The Rise Of A Porter

Recruiting giants was not going to be an easy task. Even with Thor's severed head. Well, not all of the giants were tough to influence. Arnold was pretty sure that with Mimir's support, he would be able to fool them into taking up arms for him. 

But there was a problem... the fire giants. Even though the fire giants were enemies of frost giants, when Thor killed the latter, the fire giants were not pleased with the end result. In their mind, Thor had taken away their enemies from him and believed that Thor or any other god for that matter did not have any right to interfere in their issues. 

This was when the fire giants were losing the battle horribly. If it hadn't been for Thor's anger, they would have been the ones to get... extinguished. It was more like a loser's barking, but as time went on the fire giants actually started believing the crap their leader, Surtr was spewing out. 

Also, there was another roadblock stopping Arnold from getting the fire giants on his side. It was none other than Surtr himself. It was no secret that the fire giants had already allied himself with Hela and effectively with Loki and Zeus. 

The fact that the fire giants were a species that believed in strict hierarchy meant that they would go wherever their leader told them to. Thus it was safe to assume that the Fire giants would be fighting along with them.

As in the absence of Frost giants, the Fire giants were the ones in charge. Hence it was possible for them to force the other giants to fight alongside them. 

Unless... somehow the leadership between the giants was forced to change. In other words, Arnold wanted to send one of the others to replace Surtr as their leader. That was the plan Arnold shared with others.

"That plan might have worked against humans, elves and ogres. But not against the fire giants." Heimdall immediately shot the plan down.

"Why though?"

"Those bastards hold grudges for too long. If someone were to suddenly replace their leader just like that, they were more likely to revolt rather than obey the new leader's commands." Surprisingly it was Raijin who chimed in this time. 

For being the Japanese god of thunder, Raijin was usually quiet and kept to himself, unlike Thor. But there was one similarity between the two of them... both of them didn't listen to anyone once they lose their crap and thus chaos and destruction ensued. In a way, all of these gods having control over the same element were similar to one another. 

"Correct. Nothing would be worse than eliminating Surtr right away." Hercules nodded, "He might be a lesser god, but his army was strong enough to send a chill through the spine of the toughest gods."

Arnold took all of the information they had to give and devised another plan. One that would make him the hero and saviour of the fire giants. But Surtr would die either way. He explained the plan to everyone there and while the plan was indeed worth trying to execute. There was a slight problem.

"Where are we going to find a group of gods who would blondly challenge the fire giants?" Heimdall asked the obvious question.

"I never said I will be sending actual gods there." Arnold smiled, "I will just send people who were strong enough to classify as a lesser god."

At that moment, All of the gods had a smile on their faces. They realised what Arnold was planning to do and it was almost certain that it would work. 

"Well, let's get to it then, shall we?"

***

However, Arnold wasn't the only one doing the planning and plotting. Loki and Zeus had been pretty busy by themselves. Zeus had just lost almost 70% of his army to Hera after they went their separate ways. 

Even though by doing so he obtained some stronger allies, the Dragons nor the demons were someone he could have forced their will upon as he could do with his soldiers. In other words, it could be said that he lost his strength, in order to join some other army. 

As for Loki, well, he had not had an army ever since Shiva killed him for the first time. So there was nothing new in his life. On the other hand, he did have an army of Undead and the fire giants completely under his command thanks to Hela's romantic relationship with Surtr.

Of course, Hela was only toying with Surtr and did not like him at all. She was only interested in his army to aide her brother... who was also her father in an alternate dimension, or so Loki had told her. 

Then there were his other children like Fenrir and Jormungandr who were strong enough to destroy an infinite number of worlds by themselves. In other words, the power in their coalition had been shifted from Zeus' hands to Loki's. 

Zeus was still in the middle of recognising it, but Loki had been playing him like a fool for a long time. Loki was only afraid of the other Olympians who could have opened Zeus' eyes to his treachery. 

But now that Zeus no longer had the backing of Olympus, all Loki needed to do was to get rid of Zeus after they got rid of the Deathless. Then the entire universe would be his to rule. That was the entire point of him triggering Ragnarok. 

Loki wanted to take the advantage of the chaos and discreetly take care of everything in his path... even his own children. He was manipulating and using all of them, yet all of them thought they had him figured out. 

'That is the fun way to do things...' Loki thought to himself, 'Be obvious and reveal a few of your cards to the enemy and they start to think they have you all figured out. Pathetic morons. I am Loki, the trickster. There is no way my spawn would ever be able to outsmart me.'

Just as he was thinking that the representatives of the alliance, the demon lord Beezelbub and the lord of the dragons Orochi entered his chambers. They were there to discuss the division of assets after they had won the war. Little did they know, by the time the war was over, all of them would be dead.. That is, if everything went according to Loki's plans.