Chapter 134:
— Haru —
I left Hela and Frigga soaking in what had to be the most ridiculously opulent bathing chamber I'd ever seen, a room roughly the size of a small house with a pool that could have doubled as a hot spring, complete with enchanted waterfalls and steam that smelled like flowers I couldn't name.
Both goddesses had practically melted into the water the moment they'd submerged, making sounds of contentment that reminded me very favorably of other sounds they'd made last night.
The image of Frigga's generous curves disappearing beneath rose-scented bubbles while Hela stretched out like a satisfied cat was almost enough to make me turn around and join them.
Almost.
But Sif was still "rotting" in the dungeons, and despite her apparently masochistic need to "punish herself" for getting knocked out by Laufey, I wasn't about to leave a goddess imprisoned any longer than necessary. Even if said goddess had kind of been a dick to my sister.
And yes, Sif really did want to punish herself. I wasn't an asshole and Frigga had actually sent a magical message to Sif yesterday that we could free her, but Sif had WANTED to stay in the dungeons for at least a full night…
Being a goddess of war and getting "one shot" had really stung her pride.
The palace corridors grew progressively less gilded and more utilitarian as I descended—golden walls giving way to plain stone, crystal chandeliers replaced by simple magical lights that flickered like dying stars. My bare feet were silent on the steps, my tails swaying behind me for balance as I navigated the winding staircases that led down, down, down into the bowels of Asgard's seat of power.
I'd counted seven flights of stairs so far. Seven. Because apparently Odin believed in burying his problems deep enough that he could pretend they didn't exist.
The irony wasn't lost on me—he'd done the same thing with Hela, hadn't he? Thrown her into the deepest, darkest hole he could find and then literally erased her from history. At least the dungeons were still on Asgard proper instead of a completely separate death realm, so the prisoners here were getting off easy by comparison.
My mind wandered back to why we'd actually spent the night here instead of immediately stealing a ship and leaving. From an outside perspective, it probably seemed insane—sleeping in enemy territory, in the bed of the guy who'd tried to kill us, while he was off-planet but could return at any moment. Not that I thought he was a threat to me—but still.
But Frigga had insisted, and once she'd explained the reasoning, it had made sense.
Hela was the Asgardian Goddess of Death. The keyword being Asgardian—not the Goddess of Death of Helheim, not the Goddess of Death of the Nine Realms in general, but specifically tied to this realm.
To Asgard itself, the land and people and the very concept of what it meant to be Asgardian. She was woven into the fabric of this place on a fundamental, spiritual level.
Being cut off from Asgard for over a millennium—sealed away in Helheim, a hostile realm that actively fought against her nature—had been torture in ways I couldn't fully comprehend. It wasn't just isolation. It was like... severing a limb, but worse. Cutting away part of her soul. Her powers had atrophied, withered, become shadows of what they should have been because she'd been separated from the very source of her divine authority.
Spending the night here, sleeping in Asgard's heart, walking its halls, breathing its air—it let the realm recognize her again.
Let it reintegrate with her, remember that she was supposed to be here, that she was part of this.
I could already see the difference. The Hela who'd woken up this morning had color in her cheeks that hadn't been there yesterday. It was complicated spiritual goddess stuff that I didn't entirely understand, but I got the gist. She needed to plug back into her power source, and every hour she spent on Asgard made her stronger.
If anything, if we wanted her to recover even faster, then we should stay longer. But I wanted to get back to my restaurant, of course.
My ears twitched as I caught voices echoing up from below—harsh, nervous, trying very hard to sound authoritative. Guards. Of course there were guards.
I rounded the final corner and found myself facing a massive set of doors that looked like they'd been forged during the Bronze Age and hadn't been updated since. Dark iron reinforced with bands of what I assumed was enchanted metal, covered in runes that pulsed with a sickly yellow light.
And standing in front of those doors, looking about as comfortable as cats in a bathtub, were two Asgardian soldiers in full armor.
They saw me coming and immediately tensed. I watched their eyes widen as they took in my appearance—shirtless, nine golden tails swaying behind me, bare feet silent on stone, and absolutely zero fucks to give about their authority.
"Halt!" The one on the left barked, his voice cracking slightly on the word. His hand was white-knuckled on his spear, and I could see sweat beading on his forehead despite the dungeon's chill. "You—you cannot pass! These are the royal dungeons! By order of the All-Father, none may enter without—"
"Without what?" I interrupted, still walking toward them at the same easy pace. "Proper authorization? A hall pass? A note from my mom?"
The second guard—younger, barely out of adolescence by immortal standards—was practically vibrating with fear. "The dungeons hold some of the worst criminals in Asgard's history!" he managed, his voice pitching higher with each word. "Traitors, murderers, beings too dangerous to—"
"Yeah, I seriously doubt that," I said flatly.
The older guard's spear came up, leveled at my chest in what he probably thought was a threatening gesture. "Stay back! We are authorized to use lethal force if—"
Two of my tails lashed out faster than either of them could track.
Thwack. Thwack.
Both guards dropped like puppets with cut strings, their weapons clattering against stone as they collapsed in unconscious heaps at the base of the doors. I stepped over their bodies without breaking stride.
"Sorry guys," I muttered, though they couldn't hear me. "Wrong place, wrong time, and I'm really not in the mood for the whole 'loyal soldier' routine after I already did that with the chefs."
I examined the doors more closely now that I was right in front of them. The runes carved into the metal were old—really old, the kind of magic that had been cast centuries ago and left to run on autopilot. Locking mechanisms that required specific magical signatures to open. Reinforcement spells that made the metal harder than diamond. Alarm wards that would trigger the moment someone tried to force entry.
All of it was impressively paranoid and exactly the kind of overkill I'd expect from Odin.
