Inside the cavernous, gleaming control room of the Bifrost Bridge in Asgard, the atmosphere was thick with fury and disappointment. The chamber's gold and silver machinery whirred, anticipating the command, but the air was charged not with power, but with the cold, heavy wrath of the Allfather.
Odin stood, his single eye blazing with righteous anger. His foolish son, Thor, had just gone to Jotunheim, the Frost Giants' lair, ignoring a direct royal command and causing a huge, unnecessary commotion.
Worse, Thor had arrogantly intended to wage a one-man war, seeking to eliminate all the Frost Giants and reignite a millennia-old conflict. This action was nothing short of seeking the death of countless souls, both Asgardian and Jotun.
Fortunately, Odin had arrived in time, his appearance halting the impending massacre and saving his son from his own reckless pride. However, Thor's actions had already guaranteed a new era of diplomatic strife and potential conflict across the Nine Realms. Conflict meant death.
Odin had fought in the Nine Realms for thousands of years, conquering and consolidating, and had seen too much blood spilled. Now, in his twilight years, his mind was centered on fragile peace, not conquest. He had grown weary of the cycles of violence.
He knew unifying the Nine Realms under a single banner, as he once desired, had only brought more chaos and resentment in the process. He often wondered if, after ruling for so long, the realms could ever truly be stable. Would the new King of the Gods, whoever he may be, be able to suppress the inevitable rebellion?
His three children offered no solace. His eldest daughter, Hela, was sealed away, powerful but consumed by an insatiable, violent hunger for conquest. His son Thor was a self-aggrandizing brute, believing he was invincible simply because he wielded the Meow-Meow Hammer.
His youngest son, Loki, had a silver tongue and a quick wit, but his cleverness was petty and self-serving, completely lacking the vision or the empathy required to care for the world he would one day inherit.
All in all, none of the three were suitable successors, and this realization weighed on Odin like the burden of a dying star.
Thor, standing opposite his father, still looked unconvinced and was attempting to argue his way out of the consequences. His face was a mask of wounded pride.
"Those Frost Giants must learn to fear me, just as they once feared you! Weakness invites aggression, Father!" Thor's voice boomed, echoing the fury of a thousand storms.
Odin immediately retorted, his voice deep and vibrating with restrained thunder. "Pride and vanity, these are not the words of a leader, Thor! They are the hollow boasts of a boy desperate for validation. You have completely forgotten my lessons, the patience of a warrior, and the caution of a king!"
"While you patiently wait for your treaties to be torn up, the people of the Nine Realms are mocking us!" Thor gestured wildly with his massive hand. "Your way of doing things is outdated. You hoard your strength while threats gather! When Asgard falls, do you plan to deliver a lengthy speech?"
Odin was speechless for a moment, not by the argument, but by the colossal arrogance of his fifteen-hundred-year-old rebellious brat.
"You are a vain, cruel, greedy child!" Odin roared, the golden plating of his armor seeming to pulse with his rage.
Thor, not to be outdone and fueled by his own entitled fury, immediately retorted, his voice cracking with perceived betrayal: "And you, are a senile old fool! Afraid to fight the wars you yourself started!"
Odin flinched, the words striking him like a physical blow. At this moment, the last sliver of hope he held for his son shattered. The time for lessons was over.
"Yes, I was foolish," Odin whispered, his voice dangerously low, his anger hardening into cold steel. "Foolish enough to think you were ready to be a King!"
Loki, who had been lurking at the edge of the chamber, saw his opportunity. His face, usually a canvas of sly mischief, twisted into a look of feigned concern, ready to add fuel to the fire and paint himself as the responsible son.
"Father, perhaps he should just be confined—"
But before Loki could speak, he was interrupted by Odin's thunderous, final voice. With just a look and a raise of his hand, Loki was pinned back by an invisible wave of power, intimidated and daring not to step forward.
Odin looked at Thor, his son, for the last time before his judgment.
"Thor Odinson."
He grabbed the hilt of the Eternal Spear, Gungnir, and slammed its butt onto the Bifrost activator, the sound reverberating through all of Asgard.
"You have betrayed the King's decree!" Odin began his sentence. "Because of your arrogance and your ignorance, these stable realms and innocent lives will suffer the scourge of war!"
Odin walked slowly in front of Thor, his posture radiating the absolute power of the Allfather. He reached out and harshly stripped away the symbol of Thor's status, the honor represented by his finely wrought battle armor. The metallic pieces dissolved and peeled away as if made of ash, crumbling into nothingness around Thor's stunned form.
