Night fell on New Mexico, and the sky opened up for the second time in a week.
Rain hammered the desert floor in thick sheets, turning the dirt to mud and the air to a warm, wet curtain that smelled like ozone and dust. Thunder rolled across the flatlands in long, shuddering waves — not the distant, polite kind, but the close, angry kind that rattled your teeth and made you wonder if something up there was genuinely upset.
Something was.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. perimeter fence — military-grade razor wire on reinforced steel posts — tore open like tissue paper.
A man came through.
He was enormous. Six-four, maybe six-five, with shoulders like a doorframe and arms that belonged on a statue of a classical god. His blond hair was soaked flat against his skull, his mud-caked T-shirt was ripped in three places, and his blue eyes burned with a desperate, feverish intensity that made everything else about the scene — the rain, the alarms, the shouting agents — feel like background noise.
"STOP HIM! NOW!"
The agents converged from every direction — trained, armed, coordinated. It didn't matter. Even stripped of his divine power, this man still possessed the body and combat instincts of an Asgardian warrior who'd been fighting since before most Earth civilizations had invented writing. Over-the-shoulder throws, elbow strikes, and full-body charges tore through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s finest like a bull through a china shop.
From the elevated observation platform above the crater, Tony Stark removed his sunglasses and whistled.
"Who is this guy? An escaped WWE champion? Those muscles are almost as impressive as mine."
"That's Thor."
Jake leaned against the railing, sipping a can of cola with the relaxed posture of someone watching a movie he'd already seen. "Or what's left of him, anyway."
"Thor?" Tony snorted. "As in Norse mythology, hammer-throwing, rides-a-chariot-pulled-by-goats Thor? Come on, Jake. We're scientists, not fairy tale enthusiasts."
Below them, Thor had just put the last agent between him and the crater face-down in the mud.
He was drenched. Filthy. Breathing hard. But his eyes — those burning blue eyes — were locked on one thing.
The hammer.
His hammer. The last piece of the life he'd been ripped away from. The key to everything he'd lost.
"I am... THOR!"
The roar split the rain. He charged into the crater and seized the handle of Mjolnir with both hands, fingers white-knuckled around the leather grip.
Every person on the base held their breath.
Coulson's finger found his trigger. Up on the observation tower, a figure Jake hadn't noticed before — lean, sharp-eyed, holding a compound bow at full draw — tracked the target with the steady patience of a man who never missed. And beside Jake, Tony's wrist-mounted repulsor hummed to full charge.
Thor smiled.
It was the smile of a man who'd hit rock bottom and could see the ladder. All he had to do was lift it. One pull, and he'd be Thor again. One pull, and he could go home.
"Rise!"
He pulled.
One second.
Two seconds.
Rain streamed down his golden hair and into his eyes, but the smile on his face was already freezing. Cracking. Falling apart in slow motion.
The hammer didn't move.
It sat there — gray, silent, utterly indifferent — like a tombstone for the god he used to be.
"No... this is impossible..."
Panic flooded his voice. He adjusted his grip, pulled harder, planted his feet, threw every ounce of mortal muscle into the effort. Mud churned beneath his boots. Veins stood out on his neck like cables. A sound that was half roar, half sob tore from his throat.
"AHHHHHHH!"
Nothing. Not a tremor. Not a spark. Not even the faintest flicker of recognition from the weapon that had been his companion for centuries.
Mjolnir didn't care.
"Father..."
Thor's strength gave out. His hands slid off the handle, and he collapsed to his knees in the mud, face turned up to the sky, rain and tears mixing indistinguishably on his cheeks.
"WHY... WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONED ME?!"
The cry echoed across the desert. Raw. Broken. The sound of a god discovering he was just a man.
"That's... rough."
Tony's amusement had evaporated. He shook his head, something uncomfortable flickering behind his eyes. "He's just a delusional guy having a breakdown. Coulson, get someone to cuff him. And maybe a blanket."
"Wait."
Jake crushed the empty cola can in his hand with a casual squeeze and tossed it into the nearest bin. Perfect arc. Nothing but trash can.
"The show's just getting started." He straightened his collar. "Tony, do me a favor — tell the agents to stand down. I'm going to talk to him."
"Talk? To a guy who thinks he's a Viking god?"
