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They followed Valkyrie through halls of polished obsidian veined with gold, beneath floating braziers that burned with violet flame. The ceilings arched high enough to vanish into shadow. The air carried the scent of cold steel and distant storms.
Royal guards flanked them on either side. Their blades were ceremonial. Their stares were not. These were warriors who had bled in real battles.
Kamala leaned toward Kate and whispered, "Why do I feel like we're about to get scolded by some ancient Norse principal?"
Kate didn't answer. She just kept walking.
At the end of the corridor, Valkyrie pushed open a pair of blackstone doors with a single hand.
The war room beyond wasn't ornate—it didn't have to be. It was all purpose, no pageantry. A levitating round table hovered at the center, encircled by floating displays: topographical maps, rune-scripts in motion, shifting fields of color and light. Above it all, a faint AI projection of Yggdrasil pulsed like a slow heartbeat, its branches weaving together the lattice of the Nine Realms.
Fury didn't sit.
He moved to the table and gestured once. Midgard rotated into focus, pulsing red with activity.
"We've got a problem," he said.
Naruto leaned back against the wall, arms folded. America cracked her knuckles. Kamala stepped forward, brows knitted.
"Val Fontaine," Fury continued. "She's planning something big. Not just political. We picked up cloaked drones running high-atmosphere scans. Some of them breached Asgardian airspace. Mapping runs. Probes."
Valkyrie frowned but didn't flinch. "Midgard spies on us. Always has."
"This wasn't recon. It was targeting."
He twisted his fingers. The projection shifted. New layers formed—military formations, logistical trails, simulated deployments—all pointed directly at New Asgard.
"She's staging a confrontation," Fury said. "And she's framing you to justify it. If this goes public… it'll look like Asgard was the aggressor."
Valkyrie went still.
She stared at the display, face unreadable.
"A war," she said quietly. "Midgard against Asgard."
Her breath left her like a storm breaking through glass. "She wouldn't dare."
"She already has," Fury replied.
The room fell silent. Even the runes seemed to flicker dimmer.
Valkyrie's voice cut through the tension like a drawn blade. "If Fontaine wants war, then New Asgard closes its gates. No portals. No flight. No passage in or out."
Kate blinked. "You're locking down the entire city?"
Valkyrie didn't hesitate. "She wants to test our walls?" Her jaw tensed. "Then we'll show her what they're made of."
But then she paused, her face shifting. She cursed under her breath.
"Sif."
Fury's one eye sharpened. "What about her?"
"She's not in Asgard." Valkyrie clenched her jaw. "I approved her leave. She's attending a Midgardian sporting event."
"Where?"
"Something about a Yankees game."
Fury's lips pressed into a line.
NY Yankees vs Detroit Tigers
It was the fourth inning.
Sif sat beneath a wide-brimmed cap, oversized sunglasses hiding her eyes. She wore a navy Yankees hoodie like a tourist at Comic-Con. In her lap, a hot dog she'd politely dissected with a fork and knife.
She wasn't hiding. She was relaxing.
Midgardians cheered around her, waving foam fingers and shouting nonsense like "Let's go Yanks!" She found it charming. Brutish. Comforting even.
Then the sky cracked.
The crackle of the scoreboard dying was the last normal sound.
Then came chaos.
The lights exploded in a synchronized wave. Sparks rained. The jumbotron burned from the inside out. The sky turned an angry white-blue and something tore. Not thunder. Not weather. Something intentional.
Sif was already rising from her seat.
She cast off the hoodie and sunglasses like they were stage props.
Beneath the civilian disguise gleamed the silver-and-black armor of Asgard's elite. The sword strapped across her back wasn't for show. Hofund, key of the Bifrost. Gatekeeper of realms. A blade of both edge and will.
The storm was just the opening act.
Electro landed with a shriek of voltage. Midfield. Grinning like a demon who'd finally found a reason to laugh. "Yankees fans, time to get electric!"
Titania dropped next with a full-body impact. The Earth cracked. Seats buckled. She stood in a crater, dusting off her shoulders like she'd just finished a workout.
And then Absorbing Man emerged, dragging his wrecking ball behind him. Shirtless. Muscle-bound. Already glowing with raw metal density.
Civilians screamed. Families sprinted. Beer vendors dropped trays and ran.
Sif drew Hofund in one fluid motion. Runes lit up the blade in cascading rainbow pulses.
"You threaten innocents," she said, stepping forward. "You desecrate peace."
Electro fired first. Sif pivoted, spun the blade, and bent the bolt around her. The sword sliced through the lightning like silk, channeling the energy into the air. The charge exploded behind her, shattering a luxury box.
She dashed forward.
