[Bifrost Dome, Asgard]
In a flash of light, Thor, Loki, and their entourage appeared, sprawled on the ground, beaten and battered after their journey to Midgard.
The once boisterous God of Thunder kept taking deep intakes of air and brought his hands to his bloody face. He had lost, and badly at that. The enemy was stronger, stronger than he imagined a Midgardian would ever be that he could match him.
The wounds on his body were numerous and despite already healing, he could still feel phantom pains.
They had been toyed with.
The enemy didn't even try to kill them but managed to crack his unshakable will. This was no immortal enemy or an ancient, no. These were men from Earth.
He looked at Hogun and the others and he could tell that they too received beatings if their bruises were anything to go about.
"Thanks for the wonderful timing as always, Heimdall." Loki was the first to snap out of it and called out to the stoic-looking man in golden armor from his head to his toes.
"I am simply doing my duty, my prince." He neither accepted or declined the compliment.
"And a marvelous job done, as always, deserves some thanks." Heimdall only bowed his head and said nothing which made Loki finally relent.
"I think I speak for everyone here when I say that father, should by no means, find out the result of what happened here." Loki said, keeping his eyes on Heimdall.
"I will speak no words of it, my prince." The man spoke.
The rest of them pulled themselves off the floor and supported one another as they left the Bifrost.
"Are we going back?" Sif asked as they crossed the bridge.
"Definitely. And this time, we will win." Even the words felt painful as they left Thor's mouth.
"You know that they did not try to kill us, right? Only made sure we were beaten. If we were to press it forward, they might kill us."
"Are you afraid, Fandral? Disappointing." Sif sneered in disgust of her fellow warrior.
"On the contrary, I have a few strikes to deliver to that man who broke my nose. I'm just making sure we know who it is we are fighting." Fandral defended his pride while thinking about that distasteful man with the metal arm who struck him one too many times on his face. It wasn't his fault that he was that good looking, was it?
"I think you are just making excuses." Sif wasn't buying it.
"Why do you always find a problem with everything I say, woman?" Can't a man say his woes in peace no longer?
"Because I loathe you." Sif was unapologetic with her rebuttal.
"Thor, why are you so quiet? And you, Loki, why do you look like a smile is trying to force its way into your mouth?"
"Whatever do you mean?" Although he said that with a smile, what he was feeling inside was entirely something else.
He wished nothing more than to tear that pretentious man's limbs from his body while he watched as everything he ever held dear was burned to cinders.
"Yeah, whatever it is, do keep in mind to leave us out of it." Loki snorted at that. As if they had a choice to choose otherwise if he wanted them to play pawns.
"Thor?"
"What? Oh, nothing. Meet me in the sparring area friends. I have to tend to something right now." Without waiting for them to say anything, Thor spun his hammer and flew away.
"Something is definitely wrong with him." Volstagg said.
"Yeah. Of course something is wrong with him. He just got his royal ass kicked, all of us did, and he had to ask Heimdall to bail him out. He's probably feeling like crap right now." Fandral replied sarcastically.
"Now that you say that, they were quite the warriors to be able to defeat six of us with being half the size and numbers." The silent Hogun made a comment that drew all their attention.
"By Odin, this just got more depressing. I need a drink." Volstagg grunted and dragged himself off the bridge and into a flying boat.
The Warriors Three and Sif sat on the boat and thought about their most recent loss as a team in the hands of three men, from Midgard no less. While Loki carried on with no one knowing what was going on through his head.
…
[Draul St. Cross POV]
"Why?!!" Yelena wailed after she finished listening to what happened while she and Nat were away from the house.
"Why did it have to happen when I was conveniently not at home?" If anyone asked me I would say she had an almost damaging obsession with wanting to shoot Loki.
I had repaired the ground and lawn that was destroyed with a little transfiguration while I made a path where the lawn used to be.
"You think they would be back?" Nat asked, still on the fence about us beating the shit out of the godlings and their entourage.
"It's a probable possibility, most likely. I really wish I could just kill them and be done with it, but I really am not strong enough to deal with Odin's wrath." It was the issue I was thinking of when I thought about how my hands were tied when it came to the Asgardians.
If it were up to me, I would have cleaved off Loki's neck the first chance I got and then take all of Thor's limbs and eyes before sending him back to Asgard, regardless of how I liked the two brothers.
"Right. So apart from Odin's wrath, we have nothing to fear from Asgard as long as we don't kill their princes?" Nat asked and it was only when I nodded that she released a sigh of relief.
"So in comparison to you, how strong was Thor?" Hmm, tricky question given as I don't know how strong I currently was. I did beat the Hulk but none of us went all out, which I still would have won if we did. There was no evolution for him this early on.
