You know how when the prologue is published as separate to the first chapter, it decides 'oh, let's list this as 1. Prologue and 2. Chapter 1' and you can't change that number at the start because it's so frustrating?
Yeah, I've noticed that, so the Prologue is published in the same chappie as 1, isn't that amazing?
So anyway, after watching Love and Thunder I realised 'why doesn't Eternity have someone guarding the door, or is the Bifrost puzzle enough?' and thought up a new scenario where many seekers have made it past this point before (because how hard can threatening a dwarf to forge an axe that can summon the Bifrost be?) but have died gruesome deaths in the next universe?
Yeah, I've made that quest.
SPOILER WARNING FOR THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER! I DO NOT WANT PEOPLE COMPLAINING THAT I SPOILED IT. THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT!
Prologue
The door was open, Gorr was about to step through it.
He had nearly won.
The sounds of battle from behind them dulled, and Thor looked back; the children and the shadow-demons had stopped completely, even the crackling of golden lightning from Zeus' bolt that was empowering them.
"Not yet," a voice said. The three who had been locked in combat seconds before looked around, trying to find the source of the withered, feminine voice. "Eternity wishes for you to do something first."
"Who are you?" Jane called, grasping Mjolnir like a lifeline (which it technically was, as it was holding back her cancer).
"A question we all ask ourselves," she mused, and her voice seemed to grow younger. "'Who am I?' 'What am I?' For now, though," she paused as her voice passed that of a middle-aged woman, "you may call me Death, for that is who I am at heart."
Gorr wrapped his hands around the hilt of the Necrosword. "I will slay you like I have slain every other god!" he announced, and rushed the source of Death's voice.
Two white circles, which were Death's eyes, appeared, as her silhouetted figure crossed the white circle of light that the door was emitting.
"You shall not slay me," she said evenly, "because without me there is no death, and with no death there is no way you can kill the gods you wish to." Her voice slipped down to that of a girl in her early twenties. "I have sent your victims to the afterlife, God Butcher, and I don't intend to see myself there until Eternity's quest is fulfilled."
Gorr was thrown back, and the Necrosword was thrown near Death's feet.
"What is this quest?" Thor asked.
"You would have to enter a new realm," she told him, her voice changing to that of a young child as she stepped out of the shadows. "A new universe, even. You would complete your quest to achieve the Eternity Goal; for your desire to be fulfilled."
Death looked like a teenager (her voice had settled around that mark near the end of her last sentence), which wasn't much for an immortal being that could change her appearance at will. She wore a black sleeveless dress that accompanied her pale complexion greatly, paired with the pale pink of her lips. Her hair was black, yet it had a streak of white, silver and blonde each in it, visible on her bun.
"You haven't answered his question," Jane replied, walking to stand with Thor.
"You would have to accept this quest for me to reveal the details," Death said, her eyes pools of pure white light.
The couple shared a look.
"We accept," they said in unison, and Death smiled.
"I will visit you when you are worthy of knowing the goal," Death said, and the pure white circle that was the door flickered, and changed to a deep blue. "You will return here when you have completed this quest; good luck."
She stepped out of the way and gestured for them to step through.
They did.
Gorr scrambled to his feet.
"I accept the quest!" he yelled, and Death turned to him with an amused expression.
"Oh, you aren't completing the quest," she said, smiling. "Your task is to stop them from completing it."
Gorr grabbed the Necrosword and went to step through.
Death took the sword from him.
"You will find this again – but, maybe give Thanos a shot, hey? He could use someone wielding power equal to the stones with him."
Gorr stepped through.
Death smiled, and looked up at the statue of Eternity's likeness.
"This will be fun – maybe we'll gain some additions to this universe?"
Chapter 1: Dream? Nah. Quest Given in Last Timeline? Yeah.
(Asgardian Æsir) Asgard
Thor awoke.
He was used to these dreams – the ones where he had fallen in love with a wonderful Midgardian woman named Jane and they'd fallen out of love because they had other responsibilities.
But this one… was different.
It had started with the normal one – his coronation day, he was banished to Midgard to learn some humility, had come down in a storm, been hit by what he now knew as a car, and had this whole adventure with Jane and her friends Darcy and Erik. Then, the destroyer had come down on orders from Loki, who was a Frost Giant for some reason, and tried to kill him. He survived and got Mjölnir back and everything was great and then Loki fell into the void and he went down to Midgard to get him back and just so much stuff had happened it was getting to the point where his dreams normally stopped.