"You are unworthy of the trust of these realms!"
"You are unworthy of your name!"
"You are unworthy of those who love you, whom you have betrayed!"
As he spoke, Odin gradually calmed down, his heart filled with an agonizing grief only a parent could know. He was very reluctant to do this, to banish his son, but he had to punish him and make him endure hardship and find humility.
He turned back resolutely and began Thor's final judgment, his voice echoing across the Bifrost Bridge.
"I shall strip you of your power!"
Thor's remaining armor peeled away piece by piece, and Thor watched it all, standing defiant and yet incredulous, suddenly feeling the chilling exposure of his immense loss. His physical power gradually weakened, disappearing until he was nothing more than a powerful mortal.
"In the name of my father, and of all our ancestors!"
"I, Odin, Allfather, hereby banish you!"
Suddenly, Thor was struck by a blinding, forceful surge of energy and then teleported by the power of the Bifrost Bridge, hurled across the cosmos toward a remote, unsuspecting corner of Midgard.
Loki watched this scene, a slow, malicious smile finally touching his lips, his heart singing. Without Thor as a competitor, the path to the throne and the title of King of the Gods was suddenly, magically, clear.
Odin, however, had not completely given up on his son. He grabbed Mjolnir, the Mjolnir, and began to chant a powerful, grief-laced spell.
"Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor!"
With the spell successfully cast, Odin also threw Mjolnir down the Bifrost. The ancient hammer followed its owner, teleported by the immense energy to Midgard, destined to test and teach its once-proud master.
After more than a week of travel—filled with late-night astrophysics debates and passionate, private "academic exchanges"—Su Yi and the rest of the team had arrived in New Mexico. They were deep in the arid, dusty landscape, the very coordinates their data had flagged as a potential point of interest.
The time was early evening, the sun dipping low and painting the vast sky in fiery oranges and purples. Darcy Lewis was driving the lead RV with Dr. Selvig, while Su Yi was seated next to Jane Foster in the pursuit vehicle, their hands clasped over the center console, a low, contented silence between them.
The two cars continued to drive, planning to find a place up ahead to stop and rest, perhaps a local inn with better amenities than the mobile lab offered.
Suddenly, an energy surge unlike anything they had ever detected erupted in the atmosphere. A bizarre, swirling, iridescent column of light—the signature of the Bifrost—pierced the sky and slammed into the ground just ahead, illuminating the landscape with an ethereal, transient glow.
This anomaly immediately galvanized the entire team.
Dr. Selvig, who had been nodding off, was instantly alert. "Darcy, hurry! Drive over! That's it! That's the energy signature we've been hunting! A non-local, high-energy event!"
Darcy, energized by the prospect of a major discovery, immediately veered off the road. The tires of the heavy RV spun, kicking up plumes of red dust as they prepared to investigate the impact zone.
However, on such sandy, uneven terrain, the heavy RV couldn't go fast, but the distance wasn't far. They soon reached the spot where the energy spike was centered.
The RV slowed down, and just as Darcy was attempting to apply the brakes, suddenly, a dark shadow seemed to fall out of the sky, landing directly in front of the vehicle. There was a dull thud and a screech as the RV's bumper struck the object before Darcy could completely stop.
Darcy slammed her body weight onto the brakes, her face wide-eyed and innocent.
Dr. Selvig immediately recovered. "What was that? We seem to have hit something!"
The two immediately jumped out of the RV, flashlights in hand, to check the damage and the object they had struck. They found Thor, dazed and unarmored, knocked to the ground a few feet from the Bifrost's fresh, smoking impact crater.
Su Yi and Jane also rushed over from the pursuit vehicle, taking in the chaotic scene.
Darcy, ever the pragmatic one, was already explaining. "I was almost stopped! It definitely wasn't me who hit him hard! He fell from the sky, people! Like an oversized meteor!"
Jane, however, had no mind for any of this. In her eyes, there were only the strange, swirling, burnt marks left on the ground not far away—marks that defied any known laws of physics.
"Dr. Selvig, look here!" Jane cried, already pulling out her camera and sensor kit. "It's a spatial distortion! Look at the spectral analysis—it's a higher dimensional bridge!"
Selvig, seeing that Thor was still alive and seemingly only dazed, nodded. "Darcy, you watch him; we'll take him to the hospital later. Jane and I will secure the impact zone data first."
Darcy sighed, "Great, babysitting a possible meth-head in the middle of the desert. Fine." She settled down to watch over the golden-haired man.
