[You will be expelled from the realm in 1 second]
The blue screen flared in Aron's vision, but he ignored it completely. His fist was already hurtling forward, faster than the countdown could finish. He bet everything on that speed, death for Brokkr or divine interruption. The latter won.
Boom!
A shockwave erupted as something, someone, slammed between the fist and the skull.
[Realm transfer deactivated]
[Divinity Charge defused]
The blast hurled Aron and Sindri backward. Golden divinity crackled and fizzled out around his knuckles like dying embers. He exhaled slowly, shaking out his hand as the nullification settled in milliseconds.
Before him stood Freya, lush ginger hair radiating soft light, evergreen eyes locked on him with unreadable depth. The two dwarves stared in stunned silence, faces pale.
"Queen Freya!?" they exclaimed in unison.
Aron stepped back calmly, divinity bleeding off him in faint wisps. "Impressive timing," he said dryly. "I was starting to think you'd make me wait."
Listening to those crafty words, it didn't take long for the the dwarves to finally pieced it together, they had never been the true target.
"You devi-" Brokkr's mouth opened for a curse, but Freya's raised hand silenced him instantly. She positioned herself protectively in front of them. "What do you want this time, Aron? I thought we were finished with each other." Her voice carried a faint rasp, the handprint on her neck still lingered, dark and unhealed.
Aron forced rage aside. Logic had always served him better. And right now, the only path to Peter ran straight through the goddess of sorcery.
"My herald. Peter. You know exactly who took him. Tell me where Hermez went."
Freya's lips curved into a knowing smirk. "You really believe threatening my dwarves would sway me? The Aron I remember always played for the bigger board. Don't tell me this petty display is your endgame."
A heavy thud echoed, Khorn and Elyon burst through the shattered doorway, freezing at the sight: two legendary dwarves, the queen of Asgard, and their lord radiating restrained power. Elyon whistled low. "Holy hells, what a reunion."
Khorn ignored the spectacle, eyes scanning the blood-soaked restaurant. "My lord… is this..Peter?"
"Perhaps," Aron replied evenly. "But our best chance is that he's still breathing."
Freya tilted her head. "He is alive. But before you get hopeful, I'm bound. The All-Father's pact with Olympus forbids direct interference. Old nonsense, but binding."
Khorn stepped forward, red eyes blazing. "Can't, or won't? Asgardians always bend when it suits them."
The dwarves bristled. Sindri's hand tightened on his axe haft. "Watch your tongue, red one. You're addressing our queen here."
Elyon snorted. "Title doesn't make her invincible. You hoard mithril and orichalcum like scared misers, terrified someone else's genius might outshine yours. Pathetic."
Tension spiked. Khorn's hair ignited in yellow-white divinity. Sindri raised his axe. Auras clashed all to sudden, crimson fire against golden forge-heat.
"Enough!" Aron and Freya barked simultaneously, their combined voices slamming the room like thunder as all their auras shattered.
Aron gripped Khorn's shoulder firmly. "We need Peter more than we need vengeance right now."
She opened her mouth to protest.
"Not the time," he cut her off, turning back to Freya. She had already shoved the dwarves behind her.
"Freya."
She met his gaze warily as he approached. "What now? Planning to choke me again?"
"No." He leaned in close. His whisper brushed her ear, quiet, deliberate words that made her eyes widen progressively. When he pulled back, Freya stood frozen, lips parted, expression a mix of shock and dawning realization.
The dwarves exchanged uneasy glances. They had never seen their queen look so...rattled. "My queen?" Sindri ventured.
Freya blinked, refocusing. "…How?... What?" Questions burned behind her eyes, but she swallowed them. "If what you just told me is true…"
"It is. My word on it."
Silence stretched. Her shoe tapped once against the bloody floor. A long exhale. "I want to help you, Aron. Truly. But…" Her gaze slid to Elyon, the inventor whose creations already rivaled dwarven craft. "I want him too."
Elyon yelped and ducked behind Aron. "Me? Hell no!"
Aron's stare bored into Freya, heavy with old history. "You know I don't bargain. Or have you forgotten what happened last time?"
The aura rolling off him pressed against her soul. Even a goddess shivered faintly facing a divinity older than her whole pantheon. She recovered with a wry smile. "And yet you call me greedy." Turning to the dwarves: "Open the star forge. Now."
