"What do you mean it isn't here?" Mr. Hyde bellowed at the security guard.
The middle aged man began sputtering as Hyde's huge hand tightened around his throat. The brute seemed to realize that his prey wouldn’t be able to communicate without air and dropped him to the warehouse floor. Hyde's minions, a half dozen thugs culled from the rejects of other low level crime bosses were tearing open crates with crowbars nearby.
"The blood samples were shipped this morning," the security guard managed.
"They weren't to be taken until tomorrow morning!" Hyde roared.
The thugs stopped for a beat to watch their employer.
While a powerhouse with an extremely short fuse, Mr. Hyde was not always in such a form. He, through necessity more than desire, sometimes reverted to his original form of Dr. Calvin Zabo, a brilliant though morally flexible medical researcher. Through black market contacts Zabo had learned (and Hyde had beaten out) information that was most promising. There was an actual sample of the Hulk's hormones and other biological material being shipped from New Mexico to the Manhattan SHIELD office.
Examining such a treasure appealed to both Hyde and Zabo. The former for the potential to improve on his enhancing formula, his strength and thus his power base and the latter to be able to break the code that unlocked the Hulk's power. For the respect such a feat would bring, no price was too high. And now this little, insignificant, old man was telling him that the damned samples had been shipped early.
Hyde dropped his foot onto the security guard's chest.
"You’re lying to me. I think it is still here. I hate liars!" Hyde applied pressure to the guard.
The guard drew his revolver.
Hyde laughed. "Do you know who I am, insect?"
"You're a fool." The guard wheezed and shot the alarm mounted on the wall.
Bells began ringing throughout the warehouse. Hyde brought his foot to the floor.
"Damn it! Damn it!" Hyde bellowed to the ceiling.
"'Ey, boss? Shouldn't we get-"
Mr. Hyde lashed out with his hand and caught the thug by the head. The end was swift.
"Where are you going?" Hyde roared at the fleeing thugs, Come back here and keep working, you maggots! I will hunt you--"
The main doors (that Hyde had almost torn off their hinges on entering) blew inward. Hyde turned at the sound and met the hurled hammer with his face, perfectly.
MARVEL REBORN PRESENTS...
The Mighty Thor
#5
by
C. William Russette
and
Doug Bookey
Hyde crashed against the stone wall and the hammer flew back to its master who was in full pursuit of his foe. The large hands grabbed Hyde's foot and swung him around until his head smacked against a concrete support beam, cracking it.
"Get up, monster," the thunder god ordered.
Hyde quickly rose to his feet, trying to shale off the effects of the blow. A large kick to the midsection of Thor took the breath out of him. Hyde shot blows the head and neck of the god. Thor dropped to his knee as the relentless attack and sheer power of the blows took him off guard. His left arm raised and blocked the blows as they came, he could feel the pressure of the strikes beginning to take their toll on him.
His right fist shot up like a rocket as he stood, catching Hyde in an uppercut that knocked the villain back. Thor charged, forcing him through support beams and causing the building to shake. Windows shattered and the ceiling began to drop around them.
Hyde wiped the blood from his nose and eyes. "When did the God of Thunder become so brutal? I like it. Finally, a fight where I can let loose."
Hyde kicked at the thunder god, catching his side and sending him soaring across the room. Thor quickly got to his feet, grabbed his hammer and let it fly. The air around it rippled on impact with Hyde's head, sending him tumbling to the ground.
The rage in Thor’s eyes was something rarely seen from him. He took large strides to the stirring form of Mr. Hyde. His large fists rained down on the back of Hyde's neck forcing him to the ground. The sound of flesh being pounded echoed through the warehouse. The smell of sweat and blood mixed together invigorating Thor’s battle lust.
"Stop," Hyde managed to gurgle,"I give up".
Thor’s rage kept building and building. The sound of wet, mashed flesh drowned out all the other sounds. Mr. Hyde move no more. Thor couldn’t recall the last time the villain had spoken or stirred.
The body stopped moving aside from the occasional twitch. Thor hunched over the body of one of his oldest foes. He wiped the spittle from his mouth. Thor dropped to one knee, lowered his head to his hammer and began mumbling a sort of prayer.