I planted my feet, rolled my shoulders, and then I kicked.
The sound of ancient magical seals shattering was like glass and thunder and screaming metal all at once. The doors exploded inward with enough force to send them flying off their hinges, crashing into the walls of the corridor beyond with impacts that shook dust from the ceiling.
Chunks of runed metal scattered across the floor, smoking slightly where my foot had connected, and the alarm wards—
Well, the alarm wards tried to go off. They really did. But I had sensitive ears and didn't really want to hear them. I cheated a bit, using my Ultimate Skill, to silence them before they could go off.
I stepped through the smoking wreckage into Asgard's dungeons proper.
The corridor stretched ahead into darkness, lined on both sides with cells that were less "prison" and more "display cases."
Each one was a transparent energy field rather than traditional bars, letting anyone walking past see exactly what was being held inside. Most were empty—apparently Odin's definition of "worst criminals" was pretty selective—but a few held occupants that immediately caught my attention.
A creature made entirely of living shadow in one cell, pressing itself against the barrier and hissing at my passage.
Some kind of stone-covered giant in another, though significantly smaller than the frost giant Laufey had been.
A woman with blonde hair and wild eyes who started laughing the moment she saw me, a sound that echoed wrong in the enclosed space. "Hehehehe! Hello, handsome!"
And at the very end of the corridor, in the largest cell, sitting cross-legged on the floor with her back against the wall and her eyes closed in meditation—
Sif. The goddess of war looked like absolute shit, which was saying something considering she was still objectively gorgeous. Her dark hair was tangled and matted, her armor was dented and missing pieces, and there was a massive bruise covering the left side of her face that was already fading to that sickly yellow-green color bruises got when they started to heal.
Sif's eyes snapped open the moment my footsteps stopped outside her cell, and the smile that spread across her bruised face was... intense. Not quite unhinged, but definitely circling the same neighborhood. Her dark eyes were a little too bright, a little too fixed, like someone who'd spent the entire night convincing themselves of something and had almost succeeded.
She sucked in a sharp breath and then—before I could say a word—she dropped to one knee, head bowed, her tangled hair falling forward to hide her expression.
"Prince Haru," she said, her voice raw and formal in a way that made me deeply uncomfortable. "I must apologize for the unseemly display you witnessed yesterday. To fall so easily before Laufey, to be struck down with a single blow like some untrained whelp fresh from the practice yard—" Her hands clenched into fists against her thighs. "It was disgraceful. Unworthy of a goddess of war."
I opened my mouth to tell her to stand the fuck up because watching a goddess kneel to me in a prison cell was weird on multiple levels, but she kept going.
"If you find my presence too disgusting after such a pathetic showing," she continued, and there was genuine self-loathing bleeding through every word now, "I would understand completely. A warrior who cannot even defend her king from a simple assault has no place standing beside—"
"Sif," I interrupted, because holy shit this woman was spiraling hard. "Stand up. Please."
She hesitated, then slowly rose to her feet, though she kept her eyes downcast. The bruise covering half her face looked even worse up close—Laufey had hit her hard, and even with Asgardian healing it was going to take days to fade completely. Unless she ate some of my cooking, then she'd be fixed up in only a few bites.
I sighed, one hand coming up to scratch at my cheek as I tried to figure out how to handle this without making it worse. "Look, I'm not the kind of guy who judges people for being weak," I said finally. "I've got lots of mortal friends, you know? They're not expected to go toe-to-toe with Frost Giant kings and come out victorious."
Okay, not lots of mortal friends technically. But still. The point stood.
Sif's head snapped up at that. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "You are FAR above Thor in character," she said, and there was something almost wondering in her tone. "A true prince. A true man. I wish—" She stopped herself, shook her head. "I wish I had met you sooner, Prince Haru. Before I wasted so many years pining after someone who never saw me as anything but a convenient sword-arm!"
The bitterness in those last words hit like a slap, and I had about half a second to process the implications before—
"Oh, you're a prince?!"
The voice came from behind me, high and breathy and way too excited, and I turned to find the blonde woman from the nearby cell pressed up against her energy barrier with both hands. She was grinning like she'd just won the lottery, her eyes tracking over my shirtless torso with undisguised appreciation.
"You're a prince and you're walking around half-naked with those absolutely gorgeous tails!" she continued, her voice pitching into something that was definitely trying to be seductive. "You should let me out," she continued. "Let me serve you, my prince. I would be your most faithful servant. Your devoted companion. Your willing love slave." She pressed her breasts more firmly against the barrier, giving me an eyeful of cleavage that was probably supposed to be irresistible. "Whatever you want, however you want it, as many times as you want it. I can be everything you've ever dreamed of..."
I blinked at her. She winked back, then did something with her hips that should not have been possible while standing still.
"That," Sif said flatly from beside me, her voice dripping with contempt, "is Amora. The Enchantress. A blight upon womankind, a lustful harpy who plays with men's minds like toys, and someone who should never, ever be released under any circumstances!"
Amora's grin didn't falter. If anything, it got wider. "Oh, Sif! Still bitter, I see. How delightfully predictable." She turned her attention back to me, one hand trailing down the barrier in a way that was clearly meant to be suggestive. "Don't listen to her, gorgeous. She's just jealous because I slept with Thor and she never could. Once a man has spent the night with me, no other woman will ever compare!"
"Tis because you confound their minds with your disgusting Magic!" Sif's hand went to her hip, reaching for a sword that wasn't there, and her voice came out in a low, dangerous growl. "Be silent, witch. I do not care about that buffoon anymore—not since I've found a far better prince to serve. One who actually values loyalty over shallow parlor tricks and bedroom games. I shall be proudly joining his adventuring party instead of Thor's from here on out!"
