Stalking towards her, he heard she was still talking, “You call them Fenrir’s Chosen.  I’m a scholar, believe it or not.  I know Fenrir was one of the beasts that brings about Ragnarök, the death of the gods.  Fenrir was the beast who slew Odin, Allfather, king of the gods.  Fenrir was a wolf.  Too coincidental for that to be an accident on your part.”

Oh nice, she’s providing a little recap for all the readers who didn’t know all the stuff I just talked about off-hand like I do.

Not gonna lie, that makes me feel a lot more confident in my theory.

Something I didn’t mention in the post about who would be Odin: If Allfather represents Odin here, and already is dead, then that suggests he might’ve been killed by Hookwolf, and Hookwolf possibly believes the apocalypse is already happening. And if I’m on to something about why the Dandelions started empowering people, he might be right. You could argue that the apocalypse began thirty years ago.

Also I suppose if we’re going with the Ragnarök parallels, then I suppose the threat which I believe to be the titular Worm would be Jörmungandr, the world serpent, which kills Thor. Hmm, do we have any good fits for Thor yet? (Kaiser doesn’t work, he’s dead – though he did die to a sea monster…)

Ultimately, Fenrir is killed by one of Odin’s sons in retribution, I believe. Which one was it again… Ah, Víðarr. I don’t know if there’s a parallel to be found there, so maybe I’m stretching this too far.

It’s not like this is a parallel that the story is necessarily bound to follow exactly, either.

Armmaster, Allfather (who is already dead), Legend, Myrddin and even Tattletale can all be construed as tying into Odin somehow – I don’t think any of them are supposed to be an exact match, though.

If anyone is, though, I guess it’d be Allfather – the one we know least about and the one whose name is literally one of Odin’s.

“What I can’t figure out-” she paused to throw herself up to the top of a four-story building, then raised her voice to be heard on the ground, “Is what you’re doing with these ‘Chosen’ of yours.”

Do his plans even have anything to do with the Nazi ideology people think they’re joining for?

Hm… It’s worth noting that the name “Fenrir’s Chosen" has a rather apocalyptic bent. Fenrir is supposed to be freed from his chains at Ragnarök, the end of the world as the Norse people knew it, and contribute to the fall of the Æsir by killing Odin. The name “Fenrir’s Chosen” suggests people who are in the wolf’s favor at the end of the world.

Does Hookwolf believe, or even know (Dinah is probably not the only source by which someone might find out), that an apocalypse – the future threat that may or may not be a giant worm more powerful than the Endbringers combined – is coming? Is he literally gathering these “Aryan” people together in order to attempt to bring them safely to the other side of the apocalypse and repopulate the world with Nazi genes and ideals?

“They’re enough.”  He pounced.  She leaped to one side, and almost glided to a position across the street.  She was using the glass of her costume to levitate herself.

Eyy, called it!

From her new vantage point she told him, “I did say I had my suspicions about your motivations.  I think I’ve come to understand you. Jack encourages this, you know.

Encourages what? Trying to understand people’s motivations?

Understanding our targets, be they recruits or victims.  You learn a lot being with him.  I believe you, Hookwolf, are a born warrior.”

Jack’s right. I believe we’ve been over this quite a few times now: knowledge (and understanding) is power.

A warrior, huh? As in he fights just for the sake of fighting? I suppose that makes a lot of sense with the fighting ring background.

“What’s the rush?  In fact, any moment we delay, you have a chance of reinforcements arriving.  Your Stormtiger, your Othala, your Menja, they could all do a little something to assist you. It’s in your advantage for us to delay the fight.”

She does have a point, or would if Hookwolf hadn’t asked them to do other things. I suppose they might come after him when they were done, though.

“Except I’m more than capable of putting you down myself.”

“Perhaps.”

And unlike the three mentioned, he’s not easily vulnerable to the glass.

He adjusted his form, dropping to four legs once more.  The aesthetic suffered, but he created two needle-tipped limbs at his shoulders, poised like scorpion’s tails.

The aesthetic suffers from becoming a wolf with dual scorpion stingers growing from the shoulders?? I don’t know what world you’re living in, Hookwolf, but in mine, that’s super cool.

“Ah, that’s much better,” she said, “But you’re still too attached to conventional forms.  Why have legs at all?”

Oh, you’re a connoiseur of unconventional body shapes?

I suppose there’s something psychological about it. Hookwolf doesn’t seem to need legs, but he very much prefers the quadrupedal form. So is it just “I prefer the aesthetics of having legs”, or is there more to it?

Cricket collapsed, large quantities of blood spilling through her fingers and around her hands, where they clutched her throat.

And Shatterbird just had to hit the throat, too. As if Cricket didn’t have enough problems with that.

“Now it’s just you and me,” Shatterbird said.  She dusted herself off, not giving any concern to the sharp edges of the glass shards that made up her garment.  “We talk.”

I wonder if Shatterbird ever uses her ability to move glass on her garment to let her fly.

“I think I’ll kill you instead,” Hookwolf growled.

It’s weird how reasonable this sounds at this point.