Caffeine Rush (Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter 33: Lines We Don't

Every speedster knows Jormungandr and every speedster learns to fear him. In surviving recorded mythology, it was a serpent tossed into the Midgardian ocean by Odin, who grew so large that it circled the world and began eating its own tail, that was where the symbol of an ouroboros comes from. As long as the world serpent continues to eat its tail, the world will be at peace, and mortals will know the day of Ragnarok as the day the serpent releases its tail. In the human stories, winter befell the world, the wolves chasing the sun and moon finally catch their prey, Yggdrasil trembles and every tree and mountain falls, Fenrir's chains snap and he devours everything in his path, and the world serpent rises from the ocean and poisons everything that remains, each of the gods and monsters fighting until nothing at all remained at the end of days. But those were the stories of mortals.

The beings of the multiverse, ones that existed on a scale far larger and more threatening than any universe or any threat within them, were closely guarded secrets of those that frequented the multiverse. Even the sorcerers who drew power from the multiverse or the Time Variant Authorities who existed to guard the sacred timeline knew very little about the beings that existed outside of it. Every universe had much smaller and less threatening versions of each of those beings, all except the world serpent. There was only one Jormungandr, so large that it circled Yggdrasil many times over and still ate its tail. It slept eternally, until the day that it awakens to devour Yggdrasil and all the universes that encompass it in its whole. The only one capable of going against it was the true god of the multiverse, the one that sat on the throne in the center of Yggdrasil, holding the branches together. At the end of days, when Jormungandr and the true god are all that remained, they will battle it out until the true god slays the world serpent and falls from its poison directly after, using the last of his power to create the seed for a new world tree to grow from.

It would be a battle of a scale so unmanageable that it made me quiver just thinking about it. As powerful as a god was, they were nothing, as powerful as a speedster was, they were nothing. What could my little legs do up against something so formidable? Nothing. Nothing at all. It terrified me to have the knowledge that somewhere in this vast timeline, there was an end to everything, to all memory of being. And yet, it was also something of a comfort, all trees die, even the world tree, what had I to fear in the face of things?

Knowledge of such things were limited, even to those that were aware of the multiverse or had the ability to travel across it. Only speedsters were truly aware of multiversal beings, and only the fastest of them knew the great extent to which the timeline would unfold in the future, that an infinite number of universes would one day collapse into one, an unthinkable number of lives lost, and the fate of Yggdrasil would depend on that single universe going forward. But when that happened depended entirely on what awakened the world serpent, an event that could occur at any time from any of the infinite universes that made up the world tree.

It was a lot to guard against, made easier by that knowledge being closely guarded against by the multiverses fastest. Only the speedsters, whose great capabilities could decimate a planet and traverse through universes like highways, knew that at any moment in the future, Jormunangdr might awaken. The end of everything was only a step away and so very few were even aware of it.

Why did I bring it up? Why didn't I just brush it off? They wouldn't have known the difference until I opened my mouth.

But why had Strange brought up the past battles of my world? Did he suspect a connection between that fight and the reason behind trying to make the bridge? My universe was well aware of the multiverse and the possibility of incursion should two universes breach the space separating them for too long. It was like a rubber band pulled too tight, too much and it would snap back on each other and if you were lucky, it would hurt your fingers, but it wouldn't break. If they succeeded in opening a bridge as the wizards had theorized, then the risk of an incursion grew substantially higher. What could possibly make them resort to such measures? Nothing, there was no reason, it was too high of a risk. Unless they faced a threat that they were willing to risk the destruction of two universes or endure the consequences of a combination to prevent. That was not a good thought.

They hadn't even considered it when Hela had invaded Midgard until her intentions to use Fenrir to wake the snake had become apparent. They, of course, hadn't known the full ramifications of Jormungandr waking but Hela had come close enough that his astral form, a version of his white scaled body much reduced in size from his true form to fit in a space as small as a single universe, had blotted out the sky and extended far beyond the sight from Earth. Only those with gifts in mystic arts had been able to see it, but no one had known exactly what it was as clear as a speedster, who had been immediately aware of what it meant that we could see and feel its presence. Despite the others not knowing the significance of Jormungandr showing its presence in our universe, they had known instinctively that he was dangerous, a threat to the entire universe, maybe more, and had seriously considered purposefully causing an incursion if the Avengers efforts hadn't stopped it.

Now they were actually going through with that plan. What type of threat did they face now?

I shivered at the thought, blitzing sporadically throughout the compound at high enough speeds that others had taken note of my state of frenzy. "Jesse! Jesse, slow down—"

I needed to know. I needed to know if Jormungandr was waking, I had to check on him. As long as he was asleep, it didn't matter why my universe was trying to create a bridge. Any other threat meant nothing because once he woke, everything else would be nothing, good or bad, it wouldn't matter, he would spare nothing. What was a threat to a single universe in comparison to the foretold devourer of all things?

Blitzing, I felt myself collide with something, a person probably, one of the gods maybe, it didn't feel like a regular human. "Miss Jesse, slow yourself!" His words meant nothing as he was tossed away from the force behind my speed. It sounded like Thor, but it hardly mattered. I had to check on the world serpent to make sure he was still asleep, everything else could wait, I needed to know. Now.