"The abnormal celestial phenomena triggered by the teleportation array and the war hammer's arrival were documented by the researchers here. Highly professional equipment and techniques," Coulson said, removing his sunglasses with an expression that practically declared, I'm doing this for your own good.
"So, we'll be commandeering this data—and the instruments."
"Hey! What do you think you're doing? That's my stuff!" The blonde woman watched as the instruments she had personally designed, personally calibrated, and personally installed were all hauled away. Her distress akin to a man watching a brat tear apart his beloved waifu, Jane Foster let out a shriek.
"This is classified. It's best if civilians don't get too involved."
Coulson spoke with righteous conviction.
Without power or influence, dealing with Excalibur—whose deterrence and authority surpassed even the S.H.I.E.L.D. of the original storyline—was a nightmare-level difficulty.
"I can sue you for seizing my private property!" Everything in the studio had been emptied, and even the originally chaotic environment had been tidied up with infuriating order. Yet the more organized it became, the angrier Miss Foster grew, launching into a furious tirade.
"I'm sorry, Miss Foster, but we're the good guys."
Coulson handed Miss Foster a check he had prepared in advance and slapped a "Good Guy" label on himself.
"So are we!" Foster suppressed her terrible mood, resisting the urge to tear up the check.
"We're on the verge of a major breakthrough with this data. You can't just... hey!"
Coulson paused for two seconds, maintaining a business smile while extending two fingers and pressing them down slightly. Two black-clad subordinates stepped past Miss Foster's back, reached over, and smoothly snatched the notebook from her hands.
"Give that back—hey!"
"Thank you for your cooperation!" Watching Foster being restrained by her middle-aged companion, Coulson adopted a very polite gesture of gratitude. But to this young woman, facing such treatment, the team leader Coulson was nothing short of a demon.
A walking natural disaster had brought calamity upon Jane Foster.
To be honest, she felt the past two days had been utterly miserable. First, while chasing the strange phenomena in the night sky, she had run into a bizarre man. Fortunately, she hadn't killed him, but it seemed like she'd knocked him senseless—he kept muttering all sorts of weird things nonstop.
Son of Odin, Thor the God of Thunder?
A God of Thunder brought down by a stun gun?
Miss Foster naturally didn't believe such superstitious nonsense. If anything, a thunder god who could be taken down by that level of electric shock was just too embarrassing—the very prestige of the so-called gods would be dragged down to rock bottom.
In fact, if Miss Foster had ever read the Cthulhu mythos and seen how a spawn of the bubbles could be bitten to death by a dog, she probably wouldn't think gods possessed any prestige at all.
She and her partners had expended considerable effort getting the man to the hospital. But later, Miss Foster discovered that that very man was actually the center of all that data. What she never expected, however, was that after accidentally running him over again at the hospital and then returning to her studio, she'd find everything she had personally made had been seized. Sure, they left money—but damn it, how was that any different from being r*ped and then having some cash tossed your way?
Honestly, Miss Foster had spent every waking moment with that data and equipment. The emotional attachment was undeniably there. To the point that, if possible, she wouldn't mind spending the rest of her life with those things—but they'd been taken!
"I require a warhorse!"
"Sorry, no horses here. Only cats, dogs, birds..."
"Then give me something I can ride!"
The young man at the counter closed his book, looked at the blond man before him, and replied with a seasoned driver's drawl.
"Buddy, the only things around here you can ride—besides the professional kind—are the sow next door."
Miss Foster spotted the man she had twice hit with her car appearing at a shop on the edge of the street. But was there something wrong with seeking a warhorse in a pet store?
Still, there were things she wanted to understand, and those instruments she regarded as her husbands—Miss Foster would absolutely not give up on them easily. So she once again sought out the living research subject: the blond man who'd been hit by a car and claimed to be Thor the God of Thunder. Frankly, if this man were a bit more normal in the head, based on his build and appearance alone, Miss Foster thought he would make a pretty good partner.
"Wee-oo wee-oo—"
Alarms blared. Lightning flickered within the black clouds of the pitch-dark sky. Neither the thunder nor the alarm sounds could drown out the sounds of combat erupting from the temporary research facility.
"All units, attention. We have an intruder. Repeat, we have an intruder!"
A torrential downpour followed. Through the nearly transparent isolation curtains, one could see numerous highly trained professionals being taken down like little kids, one punch each, by Thor the God of Thunder.
And then he was stopped...
The idea of him striding through as if there was no one there was a joke. After all, Excalibur was nothing like S.H.I.E.L.D.—they had a whole slew of capable fighters. Even after two S-class heroes had already left, there was a replacement superhero. And this superhero easily brought Thor down.
"No!"
Thor struggled, able to feel that his hammer was just within reach.
"You're under arrest, sir. The charge is suspicion of colluding with monsters—crimes against humanity."
The self-righteous superhero looked down at Thor and declared.
"Mortal, you insult a god! I am the Son of Odin, Thor the God of Thunder!"
"Unable to communicate... or is he just playing dumb? That kind of skill isn't something a mental patient would possess."
The superhero voiced his opinion to Coulson.
"Next, our people will take over... Director!"
Coulson was about to order Thor taken away for interrogation when, through the pouring rain, Zodhees appeared clad in his Dark Knight armor. Coulson immediately saluted.
The superhero also looked at Zod with the fervent eyes of a fanboy gazing at his idol.
The most mysterious and most powerful superhero of Excalibur—he had always been the beacon and savior in everyone's hearts. Whenever everyone fell into despair, this man would appear and turn the tide!
Almost every superhero had fans, but all of their fans combined could barely match the number of Zodhees' fans alone.
"Release him. This is a planetary diplomatic incident," Zod said calmly. His subordinates immediately released Thor without the slightest hesitation.
"Director, you know him?"
Coulson had picked up on something.
"Evacuate the nearby residents. Standard Dragon-level threat protocol."
That single sentence from Zod turned the faces of Coulson and everyone present pale. Thor, of course, did not, because he had no idea what that meant.
"Prince Thor, you may go find your hammer now."
Zod then addressed Thor.
/-\
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