Chapter 124: Worthy
The fire inside the Destroyer's open face painted the broken road orange.
Ethan kept the barriers across the side streets active and the evacuation portals steady, but he left the space around Thor untouched. Thor had made his choice. Ethan would continue protecting everyone else, but he would not take that choice away from him.
Thor stood in the dirt and broken asphalt, wearing Jane's borrowed flannel shirt. He didn't know if Loki could hear every word from the throne of Asgard, but he addressed the towering weapon as though his brother were standing inside it.
"Loki, I know this weapon carries your command," Thor said, his voice carrying clearly across the quiet, ruined street. "Whatever anger you hold against me, let it end here. These people have done nothing to you. My friends came because of me. Take my life and leave them unharmed."
Behind the safety of Ethan's magical perimeter, Jane realized what Thor was offering. She surged forward, struggling wildly against Gwen's grip. On the pavement nearby, Sif tried to rise to her feet, but Fandral caught her arm, holding her back because her injured leg refused to support her weight.
Ethan watched the armor. He didn't move.
The fire inside the Destroyer's face began to weaken.
With a grinding hiss of metal, the heavy plates shifted and slowly closed. The intense heat radiating from the weapon dimmed.
For a breathless moment, the battlefield was entirely still. Everyone watched, daring to believe that Loki might have actually accepted Thor's surrender.
Thor lowered his shoulders slightly. It was not because he believed he had survived, but because the weapon was no longer pointing toward the town. He looked back over his shoulder.
"Thor!" Jane yelled, her voice raw.
Thor looked at her. There was no grand romantic monologue. He just offered a brief, quiet look of relief, grateful that she and the others were safe.
Then, the Destroyer moved.
It didn't fire. It swung one massive, spiked arm with terrifying speed, striking Thor directly across the chest.
The sickening crack of the impact echoed down the street. The blow lifted Thor entirely off his feet, throwing him through the air like a broken doll. He slammed into the pavement thirty feet away, hitting the ground hard enough to crack the asphalt beneath him.
Thor remained motionless in the cracked asphalt.
Ethan's fingers tightened slightly around the spell sustaining the barriers, but he held his position. His gaze never left the fallen prince.
For several agonizing seconds, the battlefield was dead quiet.
The Destroyer closed its face and slowly turned away from Thor's broken body, moving as though its primary task had been completed. It took a heavy, metallic step toward the remaining defenders.
Gwen released her the moment Thor hit the ground. Jane sprinted past the magical perimeter and rushed into the open street before anyone could stop her.
Natasha instantly stepped up to the line, raising the Plumber sidearm to cover Jane's advance, while Sif and the Warriors Three dragged themselves over the debris toward their fallen prince.
Jane dropped to her knees beside Thor. She placed trembling hands flat against his chest, searching for a breath, a heartbeat, any sign of life. She found nothing.
Sif looked up from the pavement, locking eyes with Ethan. Her earlier fury began burning through her exhaustion. Thor appeared dead, and the Midgardian sorcerer had stood by and let it happen despite his absolute certainty.
Before Sif could voice the accusation, Ethan felt Odin's enchantment change.
The judgment surrounding Mjolnir opened like a locked door finally recognizing the man standing before it. Thor had not sought death to reclaim his power. He had surrendered his life believing that he would receive nothing in return.
The hammer had judged him worthy.
Miles away in the secured crater, Mjolnir's ancient runes ignited beneath the S.H.I.E.L.D. floodlights.
Every sensor around the pedestal reacted at once. Warning lights flashed across the mobile lab as the nearest equipment frames began shaking against their mounts.
Tony saw the movement on the central screen and threw himself away from the console.
Mjolnir tore free of the pedestal. Its sudden departure ripped cables from the surrounding sensor stands, overturned one of Tony's portable arrays and blasted dust across the crater before the hammer shot into the sky.
The hammer crossed the desert sky at tremendous speed. The low, thunderous roar of its approach reached Puente Antiguo before the weapon itself could be seen.
Ethan turned his head toward the sound.
Sif followed his gaze, her breath catching in her throat.
Mjolnir tore through the sky above the town.
Jane felt Thor's fingers move beneath her hand. His arm lifted from the broken pavement as the hammer crossed the final distance and slammed into his waiting palm.
The instant his grip closed around the leather handle, a blinding bolt of lightning crashed down from the sky.
The shockwave blasted outward. Jane was thrown backward by the sheer concussive force of the returning divine power, but Ethan caught her mid-air with a controlled pull of golden magic, setting her safely onto the pavement beside Sif. He could protect Jane now without interfering with Thor's completed sacrifice.