"Ooh, 'serve,'" Amora purred, completely unbothered by the death glare being directed at her. "Is that what we're calling it? Because from where I'm standing—and I've been standing here watching you make puppy eyes at him for the past five minutes—it looks more like you want to—"
"One more word," Sif hissed, "and I will find a way into that cell just to strangle you myself."
I scratched my cheek awkwardly, very deliberately choosing not to point out that Sif had just declared she was joining my "adventuring party" like we were characters in some kind of fantasy RPG.
Because I didn't have an adventuring party? I think…?
That wasn't really a thing outside of Kazuma and Aqua's world, and that place had so much insane bullshit going on that I wouldn't send Sif there even if I actively disliked her.
Which I didn't. She'd been kind of a dick to Kunou, sure, but she'd also been under Loki's mind control at the time, so holding a grudge felt petty.
"Come on, Sif," I said, cutting off whatever retort she'd been about to launch at Amora. "It's time to get out of here."
One of my tails lashed out before she could respond, a casual flick that connected with her cell's energy barrier with a sound like breaking glass. The field shattered instantly, dissolving into sparks that faded before they hit the ground.
Sif's eyes went wide. "These are supposed to be inescapable. You—how did you—"
But the rest of the prisoners had seen it too.
"Wait!" A voice from further down the corridor—the shadow creature, pressing against its barrier with renewed desperation. "Please! Let me out! I've been here for three centuries for a crime I didn't commit! I mean yes I accidentally ate a couple of dozen children, but it was an accident and I've learned my lesson!"
"Me too!" Another voice, higher-pitched, coming from a cell I hadn't even looked at yet. "I was framed! This is all a misunderstanding!"
"RELEASE ME, SMALL FOX!" The stone giant's voice was like grinding boulders. "I WILL CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES!"
"Prince! My sweet prince!" Amora was pressing herself against her barrier so hard it was actually starting to flicker. "Take me with you! I'll do anything! I'll worship your cock every morning and night! I'll let you use all my holes whenever you—"
"Yeah, no," I said flatly, not even slowing down.
The begging quickly transformed into threats as they realized I wasn't going to help them.
"You will regret this, fox creature! When I escape, I will find you and—"
"I WILL TEAR YOUR TAILS FROM YOUR BODY AND—"
"YOU'LL COME CRAWLING BACK TO ME! THEY ALWAYS DO! YOU'LL BEG FOR MY TOUCH AND I'LL MAKE YOU—"
I tuned out the rest of the threats, though my ears flattened slightly against my skull at the sheer vitriol being directed at me.
Yeah. Okay. Maybe Odin had actually been right to lock some of these people up. The justice system was still fucked and the conditions were probably inhumane, but some of these folks were clearly several cards short of a full deck.
Sif stepped out of her cell, her movements stiff but steady, and immediately positioned herself slightly in front of me. It was a protective instinct that would have been touching if it wasn't completely unnecessary.
– Hela –
Hela's tongue swirled lazily around Frigga's nipple, drawing one last shuddering moan from the older goddess before finally, reluctantly pulling away.
The sound echoed off the bathing chamber's vaulted ceiling—a space so ridiculously opulent that Hela had initially sneered at it on principle. Marble pillars carved with scenes of Asgardian glory (most of which she didn't recognize, because of course Odin had rewritten history to exclude her). Enchanted waterfalls that cascaded from nowhere into pools of water that stayed perpetually warm. Steam that curled through the air carrying the scent of flowers she couldn't name, probably cultivated in some royal greenhouse she'd never seen.
The rest of the palace was gaudy beyond redemption—all that gold leaf and crystal and desperate ostentation that screamed "look how powerful I am" to anyone with eyes.
But the bath? The bath, Hela had to admit, was excellent. And the company was even better.
She watched, unabashedly appreciative, as Frigga rose from the water. Droplets cascaded down the Vanir goddess's generous curves—tracing paths between her breasts, sliding down the soft swell of her stomach, following the flare of her hips before disappearing into the neat patch of golden curls between her thighs. Her skin was flushed pink from the heat, from their... activities, and Hela found herself mesmerized by the way water clung to Frigga's body like liquid worship.
Beautiful, she thought, and the word felt inadequate. Stunning. Magnificent.
All that was missing was Haru.
But he'd kept them company all night—kept them very thoroughly satisfied, in fact—and this morning had been about the two of them. Cleaning themselves, yes, but also... playing. Just a little bit…
Hela rose from the bath as well, water sluicing off her pale skin as she stepped onto the heated marble floor. She reached for one of the impossibly soft towels—another thing she'd grudgingly admit the current Asgard did right—and dried herself with efficient movements.
Then she closed her eyes and reached.
For over a millennium, this simple act had been impossible. Summoning her armor, her weapons, the physical manifestations of her divine authority—all of it had been stripped away when Odin sealed her in Helheim. She'd tried, in those early centuries. Tried until she'd exhausted herself, until she'd screamed herself hoarse, until she'd finally accepted that she was cut off from everything that made her her.
Now she felt Asgard humming beneath her feet, thrumming through her veins, singing in her blood. The realm recognized her again. Welcomed her home.
Black metal flowed across her skin like liquid shadow, coalescing into armor that hugged every curve of her body. Form-fitting plates that she'd designed herself, back when she'd been Odin's general, back when she'd conquered worlds in his name. The familiar weight settled onto her shoulders, her hips, her thighs, and Hela let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
Home, she thought, and for once the word didn't taste like ash. I'm finally home.
When she opened her eyes, Frigga was watching her with an expression caught somewhere between awe and gentle understanding.
"It suits you," the Vanir goddess said softly, reaching for her own clothing—an elegant dress in deep blue that made her eyes look like summer sky. "The armor. You wear it like a second skin."
