Chapter 223: I Am Thor, God of Thunder — No, I Am Thor, God of Thunder
Exactly as Ryū had anticipated, the Asgardian's emotional state was complex in the extreme.
He stood at the crater's edge staring at Yukari — this strange golden-haired girl he had never once encountered in his life — who was holding his hammer as though she'd just picked up a moderately heavy object.
He'd heard everything she said to it. She hadn't lowered her voice. Yukari operated on the assumption that whatever she said could be said openly, because anyone who had a problem with it could raise the issue directly, and she'd deal with them then.
So Thor had arrived in time to hear a woman he'd never met inform his oldest battle companion that it would be broken down and converted into plumbing fixtures if it didn't cooperate.
The shock was that she'd meant it.
For Mjolnir to have yielded to a verbal threat, the threat had to have been credible. The hammer had assessed her capacity to follow through and concluded that resistance wasn't worth the outcome. Which meant this girl — this strange, golden-haired girl who was not from Asgard and was not someone he recognised — was genuinely capable of destroying Mjolnir.
What force, exactly, could destroy Mjolnir?
Thor didn't know. He tried to form a mental picture of it and found the imagination wasn't quite cooperating.
What he did know was that Mjolnir had yielded to a threat. His hammer. His battle companion of years. And now he had to live with that knowledge.
Before he could formulate any kind of response, Yukari looked at the hammer with the expression of someone who had found an item mildly more interesting than expected and is now done with it, and set it down.
Not ceremoniously. Not with care.
She put it down the way you put down a bag of groceries when you've reached the kitchen.
Thor felt something in his chest that didn't have a convenient name.
Mjolnir. Discarded. Left in a crater in the American desert by a girl who'd decided she'd gotten what she wanted from the experience.
He drew a slow breath and attempted to compose himself. Something else had registered — the sensation of observation. A familiar quality.
Heimdall.
If Heimdall was watching, then Heimdall had seen all of this.
Whatever equilibrium Thor had been rebuilding began to come apart again.
He started to move toward the crater — toward Yukari, toward the hammer, toward some kind of statement of authority over events that felt like they'd gone significantly sideways — and then something hit his foot.
"Ow!"
He lifted the foot immediately. The pain was sharp, localised, the kind produced by a solid object making contact with bone through minimal padding.
He looked down.
A dog.
A small dog. Wearing a red cape. Holding a hammer in its paw that was clearly a smaller version of the object currently sitting in the crater, and the power coming off that smaller hammer — Thor had to actually pause and recalibrate his senses, because what he was feeling from a miniature hammer carried by a Shiba Inu was Mjolnir-class energy. The same thunder. The same divine force. Not a copy, not an approximation. The genuine article in a different form.
He stared.
The Shiba stared back.
What is happening.
His mind, which was not its most flexible at the best of times, attempted to process this and produced several contradictory outputs simultaneously. Odin had sent a second hammer? Odin had sent it with a dog? The dog was from Asgard? The dog was here to deliver a weapon?
Father hadn't forgotten him.
Thor's expression moved from bewilderment toward something almost like relief. He reached down toward the Shiba — gingerly, on his injured foot — and said, "Little one, are you here to deliver me a weapon? I don't fully understand why Father chose this particular arrangement, but I have no doubt his intentions are sound. Please give me the hammer, and once I've retrieved the larger one from the crater, I'll carry both. Dual hammers — I'll be restored as Thor the Thunder God, and you can come with me and I'll find you a proper—"
"Ow!!"
The Shiba had hit his foot again. Same foot. The same spot.
This time he'd seen it happen. The Shiba had taken a deliberate backswing with the miniature hammer and connected with the top of his foot with what he was forced to acknowledge was reasonable accuracy.
He stood on one leg and hissed through his teeth.
"Why— why did you do that?"
The Shiba regarded him without apparent remorse. It reached up with its free paw and pressed a button on something attached near its shoulder.
"I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER!"
Thor stared.
The Shiba pressed another button.
"FOR THE GLORY OF THE NORTHERN GODS!"
Then it pressed the first button again, repeatedly.
"I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER!"
"I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER!"
"I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER!"
The sound of his own name, repeated in his own register, delivered by a small dog, was doing something strange to Thor's equilibrium.
"You are Thor, God of Thunder," he repeated back, because his brain was apparently processing this as a factual statement requiring verification. "For the glory of the Northern Gods."
The Shiba nodded. With dignity. With what he could only describe as self-assurance.
Thor's expression went dark.
He had been hit twice by a dog that was now claiming to be him. He had also just watched his hammer ignore its enchantment for a woman who threatened to turn it into bathroom furniture. This was not how he had expected any part of today to go.
"I am Thor, God of Thunder," he said, slowly and distinctly. "You are a dog."
The Shiba pressed the button again.
"I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER!"
"I am the son of Odin. I am Thor, the Strongest Warrior of Asgard."
The Shiba clicked through buttons with increasing frequency.
"I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER!"
"FOR THE GLORY OF THE NORTHERN GODS!"
"I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER!"
The vein at Thor's temple became visible. His back teeth made contact. He looked at the Shiba with the expression of a man who has decided that one more provocation will produce a response he is currently trying very hard not to produce.
"I am warning you. I will not continue being patient with this. You are a dog. I am Thor. If you keep this up, I will make you into soup. Four-bean soup, like Councillor Auris makes."
The Shiba bared its teeth.
"I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER!"
"FOR THE GLORY OF THE NORTHERN GODS!"
"I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER!"
"FOR THE GLORY OF THE NORTHERN GODS!"
Thor breathed. Once. Twice. He located the last fragment of restraint he possessed and held onto it.
He looked at the Shiba one more time. Then looked away.
"Wait there," he said, with enormous dignity. "When I have lifted Mjolnir, you will understand who the real Thor is. I am Thor, God of Thunder. The genuine article."
He walked toward the crater.
The exchange had attracted everyone's attention — the Chat Group members, the S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives who'd managed to get back on their feet, Coulson, the researchers. Everyone was watching Thor pick his way toward the hammer.
One of the agents helped Coulson upright and asked quietly, "Sir — do we stop him?"
Coulson shook his head. "Let it play out."
He'd noticed something: the dog's hammer had struck this man twice on the same foot, using force that should have reduced the foot to something considerably less functional than a foot. The man was walking normally, aside from the wince. Whatever he was, the ordinary rules about impact and bone weren't fully applicable.
The cast of this situation kept expanding.
Several minutes later.
Thor was in the crater. He was sweating. Both hands were on the hammer's handle, his entire frame engaged in the effort. Every muscle was visibly involved.
Mjolnir had not moved.
The absolute confidence with which he'd descended into the crater had, over the course of those several minutes, undergone a significant revision.
☆☆☆
-> 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