Hela's POV
Honestly, I didn't expect Pietro—the golden retriever of extroverts—to have such wild thoughts. Tsk. Men.
Seriously though, he should not be dreaming that kind of dream. But then again… who told me to be the ultimate fantasy of half the male population? Sigh.
Maybe I should stop peeking into people's minds. Either that, or I'll start racking up a body count just for self-preservation from all the pervy nonsense I keep seeing.
Anyway, back to the mess in front of me.
Reuniting all the scattered Hells… turns out it's a whole lot messier than I imagined.
Here, let's think about it: imagine Hell as this massive, deep lake of water. Now imagine a dozen people coming in, scooping out pieces of it, and taking them to random corners of the universe.
One goes to the desert. One to the frickin' North Pole. Another to the middle of the Amazon rainforest.
Naturally, the 'water' changes. The one in the North Pole became frozen solid. The desert batch? Now it's sandy and dry. The rainforest version? Probably has jungle funk all over it.
And me? I'm trying to gather all these weird, mutated puddles and mash them back into one clean, unified lake.
If that wasn't enough of a headache, there's also the spilled water—tiny pocket Hells that got lost in translation. Forgotten, hidden away, and nobody even knows where half of them are anymore.
If I were just a regular Hell-Lord, I'd be pulling my hair out by now. But come on. I'm not just anyone—I'm a certified cheater.
With the Space Stone in my hand, I can track down all those rogue dimensions—lost, hidden, abandoned, I don't care. I've already locked onto two of them.
Then there's my adaptation ability—super handy. As long as it doesn't kill me instantly, I can handle whatever comes my way.
Sure, the energies from each Hell have been twisted over the years, mutated with their owners' influence, but recombining them? Dangerous, yes. Impossible? Not for me.
Case in point: look at Blackheart lying in front of me like a dried-up raisin. I drained his energy and ended up feeling like a walking battery. This feels better than when absorbing energy from the Space Stone.
Honestly, I'm starting to think I've become some kind of succubus—minus the whole... seductive part. It's strictly business.
Still, if this plan of mine actually works out, I might not reach Beyonder levels of power, but I should at least make it to average Celestial status, right? That's decent enough bragging rights.
Speaking of the Beyonder… ugh, don't even get me started on that headache. Why hasn't he shown up yet? Not that I want him to, but the waiting game is just making me a little bit thinky.
Please don't let this be the original Beyonder. That version straight-up murdered my strongest supporter—Lady Death herself. If he's a post-retcon variant, I might stand a chance. Maybe.
Seriously, the Marvel Universe is absolutely cracked. So many broken beings running around with godlike power and zero common sense.
It's a double-edged sword for me. On one hand, the chaos gives me room to grow stronger. On the other hand, if I take one wrong step, I might get incinerated before I even know what hit me.
But after all, such a world is also exciting. Anyway, I have many ways to become stronger; I just need to be steady.
I turned my attention to the other Hell-Lords who were also imprisoned in the space barrier and, well, they seemed to be shivering—but not in the Ed Sheeran way.
As the saying goes, the last piece of meat is always the best, so amidst Mephisto's clear gaze, he could only watch me going at the others one by one while he was that lamb trying to escape before it was his turn, which I could only smile at 'kindly'.
---
(Earth)
"According to our latest counts, 98% of the spies we sent are confirmed dead. Only Natasha and a few with relatively clean files—those who were more coerced than loyal—ended up going with Hela."
The words dropped in that meeting room like a hammer. Fury was there, stiff as ever, listening to SHIELD's internal reports while surrounded by senior agents and key personnel, all of them looking like they hadn't slept in days. But in fact, it was only two minutes after Hela disappeared. It's because they knew what was coming that they looked so desperate.
Honestly, even if you multiplied the man's gut instincts by ten, he never would've dared to send those agents in. But alas, the World Security Council had shoved the decision down his throat. If he hadn't obeyed, they'd have kicked him out of SHIELD so fast his eye patch would've spun.
And it's not like Fury's clinging to the job like a child with a toy. No, the problem is what comes after him—the kind of puppet the Council would slide into his seat, smiling wide while ticking all the boxes, yet completely blind to the world's real dangers.
He knows these governments. He knows their egos. Give them an inch of power and they'll think they can arm-wrestle gods. They'd poke and prod at Hela, trying to test her limits, until—oops—she explodes and wipes Earth off the map like brushing dust off her shoulder.
So, a compromise was made. They sacrificed Romanoff and threw in a handful of SHIELD's own—agents who were a little too shady for comfort, the ones Fury was probably already planning to 'transfer' anyway. It was a way to show the WSC: Hey, look! We're trying! while minimizing future collateral.
But what Fury never expected was that Natasha and a few others survived. That was not part of the plan. Maybe there's a deeper game being played here?
The moment he had that thought, he remembered the day Hela casually popped up in Fury's office like she owned the place, and he immediately killed that line of thinking. No. Don't overthink it. You'll just go crazy.
And just when the room was settling into silence, the doors burst open. One of the agents barged in. Although not breathless due to the training, he was very panicked. And if you know SHIELD protocol, that only ever means one thing: the sky is falling. Urgently.
Fury gave him a nod, half-expecting bad news, but what came next still made him want to flip the entire table.
"Director, we've received a high-priority intel drop. Preliminary data suggests over a hundred members of the House and at least thirty Senators have been remotely neutralized. We've also confirmed multiple CEO deaths, and the list of military losses is growing. Exact numbers still pending."
For a moment, no one breathed. Some thought they misheard. But if that intel was real... then this was the biggest attack on the U.S. government since the country's very creation.
'Of course,' Fury thought, biting back a groan. 'Why would anything ever be simple? Earth might never recover from this one.'
The man looked like he was ready to throw in the towel and just nap for a decade. But instead, he let out a deep sigh, straightened his coat, and played his part like always.
"I warned them from the very beginning," Fury began, dramatically. "I told them Hela wasn't just some random terrorist visitor. I told them she's unpredictable, unstable, and not the type you poke with a stick unless you want your arm torn off. But nope—they didn't listen. And now, here we are. Congratulations, it's a full-blown catastrophe."
The performance was... honestly impressive. Even Magneto would have to appreciate it if he were here.
Fury's instinct for self-preservation is too strong. No way in hell was he letting the blame fall on him. If anything, he was already setting the stage to say, 'I told you so,' while the world burns behind him.
As soon as he finished his Oscar-worthy speech, Fury stood up. He probably knew the next few days—or months—would be chaos. He wouldn't even have time to sit, let alone sleep.
Because this? This wasn't just a few politicians getting clipped.
This would lead to shutdowns across governments. Systems collapsing. Mass panic. Hoarding. Riots. Markets in freefall. And opportunists—corporations, lobbyists, enemy nations—all licking their lips, ready to make a move.
And that's just the U.S.
Earth as a whole? Oh, it's about to get spicy. Knowing politicians, countries like Russia and France probably also sent spies to Hela. They may have many casualties too.