By the time Sean arrived on Sakaar, Thor had already become the Grandmaster's reigning champion and a heavy favorite in the arena. Even without Mjolnir, the mightiest warrior of Asgard found hand-to-hand combat as simple as eating or breathing...
"You seem to be doing rather well for yourself here," Sean remarked.
He had found Thor in a spacious chamber. Besides a large, soft bed, the room boasted a rack of cold steel weaponry and a vast, steaming bath.
Platters were heaped with fresh alien fruit, and empty glass bottles littered the floor. Several scantily clad servants moved about, tidying up with careful deference. These were clearly not the accommodations of a prisoner.
Compared to his old self, this Thor looked considerably more weathered. His shaggy golden mane had been cropped short. The majestic crimson cape and gleaming armor were gone, replaced by a gladiator's crude leather harness.
"What's become of Asgard?" Thor asked, his face blank as he recognized the familiar figure.
He kept drinking, chugging the liquor without pause.
Hela had blinded him in one eye, and Mjolnir was shattered. He had been utterly and completely defeated.
Had Heimdall not swept him away on the Bifrost at the last moment, the Prince of Asgard would have already rejoined Odin in death.
The dark energy of the Bifrost had torn through space, tossing and tumbling him until he finally plummeted into the scrapyards of Sakaar.
Cast adrift on this alien world, Thor had first been hunted as prey by scavengers. Then he had passed into the hands of a drunken female scrapper, who had sold him off to the Grandmaster like cargo.
The Prince of Asgard had been reinvented overnight as a gladiator for the arena...
"I don't know yet. Sif escaped Asgard with Heimdall's help and made contact with SHIELD," Sean said, settling himself into a seat.
The reason he had come to Sakaar was simple: Sif, on behalf of Asgard, had formally requested aid from S.H.I.E.L.D... After all, both were members of the Nine Realms Strategic Defense Alliance.
"I saw your brother Loki outside. He seems to be faring much better than you. He's become a favored guest of the Grandmaster." Sean was mildly surprised to see Thor in such a deflated state.
He hadn't expected the Asgardian prince to become so despondent after suffering successive blows. But then again, it wasn't so hard to understand. Odin had died without warning, leaving Asgard grievously weakened, while his sister who was released from Hel was a war-crazed fanatic who cared nothing for blood or kinship.
Mjolnir destroyed, one eye lost... These successive losses had left Thor exhausted in body and spirit. He could do nothing but drown himself in drink, fleeing from the brutal truth.
"Neither Loki nor I can stop Hela. She is far too strong." Thor hung his head dejectedly, a far cry from the rugged, brave, and indomitable god of Thunder he once was.
When he had first landed here, he had considered escaping Sakaar and returning to Asgard to save his innocent people from their nightmare. However, repeated failures gradually disheartened him, and freedom became an unattainable illusion.
"So you've simply accepted defeat? You're content to stay on this planet and remain a gladiator, performing for the amusement of others?" Sean glanced at Thor, his voice even, "If that's the case, Asgard might as well be left to Hela."
He had not traveled all the way from Earth to Sakaar to rescue a man with no fighting spirit.
"Even if I defeat Hela... what then? Ragnarok will come sooner or later." Thor said, listless.
His single eye studied Sean. He knew this man was powerful, but would never help Asgard without a price.
"Even my father could not stop it. How could I, without Mjolnir?"
"You're the god of Thunder, not the god of Hammers. Odin gave you Mjolnir so that you could better control your power, didn't he?" Sean let out a scoff.
He could sense the lightning flickering deep within Thor, faint but undeniable.
Odin was dead, but through the runes he etched upon Thor's very being, the All-Father had bequeathed his full power to his son.
This was the final gambit of the King of Asgard, the hidden key meant to give Thor a chance against Hela. A chance to truly claim the throne.
"Think it over carefully. You can return to Asgard and take back the throne from Hela in the light of day, saving your people from their suffering. Or you can remain on Sakaar and continue to be the Grandmaster's favorite gladiator." Sean rose unhurriedly.
His patience for playing the counselor to Thor was limited. His purpose on Sakaar extended beyond honoring his promise to Odin to safeguard his son's life and Asgard's survival... He was also here to extract information from the Grandmaster. Specifically, the whereabouts of Thanos.
The Mad Titan who had vanished without a trace remained a hidden, albeit not insignificant, threat.
Leaving Thor to wrestle with his tangled emotions, Sean exited the chamber. He had come to Sakaar alone, and the Grandmaster had received him not with indifference, but with extreme warmth.
"Honored guest, if you wish to take the electrifying Asgardian with you, I absolutely have no objection." Draped in a riotously colorful and opulent robe, the Grandmaster played the part of the gracious host with gusto.
Earth's name now resounded throughout the cosmos. Never before had any civilization turned away the Devourer of Worlds at its doorstep. Not even the Skrull Empire, one of the Three Great Powers.
As the oldest of the cosmic empires, the Skrulls' Throneworld had been swallowed whole by Galactus. The aftermath was a splintered state plagued by ongoing civil war; a dwindled royal bloodline, ascendant warlords, and ever-expanding religious factions locked in endless bloody stalemate.
Unity had never been restored...
"Where is Taneleer Tivan? I had looked forward to meeting him." Sean wore a gentle smile as he spoke.
The Grandmaster felt a distinct chill run through him. This man clearly knew it was the Collector who had orchestrated that coalition of space pirates, the little expedition that had paid a most unpleasant visit to Knowhere.
"Tivan acted rashly. Please allow me to offer compensation on his behalf." The Grandmaster's smile never wavered.
Since Galactus had withdrawn, Earth had been aggressively expanding into new territories, seizing uninhabited resource worlds and establishing colonies.
After forming an alliance with the Kree Empire, its rise had been nothing short of astonishing. Earth now held a seat in the Galactic Council, a new star blazing into prominence.
Such a powerhouse was best not antagonized. And Sean himself was among the handful of supreme powers in the universe, the kind of being even the Three Empires would welcome as an honored guest.
"Compensation won't be necessary. I'm not the sort to hold petty grudges." Sean laughed heartily, presenting the picture of a man who held no grievance at all.
The Grandmaster felt a wave of relief. Finding an appropriate gift for a being of such power, who already held five Infinity Stones, was a genuinely daunting challenge.
"However..." Sean paused, letting the word hang. His tone turned meaningful, "I understand you're rather well acquainted with the Mad Titan, Thanos?"
"It wasn't me. I didn't. You've got it all wrong." The Grandmaster fired off a textbook trifecta of denial. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Mad Titan and his Black Order.
He had been careless before, falling for one of Thanos's schemes and being forced to reveal the secret of the Celestials' extinction. It was a taboo subject, one even the Elders of the Universe preferred not to speak of it aloud.
That race from beyond the universe, the so-called Beyonders, were enough to make anyone's blood run cold.
"I want to know exactly what Thanos learned from you." Sean's smile remained fixed at the corner of his mouth, his voice perfectly genial.
The Infinity Gauntlet upon his right hand began to glow faintly...