99- Avengers (5)

When he saw the pink flash, Mason only had time to cross his arms before it exploded.

Thankfully, applying Chi came instantly, so Mason was only sent flying back a few meters, remaining mostly unharmed.

Then, a figure burst through the smoke created by the explosion with an almost inhuman snarl, "I’m gonna snap your bones, boy!"

The figure revealed itself to be a tall, large man dressed in a brown and yellow costume, his face feral as he pounced at Mason, his fingers ending in claws reaching for Mason’s throat. Sabertooth, Mason instantly recognized him as.

His left foot sliding to the side, Mason widened his stance, which made him a bigger target but also allowed him to gather all his power, and he struck a lightning-fast punch right into Sabertooth’s sternum. Because Mason’s fist was clad in Sunfire, it sent the mutant flying back.

Then, as the smoke cleared away, Mason realized quite a few people had just joined the party. Four of them, to be precise. They were eyeing Loki mostly, with the exception of Sabertooth, who held his chest painfully, his feral gaze locked onto Mason.Overhead, Natasha warned, "Marauders, this is a SHIELD operation. Immediately vacate the vicinity or-"

Sabertooth’s head snapped upward, shouting, "Shut your dick-garage, you whore!"

All four of the Quinjet’s rotary cannons started spinning when another of the mutants launched a spear at the Quinjet. In mid-air, the spear transformed into pure energy, appearing slightly similar to Loki’s earlier energy blasts. Natasha barely managed to dodge it, but it still exploded next to her, destabilizing the Quinjet.

On the ground, the mutant throwing exploding cards shouted, "Harpoon, keep that thing busy. Sabertooth, Azimuth, Chimera, our goal is the Asgardian, not these SHIELD agents!"

Sabertooth immediately roared, "You don’t give me orders, Gambit!"

"Then will you be the one explaining to the doctor why you refused his direct orders?"

Sabertooth snarled but turned in Loki’s direction nonetheless.

That was when yet another person suddenly slammed into the ground beside them. A large crater was created in the ground, and a tall ginger woman stepped out, dressed in a purple leotard. She looked at the two groups and sneered, "How dare pathetic men stand before Titania?! The Asgardian is mine!"

Mason felt a sense of familiarity with the way she addressed herself, but shelved that for now as Steve came to stand next to him, and the three parties formed a triangle, with Loki at its center.

Loki looked at the three parties and chuckled, "You Midgardians are pathetic. You face your species’ twilight, and still you fight one another. You truly deserve nothing more than my rule."

It was precisely at this moment that Natasha’s Quinjet above started blasting ACDC music, Highway to Hell, and Iron Man entered the scene.

He came to a stop above Mason and Steve, hovering there with all of his armor’s weapons aimed at the two groups as he said, "Children, stop misbehaving and return to your lairs."

Gambit grinned, playing with a card as he said, "Mes amis! There is no need for blood to be shed, you only have to retreat."

Titania laughed and launched herself towards Loki, which signaled for the fight to start.

Tony immediately fired all his weapons at the enemies, including Loki. Both Titania and Loki were slammed by lasers, while small rockets and more lasers headed for the group of mutants. At the same time, Natasha opened fire from above.

Loki and Titania were hit by both full force, but on the mutants’ side, the smallest among them, a short woman with lavender skin, unhinged her mouth in a quite unsettling way, opening it wide. Except that they did not see the insides of her mouth, only a well of darkness that absorbed everything before it.

Light and projectiles aside, they were drawn in by the black hole, swallowing not only all the attacks, but also placing a sudden, seemingly irresistible force of attraction onto everyone present. Only the mutants behind her appeared unfazed.

To Mason, the black hole gave him an all-too-familiar feeling, as it was drawing everything in using gravity, much like a real black hole. It was far less potent, of course, or the entire planet would have shattered, but it worked using the same principle.

Using gravity on Mason… he smirked. Mobilizing his Divine Sense, Mason reached out to the Gravity Dao and lowered the gravity on Tony, the Quinjet, Steve, Loki, and himself, while dramatically increasing it on Titania.

She had been the one who resisted it best, but the sudden addition of Mason’s influence made her lose her balance. Had Mason’s influence been merely additive, it probably would have been shrugged off by Titania, but it was multiplied by the influence of the Black Hole instead.

