Of Ploys and Schemes

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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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16th May 2013, Sayre Manor

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

She was putting on a brave face, but I could tell that her heart was breaking, "Medusa, before I go. Can I ask you something?"

I nodded and she continued, "Can I kiss you, one last time?"

I slowly leaned into her face and met her lips one last time. They were salty from the tears coming down her cheeks. As the kiss ended, we both looked into each other's eyes, not wanting to forget this magical moment.

Hestia's brave face crumbled from the intensity of the emotions, "I don't want to go."

I lunged to comfort her with a hug, but slowly the woman started to slightly glow, and I could tell that Hestia was gone, leaving behind an unconscious mortal and me with a broken heart.

I looked up to the rising sun and spoke up, "Goodbye, Hestia."

It took a few days for me to get over my encounter with Hestia. It was just such a blast from the past, that it caught me off-guard. I will admit that seeing her again, even if she was possessing a mortal brought back a lot of old feelings.

Honestly, while I treasured our time together, I always did my best to forget about Hestia. It wasn't out of malice, or anything. It was simply too painful to remember my first true love. Surprisingly, for all my stupidly long lifespan, I have only been in two romantic relationships. One ended up banished to another dimension, and the other betrayed me in a way that was truly unspeakable.

Honestly, I would have preferred if Selene had killed me, or imprisoned me, but soul manipulation, on such a high level and with such drastic change was simply abominable, and that's me talking. I have committed genocides, tortured countless beings, sunk islands, and destroyed civilizations. I have mind-controlled thousands of people and changed reality itself for my own purpose. Hell, to punish Merlin, I bound him and his soul into a dying body that cannot move cursed to watch the world through a scrying mirror, for thousands of years, while constantly in pain and unable to move a single muscle, or cast a single spell to change the inevitable. It was a fitting punishment for someone with the gift of clairvoyance.

Yet, for all the horrible things I have done, I never ever even thought about manipulating the soul of others and shaping their very existence, to what I desire. It was simply out of the question. Sure, I knew enough about soul magic. I had the Soul Stone in my possession for centuries, and I did experiment with it. But souls are elastic, in a way. They can be manipulated slightly, but not as drastically as mine has been. I was somewhat of a special case. Never has there ever been a partial ascension, blocked by a phoenix, of all things? It's always either you ascend as a higher being of energy, or you stay mortal. I was in this weird middle ground, which made my soul so vulnerable to speed my ascension along and modify my soul.

But enough about Selene's betrayal and what has happened in the past. It was time to think about the future, and more specifically, the fact that I was completely stuck in this fight against Entropy. Whether I liked it or not, Death had me by the balls. I completely forgot about my deal with Death when she saved Atlantis and Olympus' involvement in the matter.

Olympus was my final gem in this life. The remnants of a lost civilization that I saved personally. It was a testament to my defiance, and I wasn't willing to let it be destroyed. Still, there was a slightly positive note to my encounter with Death; I learnt that the cosmic entity is invested in Entropy's defeat. No, that's not quite right, it's not just his defeat, because she could have handled the matter herself without any hassle. No, it had to be by my hand for some reason. Death needed me to kill Entropy. The fact that she quickly interfered when she learnt of my plan to join Hestia in Olympus was proof enough. She hadn't foreseen Hestia's offer for some reason, and she acted rashly and blackmailed me into staying here.

That was a weakness I could exploit. According to Dream, my former patron had known that I would leave her, that I would resign to Fate. Even when the universe's timeline was technically in flux and unstable, Death still managed to predict my actions somehow. It was troubling but here laid a ray of sunshine. Whatever it was that made Hestia take Death off guard was the key to my freedom. I will need to investigate the incident and find a way to replicate the event. Not that it mattered anyway, Death's binding vow that she would let me go when Entropy is defeated was ironclad. And it's not like I could go back to Olympus, with the dimensional barriers reasserting themselves. But I could use it to force Death's hand somehow, make it deal with Entropy instead of me. Still, I can't plan anything without understanding whatever it was that took Death off-guard like that.

I knew for a fact that this whole mess was planned by Death in a way. Because why else would the Living Tribunal and the rest of the cosmic entities risk themselves fading away into the void, and not lift a finger or look worried while doing so?

Death had gambled on me and convinced the Living Tribunal to leave the matter for me to handle, which in turn stopped the other entities from interfering. Why else would Fate immediately help me in sending me to my universe, or at least send me to the closest universe with the exact woman that can send me home, in the exact situation where she would trust me after me saving her life? Why else would Dream send me one of his own champions on a silver platter just to help me defeat Entropy?

The fact that I was a pawn in some cosmic chess game Death was playing was humbling. But that also meant that Entropy was also a pawn, and I didn't know if this made things better or worse. Nevertheless, until I had a proper plan, it was better to stick with the original plan to deal with Entropy. I cannot oppose Death without a trump card of some sort.

