[center][img]https://cdn.marvel.com/content/1x/004tho_com_mas_mob_03.jpg[/img][/center][indent][sub][color=gray][b]UOU Presents:[/b][/color][color=lightgray] THOR, GOD OF THUNDER[/color][/sub][sup][right][b][color=gray]ISSUE #2:[/color][/b] [color=lightgray]Heart of Ice [/color][/right][/sup][/indent][hr][indent][color=lightgray][sub][b]Winchester Point [color=red]♦[/color] Alaska [/b][/sub][/color][/indent]
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Thor didn't know how long he knelt in the snow beside Mjölnir. Memory was a prison unto itself in this dark crevice under the earth: Thor could play at doing things different over and over again until the end of time. That is, he once could have- now that he was stripped of his hammer, his godhood was more frail than ever before. Winter's bite was now a threat he could not ignore. So he summoned what strength remained to him and rose, setting forth into the lonely dark.

The land opposed him at every step. Snow clung to his boots like the clawing hands of the damned in Hel. It was hard to navigate here by night, even with the Bifrost lingering. It was somehow too blinding to behold directly yet too dim to light his way. All Thor could do was pick a random direction and pray fate was kind to him. Thick forest blocked his way, forcing him to bend beneath canopies or tear them up with his hands. Both were obnoxious novelties to the God of Thunder- he couldn't remember the last time he [i]walked[/i] somewhere. Thor was the living storm. The sky was his domain.

"I deserve this," he reminded himself, "if not worse."

[sub]'God of Thunder...'[/sub]

The voice scratched at the edge of his consciousness. Thor spun around with the force of a whirlwind, the snow around him flung into the sky in a twelve foot radius. Shadows leapt across the trees; the suggestion of wolves racing across the moonlight. No, not quite wolves. The shadows walked upright, as if they were men. Men formed of beast flesh. His fingers brushed against his side where Mjölnir once hung. When they found nothing but air they clenched into a fist. Fine. He may be without his weapon but it was not required to fell these monsters. He would tear them apart with his hands if necessary.

"Who dares challenge the Prince of Asgard?" Thor stepped forward, holding his head high against an unseen foe.

[sub]'Prince of Conquest. God of Death. Drenched in so much blood it could extinguish the sun. You truly are your father's son.'[/sub]

Thunder roiled. Thor took another step forward, casting his gaze all around him to the empty woods. "Who are you? Who dares invoke my father's name with such lies?"

"S-stay away f-from me!" Someone screamed in the distance, and a loud bang followed. Thor tore his attention away from the bestial shadows to look. Perhaps a hundred paces away from him he could see the dull glow of what must've been lantern light. Its cone of light was pointed southward away from him, low to the ground and unmoving.

"Who goes there?" Thor shouted.

He waited several seconds for a reply. Only the howl of the wind called back.

Glancing back around at the trees, Thor found the shadows of the Man-Beasts gone. Even as he made his way to the light, he was careful not to keep his back turned to the dark for too long. Something was lurking in these woods- something all too malevolent for his liking.

The lantern had fallen in a stream bed frozen over by the storm. Thick brush gathered on other side of the stream, though the forest was not so dense with trees here. Thor stepped through the brambles, bending low to take up the device. It was like nothing he had ever seen: small, able to fit easily into the palm of his hand, and behind the glass face was no obvious flame to cast this light. He could sense the pulses of electricity contained within. His brother, Balder, once showed him a similar device he had found on a place called 'earth' in the realm of Midgard.

Searching the area with the the strange lantern, Thor spotted an iron club a dozen paces up stream. It was a metal rod stuck fast to a carved wooden handle. There were mechanical switches of unknown purpose near the grip. Mortal weaponry, he assumed. Casting the light further, he found a break in the ice. The brushes up the nearby bank were crushed and there were marks in the snow. Heavy, dragging prints, like something was carried this way. Thor bent low. He cast his light to the break in the frozen stream. Blood stuck fast to the jagged edge of the ice, yet he saw no body in the water. Perhaps the mortal had dragged himself out?

"Hear me: if you yet live and seek respite from your woes, reveal yourself. I will guide you from these woods. You have my solemn word."

