187 Unexpected Reunions

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9th March 2021, New York City

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

After the impromptu meetup, everyone was assigned a task. I had to admit that I did almost lose my temper with Thor. My deal with Odin was very strict and the man broke my good faith by exploiting the fact that I wasn't around to do the whole test of worthiness Thor had to take. Truth be told, I didn't really care about New Mexico, but it set a dangerous precedent, and Loki's invasion was even more proof that I was right to limit access to Midgard from other realms.

I also knew that in many ways, this was fated to happen, or more likely, Odin didn't have a choice in the matter. The situation with the Asgardians was already complicated enough. And my deal with Odin must have messed with the plans to set up Ragnarök and restart what I like to call the Asgardian Cycle. They took advantage of my disappearance to put the first steps towards Ragnarök, since my control over Midgard had stopped it from happening before.

I will need to speak to Odin about this. He will need to make a lot of concessions for us to go back to a working relationship once more. Because no matter how much he denies it to his subjects, Odin was always relieved when I took over the defense of Midgard from the other realms. It allowed him to properly delay the Asgardian Apocalypse, which would start the moment Loki betrayed his adopted family.

For now, I will admit that Loki wasn't really an issue with this invasion. Thanos probably chose him as a sort of sick 'Fuck you' to Odin while the old man couldn't fight back with the Bifrost broken. He probably didn't expect Loki to succeed in the invasion. This was Thanos, whose mere name struck fear in the hearts of every being in multiple galaxies. This was a man who had massacred billions, if not trillions of lives, and conquered thousands of planets. He knew for a fact that a small force could potentially stop his armies when the only way to transport them was a relatively small portal.

This was a nice move, with no real losses on his front. Well, he probably expected that the best we would do is just close the portal and not potentially massacre an entire fleet of Chitauri, but should Loki come out victorious he would have gotten access to three Infinity Stones, and if he wasn't, he had half of the stones on one planet where the furthest they went in space was to their moon. Which meant that when he was ready, he could just go grab them.

Although, even if Loki was victorious, I wouldn't expect him to survive for long. Thanos would just kill him, the God of Mischief was a reliability in any alliance considering how likely he was to betray anyone for power.

I'll need to deal with the Asgardians after this mess is over with. I also needed to get back and see if Entropy was still trapped. Because if he was, things were going to be a lot simpler. But unfortunately, I am rarely that lucky, and it's unlikely that the attack would work for more than half a decade. I don't know for sure; I made the blood runes in a hurry, and it was very unstable. So, I genuinely have no idea.

But I'll handle that after this pesky invasion. Again, I turn into a murder of crows and fly away. I reform myself in the air, and create another darkness infused spike and drill push it over a Leviathan's head. I then gather the shadows and throw every Chitauri off the Leviathan, killing them. I jump and turn into a shadow and see my work as the giant space worm started to disintegrate.

Honestly, I kinda took inspiration from Hela. She was able to infuse her swords with her own darkness element, and make sure that every wound she makes would be unhealable. It was very effective on battlefields where survivors would still bleed out hours later from non-fatal injuries, with nothing they could do about it.

I did the same, but I focused more on disintegration than just killing power. It was very effective with civilians around, and most of my serious arsenal was more likely to kill humans than Chitauri, it was a very effective weapon, especially with my lack of staff to use in close combat in synergy with my magic.

I started floating around, as a shadow, and started to rain dark infused spikes towards every Chitauri in the same block I was, massacring hundreds, if not thousands of them.

The last Leviathan was dead, at least on the Earth side of the portal, and I had nothing left to do. Before I could do anything, Stark spoke up, "So, good news, I found a way to make a bomb that could theoretically be strong enough to match a nuke, it's a modified suit rigged with an unstable arc reactor prototype that I was testing, I rigged it with a self-destruct, and it should destabilize the reactor and cause a blast strong enough to wipe out New York from the map. It's not up to my usual standards, but it's the best I could do in such a short notice, and we could target it towards the portal without any problems. But the bad news is that it'll take at least two hours to manufacture everything."

The Black Widow answered him, "We can't hold them off for that long."

I interrupted them, "I could help accelerate things further, but not for long. Where is the weapon being made, Stark?"

The man in question didn't seem to believe me, but answered anyway, "Ninety third floor of my building. It's already started to be built."

"Alright, someone take my position to deal with the Leviathans if more show up. I'll make sure that the weapon is ready in time."

Rogers responded, "Banner just arrived, and he agreed to let the Hulk out, he'll take your position for now."

Stark chuckled, "Sure took his time, didn't he? Better late than never."

I heard a giant roar in the background. Huh, so the big guy is finally back.

I turned into my shadow form and flew towards Stark tower, into the ninety third floor and got inside, immediately a voice greeted me, "Hello, Morrigan, I am Jarvis. Mr. Stark informed me that you'll be helping me accelerate the creation of the weapon. May I ask how you are planning on doing this? I can assure you that I'm very efficient with my building."

I snorted, "I'm not going to invent anything myself; I'm just going to mess with time."

"Miss, I'm afraid I don't understand…"

I stop him by kneeling down and palming the floor. Immediately runes lit up and lightened the room. The virtual intelligence was speechless, "What happened?"

