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The forest of the enchantment
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After the night visit to the library in the company of the God of Mischiefs himself, something unexpected happened, someone came to adopt him. And it was nothing less than the sister of Gus, the best friend he had ever made in his life and with whom he had shared three years of orphanage before his sister got custody for him. Her name was Kimberly and she looked a lot like Gus, with that envious Latin tan, brown hair and hazel eyes.
She had not come alone, her husband Leonardo had also signed the documents. He was from Germany, the final destination of the triad after a stopover in Paris. Just now they were waiting for their flight, when an operator's voice echoed down the corridor.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform you that flights to Germany have been postponed for six hours due to inclement weather. Thank you for your attention."
Snort and swear words indicated general dissatisfaction.
"What are we going to do for six hours?" Kimberly said.
"We can go to the food court," Her husband said.
They sat at one of the round tables outside. After a while, Leonardo brought the hamburgers and fries on a tray. He handed out a sprite for her, an orange juice for the boy and a beer for him.
"Thanks," Erick said.
"No hay de qué," he said in almost perfect Spanish.
"¡Ah! ¿Habla español?"
Then he looked to his wife for help and she translated.
"Poquito," he finally replied.
"He does better with English," she said. "You can call us Leo and Kim."
"Okay, I..." He interrupted himself as he looked toward the television.
Erick got up from his seat and entered the food store without taking his eyes off the screen. A German newsreel was transmitting live from Stuttgart an elegant man coming out of a building, and several rich people running in front of him. As he walked down the red carpet, the illusion began to fade and a golden armor was drawn in its place together with an aggressive helmet with horns.
It was he, he was Loki. The same joking guy he talked to justo two nights ago. Only now he did not look friendly at all.
He crossed the street and flipped a patrol car with a shot from his weapon. On the other side, the people of the gala mingled with some hapless passersby. He cornered them all up, invoking copies of himself.
"Kneel before me... I said, KNEEL!" He shouted, and one by one they fell on their knees.
He scrutinized the frightened faces and delighted in it.
"Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? Is the unspoken truth of humanity... your crave subjugation. The bright allure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power... for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel." He recited as he passed between them.
And then, out of all the people, an old man stood up.
"Not to men like you."
"There are no men like me."
"There are always men like you."
"Opa!" Leo said between surprise and horror.
"Look your elder, people. Let him be an example."
Out of nowhere, a shield interposed between the energy beam and its victim, and the shot ended up doubling its own owner. Behind it appeared a man dressed with red and white bars, matching a blue mask.
"You know, the last time I was in Germany I saw a man stand himself above everybody else... We had a disagreement." The man with the shield warned.
"The soldier," Loki scoffed as he stood up, "a man out of time."
"I am not the one who is out of time."
At the moment they cut the transmission.
...
The night was pleasant in the surroundings of a farmhouse. A kid lying on the grass was playing with the night binoculars he had been given for his birthday. The sight was set on the barn.
"What have we got sergeant?" He said imitating the sound of a walkie talkie at the end. "Based lights are on, Capitan Ventisca. It must be the rebel horses. Permission to advance, over," He asked his imagination. "Proceed with care," He answered with another voice.
An equine snout licked his face, breaking the spell of the game. The kid wiped his face and looked at the white mare. She began to graze carefree.
"Ey!" He protested. "You stepped out of character, Capitan."
A thunder rumbled in the sky and both raised their heads. The deep blue was still dotted with stars, there was not a single cloud. Then he used the binoculars and saw a man descending by parachute.
"Finally. A rescue mission."
He trotted into the forest on his white steed, and he rode gracefully. First he heard murmurs, which then turned onto metallic knocks and thousands volts. Suddenly, the mare reared up and threw him to the ground, then it fled back toward the farm. He ended up rolling down a depression on the ground. He stood up to shake off the leaves and just then some kind of missile flew over him, and he ran up the slope when recognized Iron Man.
He was so fascinated to see his hero fight the lightning titan, that he forgot his fear. Until he felt he was being watched. He looked up at a nearby boulder, where an eerie figure smiled at him, awakening him the urge to leave. But curiosity for third voice held him back.
"Ey, that is enough!"
The boy peeked his head out just to see them.
"I do not know what you plan to do here..."
"I came here to put an end to Loki's schemes," The lightning man said, without much encouragement for explications.
"Prove it. Put the hammer down."
"Ah yeah, no. Bad call!" Iron Man said behind his mask, "He love his hamm..!" He had not finished speaking when the lightning man hit him with his hammer.
The boy resented this blow to his hero, so much so that he was about to go out and defend him when he heard a voice in his head.
"I suggest you cover yourself."
And it was more for the commotion of herding someone into his mind that for the warning itself that he obeyed. At that precise moment, a sound wave reached his eardrums. Trees snapped and the ground shook. Only when his ears stopped ringing did he rush home with a crazy story to tell.
...
It was around noon when they traveled by bus to the village where The Pavić lived.
