The "G" Shield

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Asgard[July 2015]

–Jack Sullivan–

"So, how was life as a ruler?" He asked Loki who was, surprisingly, not being a witty snob.

"Huh, you should be the one to ask, you were the reason it was all destroyed." Loki said with a bitter chuckle.

"Huh, I always thought that you would get tired of being a King, that even if you became one, you would quickly realise that you were ill suited for it and given the state of all the Nine Realms at such a critical juncture, I think I can safely say that you, Loki, were not suited to be King because ruling is not just about enjoying one's life. It is the opposite of ruling and until you understand that, you will not be fit for ruling or anything important in life," He didn't know where the whole speech came from. It was as if his mind and body went on autopilot as words just tumbled out of his mouth in a perfectly clear cut, calm, and not at all patronising tone of voice.

He felt a flash of magic before Loki disappeared from his senses. Huh, that was new. He expected some verbal spat down or even a magical attack or a dagger in the back, both metaphorical and literal but outright fleeing from the situation? That was totally and utterly unexpected.

"....Well, if you had the deepest, darkest realisation of your own failure thrown at you by someone who was an utter third party, then there will obviously be some….disturbances." An ethereal voice echoed all around him and yet, he could not move, not even twitch his fingers or conjure his barriers to figure out what was happening to him.

Time seemed to be frozen all around him, with even the waves of water not moving, that were visible from under the bridge and yet, he heard that same voice speak to him again.

"Ah, sorry for using you like this. Usually, it is against my rules to interfere but I made an exception this time. Sure, the Endless might gripe and moan about it but my duty means that I have certain leeway when it comes to, well, me,"

And there he was, in all his glory, Loki. Well, not the current Loki. The Loki who held what seemed like strands of green in both his hands, keeping them tied together, and yet, there was now another hand growing out from under his right hand, pointed straight at him.

How could he do this? Wasn't Loki supposed to be trapped for eternity, forever doomed to hold the timeline together and nothing else?

His mind raced in panic as he tried to figure things out. 

"Ah, that. Interesting concept, really but there is truly nothing to do here for eternity but hold the most fragile thing in the omniverse together. You know, after a few eternities, I grew bored and grew an extra arm to compensate for my, well, lack of arms," Loki, resting on his throne, which was more of a prison, chuckled and answered his questions that he hadn't even spoken out loud.

"Oh, I am so sorry," Loki said and waved his hand that was pointed at him, and suddenly, he could move again, breathe again, and even then, he knew that he was not really here. For one, he could not feel his powers or his connection to dimensional energy that was always all around him, even if he entered alternate dimensions.

"What are you doing here? What did you mean by using me?" He finally asked the only person who could provide him the answers, because he was pretty sure that Loki, this version of Loki, this utterly OP Hax of a Variant must have pulled him here for a reason.

"Jack Sullivan, you were pulled into this reality by someone who cannot be named and should not be touched but you see, it is so boring to be here, all by myself, for several eternities. So, I peered into your timeline because, you see, this was the first time I got to experience the work of your patron, and to my surprise, I found myself entertained. For some reason, despite your actions being anything but entertaining, I found myself thoroughly amused by your life,"

Amused? Entertained? What the fucK?!

"That led me to think that there was something else at play and what do you know, there was. This hand, it did not come for free. I had to sacrifice one of the fringe timelines and then burn all the souls in that timeline to get enough energy to create this limb and also to figure out why you were so amusing to me. Anyways, I have spoken too much anyway but it was just a spur of the moment thing, the words I spoke to my much stupider variant."

All he could do was stare stupidly at Loki who continued to babble on and on about something that absolutely was not on his mind, and certainly not on his agenda for the day.

Loki finally noticed something as he looked at him and then sighed, "I am so sorry, mother would kill me if she saw my manners but you see, I have been alone for so long and the Endless are not good company, or a good conversationalist, hence, the babbling. I too don't know why I did this."

