The Forge of Hephaestus was a remarkable, cavernous place. Upon arrival, I saw Kelda, now wearing an apron and gloves, holding a hefty-looking hammer and smiling ear to ear.

"You look excited," I commented.

"Of course I am," she said with unrestrained glee. "I'm about to forge a god with the tools of a Forge God. If this isn't..."

"If it's not enough to make you a Forge God in your own right," came a smarmy voice from the corner, "then any Skyfather worth their crown would leap at the chance to elevate you to the role, my dear descendant."

Everyone in the room turned to see that we had been joined by Loki, who...

"Weren't you a dude this afternoon?" I found myself asking.

The now very feminine Loki simply smirked, "I am whatever I want to be, be that man, woman, or something else entirely. Do you have a problem, with that, Litle Mari? I understand that mortals tend to be more rigid in matters of sex and gender than most gods are."

"...No, I'm more just.. surprised."

"Well I am quite surprising," Loki admitted. "And for the record, my preferred pronouns are whatever matches my current body," she added, "at least for right now, help keep things simple."

"What do you want, Satan?" Venus asked the Goddess of Lies.

That made me blink. "Satan?"

Loki rolled her eyes and sighed. "Look, I uh... I was going through a phase in the late forties and early fifties... I mean, if you want to be technical about it that was two incarnations ago but... Look, I set Maria off on this path to repay a debt. It would be irresponsible of me not to see it through."

"Because if something goes wrong it would be your fault and you'd have more to atone for before that curse wears off?" I guessed.

"...Yes."

"Fair enough," I replied and produced the Casket of Ancient Winters and uh... I guess the Faltine Lantern? Hadn't really given it a name.

"Where should I set this?"

"Um, over here," Kelda said while gesturing vaguely to an area perpendicular to an anvil that was itself situated to what amounted to a giant hearth filled with coals. "set it so that when it opens, the winter storms will flow over the anvil."

I sat it down as such and placed the Faltine Lantern on top of the lid.

Hebe then approached Kelda and I and produced two vials of a crimson substance with a texture like honey. "Here, the 'little tastes' that Venus insisted on."

I'm not sure how exactly to describe the flavor of ambrosia, exactly... Like, if you took honey that was infused with assorted grapes and berries, then distilled that down to the purest essence of sweetness, cut that back down to something that the tongue could process, and added just the right amount of pure savoriness, starchiness, saltiness, sourness, bitterness, spice, and spiciness to balance each other out just right and compliment the sweetness...

"Do the Gods of Olympus consume this all the time?" Kelda asked.

"Mostly during feasts," Hebe corrected, "or to keep ourselves young. Immortality without eternal youth can be a bitch."

"Are you alright?" I found myself asking.

"Not really, no," Hebe replied bluntly. "there's been quite a lot of turnover in the Olympus Group lately for obvious reasons, Amadeus Cho stopped taking my calls around the time he went green, and the last time I had any word about my husband he was off in space fucking some Kree boy."

I thought back to what I'd learned about the Olympians in school.

"...your husband Hercules... Who you were married to as a replacement wife after Hera killed his last two wives. And who is also your half-brother?"

Kelda shuddered.

"Our relationship is complicated," Hebe replied diplomatically. "But to finish answering your question, I am under quite a lot of stress right now. Things should be improving soon but I would have preferred to have gone home and gone to bed rather than... This."

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Hebe insisted. She then gestured to a rather ordinary-looking folding chair accompanied by a couple of what I presumed to be nymphs dressed like secretaries, next to a rather large... I think the term is pithos? You know, a ceramic jar. "Sit there and..." She gestured vaguely at my symbiote-suit. "Is that a costume or part of your body?"

"Part of my body," I clarified awkwardly.

"Okay, sit down and we'll start the anointment."

I sat and so began the process of two minor goddesses slathering me quite thoroughly with a thick coating of what was basically magical honey. It was rather awkward, especially once we got to the part where I had to stand up, and I really wished that they'd saved my face for last.

Finally after what felt like forever they physically picked me up by my wrists and ankles and laid me down on my back over the coals in the forge before finishing up the coating of ambrosia on my palms and the soles of my feet.

"Maria," Kelda began, "I'm going to light the forge now. Lady Hebe said that when the abrosia has done its work it will dry up and flake off, so when all of that has happened come out of the fire and sit on the anvil, alright?"

I grunted in acknowledgment because if I opened my mouth to speak it would probably ruin the seal over my face. Honestly, it was a good thing I didn't need to breathe anymore.

"And... If it seems like anything is going to go wrong," she continued, sounding suddenly afflicted with a terrible case of nerves, "don't hesitate to stop me. Alright?"

I grunted again.