The body of Mr. Hyde began to twitch and the hammer glowed slightly. Small blue arcs of energy shot from Mr. Hyde into the hammer and then to Thor. Finally Thor rose to his feet, looked down on the limp body of Mr. Hyde then roared a battle cry to the sky.
As Thor took the hammer and blasted a hole in the wall of the warehouse he looked back on his conquest. A small smile crept across his lips as a bolt of lightning struck down upon the warehouse causing it to crumble down upon those left inside.
====================
Doctor Donald Blake could not recall how he came to such a wretched place. It might be dusk, or dawn, he could not tell which because he could not find the sun. The illumination, casting a fiery effect in the sky seemed to have no source. It did give everything a look that made him think the world was on fire. The smell on the air was that of carnage. He wondered if a war was being fought somewhere nearby. To create the smell that he was inhaling there had to be a massive ad hoc field hospital like you might find during the civil war. Images of limbs being sawn through, screaming patients, apathetic doctors working with blood-caked hands and instruments came unbidden to Blake's mind.
Where am I? There was some kind of park with a tennis court far to the left, across the intersection. It was vacant. The roads were the same save for the abandoned or destroyed cars and trucks of various makes and models. One of the signs left undamaged by the mysterious disaster read W 28th Street. What city is this? The buildings are vaguely familiar. I want to say it's Manhattan but it can't be. Where is everyone?
An explosion rocked in the distance. A new smell rode on the wind: burning meat. No birds flew for cover. No dog's barked. There were no sirens.
Instinctively, Blake made to tighten his fist around his cane. He would strike it down on the cracked and blasted sidewalk and... and what? What would he do? For that matter, where was his cane? Blake attempted a few steps and found the limp that plagued him his entire life was gone. He could walk on two sound legs. He could likely even run.
"Aye, run you could, mortal. But not for long," Blake turned to the source of the voice.
Two ravens perched on a wire fence further up on West 28th Street. There was no other movement. Blake felt something towards these two birds. His mind was hazy with details about most things. There was an emotion connected to these two birds though. Blake began walking towards them. Perhaps there are answers there, Blake thought. Thunder slammed the world and Blake jumped.
"He is removed from the thunder and the rain. The merging will not be easy for him," the green eyed raven said to it's twin.
"Have faith," the blue eyed raven said.
"Where am I?" Blake said.
"You walk in search of answers," blue-eyed Munin said.
"This is your road to revelation," green-eyed Hugin said.
"I've met you before haven't I? In the rubble of my hospital. You left without answering all my questions last time."
"We do not come to your call, mortal," Hugin said.
"Glory in the gift of the All-father. Give thanks that he gives you even this attention," Munin said.
Both ravens took to the air.
"Wait! What gifts? What am I supposed to be doing!" Blake yelled.
High in the reddening sky the ravens began to circle. The clouds clustered in the west. Turning from gray to ashen to almost black. Forks of white lightning stabbed from isle to isle of cumulus and the tall buildings below. Blake looked back at the ravens as they broke their circling and flew up West 28th Street. Blake ran down the alley after them. A quarter mile away the ravens descended and disappeared behind a long unused overpass. Beneath the high road a wall began of steel and plywood, long faded to black. The wall was too tall to see over but the gate was open and allowed easy entry.
The gate to the junkyard, a tall mesh fence covered in plywood, stood open and almost broken off it's single yet functioning hinge. Blake entered, his eyes scanning for movement.
The mountains of scrap metal, dashed furniture and car parts and skeletal frames sat about without any organization that Blake could recognize. A half-baked attempt at laying gravel to avoid getting stuck in oil and grease-slicked dirt had failed. Blake no sooner thought this when the red and black clouds opened. The touch of the oncoming rain burned the doctor's hands and face.
Hugin and Munin stood perched on an ancient looking particle board and rusty sheet metal shack of an office and watched Blake approach.
"Well? What is this about? Why am I here?" Blake asked.
Neither of the black birds answered. Both remained staring deeper into the yard. Blake sighed. The rain was making his skin itch. The backs of his hands were turning pink already. Whatever was causing this rain was polluted beyond anything he had seen before. He wasn't going to last every long if it was radioactive on top of what ever else was wrong with it.
