Chapter 3 — Descent Through the Veil
There was no falling.
Not at first.
No wind. No gravity. No direction.
Just motion a sensation like being pulled through a thousand silk threads of light, each brushing against what had once been Jacob Walker's soul, smoothing away the roughness of a lifetime.
His consciousness dimmed, not painfully, but gently, as though someone were turning the lights out in a room where he'd already said his goodbyes. He tried to speak, but he no longer had a voice. He tried to think, but thoughts slipped like water between trembling fingers. He tried to remember and failed.
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The Final Unraveling
Jacob had never feared death. But this… This unraveling of self was something else.
A memory surfaced a young Marianne running into his arms after he returned from Iraq. He reached for it desperately, longing to hold onto her face, her smile, her voice, but the memory dissolved into golden dust.
Next came the jungle the smell of mud, the metallic tang of blood, the radio static as bullets tore through foliage. He fought to keep it but it too scattered, breaking apart like a dream at dawn.
Faces, voices, laughter, brotherhood, pain, pride, regret one by one, they unraveled, drifting upward in threads of soft light.
Only instinct remained. A stubborn, unyielding force that whispered:
I am. I was. I will be.
The orb's voice echoed faintly from beyond time.
"Your memories must fade for your new body to form. Fear not what is lost only what you choose to become."
He wanted to shout. To claw the dying memories back.
But instinct wasn't enough.
He felt himself thinning… stretching… dissolving into a spark no larger than a grain of sand.
Then. A tug. As though something vast, ancient, and powerful had hooked its finger into the very core of him and pulled.
Jacob though he no longer knew that name was yanked into a streak of blazing light that tore through planes of reality like needles through cloth.
He hurtled downward.
Down.
Down.
Falling
---
The Interdimensional Passage
Color exploded around him. Not colors of light, but of existence itself.
He passed through:
A storm of shimmering particles like shattered nebulae. A river of luminescent souls drifting along cosmic tides. A maze of shifting geometry that could only be higher-dimensional space
Voices whispered. Not human voices concepts given sound.
Strength. Sun. Bloodline. Fate. Fire. Evolution.
He slowed near a radiant sphere larger than a star, pulsing with power. A baby's soul. Not yet formed. His new vessel.
His new life.
He gravitated toward it and the sphere pulled him in with the gentleness of a heartbeat.
---
Fusion
The moment he touched the forming soul, the universe ignited. The Kryptonian genetic template activated first. Cells of light sparked into existence.
Not merely forming muscle or bone, but a living conduit for solar radiation. A body designed for sunlight, strength, and boundless evolution. At the same moment, the second force awakened
☀️ Sunshine.
It erupted like dawn breaking over a battlefield.
Not heat.
Not fire.
Not mere power.
A spiritual blaze rooted in pride, radiance, and a burning will to become more. Where Kryptonian DNA shaped the body, Sunshine shaped the soul, aligning its rhythms to the cycle of cosmic light.
The two forces clashed and then embraced. The result was unlike any existence the universe had ever seen. Cells adapted to store sunlight merged seamlessly with the metaphysical flame of Sunshine. A dual nature began to form:
Kryptonian physiology that thrived under a yellow sun. Sunshine's solar grace that amplified power with the rising of any star.
Not noon.
Not a single sun.
But any celestial source of solar energy.
The merging created a strange resonance—an instinctual connection to light itself. Even as a barely formed soul, he pulsed with it.
A warmth like pride.
A certainty like dawn.
A presence that said:
I am the rising sun.
I am the strength of day.
I am becoming.
---
The Name Lost to Time
The last fragment of who he had been floated in the void beside him. A name. Jacob. It hovered a moment. Flickered.
Then blinked out.
But something stubborn remained a whisper deep within:
Marine.
Protector.
Warrior.
Not enough to remember his life. But enough to define his destiny.
---
Crossing Into Reality
The soul his soul finished fusing. Light folded around him like a cocoon.
Then. A blinding flash. A crack in reality peeled open, revealing a realm of gold, starlight, and impossible beauty.
Asgard.