Su Yi simply gave Darcy a reassuring smile. "Of course, I believe you, Darcy. He definitely hit you, not the other way around. He's very rude."
Thor gradually regained consciousness, looking at the flashlight and car lights. His eyes, accustomed to the brilliance of Asgard, were unable to fully open. He wobbled to his feet, groaning, while Darcy held the flashlight on him, very worried about his immediate health and her insurance premium.
"Are you okay? Did you drink too much of the local brew?" Darcy asked dryly.
Thor stood up, blinking rapidly. He looked around, his mind still reeling from the shock of banishment, seeing only the desolate New Mexico landscape.
"(My) hammer?" he mumbled, rubbing his head.
Darcy quipped, "Looks like he might have been hit pretty hard by a hammer, or maybe a very large, flying coyote."
Thor had recovered some mobility and consciousness. He immediately looked around and spotted the deep, scorched mark left by the Bifrost Bridge. Circling the crater, the massive, unpowered man began to shout at the sky.
"Hammer? Mjolnir? Father!"
The three scientists were somewhat speechless at Thor's incomprehensible state.
Darcy continued to quip to Jane, "He didn't take drugs and become incoherent, did he? Maybe he's a highly committed LARPer who got separated from his convention."
Selvig and Jane, meanwhile, had already recorded the mark left by the Bifrost, intending to thoroughly study the data packet later.
Thor, however, was still consumed by his plight, shouting into the vast, indifferent desert sky.
"Heimdall! I know you can hear me! Open the Bifrost Bridge, let me go back to Asgard!"
Jane was a bit speechless, tucking her camera away. "It seems we'll have to take him to the hospital, or perhaps a mental institution. We need to secure him first."
Su Yi, however, was not in a hurry. He knew the classic moment was coming—Darcy's famous scene of taking down a thunder god with a nine-volt battery. He stepped back slightly, quietly observing the sequence of events unfold exactly as the timeline dictated.
"Who are you? What realm is this?" Thor demanded, pointing at the group. "Alfheim? Nornheim?"
Darcy answered crisply, without a trace of fear, shining the flashlight directly into his face. "New Mexico! And you're in my headlights, buddy."
Thor was momentarily dazzled. He covered his eyes with one hand and pointed a trembling finger at Darcy with the other.
"You threaten me, Thor, with such a small, flickering light? You will be silent and tell me where my hammer lies!"
But before Thor could finish speaking his entitled command, Darcy had already acted. She held up the taser she had been carrying—a common precaution for field research—and fired. The taser's prongs struck Thor's massive chest, delivering a sudden, painful jolt of electricity.
Thor roared once, the unaccustomed pain and the lack of his own power leaving him instantly vulnerable. He seized up and then collapsed, unconscious, into the New Mexico dirt.
As Jane rushed forward, concerned, and Selvig shook his head in weary amusement, Su Yi remained perfectly still, the silent, satisfied architect of the scene.
It's confirmed, Su Yi thought, a calculating gleam in his eyes. The timeline has been destabilized by Jane's early capture, but the core event—Thor's banishment and vulnerability—is intact. The moment is now.
Thor was helpless, powerless, and stripped of his weapon. This was the perfect window.
Su Yi internally addressed the System. "System, I activate the Challenge Card."
[Ding, Challenge Card Activated. Please select a target.]
"Target selected: Thor Odinson, currently unpowered and banished. Challenge: Defeat and incapacitate the target before he regains Mjolnir and the powers of Thor."
[Challenge Accepted! Target: Thor Odinson (Unpowered). Reward Calculation: Based on the target's immense initial influence and the difficulty of preventing the central narrative—his return to power.]
[Potential Reward: 500,000 to 1,000,000 Fate Points.]
"Excellent," Su Yi thought. "A million points would nearly pay for the whole Lv8 upgrade if I hit the high end."
He watched Darcy and Jane struggle to maneuver the heavy body into the back of the RV. He knew his opportunity lay just ahead, once Thor was in a more secure—and vulnerable—location.
"Jane, Darcy," Su Yi called out, walking towards them. "We should take him back to the closest town's clinic immediately. He needs medical attention and a long rest. I'll drive the pursuit vehicle ahead and find us a place to stay."
He didn't need to ask if he could fight Thor now. He only needed to wait until the God of Thunder was safely contained, making the confrontation a private matter. He had a million Fate Points riding on this upcoming, simple, unfair fight.
The God of Thunder is down. The Challenge is set. Now for the logistics.