The ravens continued to stare off.
"You want me to go that way then?" Blake said without looking at the birds. What was the point? They weren't paying any attention to him.
Blake tried to pull his right foot up but found it held fast. He had sunk into the mud without realizing it. He pulled harder then added his arms into the effort of freeing his leg. Finally the leg came free sending Blake sprawling into the poisonous muck but without his shoe. He expected a reaction from the ravens, not laughter necessarily but a cocked beak maybe? They didn't care. Blake rose and marched in the direction the ravens of Odin were not so subtly indicating. I didn't take long for Blake to see why they wanted him to follow the greasy, mud path.
Around the tall stack of discarded appliances ranging from refrigerators to air conditioners stood a red cloaked giant of a man with long blond hair. His back was to Blake but there was no mistaking that anatomy. Blake has spent years studying pictures of his one time alter ego in a better attempt to understand the god that shared his body. There could be no mistake. Thor stood in front of him.
"Thor?" Blake said.
The tall body turned to face Blake with unsettling slowness and lethargy. Immediately upon seeing the first patch of facial skin Blake knew the coloration on the skin was wrong. It was pulled too tight over the cheek, the nose was too sharp and pronounced. The body mass was reduced though still beyond anything a normal human could achieve. The veins scrawled across both arms looked alive and black as night. Worst to Blake were the thunder god's eyes. No more were they sky blue and alight with magic, Thor's eyes looked cataract ridden and vacant. Thor looked dead but still standing.
Thor was dead. The true Thor, the Odinson, was dead. He died with the seventeen. There was another, a replacement, a poor Thor still young in his teeth, as Blake's mother might have said. The semblance that stood before him was not the new Thor. This replica was the original. A horrible version of the once mighty Thor.
On the ground between the two bodies that once shared space rested Mjolnir, the greatest weapon of the gods of Asgard, whose name means crusher. It stood on it's head. The handle erect and waiting to be grasped by he who is worthy. Thor did not move. He seemed to notice neither the hammer he had wielded for a millennia nor Blake who stood at eye level. The thunder god could scarcely miss him.
"Thor? Have you come back? Are you alive? This has to be a dream. Hugin and Munin sent me or brought me. Do you have something to tell me? Can I help you?"
Thor stared straight and did not move. The thunder rolled overhead. The rain stopped though Blake's itching did not.
"Damn it, what is all this about?" Blake yelled.
Lightning struck Thor in the head. Blake barely had time to shield his face with his arms before being bombarded with godly meat and bone shrapnel. The explosion knocked him off his feet.
The laughing began. It started from high overhead then drew steadily closer. Still shielding his eyes Blade could hear the ravens.
"Behold, mortal! The destroyer comes!" Munin said.
Blake risked a glance skyward but could see nothing beyond a ball of lightning with arcs of energy being discharged only to be reabsorbed.
"He will destroy your world and the golden realm," Hugin said.
"What are you telling me for? What can I do? I'm just a man!" Blake yelled.
The lightning ball seemed to be picking up speed as it descended. Blake could hear the laughter clearly now. It was the voice of Thor but not Thor. Not the one he, Blake, knew. Blazing through the sky, hammer leading the way, the new Thor charged straight for Blake's position in the poisoned mud. Blake made to roll over and pain shot through his leg. The lame leg that, for what ever reason, was healed for this dream. He looked down and found a large fragment of Thor's femur sticking out of his knee. The barest touch brought agony.
The new Thor blazed through the sky like a comet.
"He thinks he is a man," Munin said.
Blake heard the raven distantly. His eyes were on Mjolnir standing in the mud ahead of him. If he could make it to the handle in time. He risked a look to the sky. There would be no time. He would never make it but he had to try. There was nothing to loose and a world to gain if he believe the ravens. His hand was centimeters from the leather thong of the hammer, he felt the head of descending god and then darkness took him.
Seek the hammer... with haste... or another will.
Don Blake awoke with a start, covered in sweat. His arm ached terribly but there would be no more medication to dull the pain. He took his cane from it's place against the nightstand and prepared to dress. It was time to get back on the clock.