"I designed it to be exactly that." Hela ran her fingers along the black metal covering her forearm, marveling at the sensation of having it again. "During the campaigns, there was rarely time to don traditional armor before an ambush. I needed something I could summon instantly, something that would protect me without limiting my movement."
Frigga's dress whispered against her skin as she pulled it into place, the fabric draping perfectly over her curves. She looked beautiful—soft and elegant and every inch a queen.
But she didn't look like a warrior. And according to what Frigga had told them, she was a warrior. A Vanir goddess of the hunt, fierce and wild and free, before Odin had stolen her memories and reshaped her into a docile trophy wife.
Hela made a mental note—they needed to hunt some exotic beasts together. Track something dangerous through unfamiliar territory. Get Frigga proper armor and leathers, the kind that would let her reconnect with the part of herself that had been suppressed for so long.
The Vanir goddess deserved to remember what it felt like to be herself.
Once they were both dressed, they settled onto one of the ridiculous golden lounges near the bathing chamber's entrance to wait for Haru. Hela sprawled with the casual arrogance of someone who'd conquered half the known universe, while Frigga sat more primly—though she'd positioned herself close enough that their thighs touched through layers of armor and silk.
For several minutes, they simply existed in comfortable silence. It was a novel experience for Hela. Silence that wasn't oppressive, company that wasn't a hallucination.
Then Frigga spoke, her voice carefully neutral in that way people got when they were trying very hard not to sound worried. "Hela... do you think perhaps we moved too quickly?"
Hela turned her head, studying the older goddess's profile. Frigga wasn't looking at her. She was very deliberately looking at the far wall, actually, her fingers twisted together in her lap.
"With Haru, you mean?" Hela asked for clarification.
"With everything." Frigga's throat worked as she swallowed. "We both simply... threw ourselves at him. A man we'd known for less than a day. And at each other, for that matter." A flush crept up her neck. "In my previous life—my real life, before Odin—the Vanir took courtship seriously. There were rituals. Negotiations between families. Months or even years of careful evaluation before any... physical intimacy occurred."
Hela considered the question seriously, because Frigga deserved that much.
"I suppose," she said slowly, "that from a certain perspective, it could be considered hasty."
Frigga's shoulders tensed.
"However," Hela continued, shifting to face the other woman more fully, "I spent a large portion of my existence at war. Constant war. The kind where you went to sleep not knowing if you'd wake up, where every battle might be your last, where the people fighting beside you today might be corpses tomorrow."
She reached out, her armored fingers finding Frigga's hand and squeezing gently.
"In that environment, you learned to take lovers when you could. There wasn't time for courtship. For months of careful evaluation. If you wanted someone, if they wanted you, you acted on it—because waiting meant potentially never having the chance at all."
Frigga finally met her eyes, something raw flickering in those blue depths.
"Is that how you see this? As... wartime expediency?"
"No." Hela's voice softened in ways it rarely did. "That's how I used to approach such things. But this?" She gestured vaguely, encompassing the bathing chamber, the palace, everything that had happened since Haru and Frigga crashed into her prison. "This is different." She paused, searching for words that didn't come easily to someone who'd spent millennia burying her emotions beneath layers of rage and bitterness. "I was alone for over a thousand years," she finally said. "Truly, utterly alone. No one to talk to. No one to touch. Nothing but my own mind slowly eating itself and hallucinations that dissolved the moment I reached for them." Her jaw tightened. "And then, out of nowhere, two people appeared. Real people. Kind people who fed me and bathed me and held me like I mattered." She turned Frigga's hand over in hers, tracing the lines of her palm with one armored fingertip. "I connected with both of you. Genuinely connected, not just because I was desperate—though I was certainly that—but because you're good. Both of you. Haru with his ridiculous cooking and his protective instincts and his refusal to judge anyone for their weakness. You with your warmth and your strength and the way you looked at me like I was a person instead of a monster." Hela lifted Frigga's hand to her lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "So no," she murmured against soft skin. "I don't think we moved too quickly. I think I found two people I genuinely want, who genuinely want me back, and I refuse to waste a single moment pretending otherwise." A smirk tugged at her lips. "Besides, I succeeded in bedding both of you within hours of meeting. Clearly my approach works."
Frigga let out a startled laugh, some of the tension bleeding from her posture. "You're incorrigible."
"Incorrigible implies I feel shame about my behavior. I don't." Hela's smirk widened into something sharper, more predatory. "I feel extremely satisfied about my behavior. And I intend to repeat it frequently."
Frigga's blush deepened, but she was smiling now—really smiling. "According to Haru, he also has a harem of beautiful and like-minded women, so I think this is just the beginning…"
Other jealous goddesses, and Hela could admit she felt a small, unfamiliar twinge of something that might have been jealousy, would probably be furious about the fact that their male lover had accumulated a harem full of supposedly beautiful women scattered across multiple dimensions. The very concept should have rankled. Should have made her territorial, possessive, ready to stake her claim and drive off any competition with sword and sorcery alike.
But Hela had been alone for over a thousand years. Where touch had become a distant memory, where connection had faded into myth, where she'd started to forget what it felt like to simply... be near another living being.
The prospect of being surrounded by a large family, and that's what a proper harem was, really, when you stripped away the carnal elements, was actually extremely appealing. Warmth. Laughter. Bodies pressed close during cold nights. Conversations that weren't one-sided descents into insanity.
People who would notice if she disappeared, who would come looking, who would care.
Plus, Hela thought with a smirk curling her lips, she happily swung both ways. Always had, even before her imprisonment. The battlefield had never discriminated based on gender, and neither had her bed. If Haru's other women were half as appealing as Frigga—soft curves and maternal warmth and that surprisingly filthy mouth—then the arrangement promised to be very entertaining indeed.
