A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Hope you enjoy this latest chapter! I'll have more soon.
Valkyrie had barely registered that their ship now had company when there was a tremendous lurch. She grabbed for the windowsill to steady herself, and the drink she'd been holding in one hand sloshed in an ice blue wave onto the floor. She muttered a curse and adjusted her grip as the ground swayed beneath her.
The walls of the ship shuddered under the sharp braking, and so did her insides. Feeling suddenly queasy, she watched as people at the makeshift bar on the other side of the room braced themselves against the counter. Even from here, she could hear bottles of alcohol as they tipped and clinked and shuddered. It would be quite a shame if any of them broke. The Grandmaster had stocked all his ships with the finest in the galaxy. She'd drained quite a few of them herself.
When the ship returned to normal angles of slant, Valkyrie narrowed her eyes and stood. Everyone at the bar had perked up too, alert and concerned. She wondered why the ship had stopped, and quickly came to the conclusion that it had likely been halted by force. If that was the case, whoever was in that ship had powerful star force beam path generators, multiple engines, and most likely a crew with violent intentions. Space pirates, she decided. She was rather shocked to realize they must be real; she had thought them another one of the Grandmaster's fictions to keep his "free" people in line.
"This is going to get ugly," she said to herself, and drained the drink in her hand. She let the glass fall to the ground, where it smashed into a few feeble fragments. The call rose in her head, unbidden: Another! Some Asgardian traditions never did die.
She thought about asking the makeshift barkeep for one last drink - something good enough that it wouldn't be a shame to die by pirates with the taste of it on her lips. This contemplation was abandoned when the sound of hurried footsteps began to issue from down the hall She whirled to find Thor and Loki sprinting toward her, both of them pale and stricken.
"Thanos," Thor cried as they approached, outstretching a hand as if to summon her already rapt attention, "that's Thanos' ship! He's frozen us in place, and pod ships are coming our way. He's coming!"
Valkyrie hadn't exactly been living under a rock during her time in Sakaar, but her pop culture references still weren't all that great. "Who?"
There was a brief exchange of exasperated looks between the two brothers, and Loki's face held the distinct obstinance of someone who wasn't going to go within ten feet of an explanation. Eventually Thor put both hands at his sides and said, "He's intent upon collecting powerful infinity stones to amass power."
She scrunched her eyebrows. "What does that have to do with us?"
"We used to have one in our possession. And Thanos is not going to be happy when he finds out the Space stone sat in our Asgardian vaults for years under Loki's watch. He's going to be even less pleased when he finds out it got destroyed with the rest of our planet. We don't have what he wants - it's gone - and even on a good day, Thanos is not the kind to leave many survivors, if the stories are true."
Loki opened and closed his mouth as if he was about to say something but thought better of it. Thor didn't seem to notice, but Valkyrie did. Scratch the space pirates idea; a volatile, rampaging jeweler was way worse. At least pirates had a purpose to their plunder. Thanos just sounded like a murderer. She'd seen enough murderous beings to last her several lifetimes, and they were all annoyingly irascible. There was no reasoning with that kind of nuts.
"So, we're gonna die?" she clarified.
"Not if we can help it," Thor corrected. "Can you sound the alarm? We need our people to prepare for battle or evacuation. Get Korg to start leading evacuations to the escape pods. Then go find Banner...Hulk...and see if he can help. I don't know what state he's in, but he'll likely listen to you more than either of us."
Between the three of them, she was the only one he hadn't flung against the floor in a fit of rage. "Yeah, okay. What are you two going to do?"
"We'll find Heimdall," Thor began. He looked to his brother as if to say, anything to add?
"We have a plan," Loki said curtly. Maybe it was just the gross fluorescent lighting in this place, but the shadows on his face made him look tired and perhaps even a little miserable. Perhaps there was some backstory here between him and Thanos, but there wasn't time to ask about it now.
They split off in different directions, and Valkyrie seized a giant red lever at the first door she passed. She yanked it down hard and blaring sirens wailed on the ship. A command interface popped up on the screen, and she keyed in a message that would broadcast on all the holo-screens: We may be under attack. Make your way to the escape pods, or stay and fight, your choice. Long live Asgard!
It was a bit peppy for her, but perhaps the exclamation point would get the intent across. She had been learning much from her time with Korg, who had been educating her on the proper ways to start a revolution or garner mass support for a cause. He even had a system, called "The Three E Takedown". They stood for Education, Excitement, and Explosions.