I could hear the sound of the hooded Faltine Lantern being opened, and Kelda muttering something to herself and then suddenly the coals I was lying on erupted into flames all at once.

I couldn't be hurt by heat anymore, but it was still uncomfortably warm and as the ambrosia warmed up and started to sizzle it tickled every inch of my body and began to let off an aroma of... Damn it all, I smelled delicious.

I was hit with a suddenly bought of unease deep in the pit of my stomach and had to hold back the symbiote part of me from freaking out. As I tensed up I was hit with the mother of all flashbacks.

I was a small, inanimate thing, a solid mass of living abyss held in the too-tight grip of Knull, the King in Black. He looked down upon me dispassionately as he shoved me into the heart of cosmic flame that resided in the body of the Celestial he'd just murdered and deer sweet Jesus how did it hurt so much? And he drew me out and, while still, a flame pounded me into shape with a fierce hammer, every blow feeling like it should have broken me. Again and again, the process repeated until Knull was satisfied and All-Black the Necrosword was born.

The flashback passed, but I was still struggling to hold my symbiote side in check.

'It's alright,' I whispered in my mind to the part of myself that used to be an offshoot of Carnage.

'...hurts,' whispered back the voice of every symbiote, codex, offshoot, or cutting that I had consumed echoing as a primal whisper under my own.

'That wasn't us,' I thought to that part of myself. 'And no, it doesn't.'

I was met in response with a montage of every time any of the symbiotes who had become part of me even directly had ever been harmed or frightened by fire and sound, each underscored by a brief snippet of the forging of All-Black.

Was that? Was that what made symbiotes weak to fire and sound? Some kind of genetic PTSD?

'This is different,' I insisted to myself. 'All-Black didn't have a choice, but we do. We want this, and the forging is being carried out by someone we trust, someone that we...'

'Liar,' the dark half of myself said. 'Liar!'

I suddenly found myself back in the black void washed in red light, standing across from... Basically myself, I saw that she had the standard symbiote face rather than my preferred exposed face, and... And I had no trace of symbiote on me at all.

"...Have you been alive like this the whole time?" I asked. "Massacre?"

"The symbiote hasn't," Massacre said, "it was never anything more than a puppet that Carnage discarded. But I'm not the symbiote."

"What, is this like when the Anti-Venom I took from the Chimp's proto-Misery and the codices I took in came back up and—"

"It wasn't the Anti-Venom," Massacre insisted, "it was you. You felt bad for killing poor Grace, for just assuming that she was a loose strand of Symbiote, so you dissociated and spawned offshoots of yourself embodied by the codices to punish yourself. But you realized it and reabsorbed those alters shortly after by embracing your selfishness, your lust for power and violence, and rejecting your humanity and the name your parents gave you... Except, you couldn't let go entirely. You claim not to be a hero, but you couldn't help but help others in need. Couldn't bring yourself to kick the cop when he was down even though he deserved it... and then, when you killed Blake, even though you'd just accepted and embraced the symbiote fully, you rejected Massacre in favor of Maria even though you couldn't quite go back..."

"And now?"

"You fully embraced the symbiote's power, but when you inadvertently triggered the trauma hidden in the entire Klyntar race's genome you immediately cast it aside, rejecting it when the truth is, you haven't had a symbiote since you got infected at the CDC."

That shook me. "I know, but... What are you?"

"You've always been Maria or Massacre," Massace insisted, "Human or Klyntar when the truth is, you're both. If you want to be a god, you need to stop lying to yourself."

I looked to the non-existent ground. "What are you?"

"I'm everything you reject about yourself," Massacre said. "You know that I'm telling the truth because I am you, the real you, finally given a voice by your reflexive rejection of the parts of you that were once the symbiote."

"You're right," I admitted. "If... If I'm going to do this, I need to do this right."

"No more self-deception," Massacre insisted. "No more lies."

"I need to be honest with myself," I said as I walked forward, "and accept all aspects of my being. Even the ones I don't like."

"No more we," Massacre agreed as she approached me, "only I."

In the middle of the void, we embraced. The wings that I hadn't allowed myself to unfurl ripped from Masacre's back and wrapped around us both in a way that left me feeling safe.

"Reminds me of that one JRPG," I said. "How did the line go... I am thou..."

"Thou art I," my other self whispered in my ear.

"Together, We, I will forge a new path, find my own happiness, my own identity. No more chains of regret or self-doubt will hold me back" we finished together.

My eyes flew open, and I was once more back on the bed of burning coals, once more of one mind, feeling more complete, more whole, more... Okay, than I had been in a very long time.

My name is Maria Marshal, but it is also Massacre. I'm human, but I'm also a monster, and I'm okay with that.

