Hela breathed in the open air as though tasting freedom for the first time in age. Without Odin's divine chains binding her, the power within her surged free wild and unstoppable.
For centuries she had felt Odin weakening. And now, finally, the moment she had waited for had come.
Hatred honed over millennia, burned in her eyes as she regarded Thor and Loki.
"A shame," A cruel smile curving across her lips, "I wanted to watch him die with my own eyes."
Relief mingled with venom in her tone. The death of the All-Father had not snuffed out her ambition. The fire she once used to conquer the realms now roared unrestrained.
Thor stepped forward, Mjolnir crackling faintly in his grip.
"I am Thor Odinson." He forced his voice steady.
"You don't resemble him at all." Hela's smile widened as though amused by a child proclaiming his lineage.
Loki edged slightly to the side. Today he had learned a truth that even he had never suspected… Odin had another heir. The revelation shook him, but also intrigued him.
"Perhaps," Loki ventured, "We could discuss this~"
Hela's gaze snapped to him, "You sound exactly like Odin."
"Kneel."
Thor and Loki stared, they thought they had misheard.
"What?" Loki asked.
Hela drew in a slow breath, savoring the moment, savoring her freedom. Then, with a flicker of deathly energy, a blade of obsidian materialized in her hand, its edge glowing with a sickly green.
"I said…"
"Kneel and swear fealty to your queen."
The raw arrogance of a conqueror.
Thor felt his blood boil. "You expect us to surrender the moment you appear? I don't think you have the right to demand anything from us."
He didn't wait for her to respond.
Rage, grief, and fear for the future of Asgard collided within him, and he let instinct take over. Mjolnir spun in his hand, gathering momentum.
"No more talk," Thor growled.
With a roar, he hurled the hammer straight at Hela.
Hela's expression didn't so much as flicker. As Mjolnir flew toward her, she merely lifted one pale hand and caught it.
Thunder flared, but none of it made her so much as blink.
"That's… impossible…"
He thrust out a trembling hand, summoning the hammer. Mjolnir shuddered violently in Hela's grasp, trying to obey its master… but it didn't move an inch.
No one, no one, touched Mjolnir without being judged worthy. In the hands of another, its weight approached the pull of a collapsing star.
By Odin's own enchantments, it simply could not be lifted.
Yet Hela held it as lightly as a toy.
"Come to me! Mjolnir!"bThor's disbelief broke into panic.
The hammer continued to vibrate, fighting its impossible captor…
"Little one," She purred, tightening her grip, "You truly have no idea what is possible."
Her fingers contracted.
An instant later, the lightning within Mjolnir erupted in a violent, blinding sphere of power. Thunder swallowed everything around them in white-blue.
BOOM!
The shockwave hurled Thor and Loki like leaves in a storm. Their bodies dragged across soil and stone, torn furrows marking their path.
For a moment they could not breathe, could not think. The entire earth seemed to tremble.
When the sea of lightning at last faded, Thor staggered to his knees.
"…NO!"
Mjolnir… Odin's gift, his companion, the weapon of kings lay shattered on the ground as nothing but molten fragments and twisted shards of uru metal.
He stopped breathing. Loki's eyes widened to near terror.
Hela dropped the last sliver of the hammer, disinterested.
Her hair rose and twisted into sharp, raven-black spikes, forming her war-helm. The sleek black fabric of her attire rippled, hardening into ancient armor.
Power radiated from her in an aura so heavy that Thor could barely draw breath beneath it.
"Loki!" Thor shouted, panic and fury warring inside him.
Loki was already reacting, terror outweighing pride as he screamed toward the heavens.
"Open the Bifrost! NOW!"
"No!" Thor roared, lunging forward but the decision was stolen from him.
The rainbow beam of Bifrost engulfed the brothers in an instant.
Hela's silhouette blurred and she leapt straight into the beam after them, her form dissolving into the racing light.
In a heartbeat, the sky was empty. Only the scorched earth remained, littered with the broken remnants of Mjolnir.
A ripple in space sounded like a held breath releasing.
Soren stepped through the distortion. The moment the thunder had erupted, even from the Medical Center, he had felt an eruption of power so vast it rattled the very fabric of the world.
His senses had instantly traced the origin.
"…"