But this one had been different.
This one had kept going after he returned to Asgard after fighting the Chitauri in and over the Midgardian city of New York, showing him that the Dark World of Svartalfheim had risen and Malekith, a Dark Elf, had launched an attack on Midgard because Jane was now the host of the Aether and they'd fought Malekith and won and the Aether was destroyed (or so they thought) and Loki died but not-really-died because he begun to pretend to be Odin.
Then he'd gone back to Midgard to spend some time with his friends the Avengers, and they'd fought a robot that one of his teammates (Tony Stark) had created called Ultron that wanted to destroy Midgard because humans weren't very good people. Then they'd made a robot so pure and good it could lift Mjölnir, which, by the way, could only now be lifted by those who were pure and good and it considered worthy, and they won and destroyed Ultron's Midgard-destroying meteor.
Then he'd gone back to Asgard, gone down to Muspelheim to fight Surtur and won and come back and exposed Loki and they went to Midgard to get Odin back and then Odin died and it turns out that they had a sister, Hela, the goddess of death, and she destroyed Mjölnir and then they summoned the Bifrost and Loki and Thor fell out and he landed in a landfill on a planet known as Sakaar and been forced to fight in an arena and had found the last valkyrie (who was coincidentally called Valkyrie) and went and fought Hela who had resurrected her old army and Fenris Wolf, who turned out to have been her old steed, and they fought and ended up destroying Asgard to stop Hela and therefore Ragnarök had happened and they left with all the Asgardians who were left, intending to go to Midgard.
And Thor had thought it'd stop there but no.
Thanos came and slaughtered most of the Asgardians and killed Loki and destroyed the ship they were on and Thor floated in space for a bit and was picked up by a rag-tag group of beings and he took their pod and two of their crew to Nidavellir, a neutron star, to forge a new weapon for him which ended up being an axe called Stormbreaker and they summoned the Bifrost with that and went to Midgard to slaughter some aliens and try to kill Thanos and fail and Thanos snapped his fingers when he'd collected all the Infinity Stones and half of the universe's population was gone and then they go and kill Thanos properly three days later.
And then the dream skipped five years and Thor was fat and depressed and addicted to Midgardian beer and they went and travelled through time to get some Infinity Stones because Thanos had destroyed them all and then come back and bring everyone back from being dead (only those who'd been killed by Thanos' snap though) and they'd been attacked by Thanos but Thanos from the past because he'd hijacked their time-travelling gear and come through and they had a big fight and Tony Stark sacrificed himself to save them by getting the Infinity Stones and snapping his own fingers and killing all the enemy aliens.
And then it kept going.
Thor went with the rag-tag group who'd picked him up when he'd been floating through space (they were called the Guardians of the Galaxy) and gave the throne to Valkyrie who became the ruler of New Asgard and flew through space with the Guardians and got fit again.
He had a new friend (Korg, who was made of rocks) and they were given some goats after saving a race's temple (by destroying it) and they went to a random planet after seeing that Sif (who was the only other surviving member of their original questing quintet by now) was in danger and she warned him about the God Butcher before dying and he went back to New Asgard with Korg and the goats and helped to defend his people from shadow-demons and nearly be killed by the God Butcher and found Jane again because the shadow-demons had taken the children and Jane now wielded Mjölnir and then they went to Omnipotencity (don't ask about the name) and requested help, which was blatantly denied by Zeus so they stole his bolt.
Then Thor found out that Jane had a Midgardian disease called cancer (which was usually fatal) and they got back together and went to the Shadow Realm to get the children back. They failed, it was a trap, and it turns out that Gorr (the God Butcher) needed Stormbreaker to get to Eternity.
They were nearly killed by Gorr again, and they used the Bifrost to get back to New Asgard, and Gorr took Stormbreaker which meant that Thor had to go get it back but Mjölnir was sapping all of Jane's strength to fight the cancer so he left her in the hospital on New Asgard and went to Eternity with Zeus' bolt to hopefully stop Gorr. He got there, empowered the children with the bolt and they charged into battle against Gorr's shadow-demons and the children were actually fighting well but he was getting his ass handed to him and Jane showed up with Mjölnir (which Thor had explicitly told her not to do) and she fought like a queen and they turned the tide and then the door to Eternity opened and things started to get really weird, as Death appeared, offered them a quest (which they accepted), and then, finally, Thor woke up.
