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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hellefire" data-source="post: 2001621" data-attributes="member: 28129">Damned God'It's not the end of the world!' Beth told me, a little exasperated.Hah. Easy for her to say. She didn't have to work on Labor Day weekend. Here it was, TGIF and all that, and I had to scrap my plans to set up the Christmas display at the mall. Christmas display! I don't know they don't just leave it up year-round and save me the trouble. They couldn't even find the mannequins from last year. My day job sucks.Disgusted with my response to her response to my response to my life, if you follow me, I walked out of the bathroom still brushing my teeth. And suddenly, as if my day could get any worse, it got worse. There was Thor, waiting for me, looking thoughtful [picture 1]. After suppressing a heart attack, I tried to decide if walking away or spitting toothpaste on him would be the best response.'Whasha wan?' I asked, letting some of the toothpaste fly out of my mouth as I talked.Thor refused to rise to the bait. 'Finish with your teeth and we'll talk, and bring Beth.' he instructed calmly. Beth had apparently heard us. As I was retreating into the bathroom she came out and gave Thor a breath-taking smile. How could she flirt with a guy looking like that, even if he really was a god? 'Hey hammer-man! Didn't expect to see you so soon!' she exclaimed with a wink. Bah. I rinsed my mouth out and was back in about half a second.'So, what DO you want, oh fearless leader?' I asked, casually sitting between Thor and Beth on the bed.Thor continued to look thoughtful. 'We're coming to visit Earth. All of us. It's Odin and Frigga's 25th millennium anniversary, so they're having a party. Heimdall will still be at the Bridge, but everyone else will be loose in your world. I assume Lokii is planning something. It would be a good idea to keep track of everyone, not just Lokii. Don't worry about me, though. I'll contact you if I need you.''Um, I hate to say this big guy...' I began. I wondered how to finish that thought. I could tell a god that I had work to do. Work that was more important than his father's 25,000-year anniversary. Or not. 'But we'd be happy to!' I finished lamely. Bah. My weekend job sucks too.I guess you might wonder how I got a weekend job for a god. It apparently comes down from my great-great-great-uncle Franz or something like that. Sometime a long, long time ago, Thor appeared to some mortals and organized them to help him watch Lokii. They pledged an oath that they AND their descendents would help Thor. So really I had no choice. I wonder if the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn that decision?We call ourselves the Lok-ators. There are four of us: Mary, Beth, Tori and myself. Our duty is to watch the movements of Lokii. You might know him as Loki, but he thought it would look more chic with an extra 'i'. I do not understand gods.Thor has always been our contact man. He let's us know when Lokii takes a trip to Earth. We normally get a call around the holidays, and occasionally during the summer. Of course, Thor doesn't actually call. He just shows up in his avatar costume. It's pretty creepy really, walking into your bedroom after a shower and there's an old, naked guy with fake angel wings sitting on your bed. In case I didn't mention it, I do not understand gods.My day job is much easier to explain. A bachelors in marketing, a couple interviews and voila, terrible weekends.I guess I wasn't the only one. 'Why not Heimdall? I mean to humans the Bridge just looks like a normal way over a creek. We can't pass through anyway. So why does he get stuck missing the party for work duty?''Because he has to open the Bridge for us to pass through to get back. If any of us dies in human form, our spirit has to return to Asgard before we can come back. And if he's not there, we can't return to Asgard. And that would be. Bad.' Wow. Someone has a job even crappier than mine. Poor god.As it turns, there are a lot of things humans don't register. For example, Fenris likes to steal single socks out of dryers. It's a little twisted.'What do you mean by "bad"? On a one to 10 scale?' I asked.'Hm. One to 10 scale? About a billion,' he replied. What the helle did that mean? I asked.'Besides a few neutral planes of existence,' he begin, 'which do not cause problems with anyone’s physiology, there is a stress caused by being in a different plane. The limit is about a week. Even us being here releases some energy caused by that, celestial friction we'll call it. You think global warming is really due to gasses?' Actually I had, but nodded to show I understood and for him to continue. 