Aron felt it...
His Phoenix Force flared, reacting to Hela, and his Death Aura also reacted as if recognizing something familiar.
Hela.
She stood before him, breathing heavily, her body weak, yet she had that prideful look in her eyes. Her piercing green eyes studied him. Then, she noticed something strange. His presence wasn't normal.
"What are you?" she asked, her voice sharp despite her weakened state. "Why are you living among these weak humans?"
Aron didn't answer. His gaze locked onto her body, finally noticing something odd.
The right side of Hela's body looked normal. It was flawless, pale skin, strong, alive. But the left side…
It was dead.
The skin was cracked and decayed, almost skeletal in places. A sickly black energy pulsed along her arm, her fingers thin and claw-like. The cloak she wore clung tightly around her body, shifting unnaturally, as if it were alive.
'That cloak…' Aron thought. 'It's keeping her together.'
He knew about Hela from the comics, but reading something from a comic strip was far different than seeing the real deal, and the real deal wasn't that good. He felt pity for Hela.
Hela noticed his stare and bared her teeth. Even weakened, she held herself with pride. "You... You can see it?!"
She could sense it. He was no mortal. No mere mutant or sorcerer. The power in him was unlike anything she had ever faced.
Aron said nothing. He simply moved. He wanted to know everything about her.
One blink.
And suddenly, he was right in front of her.
Before she could react, his fingers brushed against her forehead.
Hela froze.
The world around her melted away as a sudden force pulled her down, down, down… into a dark abyss.
She tried to resist, but it was useless. Her body was frozen in the real world, but her mind was falling.
Falling.
Falling into her own buried past.
Darkness stretched in all directions.
Then, memories unraveled like chains snapping apart.
Scenes of suffering.
A child, alone, trembling, afraid. Her small hands grasped at her own body, feeling the rot creeping along her left side. She cried out in terror, but no one answered.
She was called a curse. A child of life and death. An abomination. No one knew where she came from. The Asgardians whispered. Feared her. Hated her.
She should not exist.
She should never have been born.
Then... he came.
Odin.
His golden armor gleamed as he looked down at her. But he did not flinch. He did not turn away.
He saw her rotting body. He saw her pain.
And he smiled.
"You are not a curse, child."
"You are Hela, my daughter."
Odin wrapped her in the cloak. The magic surged through her, holding back the decay. For the first time in her life, her body felt whole.
Her pain was no longer a weakness.
It was power.
He trained her. Molded her. Shaped her into his executioner.
She became the Goddess of Death.
A weapon to conquer.
To kill.
To serve.
And she obeyed.
"Would you look at that," Hela said with a lonely smile. She was in her astral form or it's a projection of herself in her own mind. "I never knew I still had this old memory."
Aron looked at her, "There's more... Show me."
"Probing my mind," Hela smirked. "A bold move. Had it been anyone else, I would have killed them. But you... I ask again, what are you? What's an immortal like you doing among these weaklings?"
"You'll know soon enough," Aron replied as he continued to dig deeper into her memories.
The memories unraveled before her, not as stories she had always known, but as something else... something buried, something forgotten.
For so long, she believed she had been Odin's rightful heir, his most trusted warrior, the Goddess of Death, the Executioner of Asgard. And yet…
She had never realized just how deep his manipulation had run.
A Weapon Forged in Blood
Golden light. The glint of polished steel. The war cries of fallen empires.
Hela, in her black and green armor, stood beside Odin atop a battlefield soaked in blood. The air was thick with smoke, the scent of charred bodies mingling with the copper tang of spilled life.
Countless civilizations had been brought to ruin by Asgard's might, and she, Odin's beloved daughter, had led the charge.
Odin's voice was steady, commanding.
"Do you see, my child?"
He gestured across the wreckage. The corpses of those who had resisted them lay broken, piled high like offerings to some unseen god.
"This is what it means to be Asgardian. To rule. To take what is ours. This empire was weak, and now it serves a greater purpose..."*
His piercing gaze locked onto her.
"To make Asgard eternal."
Hela, young and eager, had believed him. She had wanted to believe him.
She had slaughtered kings, burned worlds, and reduced great civilizations to rubble, all in the name of Asgard's supremacy.
And Odin had praised her for it.
"You are my greatest creation, Hela."
"You are the reason Asgard will never fall."
The golden halls of Asgard, its unmatched wealth, its divine prestige, it had all been built on the ashes of a thousand conquered worlds.
And she… she had been the blade that carved its path.
But Odin's favor did not last forever.
She had become too powerful. Too ambitious. Too dangerous than her brothers.
One day, she had asked him, "When will I take my place on the throne?"
Odin had not answered. He had only stared at her with cold, calculating eyes.
The memories shifted again, fast-forwarding through time.
Hela was no longer a teenager. She was standing in the throne room of Asgard, her armor gleaming, her power unquestionable.
