The air directly ahead of Hela rippled and distorted, reality bending like heated glass as illusion magic unraveled and collapsed.
Two figures materialized from the shimmering veil of concealment: Cancer Thor and Cancer Loki, their corrupted forms bearing only grotesque resemblance to the brothers she'd once fought alongside during Asgard's glory days.
"Hela!" Cancer Thor's voice emerged rough and bestial, his grip tightening around Mjolnir's handle as he raised the hammer in a defensive stance.
His posture radiated wariness mixed with genuine confusion. The corruption ravaging his body hadn't entirely destroyed his tactical mind, and what he was witnessing violated every principle of cosmic law he understood.
"How were you able to kill Ronan?" The question carried accusatory weight, as if she'd cheated somehow, broken rules that should have been inviolate. "Your authority is insufficient! You're just a death goddess within a single pantheon—your power couldn't possibly supersede Death itself!"
His analysis was sound based on conventional cosmic hierarchy. Hela was merely one of countless death deities scattered across infinite mythological systems. Each pantheon maintained its own administrator of mortality: herself for the Norse realms, Hades for the Greeks, Anubis for the Egyptians, and hundreds more across dimensions and cultures.
They were powerful within their domains, certainly. But ultimately they were local authorities, middle management in the cosmic bureaucracy of endings.
Cancer Thor's corrupted mind still grasped this fundamental distinction. "Logically speaking, your blades should at most delay our regeneration! Cause our wounds to fester and corrode more slowly! But you cannot actually kill us—not permanently, not truly!"
The impossibility of what he'd witnessed—Ronan and his forces remaining genuinely, finally dead—contradicted everything the Cancer beings believed about their invulnerability.
"Who knows?" Hela shrugged with elegant indifference, the gesture simultaneously dismissive and theatrical.
She began to move, her steps light and graceful as if she were performing ballet rather than walking through a corridor lined with corpses. Each movement flowed into the next with practiced artistry, the deadly grace of someone who'd spent millennia perfecting the aesthetics of violence.
"I am no longer merely a goddess of death," she explained, her voice carrying notes of bitter irony. "That title and its associated authority were stripped from me long ago."
The admission held layers of complicated history. Back in Helheim, during her imprisonment, she'd fought desperately against various underworld factions for control of the Crown of Death. Her goal had been unification—bringing all of Niflheim's scattered power under her singular dominion, becoming not just a death goddess but the death goddess of the Nine Realms.
She'd failed because of Ben Parker.
He'd claimed the Crown of Death for himself, absorbed its authority, and somehow channeled that power into one of his alien transformations. The being called Eclipsian Swampfire now wielded death magic that should have been hers by right of conquest and divine heritage.
"The death power I possess now," Hela continued, her tone mixing resentment with grudging respect, "is merely feedback. A portion of authority returned to me after Ben became the Lord of the Nine Realms."
She shared his power now, a connection forged through cosmic hierarchy rather than personal choice. As the former death goddess of Asgard, as Odin's firstborn and the original conqueror of the realms, she maintained enough residual connection to death's fundamental principle that Ben's ascension had automatically granted her access to his authority.
It was charity, essentially. Scraps from the table of someone who'd claimed what should have been her throne.
"Which means," Hela said, her smile growing sharp and predatory, "it's Ben's power that grants me the ability to permanently kill you cancer-riddled abominations."
The implications crystallized with perfect clarity. Ben Parker was the true Coroner these fools had been seeking—the being closest to Death, the one with authority to execute mortality in a universe where Death itself had been murdered.
That idiot Lord Mar-Vell had captured some decoy, probably Thanos based on superficial analysis of who "felt" closest to death. He'd stupidly declared victory while the actual threat walked freely through his base, casually sharing lethal authority with his subordinates.
Go back to Gotham, kid, Hela thought with savage amusement. Batman won't beat you up anymore. You've graduated to getting killed by actual cosmic threats.
The mental joke pleased her immensely. The Cancer forces' strategic incompetence, their arrogant assumption that mere immortality made them invincible, bordered on comedic.
