{Chapter: 74 - Shadows Above the Golden Gate}
The image showed a sleek black structure hovering just above the waters of the Golden Gate Bridge. Its size was staggering—nearly 1.5 kilometers long—dwarfing battleships, buildings, and even the nearby sky towers.
But it wasn't just the size that stole Fury's breath—it was the design.
It looked like a blade carved out of night itself. A crescent-shaped monstrosity, its curves sharp and predatory. Gunmetal black plating shimmered with a muted, matte finish, absorbing light rather than reflecting it. Delicate blue energy veins pulsed along its wings, humming with a rhythm Fury didn't understand, but instinctively feared.
It floated silently, eerily, like a sleeping leviathan above the waves.
"How long ago was this?" Fury asked, voice like gravel and steel.
Hill's voice was grim. "Sixty-one seconds ago."
Fury turned toward her slowly.
"You're telling me that thing just popped into our airspace without triggering a single early-warning system?"
Hill nodded. "Satellites, radar, ground sensors—none of them saw it coming. We didn't even detect an energy build-up until it was already here. And judging from its appearance… it didn't fly in. It appeared. Possibly faster-than-light travel."
Fury clenched his jaw. The headache that had been a dull throb before now exploded into a migraine.
"What kind of science-fucker sorcery lets a thing that big travel faster than light without turning half the planet into space dust?" he muttered. "And then it just… parks above San Francisco like it owns the skyline?"
His frustration was bubbling.
"Another one," he sighed. "We just finished mopping up after the last alien incursion, and now here we are again. Why is it always Earth? Why this rock? Half our species still hates each other over skin color and what invisible man they pray to, and this is the planet everyone wants to visit?"
He barked orders into his commlink.
"Get me live visuals. I want SHIELD agents on-site within ten minutes. Lock down local networks and social media streams. I don't want this thing going viral before we know if it plans to wave a flag or drop a bomb."
Within moments, the screen updated—now showing a high-resolution real-time image of the ship hovering above the sea, casting a monstrous shadow over the Golden Gate Bridge.
"Notify the Avengers," Fury said. "We need boots on the ground, eyes in the sky, and weapons pointed at every possible entry hatch. If it comes in peace, great—we'll all sing kumbaya. But if it even twitches the wrong way, I want it gone."
He didn't have to wait long.
Iron Man's HUD lit up on the screen. The genius billionaire, in his red-and-gold suit, was already circling the ship, analyzing its structure, scanning with every available sensor in his arsenal.
Then, without warning, a ramp extended from the ship's underbelly—like a tongue slowly sliding out from the mouth of a predator.
A man stepped out.
Black coat fluttering behind him, high-collared and regal. Asgardian leather boots gleamed in the California sun. He looked less like an invader and more like royalty disembarking from a cosmic yacht.
"Aiden," Fury whispered, eyes narrowing. "Of course it's you."
Tony's voice crackled through the comms, streaming directly into SHIELD's secure channel. It was a one-way feed, but that didn't stop Fury from listening in.
"Is it really you?" Stark's voice was filled with a mix of suspicion and awe.
Aiden tilted his head. "Can't it be me?"
Tony chuckled. "Don't tell me this thing is yours?"
"Oh, it's mine."
Stark was already in full science-mode. "This isn't next-gen tech. This is next-universe. What's powering it? Dark matter? Folded gravity? Wormhole drives? Just give me a hint—come on, you know I'll figure it out anyway."
Aiden grinned. "Sorry to disappoint, Stark, but this one's mine. Loot from a rather nasty space warlord who thought Earth was up for grabs. You want one? Go beat your own galactic overlord and claim their ride."
"Wow. Stingy much?" Tony said. "I know a dozen supermodels who'd die to meet a guy with an interstellar warship—and I throw the best parties in New York. That doesn't even earn me thirty seconds with the controls?"
Fury didn't say a word. He simply stared at the screen, jaw locked.
"Not a chance," Aiden said with a firm shake of his head, standing tall beside the ship that looked like it had been forged in a star's dying breath. The gleam in his eye was unmistakable—protective, maybe even possessive. "This baby's mine. You'd probably disassemble it before I even finished my breakfast."
Tony Stark, clad in a half-retracted Iron Man suit, rolled his eyes. "Okay, fair… but still incredibly rude."
Before their bickering could escalate, Stark's expression shifted, his gaze locking on Aiden's attire. Something about it triggered a familiar unease.
"Wait a second," Tony narrowed his eyes, stepping closer. "You're not wearing the same gear you left Earth in. That's… Asgardian, right? And is that—?"
A sudden roar overhead cut off his words like a blade through tension. The clouds above parted, shredded by the thundering descent of a Quinjet, its twin turbines howling against the sky. The aircraft touched down with calculated precision, landing gear kicking up dust and loose debris from the field below.
The rear hatch hissed open.
