Dragon in Marvel

This work is a piece of historical fiction. While inspired by real events, cultures, and practices in human history, the story blends factual history with fictional characters, dramatizations, and creative interpretation.

It is not intended to promote, glorify, or encourage any illegal activities, substance use, or harmful behavior. All depictions of sensitive topics are included solely for narrative and historical context.

Reader discretion is advised.

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Earth-199999, Albion (Britain).

~1523 BE (Before Emergence) ~ 500 CE (Current Era).

It had been twenty-four years since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. With its fall, the Dark Ages officially began—in Aragorn's humble opinion as the Cosmic Shine Dragon.

Some in the future may say that the negative connotation of the following ages is inaccurate. The truth, however, is that civilization stopped progressing as fast as it was during the Greek and Roman ages.

Were it not for the later Golden Age of Islam, Aragorn might have claimed that humanity had turned into a complete waste of a species. Alas, the Golden Age of Islam would not start until the 8th century, about 200 years from now.

Tired of humanity's stupidity, Aragorn decided to join better company and leave behind the bad influences.

"Go away!" Sprite shouted in demand, trapped in Aragorn's lap.

"Come on, stay still. I didn't grow you long hair for you to style it in the aesthetic of a bird's nest," Aragorn said, like a fed-up parent, while braiding Sprite's long ginger hair in a Rapunzel-style braid.

"I didn't ask you to do this! I was just fine with my short hair!" Sprite grumbled.

"But it's a shame for such beautiful ginger to be cut short," Aragorn said.

After tiring of humanity's drama, Aragorn hung his Aquila cloak and flipped a coin to decide which form to take. Heads came on top, and so he turned into his female form. In doing so, his female mentality took the reins, and after unilaterally deciding to join the Eternals, she felt the need to do something for Sprite's hairstyle.

She didn't have anything against short hair, but she really liked the unique tone of color of Sprite's Arishem-given hair. With the usual respect that any of Aragorn's selves had for boundaries, Aragorn grew the ginger's hair long. Now she had her sitting in her lap while happily braiding her longer-than-she-is-taller hair.

"Aragorn, do you have to wear that?" Druig, with a fresh pint of hydromel in hand, asked while pointing at Aragorn's getup.

She was wearing her usual two-piece set woven from the threads of her hair. A bralette that left little to the imagination, threading the line between comfort and sexiness like a skilled funambulist. Loincloth-like underwear that left the sides of her long legs exposed from her ankles to her hips. Golden metal armbands, wrist cuffs, and ankle cuffs. She wore no footwear since she hovered above the ground or walked in invisible steps. Around her neck, she wore a metal ornament adorned with various jewelry of Aragornian origin—namely her tears and pieces of her horns.

Overall, Aragorn was exposing a degree of skin that, for the era and location, was never seen before.

"What's wrong with it? Noona finds it cute," Aragorn batted her eyelashes at Druig knowingly.

"..." Druig sighed heavily before replying, "You're gonna tempt and scandalize every human."

"Mmm..." Aragorn leaned forward to Druig, her valley highlighted. "How interesting, you find me attractive."

"How is that interesting at all? Haven't you seen yourself?" Druig asked with obvious surprise.

"Well, it appears the difference in life level doesn't affect you that much," Aragorn commented.

"What is that?" Sprite asked.

"It's like how a dog can't find an eagle flying high in the skies attractive," Aragorn explained. "You guys don't find Arishem attractive, do you?"

"No!" Druig and Sprite said at the same time.

"How would that even be possible?" Druig asked.

"Well, objectively speaking, Arishem is quite the dashing Celestial. Arishem is definitely in the top 5 of the most handsome Celestials," Aragorn said.

"..."

"..."

Sprite and Druig went silent, contemplating the meaning behind Aragorn's words, trying to decrypt her words, decipher hidden intentions, their artificial brains siphoning Cosmic Energy like low-efficiency hungry engines, and when they realized Aragorn's words were meant to be taken at face value, they shouted, "WHAT?!"

"That's why I said that it's interesting that you find my form attractive. Not that it is unheard of—I know at least several of my daughters and sons find me attractive—but their difference in level is blurred significantly due to our soul contracts," Aragorn said.

"No, no, no. There's something obviously different there," Druig shook his head rapidly.

"Yeah, you're obviously pretty. Arishem looks like a colossal robot," Sprite said.

"I know, like I said, handsome," Aragorn nodded, much to the terror of the Eternal pair. "What about you, Sprite? If I assume this form," Aragorn shifted to his male form, "do you find me attractive?"

Sprite, held in his lap, gazed upward at Aragorn's handsome face. "I think you're handsome, if that answers your question," she replied.

"Mmmm..." Aragorn shifted back to female and continued braiding Sprite's hair. "Like I said, how interesting."

While Aragorn, Sprite, and Druig were enjoying their talks about the wonders of the cosmos under the comfortable shade of a providing tree, Thena, Gilgamesh, and Ajak were not that far off, fighting a small pack of Deviants.

Thena was dual-wielding golden lightsabers powered by her Cosmic Energy, so the fight that might have been challenging for two combatant Eternals and one support type—Ajak—was being steamrolled. That's the type of advantage brought by a lightsaber hotter than the local star.

A few swings of the lightsaber later, with the perfectly timed support of Gilgamesh and Ajak, the fighting trio was rejoining the resting trio.

"I could hear your screams from over there," Gilgamesh pointed behind him at the now-dormant battlefield with his thumb.

"What did Aragorn do this time?" Thena asked with a subtle smirk.

"She said Arishem was handsome!" Druig tattletaled.

"Top 5, she said," Sprite added.

"..."

"..."

"..."

Thena, Gilgamesh, and Ajak went still, contemplating the meaning behind that statement, trying to decrypt its words, decipher hidden intentions, their artificial brains siphoning Cosmic Energy like low-efficiency hungry engines, and when they realized it was meant to be taken at face value, they shouted, "WHAT?!"

"I'm not the strange one here—even Jean thinks there's a charm to Arishem," Aragorn defended herself. "Anyway, with this, that king's request should be completed, right?"

"There's one additional village we ought to visit," Ajak said. She wisely decided to ignore the unwanted information.

"Ah, I thought most Deviants in his kingdom had been taken care of or gone into hiding with this last pack done," Aragorn said.

"It's not a village inside his territory, but close enough to his border that he decided to intervene," Ajak said.

"How magnanimous of him," Gilgamesh commented.

"Magnanimous? Please," Druig scoffed.

"It's not his territory he would be helping. That ought to count for something, doesn't it?" Sprite commented.

"Nah, you and Gilgamesh clearly didn't pass Humanity 101," Aragorn supported Druig's mockery.

"More than likely, it wasn't born out of good intentions," Thena said to Gilgamesh.

"By presenting himself as the better ruler to the villagers, he could have their support in a future campaign over its dominium," Ajak explained to Sprite.

"And let's not forget that what he is paying you is barely something," Aragorn added.

"I feel like the longer we stay near these two, the faster we'll lose faith in humanity," Sprite said while pointedly gazing at Druig and Aragorn.

"Hey, we are just the messengers of reality, don't take it out on us," Druig said before taking the last swing of his hydromel mug.

"I can't believe you've been drinking the same thing for millennia," Aragorn commented before promptly summoning more hydromel in Druig's mug.

"Speaking of drinks..." Druig began with a smirk directed at Thena and Ajak.