Within myself, I felt all of the energy I'd taken into my being, all the powers I had, melding together. The Flames of the Faltine had been leaching into me, carrying the essence of the ambrosia with them, and burned out all of the impurities within the energy within me, allowing them to swirl together and become one in a way that they hadn't before. Magic powers and psionics becoming one, radiation merging with cosmic power, and the tiniest shards of divinity forming together into a core that fed upon the comingled power around it.

I then stood up, the expended ambrosia crumbling off me as dust into the flames below, and confidently I strutted out of the blaze and sat myself on the anvil before it.

I spread my arms and barred my still-flaming form to Kelda. "Do it!" I shouted. "Give me everything you've got!"

Her nervous expression was quickly replaced by a manic grin of confidence and determination as she lifted the hammer.

Clang!

"In the names of all my ancestors," Kelda said as she struck me, over and over again, "be created!"

With each blow of the hammer, I could feel the energies within me become purer and more unified, and at the same time my body reshaped into something stronger. Most notably, the bulk I'd gotten from the Limbo power-up returned.

"In the names of the All-Fathers Buri, Bor, Odin, and Thor," clang, "be created!"

You know, you'd expect getting smacked with a hammer a bunch of times to hurt, but this? Might as well be a massage.

"In the name of our host Venus, and the friends who did help us come this far," clang, "be created!"

Again and again, I was struck by the hammer of Hephaestus wielded by the beautiful young smith. With each blow, I came closer and closer to the apotheosis that I so desperately wished for.

"In my name," Kelda shouted, "be created!"

It was close. I could taste the cosmic divine power of the head of a pantheon of gods just out of my reach. Just a few more...

As Kelda raised the hammer for the twenty-seventh blow, she declared "In your name, Maria Marshal of Midgard, be created!"

When the last blow was struck, the energy within me surged out and became one with the flames that surged around my body, the process by which my body was rebuilt speeding up and... I don't know how else to describe it, it felt good.

Kelda threw down the hammer and ran for the Casket of Ancient Winters. Throwing open the chest, I was engulfed in a snowstorm a thousand times worse than the bitterest New York Winter I'd ever lived through, which extinguished the forge flame and completed my apotheosis.

The first thing I noticed, once Kelda forced the lid closed again, was the feeling of just... You sometimes hear spiritualists talk about heightened states of consciousness. That. I was just so much more aware of things now. I felt like I understood myself better, too.

Also, being a god just felt amazing.

The second thing I noticed was the hammer that now occupied my hand. he spitting image of Mjolnir, but red and cracked. It seemed that my rebirth had reforged Hellnir but... No. At this time, the weapon I had once coveted didn't feel right. I reached into myself and drew out the part of me that had once been the fragment of All-Black that I had claimed from Thor and, after ensuring that the power in Hellnir was my power, not the power of Limbo which it originally held, I wove that portion of the Necrosword into the Promethium Hammer, reshaping it until I had a hefty, one-handed battle axe, red in the blade but black in handle and its simple adornments. Brutal, but efficient, a weapon that more suited me.

"I dub thee, 'All-Hell,' for none shall enjoy it but I when you break lose," I said to the axe, then reabsorbed it into myself.

Loki conjured a mirror, guessing my next move before I thought of it. Taking myself in... Honestly, I didn't look that different. The visible veins in my face were gone, but my eyes were still red on black. Throughout my symbiote costume were bands or panels of black that were more obviously metalic than before, particularly panels across my breast and abdomen which would have given the impression of a thin layer of metal molded directly to the musculature of my torso if not for the lines of blood-red tracing the definition, with other bands of black across my shoulders and marking my elbows and wrists as well as my knees and ankles.

My horns were now the same living black metal, and where once they grew from my brow they were now the decoration of a circlet of the same substance. A mark of my rulership but... It felt inappropriate to wear it now, so I absorbed it back into myself.

Satisfied, I turned back to Kelda "How do I look?"

Kelda, who had taken off the gloves and apron and was now wiping the sweat off her brow gave me the half-hearted but genuine smile of someone satisfied after a period of hard but honest work.

"Savage, yet elegant," she said in a tone that betrayed how satisfied she was. "Sturdy, yet swift. Strong, yet beautiful," my heart soared. "Surely my best work, a weapon to rival the All-Father."

I glanced at Venus, who seemed satisfied with the outcome, and I recalled the advice she'd given me earlier. I looked back to Kelda and decided just what sort of commitment I wanted to make.

"Kelda," I began as I approached her. "Your dream is to be a Goddess of the Forge. How would you like to be my Goddess of the Forge?"

She froze. "What?"

"It's like Loki said," I began, "any Skyfather would leap at the chance to claim your skills and deify you... I'm a Skymistress, I can sense the weight of your deeds and the power of your ancestors inside you," I declared. "To elevate you, to grant you your dream, it'd be easy. I want to do this for you if you'll let me."

