VCM "May, Ethan, you took your time getting here," Coulson called out as the car pulled up to the temporary SHIELD base in the wilderness.
He had been waiting for them, greeting them with his usual calm demeanor.
"How's the situation?" Ethan asked as he stepped out of the vehicle.
"Not bad. Everything's under control," Coulson replied—just as a loud crack of thunder split the sky.
A bolt of lightning flashed, striking dangerously close to the roof of the base.
Ethan raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, sure. Looks completely under control."
Coulson let out a small sigh, glancing up at the swirling dark clouds above. "The hammer is still in place, and there's been no breach. But we've detected a strange energy field surrounding it. This energy field—"
BOOM! Another deafening thunderclap interrupted him, making the ground tremble.
"—Well, I guess you can see the effects for yourselves."
"What about the guy who tried sneaking in to steal it last night?" Ethan asked, already knowing full well it was Thor.
With his powers sealed away, the exiled prince had no chance of reclaiming Mjolnir, but that didn't mean Ethan wasn't curious about how SHIELD had handled the situation.
"He's in custody. That guy is strong. Took down several agents on his own. He's had professional training—his combat skills are top-tier. But the strangest part?"
Coulson shook his head. "After failing to lift the hammer, he went completely silent. It was like his entire spirit was crushed."
"You didn't torture him, did you?" Ethan asked quickly.
Sure, Thor was technically a prisoner right now, but he was still royalty.
More importantly, this whole exile was a lesson, not a punishment.
If SHIELD accidentally broke him, Odin wouldn't be too pleased.
Coulson chuckled. "Had the idea at first, but then we took a closer look at him and... well." He tapped the side of his head.
Ethan followed his gaze to a nearby holding area. "You think he's crazy?"
"The guy broke into our base with no plan, no backup, no weapons—hell, not even a pocket knife! Does he think we're amateurs? I mean, come on. If you're going to pull off a heist, at least try a little harder."
Melinda smirked. "According to our intel, he escaped from the psych ward of a nearby hospital. Supposedly, he was in a car accident before that—probably hit his head pretty bad.
We even tracked down the scientists who saw the hammer fall. They had their equipment confiscated, but as for this guy? His entire history just… stops."
"What's your conclusion?" Melinda pressed.
"If he didn't fall out of the sky, then he's been off the grid, like Ivan Vanko," Coulson said simply.
Ethan exhaled. "Alright. Lock him up for now. Let's check out the hammer first."
He knew Thor was the real priority here, but it wasn't like he could just blurt that out.
If he wanted to dig a little deeper for himself, he had to start with Mjolnir.
"This way," Coulson said, leading them through the base. After several turns, they reached the excavation site.
Sitting at the center of a massive crater was Mjolnir, Thor's legendary weapon—also known by a far superior name: "Jonathan."
Ethan smirked at the sight of it. Yeah, that name was definitely better.
"Before we arrived, dozens of people tried lifting it. No one even made it budge. We brought in specialized equipment to do the job, but—no surprise—it didn't work either." Coulson gestured toward the hammer.
"So now…"
To be honest, after all their efforts, they still couldn't get the hammer to budge. It was starting to make Coulson feel a little embarrassed.
"Let me give it a shot," Ethan said, his curiosity about Mjolnir piqued.
Stepping forward, he placed his hand on the hammer's handle and activated his ability.
The ground subtly trembled as a force rippled outward, and for a brief moment, the hammer quivered—but then, just as suddenly, it stopped moving.
"Figures. Odin really did put some magic into this thing," Ethan muttered, frowning.
Gravity dictated that everything on Earth was subject to its pull.
Normally, he could manipulate the force vector, redirecting gravity's direction to make objects float effortlessly.
But despite shifting the gravitational pull, the hammer remained stubbornly rooted in place.
That meant something beyond physics was at work here.
Odin, as the All-Father, must have been confident that almost no one in the Nine Realms could walk off with the hammer.
That kind of assurance came from something far beyond ordinary limitations.
"You couldn't lift it?" Coulson asked, a hint of disappointment in his voice.
Still, he quickly masked it.
At least Ethan had managed to make the hammer shake, which was more than anyone else had achieved.
"You're jumping to conclusions too quickly," Ethan replied. "I'm not done yet."
Since finesse wasn't an option, brute force was the next best thing.
