Thor Loser

(By Ace Dreamer)


It had been a big job, and a lot of it was about showing good faith. The brothers had got together and unsunk Kyushu, their sister had spread dreams across the nearby lands of a great reversal in the fortunes of the area. And to all the millions of refugees across the world. While they were at it they'd improved the geology of the area, reducing the number, or at least the force, of future earthquakes and tsunami, changing the sea bed to dissipate their force, replacing big quakes with micro ones.

The actual un-sinking required a real spectacle. Leet had quietly got together with a few others to place a hologram over the sea area where Leviathan had last stood on land, and arranged a ghostly dawn battle between him and a similarly ghostly Kaiju, who for some reason was swinging around a giant push-broom, while wearing a yellow safety helmet and a jacket marked "Stunt Double". As the battle continued the real island rose gently up from under the waves, where it had been since before 2000, and the damage to the surroundings slowly undid itself.

After Leviathan had been driven-off, with several broom-bats to the head, and his watery after-images swept back into the sea, the still ghostly Kaiju walked the island, brushing-away the damage, including to things like bridges, though still leaving the plant life in a soggy state. Quite solid and physical "Under Construction" signs appeared on the shore. As a final step the local power-plants were replaced by thorium-powered nuclear reactors, with some really thorough safety features, and a complete set of manuals and other training material covering their operation and maintenance left clearly visible.

That night, while the media of the world boggled, a nearly invisible Kaiju walked the other islands of Japan, repairing infrastructure, and leaving behind upgrade kits for all the other power-plants so they could be made equivalent to the Kyushu ones. Rapid attempts were made to create shrines to this kami, but they tended to get mysteriously pranked, with a note suggesting checking the grand Shinto shrine at Ise.

Just outside the shrine was a neat pile of crates, properly labelled as containing refined thorium, and a request that this paid for a shrine to be built to the Norse god Thor, after which the material was named, in honour of his inspiration for the restoration of Japan.

"After all", remarked Kaiju, "I wouldn't want to be thought to be a thor loser".


Somewhere, in another universe, a marvelously long way away, a man with a hammer sneezed, and looked around suspiciously "Odin-damned lizards!".