Titania stumbled on the ground, inevitably drawn in by the black hole while the rest of them now resisted it easily. Loki watched Mason with furrowed brows while Tony said from above, "Thanks, kid, although I could have dealt with it myself."

Mason smiled and let him have it as he watched the group of mutants. They were also blocked, unable to attack them, as any of their attacks, even projectiles, would have to pass in front of the black hole girl and be rendered useless.

Meanwhile, Titania attempted to slow her advance by grounding herself, digging her hands into the ground, but that was not enough to stop her. It only drove deeper grooves into the ground. Moreover, the closer she got to it, the stronger the influence of the black hole.

Loki tried to interrupt, casting a spell, but the magic circle was broken by the black hole just the same. It was only then that Loki’s face turned serious, watching the black hole in her mouth with both intrigue and wariness.

And honestly, Mason was surprised too. He did not expect the girl to be able to counter magic too.

Finally, Titania arrived right in front of the mutant girl. In reality, only a few seconds had passed since she had activated her ability, but somehow everyone felt like each second dragged out much longer than it should.

By that point, Titania had both feet planted into the ground, up to her ankles, but it did nothing to stop the black hole.

It was precisely when the situation looked helpless that she took a sudden step forward, causing a large rupture in the ground. It was strong enough to make the ground shake around her, momentarily destabilizing the mutant girl Azimuth.

It was only for a moment, but her mouth moved, and the black hole’s sphere of influence moved with it, freeing Titania for a split second. She was already moving, and spreading out her arms like an eagle taking flight, she slammed them forward, clapping on Azimuth’s temples.

Azimuth’s head burst open like a watermelon, her skull offering virtually no resistance as Titania crushed everything between her palms.

The sudden death certainly came as a shock, but everyone there was experienced, so they reacted instantly. Loki retreated so rapidly he looked like he was hovering over the ground rather than running.

As for the mutants, they did not show any of the sorrow one would expect from a companion’s death. Instead, they were all focused on the goal, not even sparing the dead girl a glance as they attacked Titania, reaching for Loki.

The other woman in the group, the one called Chimera, swiped her hand towards Titania, and doing so conjured an ethereal green dragon that felt to Mason like it existed both in the physical and spiritual realm.

This is not an approved copy of the chapter. Find it where the author publishes, where readers can support the work directly.

Titania crossed her arms before herself to block, and physically did not move from the spot, but the moment the dragon hit her, she grabbed her head with a painful scream.

Mason, Steve, and Tony chose precisely this moment to act. Unleashing his Spiritual Domain to affect everyone but Steve, Tony, and Natasha, Mason was surprised to see Titania slumping down immediately, unconscious.

But while surprised, he still moved with astonishing speed to the mutant who was the least affected, Chimera. She tried to send one of those phantom dragons at Mason, but he easily diverted her wrist, sending the attack completely off course, and punched her right over her heart, allowing his Chi to seep in.

Ignoring all defence, Mason’s Chi directly exploded in Chimera’s heart, rupturing it and healing it back instantly.

Unlike when Mason normally used his Chi, she was not sent flying back, and dropped like a brick instead, her eyes rolled back as her body registered the pain.

That only left Sabertooth, Gambit, and Harpoon, who decided to retreat, even the feral Sabertooth. That was because, in the moment Mason had taken down Chimera, Steve and Tony had neutralized Loki, knocking his staff away from him.

As they retreated, however, Gambit shook his hand, seemingly taking a vial out of nowhere. He grinned, calling out, "Thank you for making my job so much easier, mon ami!"

The three heroes hesitated for a moment, but watched them leave in the end before they turned to Loki, cornering him.

By now, Loki was sitting on the highest step of the museum he had attacked, his chin propped on his fist, his other hand grasping the spear. He looked bored, and a little disappointed as he said, "Worthless mortals, couldn’t even last long enough. And what about you three? Are you truly the best this world has to throw at me? Its mightiest defenders?"

Tony took to the sky, his weapons aimed at Loki, while Mason and Steve widened their formation, slowly closing in on Loki. Doing this, Steve kept his shield at the ready, replying, "Loki! Put down the spear and surrender quietly, before we make you do it."

Loki sneered, "A mere soldier thinks he can speak with me of terms? You should defeat my soldier first."

At that moment, they all heard the sound of something large and heavy, breaking through the air. They turned around and spotted a massive chunk of pavement sailing right for Tony.

