by Marvel Press
“No,” Thor began, as he gently placed his hand on the warrior’s chest. “The peace is nearly won across the Nine Realms. It’s best to be where your heart is. For now, Asgard can wait.”
Hogun clenched his black mace. He wanted Thor to know that this was his battle just as much as it was Thor’s. He wanted Thor to know that he would fight till the end to bring peace, not only to Vanaheim, but to the Nine Realms. Yet Hogun didn’t have to say this. After years of battling monsters, Frost Giants, and ungodly beasts, these two friends had an unspoken bond. Thor knew how Hogun felt. And Thor also knew that Hogun had a family to watch over. Hogun closed his eyes and sighed, then looked over at his family. Thor was right.
Hogun the Grim nodded to the Mighty Thor, grateful and thankful for his old friend’s compassion. If it wasn’t for Thor, Hogun’s people and family would not be here. “You have my thanks,” Hogun said as the two clasped wrists.
“And you, mine,” Thor said as Hogun returned to his hillside ridge and his wife and child.
Thor looked to the bright, blue skies to signal the keeper of the Bifrost, the all-seeing, all-knowing sentry Heimdall. “Heimdall, when you are ready!” But as the Bifrost blasted down from the sky and transported everyone back to Asgard, two Marauders, who were hiding behind a ridge, saw this opportunity as their chance to escape. They ran back into the forest, but soon came face-to-face with two beings that they did not recognize. They were Dark Elf Scouts.
The two scouts stood firm, their masks expressionless. The Marauders, too, stood, unsure what to make of the situation. One Marauder began to move, but one of the Dark Elves tilted his head just a bit. It was just enough. The Dark Elf held up an oversized rifle-like device and pointed it at one of the Marauders. The space pirate’s eyes grew wide with fear, and before he could react, two tiny projectiles fired out, eventually touching one another. The dark matter then created a tiny black hole. It floated over to the Marauder and sucked his body inside, imploding on itself.
The second Marauder merely watched in horror, frozen in fear by what had just happened. His mouth quivered. What were these menacing beings? What form of magic was this? Was he next? The Marauder began to back away, but it was no use. The Dark Elf fired his black energy gun right at him, and he, too, was sucked into the black hole, leaving only his horned helmet behind.
The Dark Elves looked from the ground to the bright light in the distance. With the Bifrost reflected in their helmet-covered eyes, they knew exactly what they had to report to Malekith.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS A TYPICALLY rainy day in London, and astrophysicist Jane Foster was nervous. She was running late for a meeting, but not one that had to do with science or what had happened a few years back in New Mexico. Nor was it anything S.H.I.E.L.D.-related. No, for Jane, this was much worse: Jane had a date.
Jane regarded herself in her bedroom mirror as she put on more eye shadow. Then, for the fourth time in five minutes, she brushed her brown hair. Then she fixed her shirt again. Then it was back to her hair. With a sigh, Jane finally gave in. She grabbed her jacket and made her way through her tiny flat to the door, passing a variety of scientific equipment along the way. As Jane slammed the door, she was unaware that one of her scanners had suddenly come to life and begun to go haywire.
Inside the Italian restaurant, Jane hid her face behind her menu, lifting it only slightly to peek across at her date, Richard, and give him a practiced smile. It was clear, at least to her, that she did not want to be there.
“The osso buco here is great,” Richard said, trying to start some sort of conversation, but Jane just stared at him blankly. “On your profile it said you liked Italian,” he continued, but again, Jane just stared back, expressionless. Richard sighed, put down the menu, and folded his hands on the table. “Someone else wrote your profile, didn’t they?” he asked.
“How did you know?” Jane said, trying to make it seem like she really cared.
“Because when I asked you to dinner, you said no, then yes, then yes but not now, then yes but not dinner, and now you’ve spent the first ten minutes of lunch studying a menu which only has three choices.” Richard smiled. “Hence the osso buco.”
Jane gave him a warm, genuine smile. “It’s complicated,” she said, finally starting to open up.
“Is it another guy?” he asked.