Valkyrie really only cared about the last one, but in order to get there, she needed Korg himself. She darted down hallways illuminated with tinted red flashing lights, the sound of alarms blasting her eardrums, until she found him and Miek in the third floor lounge, which had become a temporary armory. It was a tiny, windowless conference room full of a very imaginative range of weapons. She ignored the strange mess of eggs that Miek had emitted all over the floor, and stepped between them until she was face to face with Korg, who was strapping on a giant laser gun.
"Oh, hey," he said in that shockingly mild voice. Even in the midst of an impending war, he sounded like he was just meeting up with her to get drinks. "Want a gun?"
"Don't mind if I do," she said, grabbing two and slipping them into her holsters. She checked to make sure all five of her knives were still in place, and, feeling ready, explained the situation. "Can you lead the people to the escape pods and facilitate evacuation so there isn't a panic? Tell them all to rendezvous on some nearby planet. I don't know what we're close to or what would be best-"
"We can meet on Klyntar," suggested Korg. "It's not far from here, and that's where Miek's from, right, Miek?"
Miek made a series of chopping movements with his scissor limbs. Valkyrie assumed that was a yes.
"Is it habitable?"
"Yeah, yeah, it'll be great! There's a forest, and caves. And more Mieks."
"Okay, cool."
"What do you want us to do when everyone's evacuated?"
She chewed her lip in thought. "You both can choose to either stay and fight with us or meet the Asgardians. Either way you'd be doing us a favor, because we'll need help against Thanos to hold him off, but the evacuees are going to need a leader. I have a feeling we're eventually going to need a universe-sized revolution to stop him. You and Miek seem like the perfect ones to build it up."
Korg's eyes lit up at the word revolution, and he straightened to his full height. "We can do both! You can count on us to fight Thanos, and then after the battle rejoin everyone on Klyntar."
"Good luck," Valkyrie said, lifting a small flask from the inside of her sleeve and uncapping it. "Want some?"
"Nah, we're good. Klyntar has many wonderful breweries, we're gonna hold out for those. You'll see why when you catch up to us. See you around, Scrapper 142. Good luck to you too."
She dipped her head at the throwback to her old name, took a swig, stowed the flask again, and exited the lounge. Korg and Miek followed shortly after and diverged down a different hallway.
Valkyrie darted through the swelling crowd of Asgardians that were now flowing into the halls, and wrestled her way to the engine room, where steam hissed out of vents and loud humming noises could be heard. As she entered through the steel door and wormed her way between bulging pipes and tangles of wires, she noticed a rhythmic clanging. The Hulk must be weightlifting again. The alarms blaring from the corridor were drowned out by the running of the engines down here, so it was not a surprise to see the Hulk had not armed himself for the expected invasion.
"Hey, big guy," she called, finally stepping into view. The Hulk paused in the middle of benching a giant barrel of ship fuel.
"HEY, BIG GIRL."
"We have a big monster you might get to fight, are you up for it?"
"ALL MONSTERS GET SMASH."
"Okay. We're meeting up with everybody, so let's go. Take a good last look, though. We may not be staying." Or surviving, she added mentally.
The Hulk grunted and set down the barrel with such force it cracked the cement floor. This seemed to please him, and he grinned, showing teeth the size of Valkyrie's hands. He lumbered forward without looking back, not the least bit sentimental. Like Valkyrie, he believed better things would be ahead. For him, it was a fight. For her, it was a drink...or ten...at one of those Klyntar breweries.
"FOR SURE SMASH, OR POSSIBLE SMASH?" he asked as they made their way out of the engine room. He looked aggressively around for the source of the alarms, which were still clamouring, and tore the nearest one off the wall with a satisfied huff. It bleated pathetically in his giant hand before he crushed it and sprinkled the remains on the floor in a fine dust.
"Possible smash. We don't want to attack unless they mean us harm."
The Hulk said nothing to this. In their time together on Sakaar, she'd never been sure that he had a complete understanding of the finesse of a battle. He might be strong, but he was also careless. What if he was provoked into attacking Thanos first, when they could have settled whatever the visit prompted with civil words? Valkyrie may have been a warrior, but she had learned to hate needless bloodshed. A memory of her fellow shieldmaidens' lifeless faces flew across her mind in images of steel and white and scarlet. Never again.
