Contest of Champions

5

I know exactly where to find my family at this hour on Reaping Day. They are all assembled together in the circular room we usually watch the Contest in. A low fire burns in the open fireplace in the center of the room, and Thor, Odin, and Frigga are all sitting along one couch, facing the holographic projection positioned before the open window, displaying a view of Asgard. Hela sits on the couch to the side, her legs crossed as she leans back against the dark upholstery.

Hela hears me enter first and turns her eyes to me. "Well, well, well, look who decided to join us," she says pleasantly. But no matter how she says it, it doesn't feel pleasant. Hela isn't one to make idle chitchat. Everything she says has some purpose to accomplish, some agenda backing it, which makes carrying on conversations with her very intimidating.

Frigga sees me and extends her arm. "Come on, we're just about to start the recaps."

I conceal my emotions, moving forward to join my family on the couch. But I quickly realize that there is no room there – we would be needlessly squished together if I sat there, while there is an open couch across from Hela. So I cross over to that one, sitting gingerly down opposite her and folding my arms.

Everyone looks over at me, almost expectantly. "What?" I say. "I'm here. Which Contest is first?" I feel a need to turn the conversation away from me and back to what everyone apparently cares more about: the Contest.

"Thor's," Hela answers, almost bored.

"It's starting," Thor says warningly, giving her a glare. Hela responds with a lazy roll of her eyes.

Everyone quiets as the recap begins and we get to watch Thor's victory in his Contest of Champions for the sixth time.

Oh, my.

As the 31st Contest of Champions starts, I want to tune out and never tune back in. But I can't do that, so I resign myself to what feels like a long time of watching my brother make my father proud.

The longest scene in the recap is the bloodbath at the opening of the Contest. As soon as the gong sounds, Thor is lunging forward, easily outdistancing all the other contenders as he sprints through the streets of the small desert town. He's racing for the Gauntlet. That's what we call it, anyway. It's a large, golden, hollow structure, shaped like Thanos' glove, and it contains the best weapons and supplies at the beginning of the Contest. That's where the best and worst contenders tend to duel it out on the first day. The ones in between those two extremes tend to put as much distance between them and the Gauntlet as they can while the best contenders are busy murdering the weaklings.

Thor is killing it – both literally and figuratively – in the arena. Thunder booms in the artificial sky as he flies through the air effortlessly and arrives first at the Gauntlet. Easily swinging up the hammer that rests against the wall there, he turns and slams his first opponent in the side of the head, sending him falling to the ground in a mess of broken bone and blood.

The sound of that Wakandan's skull cracking still makes me wince.

From there, Thor goes on to slaughter pretty much all of his opponents in the space of twenty minutes. At one point, he calls out to the sea of blood and corpses, "At least make it a challenge for me!" which brings a chuckle from Odin.

Do you understand why nothing I do means anything to my father? After this performance, I would have to cause cataclysmic destruction with a snap of my fingers to gain even a spark of interest from Odin. And even then, it wouldn't be enough. That has already been done.

But the one benefit of watching Thor's Contest first is that I get to see Hela's victory top his when we watch that next. No matter what Odin or Thor says, my sister's victory is so much more impressive than my brother's.