Getting hit by the hammer felt exactly how Thrúd had imagined it:

Dull, hard, and more than capable of knocking the wind right out of her. Not that she had ever expected Mjolnir to be used against her in her life. Her dad was a drunk asshole but she knew for a fact he'd never so much as raise it in her direction. Sure the same couldn't be said for her brothers, but in her opinion, anything they got from their dad was well deserved.

But here she was, soaring away from the battle at breakneck speeds with Mjolnir digging into her gut.

The wind rushing by her ears and her hair blowing in her eyes, she could barely make out the ensuing fight between Loki, his dad, and her Grandfather.

Her Grandfather the All-Father himself.

Odin.

Throughout her life, he's done a lot of shitty things. Topping that list was endlessly abusing her father verbally until his rough exterior crumbled to Odin's titanium will. But at the same time, even though he did and said some fucked up things, she had understood that he was indeed her Grandfather. And even though she was aware of his manipulative nature, she still gave him respect and obedience.

Whether that respect was given out of fear or her own freewill, she's unsure of at the moment.

But all that respect has been thoroughly thrown out the window at the same speed that she was currently sailing away at.

Not only had this bastard just killed her father (not to mention his own son) right in front of her, but he had the balls to blame his actions on someone else.

She mentally made a note to name this the new number one most fucked up thing he's ever done.

Thrúd didn't have time to process her newfound resentment for the All-Father any further as she came crashing down on the crumbled earth beneath her.

As soon as her momentum ran out, she found herself spilled on the ground in an undignified heap of mangled hair and loose battle skirts. Caked and covered in dirt, she forced herself to her knees, then to her feet. Dusting herself off, she also took notice of the fissure in the ground that led to the small crater where she landed. Odin may not look all that imposing, but if one swing of the hammer from him was able to send her all the way across the battlefield and crack the ground upon impact, then Loki and his father had better be ready for the fight of their lives.

A fight that she could help with if she is quick enough.

Though she can't make out their whole bodies from this distance, she can more than see the bright flashes of light and magic from their brawl. If I can just find a quick way across, she thought. But that task was far easier said than done.

The invasion on Asgard has left the land around her scarred and broken, creating cliffs and chasms where they hadn't existed before. The once crystal clear air of the realm, gifting its residents with breathtaking views of untarnished and untouched beauty now choked and foggy with dust and flying chunks of earth. If she were going to make it over there and help beat her Grandfather's ass into oblivion, she'd need a quick way to get there.

Luckily for her, the All-Father had just gifted her the very tool to make that possible.

Turning to her left, she found it lying on the ground.

Mjolnir.

Its handle angled toward her as if it wanted her to pick it up and wield it with the same ferocity and might as her father. And she was only all too happy to oblige.

She reached for the handle, but with a yelp of surprise, she lurched backwards as a body landed between her and the handle.

It was a mortal. A citizen placed in Asgard by Odin to be used as a human shield for when Ragnarok arrived.

Feeling her temper beginning to rise at the thought of the All-Father, she quickly regained composure to check on them. Kneeling down, she awkwardly reached her hands over the mortal's body, who was currently holding his ribs in pain while backing away from her.

"Hey, are-are you ok?" Thrúd tried, but the man kept scooting himself farther away from her, his eyes widened in terror. "It's ok, I'm not gonna hurt you." She tried to calm him down, but his attention was at the top of the small cliff he had just plummeted from.

"Don't let it get me, don't let it get me!"

"Don't let what get y-" She was interrupted by a shrill squawk somewhere behind her.

Turning around and looking up, she found a wyvern perched at the top of the cliff. Its feathers, a striking combination of red and yellow, ruffled in agitation at having its target escape its beak. Its eyes scanning the ground beneath it for wherever its lunch had just vanished to. It didn't take long for the winged beast to find him, since he was still cowering and begging for his life.

Instinctively, she placed herself between the wyvern and the scared mortal, challenging the creature to a staring contest of her own. It must have sensed her desire for combat, because the beast's back arched menacingly, his hungry chirps changing to roars meant to intimidate its prey.

It didn't work.

