Chapter 4: Appearance

Thor knew he would have to face Thanos again when he failed on Midgard. And it's not a meeting that he's looking forward to. They may have been allies but Thanos made it very clear that he would not tolerate failure in the attack. Thor had just scoffed at him but that didn't mean he wasn't afraid because his power doesn't match the Titan's, at least not when he has the Infinity Stones.

And now Thanos has sent people after more of the stones and somehow he's already gotten all the way to the palace. Thor cannot let that happen. He won't.

He loathes how uneasy the thought of confronting the Titan again makes him. He will destroy him and all his allies before it ever comes to that, and definitely before they get the Stones.

He flies for the palace the moment he gets the warning from Loki, going straight in through one of the windows and heading for the vault.

When he arrives, Loki is fighting a group of Chitauri with his daggers.

Thor flings Mjolnir at one of the other two people present – the sorcerer. He flicks up a piece of debris to stop it, but Mjolnir goes right through it, flinging him to the ground. Thor smirks, drawing the hammer back to his hand and swinging it, bracing to go again when something metal crawls from the floor, wrapping around him and jerking him against the wall.

He snarls, struggling against the metal as the sorcerer returns to fighting Odin.

Loki has finished off the Chitauri and is now fighting the other person.

Thor draws his powers in, lightning crackling across him as he struggles against the metal, trying to break it off.

It happens fast, and Thor doesn't really know how it happens, but the woman is fighting with something staff-like, and all Loki has is his daggers. He throws one of the blades at her, what should've been a killing blow if not for the other sorcerer flicking his fingers and shoving the dagger aside.

The woman hits him with the side of her staff. Loki falls, and she brings the blade down towards him.

That's when Thor finally rips himself free, lunging forwards, focused only on his brother.

Thor flings her into the wall and Loki rolls over, throwing a blade into her neck.

She falls, bleeding out on the floor.

Thor feels something changing before it happens, and when he turns up, looks around – a spear has stabbed through Odin's chest.

Loki screams.

Maw is the only one standing, and Thor flies at him with a roar of fury. He tries to form another spear that Thor bats aside, smashing easily, lifting him by the throat.

Odin's dying and Loki is crouching over him, hands raised and magic pooling in his palms, but Thor knows death well enough to know it when he sees it.

An explosion of magic rushes outwards, and Thor expects something to explode, but nothing visible changes.

Thor flings the sorcerer into and through the wall, following through it with a roar of fury. Lightning crackles across him, and Thor sends a blast of lightning outwards. Maw lifts a piece of debris to block it, and it explodes again from the force.

Something is... whistling behind him.

Thor turns his head to look back, confused, and when he does, there's a black and aqua swirling portal forming in the center of the room. He tightens his grip on Mjolnir, fully ready to smash whatever comes through.

Loki still hasn't moved from Odin's side. He doesn't, either, until a figure steps through the portal.

It's a woman, older than Thor, though not old. Her skin is pale, green and black clothes tattered. Her hair is black, hanging limply across her face and down her back in a way that makes it look... dead. "So, he's gone," she notes, eyes zeroing in on Odin.

"Who are you?" Loki demands shakily. He's crying again, and how he can do it, Thor still doesn't know. He cannot imagine crying in front of anyone, for any reason.

"I'm Hela. Odin's firstborn."

What? "You lie," Thor accuses.

Maw summons another weapon behind him, but the woman – Hela – flings a spear through the sorcerer's chest, and he drops. For how Thor struggled to fight him, that seemed far too fast.

"Who are you?" Hela replies.

"I am Thor. Son of Odin."

"Really? You don't look like him."

"What do you want?" Loki demands.

"Kneel," she orders simply. "Before your queen."

"I beg your pardon?" Loki asks dubiously, confused and maybe a little hurt.

Thor continues to stare, fury coiling inside of him. Odin is... dead, and this woman who came from nowhere thinks she has some right to claim the throne. "You have no right or claim to the throne of Asgard." Odin is dead and Thor's mind is still reeling from that among everything.

"I am the firstborn. The rights are mine."

Loki reaches out. "Hold that thought," he throws at her, the Casket flying from its perch in the vault to his brother's hands.

Thor jerks, about to tell him to stop before he hurts himself, because the Casket is from Jotunheim, and it could be dangerous, but the object lands in his brother's hands and something in it twists, shimmering, a rush of icy air flying from within.

Hela whips out a spear, flinging it at him, but the blade freezes in place along with her.

Loki's gloves freeze over, cracking and falling off, and the metal bars around the Casket touch his skin. Thor feels magic, some sort of shifting spell, and his brother's skin slowly turns blue.

When the ice from the Casket dies off and its magic stills, Loki is entirely blue, his eyes red, and there are some sort of markings on his head.

Thor's father just died, someone showed up claiming to be his sister, and his brother just turned blue.

