Inside the warship, a thin figure stood motionless at the central command platform. A fully enclosed helt covered his head, connected to a strange life-support apparatus that pulsed with dim energy.
Slowly, the helt unfolded from both sides.
A pale, gaunt face erged beneath it, bloodless and sharp-featured. His ears tapered into points, and glowing blue eyes shimred in the darkness, revealing at once that this humanoid being was no human at all.
A Dark Elf.
An ancient race that had once wielded the Reality Stone in an attempt to drown the entire universe in eternal darkness. And the one standing here was their ruler, Malekith himself, a being who had survived for countless millennia.
Sothing had awakened him.
Malekith stepped out from the life-support chamber and moved toward the observation deck, staring silently into the endless sea of stars. He focused on the distant energy signature that had stirred him from hibernation.
Then his eyes widened.
Ecstasy flooded his expression.
One after another, Dark Elves erged from their dormant chambers. Without a word, they assembled into perfect ranks, clad in uniform black armor. Endless rows stretched across the interior of the vessel like a tide of shadow.
Cold.
Silent.
Oppressive.
"The darkness has called to us…"
"Our king has awakened at last…"
"The Aether has found a new host. The Convergence approaches once more."
"Darkness will reclaim this universe. No force can stop the turning of the age. I will return all existence to eternal night."
Their voices echoed through the ship like a funeral hymn.
After slumbering for ages untold, the Dark Elf army had finally awakened the mont the Reality Stone resurfaced.
The dormant warship roared back to life.
Guided by the Aether's unique energy signature, Malekith set a course for the planet where it had appeared once again:
Earth.
At the sa ti, far away in Asgard, Thor had finally finished leading the warriors of Asgard in suppressing the rebellions across the Nine Realms.
Peace had been restored.
For generations, Asgard had protected the Nine Realms, and as far as Thor knew, that duty would never end.
The victory feast in Asgard should have been glorious.
Instead, Thor barely touched the food.
Even the endless rivers of ale failed to tempt him.
The reason was simple.
There was soone on Earth he could not stop thinking about.
Jane Foster.
The mont the wars ended and order returned to the realms, the only thing Thor wanted was to return to Midgard and see her again.
Everything else felt unimportant.
Ever since Thor had destroyed the Bifrost, Asgard's connection to the other realms had been crippled. Worse still, it exposed how dependent Asgard had beco on the Rainbow Bridge itself.
With instantaneous travel available for centuries, Asgard had neglected large-scale spacecraft and spatial transport technology almost entirely. Once the Bifrost was gone, moving between realms beca painfully difficult.
And after the Battle of New York, Thor had failed to return the Tesseract to Asgard, leaving the Bifrost impossible to fully repair.
As a result, Odin had been forced to expend enormous amounts of divine power personally sending Thor and the Asgardian warriors across the Nine Realms to put down the uprisings.
Every use of that power accelerated Odin's decline.
Thor approached the observatory where Heimdall stood watch.
"Heimdall."
The guardian didn't turn around imdiately.
"You wish to see her."
It wasn't a question.
A faint smile appeared on Thor's face.
"How is Jane?"
Normally, Heimdall would have answered with calm certainty.
Instead, his expression changed.
For the first ti in a very long while, he saw… nothing.
His eyes, capable of observing nearly all things across the realms, could no longer find Jane Foster.
Darkness concealed her completely.
If Heimdall had known where Jane had been, and that the Aether itself had rged with her body, he might not have found it so surprising. The Reality Stone carried the lingering influence of its forr master, steeped deeply in darkness.
But as things stood, Jane had vanished from his sight entirely.
"I have lost her," Heimdall said gravely.
Thor's face changed instantly.
Without hesitation, he went to Odin and begged permission to return to Earth.
If Jane was in danger, he could not wait another second.
Odin was visibly displeased. To him, Thor's obsession with a mortal woman remained a profound disappointnt.
Still, he eventually revealed a hidden passage connecting Asgard to Midgard. His body could no longer withstand the strain of sending Thor through divine force again.
Thor crossed the perilous path between worlds with greater urgency than ever before.
And finally…
He found Jane.
Unconscious.
Relief crashed into him so hard he imdiately pulled her into an embrace.
The movent stirred her awake.
"Thor?"
Jane stared at him in disbelief.
Then, without warning, her expression shifted.
Smack!
Her hand whipped across Thor's face with enough force to make even an Asgardian blink.
Thor froze.
Completely stunned.
Jane looked almost apologetic afterward.
"Sorry. I needed to make sure you were real."
Thor rubbed his cheek helplessly.
"Right… Jane…"
Before he could finish, she slapped him again.
Harder this ti.
"Where the hell have you been?! Do you have any idea how long I've been looking for you? You promised you'd co back!"
Her eyes had already gone glassy with emotion by the end of it.
At first, Thor had been annoyed. He crossed worlds to reunite with his girlfriend, not get punched in the face.
But those two slaps hit harder than Mjolnir ever could.
Jane had missed him just as desperately as he had missed her.
That realization silenced every complaint in his mind.
Not long afterward, Darcy and her intern finally arrived, breaking the painfully awkward atmosphere hanging between the reunited couple.
Darcy imdiately rushed over to hug Jane, while Thor quietly exhaled in relief.
The two had forgiven each other, more or less.
Still, getting slapped in front of witnesses was another matter entirely.
Jane looked mildly embarrassed afterward.
Thor, anwhile, felt like his dignity had been run over by a frost giant.
That made things awkward in a very specific way.
Trying to salvage his image, Thor explained what had happened.
"The Bifrost was destroyed. War broke out across the Nine Realms. I had to stop it."
Jane listened quietly.
Knowing Thor had essentially been busy saving entire worlds softened her anger considerably.
"That's fair," she admitted. "But I saw you on TV during the New York attack. You ca back to Earth and didn't even try to see ."
Thor coughed awkwardly.
"There were… circumstances."
"I had to take Loki back imdiately."
Then, clearly attempting to change the subject, he added:
"Heimdall couldn't see you. What happened?"
Jane was just about to answer when the sound of police sirens echoed nearby.
Several London police vehicles pulled into the area.
After Jane had disappeared earlier, Darcy and the others had understandably reported her missing.
None of them had expected Jane to suddenly reappear, reunite with Thor, and casually turn the God of Thunder into a human punching bag in the sa afternoon.
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