[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 #6:[/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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"This is crazy. Look, I know I called everything before this crazy too. But this?" Keith Kincaid held up his chunk of obsidian in one hand and a bottle of superglue in the other. "This is truly, bonafide nutsoville shit."

That was the eighth and last of the black stones they needed for Ratatoskr's ritual to work. Jane triple-checked her work with a level and measuring tape: every stone had to be precisely eighteen inches from another stone, and they needed to be utterly and completely flat against the door frame. Thresholds played an important function in the World Tree's magic. If anything was even half a centimeter off, the threshold would be broken and their spell could fail- leaving Jane and Keith in deep shit with no one left to bail them out.

"Get it up there. We don't have much time." Jane glanced over her shoulder down the hallway. Still no sign of the creature.

She could hear the distant popping of tiny explosions, and a high-pitched voice squealing battle cries. Jane never would've guessed that she was going to put her life in the hand's of a talking squirrel, but here they were. Only an hour before Jane's world was a little simpler. Yes, monsters were real and they were trying to consume her for biomass. And yes, a guy who could probably brenchpress a tank was fist-fighting said monsters dressed like an extra from Hamlet. 

Weird, sure, but not world shaking. Just two nights ago on the Daily Planet, she watched an impossibly fast woman lose a fight to a dork in condiment-themed spandex. A human fireball's bare ass was front page news according to the New York Post. This was just the world they lived in now.

Thor? Thor was different. He wasn't just a mutant with delusions of grandeur as Keith insisted. If he was, he couldn't have summoned the talking squirrel that knew all the secrets of the universe. Ratatoskr had a better grasp on quantum physics than her professor at MU did. The little guy could turn a medicine cabinet into a portal to another universe.

Realm. They were [i]realms,[/i] which weren't quite the same concept. Some of the realms were just higher dimensional realities that were technically still part of their universe. Apparently.

"Got it," Keith nodded, slapping his stone to ensure it was securely adhered to the frame. The moment his stone was in place the rune carved into its surface lit up. It burned the color of sunrise. 

Jane stepped away from the door, flinching at the heat radiating off of it. "Well, he did say it'd be obvious if it worked."

"Time for the fun part." Stepping to the other side of the hall, Keith retrieved the pair of rifles leaning up against the wall. He tossed one to Jane and checked the magazine on its own.

Fun was a relative concept at the best of times. Some people thought watching baseball for ten hours in a freezing cold stadium was fun. Other people were normal. Jane wasn't sure anyone thought fleeing from the many-toothed maw of a corpse demon was fun.

She ran as fast as her legs could carry her. Every muscle in her calves was burning, but stopping for even a moment meant that [i]thing[/i] catching up to her. Not happening. Jane stumbled around the corner, catching herself on the rifle. 

Keith stopped beside her and turned, firing off wild pot shots at the mound of gibbering flesh filling the hallway. Every bullet struck home. Blood squirted from the impact wound, mixed with a heaping of puss and something less easily identified. It didn't so much as flinch. "Fuck you!" Keith screamed, letting the empty magazine drop to the floor as he slammed in a replacement.

"Go!" Jane jumped up, grabbing Keith by the sleeve to physically drag him away. He got the message and started running again. Even at her fastest, she couldn't keep up with him: Keith never really dropped the workout regime when he left the army. Jane hadn't ran consistently since track and field; the pain in her side wouldn't let her forget it.

[color=2E2C2C][i][b]'JOINMEINHOLYUNIONMAYYOURBODIESBESACRIFICEDONTHEALTEROFMYPERFECTION! BENOTAFRAIDFORIAMMORETHANFLESHANDFANGIAMANCIENTIAMTHELAND'[/b][/i][/color]

Foul utterances just beyond her perception battered against Jane's mind like waves against a ship. She closed her eyes and focused on the task at hand. She must make her mind a fortress. Bar its gates and let none pass, for there was work to be done- that was Thor's advice. It seemed like a form of active meditation: Be a castle. Let the enemy break upon her walls. She hoped it worked.

Keith's tactic to avoid his sanity slipping away involved shouting every curse word in the English lexicon.

"Here we are!" Jane shouted, pointing ahead: the doorway they'd marked with rune stones was just ahead. It was time to dig in and find the last of her strength. All she had to do was get there. Afterward, it'd be up to the others.