Ffffkrrrrshhzzzwooooom..woom..woooom..—Thena's two lightsabers manifested pointing at Druig's neck. Ajak's fist was pointing at him and the rings in her hand were glowing with a preloaded discharge of Cosmic Energy.

Druig's eyes darted back and forth like a caged animal. Then, as if having found a floating raft in the storming seas, his gaze landed on the snickering Aragorn.

"Ahem! Thena, my friend of millennia, Ajak, my favorite leader, why are you taking your grievances on me, isn't that lady of fluid sex over there the real culprit?" Druig pointed with his eyes at the still chuckling Aragorn.

"Wrong! It was Noona, not me," Aragorn declared.

"Not like you did anything to stop your partner," Sprite protested.

"Ah, but why are you mad? Didn't you enjoy yourselves?" Aragorn unrepentantly asked.

"See? That's at whom you should be pointing with these dangerous sabers," Druig, still held at lightsaberpoint, aimed their hostility at Aragorn.

Thena and Ajak slowly turned to Aragorn.

"Ehh? Where's this hostility coming from?" Aragorn asked, pretending to be oblivious. "Thena, didn't you and Gilgamesh have a splendid 'spar'?" she grinned. "Ajak, didn't you break into my and Noona's room asking for an 'extrasensorial' experience out of this universe?"

No words were needed, Thena moved to strike, but Ajak was faster, and from her rings beams of Cosmic Energy shot at Aragorn.

"Kahahaha!" Aragorn phased through the ground with Sprite still in her lap while laughing, "I'll do you a favor and take care of the last village myself," she said before fully sinking into the ground.

Like a ball being shot upward by its buoyancy after being held underwater, Aragorn resurfaced with Sprite in her arms some distance away from the embarrassed Eternal women. She flew into the air and aimed at the village whose location she read from Ajak's mind before departing.

"Did Ajak really break into your room?" Sprite asked, she got over her annoyance at being kidnapped and treated like a child to gossip.

"While Druig was battling to keep your drunken ass out of Ikaris and Sersi's room, Ajak was indeed breaking and entering our room," Aragorn grinned mischievously.

"Shut up! You're a pest!" Sprite snapped furiously.

"Hahaha! Fine, fine, I'll reply without teasing you," Aragorn chuckled some more before saying, "Ajak's drunk brain led her to our room because she wanted to see us copulate."

"Cough! Cough! What?!" Sprite choked in her spit.

"It was probably like one of those intrusive thought you follow through with when drunk. Anyway, Noona and I found her hilarious and decided to bombard her mind with a threesome. So, the truth is that nothing happened, but in Ajak's memories—which were already fuzzy due to the divine drink—she had a disrespectful threesome with us," Aragorn explained, her answer ended with an evil giggle.

"What's a disrespectful threesome?" Sprite asked with some morbid curiosity to her question.

"The only type of threesome you can have with a genderless shapeshifter like myself and naughty dragoness like my Noona, where the boundaries of giving and receiving are blurred, and where the concept of morality is nulled by eros. That's why she is so mortified every time we mention it," Aragorn said.

"You're not only a pest, but also evil," Sprite remarked, though her words were sharp, she sported an amused grin after hearing the gossip.

Aragorn simply laughed and eventually Sprite joined her mirth.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the little village. It was the paragon of a classical village out in the woods of medieval times. The type of village where its people were born, lived, and died within its wooden walls. A village with a communal well, because even though the river was not far, they feared the outside.

A village with a moat as the delimitation between the fields and the wilderness, where the horses of everyone were family to each other, just like the said owners. The type of village whose greatest event for the past century was about the poor sod that had to exit the safety of its walls to seek help in dealing with the local Deviant problem.

So, it was not strange that when Aragorn—with her provocative dressing and draconic features—landed with Sprite in her arms, the village went into doomsday mode.

Pitchforks, burning torches, stones in hand, the son of the village chief wielding the sword of the village—because there was only one, not because it was special—the panicked women escaping with the children to the other side of the village, an idiot or two jumping down the well seeking cover, and all of them reciting prayers they thought might exorcise the demon holding hostage the little girl.

"Pfft! I can't even," Sprite laughed. In her attempts to conceal her laughter, she looked like she was crying, which only served to rile up the mob.

"Let's just go, I already have the details of the Deviant attacks," Aragorn said after reading the mind of the village chief.

"Pfft! HAhah," Sprite replied with laughter, which, again, from a distance, looked like the wailing of a victim.

Aragorn flew away and landed in the nearby lake, it didn't take her even a second before she spotted the Deviant hiding at the bottom of the lake. With a swift strike, Aragorn severed its head with a psionic blade remotely controlled.

"Ahahaha, that was so funny," Sprite said while cleaning tears from her cheeks.

"That's what I get for spending millennia wearing the same outfit, no one recognizes me without it. At least none of the normal folk," Aragorn shook her head, she could see the hilarity in what happened.

"So? What's next?" Sprite asked.

"Ajak said they were going to check the coast of Britannia's Iles, that should keep you occupied for a few years, right?" Aragorn asked as she guided them under the shadow of an old tree overlooking the tranquil lake.

"I think the locals call it Albion now," Sprite said as her feet touched the ground while she released a sigh from having escaped the constrictor hold of Aragorn. "And you're right, Uther Pendragon asked us to clean the Deviant invasion on his lands, but Phastos detected some Deviant packs along the coasts."

"I see... How about we stay here for a while?" Aragorn suggested.

"Here? Why so?" Sprite inquired.

"There are two subterranean rivers connected to this lake. One that feeds it water, and one that discharges water. The discharging one is most likely connected to the ocean—that's how that Deviant made it so far inland," Aragorn said.

"Ah, that's not good. More could show up," Sprite said.

"Yes, but we can stay here for a few years until your guys are done dealing with the coastal Deviants and you have to report to the King to collect your reward," Aragorn said.

"Mmmm," Sprite hummed. "I like the weather here, and this lake is beautiful, maybe it's not a bad idea."

"I like how far away from civilization this is," Aragorn said. "And we can build for ourselves a cozy crib in that rock wall," she pointed at the tall rock wall on the other side of the lake.

Sprite nodded, and they got to work.

Aragorn morphed into her dragon female self—which was similar to her normal draconic form but sleeker—and began carving in the rock wall with her tail blade.

By the end of the day, a spacious cavern had been carved out in the wall with an entrance big enough for her draconic form to comfortably prowl through.

That night Sprite and Aragorn slept in the nearest Obelisks. The next day, a team of several Duskari arrived to decorate and install all amenities a modern dragoness and an Eternal needed.

"What's that pile of treasure for?" Sprite pointed at a pile of gold, jewels, grimoires, and magical artifacts.

"A dragoness must have a treasure in her lair," Aragorn's draconic head nodded, pleased with the amenities the Duskari installed.

Sprite paid it no mind. Sersi could turn anything into gold, so she cared not for treasure, and regarding the oddity of having 'installed' a treasure hoard, Sprite simply ascribed it to Aragorn's eccentricity.

With Aragorn pleased with their work and Sprite satisfied with her room, the Duskari left with bright smiles.

It wasn't long before Aragorn's suggestion proved true.

Splash!

A large column of water arose from the lake after a Deviant was detonated with a spell.

"Looks like you were right to have us stay here longer," Sprite said.

"No, even I didn't believe these guys were going to show up back so soon," Aragorn said.

