Erin stood perfectly still.
The training center around her was too bright, too sharp, too real. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead with a clinical harshness that made the room feel less like a sanctuary and more like a place where truth had been dragged out into the open without her permission. The smell of ozone still lingered in the air from the battle outside, tangled with sweat, concrete dust, and the faint metallic scent of violence.
But none of that felt as strange as the sensation inside her chest.
When Olaf had taken her hand, something had opened.
Not fully.
Not cleanly.
But opened.
It felt like a vast chamber deep inside her had suddenly filled with sound after years of silence. Echoes. Warmth. Familiarity so profound it hurt. The feeling wasn't memory exactly. It was deeper than memory. Like recognition without language.
Olaf stood in front of her, calm despite everything. His presence seemed to fill the room in the same way a fire filled a dark cabin—not consuming, but undeniable. He watched her with an expression so full of affection that it was almost unbearable.
"Do you remember?" he asked softly.
The question made her throat tighten.
She swallowed, shook her head, and forced herself to speak.
"No," Erin said, and even her own voice sounded strange to her. Stiff. Careful. Like her body was relearning how to carry whatever had just happened. "I just… feel like I've known you forever."
Her eyes searched his face.
"And it's deep. I mean…" She stopped, frustrated that there didn't seem to be any words big enough. "It's not a crush. It's not familiarity. It feels like… like grief and love at the same time."
Her eyes started to sting.
"But I don't have any memories of you."
Olaf's smile deepened, and the gentleness in it nearly broke her composure entirely.
"You will," he said.
His voice had none of the uncertainty everyone else around her seemed to have. It was calm. Assured. Not forced optimism, but certainty grounded in something much older than hope.
"You will get your memories back, my dear. They may come slowly, piece by piece… or they may return all at once. I need to determine your trigger and perform the proper ritual."
Erin turned in a slow circle, looking around the wrecked training center office area as if seeing the room for the first time. Shane stood near the entrance, still catching his breath from the fight. Gary and Amanda hovered nearby, visibly worried but trying not to crowd her. The floor outside the doorway bore fresh marks from bodies being dragged and from ice that had only recently melted.
The world she had gone to work in that morning was gone.
Maybe it had never existed in the way she thought.
Her voice came out quieter this time.
"What am I?"
The room went very still.
Olaf looked at her like the answer itself was sacred.
"You are a celestial," he said.
He paused, giving the words room to land.
"And the name you carried before this life was Frigg."
He took a half-step closer, but not enough to overwhelm her.
"You are my beloved wife."
Erin's mouth parted, but no sound came out.
Olaf continued with care, like a man carrying something fragile with both hands.
"We were killed by Apex Negativa a long time ago. I remained in the reincarnation cycle for many years before I regained my memory. My power returned even more recently than that."
His eyes softened.
"The same is true for you. You have been asleep inside yourself for a long time. It is time to return."
The words hit like stones dropped into deep water.
Celestial. Wife. Killed. Return.
None of them fit into the life she had lived until tonight. None of them matched a waitress schedule, a small apartment, student debt, and the quiet routine she had built out of sheer stubbornness after surviving the violent boyfriend she rarely talked about.
And yet—
Nothing in her instincts rebelled against what Olaf said.
Her mind did.
Her logic did.
Her fear certainly did.
But her instincts did not.
If anything, her instincts were the reason she was still standing there instead of running.
Olaf finally stepped back.
His whole bearing shifted. For a moment he was no longer just the man who had looked at her with impossible devotion—he was again the war leader, the one making decisions because there was too much danger left unresolved.
"I must go clean up the mess," he said.
Then he turned his head slightly.
"Shane. Join me."
Shane blinked like he had been yanked back into the room after drifting too far into his own thoughts.
"Yeah," he said. "Right."
Before following, he looked at Erin.
His expression was awkward and earnest in a way that somehow made him more believable than anyone else in the room. He looked like exactly what he had claimed to be all along—a roofer who had stumbled into cosmic war and still couldn't quite believe his own life.
