“You seem to have forgotten that gods are supposed to be all-knowing, Master White Bear.” Sif’s eyes were also twinkling.

“There are things gods know that mortals cannot, and many things they can understand at levels we cannot. At the same time, mortality comes with insights all its own, particularly those that are not restricted in the way those of the gods are. Science and spiritualism, for instance, are rarely things the gods know of or take any interest in. Once brought to their attention by mortals, some gods can excel in them, of course, but even now I doubt any of the Asgardians are master computer programmers, and even the Dovnar care not for such things.

“The key is for gods to be able to learn and grow, and being able to use their own Divine power to do so. For the Aesir, that method is usually through Sorcery. But that is an arduous task for your people, Lady Sif, and its practice is not well-respected.

“There is a further consideration, and that is your future.”

“My... future?” Sif asked, caught off-guard. “What mean you by that?”

“You are currently in competition with Brunhilda and likely Amora for the hand of Thor.” She blinked in shock at the blunt statement. “Of the three of you, Amora is the most suitable to be a future queen. Her abilities do not overlap with his, she is a master of intrigue, she is capable of dealing with all manner of beings and gods, and of course she is reasonable eye candy and would defer to him, while also being incredibly sharp of mind and insight. She is indeed almost perfect to head up a royal court.”

Sif’s cheeks were flushed, and she gripped the hilt of her Sword in anger at such words being spoken to her.

“You have made yourself into a battle companion, a shield maiden... although I note the lack of a shield. That is a completely different set of skills than a queen and complement to him bears.

“Thus, the skills you need in battle, to raise yourself in his eyes and be seen as worthy of his attention, are fine and commendable when he adventures and is out in the field.

“But the skills of a queen are quite different, and you have eschewed them since the moment you decided you would not be a victim anymore and took up the sword, have you not?”

Sif’s ire bled from her, and her hand fell from her Blade. “Since Loki did steal my hair, then was bid replace my locks with those spun of gold, only to cheat the dwarves who did forge them of their rightful pay...” She flicked her dark hair once, her face brooding. “I could do nothing but watch as things did happen around me, and in the end, ‘twas only I who bore the disgrace of Loki’s actions, while he did dance free once again.”

“Oh, so you DO have magic hair.” Dmitri’s lips parted in a square-toothed smile. “That is VERY interesting...”

Sif did not know what to think of that, reaching up to touch her raven-black locks. “I did have hair as golden as these locks were meant to be, Master White Bear. That they be so black makes me a living display of Loki’s untrustworthiness.” Her lips thinned in anger.

“A warrior’s point of honor, yes. But it completely sidesteps the point that you have Magic Hair, Lady Sif.” She blinked down at him. “And are not the Weapons made by the dwarves of Asgard the greatest of Weapons?”

She blinked again, and her hand stole up to her raven locks again despite herself. “These? A Weapon?” she half-scoffed, half-wondered.

“You have already taken a step on the road to power via mortals. Have you not Named your Sword?” he asked archly.

She found herself surprised that he could tell, and then chided herself for it. “Yes. I call her Dagsbrun, the Sword of the Dawn,” she declared, caressing the pommelstone of her Blade.

“A very propitious name,” he agreed softly. “Fill it with victory, and watch its Name grow. But know this, lady goddess. You wear a great Relic, old and filled with power, upon your scalp every day.” His eyes seemed to darken, his smile growing more clever. “And only you know what powers it holds.”

“This...” She had simply never considered his point. Her hair had magic, but... “I determine the magic... of my hair?” she asked faintly.

“The dwarves have already cut their ties to it. If not you, then who?” was his reply, turning back away again.

Sif hissed out a long, low breath. “Master White Bear, ‘twould seem you are saying that you would teach me of the Ways of the Sword, teach me of some method to harness my own Divine power; teach me of the ways of being a queen, that I may stand at Thor’s side in time; and... teach me of the secrets of mine own Hair.” She was having difficulty keeping her amusement and interest off her face.

“Blame it on my father, he’s such a damn completionist. Expanding your abilities is simply something that should be done, and the only way we won’t do the job right is if you really try not to let us.”

Sif regarded the long, straight length of weighty uru steel in her grasp, heavy enough to nigh snap a mortal’s wrists, as light as a willow wand in her hand. It was no Mjolnir, and had not been empowered with the full might of the Odinpower... but now, it was growing, if but slowly, in fits and starts as she found battle and could feed its Name.

“Master White Bear, I be a goddess of battle, and battle has changed much since last the Asgardians walked freely amongst mortals. It seems that I be due a few lessons, and I believe I will take the time to receive them.”

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“Well said!” he agreed. “Come! Let’s have you take a look at the vivic fire.” He started forward, his high boots not sinking into the snow, a skill Sif swore to learn as she hopped lightly off the boulder and promptly sank to her knees in the drifts. The winds had rapidly weathered down the site of the battle, and much of the swathes and ruts left by the fight were already lost from view.

“This is an important consideration for a god,” he said to her as she quickly caught up to him, moving towards the misting corpse of the decaying Winter Wolf. “Vivic fire feeds the Land, making Her stronger. As a result, Gaia gains in strength, and that strength can also flow to one She finds favor with.” He glanced at her tellingly.

“Gaia is the mother of Thor,” Sif said softly.

“And this is one of the ways to earn Her favor,” was the even reply.

Sif’s eyes lit up. “Learn to do greater battle, that I may make such offerings to Her?...”

“That’s the first method of increasing Divine power. There are more...”

