"Of course!"
"Then it's settled!"
"Goodbye, Master!"
"Sweet dreams!"
Leon nodded perfunctorily at the Ancient One's warning. The The Ancient One 's Ring on his finger shimmered with a faint blue glow, tearing open a portal that crackled with blue, arc-like sparks.
Standing nearby, pretending to be invisible as air itself, Loki glanced back and forth between the The Ancient One 's Ring in Leon's hand and several ordinary Three-Finger Sling Rings scattered at his feet.
In the end, he quietly shifted his foot and stepped on one of them.
"What are you looking at?"
"Let's go!"
Leon grabbed Loki—still blending into the air—and dragged him through the portal in one swift motion. They vanished in an instant. If the Ancient One reacted too quickly, things would only get troublesome.
…
After Leon left, Kamar-Taj, flattened into ruins by the AllSpark, fell silent.
The Ancient One narrowed her eyes, savoring the brief tranquility.
Then realization struck.
She opened her eyes sharply, staring at the devastation before her.
"That boy… so this was his plan all along."
"Ah, well."
With a helpless sigh, she formed a series of hand seals. The Eye of Agamotto opened once more, revealing the glowing green Time Stone within.
Setting the spell's target to Kamar-Taj itself, she activated her final remaining Time Reversal Field, turning it counterclockwise.
Time rewound.
The shattered halls restored themselves. Broken relics returned to their rightful places, as if nothing had ever happened.
Seated calmly in her grand chair, the Ancient One poured herself a cup of still-steaming tea from the pot on the table.
"Hmm?"
"Wasn't there one more?"
…
Elsewhere.
Leon and Loki emerged from their portal high above a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility.
"Brother, what was that thing just now?" Loki asked curiously, hovering in the air.
"You guess~" Leon replied with a smile.
"Fine. Keep your secrets. As if I care."
Loki rolled his eyes, unwilling to indulge Leon's riddles.
Behind his back, however, his fingers lightly rubbed over a Three-Finger Sling Ring, a faint smile curling at his lips.
Just a small, convenient act.
(As recorded, in spirit at least, in the Loki series.)
"Ready?" Leon asked.
His observation abilities caught Loki's little trick immediately—but he didn't expose it. The Ancient One likely felt the same way, which was why she hadn't pursued the matter.
Activating Super Self-Regeneration, Leon perfectly reshaped himself into Ebony Maw—so flawless that even his own brother wouldn't recognize him.
Glancing sideways at Loki, he reminded him:
"Remember to act convincingly. Especially under Hawkeye's watchful eye. Otherwise, don't blame me if I get serious."
"Hmph."
"Who do you think I am?"
"I am Loki, God of Mischief—LOKI!!!"
Before Loki could finish boasting, "Ebony Maw" Leon waved a graceful hand.
A surge of telekinesis erupted.
Loki was instantly hurled downward like a humanoid artillery shell, packed with terrifying kinetic force, plummeting toward the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility below.
Meanwhile, Leon casually lifted his right hand—still wearing the The Ancient One 's Ring—and conjured another portal, drifting through it at an unhurried pace.
Telekinesis truly was convenient. With sufficient power, it became the very embodiment of elegance and dominance.
S.H.I.E.L.D.
Since Leon had forcefully taken the Tesseract, Nick Fury's ambitions of developing "unlimited energy" from it had collapsed overnight.
He had tried to borrow it back from Leon—but Leon had effectively vanished from the face of the Earth. No trace. Pepper Potts would only respond with: "He's traveling abroad."
After more than a decade of preparation, Fury was unwilling to give up.
He gathered a team of top scientists to analyze the minuscule remnants of the Tesseract left in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s possession—mere "shavings" scraped off long ago by Howard Stark during experimentation.
Those microscopic remnants were now all Fury had left to patch the hole Leon had blown in his grand plans.
There was a certain irony in it. A father's leftover samples, used to compensate for the son's recklessness.
During the earlier "Mjolnir incident," though S.H.I.E.L.D.'s operation had wrapped up hastily due to Leon's interference, Fury had discovered an exceptional physicist—
Dr. Erik Selvig.
The two hit it off immediately. Selvig gladly accepted S.H.I.E.L.D.'s invitation—not only to harness what might be near-infinite clean energy from space, but also to fulfill his life's calling as a scientist.
Now, under Selvig's leadership, a team of elite researchers was working intensively to study the Tesseract fragments.
Fury happened to be present.
If unlimited energy was no longer an option, then at the very least, he intended to extract advanced technologies to equip his trio of Helicarriers before they became fully operational. Retrofitting them later would be far more troublesome.
"Doctor, how's it going?" Fury asked as he approached.
"No breakthrough yet," Selvig shook his head. "The sample size is too small. We can't risk conducting any consumption-based experiments."
"I just need to know—will we make it in time?"
That was all Fury cared about.
"If you could bring in Tony Stark," Selvig replied instead, "I imagine the problem would solve itself immediately."
"If I could bring that guy in…"
Then why would I need you?
Fury rolled his eye but kept the rude thought to himself.
Tony was fully immersed in his own world of "cultivation"—shut away in his lab, seeing no one but Pepper. The only difference between him and Leon was that at least people knew Tony was alive.
Leon, on the other hand, had become a complete ghost. If he died, no one would even know where to find the body.
"Keep up the good work, Doctor. I believe in you."
"I'll do my best."
"Where's Agent Barton?"
"Bird Boy's up in his nest," Selvig joked, pointing to the elevated platform behind him.
"Is he…"
Fury located Hawkeye and leaned against the railing beside him. Together, they observed the scientists below.
"How is it?" Fury asked quietly.
"Can we trust them?"
"So far, no suspicious behavior," Hawkeye replied without shifting his gaze. "Aside from necessary academic exchanges, there's been no unnecessary contact or unauthorized data sharing."
"Good."
Fury nodded in relief.
"These fragments are the last relics S.H.I.E.L.D. has. If another 'Leon Stark' shows up and walks off with them, I think I'd actually lose my mind."
The words had barely left his mouth—
BOOM!
The ceiling of the underground research facility suddenly trembled violently.
Then—
Under Nick Fury's horrified gaze—
A humanoid projectile smashed clean through twenty-five meters of reinforced concrete, blasting straight downward without losing momentum.
Its trajectory led directly toward the research platform where S.H.I.E.L.D.'s last remaining Tesseract fragments were stored.
"NOOOOOOO!!!"
Fury's scream was utterly heart-wrenching.
If Hawkeye hadn't grabbed him in time, he might have jumped down after it himself.
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