Valhalla. Post-Calamity Day 3.
The wind in Valhalla sounds different now.
Before, it was a gentle breeze curated by minor wind deities to cool the brows of the elite.
Now, it howls. It rushes through the gaps in the reality mesh, whistling through the cracked pillars of the Pantheon. It sounds less like weather and more like the universe breathing through a punctured lung.
Heimdall stands on a crate in the middle of what used to be the Arena.
He holds his Gjallarhorn.
He taps it. Thump-thump.
"Mic check," Heimdall whispers.
His voice echoes across the ruined stadium. There is no crowd. The seats are empty, save for construction drones and cleaning spirits sweeping up dust that used to be divine masonry.
Heimdall lowers the horn. He looks at his scorecard.
Round 3: Cancelled.
Round 4: Cancelled.
Tournament Status: Void.
"What do I do now?" the Watchman asks the empty air. "I haven't taken a vacation in four billion years. Do I just... go fishing?"
The Human Barracks. Victory Banquet.
The mood is strange.
It should be euphoric. Humanity has survived. The Sword of Damocles has been removed from their collective neck.
Instead, the atmosphere is confused.
In a makeshift hall, history's greatest warriors gather. The table is laden with food scavenged from the gods' storerooms.
Lu Bu sits on a crate, staring at his hands. He has wrapped them in bandages.
"Thor is alive," Lu Bu grumbles, crushing a golden goblet. "But he is broken. Not his body. His purpose. A warrior who has found the ceiling... and realized it is infinitely high... can he still fight?"
"It is a fascinating philosophical conundrum!"
Nikola Tesla bursts into the conversation, sparks flying from his Automaton armor. He is drawing diagrams on a napkin with a piece of charcoal.
"The Bald Individual—Subject S—did not use magic! He used kinetic energy! Pure, unadulterated physics! It means the gods are not defeated by divinity, but by science!"
"It wasn't science, you lunatic," Raiden Tameemon grunts, biting into a leg of boar. "It was brute force. Absurd force."
"Force IS physics!" Tesla counters, eyes manic. "If we can calculate the energy output required to break dimensional barriers, humanity can replicate it! We can build a Super-Saitama Engine!"
Jack the Ripper swirls his tea. He sits away from the others, his mismatched eyes scanning the room.
"I wouldn't advise that, good sir," Jack purrs. "That color... the beige of absolute boredom... it is not something to be replicated. It is a color that eats all other colors."
The Throne Room of Olympus.
Empty.
The golden throne, carved from the core of the sun, sits gathering dust.
Zeus is still in the infirmary, refusing visitors.
Hades, who arrived late to the disaster, stands by the throne. He runs a pale hand along the armrest.
"The King has abdicated," Hades speaks to the shadows. "Not officially. But spiritually. He cannot sit here without thinking of the Man in Yellow."
Adamas leans against a pillar. The cyborg-god is agitated. His mechanical parts whir with stress.
"We look weak, brother. The lower realms act up. The Giants are restless. The demons in Helheim are whispering that the order is dead."
"The order is dead," Hades replies calmly. "We must build a new one. Or prepare for the deluge."
"What deluge?"
Hades points to the floor. Deep beneath Mount Olympus. Deep beneath the crust of the divine realm.
"Tartarus," Hades says. "It is a prison maintained by the fear of Zeus. If Zeus is no longer feared... the prisoners will notice."
Tartarus. The Deepest Cell.
Darkness. Absolute, suffocating darkness.
Chains made of stars bind a figure in the gloom.
He has hundreds of heads. Dragon heads. Viper heads. Human heads screaming in ancient tongues.
His body is a mountain range of scales and hate.
Typhon. The Father of Monsters. The One Who Almost Killed Zeus.
He has slept for eons, crushed under the weight of Mount Etna and the terror of the King of Gods.
But today... the weight feels lighter.
The aura of Zeus, which permeated the stones, tastes... stale. Weak.
Like day-old bread.
One of Typhon's viper heads tastes the air.
Ssszeusss isss broken...
Another head, a dragon, opens glowing eyes.
"The Jailor sleeps. The keys are unguarded."
A ripple of strength moves through the titan. He pulls.
Crack.
A single star-chain snaps.
The vibration shakes the roots of Valhalla.
Earth. Z-City. Garbage Dump.
Saitama stands in front of a calendar taped to his refrigerator.
He holds a black marker.
TUESDAY.
"Combustibles," Saitama recites. "Newspapers. Cardboard boxes. Not plastic. Plastic is Wednesday."
He looks at the pile of trash by the door.
It contains the remains of Genos's upgrades (failed toast experiment), the stale chips from Valhalla, and the torn remnants of his suit that he couldn't sew back together.
"Genos!" Saitama yells.
Genos emerges from the bathroom, holding a scrubbing brush. "Yes, Master! I have successfully sterilized the shower grout!"
"Grab the blue bag," Saitama points. "We have four minutes before the truck comes. If we miss it, the apartment will smell like chip-dust for a week."
"Understood!" Genos grabs the bags. His thrusters ignite for a microsecond to increase sprint speed.
They burst out the door.
They sprint down the metal stairs of the apartment complex.
Z-City Streets.
The air raid siren wails.
Whooooop-Whoooooop.
