"Wait, wait, WAIT!" Wanda practically shouted, jumping up from her seat before Elric could leave. "You're going OUTSIDE OF EARTH?!"
Elric paused at the door, turning back with a slightly amused expression.
"What?! Why?! How?!" Wanda's questions came rapid-fire, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and excitement. "Do you have a spaceship hidden somewhere? Are there really aliens out there beyond what we know? Are you going to meet them? What do they look like? Are they—"
"Okay, calm down," Elric interrupted, raising a hand to stop the verbal avalanche. "Take a breath. You're going to hyperventilate."
He gestured casually toward Borgir, who was still sitting calmly at the table, watching the exchange with mild amusement. "Did you forget that there's literally an alien sitting in the room with us right now?"
Anastacia's eyes immediately focused on Borgir, and realization dawned on her face. "Oh yeah... I mean, on weekdays he just looks and acts like a normal person, so I almost completely forgot."
Borgir's eyebrow raised slightly. "I choose to take that as a compliment about my integration skills."
"But why are you going?" Anastacia pressed. "And more importantly, how? Do you actually have a spaceship or some kind of teleportation technology we don't know about?"
"I need to do something important," Elric replied vaguely. "And for the spaceship issue, I'll be borrowing one from someone who owes me a favor."
It wasn't that he didn't trust his core team, but operational security was paramount. Who knew if any cosmic entities was spying on them. So he definitely wasn't going to casually announce that he wanted to collect an Infinity Stone.
He have a powerful gun in the form of my combined abilities, Elric thought, but he lack the gunpowder to use it to its absolute fullest potential. The Power Stone will provide exactly that—raw cosmic energy that can amplify everything he do.
"Okay, fine, keep your secrets," Anastacia said with a resigned sigh, recognizing when Elric wasn't going to elaborate. "But how long will you be gone?"
"Not too long," Elric replied. "A few weeks at most. Maybe a month if things get complicated."
He clapped his hands together, shifting the energy in the room. "Alright, enough questions. Go get ready to learn how to imprint the chakra seal. I'll teach you the procedure today so you can start implementing it on your own afterward. Go, go, move."
The three leaders began to file out, but Elric's voice stopped Borgir specifically.
"Bor, wait a moment. I need to ask you something."
The frost giant paused, turning back as the others left. "Yes?"
"You know Asgard's spatial coordinates, right? The exact dimensional location for opening a portal?"
Borgir's expression became thoughtful. "Yes."
He paused. "But I don't know if those coordinates have changed in the twenty thousand years since I was sealed. Asgard might have implemented new defensive measures or even shifted their dimensional anchor point."
"That's fine. Even outdated coordinates give me a starting reference."
"Do you need me to accompany you?" Borgir asked.
Elric stared at him for a long moment. "What the fuck do you mean you want to go? Weren't you literally trying to kill their princes at any cost just a few months ago? You swore vengeance against the entire royal bloodline."
Almost sensing Elric's complete speechlessness at the suggestion, Borgir spoke calmly, his voice carrying absolute certainty. "You don't need to worry about that. I've already pledged my allegiance to you. For me, my honor is more important than anything else—more important than revenge, more important than personal grudges."
He placed his fist over his heart in a gesture of sincerity. "The moment I gave you my word of service, it became final and absolute. Your commands are now my highest law. If you ordered me to protect Thor with my life, I would do so without hesitation. If you commanded me to bow before Odin, I would kneel. That's what honor means to my people."
Elric asked a different question.
"Okay, Bor, can you tell me the truth about something? Why did you really decide to surrender to me? I don't think I have enough charisma or persuasive ability to just convince you with words alone, even after defeating you in combat. Warriors like you don't submit just because you lost one fight, right."
Borgir remained silent for a moment, his ancient eyes distant as he considered how to explain.
"You might not know this," he began slowly, "but we frost giants have a very deep, intrinsic relationship with fate. It's woven into our species at a fundamental level, something we're born understanding."
"Oh?" Elric's interest was genuinely piqued. "Can you see the future then? Like prophecy or precognition?"
"No, not exactly. Future and fate are fundamentally different things," Borgir explained. "You can have many different possible futures—countless branching paths and possibilities—but still have the same inevitable fate. Fate is the destination; the future is merely the journey."
He paused, searching for the right words. "And the moment you spoke to me that day on the battlefield, when you offered me service instead of death, my fate spoke to me. I felt it with absolute certainty—every single event in my twenty-thousand-year life had led to that exact moment."
Borgir's expression suddenly changed, shifting from solemnity to something almost manic—an excited, slightly unhinged smile. "But here's the thing: I don't give a single shit about fate."
His eyes gleamed with fierce independence. "I don't care what my fate supposedly is. I don't care what destiny says I'm meant to do. But you know what I realized when I saw you, when I fought you, when I felt that pull of fate?"
He leaned forward slightly, his voice intense. "I realized we're the same kind of person."
Then Borgir asked a question that made Elric pause: "Tell me honestly—aren't you bored?"
"What?" Elric blinked, confused by the sudden shift.
"Bored," Borgir repeated.
"Okay, stop talking nonsense," Elric interrupted hurriedly, feeling uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. "Just transfer the spatial coordinates to me. I'm leaving."
And without wasting any more time, after receiving the dimensional coordinates through a simple magical transfer, Elric directly left the building.
Outside, Walking Through Sokovia
Bored? What kind of ridiculous question is that?
Elric walked through the streets of Sokovia, his mind involuntarily returning to Borgir's words despite his best efforts to dismiss them.
What is he kidding? He is struggling to survive everyday. Where would he even get time to be bored?
But for some unknown reason, when Borgir had mentioned it, Elric had suddenly felt a little uncomfortable—a strange, indefinable unease with no apparent cause.
It's nothing, he told himself firmly.
Anyway, I can think about this later. Right now, I have an Infinity Stone to acquire.
He tapped the communication device embedded in his collar. "ALICE, is everything ready for the departure?"
The AI's synthesized voice responded immediately: "Yes, boss. All systems are prepared. You can leave at any time."
"Good. I'm heading out than." Elric's pace quickened slightly as he walked toward the edge of the city, toward the remote location he'd set up specifically for dimensional travel.
"Understood, boss. Leav every thing to me. Safe travels."
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