[2012 – October]
Floating a short distance above the floor, my body pulsed in a dim blue light. My bloodvessels clearly visible from the ethereal glow they had, causing them to shine through my skin.
Flames licked at my whole form, while a small frown was visible on my face. My eyes were closed in concentration, as I held a black spear in my lap. A blue gem was glowing with power at the upper part of the handle, near the spearblade.
Right now, I was channeling the stone's power through my whole body, while increasing the energy quantity to the limit my body was capable of containing.
The stone was a literal source of infinite energy and while it had accepted me as a worthy holder, that didn't mean that I could wield all that potential right now. My physical body would turn to dust, should I attempt to draw out more power from the stone, than I could handle.
Though thanks to my growth skill, I could use the energy in the stone to slowly increase the limit of my physical body. Another advantage to this type of training was that it also raised all my physical and mental capabilities, along with my healing factor and exothermic abilities.
No lifting weigths for me anymore, something I was grateful for, as the massive weigths I would need to train, would simply take up too much space.
I did, on the other hand, still train my martial arts regularly with Silver and Wanda.
Reining in the colossal amount of energy from the stone and channeling it back into the gem, I opened my eyes, as my feet made contact with the ground again. My glowing form slowly turning back to normal.
Right now I was in a small cave in the mountains, near the woods where our cabin was located. Here I had enough space and quiet to train my control over the stone.
A quick mental push later, I appeared before the small cabin in a cloud of dark blue smoke.
Another month had passed, where we lived in our own little paradise, hidden away from the world, and now it was time for us to move forward again.
…
Odin was distraught.
The Nine Realms were in chaos, the Bifrost still destroyed, Asgard isolated, one of his sons in prison, while the other one was now one-armed.
He knew it would prove dangerous to send Thor to Midgard to retrieve Loki and the Tesseract, especially since his magical sight had failed him repeatedly, when looking at the world inhabited by humans.
There had always been blank spaces in his vision, as the sorcerers and witches knew very well how to hide from his sight.
This time though, the true danger had come from a human warrior named Pietro Maximoff.
The only time, he could really lay eyes on that man, had been when Thor had confronted him. And what Odin had seen, had him deeply worried.
A man capable of wielding an Infinity Stone, a human no less, wasn't to be taken lightly after all.
And while those wielding an Infinity Stone could be defeated, those victories always came at a great cost.
His son, Asgard's strongest warrior, was proof of that. Losing an arm in a confrontation with the human warrior.
Odin knew that the human had shown restraint by taking Thor's arm instead of his head, but he couldn't bring himself to be happy about this.
Asgard needed the Tesseract, or in this case the Space Stone. Without it they couldn't rebuild the Bifrost, it was simply impossible. The first Bifrost had also been created with the Tesseract's help afterall.
He had thought that Thor would be able to handle the task, having seen how his banishment had awakened some maturity and compassion in his heir, but he had been wrong.
Thor wasn't a diplomat, he was a warrior and his first response had been violence and threats, when confronted with a problem. His confidence in his own might, having caused his arrogance to flare up. Something he had payed dearly for.
Like the human warrior had said, the Prince of Asgard had payed the price for his hubris and now all of Asgard had to pay it too, as did the Nine Realms.
Odin could still picture it, the disgust and wrath in the human's eyes, as Thor had threatened him. His calm tone did nothing to hide his immense hostility against the Asgardian heir.
To himself, Odin could admit that he had brought back his sons to Asgard – paying a heavy price in the form of his vitality and his precious Odin Force – because he feared what might happen should his sons fight the human again.
The Asgardian Empire was falling apart under his rule, and at this point he knew that it was his fault. The mistakes he had made with his firstborn daughter, he had thought that he didn't repeat them with his sons, but reality betrayed his beliefs.
His adopted son was haunted by the truth of his heritage, with delusions of grandeur plaguing his mind.
While the other couldn't humble himself, even when all Nine Realms were at risk, and lashed out the moment he felt himself cornered.
There were only a few options left for Odin to choose from, but none were particularly appealing.
He could try and bring Loki to tell them about the secret passages between the Nine Realms, before trying to send Asgard's armies through them to the rescue. Still, with how clouded Loki's mind was with thoughts of vengence, he highly doubted that this would prove a viable solution.
Odin could also use his own power to send warriors to the Nine Realms, but it was incredibly draining to send even one, much less a whole army, so that wasn't a probable solution either.
Spaceships would take to long to arrive with help and could be easily spotted by scouts too. Not to mention that Asgards ships weren't built for deep space travels, as they had always relied on the Bifrost for such travels.
At this point, any action he took would only delay the inevitable. The Nine Realms were about to face their destruction under his rule.
"Your Majesty! One of the patrols has been attacked and an Einherjar has been kidnapped!", a guard announced loudly, while entering the throne room with hurried steps.
Sighing deeply, Odin turned his attention towards his newest problem.
…
The biggest problem with the teleportation ability provided by the Space Stone, was definitely, that I couldn't visit places, I had not actually seen myself or at least had an image of.
So, while I could visit all the places I had seen in the movies, those places I had not seen were out of my reach, at least for now.
My current goal was visiting Vanaheim and Alfheim, simply because I was searching for some battelfield to test my powers on. And if I remembered right, the Marauders were currently taking advantage of the Bifrost's destruction to raid and pillage these worlds, which made them the perfect target for me.
Frankly speaking, I wanted some more battlefield experience to test how effectively I could combine the gem's abilities with my fighting style.
I knew my speed was my greatest advantage and that it made it almost impossible for me to lose, simply because there was no one faster than me. That however, didn't mean I couldn't improve my actual fighting capabilities.
I knew I was already an excellent fighter, after the constant training over the last two years, but I still had room to grow.
Secondly, the Marauders were a scourge and without the Bifrost being fixed anytime soon, I highly doubted that the Asgardians would defeat them this time around. And as I was partly responsible for that, I couldn't just do nothing, as they continued to kill the innocent people of the Nine Realms.
Well, I could do nothing, but I did not want to.
So the question now was, how to get to Vanaheim and Alfheim?
The rest of the Nine Realms, Asgard, Jotunheim, Nilfheim, Svartalfheim or Muspelheim, obviously wouldn't be attacked by the Marauders according to my knowledge, as there was simply nothing to gain there for them.
Midgard/Earth was also not on their target list, while I knew nothing about the current situation on Nidavellir.
Still, back to my original question, how to get to the two worlds I had never seen an image of?
Well, the answer was pretty simple, considering that the love of my life was a witch that could read minds and that I had seen enough of Asgard in the movies to teleport there.
I simply used the gem to appear on Asgard, knock out some guards and kidnap the oldest looking one of them. Wanda then searched the guard's memories for images of Vanaheim and Alfheim and transmitted them to my mind.
Thankfully, the Einherjar had been to both worlds several times in his rather long life, as it would have been rather awkward if I had to kidnap another one.
Opening a portal to Asgard, I threw the still unconcious guard back to his home world, before turning towards Wanda and Silver.
"Ready to visit another world?", I asked, my own excitement leaking through my normally calm voice.
Wanda gave me beautiful smile, as she nodded, her own eyes also shining in expectation.
Silver, much like her mother, also nodded in quiet agreement, though her eyes were wide in anticipation, while she held Penelope pressed to her chest. The confused bear cub simply grumbled in curiosity.