The first few days in Asgard were spent on what the Asgardians called "the basics." That is to say, melee combat. It only took a few days, because my body was already conditioned to perfection by my enhancements from the Consultant, which included perfect learning, and a whole buttload of absorbed experience so it was mostly just getting it all to pull together in a way that worked for me.

What was harder, it turned out, was the next few days.

"Not quite," Thor said not long after I made a bolt of lightning strike a prepared target.

"Come on," I replied while waving my hand at the pile of ashes that used to be a strawman, "that was a direct hit!"

"It was," he explained while walking over, "but the strike was neither as strong nor as precise as it should have been." I wasn't quite sure how to read his tone. "You have inherited almost all the power that Blake possessed, including the remaining power of Stormbreaker from within Beta Ray Bill and the power of the departed Red Norvil and his own enchanted hammer."

"Yeah," I said, "I know."

"Stormbreaker and Norvil's Warhammer were each the equal of my Mjolnir at the time they were forged, and Norvil became a God of Thunder every bit my equal in his own right," Thor continued. "Even as my power has grown, even as Mjolnir has been destroyed and reforged stronger many times since your power over the storms should rival my own. And yet..."

"...Loki said something like that," I replied, "how with the power I had it shouldn't have come down to a sucker punch back on earth."

"I dare say it's for the same reason," Thor continued. "You have the power, you know the power, but you do not know the power."

"Okay, now how do I know this power?" Getting the symbiote stuff under control was easy enough once I actually thought about it, I just had to make myself stop thinking of the codex memories as separate from me, and suddenly everything was reflexive.

Thor looked contemplative. "When I command the storm, it's not as a king ordering his subjects, nor a beast tamer commanding a trained animal. The wind and rain and sky aren't tools to use or weapons to wield, it is at once like they are part one me, and I part of them, and as if they are an old friend whom I am making a request of. Does that make sense?"

I thought it over. "Sorry, but I think the hamster on the wheel that turns the gears in my head had a stroke."

"Hmm. I'm sorry, I am not sure how else to explain it," Thor continued, "Perhaps this is something that you need more personal experience with before you can truly understand?"

"Or maybe she doesn't understand because she isn't a god yet?" came a haggard voice from behind us. "You might as well be asking a fish to do calculus."

Turning, I saw Loki stumbling toward us. There were holes in his green coat and he appeared to be bleeding quite profusely.

"Brother, what happened!?" Thor cried out as he rushed

"I got shot with Al Capone's Mystic Tommy Gun," Loki said as if that wasn't a completely ridiculous sentence. "Are the Avengers still looking for that? Because I know where it is." He looked at me then. "Catch," and then pitched something in my general direction.

I caught on reflex and found myself holding a familiar-looking blue crystal.

"What is this?"

"That little trinket," Loki began his words starting to slur, "is a dark elf Dreamstone that I just liberated from the collection of an L.A. Gangster who likes to, and I quote, collect 'magic shit.' " He made the quotes with his hand. "The same one that was wielded by Edward Brock during the War of the Realms, where he used its abilities to conjure weapons first to create a much stronger version of his symbiote, then a suit of enchanted armor that was stronger still, a stronger sill version of that armor paired with an axe that mimicked Mjolnir, and finally dozens of copies of that same armor to protect civilians fleeing malkith's forces. The same dream stone that you saw, among other things, when you briefly wielded Hofund, at least assuming Lady Sif was being truthful when I asked her."

"That's a considerably dangerous bit of magic," Thor said sternly, "hardly appropriate to just give to our young guest, given what Dreamstones do to those who wield them."

"Which isn't relevant if she just eats the damned thing!" Loki shouted. "She took Blake's power, and that includes the power to absorb the magic of the Realms. It doesn't matter that Dramstones twist the negativity of the wielder if she cannibalizes the magic the stone has already wrought. Then she can go after the other things she saw. You know, the eight people who picked up a certain set of hammers a few years ago when Uncle Cul got uppity? Blake kind of had a point about there being too much 'Odin magic' lying around on Midgard."

"...Why should I trust anything you say or do?" I asked Loki. "After..."

