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Asgard[July 2015]
–Hela Odinsdottir–
"So, that is the power of Odin's chosen," She couldn't help but comment to Thor, her younger sibling, who was supposed to be far less powerful than her, as they flew back to Asgard, on a lightning construct created by Thor that felt solid to her and not at all what lighting should be like.
"I see that Odin has taught you seidr well. Elemental shape and nature manipulation is very advanced stuff, and I see that you use Runes as well. Well, the old man certainly didn't spare any effort in preparing you to defeat me," She said, once again, eager to get some sort of answer or reaction from Thor, who was most definitely much stronger than her.
Even now, as she could feel Asgard's power flowing through her, signalling her right as the firstborn and heir of Asgard, she knew, for a fact, that even with her power still surging and her mind being cleared little by little by Asgard's cleansing and healing power, she was nowhere near Thor's strength.
The power that she had felt flowing through her, targeting the spell she was casting over the wastelands, something that Thor had done so casually, was still in her mind. The sheer power reminded her more of Odin than someone who had not inherited the main reason behind Odin's overwhelming power.
The Odin Force.
Something that was connected to the bloodline of Odin, by Odin's design. They could all feel it but she could also feel that it was not connected to anyone right now, meaning that it had not chosen anyone to be worthy enough to fall into Odin's footsteps or the old man had put yet another twisted test in place to get access to the Odin Force.
Whatever the situation was, it mattered not. What mattered was that she was to duel Thor, in both of their primes, and then hope to defeat him, which was not going to be possible, not with what she now knew of his power.
"I never really paid attention to Mother's seidr classes. Father didn't really tell us about you right up until he was about to die. So, no, Odin didn't prepare me for you. I am this strong because of the sacrifices of others, others who gave their lives so that I could get another chance, not to save my Mother or my Father or even my Brother but to save Asgard and I'll be damned if I let someone touch Asgard under my watch," Finally, Thor said as they were halfway to Asagrd, the platform travelling at a leisurely pace for some reason.
Thor's words only filled her with more confusion but the conviction, the sheer determination in them left a chill in her spine, something that was only more accentuated by the weather all above them changing, even without her feeling a single spike of magic from Thor.
She cursed inwardly as she realised that the trap that had been set for her, and so sure she was in her prowess and her mind under a haze after spending a thousand years alone, she had never stopped to think about the situation and why Thor had so easily agreed to an Ancient Archaic ritualistic duel, something that had not been done more than three times in all of Asgard's long history.
Soon, the ROyal Palace came into view and after dropping her off at her quarters, Thor disappeared. Another chill went up her spine as she realised that the one she was talking to, the one who had escorted her here was a mere clone.
"By Odin's Beard, what have I done?" She whispered to herself, horrified at the realisation as her mind continued to conjure up scenarios of her defeat. Her necromantic blade that should have atleast stung, even Odin's skin, left no mark on Thor's hand when he stopped the blade from reaching the other brother.
Yeah, Him. She was unsure as to what to think of him. Thor mentioned that he was too late to save his brother, but as far as she could gather from the palace maids, Odin only had two sons and Loki was the younger one.
Also, she could sense only two recipients of the Odin Force in the current configuration that Odin had left it in. She and Thor.
Loki was not connected to it, not even passively and that meant either of two things. Loki was cast out of Odin's bloodline. Not out of the House of Odin which would only mean banishment on paper, withdrawing all authorities and luxuries but leaving behind the power, the power granted from the bloodline or..
"Huh, so the second one's adopted," She muttered to herself and stepped out to her balcony, overlooking the entirety of the Royal City of Asgard. At one point, it was her dream to fulfill the expectations set for her by Odin and then eventually, rule the cosmic empire that would be Asgard.
But then…
She sighed and thought of the Light Elves and Alfheim, where it all began, where she went too far and as a direct result of that, left Odin with no other option than to kill her.
She realised it now, her mind was far too gone before, subjected to the death, decay and nothingness of Hel, but after thinking it through now, she realised that Odin was left with no other option.
With her violent display of brutality witnessed by the allied army, Odin would have been pressured by all their allies to abandon his daughter because Alfheim, they hadn't done much to them, aside from not surrendering, which was their right since they were very isolated and Odin had only conquered the realms which had connections to the wider cosmos and were a possible threat to his rule.
