Eternity Chapter 5
A/N Finally this chapter is out of the shadows. I kept working on this particular chapter here and there, but with everything that's be going on recently, it's been kinda difficult if I'm being honest. For those of you who are still somehow following this story I have nothing but respect for all of you, you've all given motivation to keep doing what I love. If you asked me a year ago that when I thought of this story, if anyone would read it and actually like it, I would have called you crazy but it appears that's not the case. But I mean c'mon who knew. However I'm eternally grateful for all of you. The death of my best friend and my football buddy really threw me off, it took me a really long time to accept their passings but truth be told, I'm still really depressed. But not now that the truth is out, I would like to address something big.
As of 06/28/19 this story has reached over 20,000 views, I'm still figuring out this site so I don't know if that's a lot but for me that number is absolutely insane. Now that I've officially graduated high school I have some time on my hands, so that means I'll be able to focus more on updating this story. I can't explain how thankful I am to all of you, most of you are complete strangers to me but I love all of you. Till next time, see you soon.
-J
Emerging from the quantum tunnel Julian and Loki rushed Heather towards Stark's lab. Gently placing Heather onto the operating table, and turning the machine on, Julian spoke to the lady in the ceiling.
"Greetings."
"Fr-" Trying desperately to remember her name Julian just gave up, "Um... Lady in the walls, can you do your thing and read on how my wife is doing?"
"Heartbeat detected from unknown patient. I've activated the necessary protocols." Friday enclosed the shroud.
"What does that mean?" Julian asked desperately.
"Means she's fine for now but not for much longer." Friday brought up a hologram to show the disease spreading through her body, "I've contacted ."
Hearing loud footsteps from the hallway Julian turned around, "Hey Thor! What's wrong?" Stark rushed into the room.
"An accident happened during battle and Heather's seriously hurt. She was caught in the blast of a dangerous artifact." Julian brought Stark over to the table, "Please Tony you have too help her!"
Looming her over body and analyzing her vitals, "Crap were out of my field here," Tony scratched his chin thinking for ideas.
"Do you know anyone that could help her?! Please Tony I need you to think."
"I know who is. You have to follow me quickly." Calling his axe over to his hand, both Julian and Tony sprinted out of the Avengers facility, and took off towards New York.
Strange was teaching his newest class of sorcerers, some were easy than others, but there were a select few that reminded him, when he was being taught the mystic arts at Kamar-Taj, this made him smile. Suddenly it was ripped away when some uninvited guests bursted through the ceiling.
"Must you always tear through my ceiling when you people visit." Strange looking very annoyed demanded an answer.
"Send me the bill me." Stark said with no hesitation.
"Look uhhh I'm terribly sorry about your ceiling, but this is urgent." Julian took a step closer towards the doctor, "My wife was horriblely injured during battle, and you're this world's greatest doctor. So I beg of you to help my wife."
Strange didn't hesitate and agreed immediately, "Can you do the weird yellow sparkly thing you do ? " Julian tried to demonstrate with his hands.
"It's not 'Mr. Wizard'. But yes let's hurry before she loses time."
Rushing back to the lab, Julian found the rest of the Avengers waiting patiently. Natasha gave Julian a big long hug, Steve was chatting with Torunn in the corner, Clint was doing the same with Loki, everyone stopped talking as soon as Julian entered the room. He greeted everyone one by one, but didn't recognize one last person who entered the room along side Pepper.
"Who is that little person beside your wife?" Julian asked Tony.
"Oh perfect timing," Tony kissed Pepper while Julian and the little person locked eyes, "Thor this is my daughter Morgan."
"Hello." Morgan gave a nice big smile and shook Julian's hand.
"Um... My name is Julian, It's nice to to me you." As much as Julian wanted to stay, he couldn't. He started to hastily walked over to the lab where Heather was lying down.
"How has she been?" Julian asked the lady in the ceiling.
"Life functions are declining slowly."
Holding her hand he felt her cold, frail, weak body. Miraculously she was still clinging to life just by a tread. "I did this... I'm sorry Heather." Tears slowly started to draw from his eyes as Strange entered the room.
