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"The Destroyer," Sif breathed, her face pale, her warrior's composure shattered by a wave of pure, horrified disbelief.
"But why is it here?" Volstagg boomed, his usual jovial expression gone, replaced by a grim terror. "Only the All-Father can command it! With Odin in the Sleep, who…?" He trailed off, the terrible, treasonous answer hanging unspoken in the air.
Loki.
"He would not dare," Fandral whispered, but he knew, they all knew, that he would.
The Destroyer, a silent, ten-foot-tall engine of divine destruction, slowly raised its head. Its smooth, metallic faceplate shifted, and a single, burning point of red light within its helmet fixed upon one target, and one target only: the powerless, mortal Thor.
"It's a death sentence," Sif said, her voice a low growl of pure, warrior's fury. "Loki sent it to kill him, to secure the throne." She looked at her comrades, her eyes burning with a desperate, hopeless resolve. "For Asgard."
With a unified war cry, the four greatest warriors of Asgard charged. It was a beautiful, heroic, and utterly futile gesture. Fandral was swatted aside like a fly, crashing through the window of a diner. Volstagg was sent flying by a backhand that crumpled his armor. Hogun's mace shattered harmlessly against the Destroyer's leg. Sif, with a desperate, courageous leap, drove her spear into the creature's neck, only to have it glance off the enchanted Uru metal.
The Destroyer's faceplate opened, and a torrent of pure, white-hot energy erupted from within, engulfing Sif and sending her crashing to the ground, her armor smoking.
Thor watched, his heart a cold, dead lump in his chest, as his friends, his loyal, brave friends who had defied their king for him, were broken and defeated. This was his fault. All of it. His arrogance. His pride. His folly. In that moment, standing in the dust and wreckage of a mortal town, he finally understood the true meaning of his father's lesson.
"Jane," he said, his voice quiet and gentle as he looked at her one last time. "Take care of yourself."
With a newfound, solemn purpose, he began to walk, step by agonizing step, out into the ruined street, towards the implacable metal god that had come to execute him.
"Loki!" he shouted to the empty sky, his voice raw with a pain that went beyond the physical. "Brother, if you can hear me, stop this! These people have done nothing! It is me you want!" He walked until he was standing directly before the silent, menacing machine. "If you want my life," he said, his voice cracking with a final, desperate plea, "then take it. But I command you, on my honor as a Son of Odin, to end this madness and let these mortals go."
He closed his eyes and opened his arms wide, a willing, broken sacrifice.
"Thor, no!" Jane screamed, her voice a heart-wrenching cry of pure, undiluted agony. She started to run towards him, but Sif held her back. She turned, her tear-filled eyes desperately searching the chaos until they found the one person who had been standing calmly, watching the entire, terrible spectacle.
"Hermione!" she sobbed. "Please! Do something! Save him!"
Hermione just looked at Thor's still, waiting form, her expression unreadable. "The time," she said softly, "is not yet come."
Loki, watching from his golden throne in Asgard, was moved. For a single, fleeting moment, his brother's selfless act of sacrifice touched the last, withered shred of love in his cold, dark heart. The Destroyer paused. It turned, as if to leave.
A wave of profound relief washed over the onlookers.
Then, with a final, cruel, and utterly merciless twist, the Destroyer spun back around, its massive, metal arm swinging in a brutal, sideways blow that struck Thor with the force of a freight train. There was a sickening crack of breaking bone, and Thor's body was thrown through the air like a rag doll, landing in a crumpled, lifeless heap in the dirt.
"THOR!" Jane screamed, her voice breaking.
And in its crater, a mile away, Mjolnir began to hum. It vibrated, shaking the very earth around it, and then, with a sound like tearing thunder, it tore itself from the ground. It became a silver comet, a streak of pure, divine purpose, screaming across the New Mexico sky.
It flew past the stunned S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, past the broken warriors of Asgard, past the weeping Jane Foster, and it landed, with a soft, final, and loving thud, in the outstretched hand of the man who lay dying in the dust.
A bolt of pure, white lightning, a spear of divine energy, lanced down from the heavens and struck the hammer. The world turned white.
When their vision cleared, Thor was no longer lying on the ground. He was standing. The dirt and blood were gone. His body, which had been broken, was whole. And from the hammer, a suit of gleaming, silver armor and a magnificent red cape were weaving themselves around him, forged from pure, elemental lightning.
The wind howled. The sky crackled with power. The mortal was gone. The God of Thunder had returned.
Hermione watched it all, a small, cynical smirk on her face. So dramatic, she thought. Odin's plan was so painfully obvious. Push him to the brink, force him to learn humility through sacrifice, and then give him his toy back. It's parenting 101, just with more thunder and existential despair.
Jane stared, her scientific mind completely shattered, her heart soaring with a joy and wonder so profound it left her breathless. He was a god. A real, living, breathing god.
"Loki sent the Destroyer to kill Thor," Hermione explained to a newly-arrived, and completely bewildered, Agent Coulson, summarizing the entire plot in a single, bored sentence. "Thor sacrificed himself, proved he was 'worthy,' and got his magic hammer back. Now comes the boss fight."
Just as she finished speaking, the Destroyer's faceplate opened again, unleashing another torrent of fiery energy, this time aimed directly at Jane and the other civilians.
"Look out!" Thor yelled, but he was too far away.
"Protego Maxima!" A shimmering, invisible barrier erupted in front of Jane, absorbing the full force of the blast like a sponge. The energy swirled, contained by Hermione's magic. She then pointed her wand at the Destroyer. "Fulmen Reditus!"
An even thicker, more powerful column of fire shot back from her wand, engulfing the Destroyer. But when the flames cleared, the metal golem was completely unharmed. Immune to energy attacks, she noted clinically. Fine. We'll do this the hard way.
"Get them clear!" she yelled to Coulson, then shot into the air, a small, black-robed blur against the stormy sky.
"Diffindo! Diffindo! Diffindo!" Three invisible cutting curses, sharp enough to slice through steel, struck the Destroyer's armor. This time, they left deep, gouged wounds in the Uru metal, but the strange, alien alloy immediately began to flow like liquid, repairing itself.
Self-repairing, too, she thought, a flicker of genuine, academic interest in her eyes. What a magnificent magical material. I have to have it.
She changed tactics. She was a witch, a creature of intellect. Brute force was for gods and monsters. "Levicorpus!" she incanted.
An invisible force seized the ten-foot-tall, multi-ton Destroyer. Its feet lifted from the ground, and it was hoisted into the air, dangling helplessly, its powerful limbs flailing uselessly.
"THOR!" she shouted, her voice ringing with a newfound authority. "HE'S ALL YOURS!"
Thor, seeing his opening, did not hesitate. He flew into the sky, his hammer held high. "For Midgard!" he roared. He began to spin his hammer, faster and faster, until it was a silver blur. The sky, which had cleared, now darkened again. A massive, swirling vortex of cloud and wind, a hurricane in miniature, formed around him, crackling with raw, untamed lightning.
He became the eye of the storm.
Oh, for heaven's sake, Hermione thought, watching the sheer, over-the-top spectacle. Is all this really necessary?
With a final, deafening roar, Thor plunged from the heavens, a living thunderbolt, a god of the storm, diving hammer-first through the heart of his own tornado, aimed directly at the helpless, suspended form of the Destroyer.