960 BCE – The Silence After Storms
With Themyscira razed and the eastern threat turned to ash, the sons of Odin returned to Asgard not as princes but as harbingers of war. The cost of victory had been high—Kal bore it in silence, haunted by the memory of Sigrid and Agnafit, while Thor drowned grief in glory, and Loki watched the stars with quiet calculation. The ancient pacts, like that with the Vedic gods, were reawakened in whispers and fire, though the realms soon returned to uneasy peace.
500 BCE – The Rise of Empires
Kal and Thor walked the Earth often, not as kings, but as myths. Kal moved among men, helping quietly—guiding leaders, ending famines, toppling tyrants with hands cloaked in humility. Thor was louder, mightier in every tale, slaying beasts, breaking sieges, his presence shaping Norse sagas into godspeak. Loki remained elusive, slipping through Persian courts and Roman temples, ever the schemer.
30 CE – The Turning Tide
In distant Judea, Kal observed quietly the unfolding of a new faith. The white God, Yahweh he went by, who was ancient even when Odin was a child had begun intervening on earth once more, sending his son to guide the mortals there Though he did not interfere, it marked the beginning of mankind's spiritual divergence. Thor scoffed at this as he did to many things these days, while Loki found their rise interesting —yet Kal saw in it a symbol of change. They were no longer needed as openly. So they began to pull back, watching from afar.
476 CE – The Fall of Rome
Thor led a host of Einherjar to shatter the monstrous remnants of a barbarian cult threatening northern Gaul—one that wore stolen Aesir symbols and claimed Asgardian blessing. Kal stopped the slaughter from becoming genocide. It was one of the last times the brothers stood united in purpose.
793 CE – The Age of Raiders
Thor walked the Earth again, stoking Viking fervor, his arrogance now cloaked in pride. He relished the worship, the songs, the blood. Kal stood apart, troubled by what Thor had become—a god demanding reverence instead of earning it. Loki vanished entirely into mortal myths, whispering lies into the bones of kings.
1200 CE – The Crusades
Kal intervened discreetly in the Levant, halting a massacre and vanishing before names could be given. Thor did not understand. Let them kill each other, he said. They invoke gods they do not know.
1600 CE – The Splintering
Odin decreed Earth would be left alone. Thor protested. Kal obeyed. Loki ignored. It was the final wedge—Thor saw Kal's humility as weakness, Kal saw Thor's pride as blindness. They no longer walked Midgard together.
1945 CE – The Burning World
Kal descended briefly during the last months of World War II, finding nothing but devastation. He saved a burning city from destruction by stopping a rogue prototype bomb mid-air and burying it beneath the Baltic. Thor had been barred from interfering. Loki had played both sides, as usual. Kal left without a word.
1980 CE
The great hall of Valaskjalf stood quiet, veiled beneath the waning light of Asgard's silver moons. The court was empty. Only Odin remained seated on the throne—cloaked in the solitude of his thoughts, Gungnir resting beside him like a silent sentinel. The Allfather's gaze pierced the void through a globe of swirling starlight: the Far-Eye, an artifact older than most stars, tuned to celestial anomalies far beyond the Nine Realms.
He had felt it first in his dreams—a ripple in the fabric of causality. Something alien, unfamiliar, and yet… ancient in its ambition. Power harnessed in ways mortals should not touch.
He summoned Kal.
The young Asgardian entered with reverence, his frame tall and broad-shouldered beneath the light of the throne room. The flicker of the Bifröst still shimmered faintly in the air behind him—he had just returned from Jotunheim, where frost had crept unnaturally close to one of the border worlds. But this… this was something else.
You called, Allfather?
Odin did not look at him immediately. He turned the globe slightly, and the swirling vision changed. From stars to a spinning blue world.
Midgard.
Do you remember Earth? Odin asked.
Kal nodded. I visited in passing during the mortal wars. They seemed determined to burn themselves.
They always are, Odin muttered. And yet… they endure.
The orb swirled again, this time focusing on a vast desert in the western continent of Midgard's largest landmass. A crater—deep and recent. Something unnatural radiated from its heart. The colors bled wrong. The air shimmered with barely contained power. Even through the Far-Eye, it was unstable.
This landed two nights ago, Odin said. Not from our people. Not from the Nine Realms. It fell at speeds that defied natural law, veiled in a cloak of energy I have not seen since the days of the Great Silence.
Kal's brow furrowed. The war of stars?
Odin nodded slowly. A remnant, perhaps. Or something new wearing an old skin.
He finally turned his full gaze on Kal. I would not send Thor. He is known to Midgard. Loud. Brash. He would demand attention. You… you walk unseen. You are the better shadow.
Kal said nothing for a moment. Am I to intervene?
No, Odin said. Observe. Understand. And report. That is all.
The throne room darkened.
Earth – Nevada Desert, Night
The endless desert stretched out in front of Kal like an alien sea, its golden sands shifting and glimmering beneath the unrelenting sun. The air was thick, oppressive, filled with the stifling heat of the midday sun, but Kal felt no discomfort. His Asgardian physiology ignored the harsh conditions of the earthbound world. He floated down from the sky, his cloak rippling with the wind as he landed on the cracked earth below. The wind screamed around him, carrying with it dust and debris, but it did nothing to quell the deepening sense of unease that gnawed at his chest.
