A line of messengers could be seen with their armor dusty and their faces haggard. They had arrived moments ago and now stood before the All-Father. One, a scout from the fringes of the galaxy, spoke with a voice that cracked from exhaustion. "It is no longer just the Nine, my King. Reports from the Kree border and the Shi'ar fringes say the same. Dark, needle-like ships drop from the void, snatching up entire settlements. The 'Rabids', those mindless, gray-skinned husks are being deployed as shock troops. They have started to cull once more your majesty. And the disappearances have increased tenfold in the last moon alone."
Odin narrowed his eye, his grip on Gungnir tightening. "The unrest is spreading like a plague," the All-Father rumbled.
Thor, leaning against a pillar with his arms crossed, let out a frustrated huff. "The Rabids... the same filth we drove back during the Vanaheim incursion. They fight without fear or soul, throwing themselves onto blades just to clog the gears of our defense. If their numbers are growing this fast, we may be facing another incursion soon enough."
THOOM.
Odin slammed the base of his spear against the floor, silencing the murmurs. "Then we shall meet the fiends with fire. Tighten the security around the realms. No vessel enters the Nine without my permission. Every realm is to mobilize their local militia, and the Einherjar will be stationed at the most vulnerable hubs."
In the quiet corner of the hall, Gojo stood leaning against a tapestry, his hands in his pockets. Lady Sif stood beside him, her armor freshly polished but her expression grim.
"Hey," Gojo whispered, his side-eye catching her gaze beneath his white lashes. "How long has this 'Rabid' problem been a thing?"
Sif didn't look at him at first, her eyes fixed on the messengers that had come to deliver the grave news in the center of the room. After a beat, she turned her head slightly. "It began as a whisper a few years back. Small colonies on the edge of the galaxy vanishing. We thought it was pirates or the Sakaaran slavers. The abductions were unnoticed... until the silence became too loud to ignore. Then the attacks started happening bit by bit, escalating until they dared to touch Vanaheim."
"Until it became a problem, huh?" Gojo finished for her.
Sif nodded curtly. "An infestation we cannot find the nest of."
"Why kidnap them, though?" Gojo mused, placing a hand under his chin and closing his eyes. "If you want to conquer, you kill. If you want resources, you take the land. Kidnapping thousands of people is a lot of... logistics. What's being done to them?"
"We do not know yet," Sif admitted. "There has been no ransom. No survivors found."
"Hmm." Gojo's Six Eyes were processing the data, linking the scout's reports to the combat data Sif was giving him. "Let's do some math here. You have thousands of people going missing, and you have thousands of mindless 'Rabid' soldiers appearing out of nowhere. Tell me, would you say the number of abductees and the number of those grey things are... roughly equal?"
Sif paused, her eyes widening as the weight of the suggestion hit her. "I... I don't know the exact count, but the scale is similar. Why?"
"Think about it," Gojo said, his voice dropping into a cold, logical tone as he closed his eyes. "They aren't being taken for ransom from no demands have been made. Not that entities who know nothing more than destruction could possibly demand a ransom so the only other explanation is that they are being used as the raw materials. Whoever is behind this is running a factory. You take a human, or a Kree, or a Vanir, you strip away the soul, pump them full of whatever necro-tech or magic makes those Rabids move, and boom, you have an instant, loyal army that doesn't need to be paid or fed. Do you understand what I'm saying sir? They aren't missing anymore because they've already been found. They're just pointing their swords back at you now."
The logic was chillingly sound.
As Gojo opened his eyes, he realized the room had gone silent. He looked up to find everyone, the scouts, the warriors, and even Odin himself staring at him.
Gojo blinked, a sarcastic smirk playing on his lips. "What? Did I say the quiet part out loud? Don't mind me, I'm just the 'arrogant' Midgardian. Please, go back to discussing your border patrols."
From her seat beside the throne, Queen Frigga leaned forward, it would seem she was also considering the same thing Gojo had said and saw sense in the dedication. "The boy speaks a point, my Lord," she said softly to Odin. "It matches the readings of the Star-Bloom. The magic of those creatures, the ones we have been able to dissect... it tastes of stolen life."
Odin looked at Gojo for a long, unreadable moment. He didn't thank him, but he didn't dismiss him either.
"Proceed as I have ordered," Odin commanded the room, his voice brooking no further delay. "Increase the guard. If we are fighting our own people, then we must find the hand that holds the leash."
————
Thor and Gojo navigated the high-arched corridors toward the palace exits. Thor was practically beaming, his stride heavy and rhythmic.
"A fine deduction, Satoru!" Thor boomed, clapping a massive hand onto Gojo's shoulder. "To see the truth of the Rabids so clearly... even my father's advisors were dancing around the point. You have a mind for strategy that rivals the tacticians of the Einherjar."
Gojo chuckled, his hands lazily tucked into his pockets as he glided beside the God of Thunder. "Relax, big guy. I'm pretty sure your old man already had that figured out. I just saved him the breath of explaining it."
Thor blinked, slowing his pace. "You think the All-Father knew? Why do you say that?"
"Body language, Thor. Watch the way he gripped that toothpick of a spear when I mentioned the 'factory' idea," Gojo said. "He didn't look surprised; he looked annoyed that the secret was out. A King like Odin? He's already put two and two together. He's likely just scanning his mental 'enemies list' to see which of his old rivals is depraved enough to turn his subjects into organic warriors."
