"I want Midgard," Loki muttered with a mischievous smile, with a hint of insanity and malice.
"Then this planet will belong to you," the Chitauri leader, 'The Other' said, handing Loki a scepter embedded with the Mind Stone.
"And in return, you will give us the rest of the universe."
"As you wish," Loki replied with a smug grin.
He turned and activated the alien device gifted to him by the Chitauri.
The portal shimmered open in front of him. Beyond it lay Midgard—Earth.
The place where his foolish brother had been cast down, lost everything, and somehow regained it all.
Loki was going to take back what he believed was rightfully his.
"Midgard, your king... has returned!" Loki declared grandly as he stepped toward the portal, confidence pouring from every stride.
He imagined it already: victory, glory, a crown.
The light ahead of him seemed to gleam like the dawn of his conquest. And then—
"What the—?! Who the hell zapped me?!" Loki's yell echoed as a blast of energy engulfed him, cutting off his dramatic exit.
"Phew! That was close," Ethan exhaled, slowly lowering himself from the air.
He had just rerouted the unstable energy from the hovering orb into the wormhole, managing to stabilize the growing threat—at least for now.
"Hey... did you guys hear something coming from the wormhole just now?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
"Sounded kinda like yelling," Fury replied, a little confused.
"Based on my calculations, the wormhole probably released a wave of compressed energy that mimicked sound. Auditory hallucinations aren't uncommon in these cases," Dr. Selvig said, tapping away at his keyboard with a sense of certainty.
"Hallucinations, my ass!" an angry voice barked from the direction of the Rubik's Cube.
Everyone whipped around.
A second wormhole had just opened.
Out stumbled a scorched and disoriented Loki, smoke trailing off his horns and hair.
He leaned heavily on his scepter, clearly rattled.
If it weren't for the scepter shielding him, allowing it absorb a part of the impact, he probably wouldn't have survived.
"Sir, I'm gonna need you to drop that spear. This area's restricted," Fury called out cautiously.
Loki looked at the scepter, sneered, and then fired a sudden blast of energy straight at Fury.
Boom!
The blast exploded with force.
Fury managed to dive out of the way, but the agents behind him were incinerated on the spot.
Satisfied with the destruction, Loki fired again—
—but this time, Ethan was ready.
He zipped between Loki and Fury, waved his hand, and redirected the energy blast right back at the trickster god.
It smashed into a glowing barrier that Loki summoned with his scepter, the two forces colliding in a shimmer of blue light.
"Oh, it's you. The mutant who vaporized the Destroyer," Loki muttered, eyeing Ethan with sudden recognition.
Then he smiled. "Impressive. But how many like you can Earth possibly have?"
"More than enough to stop you," Ethan snapped, already lunging at him.
Loki's eyes widened.
He backpedaled, but then glanced at the Tesseract nearby.
A dark idea sparked in his mind.
In one quick move, he slammed his scepter into the Cube.
A blinding blue light erupted, swallowing Ethan completely.
When the glow faded, Ethan was gone.
Ethan blinked.
He was standing in a subway station in New York.
People bustled past him, boarding trains, chatting on phones, completely unaware of the chaos he'd just escaped.
"Damn. Small-scale teleportation? Loki shouldn't be able to pull that off without Chitauri tech... unless—" Ethan frowned. "Unless Selvig's equipment somehow gave him a boost."
No matter the reason, one thing was crystal clear: something big was about to go down.
Ethan walked up to a random passerby. "Hey, do you know how to get to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Research Center? Which subway line do I take?"
The man gave him a confused look and kept walking.
"Figures," Ethan sighed. "Guess it's time to call in the big guy."
He pulled out his phone and dialed Fury.
Luckily for Loki, after using the Cosmic Cube's power to teleport away the most troublesome one—Ethan—his mood had significantly improved.
Twirling the scepter in his hand, he casually fired off a blast of energy at the remaining agents.
Hawkeye, who was on-site guarding the base, didn't hesitate. He charged straight toward Loki, attempting to take him down in close quarters.
It wasn't a bad tactic—after all, getting up close and personal with a magic user was usually a solid move.
But he'd forgotten something important. He was an archer.
Sure, Hawkeye wasn't just any archer.
He was resourceful, skilled, and known for thinking on his feet.
But even that didn't change the fact that Loki wasn't your average spell-slinger.
Asgardian magic users weren't fragile robed types who avoided physical fights—they were trained warriors.
Most of them preferred twin daggers over staffs, and their idea of magic usually involved breaking bones.
So when Hawkeye lunged in, Loki just raised an eyebrow and smirked.
With a single flick of his hand, he knocked Hawkeye off his feet. A follow-up energy strike left him stunned and unable to move.
"You've got spirit," Loki mused, stepping over Hawkeye's crumpled form. "That'll do."
With a casual touch of his scepter, the Mind Stone did its work—Hawkeye's eyes glazed over.
He was under control.
Loki turned next to the surrounding scientists. He'd need them to properly harness the Cube's energy and open a stable gateway. That meant more mind control.
While Loki worked, Fury was already on the move.