"Listen I know this is a hard time Thor," Strange walked up behind him, "While you were in here, me and Tony were coming up with a plan-", Strange went on but Julian tuned him out, he just stood there, motionless. Staring at his wife.
"Did you hear me?."
"What did you just say?" Julian snapped directly at Strange.
"I can save her, but were running out of time so I need you to leave and go talk to Tony."
"How?" Julian asked.
"Tony can explain," Strange started to read her vitals, "Okay times up I need you out of here now."
Julian nodded and caressed his wife's hand before leaving, "You do whatever it takes."
Heeding the doctor's advice Julian stepped out of the room. Julian walked to the living room where everyone was, everyone was talking and catching up with each other. Torunn and Morgan were playing along in the next room. Feeling a bit dizzy he walked over to the kitchen to get a drink, leaning on the counter he looked up and watched as Steve walked over.
"How you holding up?"
"Not well old friend..." Feeling the anger inside of him he tossed the cup at the wall, "This is all my fault."
"It's not your fault," Steve rested a hand on his shoulder, "You had no idea that explosion would have happened, it was an accident."
"An accident that caused Heather to be where she is now... cold, weak, and dying slowly."
"Strange hasn't told you how he's going to save her yet?"
"No why? Did you hear something?"
"He's going to do the best he can, but the only way to give her the strength to come back is give her the serum that transformed me."
Drinking another cup of water Julian spat out the water from his mouth, "What? Are you sure she would survive that? I thought the last of it was used on you."
"Thankfully we have connections to our good friend in Wakanda."
"Wak- what now?"
"Tony politely asked T'challa for the herb which the serum is base off of," Steve pulled up a tablet containing a slide show of information, "The plan is for Strange to remove the part of ancient winters living inside her that is feeding on life, and then use the serum to give her back to the strength she needs right now."
Tony entered the room with glaring flare he usually has, "One short coming though. We don't have enough juice to power the facility to use the vita radiation that transformed Steve, but if you can work your magic, and give a huge power boost the facility needs."
"Shouldn't be a problem."
8 hours later...
All the Avengers were waiting patiently. Stark had ordered food for everyone and they ate together in the conference room, everyone was happy for the most part to see each other again, Steve recalled some good memories with Thor, Loki was actually great company and retelling pranks he pulled on his brother, and everyone just enjoyed the time they were sharing. But the moment was cut while the team was watching a film that had been released recently, Friday had notified Tony of the Doctor Strange's return. The doctor entered the room
"I removed the ancient winters feeding on her life force, but were losing her fast. We need to start the process now." Strange waved Julian over, "This process were about to do is very dangerous, she's in a very weak state, I can't make any promises she'll survive."
Those words cut through right through his heart... Heather would want him to be strong, she would want him to do whatever it takes, "She's strong... She'll make it."
Moving Heather over the next room, Julian and the rest of the Avengers entered the hanger part of the compound, "This is a little project Bruce and I have been working on for a while." Stark pointed at the middle room where the pod was, "Set her down gently and we can begin."
Standing right beside her Julian leaned in, trembling he kissed her on the cheek, "Don't leave our beautiful daughter. Don't leave us... Don't leave me." He whispered.
"We're ready to begin." Bruce tapped away at the keyboard, "Julian we need you to stand beside the reactor and charge it when we tell you."
"Friday would you do me a favor and activate 'Bombardier Protocol' will you?" Tony double tapped his arc reactor and revealed his new model prime armor.
"Yes Boss."
Large titanium doors enclosed the facilities windows and doors in order to keep the power contained. Some loud beeping noise started sounding off, then Strange started sprinting over towards the table. Fiddling around with a needle Strange injected it into Heather's arm. "We're running out of time, we need to begin the process now!" Strange backed away while the table rose into the air, panels encased Heather to keep the radiation enclosed.
"We're ready Thor." Stark ordered.