There had been a burst of energy—a cosmic ripple that had echoed through the stars, a brief but violent fluctuation in the fabric of reality itself. Even Odin had felt it, though from his distance in Asgard, the ripple had been faint. Kal, however, had heard it clearly, felt it on his very bones. The power that had caused the disturbance was unmistakable: the Tesseract.
It had been used again.
He had been sent here to investigate, though Odin had given him little detail.
The old king had known more than he was willing to share. The Tesseract was a relic from the distant past, an object of unimaginable power and danger that had once been wielded by Asgard and other ancient races.
It had been kept hidden, locked away after the great wars, but now, someone had found it—or perhaps stolen it—and used its immense energy to fuel an engine capable of defying the laws of space and time.
Kal's boots crunched on the parched earth as he made his way toward the smoldering wreckage.
The remnants of a research facility lay scattered before him, the once orderly structure now reduced to twisted metal and blackened ruins. The wreckage stretched for miles in every direction, as if the very earth had been torn apart by some colossal, unseen force. Pieces of shattered glass glinted in the sun, jagged and sharp, scattered like breadcrumbs across the landscape.
But Kal's eyes were not drawn to the debris at first. He stood still for a long moment, absorbing the silence that surrounded him. There were no signs of life—no survivors. The air felt eerily still, as if the land itself had been stunned into silence by the violent energy that had passed through it.
The temperature, though sweltering, felt strangely cold to Kal, as if the energy that had torn through the desert had left a lingering chill in its wake.
He began walking slowly, his senses stretching out, probing for any traces of life.
The wreckage was an unnatural stillness. It was like walking through the aftermath of a great storm, the ground scarred and torn, the signs of violence everywhere. Yet there were no bodies, no blood, no trace of the people who had worked here. The Tesseract's power had left behind only the faintest remnants of its passage, and yet, Kal could feel its lingering touch on the air—the faintest hum of cosmic energy that still vibrated in the ground beneath his feet.
The energy that had ripped through this place was not simply the Tesseract's alone. No, this had been an intentional use of power—something had gone terribly wrong.
Kal stood, scanning the wreckage again, his heightened senses now attuned to the slightest shifts in the atmosphere. He could feel it—a trace of life. Not much, but it was enough to make his heart skip. Someone had survived this destruction. The faint echo of a struggle, a struggle that had torn this place apart, was still present. The heat, the pressure—it was as though the very land had borne witness to an intense, desperate fight. He could feel the struggle in the air, as if the battle had left a scar upon reality itself.
His eyes narrowed. A flash of motion caught his attention in the distance. A shard of twisted metal, glinting faintly under the desert sun. Kal moved with swift precision, his every step purposeful, until he reached the location. The metal fragment was embedded in the sand, but Kal's sharp eyes picked out the peculiar markings on its surface—alien markings, unmistakably Kree in origin. It was evidence, physical confirmation that the Kree had been involved in this cataclysm.
The Kree had come to Earth.
Kal's mind reeled. The Tesseract was not something the Kree had ever possessed. It was an ancient artifact, beyond their reach. And yet, here it was, tied to them, powering their technology. Why?
Why would they use such an item, and what did they seek to gain from its power? The implications were far-reaching, but there was still so much he didn't understand.
He knelt once more, touching the shard carefully, feeling the faint but persistent pulse of energy still emanating from it. It wasn't just Kree technology—it was a hybrid, something new. A technology fused with something else, something darker.
The energy readings—almost alien—sent a shiver down his spine. This wasn't just an experiment. The Kree had been experimenting with more than just weapons. They had been trying to tap into something else, something they didn't understand.
His mind reached for a deeper understanding, but the pull of the winds and the isolation of the desert kept him grounded. There were no answers here—not yet.
As he turned toward the horizon, he could feel the cosmic disturbance—something large was beginning to unfold. Something was happening on Earth. The Kree had marked this world, and if what he had witnessed here was any indication, they would not rest until their plans came to fruition.
Kal lifted his gaze to the sky. A faint tension pulled at him. He needed to report back to Odin. He needed to warn Asgard and Earth about the threat that had just awoken.
Raising his hand, he summoned the power of his Asgardian heritage and lifted off the ground, soaring into the skies. The desert remained still beneath him, a silent witness to the destruction that had passed through.
But Kal knew this was only the beginning. The Tesseract had been used once more, and with it, the Kree had marked Earth. Something greater than he had ever expected was beginning.
And he would be ready.
Asgard- The eternal realm
The golden halls of Asgard shimmered in their timeless twilight, ageless and proud beneath the branches of the World Tree. The Bifrost roared behind Kal as he stepped from its radiant span, the storm of its passage fading to silence. Fine grains of desert sand clung stubbornly to his boots and cloak, carried with him from a place so far removed from the splendor of Asgard that it felt almost unreal now—like a fading dream.
