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Phase 13:Ripples

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Part 3

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Royal Palace

Asgard

A fate of a people was going to be decided in a King's bedchamber. Tyr wasn't sure if it was appropriate or yet another sign of how far Asgard had fallen. He looked from the unhappy Queen to the still-slumbering King, and his fist clenched around Gungnir's hilt. One of the few things that went right this night was that his soldiers managed to retrieve the arcane weapon.

Losing it, or worse, Loki retaining it, would have compounded the series of disasters that crippled Asgard.

"Relax, my Queen. If I wanted either of you dead or planned to take advantage of the chaos to launch a coup, we would

n't be here, waiting for Odin to wake," Tyr pointed out.

Frigga wasn't a foolish woman, and he knew him well enough to be aware he was telling her the truth. She knew he was more than ruthless enough to kill Odin while sleeping if he had gone mad with hunger for power. That was, of course, irony because as the commander of the small military Asgard was left, it had been questionable who had more real power at their fingertips for more than a thousand years now.

Gungnir was a powerful device. The same was true for the Bifrost. However, destruction-wise, they could do nothing that his fleet would be unable to. The small number of soldiers he had left were extremely deadly precise instruments – the last pale shadows of what Asgard used to be. Of what it could have been as well.

Odin stirred, and Frigga hurried to his side. The King's sole eye opened, letting out a tear.

"Yes, you fucked up in an unbelievable fashion, my King," Tyr confirmed what Odin had to suspect if not already figuring out, due to the enchantments linked to him.

"Loki, that foolish, foolish boy…" Odin sighed. Curiously, there was less disappointment in his voice than bitter resignation.

"The Bifrost is gone, as well as its power source. You are welcome for not losing a chunk of Asgard and a good portion of our remaining population," Tyr deadpanned. After so many years of exile, of hoping that things here would change for the better, his patience and, sadly, politeness were running perilously thin.

"You don't gloat, Tyr. That's not your style. It never was," Odin grumbled tiredly. "What do you want?"

"We will discuss Asgard's future as well as your succession, King Odin. This night's events were one failure and disaster too many," Tyr declared.

"So it has come to this," Odin sighed. "I was hoping Thor would become a King you could follow. The King who could change Asgard."

"He actually might if we have the time, though not thanks to any of us," Tyr chuckled bitterly. "How is he willing to listen to a Midgardian he just met, yet none of your tutors made a lasting impression on that boy?"

"I've been asking myself that question as well," Odin grumbled.

"What, Midgardian? What is my son up to now?!" Frigga demanded.

"He somehow stumbled into a Midgardian warlord, retired from war, and is busy changing his realm for the better. Something that we hoped Thor would do. From what the Watcher showed me, that man has a good enough head on his shoulders for a mortal. He speaks sense, and Thor is willing to listen, which is a good thing in the long run," Tyr elaborated.

Frigga scowled at his words. Yes, being shown up by a Midgardian would sting for a long time, no matter how good a thing that was.

"Are you really willing to go that far if I don't listen, Tyr?" Odin asked.

"I backed you against Hela when it became clear she would go beyond her plans to strengthen Asgard for millennia to come and waste it all on a pointless war to take over the galaxy. My soldiers bled and died to take her alive and destroy the Valkyries when they refused to surrender. We accepted to face exile so you could channel Asgard's militarism into something that wouldn't tear us apart as a people. For a thousand years, we've waited, my King. For a thousand years, we saw Asgard change beyond recognition and not for the better. These days we are our own culture, and we do not fit with this warrior nonsense that has poisoned our people. We waited and waited for you to find a worthy successor. Then Thor turns into a fool corrupted by this primitive culture gripping our home, and Loki is a traitor to all of Asgard. It is painfully clear that you can't or won't do what is necessary to change our people. We will no longer watch Asgard slowly die, King Odin!" Tyr snapped. He took a few deep breaths before speaking again in a more level tone. "However, the very fact that I am here talking and you are alive should tell you that I am not another Hela! I don't want power, for power's sake! All I want is a future for our people!"

"And you will kill for it," Queen Frigga muttered quietly.

"We are Asgard's sword and shield, my Queen. Killing for Asgard is what we are meant to do if necessary. We are on the cusp of it becoming necessary."

"We were supposed to become a different kind of warriors. Warriors bound by honor. Philosophers and scholars as much as fighters. That was what I wanted to turn Asgard into."

"Said the philosopher-king," Tyr nodded. "You've said it many times before, King Odin. I no longer care where things slipped out of your control and took a life of their own. All I am interested in now is results and a path forward that is not more of the same."

"I do have a son," Odin pointed out.

"You have a daughter too, and for a thousand years, you've done nothing to rehabilitate her! I've long wondered if it wouldn't have been kinder to have had her killed all those years ago," Tyr interjected.