Alfheim and the light Elves were none of that. To begin with, The leader of the Light Elves was repulsed by her mere presence in his realm and had immediately shut off any negotiations and had demanded another envoy, without the "taint" of Death on her, which naturally infuriated her a lot.
She was very brash, back then. Immensely powerful and capable of destroying foes stronger than her by the simple virtue of Mjolnir and her power.
Ah, Mjolnir. She could feel it, even now, on the other side of the Palace. The hammer forged by the heat of a star, sealing a cosmic storm within it, all by the power of the Odin Force. A weapon so potent that it was only second to Gungnir itself in all of Asgard, and Odin had forged Gungnir using his own blood infused with Odin Force as the quenching agent, making sure that Gungnir could only be used by the line of Odin.
Turning around, she entered her quarters, which were the royal guest quarters, all with its own small library. To be honest, she didn't need any medic to bring her back to her full strength, her connection to Asgard was more than enough for that. More importantly, her injuries were not physical, they were more on the spirit than her body.
Sure, having her connection to Asgard stripper hurt her body but she was still young and unburdened, and as such, just restoring her connection to Asgard was enough for her body and spirit to begin healing.
She took out a book from the magical history catalogue and began reading, even as her mind was only half focused on the book. As the General of Asgard's forces, which were manyfold of what they are now, she couldn't just be a one trick pony.
Sure, most of her battles were won by her individual powers and if she couldn't win, with the help of Mjolnoir she could at least make sure that the other side suffered just as much damage as her, making her individual battles quite easy and one sided.
But war. War was a whole other matter altogether.
She had to be quite adept at strategy, traps, enemy psychology, information processing, and more. Her powers were something that she was born with, the rest? She had to learn from scratch, just like everyone else.
So, when she first landed on Asgard and realised that her home, her realm, was as undefended as it could be, her blood was boiling in anger. This could not be her realm, not something that she had to shed tears, bled for, all for this weak version of Asgard, something so twisted from the Asgard she remembered that it might as not be her home anymore.
Sure, slaughtering the Valkyrie meant that Asgard would suffer from a combat force deficit for centuries but she knew that there were heaps of women just waiting for a chance to become Valkyrie, to gain an honor of being that but this…
Her eyes narrowed in confusion as she read that Odin himself had banned the re creation of the Valkyrie unit, instead encouraging women to get involved in the arts of healing and seidr, which was foolish because Odin himself was the Master of seidr in all of the Nine Realms, save for a mortal on Midgard who had stopped her and sent her packing during one of their battles that had spilled over on Midgard.
She had been livid but father had warned her that the mortal was backed by Elder Gods who already had pacts with Asgard and were not to be disturbed, which mollified her because she knew the value of pacts with Elder Gods, not something that can be easily broken even for beings on her level.
The Berserkers were also gone, and she read that the Staffs that had been instrumental in more than one battle had been declared forbidden items and were destroyed and their users hunted down, leading to the destruction of that particular unit.
The forbidden spell division was also dissolved. Runes were no longer taught to battle mages. In fact, battle mages as a concept was gone because Asgard did not maintain a large standing army now.
"What the hell was the geezer thinking?" She couldn't help but mutter to herself as her connection to Asgard allowed her to sense more and more of the surroundings around her, telling her the current condition of Asgard and its inhabitants.
Sure, the people were calm, content, well fed and ale flew like water in the taverns, as was the case during her time but there was a feeling of lethargy in the air. Sure, the Observatory itself held more defenses than it did during her time but the way it was guarded.
By a single guard who did not have the Sight, was concerning.
The standing barracks were used only for training and aside from the Einherjar who were all on a much lower level and had much less training and battle experience, as was evident by the easy going nature they had all around them, were just not up to her mark.
"Alright, let's think this through," She said as she stood up and began pacing around her quarters, the book forgotten on the couch.
"Odin declared Peace right after he sealed me, so maybe he was injured after putting me in that prison, or he intended to declare peace after making sure that I was not in the scene anymore. Huh, coward. Should have just killed me,"
"Then, since he didn't want to conquer anymore realms, and had to prove that to the other realms, he disbanded major parts of the Asgardian army, leaving behind a token unit that could not possible be used for wars,"
Then again, by that point, the old man had grown so much more powerful than the handful of powerful people still left alive in the Nine Realms that there was basically no need to have a standing army if his goal was just the Nine Realms, and that is basically what he did.
