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Do you like Loki's creations, dangerous experiments, and willingness to challenge enemies that appear above his league? Then you will definitely like Thairon, the protagonist of my original story, Arrival : Ruptures. Comments, likes and reviews are appreciated. Here are the links for : AO3, Spacebattles, Royal Road and Webnovel.
—
Asgard
He floated in the confines of his room. The discovery of a sister and his father's bloody past had been weighing on his mind. It distracted him from his latest query.
The questions Hela and Sigrun answered only created new ones. The most curious one was the reason behind the change of heart his father had undergone. Why had the conqueror decided to lay his weapons down for peace?
As he could not get an answer by asking his father directly, a different path would have to be taken to find answers.
Such as traveling back in time.
There was no great show of seidr, no fancy rituals, words, or tools. He simply willed himself to the past. It wasn't entirely accurate, though, since he appeared where Asgard should have been, only to find the embrace of the cosmos.
He moved much further, eventually reaching a point where Bor's statue was erected. Finding the date his father had changed so fundamentally was simple after that.
—
The first thing he noticed was the palace was on fire.
He did not remember any palace fires recorded in history. And as it seemed to be the case with missing parts, it was related to his father.
"Enough," a much younger Odin with both eyes snapped.
He watched as his father tore Mjolnir out of Hela's hands. He fired a beam of Odinforce out of the hammer. It struck his sister in the chest, launching her inside the Bifrost, most likely to Hel.
He had just discovered the moment of Hela's banishment.
His father sat down, shoulders dropped, silent as a grave. It dragged on for minutes, prompting him to go further back in time.
—
He managed to narrow the timeframe significantly.
Traveling back to shortly before Hela's banishment, he met with an unexpected sight. His father had two gems embedded in Gungnir, one purple, one blue. Each made his seidr seem like a speck of dust in a star system.
Gems that he had not seen during Hela's banishment.
Putting the significance of it aside, he went forward this time.
—
"Heimdall, where is my father?" His sister, younger and less rugged but still exuding an aura of lethality, asked the Gatekeeper.
"He wishes it to be a secret," Heimdall said, ever loyal to his king.
"Even from me?"
"Yes."
Hela huffed, eyes glinting. She left the observatory, giving him the chance to peer inside younger Heimdall's mind.
The planet his father was on was not one he was familiar with. It appeared barren and far from Asgard.
Silently thanking the Gatekeeper, he left to see what had his father's interest on that planet.
—
Vormir
He appeared away from his father's location. Hiding the energy released from the gate was difficult. A younger Odin with two infinity stones in his grasp would detect it easily.
"The stone requires a sacrifice, regardless of who you are," an alien, skin blue as the darkest of sapphires, roughly Aesir-like in shape, rebuffed his father.
"What kind?"
"A soul, of course. Of who keeps the greatest place in your heart."
"Hela," his father breathed out. Loki's hands slackened at the admission. Even a warlord like him had a special place in his heart. For his daughter, no less.
The daughter he could not bring himself to strike down after her coup attempt.
"If you believe her to be whom you love most, you must sacrifice her for the stone."
"I…" His father stood motionless, gazing at the stones in his possession. As Hela was alive, he knew what the decision would be. He was proven correct when the Allfather turned back wordlessly, leaving the planet.
"Now that he is gone, may we speak?" the blue alien said, turning to where he was floating in, watching.
He smiled, appearing out of thin air, lowering himself to look at the black, beady eyes of the alien. "I suppose shifting out of phase wouldn't fool the Soul Stone of all things."
"Yes," the alien said, tilting his head. "You are not here for it though, are you?"
"I simply wished to see what his decision would be."
"And what of you? How did you come to guard an Infinity Stone?" He did not think it was a voluntary post. Unless the guardian had a preference for dead planets.
"To my hubris, I thought I could control the Space Stone. For millenia, I have been bound to Vormir to guide those who seek the stone."
"He was not the only one to change his mind, yet you are the first one to not seek it."
"Perhaps I should take it after all."
"Will you make the sacrifice, then?"
Loki snorted. It quickly turned to full-blown laughter while the guardian of the stone watched. It was over with a long, breathy exhale.
"No," he said. Raising both hands, he grabbed the pocket dimension the stone was hidden in and tore it apart. The fabric of space vibrated for a moment, revealing the ingot of condensed singularity.