Across from her stood Thor and Loki.
They were not her equals. They had never been her equals.
Yet Odin looked at all three of them the same.
His voice echoed through the halls.
"The time has come."
Odin, older now, his eye dark with wisdom and regret, sat upon the golden throne. Gungnir rested in his hand, but there was no warmth in his gaze.
"Only one of you will inherit Asgard."
The words struck like a hammer against a stone.
Thor's fists clenched at his sides, his blue eyes narrowing. Loki merely smirked, but there was tension in his posture. Hela stood still, waiting, calculating.
Odin leaned forward.
"A ruler is chosen not by birthright, nor by strength alone, but by victory."
His fingers tightened around Gungnir.
"Thanos is coming for the Infinity Stones. Fight, kill, and take the Mad Titan's treasures... Show me your worth if you wish to inherit my throne."
The memories shifted again...
Thanos has unleashed Aether on Asgard. Odin was holding back the destruction as Thor, Loki and Hela were supposed to go and kill Thanos and bring Odin the Reality Stone from Thanos.
Hela's heart thundered in her chest.
This was it. The moment she had been waiting for.
A chance to prove, once and for all, that she was Asgard's true ruler.
She glanced at Thor, already gripping Mjolnir, fire in his gaze.
Loki, too, was watching, his smirk deepening, though his green eyes glowed with something unreadable.
She knew they would stand in her way.
She would kill them both if she had to.
But then…
Betrayal.
The Bifrost erupted in light, swirling with chaotic energy.
Something was wrong.
Hela's body twisted in space, the destination shifting, breaking, unraveling.
A cruel, mocking laugh echoed through the void.
"Oops."
Loki.
That snake.
He had sabotaged the Bifrost.
He had sent her and Thor somewhere else.
...
Hela clenched her fists, shaking with rage, her teeth grinding together. "That bastard." Her voice was sharp enough to cut through steel. "That two-faced, lying, conniving little snake!"
She swung her arm, and the void responded. A jagged, black spike shot out of the ground, cracking with necrotic energy. "Loki dared to sabotage me?! To send me spiraling into the unknown while he... he... does whatever he pleases?"
She turned sharply, her green eyes burning with fury as she faced Aron. "I should've strangled him in his crib."
Aron, who had been watching the entire display with the unimpressed stare of a man who had seen far worse tantrums, simply sighed. "So… is everyone in your family insane, or is that just a royal tradition?"
Hela blinked.
Then she scowled. "Excuse me?"
Aron crossed his arms. "I mean, think about it. Odin spends his entire existence waging war, rewriting history, and tossing his own children aside when they become inconvenient. Thor has a habit of smashing first and thinking never. Loki? The walking definition of a trust issue. And now, here you are, throwing an undead temper tantrum in your own damn mind." He raised a brow. "Seriously, I'm seeing a pattern here."
Hela glared at him, nostrils flaring, but there was something else in her expression, something close to a begrudging agreement. "You are insufferable," she hissed.
Aron smirked. "And there's nothing you can do about it."
She growled low in her throat but didn't immediately try to kill him. That was progress.
Aron took a slow step forward, his expression shifting slightly, becoming more serious. His eyes traced the decayed, skeletal side of her body—the rot creeping along her arm, the unnatural magic keeping her together. "You know," he said, his voice quieter now, "I don't think you actually care about ruling Asgard."
Hela froze, something flickering behind her gaze.
Aron tilted his head, watching her closely. "You've convinced yourself that you do. That you have to. But that's not what this is about, is it?" He gestured to the frozen memories around them. "You don't want Asgard. You just don't want to be Odin's failure."
Hela's lips parted, but no words came out.
Aron stepped closer, and for the first time since he had met her, Hela didn't pull away. "You've spent your entire existence chasing his approval, his throne, his validation. And for what?" His voice was low now, almost a whisper. "To be thrown aside? To be sent to your death just to prove yourself worthy of something he was never going to give you? You think that Odin never saw through Loki's plan? You of all people should know how strong that oldie is, right? And for fucks' sake, Thanos has that Reality Stone. He can control the freaking reality. You ever use that head of yours before jumping into a fight?"
The silence between them was heavy.
Then, finally, Hela exhaled sharply, tilting her head toward him. "You talk too much."
Aron shrugged. "Yeah, but I'm right."
She scoffed but didn't deny it.
A long pause stretched between them before Aron finally spoke again. "You don't need Odin," he said, his tone carrying a certainty that sent a shiver down her spine. "You never did. And you sure as hell don't need his power keeping you on a leash."
Hela narrowed her eyes slightly. "What are you saying?"
Aron slowly raised his hand. Golden-red flames flickered to life in his palm—the Phoenix Force burning with raw, limitless power. It crackled against the dark void around them, its presence bending reality itself.
"I'm saying," he murmured, his gaze locked onto hers, "that I can fix you."
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