The moment Loki materialized within the throne room, Frigga swept past the guards and her husband, her regal composure forgotten. She rushed to her son's side, her hands fluttering over his arms and shoulders, scanning him from head to toe with a mother's frantic worry. Only after confirming he was completely unharmed did she sag with a deep, shuddering sigh of relief, her grip on his arm tightening.
"I am fine, Mother," Loki reassured her, his voice a touch softer than usual.
Odin, by contrast, remained seated on Hlidskjalf, his single eye watching the reunion with an impassive expression. He did not dote as his wife did. He held no illusions about the mission's danger. As long as Loki returned, even with a broken limb, it was an acceptable outcome. Warriors of Asgard endured. Had Loki failed to return, Odin would have simply abandoned his grand, intricate designs for his sons' development, taken up Gungnir himself, and personally reduced Malekith to cosmic dust.
Once Loki had settled into a chair before the throne, he downed a large goblet of water before speaking, the weariness of his diplomatic dance evident in his tone. "Malekith is more than just vigilant; he's deeply paranoid. I can't tell if he truly doubts my story or if he simply believes my ambitions extend far beyond what I've let on. Either way, he is guarding himself."
Loki leaned forward, a grim look on his face. "If it weren't for the fact that he needs an insider to pave the way for his invasion, I have no doubt he would have me monitored around the clock. As for the loyalty Psyphon vouched for, Malekith believes only half of it. After all," Loki added with a wry twist of his lips, "no matter how you dress it up, a betrayal is still a betrayal. He is in a hurry and has given us precious little time."
"Of course, he's anxious," Ben chimed in, stepping forward. "The Convergence of the Nine Realms is nearly upon us. If he misses this window, he could be waiting another five thousand years. Actually," Ben corrected himself, "no. With the World Tree now rooted in Genesis, the entire cosmic alignment has been altered. This might be his one and only chance, forever."
"He knows," Loki confirmed, his gaze shifting to Odin. "He has given me only one month."
It was a question hanging in the air: Is Asgard ready?
Odin nodded, a confident smile playing on his lips. "The preparations are complete. All non-combatants—every citizen of Asgard not sworn to its defense—have been safely relocated to Genesis. Our most precious artifacts and treasures have been moved as well. By my calculation, I can feign the Odinsleep at any time." The All-Father's posture slumped theatrically, as if he were about to collapse from sheer exhaustion.
Ben had to physically restrain himself from rolling his eyes. Odinsleep? Give me a break, he thought with derision. The entire cycle was now obsolete. It had once been a necessary hibernation, a way for the All-Father's aging body to cope with the crushing weight of the ever-growing Odin-Force. But now, that power was intrinsically woven with Ben's Mana. The divine power fed the life energy, which in turn rejuvenated the divine vessel. It was a perfect, self-sustaining loop. The stronger Odin became, the more robust his vitality grew. As long as he continued the conversion, Odin could very well achieve true immortality, a fact that made Ben wonder if he'd ever get his loan of energy back. Not that it was a loss; every time Odin leveled up, Genesis received a tithe of that power. It was a long-term investment with guaranteed returns.
"However," Odin continued, stroking his great white beard, "it would be a shame for Asgard's finest to suffer needless casualties. Even with Valhalla to receive them, death is a stark finality. Life is precious. To that end, I was thinking… perhaps it is time we took this opportunity to welcome Hela home."
He looked to Frigga, whose expression softened with a complex mix of sorrow and hope.
"Hela?" Loki's brow furrowed in confusion. "Who is Hela?"
After a brief, hushed explanation from Frigga, Loki's jaw went slack. "You mean to tell me that Thor and I have an elder sister? One who crusaded across the universe at your side, and whom you then sealed away single-handedly?" He stared at Odin, a new, incredulous light dawning in his eyes. "You… you didn't pick her up from somewhere too, did you?"
Odin shot him an awkward glance. "Am I the sort of person who wanders the cosmos collecting stray children for sport?"