"I know it sounds crazy," Shane said.
That made Gary quietly snort.
Shane glanced at him.
"Not helping."
Gary raised both hands in surrender. "Sorry."
Shane looked back to Erin.
"I mean it, though. I would be cautious too."
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"A few months ago I was just a roofer. Now I've got some kind of celestial system running in my head and gods telling me things with a straight face."
Amanda murmured softly, "That is still a pretty accurate summary."
Shane half-smiled despite himself.
Then he looked at Erin again, and his voice turned gentler.
"You're going to be okay."
It was such a simple thing to say, but Erin realized in that moment that he believed it.
Not because he understood all of this.
But because helping people survive impossible situations was apparently just something he did.
Olaf gave the next instruction.
"Go to my office and meditate quietly. It will help."
Erin blinked.
"Meditate?"
Olaf nodded.
"Yes. It is one of your things."
The phrasing was oddly comforting.
Gary whispered to Amanda, "That is maybe the most Olaf sentence ever."
Amanda elbowed him.
Olaf continued, now looking to the others.
"Gary. Amanda. Stay with her. Watch over her until Shane and I return."
Erin nodded automatically. It felt like the one thing she could do right now—move, sit down, breathe, and hope her mind caught up to whatever her soul had already decided.
She took one unsteady step, then another, heading toward Olaf's office.
Amanda fell into place beside her immediately.
"Hey," Amanda said quietly. "You're not alone in this."
Erin looked over at her, trying to manage a smile.
"Your definition of 'this' is a lot larger than mine was an hour ago."
Amanda gave a nervous laugh.
"Yeah. Fair."
Before Erin stepped through the office door, Amanda paused and turned her gently.
"I promise you," Amanda said, very deliberately, "they are not crazy."
Erin looked back toward the entryway, where Olaf and Shane were moving toward the exit.
"My mind says they are," Erin admitted. "Every normal part of me says this is impossible."
She pressed a hand lightly to her chest.
"But my instincts…" She shook her head. "My instincts are telling me this is real."
Her voice dropped.
"When Olaf touched me, it was like…" She struggled for the words. "It wasn't just sparks. It felt like grief recognizing home. Like love at first sight, except older. Like I've missed him for a thousand years and only just noticed."
Amanda's face softened.
"What are you seeing?"
Erin frowned.
"Flashes."
"What kind of flashes?"
"I don't know." Erin shut her eyes briefly. "Light through trees. A fire. Blue cloth. Gold jewelry. A hall maybe? And… and the feeling of waiting for someone to come back."
Amanda put a hand gently between Erin's shoulders.
"Don't worry. We've got your back."
Erin nodded and stepped into the office.
The room was quieter, dimmer, and somehow calmer than the rest of the building. She moved toward the chair near the window, sat down carefully, and folded into stillness, not because she knew how to meditate, but because sitting still suddenly felt more necessary than breathing.
Outside the office, Amanda stayed by the door while Gary leaned against the opposite wall and stared into middle distance.
For a long second neither of them spoke.
Then Gary let out a breath.
"Okay."
Amanda looked at him.
"Okay?"
Gary shook his head.
"No. Not okay. I mean—" He made a helpless gesture with both hands. "How is all this coincidence?"
Amanda burst out laughing, but only because she was one inch from panic herself.
Gary kept going, talking faster now.
"We go to an MMA event on our first date and somehow find freaking Odin."
Amanda folded her arms.
"Right."
"Then," Gary continued, counting on his fingers, "we try to do one normal nice thing and set our boss up with a waitress…"
He pointed toward the office door.
"…and she turns out to be a god. And not just a god. The wife of Odin."
Amanda leaned her head back against the wall.
"When you say it like that, our lives sound extremely stupid."
Gary barked out a laugh.
"They are stupid."
"No," Amanda said. "Impossible. There's a difference."