====================
Special Tech Cook, breathing hard from the effort of removing the manhole cover moments before bent forward, supporting himself with hands on knees. Tech Clayton scanned the immediate surroundings of the Manhattan sewer. One blue eye, which he was born with, saw nothing but the impenetrable darkness. The green eye, which he was not born with, saw a great deal more. Clayton rubbed at the eyelid, blood still caked there from where he had removed his left eye to make space for the green one mere hours ago.
“I know she is here. I can see her eternal essence like firelight on a darkened plain. She is injured in soul though in body as well I would wager,” the voice in Clayton’s head said.
Cook flexed the fingers on his right hand a few times. The stitches that held his newly attached digits, somewhat longer than those he was born with, were perfect. His hand pained him at the knuckles where the new fingers had grafted themselves to his indelicately amputated hand.
“Still hurt?” Clayton said.
“Course, man. I’m not a surgeon and your box cutter is no scalpel,” Cook whined.
“Be silent!” the voice told both young men’s minds, “If we succeed here at all it will be a miracle. Do you not understand what is at stake? Not just my own world but this polluted orb of filth your species currently infests. Now move forward before I begin another round of education!”
Clayton wanted no part of that. The duo marched on at a quickened pace.
Back in SHIELD's Manhattan field office, when the speaker-of-the-body-parts that both technicians now bore first spoke to them, he had forced them to dismember certain parts of their bodies to make room for the new ones. They had both felt every slice of the box cutter through their flesh though the voice said he could have taken the pain away. The voice did not identify itself though both techs asked repeatedly, demanding at first then pleadingly once the wet work began.
The parts came from a trio of low end magical criminals calling themselves the Three Lokis. The SHIELD database claimed that Loki, Norse god of lies and fire from mythology, was as real as Thor, the god of thunder, was. Clayton found that rather hard to believe. He had always thought Thor was some empowered guy, like from an accident or experiment gone bad. He might even have been a mutant. But a god?
Either way he was dead and the new Thor worked for SHIELD. Who ever the owner of the eye and fingers were, he was powerful. More so than Cook and Clayton. They could do nothing but obey. If they tried to raise even the smallest spark of willpower that the voice would have to combat then the pain would come. Maybe even more mutilations. Clayton still held out that he might be able to get his eye back into his head once this trek was over.
Cook screamed in agony.
Clayton’s green eye locked on to a certain point in the darkness ahead. Cook had seen something. When Clayton’s eye found him the thing had only just pounced on Cook. It was tall and lanky, humanoid but it had claws and viscous rodent-like teeth.
“Protect the hand!” the voice ordered.
Cook, who had been using both hands to keep the claws from tearing off his face immediately formed fists and folded his arms. The rat-man swiped twice at Cook’s face opening large, gory fissures. Cook could do nothing but scream as the creature began chewing on his exposed neck. The fingers remained safe.
“Hold, monster!” the voice said.
Clayton watched as his arm raised and pointed at the rat-man. Excruciating pain fired through the young tech’s brain and then he felt the mind of the rat-man and knew his hunger. The rat-man stood frozen in place save for his eyes. They glanced around frantically.
Cook gurgled and spat blood.
“You are not in command of yourself, monster, but I can tell who is. Come forth, Amora!” the voice ordered.
“Who is it that dares summon the Enchantress?” an ancient, cracked voice issued from the darkness beyond.
“I dare, witch. Tis Loki that calls!” Clayton heard himself say but not with his voice.
====================
Thor stood on the roof of his apartment building in Manhattan. He stared far into the distance. The sun was setting, the true monsters would begin crawling out from under their rocks soon to prey on those weaker than themselves.
“And I shall grind them to dust,” Thor said.
The words took Olson unaware. He didn’t think he meant to say them. He didn’t talk that way. He wasn’t a violent man by nature or design. He was a healer, an EMT. The words came from his mouth though so they came from him, from somewhere inside him.
Disconcerting as little verbal slips like that were (they were coming with increased frequency) what happened in the warehouse with Mr. Hyde earlier was worse. He was worried that Thor had killed Hyde but the news said he was weak but stable and on the way to the Vault’s hospital to recover before trial.
Hyde was so savage, was it the damage he wrought on Thor that brought out the mad rage Olson had felt? The angrier Thor became the pain only made him worse, and terrifyingly, he found that he liked the pain. It was a self feeding cycle. The limits were finite in a man. How strong could the cycle become in a god?
