I emerged from the portal into the familiar icy wastes of Jotunheim, flakes swirling around my sleek new form. The winds held no bite for me now.

In the distance loomed the jagged spires of our stronghold, carved into the face of a glacier. Torches flickered in the windows despite the late hour. So Hela yet kept vigil, awaiting my return.

Striding up to the iron gates, I conjured a gout of flame, melting the lock. The doors groaned open.

Within, all was silent. I found Hela in the great hall, slumped in her throne asleep, dark hair veiling her face. She looked strangely vulnerable.

I halted, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. Once she had seemed my liberator. Now the Asgardian reject was merely a useful pawn.

Yet she intrigued me still. Perhaps this was an echo of my human weakness, a remnant not fully purged in the forge. I would need to exorcise it.

Hela's eyes fluttered open. In a flash she was on her feet, sorcerous energy crackling along her arms. Then she froze, staring at my new form.

"It's me," I assured her.

Disbelief and wonder flickered across her pale features. She circled me slowly, taking in every detail.

"The forging was a success then," she breathed at last. "I can feel the power radiating from you."

I allowed a hint of pride to enter my voice. "As promised, I have been reborn. Will you still follow me?"

Hela grasped my clawed gauntlet firmly, meeting my glowing gaze. "To whatever end."

Her faith sent a strange warmth through my metallic shell. I turned away, conjuring images of the battle in the roiling flame-pit at the hall's center.

"See what transpired on Nidavellir."

Together we watched the struggle play out, the fall of Odin and Loki. Hela's nails dug into her throne's arms at the sight of her brothers' anguish. Her lips curled in a savage grin.

When the visions faded, she leapt to her feet, eyes afire. "At last, we have our chance. Asgard lies undefended."

"Just so," I agreed. "By now Thor will have fled home to lick his wounds. We must press the advantage." I offered her my hand. "Are you ready?"

Hela clasped my talons without hesitation. "To claim what is rightfully mine? Absolutely."

Her confidence stirred the fires within me. Perhaps she would prove a worthy herald of the coming age after all.

Together we passed through the shimmering portal, towards destiny itself.

Asgard at last.

The realm eternal shone below us, golden spires gleaming in the clear sunlight. Tiny skiffs darted through the skyborne city, oblivious to what was coming. The calm before the storm.

We stood atop an outlying watchtower, plotting our next move. The way before us was open, with Heimdall and Odin gone. But Thor remained, wounded though he was. And he would have prepared what defenses he could muster.

I pointed out the towering palace in the distance, still draped in mourning black. "Therein lies the seat of power - and Thor. He will have fortified it heavily."

Hela nodded. "An open assault would fail, despite his weakness." She studied the cityscape keenly. "We must draw him out. Thor always did love playing the hero."

"Agreed. Let his noble instincts seal his fate." I traced a clawed finger down her arm. "Rouse the rabble. Force him to quell the unrest himself."

Hela shivered beneath my touch. "Yes, perfect. I'll give the people a queen worth fighting for."

With a grin she dissolved into emerald flame, vanishing downward into the city's heart. Now to play my part.

I teleported into the crowded marketplace, sending the populace fleeing in terror. With snarls and gestures I summoned gouts of shadow magic, overturning carts and setting tents ablaze. The chaos spread rapidly as I wreaked havoc across adjacent city blocks.

Then a blast of lightning reduced my conjured flames to cinders. Thor strode forth, singed and bandaged but still standing tall. Behind him, makeshift barricades blocked the surrounding streets - he had been lying in wait after all.

I gave him a mocking bow. "Once again you rush to your people's aid, Odinson. Will you never learn?"

Thor's grip tightened on Mjolnir's haft. "I will defend Asgard to my last breath, demon."

His endurance impressed me, loathe as I was to admit it. "Then sate my curiosity - where is your queen, the state of your kingdom?" I hissed with conjured anger. "Why do you still resist?"

Thor hesitated at that, uncertainty flickering across his battered face. He had expected taunts and defiance, not insight into his heart.

I hid a smile beneath my helm. Even near broken, Thor clung to hope. Now to rob him of it.

"Look upon what your absence has wrought." I opened a viewing portal with a theatrical gesture.

Thor watched in growing horror as Hela unleashed her power upon Asgard's subjects. They fled her wrath, only for eldritch barriers to hem them in. Helpless innocents perished by the hundreds beneath her merciless onslaught.

"No...this cannot be..." Thor sank to his knees, the last of his strength fleeing. Mjolnir tumbled from his numb fingers.

"Oh, but it is." I lifted him by the throat, savoring his utter despair. "You have failed. Asgard burns because of you."

Thor hung limply in my grip, the words battering his spirit as cruelly as any blow. He had been broken in both body and soul.

