Deep under the Danish island of Zealand, the Cult of Knull welcomed their brawny, purple-eyed ally back.
"I have the codex, dark brothers."
"Excellent!" The icy-blue-eyed, shadowy leader commended. "Place them in the center."
"What is that scent on you, Brother Disaster?" The green-eyed Symbiote inquired as his cult brother arranged the codices together. "It doesn't smell like blood or brains, but it is... pleasant."
"Is it chocolate?" The gray-eyed Symbiote questioned him. "Are you going to share?"
"Yes, I obtained these from the humans' electronic storage box, and this one is my favorite: the title reads, 'Cookies and Cream!'" Disaster passed a candy bar to each of her cult brothers. "But..." She gazed down at her nurse's body. "Would I be Sister Disaster in this host? I don't look much like a brother at the moment."
The other Symbiotes looked at each other and shrugged, not particularly caring.
The leader facepalmed. "It really does not matter; once we are free from these human shells, their silly little issues won't concern us. Just focus on the mission."
"Okay. So, eldest brother, now the real ceremony begins, right?"
"Correct!"
"Darkness is coming for us all!" The gray Symbiote announced. "Sweet darkness, and this world will be ours!"
The leader shook his head. "Not only this world, this universe, and our creator will rule it all, just as he is destined to!"
"So, what's the deal with that Brock child?" The green Symbiote asked Disaster. "Is he a wizard, like that detective that took down Mancer?"
"No idea. It looked like it."
The leader then faced the green-accented member. "Speaking of that matter, you said this detective is bonded to one of our kind, but his Symbiote was not present at the imprisonment. Are you sure of this?"
"I am, his Symbiote is no threat to either us or the creator, but he does possess a very powerful healing ability, one that rivals the creator's... not that healing will help the mortals, especially once the creator sways 'Healer' back to our side."
"How did you acquire all this information about this healer?"
"An old family member was more than willing to tell me allll about it! Speaking of family, are you sure I can't kill just one of our kind... just a douchebag of a Symbiote that doesn't deserve to live?"
The leader shook his head again. "We Symbiotes are all brothers, no matter what our differences are. Once the King in Black returns to us, we will all serve him together, all of us on the same side in the end! So unless he betrays our god, yeah, I'm pretty damn sure!"
The green-eyed one huffed. "Alrighttt. Anyway, it is the host that poses the most threat of the two: he is smart, and he is strong! Should we kill him?"
"No, that would risk him finding us and interrupting the awakening of the creator. Unlike the reawakening of his faithful dragon, this one will take some time to carry out, so let us begin with haste!"
"By the way, brothers of darkness, did any of you happen to bring a change of hosts? Mine has just about reached his end."
"Mine too."
"I'm good." Disaster stated.
"In the dungeon below, there are many; take your pick."
"Oh, I willll!" After fearsome chomping noises, the Symbiotes devoured their dying hosts' internal organs and left the corpses, revealing the body of Mancer's buyer, Malachi Malatesta, as the green-eyed Symbiote's former host.
"Once our god dwells among us and makes us whole again, we will never again need to bond with these pathetic meat puppets or feast upon their innards!"
"But... we still can eat their brains, right?"
"And we can eat this delicious chocolate confection, even after the humans that make it are gone?" Disaster wondered.
"I like the dark chocolate best!" The gray-schemed Symbiote admitted.
Although his teeth were obscured by darkness, the leader grinned. "We will be free to do whatever we want! We are Lord Knull's children, and the humans and all creatures of the light will be his slaves!"
"YEAH!" The Symbiotes cheered, eager to begin the awakening ceremony.
Back in San Francisco, Anne Weying Lewis gasped as she saw the man standing at her door.
"Eddie! How- I thought you were dead!"
"You thought I was dead? I thought you were dead!"
Anne looked at the boy standing next to Eddie, tears running down her face. "Is that... Dylan?"
"Yeah, that's Dylan." Eddie teared up with her.
"I still don't get it; who is she?" Dylan asked Eddie.
"She's, well..."
"Why don't you go in the house and have a snack, Dylan?" Anne offered. "We have important, adult things to discuss."
Dylan squinted. "What, were you his girlfriend?"
"I was his fiancée... once."
"Hey Dylan, why don't you get that snack, buddy?" Eddie urged.
Dylan shrugged. "Fine."
After the boy was out of earshot, Anne asked Eddie, "So, you must have come back to your dad's place, huh?"
"Yeah, I found him there a couple weeks ago. You don't know my old man very well, do you, Anne?"
"Well, no. You never really talked about him."
"There's good reason for that: he's an abusive asshole! He beat the poor kid, just like he did to me when I lived there, while I had no idea he was there!"
"What!?" Anne gasped again.
"Aw man, poor kid." Dan sympathized.
"And not only did my old man convince the kid that he was his dad, but he told me that- that you killed yourself after dropping him off there!"
