The desert night was torn asunder by a column of rainbow fire, a violent incision in the fabric of reality that screamed across the electromagnetic spectrum. To the naked eye, it was a blinding vortex of light and dust. To Aaron, observing from the craggy shadows of a limestone ridge, it was a cacophony of celestial data—a transmission of immense power beaming directly from a dimension of gold and grandeur.
The Bifrost.
He watched as the beam slammed into the desert floor, carving intricate runic patterns into the sand. The shockwave rattled the bones of the earth, sending a plume of debris high into the starlit sky. Down the road, the headlights of the Pinzgauer van bobbed frantically as Jane Foster and her team raced toward the impact site, chasing the anomaly like moths to a bug zapper.
They would be too late.
Aaron tapped his microphone staff against the stone. "Interference," he murmured, his voice layered with the crackle of a detuned radio, "is my specialty."
Before the dust settled, shadows detached themselves from the base of the ridge. They were not merely absences of light but tangible extensions of his will, slithering across the desert floor with supernatural speed. In the center of the crater lay a blond man, stripped of his armor, groaning in the dirt. Beside him, half-buried in the glass-fused sand, lay the hammer. Mjolnir.
Aaron's shadows surged, swallowing the fallen prince and the artifact in a fluid, inky gulp. By the time the van skidded to a halt at the crater's edge, the pit was empty. The scientists stared into the void, finding nothing but silence and inexplicable static buzzing on their equipment.
***
Thor Odinson awoke to the smell of ozone and old dust. His head throbbed with a mortal ache, a sensation entirely alien to him. He sat up, gasping, his hands grasping at the rough stone beneath him. He was no longer under the open sky but within a wind-carved sandstone hollow, illuminated by a flickering, sickly green light that seemed to emanate from the air itself.
"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty," a voice chimed, echoing with the tinny resonance of a 1920s broadcast.
Thor scrambled to his feet, his warrior's instincts flaring, only to find his limbs heavy and sluggish. Standing before him, seated casually on a jagged outcropping, was a man in a sharp, blood-red pinstripe suit. The stranger's smile was too wide, his teeth too sharp, and his eyes resembled radio dials spinning with manic energy.
And at the stranger's feet sat Mjolnir.
"Who are you?" Thor bellowed, though his voice lacked its usual thunder. "Where am I? And unhand my weapon, demon!"
Aaron tilted his head, the static in the air rising in pitch. "Demon? Oh, I prefer 'The Broadcaster,' or perhaps simply Aaron to my friends—though we aren't quite there yet, are we? As for your mallet..."
Aaron reached down. His long, clawed fingers brushed the cold uru metal. Immediately, a sensation blasted through his mind—a roaring, authoritarian signal. It was not magic, not in the way the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj wielded it. It was a command. A frequency. A broadcast from a king to his subjects, encoded into the molecular structure of the weapon.
*Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.*
Aaron laughed, a sound like a skipping record. "Fascinating! Simply fascinating. Your father didn't just enchant this; he programmed it. It's a parental lock. A divine DRM."
"Do not speak of the All-Father!" Thor lunged, intending to tackle the insolent creature, but a tendril of shadow whipped from the ground, snare-trapping his ankle and slamming him face-first into the dirt. Without his godhood, he was merely a very strong mortal, and Aaron was a predator.
Aaron stood, his staff glowing with eldritch light. He focused on the hammer, tuning his senses not to the physical object, but to the waveform sustaining it. He could hear Odin's voice looping endlessly within the metal, a ceaseless transmission of judgment and borrowed authority. It was powerful, yes, but it was just a signal.
And Aaron hijacked signals.
"You know," Aaron mused, circling the hammer, "I've always found censorship to be terribly dull. Why let Daddy decide who gets to play with the lightning?"
He placed his hand firmly on the handle. The air screamed. Golden sparks of Asgardian magic clashed with crimson static. The 'Worthy' enchantment fought back, a firewall of divine will trying to reject the intruder. But Aaron didn't try to lift it. He didn't try to be worthy. He simply poured his own frequency into the receiver, a chaotic, screeching feedback loop of eldritch noise.
He jammed the connection to Asgard.
Thor watched in horror as the runes on Mjolnir flickered—shining bright gold, then sputtering into a dull grey, then igniting with a jagged, unstable red. The humming vibration of the hammer died out, replaced by a hollow, metallic thud.
"What have you done?" Thor whispered.
"I hung up the phone," Aaron said, lifting the hammer.
It was heavy, incredibly dense, but without the enchantment anchoring it to the earth or judging his soul, it was just a lump of dying star metal. Aaron tossed it casually in the air, catching it by the handle. The lack of resistance was almost disappointing.
He walked over to Thor, who was still struggling against the shadow bonds, and dropped the hammer in front of the prince. It hit the sandstone with a heavy *clank*, not a thunderous boom. It didn't crack the earth. It just sat there. Inert.
"Pick it up," Aaron commanded.
Thor hesitated, then reached out. His fingers closed around the leather grip. He braced himself, expecting the immovable weight that had plagued him in the crater, but the hammer lifted easily. He held it aloft, waiting for the lightning, for the armor, for the power.
Nothing happened.
"It... it is silent," Thor murmured, his eyes wide with confusion and loss. "The power is gone."
"The *borrowed* power is gone," Aaron corrected, leaning on his staff, his smile stretching impossibly wide. "That little toy was a crutch, Odinson. A conduit for your father's authority. As long as you relied on his definition of 'worthiness,' you were never a god. You were an employee."
Aaron leaned in close, his face blurring into a nightmare of static and shadow. "I stripped the enchantments. I cut the cord. There is no more 'Whosoever holds this hammer.' There is only a heavy piece of metal."
He poked Thor in the chest with a sharp claw. "If you wish to rule, if you wish to be the God of Thunder, you must generate the storm yourself. Not through a hammer. Not through your father's permission. Rule with your own power, or be crushed by those of us who do."
Aaron straightened his bowtie, sensing the approach of SHIELD agents miles away. The broadcast was over; the lesson was delivered.
"Consider this a gift," Aaron said, his form beginning to dissolve into the darkness of the cave's recesses. "The training wheels are off. Try not to crash."
Before Thor could respond, the green light vanished. The shadows receded, leaving the former prince alone in the dark, clutching a cold, silent hammer, forced to listen to the beating of his own mortal heart.