From what I experienced, this Thor was stronger than the one in the early stages of the MCU, not the one in the Infinity Saga though.
"He was strong. Maybe he could contend with Bucky and Steve in terms of strength, maybe. So I far outclass him in that, speed too. To be honest, the only thing notable about him is his hammer and lightning. That thing really hurts and the fact that he can easily summon hundreds of billions of volts makes him a hard opponent if he wasn't fighting me. To be honest, it was depressing how weak they were, Thor and Loki I mean. The first has nothing really going for him except his identity as the God of Thunder and wielder of Mjolnïr, the second is the God of Mischief. He is so well versed in his divinity that he even deceived himself to the point that he's not even strong. I don't even know which of them is worse." Odin owes me and I don't care what his one eyed ass says.
"Well his lightning would have little to no effect on you so that leaves him with just his physical strength which… Now I feel pity for him." Yelena said.
Though I knew this would not stay this way for long. Thor was strong, pretty strong even when taking the heavy hitters of the Marvel-verse into consideration. But that would be years from now.
"So how would Bucky fare against Thor?" The man seemed mildly irritated at the question.
"Now that's a valid one. Bucky should be more than enough when contesting against Thor in pure physical strength. But he would surely lose against him. He has no way to guard against Thor's lightning. Same with Steve. They'll just get fried before they can put up any meaningful fight." It was true. As they were, they had no chance of beating Thor.
"Well that was… helpful." Steve muttered to himself.
There was nothing for me to gain from this battle other than a few billion volts of pure electricity. Maybe it was time that I tried harnessing more of my energy.
Sure I could harness a lot of it at once but that was when I was firing off destructive blasts. The amount of energy I was drawing when using abilities like telekinesis and electromagnetic-kinesis and even telepathy were insignificant in comparison.
If I were to make an analogy, it would be as if each of my abilities had specific pipes that connected to my reserves of energy and the ones to these abilities were the smallest, so they could draw smaller amounts of energy at the same moment in time compared to my abilities like pyrokinesis.
Unlike Thor and his brother, I was not a one trick pony.
All Thor could do despite being a thousand year old demigod was shooting lightning and swinging his hammer. Without those two, he would be a slightly stronger Asgardian.
The saying that peaceful times breeds weak men was definitely true.
There were multitudes of ways he could use lightning to strengthen himself like he did in Ragnarok. Speed was easily the easiest one to achieve. His body could conduct electricity arguably more than mine so he should have no trouble using them to boost whatever godly cells he had to ridiculous degrees.
To be honest, he didn't need the hammer to fly as he was also the God of Storms. His divinity granted him vast control over the sky.
Odin was right when he called him the God of Hammer because take that away and even the current Bucky would whoop his ass.
Loki on the other hand was just disappointing. Let's be serious here.
This guy had reality warping powers.
That was what this guy's domain was when it was taken to a high enough point. And he was a God.
Whatever the MCU made the Asgardians look like didn't matter: they were Gods. They ruled over domains rather than the semi-aliens they were made to be in the movies.
Loki was more brain than Thor but even then he paled in comparison to Thor in their strengths. He was too absorbed in his illusions to the point that it was the only thing he could do. This guy had one of the strongest sorcerers in the nine realms as a mother and the only thing he excelled at, or loved doing, was illusions.
Was Odin that much of a terrible father, or was Asgard that peaceful that even after centuries they were still weak?
They had no reason whatsoever to be as weak as they were after all the time they lived. What the fuck were they doing all the time?
If anything, they were supposed to know of the threats that Asgard could face in the future and use that as a driving force to become strong. Or maybe it was just the way their characters were made? Who knew?
Anyway, forgetting about the Asgardian princes until the next time they came to my doorstep, I focused on what abilities I should first experiment with.
I was through with my Space Stone experiment for the day so I could spend the rest of my time focusing on myself.
Maybe I should work on Magneto's ability. That thing was very hax-like and would work well in conjunction with the Space Stone.
With my new assignment received, I left the others at home and opened a portal to where was becoming my private training ground - A desert in the middle of nowhere.
I could pretty much control and shape metals to my liking, so there was no need for me to work on that and if I wanted to work on that, a desert would be the last place I would go to.
What I wanted to do was learn how to manipulate the magnetic polarities of the earth. And what better place to learn that than a fucking desert. Right now, what I sought more was control that came with power ups. And I believe trying it in the middle of nowhere, considering I still had tiny bits of spatial energy in my system, was the best idea.
========================
Don't forget to vote
If you are hungry for more chaps 👇
Read up to 30 chapters ahead at pa*treon.com/Draul_TheOminous