Breathing deeply to ward off the oncoming adrenaline, she tensed her body into a fighting stance.

Alright, she thought. Badass Valkyrie time.

The cocky wyvern made the first move. Like a cat after prey, it pounced off the edge and glided toward Thrúd, its wings spread wide. Undeterred, Thrúd leapt forward and met the beast halfway, delivering a left hook to the side of its skull.

With a squawk of surprise and pain, the wyvern crashed to the ground, stunned and shaking its head in disorientation. Thrúd landed on the ground with a roll, but shot back up to her feet and resumed her fighting stance, the thought of picking up her father's hammer almost a distant memory. The only thing that concerned her was protecting this man who had no means of defending himself.

The sole purpose of it being that it is the exact opposite of how the All-Father operates.

The farther away she can distance herself from him, the better off she will be. Hopefully Loki and Kratos were holding their own against the bastard at the moment.

"Get yourself over to the great hall!" Thrúd yelled at the still cowering man. "Find someplace safe!"

"Safe?!" The man asked incredulously. "Have you looked around here, recently? There's no place that's gonna be-"

"Just shut the Hel up and get somewhere that isn't here!"

Finally accepting her logic, the man shuffled to his feet. Still clutching his ribs, he ran as fast as he could out of sight.

Thrúd returned her attention to the wyvern, who had just regained its composure and was now attempting to intimidate her by demonstrating its ability to charge the air with electricity. The ground zapped and popped where the arcs made contact as the beast circled its way around her, trying to predict her next move.

The daughter of Thor smiled and laughed. "Nice try, asshole." In response, her body began to glow blue, lightning circulated around her body from the waist down. "I know that trick, too."

Instead of a squawk, the wyvern roared with all of its energy. To its credit, it was able to overpower the destruction around her until that was all she was able to hear. But she was still not impressed. Thrúd answered it with a war cry of her own and charged forward, sliding underneath its tail as it swung at her midsection in retaliation.

Still sliding, Thrúd unhooked her sword from its resting place at her hip and swung it at the wyvern's ankle. With a shriek of pain, the beast stumbled clumsily to its side, allowing Thrúd to stand up and swing the sword up and down, slashing the wyvern across its leg and back.

The creature was whimpering now, but Thrúd wasn't done. The image of her father fading from existence was still at the forefront of her mind, and she needed something, anything to distract her from it. This beast just unwillingly signed up to be her personal punching bag.

She caught the wyvern's neck underneath her arm and locked it in a vice-like headlock. The creature roared in protest, jerking its head back and forth in a vain attempt to loosen her grip, but the struggle only increased it around its windpipe. In a panic, the wyvern opened its mouth and fired a volley of electric bursts. Thrúd leaned her head away from the blasts as they escaped its mouth, a few wild strands of hair beginning to stand on end.

With one twist of her body, she pointed the wyvern's head at the cliff face. Raising her arm above its head, she summoned lightning into her arm and brought her elbow down on its skull with a massive CRACK. On impulse, the dazed creature fired another blast of electricity into the cliff, the force of which knocked Thrúd away from her former captive.

Regaining her footing, Thrúd looked at the wall and found a system of spider web cracks forming where the blast hit it, creating a large hairline fracture which traveled up to the top of the wall. It didn't take long for a plan to form in her head.

Dropping herself down to a runner's stance, one leg behind her with both hands on the ground on either side of her, she stared down the frenzied wyvern, still wobbling and off balance from the blow to the head.

She closed her eyes and allowed the painful memory to flash through her mind again; Thor's arm outstretched to her, both of them helpless to do a single thing as he faded away from existence. Odin pleading with her to see his twisted reasoning as a necessity. Him picking up the hammer and using it against her.

A new fury flowed through her body as well as another wave of lightning.

She opened her eyes, let out another cry of effort and anger, and launched herself into the stunned wyvern shoulder first.

The beast squawked as it was shoved against the wall. Upon impact, the newly formed cracks began to branch outward, stemming new cracks and fissures from the blast. Knowing what was coming next, Thrúd jumped out of the way, landing clear of the wyvern, who had lost all strength and was knocked to the ground, now powerless to avoid a massive chunk of the wall break free and topple on top of it, crushing it entirely.

