Thor stood motionless, staring at the spot where the council had been, his mind reeling.
He had been banished, stripped of his power, and thrown into a realm he thought he understood.
But the ruthlessly efficient encounter had shattered every one of his preconceived notions about Midgard.
He finally turned to the three mortals, who were all staring at him with a thousand questions.
"So," Darcy Lewis said, "you're, like, Thor Thor? And they all just... knew that?"
She gestured wildly at the empty desert. "The Illuminati Council just drops by for a chat, calls you by your space viking name, and then tells you you're grounded? Is this a normal Tuesday on Earth now?"
Thor's brow furrowed, his confusion overriding his pride. He looked at Jane. "These 'authorities.' Who are they? I have known Midgard for centuries. It has always been a scattered realm of warring tribes. I have never heard of such unity."
"Things have... changed," Jane Foster said. "A lot. In the last year, especially. The world you remember doesn't exist anymore."
"Changed how?" Thor pressed.
It was Dr. Erik Selvig who answered, his tone that of a professor trying to explain a complex historical shift to a student who had missed the last century.
"Where to even begin?" He sighed, running a hand through his thinning hair. "A little over a year ago, the world was as you remember it. Nation states, rivalries, an alphabet soup of intelligence agencies all spying on each other. The dominant one was called SHIELD."
"Well, it turned out SHIELD was rotten from the inside out," Darcy jumped in. "Infected with this super secret Nazi death cult called HYDRA. It all came crashing down. We're talking about global chaos. Governments fell, the entire intelligence community was discredited... Everyone was panicking. We all thought it was the end of the world."
"But it wasn't," Jane continued, picking up the thread. "In the middle of all that chaos, a new political party, the Global Progress Party, emerged. Their leader, the Chancellor who was just here... he did the impossible. He got what was left of the world's leaders to sit down in Geneva and agree to dissolve their national sovereignty."
Thor stared at her. "Dissolve their sovereignty? No king would ever willingly give up his throne."
"That's the thing," Erik said. "They weren't kings, not really. They were just politicians. And they were terrified. The Chancellor offered them stability in exchange for their power. He proposed a unified global government, the Earth Federation. One currency, one set of laws and one unified military. And people... people were so tired of the chaos and the lies, they embraced it. The borders just... faded away."
Thor tried to imagine it. Asgard, with its nine distinct realms, each with its own culture and pride. The idea of them all dissolving into a single entity was unthinkable.
"And this... Illuminati Council?"
"They're the other half of the new system," Jane explained. "The Federation handles the day to day governance of the planet. But they're a civilian government. The Council was formed to handle the... bigger picture. The things we now know are out there."
She gestured to the sky. "A year ago, the Federation made a global announcement. They told us everything. Well, everything they thought we could handle. They confirmed the existence of interstellar civilizations. Asgard, the Kree, the Nova Empire... all the things that used to be myths or conspiracy theories are now part of our curriculum in schools. The people you just met... they are the ones in charge of that. They're our first line of defense against the unknown."
"So, Spencer, the one who spoke first, he's your king?" Thor asked, trying to understand the hierarchy.
"No, no, it's not like that," Darcy said, shaking her head. "It's a council. They're all equals. Deven Ray is the political leader. Tony Stark is... well, he's Tony Stark. He's in charge of all the tech. King T'Challa is the King of Wakanda… they're this super advanced nation that was hidden in Africa until recently. King Namor rules the oceans. And Wanda Maximoff... no one's really sure what she does, but she's always with Aryan Spencer, and she's listed as their expert on 'metaphysical phenomena'."
"And Spencer?" Thor pressed. "What is his role? He seemed to be their leader."
"He's their Chief Strategist," Erik said. "He's the CEO of Umbrella Corporation. His software, they literally run the modern world. He's... the architect. The one who sees the whole board."
Thor absorbed this. He hadn't been confronted by a group of upstart mortals.
He had been met by the living embodiment of a technologically advanced, and profoundly organized planet.
His father had always spoken of Midgard as a chaotic but beloved backwater, a realm of promising children who needed protection.
The "children" had, it seemed, grown up. And they had built a world without any need for Asgardian oversight.
"This quarantine," Thor said finally, the bitterness returning. "Is it necessary? I mean you no harm."
"Honestly? Yeah, it probably is," Darcy said with a shrug. "I mean, you're an alien. No offense. For all we know, you're carrying space cooties. After everything the world has been through, they're not taking any chances. It's not personal, it's just... procedure."
"They're just being cautious," Jane added. "They're controlling the situation. They've contained your arrival. They know your name, they know where you're from… I think they knew of your arrival. They have been planning for an event like this for months. You fell into a cage they had already built."
The truth of her words hit him hard. He was a problem to be managed. He thought back to the man, Aryan Spencer.
The calm confidence, the way he spoke of the accords, the absolute authority in his voice.
He had been speaking to an anomaly, a piece on a game board that he intended to control.
"And my hammer?" Thor asked. "Have they taken it?"
"We don't know," Jane said. "We saw where it landed. It's miles from here. But with them in control of the entire area..." She trailed off.
The implication was clear. Mjolnir was in their hands now.
Thor sank down onto the bumper of the van, the last of his strength seeming to leave him.
He had lost his home, his power, and his birthright. And he had landed in a world that was no longer a simple realm of mortals, but a unified power, ruled by a council of kings and geniuses who were already ten steps ahead of him.