Ben Parker held so many titles, wielded so many different forms of power: Agent of Death through the Crown, Lord of the Nine Realms, Dimensional Lord of Genesis, wielder of the Omnitrix with access to reality-warping transformations, commander of the Plumbers with their vast military resources.
Considering all those advantages, Hela genuinely couldn't conceive of how their side could possibly lose this confrontation. The outcome seemed predetermined, victory assured through overwhelming superiority.
But what she wanted most right now, what made her blood sing with anticipation, was the immediate opportunity before her.
"Even though you're not from the same timeline as my actual brothers," she purred, her voice dropping into registers that promised violence and suffering, "I can still work out some aggression by cutting you down repeatedly!"
Her right foot stomped with explosive force, cracks spider-webbing across the metal floor as she launched herself forward. Her movement was graceful and deadly, her body flowing through space with the fluid precision of a dancer or an assassin.
The comparison that sprang to mind was the protagonist from Silksong—that graceful, lethal movement style that combined ballet with murder.
"Loki, engage!" Cancer Thor roared, his tactical instincts overriding the bestial corruption that had ravaged his higher reasoning.
He hurled Mjolnir with all his considerable might, the hammer trailing lightning and thunder as it screamed through the air toward Hela's skull. The throw was perfect, the aim flawless, the power behind it sufficient to pulverize mountains.
"Some people never learn from their mistakes," Hela observed with cool disdain.
Her hand shot up, fingers closing around Mjolnir's handle mid-flight. The impact should have shattered her arm, should have sent her flying backward through multiple walls. Instead, she absorbed the momentum effortlessly, her grip steady as stone.
This time she didn't crush the legendary weapon. She'd learned that lesson during her first conflict with Thor—destroying Mjolnir was dramatic but ultimately counterproductive when it just got rebuilt.
Instead, she pivoted smoothly, her entire body rotating to redirect the hammer's trajectory and multiply its returning force. The motion was economical, efficient, beautiful in its deadly simplicity.
"Return to sender," she whispered, releasing Mjolnir with augmented force.
BOOM!!!
Thunder exploded across the corridor with apocalyptic fury. Lightning cascaded in branching patterns that scorched walls and ceiling, the electrical discharge powerful enough to overload nearby systems and plunge entire sections into darkness.
Cancer Thor and Cancer Loki were caught in the direct blast, their corrupted bodies unable to withstand the concentrated divine power. They shattered like glass sculptures struck by hammers, fragments of corrupted flesh and bone scattering across the floor in a grotesque spray.
"You are pathetically weaker than my actual brothers," Hela declared, her voice carrying the cutting contempt of someone genuinely offended by substandard opposition. "You're like two rotten maggots wearing their faces! If Father could see what you've become, he'd be so ashamed he'd kill himself!"
She paused, considering that statement with clinical detachment. "Though perhaps the Odin of your universe is no different. Perhaps corruption is universal here, and even the All-Father succumbed to cancer's degradation."
The thought disturbed her more than she wanted to admit. Her father had been many things—tyrant, conqueror, hypocrite—but never weak, never pathetic.
Hela casually tossed Mjolnir aside like discarded trash, the legendary weapon clattering against the floor with ignominious lack of ceremony. Then she raised her hand and made a graceful downward gesture, as if conducting an orchestra through a particularly violent crescendo.
Several black blades materialized and plunged downward with surgical precision, pinning the regenerating forms of Cancer Loki and Cancer Thor to the floor like insects in a collector's display case.
They'd resurrect eventually. But they'd do it immobilized and helpless, trapped while she continued her rampage through the rest of this corrupted facility.
On the other side of the massive station, Looma Red Wind was engaged in her own campaign of systematic destruction.
She hadn't bothered donning the Destroyer Armor. That legendary construct, reforged by dwarven smiths and empowered by the Eternal Flame, represented overwhelming force suitable for fighting Celestials and cosmic-scale threats.
The corrupted rabble she was currently facing didn't warrant that level of response. They were trash, obstacles to be cleared rather than genuine challenges requiring her full arsenal.
