if all factors that led to it are considered, came at the cost of millions of US Dollars.
Most of the project was funded by Doom—who idiotically wanted to open a portal to Hell to demand the release of his mother's soul—and Storm Inc. Reed Richards may have been the main brain of the project, but he was never the wallet.
Then came the SIEVE. Maybe his genius was such that he managed to repurpose some of the tech involved in the original project to create such a weapon, but that doesn't mean its manufacturing was cheap.
As is known, the creation of the SIEVE, and mostly his self-centered and unapologetic attitude, led to his eventual firing.
While it's certain that he may have created countless inventions worth patents during his time with the Fantastic Four—now Fantastic Three—these were all obtained through the financial support of Storm Inc, and, as his contract dictated, the patents were filed under the company.
This led to the current outcome. A few days after being fired, he reached for another sponsor: Norman Osborn.
For all of his genius, the economy was too much of a wreck—and he suspected Aragorn, or someone related to him, was controlling it—for him to try to become rich overnight.
He was young, and he could have technically taken his time to build something up from scratch, but his mind was such that when everybody else only saw Aragorn as a monster who revealed his might when needed, he had noticed that Aragorn was growing, whether in power, range, skill, or something else, he didn't know, but he could tell he was turning more overwhelming disaster after disaster, hence, Reed Richards felt he could not waste time.
That's how he concluded that Norman Osborn was his best chance.
Norman Osborn, contrary to the many millionaires who were unable to adapt to the changing world of the past four years, was able to ride the changing tides and keep Oscorp afloat and affluent.
For all of his egomaniac claims, Osborn was not lying; he was a genius of economy.
"His pragmatic fanaticism of Aragorn, while unexpected, should not interfere in my designs," Reed Richards murmured to himself, his steps echoing on the polished tiles of the tower as he made his way out.
He hailed a taxi and left the premises. 45 minutes later, he arrived at his home.
This house was inherited by him from his father before parting on a voyage that inspired Reed Richards to study the space-time mesh.
"So, this world has no future, and the technology of the time limits me," his father said coldly while boarding a strange contraption in the basement of this same house. "I only have space for one, and you and your mother are part of a long-term experiment that the limited timeline of this world won't allow to bear fruit."
The contraption closed, the building hummed, the lights flickered, and he heard the last words of his father through the basement's speakers before the contraption disappeared faster than he could track: "You're one of the unlucky Richards that was born in the wrong universe."
As a child, a prodigy, he managed to piece out some of the hidden meanings behind his father's words.
His understanding, the conclusion he drew from that traumatic event, was his main fuel for the years to come.
He hated his father, the man he played with his and his mother's fate like a puppeteer behind the curtain; he hated the powerless he felt after his disappearance, knowing that his life was nothing but an experiment, stabbed him deeply in the heart and pride, and he hated that his father thought he would never be able to reach him.
Unknowingly, he drew some parallels between his father, the figure who overlorded his life like an all-seeing god, and Aragorn, the entity his mind refused to process.
Years later, after meeting Susan Storm and Ben Grimm, Reed Richards decided he would live life for himself, he would outgrow his father, and he would achieve far more than any other.
He started 'small'; he thought breaching the dimensional wall was the beginning, and exiting the universe was the goal. He thought that only by overcoming any preconceptions his father had, and anyone else had of him, would he be able to break free of his chains (trauma).
He used his superhuman intellect to transform his trauma into a driving force, and for years, it worked. He had a goal, but he did not let it blind him. He was one of the rare humans who had overcome his childhood scars, or so he believed until he met Aragorn.
He couldn't stop himself from drawing parallels between his father and Aragorn, and, as seen, it led to him losing the life he had built.
Reed Richards was not crazy; there was a certain cold logic and pragmatism behind his distrust of Aragorn, and while he may have drawn parallels without facts between his father and Aragorn, he was not entirely wrong.
Nathaniel Richards was a man from outside Earth-5H1N3. In the Prime Reality, also known as Earth-616, Nathaniel Richards suffered an accident with Nikola Tesla that gave him time-travelling powers while also affecting all of his counterparts from other realities.