'Well, if that time is exceeded, the celestial friction goes supernova. But worse. It depends on the power of the being involved, and how much of him is native to that plane. The same thing happens when a god's true form dies on another plane, or when a bastard offspring dies in either plane. A normal mortal would just die. A mortal with even a percent of a percent of gods blood in him would at least spontaneously combust. More than that and it gets, explosive.'I pondered a moment, then decided what the helle, I had started the questions, I may as well finish them. 'I need a Thor dictionary. Could you give me your definition of "explosive" please?''I'll give you a couple of examples. Remember Chernobyl? They had shut down the nuclear plant 3 years earlier, but because they were Russian and didn't want to look weak they didn't tell anybody. A man who was about 10 generations removed from a demigod ancestor died there. Being about 99.9% human he only caused a little boom. The dinosaurs? A demigod's grandson from another plane decided it would be good sport to hunt them, and lost. So did they. That quarter-god was the most powerful that has ever died in this plane, except for Nazzen. He was a pantheon unto himself. His death created your universe. Any more questions?''Just one. Who is coming here tonight?''About a dozen greater gods, about a dozen lesser gods and a couple score demigods. Plus dates.' For the first time in my life, I had no words.'We come down at midnight tonight, be ready!’ warned Thor. 'I am going to go back to Asgard to prepare. This will be Hel's first trip out, and I have to warn her about the size and time change.' In Asgard, the gods are about 20 times the size of your average human, and I guess the transformation is a little disorienting. Also, apparently, they are on Australia time and suffer from jet lag. Poor gods.Thor smiled at Beth and walked out the front door. I always expect him to fly with those fake wings. Apparently they lose most of their powers in human form. But I was still too pissed about the morning and that parting smile to care.I decided to go to work. After gods got done playing human for the weekend I still needed a paycheck. I threw on some clothes and left before I got in a fight with Beth. Why add to my irritation?Work was actually the highlight of my day. Everything went smoothly. Except they still couldn't find those mannequins and I didn't know where to rush-order any. Well, maybe we could hire some mimes. I could get Beth a job as one. Then she couldn't talk.Beth had cooked me steak dinner, with red wine and all the side dishes I could possibly eat. I suppose I felt like an ass. But, her being nice made me mad at myself which made me mad and then I got mad at her for making me mad. If you follow me. I decided to stop stressing and get drunk instead.I was just about to pass out when my hand-held rang. It's how we Lok-ators keep in touch. Thor has helped down through the centuries with various MAGEC devices. That's both MAGnetic/ElectroniC, and actual magic. I guess in the old days they used crystal balls or something, then radios and televisions. These days, we have these spiffy little hand-held computers that use satellite imaging to pick out avatars. We get an image of the avatar with a ghost-like overlay image of the god, as well as some surrounding area and a kind of GPS locator. OK, so I don't exactly understand it, but at least it's a neat toy. We can even do video calls. Oops. Forgot about work tonight. I splashed some cold water on my face and tried to look awake and sober. 