A few arcs of electricity were visible underneath as the residual energy of the wyvern was flushed out, then they stopped altogether.

The daughter of Thor stood victorious, shoulders slouched and panting, the adrenaline leaving her body almost as quickly as it came. The only thing that snapped her back to reality was the ground itself beginning to rumble.

It wasn't a rumble that came from any sort of seismic activity. It was a steady beat, like footsteps. Except these footsteps were shaking the already unstable ground she was standing on and the impact of them were several seconds away from each other. And for each rumble, the ground shook harder.

Ragnarok was getting closer.

Turning on her feet, she looked over to where Loki and Kratos were battling the All-Father; the previous flashes of light of magic were nowhere to be seen, which was either very good, or very bad.

Regardless, if she wanted to get a few hits in on the old bastard with her dad's hammer, she decided she needed to hurry up.

Tripping over her feet clumsily as another rumble shook the earth, she darted over toward the hammer and scooped it up. Under any other circumstance, she would've taken time to appreciate the significance of holding Mjolnir, recalling its history and the stories her father had shared of it.

But this was not the time for that.

She backed herself up to the wall behind her, psyching herself up for the leap she was about to take. Clearing her mind of all other distractions, she dashed forward, swung Mjolnir in front of her and leapt.

Thrúdhad expected to be unfamiliar with the sensation of a longer than average jump, but she was not prepared for the hammer to nearly take on a mind of its own as it dragged her off the ground and carried her forward across the broken battlefield.

In short, it was exactly what she was expecting . . . except it wasn't at all what she was expecting.

"WHOA," she cried out, but she could barely hear her own voice over the wind.

She dared to peek behind her and gasped at the sight.

Ragnarok was right on top of the spot where she had been just moments prior, and was still coming forward, showing no signs of slowing down. His body still only visible from the waist up as he walked, the ground beneath him offering as much resistance as if he were doing nothing else besides wading through water.

The daughter of Thor had even less time to make it to the battle than she realized.

Returning her line of sight in front of her, she drew in a sharp breath of panic as the ground began to rapidly approach.

"Shit! Shit shit shit shit SHIT!"

Impulsively, she let the hammer go and allowed gravity to retake her. Thrúd realized her mistake when she saw the hammer still soaring as she began to plummet. In a blind fit of panic, she reached her arm forward, trying to will the hammer back into her grip. But it didn't obey.

Mjolnir flew without her until it came to rest at the top of the remains of a shattered stable, multiple feet above the ground. Thrúd, however, rolled to another ungraceful stop on the ground right in the middle of a group of marching Einherjar.

Alarmed, the group of brainwashed soldiers jumped back, weapons at the ready. Thrúd slowly rose to her knees, groaning in pain and holding her arm close to her body.

A few moments after, one of the Einherjar, one who wielded a scythe with a seven foot long staff, lowered his guard, pointed at her in alarm. "It's her! Thrúd Thorsdottir! I saw her. She was fighting side by side with the pale god and his little shit kid!" The three remaining sets of eyes went from the soldier to the young goddess before them, still struggling to rise to her feet, disoriented from the sloppy flight and sloppier landing.

She couldn't see it beneath their helmets, but by the looks on their faces, they might as well have been looking at oozing puss of dead plants in Vanaheim.

Thrúd finally found her footing and was able to properly process her surroundings. She was only a few hundred feet away from where she previously was when Odin sent her sailing away. Where he began to battle with Loki and Kratos though was a large gaping hole in the ground, with no way to tell how deep it was from this angle.

From the hole, she could see familiar flashes of magic. Their fight must have made its way beneath the surface and the Einherjar must have been on their way to provide backup for the outnumbered All-Father.

The depth of the hole had just become the least of her worries at the moment, though. These Einherjar, who were her allies mere hours ago due to her affiliation with Odin, didn't appear to be on her side anymore.

Apparently, it only took a lone traitor for them to forget their mission and choose a new target.