Inside the blinding column of lightning, Thor's Asgardian armor reformed.
The heavy red cape manifested from the storm. Polished silver armor locked into place over his chest and arms, replacing the torn Midgardian clothes. Raw, crackling electricity traveled across the metal plates.
Lightning rolled through Thor's body beneath the returning armor. His crushed ribs reset, his heart kicked violently back into motion, and the damage left by the Destroyer closed beneath the surge of restored divine power.
The storm cleared. Thor rose from the broken pavement, Mjolnir in his hand, the air around him humming with raw ozone and ancient power.
He looked toward Jane and gave her a small, steady nod. He was alive.
But the Destroyer was already turning back toward them.
Sif looked from the towering God of Thunder back to Ethan. She remembered the sorcerer's deliberate choice of words from earlier: Odin's only son. It was not the time to ask the question, but the realization was clearly visible in her expression.
Ethan only gave her the faintest smile before turning his full attention back toward the Destroyer.
The massive armor opened its face toward the town once more.
Thor launched himself forward before the fire could ignite.
He crossed the distance in a blur of silver and red, swinging Mjolnir with devastating force. He struck the armor squarely in the chest, releasing a massive burst of lightning directly through the point of impact. The concussive force drove the Destroyer backward, tearing several dark, spiked outer plates entirely from its chassis.
Volstagg let out a booming cheer as Thor drove the armor backward. Even the injured Sif smiled at the sight of Mjolnir in his hand.
The celebration lasted only until the damaged armor began moving again.
Its internal plates rotated with a heavy metallic hiss, sliding over one another as they reconnected around the exposed interior.
High above the street, Tony's drones captured the regeneration from several angles. Their readings appeared across Ethan's analyzer, separating the movement of the metal plates from the Asgardian magic beneath them.
Every repair began from the same tightly connected group of runes inside the Destroyer's chest. The command coming from Asgard passed through that area as well, though it followed a separate path through the enchantment.
Ethan had never needed the readings to remove the Destroyer from the battlefield. He could have buried it inside the Mirror Dimension or torn the armor apart until nothing remained. The scan gave him a cleaner victory: sever Loki's control, break the regeneration and leave the weapon unable to rebuild.
Thor struck again, driving the Destroyer farther away from the evacuated streets. Each blow cracked open more of its outer armor, forcing the regeneration runes to activate again and giving Ethan a clearer view of the pattern he intended to destroy.
Thor drove the Destroyer back with another deafening strike, then landed firmly on the asphalt beside Ethan.
He was no longer the powerless exile receiving harsh lessons from a Midgardian sorcerer. He stood beside Ethan as the God of Thunder.
Thor looked at the rapidly repairing Destroyer. "Can you break the enchantment that restores it?"
Ethan watched the regeneration pattern begin again inside the armor's chest.
"Yes," Ethan said. "But I need its chest open when the cycle begins."
Thor turned Mjolnir in his hand, the lightning dancing across the Uru metal.
"Then I shall open it."
Hill's voice came through Ethan's earpiece, confirming that the final buildings had been cleared and every civilian was outside the immediate battle zone.
Ethan closed the evacuation portals one after another. The barriers protecting the side streets faded with them, and with a turn of his wrist, the main road slipped fully into the Mirror Dimension.
The real buildings disappeared behind the glassy edge of the spell. Inside the reflected world, the street stretched beneath the Destroyer while the surrounding storefronts folded upward and away, leaving nothing nearby for its fire to reach. Ethan no longer had to divide his attention between the weapon and the town.
Thor launched himself forward. Mjolnir crashed into the Destroyer's chest and tore several plates apart before the armor could finish repairing them. When the metal immediately began closing again, Thor drove the hammer deeper between the shifting layers and used both hands to hold the opening apart.
The Destroyer fought to close around Mjolnir. Its internal plates ground against the Uru hammer while orange fire gathered behind its helm, but Thor planted his feet against the altered road and forced the chest wider.
Ethan advanced through the Mirror Dimension with golden magic gathering around both hands. The regeneration sequence ignited at the center of the exposed armor, sending power outward to rebuild every damaged plate. Beneath it ran the thinner path carrying Loki's command from Asgard.
Until now, Ethan had allowed Odin's trial to continue. That trial was finished.
The magic around Ethan's hands compressed into a thin golden edge. Inside the exposed chest, the regeneration runes flared around the narrower channel carrying Loki's command from Asgard.
Thor held the plates apart with Mjolnir, lightning pouring through the gaps while the Destroyer fought to close around the hammer. Ethan moved into the opening created for him and drove the golden edge toward the point where the two enchantments crossed.
The first rune split.
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