"Killed herself!? After Anne dropped him off?" Dan repeated. "Why would Anne-" A look of utter shock ran across his face as he put two and two together. "Dylan... Dylan was the baby from nine years ago!? The one you told me was a stillborn?!?" Anne somberly nodded. "So he's- so you and Eddie- after we were married!?"
"No, that's not- it's not what it sounds like, Dan! It was-"
"Venom?"
"Yeah, it was when he bonded with me to find Eddie. I don't know how, but the DNA matched all three of us!"
"And you didn't think to tell me about all of this!? I'm a doctor, Anne, and more than that, I'm your husband! How long are you going to keep lying to me about this kind of stuff!?"
"Because I didn't want you to think I cheated on you! And I didn't, it was the Symbiote!"
"Well, you're acting pretty guilty about it!"
"She's telling the truth about that." Eddie defended her. "Venom didn't mean to, but he just realized what happened, that he took some of my DNA with his and... you know..."
"I really wish I didn't." Anne expressed. "And I know I shouldn't have lied to you, Dan, but all of a sudden, I was pregnant with my ex's child, and I didn't want to raise my ex's son while I'm married to you! And... I was afraid of what you'd think: that... that I was unfaithful when I wasn't."
"And yet you make yourself look guiltier by lying and covering up." Dan reiterated.
"I know..."
"For all the times you complained about Eddie, you act just like him! You two seem so perfect for each other, maybe I should leave the happy family alone for your reunion!"
"Dan!" Anne called after her husband while he stormed out the door. "Where are you going?"
"Hopefully, somewhere without any Symbiotes! I swear, if I see one more of them-" Dan opened the door to find a grinning, goopy black face staring at him, and its terrifying grin grew wider as it looked in the house.
"Hi Dan!"
Dan groaned. "Eddie, it's for you: your midwife is back!"
"Eddie!" Venom cheered. "And Anne!? Anne is alive?!"
"Hey Venom."
Eddie sighed. "Oh alright, come on back!" Venom didn't hesitate to rebond with his favorite human. "So... what else did I miss?" The trio filled the heroic Symbiote in on their conversation, and Anne continued.
"Eddie, I really came to your dad to ask him if he knew where you were, since you left San Francisco after the Carnage fight, but he told me you were dead! If I had known you were alive and that he was an abusive asshole, I never would have left your son-"
"I know you wouldn't, Anne."
"Why would he tell me you were dead and tell you I was dead?"
"Isn't it obvious? Two lies, one liar..."
"Yeah, it seems that way." Eddie agreed. "I'll have to get that story from him, one way or another."
"And then we eat his head!"
"No, we don't eat my dad's head!"
"Why not? He deserves to have his head eaten for his mistreatment of Dylan alone!"
"Can I watch?" Dylan asked.
"Of course!"
"No, Son, you're not going anywhere near that monster again!"
"Let him watch, he deserves it!"
"You're not helping! We can't go around biting off heads in front of little kids, especially my son!"
"Well maybe I wanna watch grandpa get what he deserves!" Dylan argued. "I mean, if he didn't lie to everyone, I could have gotten to grow up with my real parents! I heard you guys talking: Anne's my mom, right?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, and maybe if grandpa didn't tell her that Dad was... that he was dead... Eddie could have protected me."
Tears welled up in both Dylan's and Anne's eyes just before his mother wrapped her arms around him. "Oh Dylan, I'm so sorry!"
Eddie joined them, and the three of them wept together. "But I made a promise to protect you now that I found you, so that's what I'm gonna do!"
"What we are going to do, Eddie!"
"Yeah, what we are going to do!" Anne thirded.
Loki came upon the village of Tønsberg to find it lacking any of his Asgardian kinfolk, asking around if anyone knew of Knull or his cult, but no one knew of him. Then he asked about the Grendel and was given many conflicting reports of rumored sightings, both local and from Denmark.
"A dark cult with a dragon, yeah." A Danish man recalled. "I heard a friend of mine say they had a cousin who saw the dragon to the west... and a little north of here!"
"I heard there was a riot going on around Funen for almost a week now by some cult!" An elderly lady reported.
"Yeah, a whole group of weirdos dressed in black in Odense!" A teenage boy on Funen island confirmed. "That's where I saw 'em just last night!"
"Thank you, I'll look into that." So Loki followed the rumors and the trail of clues the cult members left behind, until they came across a not-so-peaceful protest around the Palace of Odense. Men and women in black marched with signs in Old Norse translating to, "FREE OUR GOD!" They shouted similar messages in Danish, gaining the attention of the city folk while the police seemed terrified of them. "Excuse me, what's this protest about exactly?"
"We're protesting the unjust punishment of our favorite god!" A reddish-blonde young woman explained. "We need Odin to hear us and free Lord Loki from his imprisonment that has gone on for far too long!"