They kept to their business, and a few weeks later, one of the villagers spotted Sprite taking a bath in the open—in the lake—with Aragorn's draconic form overshadowing her.

"EEEEK!" Like a startled rabbit, the man squirmed and bolted out in fright.

Aragorn paid it no mind, and Sprite cared not about someone a fraction of her age glimpsing her childish body naked.

Yet, a few weeks later, when she found a bored Aragorn fighting off a horde of knights with the blade of her tail, she wished she had showered indoors that day.

"Aragorn!" Sprite called out to Aragorn.

Aragorn was casual, bored, even passive, as she flicked her massive tail and parried and countered the blade swings of the knights. The knights, contrastingly, were fighting as if their bloodline depended on this single battle, as if their kingdom's livelihood rested on their shoulders.

To further disrespect the knights, Aragorn's long neck turned to look back at Sprite while her tail remained engaging the knights in combat.

'What's up, Sprite? Are you here to play with them too?' Aragorn asked telepathically.

"Please don't kill the knights," Sprite said, her voice reaching the ears of the said knights.

Aragorn groaned, but since she was currently a dragoness, it came out as a deafening growl. 'Don't make stuff up, I'm just playing with them.'

The knights were obviously defeated, even if Aragorn only used her swordsmanship—tail-blademanship?—and Sprite moved to assist the defeated knights in making it to their horses.

"You'll need at least one moon cycle of rest for that leg, Sir Knight," Sprite advised a limping knight.

"Try to put something cold on that bruise, some snow would do," she said to another knight.

"You'll need lots of proper nutrition to recover from the damage to your muscles. Don't skimp on that—your bodies are your working tools," she added.

"My lady, we are sorry to have failed to save you," one of the knights said with his head down in shame.

"Oh, don't speak nonsense, Sir Knight. I'm not being held captive," Sprite beamed a smile.

However, that smile, to their eyes, was a captive's smile, which only made their shame and resolve grow.

"I know swords and armor are not easy to come by. You can use some of this to fix your damaged equipment," Sprite handed them a small linen bag filled with gold Roman coins—something only the elite had access to.

"No, My Lady, this is too much. We can't impose more on your goodwill!" a knight declined vehemently.

"Not only did you assist us to our steeds and care for our ailing bodies, but you also provided us with some of your wealth. We can't accept such alms," another knight said.

"You misunderstand. This is not my gold. This is the dragon's," Sprite said.

"The dragon's?" a knight asked.

"Yes, there's a massive hoard of riches and treasure in the cave. You don't have to worry—please take it. You need it more than we do," Sprite smiled softly at the knights' honor.

When Sprite returned to the cave, Aragorn asked her, "Did you catch Sersi's virus and become softhearted towards them?"

"No, I just saw no reason in ruining their lives like that. Armor and weaponry aren't cheap, you know? Their families could fall to poverty by trying to fix armor lent to them by their lords," Sprite said.

"Huh? I didn't think about that," Aragorn admitted. "I'll be more careful next time."

And there was a next time—several next times.

"Watch out for the dragon breath!"

"Pull back, it's going to sweep us with its tail!"

"Archers! Target the eyes!"

"I can't find its reverse scale! I think the magician lied to us!"

"Healers! Pull out the fallen men!"

"Try with the blessed speartips! No beast shall oppose the Highest One's might!"

"It's targeting the supply line!"

BOOOOOM!

"What in God's name exploded?!"

"I don't know! We have nothing explosive—otherwise we would have tried it on the dragon!"

BOOOOM!

"Agh! Cursed beast! I think it's its breath!"

"Water! Water! I'm burning!"

"Heavens! Someone push that burning sod down the lake!"

"In God's and our Lord's name, charge!"

"For the Princess!"

"For the Princess!"

'Did you hear that? Now you're a princess instead of a saintess,' Aragorn said while breathing the most harmless flames that had ever come out of her maw.

'Ugh, what's with these idiots?! I thought I told them I was not a captive!' Sprite grumbled.

'Says you,' Aragorn chuckled. 'Didn't you also mention my hoard?'

'... Okay, that was stupid of me,' Sprite confessed.

'At this point, let's fake it till we make it,' Aragorn said with joy.

'Fake what?' Sprite had a bad feeling.

And right she was.

When the next dragon-slaying expedition came, Sprite was dressed in the most Rapunzelian dress the Duskari could weave. It even came with a tiara and glass slippers. Aragorn went a step further and made it so that wherever she walked, flowers bloomed. Whenever she spoke, cute animals approached her. Aragorn even built her a small tower next to the cave entrance so that whenever the knights came, Sprite was on the tallest floor of the tower, waiting to witness their honor in battle.

Aragorn and the Duskari took inspiration from any and all stories of princesses they could find and made Sprite the quintessential paragon of the concept of a princess.

'I hate you,' Sprite's eyes were dead. To the knights, her eyes were like that because she was aching to see them get themselves hurt.

'Hahahahaha! I feel like a raid boss!' Aragorn paid no attention to Sprite's suffering.

Bards came, roads were improved, the fields were expanded to feed more people, the village had to grow to accommodate the influx of people, and smithies were built to fix armor and weaponry. The village slowly grew in size as its economy began to boom.

"I mean, aren't you having fun, Sprite?" Aragorn asked her while they dined.

"... I won't deny that there's some appeal to the clothing, but still... this is so embarrassing!" Sprite exclaimed.

"Hahahaha! I for one am having fun. It reminds me of that time I chased after Agatha in the Astral Realm," Aragorn said with a laugh.

"I don't believe I know this Agatha," Sprite said.

"She is part of the Therions who are dimensionally linked to a realm, so she can't enter this world," Aragorn said.

"Heaven, Hell, Abeyance, or the Chakra Dimension?" Sprite asked.

"Hell. She is the adoptive mother of Wanda, my Hell Lord," Aragorn said.

"Mmmmm, I think I've seen a holopic of her," Sprite said with a pensive expression. "Was it a black fox woman with an air of mysticism?"

"That's the one," Aragorn nodded.

While they peacefully dined and interacted, a wizard approached their cave.

Aragorn noticed the lighthouse-like presence of the wizard but didn't react to it. She had an inkling of an idea of who this was and why he was coming to meet them.

The wizard walked through the front entrance and made his way to the dining room. As he drew near, his footsteps reached Sprite. She turned to the guest, not startled but curious, since Aragorn had allowed him in.

"Aragorn, protector of humanity and Earth. It's a pleasure to meet you and your companion," he said before turning to Sprite. "Should I address you as Princess or Eternal Sprite?"

"Sprite is preferable, sorcerer," Sprite said.

"What brings the Sorcerer Supreme to my humble lair?" Aragorn asked.

It was easy to spot a Sorcerer Supreme. A simple glance at the Eye of Agamotto under their necks was enough.

Sprite also knew of them because Agamotto not only had caused the emergence of the conceptual fears a few thousand years ago, but he had also approached Sersi to request she make for him the metal used in the Eye of Agamotto.

"I find myself working in a prophetic path of much importance," the sorcerer began. "One that shall be of future importance and not completely of immediate significance. It concerns the birth of what the future shall know as 'Arthurian Legends'."

"So you must be Merlin," Aragorn nodded, the constellations in her eyes shifting with curiosity. "What do you seek?"

Her curiosity stemmed not from the fact that Merlin was building the framework for the legend of Artur Pendragon, but from her personal interest in the entity known as Merlin.