He tried to blast it apart and was somewhat successful, but he was still hit by a rather large segment, sending him crashing to the ground.

Down on the ground, from where the projectile came from, a strange-looking man bellowed, "Stand down, ye fools. I don’t mean to hurt you, but I owe Mr. Loki." The man looked like he was made entirely out of metal, not quite unlike the mutant Colossus Mason had seen at the X-Mansion.

He was shirtless, with a pair of what looked like prisoner pants, and in his right hand he clutched a long chain, attached to a large steel ball. Both the chain and the ball appeared to be made of the same material as the metallic man.

Loki snapped in the man’s direction, "I am a God, not a Mister, you fool!"

The man scoffed, "Well, you look like yer in a pretty bad spot, Mr. God. Good thing you can rely on your good pal Creel."

With a strange laugh, Creel whipped his chain and ball, twirling it around with unexpected skill as it swung for Mason. Keeping his Divine Intent on Loki, he crouched, and the ball continued towards Steve.

By the time it reached Steve, it had gained so much speed and momentum that it was like the air around it was screeching, and dust was picked up from the ground, flying up behind the ball.

In response, Steve held up his shield and braced.

The mass and the shield collided, and the shield won. Behind it, Steve did not move a single centimeter as his shield both absorbed and returned the kinetic energy from the ball. As a result, while Steve did not move, a large shockwave was created from the point of impact, exploding outward towards Loki and Mason.

Neither of them was harmed by it, but it spoke of the power behind the blow. The man, Creel if he was genuine about his name, looked shocked, and seeing this, Steve commanded, "Mason, stall Loki while Stark gets back up. I’ll take this one."

Mason and Loki stared into each other’s eyes, both arrogantly certain of their victory, and Mason grinned, "My pleasure."

Taking this as a sign to start the fight, Loki suddenly multiplied into four figures, all of whom threw a dagger at Mason. But Mason’s Divine Sense, which never left Loki, told Mason that Loki’s true form was none of the four. He had shrouded himself with his illusion, rapidly approaching Mason.

Ignoring the illusions, Mason caught the real Loki off-guard, his fist enshrouded in Sunfire as he gave Loki an uppercut. Loki was lifted off his feet by the power behind the punch, but he did not get far as Mason grabbed onto his ankle, yanking him down while jumping to deliver an absolutely devastating flying knee to Loki’s chin.

The combination of Mason’s strike and Loki’s descending momentum created a terrifying sound that should never come from someone’s body. The force of that strike went beyond the surface too, thanks to Mason’s Chi, connecting with Loki’s to detonate further inside his head.

Even with his extraordinary resistance to damage, Loki was stunned by the strike, forced to drop his spear as he fell backwards.

Mason could have gone in to finish the God of Mischief, but Mason’s interest lay in his spear instead. The staff was golden, because what other color could it have been, and at its end, with the blade arching around it, was a blue crystal that pulsed with power. Loki’s focus for his magic, and according to Mason’s knowledge of the MCU, the container for the Mind Stone.

Grabbing onto it, Mason tightened his grasp on the crystal, but he only managed to produce cracks, even with his Chi. So, Mason moved up to Loki, who was still shaking his head to recuperate, and with a long, winding strike, smashed down the spear onto Loki’s helmet, with the crystal first.

This time, the lever the spear offered finally exceeded the crystal’s capacity to absorb damage, and it shattered into pieces.

But much to Mason’s disappointment, there were only blue chunks of crystal, the Mind Stone nowhere in sight.

He had expected the possibility, but it did not stop him from being disappointed.

Mason always knew that this world held many differences with the MCU and the comics both, with the biggest changes being around the ‘inconsistencies’ that had been created by the writers over time.

This had been one of them. Thanos granting the Mind Stone to Loki for him to get the Space Stone did not really make sense. Even if he did not like to do things himself, granting an Infinity Stone to what was basically a stranger, as well as the adoptive son of Odin, the last guy who collected the stones, felt a little too mad for even the Mad Titan himself.

Besides, it was not only a matter of consistency. Even if the decision had made perfect sense, maybe the Mind Stone had never been in Thanos’ hands in this world, and was lost somewhere else in the universe instead. Mason had never read the Infinity Saga, not the first one at least, but he did remember reading something about the stones being held by beings all over the universe, instead of being concentrated on Earth.

