Havoc and Retribution

Ynknel

Bradlich's body smacks the ground with a very meaty thump.

She sways, the wind dying, the rainbow light fading slowly. She turns around the room, eyes looking at the wounded Steve, the restrained Avengers and Loki's shocked but understanding eyes. Her own grey eyes blink and Jaycee Strong comes back to herself, suddenly looking not like an avenging goddess, but a lost young woman who has just dived over the edge.

They always feared she would fall, as if it was a passive thing to become a villain. But what they have just witnesses is not a fall, but a dive off the cliff.

She looks at them with dawning horror and yet also a righteous kind of defensiveness. She may be shocked at how far she just went, but she does not regret it. Jaycee killed Jared Bradlich and as much as they want to believe it was Hel in control, it is clear from the way she holds her head up, a cold impassive look masking over her face, that she accepts what she has done.

Then her body jerks forward as if a ghost re-enters her body and when she looks up the green eyes and malicious smile are back. "What a performance," Hel says, clapping her bony hands. "Don't you think? So glad you could be here to witness the true Jaycee that lives in my head."

She turns to the soldiers, not wasting a moment. "Off you go then," she says, opening a portal in the floor. "You are no longer needed." With a display of raw telekinetic power, she pushes the Warren Biochemical thugs into the portal. When the last screams fade, she dusts off her hands. "I would stay to review this latest development," she tells the Avengers, who are struggling to converge on her, to make an effort to stop her after what they have just witnessed. "But I have realms to conquer."

With that, Hel steps into the portal at her feet and disappears.

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Alone on the slopes of the Ice Peaks, Athronei is visiting the site of a lost legend.

Her sisters do not know she is here. She was always closer to her lost sister than they were, and she needed to come here, see the dragon's spine and remember.

The Ice Peaks of Vanaheim were said to have been formed from the body of a fallen dragon. Most Vanir now treat it as part of their oral tradition and pass the story down as traditional lore. Athronei has to admit it is a perfect legend. The dragon lays down its life in battle to stop two warring factions on Vanaheim, ending a bloody civil war. What everyone forgets is the truth of what and who the dragon was. Dorany was one of the few who knew the truth, remembered what was truly lost when the dragon died.

The dragon's soul could not die though; the cosmos would have been out of balance without the spirit that resided within the reptilian shape. Jaycee learned that she was a descendant of one of the most critical beings in the universe and that Hel had no intention of restoring balance when Jaycee came here months ago. That revelation left Jay devastated, not because she was burdened with responsibility, but because she knew there was no choice and she would never have her own life.

Athronei understands that. When Sigyn and Hel were one and her sister was there to muse with her about their existence, this is what she would have talked to Athronei about. They talked about whether their lives were really their own. It was always hard for Athronei to know if she was a person or a force, a being like any of the multitudes of species among the stars, or if she was instead only energy, part of the fabric of the cosmos.

She misses her sister in these moments. But seeing the Ice Peaks in front of her and being the only one of her sisters who knows why their dragon sister did what she did convinces her that they will have to reveal themselves in battle to the monstrosity that is the amalgamation of Hel and the Sigyndottir. Hel will come for them; it is only a matter of time. Verdani is right, they have to intervene.