The hammer had a weight limit. After all, there was no such thing as an infinitely heavy object—except for a black hole, and it wasn't like Odin had turned one of those into a weapon.
If Asgard had black hole tech at that level, they wouldn't just be a kingdom; they'd be an unstoppable cosmic force.
According to what he knew, Mjolnir was forged from the core remnants of a dying star.
When a star collapses, it can turn into a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole.
A white dwarf was heavy but manageable.
A neutron star, though?
That was where things got crazy—millions of tons per cubic centimeter.
Given the hammer's size, it made sense that most people couldn't lift it.
But that didn't apply to Ethan.
He had control over vectors—he could manipulate the force exerted on an object and even borrow the strength of the Earth itself.
"Stand back," he warned, taking a deep breath before firmly gripping the handle of Mjolnir with both hands.
As he applied force, the ground trembled violently, as if an earthquake had struck.
Coulson's eyes widened as he felt the earth beneath him sag slightly.
Ethan had redirected the force into the surrounding ground to prevent outright destruction, but the result was that the entire base was slowly sinking.
Coulson scrambled to higher ground, only to witness the sheer devastation unfolding before him.
Cracks in the earth spread outwards, reaching a distant, rocky hill and causing it to collapse into rubble.
The rumbling didn't stop there—thirty kilometers away, a dormant volcano suddenly erupted with an earth-shattering explosion.
"Holy—!" Coulson barely had time to process it before his attention snapped back to Ethan.
Mjolnir was shaking violently now, the magic resisting, but Ethan wasn't using tricks anymore—just raw, unrelenting strength.
Above them, the sky churned as storm clouds thickened.
Lightning crackled within the dark mass, an entire tempest forming in response to the hammer's defiance.
"Come on, if you were really heavier than the Earth, I'd understand. But this? This is nothing," Ethan gritted out, pushing his strength to its limit.
With one final, decisive effort, he tore Mjolnir from the ground.
A deafening boom erupted from the heavens as a bolt of lightning, thicker than a human body, came crashing down, striking Ethan in an explosion of blinding light and roaring thunder.
For a fleeting moment, he saw something beyond the storm—a grand, opulent palace shimmering in golden light.
And within it, resting on an ornate bed, lay a one-eyed man with a white beard, his chest rising and falling in deep slumber.
Ethan's expression grew solemn. "Odin Sleep," he murmured to himself, realizing what he had just disturbed.
Thor sat in the confinement room, staring blankly ahead.
The once-proud God of Thunder, the warrior who had faced Frost Giants without hesitation, was now nothing more than a lost child cast out from his home.
His father had stripped him of his power, and he could no longer even lift Mjolnir.
Asgard teetered on the brink of war, and he was helpless to stop it.
But worst of all, he had lost Odin's trust.
The weight of his failure crushed him more than any physical blow ever could.
"Brother, my dear brother," a familiar voice called out, cutting through the silence.
Thor lifted his head, startled. "Loki? What are you doing here?"
Loki stepped forward, his face a mask of sorrow. "I came to see you, of course."
Thor narrowed his eyes. "What happened? Is it Jotunheim? Have the Frost Giants attacked? Loki, take me to Father. I must speak with him—I have to fix this."
Loki hesitated for a moment, then sighed heavily. "Father is gone. He could not bear the weight of your exile… or the coming war."
Thor's heart clenched. His proud posture crumbled, and he lowered his head in shame. "This is my fault."
"The burden of the throne now rests on my shoulders," Loki continued, his voice carrying a solemn weight.
Thor's head snapped up. "Then… does that mean I can return?"
He was desperate—he didn't care about power or glory anymore.
He just wanted to see Odin one last time.
"The armistice agreement was sealed with your exile, and Mother has forbidden your return," Loki said, his voice soft yet unyielding.
He hesitated before adding, "I know how much you love them. It isn't fair to you. I tried to reason with them… but—"
Before he could finish, the ground trembled violently, and a deafening clap of thunder split the air.
Loki flinched, his usual composure cracking. "What in the Nine Realms was that?"
Thor's eyes widened. "That thunder… what is happening?"
"It seems the humans are meddling with Mjolnir. I'll go investigate." With that, Loki vanished in an instant.
Meanwhile, outside the S.H.I.E.L.D. containment site, lightning crackled and surged in the air.
The storm's fury focused on one man standing in its midst.