Gary looked down the hallway toward where the outside doors were.
"This can't be coincidence."
Amanda nodded immediately.
"No chance."
She started pacing in a small half-circle, thinking out loud.
"Veritas Alpha, Shane, and Olaf have been searching orphanages, schools, reservations, all kinds of places trying to find Frigg."
Gary nodded.
"And we find her because we wanted to get Shane out of the house."
"Exactly," Amanda said. "And before that, you talked Shane into going to the MMA event with us—our first date—and that's where we found Olaf."
Gary slowly straightened.
"…which means maybe we didn't set anything up."
Amanda looked at him sharply.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?"
Gary swallowed.
"The Norns."
Amanda exhaled slowly.
"That's exactly what I'm thinking."
They both stood there in silence for a few seconds, letting the implication settle.
Gary finally muttered, "I do not love being used as a dating app by cosmic fate."
Amanda laughed hard enough to cover her face with both hands.
"That might be the funniest thing you've ever said."
"I'm serious."
"I know. That's why it's funny."
Inside the office, Erin sat with her eyes closed, breathing slowly, while those same words—wife, celestial, Frigg—continued moving through her like echoes in a cathedral.
⸻
Outside in the lot, Shane and Olaf were having almost the exact same conversation, only with much more blood still visible on the pavement.
Olaf had Veritas Alpha on speakerphone.
Johnny John's voice, layered over the phone's speaker, sounded calm but sharp with alertness.
Shane gave the rundown quickly.
"The operatives are down. Erin's safe. Gary and Amanda set me up with a waitress who turned out to have a dormant celestial signature and then she and Olaf touched and…" He gestured uselessly. "Whatever that was."
Olaf took over.
"As soon as I saw her, I suspected it. Once we touched, there was no doubt."
"What did it feel like?" VA asked.
Olaf didn't answer immediately.
When he did, his voice had gone quieter.
"Recognition," he said. "Not partial. Not uncertain. Absolute."
Shane looked sideways at him.
That one word carried more emotion than anything Olaf had said all evening.
VA let out a slow breath over the line.
"This is monumental," he said. "But it creates immediate risk."
Shane nodded.
"We know."
VA continued, "If she returns to her normal life right now, she is exposed. Apex Negativa will target her quickly."
Olaf's answer was immediate and iron-hard.
"He will not touch her."
VA did not challenge the vow.
"Bring her memories back as quickly as you can," he said. "Even partial restoration will make her less vulnerable."
"I will," Olaf said. "And I will protect her."
There was no boast in the statement.
Just promise.
Shane shifted, staring out across the lot at the dark shapes of the SUVs and the cooling traces of violence.
"She didn't freak out as much as I expected," he said.
"She did," Olaf replied. "Just not in the direction you expected."
Shane frowned.
"What does that mean?"
Olaf looked at him.
"It means her soul recognized me before her mind could protest."
That shut Shane up.
For a second.
Then he said, "That's both romantic and terrifying."
Olaf almost smiled.
"Yes."
⸻
Far away, in a place built out of shadow, resentment, and the slow architecture of corruption, Apex Negativa summoned Thorne.
The atmosphere itself tightened around the command.
Thorne arrived rigid, already braced for fury.
AN's voice did not roar.
It growled.
Low. Dangerous. A sound that made the room feel smaller.
"Don't tell me," he said. "Another total failure."
Thorne kept his face carefully blank.
"The operatives were all killed."
Apex Negativa sneered.
"No, really?" His tone was dry enough to cut. "My energy all came back suddenly. I had assumed perhaps they had opened a bakery."
Thorne said nothing.
AN paced once through the dark, his form unstable around the edges.
"What happened?"
Thorne forced himself to answer cleanly.
"Federal supervisors began interfering. They dug into the operatives' chain. Higher command blocked the retrieval."
AN stopped moving.
"Blocked it?"
"Yes."
Thorne hesitated only a fraction before continuing.