"Shit!" She swore as she realised that even if she did win the duel, which was very unlikely, she would have her work cut out for herself as Queen for Asgard to bring Asgard back up to fighting shape, to turn it back into the mean war machine that it once was.
A war machine that was shaped by her grandfather, expanded, and then torn down by her father.
"I mean, look at this, basically, most of the seidrs are in the Medical Wing, and the strongest one, well, aside from Thor and me, is right here. Aren't you? Loki?" She turned around and waved her hand, releasing a green wave that then pinpointed the cloaked form of Loki who looked at his body which was now covered in green.
"Ah, so you are well versed in illusions as well. I see,"
"Just well versed in finding them. Can never be too sure when someone might try to kill me in my sleep. I am sure you weren't here to do that, because you are too weak to try," She taunted Loki and it always gave her a small smidgen of joy when she won the battle of words, arguably, her weakest powerset.
If she was actually good at communication, she might have been able to convince Brunnhilde to reject Odin's orders until she had a talk with the old man.
"What can I do for you, Loki? I cannot fight or hurt you since your brother has designated you as his ally, despite your many…mistakes," Ah, another verbal victory.
"Yes, I know that. I just thought that I should give you some tips, to help tip the scales. You see, for some ungodly reason, my brother has grown vastly more powerful than before. Powerful enough to just ignore Gungnir's blasts and wrench it physically out of my hands, without even flinching, which I am sure even you would be unable to. So, as I was saying—"
"Wait wait. You said that Thor snatched Gungnir out of your hands while you were able to use it as a conduit to the Odin Force?" She had to stop Loki in his tirade of giving her whatever useless information he had on his brother and focus on that one juicy tidbit.
Loki looked irritated at the interruption but answered her question, "Yes, once I had trapped Odin in my illusion, I was able to–"
She couldn't help it, she snorted out loud at the answer.
"I'm sorry, was that funny?" Loki asked her, leaning forward, hands twitching so hard trying not to bring his weapons in his hands since that would force her to defend herself, aggressively. Hmmm, someone had done their homework on Ancient Rituals.
"No. Actually, yes it is somewhat funny. You know, Loki, I have been waging war with Odin before you and your brother were even born, and as such, I know what happens when someone who is not Odin's son tries to hold Gungir. The Odin Force is a potent force and it burns anyone who is not allowed to hold Gungnir. Besides, you can't just take Gungnir from Odin."
Loki's eyes widened at that.
"Gungnir is as much a part of Odin as the Odin Force is. Unless he wanted you to, you, with your pathetic power, would never have been able to touch let alone seize Gungnir. So, Loki, despite your Frost Giant lineage, I can smell it now, Odin actually did love you and actually thought of you as his son."
Loki had gone pale at that, stumbling back, trying to deny her words.
"No! That can't be. He hated me, always."
"Oh boy, Daddy issues. Look, there is more than enough on my plate to deal with so why don't you go bother Thor with those. Also, I swear this on my magic, Odin allowed you to put him under an illusion and gave you Gungnir. You didn't take anything from him."
Loki pointed a shaky finger at her before his face blacked out and he cast an invisible illusion on himself, running out of her quarters.
"Damn, Old Man really did go soft in his old age, didn't he?" She looked up at the ceiling and fell back on her book, suddenly not feeling the urge to do the whole song and dance about the duel.
Then again, a vicious glint entered her eyes as she thought, when again would she gain the chance to fight an all-out battle against someone closest to Odin alive, in terms of combat prowess?
She would have to swear fealty to the winning party, if Thor let her live anyway so might as well as use this chance to make sure that Thor atleast loses a limb or an eye maybe.
After all, she might have her sanity back but she was still the Goddess of Death.
Word Count - 2834
A/N - A more reasonable take on the whole Hela is bloodthirsty and will destroy the kingdom she so desperately wishes to rule.
Also, an alternative take on Loki "putting" Odin under an illusion and seizing Rule of Asgard.
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