In a side hall of the Golden Palace of Asgard, Frigga wearily withdrew her divine power.
The Bifrost served as Asgard's ultimate weapon, tasked with both transporting armies and acting as a planet-destroying force. Using it through dark magic instead of the fully materialized bridge imposed an immense burden on the wielder. Even though Frigga and Odin shared the load, she was now utterly exhausted.
She drew a few ragged breaths, cast a heavy gaze toward the distant sky, then made her way somberly to the vault. No one knew that child better than she did. If her calculations were correct, she would find Loki inside.
So Frigga slipped past the palace servants, past everyone, and entered the vault alone.
She had barely arrived when Loki indeed materialized before her.
Blue light flickered, and the Space Stone's energy receded. Loki wore his usual wicked grin, surveying his surroundings with confidence.
That confidence, however, lasted only seconds.
"Mother?!"
His brow furrowed. He greeted her even as he stepped closer, baffled.
"Long time no see. You're as radiant as ever, and that truly gladdens me. But why are you waiting here? Did you want to watch with your own eyes as your rebellious son destroys the realm Odin treasured most in his life?"
"Call him Father, child. He is your father!"
Frigga urged him, but her words went utterly unheard.
Loki shrugged dismissively and brushed past her, stopping before the Casket of Ancient Winters. The very artifact he had once used to freeze Heimdall now rested silently on its display pedestal, same as ever.
As he picked it up, he let out a mournful sigh.
"Pity. This realm is always like this. Thousands of years and nothing ever changes."
"They are barbaric, arrogant, scorning wisdom while prizing brute force. They are haughty, conceited, immutable to the death. This place does have its merits, but compared to its flaws, those faint virtues are nearly invisible. Just like this weapon. It possesses the power to destroy all of Asgard, yet their pride will not permit them to seal it away for good."
With that, Loki slowly turned and leveled the Casket at his own mother.
"Odin does not love me. The people of this kingdom do not love me. The army does not love me. The war chief does not love me. I have worked harder than anyone, and I could do better than anyone. Yet whenever I revealed my hopes for the throne, they only snickered. Even if I claimed it through wit alone, they would despise me, resist me, and cheer for my inevitable failure. Prejudice is a mountain, Mother."
With those words, Loki abruptly activated the Casket. Frost surged forth, encasing Frigga's body in a solid block of ice.
But Frigga offered no resistance. And Loki, in the end, did not freeze her completely.
Her head remained exposed, and suddenly she smiled. She smiled at her son.
"I know you will not harm me, child."
"And I know you would never harm me either, Mother!"
Faced with his mother's familiar gentle warmth, Loki erupted.
His expression twisted further into ruin, his tone growing sharper and more biting.
"Do you know, Frigga, that as a child I loved you most of all? I believed you were the only one in all of Asgard who truly cared for me. But now, you have become the one who pains me the most!"
"You knew I was always rejected by this land. You knew I would hate them as I would hate my enemies. Yet because of your love, I have been endlessly torn between destroying it and forgiving it, trapped beyond hope."
"Had you never loved me, I could have died with ease. Because living or dying would both have held true worth. If I lived and crushed this kingdom, that moment would have been the joy and honor of my entire life. And if I died in that rebellion, I could have faced death calmly, telling myself that I did not walk this world in vain, and I would not feel, as I do now, that I have wronged you."
"But it is you, you who made it so that I can never exact my revenge with a whole heart while I live, and never look back in peace after I die. And above all else, no matter how much agony your existence causes me, I can never forget the love you gave me."
Saying this, Loki turned and refused to look at his mother any longer.
He did not dare to see the tears streaming down her face.
Without looking back, he delivered his final words to Frigga.
"This time, I am destined to succeed. I have found an immensely powerful ally. Not Thanos, but a great native god of Midgard. I will kill Odin to prove my worth to him and to show Odin his own error. But I will not destroy Asgard. In fact, I will defend it, just as you have always wished."
"If this tortured, twisted heart is what you wanted, then you have succeeded. Being unloved was never the true pain. What truly lacerates my heart is that in the end, I must exact vengeance on so many who never loved me, and in doing so, betray the only one who ever did."
Resolute, he finished speaking and walked quietly out of the Golden Palace. The moment he stepped across the threshold, the Casket in his hands erupted. Infinite frost energy flooded every corner of the palace, freezing Asgard's most glorious seat of power into an exquisite sculpture of ice in the blink of an eye.
At the same time, Loki stowed the Casket and produced the Tesseract. Space energy, so different from the frost, churned violently. A vortex capable of tearing space itself expanded rapidly, and fifteen colossal Chitauri landing ships suddenly loomed in the skies above Asgard.