The stone could detect his presence, which allowed him to detect the stone's exact location in return.
The smooth, elliptic stone glowed with an eerie orange color. He created a sphere to house it and tossed the stone into his pocket dimension.
"Fascinating."
"I would never sacrifice my brother for an Infinity Stone. Doesn't mean I can't take it by force, though."
"None has considered that before. Thank you," the blue-skinned alien said with a small smile, his wispy body fading away.
Loki turned around, whistling. Not only did he find his answer, but he also got another Infinity Stone.
—
He considered returning to his time, but as he was already in the past, he wanted to discover the truth of Asgard's creation. Midgardan beliefs shed light on several situations, but not on the nature of his home.
Being a god was relative.
A human was a god to an ant. One that could bring down divine punishment and crush it or grant it a generous feast. In that same vein, he and the rest of the Aesir were gods to most. They could control the forces of nature through seidr, kill droves of humans with frightening ease, or bring their greatest wishes to reality.
A hyper-advanced planetoid like Asgard, which had come to the side of the Midgardians during the invasion of the Jotnar, would be seen as gods. The seers of the time could not make sense of what they had seen. The Bifrost would be seen as magic to them, an incomprehensible tool of the gods, just like the many wonders Asgard boasted.
So it was entirely understandable how the myths were so distinct compared to the truth.
Especially the ones concerning Asgard's creation. His father did not have brothers, known as Ve and Vili in Midgard beliefs. Nor did Asgard have an enormous wall protecting it. He chalked it up to the seers misinterpreting the force field.
But now, he would discover the truth.
Returning to the time where Asgard did not exist, he began to seek the correct date to see when and why his home came to be built.
—
The first sign of a construct was a space station. It was incomparable to Asgard's size, yet the make was clearly the same. He phased through the walls, invisible to the researchers inside.
"I am telling you, something is wrong. We haven't had any contact for a month. Not even with our families."
"I know, Halvard. Yet, we don't have a ship. Our only option is to wait."
"How long?"
"I don't know."
He watched the exchange with rapt attention. They were obviously Aesir. Seidr flowed in their veins; the technology itself was a less smooth version of what they had in Asgard. What sealed the matter of their origin was the data inside the computer.
His right hand phased through the casing, accessing the system. He read through the highlights.
They were researchers of Asgard, here to ascertain why this location was saturated with seidr. The coordinates, necessary for data transfer, pointed to the edge of the Nine Realms.
To a planet named Asgar d.
—
He was quick to travel to the coordinates, excited. Asgard was actually a planet once. Yet thinking about why it could have been abandoned tempered his mood.
A quick scan of the system revealed four planets and an asteroid field, all barren of life and development. He scratched his head, going over each world to see them with his own eyes.
Nothing.
He was recalculating to see whether it was an error on his part when something almost collided with him. His hand snapped up, catching the stray piece of metal. He turned it over several times, inspecting the jagged, triangular piece.
It was refined, a clear work of masterful artisanry.
He turned his head to where it had come from and almost slapped himself at how he could have not considered it. He opened a gate, arriving above the asteroid field.
Or rather, the remains of a planet. Evidence of dead fauna was there, stuck on the relatively large pieces of the planet's crust. Shattered hulls of golden starships, bodies left to the mercy of the void.
Something had destroyed Asgard, but what?
His skin itched at the thought of it.
He focused on seeking the cause of it. The researchers had no contact for a month, and the evidence showed that the destruction was recent. He would find it and deal with it.
—
True to his theory, a planet stood where the asteroid field would be. It was similar to Midgard, but more golden rather than blue and green. Three continents and hosts of spaceships above. He considered going down to explore it.
Then everything went white.
He had phase-shifted on instinct, going farther than he ever had. He did not witness the destruction as the space before him was completely dark, but he felt it.
He came back, swinging his arms to each side, parting the continent-sized chunks and oceans of freezing water away.
There, right in the center of the fresh asteroid field, stood a celestial. As large as the planet it had just destroyed, he was witnessing the true size of one for the first time. Amusingly, its shell was of similar color to his attire, green and sharp.
All six eyes were so massive, one could not be sure where they were looking at. Yet, something told him that the Celestial was focused on him.
