The sky was quiet that night, and filled with lights of all sizes—stars, mostly, but the biggest light of all was a silver moon shining bright and full.
A small airship was anchored in the middle of an empty desert on an island floating way up high—not one of the highest in Midgard, but its remoteness made it the perfect location for its three sailors' task.
The retractable roof was pulled back. A young woman with long brown hair and an aged pair of spectrogoggles over her eyes poked her head, then the rest of her body through the opening and gazed upwards, toggling the different settings on the goggles until she found the one she desired. As if on cue, there was a brief spike in its readings.
"Hurry!" she called to another sailor.
After she heard a bump and an "Ow!" her fellow joined her.
"Oh—watch your head," she said, sparing him a brief look before turning her eyes heavenward again.
"Thanks," the slightly-irritated man replied. He looked up too. "So what's this 'anomaly' of yours supposed to look like?"
"It's a little different each time. Once it looked like melted stars, pooling in the corner of the sky. But last week it looked like this rolling rainbow ribbon—"
"Racing 'round Orion?" A chuckle. "I've always said you should've been a poet, Jane," he teased her fondly.
The woman herself finally tore her eyes away to smile at him before calling back down into the cabin. "Hey, Darcy. Pass up the Yellow Loqua, will you?"
The younger girl did so, and Jane passed it in turn to her older companion-"Don't open it yet! Not until you see it!"—as she set her goggles to alert her if there was any more activity and pushed them onto her forehead. They revealed dark brown eyes full of anticipation.
"I recognize those," the man named Dr. Erik Selvig said, glancing at her aged eyewear. "Think how proud he'd be to see you now."
Jane's excitement faltered. "Thank you."
"For what?" the man asked.
"The benefit of the doubt," she answered quietly.
A while passed as they looked back up. The stars quietly twinkled back.
"It's never taken this long before," she said apprehensively.
"Can I turn on the radio?" the younger one asked from below.
"Sure, if you like rocking out to 'All agriculture, all the time,'" Jane replied testily. The two scientists rejoined their intern down in the cabin, and she rifled through her old notebook before settling on the right scribbled-all-over page. She showed it to her colleague.
"The last seventeen occurrences have been predictable to the minute… I just don't understand."
Suddenly, Darcy spotted a growing mass of clouds to their northeast. They swirled and glowed a bright blue. "Jane…?" The bottle of Yellow Loqua, forgotten on a shelf, began to shake.
"Shh!" the other woman admonished without a glance away from her notes. "There's got to be some new variable…"
"And I think I see it," Darcy chimed in, staring with wide eyes at the newborn storm.
The scientists' attention was momentarily grabbed by the shaking bottle and the sudden bizarre behavior of all their equipment—but when the spectrogoggles beeped insistently and they heard Darcy, the two looked out the window.
"Holy. Shatner." A reinvigorated and wildly excited Jane pulled her goggles back over her eyes.
"That's your 'subtle' aurora!?" Selvig exclaimed, stunned.
"No—yes! Full speed ahead!"
The bottle fell to the floor as the ship hoisted anchor and sailed off as fast as it could. Jane stood out of the still-open roof, recording equipment in hand and spectrogoggles running at full capacity. She almost flew out when they hit turbulence before Selvig pulled her back in.
She grinned. "Isn't this great!?" Then she looked at Selvig. "You're seeing it too, right? I'm not crazy?"
"That's debatable." He shook his head. "Close the roof, Darcy!"
The girl did so. Harsh and freezing winds pummeled the aircraft as they got closer—wait, freezing!? Jane felt the cold well enough, and a quick look at the temperature readings confirmed it. This hasn't happened before…
Then an enormous icy blue tornado shot down from the clouds and slammed into the desert below.
Dr. Selvig gazed at it, awestruck, and a wide-eyed Jane used this opportunity to open one of the windows and lean out of it to resume her data collecting.
"You've got to get us closer so I can take a magnetic reading!" she ordered Darcy.
"Yeah, right! Good one!" Darcy said sardonically. Jane shot her a look. "Oh Moons…" she realized, "you're actually serious."
"You want those college credits or not?" Jane asked.
So they kept sailing, focused on their goal (and, in Darcy's case, keeping everyone alive). So focused, in fact, they took no notice of two abnormally large ravens flying by their ship.
