Chapter 11: Thanos
"Why the hell did you let go?" Sylvia asked Loki, surprised that they were still alive in space.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know you would – "He tried to explain but failed.
"I know what you've done, Loki, but… what are we going to do?" She looked around them, having no idea where they were.
Their surroundings went dark in a sudden. She turned to see a dark figure approaching. More technically, they were approaching the figure. It was a planet.
"Should we land?" Loki murmured uncertainly.
Before they could decide, the gravity of the planet pulled them onto it.
"I know I've had Astronomy, but I've got no idea what in Merlin's name this is." Sylvia frowned.
Loki glared at her, confused with the expression of "Merlin". "Couldn't you Apparaate us out of here?"
"You think I haven't tried?" She gave him a glare, "Something's stopping my wand from working, or worse, controlling it."
"Define yourselves, intruders." A powerful voice snarled.
Sylvia gulped. She hadn't been in any situations like this before. A scary thought formed in her mind. What if I die in a time travel? Will I disappear?
"Loki and Sylvia, of Asgard." Loki called back.
"You're telling it our real names?" She frowned.
"Do we have any better option?"
"Sure, like tell some false names. That's what Odysseus did in the Cyclops' cave, written in the Odyssey." She shot back.
"We're Norse Gods, we don't talk about Greek ones." He replied.
"You asked for an option and I provided one."
"Are you doing this?" He suddenly asked. Sylvia noticed that there was some kind of power working beneath them. Before they could say another word, the ground underneath became a hole and they dropped down into who-knows-where.
"Definitely not me." She said nervously.
They were in a base. Things she couldn't define glowed in a very dark shade of blue. The light was scarce and the whole environment was dark.
"We're trapped in a basement, stuck on an unknown planet, what now?" Loki growled.
"Thanks for the commentary, Loki, it's not at all unhelpful." Sylvia shot back sarcastically.
Something moved on its own. It took a few seconds for them to see it clearly. A spear. Dead sharp on both ends. Its blades glowed blue and were long.
"Ebony Maw." She gasped, remembering the kind of power in the battle.
"Who?" Loki frowned.
"Thanos' servants."
"It's a surprise you know me, Sylvia Hoderta." The Voldemort-like alien appeared out of the darkness.
"We're surrounded." Loki hissed. Sylvia used air to detect beings around them and found that it was true. There were five in total, including the one who just showed up.
"Right, I know we're trespassing, but it wasn't technically our fault." Sylvia tried, "So why don't we all leave each other alone and we'll leave immediately."
"Sylvia – "
"Not that fast." A low voice joined in.
"I don't want to hurt you too much, Nebula." Sylvia sighed.
"Sylvia, we're outnumbered." Loki finished his sentence.
"Haven't I told you to stop the commentary? Besides, I know two is smaller than five without you telling me."
Before another second passed by the attackers moved first. Gamora jumped out from behind where Nebula's voice came from and onto Sylvia. Another alien – Corvus Glaive – started to take Loki.
Sylvia wasn't good at face-to-face fighting. In fact, she was bad at it because there wasn't the point of fighting skills when she had magic. If she went to a normal muggle school, she would be rubbish at PE. But flying on brooms and riding Thestrals were different.
Proxima Midnight joined in the fight while grabbing the spear in the air, so did Nebula. She was starting to think she wasn't going to take on for too much longer while sending multiple sharp pieces of stone at the attackers.
It was the first fight she had ever gotten into. The Endgame was a war, not really a fight.
"Is this all Asgardians can do?" Proxima sneered and shoved Sylvia to the floor with her spear.
Fury burned inside. Her powers weren't in her control all of a sudden. Faster than lightning, air around Proxima dragged her off and pinned her to the wall. Sylvia turned to Gamora by instinct and sent a great force of fire. Knives made of ice formed in her free hand and flew towards Nebula and Corvus.
"This, is what I can do." She growled dangerously when all four of them were under her powers' control.
"We're not finished, yet." Loki warned.
They both froze. Not by themselves. Ebony was in their minds.
"You can enter people's minds other than object-lifting? What a surprise." Sylvia tried to move but couldn't.
The Voldemort-like alien didn't reply. She started to push the intruder out of her mind with Occlumency but found that the force was too strong for that.
Loki's daggers were slipped out and pain ran through her mental body. She could move again, but without the powers.
The other aliens recovered from the fight and joined in to force them two towards somewhere.
"How long does the curse last, if I may ask?" Sylvia frowned at Ebony.
"As long as he wants." Nebula answered.
Their footsteps echoed down the passageway. She had a feeling that the light went darker and darker as they went deeper down the endless paths. They finally came to a throne room. The throne had its back turned on them. There were jets with blue fire floating around the throne. The room was kind of outside in space because there were stars in all directions.
"Father, they're here." Nebula knelled first to the black throne. The others followed.
"Damn." Sylvia cursed herself for not realizing this earlier.
The throne slowly turned around. It was just as she expected. The dark purple Titan sat on the throne with his golden amour on.