He drifted toward a palace shimmering with divine magic. Toward a queen sleeping fitfully, hand resting over her swollen belly. Toward a king pacing a candlelit chamber, concern furrowing his brow.
Toward a womb that glowed faintly with both magic and something Odin could not fathom. He drifted closer. Closer.
The final veil parted. And he entered the womb of the Queen of Asgard.
---
Inside the Womb of a Goddess
Time lost meaning. He floated in warm, dark safety.
He grew. Faster than any Asgardian child. Stronger. Denser. Brighter.
Cells drank in sunlight that filtered through divine flesh.
Magic from Frigga seeped through him, soothing the volatility of his strange power. Her presence was a gentle lullaby in the darkness. Her heartbeat a steady drum that told him he was not alone.
But something troubled the queen. Often, as he grew, his body pulsed with waves of heat brief flashes of Sunshine awakening. Frigga felt the warmth, mistaking it for a pregnancy symptom of royal magic.
More than once, Odin pressed his hand to her stomach, frowning.
"This is not Asgardian," he murmured. "Something stirs in him… something we have never seen."
Frigga smiled softly.
"Different does not mean dangerous."
He wasn't fully aware of their words, but he felt their emotions. Frigga's calm, motherly resolve. Odin's wary curiosity, tinged with pride.
He floated, listening, resting, growing. Sometimes his small forming hands clenched unknowingly as Sunshine flickered.
Sometimes his eyes still sealed shut twitched in response to the faintest sensation of warmth. Sometimes the womb glowed faintly with golden light. Sometimes Odin wondered if he was father to a prophecy.
---
Awakening of Instinct
At one point—still months before birth—he felt his body surge. His cells sang. His soul blazed. Sunlight outside the womb triggered something primal.
A pulse.
A flare.
For a brief moment, the entire womb radiated warm light. Frigga gasped in surprise, her hand flying to her belly. Odin, sensing the magical anomaly, rushed into the chamber.
"Frigga what?"
The queen smiled through her surprise, eyes soft.
"He responded to the sun."
Odin knelt beside her, placing his hand on her stomach. He felt faint heat, as though the unborn child's blood carried liquid gold.
"This is no ordinary prince," Odin whispered.
"None of our children are ordinary," Frigga replied gently.
"Yes…" Odin breathed. "But this one is something else entirely."
Odin sensed something mythic. Frigga sensed something sacred. The palace healers sensed something unknown. None of them sensed:
A Kryptonian.
A being of sunlight.
A soul forged through war, reborn through gacha, destined to shape the universe.
---
A Flicker of Identity
Though memories of Jacob Walker had vanished, instinct spoke in the darkness. Not words. But purpose. A promise that echoed faintly beneath the warmth of the womb. Protect. Stand tall. Be the shield. Be the sun.
He didn't understand the meaning.But he understood the feeling. And so, he grew.
---
The Final Days Before Birth
Nine months passed in moments and eternities.
His body was nearly complete muscles formed with unnatural density, bones hard as dwarven-forged steel, a heart that beat like a thunderclap muted by flesh.
Sometimes Frigga struggled to sleep as waves of heat pulsed through her. Sometimes Odin stood guard over her, worried though he would never admit it.
"This child's strength presses beyond even Thor's at that age," he murmured to her once.
Frigga smiled and stroked her belly. "Strength is a blessing. And a burden. We will guide him through both."
Odin kissed her brow.
"You speak as though he will be greater than us."
Frigga's eyes softened.
"I believe he will be."
Their unborn child shifted, as though responding. A faint flare of warmth rippled through the womb.
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Arrival Looms
The cosmos beyond Asgard stirred. Stars shifted. Prophecies whispered. Seers dreamed of a boy born of sunlight. The Norns paused at their loom. Something new was entering the world. Something powerful. Something bright. Something destined.
And within the womb, the unborn soul sensed—
It is time.
The cycle of reincarnation neared its final step.
Soon—
Very soon—
He would awaken in the arms of a queen. He would open his eyes for the first time not as Jacob Walke…but as Bor. Prince of Asgard. Son of Odin and Frigga.
Child of the Sun.