Chapter 33: Echoes of the Past

Chapter 33: Echoes of the Past

The moment Baldur's fingers brushed the pillar of light, the world ceased to exist.

There was no transition, no moment of adjustment—one instant, he was in the Celestial Vault. The next, he was nowhere.

Not floating. Not falling.

Just… existing.

A deafening silence pressed in from all sides, stretching into infinity. Baldur's golden aura flickered weakly, struggling to maintain form in whatever this space was.

Then—

The first echo hit him.

A rush of sensation, not sight or sound, but feeling.

Pain.

A deep, crushing hopelessness.

And then—

Fire.

A battlefield, alien and unrecognizable, erupted into existence around him.

He saw it as if he were there, but he wasn't. He was experiencing it.

The ground trembled beneath him—not stone, not soil, but something unnatural, forged through means beyond mortal comprehension.

Two figures clashed in the distance, their forms impossibly large, titanic in scale. Their weapons tore through reality itself, each impact sending shockwaves that shattered entire continents.

One wielded a blade of pure starlight, its edge humming with power, distorting the very fabric of space as it cut.

The other—

A shadow with no true form.

A being of writhing darkness, shifting, impossible to fully comprehend. Its attacks did not break the world around it—they consumed it, erasing existence itself.

Baldur gasped, stumbling backward—but he had no body.

He wasn't really here.

He was merely witnessing.

"They were the first," a voice whispered in his mind, distant, ancient.

"Before your gods. Before your kings. Before Asgard itself."

Baldur barely had time to process that before the battlefield collapsed.

The world warped and bent, shattering like glass.

The sensation changed.

No longer war.

Something else.

A chamber, impossibly vast, lined with relics of unfathomable power. The walls pulsed with inscriptions in a thousand different languages, all conveying the same truth:

Knowledge that was never meant to be known.

At the center of the room, a lone figure knelt before an altar of pure energy.

His armor was unlike anything Baldur had ever seen. Not Asgardian, not Kree, not Celestial. Something older. Something closer to the source of all things.

The figure was dying.

Blood—if it could even be called that—dripped from his wounds, black and luminous at the same time, seeping into the floor like ink upon parchment.

Baldur could feel it.

This man—this warrior—had once been powerful beyond comprehension. A force that had shaped the cosmos itself.

And yet, he was alone.

Dying.

Forgotten.

His voice, ragged and weak, echoed through the chamber.

"I have failed."

His fingers trembled as they reached toward the altar, toward the pulsating light at its center.

"We were not enough."

The light dimmed.

The chamber shuddered.

And Baldur suddenly understood.

This was not just a vision.

This was history.

A history no one in Asgard had ever spoken of.

A history that had been buried—because it was meant to be forgotten.

The realization sent a chill through him.

There had been others before Asgard. Before Odin. Before Yggdrasil.

There had been warriors, gods, and kings who had fought against things that did not belong in this reality.

And they had lost.

The kneeling figure's breath hitched.

His gaze—dim, yet still filled with unbearable weight—turned toward Baldur.

No.

Not toward him.

Through him.

"If you see this… if you hear this… then we are dust."

His hands clenched into fists, his body trembling with the last remnants of his fading strength.

"The enemy cannot be stopped."

Baldur wanted to move. To speak. To do something.

But he could only watch.

"If you are watching, you must understand."

The warrior let out a slow, shuddering breath.

"You cannot fight them the way we did."

He turned his gaze to the altar, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"You must become something else."

Then—

The world collapsed again.

Baldur felt himself ripped away from the vision, spiraling through time and space, the echoes of the past still ringing in his skull.

Then—

Light.

And pain.

His body slammed back into reality, his lungs gasping for air as he stumbled backward.

The pillar of light flickered, then dimmed, as if acknowledging that it had shown him all it intended to.

Aetolus watched him carefully. "You are back."

Baldur clenched his fists, his body still shaking. His heart pounded in his chest, his mind racing with what he had seen.

That wasn't just a memory.

That was a warning.

And suddenly—

He felt small.

————————————————————

Baldur's breath was ragged, uneven. His body trembled, not from exhaustion, not from pain—but from the sheer gravity of what he had just witnessed.

The visions still clung to the edges of his consciousness, refusing to fade like most dreams do.

This was no dream.

It had been real.

The battlefield of titans, the crumbling chamber of forgotten gods, the dying warrior whose final words echoed in Baldur's chest like a war drum—this was history.

A history that no one had spoken of.

A history that no one had survived to tell.

He forced himself to steady his breathing, to regain control. He was still in the Celestial Vault. The chamber was still around him, the ancient inscriptions lining the walls still glowing softly in the dim light. The air still smelled of parchment and incense, the distant hum of shifting knowledge thrumming like a living thing.

But Baldur had changed.

His golden aura flickered inconsistently, his energy still unstable after his battle with Terrax, after his near-death, after whatever the hell that vision had been.

Aetolus remained where he had been, watching him, his violet eyes calm, studying Baldur as if reading the very fabric of his being.

"You saw," Aetolus finally said. It wasn't a question.

Baldur swallowed, his throat dry. "Yeah. I saw."

The old scholar nodded slightly. "Then you understand."

Baldur clenched his fists. "I understand that we're in more danger than I ever thought possible."

Aetolus tilted his head slightly. "Are we?"

The words hit like a blade.

Baldur's mind was still reeling from what he had seen—gods, warriors, civilizations wiped from existence by things that shouldn't exist. His instincts screamed that this was a warning, a sign that something was coming.