"Now watch it turn to ash." I opened a portal beneath us, releasing Thor into the void. His dying cry echoed across a burning city.

There was a kind of artistry in his fall - the breaking of a noble thing. I watched thoughtfully as Thor dwindled from view.

With the Son of Odin gone, Hela soon completed her bloody takeover. The Asgardian legions knelt swiftly before her, cowed by her shows of power. The palace and throne were hers.

Night had fallen by the time I joined Hela there, having eradicated the last holdouts myself. She sprawled across Odin's seat of power, Gungnir in one hand and a goblet of wine in the other. Fresh blood flecked her armor.

"To think I once called this gilded prison home," she mused. "Now the glory of Asgard will be rebuilt in my image."

"As you've dreamed of for so long." I examined Gungnir appreciatively. Truly, its power was wasted on Odin. "What comes next?"

Hela's eyes practically glowed with ambition. "Midgard. It will be the font of my new empire." She rose and cupped my chin. "And you, my love, shall rule it at my side."

Her words stirred strange feelings within me. I took her hand, stifling them. "Nothing could please me more."

She pulled me into a fierce kiss. I responded in kind, feeling her passion. This was a useful development indeed.

When we finally broke apart, Hela eyed me hungrily. "I require a closer look at your new form. In my chambers."

She practically dragged me out of the hall, shedding armor plates as we went. Her excitement was palpable...and not without merits of its own. I decided to indulge us both. There were many ways to bind an ally to one's will.

That night Asgard's new queen was introduced to the full meaning of pleasure and pain. Her cries echoed down the silent halls till dawn's first light.

Over the following days, we swiftly consolidated power across the realms. Hela cowed all dissent with displays of destructive might, while I moved unseen, toppling ancient forces from within. None could stand before us.

The dwarves' loyalty we secured through manipulation of their Stone Sentinel guardians. Alfheim submitted after a demonstration of my Soul Forge's power - its denizens would serve as living batteries for our magic.

Nidavellir's riches fueled Hela's armies and my own dark experiments. An infinity of worlds lay within my grasp.

When the outlying dominions were pacified, Hela turned her eyes back to Midgard. Its heroes would pose the final challenge.

"How shall we draw them out?" she mused one moonless night. We stood atop Yggdrasil itself overlooking the mortal plane. "Their world seems so fragile from here."

"Direct confrontation would only expend our own forces." I watched the distant lights flicker across continents. "Fear is the sharpest weapon. We must terrorize them subtly at first."

Hela nodded slowly, tapping a nail against her cheek. "You're right. Panic will spread like a plague." A cruel smile crossed her lips. "And I know just where to strike first."

She swept her arms wide, pooling eldritch magic between her palms. The energy congealed into a colossal meteor wreathed in emerald flame.

With a final conjuration, Hela sent the hollow rock plummeting towards Midgard. It vanished beneath the horizon an instant later.

Far below, a colossal explosion lit the curvature of the planet, powerful enough to be seen from space. An earthly city was simply gone, millions of lives extinguished in an eyeblink.

Hela's laughter echoed through Yggdrasil's branches. "Let the heroes scurry helplessly like ants. We will crush them all."

I said nothing, watching the spreading fires impassively. Hela spoke wisdom, yet this wholesale carnage stirred no joy within me. It was necessary, but ultimately mundane.

In my old human life, had I harbored some greater purpose? I could scarce remember now. This power had come with a price.

Hela grasped my arm, misreading my pensiveness. "Do not trouble yourself, my love. The days to come shall wash away their feeble civilizations. We stand above such concerns."

Her confidence was magnetic. I forced a smile in response. "Of course. This is but the first of many victories."

She kissed me fiercely before returning her gaze to the stricken planet. Hela envisioned endless conquest and laughing over smoking ruins. It was purpose enough for her.

Perhaps it should have been for me as well. But doubt gnawed at my core.

I would need to subdue these weak mortal instincts for good. My new order had no place for mercy.

Ruin spread across Midgard over the following weeks. Hela wreaked calamity after calamity, leaving earth's protectors overstretched and frantic. Whole cities fell before her twisted ingenuity.

I observed the chaos from afar, intervening rarely. When I did, it was with surgical precision, sabotaging the hidden pillars of society and government. With hope and infrastructure collapsing, anarchy advanced daily.

Hela drank in the praise of Asgard's denizens, basking in her power over life and death. She spoke eagerly of razing Midgard's surface, reshaping it as the seat of her interplanetary empire.

But humanity did not crack as expected. Pockets of resistance endured, even prevailed. And Hela had yet to draw out the planet's mightiest champions - they operated from concealment, organizing a defense.

The tide was turning, but Hela only redoubled her efforts, consuming more and more dark energy to fuel her assault. She became increasingly unstable, lashing out at allies and servants alike.

