As if Odin didn't already have enough problems, Thor chose that exact moment to invade Jotunheim and start a war with the Frost Giants.
Odin was furious.
By the time Thor returned, he fully intended to beat some sense into him and throw him onto Earth for a while.
With Drex Valen absent from the planet, it was the perfect opportunity.
Thor needed to learn how to become a king.
Unfortunately, Odin's parenting philosophy was questionable at best.
Honestly, the entire Asgardian royal family seemed to raise children through trial by catastrophe.
Hela should have been enough of a cautionary tale already, yet Odin still refused to learn from his mistakes. Thor only avoided becoming a second Hela because he lacked the patience and intelligence for calculated tyranny.
Odin genuinely seemed to believe Thor would somehow mature naturally into the ruler Asgard needed.
Why he possessed that level of confidence remained a mystery.
Meanwhile, Drex truly hadn't been back to Earth in a very long time.
At this point, he only returned when he happened to remember the planet existed.
Running the Kryptonian Empire was far more entertaining.
It was basically a real-time cosmic strategy game now.
Except the map was an entire universe.
Beyond the Grey Knights and Black Knights, Drex had also begun creating another military division.
The Berserker Courts.
Unlike the Grey Knights, Berserkers carried no ranged weapons whatsoever.
They specialized entirely in close-quarters combat.
Every suit of Berserker armor was heavily inspired by Predator technology and aesthetics, though vastly upgraded through Imperial engineering.
Their equipment was absurdly extravagant.
Adamantium wrist blades.
Retractable spears.
Monomolecular whip-blades similar to the ones used by Wolf Predators, capable of wrapping around targets before tearing them apart during retraction.
Smart discs.
Throwing blades.
Axes.
Swords.
An entire arsenal of melee weaponry forged almost entirely from adamantium.
But only truly elite veterans were permitted to wear Berserker armor.
Drex had also designed an exclusive weapon for the Black Knights.
The Black Cleaver.
The axe head consisted of pure adamantium.
The shaft and grip were forged from vibranium to eliminate recoil and kinetic backlash completely.
On top of that, the weapon functioned as a high-frequency vibration blade.
The result bordered on ridiculous.
Even Black Knight armor could probably have its outer adamantium layer split apart by it.
A genuine technological relic weapon.
After all, Wolverine's adamantium claws could damage Mjolnir itself under the right circumstances.
And those weren't vibrating at ultrasonic frequencies.
Drex strongly suspected the Black Cleaver might literally split Thor's hammer in half.
Once he finished handling Imperial matters, Drex finally returned to Earth.
"Drex..."
The moment Urd saw him, she wrapped her arms tightly around him.
"Where have you been? You disappeared forever."
"Forever?"
Drex looked genuinely confused.
Then he checked the date.
When he'd left Earth for space, it had been 2008.
Now it was 2010.
Two entire years had passed.
The strange thing was...
It didn't feel that long to him at all.
Maybe it was the distances involved.
Or the way time blurred while constantly traveling between worlds and star systems.
Either way, Earth had apparently kept moving without him.
During those two years, Drex had barely paid attention to the planet's affairs.
He reviewed the archived reports stored by Black Queen's secondary intelligence instance.
The war between the Monster Association and the Divine Sword Bureau was still ongoing.
Two full years of conflict.
A growing number of Demon-level monsters had been eliminated, and even several Dragon-level monsters had finally been killed.
More importantly, the Bureau seemed close to locating the Monster Association's headquarters.
At the Divine Sword Bureau headquarters, most personnel still believed Director Drex Valen had been present the entire time.
Black Queen's sub-intelligence had managed things perfectly using the Dark Knight armor as a proxy.
Nobody realized the real Drex had been gone for years.
At that moment, however, Tony Stark's newly developed energy detection network picked up a bizarre anomaly in New Mexico.
"Well," Tony said over the comms, "looks like something weird fell onto Earth again. Anybody interested in checking it out?"
The S-Class heroes connected to the network exchanged glances.
"I'll go."
Bruce Banner volunteered immediately.
Ben Grimm was currently enjoying his honeymoon with his new wife, leaving Banner as the easiest option.
Honestly, Banner and the Hulk had both been unusually content lately.
The Hulk no longer caused random problems.
Banner didn't have to constantly worry about losing control around Betty.
In fact, Hulk had become almost lazy unless there was fighting involved.
Though before leaving Earth, Drex had given Banner one extremely serious warning.
His gamma radiation levels were still dangerously unstable.
If he and Betty got overly enthusiastic in bed without proper shielding...
Best case scenario, she mutated into something like Red She-Hulk or the Harpy.
Worst case?
She died.
Truthfully, Drex was mildly curious about seeing another member of the Hulk family emerge.
But the odds of fatal radiation exposure were too high to gamble on.
"I'm coming too," Emil Blonsky added immediately.
He never missed an opportunity for combat.
New Mexico.
Puente Antiguo.
A small mining town with barely a thousand residents.
The Divine Sword Bureau secured the area with impressive speed.
"Anomalous atmospheric activity confirmed," Coulson reported. "Two S-Class heroes have already arrived on site and transmitted visual evidence."
Images appeared across the monitor screens.
Strange circular markings scorched into the ground.
Runic symbols.
Patterns resembling ancient magical sigils.
Nick Fury stared silently at the images.
Coulson continued calmly.
"There were also three civilian witnesses at the impact site. Apparently they hit a man with their vehicle shortly after the anomaly appeared."
"Tell me what the linguistics department found first," Fury said.
He already had a headache forming.
"The individual identifies himself as Thor. Son of Odin. God of Thunder."
Coulson remained perfectly expressionless while saying it.
"The symbols appear consistent with archaic Norse script variants."
Nick Fury hadn't even processed that information before Coulson continued again.
"There's also the hammer."
A second image appeared.
Mjolnir.
"We brought in industrial lifting equipment," Coulson said, "but nothing has managed to move it. We're currently preparing to excavate the surrounding ground and transport the entire section intact."
Fury stared at the screen for several long seconds.
A mysterious man claiming to be a Norse god.
An impossible hammer embedded in the desert.
Ancient runes burned into the earth.
This was somehow stranger than aliens.
"You're in charge of the operation," Fury finally said.
Coulson nodded and turned away.
Outside, agents in black tactical gear were already confiscating scientific equipment from a nearby research facility while establishing a full containment perimeter around the site.
The God of Thunder had arrived on Earth.
And nobody yet understood what that truly meant.
...
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