Chapter 221: Thor the Thunder God
In the Ancient One's perception, the blonde woman wasn't the only unusual one. Every member of the group registered as anomalous. The shielding boundary had briefly blocked her — genuinely inconvenienced her, which was itself informative — and when she found the gap and restored her observation, what she found confirmed the initial assessment.
These people didn't belong here.
They were operating without malicious intent, which was the relevant factor. Dormammu warranted immediate response. These people did not. Treating all external arrivals as enemies would be both strategically unsound and morally questionable.
So the Ancient One watched and evaluated, and sent no action.
She'd also reached out to Heimdall.
Heimdall, after processing the situation and receiving her reasoning, found himself in quiet agreement — not because her logic was without holes, but because arguing with the Supreme Sorcerer of Earth in her presence wasn't worth the physical consequences. She was operating at a level that put her in the same tier as Odin himself. Disagreement could wait until she was somewhere else.
He kept this calculation private. She could read minds, but reading minds required intent, and she hadn't seemed interested in his immediate reaction.
"The dog," the Ancient One said, "seems to have found Mjolnir unsatisfactory and dropped it back."
"That would be Thor's concern."
"Ah. Odin's son. The somewhat single-minded one." She nodded thoughtfully. "When I last spoke with Odin he mentioned his son — very upright, he said. Perhaps too upright."
Heimdall's mouth made a small movement. He had no comment on Odin airing domestic details.
"Is Odin still in the Odinsleep? How long this time?"
"Unclear. Could be years, decades, possibly longer. The All-Father's power requires these periodic rest cycles to stabilise. Nothing about this is secret — and I suspect you'd find it anyway."
She could read minds. There was no point in partial disclosure.
None of this reached the group at the crater.
Even if it had, the reaction would have been minimal. This was a five-day gathering, not an operation. If they needed to leave, a single thought would take any of them out of the Marvel world instantly.
Ryū looked up at the sky, musing.
"Yukari's shielding boundary was broken through. Someone's been watching from very far away — I can't pinpoint them with Observation Haki, which means they're at an extreme distance."
The options: the Ancient One, who'd already detected them and had the reach for it. And the entity on Asgard who guarded the Bifröst — Ryū couldn't remember his name offhand — who had sensing capability that could track individual ants on Earth's surface from across the galaxy. One of the two, probably both.
Can Yukari lift the big hammer?
He had genuine uncertainty about this.
His recollection of the worthiness enchantment: pure of heart, possessed of compassion, genuine strength. Inner righteousness. Merciful intent.
Yukari cleared the strength requirement.
The first two were the problem.
Inner righteousness. Compassion.
If Yukari had those attributes in any meaningful quantity, she wouldn't be called the Youkai Sage. She'd be called something else entirely.
Below, Yukari had already dropped into the crater. She crouched and looked at the hammer with an assessing expression.
"A good weapon. Forged from a stellar core? Whoever made this was exceptional."
She wasn't skilled in smithing herself. But a weapon made from stellar core material was impressive on its face, and the power required to work that material into a functional shape was its own kind of extraordinary.
She shifted her parasol to her left hand. Reached down with her right. Took the handle.
Her grip tightened.
She started to lift.
Several hundred metres away, a car that had been making its way toward the cordoned area pulled to a stop as a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative stepped in front of it.
Seated in the back: a very large man with long golden hair.
Passenger seat: a young woman.
Driver: middle-aged.
The woman in the passenger seat looked at the demolished canopy with a confused expression. "That was intact yesterday. Is this because of the lightning earlier?"
The large man in the back spoke with conviction. "That was Mjolnir's power. Someone moved Mjolnir. Someone actually received its recognition — that's genuinely surprising." A beat. "But Mjolnir is mine. My old companion through years of battle. The worthy person cannot simply take away something belonging to someone else."
The woman turned to look at him. "Please. You don't actually believe you're Thor, do you?"
"I am Thor, God of Thunder."
The car had pulled to within a hundred metres of the perimeter when the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent stepped out to intercept it.
"Hey! Can you people not see the posted signs? Area is restricted — turn around!"
His hand had moved to the grip of his sidearm.
The large man leaned out: "I'm here to retrieve my property. My hammer fell in this location and someone has been handling it without permission. I need to take it back. I am Thor, God of Thunder — let me through and you'll have a friend in Asgard. You will have earned my goodwill."
The agent's mouth worked for a moment. This guy. Is he—
A hammer that summons lightning was unusual. A hammer that summons lightning was, he'd decided, a thing that existed in the world now, and he would process his feelings about it later.
This man walking toward him, claiming to be a mythological deity, was something he'd intended to categorise as a different kind of problem.
"Hey! Stop there! Back up! You need to be at least five metres from me or I'm going to—"
The man simply walked through him.
The agent hit the ground before he'd finished the sentence. His chin received a very precise impact. His last coherent perception was a voice:
"Sorry about this, friend. Thor will buy you a drink another time. This is unavoidable."
Then nothing.
The large man stepped over the unconscious operative and continued at a jog toward the canopy's remains.
Behind him, the woman in the passenger seat and the driver exchanged a look.
They'd made a mistake somewhere. They weren't sure exactly when, but it had been building toward this for a while. The man who called himself Thor had knocked out a federal agent without hesitation and continued as though it had been a minor logistical obstacle.
They were both very much in online discussion, please advise urgently.
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