"Would you care to take this, dear brother?" Loki said. He was starting to wobble a bit where he stood.

"In punishment for his recent transgressions," Thor began, "I in my capacity as King of Asgard, his King now that he has renounced his throne in Jotunheim, laid down a curse sealed by the power of the All-Father. Loki cannot lie, not even to himself, until such a time as he has atoned to the best of his ability for his crimes."

"And it really sucks!" Loki insisted, "you try getting caught breaking into someone's house, not be able to use an illusion to sneak out because apparently, that counts as lying, and then explain that you're there to steal a magic rock from him to give to some brat so you can start lying again. You know what happens? It gets you shot with Al Capone's Mystic Tommy Gun! Are we good now?"

"No," I insisted.

"Damn it! Whatever, I'm going back to Midgard. I still have bullets in me and I trust their surgeons more than I trust ours." One second he was there, and then he was gone.

"So... To the best of his ability?"

"Donald Blake is beyond Loki's reach. Nothing he could do could earn the man's forgiveness because Blake isn't able to give it," Thor explained. "Thus, if I had not specified, Loki would be unable to lie for eternity, or at least until I or another All-Father invoked the power of the All-Father once more to lift the curse. To deny him the ability to act on his nature for eternity would be cruel. That is not the type of ruler I wish to be. Right now, as Loki manipulated you into slaying Blake, manipulated you into the exact situation that my friends and I were hoping to prevent you from finding yourself in, and as you have experienced almost firsthand what he did to Blake, Loki perceives the swiftest way of lifting the curse as earning your forgiveness—if only because he thinks that's easier than feeling true remorse or putting more good out into the world that he did evil with those actions."

"Fat chance of that working," I scoffed. I held up the crystal. "So what should I do with this?"

"If my brother genuinely believes that the crystal is safe and it will be of benefit to you... He's not stupid, he knows that anything that does you more harm than good will only make it harder for him to slip his shackles... He must think that consuming it will help you in your endeavor to become a god."

I shrugged and used the magic that was already in me to draw on the magic of the Dreamstone. It dissolved into energy which formed a brief outline of vaguely venom-themed plate mail in a stereotypical Viking style holding a Nordic looing axe before leaning forward into and becoming part of me.

In that instant, all of my darkest impulses flew into overdrive. My instincts to hunt, to kill, to let go of my rage, to devour my enemies, and to do other things besides all became almost overwhelming.

But only for an instant. Then it passed, and I was back to normal.

"Well, that was unpleasant," I deadpanned.

"How are you feeling?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, basically what passes for normal with me." I held up my hand and started cashing and unclenching my fist. "Stronger, but... It would have been a lot stronger maybe four codices ago" Blake, Ben, Madelyn, Dr. Foster... "Yeah, four. The last four have kind of shifted my gauge on this kind of thing. I'm not really sure that it gave me anything I couldn't already do and I don't think I'm any closer to being a god."

"No, I dare say not. Not yet." Apparently, Thor could sense when someone was on the cusp of some kind of apotheosis. "...I apologize, it can be difficult for me to judge the flow of time, were you alive when my uncle, Cul the Serpent, attempted to take over Midgard?"

"Maybe? That was that whole God of Fear thing, right?" I think I was a kid when that was happening.

"Yes. During that time, eight people, some heroes, and some villains, were made to lift eight hammers like my own. These Worthy were transformed into Asgardian gods and inherited the powers of Cul's children and lieutenants, eight Gods of Destruction with distinct purposes on what it was they 'Broke,' but were possessed by the spirits of those gods in turn."

"That's what Loki was talking about earlier, about what to do after absorbing the stone." And eight of the people I'd seen... Had... Had Hofund shown me things that were like the hammer I came here for since it couldn't show me where it had actually been?

"The Hammers of the Worthy are all under careful lock and key, but it is possible that remnants of their power or residue from their enchantments remain inside those who wielded them," Thor concluded. "If you are willing, I may be able to arrange for you to meet with some of them and argue your case for drawing that power from them though several of them may be difficult to make contact with."

"Yeah, why not? Besides, I think one of them owes me a favor."