There was a pleasant thrum in Thor's hands as he swung his hammer and took off the head of the leader of the last group of sorcerers. It was a most productive week(or was it two weeks?), one he had spent fully committed to his duty of keeping Midgard safe. This time however, he had been doing it in the presence of unusual but highly pleasant company.
Some of the sorcerers were just as he expected, droll and too upright to properly have fun, and some of them were simply a delight. The librarian, Wong, under all the years of arcane discipline tied to his belt, not only knew how to dish out his own jokes with matching humor, but was also a very capable sorcerer.
As for the Ancient One(heh), well she was similar to his father and mother in ways that made him equally uncomfortable and kept him quiet long enough for her to finish speaking.
She was investigating the tear in the Underworld that was slowly repairing itself while he lent her sorcerers his strength in vanquishing the rats that scurried over the tear to earth under the veil of chaos. It had proven the exact thing he needed to take his mind off things for a short while.
However, now that they were finally done with the heavy work, all the things he'd pushed off were slowly finding their way back to his refreshed mind. He looked down at his hands and sighed. The thrum was gone.
"Good work, Odinson. Your help was highly appreciated." A portal spun open and the Ancient One walked out with her hands behind her back. "You saved us a lot of time and manpower."
"Make nothing of it." He idly waved it off. It was hardly an act worthy of extensive thanks. "The wards have been repaired, I take it?"
"Thankfully so quickly too." He nodded and waited until all the sorcerers had gone through the portal before following after her, albeit to a different location. He had felt a faint static on his skin for a brief moment but he wasn't exactly certain back then.
"So what now?" He asked as he set his hammer down and took the only low hanging chair in the room while she sat on the covered floor and set her teapot before her. He smirked as a tankard of ale suddenly appeared in his hand.
He wasn't one for tea or honeyed leaves and he was pleased that she understood that. Her hospitality in this regard smoothed over the few petty dissatisfactions he had against her. (Like her title of 'Ancient One', which she really wasn't. At least not as ancient as his father. But he understood the title and respected it enough to have nothing against it.)
"Now that the first order of business is done, it's time we talked about you." She looked at him and when he did not avoid her eyes, she smiled.
A small section of the ground she sat on, or rather the enchanted rug she sat on rose up under her to match the height of his chair while she poured tea.
"Do you still feel as doubtful?" She asked as she stirred the frankly disrespectfully-sized teacup.
He took a drink from his cup and swished around the contents in his mouth before he swallowed it down. He looked down at his cup and pictured it as peeking into his mind.
"Not now. Maybe later. I haven't had the chance to think yet." He replied honestly.
"Understandable." Some stark-white bread appeared in her hand, probably unleavened, but he shook his head when she offered. "You're coming to the crossroads of all your recent major decisions and now you're uncertain, apprehensive even, of the shape your next decision will take."
Thor looked down at his foot that was tapping rapidly at the ground and frowned as he mentally commanded the cowardly limb to cease embarrassing him further.
"I can't give you any words regarding that as neither I nor anyone else should make those decisions for you." She punctuated her words the same way she took her tea; soft but steady and direct.
Thor sighed. "There's Jane, there's Midgard and then there is Loki and the Avengers… and I'm the prin—the future king of Asgard. I feel like I'll be leaving something behind, somehow, with every decision I make. I'm simply not strong enough to choose an alternative."
The Ancient One nodded. It was along the lines of what she thought.
Thor finished his drink and stood up, not wanting to dally any longer.
"If it's strength you seek, I might have something for you." She said in that unhurried pace of hers. She must have seen the skeptical look on his face because she did the undignified act of rolling her eyes. "Not to come off as insulting, but I know you're not one for old tomes and parchments."
He wasn't insulted. He would have been insulted instead if she had thought otherwise.
"You mentioned gold the last time." He halted his departure and turned to her looking confused. "Are you recommending me to a merchant?"
She beamed. The rug lowered to the ground and she stepped off. "As a matter of fact, yes. How about we go now?"
She waved the teapot and cups away while the rug spun around in the air before wrapping itself around her and morphing into a beige coat.
"You expect me to pay for strength with gold?" Thor frowned, admittedly feeling a bit insulted at the insinuation but ultimately did nothing else.
"I expect you to see something you don't expect. That's what I'm counting on." She opened up a portal and stepped through it into some alleyway and turned to him. "Are you coming, Odinson?"
He had no intention of purchasing from a merchant anything that would enhance his strength. Power bought was always deficit and wielded in contempt—still he said nothing and crossed over.
They were still in New York, he realized upon seeing the familiar highrise buildings in the distance.
He noticed that they were wrapped in an illusion but failed to realize when she had set it up. He carried those thoughts as she led him into a small shop and the first thing he felt was the pure wind that blew against his body and into his nostrils.
As a god of storms, one thing he was intimately familiar with was the texture and quality of the wind and the general atmosphere. The quality of the air inside the shop was one of the purest he's ever inhaled.
"What is this place?" He asked immediately. In many ways than one, the purity of air in most places denoted how special the place was and how long it has remained untainted. That this was such a place was such a ridiculous notion but Thor knew what kind of air he was breathing in. The only thing it lacked was the magic/essence that usually came with such purity.