'Hello, jhish *cough* this is me, is jhi *cough* this you?' I thought it was terrifically funny and was trying not to giggle.'Um, this is Tori. They're supposed to be here in about half an hour. Are you...feeling ok?''Shoor thang Tori, I feels grand. Bad day at work's'all. Ya know how that goes.''Hey Tori, this is Beth. We're just getting ready. Mary, are you on?' Silence. Guess Mary was busy washing her mop, er, hair. I let a little giggle out.Beth glared at me and said, 'OK, call again in 20 minutes. Beth out.''Tori out.''Meesh ooot.'The rest of the night went downhill.First I was drunk. Then I was subjected to a cold 15-minute shower. I tried to explain the Beth that a shower doesn't make you sober, just drunk and awake. She said we should find out. Blue is not my color.Midnight arrived and still no word from Mary. I was a bit anxious about that; none of us ever missed a work assignment, and this was a special one. I didn't even know her regular phone number so there wasn't much I could do. Maybe she just had a hot date. Or something.The gods started popping down. Lokii and Thor both came down as ordinary looking men with cowboy hats in Texas. Frey and Freya came down as professional wrestlers in California. Skadi came down as a dogsled musher in Alaska. Hel was some kind of Goth girl in Michigan. Odin and Frigga came down as Bill Gates and his wife. Etc, etc. Nobody really did anything, boring bastards.At about 5a.m. I'd had enough. 'Wake me if you need me,' I told Beth as I crawled into bed. She grunted which meant she heard but didn't really want to talk to me. I suppose I should act unhappy about that, but my acting sucks.Beth shook me awake about 2 eye-blinks later, though according to the clock it was about 3 hours. THUD, THUD, THUD. What the helle was that?? Oh. My head. With all the excitement I forgot any hangover precautions, and wine hangovers are my personal devil. 'Wataa,' I drawled, still mostly asleep.  Beth sounded concerned. 'Still no word from Mary. Tori is afraid Lokii found out about her or something.' Hm, if a god can find her, he could find... I was suddenly awake.'What are the gods doing? Where's Lokii?' I inquired, a little nervously.'They are all still asleep actually. Weird that gods have to sleep, huh? Though Lokii and Thor are awake. They are both in cowboy hats. Both in pickup trucks driving in roughly the same place. And both look happy.' Lokii looking happy was not the best of news.'Tori?' I asked into my hand-held.'Yeah?''You should get some sleep. I'm up for the morning shift.''Maybe later. Honestly, I'm worried about Mary. I don't know exactly what to do about it.''OK. Well I'm here if you need me. You see what's going on with Thor and Lokii?''Yeah. It looks like they are pulling into an arena of some sort. Lokii is right behind Thor. I wonder why Thor told Lokii who he was going to be? I really don't get gods sometimes.' I almost laughed.'Well, call if you need me. Or if anyone else wakes up. I'm going to make some popcorn and watch the halftime show. Out.''Tori out.'What the helle was Lokii doing following Thor? He could kill him I suppose. But Thor would be back within an hour and know who did it. It would just piss him off. There must be some other angle; I just couldn't figure it out.Beth and I sat and watched. Thor parked by a large outdoor arena and walked over to a group of men, all wearing cowboy hats and spitting tobacco. It's too bad we only get audio on calls; we could find out a lot more. Lokii parked on the other side of the arena and went in a small wooden house where a few other men were sitting. We were still both baffled by what was going on until a crowd started showing up and events started. It was a rodeo. Thor was a competitor. Lokii followed the other men from the building up into the stands, to an area marked “Judges Only.” I started laughing.Beth told me it wasn't nearly as funny as I seemed to think it was. She thought it was a rather cruel joke to play on Thor, who was brave and honest and blah-blah-blah. I thought it served him right for competing in mortal's sports. And for flirting with my woman. I wished I could meet Sif and talk to her about that.So we watched until Thor's turn came. He was competing in the Bucking Bronco contest. I was almost eager to see how Lokii was going to disgrace him in front of humans. I could imagine, a score of one out of 10 or however they scored these things. I grinned. Thor climbed onto the horse and got ready. The crowd waited with anticipation, and so did I. It wasn't until the horse jumped straight out of the shoot that I realized something was wrong.Beth gasped. 'Does it look to you like that horse has eight legs??'I looked harder. 