“Sort of,” Jane smiled. How could she tell him that the “other guy” was really Thor—Prince of Asgard, son of Odin Allfather, wielder of Mjolnir, and also a member of the Avengers?
“Is he still around?”
“No, he went away,” Jane said with a slight sadness in her voice.
“Is he coming back?”
“I can’t count on it,” she said.
“Have you moved on?” Richard wondered.
“I’m…trying to,” Jane said with all sincerity. Even though time had passed, she still wasn’t over Thor. And she still missed him.
Richard tried to lighten the mood. “I’m honored to be your first stop,” he said. “This moving on, is that why you’re in London?”
“Well, my dad was English, so I spent my summers here,” Jane replied.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said dryly. Jane smiled at his English sense of humor.
“I’m here for work,” she confessed.
“Your profile said that you were a scientist?”
Jane winced. “How did that read again?” But the next voice Jane heard wasn’t Richard’s.
“Beautiful scientist seeks bubbly Brit for good times and possible long-term relationship,” said Darcy Lewis, interrupting. Both Jane and Richard looked up to see the quirky brunette standing before them. Darcy didn’t wait for introductions. She immediately reached out her hand to shake Richard’s. “I’m Darcy,” she said before turning to Jane and mouthing the words He’s cute to her.
“What are you doing here?” Jane asked, embarrassed. It was bad enough that Darcy put her up to this; it was even worse that she was crashing her blind date.
Darcy pulled up a chair, took a piece of bread from the basket on their table, then began to butter it with Richard’s knife. “So, I show up to work at your lab-slash-girl cave, expecting you to be moping around in your pajamas—”
“There really needs to be a point to this!” Jane quickly said, cutting Darcy off.
“You know all that scientific equipment you don’t look at anymore?” Darcy said in between bites. “You might want to start.”
Darcy reached into her bag and pulled out Jane’s phase meter. The needle on the device was still spiking and a wave of curiosity flashed in Jane’s eyes. “It kind of looks like the reading Selvig was rambling about,” Darcy continued. Then she turned to Richard to explain just who Selvig was. “Our friend. Brilliant scientist,” she said, nonchalantly. “Kinda went crazy.”
Jane had had enough and shot Darcy an evil look. “You need to go now.”
Darcy sat at the table and stared at them both before finally rising to her feet. “I give you five minutes,” she said to Jane. Then she turned to Richard and said, “She’s great, huh?” Richard smiled. Then Darcy smiled. She reached down, grabbed the rest of the bread, and walked out of the restaurant.
Richard and Jane stared at one another in disbelief. “So…why are you in London?” Jane finally asked, trying desperately to bring herself back to the table with Richard. But it was no use. Darcy was right. Jane couldn’t stay at lunch. She had to get out of there. She had to check the phase meter and calculate the coordinates of the spike. She had to find Thor!
In less than five minutes, Jane was sliding into the passenger seat of the red sedan that was idling outside the restaurant. Darcy was behind the wheel, and someone Jane didn’t know was in the backseat.
“Did you bring the butter?” the English college kid in the backseat asked.
Jane turned to the lanky guy in the backseat. “Who are you?” she asked.
“He’s my intern,” Darcy said with pride. “He’s free.”
“It�
��s a great honor to be working with you, Dr. Foster,” the intern said. Jane was taken aback, then decided to accept the situation and handed him the phase meter.
“Okay, intern. Find this!” she said. The kid looked at the coordinates and gave Darcy directions. Their car drove wildly through the streets of London, much to the dismay of other drivers, pedestrians, and even pigeons.
“I’ve totally mastered London driving,” Darcy said with complete satisfaction as she continued to endanger anyone, and anything, that might be on the street or in her path.
As they drove closer and closer to their unknown destination, Jane tried to call Erik Selvig once more. “Erik, it’s me again. Where are you? I flew here because you said you were on to something, and then you just vanished.” Jane’s tone grew more serious with every word. “You have to call us back. I think I found what you found.”
