POV Odin
"Do you realise what you've done? What you've started?" I say with barely contained anger.
"I was protecting my home," My son foolishly replies.
"You cannot even protect your friends! How can you hope to protect a kingdom? Get him to the healing room! Now!" I order Heimdall.
"There won't be a kingdom to protect if you're afraid to act. The Jotuns must learn to fear me, just as they once feared you," Thor says stubbornly.
"That's pride and vanity talking, not leadership. You've forgotten everything I taught you about a warrior's patience," I say with disappointment.
"While you wait and be patient, the Nine Realms laugh at us. The old ways are done. You'd stand giving speeches while Asgard falls," Thor says, and that sets me off.
"You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!" I shout.
"And you are an old man and a fool!" Thor shouts back.
I pause in shock and realise he was right.
'So it has come to this...'
"Yes. I was a fool to think you were ready," I say sadly.
"Father," my other foolish son starts, but I shut him down.
"ARGRGHRHHRGRGRH!!!" I say calmly.
Loki backs down, and I refocus on Thor as I know what must happen.
"Thor Odinson, you have betrayed the express command of your king. Through your arrogance and stupidity, you've opened these peaceful realms and innocent lives to the horror and desolation of war!" I shout with sadness as I place Gungnir into the Bifrost and start it up again.
I approach Thor with pain and start pulling off pieces of his armour.
"You are unworthy of these realms! You're unworthy of your title! You're unworthy... of the loved ones you have betrayed," I say with emotions I don't dare quantify.
I walk away and give myself one last chance to back down, but I couldn't let this happen again. I lost one child to my foolishness; I refuse to lose another.
"I now take from you your power! In the name of my father... and his father before, I, Odin Allfather, cast you out!" I shout as I cast a beam of energy, shattering his armour and stripping him of his power, sending him into the Bifrost towards Midgard.
I take a breath and start weaving an enchantment.
"Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor," I whisper before chucking Mjolnir through the Bifrost.
Once Thor is gone, I sit there for a moment before gathering myself and quickly leaving towards the palace.
'It had to be done.'
When I arrive back at the palace, Frigga approaches me with anger.
"What have you done!?" Frigga says with sad fury.
"What I did? What about him?! He has brought us to the brink of war. A war we may not survive. I cannot allow him to fall down the path of a warmonger. Not like..." I can't finish my statement as I fear speaking of her would make it a reality.
"But banishment!? Surely there was a better way," Frigga demands.
"No, this was the only way. He needs something drastic to happen, or he will never change. Becoming mortal may be the only hope that we have of seeing him become the man he must become," I say sternly.
"And if your idea fails?" Frigga warns.
"Then he shall die on Midgard," I say painfully.
"He's your son!? You abandon him to a world of mortals?!" Frigga says with horror.
"What is done cannot be undone," I say firmly.
"But you can bring him back," Frigga asks.
"NO!" I shout ferociously.
I calm down and look into the distance.
"No, his fate is in his hands now. We cannot be there to hold his hands. He must be able to stand on his own and learn the consequences of his actions," I say wistfully.
Frigga looks saddened by this, but she doesn't argue further.
"I grieve for him too. I pray with all my might that the worst does not come to pass and that he shall return a man and not a boy," I say while placing my hand over her shoulder.
POV Shift Rio
Tracking down Shaw was easy, given that my clone was watching them the entire time, just from a distance. Capturing him was also very easy. Shaw is immune to most forms of kinetic attacks, but he still has to breathe, so I gave him a bit of ironic justice by locking him in and gassing him as he did to all those people in WWII. Of course, I didn't kill him; no, it was agreed that Erik would be given Shaw once I was done getting what I needed out of him. And to ensure I didn't break him or anything like that, I used magic to access his mind and retrieve anything I needed. I also used this chance to reduce the energy Shaw had at his disposal and disable his powers for the time being.
I wasn't sure what Erik planned with Shaw, but I knew it wasn't going to be painless. But I was at least sure that Shaw didn't have any aces up his sleeve. The amulet he thought he had was a cursed fake meant to kill him as soon as he betrayed Ethel, and any other resources were quickly found and seized once I had taken his knowledge from his mind. So Shaw was well and truly screwed. There was no getting out of this; he was doomed. But I was sure he had it coming, so much so that I offered to help.