"Already curious, are we?" she walked ahead with measured confidence which Thor matched with his confident strides.
"Oh.. What a pleasant surprise. Welcome back, dear customer." He heard a man speak but his mind was mostly taken with the array of weapons on show. He could tell with a glance how special some of the weapons were, and the few that he couldn't only made him more curious.
The warrior in him wished someone was around to wield these weapons and give him a dozen bouts or two.
His footsteps halted as he stood transfixed before a seemingly empty shelf. It was anything but, and even though he couldn't see it, he could feel it.
A gale of compressed winds wrapped around the beautiful blade, ensuring that not a hint of the blade could be seen. He could easily dispel the wind sheath and see the masterful blade underneath (one that was undeniably a divine weapon) but he didn't out of respect for the weapon itself.
"I see something has caught your attention, sir. But then again that particular blade will catch the attention of anyone who knows anything about blades, even while hidden."
"And how did you acquire it? I doubt a weapon like that will simply allow anyone to pick it up." He asked out of pure curiosity, instead of pretending to be a hypocrite and assume merchants were anything of the upright sort.
Thor saw the man's eyes visibly twinkle behind the glasses he wore. He had been to the Collector a few times. He recognized eccentricity when he saw it.
"Its destined partner abandoned it for what it calls 'a flawed ideal'. I simply offered it an escape from the never-ending drama and it accepted."
"I'm Isaac, your trusted Merchant." The man stretched out his hand and Thor shook it. He was not a tiny bit surprised that the man was not human. He could not tell what Isaac truly was but he didn't really care either way.
"What can I help you with today?" He looked between the Ancient One and Thor, and the rug that had detached from its previous role as a coat and was now moving around the shop.
Thor looked at the silent woman with a questioningly raised brow. "What are we doing here?"
"You said you were having doubts, feeling slightly unworthy, dreading the next decision you'll make. You haven't been able to focus, and the root reason, as you believe it, is because you're weak." She started slowly, speaking every word as if highlighting them and making sure they were delivered without any decrease in meaning and efficacy. "Hopefully you'll see something that'll help you focus."
It was a loose reason and Thor was smart enough to see it. She had another reason why she brought him here and and whatever it was eluded him, a trait that all arcane practitioners apparently shared.
"Like what?"
"That's for both of you to figure out." She then turned to Isaac. "The book on Curtains and Barriers was an interesting read. I'll need the next two books, especially the ones about Domain Expansion. It's been a while since I got this excited to experiment with new magic. Oh, and one of those storage rings too."
Isaac reached under the desk and brought out a small pouch before pointing at the shelves on the other side of the shop. "The books are on the seventh row. The section is labeled 'Jujutsu Kaisen'."
"Thank you." She said and walked toward the shelves, leaving Thor alone with the shopkeeper.
Isaac looked at him with an amicable smile. "Do you have anything in mind, like a preference or something specific?"
Thor folded his arms across his chest. "I have no need for bought strength. Nor of armor." He said it with pride and with the note of a warning.
"So something natural then?" As were the habits of Merchants, Isaac ignored Thor's words and continued along with building a preference.
"He's the god of thunder if that helps." The Ancient One chimed in from where she was browsing some magic books.
"It does, thank you." Isaac nodded with a serious look on his face and swiftly brought out a book that he started flipping through with a blur of his wrist.
Mjolnir thrummed threateningly on his waist and Thor promptly decided that he was done with this.
"Hmm, god of thunder… a lot of options." Isaac muttered as he flipped and read through the pages at an astonishing speed.
"That will be enough—!!" His fist smashed against the countertop and instantly put a stop to everything with a loud bang. And that was when he felt it.
Mjolnir had started vibrating intensely on his waist but the moment his hand hit the counter, his waist suddenly felt light. Mjolnir was no longer there.
In a fraction of a second, the thrumming turned into a sharp frequency in his ears, and it was only due to the centuries of catching and throwing Mjolnir at every speed imaginable that made him catch his hammer before it could fly away. That intimate familiarity was also what made him aware of the danger Mjolnir was reacting to.
It happened in a flash.
He had seen the brief flash of light from the far end of the shop in the corner of his eyes and was already bringing up Mjolnir, who was already clad in lightning, to intercept the impossibly fast attack.
His eyes widened at the last moment when his hammer was about to strike whatever had attacked them only for his hammer to hit nothing but air as the culprit disappeared just right before the impact.
His face which had already hardened in anger at the cowardly attempt turned towards Isaac to bring down on him a terrible reckoning, only for him and Mjolnir in his hand to completely freeze up as both anger and lightning were snuffed out.
—Mjolnir (God of War): The titular weapon of the Nordic God of Strength and Thunder, and also the co-conspirator and enabler of the obese genocidal ginger.
What is there to be said about this divine weapon that hasn't already? It twists storms. It weaves lightning. It cracks both earth and space. It reduces the difficulty on massacres and exterminations.
It crushes. It pounds. It flattens. It pommels. It bludgeons. A premium all-purpose 'Kill it!' tool.
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