Okay, so the update did come a little quicker this time and it is quite possibly the longest chapter I ever wrote but I did not want to split it up into parts. I hope you don't mind its length. If it drags, please tell me. Now, onwards with Nemesis. Enjoy!

#47

"Lokeeeee!" cried Thor and he could not tell whether it was a disappointed rebuke, an angry command or a desperate plea for help. It was probably all of that at once and it did not even matter because Loki was no longer there. No one was. There was nothing there either, nothing but a black void that had devoured the entire world. There was nothing to see, no air to breathe, no sound to hear, nothing to smell or to touch, and there was no gravity. The Thundergod tried to move, stretching out his arms and kicking his legs, but he did not feel his body. "Brother!" he screamed again, just to make sure he still had a voice, even though the nothingness around him swallowed the echo of his words. "Nemesis! Can anyone hear me? Helloooooo?!"

Nothing.

Damn you, brother. The thought was a sheer reflex and Thor was ashamed of it but, then again, it was Loki who had retrieved the book from Kamar Taj and presented it to them as if it held the answer to all their questions. It was Loki who had discarded his warning that they should not place the stone in the lock after chiding him for making irresponsible decisions in the heat of the moment and after bringing to their attention that Frigga had told him to find Nemesis, not to free her, and that those were not the same things. But freed her they had, and a nagging voice in the back of Thor's head whispered to him that Loki had known exactly that this was going to happen.

"What did he even try to accomplish?" Steve had asked earlier and Thor had asked himself that same question far more often than he would have liked during the past years. He wanted to trust his brother, he really wanted to, but he also knew that Loki would never grant him access to the convoluted maze that was his mind. By all the Realms, he probably did not have access to all its paths himself, which made things so much more complicated and would continue to do so, should there be a future for them.

Thor tried to push those thoughts away, reminding himself that Loki no longer wished him any harm and that his first instinct could no longer be to blame every unforeseen development on him. Yes, Loki had led him and the Avengers to believe that Ragnarok was not a real threat when he had not clarified after their return from Niflheim that his words had been a mere deception constructed to outwit Hela. But he had also dropped the remark that they should build the gauntlet just in case he had been wrong about the Twilight of the Gods being just a prophecy.

Which meant, Thor realized, that this was not about Loki at all.

Unless Loki had known about Nemesis and the seventh stone all along because Odin had not entombed it deep beneath the vaults of the Realm Eternal with a spell and Loki had studied it during the time he had sat on Asgard's throne in the Allfather's guise and he had written the book of Nemesis and enchanted its lock and then hidden it in the library of the Masters of the Mystic Arts and then allowed Hela to have the stone only to try and retrieve it by letting Thanos kill him and then concocting a scheme to retrieve it after Thor brought him back from the Realm of the Dead when his first attempt to retrieve it failed, this could not be about him.

The thought alone was ridiculous.

Even though Thor knew that he should be careful with such a conclusion whenever his scheming little brother was involved, he was sure that not even Loki's mind could birth a plan as obscure as this. Not to mention that Hela had confirmed much of Loki's guesswork with her emotional reactions and that Wong had not contradicted his little brother when he had told them that the book of Nemesis had been kept safe in the library of the Masters of the Mystic Arts for eons.

No, this was about Odin, who had told the lie of Ragnarok in order to conceal the truth of Nemesis. This was about his father and predecessor. The man whom he had admired with a burning passion for almost all his life. The man whose high expectations he had wished to satisfy so desperately that his need to please him and rise in his esteem had blinded him to almost everything else. The man who had built the Golden City on a foundation of blood, lies, exploitation, violence and death while proclaiming that a wise king never sought out war. The man who had lied to him in ways Loki never had. The man whom he still loved, still mourned, but who had never been the man he had thought him to be.

"I see," murmured the soothing and simultaneously glacial voice of Nemesis, "your mind is open now, Thunderer."

Thor needed a moment to find his voice and even when he did, he stammered. "I-is that the truth I m-must learn?" he asked in a small voice, referring to the directive the Goddess had uttered earlier. "That my father was a liar?"

"That is part of it," said Nemesis. "Are you prepared to learn all of it?"

He was not. "Where is Loki?" asked Thor and, in that moment, he became painfully aware of the fact that no matter how badly they had physically and emotionally wounded each other in the past—no matter how ruthlessly they had fought and insulted each other and questioned each other's love and loyalty and screamed at each other and wished the other harm out of sheer despair—their first instinct had always been and would always be to protect each other from anyone else wishing them harm. "Where is my brother?"