She was pulled from her pleasant imaginings when she felt a familiar presence approaching through the palace corridors. Haru's energy signature was impossible to miss once you knew what to look for. That warm, golden pulse of power wrapped in something darker, something that whispered of demon lords and conquered realms. It called to her on an instinctive level, made her want to move toward it like a moth to flame.
Frigga felt it too. The Vanir goddess rose from the lounge with fluid grace, smoothing down the skirts of her blue dress with hands that trembled just slightly.
Anticipation, Hela noted. Good. Frigga was learning to want things again.
"Shall we?" Hela extended her armored hand, and Frigga took it without hesitation, her soft fingers interlacing with Hela's metal-clad ones as naturally as breathing.
They stepped out into the golden hallways together, and Hela's sharp eyes immediately noted that Haru was not alone.
A brunette goddess walked beside him. She was tall, athletic, moving with the careful precision of someone whose body ached but who refused to show weakness. Her dark hair was tangled and matted, her armor dented and missing pieces, and a massive bruise covered the left side of her face in splotches of purple and sickly yellow-green.
So this is Sif, Hela thought, her gaze turning assessing. The supposed Goddess of War of Asgard.
She took the woman's measure in a single glance, the way she'd evaluated thousands of warriors throughout her centuries of conquest. The stance was decent—weight balanced, ready to move despite her injuries. The muscle definition beneath the damaged armor spoke of genuine combat training rather than ceremonial posturing. The calluses on her visible hands were in the right places for someone who actually used a sword rather than just posed with one.
But there was something... lacking.
Hela could sense it the way she could sense death itself. Sif had potential, certainly. The raw materials were there. But she'd been held back. Trained just enough to be useful but never enough to become threatening.
Odin's work, Hela realized with a fresh surge of contempt for her father. He stunted her deliberately. Kept her dependent. Just strong enough to serve, never strong enough to challenge.
It was the same thing he'd done to all of Asgard's women, apparently. Convinced them they were lesser, that their place was to support and serve rather than lead and conquer. Made them grateful for scraps of recognition while men half their skill received glory and praise.
That ends now.
Hela stepped forward. Her green eyes swept over Sif from head to toe with deliberate, obvious evaluation. The kind of assessing gaze that made warriors either bristle with offense or stand straighter under scrutiny.
Sif, to her credit, did both. Her spine stiffened, her chin lifted, and something defensive flickered in her dark eyes even as her hand twitched toward a sword that wasn't there.
Good. She still has fire. That's workable.
"You will do," Hela announced, her voice carrying the absolute certainty of someone who had commanded armies and reshaped continents. She circled Sif slowly, examining her from multiple angles while the other goddess tracked her movement with wary tension. "Your foundation is acceptable. Your instincts are sound. Your technique..." She paused, noting the way Sif's weight distribution favored her right side. "Needs refinement, but that's easily corrected."
"I—what?" Sif's composure cracked, confusion bleeding through her defensive posture. "Who are you? What are you talking about?"
Hela completed her circuit, stopping directly in front of Sif with barely a foot of space between them. Up close, she could see the exhaustion lurking beneath the younger goddess's defiance. The dark circles under her eyes, the slight tremor in her limbs, the way she was running on pride and stubbornness rather than actual energy.
"I will train you properly," Hela continued as if Sif hadn't spoken. "Teach you what Asgard's current masters clearly could not—or would not. When I take my rightful place as Queen, I will need capable warriors at my side. Not decorative sword-maidens who exist to make men feel powerful by comparison, but true Valkyries. Shields of the realm. Death incarnate on the battlefield." Her lips curved into something that was almost a smile. "You will make a fine addition to Asgard's new pantheon, Sif. Once we've stripped away the limitations they've shackled you with."
Sif's mouth opened and closed several times, no sound emerging. Her gaze darted frantically between Hela and Haru and Frigga behind her, clearly hoping for some explanation that made sense.
"Who..." She finally managed, her voice pitched higher than probably intended. "Who is this woman? Why is she talking about taking over Asgard? Why does she look at me like I'm a horse she's considering purchasing?"
Frigga stepped forward, her expression warm despite the circumstances. She moved with the easy grace of someone who'd navigated court politics for a millennium, her hand finding Haru's arm as she positioned herself beside him. "This is Hela," Frigga said, and there was genuine affection in her voice—affection that made something complicated twist in Hela's chest. "The Goddess of Death. Odin's firstborn daughter." A pause, weighted with significance. "And the future Queen of Asgard, once we manage to kill her father properly."
The sound Sif made was not quite a gasp and not quite a squeak. Something in between that spoke of a worldview being violently reorganized. Her already pale face went several shades whiter, and Hela watched with mild amusement as the other goddess's mind visibly struggled to process the cascade of impossible information.
Odin's daughter. Goddess of Death. Future Queen. Kill Odin.
"I..." Sif swallowed hard, her throat working. "I must have missed... quite a lot of things while I was unconscious."
"You did," Hela confirmed, not unkindly. "Though in your defense, most of Asgard missed these things for over a thousand years. My bastard father made certain of that."
– Haru –
Hela turned to me then. "I am ready to depart from this realm," she announced. "As much as I would love to conquer it while my bastard father cowers among the dwarves..." A dark smile played across her lips. "That would go against my pride. It would cheapen my destined revenge, reduce it to opportunism rather than righteous reclamation." She began to pace. "No," Hela continued, her voice dropping into something almost reverent. "When I take Asgard, it will be with Odin watching. He will see me coming. He will marshal his forces, call upon his allies, prepare every defense he can muster." Her smile sharpened into something genuinely terrifying. "And it will not matter. I will crush everything he throws at me. I will tear down every wall he hides behind. And when I finally stand over his broken body, when I pry the throne from his cold, dead hands—then he will understand what he created when he tried to destroy me."
