Today was an unlucky day for Coulson.
First he had run into John, then someone had broken into the base, and now someone was telling him that the man who had single-handedly taken down his team was a physicist.
"His name is Donald Blake?"
Coulson really wanted to ask Selvig, who stood before him, whether he thought Coulson was an idiot.
He listened as Selvig spouted nonsense with a perfectly straight face.
He glanced at the identification that had already been flagged as a forgery.
Explaining a breach of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s defenses by saying the intruder exercised regularly-even Coulson had to admire the man's ability to make things up.
Still, they had gotten no useful leads out of Thor, so letting him go seemed like a good option.
Perhaps this would give them an opening to uncover more information and whoever was behind it.
Asking Coulson to believe that someone who worked out regularly could defeat his team was harder than asking him to believe Captain America had been turned into a Popsicle.
Coulson quickly made his decision.
Selvig thought his scheme had worked.
He had not wanted to come in the first place, but Jane Foster, whom he regarded as a daughter, had begged him to help this man.
He headed to the interview room to collect Thor.
Selvig noticed that John was there too.
"Who are you?"
Thor suddenly asked.
John set down his empty mug and said casually, "John Wick."
"No, that's not what I mean." Thor looked at John and asked, "Do you know me?"
"I didn't, but now I do." John chuckled. "Your brother played quite a joke on you, didn't he?"
Thor might have been reckless, but he was no fool.
Once he caught on, John's words did not put him at ease. Instead, he pressed on. "Loki used magic."
"He isn't the only one who can use magic." John's answer confirmed Thor's suspicions.
"You're..."
"Donny, Donny, Donny!"
Selvig came in, interrupting their conversation.
Thor wanted to ask more, but getting out of here came first, so he let Selvig pull him away.
As he went farther away, he looked back, but John had already vanished.
Thor's doubts remained unresolved.
As he left S.H.I.E.L.D., he took the notebook they had confiscated from Jane.
Coulson watched them leave.
"What are you planning to do, Mr. Wick?" he asked when he saw John emerge.
"Nothing. Just an ordinary trip." John smiled. "I'm on vacation."
"Are you heading back?" Coulson had originally wanted John to leave, but he no longer felt that way. "We need to establish why you're here."
"I told you." John waved, and a horn sounded outside the base. A yellow taxi appeared, drove into the base, and stopped in front of him.
John opened the door and got in, then told Coulson, "Vacation."
The driver stepped on the gas and left through the other side of the base.
Coulson took out his phone and contacted Fury. "He's left, sir."
Nick Fury was not surprised. He simply said, "He's as cunning as his father."
"Hopefully he'll show us a little 'magic' so we can figure out who he really is."
Fury set down the documents in his hand.
A photograph of an owl outside the Wick family's home in London slipped out.
A proposal titled "Avengers" lay quietly in his folder.
One name on the list had already been confirmed, with several other candidates still under consideration.
Asgard.
Odin had fallen into the Odinsleep.
Now Loki controlled everything.
He traveled over the Bifrost and descended upon Jotunheim.
In the realm of the Frost Giants.
Their king, Laufey, finally learned who had sent his men to Asgard.
It had been Loki, whose purpose and ambition were now plain to see.
Loki struck a deal with him, offering Laufey entry into Asgard to kill the sleeping Odin.
The deal was very tempting, and Laufey agreed.
But Loki did not leave immediately. He stood there and asked, "Your treasure, the Casket of Ancient Winters, is in Asgard?"
His encounter with that mysterious man had begun to unsettle Loki.
He needed to find out what that feeling had been.
"That is an obvious fact." Laufey looked down at Loki and said flatly, "Odin stole our treasure. He is a butcher."
"Is that so?" Loki paced back and forth, then asked again, "What about one outside Asgard?"
"Hmm?" Laufey's gaze sharpened as he looked at Loki. "What do you want to know?"
Loki studied Laufey's expression closely.
Jotunheim had once invaded Earth, intending to plunge it into an ice age.
That was when Odin had intervened, defeated the Frost Giants, and seized their artifact.
But Laufey's reaction told Loki that there might have been other factors in that battle.
"We're partners." Loki stepped forward and demanded, "Tell me, and give me a reason to trust you! It's the bare minimum of good faith!"
Loki had to get to the bottom of this. Otherwise, an unforeseen development could destroy his plans.
Laufey remained silent, while the Frost Giant soldiers around them stirred restlessly.
He finally spoke. "There is only one Casket of Ancient Winters."
Loki felt a wave of relief.
"But..." Laufey sank into his memories. "It was divided into two parts."
"One is the weapon. The other is... the core."
To gain entry into Odin's palace and assassinate him, Laufey had no choice but to reveal a piece of history no one else knew.
During their invasion of Earth, Jotunheim had been defeated by Asgard.
Even Laufey, who had wielded the Casket of Ancient Winters, had been no match for Odin.
Yet no one knew.
Why had Jotunheim started that war?
Why invade Earth from barren Jotunheim only to turn it into an ice age?
An invasion like that would leave them no better off than staying in Jotunheim.
Their true objective had been to reach Midgard, the realm at the center of the Nine Realms, also known as Earth.
To retrieve the core of the Casket of Ancient Winters.
The Casket of Ancient Winters housed in the Asgard Vault was incomplete.
Its missing core had greatly diminished its divine power.
Though it remained a divine artifact, it could not defeat the weapon in Odin's hands.