And yet, Aetolus remained unshaken.

Baldur narrowed his eyes. "You knew."

Aetolus met his gaze. "We do not guard knowledge for the sake of hoarding it. We watch. We record. And, when necessary, we choose who should bear the burden of truth."

Baldur let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "That's what this was? A test? To see if I was worthy of knowing?"

Aetolus didn't flinch. "Would you have accepted the truth before today?"

Baldur opened his mouth to retort—but stopped.

He didn't have an answer.

Because Aetolus was right.

Before today, Baldur wouldn't have cared. He would have brushed it off, thought it irrelevant, assumed that if Odin hadn't told him, it wasn't important.

But now?

Now he had seen too much.

And he couldn't ignore it.

He exhaled, shaking his head. "Why bury this? Why keep it hidden?"

Aetolus' expression didn't change. "Because power without knowledge leads to destruction. And knowledge without wisdom is just another path to ruin."

Baldur gritted his teeth. He hated that answer. He hated the idea of people like Aetolus sitting here, knowing what was out there, doing nothing.

But deep down, he understood.

Some knowledge could break people.

And yet—

Baldur wasn't broken.

He was angry.

Because this meant Asgard wasn't ready.

This meant Odin, for all his wisdom, for all his power, had chosen not to prepare for what was out there.

And that thought was terrifying.

Silence stretched between them. Then, finally, Aetolus spoke again.

"So, what will you do with what you now know?"

Baldur inhaled slowly, steadying himself, pushing past the lingering weakness in his limbs.

"I need to get stronger," he admitted. "But I don't have time for that right now."

Aetolus raised a brow. "Why?"

Baldur froze.

The timeline.

The battle on Earth.

Loki.

The Chitauri.

His eyes widened, his heart slamming against his ribs.

"How long have I been here?"

Aetolus watched him for a moment, then inclined his head slightly. "Three days."

Three days.

Baldur cursed.

That meant Loki's invasion was about to happen.

And he wasn't there.

He clenched his fists, golden energy surging around him in ragged bursts. His body still ached, still burned, but it didn't matter.

He had no choice.

He had to go.

Now.

He turned to Aetolus, eyes blazing. "I need to leave."

The scholar regarded him carefully. "You are not fully recovered."

"I don't care." Baldur's voice was firm, resolute. "Midgard is about to be attacked. And I won't just sit here doing nothing."

Aetolus studied him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.

"Then go, Baldur Odinson," he said. "But remember—you are running toward a battle that is only the beginning."

Baldur didn't hesitate.

With a final burst of light, he vanished.

————————————————————

-Earth, New York-

Thor stood at the edge of the Stark Tower ruins, Mjolnir heavy in his grip, his breath coming in sharp bursts as he surveyed the chaos unfolding below.

The invasion had begun.

New York was burning.

From the rippling, pulsating portal in the sky, the Chitauri rained down like a tide of destruction. Metallic beasts soared between the towering skyscrapers, energy blasts ripping through buildings, streets, and cars.

Screams filled the air.

Explosions painted the battlefield in hues of orange and red.

Thor clenched his jaw as he hurled Mjolnir forward, lightning crackling around the hammer as it collided with a Chitauri warship, sending the alien metal spiraling into the ground below.

But there were too many.

For every enemy they struck down, a dozen more emerged from the portal.

Across the battlefield, he could see Steve Rogers directing civilians, deflecting blasts with his shield as he led the charge through the streets. Tony Stark streaked through the sky, weaving between the enemy, his repulsors cutting through the Chitauri ranks with ruthless precision.

Clint Barton perched atop a rooftop, arrows flying in rapid succession, while Natasha fought through the streets with deadly efficiency. Even Bruce—now the Hulk—had begun tearing through the enemy like a force of nature.

But despite all their efforts, it wasn't enough.

The invasion was still in full force.

And as Thor swung Mjolnir once more, striking down another wave of enemies, his thoughts drifted elsewhere.

Where was Baldur?

He had expected his brother to arrive by now.

No.

He had counted on it.

Baldur would never ignore a battle like this. He was no stranger to war, no stranger to chaos, and if there was one thing Thor knew about his younger brother, it was that he never backed down from a challenge.

So where was he?

Thor had tried to reach him before the battle had fully begun, calling his name through the storm, hoping that Baldur had returned to Asgard before the invasion had started.

But there had been no answer.

Not from Heimdall.

Not from Asgard.

And now, as the city burned, as the Chitauri pushed them to their limits, Thor felt something creeping into his chest that he rarely experienced.

Worry.

Had something happened?

Had Baldur been caught in a battle elsewhere?

Had he fallen?

Thor shoved the thought away. No. Baldur was too strong for that. He had seen his brother fight, had watched him master the battlefield in ways even Thor could not.

But then why wasn't he here?

A massive shadow loomed above, pulling Thor from his thoughts.

One of the Leviathans—a massive, armored Chitauri war-beast—descended from the portal, its sheer size blocking out the sun as it roared, its monstrous form cutting through the buildings like a floating fortress of destruction.

Thor gritted his teeth and launched himself into the air, Mjolnir spinning in his grasp.

If Baldur wasn't here, then he would fight twice as hard.

Because there was no other choice.

And if his brother was out there, if he was still alive—

Thor swore on the name of Asgard that he would find him.

Wherever he was.

And if something had stopped Baldur from reaching Midgard…

Then Thor would tear through the realms himself to find out why.