I shrugged, "I isolated time in this room. It will run differently than outside of it. Time is over a dozen times faster in here, meaning that only ten minutes will pass outside while you finish the weapon. The field will disappear in exactly two hours after which you'll be able to leave the room."

I didn't let him say anything and teleport out. This should solve the issue with Stark's little weapon. I nodded to myself and spoke through the comms, "I'm done with helping with the missile. It'll be ready in ten minutes."

Stark though, sounded furious, "What did you do to Jarvis?"

"Nothing, he's in the lab making your weapon. I needed to separate him from the outside world for it to be done in time. Just wait ten minutes and you'll have him back."

Rogers answered me, "Nicely done, Morrigan."

I answered back, "Loki's upstairs, I'm going to engage."

Thor interjected, "My lady, he's still my brother. Please be merciful."

"Don't worry, I'm not planning on killing him. It'll sever whatever diplomatic relationship I have with your father, and neither of us are willing to risk this over him."

"Thank you, lady Morrigan."

I started to float upstairs and walked towards the smirking Loki that was watching the mayhem around him. God of Madness, indeed. Before I could interject, three figures appeared out of thin air and started attacking the Asgardian.

I could immediately sense the magic in two of them, one of which telekinetically threw him towards another, using a very familiar energy, chaos magic. I immediately knew that this was Wanda, my daughter. She looked older, which made sense since six years had passed for her, since the last time I spoke to her.

The god seemingly countered the telekinetic push, and fell down, but was immediately pushed by another member, who I immediately recognized as Jean Grey. Not surprising, they were almost inseparable when I left. It's nice to know that they stayed friends after so much time.

Before Loki could do anything, chains made out of hard light appeared out of thin air and started to bind him and gag him. I recognized the spell immediately, it was one of mine after all, and I only taught it to a single person alive. Which means that the last woman was Rose, my sister.

How the hell did Wanda and Jean find her? I'll have to speak to them later. The girls sighed and celebrated somewhat, unfortunately, it was premature, since I felt the cosmic energy from the staff build up and with a pulse sent everyone flying back, destroying the hard light bindings. This was the power of an Infinity Stone, an aspect of creation itself.

The god looks up and smirks, "You were very entertaining, mortals, but I am a God, and your place is beneath me."

I could feel that he was ready to fight them properly this time, ambushing them, and I wouldn't risk any one of them being under his control. The phoenix force avatar, a reality manipulator, or a witch who had access to my teachings, were too dangerous for everyone if they went rogue. And no matter how powerful mind shields are, they cannot stand against the Mind Stone itself. Even I could end up under his control if he managed to use it on me, but I would be able to fight it for a while and escape before he has me completely under his control. After all, I was a lot more experienced. Stark was extremely lucky when Loki tried to control him. The Arc Reactor was a revolutionary invention that mimicked the energy of the Tesseract. And Howard Stark came really close to the real thing while designing it. The truth was that Loki barely had access to the Mind Stone's power. And the energy from the arc reactor was close enough to shield Stark from falling under the control of the scepter.

Loki prepared a blast, and the girls readied themselves. But before he could do fire, I adjusted the aim downwards, causing another blast that sent everyone flying back and made a hole on the floor. The god's physique allowed him to survive the explosion relatively unharmed, considering that the blast was very close to him. However, the girls were knocked out by the blast. I really needed to teach them how to fight properly, this was a rookie mistake.

I revealed myself to him, "Loki Laufeyson, this is beyond idiotic, even for you."

The God of Mischief limped forward, "And who are you to tell me that, a mere mortal speaking to a god."

I shrugged, "I would rather be a free mortal than an enslaved god"

The man lunged at me, and I burst into smoke as he tried to impale me. He yelled at me, "I AM NO SLAVE"

I chuckled as I materialized myself back, "you say you are no slave, and yet, here you are doing another's bidding, attacking this planet was never your plan. You were just angry at the world, at your father, at your brother, but you never cared about this world. You wanted Asgard, not some rock filled with people you call savages. So, tell me, while you have one of the ingots of creation in your hand, why do you waste your time, attacking a primitive planet?"

He seemed to be instinctively enraged by the mere idea, and he lunged at me once more, this time having conjured thousands of knives that leapt towards me. I just send a telekinetic wave, sending them flying away from myself and the three unconscious girls behind me.

I sent spikes at him, but he was able to dodge them and righted himself aiming his staff at me.

My words seemed to have enraged him, "You think yourself a master of magic, you worthless little mortal. I am a god; do you truly think that some weak little witch can match me?"

I shrugged, unconcerned by his arrogance, "Even the strongest beings can lose to weaklings if they underestimate them. However, Laufeyson, I can assure you that out of the two of us, I am not the weakling here."

Before he could process it, a piece of the ground rose up in a pillar and hit him in the head. He was disoriented by the impact for a bit before I leapt at him and kicked him in the chest sending him flying back through the walls of the labs.

I ready myself to chase after him, but I hear a groan behind me. My daughter opened her eyes blinking. She was obviously disoriented, and yet, she seemed to recognize me, "Mom?"