Chapter 219: Coulson's Bewilderment
Outside the canopy, the sky had changed in the span of a few seconds. Clear weather, gone. A mass of dense black cloud had rolled in from nothing, churning and building overhead. Lightning arced through the cloudbank in continuous chains, the accompanying thunder loud enough to produce genuine discomfort in unprotected ears. Blue-white strikes writhed through the clouds like living things.
The entire town's sky had transformed. Even on unpredictable open ocean, weather didn't flip this fast.
The invisible pressure wave tore the canopy's roof boards off and set the support framework trembling. The S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives struggled to stay upright. Several research staff sat down on the ground involuntarily.
The group from the Chat Group stood and watched with neutral expressions.
The force front that had knocked trained agents off their feet was scenery.
A flash like a stun grenade.
Then the crack of thunder.
Several lightning strikes the width of barrels dropped from the cloudbank, all converging on the hammer in the Shiba's paw.
The storm engulfed the Shiba entirely. Blue plasma arced through the crater, spreading upward and outward. Even at a hundred metres, Ryū could feel the sheer volume of the power involved. The thunder should have been painful. It wasn't.
"Quite a hammer," he said.
He had no particular desire to acquire it. Objects that belonged to someone else stayed where they were, unless that someone was an enemy. His personal ethics were, he felt, reasonably solid on this point.
The Shiba thrust one paw high, Mjolnir held overhead.
With its other paw, it reached out to the side.
Ryū's miniature version of the hammer — sitting near his feet — lifted off the ground as though pulled by an invisible thread, and flew into the Shiba's second paw.
The Shiba held both hammers now.
The lightning coming down split itself between them.
The Shiba's — the entire dog's — presence escalated to something that hadn't been there before. The sheer force of the aura, even restrained, was enough to send stones skittering across the ground. The earth under the crater developed a fine network of cracks. The vibration was detectable a kilometre out.
Dual hammers. The Shiba Thor had stepped into the Chat Group's top combat tier.
Coulson had entirely forgotten about his hair.
He was staring at the dog in the crater with his mouth open.
The pressure washing over him was real. The involuntary urge to lower his head was real.
That is actually a divine being.
That is a Shiba Inu.
Those two statements are both true simultaneously.
"Am I dreaming? That's a dog. That's literally a dog."
He kept asking himself. But the rocks the pressure wave had sent flying had hit him, and those had hurt, and pain generally didn't feature in dreams.
He swallowed. His mind was a tangle of unresolved questions, and no one was offering answers.
He'd known Stark's friends were unusual from the moment they arrived. He hadn't expected this level of unusual.
A hammer that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best equipment couldn't budge. A Shiba Inu had just lifted it with one paw.
Nobody around Coulson appeared to care about his mental state, which was understandable.
In the Chat Group, the Shiba was sending messages.
I Am Thor, God of Thunder!: This hammer is way heavier than mine. It doesn't feel right in my paw, and the handle is too thick to grip properly.
I Am Thor, God of Thunder!: Whoever designed this hammer is anti-ergonomic.
I Am Thor, God of Thunder!: And it seems to be subtly resisting me.
RawrSoFierce: If it has a resisting response, that means it's already developed a rudimentary consciousness. And Mjolnir was forged from the core of a dying star — heavy is expected. Not as heavy as the actual stellar core, obviously, but not light either.
Eternally Seventeen: If the little dog weren't a thunder deity herself, she probably couldn't have lifted it at all~
I Am Thor, God of Thunder!: That's true. The hammer of the thunder god can only be lifted by a thunder god.
I Am Thor, God of Thunder!: Anyway. Too heavy. Doesn't suit me. Putting it back.
"…"
With the assembled S.H.I.E.L.D. team watching in collective bafflement, the Shiba produced an expression that could only be described as disappointed disdain, and simply dropped Mjolnir back into the crater.
When it hit the ground, the entire area shook again.
Coulson, who had just managed to regain his footing, nearly went over.
The Shiba picked up its miniature hammer, trotted out of the crater on small legs, and the lightning faded gradually, then completely. The black clouds above remained, but the spectacle was over.
Tony watched the Shiba rejoin the group.
"You're really not taking it? Two hammers — the power level would be substantial, wouldn't it?"
"Woof woof woof, wuwoof wuwoof!"
"I… can't understand any of that."
He really did need to look into getting the Shiba some kind of voice-to-speech device. The current communication arrangement was severely limiting.
Whitebeard, on the other hand, was nodding approvingly.
"Gurararara — now that is admirable conduct! The hammer already has an owner — you don't take what belongs to someone else. Thor, would you like to become this old man's child?"
The adoption offer, deployed again.
This was very Whitebeard. He was prepared to adopt a dog.
Though — how old was the Shiba, actually? Thunder deity. Several thousand years minimum. Possibly longer.
Ryū's mouth twitched. "The Thor-dog is probably older than most of us. Even if she's a dog, she's a thunder deity. Thousands of years old at minimum."
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you