This was a world of cold rain and fog...
Damp, swirling drafts howled across the barren landscape. Grey mist blanketed the sky and the earth alike. Everything, whether a creeping creature or a jagged outcrop of rock, exuded the scent of decay and death so thick, one might think they had stumbled into the realm of the dead itself.
Then a twisting force tore through the stillness. The fog churned like a boiling cauldron, writhing and roiling as if caught in a whirlpool. Small cyclones scattered the haze, and the atmosphere itself shuddered with a resonant hum, like a mirror on the verge of shattering.
A cerulean ripple split the emptiness. A tiny point of light flared, expanding rapidly, and a figure in a green cape burst forth...
"Helheim!" Hela roared the name like an enraged beast, raw and full of aggression.
She was back in the nightmare realm of the dead.
Long ago, when Asgard had completed its grand conquest of the Nine Realms, Odin had flatly refused her proposal to continue waging war. He had chosen to sheathe the sword, to rest and recuperate, to rule as a benevolent king.
The ambitious Hela could not accept that. Their visions collided, and father and daughter broke irreparably.
It was only after Hela annihilated the Valkyrie legion to the last woman that Odin realized with stark clarity that her power far exceeded his worst fears. Seeing her insatiable ambition, he understood that if she were left unchecked, she would drag Asgard into an abyss of ruin from which there could be no return.
So the All-Father mounted Sleipnir, took up Gungnir, and with his own hands, cast Hela into the cold and desolate Hel, sealing her away with potent magic.
"I despise this place!" Hela swept her gaze across the realm, her face a mask of loathing.
This was a world of endless night, where a chill, damp grey fog clung to everything for all eternity, and the ironwood forests were haunted by dry bones and wandering souls. There was not a spark of life anywhere.
It was hard to imagine how she had endured the long, grinding ages here, utterly alone.
"Shouldn't returning to familiar ground be a happy occasion?" Sean stepped through the rift after her, the Space Stone's cerulean glow fading behind him.
"You think dragging me away from Asgard will weaken me?" Hela's green cape billowed.
She swept both hands forward, and a swarm of black blades shot toward Sean like a plague of locusts. Wave after wave of obsidian death tore through the thick fog, churning the frigid air, blotting out what little light pierced the gloomy sky.
Sean simply spread his arms. The Power Stone blazed to life, and a torrent of violet energy erupted outward like a thunderclap.
*Boom!*
The shockwave rippled outward, shredding the mist. The swarm of black steel blades shattered into nothing.
Raw power surged through Sean's body. He stood on the desolate ground of Hel, cracks spiderwebbing out beneath his feet. The violet flash tore across the realm like a god's axe-blow, splitting the sky and cleaving the earth.
Hela launched herself skyward, her green cape snapping in the gale. She stared at the cataclysmic force below and felt a cold knot tighten in her chest.
A thousand years ago, she had led Asgard's legions against many mighty foes, and her father Odin had been a legendary powerhouse... but witnessing the apocalyptic fury of the Infinity Stones gave even her wild heart pause.
"At least Thor got one thing right," Sean said, flexing his gauntleted hand, "You wouldn't make a good reigning Queen."
Hel trembled and wailed, the ironwood forests toppled in waves, and the withered dead and restless spirits cowered in the deepest, darkest hollows.
A golden corona rose into the sky, searing through the perpetual gloom. Tidal waves of energy ripped across the frozen landscape, kicking up roiling dust-devils that danced like serpents into the air.
A blazing column of iridescent power erupted from the Gauntlet and hammered Hela out of the sky, slamming her into the dirt.
"Mortal–"
*BOOM!*
"You insolent–"
*BOOM!*
"I will kill–"
*BOOM!* *BOOM!* *BOOM!*
After several dozen such concussive blasts, the madness in Hela's eyes finally cooled. She stared up at the towering figure wreathed in light and, with a heart full of raging bitterness, lowered her proud head, "I acknowledge your power... mortal."
