[Odin Borson, The Allfather POV]
Something just changed.
Something monumental just happened right this moment and it just changed everything.
Nay, it just destroyed everything.
The threads were all tangled up so much so that I couldn't even see clearly and yet could see fine as if the world had never been clearer.
Someone just changed the course of reality and I needed to find out.
"My king." I heard Heimdall's voice in my ears.
"Who was it?" Gone was the tired expression that graced my face all day that the new generation took as signs of frailty and old age.
"I believe it to be the boy from Midgard." I peered through the veils of the realms and landed on the boy holding a piece of reality in his hands in the form of a cube.
The Space Stone – a token of the universe that is and everything that was, and the vast expanse of its domain.
I knew the Midgardian's held two of the Infinity Stones and protected it but I disregarded it, even took measures to assure that no one knew. Midgard acted as the perfect disguise.
The moment my gaze fell upon him, I immediately knew what he was doing. It mattered not if he knew the consequences of his actions but it couldn't come to pass.
The sky rumbled in Midgard as I called forth divine thunder only for it to be dispersed.
"WHO DARES?!" Asgard shook at my words before the astral form of a woman formed in my throne room.
"Explain yourself!"
"I don't think what I did deserved an explanation as much as what you wanted to do." She said, eyes fierce as if she would bare her might at me. As if!
"Do not play the fool Yao! You know of the darkness and those that resides in it. If it breaks, reality as we know it would cease to exist. And yet you stand in my way? DO NOT TEST ME!"
"There's a way. A way out of this." She protested. How daft could she be?
"What you are doing would bring Ragnarok upon the entire universe." How couldn't she see that?
"Yes, it might. But it is also a way out of the current darkness-"
"By drowning everything else in darkness? This isn't a way, this is mass suicide!" Asgard trembled with my rage.
"Father!" My two sons ran into the throne room, arms at the ready but I sighed.
"What happened? Who provoked your wrath, father? Tell and I shall smite them down." As hot-headed as always, but unfortunately, this was not a fight he could win.
I looked at where she was and she was already gone.
"Stand down, Thor." I looked at both my sons; the boisterous Thor and the cunning Loki. 'Would they survive?' This was a question that needed answer but Bor's beard if it was one I could give.
I didn't want to see Asgard in flames come Ragnarok, but I also didn't want to see it in flames before Ragnarok.
"Why is your anger spreading through the realms, father? The people are in fear." I scoffed at that and turned to my troublemaker of a son.
"Why are you silent, Loki?"
"Mmn, me? Oh nothing… just wondering." He said with the same look he always had in his eyes that made me realize when he was up to something. I just groaned in warning not to take it too far and he shivered in his boots. They were far too weak.
"Where is your mother?"
"I'm here. Leave us boys." Both of us remained inside the room while the boys left until she spoke. "What is it this time?"
"It's worse than I thought, Frigga. The Phoenix's arrival. It will change everything. I tried to stop it but she disagreed." I sat down with a huge sigh on my throne. "I can see it. This time it isn't just Asgard but the entire universe that will be affected…"
"But that's not everything is it?" She asked.
"Aye… It also a way. Though the chances are miniscule, the probability exists. A way for the Asgardians to break free from the wretched circle… but the risks, Frigga. The risks. It is not only the Nine Realms but my entire family should we fail." Even now as I looked at the boy, I could already see it. The shadows his actions would cast on the universe. I knew what she meant, but fate wasn't something that someone could just break without due repercussions even if-!
"Impossible!" I stood up from my throne in shock.
"What is it, Odin?"
"His threads… They are cut. No, not just cut but thoroughly erased. I see." A mad laughter escaped my mouth as I figured it out. Why she would agree when she knew that her death was sure. Why she would agree when she knew personally how hard, almost nigh impossible it was , to change fate. Why she would be willing to make a gamble.
Frigga just watched me in amusement, no doubt having come to the same conclusions I did.
"How thin?" Was the question she asked me. One which I understood clearly.
"Quite. But we can make it work in our favor. 'They' wouldn't even realize." Now wasn't that something? "But though there is a chance, it still doesn't mean we would be safe from the storm that was brewing."
"Then ensure the otherwise. 'They' are not fools, you know? You swore to do anything to ensure the safety of our family, Odin. Be careful." She advised.
"Fret not, I will." I looked at the source of my recent worries once more. "Hoh, I remember that staff. I see. We can work with that."
Frigga left me to my thoughts as I pondered on how to ensure that my people's survival were indirectly linked to his actions. I knew I wasn't the only one who could see what he was doing so it was bound to be troubling times for him, but that wasn't my problem. I would do anything to make sure that Ragnarok doesn't claim my people and my realm any longer.
"Hmm, I wonder if…" My eyes peered to see the threads of those who were close to him, a wonder to me how none of those threads bounded him, his presence even making the threads lose their hold on their hosts. "Interesting. Well, let's just leave things to themselves. Notify me of any notable events around him, Heimdall."
"Yes, my king." And with that I closed my eyes and rested my head on my throne. If only things would go as planned.