While Leo slept all the way, Kim related Stein-Wolflandet's curious story to him. The village was founded by a group of lost Icelanders, who thought they had arrived in Norway. But they really ended up on the borders of what is now Altenau and Hard National Park, about two hundred and forty from Berlin. The name had been Germanized, and was given because of the large wolf packs in those mountains, although by the 19th century they had all been hunted down.
She had been brought by a university scholarship, let's call it destiny, which later turned into a great job opportunity. She found lodging in the village and there she fell in love with the people, the landscape and a park ranger named Leonardo Pavić. She then returned to Chicago for her brother as soon as he could.
They were finally arriving. The bus began to climb up a hill, when it reached the top it discovered the colorful rooftops with the ruins of a castle and a mountainous forest in the background. A medieval landscape straight out of a fairy tale. The stone archway at the entrance welcomed them: "Willkommen im Stein-Wolflandet".
Towards the end of the road was the farm. White house and blue roof, and on top, an iron pegasso turning. Further in the background was a barn, and in the field a group of grazing horses could be seen.
There was Gus, talking to the horses. He had improvised a mask with a red plastic plate and was fighting against an apple tree to which he had tied a hammer. His friends turned their ears when they saw the stranger and he turned around pulling off the mask.
"Erick?"
The couple had gone to bed, as they were going to work in a few hours. Erick was also exhausted from the journey but the warm embrace of his life brother gave him an extra stripe battery, and he lent himself to a walk around the farm.
"It is Ventisca," he said, hugging the flea bitten gray mare's head. "She is my favorite. And the jealous one over there is Bruma, its sister.," he said while a dapple gray mare approached us. "You can mount it if you want."
"Maybe after."
"Oh, of course! Come with me, Opa bought a new bag for you."
"Opa!?"
"Yes, Opa is German for grandfather, or so I believe. That's what Leo calls his grandfather."
"So it was his grandfather he shot…" he said more to himself than to Gus.
"Was Opa shot!? It can't be, if he came back this morning. If he had been shot he should be in a hospital."
"Something happened."
Erick told him everything on the way home, and when he mentioned a round shield with a star in the middle of it, Gus blurted out his own story. They went up to the bedroom and Gus plopped down on his bed, then pointed to Erick's bed, and Erick sat on it.
"So, did you meet Mr. Malevolent?"
"I thought so," Erick replied.
That afternoon the battle for the Earth was fought. Loki opened a hole in the sky and let the monsters out. He said basically, "Hello you puny creatures of the cosmos. You are not alone."
The people from New York called it The Incident. In the news, the topic went out of fashion very quickly. And while that might seem strange, people were afraid and had a lot of questions, but they were more afraid to know the answers. In addition, each one took advantage of it for his own benefit.
...
In the cup of Yggdrasil, abode of the Aesir.
There a line of golden guards walked along a long bridge that descended into a desolate depth. Bracers placed in pairs every twenty meters provided poor illumination.
At the end two other guards were guarding gigantic doors. One of them approached and checked the trays they were carrying. He nodded and the other removed the tranca, then they both took out their keys and inserted them in the locks. Synchronously, the keys were turned and each pushed open one of the doors, opening narrow enough to let them through.
The dungeons were arranged on five floors, categorized by threat level. On the second level, closer to the eyes and ears of the guards, the cells were reinforced with uru and spells. Those were destined for the most dangerous. And it was not servants but skilled soldiers who brought food to these prisoners.
In the antepenultimate cell was the God of Mischief awaiting his sentence. A bed was all his foster mother had gotten him so far. He stood in front of the guard with his arms crossed behind his back, and looked at the tray that brought him bread and wine with contempt.
"You know what to do, recluse."
He twisted his lip just barely, in a gesture of distaste and walked to the right side of the cell without taking his eyes off the guard. The force field that acted as a grating divided the cell into two with a whirring sound. The prisoner was locked in one half, then the other one was released so that the guard could go through to drop off the tray. When the guard withdrew the force field configuration was reset.
"Enjoy it," The guard said with a twinkle in his smile.
Just as the soldiers entered, they left. And behind them the doors closed again.
Inside of the prison, muffled screams were heard. The two guards looked at each other in alarm, one of them decided to go to see what was going on. He went through the cells one by one, until he was almost at the end. In the antepenultimate cell he found one of his companions chained and gagged.
"Surtur!" He cursed, touched the panel and the force field was turned off.
He kneel down next to his colleague to remove the gag and automatically the illusion falls apart.
"You are new, right?"
"You are lucky, the spell requires you to be alive." He grabbed the glass of wine and took a sip, giving himself a moment to mantally qualify it. Obviously Fridga had not sent it to him. "Crap."
"And?" the other guard asked when he found him on the other side of the door.
"Nothing," he said, helping him lock the door. ", just another troublemaker."
"Great," the guard said, nodding his head toward the bridge, "here comes the changing of guard. I was pissing myself".
This chapter was originally long, so I split it in two so it won't be tedious. So there will be two chapters with the same title.
