Ada, the Thunder God (Ch.2)

Ada crashed through the wall of the warehouse, and the impact of her muscular body landing against the face of the corresponding building left a large crack behind. However, she herself barely felt a thing.

"Holy shit!" she cried, with the smile on her beautiful face growing even larger. "I was just punched through a concrete wall. I'm practically indestructible now!"

Before she could continue admiring her mighty new body, Thor steamed out through the hole left by his adversary and stomped over to her location. He, ironically enough, had a face like thunder, and a mind to take his hammer back.

"I'll ask you once more," he started in a grim tone. "Hand it over this instant or this will get ugly for you real fast."

But Ada was unconcerned. "That would've frightened me a couple of minutes ago, but I'm a match for you as it stands. So, I'll say it again: if you want this hammer, take it off me. I dare you."

He stood before Ada then and took a swing at her but she ducked and rolled away before quickly drawing her beefy body up behind him once more. He turned around on his heels and saw her standing there with her red cape floating in the gentle night wind. She had a cheeky smile on her face, and raised her eyebrows as if mocking him, hoping he'd try again. And try he did.

In the following few minutes the godly pair traded mighty swings with only the odd punch connecting. Eventually, they ended out on a quiet street, with Thor becoming so frustrated he picked up the front of a car and swung it in Ada's direction. The blow of the vehicle was so severe it finally caused her to drop the hammer and sent her well down the avenue.

She gingerly got back to her feet then and pushed her jaw into place, laughing as she did so. "That looks like fun. Maybe I'll join in," she said, picking up a nearby car and flinging it easily down the street. Thor didn't see the large projectile hurtling towards him, and, sure enough, as he reached down for the hammer, was immediately smashed out of the way by a Ford van.

Ada smiled and strolled towards the hammer then, reaching out and drawing it to her. By the time she arrived at a striken Thor, she held it in her hand as before.

"Nice try, but apparently you'll need to throw more than punches -and cars- to best me in combat."

Furious, Thor delivered an uppercut that sent Ada skywards, and then he reached out and pulled the hammer back to him. It actually followed his order and dragged a dazed Ada down with it, and as Mjölnir did so, Thor readied himself for another punch. As they came close he delivered it while also grabbing the hammer. The result was Ada being torpedoed into a nearby shop window, and Thor finally holding the hammer himself. He smiled and let out a sigh, relieved to be fully in possession of it again.

"Now," he said, "I'll use it to take her strength away. There can only be one with the power of Thor."

Indeed, as an angry, uninjured Ada jumped down from the broken shop window and stepped over the shattered glass to face him again, Thor reached out with the hammer and commanded it to remove Ada's godliness. But as she approached, he noticed that nothing was happening. He tried again, but there was still no dice, and all the while she got closer. He tried once more, but it refused to work its magic. He shook it in vain, but then, suddenly, Ada was on top of him and threw the back of her hand against his face, smashing Thor off the bottom of a lamppost.

"What do you mean take my power away?" she asked curiously. "Do you mean to tell me we can empower and depower people by simply pointing the hammer at someone? Well, if true, that is interesting."

It was then that she noticed Jon, Eric and the rest of the gang watching on from the alley. She gesticulated towards them and wanted the quintet to come over. As they closed in she shouted at them:

"Hey guys, want to have a taste of godhood and help me cream this pretender?"

Without even giving them a chance to reply she lifted the hammer and pointed it at the others.

"I commanded thee to give my crew a mere fraction of the power of Thor!"

With that, the five men were each struck with a bolt of lightning. Beyond excited, they felt their muscles swell and bodies grow. Their arms burst through their jackets and t-shirts, and their jeans tore in a few places. While not as big or powerful as Ada, they none-the-less had become superhuman, too.

Jon was the most impressed. "This is great, but why not give us equal power? Then we'd really tear him apart."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Ada quipped. "But no. This is my hammer now. My power. And together we'll still best this chump."

As she said that, however, Thor jumped down upon the street and the impact of his feet cracked the road and caused the others to lose their balance, sending them tumbling backwards and onto their heads. All except Ada, who jumped head over heels and onto the top of a car.

Thor stood below her then, but before he could admonish her he was jumped by her newly empowered friends, each grabbing a limb, with Jon wrapping an arm around Thor's throat, whispering "I'd told you I'd kick your ass if I had your power."