Hidden in the shadows at the edge of the room, he slowly edged toward the pedestal where the Tesseract had rested.
In the chaos, he'd managed to snag it without drawing attention.
Tucking it securely into a containment case, he silently cursed the lack of backup.
Without Ethan—his mutant wildcard—Fury was flying solo.
He had to rely on an old and reliable trick: staying out of sight.
Years of practice and sheer force of will kept him hidden as he inched toward the exit.
And for once, his stealth seemed to be working. The door was within reach, and his heart raced with anticipation.
Maybe his luck was finally turning. Maybe his "non-chief" talent wasn't so bad after all.
He was just a few steps away when—
BZZZ-BZZZ
His phone vibrated. Loudly. Fury froze.
Loki turned around slowly, his expression amused.
"Don't bother. I still need that," he said, nodding toward the Tesseract's case in Fury's hand.
Even if the phone hadn't gone off, Loki had clearly noticed Fury's not-so-sneaky escape.
He just hadn't bothered to stop him before.
Whether it was arrogance or curiosity, he let it play out.
Maybe part of him wanted to see what Fury would do.
"Can I at least answer this first?" Fury asked, raising his phone with a defeated sigh.
Loki gave a slight shrug.
Fury glanced at the screen—and then lit up.
"You're alive!" he barked into the phone, a smirk creeping onto his face.
He shot Loki a proud look. "Yeah, that's right. Even with your fancy staff, I've still got cards to play."
"I'm fine," Ethan's voice came through, calm and clear. "Nothing major. How are things over there?"
"Real bad. Get back here now." Fury's tone shifted from smug to serious in a flash. "I've already burned through my bag of tricks, and I'm running out of time."
"Well… about that," Ethan replied, a bit sheepishly. "I'm kinda stuck navigating the subway system. I had to transfer a few times from Broadway station, and now I'm just trying to figure out which stop gets me to your research base."
Fury blinked. "Why are you taking the subway, you motherfucker?!"
"Damn, Fury chill~ You kiss your mother with that mouth?" Ethan said causing a vein to become visible in Fury's bald head.
"Okay, the subway's too slow. Just give me the exact coordinates for the base and I'll fly there," came a voice from the side of the road—Ethan, brushing dust off his jacket, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.
"How the hell should I know that? I fly people, not planes. Do you ask the pilot for GPS coordinates before takeoff?" Fury snapped, hanging up the phone with a groan.
Loki, still standing by with an amused grin, chuckled softly. "Looks like your cavalry is stuck in traffic."
Fury turned slowly, his expression shifting into something harder, more official. "Look, let's not make this worse than it already is. We can talk this through, alien."
Loki raised his chin. "Worse? This is necessary. Do you think I'd go to all this trouble for nothing? I am Loki of Asgard, and I have come to claim your world."
"We didn't pick this fight," Fury said, eyes narrowing.
"And ants don't pick fights with boots," Loki answered smugly.
Fury folded his arms. "So what? You're here to crush us?"
"Not crush. Liberate. Freedom is the greatest illusion, and I—"
"Boss, maybe don't start the speech right now," Hawkeye interrupted, stepping beside him with an urgent look.
Loki frowned. Ever since his banishment by that hammer-swinging oaf of a brother, he'd been holding this monologue in like a bottle of shaken soda. "What is it now?"
"Fury's stalling. Since they took the Tesseract, the energy Ethan stabilized earlier is getting volatile. If we don't move now, we're toast."
Loki hesitated, then let out a disappointed sigh. "Fine. We're leaving."
Without another word, Hawkeye pulled out a pistol and shot Fury straight in the chest.
He grabbed Dr. Selvig and the suitcase with the Tesseract, then made his exit.
For a moment, silence.
Then Fury sat up, wincing, brushing himself off.
He looked down at the smoldering mark on his vest and raised an eyebrow. "Really? Heart shot? Either Hawkeye isn't fully under mind control, or he just forgot how bulletproof vests work. I literally drilled 'aim for the head' into his training."
He got to his feet, grimacing. "No time for a lecture now. This place is gonna blow."
And blow it did.
Just as Fury escaped to the surface, a flash of blue-white light exploded from beneath the ground.
A thunderous shockwave rolled out, ripping apart the base like a tsunami of raw force.
The earth caved in on itself, space warping like a miniature black hole, pulling everything into its collapsing core.
Cracks spiderwebbed through the ground, racing toward Fury—until the earth gave way beneath him.
A hand shot out, grabbing him just in time.
It was Coulson, leaning out of a helicopter, having returned after finishing evacuation orders.
"Director! What's the next move?" Coulson shouted as he hauled Fury inside.
Fury, catching his breath, looked around at the chaos below. "Start the rescue. There's still people trapped down there. Send a bird to pick up Ethan and his girlfriend—they've got the powers to cut through this mess."
Then his expression hardened, gaze locking on Coulson.
"And one more thing. You remember that project we shelved? The one we hoped we'd never need? Dust it off. Because the game's changed."
He looked out over the smoking crater that used to be a base, jaw set.
"From this moment on... we're at war."
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Word count: 1864
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