Hela was furious, dishonored, and completely broken. She despised Odin and his tricks. Her powers were sealed, leaving her with mere superhuman strength, and it wasn't enough to deal with the man holding her captive.
She was forced to work on that massive library. It was infuriating work. As time went by, she realized her real enemy was boredom. But then, she noticed something. There was no need to be bored.
Not when she had the universe's finest entertainment right in front of her. Marshall was a man like no other. Every word that would come out of his mouth was unexpected, outrageous, and senseless. Every action he took was equally nonsensical. And then there was the large beast, although she liked that one.
Right in front of her eyes, the man and his beast verbally disputed, berated each other for five days and six nights, quarreling because they couldn't decide if a rock they found was round or elliptical.
In the end, it turned out that Marty didn't even know what elliptical meant.
It was all so absurd and yet entertaining. She tried to make sense of Marshall's thought process, and she found no valid reasoning behind them. The man did everything on impulse. There was barely any thought behind anything.
"That's it! Pack your bags!" Marshall roared one day.
Hela tiredly eyed the man. Odin told her to learn from him, but she didn't know what to learn. "For what reason?"
"World tour's on. I think it's... what, 160 CE-ish? It could be earlier, could be later. Doesn't matter; the big empires and kingdoms are out in force. Marty and I—we're gonna swing by, sample their wine, see how it stacks up to Asgard's mead."
"Finally." Hela rolled her eyes. "Something interesting for once."
"Indeed, my seven-foot-tall goth goddess student," Marshall said and looked at Marty. "We'll fly on my raft."
She had no recollection of what that string of words even meant. She just nodded, accepted as normal, and followed the man.
"Are you certain this was the right decision?"
"Frigga, Hela's heart had strayed—blinded by might, consumed by her own fire. She needed to see with new eyes. Marshall treads a similar path, yet where she demanded the world kneel, he does not. Though his strength nears my own and his mind teeters on madness, he walks as a god ought—merciful, yet formidable."
Frigga eyed her husband with suspicion. "It has nothing to do with the fact that Thor is about to be born?"
Odin looked upon his new wife with warmth. "Nothing escapes your gaze, does it? Hela… aye, she is my pride. But her path does not end upon Asgard's throne. With Marshall, her fire will find purpose. Our son shall rise here, as he must."
Frigga smiled and held her husband's hand as she lay right beside him on the bed. "You didn't discard her. You freed her from that prison. I'm sure she'll understand you one day."
"Ha! That is, if her mind holds fast. Marshall is no simple storm to weather."
"Marty! Where the fuck are you?!"
Marshall roared into the night sky, standing on top of the Palatine Hill imperial palace in Rome. He was drunk, as expected, and was also being hunted down by the Roman Praetorian Guard. Expected, since he emptied half the taverns of their most expensive wine stock and paid nothing for it.
That wasn't all; he also shamed the taverns and berated the wine for being so inferior. Even Hela berated it, comparing it to the filthiest drinks of Asgard, which were still better than the finest that Rome had to offer.
And sure enough, Marty also drank some. And as expected, got drunk and went on a rampage, howling at the moon like a wolf, trying to chase it to eat the damn thing in the sky. At first, Marshall just laughed and kept drinking. But later, he realized his boy was lost. The ruckus wasn't audible anymore.
"MARTYYYY! BRING YOUR FAT ASS HERE!" He roared so loudly that his voice thundered throughout ancient Rome, and nearby walls cracked. His furred cape fluttered on his shoulders, his eyes half open only, drunk out of his mind.
Marshall ignored Hela, standing behind him with her arms crossed, looking embarrassed by his madness.
"Fuck! I forgot, I got the sniffing talent from Marty's ancestor!" He muttered, remembering that the first dinosaur that had eaten him was also an apex predator. "Alright, I'll sniff the boy out! Gothess! Come on! Move those long legs."
Hela rolled her eyes at yet another name given to her. Yet, she didn't perceive any hint of dishonor from it. Marshall seemed to really use those names as if they were natural.
Being a man with an already fucked brain, being drunk was like an added layer of fucked up.
Marshall leapt off the massive building and landed on the street. Right away, he got on all fours, like a crawling beast, using hands and his feet, no knees.
"Fuck! Fucking fuck these nasty, dirty Romans! Entire city smells of shit… ugh!" Marshall almost gagged, but then... "Got you! I'm coming, Marty!"
Albeit on all fours, Marshall was faster than any creature on the planet. He sniffed and roamed the streets of Rome, and kept moving, from one part of the city to another, and finally, he arrived in front of the Temple of Venus and Roma, the largest temple in Rome at that time. It was actually massive, in height and also in its spread.
"I can smell that big lizard! I know it! He's in there!" Marshall glared at the temple. "Hold on… there's more… dog scent… feral—two. One's pacing, the other's bleeding pride. A bitch and a dog… How dare they kidnap Marty!"
"A dog and a bitch brought down a beast that towers over buildings?" Hela remarked from behind, arms folded, tone dry and unimpressed.
"No! They're not normal. There's… something off—yes! It's like—ugh, damn it. Firehair! Fuck, I miss her bones, my first love. That scent... yeah, that wrongness—same damn flavor. These two? They're dripping in it. Mutants!" Marshall was certain now and stood up again like a man. "Yeah. Has to be."
Marshall cracked his knuckles and walked into the temple, his face changed, no longer showing the madness and lack of seriousness. No longer showing signs of being drunk. No longer appearing mindless.
"Hela, Marty's injured. Heal him."
Hela froze in her steps behind him. She couldn't remember the last time he took her name directly. "Why should I?"
But Marshall glared back at her just once, and she instinctively nodded. There was something in the air, different, threatening. Hela felt it in her core, a simple instinct she'd honed through countless battles. The bloodlust and the threat to her life, she knew what it felt like.
She felt something similar from Marshall, but much more potent. It was as if a lost man had found a purpose again.
Marshall kicked the massive doors of the temple open, flattening them onto the ground. He barged into the inner sanctum of the temple and looked left and right, his nose moving, eyes cold.
Soon, instead of looking around, Marshall looked down at the flooring, made of beautiful marble.
He tapped on it a few times and then sneered. "A dog and a bitch hiding like rats. Hela, float in the air."
Then, Marshall knelt down on one knee and put a flat hand on the marble floor. He was right in the middle of the massive hall, and it was dark, but the strategic windows in the temple let in ample moonlight.
He didn't punch, he didn't push, as if a wave rose through his muscles, his palm vibrated on the marble floor.
The marble began to crack, then shatter apart.
In the blink of an eye, the entire flooring cracked apart into massive, thick slabs. It was like a world-ending earthquake, shaking the entire building. And as expected, there was a massive cavity underneath the floor as all the large chunks of floor started to fall into it.
But Marshall didn't allow it all to fall, worried that Marty would be underneath. In a first-ever show of his absolute control over the abilities he inherited from his first love, he used Firehair's telekinesis and froze all the slabs of floor in the air.
He allowed his own body to fall through the gaps.
"I can smell you fuckers!" Marshall boomed and saw the approaching floor underneath. It looked like a gigantic hall with no furniture but a single, gigantic throne-like chair made of stone.
Midair, he stopped his free fall and started to float. He assessed the surroundings; it was dim, but sure enough, he saw Marty in one corner of the hall, lying sideways with massive, long triple claw gashes on his body, from his spine to his lower belly. Blood oozed from them, but he was still breathing, barely.
"Hela! Heal him!" Marshall ordered and focused on the two figures at the center of the hall. One was a male, a humanoid, but not human, sitting on the throne. He looked feral, with white hair and beard. The body was large, seven feet tall, and well built.
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