Thor sighed, his expression softening into one of pride for his father. "He carries the weight of the Nine on his shoulders. Sometimes he forgets that his sons and his court can help carry the load."
"Yeah, well, he should try a spa day sometime," Gojo replied sarcastically. "Or maybe just a hobby that doesn't involve eternal vigilance. It's bad for the complexion."
But then, the levity vanished. Gojo stopped dead in his tracks, his head tilting toward the distant horizon where the Bifrost shimmered. The playful smirk on his face evaporated, replaced by a cold, calculating stillness.
"Thor," Gojo said, his voice dropping an octave. "If whoever is behind this is harvesting people on a galactic scale, we have a massive problem. And I'm not just talking about the Nine."
Thor turned back, sensing the shift in the air. "What do you mean?"
"Earth," Gojo stated firmly. "Humans are genetically malleable. Between the X-Gene, the history of super-soldier serums, and the sheer chaotic potential of Midgardian DNA, we are basically a premium buffet for anyone looking to build an army of Rabids or whatsoever. It's only a matter of time before these ships set their sights on my backyard, if they haven't already started snatching people from the shadows."
The realization hit Thor as well. The vulnerability of Midgard was its greatest curse. "You speak the truth. If the whoever is behind this needs people, the teeming billions of your home are a tempting choice."
"Exactly," Gojo narrowed his eyes. "And I don't like people touching my stuff."
"There is only one way to be certain," Thor said, his eyes turning toward the Rainbow Bridge.
Gojo raised a white eyebrow. "And let me guess... he's big, gold, and sees everything?"
"Heimdall," Thor confirmed.
Gojo let out a sharp, amused bark of a laugh. "Ohhhh, yeah. The cosmic peeper. The guy who watches the whole multiverse and probably knows exactly what I had for breakfast three years ago." He shook his head, his smirk returning with a sarcastic edge. "Well, let's go see the man with the ultimate Ring doorbell. I've got some questions for the guardian."
Without another word, Thor called a gust of wind to his feet, and Gojo simply stepped into the air, the two of them blurring into streaks of gold and blue as they soared toward the Bifrost observatory.
————-
The grey skies of London were a stark contrast to the shimmering gold of Asgard, but the atmosphere on Earth was no less heavy. Three months had passed since the "white haired hero's Incident," and the world was still reeling. It wasn't just the physical damage that was the problem, though the reconstruction of the areas leveled by the Annihilator's army was crawling at a snail's pace, it was the existential shift.
Leaked satellite footage, courtesy of an encrypted source that even S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't trace, had shown the world the impossible. They saw the "Honored One," a white-haired figure who moved with the casual elegance of a god, trading blows with a chitinous nightmare that the databases identified as Annihilus. The energy signatures from that day had peaked so high they had literally warped the spatial curvature of the planet; for a few seconds, the Earth's orbit had groaned under the weight of sheer, condensed power of those two entities.
Jane Foster sat in a restaurant, trying her best to focus on the man sitting across from her. Richard was nice, charming, and most importantly not an alien prince. But her mind was miles away, drifting toward the empty space in the stars where Thor used to be.
"So," Richard said, leaning in. "Is it always this quiet in London, or am I just lucky?"
Jane offered a tight smile. "Lately, 'quiet' is a relative term."
The world was different now. The "Cosmic Bloom," as Reed Richards had dubbed the lingering energy from Gojo's battle, had left Earth saturated with a persistent, exotic radiation that defied conventional physics. Even the Fantastic Four had been unable to contain the "Purple" residue found at the battle's epicenter; it simply existed, a hole in reality that refused to be patched.
The date was cut short by the frantic tapping on the window. Darcy Lewis stood there, holding a tablet and looking like she'd just run a marathon through a library.
"Jane! We have a problem. A big, beep-y, science-y problem!" Darcy shouted through the glass, ignoring the glares from the other patrons.
Jane stepped outside, pulling her coat tight. "Darcy, I'm in the middle of something. Is it the equipment again? I told you, the background radiation from the New York fight is going to mess with the sensors for years."
"No, no, no," Darcy said, shoving the tablet into Jane's hands. "This isn't background noise. These signals? They haven't been this clean since the 'Honored One' hit space three months ago. But look at the modulation."
Jane's eyes widened as she scrolled through the data. The energy readings were spiking in a rhythmic, oscillating pattern. It was the same excessive release of cosmic energy that had warped the sky over London during the invasion, but there was a secondary signature buried underneath it.
"It bears a resemblance to New Mexico," Jane whispered, her heart skipping a beat. "The Einstein-Rosen Bridge."
"Exactly," Darcy said, leaning in. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is going crazy. They tried to send a team from the Baxter Building to check it out, but Reed Richards told them the space-time fabric is too brittle to touch. It's like the energy the white haired guy had left behind is acting as a catalyst, thinning the walls between worlds."
Jane looked back through the window at Richard, who was politely sipping his wine, blissfully unaware that the universe was beginning to fray at the edges again.
"Richard," Jane said, stepping back inside with a sheepish, apologetic look. "I am so, so sorry. But I think I'm going to need a raincheck. Something... astronomical just came up."
"Is it the end of the world again?" Richard asked with a resigned sigh.
"I'm hoping it's just a very loud 'hello'," Jane replied, already turning to follow Darcy toward the van.