Chapter 109 - Pointy Bob

Chapter 109: Chapter 109 - Pointy Bob

Maria Hill had begun to suspect that resignation was not a recognised procedure inside SHIELD.

She had submitted the request after Lucius Noctis held her body motionless and explained how easily he could leave her paralysed. Fury had postponed it. Every attempt to raise the matter since then had uncovered an urgent operation, a national emergency, or a sentence beginning with ’before that’. The organisation possessed protocols for alien invasions, rogue gods, and flying aircraft carriers. Apparently, an employee wishing to leave remained too exotic for the manual.

Hill closed the Director’s door behind her and kept one hand on the handle until the latch settled.

Her report had been concise. London agents confirmed that Noctis had been present with Thor Odinson and the scientist Jane Foster at the gravitational anomaly. The Bifrost had taken all three. Foster was still missing from every conventional search, Thor had not returned, and Noctis had once again entered an international incident without bothering to inform the people expected to clean it up.

Fury had accepted the report, considered the consequences, and assigned Hill to monitor for Noctis’s return to Earth.

To monitor his return was more important than some personal affairs. At least this was the crisis to postpone her fifth resignation.

Hill released the handle and walked toward the operations floor. Arguing would only create another meeting, and meetings with Fury had an alarming tendency to become employment. She would establish watches around Noctis’s known properties, Stark facilities, and the London site. If the Bifrost left another mark, she would know before the local police learned which department owned the crater.

Then she would report it as soon as possible.

After that, she intended to resign again. The sixth attempt might be the charm.

-

Odin had ruled Asgard long enough to watch victories become songs and mistakes become traditions. Neither experience had prepared him to enter his queen’s chamber and find the enemy escaping while Frigga stood alive beside a Midgardian sorcerer who treated an ancient invasion as an opportunity for vulgar conversation.

He had come close to losing her.

Malekith had been an enemy consigned to history. Kurse had held Frigga by the throat, and the blade on the floor had offered all the evidence Odin needed for what would have followed. Without Lucius, the Queen of Asgard, his wife of more than seven thousand years and the goddess whose foresight had guided his throne, would have died before either husband or son reached her.

The knowledge stripped pride from gratitude and left something harder behind.

Before the palace fires had all been extinguished, Odin summoned Lucius to the throne hall. Frigga stood beside the throne with bruises darkening her throat. Thor remained near her, relief still warring with anger whenever he looked toward the sky through which Malekith had escaped.

Lucius approached in a coat repaired so perfectly that the day’s violence had failed to leave a mark. He inclined his head to Frigga before offering Odin a shallower bow.

Odin tightened one hand around Gungnir. Gratitude did not require blindness, and no man carrying that much concealed power would receive it from him.

"Lucius Noctis of Midgard, you entered Asgard as my son’s guest. You stood in defence of its people, broke the enemy’s assault, and preserved the life of its Queen. Let every realm under my protection know that the debt is recognised."

The warriors lining the hall struck spear hafts against the floor.

"By my word as Allfather, I name you an honorary Asgardian and Champion of the Realm. A house within shall be placed at your disposal, with servants and provision befitting the station."

Lucius looked toward the nearest open balcony, where towers of gold occupied enough of the horizon to make modesty an architectural offence.

"A generous honour, Your Highness. I was concerned that saving the royal family might earn me a commemorative cup."

Frigga’s mouth curved. Thor showed no restraint and laughed.

Odin allowed the interruption to pass. "The dwarves shall forge armour and weapons of Uru for you. The warriors who saw you fight have described the axes you wield. Their account will guide the work."

That caught Lucius’s attention more effectively than the mansion. He smiled with genuine approval. "I withdraw my concern about the cup."

"You shall also possess the right to call upon Heimdall and travel between Asgard and Midgard as your need demands."

Heimdall stood below the throne. His gaze remained level, but the silence after Odin’s grant lengthened until it became an objection too disciplined to interrupt a king.

Odin turned toward him. "Speak."

The Guardian rested both hands on the hilt before him. "I can see Lucius Noctis when he stands in front of my eyes. Beyond them, my sight finds neither his path nor his presence. I cannot open the Bifrost to a man I cannot locate."

The honour survived for less than a minute before becoming ceremonial.

Lucius considered Heimdall. "If I shout very loudly, does that improve the range?"

"No."

"Then I shall bother anyone close by whenever I am ready to use the Bifrost."

Frigga smirked at the practical solution.

Heimdall’s expression suggested that he had endured worse solutions from the royal family and expected to do so again.

While the honours concluded, the question of Jane Foster did not.