Asgardians didn't really get nightmares that meant nothing; yeah, they got the occasional night-terror but those would often be of previous traumatic events, not of something they'd never seen before. And if it was something they'd never seen before, it would be the Norns or prophets sending them a message – or more commonly a warning – about something to come.
So, naturally, Thor went to the one person who probably would know something about this: Loki.
He knocked on the door to his brother's room before opening it.
Loki looked up and saw Thor standing there in all his 'I just tried to sleep and was woken by something' glory.
He patted the bed beside him, gesturing for Thor to sit down.
"I won't lose you, brother?" he asked. "Not now, not ever?"
"Well, I'd imagine I'd lose you first," Loki said dryly, before sobering. "Might I ask why?"
"Uh, well…" and Thor told him about his dream that seemed to have gone on for decades.
Loki just sat there, listening, and waiting for Thor to finish.
"… and then we walked through the door, accepting Death's quest, and I woke up," he finished.
The younger brother thought for a minute, giving his elder sibling a few moments to compose himself.
"Well… it's possible that this all happened in another timeline, and you've been given this information to fulfill Death's quest, and the moment you woke up was the moment you left that timeline and entered ours," he mused. "But then all this stuff happened, and you pretty much know what's going to happen before it does."
"The uses in that timeline are stupid," the god of thunder grumbled. "We shouldn't be like them."
"I promised myself I would never be like the me in that timeline while you were talking to me," the trickster replied. "That me should've known better when facing Thanos – a being that powerful that killed half the universe with a snap of his fingers shouldn't be toyed with."
Thor nodded. "Let's promise each other, okay?"
Loki smiled. "Agreed."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Midgard/Earth
Jane had always been a strong girl.
Her childhood had been split between school, home, and her mother's room at the hospital.
She'd had few friends, and the one she'd had for the longest – a boy called Peter Quill whose mother had also eventually passed from cancer – had disappeared after his mother's death.
Jane had been forced to grow up too quickly, as her father (stepfather actually) had never really cared for her, and once he had gotten a new wife, well, into the system Jane went.
She'd saved her money for college, and by the time she was in her late twenties she had graduated with high grades in physics and astrophysics.
She'd never really had a lover, which was why these weird dreams about dating the Norse god of thunder were so, well, weird. Most of them was her studying, dissolving then reappearing and discovering she had cancer, then picking up Mjolnir and taking on the mantle of 'Lady Thor'.
And that the most recent update in these dream-events had practically finished it.
She stuck her hand in her pocket, and grasped a metallic fragment in her hand – she didn't know what it was from, only that her mother had given it to her when she was ten and told her it was good luck.
Well, that good luck hadn't turned out well for her mother, having died of cancer and all.
But, well, Jane had made a friend – an enigmatic, sarcastic and joke-cracking woman called Darcy, who was a colleague of hers – and had confined in her about the dreams, and Darcy was standing next to her as they looked up at the sky on the cloudless New Mexico night, picking out stars and constellations, as well as chatting about the stories that ancient civilisations put behind them.
"Sooo… the dreams ended yet?" Darcy asked, offering Jane her bag of Doritos.
"Kinda," Jane answered, thankfully taking the pre-offered Doritos. "Like, they've finished of sorts, but I have a feeling they'll keep repeating."
"Ah, like nonsense dreams do," Darcy said, chuckling as she took a bite out of a Dorito. "You done any reading into what the gods actually did in the myths?" she sighed and answered her own question. "Of course you have, you're Doctor Jane Foster, you don't let anything lie."
Jane just nodded in agreement, as she was currently eating a Dorito.
"You ladies done with the Doritos?" Erik Selvig, their employer, called from the van they were using as a mobile workstation.
"No!" the astrophysicists called back in unison.
"Good. The dust messes with the machines," Erik replied as he got back to adjusting the antenna.
A shooting star crossed the sky as Darcy offered Jane some more Doritos.
Jane watched it.
"In my dreams, Thor would say that shooting stars were the Bifrost sending people to different planets," Jane mused.
