The ritual site looked... fairly ordinary, from a distance. A simple chunk of stone, some sort of strange giant orb with a mirrored finish sitting beside it, and a handful of armored people standing around, chatting; next to a giant pyre, a pillar of smoke rising into the sky from an enormous pile of crab shells. Three women wearing what looked like golden plate armor were pouring buckets of... well. Crab blood, it seemed; onto the rock, while a massive, bearded man in a fairly bulky armor suit stood in the center, studying it; and a four-armed man in a black cloak held a glowing object in one hand, talking to the bearded man.

When Imperious and Arakiel settled down; Arakiel realizing he was the faster flier, now, and grinning beneath his helmet; Imperious shifted; remaining mostly humanoid, but the wings twisted, becoming a second pair of arms; and walking beside Arakiel as they approached.

The bearded man hopped off of the stone, leaving the other four working, and smiled at the two; he had an eye-patch, a full, dark beard, and studied Imperious for a moment. "You know. Almost all of my Valkyries are human, aside from a couple of Loki's daughters and some of those I've adopted over the centuries. Most members of your race who grew up on earth are impressive enough, but you are truly an exceptional example. Are you interested in becoming one?"

Imperious blinked... glancing at the stone, Loki, and the three golden-armored women. "I prefer to defend the here and now, rather than endlessly train for Ragnarok. But I appreciate the offer. I was interested in seeing the ritual up close, and my boyfriend here is a fan of yours, wanted to meet. Honestly, I was always more a fan of Loki.." She glanced over again. "The sort of tricks and nonsense he pulled over the years..."

Odin gave a slow nod. "Well. It's one of the more advanced works I've ever done, and certainly one of the largest scale. But I'm not certain how well it will translate for a specialist in Light magic. Thor, if he were still around, would've loved it." He walked towards the stone.. and glanced at Arakiel. "Oh, and welcome, mister Bennet. I've almost welcomed you to Valhalla several times in the past, but you keep struggling on and fighting another day. I believe a few of my Valkyries actually grew fond of you over the years; you would have had a warm welcome if you'd ended up there."

He blinked. "....Wait. Valhalla is real? Are you... I thought you were just an incredibly old, powerful, wise human?"

Odin stepped onto the edge of the stone; carefully avoiding the enormous glyph the Valkyries were filling with blood. "My Valkyries, contrary to some beliefs, don't just spend all day partying with the fallen and training for Ragnarok. They harvest the spirits of dead warriors, freshly fallen in battle, take them to Valhalla, where they can gather strength and train for the last battle. When that arrives, I will blow my horn, the gates will open, and every fallen soul, whether they've gathered it or not, will return for one final fight, for the fate of the world; or for vengeance, should it have fallen."

He carefully controlled the fields his body was generating; lifting himself to quietly settle beside the larger man. "... I used to consider myself a christian. Not sure what I believe anymore. But... it's a bit hard to argue with someone who, if I were to call him a liar, would probably just send me to see it myself."

Imperious wrapped two arms around Arakiel. "Relax. Christians might actually be right. Jesus was definitely a real person, and a good one, though whether he was the son of god is up for debate. Valhalla is a real, physical object. A powerful magical device, the most powerful one ever made that I'm aware of. Plenty of people understand the runes that were used to shape it, but nobody understands just how Odin powers such a thing. You could consider it a... benevolent sort of necromancy, only holding on to souls that are willing to be held onto."

Odin nodded. "Well. This rune is the core, the power behind the whole ritual." He gestures down. "Aside from the enormous scale involved, its fairly simple. Any time something crosses the line, lightning strikes; restoring the line and crushing whatever it is, and anything nearby. The blood of those it kills helps to empower it, and during the day, we can sacrifice those stragglers that come up to help it further."

Arakiel stared at the stone, and the three women carefuly ensuring every bit of the sigils carved into it was covered in crab-blood. "...You had our speedsters help you turn the whole coast into one giant bug-zapper. A magical weapon hundreds of miles across."

He shrugged. "I've been doing this a long, long time. When I was first learning how to do these things, it was in an age where Cronos would make something by ordering an entire city, every man woman and child, executed to power a new device. He killed ten million people to craft an orb that would create a pleasant, hot, rain to cleanse himself under. Something like this... would have been trivial to him."

"Oh. You know... there's a dig up in Canada, that we retrieved a few artifacts from; some criminals brought them down here, and they ended up being shipped back north with some Artificer guy. These little rods that manipulate emotions. Know anything about that one?"

Odin blinked. "That.... would be the master control array. We buried it, long, long ago... but Cronos had spent centuries building it. Essentially, it was an array of dozens of little levers, each themselves incredibly powerful, that, when working together, would let someone create a world-wide emotional effect. He used it to make everyone fear him; I'm not certain any of the other levers were extensively used. Unfortunately, that was all it could do; while the array was incredibly powerful with all the pieces united, all they could do was cause emotions. Granted... destroying it, the individual pieces could be used for all sorts of things."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Huh. I wonder if the boss knew that when he returned the levers to the Canadians. Might have wanted to keep some, split them up, for safekeeping"

The one-eyed god studied the glyph at his feet. "You know. I planned to go back home after another couple of nights. We should already be past the worst of it. Perhaps I should head up to Canada, and check things out. Make sure nothing drastic happens. Explain things to them."