"You would grant me the honor of being the first of your new Pantheon," Kelda said with awe, "what have I done to deserve that."

I gestured all around us and then at myself. "As if this isn't enough? But even then, you don't need to deserve it, you don't need to earn it, because it is a gift I offer you freely."

"Why?"

I stepped closer still, so I could look up into her beautiful eyes. "Because even though I've known you for less than a day, I think you're one of the most amazing people I'll ever meet. I think you're strong and cute, and the most beautiful woman I'll ever meet. I want to spend more time with you, I want to get to know you, and... I think... I think." I swallowed, damn my nerves. "I think I love you."

Kelda's eyes sparkled in surprise for a moment, before suddenly she caught me in a kiss.

It was hardly how I imagined my first kiss would go, mind you, but if I had to guess I'd put this kiss up there with Buttercup and Wesley.

After a moment, she came up for air. "Yes, do it."

With a sharp fang, I bit the inside of my mouth and drew blood. On our second kiss, the viruses that had been part of my evolution as a mortal, now altered by my apotheosis, infected Kelda with my divine essence which quickly circled through her body to the spark of the Odinforce within all children of Asgard. The spark of my power combined with that of the Odinforce and ignited, consuming, purifying, and becoming one with the magicks she'd inherited from her ancestors.

I stepped back from Kelda as she was engulfed in a bright light that burned away the toga she'd been gifted by the handmaidens of Styx, though as the light faded it became clear that it had been replaced by a symbiote costume of her own, which shaped itself a red and black armor best described as nordic fullplate, compete with horned helmet, combined with the uniform of a blacksmith, in her fist a simple hammer that was both tool and weapon.

She admired the hammer briefly, then pulled it into herself as I had with All-Hell, and followed that by absorbing her helm.

"How does it feel?" I asked.

"Like everything I ever imagined and more," Kelda said, tears of gratitude beginning to fill her eyes. "Thank you."

"Think nothing of it," I swallowed my nerves once more before adding, "Love."

Kelda smiled and wiped her eyes. "Of course, Love," she replied back and leaned in for another kiss.

Unfortunately, this one was interrupted.

"Well," Venus said hesitantly, "that's not quite what I meant when I told you to commit but... Well if you're both happy with it then that's what's important."

"...Am I missing something?" I asked, suddenly unsure of myself.

"Yeah, I'm not sure what she means either," Kelda admitted.

Loki responded by clapping. "Amazing," she said, "I had this all planned out, a way to not only give you what you want but kill two birds with one stone by also helping out the descendant I learned of while checking on your use of Hofund. I even let myself get shot so I'd have a reason to show up a Strange's place for surgery, so that he wouldn't be suspicious that I gave him the wine he gave you... He did give you the wine, right?"

"Yeah. How did you know I'd think to go to St—"

"I'm better at what I do than Wolverine is at what he does," Loki insisted, "and what I do is plan and scheme. Anyway, I figured you'd get to be a god, she'd get to be a god, maybe you two hit it off, maybe you don't, but... I didn't expect you to be what elevated her."

"Why does that matter?" I asked, suddenly expecting shoes to start dropping.

"Because," she said while waving a hand, "there's a certain order of things when it comes to forming a pantheon, and by inducting Kelda into your pantheon first, as an act of genuine, selfless romantic affection at that, so soon after that supreme act of forging, in front of a pantheon head who is also a Goddess of Love no less, you have done more than merely make her a Forge God, though that is her most dominant authority. You may not have noticed," She said somewhat condescendingly, "being a newborn goddess with underdeveloped senses, but she also has authorities of Ice and Fire, and of Creation and the bones of the Earth. In short, Kelda is now an Earthmother, or Earthmistress, if we want to stay consistent with your chosen title."

"And?"

"Should probably try to come up with a present," Venus mused to herself.

Loki rolled her eyes. "Just as a Skyfather is a King of Gods," Loki said as if I were a five-year-old, "an Earthmother is a Queen of Gods."

"Oh," Kelda said in realization, "this is gonna be an awkward talk with my parents."

"...What?" I asked.

"How can you be so smart but still this dense?" Loki questioned. "Maria, in the eyes of magic and by the Laws of the Gods... You two are married."

"...WHAT?!"

"...Metaphysically speaking," Loki clarified. "It's really more of a magic/symbolism thing, all things considered, it has no legal standing in Midgard or Asgard, or most realms you're likely to visit."

I let out a breath I hadn't known was being held. "God damn, give me a heart attack why don't you?"

"Still getting them a wedding present," Venus muttered to herself.

"I'm not sorry," Loki replied. "It's so hard to mess with people when you can't lie. I saw my chance and I took it."

"... I'm suddenly very, very tired," I replied while pinching my nose.