"This is not about Loki," said Nemesis, her voice purling like a shallow stream. "Loki understands. You do not."

"Wh-what is happening here?" Thor asked, the questions suddenly tumbling out of his mouth like a snowball rolling downhill and turning into an avalanche. "Why am I alone? Where are my friends? Wh-what is the reason for all this? Why did you call me? Why did you bring me here? Are we supposed to save the universe or will you take it all back? Is Ragnarok real?"

A faintly condescending laugh rang out somewhere in the darkness. "That depends," said Nemesis.

Thor gulped, his nerves stretched as tight as a bowstring. "On what?"

"On the lesson you learn from the truth," said Nemesis.

Thor let out a trembling breath, or at least he thought he did. With the blackness muddling his mind, he could no longer be sure that he was even there. "Fine," he conceded. "Tell me."

"This is what was before the universe," Nemesis began, repeating her earlier words. "I was the first being to ever exist, the first being to be born from the nothingness that came before Creation and in it, I remained alone. I remained alone, floating in the same darkness that now surrounds you for eons and I wished for companionship, yearned for it fiercely, while I waited and dreamed of stars and life and beautiful worlds filling up the blackness. The dreams sustained me for a long time but, eventually, when nothing and no one else was spawned by either the darkness or my restless imagination, I grew tired of my loneliness and my tiredness soon turned into despair. One day, even if the concepts of day and night did not yet exist at that time, I could no longer bear it, and I willed my essence to shatter."

The darkness around Thor lit up and the projection of Nemesis appeared in all her ethereal glory only to burst asunder in a colorful flash of light. Thor gasped as the Infinity Stones shot from the body of the Goddess that no longer was into the blackness like shards of glass, a million celestial alignments exploding to life in their wake, lighting up the darkness. And in the dim light, the Thundergod could see the remaining particles of energy that had once been Nemesis's body congealing into a black gem.

"My conscience and my power poured into that gem and from it grew a tree so powerful and so resilient that nothing could ever hope to cut its branches," the voice of Nemesis continued from somewhere in the newborn universe in front of Thor's eyes. "A tree so beautiful that it would be gazed upon with admiration and humility for eons henceforth. A tree whose existence the Aesir became aware of and named Yggdrasil."

Thor watched the World Ash grow into existence from nothing and he watched a cave grow within its trunk and within that cave grew a well and, from within that well, emerged the Norns, the three goddesses of fate, who began to weave the threads of fate for men and gods alike. As soon as they took up their work, the Nine Worlds grew from the tree's branches. He watched Asgard, Muspelheim, Jotunheim, Svartalfheim, Alfheim, Niflheim, Nidavellir, Vanaheim and Midgard blooming to life from the branches of Yggdrasil like buds on a cherry tree.

"Shortly after I ended my life," said Nemesis, "I had to watch from afar how all of my dreams were coming true indeed and I longed to be reborn to experience the marvels of a blackness filled with life and light in the flesh. My conscience along with the powers of my imagination endured, clinging to the foolish hope that one day I would be reborn among them. This thought of mine was pulsating through the World Tree when the newly created worlds were still young, sending pleas for help across the worlds that I be reunited with the splinters of my corporeal form. But my pleas," Nemesis said solemnly, "remained unheard for eons."

The history of the newborn universe flickered to life in front of Thor's eyes. He watched his grandfather Búri, the first Asgardian to ever rule, vanquish the armies of Jotunheim, Svartalfheim and Muspelheim, slashing giant throat after demon throat and, through bloodshed and war, ensuring Asgard's hegemony across the Realms. He watched Bor slaughter Loki's ancestors one by one, their red eyes glaring with the terror of death and pain, blood smeared across their hideous blue visages. He watched Búri live a life of bliss for eons until the time had come to pass his duties along to his son Bor, who was more susceptible to the silent pleas that the conscience of Nemesis passed on to the Aesir through the dreams instilled by Yggdrasil's magic pulsating through the air. He watched Bor collect the Reality Stone, the Time Stone and the Space Stone with his three sons Odin, Vili and Vé. He watched Malekith and the Dark Elves attack Asgard for the Aether and then flee with it to their homelands of ragged mountains. He watched Bor charge after them, unprepared though Asgard had been, and sacrifice a great many Asgardian blades on the volcanic fields of Svartalfheim for their victory. He watched Bor extract some of the Aether's powers into a golden scepter before he issued the order to bury it deep, deep where none would find it again.