“How much damage would be done?” Thor said to no one.
“The damage is done whether you act or not, Thor,” Marnot said.
Thor turned to see the yellow and silver armored form of Marnot. His alien features, the softly glowing yellow eyes, all but unreadable. He stood with arms folded across his chest.
“What damage, what are you talking about?” The anger spiked in Thor.
“I feel that I have given you more than enough time and resources to do what needed to be done. You have failed miserably and so I shall take back what was given,” Marnot said.
“You’re way out of line and off your rocker if you think I’m going to give anything back. The hammer and belt are mine and I will be keeping them. There’s work to do and only Thor can do it.”
“Work like what you did at the warehouse today?” Marnot said.
Thor slid the uru hammer from his belt. What had happened at the warehouse today? Was he draining the life directly out of Hyde and into himself? Would he have absorbed all of him had common decency not resurfaced and taken hold of Jake?
“Nothing happened at the warehouse. Hyde will live and he’s in jail now. A good day’s work,” Thor said.
“But, Jake,” Marnot appeared at Thor’s side and touched his index finger to the uru hammer. Thor transformed back into Jake Olson. “That is rather my point. You failed. Hyde should be dead, not resting.”
Jake took a moment to drink in what was done to him. Just how much control over me and the power does Marnot have? He stared down at his hands in disbelief. They looked so frail, so weak and ineffectual.
“If you were looking for a murderer then you chose the wrong guy after all.”
“Who said anything about murder? Did you even try and wrap that little brain of yours around the gods you have been placed with at all? Do you know naught of Asgard or Thor?”
In truth, Jake hadn’t. There hadn’t been time. Or so he kept telling himself. He needed time to master the hammer and the gifts it granted. No ancient stories were going to tell him that.
“These gods were worshipped by you mortals. Thor as a harvest god but also one of war, Jake. Thor is a killer, have no doubt. He has slain thousands for the glory of Asgard. Was this murder? He fought to safeguard the golden realm.”
Marnot spat to the macadam rooftop.
“He killed to keep the fairest in the Nine Worlds from harm. It did not stop there either. He has slain his share of mortals that did not agree with him as well. He was a fickle god, pleasant one day and enraged and throwing lightning at mortal peasants the next.”
Marnot put his arm around Jake and spoke into his ear. “Do you not understand, Jake? You are above the laws of man now. You are their protector. Thor always placed Midgard over the importance of Asgard. There was no price too high Thor would not pay to keep this middle world safe and strong for his mortal charges.”
Olson eyed Marnot. He didn’t know what to believe. He knew very little of the super human community. Most of his time was spent cleaning up the casualties from their careless and wanton fighting. A night rarely passes that Jake didn’t have to stitch back together or resuscitate someone that was caught in the middle of a paranormal blow out. It was a reactive way of dealing with the problem. Now, with the power of Thor he could be proactive. He could stop the villains before anyone was hurt. And if he stopped them forever wouldn’t that be the best way to keep his fellow humans from harm?
“You cannot take this power from me. Humanity needs me, Marnot.”
“It is out of my hands, Jake. I need to find another champion. There has to be someone that will do whatever it takes to keep mankind safe from the powers that are coming to snuff out and enslave them.”
“There has to be something I can do. I still have the power. There must be something.”
“Those that oppose me, and your people, seek their own champion. He is on the move even now. This man seeks a powerful weapon. It would make him terrible and mighty. Jake, if you could reach him before he found the weapon and stop him, permanently...”
Jake Olson dropped to one knee and slammed his right fist into the ground. In an explosion of lightning and smoke he transformed into Thor. He grasped his hammer tightly in a white-knuckled grip.
“He is one, lame man that has never done anything for the world. His name is Blake,” Marnot said.
“I will end the threat this Blake presents with one blow from my hammer.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
================================================================
AUTHOR’S NOTES
Are we having fun or what? Thor is breaking new ground as a hero. From his POV. Marnot is up to something for sure. Blake’s got some serious mental issues of his own and Loki and Amora are alone in the dark. Too much fun!
Brought to you by Bookey and Russette.
You’re welcome.