A soft crackle of static. ~Swords, this is Bravo. You've got incoming on a ballistic trajectory. Two objects; one looks like it'll hit a few seconds before the other, less than half a mile out. From the speed and size... its Valkyrie. And she's throwing something ahead of her, picking it up, and following after.~

Arakiel held one hand against his helmet, blinking. "Ohhhhh, fuck. Is she coming to help for some reason? Do we have any comms?"

~Negative. All we know is she's moving fast, and will be there in less than a minute.~

He turned to Odin. "Sir! We've got incoming. The titan, Valkyrie.." He gave a look back at the three golden-armored women. "She's en route. No idea why she's headed this way, but she's coming fast, and bringing something along. We might need to protect the... spell?"

Odin gave a slow nod. "It would be easy enough for her to disrupt it, even by accident. Valkyries, son. Stabilize the rune, please. I'll go greet our guest."

He reached down to his belt, hand sliding into a pouch; after a moment, he slid something free that wasn't there before; a short-handled warhammer with a gradual wedge shape and an almost-pointed tip; and hung it from his belt. He left it there, as he stepped away from the stone... as, a few seconds later, a large white orb slammed into the dirt... bounced... and landed perhaps two hundred yards away.

Details were impossible to make out, but it didn't seem to be a weapon; there was no explosion. And then... an impact. A cloud of dust filled the air as a massive woman; powerfully built, wearing what looked like a black leather biker's outfit; but no-one involved was foolish enough to think was all it was. She walked up to the white orb... as it suddenly tore itself apart... and a man emerged. Just as tall as the woman, broad-shouldered, enormous, also wearing black leather; and he scrambled around in what looked like an enormous pile of white materials; mattresses? Pillows? Until he emerged with what appeared to be a giant sword.

The two started to head for the beach, as the sun set... Arakiel and Imperious, her wings having reformed while he wasn't looking, stepped forward to Odin's right; nobody was certain why Valkyrie was here... but it didn't promise anything pleasant.

***

It had been a fairly pleasant fall, so far. Hate wasn't too concerned about the temperatures, even as they dropped...but he was concerned about their impact on the dig. If the snow started to pile up, they might delay til next year; and they were almost done.

As he studied the excavation, he noted the spots where they still had work to do to bring the array back to light; and the spots where archaeologists were carefully dusting off debris. There were soldiers; armed men with rifles, and likely even a metahuman somewhere in there; guarding the site... but Hate wasn't worried about them.

The three levers were back in place. The Artificer had been given entry, and helped put the array back into order... except for one final piece. The diggers had no way of knowing that the monoliths they were uncovering were key to the array's operation, and that as soon as they had all of them unburied, it would be ready; but now that Hate understood things.... the moment it was ready, he could move in. Turn the locals against each other; let them butcher each other in an enraged frenzy; and then he could simply waltz in, replace his lever... and turn the whole world to his own purposes. Make that enraged frenzy global, perhaps? Or fear? There was enormous potential. But really... the hate would be the key. It would let him cause so many deaths at once, on a scale greater than even a nuke...

He turned back to the forest surrounding the dig site, and looked for his opening.... there. He stepped up to the tree, which appeared to be perfectly normal; and placed his hand just so.

One moment, there was a massive, black-armored figure standing in the forest... the next... he was inside a room. Far away... and yet nowhere at all. The chamber was the size of a warehouse, and what had been stored in it was unknown... but at present... it had his 'home'.

Clearly added in after the fact, prefabricated metal and polymer pieces formed a few small structures inside the space. There was stored food and water, a small garden that was slowly expanding as he added dirt and more seeds in the center; and of course, a series of small shacks, simple things made of polymer bricks fused together.

He opened the first door, examining the man inside. He was a teenager; barely a man at all; and currently hanging by his wrists and ankles, blood dripping to the floor, pooling in a tub. He examined the man for a moment. Almost dead. Not quite. But...

He calmly slit the man's throat. There was a gurgle. He twitched, as he tried to fight, tried to do anything, really, to escape his predicament. He'd lost his clothes, his freedom, his dignity... and now his life, all for purposes that seemed impossible to understand, at the hands of an impossibly strong armored monster... who was studying something in the pool of blood beneath him, and giving a slow nod. "This... will do. I won't be able to harvest it all from such a distance, but if the array can connect me to the whole world at once..." He smiled at the corpse. "I can let half of them... or two thirds... die. And become just unstoppably powerful. Even the titans would need to destroy the earth itself to stop me."

But of course.... it was still possible someone could try to stop him. He dragged the tub of blood out of the room, leaving only traces behind, and casually poured it into the fire at the center of the chamber. The smell was awful; and the amount of iron this process would produce was insignificant. But each tiny sliver would help make the armor he would be using even stronger. And no-one would know what he was doing until it was far too late.

Hate considered where to move the door. He only had a few beacons placed... but he needed to harvest more bodies, before the final showdown. He carefully adjusted the pillar at the center of the chamber, twisting it into just the right position; and the chamber vanished. He was no longer there, nor was he in Canada... but somewhere in Asia.

He collected the beacon; the tiny glowing orb easily placed, and the glowing would stop once it was activated; and activated his GPS. He needed to find somewhere he could collect a fair number of people to sacrifice; or something he could use to help defend the array until it was done. He currently seemed to be in China; he studied the borders. North Korea would prove an easy source of fodder to feed into rituals to augment his power... if he were careful, he could empty out an entire village without being noticed. The only question being, how to get there unnoticed, considering the border was watched by both sides.

He felt his chest, hand centered on the blue glow over the location of the Hate rod. It would be trivial enough.