He breathed in and out very gently, his eyes slowly glowed blue while lighting was coursing through his veins, he opened his eyes and summoned a portion of the force flowing through him. The sky broke with lighting and the sound of thunder, next a gigantic blue beam of lighting shot through the roof and into Julian, lifting his axe off the ground he reached and touched the reactor. The power he summoned caused huge tornadoes around the facility and rainfall everywhere, the reactor took the energy and converted it. The power scaling was off the charts in meer seconds, glass around the facility shattered, the large titanium door blew open from the blast. The pod Heather was being held emitted so much light everyone covered their eyes.
The facility powered down, the raining and tornados stopped, dropping his axe to the ground he took a knee. The light coming from the glass stopped, the backup generators came online and restored the lights that were left unharmed. Julian looked upon the pod, "Stark!" Strange shouted.
The doors opened slowly opened, steam shot out everywhere and revealed a sleeping Heather. She was significantly taller, the serum slightly some more muscle she already had, her hair was slightly longer, but she overall looked the same. Rushing to her side Julian picked her up and layed her down on the next operating table.
"Friday?" Tony said.
"Heartbeat detected."
Lifting her eyelid he shined his light on her eye, the doctor examined quietly, "Remarkable..." Strange checked her other eye.
"What? Is it bad?" Julian ambled his way next to him.
"No." Strange looked up at Julian,"Her eye colour changed."
"Let me see." Lifting her eyelid to see for himself, her eye colour was no longer the olive green he'd come to know, instead they were changed to a sky blue. Her new colour would definitely grow on him.
The other avengers let out sighs of relief, "Thank you Wizard." Turning off the light he walked over and hugged the doctor tightly and shook his hand.
"It's Doctor Strange, you can call me Stephen." The good doctor returned a genuine smile.
"It's always a pleasure to meet you." Julian patted him on the back and they walked up to Heather.
"Considering what she went through, she'll be asleep for a while. Nothing too serious don't worry."
"I'm in your debt. Thank you."
"Don't worry, if you ever need me, you know where to find me." Strange summoned a little portal above his hand, "You'll need this." Strange handed over the tiny hand held object.
"What is it?" Julian examined it closely.
"This is hand held multiverse distress call," Strange showed every nook and cranny of the device, "Only active it in emergencies."
"What's the delay on this thing?" Julian continously analyzed the device, "Does it have a name?"
"Virtually no delay, as for the name..." Strange scratched his head thinking quietly, "Let's just call it the MDC-2." He smiled.
"Why the dash two at the end?"
"The first one accidentally-" He didn't want to relive that moment in his head, "It doesn't matter just use it whenever you need me. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to teaching my new class." Strange said his goodbyes and opened up a portal, and walked through. The mechanism lowered the pod, Julian picked Heather up gently and walked with her to his room in the facility.
"She'll most likely be out for the rest of the day," Bruce told Julian, "Don't worry she's in safe hands."
"Thank you guys so much." Julian hugged Bruce tightly, "It's so good to see all you again."
"We missed you too." Steve strolled over and gave a much needed hug.
"I thought you would have all been retired by now," Julian looked at Clint, "Especially you old friend."
"Yeah well we kinda been cleaning things up around the world while you were gone." Clint showed a couple of his scars on his left arm, "Ever since Thanos snapped his fingers he tore a hole in our universe."
"So what does that mean?"
"Means gigantic monsters, bad guys from other dimensions, all sorts of different enemies have entered our world, ugly and rude little bastards. You wouldn't really like them," Tony pulled up a map of the world, "These are the areas that were affected." Tony pulled up a hologram of the globe, the highlights were mostly in the pacific ocean.
"We did our best to close the first one with Strange. After we sealed it, a couple months later another one showed up in California."
"We haven't seen one for a while so were kinda hoping that's the last of them." Tony swiped away the hologram and rested on a nearby sofa.
"We've been preparing for the next breach for quite a while now." Rhodey said as he entered the room.
"Hm..." He struck his beard and fiddled with his hair thinking, " I wonder if the same is true for Heather's world when I used the gauntlet. We patrol our waters, and explore our lands but I've never encountered these creatures of whom you speak about."