All Merlins are supposed to be connected to a core Merlin, so in a way, Merlin could be seen as a multiversal entity. Not like Death in the sense that she was part of the multiverse, but in the sense that the core Merlin was present in all multiverses.

However, Aragorn couldn't see that link to this Merlin. This could be because the connection to the Core Merlin is not one other Merlins are born with, but one that links them at a later point in their lives, or because the almost Doomed Reality state of Earth-199999 prevents the link from forming.

"For the 'Evil Dragon' to fall under the might of the squire of royal lineage chosen by the sword in the stone. For the sword to be broken, and a new magical one be conferred by the 'Lady of the Lake' to slay the dragoness," Merlin explained. He projected images of his meanings through sorcery.

"You sorcerers are all strange," Sprite said. "Always doing nonsensical things for the futures your green rock shows you.

"There was the guy who turned into an eagle and stole the sandal of a slave girl and gave it to a Pharaoh. What was it you said that one was called?" Sprite asked Aragorn.

"Cinderella," Aragorn replied.

"Then there was that girl in Ancient Greece that spread tales. Though, I liked the one of the Tortoise and the Hare that she based on Makkari's speed and Gilgamesh's bulkiness," Sprite added.

"~Hohohoho!" Merlin laughed with a wizened cadence. "The key to a bright future is not only found in protecting the realm from extradimensional incursions. The little details that will inspire future children to seek heroic paths are also of importance."

"Just like assisting Uther Pendragon in shapeshifting into Duke Gorlois of Cornwall to sleep with the Duke's wife?" Aragorn asked with a snicker.

"Ahem! Sometimes the birth of a key figure is of great impetus. As such, their births must be secured," Merlin declared, his eyes not meeting the judgmental stares of the dragoness and the Eternal.

"Right," Sprite drawled.

"Don't worry, Merlin. I'll make sure to fall to the sword in the stone and I'll prepare an Excalibur for Sprite to hand over as the Lady in the Lake," Aragorn said.

"That's a weight off my shoulders," Merlin said with relief. "The kid's inquisitive ears caught the rumors of the dragon holding a princess hostage. 'Yee whosoever slains the evil dragon may join fates with the princess and claim the dragon's hoard.' The tale even made it to the mainland."

"I wonder which princess they think they can marry," Sprite scoffed. "Not this one, know this."

"... It's time for my departure," Merlin looked away from Sprite. "I'll leave you to your dining."

As he walked through a portal, Merlin could feel Sprite's burning stare.

"So, are you making a magic sword?" Sprite asked, resuming her dinner.

"Probably just a very sharp and nigh-indestructible sword. Nothing too magical," Aragorn said.

"Can I keep it after it served its purpose?" Sprite inquired.

"You want to keep it? What for?" Aragorn asked.

"Makkari is collecting objects of historical value," Sprite replied.

"I understand. I see no problem with it," Aragorn agreed.

Like so, months passed. Knights seeking to slay the dragon and claim the princess with the hoard came and went, and one stormy day, with the mood of an epic, a young man wielding a sword branded by Merlin's magic arrived riding a noble steed.

Like a knightly brute, he charged into the mouth of the lair with his sword held forward, declaring his intent.

"Foul beast! Evil dragon, your reign of terror ends this day. Remember Arthur, apprentice of the Great Wizard Merlin, on your way down to hell!"

Aragorn rolled her eyes, and Sprite chuckled from the topmost floor of her tower.

Aragorn unleashed a sweeping breath of fire from the comfort—as much as her bed could provide, given its nature—of her hoard. The tunnel-like shape of the cave only served to prevent the spread of the violent flames and cut off any escape for the fool and his horse.

"AgGHHHH!"

The fool cried in agony and barely had the mind to hide behind the burning body of his steed.

"HENGROEN!" he bellowed his steed's name as the destrier fell to the flames.

Like Moses opening the Red Sea, Aragorn's tail blade carved a path through the sea of flames to Arthur.

CLANG! The clash of sword and tail blade reverberated in the aflame cave.

"Argh!" Arthur lost the contest of momentum—who could have imagined?—and was sent flying and stumbling out of the cave.

Aragorn followed after, dragging the flames with her like a cloak.

On the outside, Arthur barely had time to collect himself before the sight of a dragon wreathed in flames charging out of the cave greeted him.

ROOOOOOOOARRRRRRRR

The roar of the dragon stirred the surface of the tranquil lake nearby and cleared any animals from the neighboring forests.

Aragorn—like a raid boss—gave Arthur nothing but a fleeting moment to recover and charged like an avalanche at the human.

CLANG!

Alternating between tail blade strikes and fire breaths, Aragorn slowly pushed the knight closer to the lake.

Arthur could only see despair and agony in his future the more he interchanged strikes with the dragon. And it wasn't long before his dreaded fate arrived.

In a fluid, almost artistic—definitely graceful—forward stab, Aragorn's tail blade broke his blade and skewered Arthur through the stomach like a kebab.

She lifted him while impaled to her eye level and gave a look of derision to the dying knight.

With a growl, as if declaring victory, Aragorn threw him into the lake.

Arthur didn't have the strength to battle the dragging pull of his body and armor's weight, so he could only watch as the light breaking through the water grew thinner and thinner.

He closed his eyes and accepted his imminent death... but then he heard it.

'Brave knight.'

Like a distant melody.

'It's not the time to give up.'

Like a flickering warm ember.

'Open your eyes!'

Like a thunderstrike.

Arthur fluttered his heavy eyelids open and was met with the ethereal beauty of the one known as the princess.

'Fight for your dreams, my knight.'

The princess offered him a blade with an aura like no other—one that, even in the umbra of the lake's depths, shone with a promising splendor.

'I stole this one from the dragon's hoard, but it possessed a foul curse. I shall be bound to this lake until you return it to my hands.'

The princess's delicate hands grabbed the armored ones of the knight and, like conferring a blessing, she passed ownership of the magical sword to the knight.

The fatigue disappeared, the deadly wounds became nothing but scrapes, the weight of the armor dispelled like an illusion, and the fighting spirit of the previously defeated knight rose like a forest fire in summer.

Not with words but with his eyes, he promised to return the sword to the lady in the lake.

With a mighty kick, Arthur emerged from the cold waters of the lake, ready for the rematch.

Well... Aragorn had to pretend to be weak to the sword, and she had to fight like an unthinking beast. She also pretended to have run out of fire breath, all so that Arthur could drive his sword through her heart.

In the end, under an Academy Award-worthy performance, Aragorn fell to a stab at her draconic heart. When the blood of the dragonheart bathed the blade, an inscription along the blade lit up and spelled "Excalibur."

Aragorn then proceeded to make the knight faint.

"He's out cold, you can come inside," Aragorn said.

"I think I should say 'Phrasing!' at times like this, right?" Sprite chuckled as she entered the room where the fight concluded.

"Is Spark teaching you naughty stuff?" Aragorn asked before shapeshifting into her female form. "Let's clean this place up and remove any evidence of it ever being anything but a cave."

"Should we leave some of the hoard, or do we make it all disappear like a mirage?" Sprite asked.

"Let's leave something for the funding of that guy's nation. I hear everybody is fighting for territory around these parts these days—how original, I know—but either way, that must be expensive," Aragorn shrugged.

By the time Arthur woke up, he caught sight of the dragon's corpse melting like cotton candy in water. Although he was somewhat disappointed at not being able to bring the head back, his disappointment was dispelled immediately upon catching sight of the hoard of gold.