The Ascalon sword remained secured across her back, its presence a constant weight that reminded her of the authority it carried. Ben had entrusted her with his personal weapon, a divine artifact that bore his power and authority.
The moment he'd handed her the blade, death's power had flowed into it, shared through the connection between weapon and wielder. Every life severed by Ascalon's edge would meet true finality, no resurrection possible, no escape from mortality's claim.
It was death manifest, fear given physical form, the twilight of all things condensed into razor-sharp metal.
But Looma still hadn't drawn it.
She simply didn't need to.
Her reforged divine hammer, infused with Sindra the Ash Queen's fire demon essence, served perfectly well for the current opposition. She swung it with boundless enthusiasm, unleashing cascading waves of flame and crackling lightning that repeatedly pulverized her enemies into unrecognizable debris.
How wonderful! Looma's thoughts sang with pure joy. Enemies who function as indestructible practice dummies!
They attacked in waves, shambling forward with the mindless determination of beings who'd forgotten what consequence meant. And she destroyed them systematically, hammer strikes reducing corrupted bodies to pulp, fire consuming what remained, lightning ensuring nothing could hide in the shadows.
The Cancer beings who'd attempted to overwhelm her through numerical superiority now resembled ground meat, their rotten corpses and scattered flesh mixed together in patterns that defied anatomical logic.
Even when making dumplings, Looma mused with dark humor, people don't chop the filling this finely.
Then a rough, bestial voice cut through the sounds of combat: "Get out of the way! You weaklings are no match for her! Let Hulk smash!"
The corrupted Hulk charged into view, his massive form accompanied by another twisted creature—a black, writhing thing that seemed more symbiotic horror than humanoid.
The other Cancer beings immediately cleared a path, their damaged instincts recognizing superior force and deferring to the strongest available combatant.
Looma studied the approaching Hulk with the analytical eye of a professional warrior, and disappointment colored her expression.
"Hulk? You've degraded into this pathetic state?" Her voice carried genuine disdain, insult radiating from every syllable.
She'd fought the Hulk before, during that mission to the Hydra-controlled universe. That version had been almost completely bestial, his higher reasoning suppressed by rage and trauma. But even in that diminished state, he'd been magnificent—a force of nature incarnate, strength that grew endlessly as anger fed anger in an infinite loop.
The creature before her now bore only superficial resemblance to that magnificent opponent.
"Calling this thing 'Hulk' feels like an insult to the name," Looma muttered. "It's closer to Abomination than Hulk."
"Hulk doesn't know you!" the Cancer Hulk roared, pounding his tumor-encrusted chest with fists that should have been devastating but merely looked diseased. "Hulk just wants to smash you to pieces!"
He charged forward like a tank, or perhaps more accurately like a drunk rhinoceros—powerful but clumsy, lacking the fluid grace that characterized the genuine article.
"Then come!" Looma gripped her hammer with all four hands, her Tetramand physiology allowing for leverage and torque impossible for lesser species.
She twisted her entire body, rotating almost halfway around, building momentum through perfect biomechanical form. Then she released, hammer swinging with the force of a meteor impact.
BOOM!!!
Lightning and fire converged on the Cancer Hulk's corrupted form. The combined elemental assault detonated with catastrophic effect, the Hulk's body exploding into a shower of rotten flesh and corrupted tissue that splattered across nearby surfaces.
Even Looma found herself taken aback by how easily he'd been destroyed.
So weak, she thought, genuine sadness creeping into her assessment.
The creatures inhabiting this cancerous universe were universally inferior to their original counterparts. The ever-proliferating cancer cells seemed to have replaced the cells of originally powerful physiques, making bodies fragile, brittle, pathetically vulnerable.
And because their wills had also been infected, corrupted by the Many-Angled Ones' influence, beings like Hulk had lost access to the very emotions that fueled their strength. Without genuine rage, without honest fury born from injustice and pain, the Hulk was nothing but a diseased mockery.
As she watched the mass of flesh slowly coalesce, pulling itself back together through whatever incomprehensible process granted these beings resurrection, Looma felt an unexpected wave of sorrow.