"But my que—"
"Now." Blood trickled from her nose again. She wiped it dismissively.
No further argument. Sindri and Brokkr produced golden keys which snapped together magnetically the moment they took it out, fusing into a single ornate relic. It floated, pierced the air.
Click.
Gradually so, A doorway tore open, eerily similar to the dimension knife Michael once gifted Aron. He couldn't help but be wary 'Asgard advances quickly,' he noted, stepping through with Khorn and Elyon close behind.
Inside: no walls, no ceiling. A vast emerald hill under an impossibly close sun. Heat should have incinerated them, yet a protective veil held. Elyon stared upward in awe at the blazing orb and the shimmering magical conduits channeling its white fire directly to the forge below.
"That's how they work mithril and orichalcum," he breathed. "Pure stellar essence from a sun. White fire, the rarest, strongest flame."
Khorn drifted toward the forge's edge, mesmerized by the searing glow as her hands readily wanted to touch it. The dwarves yanked her back roughly.
"Back off, girl! You want to burn to ash?"
She scoffed and returned to Aron's side. "My lord, why we here?"
"For Something that can track gods themselves." He faced Freya. "But it will cost you dearly, your vessel's integri—"
"Quiet," she snapped. "Don't give me time to reconsider."
She bit her thumb hard as Blood poured like a crimson cascade, pooling and swirling into an intricate Asgardian ritual circle beneath her feet.
[High divinity detected]
[Ritual of concession detected]
Aron watched, surprised at the depth of her commitment. He knew, from the previous timeline, what Freya truly sought: confirmation of the divergence, a sliver of leverage against the coming cataclysm. Not power now, but survival later.
As she channeled, hair glowing, eyes shut in concentration, the dwarves hammered furiously. White fire roared, melting mithril at impossible temperatures. They poured the molten metal into molds, shaping thin, elongated conduits.
Elyon leaned in. "Brilliant!! They're swapping the entire conduction array."
But Khorn's attention fixed on Freya. Blood now streamed from nose, ears. When Freya's eyes snapped open, glowing green, tears ran red too.
"My lord… is she dying?" Khorn whispered.
Aron said nothing, watching the goddess systematically wreck her mortal vessel. Empathy stirred, not for Freya, but for the human soul trapped inside.
The ritual faltered once. Freya staggered, the circle flickered, threatening collapse. White fire surged wildly, scorching the hill's edge. The dwarves cursed, hammering faster to stabilize the conduits before the overload consumed everything.
Freya gritted her teeth, forcing the magic back under control. "Not… yet."
Finally she rose, divinity condensed in her palms. She produced a fresh dragon eye, iridescent, pulsing. "This completes it." She poured every ounce of focused power into the eye.
The dwarves slotted it into the handheld scanner's core, linking it to the new conduits. Freya sealed the runes with trembling fingers.
"It's finished." She tossed the device to Aron with a weary smile. "My end of the bargain."
Aron caught it, thumbed it active. Range swept all of Greenland. Three distinct dots appeared, god-signatures.
"It works…"
"Of course," Brokkr grunted. "No sensors, no processors. Pure divine tracking."
Aron studied the dots: one here (Freya), one far east… and the third.
"Hermez." His voice hardened. "I'll use it well, Freya. And you'll get what you truly wanted, confirmation that the @#$$# has already shifted."
Freya could no longer speak as blood choked her words. She only nodded, waving weakly letting her remaining magic cast the gate to reopen back to the ruined restaurant.
Aron led the group out, pausing at the threshold. "You can let go now," he said quietly.
The gate sealed behind them.
On the other side, Freya collapsed instantly.
Cough-cough-cough!
Blood sprayed across the forge floor. Sindri and Brokkr rushed to her.
"My queen, why? Why!? For an enemy?"
She forced a bloody smile, pushing herself up on shaking arms, as she gazed back "Simple...i did it for the war coming. The one that will shatter everything, the one that will rein chaose in all realms."
Aron, already outside, activated the scanner again. One dot, Hermez—blinked erratically, moving fast. Peter's faint mortal signature flickered beside it, weak but present.
Aron's grip tightened on the device. Golden eyes burned with cold promise.
'Soon, Hermez. Very soon.'
He turned to the bloodied restaurant, voice low and lethal.
"This ends with blood."