"Last stop on the train to hell!" Keith grabbed the door handle and flung it open, a vanishing into a shimmering haze of blue. Jane leapt in a moment later. 

And the monster followed.
[hr][indent][color=lightgray][sub][b]Brimstone Mountains [color=red]♦[/color] Muspelheim[/b][/sub][/color][/indent]
Every breath taken in the realm of Muspelheim burned Thor's lungs. The taste of ash was permanently upon his tongue, he feared. Not minutes after arriving did he strip off his coat, and less than forty-five minutes later his armor as well- he was quite literally roasting inside of it. It did him little good against a foe such as this. All Thor wore now was his crimson cape, fashioned with a rune of protection for a brooch. 

And a pair of braise to protect his dignity. He wasn't a [i]barbarian.[/i]

Above him, the sky blazed. Roaring fire stretched across a sunset colored sky in place of clouds. Indeed, the whole of this realm was cast in similar shades: looking out from the Brimstone Mountains he saw endless plains of cracked red rock, crossed with rivers of magma and lakes of boiling misery. In the far distance, he could see a great throne looming. Upon it sat the oldest living being in the universe, older even than the concepts of time or space.

Surtur. A primordial king, born aflame, asleep upon his throne.

Thor hoped it stayed that way for another million-odd years.

A shimmering doorway appeared on the mountainside beneath him, drawing his attention back to the task at hand. The ethereal door led to a small stone enclosure surrounded on all sides by steep cliffs. Ratatoskr had chosen their arena carefully, leaving no room for escape.

It slammed open, and his mortal friends came running into the arena at a breakneck pace. They complained of the heat loudly and immediately, but thankfully they had the good sense to keep moving. They crossed the dozen and a half paces to the other side, where a second doorway in the rock glowed to life. Keith ran straight through. Jane stopped at the threshold long enough to look up at Thor and give him a small, wordless nod before retreating through.

If all went according to plan, Ratatoskr would remove one of the rune stones from each door and trap Thor and his prey here.

Not the monster. Not a blasphemy of divinity and flesh.

Prey.

The thing fell onto its rotund belly moments after arriving in Muspelheim. Its horrific, pained wails were pathetic. It choked on sulfur and ash, and writhed in the immense heat of this awful place. If fire was its anathema then Surtur's domain would put its sinful fortitude to the test.

Thor stood from his hiding place among the rocks, looking down his nose at the wretched monster. "T'was foolish of me to ever fear you!" He laughed, drawing its many eyes up to him. "Here, in this awful place, is your truth laid bare: you are no different from any other monster I have hunted. Though you play at godhood, you tremble before your own mortality. You inhabit many bodies yet- the rest are gone, are they not? You are trapped here. Eternally bound to Muspelheim 'til Ragnarök wipes us all away."

[b][i]'NO'![/i][/b] Its thoughts resounded in Thor's head like the banging of a gong. [i]'You lie! You remain! Even as hopeless as you are we know you would not abandon yourself to this fate, son of Odin. Your arrogance will be your-'[/i]

"Ratatoskr has already seen the threshold rendered inert," Thor interrupted. "And he is oathbound to never open it again."

[i]'No...no....Why? Why would you damn us both?'[/i]

"You are a plague upon the realms. Your very existence defiles all you touch. I know not how you learned the tongue of the divine, nor what foul magic rendered your flesh so mutable. But it matters little. Fate placed me in the path of your destruction. It is my responsibility to see your tyranny ended. To avenge those mortal lives you snuffed out in pursuit of...what? Godhood?"

[i]'Evolution. Perfection. It is our purpose. The master has written so into our very essence.'[/i]

Thor set his jaw. "You will tell me of your master before I snuff out your life."

Every mouth on the creature chittered with mocking laughter: [i]'Make us.'[/i]

Steel leapt into Thor's hand as he stepped off the cliff-face. He brought his new axe down upon Man-Beast's rotten form, sundering a head off with a single blow. 

The woman's head, engorged on wolf-meat, rolled away when it hit the ground. It tried to repurpose its flesh to sprout legs and skitter away, but the heat of the rocks set fire to its blasted form near instantly. The thing melted from the inside, screeching in alien pain.