The Hulk, still smugly confident despite his humiliating defeat, began to mock her from within his reforming body: "It's useless! You can't kill Hulk! Hulk is immortal!"
His regenerating face pulled into what might have been a grin if it weren't so grotesque. "You're quite strong! If you submit to us, you too can obtain this unparalleled power! Join us in eternal life!"
But Looma looked down at him as if observing a particularly pathetic insect—something worthy of pity rather than respect or fear.
She drew Ascalon for the first time, the divine blade sliding from its sheath with a whisper of steel against leather. The weapon hummed in her grip, death's authority awakening and eager to be properly employed.
"Do you truly consider immortality a blessing?" Looma's voice dropped into lower registers, carrying the weight of warrior philosophy refined over decades of combat. "Do you see eternal existence as a reward worth celebrating?"
Her four eyes blazed with contempt and righteous anger. "Idiot! Fool! You understand nothing!"
She raised the sword, its blade catching the light and reflecting nothing back—death itself couldn't be illuminated.
"It is because of death that courage exists!" Looma's declaration rang through the corridor with the force of absolute conviction. "Courage is worthy of celebration precisely because it requires risking something permanent! Because warriors face oblivion and choose to fight anyway!"
Her people, the Tetramands of Khoros, had built an entire culture around this principle. They enjoyed challenging the strong, confronting wild beasts, battling natural disasters—not despite the risk of death but because of it.
Every battle was fought on the edge of mortality. Every victory carried weight because failure meant true ending.
"If there were no death," Looma continued, her voice thick with disgust for the very concept, "then everything we warriors do would become meaningless! Courage without risk is just recklessness! Victory without stakes is just empty exercise!"
She positioned Ascalon above the reforming Hulk, preparing the killing blow. "Besides, this isn't some invincible power you've obtained. In my assessment, you're far weaker than the Hulks from other universes I've encountered. I have no interest in fighting such a pathetic opponent."
The sword fell, death's authority flowing through the blade.
The Cancer Hulk died—truly, finally, permanently. His reforming flesh stopped mid-regeneration, the cancer cells that had sustained his immortality suddenly recognizing the inevitability of endings. The writhing maggots rotted instantly, collapsing into liquid decay that would never reassemble.
Upon witnessing this impossible execution, the other black monster that had accompanied Hulk—the symbiotic horror—panicked completely. It tried to flee, shapeless form rippling as it attempted to slither away.
But escape was far too late.
"Oh no you don't!" Looma threw a punch from a distance, her Tetramand strength sufficient that even the displaced air became a weapon.
The powerful gust stripped away the black symbiotic substance coating the monster's surface, tearing off the alien covering like peeling skin from fruit. Beneath the writhing darkness, a rotting face emerged—features barely recognizable but distinctive enough that Looma could identify them.
Red hair. Feminine bone structure. A face she'd seen laughing during parties and game nights.
"Mary Jane?" The name emerged as a horrified whisper.
"Wait, please don't kill me—" Venom Queen Mary Jane's plea came out garbled, her voice filtered through corrupted vocal cords and symbiotic tissue. "I can be useful! I can help! I can—"
Looma swung Ascalon even more decisively than before, the blade descending with merciful finality.
"It would be disgusting if Ben saw you like this," Looma said quietly, her voice carrying genuine sorrow beneath the warrior's pragmatism. "He shouldn't have to remember you this way."
Let alone Ben, even Looma herself couldn't accept seeing a friend reduced to such a state. They'd shared moments together—playing games, sharing meals, even that memorable incident involving Jenga and the subsequent betrayal that had somehow strengthened their friendship rather than ending it.
She couldn't stand seeing that person, those memories, corrupted into this diseased mockery.
The blade completed its arc. Mary Jane—or what remained of her—died cleanly, finally, freed from whatever horror the cancer and symbiote had made her become.
Looma stood in silence for a moment, honoring the death with brief acknowledgment, then raised her hammer and surveyed the corridor ahead.
"So," she called out to the shadows where more Cancer beings certainly lurked, "who's next?"
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