'Look again, it's an overlay. That's Odin's horse, Sleipnir! I thought only Odin could ride him?' Apparently Sleipnir thought so too. After a few minutes of confusion when he was trying to fly, Sleipnir decided to do the next best thing. He jumped straight up in the air, flipped backwards, and landed directly on top of Thor [picture 3]. The crowd "ahhhed" then hushed. People started shouting and running into the arena from all sides. Sleipnir got up and kept trying to fly. Men and medics surrounded the man that Thor had possessed, checking for any signs of life. Beth and I already knew. We had seen Thor's overlay jump out of the man a split second after he landed, and it didn't look voluntary.After sitting in stunned silence for a moment, Beth started to cry. 'I can't believe it.'I wasn't upset with the event; I was upset with Beth's reaction to it. 'Believe what? Some guy died 'cause the gods were playing humans playing gods. Thor will be back within an hour and somehow find Lokii. Or maybe he'll chalk one up for revenge later. It's not that big of a deal.' I had asked Thor once why he needed us. He said that the lessening of their powers made it impossible for them to locate each other with any other means besides pre-arrangement, and Lokii wasn't really big on sharing his plans with anybody. So I'm not sure how Thor would find Lokii, but he was a god, for god's sake!'Thor's not a vengeful kind of a god,' insisted Beth, 'he doesn't wait for later to address issues. He's thoughtful and decent.'So she was defending him? What was he, a boy scout?Just then Tori came on. 'Did you see that? That was terrible!'Good grief! 'Give me a break, I'm going out for breakfast. Be back in an hour.' I walked out.I was sitting at the counter in Denny's and munching my pancakes when someone turned the T.V. up to full volume. Dan Rathers looked serious.'We have live coverage of a press conference being held regarding the health of Pope John Paul II. We take you now to Vatican City.'Several very serious-looking church officials with very large hats were standing in front of a microphone on a small stage. One hesitantly began. 'We are grieved to inform you that Pope John Paul II passed into God's hands this afternoon at about 3p.m. Vatican time. We still have not learned what caused the explosion that demolished most of Vatican City yesterday. That is all. There will be a mass at 6p.m., after which we will be holding another press conference at 8p.m.' He crossed himself or the microphone or the world, I'm not sure which, and walked away from the podium, ignoring the questions pouring from the reporters.Several people in Denny's started crying. I wasn't sure what to do, so I paid for my meal and went home.I walked into our apartment, which seemed empty. I did a quick search and found Beth asleep on the bed, fully-dressed and sprawled like an eagle taking flight. I picked up my hand-held and called Tori.'This is Tori. How's Beth?''Passed out. Did you hear about the Pope?''The Pope??' Worry was evident in her voice and face. She chose to be Catholic even though she knew about other gods. She had decided one loving god was better than a hundred quarreling ones. She gave us the cross we hung over our bed, though we were decidedly not Catholic. Mary thought there might be something there and had gone to investigate. Come to think of it, she's supposed to be there now. Did they say, "Demolished most of Vatican city"? I suddenly got a panic attack.'Listen, Tori. Turn on your TV. I'm sure it's been all over the news, but I've been kinda drunk and not-really-here, if you know what I mean. Basically, someone detonated a bomb in Vatican City. Maybe a small nuclear one, they said that most of the city was demolished. Isn't Mary supposed to be there this week investigating the Church?'Tori looked confused for a minute, as she processed this. Then she collapsed. I spent 15 minutes trying to get her attention before she picked up her hand-held and seemed semi-cognizant.'Tori! You okay? Tori, we don't know if she was actually in the city, or what.' After a second I added, 'Actually I think she was supposed to be visiting the Pope's summer chalet for the last couple of days,' though I had no such knowledge. I just wanted to not be alone in this.'What if, what if, what if she's dead? Like really dead?' Tori paused a minute. 'Do you think she'll go to heaven?'Sigh. Okay, maybe I was terminally alone. 'I'm sure she did. Er, will. Er, would. Wait a second Tori, I need to wake Beth up.'Beth kicked at me as I tried to wake her gently, so I yelled at her to wake up. 'WHAT!?!' she demanded.'Vatican City was blown up yesterday. Mary might have been there. Any ideas if she was in the city or around it somewhere?'Beth's eyes went from smoldering anger to intense thoughtfulness to tearful realization in about five seconds. 