Only with its core could the Casket of Ancient Winters take its true form and freeze all Nine Realms.
At the time, Laufey had already sensed the core's presence and activated it by calling to it from afar.
But he had failed in the end. Not long after Odin appeared, the core fell dormant.
For a thousand years, he had waited for the core to appear again.
Even now, it had not.
"Perhaps the core has already been destroyed," Laufey said flatly. "Some powerful beings live in hiding on Midgard. They may have destroyed it."
"It's also possible that the core developed a mind of its own and is hiding from our search."
Either way, the Frost Giants had very little chance of finding it.
The core of the Casket of Ancient Winters had a stringent requirement: only someone of pure royal blood could use it.
And Laufey's child had long since died in that war.
Although possessing the complete Casket of Ancient Winters would allow the Frost Giants to rule the Nine Realms, the watchful eye of Asgard's gatekeeper prevented Laufey from leaving Jotunheim to search for it.
Only Odin's death could free the Frost Giants from all of this.
That was also why Laufey was so eager to kill Odin and cooperate with Loki.
When he finished, Loki remained silent, his thoughts racing.
That man might be...
His voice was barely audible.
He thought of his unusual reaction upon meeting John, then of the possibility that the core of the Casket of Ancient Winters, as a divine artifact, might have developed sentience.
He suspected that John was the core of the Casket of Ancient Winters.
Having pieced everything together, Loki left Jotunheim.
On his second day in New Mexico.
John woke up in a hotel in Old Bridge Town.
Although it was the most expensive place in Old Bridge Town, the room still made him frown.
Standing before the mirror, John drew his wand and tapped his shoulder.
His clothes transformed into a dark green velvet suit, and two emerald cufflinks lay on the table.
He picked them up and leisurely fastened them to his cuffs, staring at the black-haired young man in the mirror as a smile curled his lips.
He opened the door and went out. On the lounge chair outside, the taxi driver had woken up and was still questioning his life.
"Why am I here?"
"Because you're going to earn another handsome fee."
John casually handed him a banknote. At the sight of it, the driver immediately forgot his doubts.
He happily pulled out his bulging wallet.
Ever since he had started following this man around, his wallet had grown so full it could barely hold any more.
Who cared why? As long as there was money in it, he would even sell himself.
John stood on the hotel's second floor and gazed into the distance.
The driver put the banknote into his wallet, stuffed it into his pocket, and stood beside John with a puzzled look. "What are you looking at?"
"I'm watching the storm."
John's pupils became vertical slits.
His dragonlike eyes reflected the immense Bifrost descending amid a swirling whirlwind.
"And the bridge."
The driver did not have John's eyesight. He merely thought his employer was impossible to figure out.
Just then, the hotel owner approached with a smile. "How did you sleep last night?"
"We can provide breakfast."
He swore he had never met such a generous sucker.
John nodded, took out another banknote, and tucked it into the owner's breast pocket. "Give my friend a lavish breakfast," he said with a smile. "He may have to wait quite a while for me."
The owner's face flushed with excitement. It was a hundred-dollar bill.
"I guarantee he'll have grease dripping from the corners of his mouth," the owner promised earnestly, then asked, "What about you?"
"Have a piece of bread ready for me. I'm going out for a bit."
John waved casually. It was the first time the owner had seen a driver eat better than his employer.
Outside Old Bridge Town.
The rising dust formed a passage.
The Bifrost spanning worlds descended into it.
It left a complex circular pattern on the ground.
Four Asgardian warriors appeared.
They had come to find Thor.
They needed to tell him what had happened and make him understand Loki's plot.
"I didn't expect Heimdall to help us."
"Hey, don't let him hear you!"
"I was complimenting him."
The burly, red-haired warrior in armor muttered that last remark.
The female warrior leading them rolled her eyes at him and strode forward.
The other three hurried after her, heading into Old Bridge Town.
John went downstairs, casually picked up a square piece of bread, and put it into his mouth.
He walked out of the hotel and watched the four armored figures pass in front of him. Exasperated, he muttered, "Couldn't they at least change their clothes?"
Was Loki the only Asgardian with a functioning brain?
Their unusual attire drew the attention of everyone on the street.
Some thought they were Renaissance enthusiasts.
John, however, knew these people were anything but ordinary.
Gods from Asgard.
He rubbed his chin. "They must be here to find Thor."
His memory of the plot was rather hazy.
Thor was easy enough to recognize, since he had a major role in the Avengers.
But if he hadn't sensed an aura somewhat similar to Thor's coming from these four, he really wouldn't have been able to confirm they were Asgardians.
The innkeeper's daughter jogged over and brought John a glass of milk.
Her cheeks were flushed, and she ran back again as soon as she delivered the milk.
John sighed wistfully. "Ah, to be young."
"Already dating in their teens. I have to say, the differences between East and West are pretty big."
The moment he thought of his own age, John quietly turned his attention elsewhere.
Having detected an unusual energy signature, S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel headed into town to deploy and search for suspicious individuals.
Beneath the sign reading Old Bridge Town, a little golden figure poked its head out.
"Beeba boba."
The Golden Little Man poked its head out, as though sniffing the air.
Suddenly, it grew excited.
It scurried into Old Bridge Town on its short little legs.
A child brushing his teeth saw the Golden Little Man climbing past his window.
He stared blankly, his toothbrush dropping from his hand and his mouth falling open.
He let out the one cry that any child in the world would make upon seeing such a sight.
"Mom!"
Before you continue