She dragged herself up from the ground, her green cape in tatters, her thorny black crown dissolving away.
"Hm?" Sean raised the Gauntlet again.
"Very well. The weak obey the strong... that is my creed." Hela bowed her head in bitter submission, and a cold, rueful smile twisted her pale face, "You win."
Her gaze was fixed on the five stones glittering in the golden Infinity Gauntlet.
Odin had once coveted such power, and had even commissioned Eitri to forge a replica Gauntlet.
Thousands of years ago, the Dark Elves had wielded the Aether, the vessel of the Reality Stone...
The first Sorcerer Supreme had discovered the Time Stone on Earth and enshrined it as the Eye of Agamotto...
The Tesseract, the Space Stone itself, had once rested in Odin's vault before slipping away, eventually falling into the hands of Hydra's Red Skull in a Norwegian temple...
From ages past to this very moment, the Infinity Stones had always been the treasures that countless mighty beings dreamed of holding.
"No mortal can contain such power," Hela murmured.
Not everyone could bear the strain of the stones. Odin himself, whether through prudence or fear, had abandoned his ambition to gather all six. Yet the man before her wielded five of them. The sheer, staggering magnitude of it settled over her like a shroud.
Looking at Sean with a complicated expression, Hela slowly accepted the second crushing defeat of her existence.
"War and conquest are eternal themes in this universe," Sean said, "but they are not the only paths."
In a flash of blue light, he stood in Hela's personal chambers; a vast, empty hall as though carved from ice and frost, crystalline drapes woven into glimmering curtains, a black throne at its heart. The grey mist roiled beyond the walls, freighted with bone-deep chill.
Hela followed closely behind, her tall, slender frame cloaked in that tattered green cape, her pale and coldly beautiful face giving her the air of an untouchable ice queen.
"Asgard is ill-suited for war. Your lifespan is long, but your reproductive capacity is extremely low. You are a magical civilization, not an industrial one. War would be too costly for you." Sean took a seat upon the throne as if it were his own, looking down at the seething Hela, "Asgard is a sharp blade, but without careful tending, a blade will chip and rust until it shatters into worthless scrap. That is why Odin did not choose you. Asgard needs a steady king, not a war-addled fanatic."
"And yet it was Odin's choice that brought Asgard down from the throne of the Nine Realms," Hela shot back, defiance still flickering in her, "and let Midgard, once our vassal, overtake us!"
For her, the urge to conquer was in her very marrow. Only slaughter and war could sate her.
"Now you face another choice," Sean said, declining to argue further, "You can remain in Hel, a prisoner for all eternity; Or you can bow your head to your brother."
Hela's face twisted with conflict. Kneel to Thor, or to Loki? Odin himself had never wrung submission from her. She would never give it to those two.
"Are you the ruler of Midgard?" she asked at last, after a hard internal struggle.
"You could say that," Sean replied with a shrug.
Between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Umbrella, he had no shortage of influence over the Unified Government.
"Then I choose to submit to you, ruler of Midgard." Hela's answer was wholly unexpected, catching even Sean off-guard, "If Asgard is no longer the sovereign of the Nine Realms, better to attach myself to a true power than to follow a brawler or a schemer."
She had lost the battle, and now she was the prize.
"I am the spoils of your victory," the Goddess of Death declared, recovering some of her poise. She swayed up the steps with a deliberate, sinuous grace, "If I cannot be the sole ruler of the Nine Realms... I would not object to being a queen consort."
"That's quite the offer, but pretty words alone won't sway me." Sean reached out and tilted her chin up, his deep eyes unreadable.
"You will not be disappointed, my king." Hela bit her lip, the cold ice of her features melting away.
She slowly lowered herself, the lines of her tall figure traced beneath the green cape.
"Now you have my attention," Sean murmured, brushing the dark hair from her face, his lips curving into a pleased smile.