Jane was worried about her friend. He hadn’t returned any of their calls in six months, and deep down, she was concerned that he still might be under the influence of Thor’s evil brother, Loki, who had manipulated Selvig’s mind in an attempt to take over the world. Thor and the Avengers saved Selvig—and the world—but perhaps Selvig was still suffering the aftereffects.
“Straight ahead, one hundred meters!” the intern yelled from the backseat as the car careened through the narrow London streets.
“Maybe he’s in the bathroom?” Darcy said in reference to Selvig. She turned to look at Jane, unaware that she was driving them directly toward a brick wall.
“Sixty meters…forty…twenty…” the intern continued from the back, also unaware of the impending impact.
“Darcy!” Jane yelled. Darcy whipped her head around and jammed on the brakes. The car stopped just in time—mere inches from the brick wall. They got out, lucky to have survived the ride, and looked around.
“Which way, intern?” Jane asked the college kid whom she had just met.
“This way. And it’s Ian,” he said.
“Lead the way, Ian,” Jane replied, following him. Darcy looked from them, to the building, then back to them again.
“How come these things never happen in a nice park?” she asked. “I like parks.”
The three of them continued forward, following the beeping of the phase meter. They were at their destination: an abandoned industrial complex in London’s south side.
CHAPTER FOUR
JANE, DARCY, AND IAN slowly made their way through the gray, decaying industrial complex. Holding the phase meter out in front of them, they used it as their guide to locate whatever it was they were searching for.
As they passed through one set of large loading doors, Jane looked in to see metal shipping containers stacked end over end, like a child’s building blocks. The sight reminded her of Stonehenge. The comparison of the two, and the mysteries they both held, was not lost on Jane. They were definitely in the right spot.
The three of them continued through the complex, passing the shattered window with the suspended glass and the puddle on the ceiling, until they heard tiny footsteps in the distance. Two shadowy figures emerged from the door opposite them. Darcy froze, momentarily freaked out by everything going on. But as the figures got closer, they saw that they were just children. It was Maddie and Navid.
“Are you the police?” Maddie asked.
“No, we are scientists,” Jane began. “Well, I am,” she said, looking over to both Darcy and Ian and giving them both a shrug.
“Don’t tell them!” Navid said to Maddie in Farsi. “They’ll make it go away!”
Jane and Ian looked at each other in confusion. They didn’t speak this language, so they were at a loss as to what the kids were saying.
“Make what go away?” Darcy said to everyone’s shock and surprise. No one could believe that she understood Farsi!
“What? I got skills,” Darcy said, only slightly offended. “They are worried we are going to make something go away.”
Jane looked from Darcy to the kids, then bent down on one knee to speak to them. “Can you show me?”
Maddie looked from Jane to Navid, then bent down and picked up a brick. She cocked her arm, about to fling the brick at the three grown-ups.
“Violence never solved anything!” Ian yelled, clearly afraid. But that didn’t stop Maddie. She hurled the brick at full force and the three grown-ups ducked, but nothing happened. When they looked up, they saw the brick hovering in midair. Jane, Darcy, and Ian looked at one another in complete disbelief.
“That doesn’t seem right,” Darcy said, breaking the tension. It wasn’t right. And Jane was determined to find out why.
Jane, Darcy, and Ian followed the kids through the complex and up a winding staircase to the next amazing discovery. Standing at the top of the staircase, Navid dropped a bottle down the shaft, but instead of hitting the ground, it disappeared in midair halfway down. Everyone was stunned yet again, but when the bottle then reappeared at the top of the staircase, then fell, disappeared, and reappeared again—only faster this time—they were shocked even more.
Amazed, Jane had to try it for herself. She picked up a soda can and threw it. Like the bottle, it too disappeared, but unlike the bottle, Jane’s soda can never reappeared. “Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don’t,” Navid said very matter-of-factly.
“I want to do it,” Darcy said with excitement. “Jane, give me your shoe!” But Jane ignored Darcy and instead rushed off, following the direction of the now-intense beeping of the phase meter. She hadn’t seen readings like this since New Mexico. Since Thor.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE MAJESTIC REALM of Asgard, with its flowing rivers, ornate towers, and massive gold observatory, seemed to hover within the cosmos, as if magically suspended among the sparkling stars and rotating planets.
