A flash of green fire whizzes past Tony's head, setting off a blinding set of alarms and statistics on his HUD. He shakes his head, dodging to the left, into another blast which throws him backwards into a somersaulting spin. He feels an impact as he crumples a streetlight and then skids along the ground, jerked to a halt by a concrete bench. He groans, half-buried under the remains of the bench, not entirely sure which way is up. Jarvis helpfully brings up an arrow in front of him, so apparently he said that aloud.
"Oh, God. Jarvis, just shut off the HUD. I don't want to see anything. If it's not absolutely required to keep me flying, I don't want to see it."
"As you are not flying at the moment, sir, I am unsure how you could be 'kept' in that state. My readings suggest you are, in fact, incapable of manual flight at this time. Would you like me to engage automated recall?"
"No! I'll be fine, I just need a second, don't you dare. Give me a sitrep."
"Hulk is battling with Thor six blocks to your left. Amora appears to consider you defeated - I cannot imagine why - and has left to join Thor. Captain America and Hawkeye are aiding civilians in exiting the combat area. Black Widow has followed Amora."
"Okay. Okay. Cap and Clint are fine, Widow will do her thing. Thor. Have you pulled up any other suggestions on how to break mind control? Did you ever get hold of Charlie?"
"I have as yet found no techniques which have not already been attempted."
The air rolls with thunder from the left. He can hear windows shaking and shattering in the building behind him. The sky is black across most of its expanse.
"Alright. I guess we'll have to try Natasha's tactic. Cognitive recalibration. Here we go."
He twists to his back, blasts the concrete off himself, and pulls his upper body up, ignoring both the rush of dizziness and Jarvis's objections. He kneels, stands, and makes a shaky start, almost slamming back into the ground. He knows Jarvis took over control for a second there, but it doesn't matter, because he's flying now, to where he can see lightning stabbing down from the sky and hear concrete smashing. Neither Thor nor Hulk is exactly subtle.
As he gets closer, he can feel the electricity even through the suit; even closer, and the shockwaves from Hulk's punches are tossing him about in the air; almost there, and Amora's fire is lighting up his viewer again, the display brightening and darkening constantly as it tries to find a setting that won't blind him. Her energy blasts are constant, nearly the same shade as Hulk, so many he can't see Hulk through them, just a blur of crackling green. Hulk is roaring and struggling but fading, no longer able to strike at Thor, barely able to stand against the fire and the lightning. Tony swoops down, catches some of the electricity with his suit - the power goes from nearly dead to 117%, not good for the suit long-term, but awesome for now - fires at Amora, knocking her back, and pulls up, hurtling up into the sky, out of her range.
Hulk throws himself at Amora. Tony dives again intending to go for Thor this time but -
"HALT!"
Thor's voice rolls like thunder - or is it that the thunder sounds like Thor? - and the entire battlefield stills. Hulk stands, snorting, over Amora, Tony hovers in the air, and he can see Natasha stopped on the corner of the last standing building.
Amora smiles and stands. She walks past Hulk's legs, giving him a slap on the thigh. Hulk just turns his head to watch her as she goes.
She stops by Thor and raises her hand to his forehead, stroking his hair back out of his eyes. Turning back towards the rest of them, she moves to stand behind Thor's shoulder, keeping her hand on his temple. Her hair glistens, throwing back the few glints of sunlight that stab through the dark clouds, and her eyes shine with a golden glow.
"We don't need to be so violent. Simply surrender to me, and this can all end. Or - " the tips of her fingers begin to glow green " - I will destroy the prince and he won't even raise a hand to stay me."
Thor is leaning into her, even as his hair begins to burn.
Tony can feel her allure trying to affect him, but it can't work through the suit - not all the way - and Hulk's resistant to pretty much everything. He looks quickly around. Clint and Cap are still elsewhere, Natasha's nowhere to be seen, Hulk is… Hulk… which means he's the only one left to negotiate. Okay.
"Look, sweetheart, we don't really want to be fighting either. My head hurts, I'm tired. I'd rather just call it a day - "
Her eyes narrow. "Do not waste my time."
Tony tenses and prepares to blast her but her hand is already flaring bright, and Thor is thrown to the side, smoking, half his hair burnt off, his skin red and torn. She moves to kneel by him and lifts his head into her lap. Gently, delicately, she opens his mouth and places her fingers inside.
"The next one will remove his head."
Tony stares at her, cannot speak as her hand starts to glow again, brighter and brighter, Thor starts to squirm on the ground, Tony doesn't know what to do -
Amora is yanked away from Thor. She slams into the asphalt some thirty feet away, under something Tony can only see as a blur of green and black.
It pulls back, off her, and speaks - "Thor is mine, you trumpery mab!"
Oh. Loki. Wonderful.
Amora looks up at him from the ground. "Loki? What are you doing here?"
Exactly what Tony wanted to know.
Loki doesn't answer, but sends a blast of energy at her where she lies. She rolls aside and fires back, and in moments she and Loki are immersed in battle, bursts of energy coming from both sides, Loki countering some of her fire with ice. Loki doubles, and triples, and quadruples, surrounding Amora until Tony can't see her anymore. A green glow begins to build in the centre - aside from the constant flash of battle - larger and brighter - until it explodes, sending Loki and his multiples flying. The explosion snaps Hulk out of it, and he charges in, unsure which to smash. He goes for Loki, reaches to grab him, but Loki knows better now, and flickers away, appearing in the air above Hulk's head.
"Harm any mortal you wish, Amora, but Thor is not yours to end."
Amora narrows her eyes, then her lips part in a cat's grin. "You only had to ask. Thor, dearest, fetch me a hostage."
Thor, forgotten on the ground, somehow swings his hammer, pulling himself into the air, crashes through the side of the last building and returns with a small boy in a Captain America T-shirt.
"Lovely. Now. Shall we kill him?"
Thor lifts the boy by the throat, cutting off his screams as he begins to squeeze.
Tony throws out his hands - how was there someone here, how was the kid not gone, no - the repulsors whine, ready to fire, but he doesn't know what to fire at -
"Sir. I have found another possible technique. Hypnosis can sometimes be broken by reflecting sunlight into the eyes of the individual hypnotised."
Tony processes the information in a split-second and falls to his knees, lifting the flaps on his back, Jarvis already calculating the right angle, and -
Thor jerks back, the boy falls to the ground, and Amora screams in rage. She begins to gesture in the air, black runes appearing in her wake, lines of darkness devouring the light around them, weaving into each other, into a writhing net, she throws it at the boy and -
Thor, dripping blood, dives in its path, and the net twines around him, pulls his limbs against his body, black fingers grabbing and pulling tight, and he fights against them, and -
There is a black flash, Thor yells, and -
Falls to the ground, motionless.
Loki's insult, 'trumpery mab', is multi-layered. The most common modern meaning of 'trumpery' is 'attractive but of little value or use; showy but worthless'. The most common use of 'mab' is in reference to the fairy Mab, said to create and control men's dreams. However, 'trumpery' also possesses an archaic meaning of 'old (and thus worthless) prostitute'. 'Mab' was also a generic term for a lady of negotiable affections.