Ethan emerged from the chaos, unharmed despite the massive bolts that had struck him.
Silver-blue electricity danced across his skin, flickering through his hair like a living current.
Anyone unfamiliar with him might have mistaken him for some kind of supercharged mutant.
"Ethan! Are you alright?" Coulson called out, his voice filled with concern.
Ethan looked down at himself, flexing his fingers as the energy crackled around him. "Yeah… I think so."
The sheer power of Thor's summoned lightning should have been devastating, but Ethan stood unaffected.
A thought began to form in his mind. "Could it be… because of my ability?"
Thor's lightning, even if called forth through magic, was still fundamentally electricity.
And Ethan's vector control allowed him to manipulate all forces that acted upon him.
No matter the source—whether natural, technological, or magical—electricity was still just electricity.
A slow smirk spread across his face.
This was an unexpected advantage.
If he could analyze the structure of magic itself, then perhaps… he could become immune to it entirely.
His ability already let him negate countless mutant powers. Why should magic be any different?
And if this theory proved true, then what else could he adapt to?
Could he counteract something as extreme as hellfire—the mystical flames that could burn even the soul?
The fastest way to analyze magic more efficiently was to strengthen his mental focus and expand his understanding of magical knowledge.
This was the next step in his evolution after reaching the Lv5 threshold.
Pushing those thoughts aside, Ethan glanced at the hammer in his hand before letting it drop to the ground.
The weight was even more staggering than he had anticipated. Carrying it around would be completely impractical.
Yet, the moment it hit the dirt, Mjolnir seemed to become nothing more than an ordinary hammer—no crater, no impact.
It just… settled.
"Odin Sleep…" Ethan muttered to himself.
The moment he lifted the hammer, he had triggered the enchantment placed upon it.
For a brief instant, he had glimpsed a vision—Odin in deep slumber.
That confirmed it. The Allfather was currently in the Odinsleep, leaving Loki in temporary control of Asgard.
That meant the next step in this game of fate should be...
A smirk unconsciously tugged at the corner of Ethan's lips.
He had found an opening.
"Ethan, why are you spacing out?" Coulson's voice snapped him from his thoughts as he and Melinda May approached.
"I just discovered something interesting," Ethan replied, nudging Mjolnir with his foot. "There's a magical restriction placed on this hammer, which makes it difficult to lift."
Of course, even without the restriction, most people wouldn't be able to lift it anyway.
"When I picked it up, I activated that restriction and got a peek at something important."
Melinda nodded, thoughtful. "I see."
Coulson, on the other hand, looked completely lost. "Wait, what? Magic? Restrictions? You're telling me this stuff is real?"
"Phil, magic exists," Melinda said, crossing her arms. "You've been in the field long enough to hear of the Ghost Rider. Ethan fought him using magic just last night, he's a bonafide wizard."
"Great. Another amazing event I completely missed." Coulson sighed. "But what I really don't get is—Ethan, since when do you have magic?"
"Don't overthink it. Let's just call it a quick software update," Ethan said, throwing an arm around Coulson's shoulder with a smirk.
"Now, about the hammer—I already know where it came from, and even its name."
"Name?" Coulson asked, instantly intrigued.
Ethan let the name roll off his tongue. "Mjolnir."
Coulson's brow furrowed. "Never heard of it."
"You might recognize its other name then: Thor's Hammer."
Coulson blinked. "As in, Norse mythology? The one Thor is supposed to wield? That's ridiculous. If Thor's Hammer is real, then where's Thor?"
Ethan shrugged casually. "Oh, that's easy. You guys locked him up."
Coulson's face froze. "...(⊙_⊙;)...??"
Ethan clapped him on the back. "Alright, let's go meet the guy himself—" He suddenly stopped mid-sentence, his expression shifting as he turned his head sharply.
"What is it?" Coulson asked, instantly on alert.
Ethan hesitated before shaking his head. "Maybe I imagined it."
Unbeknownst to them, as they walked away, another figure appeared before Mjolnir. Loki stood there, eyes narrowed, watching the direction Ethan had left.
After a moment's hesitation, he reached down and grasped the handle of Mjolnir. He pulled with all his might.
Nothing.
He gritted his teeth, trying again. Still, the hammer refused to budge.
Loki's frown deepened. "Father's enchantment remains… yet that mortal lifted it so easily. Have I underestimated the mortals of Midgard?"