In the center of this beautiful land was its most iconic and important structure—the palace of King Odin Allfather, ruler of Asgard, and his wife, Queen Frigga. Beneath the enormous throne room, the large and lively dining rooms, the calming healing room, and the rest, lay the Asgardian dungeon. Located at the very most bottom level of the palace—lower still than the heavily guarded vault room that housed Asgard’s most amazing and dangerous treasures—the dungeon was a dark, dank, and nearly inescapable structure that was home to some of the worst criminals, thieves, and murderers in the Nine Realms of the cosmos. And today, its occupancy was about to increase. The royal Einherjar escorted the captured Marauders to their individual cells, all of which were sealed with an impenetrable bluish energy barrier.
Watching the proceedings from his own inescapable cell was Loki, adoptive son of Odin and Frigga, and stepbrother to Thor. For crimes against both Asgard and Earth, Loki was held as a prisoner in the bowels of his own home, locked away for all eternity. Looking out at the hopeless Marauders, Loki turned and spoke. “Odin continues to bring new friends. How thoughtful.”
But Loki wasn’t talking to himself; he was talking to his visitor, the only visitor he ever got—his mother, Queen Frigga. The queen made a point to visit her son, and to bring him some amenities from his old life, like his collection of books. But they all sat unopened and untouched in a dark corner of his cell. “The books I sent…do they not interest you?” Frigga asked.
“Is that what I am supposed to do while away for eternity? Reading?” Loki replied in disgust.
“I have done everything in my power to make you comfortable, Loki,” the queen responded.
“And does Odin share your concern?” Loki began, slowly moving toward his mother. “Or Thor? It must be inconvenient, my brother asking after me day and night,” he said with sarcasm in his voice.
“You know full well it was your actions that brought you here,” Frigga said. This only angered Loki further.
“I was merely given truth to the lie I’ve been told my entire life: that I was born to be a king,” Loki stated as a matter of fact.
“A true king admits his faults. You have yet to take responsibility for any of your choice
s.” Frigga asked, her anger escalating, “What of the lives you took on Earth?”
“A mere handful compared to the number Odin has taken himself,” Loki said with a vicious smile.
“Your father—”
“He is not my father!” Loki yelled, his voice echoing throughout the chamber.
There was a moment of silence, and then Frigga finally spoke. “Then am I not your mother?” she whispered.
“You are not,” Loki said, his words stabbing.
“Always so perceptive about everyone but yourself,” Frigga said as Loki reached his hand up to hers. But Loki’s hand merely moved through her, and with a shimmer, the image of Frigga dissolved into the ether.
Several stories above, inside her chamber, the real Frigga stood over a fire pit and watched as the image of Loki faded in the flames and smoke. “He will only disappoint you,” a voice said from behind her, breaking her out of her trance. It was Thor.
“Why indulge him?” Thor continued. “The gifts? The visits?” Thor couldn’t understand how Frigga still had so much compassion for someone who had done so much evil.
“I think if you ask the guards, they will tell you I was never there,” Frigga said with a hint of smile. She made her way over to Thor and continued. “What would you have me do? I am his mother and he is my son. I loved you no less when you were banished.”
“Our crimes were hardly equal,” Thor was quick to point out. Then he added, “Don’t you ever regret teaching him your magic?”
“You and your father cast long shadows,” Frigga began, hoping to finally make Thor understand. “I had hoped that by sharing my gifts with Loki, he could feel some sun for himself.”
“But you were wrong.”
“For the moment.”
“You still see good in him, don’t you?” Thor asked.
“I see glimmers of light I thought long extinguished,” Frigga stated, optimistic that Thor might one day share her point of view.
Thor lowered his head. “Loki forfeited my forgiveness long ago.” The two stood opposite each other for a long, silent moment, until Frigga decided it best to change the subject.