History went by as it was meant to after that. Sprite and Aragorn went to the local Obelisk to stay hidden there until Arthur decided to return Excalibur. The Eternals eventually returned to the Pendragon lands, and the one they met was Arthur—not Uther—as the king when they did so.

Arthur grew a crush on Athena, but that had just as much future as him defeating Aragorn in a non-staged fight.

It was only years later that one of Arthur's loyal knights returned Excalibur to the lake. Aragorn made a hand of water emerge to pull the sword to the bottom of the lake—or so it would look like to the knight.

"Makkari is going to love it," Sprite rejoiced.

"I'm glad she will," Aragorn said.

"Yeah," Sprite nodded. "I need to go. You're not coming with us this time, are you?"

"No. I'll probably walk around the skirts of civilization for a few decades until I decide to wear my cloak again," Aragorn said.

"Alright. If you need anything, we'll be in the land you called Korea. Apparently, a special Deviant was spotted wreaking havoc over there," Sprite said.

Aragorn then bade farewell to Sprite and decided to switch to his male form and assume a new identity.

Since bloodshed was the most common theme for the following centuries, he dressed like a man of battle.

A dark cloak as black as shadow, with a hood eclipsing his face. Contrary to his Aquila persona, his face could be seen—but this time, he had cloaked his inhuman features. His third eye, his horns, and his eternal flame were gone from mortal cognition. Even his color-changing cosmos eyes had turned into white orbs, like the ones Madelyne bore in the Naruto Multiverse.

Under the cloak, he wore armor as darkened as the cloak.

"I'll hide my tail from the material plane, and now if I encounter any annoying humans, I'll just kill them. No more Mr. NiceDragon. With this getup, no mortal will associate the neutral Aquila with the belligerent... what should I call myself?" Aragorn said out loud. "Anyways, I'll think about it later."

542 CE...

As Aragorn walked the streets of Constantinople, he had to swerve to avoid the rotting corpses piling on the streets.

"This really does look like the end of times," he muttered as he had to pause his step to avoid crushing a blackened, rotten hand.

The stench was sickening enough to merit Aragorn stopping his breathing. Under his All-Seeing sight, everything was carrying Yersinia pestis (the same bacterium responsible for the Black Death).

"A-A'Heelah," one dying man cried out loud. "W-w-wer we for-rgotten?"

The situation was so desperate all around that he couldn't even die in his house, for everyone there was already dead. During these times of peril, he remembered the legends of old about A'Heelah, a healer to all.

Aragorn walked up to the agonizing man, and when his shadow eclipsed the sun for him, the man feebly turned to look at him.

"A'Heelah probably got tired of healing humans only for humans to die meaningless deaths in wars," Aragorn said, his white void eyes locking with the sickened gaze of the man. "Old man, do you want me to put you out of your misery?"

"... T-Thnk cough! yhu," the man said.

Aragorn pulled a long, blackened two-handed sword and decapitated the man in a swift strike.

"Maybe I should build a massive fire," Aragorn mused out loud. "On the other hand, these idiots won't burn a body for religious reasons. Maybe I should do nothing if they can't even help themselves."

In the end, like a National Geographic filmmaker, Aragorn decided to let nature follow its course.

This was not the first time Aragorn followed the path of inaction. For the following century, he walked the 'Old Continent' from battlefield to battlefield. He began to participate in the human wars as a mercenary.

Regardless of the side. Sometimes he fought with the aggressor, like in 568 CE when the Lombards invaded Italy, forming a kingdom, and in 636 CE during the Battle of Yarmouk, when Arabs defeated the Byzantines; Syria fell to Islam.

Other times, he fought with the defenders, like in 698 CE, when Arab forces destroyed Carthage, ending Byzantine control in North Africa. Or in 718 CE during the siege of Constantinople, repelled by the Byzantines, he was there using the ancient version of napalm—Greek fire—lighting the sea on fire.

Aragorn would always appear, as if by magic, in the middle of the battlefield on the side of his choosing, and then charge with the mortals forward. Clad in black, on foot sometimes, on a black steed at others, he was considered the spirit that haunted humanity's battlefields.

No matter which side he was on—losing or winning—he would always claim a heavy toll on the opposite front. Some began to call him the proxy of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because he would always appear during 'War', bringing 'Conquest' and 'Death' to the battlefield, followed by the usual 'Famine' that pursued wars.

732 CE...

Following the rapid spread of Islam, the Umayyad Caliphate had conquered much of Iberia (Spain). Muslim forces pushed northward across the Pyrenees—the mountain range separating Iberia and Gaul (France)—conducting raids into Gaul. They sacked cities such as Bordeaux and moved toward the wealthy Abbey of St. Martin of Tours.

Around this time, Charles Martel, grandfather of the yet-to-be-born Charlemagne, was the Mayor of the Palace and de facto ruler of the Franks. He viewed the Muslim advance as a major threat and gathered a coalition of Frankish and Burgundian nobles to stop it.

His troops were mostly disciplined infantry, holding a phalanx-like formation against Umayyad (Muslim) cavalry charges. But among Charles Martel's forces, a steed as dark as the rider appeared.

Charles Martel's forces had taken a defensive position on a forested hill, hoping for the woods to serve as an obstacle for the Umayyad cavalry. The same trees should have posed an obstacle to Aragorn's steed, but this was not a normal warhorse.

Since Aragorn didn't want to waste years training a new warhorse every time one died, he had the Duskari create a Warbeast identical to one.

Although artificial, it was superficially indistinguishable from a real horse.

With a neigh of aggression, the horse stood on its hind legs before charging forward.

"Death rides with us in this battle!" Charles Martel shouted to uplift morale.

"YAAAH!" his forces shouted a war cry in reply.

"War shall bring conquest!" Charles Martel declared.

"YAAAH!"

With the final war cry, Aragorn broke into the attacking cavalry charge.

With a zweihänder sword reaching the length of the average human height, riding the human mower disguised as a black horse, and shadows cloaking his armored frame, Aragorn charged in with an inhuman skill that made more than one pray to their god.

Wherever the sword passed, heads rolled, torsos were bisected, and limbs amputated. His inhuman strength granted momentum to a sword so heavy that no man could have swung it, while the length of the blade allowed him to sometimes even bisect more than one target.

There wasn't even the concern of being surrounded, because Aragorn charged forward faster than his opponents could turn back. Like a wedge splitting a river, Aragorn bisected the cavalry.

"Ah, little humans, you wanted to die so hard, and now you fear death. Come and I shall help you meet your god," Aragorn spoke in no language anyone could understand—it was English—his white void eyes resembling windows to the beyond in his enemies' sight.

The enemies, regardless of rank, felt the breath of death on their necks.

"There's something cathartic about senseless slaughter. Maybe that's what drives humans involved in war insane," Aragorn muttered as he reaped lives.

755 CE...

The Tang Dynasty stood at the height of its cultural and political glory. Emperor Xuanzong, an aging ruler in his seventh decade, reigned over a vast empire from his capital at Chang'an.

His court was renowned for its grandeur and refinement, and his love for the enchanting Yang Guifei, one of China's famous jade beauties, had become the stuff of legend.

'Why did you come here to observe that woman?' Death asked.

'Remember Helen? Like her, Yang Guifei is supposed to be a kingdom-toppling beauty. I was curious to see if she was just as pretty or if it was all historical hype,' Aragorn replied.