A tense standoff took place.
He had absorbed the power of Celestial, one that was close to emerging, along with Svartalfheim. He still couldn't be sure about the outcome of a confrontation.
The results weren't the only matters to concern him.
Should he truly fight a Celestial over a planet he had just learned existed? If it hadn't been for the emergence, perhaps he wouldn't ever be brought to Asgard. d.
The decision was made for him by the Celestial. Its hand rose, frighteningly quick for something of that size, and closed around him. He let out a small huff, feeling the strike destroy the outer layer of his body. The condensed seidr broke out of its shell and the sudden, violent expansion tore the hand trying to crush him apart.
The Celestial reared.
He gathered the seidr together. Rather than reconstruct his body, he instead went for something to match the enemy in size. It coalesced for a second and then snapped out, taking shape.
He kept the outline of his body, the hair, the limbs, the face. Without the outer shell and the orifices, he was something else.
Loki, yet not.
Translucent, green nebula-like clouds danced within the outline, with soft, swirling shades of emerald, jade, and pale mint. Specks of white, two almond-shaped spots glowed with a lighter shade of green, locking onto the celestial.
Two entities stood face to face. One is bound to a shell to live and exist; the other, unadulterated, holds his shape by will.
"What are you?"
"Doesn't really matter when you are going to die, does it?"
The Celestial reacted to the threat. It fired a beam of pure white from the remaining hand. The space bent under the strain of it. He was quick to meet the attack with a black hole in his hand. The intense gravity broke the particles down, and his seidr transformed them.
Unaware, the Celestial increased its efforts, releasing more energy. It fed the blackhole, causing it to grow in size and absorb more. The celestial changed tactics, trying to affect the curvature of the black hole to dispel it.
He fought back. Each second, he grew stronger while his enemy weakened. The battle was already won; it was just a matter of time. He created another black hole in his left hand. The Celestial was in no condition to respond, and he slammed it to the green shell.
The effects were immediate.
The Celestial's roar echoed in his mental space. It seized up, the white matter-annihilating beam dying out. He slammed the first black hole on its head, right into the lower left eye socket.
He was stronger and more familiar with his powers than before. Tearing through the shell proved to be far quicker this time.
The head and the chest gave away at the same time. The black holes began to draw the energy inside the celestial. Once the head was torn apart, he combined them, creating a larger black hole.
The rest of the shell, mostly the limbs and the sides of the torso, crumpled inwards, gone in seconds. His chest rumbled, ready to celebrate the victory, but he stopped.
Something was coming. More dangerous than the newly emerged Celestial.
He did not know what it was.
Reassuming his shape, he left the star system.
—
He watched in fascination as a group of surviving ships approached the small station, led by none other than Prince Buri Brandrson.
Sneaking aboard the lead ship, he found that his adopted great-grandfather's small fleet was investigating a pirate presence in a neighboring system. Once they returned home, only to find it gone, Prince Buri was quick to reorganize the fleet to ensure the survival of the Aesir.
What had his interest was the female presence aboard the ships.
In the distant past, half of the fleet's Einherjar complement were female. Yet in his time, females were not allowed. The Valkyrie existed for them once, but the admission criteria were extremely demanding.
It shed light into Asgard's past culture.
He took everything from the databases and left.
Not before hearing Buri's plans to expand the space station, as the source of seidr they were investigating would be more than enough to power a planetoid.
—
He wanted to discuss the ramifications of what he had learned with Hildryn. The presence of the Celestial and its destruction of the original Asgard stopped him. He was not one to hide history, unlike some other individuals of great power, but the situation had changed.
He had to be careful.
—
Notes: I had two ideas in mind when I wanted to write the reason Odin had changed. The first was falling in love with Frigga, the second was the realization of what he was becoming. I only touched upon these parts since we will be seeing more of this matter in the future.
Do you like Loki's creations, dangerous experiments, and willingness to challenge enemies that appear above his league? Then you will definitely like Thairon, the protagonist of my original story, Arrival : Ruptures. Comments, likes and reviews are appreciated.
—
In the next chapter:
Just as he was about to see whether another player who could break through Runa's legendary defense would arise or not, a portal opened over the small cube projecting the screen.
A male dropped out of the portal, breaking his stand and the holovision.
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