Torunn was eavesdropping from a distance, she wonder if her new best friend was actually a 'dragon' and not some creature from another universe, that didn't matter in the slightest. What worried her was they're could be more of them, and maybe the people who come across them wouldn't be as lucky as she was.
"Speaking of home you all should come for a vacation," Julian pulled out a picture to show, "Berk is a really nice place, and we'd only be gone a short while."
"He's right." Tony immediately agreed while leaning over his seat, "We haven't had a vacation in a while."
"What do you think Steve?" Julian sat down beside Tony, "It would be really fun since I haven't seen you all in a while, plus I could really use it."
"Well..." Steve smiled and looked at his friends, "I don't really have anything going on tomorrow night."
"Quick question Thor?" Rhodey leaned over the desk, "Why do you call yourself 'Julian', I mean we all know your name is Thor."
"I'm not sure to be honest..." Remembering back to his first meeting with Heather, he smiled, "The name was to just fit in with the inhabitants of Berk. I guess it just stuck with me after all these years, the only reason I probably kept it is because Heather liked it."
Back on Jotenhiem...
"When do you think they're coming back?" Astrid asked Hiccup quietly, "Do you think Heather's going to make it? I mean what are we going to do if she's not going to make it. What do we tell Torunn?" She felt nauseous playing out all these scenarios in her head.
"Astrid please calm down, you're making me nervous." Hiccup put both hands firmly on her shoulders, "I just- I really don't know Astrid, but we probably won't see them for a few days." Hiccup didn't tread well with the thought of Heather's condition.
"I hope she's okay." Snoutlout chimed in.
"This is all my fault..." Astrid sat down in the corner, "She wouldn't have gotten hurt if I hadn't led us to the wrong entrance, if I hadn't had led us to that stupid room she wouldn't have gotten hurt." Astrid threw her axe at the ice wall and started to cry.
"It was accident." Snoutlout sat beside her. "We need to stay focused on the mission, that's what Heather would want."
"Snoutlout's right. Odin forces are preparing for the final assault on the stronghold, we should get moving before we get left behind on this frozen wasteland." Fishlegs said to Hiccup.
"Are we just going to sit around here waiting? Or do we go do what were good at and get some revenge?" Snoutlout stood up and looked at everyone.
"We're in." The twins head butted each other.
"Normally I would think first before going blindly into battle." Hiccup drew his sword, "But I'm all in... For our friend."
"So is that a yes?" Snoutlout tapped Astrid on the shoulder.
"What do you think the answer is?"
"Why'd I even ask. Let's go get some payback."
Gathering their weapons and equipment they started to move out of the cave system and rally with the Asgardian army. The seven of them journeyed across the frozen plain of Jotunheim. By now they had become used to the cold, the sunless days, and the wind screaming pass their ears, they were now battle hardened warriors. Hiccup felt proud about how far they've all come, from a skinny kid working as an apprentice in the forge back home, to the chief of Berk. Same goes for Snoutlout, the one who used to constantly over estimate himself and generally but a jerk, to the leader of the resure units on Berk. So on and so forth for everyone else.
Slowly they cleared the opening of the canyon, the Asgardian army was getting ready to mobilize on the stronghold. Knowing they didn't want to get left behind, they caught up with one of the officers and hitched a ride.
"We're a long way from home." Tuffnut said to everyone, "Is it bad that I wished this was a dream?"
"Nope." Astrid responded, "We've trained our entire lives for this." They all looked over the side of the aircraft and seen the battle going on below, the assualt had already begun.
"Well we're not going to win by justing looking pretty up here," Fishlegs stood up and leaned over the edge "Let's go have some fun." Giving a high five, he smiled and jumped off.
They all watched as glided down slowly, "See ya down there." Snoutlout did a backflip off.
"Let's get going." Hiccup and everyone else followed suit.