'Mmm... She is pretty for a mortal. Like Helen was,' Death commented.

'Yeah, I think physically she is prettier than Helen, but her soul doesn't compare to Helen's,' Aragorn said.

'So? She is not worth your kidnapping?' Death asked knowingly.

'Nope. If we had a goddess of [Beauty], then maybe she would have been worth as a present,' Aragorn said.

'I figured, My Love. You only care about souls,' Death said.

'Well, souls are beautiful,' Aragorn defended himself.

Emperor Xuanzong, due to his love for Yang Guifei, began to neglect his empire. Corruption festered in his court, and soon, an opening began to be shown off to his greedy military leaders.

One of these leaders was a frontier general named An Lushan, born of Sogdian and Turkic descent, who commanded massive armies as a jiedushi (a regional military governor).

An Lushan declared rebellion, claiming corruption in the Tang court and invoking the Mandate of Heaven.

'Pfft! What is this scum saying? As if Heaven would select him as the new emperor of China,' Aragorn mocked as he watched all of this play out.

An Lushan led an army of over 100,000 troops south of Fanyang (modern Beijing), sweeping through Tang territory with astonishing speed.

Aragorn appeared in several of the following battles. This time, instead of his usual zweihänder sword, he wielded a naginata as darkened as his theme.

'My Love, you mock him, yet you fight on his side,' Death remarked.

'Meh, it doesn't matter. Two-thirds of this country's population will disappear thanks to his prank. This is one of those major events I shouldn't change unless I want to wake Tiamut sooner. Might as well join his side,' Aragorn replied. 'However, the amount of children I've been kidnapping is off the charts!'

'Fufufu, My Love. Emma, Mindee, and the Pet Queen are having some of their busiest years, with all the coordinating and handling the adoption of millions of babies,' Death laughed.

'They should be happy. Spark said the Imperium had a windfall with habitable planets a couple of centuries ago. The Imperium needs the population boost now more than ever,' Aragorn added.

'By the way, My Love. How's the spell to separate our chocolate from Earth going?' Death asked.

'Mmmm, I'd say about 57% done. I'm going to cut it close with our departure, so I won't be able to bring Gaea to this universe to finish the pregnancy here,' Aragorn informed.

'Maybe that's for the better. We don't know what sort of reaction our baby might cause to a weak reality like this one,' Death commented.

'Yeah, in hindsight, maybe it is for the better,' Aragorn agreed. 'Oh, we're about to ransack another city. I better hurry up if I want to save some women and children from the horror of being passed around by the savages.'

Aragorn's artificial steed made sure to carry him to the tip of the spear so that Aragorn could penetrate the city defenses first. Death was mercy. It was at moments like these that the powerless understood the true meaning of those words. Aragorn made sure to grant that mercy to the not-so-bright souls he didn't save.

And as more than 30 million people died of bloodshed, famine, plagues, and suicide, the golden age began to die.

850 CE...

In the golden halls of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, during the height of the Abbasid Caliphate, worked a Persian polymath named Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī.

His greatest legacy came in mathematics. In his seminal book, Al-Kitāb al-Mukhtaṣar fī Ḥisāb al-Jabr wal-Muqābala (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing), he laid the foundational principles of algebra.

'Are you kidnapping this one for Selene?' Death asked.

'Yes, but I also wanted to see with my own eyes the guy who invented algebra,' Aragorn spoke with some viciousness in his words.

'Eh, My Love, do you have a problem with algebra?' Death asked.

'Not now, but let me tell you about the tragedy of Lucian and calculus,' Aragorn said. 'Lucian was a slightly above-average teen in the department of smarts—not a genius, not a prodigy—just enough to pass comfortably most exams.

'Lucian measured his worth by his success, but he also was very "lazy"—in reality, it was depression—so he liked to be successful with minimal effort. Lucian then encountered algebra; he fell in love with it. It was beautiful, but sadly, algebra hid a terrible dark secret... Calculus!

'Lucian couldn't be successful and lazy while learning integrals. Integrals demanded he put in effort. And that's the story of how Lucian was lured into math by algebra, only to be betrayed by calculus,' Aragorn finished the retelling of his tragedy with math during his human days.

'My Love, that doesn't sound tragic at all,' Death spoke facts.

'Yeah... Now it isn't, but back then it was the end of my world as I knew it. Well, I've said this many times, but I was a human bad at life,' Aragorn shrugged.

While Aragorn was sharing quality time conversing with the love of his life, Al-Khwarizmi's last breath drew near. The shadow of death—it was Aragorn—grasped his ankles and then pulled forcibly.

"A-ah," the weakest cry escaped him, and before he knew it, he felt like he was becoming something more.

"Not to cuddle him because he will be part of my house, but why were you so forceful when you kidnapped him? His feeble ankles were bruised. You're the best kidnapper of the Multiverse; there's no way you could have done such a sloppy job," Selene reprimanded as she, Aragorn, and Hestia awaited the newborn vampire to emerge from his cocoon.

"Wait until you see what I'll do to Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz for inventing calculus," Aragorn grumbled.

"It's not nice to torment mortals, Aragorn. You're better than this," Hestia chided.

"Fine," Aragorn pouted. "I'll avoid physical injury next time."

Selene locked gazes with Hestia. By now, they'd known Aragorn well enough to understand that he meant he would psychologically torment his next victims. However, neither voiced their thoughts and let Aragorn and his antics be.

"Would you like to take a walk around the Sanctum Ingeniorum, Aragorn?" Hestia asked.

"Is that the name coined for the island?" Aragorn asked.

"Yes. Since Latin is the tongue of the mortals of this land, we decided on that name," Hestia nodded.

"Fair enough, and sure, please show me around the installations," Aragorn offered his hand to Hestia.

She grabbed it, and the two went to tour the Sanctum Ingeniorum.

893 CE...

Aragorn sat at the top of one of his Obelisks, his eyes locked on the night sky, tracking a supernova like a predator.

"My Love," Death appeared in his view.

"My Noona," Aragorn opened his arms and pulled Death onto his lap. Her tail coiled around his waist and his around hers. "Are you done training Jean?"

"Yes. She should now be as capable of handling her destructive side as her creative one," Death assured. "I came to talk about what comes next."

"About Earth-295?" Aragorn asked.

"Yes. I think you should wait until we return to our Earth before going to Earth-295 to end it," Death said.

"Do you think Jean is not ready to experience betrayal?" Aragorn asked.

"No, it's not that. I do think she is ready—and so does Phoenix—but I don't want to delay our stay here further in relation to the future of Earth-5H1N3," Death said.

"The future of Earth-5H1N3? My Earth has no future," Aragorn replied, confusion etched on his face.

"It's already been about 12 hours in Earth-5H1N3 since you left, and I noticed that at hour 10, something began allowing the future to gain distance from the present. If you jump to Earth-295 and deal with the Exterminators, we might end up delaying our return even further in relation to the future. I don't want Gaea to be alone for so long—especially since something unexpected is happening," Death explained, her brows furrowed in uneasiness.

Imagine that [Time] operated like the loading bar of a video. The gray bar represents the time that is ready to be lived, and the red bar the time that's been lived. The border between both bars would be the present.

Since Aragorn's Earth doesn't have a future, then the red and gray bars are almost simultaneously one atop the other. The future is lived as it loads; hence, there's no future.