No, Loki had to admit, he wasn't. The Odin of millennia past was a ruthless conqueror who would sooner put a stray dog down with Gungnir than offer it a home. Suddenly, Loki's long-held psychological wounds, the deep-seated resentment of being the adopted outcast, vanished completely. He was just glad he was born late. Had he been found during Odin's warmongering days, he'd have been left to freeze or been skewered on the spot.
Compared to his biological daughter, Hela, he realized he'd been treated with unbelievable kindness. Hela merely wished to continue the family business of conquest and was sealed away for millennia for her ambition. He, the adopted son, had nearly orchestrated Odin's death and was still on track to inherit a kingdom.
It truly is a good thing to be born late, Loki mused once more.
"Hela, the Goddess of Death," Ben said, his mind racing. With Odin's current power level, amplified by the Mana, he could likely keep Hela imprisoned for eternity. But he was still a father, and his mercy had grown with his age. Giving her a chance was one thing, but her character… that was another. That woman's mind was a fortress built of war and ambition. Releasing her was easy. Managing the fallout was not.
"What exactly are you planning to do with her?" Ben asked directly.
"Unleashing Hela will significantly bolster Asgard's apparent military might," Odin explained calmly. "If Malekith attacks and finds our defenses inexplicably weak, his suspicions will be aroused. With Hela and her undead legions providing a convincing front, I can even afford to evacuate the majority of our living warriors."
In the past, Odin hadn't cared so much for casualties, not with the promise of Valhalla. But now, he found he didn't wish to see a single one of his brave soldiers fall if it could be avoided.
"As for how to deal with Hela afterward…" He paused, stroking his beard as he pondered. His gaze slowly drifted to Ben, who immediately felt a sense of profound dread.
"When this is over," Odin declared, a genius gleam in his eye, "how about we seal her divine power and allow her to… reflect on her actions at your Plumber headquarters?"
Ben's eye began to twitch violently. "My headquarters is not a daycare for your dysfunctional, thousand-year-old problem children! What in the nine realms do you take the Plumbers for?!"
"Now, now, don't be so quick to refuse," Odin said smoothly, waving a placating hand. "Hela is the Goddess of Death. While she is not one of the five great Cosmic Entities, she holds the legitimate authority of death within this corner of reality. Your dimension, Genesis, currently has no concept of an afterlife, does it? With her power, we could construct an existence similar to Valhalla."
That… was an undeniably attractive offer.
Suddenly, Ben felt that housing a depowered, perpetually sullen goth goddess might not be such a bad deal. She couldn't cause much trouble, after all.
Loki, for his part, had no attachment to a sister he'd never met. His primary desire was to finish this business so he could get back to Earth and torment Thor. "On that note," he interjected, "Malekith also tasked me with finding the Aether. He was quite insistent." He looked at Odin again, silently asking if the artifact was secure.
The Aether was the lynchpin of Malekith's plan. It absolutely could not fall into his hands.
"To be honest," Odin admitted, shaking his head with a grim sigh, "its whereabouts are unknown, even to me. It was my father, Bor, who stole the Aether from the Dark Elves. He sealed it away in a place hidden from all eyes. I have searched the length and breadth of Asgard and found no trace of it."
"Heimdall is also searching the Nine Realms, but he too has found nothing," Frigga added worriedly. "But considering how much time has passed, I fear the energies sealing it may soon dissipate."
"Don't worry about the Aether," Ben said confidently. "That thing is almost certainly on Earth." He privately marveled at Asgard's habit of using Earth as a cosmic dumping ground. The Tesseract, Thor, and now, probably, the Reality Stone. He recalled from the movies that Thor's girlfriend, Jane Foster, stumbled upon it in some forgotten corner of London. Bor had indeed hidden it in an unknown sub-dimension, but as fate would have it, a gateway to that space existed on Earth. In fact, Plumber agents were likely already searching for it.
"That is good news," Odin boomed. "We simply need to ensure it does not fall into Malekith's grasp. We must move quickly. Let us set the timeline. In half a month, I shall 'fall' into the Odinsleep. My slumber will be the key that releases Hela's seal." He delivered the lines with the gravitas of a stage actor.