[sub]'You won't leave these woods alive, butcher.'[/sub]

Thor bristled. "Who [b]dares[/b]-"

A sharp pain shot through his shoulder, seizing his voice in his throat. Thor looked down to see four razor-tipped claws sticking through his breastplate, coated with golden god-blood. The attacker pushed Thor down into the stream with a terrible strength. Ice shattered, and freezing cold water rushed down Thor's open gullet, choking him.

The god writhed, unable to find anything solid to push himself up against. His attacker wrapped its other clawed hand around his head to keep it beneath the surface. It must've had the strength of a frost giant to render Thor so helpless against it.

[sub]'Let us see if gods can drown, shall we?'[/sub]

Darkness crept at the edge of Thor's vision. He kicked against the ice above him, trying to find purchase against it, only for it to shatter at the slightest pressure. His hands groped for the bottom of the stream bed, finding nothing. It was disorientating. Hardly could he tell up from down in the nearly pitch-black water. Indignation raged like a tempest in his breast. This was the peak of his humiliation. Cast from Asgard, stripped of his birthright and weapon, and now he faced death at the hands of some Midgardian beast. It was going to drown him. He who had soared in the space between stars. He who had commanded stormy seas for fifty thousand years. He was to be bested by a brook.

[i]'Is this what mine actions have wrought? Am I owed such indignity, father?'[/i] He thought, consciousness slipping away.

A sudden, distorted bang sounded from above him. The weight on his back lessened as the claws vacated his shoulder. Another bang, followed by an inhuman roar. 

In the seconds before his consciousness fled down river, Thor threw his fingers upward. They found purchase against a stone on the bank. With all the power remaining in his muscles, he dragged himself up and up and up until his head finally breached the surface. Thor took a desperate breath.

"You are one ugly sonofabitch, aren't you?!" Keith Kincaid shouted. He was scrambling backward up the stream bank, tearing through the brush as he tried to force another shell into the shotgun.

The man-beast loomed. It must've been over ten feet tall, all wiry muscle and bone. Dark red fur hung to its frame like a too-big coat. Its claws were huge, dangerous looking things, hanging from thin arms that were so long they dragged against the ground. Bony protrusions of half-formed hands littered its sides. The worst part was its face, though: its face was Wilford's, split straight down the middle in a gory heap so a wolfish maw could peak out. Even covered in blood and transformed into this horrible thing, Kieth recognized the old man's pale blue, paranoid eyes.

"Jesus. Wilford? Is that- don't-"

The thing that used to be Wilford leapt on Keith before he could fire again. Keith screamed. It pinned him down under its weight, one claw wrapped around the arm Keith was using to hold the gun, and the other outstretched behind it, ready to strike.

A fist seized the upraised claw. Keith could see the drowning man better in this light: he was tall, broad, and built like Arnie in [i]Conan the Barbarian.[/i] His long, blond hair was matted against his scalp, and there was a fury in his eyes unlike anything Keith had seen before.

"Nay." Thor snarled. "Not him. Me. I am not done with you yet."

Twisting his body around, Thor lifted the Man-Beast off its feet and flung it into a tree fifty feet away. The monster flew so fast it was a blur before Keith's eyes, and when its body impacted the trunk exploded into splinters. The force of the blow sent out a shockwave that rocked the forest.

[sub]'You are not worthy of your strength. You never were. Murderer. Kinslayer.'[/sub]

"I will not be mocked by some abomination!" Thor bellowed. He jumped, taking to the sky for dozens of feet before coming back down on the Man-Beast, feet first. Snow and dirt and splinters exploded in every direction. 

[sub]'You were cast aside for a reason.'[/sub]

Thor slammed a fist down against the monster's maw. "You-"

[sub]'He only ever loved you.'[/sub]

He punched it again. Teeth shattered like glass. "Do not-"

[sub]'And you killed him for it.'[/sub]

And again, blood splattering against the snow. "Know me!"

Again, again, and again once more. Every blow struck sent another wave of debris flying. Every tree for a few dozen meters lay on its side. Blood caked Thor's fists and chest. Beneath him was an unmoving pile of meat, lying in a crater that hadn't been there moments ago. Thor heaved every breath, falling to his knees atop the corpse. He loosed a long, pained howl that echoed across the valley.
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