"It pains me to say it. However, Hela was imprisoned for a good reason," Frigga's face twisted into a pained grimace.

"It has been a very long time, yet Odin has done nothing constructive to rehabilitate her. If he has been trying and failing, well…" Tyr raised a hand in a placating gesture. "Sometimes death is the only kindness you can give a person. But that's not the case, is it? You have no idea how to deal with her, my King!"

"And you do? I haven't heard a single suggestion from you that might have worked!" Odin snapped.

"I wanted to be able to talk regularly with General Hela, yet you declined after our first conversation. It went just as I expected it to. After all, I was the one who was in command of destroying her Valkyries. It would have taken years, decades, perhaps centuries before we could have talked without that tainting it. Yet, there might have been progress! Or were you afraid that she would have changed my mind? That I would have led a coup with no one left in Asgard to stop me?" Tyr demanded.

"Hela had a way of twisting people. There was only one of her Valkyries who surrendered! One from tens of thousands of women from dozens of species! How could I have justified risking her subverting you?!" Odin demanded.

"By trusting me just like you trusted me to bring her back alive!" Tyr snapped. "Enough of this; we are talking in circles again! Asgard needs new leadership."

"On that, we can provisionally agree. I was looking forward to giving Thor more authority until I could quietly retire and act as his adviser while he comes into his own as a ruler," Odin confirmed what Tyr already knew.

Frigga didn't appear surprised at that, so Odin was serious and might have been close to start doing as he claimed his intentions were.

"It is time for a change, yet Thor, as he is, won't do. It will take time to get him back, and we can't wait to rebuild the Bifrost for it. I propose that you step down and have Queen Frigga act as Regent until we can resolve the succession to our satisfaction," Tyr proposed.

"By ours, you mean the military you are in charge of?" Odin asked.

"I didn't just barge here without consulting with my people. We are overwhelmingly of the same mind, King Odin. Enough is enough. A thousand years of mismanagement and seeing our people degrade into what they are today did much to destroy our personal loyalty to you. Now all that is left is our love and loyalty to Asgard," Tyr stared at Odin with hard eyes. "An Asgard that no longer exists because of your mismanagement, my King."

"I see," Odin's eye stared at Tyr, and he gave him a shallow nod. "You are telling the truth."

"Sadly, sacrificing your eye didn't show you some other vital truths over the centuries," Tyr snipped and shook his head at the slip. Needlessly antagonizing Odin would get them nowhere. "We will give Thor a chance.

The Midgardian has been a good influence in the short time they spoke. And he is worthy enough that it opens all kinds of possibilities."

"Elaborate," Odin grumbled.

"He could pick up Mjolnir and use it to cripple the Destroyer enough so that the Midgardian military could destroy the thing. I reckon that Thor stumbled into a worthy advisor. If I didn't know better, I would call it a divine intervention," Tyr's lips quirked.

"Hela found that man fascinating, too," Odin noted.

"When did you see her last?" Frigga demanded.

"Just before I came back and made Loki Regent as a test, I was almost certain he would fail," Odin admitted. "We talked, argued, and I called a vision of Thor, who was talking and listening to that Midgardian."

"You know what, if we are going to be fixing all failures that got us here, dealing with Hela is one of the things we must do. If you thought her irredeemably insane, you would have put her out of her misery, wouldn't you?" Tyr demanded.

Odin slowly nodded, earning a resigned sigh from Queen Frigga.

"We are going to see if she can be rehabilitated or not," Tyr declared.

"How do you propose we do that?" Frigga perked up.

"When you have many problems, some might solve each other. In this case, Hela will serve as a motivation for Thor. If he doesn't shape up, he will have a competition, no matter how unlikely for the throne," Tyr explained his crazy scheme. Then again, it was time for desperate measures.

"You wouldn't put her back in charge!" Odin snapped.

"No, unless she changes so much, Hela is not the same person. Thor doesn't need to know that. And Hela will know how unlikely it is I would ever support her bid for the throne after our history. Thor's Midgardian already did one miracle. We'll dare him

to do another and bribe him to do his best. We are sending Hela with the ship that will pick up Thor, and she will spend the next part of her imprisonment contained on Midgard."

"Is that an offer, a suggestion, or a demand, General Tyr?" Frigga asked. "I would certainly support any reasonable plan that might give me my daughter back."

"Yes."

=SI=

Part 4

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William Beaumont Army Medical Center

Fort Bliss

Texas

An early summer storm raged over Texas, ensuring that the soldiers of the First Armored Division deployed around the hospital attached to their base were on edge. Everyone could look nervously at the sky, waiting for something unnatural to happen.

Captain Steve Granger, the CO of the unit on station, wasn't an exception. He rubbed his tanned cheek and looked back at Sergeant Johnson, one of the soldiers who arrived with the VIPs they were here to protect.

"Fucking aliens, I still can't believe it, Sergeant," Granger looked out of the lobby. "What's this, the Twilight Zone?"

