"So this is Thor, the God of Thunder?" Tony said through his suit's speakers, projecting his voice with artificial confidence. "He doesn't look too impressive from here. Just another guy in armor."
"Look at that cape," he continued, forcing a laugh that sounded hollow even to his own ears. "Looks like he stole it from his mom's cabinet. Very 'Shakespeare in the Park' aesthetic."
Although he was joking on the surface, keeping up his usual irreverent persona because that's what people expected from Tony Stark, internally he was already sweating bullets inside his armor. His heart rate had spiked the moment the Einherjar landed, and his suit's bio-monitors were flashing warning indicators.
Everyone on Earth's defensive line stood absolutely still—still enough that a pin drop could have been heard across the entire battlefield. Millions of soldiers, thousands of mechanized units, all frozen in that terrible moment before violence erupted.
The silence was oppressive, suffocating.
Thor broke it first.
His eyes scanned the defensive lines, gleaming with divine power, trying to find familiar figures among the masses. After a few seconds of searching, after confirming that Elric and Borgin hadn't come to greet him personally, Thor breathed an internal sigh of relief.
Good, he thought. If they're not here, this will go according to plan.
But I don't know how long sister can keep Elric occupied with whatever excuse she's using, Thor worried. Need to finish this battle quickly and went to help her.
"I am Thor Odinson!" his voice boomed across the battlefield, magically amplified to reach every ear. "Crown Prince of Asgard and General of the Einherjar!"
"In the name of the God-King Hela, rulers of the Nine Realms, we offer you one final chance!" Thor declared, raising Mjolnir high. "Surrender now! Accept Asgardian rule peacefully! There is no need for bloodshed, no need for your people to die this day!"
"Yeah, and become your slaves?!"
Suddenly, one of the soldiers in the front rank broke discipline and shouted, his voice cracking with fear and defiant anger. "Go to hell, you alien motherfucker!"
And before any officer could restore order, before anyone could stop the catastrophic momentum, suddenly that same soldier charged forward screaming.
"AHHHHHHH!"
And like a dam breaking, others followed. Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of soldiers breaking ranks and surging forward in an uncoordinated, terrified, desperate charge.
"AHHHHHHAHHHH!"
The screams of humanity's defenders filled the air.
Thor didn't say much in response to this development. But his eyes started to glow brilliant blue, lightning flickering and dancing from them, arcing across his face and beard.
An unconscious smile suddenly welled up on his face, unbidden. A long-lost sense of familiarity welled up in his heart—something he'd been missing without realizing it.
Yes, Thor thought, the battle-joy of his people singing in his blood. This excitement, this feeling of genuine combat—I almost forgot what it was like.
And reflecting his mood, responding to his emotional state, the sky above also lit up with thunder. Lightning crashed between clouds, illuminating the battlefield in stark white flashes.
But Thor calmed himself down quickly, forcing the battle-rage back under control.
He extended his hand, and with a shimmer of dimensional energy, an axe materialized in his grip. Not Mjolnir—a different weapon, equally deadly.
"Vira!" Thor called to one of his commanders, his voice carrying despite the chaos. "Use your magic! Remember the Queen's orders—we're strictly prohibited from going on a killing spree!"
"As long as we can subdue them without harming our self, there's no need to kill!" he reminded his forces. "Incapacitate! Don't execute!"
Several Asgardian mages directly started to prepare their spells, their hands weaving complex patterns in the air, lips moving in ancient incantations. Runes began to glow around them, forming intricate patterns.
Although Earth's defenders didn't know exactly what the mages were doing, what those glowing symbols meant, common sense told them that whatever this magical preparation was, it would be bad news for humanity.
"Shoot! SHOOT!" someone commanded. "Target those floating ones first! Take out the mages!"
With that shouted order, everyone's target became the spellcasters. Thousands of weapons pivoted, aiming at the Asgardians who were clearly preparing something dangerous.
Bullets and energy weapons fire filled the air.
But although Asgard didn't typically use defensive tactics in their usual warfare—preferring direct assault and overwhelming force—they had enough tactical knowledge to understand that mages needed protection while casting complex magic.
With perfect military coordination, several Asgardian soldiers directly surrounded their spellcasters, raising shields that gleamed with enchantments. The bullets and energy blasts splashed harmlessly against barriers that had withstood far worse.
Tony also wanted to send a volley of missiles at the mage formation, his targeting systems locking on, launch sequences initiating.
But a thick bolt of thunder suddenly intercepted his attack, a lightning strike that came from seemingly nowhere, precisely calculated to hit his missiles mid-flight.
The explosion knocked him off balance, sent him tumbling through the air, his suit's stabilizers struggling to compensate.
"Your opponent will be me," Thor's voice came from directly beside him.
Before Tony could regain control of his suit, before JARVIS could calculate an evasion maneuver, he saw an axe coming directly toward him at impossible speed.
Time seemed to slow. Tony could see every detail—the ancient runes carved into the blade, the way lightning danced along its edge, the inevitability of its trajectory.
He subconsciously raised his armored hand to defend, the Vibranium-composite plating that had taken two days of desperate work to perfect, that should theoretically be able to withstand almost anything.
The axe hit.
And like a hot knife through butter, like the laws of physics themselves bent around Asgardian weapons, it directly cut through the Vibranium armor.
The hand, the supposedly indestructible defensive plating, the redundant power systems—all of it severed cleanly.
Tony watched his armored hand spin away through the air, sparks trailing from the severed connection points, and had exactly one coherent thought:
Oh. We're fucked.