In Brooklyn, New York, one month after Skyl left the Marvel Cinematic Universe—
A burst of thunder and lightning suddenly split the dim street as an orange-painted food truck appeared out of thin air. Its tires screamed against the pavement as it fishtailed like a drunk, swerving past a parked delivery truck before finally lurching to a stop just short of crashing through the side entrance of a 7-Eleven.
Skyl gently pulled on the door handle, but the whole door fell right off. As the driver's-side door dropped away, the rest of the vehicle's fragile parts began falling like rain. The headlights clattered onto the ground, the wipers rolled across the hood, the side mirror sagged crookedly like it had given up on life, and a blast of harsh white smoke hissed out from under the hood like a long, exhausted sigh. The truck died completely and refused to start again.
He jumped down to inspect the damage. On the way back, the Bifrost energy had run out. The massive pressure from faster-than-light travel had been mostly absorbed by the shield Skyl had raised, but the aftershock had still beaten this ordinary van half to death.
Its surface was covered in fine, deep scratches. A few high-energy particles had pierced the magical barrier, and even after decaying, their residual radiation still clung to the frame. It was like the marks salt spray left on the side of an old ship after a long voyage—evidence of the road it had traveled. Anyone who saw the truck now would think it was just some junker that had been on the road for over a decade.
But its mission really had come to an end, whether as a food truck or as a time machine.
"See you around, buddy."
Skyl gave the body a pat, and with a loud clunk, the front bumper dropped to the ground too.
He had originally planned to drive this noble vehicle—this hero that had rescued people from disaster—back to Stan's place and keep it in the garage as a memento. But judging from the state it was in, the only option now was to scrap it.
Skyl called a towing company and had them haul the truck off to a junkyard. Then he walked two blocks and returned to Stan's villa.
Standing before the front door, Skyl frowned. His intuition was strong enough to sense lingering thoughts attached to inanimate things, and the house was telling him that its roomy, cozy body had gone without residents for several dawns and dusks. As for the exact number of days, it was best not to ask too much from the soul of a house. It was a little dim, after all, and had no hope of understanding the concept of time invented by hairless apes.
In any case, Stan was not home. Neither Gali nor the new tenant, Thor, was anywhere to be seen.
Skyl turned the doorknob and opened the door without trouble. It looked like the owner had left in a hurry.
The living room was a mess, though not because of burglars. Some windows had been left open, and the wind had blown everything around. A thin layer of dust lay over the room.
The trash can was full of broken soda bottles. There were shards on the floor beside the fridge too, along with a large patch of congealed dark-green syrup. It was obvious that someone had smashed a bottle of soda there.
Skyl opened the Book of Mora.
"Ah, my lord, are you about to unfurl the magnificent and beautiful Grand Symphony?" Hermaeus's low, lazy, oily, fawning voice drifted out from the pages.
"Capture a few echoes of history for me. That shouldn't be difficult for you."
Skyl pressed a hand lightly to the page. An ice-green pulse of magic spread outward like ripples in water and enveloped the living room.
Words appeared on the Book of Mora.
—Thor moved into Stan Lee's house. This Norse God of Thunder had angered the All-Father Odin through his own reckless behavior, and so his father exiled him, stripping him of both his divine power and his right to wield Mjolnir. Reduced to a mortal, Thor still had not realized how awkward his situation had become. The moment he woke up, he tried to conscript Stan Lee, demanding that this elderly Midgardian mortal serve as his retainer and help him set out on a quest to reclaim his hammer.
Stan Lee refused Thor's rude demand. He also insisted that Thor follow his orders, because this was his house. He was the owner here, and that meant he was the one in charge.
Thor was frank and broad-minded. Since this elderly human refused to appreciate the honor, Thor stopped pressing the matter and simply went out on his own. While crossing the street, he was hit by a car and sent sprawling, nearly dying on the spot. Only then did he realize he had truly lost his divine power. With nowhere else to go, he wound up staying in the first-floor storage room of Stan's house.
There he was given a mattress, a set of bedding, and the companionship of a vacuum cleaner and several cardboard boxes. Thor thought Midgardian living quarters were absurdly bare-bones, completely oblivious to the fact that his place in the household was basically that of a pet.
Thor's greatest daily pleasure was drinking soda, then smashing the empty bottle on the floor and shouting for another. Stan Lee found him noisy, troublesome, useless, and dumb enough to fool easily. Seeing that he was built like a truck, Stan sold him off to a construction site to pour concrete. For a time, Thor became the most strikingly handsome construction worker in all of Brooklyn, and more than a few housewives invited him to expand into plumbing work.
Thor, upright and unbending, refused to let women exploit his labor. Whenever he made money, he spent it on soda and fried chicken sandwiches, and so he passed a stretch of leisurely days on Earth. Then, fourteen days ago, an accident occurred. Stan drank a poisoned soda. The moment he swallowed the first mouthful, his whole body reacted badly. He suffered a severe toxic response and was left at death's door. Thor immediately took him to the hospital—
The record in the Book of Mora stopped there. The echoes in that part of the house had already been collected.
Skyl rubbed at his brow. He was not worried about Stan's safety in the slightest. If the old man had been poisoned, that just meant he was making a cameo in another movie.
This seemed like the plot of The Incredible Hulk.
Trying to control the Hulk inside him, Banner had fled to Brazil to cultivate his mind in seclusion. During that time, he worked at a soda bottling plant to make ends meet. In one accident, he cut his finger, and his blood dripped into several bottles. He failed to recover every contaminated bottle, which let the tainted drinks make their way into the United States.
One of those sodas just happened to be the one Stan Lee drank. He had definitely done it on purpose. The old man landed in the hospital and his body began undergoing strange mutations. The military got the news, and the moment they caught even the faintest trace of the Hulk, they rushed to Brazil to capture him. In all likelihood, it would only be a few more days before the monstrous clash between the Hulk and the Abomination erupted in Manhattan. New York really was cursed with disaster after disaster.
What Skyl was curious about now was where Gali had gone. If that little girl had been left home alone, she had to be starving by now. She was probably wandering around outside looking for something to eat.
He headed upstairs. There were signs of a fight all along the hallway and through the bedrooms. The floor and walls were full of radiating cracks. The trail ran from Gali's bedroom all the way to Stan's study, then vanished outside the window.
The light of the Book of Mora spread out again.
—Three days after Stan Lee and Thor left, Galacta—Gali's full name—decided to go find food on her own after being tormented by hunger. But her appetite was simply too enormous. Even swallowing the whole Earth would only have been enough for one decent meal.
After several failed attempts at foraging, Gali suddenly had an idea and decided to solve the problem at its root. So she used Stan Lee's pen to remove the source of her hunger from her own body.
The result proved that the true culprit behind Galacta's endless hunger was a cosmic tapeworm living inside her. This tapeworm had inherited Galactus's power and was, in fact, Galacta's child.
Galacta named the little worm Jormungandr, which was clearly Thor's influence at work. Jormungandr fancied itself the World Serpent and decided to devour Earth. Galacta absolutely refused to allow that, and so the two got into an argument. Jormungandr swallowed Stan's pen, then flew into space, while Galacta immediately chased after it, and the two vanished together into the depths of the heavens—
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