So, setting my thoughts of cosmic chess games aside, I decided to plan out for the inevitable fight. With all cosmic entities refusing to give me any shred of help, I had to deal with it on my own, and things didn't look good for me.

I have gained the Asgardians as my allies, who will be willing to fight to their deaths against Entropy, but they would be crushed in seconds against the man himself. The best they could offer is opposition against Thanos' armies when he inevitably comes to Earth. Even Thor, that I had such high hope in, would be crushed in seconds since he barely has a spark of the Odinforce since the All-Father was still alive. Speaking of the All-Father, his coma was very troublesome.

Should he wake, he would still be too injured to help me in any way; the Necro sword's curse was very powerful, and even if I did my best to mitigate the damage, it was still too much for an old and weakened Odin. The best-case scenario would be for him to wake up and give control over the Odinforce entirely to Thor, who would perform the same ritual as his father. This was the only way to gain a fighter that could even come close to lasting at least a minute against someone like Entropy. Yeah, the chances of that happening are extremely slim, and with Asgard just getting out of a war, I chose to let them enjoy their freedom as much as they could.

Now, the good thing is the fact that I got a replacement for Odin in Loki. As the Avatar of Dream, he could be very dangerous and very powerful. But training him will take some time, and the young god was still unconscious from using his cosmic powers to manipulate reality on his personal timeline, of all things. What he did was extremely dangerous and almost impossible if it wasn't for the chaotic energies created by the dimensional breach in the realm of the shadows.

The natural laws were lax in a realm foreign to our universe, add to that the chaotic energies and a newly emerged avatar of a cosmic entity, and you get some kind of a miracle occurring. Training Loki will be a hassle, but at least the god was older than Jean Grey, and more experienced in manipulating his internal energy, meaning that it should take less effort to train him.

The Asgard mess also ended with me getting custody of Hela, the supposed Goddess of Death. Her case was somewhat odd since she was supposed to help deal with the Asgardian souls after their death to stay local to the cycle of Ragnarök. But unfortunately, since Odin banished her and bound her power, she had no kingdom, and the dead stayed frozen waiting to reincarnate, or they went to Valhalla, which is a dream realm that acts more like a paradise for each soul. The people who did not end up in the vaunted halls of Valhalla, were just frozen, as if they were asleep, without anyone looking after them, which was supposed to be Hela's responsibility. It's not like I would ask her to do that now. She could be a powerful ally, at least against Thanos, and I am not going to let her rot in an empty realm with the way things are going.

The former Crown Princess of Asgard was powerful and had a lot of potential, especially when it came to shadow magic. It's sad that she barely scratched the surface of what she could do. She was so absorbed by Asgard's culture of honourable combat that she only learnt how to conjure swords with a little darkness inside each one and banish them away. The idea that she could fight using magic must have seemed womanly to her, and Hela wanted to be known as a warrior, not a witch.

I had to admit that, Hela's story was a sad one. She was raised in the middle of a war and encouraged to fight as much as possible. And when her father suddenly shifted his priorities and changed after his ritual, she was lost. She tried to continue as if nothing happened, to make her father proud, but was beaten by me, and then imprisoned by her father. It was tragic, but so are half of the stories in the universe. She would have my sympathy, but nothing more. Still, the young Asgardian was still traumatized by Entropy's use of the Mind Stone. Being mind-controlled like that freaked her out, even if she was pretending that everything was fine.

Even I was pretending that everything was fine, that Selene's betrayal didn't matter, that seeing Hestia again wasn't heartbreaking and that figuring out that I was still under Death's thumb after my little illusion of freedom was dispelled, didn't make me want to burn the world in anger. No, I compartmentalized everything and chose to channel my celestial side to be able to function without blowing something up.

Speaking of Celestials, the news of their demise was a big blow to my plans. They were a long shot, but it was a promising one. Having the Celestials help me fight Entropy would have made things a lot simpler, and I didn't expect to be outsmarted like this. I, especially, didn't expect Entropy to find fucking Knull's sword as well.

Still, if he took the Celestials away from me, I would need to find something to replace them. Honestly, I only expected Arishem to involve himself, not the entirety of the council. As for his replacement, I had an idea who would fit this role. He wouldn't even come close to Arishem's power and skill, but he would be better than nothing.

I would still need to track down this specific replacement and to do that, I would need something connected to him, to track him properly. Genetic material would be better. My solution wasn't really pretty, but I stopped caring about things like propriety a long time ago.

I called out to my new student, "Hela, we're going on a small mission."

The Goddess of Death ran up the stairs looking excited, "Really? What are we doing?"

"Nothing strenuous, don't get your hopes up too much. Tell me, my dear, what is your opinion on grave robbing?"

Hela's excited smile turned into a gleeful one, "Who's the unlucky man?"

"It's not a man, actually, it's a woman. Her name is Meredith Quill. I need to use her remains to track down her son, Peter Quill."

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.