…
He smiled as he saw the senile old man close his eyes. Always happy to ignore the bigger picture.
Maybe this time it will help alleviate the boredom he'd been experiencing in recent times.
Having only your brother and his friends as your unwilling play mates for centuries was bound to get boring in one way or the other.
That doesn't mean he would ever stop pranking them, it just meant that he wouldn't do it all the time. He wouldn't want it to get cold and stale.
But now? It looks like the universe just gave him another playmate, one so down the drain that he didn't know how to look up.
"It's been a while since I've last been to Midgard. Let's hope this time doesn't go wrong. Should I take him or not… I think not, not yet at least."
And with that, he hummed a tone as he walked away from the throne room his father rested.
…
[Draul St. Cross POV]
I felt a sense of danger, one so profound that I had never felt before wash over me in an instant before it would gone. I would have taken it as my mind playing tricks on me if not for the sweat that had drenched what I wore.
I hardly ever sweat, even when fighting.
My only thought on what had happen was that someone was watching me and given the universe in which I was, that claim was 100% true. They were always watching.
There was no way I could hide my actions from those who were watching, it was an impossible task, at least with how weak I was.
But I didn't care, my decisions didn't change but instead became valid due to what just happened. I wasn't interested in using the stones as a crutch like Thanos and everyone did.
I stopped the little training I was doing and teleported back and kept the case back in S.H.I.E.L.D's storage. I didn't want to keep it lying around in my lab so this was the only way to do it until I was ready with what I planned for the stones.
Whatever was watching that made me feel such danger made me want to hasten up with my absorbing of the cosmic energies of the stones.
After I kept it back, I opened a portal to meet with someone I had an overdue talk with.
The other side of the portal was connected with the abode of the Ancient One. Regardless of decisions, she was one of the people I knew that could tell and understood what I was up to.
"I see you've made your decision?" She was already brewing what quickly became my favorite drink. Her tea was just that special.
"I have."
"I hope you know that your decisions could very well be the end our reality." She poured the tea into two cups and set one in front of me.
"Then why let me go ahead with it? You of all people should know what's at stake. It's all-in or nothing." It was something I didn't understand but still appreciated regardless. Her letting me do what it was that I wanted to do was a huge burden off my shoulders.
The Sorcerers Supreme were the keepers of our reality. The road I was taking could very much end everything as we know it so it wouldn't have been a surprise if she stood against me so the silent approval she gave was what I was thankful for and what dumbfounded me.
"What do you know about the 'Beings of Old'?" She asked as she sat in front of me, sipping her tea.
"Nothing much." I answered truthfully. Their existence were always a mystery even in the Marvel Comics.
"I see. When you first came here, I watched your every moment, deciding if my actions were sane that I would let one so tainted by a foreign essence live peacefully among us. Know that the Old Ones were not benevolent beings. There are hardly any books left in any realm that could tell you more than a sentence about them. As far as this reality is concerned, they never existed. Even what I knew about them was something I learned from the past Sorcerers Supreme." She started.
"Where are you going with this?" Now I was genuinely confused.
"While the existence of the Old Ones can't be proven in present day, it was said that they existed some that even predated them. Beings of the most eldritch nightmare one could ever conjure up. They travelled throughout the multiverse, devouring realities and gods until one day they disappeared. Every cosmic being in existence fought against them and banished them to a place know as the 'Dark Outer'. A place that exists between where all realities converge, a place outside the multiverse." The more she spoke, the more I felt that something was entirely wrong.
"Where are you going with this?"
"What I am trying to tell you is that if you do what it is I know you plan to do, you alone will be responsible for the darkness that will engulf not just this universe but the countless other ones out there." She said.
"You still haven't told me anything that I don't already know." I said frustratingly.
"And like I said, I don't know much." She answered coolly.
"Then why tell me in the first place?" She was a hard person to understand.
"So you know where to start from and also what to beware. I doubt there are gods, even if they are, it would be a scant few, who can link you to those dark beings. Most would mistake you for a vessel of Chthon and that in itself is enough for them to kill you. The origins of your power is much darker than what you might think of, do proceed with utmost caution, Mr. Cross." And she just threw in the name of an Elder God and arguably the most powerful of the remaining bunch as if my headaches weren't enough already as it were.
"You still haven't told me why you seem to support what it was that I'm doing except tell me a story about why you SHOULDN'T support me." I questioned her seriously this time.
"It is an inevitability. One day, now or in the near future, you will attempt the same actions you are doing now and while I could try all I can to stop you, it wouldn't last forever as it is also an inevitability that you will break free from any bindings that was cast on you. And trust me, you will be far more terrifying than I would find comfortable. This was one of the few routes I could take that doesn't ensure mutual destruction." She said in such a casual tone as if she was wondering if she should add more honey to my tea.
Right. Even if the Ancient One was weak currently, she still had a lot of cards up her sleeves to seal me away but like she said, it wouldn't last forever. It was one of the reasons why I was less surprised at what she said because I had taken this scenario into account when I made my decision.
Who ever said my death was easy?
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