: The Custard Noose
Location: Niflheim — The God-Grave Timeline
Time: December 31, 1959
I. The Weaver and the Scissors
Frost bit like teeth.
Kaelen Thorn knelt on a frozen sea under a shattered sky. Before him: the Cosmic Loom, flickering with dying stars and fading constellations.
Golden ichor dripped from his fingers as he stitched a nebula back together.
Fifteen years.
Fifteen years of silence.
Fifteen years without his sister's song.
"Another one gone," he whispered, watching Lyra's Lullaby flicker out.
Then came the shift—not from cold, but from absence.
The air tore. Reality buckled.
Three Chronos Reapers emerged.
Blades forged from dead gods.
Scissors sharp enough to cut sound.
Faces blank, reflecting Kaelen's exhaustion.
Reaper One lunged for Yoggy, now a glowing custard nebula playing Chattanooga Choo Choo.
Reaper Two struck for Kaelen's throat.
Reaper Three targeted the custard thread—woven from Hank's laughter and Juni's fury.
Kaelen didn't flinch.
He pulled the thread taut.
"You want chaos?"
"Then taste rebellion."
II. Enter: Sergeant Fartquake
The thread snapped.
BRRROOMPH – KABLAM!
Time ruptured.
Hank Rigby crashed through the air like a war poem gone wrong. His boots slammed into the ice. Dragonbone scars lit up like angry copper veins.
Juniper Flux dropped beside him, her chroniton-infected fist hammering the ground. Reality stuttered.
HANK: "Miss us, Frosty? Brought you a welcome gift!"
He punched Reaper One—not with his fist, but with a harmonic reality shift.
Laughter echoed through space. The Reaper convulsed and screamed in silence.
JUNI: "Don't touch the thread, Weaver."
She caught Reaper Two's blade with her frozen hand. Chroniton poison met cosmic erasure. Ice spread up the Reaper's arm.
KAELEN: "You brought flatulence as artillery?"
Kaelen spun the thread into a shield.
Reaper Three's scissors clashed against it—custard light versus cosmic silence.
III. Yoggy's War Song
Yoggy swelled.
It projected holograms mid-battle:
Jenkins' kids waving from Alaska
McGrath's last radio: "Ain't saluting nothing!"
Doc's glasses, shattering during a diagnosis
The Reapers paused—0.3 seconds of hesitation.
That was all Hank needed.
He grabbed Kaelen's arm.
"Family reunion, mate! We're your new dysfunctional pantheon!"
Kaelen recoiled.
"I don't need—"
JUNI: "You're bleeding timelines, Thorn. Your Loom's unraveling. Weave with us—or fade alone."
IV. The Reaper King Descends
The sky shattered like stained glass.
From the breach, the Reaper King descended:
Ten feet of tarnished shadow
A crown of spinning black holes
Scissors the size of glaciers
Its voice rumbled like broken radios:
"ANOMALIES DETECTED."
"SCHEDULING ERASURE: HANK RIGBY. JUNIPER FLUX. KAELEN THORN."
Silence waves exploded outward.
Hank's scars dimmed
Juni's hand numbed
Kaelen's Loom began to fray
The scissors fractured into three blades, each targeting:
1. Hank's Dragonbone heart
2. Juni's poisoned spine
3. Kaelen's golden ichor
V. The Custard Noose
Kaelen moved.
He yanked the custard thread from his Loom—
—and RAMMED it into the Reaper King's chest.
"You want order?"
"Then EAT. CHAOS."
The thread unraveled, erupting with:
Hank's D-Day haikus
Juni's purged grenades
Yoggy's off-key Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
The Reaper King SCREAMED.
Blades screeched
Glaciers melted
Silence chains shattered from Kaelen's wrists
HANK: "Now that's an encore."
VI. The Portal
Juni sliced reality open with her frozen hand.
A glowing rift revealed a desert of cogwheel sand and a molten anvil in the distance.
JUNI: "Hephaestus' Forge. MOVE!"
The trio dove through the portal—just as Niflheim imploded in a wave of boiling silence.
Kaelen: "Why help me?"
Hank: "Yoggy likes your tapestry. Also, we really need a god who can install toilets during war."
Juni: "And you fight like a poet."
Behind them, the Reaper King's roar echoed through the void:
"THE SCYTHE COMES FOR THE SPARK."
Yoggy pulsed in the dark.
Its nebula heart hummed a new tune—
"Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree."
[End of Chapter] → Chapter 2: Ashes of Avalon-9