Suddenly, a chunk of ice hurled out of the tornado and nearly smashed into them before their pilot banked hard and dodged it.
"Keep the credits!" Darcy exclaimed as she turned the ship around. "I'll intern at Burger King!"
"What are you doing!?" Jane asked, thrown back into the cabin.
"Saving our lives!"
The scientist grabbed a knob of the steering wheel and pulled the other direction. The tug-of-war between the two continued for a bit until a large indigo ship emerged from the icy tornado.
Jane let go in shock and Darcy took the opportunity to floor it away from there, but the large ship was far faster and overtook them quickly. Very soon after that the three heard thumps on their roof before it was ripped away, filling the cabin with frigid air.
Then two very large figures leaped inside. They had ridges and piercings all over skin that wasn't covered with formidable indigo armor, but the odd thing about them was the skin itself. Jane wasn't sure whether it was the lighting or not, but it looked… blue. It was when she looked into their unsettling eyes—all red except for their black pupils—that she realized what she was dealing with.
"Aliens," she said in a stunned whisper.
"Which of you is the one that seeks Yggdrasil?" one of the pair asked.
Silence followed.
"Well?" the same alien demanded with more evident hostility.
"…That's me. I'm the one you're looking for." Jane said, quickly realizing the delicateness of the situation. She extended a hand. "My name is Jane Foster."
The alien didn't take it.
"You will come with us—" the other one commanded.
"Wait, what!?" Darcy exclaimed. All heads turned to her, and the aliens glared.
They clenched their fists and icy blades formed around them.
"—Or we will take this ship by force."
Darcy started backwards as Erik tried to negotiate. "All right," he began slowly—
"We will not parley," the second alien said. "This Jane Foster will come with us. Should any of you resist, we shall destroy this ship and take her anyway."
A beat passed. "I'll go," Jane said, and stepped towards them.
"Jane, you can't!" Darcy cried. Selvig grabbed her by the arm.
She looked at both her companions. "You heard what they said. If I don't come peacefully, you two will be killed."
She turned to Erik with (despite her serious expression) excitement in her eyes. "Think about it, Erik. You and Dad and I have always wanted to discover another world, to boldly go where no man has gone before. Now I have the chance to do that!"
"Think of what I'll see!" she added. "Think of all the things I'll discover, knowledge that will change everything we know!"
Assuming I come back, she thought, and she knew they both knew that too. Darcy was still distraught, and Erik still very hesitant.
So she gave her colleague a small smile. "Dad's dream can finally be realized."
That was about enough to convince him. After another brief moment, he let her go and she walked over to where the two aliens stood. They retracted their blades and beckoned her to stand between them.
"See you later, guys." She waved a farewell to the last Midgarders she would see for a long time, and with that the two aliens grabbed her roughly. A blue beam of light surrounded the three and they disappeared soon after.
Then the indigo cruiser headed back into the cyclone. Once it surrounded the ship, the tornado withdrew up into the storm and then—both cyclone and ship were gone. The clouds dissipated in turn and left the small, battered airship alone in quiet skies.
\\\
Jane's first reflection after being teleported onto an alien ship was that she'd never been more cold and disoriented in her life. She shook and stumbled as her two escorts dragged her over to an alien who was dressed in grey robes—maybe a doctor? Some medical attention would be really nice right now.
What she got was the exact opposite. The alien muttered a few words and put their hand on her forehead, and then she felt even crappier and… really tired. So exhausted, in fact, that she was losing consciousness fast. "How…?"
But that was the only thing she managed to say before her eyes shut and darkness swallowed her.
/
A tall and imposing indigo figure of regal bearing stood on the bridge. He smirked. "We finally have her."
"Your Highness," one of the officers reported, "the girl is unharmed and has been put to sleep."
"Excellent. Now," he turned to his navigators, "all of you know we must be as inconspicuous as possible in this next realm. Take every precaution, for today's cargo will return Jotunheim to its rightful glory!"
"Yes, my King!" they replied in unison.
They emerged into new skies with only a few wisps of cloud to herald their entrance. The nearest island was a ways away, the first rays of sun were just beginning to shine, and a golden moon was setting on the horizon. Then the ship was hit suddenly and hard.