The sheer conviction in her words sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with fear.
This woman had spent a millennium planning this moment, and she wasn't going to let anything—not even an empty palace and an absent enemy—rob her of the satisfaction she'd earned.
Then her expression shifted, the murderous intensity giving way to something warmer, more playful. She turned to face me fully, and the smirk that curved her lips was pure mischief. "Besides," she said, her voice dropping to a purr that made heat pool in my stomach, "having a threesome with you and Odin's ex-wife in his marital bed was an excellent start to my revenge. Truly inspired, if I do say so myself."
Before I could respond—not that I had any idea what to say to that—she leaned in and pressed her lips to my cheek. The kiss was soft, almost chaste compared to everything we'd done last night, but it lingered.
My face was definitely red. I could feel it.
"I—" I started, but whatever smooth response I might have managed was drowned out by the strangled noise Sif made from behind us.
"A THREESOME?!"
I turned to find the Goddess of War looking like someone had just told her the sky was actually green and had always been green and she'd simply been colorblind her entire life. Her eyes were wide, her bruised face cycling through shades of red that probably weren't healthy, and her mouth kept opening and closing like a fish that had suddenly found itself on dry land. "What is she—" Sif's voice cracked. She cleared her throat and tried again, her words coming out high and slightly hysterical. "What is she talking about? My Queen? Prince Haru?" Her gaze darted between the three of us with increasing desperation. "Did I mishear? I must have misheard. There's no possible way you just said—"
"You heard correctly," Hela interrupted, sounding thoroughly pleased with herself. "Multiple times, in fact. Your former queen is quite vocal when properly stimulated."
"HELA!" Frigga's face had gone from pink to crimson, and she looked like she was seriously considering the merits of the floor opening up and swallowing her whole. "That is—you cannot simply—"
"What? It's true." Hela's smirk was unrepentant. "I distinctly recall you screaming Haru's name loud enough to crack that gaudy mirror. And then there was that thing you did with your tongue that made me—"
"Perhaps," Frigga interrupted hastily, her voice pitched slightly too high, "we can discuss this later…"
Sif looked like she wanted to argue. Sif looked like she wanted to demand explanations, possibly with visual aids and a detailed timeline. But something in Frigga's expression—maybe the desperate plea lurking beneath the embarrassment—made her swallow whatever questions were fighting to escape.
"Later," Sif repeated weakly. "Yes. Later. I will... I will wait for later." She didn't look like she believed "later" would actually provide any clarity, but she also looked like her brain had reached its maximum capacity for worldview-shattering revelations and was now running on emergency backup power.
I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
….A few minutes later, I stood alone at the end of the Bifrost bridge.
Well. Not entirely alone.
The three goddesses had departed to acquire a ship. Hela leading the way with the confidence of someone who knew exactly where the royal fleet was docked and which vessels were worth stealing, Frigga providing diplomatic cover in case they encountered anyone who needed to be talked down rather than stabbed, and Sif trailing behind in a daze of confused loyalty and unanswered questions.
I had another task to take care of first.
The Rainbow Bridge stretched out before me—or what remained of it, anyway. The section Odin had corrupted when he'd tried to trap Frigga and me in the dimensional void was still missing, a jagged gap where prismatic light should have flowed seamlessly toward the golden spires of Asgard proper. The damage was actually pretty impressive, as far as acts of attempted murder went.
But that wasn't what held my attention.
No, what held my attention was the figure standing at the very edge of the broken bridge, right where the observatory platform jutted out over the endless void of space.
Heimdall. The all-seeing guardian of Asgard was still frozen solid, exactly where we'd left him yesterday. His armor was STILL encased in ice and his expression—what I could see of it beneath the frozen shell—was one of pure, impotent fury.
He looked like a really pissed-off popsicle.
I walked over slowly. My tails swayed behind me. When I reached Heimdall, I stopped and studied him for a moment. Those golden eyes, famous across the Nine Realms for seeing everything that occurred anywhere in the cosmos, were fixed on me with an intensity that would have been intimidating if he wasn't currently a glorified ice sculpture.
"Hey there," I said conversationally. "You look cold. Want some help with that?"
The muffled growl that emerged from behind the ice was not what most people would call "grateful."
I shrugged and summoned a tendril of foxfire anyway—just enough to melt the ice covering his head. Blue flames licked across the frozen surface, and I watched as the casket of ancient winter's ice slowly turned to steam and then to nothing, revealing Heimdall's face properly for the first time since we'd arrived.
He sucked in air like a drowning man breaking the surface, great heaving gasps that spoke of someone who hadn't breathed properly in over a day. Which, technically, he hadn't.
For a moment, he just breathed—huge, shuddering inhales that fogged in the cold void-touched air. His golden eyes were squeezed shut, his teeth bared in something between pain and relief. Then those eyes snapped open, fixed on me, and all the relief vanished beneath a wave of absolute hatred.
"You abomination," Heimdall snarled, and the word dripped with enough venom to kill a lesser being. "You are not welcome on Asgard. You were never welcome on Asgard." His voice rose with each word, centuries of guardian's pride and wounded dignity pouring out in a torrent of rage. "How do you keep returning?! The Bifrost is destroyed! Our wards are at maximum strength! Every protection we possess should have kept your filthy kind from ever setting foot on our sacred soil again, and yet—"
"Sucks to suck, I guess," I interrupted with a shrug.
The look on his face was almost worth the entire second trip to Asgard by itself. That special expression of pure, apoplectic fury that only came when someone's worldview collided with reality and reality won.
"You dare—"
"I dare lots of things." I cut him off with deliberate casualness, letting him stew in his impotent rage.
Heimdall made a sound of anger that didn't sound very nice...