Thor grabs the front of Loki's tunic, swinging Mjolnir and blasting out of the vault, crashing through several floors until they reach the chamber where his mother is. Frigga turns when she sees them, eyes widening.

Thor drops to the floor, shaking his little brother at her with a way too high-pitched shriek of "why is Loki blue?"

"Thor?" their mother's voice sounds strained.

"Let me go, you oaf!" Loki hisses, batting his hands away.

Thor drops him. He's fading back into his normal Asgardian form, but the magic running through him isn't Loki's. Thor felt that shift when it was happening, too. Logic says Loki is just skilled enough in shapeshifting that he knew how to shift into some sort of Jotun form so the Casket would not harm him, but Thor knows this magic. It feels like... Father? But Odin is dead.

He's –

"Loki, what happened?" Frigga moves to his brother, holding her arms out and Loki melts into her instantly. Thor backs up, uncomfortable frustration bubbling inside of him. He's the one that's been gone a year, who nearly died on Midgard, and yet, their mother is still fully attentive of Loki.

Loki inhales, trying to speak, but all that comes out is a strangled sob. "Father's gone."

He's gone. For as long as Thor lived, he fought Odin. He wanted to upend his rule later on, even, but Odin is gone, and all he feels inside is emptiness.

Frigga looks at Thor, as if begging for some sort of denial, but for once, Thor can't find one. Not even for something his brother said. "The Stones are safe," is all he can say. "Loki and I killed the intruders in the vault."

"The Chitauri are falling back," Frigga tells them, "You might find it useful to head outside."

"After – after," Loki says, "Someone... there's someone else in the vault, Mother. I don't know who she is."

"And you left her there?"

"Loki froze her with the Casket," Thor answers, "I don't know what he was thinking."

"It was calling me."

Thor eyes his brother dubiously, but outside, he can still hear the sounds of fighting, and it ignites his mind with fury. Ever since the void, ever since the bifrost blew up in his face, Thanos has been the main determining factor in his life. Thor had tried to fight him, and he failed. Twice now, and he's so, so angry.

He knew someone he knew could die.

But Thanos's children took his father, and Thor will know no mercy until he is gone.

"I will attend to the vault," Frigga says, "Go, and show them what it means to fight my children."

Loki blasts the balcony doors open with a wave of magic, jumping over the edge, palms glowing. Thor backs up, drawing in his lightning and jumping.

The Chitauri don't last long. Between Loki's blasts of magic and Thor's lightning bolts, the last few scatter. Thor flies up, drawing in a massive lightning bolt to fire up at one of the main ships itself. It explodes, and the others pull from range, making a jump to escape.

The battle is over.

Too quickly. Not quickly enough.

Loki stands beside him.

"Thor!" Fandral is the first to come over to him. "That was incredible. We have missed having you here."

Thor pushes past them all on the way back to the palace. Loki follows right behind. Neither of them says a word.

**w**

They find their mother at Eir's, with the other healers. Not for herself, but for Hela.

Their maybe-sister is seated in a chair by the fireplace, scowling fiercely when Thor and Loki enter. "Hello, dear brother," she grumbles.

Thor tenses instantly. "Take care how you speak."

"Thanos's forces retreated," Loki says quietly.

"We will hold a funeral tonight," their mother tells them. She hasn't reacted, too much, not that Thor had seen, but she is the queen. She knows how to hold herself together throughout the impossible. Thor hasn't begun to understand what it means, either. "For all of our fallen warriors."

"Had Odin not abandoned our warrior's way, Asgard would never have taken a blow such as this." Hela shakes her head. "To be attacked in our own home?"

Thor doesn't know what she's talking about, and he doesn't care. "Mother," he inquires, "Who is this, and why is she here?"

Frigga sighs. "Now is a time to mourn, not to discuss mistakes of the past."

Hela laughs. "A mistake? Me? No, I was Odin's greatest success. Until he cast me out." She pulls herself to her feet. "Fast thinking, brother. The Casket? Weak, but perhaps of some use."

"If you're our sister, why have we not heard of you?" Thor demands.

"Odin wanted to forget. He wanted everyone to forget. There was a time he was a bloodthirsty king. Where do you think we got all this gold? We paved civilizations in blood and tears. Then, one day, he changed. He decided to become a benevolent king. To have you." She spits it out with disgust.

Thor looks at his mother. "Why did you not tell us of her?"

"I was included in the spell your father cast over all the cosmos," Frigga answers, "No one remembered Hela. With the passing of his magic, the spell broke. I never knew your sister."

"You weren't her mother?" Loki asks.

"Goodness, no," Hela grumbles.

Thor backs up, mind reeling. He has an older sister. His entire life was shaped on being the eldest, on being Loki's elder brother and the next in line for the throne.

"There is a funeral to prepare for," Frigga reminds, "This we can discuss at a later date."

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