"Isn't it pronounced 'Bi-frost', not 'By-frost', though?"
"Yeah, I told him that all the time in the dreams, but he'd never listen."
"Relatable."
And they stood there, the silent air around them only pierced by Erik swearing and clunking around with the machines, as well as the crinkle of the Dorito packet and the crunching of the Doritos themselves.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Midgard/Earth
New York City
Percy and Annabeth were just waiting in line for their coffees at a random Starbucks near their apartment.
They were 19 and had just recently gotten engaged. Annabeth attended college in New Rome while Percy drilled the legion in individual fighting techniques while Frank and/or Hazel were drilling the campers on group fighting tactics.
Annabeth was studying to become a teacher (which was fully supported by Percy, her father and Magnus), and was a year into her studies.
Percy was looking around for people who wanted pearl divers, as he had an unfair advantage at that particular job.
The rest of the Seven were either studying at New Rome University or had found jobs to support themselves. Jason, unfortunately, had died when Apollo had come down to earth in his mortal form of Lester Papadopoulos fighting one of the members of the Triumvirate.
Thalia had taken time off from the hunt to grieve her brother, and that period had been one of over a year. Artemis had given her space to grieve and had appointed an acting lieutenant to lead the hunt in Thalia's place (she had appointed Reyna).
Annabeth fiddled with her engagement ring – a band of silver with a pearl that shifted between pale pink, lilac, and silver depending on how the light reflected off of it – while she scanned their surroundings, no doubt looking for monsters; no matter how old they got, they somehow got tastier and tastier to them.
Percy's phone vibrated in his pocket, and he picked it up, keeping Riptide (still in pen form) in his hand – he'd convinced the Hephaestus kids to add a stylus-thing on the end of it when he'd gotten them to make Annabeth's ring. He unlocked it, and saw the message was from Carter.
'have u had any weird incidents with guys in black suits recently?'
Percy tapped out a response:
'not really. They just keep following us'
Carter's reply came almost instantly:
'though id let u kno.'
It was followed by:
'they got 1 of our recruits & they nearly told them abt the gods'
'oh sh!t'
'oh shit indeed'
Annabeth's phone rang, and she took hers out of her bag (when were fashion industries going to learn that women just want pockets in their jeans?) and held it to her ear after looking at who it was.
"Hey Magnus, we're at a Starbucks right now you want any-" a pause. "WHAT?! Okay, they're following us too, we're near Stark Tower. We'll meet you at out apartment."
Percy gave her a questioning look.
She brought the microphone away from her mouth. "I'm gonna be outside. Remember my order Seaweed Brain." She told Percy and walked out of the coffee shop.
Annabeth brought the mic back to where it had been. "Ok, Magnus, don't you worry your little undead ass. Remember, they don't have Alex, Alex has them, alright?"
"Yeah, alright. Valhalla's gone into lockdown now though, so I may be a few minutes," Magnus said, sounding like he was running from something.
"You're not pulling the stunt out of the trash chute again, are you?"
The answering silence told her all she needed to know.
"Right, you are," she sighed. "Just stay mostly in one piece, 'kay?"
"Got 'cha. Now-" it sounded like he was falling down a laundry chute (which Annabeth guessed he was, as it was his favoured way of sneaking out), as there were numerous bangs and things. "Oh come on! They've changed the output for the garbage."
"I thought you had tree access in your room?"
"Well I don't think things through before I do them!"
"Hey, Wise Girl, I think you're scaring the tourists," Percy said, coming up behind his fiancé.
Annabeth looked across the street. Sure enough, there were numerous people that couldn't be American staring at her from the other side of the road.
She grabbed her drink out of Percy's hands and gave him a kiss.
"Thanks, Seaweed Brain," she told him, and went back to quizzing Magnus on how quickly he could get to their apartment.
As it turns out, the output was actually a few blocks away, so he met them outside their apartment.
Percy grabbed his keys out of his pocket and fumbled with them in the lock for a second before unlocking the door.
They walked into the lounge room, and lo and behold, Alex was sitting on the couch, grinning at the other three demigods.
"Told ya they'd be here," Alex said to someone they couldn't see.
Magnus turned on the light.