The bridge rattled. "What? Where did that come from?" the king asked sternly. "I require a status report, immediately!"
"Th… the lower hull has been hit!" a crew member said in disbelief. "Someone is attacking us!"
"An attack? So soon!?" The king grew furious once he realized who their enemies were.
"Sky Vikings!"
\\\
The scarlet colors of the Raven Banner flew proudly over the attacking ship. Atop its lookout stood a tall man of large build and shoulder-length golden hair that streamed in the wind. He hefted a large and heavy iron hammer, waiting for an opening.
The ship fired its cannons all the while, and when it got close enough his fellow crewmembers hurled grapples onto the enemy cruiser to connect the two vessels.
This was the moment the man had been waiting for. He jumped straight off the lookout and down, down past the sails, past the cannons, landing on the enemy's deck hard enough to send frost flying from the impact. His blue eyes sized up the situation—enemies bursting onto the deck—and he grinned.
"Sky Viking scum!" one of the grunts said. "Do you know who you deal with?"
"Of course I know, Frost Giants. 'Tis why we attacked your ship," he said. "You lot have the best stuff!"
The lights turned on him. He rose from a kneeling position and readied for battle. "I am Thor of Asgard. And in a few minutes, I'm going to take all your loot!"
A grunt sneered. "Heh… attacking us all by yourself? You're either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid."
"Who said he was alone?"
Another man suddenly materialized in the shadows behind the grunt and hit him with a fire spell. The soldiers turned to attack him, but he disappeared as soon as he'd appeared.
The brown-haired Viking rematerialized just as suddenly by Thor's side. "I'm not going to let you have all the fun, brother." He smirked at Thor and then turned his green eyes to the others.
"Loki," he introduced himself with a mocking flourish and readied his bronze staff (and his hidden knives, too). "I am of Asgard as well. Oh and yes, we're robbing you."
"You dare mock us with your insolence?" a Frost Giant growled.
"Kill them!" another cried. "And toss their corpses over the side!"
The two immediately double-teamed the first soldier with a crushing hammer-blow and a throwing knife to the throat before taking on the others. As usual, the older warrior Thor charged the enemies and fought at close range while the younger mage Loki attacked with knives and magic from the rear.
Most of the Frost Giants mobbed Thor as he smashed them or sent them flying with his hammer and brute strength, but there were always those smart enough to avoid him and go after the other one. Loki dodged a side-swipe and knifed the enemy in the side before shooting a fire spell—Pyri— at another Giant.
"Getting too close for comfort, Thor," he snapped.
His brother laughed heartily as he pummeled another one into oblivion. "Have heart, Loki! The victory," with a whack to the last one, "will be ours!"
Then more Frost Giants swarmed onto the deck.
Loki sighed and teleported so he was back to back with Thor. The warrior himself grinned with anticipation of the next battle.
"There is no point in resisting!" Thor shouted. "Throw down your weapons and hand over your ship!"
"Imbeciles! What do the two of you think you can do against all of us?" one asked.
"Kill them!" another cried.
Then a few of them were immediately felled by a blast of light, and all on the deck turned to the Viking ship to see the golden spear it came from. Its wielder, an imposing man with a grizzled white beard and an eyepatch, was none other than Captain Odin himself. The rest of the Vikings stood behind him, ready to board the Frost Giant Cruiser.
"Father!" Thor exclaimed.
The old man stepped onto the deck. "We shall take care of them. Make your way to the bridge and shut down the engines."
"And when we're out here, 'tis 'Captain,' not 'Father,'" he added. "Remember that."
"Yes, yes… Aye aye, Captain," Thor replied. "Heh." He turned to his brother. "Loki, shall we go introduce ourselves to the captain of this ship?"
"Ready when you are," the younger brother answered with a sly grin.
"Then let us find the bridge!" And they ran towards their target as the rest of the Vikings engaged the foes.
/
A stroke of fortune placed a treasure chest right next to the two raiders as they dropped under the deck. They quickly looted the Sacri Crystal from it and forged ahead through a long hallway until they came to a large room… with nobody in it.