"Emergency Alert. Dragon Level Threat Detected in City Z. All citizens evacuate immediately."
Saitama stops on the sidewalk.
A shadow falls over him.
Blocking the street is a monster.
It looks like a giant, anthropomorphic trash can made of slime and jagged metal shards.
Garbagor. Born from the pollution of the city dump.
It stands fifty feet tall. It roars, spewing toxic sludge.
"I AM THE REFUSE OF HUMANITY!" Garbagor bellows. "I WILL RECYCLE YOUR BONES!"
The monster looks down. It sees a bald man holding two blue plastic bags.
It sees a cyborg holding a clear bag of recyclables.
"PATHETIC HUMANS!" Garbagor raises a slime-fist. "YOU LOOK LIKE TRASH! I WILL COMPACT YOU!"
Saitama looks at his watch. 8:14 AM.
The garbage truck comes at 8:15 AM.
The monster is standing directly in front of the collection point.
Saitama's eyes go blank.
"You're blocking the bins," he says.
"DIE!"
Garbagor swings.
Saitama doesn't drop the trash bags. He can't. If the bag rips, he has to re-sort it.
He pivots on one foot.
He moves faster than the monster's neural impulses can travel.
"Normal Kick."
Saitama kicks the monster in the knee.
Or what counts as a knee for a pile of slime.
The force travels upward.
Garbagor's entire structure liquefies. The slime separates from the metal. The shockwave compacts the monster instantly.
It collapses into a neat, dense cube of refuse. roughly 3x3 feet.
Saitama lands. The monster is gone. Only a trash cube remains.
"Huh," Saitama says. "Handy."
The garbage truck rounds the corner. It pulls up. The robotic arm grabs the Garbagor-Cube and tosses it into the hopper.
CRUNCH.
The garbage men don't even blink. This is Z-City. This happens every Tuesday.
"Did we make it?" Saitama asks, tossing his blue bags in.
"Success, Master," Genos reports. "Trash successfully deployed. Monster neutralized. Time remaining: 30 seconds."
Saitama sighs, wiping sweat from his forehead.
"Whew. That was close. Being a hero is stressful."
Valhalla. The Hall of Records.
Brunhilde is looking at a new display. It isn't magical. It's technological—installed by Nikola Tesla and powered by Beelzebub's vibrations (a strange alliance forged in curiosity).
They are watching Z-City through a dimensional tear.
"He kicked it," Göll whispers, traumatized all over again. "He just kicked a Dragon-level monster into a garbage truck."
"He didn't just kick it," Beelzebub notes, leaning closer. "He compacted it. He applied pressure perfectly equal on all sides to turn an amorphous blob into a solid cube. The geometric precision... it was accidental. Which makes it worse."
Brunhilde turns off the screen.
"We cannot watch him anymore. It's bad for morale."
She turns to the gathered assembly.
Thor. Shiva. Hades. Quin Shi Huang.
"We have a problem," Brunhilde announces. "Since Saitama left, the seal on Tartarus has fractured. Typhon is waking up."
"Typhon?" Shiva groans. "I'm still recovering from orbit! I can't fight Typhon!"
"Zeus is retired," Hades states. "I cannot hold the gates alone."
"Then we fight together," Thor says. He steps forward. He is bandaged, and Mjolnir is still dented, but his eyes are clear. "Gods and Humans."
The room goes silent.
Gods fighting alongside humans? against a threat that kills gods?
"It is the only way," Thor says, gripping his hammer. "We have seen the ceiling of power. We know we are not absolute. So we must become... cooperative."
Brunhilde smiles. A predatory, Valkyrie smile.
"A joint task force. The Ragnarok Defense Initiative."
"Who leads it?" Shiva asks.
"Not Zeus," Brunhilde says. "We need someone who understands impossibility. Someone who isn't afraid of monsters."
All eyes turn to a dark corner of the room.
Sasaki Kojiro is eating a peach.
"Me?" Sasaki asks. "I'm just a loser."
"You analyzed Him and survived," Thor says. "That makes you the wisest warrior in the heavens."
Suddenly.
RUMBLE.
The floor cracks.
Black smoke pours from the vents. A roar shakes the Hall of Records.
"ZEUUUUUUUSSSS!"
The scream comes from beneath the earth. It is Typhon. He is loose.
"Here we go," Brunhilde draws her sword.
"Let's hope," she whispers to herself, "that Typhon isn't bald."
Cliffhanger.
Back on Earth, Saitama is walking home.
He feels a sneeze coming on.
Ah-choo!
The force of the sneeze sends a shockwave into the upper atmosphere.
It accidentally punches a hole in the ozone layer, which then ricochets off a satellite, and sends a beam of compressed air back into the dimensional rift.
The sneeze hits Typhon in the face just as he emerges from the pit in Valhalla.
The monster falls back down the hole.
BONK.
"WHAT WAS THAAAAT?" Typhon screams, falling back into the darkness.
In Valhalla, the gods stare at the hole.
"Was that..." Shiva asks.
"Yes," Thor nods reverently. "A blessing from the Master."
Genos, on Earth, pulls out his notebook.
"Master, did you intend to influence trans-dimensional meteorological events with that sneeze?"
"No, I just got dust in my nose. Also, we need more tissues."