The person Alex had spoken to was a middle-aged man with an eye-patch. He had dark skin, was bald, and had a beard that wasn't really that long. He looked like he'd just come from a funeral, what with the entirely black attire – black trench coat, black boots, black pants, Hel even his eyepatch was black.
"Alex, why the fuck are you in our apartment with a man we've never met?" Annabeth asked, stepping on Percy's foot as the son of Poseidon was opening his mouth to crack a joke.
Alex smiled. "By the way it's he-him now," he said, before telling them what happened.
He had been following a lead to kill the wolves that had killed him the first time, and had changed form in public, in order to generate Mist (or its Norse counterpart, Glamour), when an agent from a government organisation called SHIELD saw him. They got backup, captured Alex, and had taken him to their base (it was called the Triskelion) for interrogation and possible recruitment. When they got his file up and realised he was dead, they got the real higher-ups to do the interrogation (a man called Phil Coulson. He was a nice guy), and then got the head of the division in (the man in their apartment who was called Nick Fury, though he preferred just to be called Fury. Alex had taken this to mean he could just call him Nick), and here they were.
Fury then explained what SHIELD was (it stood for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division), what it did (keep the world's superpowered and enhanced beings under control, as well as gather intel like any other intelligence agency), and then why he was there (to hopefully recruit the four of them into SHIELD).
Magnus declined. Alex had previously told Fury that he'd consider it, as did Annabeth. Percy asked questions.
"How can we trust you?" Percy asked.
"I have four different agents with guns trained on this apartment," Fury stated. "One with a bow aimed at it."
"So you're threatening us," Annabeth concluded, before laughing. "Sorry, but unless you want to kill us, it's not really worth our time."
Percy nodded, agreeing.
"Well," Fury stood, and took a pocket knife out of – guess what? – his pocket. He flicked the blade out, the gold reflected and refracted the light, "I believe you know what this knife is made of?"
"Imperial gold," Percy responded. "How did you get your hands on it?"
"I think you may know," he replied cryptically, which resulted in four raised eyebrows.
Jack chose that moment to fly in through the window.
"WHERE IS SHE?!" the sword screamed, flying at Percy, who miraculously knew what the Sword of Summer meant and uncapped Riptide, no questions asked.
Fury was confused. Alex was laughing. Magnus was face-palming. Annabeth sighed. Percy leaned Riptide against the wall. Jack floated down next to Riptide and his murmurings of affection could be heard for the remainder of their conversation.
Fury elected to ignore it.
"I am a demigod," he said blandly. "Ex-praetor of the 12th Legion."
Alex was still laughing, and Magnus was about to try and convince his boyfriend to leave when he heard that name, and stopped confused.
Annabeth and Percy, however, were still not convinced.
"Tattoo?" Annabeth prompted, and Fury raised an eyebrow. "So we know if you're lying or not."
The Director of SHIELD nodded, respecting their inclination not to trust people they'd just met, and pulled up the sleeve on his left arm, revealing the tattoo of all those in the legion; SPQR above a symbol representing their godly parent or ancestor (in Fury's case it was an owl, meaning he was related to Minerva/Athena), and lines for years of service (Fury had thirteen).
Percy relaxed somewhat, as did Annabeth.
"Is this some sort of demigod cult that we don't know about?" Alex half-joked.
"Alex, the 12th Legion is an army of Roman demigods. The Norse ones aren't usually involved," Annabeth explained.
Alex nodded, before getting up. "I'm gonna consider your offer, Nick. There'll be something made of clay on your desk with my final decision."
The einherjar left.
Fury turned to them, evidently waiting their decision.
"Sure," Percy said. "The whole stuff with the gods is classified, I presume?"
"Only known by those with Omega and Alpha level clearance," Fury clarified.
Annabeth nodded. "I'll be in touch, Director. For now, though, I'm jumping courses in college."
So, did ya like it?
Of course you liked it, I wrote it!
So, speculations about what these peeps have to find? And we can't forget about the pact that Loki and Thor have now made to not be like them in MCU canon, can we?
And I finally wrote a moment of wholesomeness (I'm not used to writing those types of things) between two characters; Jane and Darcy chatting over Doritos under the stars.
And I now headcanon that Jane and Quill's mothers were in the same hospital and they met each other in the waiting room or something, so yeah.
Review for me please!
-Wolf