Thor did not pause his assault for a moment. Jarnbjorn sung with the eagerness of steel freshly forged. Enchanted by the brother-smiths Eitri and Brokkr, Ratatoskr claimed it could cut through anything. This would prove a fine test of that theory as Thor hacked, slashed and cut at the immensity of his assailant. 

Man-Beast stretched, thinning itself. The meat of its torso elongated and separated into numerous limbs, clawed hands grasping for Thor's throat. Few succeeded, slicing open thin cuts upon his neck and bare chest. The rest were carved apart. Their remains fell away to the rocks beneath their feet and caught aflame before they could rejoin the whole.

[i]'You fight with such hatred! What have we done to you, God of Thunder, to offend you so?'[/i]

"Butcher. Murderer." Thor grunted, slamming his fist into what remained of Russell's face. Now it resembled more of a bloodied chunk of hamburger slapped onto a human skull and cooking in the sun. "They deserved better deaths than this."

[i]'Ha! Hypocrisy turns your condemnation to ash in your mouth. I can feel the blackness of your heart, Thor. The guilt, heavy as an iron blanket on your shoulders. You think slaying me can absolve you of your crimes?[/i]

Jarnbjorn tasted Man-Beast's guts and found them wanting, so the axe spit them out upon the ground with a single cut. "It is a start!"

The monster's many hands flowed as one now, rushing for Thor's tree-trunk thick arms. Many of them were lost to the hunger of the axe, but not all. Enough made it past to take hold of his wrists and hold them apart. Render Thor unable to swing his devastating weapon, if only for a moment.

[i]'I have slain six men. You have taken countless lives in your eons. My death will be a single grain of sand on your misbegotten path to redemption.'[/i]

Thor raged against the hands that restrained him. The smoke-choked air of Muspelheim seemed to ignite inside his lungs, burning him with every breath. "Mine hands are stained, aye. Perhaps forever so. But my soul is not for you to judge, monster. My sentence is already passed and I intend to see it through."

"Blood e-enough...to extinguish...sun." It mocked with Russell's stolen voice. Its ribs broke through its chest cavity, sharpened to spear points. They plunged into Thor's body at every angle, entering his thigh, his side, his chest. One narrowly passed by his cheek, slicing it open as he bobbed to the side.

"Silence!"

Man-Beast's grasp shattered, and Thor lunged forward, axe held high. Lightning sparked along its Uru-forged edge. It had been too long since the storm raged in Thor's chest, but he could not let its return distract him: the battle was not yet over.

Another strike landed clean into its bulbous shoulder, and this time Thor did not slice it off: instead, he held Jarnbjorn fast, letting the lightning flow into Man-Beast's open wound. The creature spasmed. It stumbled on its too-thin feet. Seeing its struggle, Thor thought to relieve it of pain, and drove his other fist through its kneecap. The thing fell hard onto the stones.

It loosed a howl that could shake the world as it trembled upon the brimstone. "S-s-sssstop! STOP!"

"Your master. Who is it?" Thor asked, placing his boot upon the thing's last remaining head. Russell's.

"Nnnever t-t-tell. F-fates worse t-than...dddeathh f-f-for traitors." It hissed. "Y-you should k-know, kin-kinslayerrr."

Thor turned away from the broken thing to look toward the sky once more. To witness its blazing horizon, knowing he would never see the night sky again. "I was unsure I could best ye. That was why I refused when Ratatoskr offered to witness our battle. If you had consumed mine form, I fear you may have seized Yggdrasil's guardian as well. I can only imagine what a thing like you could do with access to the World Tree."

"Y-youuu could havee...lefttt m-me here. W-when t-those m-mortals b-baited me t-through. D-doomed yours-yourself for n-nothing."

He looked back down at Man-Beast, smiling. "And deprive myself of the satisfaction of your demise?"

It laughed. "A-arrogant even t-to th-the end!"

Thor pressed his boot harder down upon its skull. Its laughter turned to pained cries and desperate pleading for mercy. Then came the crack of bone, and the wet crunch of brain matter to follow. And finally, silence.

"I've had quite enough of your bleating."

[center][h3][b]HEART OF ICE: THE END.[/b][/h3][/center]
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