Loki automatically expected a trap and hung back, but Thor burst into the wide space and looked around. "Is there no one here to challenge us?" the warrior boasted. "All of you are cowards if you will abandon your ship without a fight—"
"Thor—"
"Well, well… It appears that Sky Vikings have decided to… infest my ship."
The two brothers found the source of the voice on a high balcony—none other than the enemy ruler himself.
"I am Laufey," he introduced himself, "King of Jotunheim."
Next to him stood what looked to be his second-in-command with a valuable-looking bundle slung over his shoulder. A closer look, however, showed that the cargo was actually… a woman?
"Normally, simple raiders such as yourselves could never be fortunate enough to be in my presence," the king continued, "but then again… you two are the captain's sons, are you not?" His smile was dangerous.
"Pardon us," Loki said with sarcasm, walking into the room warily. "We never thought someone of your… stature would stoop to kidnapping."
"We are indeed sons of Odin!" Thor cried. "And we will suffer your petty slights no more—unhand that woman and prepare for defeat!"
"Hm!" Laufey scoffed. "You are very observant for Vikings. However, I cannot waste my time dealing with you, for I must be on my way. But I think I shall have you two exterminated like the pests you are."
He made a grand gesture. "Dispose of them."
More Frost Giants, this time armed with staffs, jumped down from the rafters and attacked. Loki sighed (again) and another battle began.
It was tougher fighting this time; both of them suffered blows from an enemy staff at least once, but they still came out in reasonably good health when the last enemy was felled.
"Hah! That was easy!" Thor exclaimed.
However, Laufey had disappeared and more Giants showed up in his place. The pair had to fight their way up to the bridge through battalion after battalion of foes (while looting Sacri Crystals on the side and applying them for healing as needed). They finally reached the right deck, but then…
"What are you doing?" Loki asked his brother.
The older Viking moved away from the bridge and towards the direction the King of Jotunheim had exited.
"We cannot let them get away with that woman!" he exclaimed.
"Thor, our orders are to shut down the engines."
"And if we do not stop Laufey now, that woman will be in even greater danger! We must pursue them!"
Loki gave him a disapproving look, but Thor stood his ground. "If you are unwilling, then I will go after him myself!"
The younger brother rolled his eyes. "Laufey is a tactical genius; you will never be able to win by yourself. I will accompany you."
Thor beamed like a child who'd received his candy. "Then let us go!"
\\\
They came face to face to a large and heavy door in the next room: one that stood between them and Laufey.
"Hmh!" his voice echoed from the room behind it. "You will never get through this door… I have it locked from the other side! So long, Vikings."
Thor rushed to the door and banged it uselessly with his hammer. "What shall we do?" he asked with frustration.
Then he looked at Loki, who held a freshly-looted Magic Droplet in one hand and pointed to another door down a side corridor with the other.
"…A tactical genius, you said?"
"Perhaps I overestimated him," Loki replied with a bit of sass. "But come, let us catch him before he can spring a proper trap."
/
The door opened to the outer hull of the cruiser. There was no more cannon fire—the ship was mostly taken, from the sounds of it.
The vast blue morning sky surrounded the two as they descended a ladder attached to the side of the hull. All that could be heard for a bit was the whistling wind, but as they got closer to the hangar, they could hear voices…
\\\
Thor clamored into the hangar and was immediately challenged by the second-in-command. A great but quick fight ensued as Loki slipped in and assessed the situation: Thor engaged in battle, Laufey readying an escape boat, and, curiously, the woman lying prone and abandoned on the ground.
The younger Viking moved quickly and quietly over to secure the woman, careful to make it before Thor finished his fight and called attention to him. He made it by a very close shave too; no sooner had he knelt down beside her than his older brother's voice cried:
"Coward! You would leave your men to die!?"
"No… I am saving the rest of Jotunheim," Laufey answered. "You were very fortunate indeed to chance upon my flagship here in remote skies, but I will not let myself be captured and Jotunheim degraded."
"You lot deserve it after everything you've done to the Realms! Murdering and stealing from the innocent—"
"You and your father are murderers and thieves same."
"Do not dishonor us! We fight you to protect those you pillage!"
Laufey shook his head and chuckled bitterly. "You don't know what your actions bring about… I do," he said, looking straight at Loki with an expression that made the latter feel… uneasy. The mage involuntarily dropped his guard.