Loki blinked. "Hold on, is that-?"
"Røskva, yes! She's all grown up, Lokiii!"
"Loki?" Røskva repeated. "Named after our god of mischief, I'll bet! This is perfect, you'll be a huge help to the cause! But... how do you know my name?"
"Oh, um, I'm a detective, and I've heard things about you." Loki sighed. "Unfortunately, I was looking for supporters of a dark god who doesn't share my name, sorry. Do you know of a Knull? He's actually my partner's god."
"Doesn't sound familiar to me. How do you spell that?"
"N-U-L-L, I presume."
"Actually, it's K-N-U-L-L." Healer corrected him. Loki and Røskva snickered, and this time Healer sighed. "He is a primordial being who was here long long looong before you or most of the people and galaxies in existence, even the Celestialsss! His name held its own meaning long before your Asgardian and Scandinavian languages ever existed, and it is not the least bit funny!"
The duo's laughter died down as they felt the ground shaking for a good few seconds. "You feel that!? These earthquakes are the Aesir's doing, and they don't care in the least! They're probably sitting around in the halls of the palace, having a feast while we have to deal with the aftermath of their actions!" The other protesters shouted agreements with Røskva, continuing their march around the area!
Loki frowned, curious what she meant. "I'm sorry, the Asgardians... or Aesir, as you call them, have been causing earthquakes throughout your land from their home in Asgard? Could you elaborate?"
"Gladly! You see, when the Aesir captured our lovable trickster god, they bound him to three rocks in a cave beneath the Earth with a venomous snake hanging above his head, dripping poison down far longer than any of us have lived! His wife Sigyn collects the venom in a bowl to protect him, but the bowl gets full about 3 or 4 times a day, and when she empties it, the poison stings his face! Each time the poison drips into his eyes, his writhing causes the ground around him to tremble: our Loki is god of earthquakes too!"
"Yes, I know of that story... he's being punished for the convoluted murder of 'Baldur the Beautiful' then, bound with his own son's entrails, as I recall from the myths."
"It's no myth: the earthquakes prove it! It's all as real as we are!"
Detective Loki shuddered. "If all those stories are true here, I would certainly hate to be this Loki! Do you know which cave he's in?"
"I wish I did." Røskva gave the Symbiote a curious stare. "And where do you come from, such a dark creature with such pretty eyes?"
"The planet Klyntarrr."
"An alien? Awesome!"
"Well, we'd best get back to our investigation." Loki reminded them. "Have you heard of a dragon flying around recently?"
"No, the only dragon around here is keeping the cops from interfering with our cause." Røskva pointed out the humongous serpent sticking out of the water. "And he can't fly."
"Ah, hello, alternate Jörmungandr! Well, thank you anyhow, and I wish your Loki the best of luck at gaining his freedom."
"Spread the word, Brother Loki!" Røskva and the others promptly continued their protesting as Loki and Healer left the scene.
"Speaking of brothers, I suppose I should ask mine what he knows, and since there's no trace of a New Asgard here, we'll simply visit the original. And while we're at it, perhaps we can meet the me that my Old Norse stories as based on and hear his side of the story, if he truly killed this Baldur and why?""
"Because Odin is still a terrible father?"
"That much doesn't require a detective to figure out; I mean why specifically on Loki's part?"
"To be honest, it was actually a memory of one of your other fathers that clinched my decision to stay with you, even after you tried to get rid of me."
"With Mobius, you mean?"
"No... it was the memory of you killing your biological father, Laufey... I admired you for it, hoped you could help me do the same to mine someday... maybe I will." Loki looked down, now ashamed of his once-proud accomplishment. "Speaking of fathers, I am surprised you haven't checked out the real story behind your birth in your universe, to know for sure whether Odin told the truth about Laufey abandoning you and him rescuing you, or if Odin lied and killed your mother before kidnapping youuu. I can tell you are curious."
"...Of course I'm curious, but I'm also... a bit anxious at what I'll find. You remember the Jotun Loki at the birthday party? You recall he told us his mother died when he was young. If the Laufey from Kōrima's universe told the truth, and Odin did kill Farbauti, then he would seek revenge as well, and what would that do to his chummy, brotherly relationship with his Thor? So few Lokis have such a friendly relationship with their brothers..."
"That is a sticky situationnn..."
The detective took out his TemPad, typing in his destination, but he was interrupted as he heard thunder boom from above! Dark gray clouds quickly swirled from above, a storm brewed, and a burly, bearded man wielding a hammer of Uru descended from them in a flash of lightning! Even though his hair was a fiery red instead of blond, Loki instantly knew his brother was coming long before he saw him!
"Foolish Midgardians, you plead in defense of an incorrigible liar, a spellcasting trickster, and a murderer! Now disperse immediately, lest you feel the wrath of a grieving brother he has wronged!"
"Thor!"