However, Death implied that's no longer the case. The longer their stay is delayed in relation to the gray bar of Earth-5H1N3, the less secure she feels about leaving Gaea alone.

She also mentioned that it's been 12 hours of the red bar of Earth-5H1N3 since they left, and that by hour 10, the gray bar gained speed.

Death knew that Aragorn was dealing with the future threats he knew as they appeared. For example, a Kang from Earth-5H1N3 would never come to exist because there was no future, and Aragorn was ensuring that a Kang wouldn't be born—along with other threats from the future that, in the comics, tend to travel to the past and cause chaos.

So the nature of Death's fear is that by Aragorn not taking care of threats as they are born, a future threat could come from the gray bar. It doesn't help assuage her worries that something strange appears to be happening.

As for why the gray bar (future) is gaining on the border between bars (present), it has to do with the Cosmic Cube. Since Odin 'wished' to defeat Aragorn, the path with the highest chances would be one where Odin has more options. The Cube considered that by having a future, Odin would have better chances because it would allow him to have another dimension in which to operate—the future.

"That's unusual. The future normally doesn't increase in speed all of a sudden, does it?" Aragorn asked.

"Sometimes it does, but normally not in a Doomed Reality. As far as I saw, nothing strange was happening. And I know you left Gaea and Carol armored to the teeth and then some, but just in case, we should not delay our return," Death said.

"Mmmm, yes, I also don't believe we should delay our return," Aragorn readily agreed. "Can you inform Phoenix? I don't want her claiming that I'm inventing shit to evade responsibilities," he grumbled.

"Don't worry, My Love. I've already informed her, and we are also peering into Earth-5H1N3 to find out what sparked the change," Death said before nuzzling into Aragorn's neck.

950 CE...

In Northumbria, after the land had been subdued from Norse rulership to the hands of King Eadred, Aragorn had moved to a nearby Obelisk. That year, there had been no major military conflicts he wished to be part of, so he decided to take a sabbatical in this cultural melting pot, with Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and Norse influences.

Aragorn had also decided to put more focus on finishing some of his personal spells, since the matter with Tiamut was almost complete, with just a few centuries of calibration left.

With a newfound sense of peace, after centuries of warmongering and bloodshed, Aragorn even felt a sense of kinship with future Thanos after wiping out half of every civilization and becoming a farmer.

Alas, the peace didn't last long.

The clouds churned dramatically, rain blessed the fertile land, thunder threatened the taller trees, and Yggdrasil's dimensional energy began to leak into Midgard and congregate.

"Odin? I thought he was afraid of facing me," Aragorn murmured.

The classical shine of a bridge between realities flashed brightly, and from the pillar of multicolored light, a group of women riding winged white horses emerged.

The light receded when the leader—if the air of authority and divinity were any indicators—walked last out of the Bifrost pillar.

Aragorn, donning his more belligerent persona, clad in shadows atop a black steed, appeared before the group as if walking out of the shadows.

"Odin's Valkyrior is here but there's no Odin?" Aragorn asked with intrigue, his white, empty eyes inspecting the Valkyries before landing on the leader. "Though I don't understand why his wife would come in his stead. Is he still afraid of meeting me?"

Aragorn's words spread unease not by virtue of their meaning, but by virtue of the speaker's presence.

"My Lord, Aragorn," Freyja said with a curtsy affordable to royals. "My name is Freyja Freyrdottir. It's a pleasure to meet the honored warrior the Allfather spread impressive tales about."

"His violent change in character is the stuff of wonder—or nightmares, maybe both. Who can tell? Maybe Hela?" Aragorn chuckled. He also noticed how the Valkyries flinched at the mention of Hela's name. "A few centuries ago he was pinning the entire divine world on me. Now he is spreading tales of my supposed honor."

To his words, Freyja could only remain silent with a practiced, subtle royal smile.

"Don't mind my words, goddess. I hold no resentment toward him," Aragorn shrugged. "A boot has no resentment for an ant, does it? Regardless, I figure you came not to quarrel with me. You must have a request, no? Is it about the unruly weapon he discarded after the new company policies did not tolerate weapons of mass destruction?"

"It is as you inferred, My Lord. Hela broke her seal and is attempting to escape her confinement as we speak. The Allfather remains in Asgard conserving his energy to rebuild the seal after Hela's defeat," Freyja said. "The Queen Goddess of the Drachantheon Therion directed us to My Lord when we requested assistance."

"How dare Hela attempt to escape her imprisonment after her handler had an abrupt change of heart?!" Aragorn spoke with evident faux outrage. "Of course, we must go and punish the ungrateful rebel to her captor and warden!"

Again, Freyja could only remain silent with a smile that belied her discomfort. The Valkyrior were not so different.

"..."

"..."

Aragorn stood in silence for a moment, his eyes flashing green with [Time]. Freyja, adept in sorcery and mysticism, immediately understood what he was doing.

"Let's see... Goddess, you shall come back home safe and sound," Aragorn nodded to Freyja. "On the other hand, you, Hela's old companions, shall forfeit your souls to the Undead Goddess... all but that little valkyrie over there," Aragorn pointed at the shocked Brunhilde.

The Valkyrior were warriors; they feared not the embrace of death. So, while unease was unavoidable, they leaned more to the side of acceptance about their impending deaths—the only outlier being Brunhilde, who wanted to speak up but was held back by the silencing gaze of her sisters.

However, while the Valkyrior didn't understand what forfeiting their souls to Hela meant, Freyja did.

"M-My Lord, is it within your assistance's scope to change the outcome of this fate?" Freyja asked, her facade cracking—she cared that much for the Valkyrior.

"Those meant to die shall die. I'm not in the business of granting wishes, goddess," Aragorn declared with finality. "However, I can make an exception and claim the Valkyrior's souls before they fall into Hela's hands. After a cycle of servitude to the Imperium, they would follow your cycle of souls and part for your designated repository of souls—Valhalla, I presume."

"... It's more than I have the courage to ask," Freyja said. She didn't want this outcome, but she knew Asgard had no position to negotiate with Aragorn.

"I'm glad you understand," Aragorn nodded. "Then, let me grant them the ability to burn bright one last time. Like a star going supernova before its death."

Aragorn floated away from his steed and approached the uncomfortable Valkyrior.

"You shall have the power to contend with Hela. Power beyond your current limits. Power with a deadly cost."

Aragorn, starting with the closest one, placed his armored hand on their armored chests, then, as if defying the forces of repulsion that give substance to matter, his hand phased into her chest.

"Your souls shall shine bright one last time under my care."

His words were like the vocalization of a spell, yet no magic could be detected.

"Bore my markings with pride, for no demigoddess has ever done so before."

Ink, white in color instead of black, surfaced on the skin of the valkyrie, visible to her sisters and goddess in the exposed patches of skin. The ink spelled out meaning lost to all but Aragorn.

"Worry not about anything but your battle, for the reason for attachment is lost to the dead."

One valkyrie after another, until all—but Brunhilde—of the Valkyrior were branded.

"And for you, goddess," Aragorn turned to Freyja. "Protection is all you need."

Aragorn waved his tail in her direction, and an armor that appeared to be made of hard light overlaid her own.

"Thank you, My Lord," Freyja said. Her gaze was still heavy when it crossed the Valkyrior, but she couldn't say more since this was a problem created by Asgard's hands alone.

Aragorn returned to his steed, not long after the pillar of Bifrost light dropped on the women and they were no more.