Titania moved to intercept. The ground trembled as their fists collided and shockwaves blasted hot dog wrappers into the sky. Titania grinned, but it faded fast as Sif twisted, locked her wrist, and flipped her into the dugout wall with a crunch.
Sif didn't wait. She flowed into a parry against the Absorbing Man's wrecking ball, caught the chain, yanked it forward and headbutted him. The clang echoed like a bell. He stumbled, dazed. She launched him into the air with a spinning kick that cracked his metal-infused ribs.
But then Electro returned, unleashing a maelstrom of lightning. Every light still functioning in the stadium exploded. Power surged. The entire jumbotron collapsed. Thousands still trapped in the stands screamed as they were showered in sparks and debris.
Sif threw up a Bifrost barrier, shielding those behind her. The air bent and shimmered. Arcs of magic met arcs of lightning. Her arm shook from the force.
A woman stumbled past her, clutching a child. Another man limped, bleeding from the forehead.
Sif looked toward the villains regrouping. She could end it. Press the advantage. Defeat them all.
But behind her people were dying.
A girl was pinned under a twisted bench.
A man was screaming for help, crushed beneath part of the upper deck.
She turned.
And she chose.
Sif tore the bench away with one hand and hauled the girl up with the other, shielding her with her body. "RUN," she barked, voice sharp as her blade.
She deflected another blast, scooped up two children, and carried them to cover beneath the bleachers. Her blade cleaved a path, sparks dancing with every motion. She used Hofund to open partial portals, flickers of the Bifrost, moving people out in bursts. Not many. Not enough.
She turned to lead more.
Too late.
Titania charged through the smoke and punched through the ground beneath the first base line.
A section of the stadium collapsed.
Screams drowned in the roar of falling concrete.
People died.
She felt it. She knew it. Bones crushed. Blood spilled. Sif inhaled sharply. Her knuckles went pale white.
She roared and surged forward, blade glowing like the heart of a star. She fought like a goddess, yes. But also like someone grieving. Every swing carved the air. Every strike left a mark.
She cut the wrecking ball's chain in half.
She sent Electro flying with a radiant pulse of spatial energy that cracked three walls.
But it didn't matter.
The civilians were already dying. Fire now danced through the third deck. Smoke swallowed half the crowd. A second explosion bloomed from a ruptured power box.
Sif limped.
Blood dripped from her lip. Her armor dented. Her body slowed.
Even gods falter.
She activated Hofund with her last breath of strength. The sword vibrated. The Bifrost opened behind her like a doorway carved into space.
"I will return," she told them. "And I will remember."
She stepped into the light and vanished.
Behind her, the stadium was a battlefield of ash and smoke. Bodies scattered across the field. Wails of the wounded. Lights flickering over ruin.
The Bifrost closed with a snap of light, sealing the last trace of Asgardian presence from the charred ruins of Yankee Stadium.
Silence reigned for a few seconds. Then came the groans—of the injured, of twisted steel cooling under flame, of sirens howling in the distance as first responders rushed toward a war zone disguised as a baseball game.
Titania cracked her neck, stepping over a fallen sign that once read "Enjoy the Game."
"Coward ran off," she muttered.
Electro sparked to his feet, coughing, burnt and pissed. "No. She won in her way." He looked up at the mangled stands, eyes flicking over the scorched corpses, the people still pinned, unmoving. "But this? This is the point. Fear."
Absorbing Man flexed his knuckles. "You think Fontaine'll be satisfied?"
"Oh, she'll be thrilled," Electro said. "Now she gets her war."
NEW ASGARD.
The storm-glass walls of the war room pulsed with each beat in sync with Hofund's return. Light bled into the chamber in concentric waves, refracting across the obsidian floor like oil on water. The Bifrost split open with a thunderclap, not ceremonial, not clean—angry, as if the weapon itself resented being used as an escape.
Sif collapsed through.
Her knees hit the floor with a crack. Hofund clattered beside her, its runes flickering, wounded. Blood streaked her cheek, her braid half-loose, one pauldron dented inward from a hit that would've killed a mortal ten times over. She didn't cry out—she was too trained for that—but the breath she drew was shaky and sharp.
Valkyrie crossed the room in a blur, catching her just before her head met the stone. She gripped her by the shoulders, steadying her.
"Sif," Valkyrie breathed, her voice low and clipped. "What happened?"
Sif's fingers closed around Hofund's hilt, even from the ground. Her body trembled, not from weakness, but restraint. Rage and guilt warred behind her eyes.
"Three," she said, hoarse. "Electro. Titania. Absorbing Man. They hit the stadium mid-game. No warning. No mercy. Civilians…"
She swallowed, hard.
"They didn't stand a chance."