Sif focused on the vivic fire, and reflected that this mortal was likely going to be the finest Master she had ever had, and perhaps the most important...

---------

“So, then the Watcher did what?” I asked.

“He kind of scratched his big bald head, looking a little put out, like he couldn’t believe that Frankie was the result of something so silly. Then he hemmed and hawed and checked a few of his devices, and finally said that it might be possible, but they’d have to get their Fire Core up to at least 9.2, so that they were leaving behind at least as much energy as Johnny represented, or he might just drain Frankie down to nothing.” DiDi just held up her hands.

I tried not to laugh and failed. “Well, they’re going to be that way for a while, then,” I smirked. “How’d the rest of the Four take it?”

“She didn’t tell them about the Skrull angle, but you know Sue and Reed. They’re together most nights as it is, and Ben isn’t going to prank a woman. Of course, the fact they are already up to a Core Six equivalent and still growing isn’t hurting anything on the power side of things,” DiDi remarked knowingly. Turning a man into a woman and making them a hundred times stronger did a lot for male angst.

“Johnny is really going to miss that Core if and when he ever gets out, especially if she gets to twenty percent of a Ten. That and I can imagine how long it’s going to take him, since I doubt he wants to spend so much time sunbathing for more fire.”

“Gestalting would save a lot of emotional problems, at least in the interim, but that’s for them to figure out. Do you think Lyja will do so?” DiDi wondered aloud.

“Skrulls are natural shapeshifters. Her mind should be adapting to his just with her natural plasticity. I’m guessing that Uatu just doesn’t want to bother with them and simply gave them a time limit, by which time they’ll be integrated.”

“Ben Parker can’t do it. He can sort of see what is going on, but he doesn’t know how to unravel it properly. He said they’d probably explode. Galactus could probably do it, but it’s not something He would bother doing without purpose,” DiDi agreed.

“I heard she’s joining Jessica’s Abuse Flying training and enjoying it. Couldn’t really smash things while flying before... Speaking of purposes, how are things with Midas and Hammer?” I asked DiDi.

“I just cost both of them a billion dollars each, tricking them into investing heavily in modified silicon chips production, just before we announced the Electrum chips were up and running, a good two generations ahead of anything they could make. They sold off the plants and land as soon as they could, and I picked them up for cheap through subsidiaries. A little updating on the machinery, and we’ll quadruple production in no time.

“I even made a fat profit on the real estate, and made sure it was on the spots I wanted when I sold it to them.”

She didn’t even look that smug, like it was all planned out. Which it was, from both financiers finding out of the viability of the chip tech, to the land, to the production machinery being produced by Ferrus Enterprises subsidiaries. They’d basically given her a billion dollars each, then lost their shirts on their investments, and she’d picked them up for pennies on the dollar. She had cleared more than forty million rubles just on the real estate.

Give her the raw materials and a couple hours of matter-manipulation would take care of all the equipment updating, too. Retooling via super-powers was sooper-effective!

“So now the only problem is getting people to work there who aren’t working for other people,” I noted with a sigh.

“Ah, the glory and wonder of Sims, doing all the legwork so I don’t have to!” she agreed. “As well as dispensing Marks here and there for maximum leverage, and helping spread some economic goodness to various places that needed it.”

One of the big considerations for tekking up was having a workforce capable of doing the job, which generally meant above-average intelligence and college-level education in the appropriate areas. Standard university programs were much too slow for this reason, trying to make a broadly-trained workforce, so Baxter University was on the table as a sort of Intellectual Journeyman program, devoted to training high-end engineering and production workers for high-tech machinery and advanced blue-collar jobs.

The place went from an empty field to basically full enrollment with facilities in three months. As it wasn’t being set up under standard university measures, the governmental funding might have been low... until Russia and SHIELD came in with more funding to expand operations and allow more scholarships, and lo, things took right off. The fact that students were basically guaranteed jobs at a very rapidly expanding list of companies on graduation certainly helped matters.

Of course, plenty of corporations wanted to snipe such great prospects, but those who went just for money were often soon embroiled in toxic corporate cultures like Osborn or Roxxon, while their classmates spoke about working for Baxter and Ferrus, Grimm and Stark and Parker and Ouilette and so on. Just the potential ‘in’ to the Curie Research center for cutting-edge materials research and Alchemical training had all the best students salivating, and yeah, for that stuff, the government was willing to throw money at us.

And hey, if the new kids wanted to get involved in Stacey Silks and Textiles, or McCoy Microbiotics, that was always possible, too, right?

Yeah, we could have had the Xandarans, or even the Zenberi, come down here with alien tech and really bootstrap the whole process, but the whole thing was about getting to the point where we could do this ourselves, not have somebody hand-feed us, making human/Terran technology a thing that could stand alongside that of other species.

Making some variant Xandaran dreamtech for advanced specialized training for our people was a priority, however. It was funny how much mind control/hypnotic tech there was laying around to serve as the core of the process, but man, the safeguards that had to be put into that stuff to stop infiltrators...

The big thing at this point was doing the Assays and Aural Redes, making sure we got people with the necessary brains and mindsets to do this. Space was up there, out there, and we were going to be there. Skywatchers could see the traffic coming in and out of LaGrange, including Acanti dozens of miles long gliding on by while wearing cities on their backs.

People in the know knew Venus and Mercury were now on the other side of the sun and home to alien refugees, and also realized there was a living area on Terra’s moon.

The future was here, and Terra was trying to join it. We... just needed a lot of work to upgrade to that level.

But it was coming.