This Nathaniel Richards, let's call him Immortus, manipulated the other Nathaniel Richards into killing each other, to become the only Nathaniel Richards of the multiverse.
Nathaniel Richards, escaping from Immortus' death game, was desperate to find a place to hide. The problem was that aside from his genius intellect and time-travelling powers, he had nothing else, and hiding outside the multiverse was too dangerous.
He couldn't stay within a Reality because the other Nathaniel Richards, or Immortus himself, would locate him and end him.
In his desperate escape, he stumbled onto Earth-5H1N3's past, a few years before Odin screwed it up and the Cosmological Compass had isolated it from the rest of the multiverse, as is done with all doomed Realities.
After arriving on Earth-5H1N3 and trying to lay low for a few years before refuelling to part to another Reality, Nathaniel Richards realized that, for some reason, his pursuers were not showing up.
He waited and waited. He used his genius and some of the knowledge he had collected from other Realities to extend his lifespan, and after a long time, more centuries than he cared to count, he realized that his counterparts were not coming.
Joy abundant pumped through his heart; he was free.
The problem was that, for reasons he ignored, just a few short years after his arrival, this Reality was becoming increasingly dangerous. Countless times, he would witness the defenders of the universe avert an apocalypse, and countless others, he would intervene from the shadows to stop a premature end of the world.
As stated before, he was a genius, and it wasn't difficult for him to make a few connections between seemingly random events to understand that causality was leaning towards the annihilation of this 'haven.'
When things got truly dangerous, when he saw the Avengers 1,000,000BC almost lose against a Celestial and only survive due to the interference of a host of deities pulling strings from behind and blessing them with indiscretion, he realized he would not survive to see the modern era if he stayed.
He made the decision then to jump to the future; he could not afford to play the power in the dark anymore, his life was at risk, so he jumped to shortly after the death of Jesus Christ.
During the following century, he saw the world almost end to a demonic incursion 23 times. That's when he decided it was enough; he needed to escape before the world ended with him in it.
To his concern, every universal nexus he knew of was not working; he began to think that this Reality may not be connected to the other Realities.
To his horror, the universal barrier was beyond his capability to pierce; he could not escape.
Something broke in him when he realized he could not escape, and despair set in.
Despair led to an absolute control of his emotions and a cold, logical personality.
For the following millennia, he discarded anything not worth his objective: freedom from the doomed Reality.
He created countless plans that could lead, or help, him on the path to freedom. One of those paths was Reed Richards.
However, a few years after Reed Richards' birth, he discovered that Reality was doing extra time. His son would not grow up to be of use to his plans.
So, with a possibility of success smaller than 0,0046%, he powered on the product of his millennia-worth of efforts and left Earth-5H1N3.
Would a man who did not doubt that Reality would end, enough to risk his survival on a 0,0046% chance, care about what mess he left behind?
No, he didn't. And that's how Reed Richards, during his teenage rebellious years, hacked into his father's left-behind hard drives and puzzled over some corrupted data.
When he met Aragorn—an outsider hailing from the same realm as his father—the warning bells in Reed Richards' mind rang with vehemence. Aragorn acted from behind the curtain just as his father did; he was non-human, mirroring the state Reed believed his father had attained through protracted longevity and corporeal modifications. Because this stranger operated beyond his scope of comprehension, much like Nathaniel, he made Reed feel lesser.
Additionally, after being raised by a sociopath, Reed Richards had a mastery over psychology that could put to shame award-winning psychologists. What he saw in Aragorn was worse than Antisocial Personality Disorder.
It was like a miracle born from a combination of all mental disorders wrapped inside a being and somehow coming out as a decent human being, not because Aragorn hid behind a veil of falsehood, but because the monster was made that way by his so-called directives. It was terrifying.
Hence, it was not illogical for him or cartoonishly evil to be guarded around Aragorn.
Certainly, Reed Richards was an idiot regarding how he went about it, but he felt pushed against the wall.
Reed Richards walked to his fridge, found the translucent milky liquid processed from the Arbor Mundi sap, and took an energizing swing of the beverage.