"That's the thing," Thor whispered back, "you don't."

As he said that, a huge bolt of lightning came straight down upon them from the sky. Thor only felt stronger, but the others were left scattered. "As my father once told me: I am the god of thunder NOT the god of hammers. I want Mjölnir back, but I can still lick you all without it if necessary."
'That's good to know," Ada replied. "For me, I mean."

"You've done a terrible thing here today," Thor informed her. "You're meddling in a type of power you mortals have no understanding of. It's bad enough you have taken it for yourself, but to pass some of it on to these miscreants is above and beyond..."

"Oh, keep quiet. I can do what I want with this hammer. I was the one who picked it up when the magic was scrambled, and after you flung it violently at me in the dark like a coward when my back was turned. In fact, the magic might still be scambled, and that's why you couldn't take my power away. But let's see if it works if I try it on you."
"You wouldn't dare," said Thor, grimly.
"Yes I would!" she snapped back. "I get to experience what it's like to be a god, and you'll get to experience what it's like to be a mortal."

Thor wasted no time and threw himself at her before it was too late. But, truth be told, it was already too late. She knew too much. Ada lifted the hammer then and commanded it to strip him of his power. As she did so, a bolt didn't strike him, but was extracted from his body and integrated into the hammer. In an instant, Thor Odinson had his size and strength sucked away from him, and his small, now human body fell to the ground with barely a light thump.

"Haha!" she cackled while standing over him. Thor looked up at the awesome sight of a muscular goddess of thunder who held his hammer in a fiercesome grip. However, it was more her hammer now. He knew it, and was horrified at the prospect. She then reached down and grabbed him by the throat and easily held him aloft before her, with his feet dangling over the path.

"Not so godly now, are you?" she said. "Whereas I'm feeling pretty good. As are my boys who'd like to have a go at you again, but don't worry, I still believe in a fair fight, and those guys would easily kill you now. So, am I not merciful?"

"You are," whispered a fearful Thor, struggling to breath in her tight grip.

"I could throw you into the upper atmosphere, you know that, right?"
"I do."
"Then get out of my sight. I have bigger and better things to attend to now."

On some level, Thor was enraged. She and the others were humiliating him, but he was also not so proud and stupid to remain there for fear they might change their minds and kill him, so he beat a hasty retreat. As he did so, they laughed at him.

Then Ada and the others quickly made for a nearby low rooftop not only to see Thor flee but also to look upon the bright lights of the city across the river. She stood triumphantly above her muscular buddies and stared down at the hammer again. There had been a slight tug on it, and she noticed a second set of fingers wrapping themselves around the handle, attempting to pull the weapon away from her.

"Now Jon," she started, looking at him in a patronizing way. "I hardly just fought Thor off to keep hold of this thing just to let you then sneakily tear it away when I'm not looking, now am I? No, Mjölnir belongs to me alone."

"I was just kidding around," he said, smiling sheepishly. "I wasn't really trying to steal it from you."

"Oh sure, because if you were, I'd have to rip your arm off to get it back, and that'd be a real shame, wouldn't it?" she replied with a menace in her eyes. "Be glad I gave you the fraction of the power that I did. I can take it away from all of you again if I wish."

"But what should we do now?" asked Eric.

Ada thought for a minute then and stared again at the cityscape. She turned back to them and declared: "We can take what we want now; few can stop us, and I'm not sure that anyone can stop me in particular, but strange as it sounds, I just like the idea of finally having some cold hard cash in my hands. So why not go with my original idea at the start of all of this? Just for fun, let's knock over a few banks. They won't know what hit them!" she finished, flexing her huge biceps once more and grunting.

"And after that?" asked Jon.

"Then we'll have some real fun, and by that I mean, whatever we want."

She pulled the hammer fully away from him then and studied it. She walked to the edge of rooftop and stood with one half of her feet still on the ledge, and the other half of them dangling over the open space and ground below

"How did he make it fly?" she wondered. It wasn't long before she was swinging Mjölnir in the air yet still struggled to get airborne. "I guess it's something I'm going to have to practice!" she joked.

Meanwhile, the erstwhile god of thunder knew he wasn't licked yet. As he made his way far from his new enemies he realised that he had one last ace up his sleeve and just needed to get back to the compound as quick as possible in order to spring it. That "ace" was, of course, named Stormbreaker...

To be continued...