POV Shift Erik Lehnsherr
How many years had I been waiting for this? That was the question at the forefront of my mind. I knew the answer, of course, but I didn't want to think back to that dark and rainy day. The last day I saw my mother alive. The day I awakened my powers. Now, now it could all end.
"Hehehe, so you finally got me, huh?" Shaw says with a cocky grin.
I stare coldly at him.
"You were always special to me, Erik. My only success in awakening the X-Gene," Shaw says proudly.
"And that was all that they meant to you. As they screamed for mercy or gasped for air in the gas chambers? Failed experiments," I say coldly.
"They were beneath us; the filth couldn't even awaken their true potential while watching their families die. Only mutants can survive in this world. We are the next step in human evolution. If I had to break a few eggs to create you, so be it," Shaw says nonchalantly.
Rumble
The entire room shakes with my fury as I see the true level of monstrosity buried beneath that flesh shell. It takes all my control not to kill him this moment. Though a part of me knows that my powers are fairly useless against his. Any attack I make will only empower him.
"You're a monster," I state with certainty.
"Heh, do you cry over every ant you accidentally crush? Have you become a weak-willed vegan scared of harming even the smallest creature?" Shaw mocks.
"I don't know why I even chose to speak with you," I say with growing apathy.
"Because some part of you wants to understand why I did what I did. Some small part of you agrees with what I say, that we are the future; you know it deep down. Face it, you and I are alike in far more ways than you care to admit," Shaw says with an absolute arrogance.
"No, I am nothing like you. Perhaps once I thought that mutants were superior, but an old friend taught me that going down such a path would turn me into the very thing I swore to destroy. So no, I am not like you, and I never will be. Should I ever make such a slip, I have good friends ready to pull me back to the light," I say with grim finality before walking away.
"Hahahaha, it seems I was right; you did become soft. Back in 1944, I saw a boy with something special. Raw, untamed rage and the will to do anything for revenge. With a burning hatred for humanity," Shaw mocks.
I ignore his foolish goading.
"Want to know how your mother died?" Shaw says with a sick tone.
I pause and turn to look at him.
"Yeah, I remember her. She died pleading and begging for me to spare you. But you see, unlike the others, she didn't get to die in the gas chambers. No, I was interested in her genes. She produces you, so I figured she might hold the potential for more," Shaw says with a sickening smile.
I do everything in my power to not show my emotions.
"I'll admit, she was a bit fun at first, but after a few times she broke and stopped resisting. The damn b*tch couldn't even get pregnant. So I had her dissected alive to preserve as much of her organs and DNA as possible. Of course I didn't really know what DNA was back then, but I felt keeping her organs around might be useful someday later. And yet after all that, she never awakened her power. A shame too, I had high hopes for her," Shaw says with a shrug of his shoulders.
I close my eyes and let a single tear fall. For the first time in my life, I wished that my mother had died in the gas chambers.
"For most of your life, you haven't felt pain. Nothing could truly harm you," I comment.
"I can't feel pain; I've evolved past the lesser," Shaw says confidently.
"I'm afraid you are mistaken; you can feel pain. A friend of mine has gifted me something to ensure as such," I comment while leaving the room and approaching the console.
"Hah, try your best shot," Shaw says arrogantly.
"Oh, I will," I say while pressing the start button.
A new door opens, and a man walks in.
"Heh, what's with the get-up, old man? You sure you are in the right place?" Shaw mocks.
The man sticks out his hands, and moments later, Shaw is showered in blue lightning.
"AHHHHHHH!!!" Shaw screams in agony.
The lightning is so strange that it even shows Shaw's skeleton despite electricity not behaving that way normally. Eventually, the lightning ends and Shaw is left twitching on the ground.
"You're mistaken," I comment.
Shaw weakly looks towards the window from where I am watching.
"I never hated humanity. I hated you," I say calmly before the lightning begins again.