"Before he could do anymore to ensure Asgard's safety," the voice of Nemesis continued, "Bor fell victim to a terrible illness and Odin was entrusted with the task of ruling Asgard as his successor, which alarmed me, at least at first. Where Bor had been humble and gracious, your father was hungry for knowledge, bloodthirsty and restless. He took a wife and fathered Hela, who was all of these things and more. Her mind was filled with a terrible darkness that would drive her to do inexplicable things once she had come of age."

"Yeah, I saw," mumbled Thor.

"One day, Odin came to Yggdrasil in his quest for wisdom," said Nemesis, ignoring his interjection, and the scene unfolding in front of Thor showed Odin traveling to the cave inside the World Tree in a cloak, seeking the wisdom of the Norns in his quest to conquer the Realms. Thor watched with a heavy heart how his father found the black gem instead and seized it for himself. He watched him study it, sensing its power, learning of the stone's greatest fear that her reunion with the remaining shards of her being might cause the entire universe to collapse in upon itself, and then seal it deep below the vaults of Asgard beneath the Odinsword to ensure that none would ever dare to retrieve it. He watched Odin deliver the prophecy and grimaced. He watched Odin and his brothers drown entire civilizations in blood as they conquered the eight remaining worlds with Hela and subjected them to their will with the Asgardian armies behind them. He watched as they collected the remaining three Infinity Stones. He watched Vili's beheading on the battlefield in the fight for the Mind Stone. He watched how Odin threw Vé, his own brother, off the cliff on Vormir to obtain the Soul Stone, watched his neck shattering like glass on the rocky surface at its bottom.

A scream of terror escaped Thor's lips and he suddenly knew that his body was still attached to his mind because he felt the nausea curving upwards from his stomach to his throat. He briefly wondered what would happen if he vomited in that blackness but this thought too seemed ridiculous and he swallowed both the thought and the sensation.

"Despite the cruelty throbbing beneath his chest, I found myself overwhelmed with a curiosity what Odin would do with the might given to Asgard," said Nemesis. "I watched in awe as Odin created a sustaining energy source from the stones he had collected by fusing them with the magic of Yggdrasil; a power that would go down in history as the Odinforce and that will have no equal for as long as the universe remains. I watched in awe as he infused a loyal soldier of his with the power to see into the universe and all souls residing within it. I watched him create a magical bridge that shone in the brightest of colors and allowed the Aesir to travel between worlds whenever they pleased without as much as scratch; and that they named Birfröst while the primitive earthlings simply named it 'rainbow' after they had caught a glimpse of its shine on their skies during the travels of the Gods. I watched him infuse the magic of the Aether into a few selected beings whom he thought capable of wielding such force. I watched him instruct the dwarves, who operated the magical forges of Nidavellir, to create a weapon that would be able to harness the energy of the Power Stone and that would later become Gungnir, a formidable spear feared across all words. I watched in awe as Odin created many more miracles that I would never have been able to dream with my powers."

Thor could only stare as the scenery unfolded in front of his eyes. There he was, his powerful father, building the universe with his own hands, and all the Thundergod had done after coming of age was bringing it to ruin.

"Odin was cruel, yes," said Nemesis, "I sensed it, but he was also fiercely intelligent and incredibly resourceful and, suddenly, the thought of what he could do with the universe I had only imagined enthralled me. Sealed away in my prison with a spell that no being could ever hope to break as long as the Allfather still lived, I drew immense pleasure from this universe and from all the love and passion, all the joy and malice, all the chaos and destruction that the Aesir infested upon it. I feasted on the fruits of my dreams; feasting like maggots on a rotten apple in a state of morbid bliss. Until my children called for me."

The darkness around Thor seemed to thicken with an invisible threat and then filled with shrill cries for help that set every single nerve in the Thundergod's body on fire and he shuddered when he remembered that Loki had heard those screams inside his head. Oh brother, I wish you were here with me.

"They jolted me out of my slumber and I came to understand that the stones, which had been birthed by my innocent wish for companionship, were suffering under the malice of the Allfather's reign. I feared for them and mourned for them and my conscience reached out to Odin's twisted mind, whispering to him that what he had prophesied to his people as Ragnarök would truly be upon him if he continued down his path of bloodshed and destruction. 'You have gained much from my essence, Allfather,' I told him. 'Too much. Stop your conquest, set the stones free and no harm shall come to your people. If you choose to take no notice me, all that you value shall perish.'"