"And with that, I shall be going."
"You shall not escape!" Thor charged the boat, but as he did—
A giant white creature burst out of one of the walls and jumped after Thor, who barely evaded having his armor shredded.
"Farewell." With a sardonic wave, Laufey and his escape boat shot out of the hangar, leaving the two Vikings and woman behind to deal with the beast he'd unleashed upon them.
Loki cursed himself and they readied for battle.
"What is that thing?" Thor asked.
The creature was four-legged and covered with white fur, much like a bear but with intimidating tusks.
"A monster from the wastes of Jotunheim," his brother answered. "Its close-range attacks are famed to be very powerful, so you must conserve your close strikes and make them as strong as possible!"
"Sounds like a good challenge," he replied, grinning.
"That means you need to Focus, Thor."
"Oh, all right." He knelt, closed his eyes, and grasped his hammer tight as he concentrated. "Haaahhhh!" Energy began to build up around him.
Loki threw a knife at one of the beast's legs to distract it from his brother—it landed and only did minor damage. The beast shook it off, opened its mouth, and counterattacked with a blast of deadly ice breath that Loki narrowly dodged.
Time to exploit its elemental weaknesses, then. "Moons, give me strength!" the mage cried.
A red magic circle appeared on the ground and a fiery red tornado spun up from under the giant monster. Burned (but not badly yet) the enemy grew angrier just in time for a focused Thor to give him a decisive and damaging whack with his hammer. The tusked counterattack was brutal and sent the gashed warrior hurtling across the room.
Thor picked himself up, but he was hurting badly. To make matters worse, they had run out of Sacri Crystals. "Loki! I need a healing spell!"
His brother gritted his teeth, "Hold on…" and used Sacri on him. Unfortunately, the two spells in quick succession drained Loki's magic reserves. He used the restorative Magic Droplet immediately, but those took a little more time to work.
Noticing Loki hanging back and tiring, the monster charged him. But, unbeknownst to their enemy, Thor was crouched behind it whirling his hammer in circles faster and faster…
Loki immediately caught on to what was happening once it became apparent Thor wasn't in pursuit. He moved deliberately slower, tricking the creature into thinking it had him…
"Haaahhhh!" And Thor surged ahead, his shining hammer pulling him high into the air—"Hammer's Fury!"—before crashing into the enemy and delivering it a crushing blow square between the shoulderblades.
The creature collapsed to the floor, dead, as Thor jumped off it. Loki immediately set it ablaze.
"That was fun!" Thor laughed.
Loki smirked a bit, but his eyes remained mirthless and cold as he stared at the dwindling fire.
The older brother's smile faded a little. "Come now!" he encouraged. "Was that not a glorious battle?"
The younger brother turned to regard him, obviously somewhat unsettled, but he dropped that demeanor as soon as he saw Thor's worried face.
"Do not worry, Thor. 'Tis nothing," he reassured him. But why did Laufey look at me like that? "All is well."
"That is good to hear, my brother," Thor said, clasping his brother's neck, and they both smiled.
Then Thor turned and strode towards the open bay doors. "But damn! The bastard got away."
"Well," Loki added, stepping alongside him, "even if he was a coward, he was a coward with gold…"
"True," Thor acknowledged. "I suppose that the ship and all things on it belong to us now."
"We haven't had a catch like this for quite some time. Everyone back home will be impressed," the other said. He noticed Thor looking away and followed his gaze to land on the still-unconscious woman. "And that woman…"
They walked over to her, and Thor knelt down. "I've never seen anyone attired like this before," Loki said…
But Thor stopped paying attention, because as more sunlight hit her face, the woman stirred and opened the prettiest brown eyes he had ever seen. She was small, and frail-looking, but she was beautiful regardless.
"…I wonder why Jotunheim was trying to kidnap her in the first place—Thor, are you even paying attention?"
"Huh?" The warrior started, and the woman seemed to have lost consciousness again. "Oh, yes. Of course."
Loki shot him a dubious look, but knelt down anyways and examined a peculiar sort of eyewear around her neck. "Hmm… I've never seen the likes of this before."
"I wonder, where is she from…?"