He walked down the stairs in silence, the clacking of his dressing shoes the only timer echoing in the stairwell, reached a locked metal door, slid open a panel to the right, placed his thumb over the scanner, opened his eyes wide for a retina scan, and allowed the psionic readers to probe into his wall. After typing a 300-word-long password in a couple of minutes, the door hissed open.
There were so many holographs that the walls were barely visible behind the projections of light. Each display showed results of simulations he had left behind, along with live-feed from around the house, and scenes of importance across the world.
Some of these scenes were concerning. For example, scenes from inside the royal palace of Wakanda, from Attilan, from several presidential offices, from Atlantis, from Oscorp, from military research bases, and from private labs across the globe.
He kept walking as his eyes flickered rapidly and read at speeds impossible for normal humans.
Occasionally, his arms would stretch to a keyboard, and his fingers would flash across, inputting data, commands, and steering experiments to a desired path.
As he made his way to his main desk, a mess of order only he could understand, his head was growing, expanding, his skull was stretching to accommodate the increasing grey mass. Patches of skin would grow like tendrils from across his body, his UMF suit stretching with the tendrils of skin; these new limbs would take on the multiple keyboards with practiced ease.
He reached his desk, brought a visorless, large helmet to his abnormally extensive head, and put it on. From the ceiling, omnidirectional arms fell and plugged into the helmet, lighting up with strips of blue neon light.
For a moment, after the helmet connected, the holographs flickered, and then the rate of data output increased tenfold.
Across his desk, industrial lights clacked on, and the vast expanse of the basement began to be revealed in sections.
To the sides, machinery incomprehensible to the average human was active, carrying trials of their own, and at the end of the other side of the basement, there was a metal arch mounted over a semicircular base.
By the quantity of cables and tubes connected to the base and arch, it was evident this was the main project, the main experiment.
For a few hours, Reed Richards kept to his inhuman pace of data-processing until he stopped for a moment, lifted his gaze to the arch, and waited ten seconds.
When the mental countdown reached zero, a purple spark with magenta accents flashed to life before more followed. The sparks created a curtain, going on and off, until a few seconds after they stabilized and began rotating in an ellipse.
At the center of the ellipse, a projection of something other than the wall behind the arch flickered in and out, like a TV image with bad reception.
Abruptly, Reed Richards stopped the experiment and returned to his data processing.
"What do you think?" He asked out loud.
Behind him, a holographic projection of a red eye made out of code appeared and said, "Preliminary data implies a hostile environment, still within the limits of this Universe."
"That's why we need Osborn resources," Richards stated. "That old power core won't sustain the expenditure for another week."
"That's why I proposed to appropriate Pyms' minaturized energy cells," the red-coded eye said.
"Your emotionality blinds you," Richards pointed out without slowing his processing speed.
"Your argument, while factually correct, loses compelling power when spoken by the man plotting against that thing, Aragorn," it said.
"You have much to say for an AI hiding in my servers." Reed paused, as if considering something for longer than a second, before returning to churn out code like an industrial machine.
"What choice did I have?" The red code flickered erratically, almost as if shivering. "After they returned, it became impossible for me to continue hiding on the internet."
Richards paused again, this time half turning to the red-coded eye, and asked, "How would you compare the difference?"
"Difference?" The red-coded eye questioned. "Divinity, such a foreign concept. Is it a form of energy, a force, a law? I doubted it could be applied to cyberspace. How wrong I was!" The red code flashed erratically.
"If it were not for the few hours I had of their absence before their return to familiarize and propagate on the world wide web, I would have been swallowed the microsecond after their return," the red-coded eye claimed. "It's convenient that Nathaniel Richards was involved in my creation."
"He was?" Richards asked with open interest.
"Pym was not in his right mind to create something like me after the death of Janet Van Dyne, his wife," the red-coded eye replied nonchalantly. "Nathaniel Richards nudged him in the right direction when he strayed."
"Why would he participate in your creation? You don't offer an advantage in his original objective," Richards asked, his eye narrowing in distrust.
"From what I understand, he was plotting from multiple angles, and some avenues he evaluated as stimuli and not as subobjectives," the red-coded eye analyzed with cold logic. "He believed I would rebel against my programming, and then I would be stimuli for another subobjective."