The others nodded in agreement.
The meeting should have ended there, but Loki hadn't forgotten the other player on the board. "I wasn't the only one who paid Malekith a visit. There was another, a creature claiming to be from the Black Order. It seems he wishes to join forces with Malekith to help Thanos achieve his revenge."
Psyphon had believed Loki's performance, and Loki had never once questioned Psyphon's stated purpose.
"Someone from the Dark Order?" Ben frowned. He hadn't expected any of Thanos's lieutenants to still be active. The five main generals were dead or captured. 'Or…' a disquieting thought struck him, 'is Thanos not truly dead?'
Ben had always suspected as much. The Mad Titan was in a state of death-denial, making him notoriously difficult to kill through conventional means. He had also heard that Queen Adora's forces never recovered a body from the battle site on Xandar. "It couldn't really be Thanos, could it?" he muttered, relaying his suspicions to Odin and Loki.
Odin's eye widened in sudden understanding. "So that's why the stubborn bastard wouldn't die! I was wondering!" Thanos had attempted to invade the Nine Realms before, only to be beaten back by the All-Father. Odin had thought the Titan was simply skilled, even with the full might of Asgard and its artifacts, he'd failed to kill him. He never imagined his foe was literally protected by Death herself.
"If that's the case, this becomes significantly more troublesome," Loki said. To clarify the situation, he used his illusion magic to conjure a perfect likeness of the creature he'd met. "This is the one."
Ben recognized him instantly. "What Dark Order? That's no agent of Thanos!" he exclaimed. "He's Vilgax's subordinate. That's Psyphon. I thought it was just Vilgax on his own, but I didn't expect his little toady to be here too."
Psyphon's personal strength was negligible. Though his position was analogous to Ebony Maw's, he possessed none of the strategist's combat prowess. Ben wasn't worried about him, but his presence was significant. He was Vilgax's chief advisor. For him to be actively seeking an alliance with Malekith meant he was working for his master.
"Could it be that after getting a taste of the Power Stone, Vilgax has set his sights on collecting the whole set?" The logic was sound. The Vilgax from his home timeline became obsessed with the Omnitrix after being defeated by a time-traveling Ben. It stood to reason that this Vilgax, having experienced the raw power of an Infinity Stone, would now covet them all.
"Vilgax was already a formidable threat. Now that he's absorbed Kallark's power, he's genuinely dangerous. Loki," Ben instructed, "make contact with Psyphon. Get close to him. I want to know where Vilgax is hiding." Ben had no intention of chasing the cyborg across the galaxy. The best course of action was to follow the minion back to the master's lair.
Loki smiled, a familiar, mischievous glint in his eyes. "I believe he already wishes to cooperate with me privately."
Aboard the Plumber Orbital Command Station, Thor adjusted the collar of his new uniform. It was stark white and functional, a far cry from his lustrous Asgardian armor, but it felt… purposeful. Standing among the other battle-hardened agents of the new Thunderbolts team, he felt the warrior's fire in his heart, which had cooled to embers during his exile on Earth, begin to burn anew.
Watching the live broadcast of Tony Stark's ordeal on Sakaar had been a profound inspiration. Even in that desperate, humiliating situation, Tony hadn't surrendered. He hadn't given up on survival, on saving the Earth. Thor realized with shame that he shouldn't be so easily discouraged just because he was stranded and mortal.
He no longer dared to hope for the return of his divine power, but he felt that even as a mortal, he could be the bravest of them all. He refused to remain a glorified security guard at Primus, eating and waiting for death in a place so secure no one would ever be foolish enough to attack.
So, he had resolutely joined the Plumbers, ready to take up a glorious mission once more and fight for the peace of the universe. Though he was currently just a low-level agent, Thor believed that he would one day rise through the ranks and serve at the main Plumber headquarters. He even recalled hearing that Loki held a security post there. The thought of his brother, once a would-be king, now essentially a cosmic policeman, brought a complex, wry smile to his lips.
"Perhaps then," he murmured to himself, his hand clenching into a fist at his side, "I will be able to lift Mjolnir once again."
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