'Oh, god. No wonder she didn't call.''Talk to Tori a minute, Beth, I need to think.' I handed her her hand-held and went into the bathroom, where I do my most intense thinking anyway.Thor was killed, but would be back by now, probably hunting Lokii. Someone had nuked Vatican City. Maybe the Muslims? Maybe the Chinese? Maybe Ronald McDonald? Who knows, I try to stay out of politics. But in this case, a friend of mine and a quarter of our elite members might have been killed. Maybe Lokii had found out about us? No, it would be easier to kill us than removing a city from the map. Beth would think so though; she had all kinds of conspiracy theories about Lokii. And about the church, the government, Ronald McDonald, and probably me. But what to do now?We could try to contact one of the other gods through a phone or getting on a plane. It would be easier if we could just call on our hand-held, but we are under strict orders not to. I asked Thor once why he needed us. He said that the lessening of their powers made it impossible for them to locate each other with any other means besides pre-arrangement. And I guess the other gods were kept in the dark about the hand-helds and us. Some kind of god power play or something. What do I know? But I guess if they don't know about us, we risk pissing off Thor in a major way if we go announce ourselves. So that blows that idea. Unless, of course, we go talk to Thor himself. Duh!I went back into the bedroom and saw the girls' sobbing had diminished to whimpering. 'We need to talk to Thor,' I announced.'He's not here,' Beth replied.Where was Thor, after he had been had, after he had been humiliated and killed? Tomorrow was the ceremony for Odin and Frigga's anniversary; maybe he was getting them matching gold watches?'Well, he has to be there tomorrow, of course. We should keep a watch out until he comes back and try to get to him as soon as we can. And we should keep an eye on the news and see if anything develops in Italy. Three of us can cover those shifts and take turns sleeping. Beth, you take first sleep shift. I'll keep looking for Thor. Tori, keep watching CNN. And maybe leave your hand-held on Lokii.'I spent the next 8 hours watching nothing new. Beth eventually got up. I let Tori take the next rest break. Who said chivalry was dead? Finally, at about 2 in the morning, I crawled into bed, exhausted.When I woke up I felt a little better. I asked Beth how it was going.'Nothing on Thor. Nothing on Mary. Lokii disappeared. And Tori went to try to talk to Heimdall.'Huh? How could Lokii just disappear? Why would Tori go try to talk to another god? Just then my hand-held rang. I snatched it off the bed. 'Yes!?!' It was Tori, and she was using video. She looked scared.'Have Beth pick up too.' Beth did. 'I don't know what this means. But I'm guessing this is, was, Heimdall.' She turned the hand-held and gave us a view of the Bridge, as it appears to humans [picture 2]. Beth and I both gasped. We had never seen Heimdall before, but who else could be at, er on, er in the Bridge? I was wondered what Helle I would find myself in soon when Tori, still out of the picture, screamed and the call was disconnected.Beth and I looked at each other with horror. It was Lokii. It must be. And he was coming after us.'Where can we go?' Beth almost screamed. Asgard maybe? Just then, the hand-held rang again. I didn't want to answer it, but I couldn't help it. When I saw his face, I almost fainted from relief. Thor's normal avatar was staring back at me.'THOR! Oh god, am I glad to see you. You wouldn't believe everything that's been happening. We saw you die, the Vatican got firebombed, Mary is missing,' I began babbling, but here he interrupted me.'I know. Lokii has a crazy scheme going and I just figured it out. I saved Tori from him, but he might come for you next. I will meet you in four or five hours. Say at your mall. Turn OFF your hand-helds! He can trace them! But keep them with you! See you about three.' He hung up.Beth and I both switched off our hand-helds as if they might be bombs. Which they were in a figurative sense. 