Again the prologue features the hut in a dark wood; now we glimpse two players at the game board and are informed that the pale king always wins and the dark king never escapes….
Now in the Tenth Realm, Angela is beating the stuffings out of Thor; he’s slightly stronger but she is quite a bit faster. Meanwhile, Loki is having tea with the Angel Queen as she reveals the history between Asgard and Heven. In prehistoric times she was Earth’s protector, hired by Odin himself to guard the Cro-Magnons against incursions by joy-riding (actually dragon-riding) Asgardians. Then Heven joined all the other realms in declaring war on Asgard, with the Queen expecting Odin to bribe her into calling it off; the All-Father refused on the grounds of honor and chaos broke loose, which we saw when the Angel Queen (apparently) killed Odin and Freyja’s infant daughter. She suggests to Loki that he has not been treated well in Asgard, and he recalls how he was punished for acting as Asgard’s agent (in his own series). Outside, Thor is overpowered and captured by Angela but the Queen orders him kept alive. When he awakens in the dungeon he learns that Loki, a female again, has joined the Angels as their new Mistress of Strategies….