"No." Jake was already walking toward the slope. "To a power bank that's lost its battery."
At the bottom of the crater, Thor knelt in the mud like a broken statue. Eyes vacant. Chest still. Even when Jake's shoes squelched to a stop three feet away, the Asgardian didn't react. There was nobody home.
"Hey, buddy."
Jake crouched down, putting himself at eye level. He glanced at Mjolnir — still floating in the hole he'd dug earlier, still radiating that quiet, ancient energy that made the hair on his arms stand up.
"This your treasure? Doesn't seem too happy to see you."
Thor lifted his gaze. His blue eyes were hollow. The fire that had driven him through a platoon of agents was gone, replaced by something that looked a lot like a man staring at the end of everything.
"Mortal... you don't understand." His voice was a rasp. "I am not worthy. I am no longer worthy of it."
"Whether you're worthy or not — that's between you and your old man."
Jake stood up. His left hand found the Omnitrix on his chest.
"But I'll tell you what I do see. The energy field around this hammer is running way too hot. All that divine power locked up inside with nowhere to go?" He tilted his head. "Maybe it just needs someone to help it... blow off some steam."
"What?" Thor blinked, confusion cutting through the despair.
"Watch close, blondie."
Jake's finger spun the dial. The holographic display cycled through silhouettes — fire, muscle, crystal, speed — and stopped on something new. Something that crackled.
"Since you can't pull it out, I'll help it vent."
He slammed the dial.
ZZT—BANG!
The transformation flash wasn't green this time. Or red. Or white.
It was black — a deep, electric darkness shot through with flickering golden arcs of lightning, like a thunderstorm compressed into a single point and then detonated.
When the light cleared, something new stood in the rain.
Slender. Black-skinned. One massive green eye dominating a narrow face. Two long antennae rose from the top of its head like tuning forks — no, like plugs, the kind you'd jam into an electrical socket. Metal-tipped fingers crackled with ambient charge. And behind it, a long tail whipped through the air like a live power cable, throwing sparks with every motion.
Feedback.
"What the hell is it this time?" Tony leaned over the railing, squinting through the rain. "A lightning rod with a tail? A sentient electrical outlet? Is that thing about to plug itself in to something?"
Jake flexed his fingers. Static electricity crackled between his metal tips in bright, hungry arcs.
He could feel it.
Mjolnir. That small, unassuming hammer was radiating energy on a scale that made everything else Jake had ever encountered feel like a AA battery next to a nuclear reactor. The Odinforce — the Law of Thunder itself — one of the purest, most concentrated power sources in the known universe, locked inside a weapon the size of a lunchbox.
And Feedback's entire biological purpose was to eat energy.
"Delicious," Jake murmured.
He extended both hands, metal-tipped fingers splayed, and pressed them flat against Mjolnir's surface.
"Time to drain the tank."
BOOM—!!
The instant Feedback made contact, Mjolnir reacted.
For the first time since it had fallen to Earth, the hammer moved — not upward, but vibrating violently in place, the ancient runes along its surface flaring to brilliant blue-white life. It had sensed a threat. Something was trying to take from it, and every enchantment Odin had woven into its molecular structure screamed in response.
A column of blinding blue lightning erupted from the hammer — not the gentle spark of static discharge, but a full-throated bolt of divine thunder aimed directly at the black alien that dared to touch it.
Which was exactly what Jake wanted.
"Perfect!"
His single green eye blazed with manic light.
Feedback's power was energy absorption. Any energy. All energy. Kinetic, thermal, electrical, nuclear, magical, cosmic — the Conductoid species didn't care about the source or the classification. It all went in, got amplified, and could be redirected at double the output. This was a species that could theoretically withstand the energy release of the Big Bang itself.
A little thunder god's power? That was breakfast.
SZZZZZZZ—!!
Lightning poured into Jake's body through his fingertips in a continuous, raging torrent. Not trickling in — flooding, like a river that had been dammed for a thousand years and someone had just blown the dam.
The antennae on his head blazed incandescent gold, vibrating at a frequency that made the air around them hum. His tail lashed the air like a bullwhip, every strike throwing cascades of sparks that hissed and died in the rain. The green eye pulsed brighter with every passing second — brighter, wilder, hungrier.
"AHHHHH!"