"But hey," I continued, genuinely curious now, "while we're on the subject of things that don't make sense—why are you still frozen? Aren't you supposed to be loyal to Odin? His most trusted guardian, watcher of the realms, all that impressive-sounding stuff?" I gestured at his ice-encased body. "Seems like the kind of guy who'd at least defrost his favorite guard dog before running off to the dwarves."
Something flickered in Heimdall's expression. Something that might have been shame, quickly buried beneath fresh anger.
"My king," he said stiffly, "thought I deserved a... small punishment. For failing in my duty."
"Failing how?"
"For failing to foresee you." The word came out like a curse. "For failing to detect your arrival, to warn the palace, to prevent your filthy sister from—"
My tails went rigid behind me. "Careful," I said, and my voice had dropped into something that made Heimdall's golden eyes widen slightly despite himself. "Very, very careful about how you finish that sentence."
The guardian's jaw tightened, but something in my tone—or maybe something in my eyes—made him reconsider whatever insult he'd been about to hurl at Kunou.
Smart. For an arrogant prick, he had decent survival instincts.
"I am to remain in this state until my king returns," Heimdall finished instead, the words clipped and bitter. "A reminder of my failure. A lesson in the cost of inadequacy."
"Wow." I let the word hang in the cold air. "Your king left you unable to breathe for over a day, and then fucked off to another realm." I tilted my head, studying his expression. "And you're still loyal to him. Still calling him 'my king' like he didn't just treat you worse than most people treat their furniture."
"You would not understand," Heimdall spat. "You are an outsider. An interloper. You know nothing of duty, of honor, of the sacred bonds between—"
"You're right," I interrupted. "I don't understand. And honestly? I don't want to." I turned my head, looking back along the Rainbow Bridge toward the distant golden spires of Asgard. "So the Bifrost is pretty old, right? Like, ancient technology? How long does it take to fix something like this?"
The sudden change of subject seemed to throw Heimdall off balance. His brow furrowed, confusion momentarily overriding his anger. "The Bifrost has stood for tens of thousands of years," he said slowly, clearly trying to figure out what angle I was working. "No one alive today knows the secrets of its original construction. The knowledge was lost long ago, passed down only in fragments and half-remembered legends."
"So you can't actually fix it yourselves."
"We can repair it," Heimdall corrected, and there was defensive pride in his voice now. "Minor damage, superficial reconstruction—these things are within the capabilities of Asgard's craftsmen. But complete rebuilding? That would require..." He trailed off, then his eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask these questions, creature?"
"Just curious." I kept my tone light, conversational. "So the dwarves, then. That's why Odin went to Nidavellir? Because they're the only ones who can actually fix this properly?"
Heimdall's chest swelled with what I could only describe as vicarious pride. "The dwarves are the greatest craftsmen in all the Nine Realms. They forged Mjolnir itself, along with countless other legendary artifacts. When my king returns with their finest smiths under his command, this damage—" he jerked his chin toward the gap in the bridge, "—will be repaired within days. Perhaps weeks at most."
"Huh." I nodded slowly, like I was genuinely considering this information. "Yeah, I figured it was something like that." I turned back to face the Rainbow Bridge properly, letting my gaze travel along its prismatic length. Even damaged, it was beautiful—light made solid, crystallized starfire stretching across the void like a path to heaven itself.
It was also, according to what Hela had told me—capable of channeling enough destructive energy to obliterate entire planets!
The Bifrost wasn't just a bridge. It was a weapon. One of the most powerful weapons in the Nine Realms, actually. Odin had used it to level enemy civilizations during his conquests, had threatened worlds with annihilation if they didn't surrender.
And I was supposed to just leave it intact? Let him repair it and continue holding that kind of power over countless innocent people? Over the people of this dimension's Earth?
Fuck that.
"The thing is," I said, turning back to Heimdall with what I hoped was an apologetic expression, "I was recently informed that the Bifrost doubles as a planet-killing superweapon. Which, honestly? Kind of a dick move to build into your transportation infrastructure, but I guess that's just how Odin rolls."
Heimdall's expression shifted from confusion to dawning horror as he realized where this was going.
"And I can't have that," I continued, raising one hand and pointing it back toward the Rainbow Bridge. "I really, genuinely cannot have Odin possessing something so powerful. Not when he's the kind of guy who mind-controls his wife, erases his daughter from existence, and leaves his most loyal servant frozen solid as 'punishment' for failing to predict the unpredictable."
"No." Heimdall's voice was barely above a whisper. "No, you cannot—you wouldn't—"
"Sorry about this," I said, and I almost meant it.
I called on my magicules—a lot of my magicules, more than I'd used for anything in recent memory—and channeled them into a wave of foxfire that erupted from my palm like a horizontal pillar of blue-white destruction.
The flames hit the Rainbow Bridge and devoured it.
I watched, transfixed, as miles of crystallized starlight simply... ceased to exist. The prismatic surface blackened, cracked, and then crumbled into nothing as my foxfire swept forward like a tsunami of divine destruction. The light that had shone for tens of thousands of years flickered and died.
The structure that had connected Asgard to the rest of the universe collapsed into the void waters below, fragment by fragment, section by section, until there was nothing left but empty water from here to the golden city in the distance.
Yeah, good luck fixing that…
And Oops. The fire kept going. Past the point where the bridge should have ended, all the way to the golden city itself. I could see the flames licking at the edge of Asgard's foundations, could see buildings near the bridge's terminus catching fire and crumbling.
Maybe I'd put a little too much power into that attack… My bad. At least I'm 99% sure I didn't kill anyone. Asgardians are fast if nothing else and started running the second they saw my blue sea of flames approaching the city's borders.
When the foxfire finally died, there was nothing left of the Rainbow Bridge except the small platform where Heimdall and I stood—an island floating in the void, connected to nothing, leading nowhere. Behind us, the observatory's control station was a smoking ruin. My tails lashed out and hit that too, just to be thorough.