In front of Thor's eyes, Odin banished Hela, who violently opposed his decision to put an end to Asgard's aspiration for dominance, and then established peace across the Realms. He watched his marriage with Frigga and his own birth. He watched his infant self grow into a toddler. He watched the Valkyries fight back Hela when she broke out of her prison, watched them being slaughtered one by one, and his heart ached for Valkyrie. He watched the last Great War against Jotunheim and his lips opened in shock when he saw Odin stumble across an icy battlefield littered with Jotun corpses, his eye cut from its socket by a jagged, icy blade wielded by Laufey himself. His chest tightened when he watched Odin approach a small temple build of stone and his heart almost exploded when he saw Loki's infant self, lying on the floor, mindlessly discarded onto a frozen rock like waste material. He watched how Odin cradled the Jotun bundle to his chest, how he held Loki's small body with his blood-smeared hands and a scheming flicker in his eyes, and finally understood that Loki had been right and that, even though Odin had brought him home a brother, he had never taken Loki home as a son. A tear spilled out of Thor's good eye.

He watched Odin transform Loki into an Aesir with the power of the Reality Stone he had kept inside the golden scepter. He watched their child selves grow into young men. He watched Odin distribute the stones that had helped to ensure Asgard's position of hegemony for centuries across the stars lest they draw unwanted attention to his new, peaceful kingdom.

"Two of the stones, he brought to Midgard," said Nemesis. "One, the Time Stone, he sealed within a necklace that he gave to a young Midgardian scholar called Agamotto, whom he taught in magic to ensure Midgard's survival against any attack from the rest of the Realms and who would later establish the order of the Masters of the Mystic Arts with the help of its magic. The other, the Space Stone, he sealed within a glowing cube, which he buried it deep below the plains of Tønsberg after he had fought off the relentless armies of the Frost Giants and the mortals there ensured him their ever-lasting gratitude. The Power Stone, he sealed within a round artifact, which he brought to a forsaken, stony planet that he thought would never be set foot upon by anyone. The Soul Stone he returned to the place where he had sacrificed his brother, demanding Vé's life back in exchange for the gem to the ghostly entity that had claimed it, but was informed that a sacrifice made to the Soul Stone could not be reclaimed. So be it, thought Odin, for at least this stone will never be recovered by anyone else once they learn of the price that must be paid for its possession and thus the quest to collect them all will never be fulfilled. The Mind Stone, which Odin sensed to be one of the most treacherous, he sealed within a scepter he had forged by the same fires that had brought forth Gungnir and Mjølnir. For reasons unknown, he buried this scepter on an asteroid belt in the vicinity of Asgard. As soon as Odin had abandoned his murderous fantasies of omnipotence, Asgard prospered and turned into that beautiful, peaceful world I had imagined in the dreams that had sustained me before my physical demise. The stones' cries for help faded away."

The darkness around Thor stilled.

"The worlds were at peace," said Nemesis. "Soothed by the promise of peace and beauty I fell into a deep and satisfied, eon-lasting slumber in my prison and the existence of a being that birthed the Infinity Stones, if it was ever known at all, passed into history and from there into legend and then into myth. For eons to come, my existence remained a mystery to all but a few beings and those who did know, or suspected, simply called my conscience 'the seventh stone' for an ineffably long time. I slept as new worlds sprang into existence from the dreams of the Aesir beyond the branches of Yggdrasil and new life stirred awake in the vastness beyond the Nine Realms protected by Odin Allfather."

Again, Thor could only stare as worlds exploded into being in colorful flashes of light in front of his eyes.