Odin ordered the throne hall cleared until only the royal family, Lucius, Heimdall, and a small rank of guards remained. Jane was still confined under watch, carrying what Odin believed to be the Aether. The attack had turned uncertainty into proof of danger. Malekith had breached Asgard for her. He had reached Frigga’s chamber and nearly killed the Queen while searching.

Odin would not permit a second attempt.

"The mortal remains a prisoner of Asgard. She will be confined for the span of her natural life. No ship and no Bifrost passage will return her to Midgard."

Thor stepped forward. "Father, she did not summon Malekith. She did not choose the power inside her."

"Choice does not lessen consequence."

"Then let our healers remove it. Lucius may aid them."

Lucius remained silent and offered neither healing counsel nor support for Thor’s plea.

Thor’s voice carried across the emptied hall. "You would condemn her to die in a gilded cage for being attacked."

Gungnir struck the floor.

The impact silenced the hall and sent a line of gold light across the stone.

"Do you not see what we have faced?" Odin’s anger shook dust from the high arches. "Had Lucius not reached that chamber, your mother, my queen and wife, would have been slain. I do not order the mortal’s immediate execution only for your sake, Thor. Do not make me regret my leniency."

Thor looked toward Frigga. The bruises on her throat answered where words could not. His objection remained, but forcing it through his mother’s near death would turn love into an accusation against the woman who had survived.

He bowed his head.

"I understand, Father."

Odin accepted the submission. He did not see the decision forming behind it.

Thor left the throne hall with obedience in his posture and rebellion in every step. Jane would not spend the rest of her mortal life behind an Asgardian barrier. He could not persuade Odin, and no guard would defy the Allfather for a woman of Midgard.

There was one person Thor could trust to understand escape from Asgard.

Loki had attempted it often enough to qualify as an authority.

Thor changed direction toward the dungeons.

He had not reached the first stair when Lucius stepped from a side passage and matched his pace. His shield-brother had abandoned the throne hall long enough to acquire a goblet of wine. Two Asgardian women followed several paces behind him, one dark-haired and amused, the other carrying a look that promised the wine would not be the evening’s principal entertainment.

"If you decide to free someone who has been imprisoned," Lucius lifted the goblet toward the dungeon stair, "make sure you tell him this is the opportunity I mentioned before."

Thor stopped.

Lucius continued for two steps before looking back.

"I would never do such a thing, brother." Thor placed enough offence into the denial to expose it as labour. "However, if a friend of mine were to make that decision, I would pass along your message."

Lucius grinned. "Of course. Make sure your entirely hypothetical friend understands that this opportunity is important. I dislike repeating good advice after someone ignores it."

Thor nodded, although the message explained nothing, and Lucius showed no inclination to improve it.

"Does this friend have a plan?"

"He will after speaking with Loki."

"Then the friend currently has a direction. That is often mistaken for a plan in this family."

Lucius turned toward the residence Odin had granted him. The two women closed the distance, and the dark-haired one reclaimed the goblet from his hand so he could place an arm around each of them.

Thor watched the newest Champion of Asgard depart between his welcoming committee. Lucius had warned Loki that an opportunity would come. Now he was proving it.

-

Asgard answered bloodshed with construction, funerals, and a feast large enough to insist that grief wait its turn.

The celebration, interrupted by the Dark Elf assault, resumed once the dead had received their rites and the damaged halls no longer threatened to collapse on the guests. It continued for seven days. Warriors returned from the Nine Realms, families crowded the tables, and every retelling of the attack improved the number of enemies killed by the speaker.

Lucius discovered that Asgardian gratitude came with excellent wine, enthusiastic company, and no recognised hour for stopping either. He approved of the system.

On the seventh day, the throne hall carried enough noise to compete with battle. Drinking horns struck tables while Volstagg attempted to correct three different accounts of his own heroism at once. From his place below the dais, Lucius watched Thor drink with the Warriors Three and keep glancing toward the guarded passages leading deeper into the palace. Loki remained imprisoned. Jane remained confined. Whatever plan the brothers had built had not yet begun.

Odin rose from the throne.

His raised hand quieted the hall in widening circles until the last drinking horn lowered. Frigga sat beside him, the bruises at her throat faded beneath the work of Asgard’s healers. Her survival carried more authority than the guards around the dais.

"Asgard has buried warriors before, and we shall honour those lost to the Dark Elves for as long as their names are spoken. Yet an enemy who entered our home did not break it. Our soldiers held the walls, defended our people, and proved that surprise is not defeat."

Weapons and drinking horns rose together.

Odin waited until the answering roar settled.