Heimdall, who had been charging straight for the palace, halted in his tracks. After a brief moment of assessment, he turned his sword and rushed toward the landing ships instead. In his eyes, the palace was already lost. His most critical task now was to stabilize the Asgardian civilians. Whether in Midgard or the Realm Eternal, the people and their hearts were what mattered most.
And Loki...
Having done those two things, he wandered aimlessly to the main entrance of the Golden Palace. Leaning against a thick frozen wall, he slumped to the ground without a shred of dignity. In the distance, Chitauri forces clashed relentlessly with the remaining palace guards and Asgardian civilians.
None of it drew Loki's attention.
He was waiting. Waiting for one person, or a group, to return. On a day when the Bifrost was still broken, how many forces could that father he hated to the marrow possibly transport here?
...
Earth. The United Nations. The five permanent members of the Security Council were locked in a heated argument over the coming war.
Of course, the so-called argument was essentially the other four permanents unloading on the United States in unison. When every nation had formidable intelligence at its disposal, no secret could truly stay hidden. Everyone knew exactly why the aliens were coming.
Wasn't it because of those weapons experiments conducted on American soil? The experiments on the Tesseract.
On this issue, the U.S. had almost no room to explain itself. When the brief session ended, for the first time, they could only humbly see off the ambassadors of the other nations.
But while the UN meeting had concluded, every country's work was just beginning. There might be rivalries and competing interests between nations, but none of that mattered in the face of racial extinction. Nearly every military force that could be mobilized was urgently deployed. Within half a day, the world's armies stood ready, waiting for the outcome of that inexplicable war beyond the sky.
Meanwhile, Heisenberg had already bid farewell to the Ancient One and the others, relaxing alone in a courtyard. It was 7:20 PM Earth time. Matthew was waiting for the ballot count in two hours. Hill and her people were bearing the brunt of pressure from both the UN and the U.S. government. After all, the alien attack stemmed from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s research on the Tesseract, a responsibility that neither Hill nor S.H.I.E.L.D. could shake off.
As for Asgard, it had to be said that things were utterly dire.
Although only fifteen Chitauri landing ships had invaded, and the bio-soldiers aboard numbered no more than eight thousand, the truth was that Asgardians never kept many guards at home. Even as Heimdall and the handful of defenders fought relentlessly, nearly wiping out all fifteen ships, they could not prevent the enemy from inflicting countless casualties.
Fires blazed through the city below the palace. Screams and the sounds of desperate flight echoed everywhere. Heimdall saw with clarity that the remaining Chitauri soldiers were charging at the refugees in organized formations, while he and his warriors were pinned down by stubborn Chitauri fighters. They could kill these bastards, yes, but time, time was what mattered most.
The city could be damaged, and buildings could be rebuilt. But the Asgardian people could not be allowed to perish. No matter the cost, he could not let them suffer irreparable harm. After eight grueling hours, Heimdall had no choice but to admit it: he needed reinforcements.
...
Meanwhile, high in the firmament.
Thor was swinging his bare fists, tearing apart Chitauri warriors that crashed onto Odin's flagship one after another. Yes, he fought with his hands, not his hammer. He was not flying through the cosmos smashing enemy ships with Mjolnir as he once had. Instead, like a berserker of Asgard, he grappled with the small squads that broke through to the flagship itself.
It was only now that Thor understood his own weakness. Without that accursed hammer, he could not even pilot a skiff to destroy Chitauri craft the way his friends, Fandral and the others, could. Once, he had relied on his hammer to soar across the Nine Realms above and below. In those days, he had never bothered to learn the systematic methods of ship combat. Now, with ships howling around him, he could barely handle the controls. He was like a fresh driver's license holder, able to get on the road but utterly incapable of a high-speed chase.
Yet it was precisely because of this that the sobering Thunder God was finally growing. He saw a blind spot he had never noticed before: everything he had, it seemed, had been built entirely upon his hammer.
But realizing that now... was perhaps too late.
At that very moment, Heimdall's voice rang in Odin's ears.
"Your Majesty, a Chitauri army has raided the palace. I fear it is Prince Loki's scheme. The battle can no longer be contained. Our civilians are in mortal danger!"
Odin nodded heavily. Then he cast a deep, lingering look at Thor fighting aboard the ship.
"If I let you face your brother now, when he has cast aside all restraint and chosen betrayal, you would stand no chance. So I leave this to you... Thunder God."
Odin murmured softly. Then he struck the shaft of Gungnir sharply against the deck.
In an instant, he and his honor guard vanished.
The battlefield now belonged to the future king of Asgard...
And to the more level-headed commanders of the Asgardian legions.
/-\
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