'There's a cinema open near the mall, let's go watch a movie and lose ourselves in the crowd.' It seemed like an inane idea, but it was the best I could come up with.We ended up watching two movies and grabbing some burgers at Wendy's before we headed to the mall, calmer but still shaking a bit. I unlocked the door and we slipped into the food court. We walked down to my Christmas display. I had forgotten all about it. There was a mannequin from somewhere. Standing in the middle of the display was Thor, smiling but urgent. 'Hurry,' he said 'turn on your hand-helds.' He looked at me. 'You look for Odin, Beth look for Frigga.'I didn't understand this, but I searched for Odin. There was Bill Gates, smiling in his billionaire-ish way. Suddenly I found I couldn't move. I couldn't even blink. I could lick my lips, but that was about it. I heard a chuckle in front of me.'So here we are, the Lok-ators, my finest achievement. All but Mary, who has pieces in many places but none here.'Trying to look around, I found that I could see all around me, but not exactly with my eyes. What I saw was Odin's avatar standing in front of us, smiling. I saw a mannequin beside me that looked like Beth. The other looked like Tori. They were both dressed for Christmas. Then Odin's avatar shimmered, and turned into Lokii. My blood turned to ice.'I left you your mouth to use, in case you have any questions. First I will give you the Scooby Doo ending. Then you can ask questions if you want. But, the magic is enacted and spent. I have no more power until I recharge. And you have about three minutes until you can't move anything.''I am telling you all this for two reasons. One, I want you to suffer. And two, it's in the contract. The Norns wouldn't allow me to destroy your realm without there being some chance of it being saved. They are very dramatic,' he said dryly. 'So first, I want you to know that you have always been dealing with me. As did your father. And his father. And his father. On up to what was my half-son. You see, you are all my progeny. I guess that would make you and dear Beth here incestuous. Not that I have any room to talk.' He grinned knowingly and evilly. I would have choked him then and there if I could.He walked over and patted Beth's belly. 'It's been fun. Even if you did call me Thor in bed. And this little-over-half-god will make quite a boom himself. More than Mary did.' Then he turned and winked at me.'So most of the plan was, I kill Heimdall and stuff him in the Bridge behind me to close access to Asgard forever. I kill Thor cause it's fun. I had to use most of my power to remain hidden from you, change you all into dolls, and keep my disguise. All worth the trick though. Now, what can you do to stop this, you wonder? Well, every offspring of a god has some power. Of course, you have to figure out how to use that power. Which is nearly impossible unless you are trained. But, I don't have time for that, so you're on your own. But hey, maybe you can figure out how to reverse the transformation by Friday. Any questions?''Won't you die too?''Ah, no. I have a deal with a member of another pantheon to get me out of here before then. Anything else?''Who?''He asked to remain anonymous. And I watch enough T.V. to know not to tell you everything before your universe blips out of existence.''Why kill Mary?''I needed one of these hand-held devices I designed for you to keep track of the others. I flipped a 4-sided coin. She lost. I never liked spaghetti anyway.''Will the stupid extra "i" die with you?'This got his attention, for a second. He laughed and said 'Probably,' then looked at Mary's hand-held. 'Let's see what Frey's doing for his last week in existence. I'm going to leave your hand-helds so the masses can see how billionaires piss before you all die.'I had been a little, let's say upset, for the last two or three decades. I didn't know what I could do. I didn't know if I believed him. But I had to try. I looked at us. I looked at him. I concentrated all of my anger, my hate, my hurt at that one being. I let go of all the anger I had inside me in one, last, mental-emotional willed force wave, straight into his heart. He looked shocked for a second before he, too, changed into a mannequin and just smiled. I wonder what the shoppers will think of my display [picture 4] Monday?I guess all that anger was useful. But I had used it all. Well, maybe not ALL, all. I knew Beth could hear me, at least while I could speak for a few more seconds. And I certainly had to get in the last word. 'You were wrong, slut. It is the end of the world.'</blockquote>

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