"Might as well be, sir. That thing ate Javelins for what felt like hours and kept coming. It was like a twisted Terminator movie, and we were the mooks," Johnson twitched, acutely recalling buddies vaporized or the next best thing.

"Anti-tank rounds to keep heavy infantry at bay; what is the world coming to?!"

A widescreen on the wall of the nearby cafeteria switched from advertisement to breaking news.

"The United States and allied forces worldwide remain at a heightened state of alert without explanation. This has prompted countries like Russia, China, and North Korea to mobilize in response… We just received a short statement from the White House that the President and select representatives from allied countries will appear in front of the United Nations General Assembly at noon tomorrow to explain ongoing events…."

"Do you think that trying to keep your encounter under wraps failed?" Granger wondered.

"I have no idea, sir. I was with the VIPs trying to outrun that Terminator and then doing my best not to get vaporized. From what I know, handling civilian witnesses long-term is not under our jurisdiction. A civilian agency is supposed to handle that."

=SI=

"DAAD! Are you all right? What happened?! When are you going to get home!?" Hannah babbled over the phone. I got this one from a nurse, promising to buy her a brand one and cover a few years' worths of a premium plan. The thing felt like a brick in my hand, and its loudspeaker had the oddest vibration when Hannah squealed.

"I am reasonably fine. I had an adventure in the desert and got a sunburn. There's a reason we live in a place with a nice climate like New York instead of California, dear. Right now, I'm not sure when I'll be back."

Comparing my baked hands to a sunburn was understating things a bit, but it was a close enough comparison. That I was on the good meds and felt only a tingle helped.

"Can I come to you?" Hannah demanded.

"No, you might get a nasty sunburn too, so nope. Be a good girl and listen to Pepper and Happy. I'll see if I can pick you up something you'll like on my way back. Otherwise, we will go to find you something appropriate. Deal?" I wondered when transparent bribery would stop working, or Hannah would wise up and drive a hard bargain.

"Okay! Bye!" I heard shuffling, and Pepper picked up the phone.

"Tony, you promised you wouldn't get into trouble anymore!"

"There was that killer robot that was very inconsiderate in that regard," I reasonably pointed out.

"You have bodyguards, and we have a military supposed to deal with such things! We are selling them more than enough weapons to win world war three!" Pepper snapped.

"Well, it turns out I need to design even better weapons." Somehow I didn't seem to help my case no matter what I said.

"That's not the point, and you know it, Tony!"

"I did the best I could under the circumstances, Pepper. I didn't go out looking for trouble or ask for a killer robot from outer space to come after me!"

"Just try not to end up in the hospital again! You refused to go right after returning from Afghanistan, and now you're calling from one! What are we to think?"

"That I am trying to be more responsible with my health now?"

"From where I stand, you aren't trying hard enough!" Pepper huffed.

"From where I am laying, I have to disagree. Please try to keep Hannah out of too much trouble. Bye, Pepper," I ended the call. There was no way to keep certain people happy.

I could hear a commotion from outside the room. The door opened, revealing a General in a field uniform who didn't look very happy.

"Mr. Stark, I am General Chambers, the Commander of the First Armored Division. I understand you've brought political complications to my doorstep?"

"It was not my intention, General. Other parties had a vote too."

"My orders are to get you to a secure communications room as soon as the doctors clear you to leave this bet. This mess in New Mexico has stirred trouble the world over."

"I must admit I am out of the loop," I reminded him.

"That is why you need to get to secure communications, and I am playing messenger boy for the Pentagon," Chambers countered.

More political entanglements, joy. As if I wasn't busy enough already.

After a round of arguments, I got my hands caked with gel to help cool them and keep an infection at bay, got multiple shots, and was ordered to drink many electrolytes, then go to a medical check as soon as feasible. Thor wasn't as lucky as me. He was missing multiple teeth and would need his jaw wired shut for a few weeks, forcing him to eat through a straw.

If I had the time, it would be darkly amusing to see doctors try to explain to him that this was how we treated such injuries and that they didn't want or intend to torture him for the fun of it. The less said about modern dentistry, the better.

=SI=

A small convoy got me to a secure communications room in the base, allowing me to talk with the World Council. I got patched into a screaming match, and it took me a disgustingly long time to gather what the fuss was about.

It turned out we all overlooked what mobilizing to meet a potential invasion would look like to the world at large. Just the US going to DEFCON, I would have been sure to leak and freak people out. That our allies and everyone else followed suit, well… That should have been a boon in case of an actual invasion.

"Councilor Stark, it's good to see you mostly intact," Hawley greeted me, ignoring the ongoing argument. "What do you think? Do you think the benefits of disclosing aliens to the population at large outweigh the problems doing so will cause? We will be able to move at a somewhat faster pace if we operate openly."

This came out of the left field.