"What's with these guys branding everywhere they go?" Aragorn muttered while judgmentally observing the Bifrost's runic brand burned on the ground.

Niflheim...

In the realm of frigidity known as Niflheim, a region reserved for the dead who are neither honored nor dishonored existed. This region was known as Hel.

Hel served not only as a repository of souls but also as a prison for Hela. However, Hel was now an empty realm except for its VIP guest.

Odin couldn't afford for these souls to be fuel for his daughter's power, which had exceeded his upon her undeath, so he emptied it before dropping Hela inside.

Hel was meant to be a desolate realm of sharp, rugged, and arid peaks, with weather as gloomy as its reason to be. No life. Barely any light. Cold, as if trying to siphon warmth away. Yet, now a large horizontal scar adorned its gloomy skies, with a warm light that contrasted with everything that Hel—or even Niflheim—stood for.

At the edges of this scar, two massive swords radiating death pinned it open. These swords were born from the ground, taller than the peaks of the terrain, and sharper than any conceivable blade. They looked like a cursed stairway to heaven that didn't request entry but demanded it with blood and death.

Hela stood with a manic gaze that spoke of child abuse to even the ignorant. Her hands, powerfully yet desperately, hoisted forward. Following the poise of her hands and the will of their wielder, a storm of swords manifested and flew toward this opening exuding a warmth that had no place in Hel.

"Almost," Hela muttered as the storm of swords tore layer by layer the realm boundary imprisoning her.

"Almost," Hela muttered as she played fantasies of drinking mead in Odin's skull.

"Almost," Hela muttered as her undead power surged and created more blades to quicken the unraveling of her cage.

"Almost," Hela muttered as she viewed her future self seated on the throne of Asgard, her subjects with gazes of admiration and pride in knowing that she had brought unprecedented prosperity to Asgard.

"Almost," Hela muttered as she edged closer to her freedom and could finally ask Odin the question that had been eating her alive ever since she woke up in her current cage: Why do you hate me?

However, when the final layer fell to her swarm of swords, like a bevy of doves, the Valkyrior riding their winged horses broke through.

These were her companions, women with whom she had fought side by side, people who had guarded her back, the ones that followed her to the most infernal corners of Muspelheim to slay Ifrit's spawns. Yet that moment of relief and happiness after recognizing them was snuffed out with no hope of reigniting, like a candle at the bottom of the sea, upon sensing their hostility.

"FOR ASGARD!" they raged in unison.

"ASGARD?!" Hela exclaimed, her voice cracking with hurt and wrath at the affront. "I'm HELA ODINSDOTTIR, I'M YOUR PRINCESS!"

How could they dare to claim honor for Asgard when she was Asgard's heir? Hela was enraged by the contradiction.

With nothing else aside from rage and a profound sense of betrayal, Hela willed her swarm of death swords at her previous companions. No words were needed when hostility was so clear.

The swords cut deep, and like a virus, the energy of death penetrated the flesh and ate at their vitality. Yet, the advance of the necrotic curse was halted by the white inky script covering their skins.

Hela took notice of this, but it warranted not her concern. It was only logical that the Valkyrior came prepared when they knew so personally their opponent.

Like heat-seeking ammunition, the swords attacked the doves.

Initially, making curves midair and spawning from a different source point other than Hela was beyond impossible, but after she died and her new undead reality settled, she discovered that she could now control her swords as if with telekinesis. Not only that, but she could now spawn her swords from different locations.

In conclusion, it was chaos. The valkyries not only had to guard the front, but the rear, laterals, above, and below were also windows of possibility for Hela's swords to target them.

A few eternal minutes into the battle, the first valkyrie fell.

"F-FOr A-aSGARD!" Like a crazed Japanese in World War II, she dive-bombed along with her steed at Hela.

The script in her skin lit brightly, and even while impaled with multiple swords, she didn't stop her suicidal charge.

Hela's eyes narrowed warily at this. With a sweeping upward gesture of her hand, a broad death sword emerged from the ground before her, shielding her from what she recognized as a threat.

Then, with a blinding light, a silent flash of radiance, and the declaration of resolve of the valkyrie, she exploded.

The cleansing light polluted Hela's swords and corroded them with their antithesis, even from a distance away.

However, the broad sword shielding Hela was the one that took the brunt of the flash, and it failed to completely protect its master.

When the light subsided, Hela's face and the front of her body were nothing but bones and muscle tissue, with some of her organs peeking through gaps in her fascia. Yet, even in that state, she didn't utter a word.

As if mimicking the infection progress of an encroaching plague, she began regenerating on the spot. And when she was back to her prime, her eyes were not on the battle ensuing above, but on the remains of the valkyrie.

"Herja," her voice cracked with vulnerability, "did you hate me so much as to sell your soul to a demon?"

She raised her face, now a mien of unbridled wrath, and addressed the woman who, while encased in an armor of hard light, bore the regalia of the queen of Asgard, "YOU RESORTED TO SELLING THEIR SOULS?!"

Freyja didn't reply, not only because she was busy dealing with her own ambush of swords, but because Hela was not wrong. The Valkyrior's souls were indeed sold to a demon-like entity.

"YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO ASGARD! YET YOU CLAIM TO FIGHT ME FOR ITS HONOR!" Hela let go of sentimentality and began to put effort into killing the valkyries. First, they were her enemies—now they were Asgard's enemies. And that, in the eyes of a weapon raised by and for Asgard's sake, was worse.

And so, one after the other, in blinding flashes of otherworldly radiance, the valkyries fell.

With the fight nearing its end, the dimension underwent a shift of spatial instability.

Hel was a repository of souls, a pocket realm within the Niflheim realm. However, Hela, in her crass attempt to break free, ripped the boundary open. And during the raging battle, this wound—this tear, this rip in the dimensional boundaries and the spatial mesh of both realms—was kept open.

"MY QUEEN! GET OUT OF HERE!" Brunhilde shouted before launching forward to assist the last of her kin against Hela.

Freyja glanced one last time at the results of her husband's ploys, and after confirming that the anchor for Odin's seal had taken hold of Hel, she jumped into the rift to escape from Hel, back into Niflheim.

When the other last valkyrie, aside from Brunhilde, recognized her queen's safety, she willingly detonated herself after kicking Brunhilde away toward the tear. "Live," she told Brunhilde before the light took her.

"NOO—" Brunhilde's cry was cut short.

The explosion of the last valkyrie, combined with the existing instability and the reinforcement seal that Odin finally completed, created a wormhole that sucked everything but Hela.

"Goodbye, little valkyrie. The future ruler of New Asgard, better kingship material than all three of Odin's children combined," Aragorn said jokingly as he watched the denouement of the play.

Aragorn then appeared next to Freyja, startling her. "I came to take away the armor, goddess," he said.

"What about Brunhilde?" Freyja curtly asked, the heat of the battle washing away some of her royal etiquette.

"She's alive, just not around these parts of the universe," Aragorn replied without minding Freyja's tone. "She'll curse at your royal house, blaming the deaths of her sisters on you, so she won't return even when she'll have the means."

"... My Lord, thank you for your assistance," Freyja said. She didn't wish to discuss anything else about the topic at hand, nor did she have anything to say in her defense.

Aragorn recouped the armor he had lent Freyja and then went his way. And so, Odin's Valkyrior came to an end. No glory, no honor, no songs or tales shall be passed down about their final battle, for no record of it will survive Odin's rewriting of Asgard's history.

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{A/N:

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}