The one with the scythe struck first. Thrúd was still dizzy and out of breath, but she could still see an attack coming from a mile away. Einherjar bastard number one swung his weapon in a downward arc, but Thrúd stepped aside, letting it dig itself into the dirt harmlessly. Gripping her sword, she swung it down on the handle and snapped it in half. Hopping sideways, she then delivered a kick to his throat, aiming her foot expertly in between the breastplate and helmet. Bastard number one clutched his windpipe desperately and collapsed to the ground.

Thrúd spun on her heel and put distance between herself and bastards numbers two, three and four, her arms wide in a gesture of momentary peace.

"Listen!" She started. "Odin is a fraud! You're fighting and dying over and over again for a lying, manipulative asshole! He killed my dad right in front of me for saying no! The fucker killed THOR! Are you really willing to fight for somebody who would leave you to die the first chance he got?"

Enherjar weren't known for talking much. Only when they got drunk or when they communicated with each other in battle would they say more than five words at a time. Topping it off, they were brainwashed by the All-Father as well. Thrúd knew that appealing to their better nature wouldn't be an easy task, but the fewer people she had to fight, the quicker she'd be able to rejoin Loki in kicking her grandfather's ass.

The undead soldiers before her exchanged glances this way and that before confirming her doubts; they in turn raised their weapons and approached her.

Letting out a breath of frustration, Thrúd raised her sword and settled back into her fighting stance . . .

Before another rumble sent them all to their knees or sprawled them out on the ground, their weapons rolling away from them and falling into newly formed chasms in the dirt.

Another massive footstep and another rumble, Thrúd didn't need to turn around to know that Ragnarok was right behind her. Her deduction was proven correct when the remaining Einherjar bastards scrambled to their feet and ran away in all directions.

Einherjar bastard number one, however, wasn't so lucky. Still clutching his throat, he only had time to rise to his knee before Ragnarok's massive foot crushed him.

The daughter of Thor stumbled backwards, mere yards away from the foot of the creature sent to destroy her home. A series of cracks appeared on the ground, traveling behind her. Following the opening fissures, she watched in horror as a crack opened up beneath the rubble at the stables, and Mjolnir shifted uneasily at the top of the debris.

Wasting no time, Thrúd charged forward, summoning lightning around her in a vain attempt to get to her father's hammer faster. Jumping over newly formed cracks and fissures, she stumbled her way over to the hammer's resting spot . . . only to be flung head over heels into the air after Ragnarok took one more step and plunged his foot into the ground behind her.

Through her wild hair and spinning vision, she barely managed to watch as Mjolnir plunged into the cracks beneath it, disappearing into the swirl of ash and smoke Ragnarok's presence created.

"NO!" Thrúd wailed, reaching forward in a desperate act to summon her dad's hammer back into her grasp.

Knowing it was no longer any use, Thrúd closed her eyes and prepared to hit the ground again, but the impact never came. Instead, she could hear a manic flapping noise getting louder and louder, closing in on her until a strong set of arms scooped her out of the sky and carried her in the opposite direction of where she was sent sailing.

Daring to open her eyes, the daughter of Thor was met with a majestically large wingspan of feathers, and armored body, and an emotionless mask on the face of her savior. The strong arms of the Valkyrie were wrapped under Thrúd's biceps, but the added weight didn't appear to hinder their flight pattern in the slightest.

"Gunnr?!" Thrúd croaked out incredulously.

"My lady," Gunnr replied, as formal as ever, even in the face of the end of the world.

"Quick! Turn around! The hammer, Mjolnir! It's just-"

"I'm sorry my lady!" Gunnr interrupted her. "I'm under orders from your mother to get you back. And as you can see," She nodded over to the massive form of Ragnarok, who had his equally massive sword hoisted overhead, its tip aimed at the hole in front of the Great Hall, "there is no time!"

Thrúd was only just able to get a quick glance around her before Ragnarok delivered the final blow; entire chunks of land cracked and splintered before falling into the abyss beneath the realm leading to Norns-know-where. Whatever buildings remained fell apart as if they were made of nothing more than toothpicks before falling over the edge themselves.

