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….
"Loki? What is happening?" Sarah asked with concern, following me out of the shop.
Her agitation was understandable, already on the run, and suddenly her kidnapper-slash-protector bolts with a long face. There's reason to be nervous.
"Oh, just…" I tore my gaze away from the dusty road, pulling myself together, "met an old acquaintance I absolutely didn't expect to see here."
"Could it be dangerous?"
"No," I shook my head, "at most, a family scandal would have occurred, but I wasn't noticed. Right," I shook myself off, "we've sat too long in this town; time to move on. How about over the-e-ere?" Waggling my eyebrows characteristically, I waved my hand in the opposite direction from where the truck had gone.
"O-okay," Miss Kinney drawled doubtfully, once again, I suppose, questioning my sanity.
"Well, that's splendid."
I needed to think about what to do in this situation. And preferably do it as far away from my dear brother as possible.
No, the first impulse was just to bail and let him sort it out himself, which I effectively did, but that was an impulsive decision, taken almost on a whim.
An Asgardian brain is, of course, much faster than a human one, and I already mentioned "subconscious processing," but my initial fears could have been superimposed here too…
Argh, basically, I just need to sit quietly, weigh all the data I have, and think.
Meanwhile, the ladies, including the young ones, safely left the shop and were ready to move to the given coordinates, luckily we managed to buy everything. Not postponing the matter, I gave the order to Yuriko to start moving.
Yeah, the route turns out to be so-so. We'll have to stop for the night at best in a campsite, if not in the desert altogether.
But that's okay, there's space to sleep in this mobile home, and the absence of people… perhaps that's even good.
We stopped for a halt only around nine in the evening. As expected, the only sign of civilization around was a road of mediocre-to-lousy condition, so barbecue, or rather, shish kebab and baked potatoes, was appointed for dinner.
Because electricity needs saving… probably. And I love potatoes. Especially baked on coals. And after such news, I have the right to spoil myself.
Ah, who am I trying to fool? The "news from home" seriously unsettled me, and the aforementioned subconscious threw up various horrors, from which I bolted. It may sound stupid, but what can you do, it just happened.
Exiled Thor on Earth is a total disaster!
The Allfather has already fallen or is about to fall into his healing coma.
News of this will immediately spread throughout the Nine Realms, and these aren't just some planets, but very significant centers of galactic politics.
This is, consider, all the mystical races of our galaxy, those whom Asgard held in a fist one way or another, not allowing them to riot and make everyone else laugh (or cry).
Technomagic is much more effective than pure magic or pure technology, to the point where Asgard could literally grind any planet in the galaxy into dust, regardless of all its armies and space fleets, without even risking a single one of its soldiers.
Or simply transport an army directly into the palace of any planetary government and grab it by the udder.
All sorts of trolls, giants, and other dark elves, of course, don't have such capabilities. But any gang of theirs, if they burst onto a planet of modern Earth's level, or even something higher, up to blasters and anti-gravity, is capable of arranging a literal Hell there, simply because you'll be killing them with weapons inflicting damage only on a physical level like bees stinging a bear.
Asgard's army is constantly busy fighting such gangs.
For thousands of years. On hundreds and thousands of worlds. And this despite absolutely dominating, crushing the strongest opponents and forcing them into peace treaties blocking the movement of truly large forces.
Odin's authority forces even Laufey and Surtur to sit quieter than water, lower than grass.
And still, there are always some shamans who can lead those willing along shadow paths, open a portal, teleport on board a spaceship flying in a neighboring system, and so on.
Even if all this always requires abundant sacrifices, a gang of supernatural freaks gathered for a campaign doesn't mind putting half the captured city under the knife to calmly bail home with the loot, let alone slaughtering some village to start such a campaign.
If Odin is gone and Asgard's throne turns out empty, total chaos will begin in the galaxy.
Screw even the trolls and giants, although they'll find spaceships and whatever else for fun for such an occasion, but let's remember Thanos!
The Mad Titan has been gathering strength for a long time; he already has one or two Infinity Stones and a circle of particularly gifted sycophants, each of whom is quite equal to, for example, me in terms of combat potential.
What will this wrinkled grape (forgive me, Harry Potter!) do when he learns that the most serious and dangerous uncle who could threaten his plans has become incapacitated and hasn't even left a successor?
I, Surtur take it, had already set myself up that I have at least ten years to search for a way to bail from here, and I am morally unprepared to meet a Chitauri invasion army in two weeks!
Okay, fine, two weeks, I exaggerated. Thanos doesn't have ways to instantly transfer troops across the entire galaxy, and without the Tesseract's help, he'll be flying from his bear's corner to Earth for those same ten years, if not more. But he's not the only one!
Pirates, slave-owning republics, all sorts of ancient primordials like the Collector engaged in all kinds of inadequate nonsense and ready with great pleasure to take advantage of universal chaos for their purposes.
There is also the Kree Empire, which quite exists in this universe, and it is completely stoned by the screenwriters here, in the sense that they are racist people and immoral freaks to whom even warminger would say: "Guys, you're, uh, overdoing the inhumanity a bit; even I didn't treat Untermenschen like that."
Praise I don't know whom, at least there is no Skrull Empire here, because the Kree kicked it to death, as well as the Phalanx and Galactus, but even without them, fun is guaranteed.
….
If you want to read ahead by 20+ chapters from here you can visit my Patre-on.
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