I needed to intervene before ruin found us both.

When she retired to her chambers that night, worn from summoning a nuclear monsoon over Midgard's arctic, I was waiting in the shadows. She didn't see me as she sealed the doors behind her with trembling hands.

"You're losing control," I said quietly.

Hela whirled, sorcerous daggers instinctively materializing in her grip. Their points hovered inches from my chest.

I didn't flinch. "Put those away. You know better."

The blades dissolved. Hela sagged back against the door, suddenly looking very tired.

"We stand at the crux of destiny. I cannot relent now," she insisted. But the zealous fire had left her eyes.

"This obsession will destroy you." I cupped her cheek with a clawed gauntlet. "Stay your hand awhile. Reign from Asgard. Midgard's time shall come."

Hela weakly grasped my pauldron. She seemed to deflate, tension melting from her frame. The ruthless queen was gone, leaving only a wounded woman.

"Yes...you speak wisdom." She rested her head against my chest. "I need rest. Will you stay with me tonight?"

"Of course." I lifted her effortlessly and carried her to the lavish bed. She promptly passed into a deep slumber.

I lingered by her side, watching the calm settle over her features. She had been taxed to the brink, yet recovered herself quickly. Her strength was remarkable for a mortal-born goddess.

But how long could she walk this narrow edge between chaos and control? Her ambitions drew her ever onward towards fresh conquest, heedless of the cost.

Much like my own path since the forging. The power attained had lit a fire of purpose, setting lesser concerns ash. I had remade myself in that crucible, and found clarity in enforcing order through domination.

Or so I had believed. Those ideals now seemed abstract things, removed from the complexities of life's unfolding. Watching Hela like this stirred a kind of empathy foreign to me these long months.

Perhaps I would do well to reflect deeper on wisdom's meaning, and the purpose to which power could be rightly directed. My choices might yet shape the fates of worlds.

But such philosophy was idle rumination. Now there were only two paths before me - forward into shadow beside Hela, or withdrawal from the coming storm.

The hour grew late. I traced a gentle claw across Hela's brow, lost in thought. She did not stir.

When dawn came, I was gone.

The icy winds keened mournfully over Jotunheim's lifeless steppes. I barely felt their bite.

This frozen graveyard had been my first haven with Hela, back when freedom seemed close at hand. Now its howling desolation mirrored the doubt in my core.

I wandered the ruins aimlessly, stirring long-slumbering memories. The mortal life I had renounced was hazy and indistinct now. But in my darkest dreams, glimpses emerged - a humble home of brick and timber, joy-filled days laboring under the sun. A kind hand clasping my own.

I clung to such fragments on waking. They anchored me against the mounting void. But their meaning slipped further away with each passing hour.

In my current form, there could be no life alongside mortals. I was become as the eldritch beings I now opposed, a child of ancient dimensions beyond natural law. Raw power incarnate, but severed from ordinary existence.

The reckoning could be delayed no longer. I passed deeper into the icy wastes, shedding plates of armor as I went. The ritual's requirements were clear.

At last I stood bare before the yawning crevasse, etched with symbols of binding power. Black water surged beneath the frozen surface, waiting to receive me. To submerge there was to sleep beyond death itself, awaiting the universe's end.

I would surrender all, negate my very existence, to protect the mortal realms from my unfettered power. The turbulent forces bound within demanded otherwise. But I had chosen.

"Forgive me...Hela." Her name echoed across the lifeless plain. We would walk our destined paths alone.

I closed my eyes and stepped forward into the waiting abyss-

"Halt."

A flash of clawed metal, and suddenly Hela stood before me on the frozen brink. Eyes ablaze, she hauled me back from the brink with preternatural strength.

I could only stare in disbelief as she held me fast. "How did you find me?"

"I know your very soul." Hela's voice could shatter steel. "Did you truly think I would allow this?"

Shame heated my metal face. Of course she had divined my intent. "It is the only way-"

"No!" Her grip tightened desperately. "I refuse to lose you as I have lost all else."

Her words stirred long-slumbering fires within. "You saw the horrors we wrought together. I cannot return to that path."

"Nor can I." Hela turned my eyes back to her own. "When I awoke alone, I wandered in silence for hours, haunted by dreams of razed cities and lifeless worlds."

Her voice fell to a whisper. "Such power cannot be our purpose in this life. I see that now, thanks to you."

It was true - the frenzy of conquest had left her. In its place was only weary regret.

"I thought that I faced this choice alone," I admitted. "Yet here we stand united."

"Then let us forge a new road forward," she replied fiercely. "There are realms enough for all to share in peace."

I clasped her shoulder, more moved than language could express. "With you as my light, I cannot falter."

Joy banished all doubts between us. Our lips met with the sigh of ages turning. Let all creation witness, our destinies were now as one.