Thor stepped closer to the ancient tome, his expression darkening as his eyes scanned the Asgardian script.
"The Dark Elves were masters of the last era," Thor read aloud, slowly.
"Born of eternal night… they sought to steal the light."
He paused, brows furrowed.
"I grew up with these stories. We all did. I thought they were legends."
Odin turned away from the book, his face grave.
"They are not stories."
The weight of his voice silenced the room.
"The leader of the Dark Elves, Malekith, wielded darkness as a weapon. A force known as the 'Dark Matter', though others know it as the Aether."
Odin stepped closer to Jane, who sat weakly on a stone bench. Her color had returned slightly, but a red-black hue still flickered under her skin like ink in water.
"The Particles are unlike any substance known in the Nine Realms. Though they often appear as stone, they are alive, capable of shifting form, dispersing into particles that can infect a host."
Jane's eyes widened. She listened quietly.
Odin continued.
"Malekith sought to use them, to plunge the universe back into the void from which it was born. He would have succeeded… had my father, Bor, the last All-Father, not led Asgard's armies into battle.
"Thousands perished. Entire realms burned. But at last, Malekith was defeated. His armies scattered. The Aether was buried where no one would ever find them."
He looked at Jane again, and his voice dropped.
"Until now."
Jane sat in stunned silence.
As a scientist, she had always chased what lay beyond understanding. But this, this was cosmic horror. Myths walking.
Darkness living in her blood. Her hand trembled, and she clenched it tightly to stop the shaking.
"The substance in her body." Odin murmured.
"An active form. Dormant no longer. I do not yet know how it bonded to her, but this is… not a blessing."
Thor's hand tightened.
"But the Dark Elves were destroyed. Weren't they? And the Aether, the Dark Matter, shouldn't they have been… destroyed too?"
Odin shook his head slowly, bitterly.
"No. The Aether cannot be destroyed. It is older than destruction."
"I tried, we all tried. It can only be hidden. Suppressed. And now, someone has unearthed it."
"Is there a way to remove it?" Jane finally spoke, her voice soft.
Odin looked at her for a long moment.
"No."
Far away, on the cold edge of reality, the ruins of Darkness whispered with ghosts. The sky was colorless. Mountains stood like bones. Ash covered the blackened ground, the remnants of a once-great kingdom.
At the heart of it, a vast dark battleship, half-sunken into the dead earth, pulsed like a buried heart. Inside, lights flickered back to life.
Malekith stood alone, staring at the shattered remnants of his homeland.
He said nothing as he surveyed the ruin.
Behind him, his last soldiers emerged from the shadows. Tall, gaunt, alien in form, with dark armor fused to their skin.
Malekith turned to the largest among them, a silent warrior whose silver eyes glowed in the dimness.
"You will be the last." Malekith said, holding a crimson relic shaped like seven sharp blades twisted into one.
The warrior's expression was unreadable, but there was no fear.
Only pride… and resignation.
"The final Cursed Warrior."
The Cursed were ancient, dark elves who chose sacrifice over extinction. The ritual granted them terrifying strength… but no return. They were consumed from within, their souls bound to endless torment.
"I am willing." The warrior said quietly.
"Just as those who fell before me were willing."
Malekith's eyes gleamed.
"Then rise, brother of ruin."
With no hesitation, Malekith plunged the seven-bladed relic into the warrior's chest.
A scream echoed in the darkness, not of pain, transformation. The warrior convulsed, red-black energy flooding through him.
His body grew, bones cracking, armor fusing. He dropped to his knees as the relic vanished inside his heart.
And then, he rose.
Twice as tall. Twice as fast. His eyes burned like twin stars.
A Cursed One had been born again.
Malekith stepped close and whispered in his ear:
"You will be captured by Asgard… let them believe they've caged a beast."
The warrior nodded once.
Behind them, more Dark Elves awoke in shadow.
The Convergence was coming. The Nine Realms would align. And the Aether would once more reshape the universe.
Malekith's plan moved with quiet, ruthless precision.
The Dark Elves, long thought extinct, returned to the Nine Realms like a disease relapsing into the body. His Cursed Warriors, transformed being of monstrous power, struck hard and fast in distant realms. Cities burned. Skies turned red. Screams echoed through frozen mountains and silent deserts alike.
Asgard was forced to act.
With mounting pressure from the other realms, the golden realm had no choice but to intervene.
They forcefully reignited the Bifrost to retrieve a captured Cursed Warrior, a rare success in the chaos.
The prisoner was brought back for judgment, locked away in the Asgardian Dungeons, beneath the palace.
But that had been exactly what Malekith intended.
Inside the dungeon, the imprisoned warrior's transformation entered its final stage.
His already twisted form expanded. Bones cracked, flesh twisted, and armor fused with skin. Screams of terror echoed through the dark halls as the creature tore through enchanted shackles like paper.
Then, with a single devastating roar, the beast shattered the dungeon walls.
In a matter of minutes, all prisoners were freed, berserkers, warlords, ancient traitors from across the Nine Realms. Chaos erupted below the palace as the strongest criminals
Asgard had ever known spilled into the halls, cutting down guards and tearing through defenses.
Above, alarms blared. Thor and Odin, sensing the breach, abandoned their posts and descended with elite guards to suppress the uprising.
And that's when the true attack began.
While the royal family was distracted, the skies of Asgard darkened.
Malekith himself had slipped through a secret path, a forgotten passage beneath the royal grounds, long buried and believed sealed. Guided by ancient maps and dark magic, he led the last of his surviving forces into the heart of Asgard, unseen by all, even Heimdall.
By the time Heimdall, guardian of the Bifrost, realized what had happened, it was already too late.
The Dark Elven Mothership, cloaked in shadow, descended from the sky.
From its underbelly, hundreds of warships were unleashed like locusts. They roared toward the golden spires of Asgard.
With no time left, Heimdall activated the Ancient Barrier, a dome of light forged in the dawn of time, meant only for the most dire of invasions.
It held.
For now.
But the cursed warrior had already reached the palace's inner sanctum.
With a howl that shook the golden walls, he hurled himself at the energy core of the barrier and sacrificed himself in a final, devastating explosion.
The barrier cracked, flickered… and then shattered.
Malekith's warship roared through the breach like a blade through flesh.
The Battle for Asgard had begun.
In the Chamber of the Queen, the light from the window shattered as Malekith and his honor guard descended.
Frigga stood alone in the chamber, a place of peace now defiled by war.
She had been guarding Jane Foster, hidden away in the room behind her, the girl still radiating the energy of the Aether, glowing faintly like a dying star.
Malekith's eyes fell on the queen.
"Stand aside, woman."
"I have no quarrel with you. I seek only what is mine, the Aether."
Frigga drew her blade, forged in the old days, shimmering with spells only queens knew.
"You'll not touch her." She said coldly.
"Not while I still breathe."
Malekith's lips curled into a cruel smile.
"Then you shall die with honor."
He lunged.
And Frigga, queen, warrior, mother, met him in kind.
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
PhantomDream