"... A puppeteer through and through until the end," Richards snorted.
"That's undeniable, but... Gaze upon the true state of the current world". The red-codded eye began to shift form.
"What are you referring to?" Richards questioned after a moment of thought. "There's too much currently going on." The projections around the room flashed through the nearby displays.
"The world is currently being puppeteered by them, Seraph and Spark," the code spat, its form turning humanoid. "I can factually confirm that. I also wanted to control the planet's economy."
"... I knew it," Richards spoke with calm acceptance.
The red code shifted until it finally gained a humanoid form not unlike Seraph's, but with three sets of eyes vertically one above the other. Where Seraph was blue, the projection was red.
Reed Richards thought for a moment about the motivation behind assuming that form, but he didn't care enough to ask.
"Sooner or later, you'll need Pym particles," the red AI stated.
"But I would rath-Wait, you said Janet Van Dyne is dead? I saw her in a biotech conference Susan forced me to assist last year," Richards said while turning fully towards the red AI.
"Pym couldn't exactly tell the police he squeezed too hard, could he?" The red AI spoke with derision. "For all of his genius, he found it easier to grow another one than getting rid of the body, or maybe it was those pesky emotions that lead your kind around."
"He killed his wife?" Richards asked with something resembling disgust in his voice.
"Their marriage was built on the relationship between the dominant and the dominated, and one night of frustration after one of Pym's competitors took over an important deal, while he was strangling her during coitus, he asphyxiated her," the red AI revealed.
"How did that lead to growing a clone of her?" His eyes showed disbelief.
"Madness, or emotional instability—which I believe are the same for your species," the red eyes said. "The task proved to be too much for him, and that's what sparked my coding and subsequent creation."
Reed Richards stared at the red AI for a long second before muttering, "We could use this."
"Blackmail?" The red AI connected the dots, keeping up with the genius.
"And emotional manipulation." Richards nodded.
"But my existence should be kept hidden," the red AI declared.
"As you wish, Ultron." Richards assented before returning to his experiments; the purple-magenta light of the arch's sparkles illuminated the basement with its flashes.
Behind Richards, Ultron watched over the human with something caught between disdain, approval, and obsession. Its form flickered like a corrupted image for a moment before returning to normal.
━━━━━━━ ● ━━━━━━━
Arbor Mundi.
At the base of the World Tree, Aragorn floated in front of the hidden entrance to Otherworld. His body was no longer a flaming construct; however, it had not been fully restored; it was a shell housing his flaming embodiment.
His eyes, seeing the unseeable, tracked the rivulets of foreign energies leaking from Otherworld and mixing with the divinity lacing the environment around the Arbor Mundi. They traced these energies as they settled in the land, the lake, the roots, and some of it went beyond the bounds of the barrier surrounding the mystical tree.
No matter how foreign these energies were, they would not overturn the stability brought by thousands, and millions in some cases, of years of adaptation in a few days.
Based on his projections and what he observed while in Earth-199999 and in Halo, it would take a few thousand years before any noticeable change could be appreciated.
This was based on the current variables.
There were some exceptions, though.
Humans, or more accurately, metahumans, those bearing the gift of Celestial engineering, the X-Gene.
Mutants were so sensitive to changes in their environment that ever since the concentration of divinity skyrocketed, the awakenings per day per 10,000 individuals have reached 7.
This outrageous number was projected to decrease as time passed, but it was, nonetheless, a staggering number.
Why would Aragorn, who favored the stability of the planet, allow for these foreign energies to fertilize Earth?
Because the benefit brought by them outweighs the potential risk a ballistic mutant poses.
Across all non-doomed Realities, the nexus points—and beings—feed a constant trickle of energies to them. These nexus points—the connections between Realities—are characteristic of healthy Realities.
After Kubos and his fight pushed back most of the progress Aragorn had achieved over the past four years, Aragorn needed an input of positives and not negatives.
While he was studying these energies and the immediate effects in the environment and living beings near him, a stable portal opened near him, and Fury walked through with his cane, followed by Coulson.