"Good." Thanos waved his "children" off apart from Ebony Maw. Then he turned to Sylvia and Loki, "I need some help from you, Asgardians."
"The hell you do." Sylvia narrowed her eyes.
"Do you even know what he wants?" Loki glared at her.
"He wants to turn half of the universe's lives into dust with the Infinity Stones." She hissed.
He gulped visibly and shut up.
"I suggest you change your mind soon." Ebony murmured. He moved two pieces of metal to hold Sylvia by her wrists and lifted Loki with magic she had never seen before.
"It's fine," Loki reassured her nervously, more like trying to convince himself, "just don't agree to any – "
He broke off and screamed in pain as things like glass knives slipped slowly into his face without bring any blood out. It was mental pain, worse than physical ones.
She closed her eyes and turned her head to the other side, trying to ignore the torture and think things through, especially the history.
It's 2011, then the next big thing that happened in the Avengers was the stealing of the Tesseract – Space Stone – which took place in 2012. What happened then? It was the event she had learned from the Muggle news from the orphanage. Loki stole the Tesseract to rule Earth but failed – obviously – with the spear which had the Mind Stone in it. There was a big possibility that Loki was forced to steal the Space Stone for Thanos, as well as the Mind Stone.
In order to make history happen again without too many changes, there was only one thing she could do.
"Stop." Sylvia said with force, "I'll do it."
"I hope you'll convince your friend." Ebony chuckled and let Loki down.
"I thought we've agreed not to -"
"I know. You think I'm going to let both of us die here?" She looked straight into his bright green eyes, "Besides, if we help him get the stones, we can rule Midgard. It's the way to power, Loki. Isn't that what you always wanted?" She knew she had to play double-part, maybe even triple, but there was no other way.
"I -" He hesitated and nodded slowly, "All right, then." He shook a little when Ebony moved his thin, long fingers again.
"You don't trust us enough to do this on our own?" She frowned, knowing what he was going to do.
"Just in case." Ebony replied and entered their minds. It wasn't too painful, but a weird feeling streamed through her body as he did it. She turned to check on Loki, who turned to her as well. His eyes were electronic blue instead of bright green.
She used some of the water she stored in her hands and formed a piece of ice to reflect herself. Her eyes were purple, like the ones she had when she played Prank War with her fellow Ravenclaw students in her first year.
"When shall we start, my Lord?" Loki bowed to Thanos and Sylvia stared at him in surprise but found herself bowing as well without her own voluntary.
They were controlled for as long as Ebony Maw wanted. She had to get out of this soon.
She noticed for the first time that they weren't on the planet anymore, but instead in a huge spaceship. In absolutely nowhere. In space.
She went through all the things that would happen next in her mind, working on how to spend the next fourteen years in the history without changing it. She blocked Ebony out of her mind, of course, otherwise the consequences would be severe.
As she went through before, the next thing was the Battle of New York. If she remembered correctly, there were three stones there at the same moment. Two of which Thanos could get, but failed, and one with the Ancient One - Doctor Strange's teacher - in the Eye of Ama-something. Merlin, the names of the Mystic Arts are even more complicated than Wizarding ones.
Next, in 2012, according to Thor, his girlfriend Jane Foster had the Aether - Power Stone - in her body and cursed problems with the Dark Elves when the Nine Realms went across each other on the World Tree. Loki "died" back then, and Frigga got killed. Thor defeated the Dark Elves and got the Aether out from his girlfriend.
Then, the Winter Soldier - Cap's "dead" best friend Bucky - came across and Cap was ambushed by Hydra - hidden in SHIELD back then - all the time. Then Hydra went underground and started working on the spear with the Mind Stone in it which they stole after the Battle and made mutants. Only Wanda and Petro survived the experiment and had superpowers.
Mr. Stark invented an AI named Ultron sometime after Wanda and Petro were reborn with powers. Th robot was supposed to be a helper for protecting the world, but it turned out that it had its own mind and started working on human distinction. Sokovia was lifted up into the air by whole but the Avengers saved the day. Hulk went missing afterwards.
The Civil War began not long after. Captain and Mr. Stark had different opinions on the "Sokovia Accords" which was about the government having control over superheroes. The whole Avengers team split up into two sides and had a fight for it. The result was Cap's side getting caught and left the team unorganized. Thor and Hulk didn't join the war though.
After that, Spider-man's story of fighting the Vulture who took some of the alien weapons as his own after the Battle of New York. Mr. Stark interfered but Peter did it on his own in the end.
Then was probably the first battle against Thanos - because she wasn't too sure of what happened before this - and his servants invaded Earth for the Stones. They failed, however, and Thanos did the snap with all the Infinity Stones and turned half of the universe into dust.
Captain Marvel found them on Earth by bringing back Mr. Stark and Nebula who fought Thanos on Titan. The Avengers went to find Thanos and Thor killed him.
The time-traveling and the Endgame happened after. She knew about the details for that. Then finally, Spider-man fought Mysterious over the glasses made by Mr. Stark named Edith.
She had to let all of these happen without doing any changes. That's gonna be a great challenge.