The entire sight made Thrúd's insides turn to ice.

With one last flap of her wings, the legendary Valkyrie tucked them behind her, allowing the two of them to go into a controlled fall. She gathered Thrúd up and held her close to her body.

"Brace yourself, my lady!"

With Gunnr's arms wrapped around her body protectively, she was unable to see Ragnarok's sword breach the hole, or one of the realm tears that they were flying into which was left open by Loki's pet beast.

All she was aware of was the jarringly sudden shift in temperature.

One moment the air was thick with smoke and warm, the next it was so cold that each subsequent breath irritated her lungs.

Jerking her body to the side, Gunnr held Thrúd close as she crashed into the icy ground, sliding on the slippery surface for several seconds before the Valkyrie unfurled her blade-like wings and dug them into the ice, slowing them to a stop.

Deeming the situation safe, Gunnr relaxed her body, taking deep breaths as she brought her wings back in. Slowly, the two of them made their way to their feet, and Thrúd was finally able to process what was around her again.

They were in Midgard. More specifically, on the frozen Lake of Nine.

The cold air wasted no time at biting at her exposed skin, but she couldn't care less at the moment. She was still wrapping her head around what had happened. She didn't get to think for very long before another set of footsteps were heard approaching them.

Turning to see who it was, Thrúd didn't even have time to raise her arms as her mother enveloped her in an inescapable embrace. But her daughter more than welcomed her overprotective mother holding her close, having her hands grip at her hair and praising anything and everything that Thrúd was alive.

Finally stepping back, Lady Sif cupped Thrud's face, studying it for any damage. After her search was completed, she let out a sigh of relief, her breath plainly visible in the chilled air.

"Thank you, Gunnr," She bowed her head, reverting back to her position of authority "Your service, as always, has been exemplary." The Valkyrie said nothing. Her only reply was a nod in return and a fist to her chest.

"Mom," Thrúd choked out, diverting her mother's attention back to her. Her heart sank when she saw that her daughter was clearly fighting back an onslaught of tears.

"Shh," her mother attempted to comfort. "I know." Upon saying these words, she could feel her demeanor about to burst as well. "I know about your father. He was so brave."

Thrúd nodded in agreement, pushing her tears back with all her might. The urge to release her emotions vanished as another thought came to her.

"Odin! All-Father! Loki and Kratos, they- they were-"

"Odin's dead."

Both pairs of head looked at the Valkyrie, stunned and not quite believing what either of them had heard. When neither of them were able to find the will to speak, Gunnr continued. "He fell in battle to Kratos, Loki and the Lady Freya. The All-Father can hurt no one else ever again."

To say that they were overjoyed would be an understatement to Thrud. The manipulative, paranoid, abusive old bastard would never do anything to her family ever again.

At least, those who remained of it.

The two of them would give anything for Thor to be with them and enjoy his release from Odin's services, to finally be free and be with his family. But that just happened to be one of the last things that the All-Father made sure would be impossible, even after his time in the realms had expired.

Which reminded Thrúd of another issue.

"I lost it."

Sif lifted an eyebrow.

"Lost what, love?"

"Mjolnir. I left it in Asgard." Thrúd drooped her head, too full of shame to meet her mother's gaze. "It was destroyed by Ragnarok. I could've grabbed it but-"

"The hammer survived, child."

Once again, both sets of eyes stared at the Valkyrie.

"Mjolnir is not a weapon that can be destroyed so easily. It is waiting for you, somewhere in the nine realms. Of this, there is no doubt."

A/N: Sooooooooooooooo God of War Ragnarok exists and it gave me an itch that traveled all the way down to my fingertips! Thrúd was a real standout character to me; she just seems like someone who could hold her own on a Kratos level adventure and able to make mistakes and learn valuable lessons from them. And from the game's opened ending on her character . . . I've got my own ideas on she could be up to.

Not a lot of story in this particular chapter, but I wanted to give my own account of what may have happened to her after Odin yeeted her away. And it seemed like the most natural place to begin.

Thanks for reading and I hope you stick around on this wild ride!