"One warrior entered our realm as a guest. He met the enemy in our sky, our halls, and the Queen’s chamber. He carried no oath to Asgard when he fought, yet his strength preserved lives that courage alone could not. He saved your Queen. For that deed, he shall never again stand here without name or station."

Lucius occupied a place below the dais in fresh black clothes, with Thor to one side and several warriors from the palace shield wall on the other. The soldiers struck their mugs against the tables and called his name. Some of their admiration remained cautious after witnessing eleven Dark Elves die between one breath and the next, but caution did not stop them from drinking to the result.

"Lucius Noctis, come forward."

Lucius climbed the steps.

Four dwarven smiths entered through the side doors carrying a dark armour stand between them. Two more followed with long shapes wrapped in black cloth. Conversation tried to rise and failed.

The armour drank the hall’s golden light instead of returning it. Black Uru plates overlapped across the chest and limbs, their silver edges shaped into restrained points that preserved movement while promising injury to anyone forced against them. Crimson runes rested in the seams, dim until Lucius approached. The breastplate formed a long-jawed skull around its centre, and smaller skulls guarded the shoulders beneath backwards-curving horns. The helm carried two greater horns swept from its temples, framing a skull-shaped faceplate severe enough to make the Dark Elves’ helmets look apologetic.

It resembled the axes Lucius had manifested, but the smiths had removed every part that existed only to impress an audience. What remained could survive a war.

The crimson lines brightened when Lucius placed a hand against the breastplate. The plates shifted by fractions, widening through the shoulders and lengthening along the limbs until the armour matched the body before it. When he sent a thread of Cosmic Energy into the metal, the runic lattice carried it across the entire suit and sealed every joint in red light.

His grin showed the dwarves that they had understood the commission.

The first wrapped shape opened.

The weapon beneath stood nearly as tall as an Asgardian warrior. Black Uru formed its haft and the long crescent of its head. The blade swept forward like a piece cut from a dark moon, broad enough near the socket to carry the weight of an axe before narrowing into the reach of a glaive. Its lower beard hooked inward for catching shields, and a silver spike opposed the blade. Crimson runes followed the edge without touching it, held inside skull-shaped channels whose eyes brightened when Lucius approached.

Odin descended one step and closed his hand around the centre of the haft.

"This blade was forged for the Champion who denied darkness its prize. Let it carry the name Duskreaver."

The hall answered with a roar. Mugs struck tables, shields rang beneath fists, and Thor lifted Mjolnir in salute. Lucius accepted Duskreaver, turned the axe through one controlled arc, and felt the responsive Uru carry his telekinesis along its entire length. The weapon did not resist his power or merely endure it. It became another surface through which that power could act.

The second smith pulled away the remaining cloth.

The staff beneath was taller and leaner than Duskreaver, a straight length of black Uru capped by a silver skull with two swept horns. Crimson channels spiralled around the shaft in three separate paths before meeting between the skull’s jaws. The runes were not decoration. Lucius recognised structures for gathering, alignment, and release, woven together so tightly that each sequence corrected weaknesses in the next.

Odin closed his hand around the unmarked space at its centre. "Dreadspire shall strengthen the hand that works magic in Asgard’s defence. It will grant you nothing you do not possess. What you place within it, it shall refine and return greater than before."

Lucius took the staff and fed the smallest possible working into its base. Pale light climbed the first runic path, crimson light answered through the second, and the third held both in a stable coil beneath the silver skull. When he released the spell, a shield unfolded above his hand with edges cleaner and denser than the same effort should have produced.

His attention sharpened. The staff had not increased the amount of energy. It had reduced everything wasted between intention and result. For complicated magic, that distinction was better.

He rested Duskreaver against one shoulder and Dreadspire against the other.

Odin regarded him across the matched weapons. "Bear them in defence of Asgard."

"I shall make certain Asgard’s enemies appreciate the craftsmanship."

That earned another cheer.

Lucius looked from the crescent axe to the runic staff. Duskreaver and Dreadspire were good names. They carried menace, suited the armour, and would not embarrass him when shouted across a battlefield.

That was mildly inconvenient.

He had spent the walk to the dais considering Choppy and Sparky, Murder Stick and Wizard Stick, or Pointy Bob and Long Bob. Any of them would have confused Thor, who was explaining the binding process of the armour and the weapons and given Tony material for at least a month. Naming a priceless pair of Uru weapons, Pointy Bob and Long Bob, possessed a perfection that the official names regrettably lacked.

Lucius grimaced, then noticed Frigga watching him with the patient interest of someone who expected misconduct.

He gave the matter the solemn consideration owed to a royal gift and shrugged.

Duskreaver and Dreadspire could remain the official names.

Tony never needed to know.