Chapter 14: Death Cometh
"Reality means you live until you die...the real truth is nobody wants reality."
― Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor
The fate of the children of Asgard is revealed as a new powerful entity enters the story.
***EVERYONE STAY HEALTHY & WASH THOSE PAWS***
AS FOR COVID-19, JUST REMEMBER WHAT THEY SAY IN THE TRI-BURROWS AREA: "LETTUCE ROMAINE CALM AND CARROT ON!"
Somewhere Beyond Time
"Jörmungandr, put Thor down!" It was a soft command which neither the World Serpent nor his father Loki was expecting to hear. "It is not the time for his or your death, for I will come for the both of you during Ragnarök." The creature who spoke to them appeared to be a young humanoid female dressed in a black top and jeans, a silver ankh hung from a chain around her neck. Her skin was pale white and her hair stark black, there was a small tattoo that looked like the Eye of Horus under her right eye and she gave the surprised god a thin knowing smile.
"Mistress Death," Hel spoke, she stood there with her brother Fenrisúlfr in her arms. The wolf puppy wiggled and barked at the sight of the newcomer. "Who my scaly brother wishes to eat is no concern of yours."
"My dear goddess of death, have you really thought this through?" the young-looking not human female laughed as she approached the goddess. Reaching out her pale hand, she stroked the puppy under his chin and Fenrisúlfr's tail wagged in happiness at the attention. "For when your brother feasts upon these babies, they will die and where should I deliver their souls? In your religion, there are but two places for a spirit to reside after death, either in Valhalla or in Niflheim. Since Valhalla is only for those who died heroically in battle and Odin emptied it out of its heroes, there is only your realm in Niflheim. I do hope you have plenty of diapers, for you will need them?"
"Put him down NOW!" Hel screamed at her brother. "I am not changing thousands of dirty diapers for the next eternity."
"Can I at least eat the puppy?" Jörmungandr hissed back as he looked at Fenrisúlfr. "I'm so hungry!"
"No, you may not eat your brother!" Loki admonished the serpent, even as he quickly plucked up the young eight-legged colt named Sleipnir and held him away from the World Serpent's reach. "You may eat Thor's two goats."
Licking his chops, the serpent slithered across the Rainbow Bridge towards the two fleeting goat kids.
"He will never catch them," Death laughed as she took the black wolf pup from Hel's arms and cuddled him. The puppy licked her face as he wagged his tail. "I do love children, they don't know to fear me yet."
"My brother isn't the smartest in the family," Hel sighed and shook her head as she watched the serpent frantically strike at Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr who seemed to dance teasingly just out of his reach. "It's hard to believe that he will grow large enough to encircle a world."
"So what are you doing here?" Loki snapped in an aggravated tone. "I would have expected you sooner when he killed some of the gods, surely you should have come for the souls of the dead Olympians when they were destroyed.
"Oh they didn't die," Death replied as she passed Fenrisúlfr back to his sister's arms. "They were just turned to dust. I think it is time that I introduce myself to this new god of time. He and I need to have a chat about all the chaos and death he has committed, he is working me far too much."
"He will destroy you too or maybe turn you into a baby," Hel cautioned her.
"No my dear goddess," the pale girlish looking spirit said as she passed by her. "I am ageless and beyond being just immortal. There are two things that no mortal or god can stop and those are time and death." She paused and put a finger to her cheek as if remembering something unpleasant. "Well, except for that preacher from Galilee, but He wasn't what He seemed."
"Could you stop by Niflheim sometime and maybe we can have lunch or something? It gets kind of lonely when you only have the shades of the dead to talk to," the goddess of death quickly asked. "All they want to talk about how miserable their lives were."
"You could try to make that place a little more entertaining," Death called back as she began walking towards the lightning flashes. "Why don't you install cable or the internet, something to keep their minds off of being deceased?"
Aion saw her approached him and he turned towards her. "You are not God!" he snarled and before she could reply, he struck her with a bolt of time.
Death staggered and gave a grunt as the time lightning tore into her and she frowned when she realized that the impact had morphed her from being a girl to a skeletal creature in a black robe and carrying a scythe. "I always hated this look," she fussed as she willed herself back into her favorite avatar. "Much better!"
"Leave me alone!" Aion snapped out in anger. "Just go away before you get hurt. I want God and not whoever you are!"
"Richard Wilde, you can't hear me if you won't listen!" Death chided the god Aion by using his true name as she continued to struggle through the time and reality vortexes to get closer to the hybrid fox rabbit. "Now calm down, I am Death and you can't hurt me."
The darkness seemed to suddenly go calm and almost peaceful for once as the god of time faced the personification of death. "Where were you when I needed you before?" he choked out in tears. "You took away everyone I loved, my Nockotia, Natasha, my father, Uncle Finn, everyone I loved and I was left so alone. I thought I had ended it all when I threw away the pocket watch, I should no longer exist."
"You don't," Death said as she reached over and wiped a tear from Aion's furry cheek. "I'm not sure what happened, but you don't really exist now. I know this because I am always there whenever anything is born and when it dies, but I knew nothing about you until you just appeared in Zootopia."
In the middle of some woods, in another dimension, others watched. "This is our chance!" the Monkey King called out to the other animal gods. "Death has his attention! We must attack and subdue him with these chains before he knows what is happening." With a whirl of his staff, the god soared off towards the darkness with the magical chain Gleipnir clutched in his paws.
One by one the animal gods followed, some such as the hare god Manabozho, reluctantly joined in on their desperate assault.
It was like a thunderclap as the gods leaped into the darkness and at the new god of time. "Stop!" Death desperately tried to call out when she saw them appear, trying to halt their foolish attempt.
The large bull god grasped the small fox rabbit in his hoofs even as the Monkey King ran down the bovine's massive arm to loop the chain over Aion. Several of the other gods seized the chain and pulled it tight around the now bound hybrid's body. "Victory!" the Monkey King chattered out in triumph.
That triumph was short-lived as Aion struggled against the chain, which at first seemed to control and suppress his powers. Then there was a blinding flash and all of time and reality seemed to explode.
Death screamed as she was thrown through one dimension after another and with a thump she crashed down into the sand. She gave a groan from feeling unaccustomed pain while she unsteadily wobbled as she sat up and looked at the large tan-colored tank that she had bounced off. "Who the hell are you?" Set hissed as he looked down at the new human-like creature who had suddenly appeared from nowhere.
"This isn't good," a white nine-tailed fox yipped in surprise. "She was Death!"
Far away from that desert, the fox rabbit who was calling himself Aion coughed and sputtered as he shook the swamp water from his fur. "Hey you!" a voice called out and he looked up to see several rats clinging to the branches of the tree above him. "You better get up here!"
"Why?" Aion asked. There was a hissing noise from behind him and he turned to see a large green alligator lunging at him. Leaping like a rabbit, he hopped up and caught one of the tree's lower branches, with a grunt, he pulled himself up higher into the tree even as strong jaws snapped closed just below his tail.
"We've been stuck up here for days," another rat said. "Do you have anything to eat or drink?"
The hybrid fox rabbit looked at the rat and then down at the alligator which prowled below them. He focused his powers on the creature, but nothing happened for the time god seemed powerless!
I chose that the character Death to appear as in some of the DC Comics, specifically as shown in a series of comics titled The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. (I do not own the rights to DC Comics or any of its characters. This story was written solely for the reader's enjoyment and without any profitable purposes. The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this story are fictitious.)
Natasha was Aion/Ricky's second wife, who he married many years after his true love Nockotia had died. The two of them used to play at being Doctor Who.