Having recently met the Hulk's nerdy alter-ego, she found it stranger and stranger to interact with the green giant she thought she'd known. She'd imagined the Hulk was all there was, and had been shocked to find that someone so mild-mannered and kind could be trapped in there too. Perhaps someday she'd be able to reconcile these two warring existences in her own mind. But ever since Ragnarok, the Hulk refused to yield the reigns to Bruce. This was what she was used to, of course, but things were different now that she knew there was more to him than rage.
"If we get separated," she said as they walked to the landing dock, "meet everyone on the planet Klyntar."
"HULK NO FLY SHIP. HULK ONLY SMASH."
"Just...find a way to get there. Okay?"
"HULK HITCH RIDE."
"There, was that so hard?"
The Hulk huffed, and even though it might have sounded angry, Valkyrie had learned this was his expression of assent. She grinned and quickened her pace.
They approached the landing docks on the lower level, which was where envoys from Thanos' ship would arrive. From the size of that ship, they could probably blow this one to bits with a few well placed shots, so if Thanos wasn't in a bargaining mood, he could just kill them all and be done with it.
Either way, chances of survival were slim. But Valkyries like her were prepared for those odds. That slim chance of survival was what they had been created to defend. And she had no plans of dying today. Not when a pint at a brewery had her name on it.
A large number of Asgardians had gathered outside the massive dock doors, looking armed, angry, and alert. Hulk reliably cleared a path through them to the front, where Korg and Miek stood waiting for them.
"Did anyone evacuate?" Valkyrie hissed as she glanced backward at the masses. "Korg, this is, like, the entire ship."
"No, it is most of the ship; we sent the children and the elders in the escape pods, as you can see."
"Did you convey to them the seriousness of the situation? This could get bad. People will die."
Korg held up a ridiculously long ream of paper with signatures scrawled in various colors of ink. "I added another E to The Three E Takedown: Endorsement! Much more effective than printing pamphlets. Everyone who wished to stay signed this waiver acknowledging the risks of facing Thanos. So we're good to go!" Miek clicked his blades in agreement.
Valkyrie put a palm against her forehead. Korg and his paperwork. How did he even survey everyone that quickly? "Our civilization is in jeopardy - Asgard is right here, this is it. If they all die, there won't be an Asgard. You're telling me they're all okay with that?"
The ensemble behind her must have heard this, for one man called out from the crowd, "We are Asgard! We live as one, we die as one!"
More people joined in, and a repeating cheer quickly built in volume until the words thundered against the ship walls. Amid the WE ARE ASGARDs, Valkyrie was surprised to feel a small amount of relief to be among her people again. She'd tried so hard to forget who she was on Sakaar, but after years and years, everything she remembered about her home was still there underneath all the pain and grief. Perhaps it had never even been hers to erase.
Heimdall, Thor, and Loki finally emerged through the crowd, dressed in their armor. The loud cheers subsided into respectful quiet as the three of them took their places at the front of the dock doors with Valkyrie and Hulk. Heimdall clutched the Bifrost sword tightly in his hands and said nothing. Loki did not look at anyone, and only stared straight ahead at the sealed doors, the pronged shadow cast by his horned helmet stretching ominously up the wall. Thor held no weapon in his hands, but he was emitting strange crackling sounds and sparkles from his fingers. Valkyrie made sure she stood far enough back to avoid a potentially deadly static shock. She wondered if he was going to address his people as their king, but if the last few days were any indication, Thor didn't seem very interested in formalities or flowery speeches at the moment. So they stayed in anticipatory silence.
This was the worst part about preparing for a fight. The waiting.
For a few minutes, there was a quiet humming of conversation, hushed as if Thanos could hear them even now. Given how much fear he struck into the hearts of Thor and even Loki, Valkyrie wouldn't have been surprised if that was the case. It would be nice to put a face to the name; she found that naming things one was afraid of made them somewhat less intimidating.
To be named, to live, was to have a weakness. And every weakness would yield under the point of a sword. Preferably, Valkyrie's.
It was with this thought that a polite chiming began to sound from the keypad to the right of the doors. The Hulk leered at it, as if willing to smash it as he'd done to the alarm earlier, but Thor got to it first. He examined the message scrolling across the interface.
"They want us to open the dock for landing." He exchanged a glance with Loki. "It's not a request."
No one said a word, but Thor knew what needed to be done. He keyed in the access codes and they heard the whooshing of the external landing deck hatch opening, pausing, then closing. Once pressurization stabilized again, everyone knew it was time.
"Let's go meet our guests," Thor muttered, and tapped the display one more time. With an eerie, shuddering sound, the doors in front of them began to slide apart.