Naruto stepped forward, all the usual playfulness gone from his face. "Wait… Civilians?" he asked, the word catching like a thorn in his throat.
Sif didn't look at him. She stared at the floor.
"Dozens," she said. "Maybe more. I tried—" Her jaw locked. "I tried."
Kamala stood frozen. She looked younger than she had a second ago.
Kate stared at Sif like she'd already calculated the fallout.
America's fists were clenched so tight her nails dug into her palms. Her voice was quiet. "Were they after you?"
Sif's head lifted. Her eyes met America's. Unflinching.
"No. This wasn't about me. It was about chaos. About needless death. About lighting the match and letting the world watch it burn."
The war table in the center of the chamber reacted to Valkyrie's motion. Holographic maps spun and zoomed in on Midgard. Red pulses blinked over the Bronx, spreading like a rash. Emergency broadcasts, social media pings, global surveillance markers.
"They're blaming Asgard already," Kate said flatly as she put away her phone.
"They don't need evidence," America muttered. "Just fear. And a good enough story."
Valkyrie stared at the map. Her lips pressed together, skin tight across her cheekbones. "Fontaine wanted blood. She wanted to turn Midgard against us."
Sif tried to stand, but her legs trembled beneath her. Valkyrie caught her again, wordlessly.
Kamala spoke, almost a whisper. "How many people died...?"
Sif's gaze flicked toward her, guilt carved into every line of her face.
"Many.."
A silence hit the war room like a thunderclap. No shouting. Just a knowing.
This wasn't an accident. This wasn't just a battle.
This was the beginning of something bigger.
Fury stared at the red lights blooming across New York like warning flares. He didn't move. He didn't blink.
And when he spoke, it wasn't loud but it cut through the room like a blade.
"It's already started."
The Medusa Room was buried beneath six stories of reinforced steel, electromagnetic shielding, and classified silence. No windows. No clocks. Just control.
Val Fontaine stood at the center like a conductor waiting to raise her baton—arms folded behind her back, shoulders squared, gaze fixed on a massive curved wall of screens that lit the room in tones of apocalypse red and electric blue. Behind her, aides stood in rows. Still. Silent. Watching.
On the main display, the footage ran on loop.
Chaos at Yankee Stadium.
Screams cutting through the roar of fire. A cracked jumbotron falling in slow motion, its shards catching the lights like meteors. A swirl of smoke, and there—flashes of blue lightning arcing through the stands. A woman cloaked in a ripple of Bifrost energy, leaping into the wreckage with a sword raised and eyes full of fury.
Civilians were caught in the crossfire. Some trying to run. Some not moving at all.
Sirens howled in the distance, already too late.
"Freeze it there," Fontaine said.
The video stopped mid-frame.
Sif hovered above the chaos, caught in a moment of divine action—blood on her cheek, armor torn, Hofund blazing in her grip. Behind her, the stadium burned.
The assistant closest to the console—young, nervous, a tie slightly askew—swallowed and obeyed. He didn't speak unless prompted. That was the rule in this room.
Fontaine tilted her head slightly. Studied the image like it was a museum piece.
A goddess descending on American soil.
And a battlefield she didn't prevent.
She smiled, just faintly. "Perfect."
Another aide stepped forward, holding a sleek black tablet like it was a loaded weapon. "The media outlets are already running coverage. Initial framing's chaotic. CNN is calling it a supervillain ambush. Fox has dubbed it 'divine negligence.' BuzzFeed just called it 'Baseball Apocalypse.'"
Fontaine's smile didn't falter. "And public sentiment?"
The aide hesitated. "Mixed. Right now, it's about fifty-fifty. Confused. But.." he flipped the tablet around "the Asgardian angle is climbing."
Fontaine turned toward the wall of screens. One blinked through live feeds: a protest outside the United Nations with signs already reading No More Gods. Another showed social media hashtags scrolling fast—#AsgardianThreat, #DivineNegligence, #CloseTheBifrost.
She folded her hands in front of her like a queen about to decree judgment.
"Lean into it," she said. "Target the fear. Use words like reckless, foreign weapons, extraterrestrial incursion. Push commentary on how even heroes can't tell the gods from the monsters anymore."
She stepped forward, heels clicking against the tile like gunshots.
"I want the term Asgardian threat trending in three hours."
One of the junior analysts, too fresh to know better spoke up from the back. "But ma'am… Sif was saving people. There's footage of her evacuating civilians. Shielding children."
Fontaine didn't turn.
Her smile faded.
"She failed to save enough."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
No one argued.
No one spoke.
The room resumed its quiet work, machine-like in its obedience.
Fontaine stared at the frozen image of Sif.
"She brought a dimensional blade into a civilian zone. She opened the Bifrost above New York. And she left behind corpses."
