Even with Soren teleporting them again and again, the progress was slow.
He kept the jumps short, cautious. Every time they blinked forward through space, he paused, eyes scanning the gloom, mental power sweeping outward like an invisible web.
This wasn't some broken corner of the Nine Realms he could treat casually.
The air whispered.
The further they went, the heavier it pressed down.
As if the ground itself remembered blood.
At one point, Thor grumbled beside him.
"Are you always this careful?"
"First rule of not dying stupidly, don't assume you're alone." Soren not breaking his focus.
Their surroundings grew darker with every step.
Up ahead, Thor suddenly raised Mjolnir.
"Almost there." He said. "No light past this point."
A crackling snap, and Mjolnir flared to life, sending a bolt of blue lightning screaming.
In that brief flash, Soren caught a glimpse.
A city.
Vast. Crumbling.
It sprawled like the skeleton of a dead titan, buildings toppled and gutted, streets swallowed by vines and blackened stone.
"Well, that's not ominous."
They stepped inside.
Thor took the lead, Mjolnir's glow throwing strange shadows along cracked streets and shattered pillars. Every so often, pieces of old armor clinked underfoot, relics abandoned by warriors long dead.
The city felt...
Twice, Soren spun around, sure he saw something move in the corner of his vision, only to find empty alleys or doorways grinning back at him.
Thor finally stopped before a battered plaza where the cobblestones had warped unnaturally.
A few paces ahead, the very air shimmered, a translucent wall of rippling space, faint as a mirage.
Thor rapped it experimentally with Mjolnir.
Clang! Clang!
Each strike snuffed out the hammer's glow for a moment, leaving them blinking in the dark.
"Tough bastard, isn't it?" Thor said, giving the barrier a narrow-eyed glare.
Soren didn't even need to touch it physically, his spatial senses prickled violently.
Something was alive beyond that wall.
And not just one something.
Thor was still smiling, but Soren felt the pulse of adrenaline, the way the god's grip tightened on his hammer.
"You feel it too, huh?" Soren said quietly.
Thor nodded, all jokes gone now.
Soren closed his eyes and let his mental energy flow forward, feather-light, probing the barrier, a thief picking a lock.
The silence of the void tightened around him.
At first, the barrier rejected him, smooth, hard.
It had been built. Coded.
A lock begging for the right key.
Soren weaving threads of his own space power into the structure, trying to find the weak seams.
In the back of his mind, he could almost hear it.
A low hum.
He cracked an eye open, glanced at Thor.
"I can get us through."
"But once we're inside, I can't guarantee we'll like what's waiting."
Thor just snorted and rolled his shoulders, Mjolnir sparking eagerly in his hand.
"Soren, have you met me? Danger's half the reason I get up in the morning."
"Let's kick down the door together, yeah?"
Soren huffed a laugh despite himself.
"Fine. But when you get us both eaten by ancient ghost monsters, I'm blaming you."
Thor grinned wide.
"Wouldn't have it any other way."
Soren shook his head, chuckling under his breath.
Then he inhaled deeply, reaching down into the core of his being and pulling at the very fabric of space.
The barrier shivered.
Space itself seemed to hold its breath.
"Hold tight, Thor."
"It's about to get weird."
And with a final, precise wrench of power,
The veil tore open with a sound like a sigh and a scream stitched together, and the dark beyond opened its eyes.
BOOM
The space around them cracked open with a roar.
Soren's power flared, unlocking threads of the coded barrier, and space surged forward, grabbing towards them.
Thor barely had time to grunt before the world ripped them inside.
Mjolnir's glow winked out the second they crossed.
Soren gritted his teeth, wrapping his spatial power tighter around Thor, anchoring them both in the shifting gloom. His senses stretched to the limit, probing for danger.
Pain.
A sharp buzz inside his skull, nails scraping across his mind.
Mental attack!
His defenses snapped up instinctively. A thin shimmer of psychic energy flashed across his skin.
The attack broke harmlessly against his shield, dissipating with a hiss.
Breathing hard, Soren blinked, and the world came into focus.
They stood atop a low hill.
Earth was dead and cracked, burned from within. Strange black stones jutted from the ground.
The dim light gave everything a sickly, unreal look… but at least it was visible.
Nothing stirred.
No monsters.
No ambush.
Soren is flexing his fingers.
"Thor, stay clo—"
"AHHHHHHH!"
A roar cut him off.
Thor just a few feet away, threw back his head and howled, a sound full of rage and madness.
His eyes were blood-red.
Mjolnir in his hand.
Thor lunged.
WHAM!
The hammer tore through the space Soren had vacated, smashing a crater into the rocky ground.
"Oh, perfect."
Thor charged again, wild and wordless, swinging Mjolnir with enough force to shatter mountains.
Soren barely dodged, weaving between the crushing blows.
"Thor! It's me, you idiot! Snap out of it!"
"RAAAHH!"
No use.
Thor wasn't listening, his mind was gone, drowned in some illusion.
Soren cursed under his breath, reaching into his belt and snapping a thin, silvery glove onto his hand, the medical hall artifact.
Invisible hands wrapped around Thor like chains, halting his next strike mid-swing.
"RHHHGH."
He struggled, lightning crackling off his skin.
"Calm down, you thunderheaded barbarian..." Soren hissed through gritted teeth, forcing his power into Thor's mind.
Thor fought back, his entire body trembling, and then, the red bled from his eyes, draining away like spilled ink.
His whole body sagged.
Mjolnir clattered to the ground.
THUD
Soren released his grip and shook the tension from his fingers.
Thor collapsed onto the ground, chest heaving, sweat pouring down his temples.
For a few to many seconds, he sat there, blinking at the dead world around them, looking lost.
He looked up at Soren with a sheepish half-smile.
"Soren... did we make it in? Where's the monster?"
Soren just stared at him, deadpan.
"You were the monster."
"Tried to turn my head into a drum."
Thor winced, running a hand through his wild hair.
"Ah. Right. Illusions. That... yeah. I felt something weird."
He scrubbed his face, embarrassed.
"Sorry about... uh, trying to smash you."
Soren snorted.
"Don't worry about it. I'll just put it on your growing tab of 'heroic mishaps.'"
Thor laughed weakly, reaching for Mjolnir and hauling himself upright.
"First round's on me when we get out of here."
"Damn right it is."
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
Check out the new story: Garfield Across the Multiverse
PhantomDream