Then Loki's eyes widened as he snapped his fingers on his free hand, "Oh! Oh by Odin's Beard, so it is like this. So, I have been controlled as well. Ah! So amusing. Truly, the one who cannot be named's ways are very handy,"

And then, as if the conversation he heard was not mind bending and needed more context, Loki snapped his fingers once again, blocking his vision with a sea of green before he found himself back in his body. He hurriedly tested his connection to his powers, dimensional energy and even to his astral form and sighed in relief when he found everything to be okay.

Damn, he thought, breathing heavily, that was bizarre.

Loki. Endless. God of Time. Third Limb. Sacrificing timelines, burning souls.

"What. THE. FUCK!" he muttered under his breath before a barrier covered his body and he flew straight towards his own quarters as if he owned the place, because he knew the place like the back of his hand now, having lived in it for over a week now.

He was about to enter the Guest Wing of the palace when he felt the magical tremor and then the actual tremor from the Royal Palace, the Royal Halls. His eyes narrowed as he probed deeper and despite it being essentially wartime, he was surprised that there were no enchantments up in the palace to stop any scrying on the palace itself.

"That's Eir," he said before he changed course and went straight to the Royal Hall. Something must have happened for a reaction like this and Eir was one of the Valkyrie before Hela killed them all.

Probably something related to that and as he pushed the Hall doors open, which had no guards, which was odd as well, he saw the scene that confirmed his fears.

Eir was standing in front of Hela, with Thor blocking her fist from reaching Hela's face, something that gave Hela no small amount of joy judging by the absolute smugness that radiated out of her. The fist was also glowing golden and he knew that, unlike the times Eir used her magic as a healer, this one was certainly not going to heal Hela back to her peak. This was probably one of those healer only fucked up spells that destroyed one from the inside. Too bad that even that would not be able to stop Hela now that she was on Asgard.

Already, he could feel Hela recovering and growing stronger, stronger beyond even his means to deal with, unless he used the Power Stone. She was practically unrecognisable from when he first saw her, when she had escaped her prison.

Now, she looked every bit as the Asgardian Royalty that she was. Beautiful green eyes, angular symmetrical face, shining hair, and a body appropriate of a Powerful Asgardian.

"Damn, you two do not look alike," He whistled as he made a joke, trying to lighten the mood.

Hela snorted and Eir's glare snapped to him as he stopped in his place, Thor pushing back Eir from Hela.

"Enough Eir, I do not expect you to heal her personally. Just to make sure that she is in her optimum condition for the duel."

And boy was that the wrong thing to say because Eir whirled around on Thor and for a moment, he felt as if Eir would attack the Regent himself and commit Treason but calmer heads prevailed and she stomped out of the room, each of her steps reverbing throughout the room.

"She's angrier than I remember her being," Hela commented and then raised her hands in surrender when Thor glared at her, and after throwing a look at him, left the Hall as well.

"Thor, if I may ask, why do this? You could have finished her back on Earth itself, why this long drawn out duel? We have more important things to worry about, like retrieving the premier weapons maker in all of the Nine Realms or worrying about threats like Thanos," He asked Thor, all but pleading to deal with Hela, or let him deal with Hela, however unlikely it might be, but Thor was adamant and now that the vow was sealed, there was not much that Thor himself could do without Asgard itself punishing him, as backlash for breaking the vow.

So, there he was, wasting his time on Asgard for something that might take days or even weeks, due to the wording of the vow which meant that unless both participants agree that they are in top condition, the duel won't begin.

So, he left.

And came to Earth.

Not informing anybody, he just went to Kamar Taj first and after seeing that everything was fine, except that Strange had still not arrived yet, moved on to the rest of the world. Keeping himself wrapped in the cloaking spell, he travelled around the world and found that things were chugging around smoothly.

The Accords were somehow a thing but they were nowhere near the human rights atrocity that they were in the canon timeline. Even still, he was going to take a public stand against anything mandatory or anything close to indefinite incarceration in the Accords but right now was not the time for that.