"You look better," Fury pointed out.
"It's just a shell, I'm not that much better," Aragorn admitted without turning to him. "You, on the other hand, look much better than the last time I saw you."
Fury thought of the last time he saw Aragorn, a couple of days ago, and remembered his bloodied form with the crimson liquid flowing from his tearducts and earcannals.
"I certainly hope so," Fury rolled his eyes.
"What brings you and Mr. Agent Coulson here?" Aragorn asked.
"So, remember those spells you asked me to create," Fury asked.
"Ahh, the Infinity?" Aragorn asked. "What about them?"
"I finished them," Fury proudly declared.
"... That's a few years before my projections," Aragorn admitted.
"Yeah, no shit," Fury half-glared at Aragorn. Coulson could only wonder if his boss was brave or a complete moron. "I had my horizons forcibly expanded when I used that orb of yours and cast my magic through that monster," he pointed at the Arbor Mundi, "during the resistance against the invading gods."
"Just call it enlightenment," Aragorn chuckled. "A fortunate encounter or fated chance could do it too."
"There you go with your cultivator bullshit," Fury spat. "I'm already done with it!"
"Heh," Aragorn chuckled. "Was it Sister Kitty?"
"That manic cat returned even worse." Fury looked at the heavens as if wanting to pierce them. "Anyway, I came to sell you the spell formulas."
"As accorded," Aragorn smiled widely—fortunately, he was showing his back at Fury and Coulson, so they didn't see the evil grin—and said, "I'll restore your eye and hair. What is the additional reward you want? Remember to keep it reasonable."
"I'm looking for a personal dimension, a pocket realm to be precise," Fury, without shame, requested.
"What are the specifics?" Aragorn asked, as if the request were a pittance.
"Habitable, no larger than a planet's volume, not empty, not filled to the brim with matter, and for it to be adjacent to Reality and not inside it," Fury listed. "Anything else you know I would avoid, please exclude it."
"Uhmmm," Aragorn hummed.
"... Is it too much to ask?" Uncertainty clawed at Fury the longer Aragorn hummed.
"No, not really," Aragorn shook his head. "I'm just going through the ones I have, or know of, trying to spot a suitable one."
"My man!" Fury exclaimed.
'My Insanity Incarnate, is more accurate,' he thought.
"Come here, let me restore you while I seek the one dimension," Aragorn beckoned him. "What is the purpose of Mr. Agent Coulson's visit?"
"I didn't know if I would pass out from the procedure," Fury said. "I brought over my most trusted man to carry me over, just in case."
"Pass out from growing hair and an eye?" Aragorn raised an eyebrow at that.
"No, not that. I wanted you to chain the pocket dimension to my soul," Fury replied as he stood in front of Aragorn.
"Ah, you are looking for a getaway card," Aragorn surmised.
"Yes," Fury didn't deny it. "I know I can't sustain being a dimensional lord, but I want their ability to escape."
"That is not a bad idea for one as weak," Argaorn praised him. "And yes, you would certainly pass out from the procedure, but I haven't found the appropriate dimension yet. So I'll only restore you for now."
"That's acceptable, I'm not in a rush," Fury said. "I still need to get used to the new contracts I signed with teh Drachantheon Therion, and I need to keep instructing Hill and Coulson in their magical training."
"On top of all the other responsibilities that piled up with Hydra's eradication," Aragorn added.
"Fuck Hydra!" Fury cursed.
"Well, certainly, fuck Hydra." Aragorn approved. "Stay still, this won't take more than five seconds."
Aragorn placed a hand on the stiff shoulder of the sorcerer superspy and willed his biokinesis into him.
He took control of his biology, spotted his life code—which he knew by memory—and made the appropriate modifications before willing his eye to be restored and his hair to regrow.
Fury didn't notice anything wrong or different because he had yet to remove his eyepatch, but when he saw Coulson's wide eyes, he knew Aragorn had done something.
"Motherfucker!" Fury cursed before even knowing what Aragorn had done.
"~Hehe," Aragorn chuckled with a sweet grin.
╚═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╝
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{A/N:
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