The echoes of his footsteps on rainbow-forged stone grew solemn as he walked the bridge, thoughts drifting between realms. That wreckage… that strange, broken machine buried in the heat and silence of Midgard's deserts. It had haunted him since the moment he first laid eyes on it. Not because of what he saw, but because of what he didn't. It had not been destroyed by war. It had been emptied—as if something vital had been taken.
Kal's eyes narrowed. He had felt the echo of something familiar in that scorched ruin, something ancient, far beyond human comprehension. The seared metal and crystalline shards bore a resonance akin to the Tesseract. Not a perfect match—more like a shadow of its essence. A failed imitation. Or a distant cousin.
The Einherjar standing at the gates to Odin's hall saluted with steel in hand and reverence in their eyes. Kal barely returned the gesture, his stride unbroken as he passed into the cavernous heart of the throne room. The light within was dimmer than usual. Not mournful—simply patient, as if the palace itself listened when Odin sat in stillness.
And there he sat—Odin Allfather, Lord of Asgard, clad in heavy robes that shimmered like stormclouds gilded with gold. Gungnir rested across his knees, the spear's dormant power humming faintly beneath the surface. One eye, older than the stars, regarded Kal with calm expectancy.
Kal lowered himself to one knee, more out of habit than ceremony, then stood tall.
"My king. I have returned from Midgard."
Odin's gaze sharpened just a fraction. "And what did you find in that barren place?"
"A ruin," Kal said quietly. "One unlike any I have seen before. A machine—built by humans, I believe—but far beyond their time. It was a vessel of sorts, powered by an engine that should not exist in their era. Scorched. Gutted. Torn apart from within. And the energy it once held…"
He paused. Odin waited.
"It was like the Cube," Kal said. "Fainter. Less refined. But unmistakable. Whatever it was—they were drawing from the same well."
A silence fell between them, thick with weight.
"You are certain?" Odin asked, not with doubt but with gravity.
"Yes."
Odin rose slowly, each motion deliberate, the weight of millennia behind every breath. He stepped forward, joining Kal at the foot of the dais, and turned his gaze toward the massive window that looked out over the starlit realms.
"The mortals dream of gods," Odin said softly. "And now they chase the fire that forged us. But fire, Kal, does not forgive ambition."
Kal's brow furrowed. "Do you believe they succeeded?"
"No," Odin said. "If they had, they would not be dead."
"There were no remains," Kal added. "No blood. No signs of conflict. But the core of the engine—it's gone."
Odin's eye narrowed. "Taken?"
"I suspect so. The ruins bore Kree script. Not overtly. Almost erased. As if someone wished to mask their presence. Or perhaps implicate them."
"A warning," Odin muttered. "Or bait."
He turned to Kal. "And you told no one of this?"
"No one," Kal confirmed.
Odin nodded. "Good. Let us keep it so."
Kal blinked. "You don't intend to act?"
"I intend to watch," Odin said. "To wait. And to listen. Heimdall will be instructed to keep Midgard under closer scrutiny. Unseen. The humans must not know they are watched."
"They're tampering with something they cannot understand."
"They always have," Odin replied, voice soft but not unkind. "It is their way. But there is wisdom in letting the storm gather before we raise our shields. Action taken too soon reveals our hand."
Kal hesitated. "And the Kree?"
Odin's expression darkened slightly. "They deny, always. So let them lie. I will send an envoy to Hala. Polite. Formal. Let them wrap themselves in falsehoods if they must. Their pride will blind them."
"And what if they're not lying?"
"Then fifteen years hence, we will see what has taken root in the soil of silence."
Kal inclined his head. "You don't think it's war. But you do think it's something."
"I think," Odin said, turning his gaze upward, "that the wind has changed."
Kal left the throne room in silence, the weight of uncertainty pressing harder than ever.
Fifteen Years Later – 1995
Time moved slowly in Asgard. But on Earth, fifteen years was an epoch.
The mortals had leapt forward—into the stars, into machines, into dreams wrapped in circuits. The Cold War had simmered into uneasy peace. Communication passed faster than thought. And always, in the background, the reach of mankind stretched further, wider, bolder.
Kal remained in the Allfather's service, but often found his thoughts drawn to Midgard. He watched them from afar. He returned sometimes in secret, walking among them cloaked in simplicity. The people, the children, the music—something about their chaotic innocence spoke to him. He remembered the days before war. Before Agnafit.
Thor changed too. The prince who once walked with wisdom gained through hardship began to relish the praise of conquest. His strength grew, and so did his appetite for glory. Loki remained distant, hidden in arcane pursuits, slipping through shadows Kal could no longer follow.
But Asgard held. It always did.
And in the deserts of Earth, buried beneath windblown sand and silence, the wreckage remained undisturbed. A grave for ambition. A wound unhealed.
Kal did not know that, in the wake of its destruction, someone had been taken. Not a warrior. Not a queen.
A pilot.
Carol Danvers.
Her name forgotten, her past stolen, her soul re-forged. In the heart of Hala, beneath twin suns, she was trained—turned into a soldier, a weapon. The Kree called her Vers. She did not yet burn with cosmic fire. She did not yet remember Earth.
But that too would change.
And when it did, Kal would be watching.
As he always had.