The Inhuman Village still existed, something that he would have to rectify soon, if they tried to make a move on humanity. Attilan was something he had not addressed and he would like Black Bolt's help in the upcoming battle but that was contingent on dealing with the cesspool that was Inhuman politics and without an absolute purge of the Genetic Council along with the execution of Maximus, there was no way he was ever going to trust the Inhumans from Attilan in any of the fights.

There were no overt moves from the Ten Rings, magical or otherwise so that was a dead end. 

Done with all the observation, he went over to Stark Tower by creating a portal that led to the penthouse, his way of declaring his arrival on the planet.

"Mr.Sullivan, welcome back to Earth. Mr. Stark is in LA at the moment but I have informed him and he should be free to be portaled here in some time. In the meantime, why don't you wait in the lobby," Jarvis welcomed him and opened the elevators for him.

"Ah, Jarvis, cancel the meeting with Tony. Tell him that I need some rest and will be in my quarters. Just wake me up in the evening,"

"Affirmative, sir."

He freshened up, and wasn't that a happy feeling? having modern toiletries, even though the Asgardian magical ones cleaned him just fine, and then went straight to the very expensive beddings installed in his quarters.

He meditated, while in his sleepy position and in no time at all, he was asleep.

__xx__

Meanwhile, Back on Asgard

"Why have you come here, Hela?" Thor asked Hela who was kneeling on the ground in front of the place that once used to be the Wastelands. His fury had damaged some of it but he could see that the Wastelands were reclaiming even the magical energy in the remnants of the attack, to fuel its expansion. Thor really wondered how Heimdall survived in this hellscape for years.

"You know that a demon Prince, from one of the seven Hells, is responsible for this wasteland?" Hela asked Thor, still kneeling with one of her hands trying to dig into the ground for some reason.

"Yes, I am aware that a demon was sealed here and that is the reason this place has no vitality and is in a state of constant decay," Thor informed her from what he had learned by going through the Royal Archives.

"Ah, so you do know some things. See, the demon was not defeated by Odin alone but my mother was the one helped in sealing the demon. Odin was tired from battle and caught off guard by a demon ambushing him in Asgard itself so he was unable to mount a proper offense. My mother was the one who gave her life, sealing the demon in the lands forever, stripping his mind from his body but she didn't manage to remove his magic from his body, forever haunting these lands from the Prince's attribute of decay," Hela informed Thor about it and he was taken aback at that.

He had no idea.

Hela then suddenly stood up, "Well, stand back, brother, you are about to see me in action and since the vow hasn't acted up yet, it means you don't believe the wastelands to be part of Asgard. Good. Makes things easier."

Thor then watched as Hela raised her hand, creating a sword which she then stabbed into the ground, then creating cracks in the ground leading up to the wasteland. The decay, coloured brown, tried to fight back against the encroaching Green and Black and it was about to win when Hela conjured yet another sword and with a grunt of exertion, thrust it into the ground as well, panting with exertion as she was expelling almost all of her magic into the ground, so as to "kill" this wasteland, once and for all.

Thor, having the same goal, placed one of his hands on her shoulder, making Hela look up in confusion, "Wha–"

Hela's words were stuck in her throat as Thor's immense magical power was pumped into Hela, as a look of amazement and then realisation turned into horror as Thor's power overwhelmed the magic of the wasteland and they watched as the Green and Dark covered the entirety of the wasteland mountains, leaving behind no trace of the magic of Demon Prince that had been haunting this place for centuries.

"Do it," Thor commanded softly, taking a step back and Hela complied, almost reverentially.

She placed both of her hands on both the swords' hilt and then uttered one word, "Die!"

And just like that, the stories of horrors that was the decaying wasteland where Odin threw his most hated prisoners, was destroyed, by Hela Odinsdottir, General of Asgard, and Goddess of Death.

Word Count - 2623

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