She looked to her communications lead. "Spin it as abandonment. Turn heroism into negligence. We're not rewriting facts. We're telling a truer story."
She tapped her earpiece. "Notify Ares. Tell him the storm's begun. It's time we let our monsters off the leash."
NEWSROOM MONTAGE/Media Frenzy
CNN
"We are continuing our live coverage of the tragic events at Yankee Stadium, where reports confirm over thirty casualties and dozens more injured after a surprise attack by supervillains during today's game. While officials have yet to issue a statement, eyewitnesses describe a silver-armored Asgardian woman wielding a glowing sword, appearing moments before a section of the stadium collapsed. Analysts believe this figure to be Lady Sif, a known associate of the late Thor Odinson and an ambassador of New Asgard…"
Cut to a blurred frame of Sif carrying two children, stepping through smoke and fire.
"Some are calling her a savior. Others, a danger to the public."
FOX News
"What we have here is not just a tragedy, it's a reckoning. A foreign god descending into an American stadium, armed with a blade that literally bends space and light. And we're still pretending this isn't a security threat?"
The host slams a palm on the desk. Graphics flash behind him: "THE ASGARDIAN DANGER: WHO WATCHES THE GODS?"
"Where's the oversight? Where's SHIELD? Where's Nick Fury? And why, exactly, are we allowing aliens from off-world to walk among our civilians with weapons powerful enough to cleave continents? You tell me that's 'protection'? I call it negligence."
Split-screen image: one side shows Sif glowing in battle, the other shows victims being carried on stretchers.
MSNBC
"We need to be careful not to rush judgment. Sif has a long history of protecting Earth in times of crisis. But the optics of this incident are undeniably... damning. A goddess at ground zero. Civilian casualties. And zero explanation so far from New Asgard's throne."
A panel of analysts nods gravely.
"This isn't just a tragedy. It's a geopolitical fault line."
Daily Bugle
"ALIEN DEATH-GOD ATTENDS BASEBALL MASSACRE: WHO LET HER IN?"
Jonah Jameson
"I've said it before and I'll say it again. YOU CAN'T TRUST SPACE GODS. They come in with capes and shiny weapons, promise peace, then BOOM! Your kid's crushed by falling bleachers! I don't care howmany puppies she saves in a year, she brought a dimensional death-stick to a hot dog stand!"
Back in New Asgard – War Room
The tension in the chamber was molten.
The Bifrost's glow had faded from the floor, but its echo lingered, like the ghost of a god pacing in circles. Above them, the floating war table continued its slow spin, the projections of Midgard now littered with red alerts, news tickers, and civilian casualty counts.
Kamala paced like a shaken compass needle, arms crossed tightly over her chest. "They're already blaming us. I mean, Sif. She was saving people. She was literally holding the stadium up with her bare hands."
"She also had a magic sword that could open the sky," Kate said. Her arms were crossed too, but her tone was flat. Clinical. "Doesn't matter what she was doing if it looked terrifying on camera. Ten thousand livestreams, Kamala. One clip out of context, and suddenly she's the villain."
Naruto sat on the edge of the hovering table, slumped slightly, hoodie pulled low. He tapped his fingers against his knee in a slow, steady rhythm.
"I hate to say it," he muttered, "but this feels… orchestrated. Like Fontaine didn't just predict this. She built it."
"They did," Fury said, voice like gravel. He stepped forward, shadows clawing at the edges of his coat. "Fontaine unleashed monsters in the middle of a packed stadium. Then made sure Sif was caught in the spotlight. The world sees destruction. Sees a glowing god with a blade. What they don't see is the people she saved."
America cracked her knuckles. Energy flared along her fists like miniature universes rippling open. "So what, we just sit here while Fontaine turns the world against literal gods? We're just letting her write the story?"
"She's already writing it," Fury said. "And the world's reading it cover to cover."
In the far corner, Sif hadn't moved. Her face was unreadable, like a statue carved to endure guilt without breaking. But when she finally spoke, her voice was low.
Shaky, but clear.
"I should have stayed. Fought longer."
"You did what you had to," Valkyrie said. She stood nearby, posture taut with command. "You saved lives. You came back breathing. That's more than most."
Sif shook her head, grip tightening on Hofund until her knuckles went bone-white.
"Not nearly enough."
A sharp silence fell, broken only by the soft hum of magic in the walls.
Fury looked to Valkyrie. His voice was quieter now, but heavier. "If Fontaine keeps pushing this narrative, world leaders won't ask for answers. They'll demand blood. They'll want a scapegoat. They'll want you."
Valkyrie's gaze burned sharp and defiant. Her voice came forth like drawn steel.
"Then let them come with their best."