The sword fighting, hand to ice fist combat, the large feasts after a battle, these were the qualities vikings lived for. The bloodiest battle they've ever fought lasted a couple hours, everyone had each other's backs, working in perfect sync without getting killed or hurting each other. The battle ended when Odin and the rest of his forces took the capital. King Laufey had yielded in combat, so the rest of his army had no choice but to surrender. The king had surrendered, and their source of power to invade other realms destroyed, the asgardian warriors and Odin returned to the realm eternal with their new found allies.
Odin had summoned the biforst to transport his army and the rest of the dragon riders, he had expected more of a reaction from the humans when the biforst had lifted them, the colours of the biforst itself but also the void of space. They all seemed mostly unimpressed, but that opinion would soon change when they arrived on Asgard.
The vast mountains went on for what seemed like forever. The real structure that caught their eyes was the gigantic golden castle, the rainbow bridge was just as shiny as Julian said, the nebulas and stars created was seemed like a dream.
"Welcome to Asgard." A voice said, Hiccup turned and seen a large man standing with a fancy sword just a couple meters away.
"My name is Heimdall," He leaned over and greeted them one by one, "I am the gatekeeper of Asgard and the guardian of the biforst bridge."
"I am Hiccup and we are-"
"Indeed I know," Heimdall smiled and looked at everyone, "I know very well who all of you are."
"That's creepy." Ruffnut felt disgusted.
"How?" Astrid walked over to Heimdall, "We've never met you."
"I see and hear everything within the nine realms," Heimdall showed his ability, "For that is the oath I took, as long as I am here no one gets past me without me knowing."
"What? How?" Sigrunn joined the others in talking to the gatekeeper, "How can you see everything?"
Since he had some time he figured he show them something amazing, "I want all of you to breath slowly, calm your minds and focus... I will help you see."
Heimdall had used his abilities and made them see what he saw. They were looking at the lives of people on Earth, none of whom they recognized but it was still astonishing. Feeling joyous he went through the rest of the nine realms and shown them everything he found amazing. Next he made them see the desolate plains of Svartalfheim, this realm wasn't really as jaw dropping as the other one's he had previously shown them but it was still impressive how he was able to show his powers and abilities.
"How did you do that?" Fishlegs asked while still very hyper, "Please tell me, I have too know how."
"Transdimensional communication," Heimdall walked towards Fishlegs, "In short. I allow you to hear what I hear, and see what I see for as long as I want."
"And in doing so our eye colours turned orange like yours when we were communicating on Earth."
"Precisely."
"This is amazing," Fishlegs walked over to the exit of the dome, "What else you got?"
"They're will be lots more in Asgard waiting for you," Heimdall pointed towards their escort, "These men will take you to your rooms and you're all invited to the warriors feast later tonight at the castle. As for me, I must remain on guard at all times."
Abiding by the gatekeepers wishes they proceed to go along with their escort. Mounting the horses they made way across the rainbow bridge, Hiccup thoughts about Asgard were changed. Although Asgard was much more shiny than he'd dreamed of, it certainly didn't fail at any other of his expectations, it surpassed them. The Asgardians citizens were very polite and welcoming to them, the warriors also enjoyed the new guests company.
Finally reaching their destination they each were led to their separate rooms. After the big feast everyone was feeling really anxious so they all dragged their beds into one room, the guards didn't seem to mind, they just thought it was regular mid guard behavior. By nightfall most of them were asleep, except Astrid who spotted Sigrunn leaning over the balcony.
"Can't sleep?" She sat up and joined her friend on the balcony.
"I still have some energy left over from Jotenhiem."
"What's on your mind?" Astrid asked kindly.
"It's just something about this place seems a little off putting to me," She went on, "The giant golden castle, the warriors training day and night, the big feasts, all seem wonderful but I can't help this feeling I got."
"What is it?"
"It feels like there's something more to this place than just guts and glory."
Astrid and Sigrunn talked for a little more but then eventually they both layed down. Asgard did seem a little more perfect than she imagined, and she can imagination can get pretty big. As she dozed off she felt a frighting nature come over her, she was going to get to the bottom of this, what else was Odin hiding.