"I slept as those beings grew conscious and their minds filled with dark thoughts and malevolent intents," said Nemesis. "I slept as those beings, who were as dangerous and deranged as they were smart and susceptible, began to hear whispers of the stones. I slept as countless of them set out to retrieve the stones from their hiding places. I slept as the stones wreaked havoc across the universe, growing ever more sentient with each wielder. I slept as a ruthless being bearing the name of Thanos set out on his merciless quest to destroy half of the universe with their help. I slept as this creature traveled to Nidavellir and asked Eitri of the dwarves to forge a Gauntlet that would be able to withstand the repercussions of using all six stones. I slept as Eitri ensured that the stones' magic would shrivel and die if they were ever again used for such atrocities as they had during the long and bloody reign of Odin. I slept as Odin watched the terror across the universe unfold, anxious but still confident that his son Thor—who, the Norns had assured him, was to grow into the greatest of all the Aesir—would fend off the threats looming beyond their borders. However, with the universe unraveling as a hunger for war and darkness grew in many hearts of its inhabitants, the threats built faster than even the Allfather could have imagined. His long reign, Odin suddenly sensed with unmistakable clarity, was unexpectedly coming to a swift end and that realization plunged him into insanity and despair. And so it came to pass that Odin decided to proclaim you king of Asgard before you were anywhere near ready for this task and before your brother could fully grow into the Tangler."

Thor gulped.

"Sensing the chaos erupting on and threatening the supremacy of Asgard in the aftermath of Odin's decision, I stirred again for the first time in eons, trying to warn the Allfather once more, but Odin's mind remained closed to me, every trace of his one so far-reaching conscience extinct. Still confined by the Allfather's spell, I could do nothing but watch. I tapped into the magic of Yggdrasil ever so desperately—trying to send out a warning to any magical being who might be willing to listen, trying to tell them what would happen if the Infinity Stones were to be abused once more—but all my pleas remained unheard. I tried to free myself, in vain at first, but eventually, the spell that had sealed me was broken. The Allfather had perished and I knew the universe would soon bear the damage of his passing. Listening to my children's desperate warnings, agonizing over my inability to save them or any of which I had dreamed, the walls confining me suddenly burst as the fires of Muspelheim consumed Asgard and burned it to the ground. Millennia after I had ended my own existence, I was finally free again."

"Until Odin's cast-out first-born daughter carried you deep into the frozen wastelands of Niflheim," whispered Thor.

"And, unfortunately, her mind too remained closed to me and while I brooded, trying to concoct a plan of how I could bring the stones within my reach again, your brother reached out, trying to bind his spirit to the Space Stone in his final moments. The sons of Odin, I decided then, were my only hope," Nemesis concluded. "So, I claimed Loki and then I called out to you."

"For what purpose?" Thor asked after a few heartbeats, every fiber in his body aching with grief and despair now that the grisly truth of Asgardian history had been revealed to him.

"To convince me," said Nemesis.

Thor opened his mouth to enquire the meaning of her words but just when he was about to voice his question, he understood. He finally understood. "You feel like you have no choice but to take it all away," he gasped. "You think this universe cannot continue to exist after what my father and everyone else … after what they have done to you and your creation and your children. We befouled everything with our fatuity and our greed."

"You did," the Goddess confirmed.

"Which is why you will have to take it from us," whispered Thor. "Things must return to how they were before its dawn."

"Will I?" asked Nemesis. "Or is there still hope for the Aesir? If I return to you what you lost and what you wish me to pass back to you—all the souls my child devoured, the Realm Eternal—will you rise above your forebears?"

Thor gulped once more and the sound echoed so loudly in his ears that a shiver ran down his spine.

"Convince me, son of Odin, whom the Norns once prophesied to become the greatest of the Aesir," said Nemesis and then she fell silent and the blackness around him dissolved and Thor was back in Shuri's laboratory in Wakanda and his ears were ringing and the sudden, aggressive flashes of light around him were stabbing into his retinas and he sank to his knees, screwing up his eyes.

"Thor!" Valkyrie cried, her arms wrapping around him, and he greedily breathed in her smell. The mortals were there too and they asked things of him and told him things in return but Thor could not tell their voices apart.

"Where have you been?"

"Are you alright?"

"Where is Loki?"

"Suddenly, we were back here and you were gone for hours and the magic of Nemesis was gone but the book was still here …"

"Val read us the entire thing and holy fucking shit. This is messed up, man." That was the rabbit.

"What did she do to you?"

"What does she want?"

Thor blinked and slowly opened his eyes. The room and his friends' faces were a blur. "Wh-what do you mean where is Loki?"

"Wasn't he with you?" asked Tony, an edge of alarm in his voice.

Thor blinked once more and his vision finally swam into focus as panic rose inside of him. "I thought he was with you?!"

Notes:

There are a few references to Lord of the Rings in here, which I am sure you have noticed. When I first thought of Nemesis, by the way, I imagined her to look similar to Galadriel when she is tempted by the ring in Lothlórien but then I decided she should have black hair.

Now, where the Hel is Loki?