"What should I do, sir?"
AN fell silent.
Thinking.
The silence itself felt hostile.
Finally he said, "Recruit higher up."
Thorne exhaled once through his nose.
"We tried."
AN's head turned slowly.
"Explain."
"The ones in key positions died unexpectedly," Thorne said. "Then replacements came in who appear largely immune to our influence."
That made AN still completely.
The displeasure in the room changed shape.
Less rage now.
More concern.
"Dammit," he hissed.
He thought for several long seconds.
Then:
"I know those three are interfering."
Thorne frowned slightly.
"Three, sir?"
AN ignored the question.
"Sudden deaths," he said. "Perfect substitutions. The roofer finding entities he should not find. Every move I make around him produces correction."
His voice lowered into something colder.
"He cannot be that lucky."
Thorne remained silent.
AN's conclusion came fast after that.
"We change tactics."
He stepped closer, shadow folding around him like torn cloth.
"No more sending our people directly unless necessary. We poison others against him instead. Whispers. Gossip. Suspicion. Reputation."
He smiled without humor.
"These witches may be listening now, but even they cannot stop every tongue in the world."
The room trembled.
Then he vanished, leaving Thorne alone with the phrase still echoing in his mind.
These witches.
Thorne stared into the space where AN had stood, the first real thread of understanding beginning to form.
⸻
Meanwhile, elsewhere, the old gods summoned Veritas Alpha.
He arrived carrying everything that had just happened and laid it out for them with characteristic efficiency.
Shane Albright's system had identified him as celestial after the encounter with Olaf.
The Norns had spoken to him directly.
Frigg had been discovered not through divine search strategy, but through what appeared to be an ordinary arranged date.
Apex Negativa had attacked Saul's house and then Olaf's training center.
And Shane had survived, adapted, and escalated.
The old gods reacted with intense interest.
They discussed the Norns first.
That alone was unusual.
The Norns rarely appeared, rarely intervened openly, and almost never engaged directly with younger or newly emerging entities. That they had spoken to Shane at all suggested something far more significant than mere curiosity.
Still, not all of them were convinced of his larger importance yet.
One of them asked Veritas Alpha directly, "What is his lineage?"
VA spread his hands slightly.
"I do not yet know."
They pressed harder.
"What is he?"
VA gave the only honest answer available.
"I know what he is becoming more clearly than I know what he was born from."
That answer did not satisfy them, but it did silence the room for a moment.
Eventually they shifted to practical concerns.
They wanted Shane, Olaf, and Erin brought before them as soon as Erin regained enough memory to participate meaningfully in planning.
VA agreed.
Then, before he departed, he added one more thing.
"We may have found Freya," he said.
That caused immediate movement among them.
"Certain?"
"No."
"But possible."
The old gods were pleased.
One asked, "Do you think more of the Norse can still be found?"
VA nodded slowly.
"Thor is most likely a child."
That caused a stir.
He continued.
"We likely missed him in his last life. This cycle he is probably under ten years old."
He let that sit.
"No sign yet of Magni, Modi, Baldr, Heimdallr, Vidar, or many of the others."
He paused.
"I know where Loki is."
That got more than one reaction.
"But I will not reveal it," VA said sharply. "He is trouble, and I do not want him brought into this prematurely."
He added, almost as an afterthought, "I have leads on Sif and Tyr. Nothing solid yet."
He was nearly gone when he turned back and offered one final warning.
"Please," Veritas Alpha said, and now even the old gods went still, "do not make Shane angry."
They looked at him in confusion.
VA's expression was unreadable.
"He has the potential to become far stronger than Odin."
Silence.
Then he finished the thought.
"Possibly stronger than even Apex Negativa, once fully leveled."
The old gods were stunned into complete silence.
And for once, Veritas Alpha left them with no further explanation.
********************
"If you enjoyed Shane's journey, please drop a Power Stone! It helps the Common Sense Party grow!"