Actually, now that he thought about it, Mason had no guarantee that the Tesseract held the Space Stone. In the comics, there existed something called the Cosmic Cube, which looked exactly like the Tesseract and shared some similarities. Mason did not think it was the case, but it was a possibility.

The absence of the Infinity Stone did not affect Loki in the slightest, as the blow somehow woke him up instead of dealing further damage, probably because Mason was not able to channel his Chi through the magical crystal.

The Asgardian looked absolutely furious. "You! You mongrel! How dare you break the spear my-" he stopped there, more from rage than anything, as he finally decided to stop holding back.

In his rage, a wave of pure force erupted from his body, pushing Mason back ever so slightly, and with a flourish of his hands, Loki conjured a veritable array of green runic circles in the air around them. This was without a doubt the greatest magical display Mason had ever seen.

In that instant, Mason’s Divine Sense picked up on a sudden, dramatic surge of power coming from Loki himself, likely originating from buffing spells. At the same time, Mason felt like a giant invisible hand was suddenly crushing him in its grasp.

Through his Divine Sense, Mason could sense that attacks would emerge from the last runic circles. And through his common sense, Mason realized that this was the Loki from the comics rather than the one from the MCU, at least ability-wise. Meaning he was drastically more dangerous.

Not so keen on experiencing Loki’s wrath, Mason unleashed his Spiritual Domain, expecting it to disrupt the runic circles around them. After all, he was the nemesis of extra-dimensional energies. And yet, it barely caused them to flicker, and Mason could tell it was because he had disturbed Loki’s control over them rather than the magic itself.

It took him a moment, but then Mason understood that this was because Loki’s magic did not originate from another dimension, but from himself or Asgard.

Mason was a little perturbed, but he did not let that stop him. The momentary lapse had also freed Mason from the grasp of the invisible hand, so he attacked.

Using that moment to rush Loki, Mason leapt at him, using the Gravity Dao to accelerate himself. The increased speed allowed him to reach Loki, but it was right at that moment that Mason felt Loki attempting to wrestle him down with that invisible hand again.

His body burning with Sunfire, Mason dodged the invisible attack, visibly shocking Loki, and arrived right in his face, his attack already started.

But this time, even with their close proximity, Loki reacted. He might not have been as proficient in close combat as his brother, but Loki remained a God with thousands of years of experience.

Loki redirected Mason’s punch to the side, conjuring a dagger in the other hand to slash at his waist. In that brief contact, Mason felt that Loki’s strength had become several times stronger than his. Thankfully, it was not as overwhelming as something like Hulk.

And Loki might be good, Mason was better.

Using Loki’s strength against him, Mason stopped resisting the redirection and propelled himself in that direction instead, spinning past the blade and, with a jump, launching a kick straight into Loki’s face.

Loki reacted fast enough to cross his arms before his face, but the power behind the kick still forced him back. And being rapidly pounded by physical attacks left no time for spells.

Closing in again, Mason delivered a flurry of strikes, prioritizing speed over power. Loki defended himself well, and Mason got his first taste of Asgardian Martial Arts, which were not so surprisingly similar to his own.

Asgardians were naturally far stronger than humans, so it made sense for their martial arts to take that into account. In a sense, they came close to the level of no technique Mason had reached, though Loki was not quite there yet.

Mason was, and the difference showed.

Even with the difference in strength, Loki was clearly not used to fighting in close combat with those boosts, which was the weakness of those kinds of spells. An important part of fighting was to understand one’s own strength, so anything that caused it to fluctuate would necessarily have an impact.

With Loki’s intents laid bare before Mason, he successfully stopped Loki from casting spells again and again, mostly through physical strikes, or with momentary bursts of his Spiritual Domain when forced to.

Still, even though Mason had the upper hand, it was taking him time to dismantle Loki, as the Asgardian was already stronger than Mason in his base state, not to mention in this boosted state, and his durability was absurdly high. Mason felt like he was dealing no damage, which was frustrating. That did not stop him or slow him down, though.

But while Mason was working at grinding down Loki’s defences, he suddenly realized that a storm had set in above them at some point. The two noticed it at the same time, and it worked as a sort of referee for the two as they both stopped.

Loki’s expression, in particular, became bitter.

In the sky, amidst the thunderous clouds, a singular flash of lightning exploded, faintly outlining a figure. The next moment, that figure slammed into the plaza, hammer in hand, red cape billowing in the storm of his own making.

Thor had arrived.