No sense leaving the steering wheel intact when you'd already destroyed the car.
"There," I said, brushing imaginary dust off my hands. "Good luck fixing that."
The sound that emerged from Heimdall's throat wasn't quite a scream and wasn't quite a roar—it was something in between, something primal and anguished and absolutely furious. His golden eyes were practically glowing with rage, and his frozen body was straining against the ice so hard I could see cracks forming in the crystalline surface.
"YOU—" His voice cracked with the force of his fury. "YOU HAVE DOOMED ASGARD! YOU HAVE DESTROYED OUR CONNECTION TO THE NINE REALMS! CENTURIES OF HISTORY! MILLENNIA OF ENGINEERING! AND YOU—you stand there smirking like—"
"Like someone who just made sure a tyrant can't casually destroy any planets?" I offered helpfully. "Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I'm smirking about. And it's not like you guys don't have spaceships still… You just don't get any more fancy teleportation."
"ASGARD WILL HAVE REVENGE!" Heimdall screamed, his voice echoing across the void like thunder. "THE ALL-FATHER WILL RETURN! HE WILL HUNT YOU ACROSS EVERY REALM, EVERY DIMENSION, EVERY CORNER OF EXISTENCE! THERE WILL BE NOWHERE YOU CAN HIDE, NOWHERE YOU CAN RUN, NOWHERE—"
"Yeah, yeah, vengeance, retribution, lots of dramatic shouting." I waved a dismissive hand. "Tell Odin I said hi when he gets back. And maybe mention that his ex-wife and his supposedly dead daughter had a really good time in his bed last night? I feel like that's the kind of detail he'd want to know."
The sound Heimdall made in response was honestly concerning. Like, genuinely concerning, in a "this man might stroke out from pure rage" kind of way. But his body was still frozen below the neck, so the most he could do was scream threats and creative profanity at my retreating back as I walked toward the edge of the platform.
Right on cue, I heard the distinctive hum of an approaching vessel. I looked up to see an Asgardian ship descending from above.
Why did it look like an old fashioned viking ship?
The ship pulled alongside the platform, and a hatch opened to reveal Hela's smirking face.
"I see you've been busy," she called out, her gaze sweeping over the devastation I'd wrought. Miles of empty void where the Bifrost had once stretched. Smoking ruins where the observatory had stood. Heimdall was still frozen in place and screaming himself hoarse in the background. "I approve. Very thorough…"
"I try," I said, and easily leapt up 50 feet to grab the edge of the hatch. One of my tails gave a final jaunty wave in Heimdall's direction as I pulled myself aboard.
His response was not suitable for polite company before we blasted off to infinity and beyond...
"How long until we get to Midguard?" I asked Hela as I glanced around the inside of the ship. The outside looked like it was made of wood and the inside….also looked like it was made of wood?
You know what? I wasn't going to question it…
But I did know one thing. Since Asgardians were basically Space Vikings, that meant we were sailing a genuine pirate ship through space…
Kunou would love it… She was a big fan of the movie Treasure Planet.
"Only a few hours," Hela replied as she adjusted the knobs and controls to increase our speed.
I was surprised to hear that kind of short timeframe. Pleasantly surprised of course. "REALLY? I thought it would be days or something?"
"It would for any other Asgardian ship, but with me at the helm, I know plenty of secret passageways across the cosmos that have long been forgotten. I can put us through a couple of black holes that will save us a lot of time," Hela bragged proudly.
I did my best not to choke at her casually saying we'd be flying through black holes. Judging by Frigga's and Sif's pale expressions as well, that wasn't a normal method of space travel either, but I trusted Hela enough at this point, and anything to get us back in time for the dinner rush would be appreciated. I'm sure my shadow clone had been handling things fine, but I didn't like leaving those things in charge of the place for so long.
"Here comes the first black hole," Hela said with a grin as she turned the wheel. "I've missed this!"
– Nick Fury –
Director Nick Fury stood on the command bridge of the Helicarrier, the massive S.H.I.E.L.D. flagship slicing silently through the upper atmosphere. The vast, panoramic windows offered a dizzying view of the deep blue curve of the Earth. A typical Tuesday.
He was contemplating the endless bureaucratic headache of keeping the world not destroyed—a task that seemed to require increasingly bizarre interventions—when the technician seated at the main long-range sensor station cleared his throat nervously.
"Director Fury," the technician, a young man named Agent Kim, reported, his fingers flying across a touch-screen console. "We have an object entering the atmosphere. High velocity, low orbit trajectory. It's... big."
Fury didn't bother turning around. "Trajectory and profile, Kim. Is it a debris burn? A satellite?"
"Negative, sir. It's decelerating deliberately. Definitely under control. Mass is significant. And... it's showing a highly irregular composition on the multi-spectrum analysis." Kim's voice was tight with confusion. "It's entering the airspace over the New Mexico desert now." Kim swallowed hard, pulling up a detailed schematic on the central holographic table. A large, vaguely ship-shaped object, glowing faintly red from atmospheric friction, spun slowly into view. "Sir, the core composition readings... they're registering as organic matter. Specifically, our sensors are consistently flagging high concentrations of cellulose, lignin, and a complex polysaccharide matrix. Sir, it appears to be constructed almost entirely of..." he trailed off, his eyes wide. "Wood?"
Fury's composure finally cracked. He slammed his fist onto the railing with a dull, heavy thud. "Fuck no," he growled, the words flat and exhausted. "Not another goddamn alien invasion!" The last one cost him an eye!
Ok, well technically, the space cat took his eye, but it happened during an invasion so it still counts!
"...Wait," Fury paused his thoughts. "What the fuck do you mean its made of wood?"
XXX
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