Jake threw his head back and roared.
Not in pain. In ecstasy.
The Odinforce was the purest energy he had ever tasted. Not the crude burn of combustion or the sharp bite of electricity — this was something refined over millennia, concentrated by a god who understood power at a fundamental level that most civilizations couldn't even conceptualize. It flowed through Feedback's circuits like liquid gold.
Three feet away, Thor — who had been kneeling in broken silence — was on his feet, blue eyes wide, jaw hanging open.
A black creature was feeding on Mjolnir's lightning. Absorbing the divine power of the Allfather like it was sucking through a straw.
"STOP! That is my hammer!" Thor lunged forward—
A stray arc of electricity caught him in the chest and threw him ten feet backward into the mud.
"It's my power bank now!" Jake increased the draw.
Mjolnir, which had been radiating silver-white majesty since the moment it crashed to Earth — its runes glowing, its surface humming with barely contained divinity — began to fade. The runes dimmed. The glow died. The aura that had made every living thing within a hundred yards feel small and mortal retreated, pulling inward, draining away.
[System: Absorbing high-dimensional energy. Classification: Odinforce fragment.]
[Energy reserve: 150%... 180%... 200% — OVERLOAD STATE.]
Three minutes.
That was how long Jake held on before his body told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was about to pop like a balloon filled with lightning.
He released the hammer and staggered backward. A burp escaped him — involuntary, undignified, and accompanied by a small shower of golden sparks.
"Urrp— excuse me."
He felt like every cell in his body had been carbonated. Energy crackled beneath his skin, along his antennae, through his tail — more power than he'd ever held at once, pressing against the inside of his body like a river trying to break through a dam.
And Mjolnir...
Mjolnir sat on the ground — no longer floating, just sitting — dull, gray, and lifeless. The runes were dark. The surface was matte. It looked less like the legendary weapon of a god and more like a particularly ugly paperweight someone had left in a ditch.
"Phew." Jake looked down at the diminished hammer, then over at Thor, who was still sprawled in the mud wearing an expression of absolute, world-ending shock. "That was one hell of a kick."
A sharp-toothed grin — Feedback's version of a smile, crackling with residual electricity — spread across Jake's face.
"Hey, blondie. Your hammer's out of juice. Maybe try lifting it now — it's probably a lot lighter."
Thor stared at him. Then at the hammer. Then back at him. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.
Jake raised a single finger toward the sky.
"Thanks for the meal. Now — I'll give it back."
BOOOOOM!!!
A pillar of lightning — not blue, not white, but a swirling fusion of gold and electric blue, thick as a skyscraper and bright as a second sun — erupted from Jake's fingertip and punched straight through the storm clouds above.
The beam didn't stop at the clouds. It kept going — through the upper atmosphere, through the thermosphere, past the boundary of space itself — a column of returned Odinforce energy that lit up the entire New Mexico sky like high noon for three full seconds.
Every instrument on the S.H.I.E.L.D. base redlined simultaneously. Every agent on the ground shielded their eyes. Tony Stark, standing on the observation platform with his hair blown straight back by the shockwave, said one word:
"Damn."
Asgard. The Golden Palace.
Odin slept.
But on the golden throne, holding the Eternal Spear Gungnir with the lazy confidence of a man who believed he'd already won, Loki watched.
The Observatory — Heimdall's domain, though Heimdall was conveniently elsewhere — showed him Earth in crystalline detail. He'd been monitoring his brother's pathetic little exile with the detached amusement of a cat watching a mouse try to escape a maze.
But when the lightning pillar punched through the clouds — when the black alien drained Mjolnir like an empty battery and then fired the accumulated power of the Odinforce into space like it was nothing — the amusement vanished from Loki's face like frost in sunlight.
His fingers tightened around Gungnir.
"What kind of creature is that?"
His voice was quiet. Controlled. But underneath it, something cold and calculating was running very fast.
"Mortals cannot wield such power. This... threatens my plans."
He sat very still for a long moment. Then his head turned, slowly, toward the far end of the Bifrost Bridge, where something ancient and terrible waited in the dark.
"Destroyer."
Loki's voice dropped to a murmur.
"Go to Earth. Kill Thor." A pause. The green eyes hardened. "And while you're there... crush that black insect for me."
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