Marvel: Raising — Chapter 132 - Odin: Me and My Son Really Aren't That Close
"?"
With Eternity's stamp of approval: Certified, authentic Celestial.
Blue Star.
Back at the farm, Azu had been fiddling with the Celestial armor and flesh when he suddenly felt another moment of enlightenment wash over him.
His connection to this universe, especially to Blue Star — had grown far more intimate.
Before, saying Blue Star was his had always carried a certain edge to it. A "who agrees, who disagrees" kind of thing, backed by raw combat power.
But this time was different.
After the epiphany, he could actually control and channel Blue Star's energy, just like Ego.
As if Blue Star itself had become a sun.
Had become the farm belonging to him and Pops.
The change didn't show up as a surge in strength, speed, or heat vision power. It was far more subtle than that.
It's like how every Celestial can casually blow up a planet. But in the comics, when a whole crowd of Celestials came to Blue Star to cause trouble, not one of them just auto-attacked and killed the planet outright.
Celestials, as public servants of the cosmic order, aren't allowed to blow up planets for fun. They can concentrate their attacks, kinetic energy, and every adverse factor precisely onto their intended target.
Otherwise, if they were constantly destroying heaven and earth on a whim, Eternity would have long since cried out and said yamete.
This shared a certain ingenious parallel with the Bio-Force Field.
Ingenious synergy upon synergy.
Azu could clearly feel it: his Bio-Force Field had undergone some kind of metamorphosis.
"Pops was right!"
"The Bio-Force Field is my strongest ability!"
Azu once again marveled at Pops's foresight.
"Rawr."
Godzilla sat on the farm like a large puppy, sensing Azu's transformation, its face full of reverence.
......
Meanwhile.
"With thunder, I shatter the darkness!"
Thor was about to set out on campaign, under the watchful eyes of the livestream audience.
He was rehearsing his lines.
After some maneuvering by the company, the Eternals, men, women, young, and old, had been shunted off and driven away to Japland.
Ashley then tossed out propaganda labels: "sinister agent of an evil god," "supervillain," "unprecedented scoundrel," and so on.
Paired with malicious editing. And some good old journalism.
It instantly enraged the masses.
"Go Thor, deliver justice!"
"You're the chonkiest!"
"Hulk, Hulk, Mommy loves you!"
"Boring. I want to see rivers of blood..."
"For the sake of the whole world, let Japland just die-die already!"
The bullet chat was filled with all manner of creatures, each voicing their thoughts according to how thoroughly the company had domesticated and fandom-ized them.
But they all basically said the same thing: Support!
There was no way not to support.
Marvel's ordinary people, the bystanders, had reasons of their own. What kind of life did they live before? A city wiped out every 3 days, a world-ending event every week. Sometimes you'd just be walking down the street, eating hotpot and singing a song, and a supervillain or a superhero would kill you on the spot. Nowhere to file a grievance.
And now?
One app, and all superhuman activity was clear at a glance. They could sit comfortably in the company's theaters and enjoy one-hundred-percent-real performances.
Pure bliss.
If anyone dared say the company was evil, the viewers would launch a cyber witch-hunt on the spot, escalating to offline confrontations if it came to that. Especially in America, where there had been cases of a son beheading his own father over a presidential election, then bringing the head to show on a livestream.
These people were natural-born fandom members. The company simply gave them a platform to go "AHHHH so much love" and "Do you know how hard the Hulk works?", and it exploded into an unstoppable wildfire.
As of today, the company's short videos, livestreams, and various programs had long since swept across the globe.
"That's my son."
In the East, at a certain public square.
Odin had just finished a square-dancing session with Frigga. He sat cheerfully by a stone table, about to start a game of mahjong, and pointed at the livestream with a face full of pride.
"For real? Old Ding, don't go bragging now!"
The surrounding old folks certainly didn't believe him, and chimed in to tease.
"The genuine article, guaranteed!"
Odin grew even more smug.
Right on cue, in the satellite livestream's shot:
Thor leaped. He transformed into myriad thunderbolts and electric arcs, crossed mountains and seas, and arrived in Japland.
Then he hammered straight down toward the Eternals.
His form materialized within the lightning, golden armor gleaming, red cape pulled dead straight by the airflow.
"Kinda cool!"
The old folks exclaimed.
The next second.
Thor, engrossed in showing off, posing, and hunting for the camera, was sent flying by a massive bitch-slap from the Eternals' Bitch-Slap Hero.
The old folks all turned to look at Odin.
"He's adopted."
"Me and Thor, we're actually not that close. Don't go linking us together."
Odin cut ties without hesitation.
Truly a grandpa diving under the covers. Even Frigga was tickled pink.
......
Thor being a goofball aside, the battle's outcome was never in doubt.
Awakened Thor was originally among the strongest tier below the Skyfather level. He didn't have Stormbreaker right now, but he had the Rumble-Rumble Fruit the company had awarded him, which made him stronger in both raw power and actual combat.
Add to that the Hulk, rocking the Tremor-Tremor Fruit and Vibranium shorts.
Plus the meme contamination of The Boys' visual aesthetic.
The two of them pressed down on the Eternals and slaughtered them wholesale.
In the process they destroyed a few of Japland's cities or whatever.
Who cares?
Thor is the son of the God-King. His personality was always carefree and utterly uninhibited. The Hulk loves smashing even more.
So when Guan Fuyun woke up from his nap, the trending topics he saw were:
[SHOCKING: The Hulk Destroys Hokkaido, The Real Reason Behind It Is Actually —]
[For the Sake of Justice, Japland Can Just Die-Die, Heh.]
[Thor the Thunder God Battles the Eternals, Causing Nuclear Wastewater to Backflow into Japland, Prime Minister Samples It Urgently, Says: Hiss, Not Spicy.]
[Reports Indicate the Prime Minister Is Currently in Good Condition, Has Mutated, Showing Signs of Cannibalism.]
"?"
Guan Fuyun suspected he hadn't woken up properly.
He flopped back down and went to sleep.
......
On the other side.
"I fell for days on end!"
Hela, who by a twist of fate had been exiled toward Blue Star, had been drifting for some time before she finally landed in Liangguang.
She refused to accept it. After untold hardships she tracked down her helmet, only to confirm what she already feared: her artifacts and divine power were gone.
Her mentality shattered completely.
Penniless. No passport.
After robbing a few people-smuggling scumbags blind and earning her first pot of gold, Hela was arrested by the relevant authorities.
In the labor reform facility, she stared blankly at Thor's livestream feed.
She wasn't familiar with Thor, but she knew Mjolnir all too well.
It's just that when Mjolnir was in her hands, it never had this kind of power.
Was it that old bastard Odin who had trained Thor up to this?
No. No, no.
Hela didn't believe it for a second. In her experience, if Odin didn't actively screw over his own children, that was already a win.
"Was it that man?"
The company. Azu. Azu's Pops.
It was a very easy thread to follow.
Thinking of it made Hela grind her teeth to near-breaking. She began frantically gathering information.
Despicable!
So what if he crushed the Shi'ar Empire with one hand? So what if he's a Celestial? You've messed with me, Hela, congratulations, you've kicked a cotton ball! What's the point of messing with me? The consequence of messing with me is getting messed with once!
In a fit of rage, Hela raged for a bit.
......
Speechless, guys. Even a free-update comedy fic has people going around reporting it?
Gonna go revise the earlier parts — which basically means delete, delete, delete.
Today's second update will be a bit later.
➤ Next: Papa Guan and Naruto