Steve Rogers—Captain America—stepped out with the weight of a thousand missions in his stride. The red, white, and blue shield was strapped firmly to his back, gleaming even in the overcast light.
His presence brought a moment of clarity to the scene. Controlled. Grounded.
Nick Fury exhaled heavily through his nose. Finally, he thought. Now we can talk to Aiden without Stark turning this into a circus.
Steve glanced at the spacecraft looming ominously behind Aiden—sleek, dark, almost menacing in its silence.
"What's going on here?" Steve asked, voice clipped, every syllable weighed with authority.
"Fury's having a meltdown," Tony said with a shrug. "Said there's a new spaceship hovering over the U.S. coastline like it's trying to parallel park."
"It's not an alien invasion," Aiden interjected casually. "Just me. Back from a short interdimensional vacation."
Steve blinked. "Vacation?"
"More or less," Aiden replied, nonchalant. "Spent some time in Niflheim—Dark Elf territory. Made a quick detour through Asgard. Killed a mythological tyrant or two. You know, the usual."
Steve narrowed his eyes and slowly raised a finger to his ear, activating his comm. "Nick's not going to like this. You tell him."
"You sure?" Aiden smirked. "Because once I start talking, I don't stop."
"You're already doing that," Steve muttered.
Fury's voice buzzed through the speaker, tight with frustration and a trace of disbelief.
"Aiden…" Fury began, his tone caught somewhere between numbed revelation and raw irritation. "Do you have any idea the kind of mess you're causing? First, you vanish off the face of the Earth. Now you show up piloting a spaceship big enough to block out the damn moon."
"Come on, Director," Aiden chuckled. "You know me. I don't go looking for trouble. Trouble finds me."
Fury's jaw clenched. He did know Aiden—and unfortunately, that statement was truer than he wanted to admit. In the past, Aiden's definition of "trouble" Each time, SHIELD had been left cleaning up the aftermath.
"Just tell me what you've done now," Fury demanded.
Aiden's tone changed—less flippant, more grounded. He stepped forward, the hum of energy from the dark ship behind him seeming to pulse with his words.
"There was no other way," Aiden said calmly, his voice laced with quiet pride. "I just happened to have the nerve to board it. I traveled to Niflheim—the forsaken land of the Dark Elves—and lingered in Asgard for a time. Oh, and along the way, I killed Malekith, the so-called Bringer of Darkness."
Hearing that name Fury immediately had a bad feeling about this.
"You're probably experts on mythology by now, so you'd know—Malekith was the King of the Dark Elves, the guys from Norse mythology—Niflheim, black armor, eyes like voids, the whole nine yards. Their king, Malekith—yes, the Malekith the one who sought to drown the Nine Realms in eternal darkness. I sent him straight into the arms of Mistress Death… and took his ship as my prize."
"This spacecraft—and the last surviving Dark Elf aboard it—are my trophies. And it's impossible..."
Fury felt a deep chill settle in his spine.
The information Aiden had given in a few lines was more than SHIELD could digest in weeks. Malekith, Niflheim, interdimensional travel, a Dark Elf warship now hovering above American soil like an ominous crown. Any one of these would have triggered DEFCON protocols.
And now?
Now Fury was just trying not to pass out.
It all traced back to that first incident. When something fell from space in New Mexico—a hammer. A hammer that no one could lift, not even when they brought in excavation equipment.
Thor's hammer.
A hammer no one could lift—naturally. Because of course, it couldn't be that simple.
Ever since that day—the day the hammer fell from the sky like divine judgment—Fury and the entire SHIELD infrastructure had shifted. No longer just an intelligence agency. No longer just peacekeepers. They had become something else—seekers of truths buried under the weight of centuries, perhaps millennia.
They had invested tens of thousands of hours, possibly more, poring through every known record of mythology, mythos, folklore, sacred scripture, oral traditions, forgotten cults, apocryphal texts, and ancient carvings known to mankind. From the well-documented to the heretical and obscure, nothing was off-limits now.
The logic had been brutally simple. If Thor, the literal hammer-swinging god of Norse mythology, was real—flesh, blood, lightning, and all—then who was to say the rest weren't?
If the Norse pantheon had walked into the realm of confirmed reality, what stopped the Greek gods from doing the same? What about the Egyptian Ennead? The Trimurti of Hindu cosmology? The Abrahamic deities? Was Yahweh truly alone? Did Allah reside in the same cosmos as Odin? Was Buddha just a man—or a divine being beyond mortal perception? Did the gods of the Aztecs and Mayans still drink blood in hidden realms? What of Shinto kami, Daoist immortals, Chinese Buddhas, the Mesopotamian Annunaki, or even the primal forces of chaos worshipped by long-dead tribes in the jungles of the Congo?
SHIELD had asked themselves the same question every single time they discovered a new anomaly.
*****
You can support me by joining my Patreon and get upto 60 chapters in advance.
patreon.com/Eden_Translation