Chapter 12: Acting
Sylvia stood in the woods, seeking the opportunity to help Loki in the fight. That idiot got himself caught. Thor was here too, fighting Cap and Iron Man while trying to get Loki. The Avengers, on the other hand, were fighting Thor and getting Loki.
Thor just hit Mr. Stark with lightning - a really horrible choice - and he got blasted away by laser - he had that coming.
"Now, I don't know what you plan on doing here." Cap was saying to Thor when the two had finished.
"I've come to put an end to Loki's schemes." Thor answered.
"Then prove it." He said, "Put that hammer down."
"Yeah... No." Thor lifted up his hammer and advanced on the mortals.
"Bad call. He loves his hammer." Mr. Stark remarked.
"You want me to put the hammer down?" The God of Thunder roared. They started fighting again.
Sylvia sighed. Thor hasn't changed a bit through the past two years. Still so arrogant and hot.
"Are we done, here?" Loki frowned after a while.
Sylvia jumped down from her hiding place in her Animagus form and turned into human form when she landed. The attention was on her all of a sudden.
"You're alive too?" Thor nearly dropped his jaw.
"It's nice to see you too, Thor." She chuckled and set fire - they were blue and purple due to her situation - to the woods, "Now get out of the way or you'll get killed."
"What -" The earth threw him up from beneath him.
"I don't need your help; thought I've made that clear." Loki growled to her.
"You're welcome." She put up an air force field around them as a circle. Maybe I should work on defending instead of attacking while I'm under half-control.
Suddenly she felt dizzy and the force field vanished. She murmured a brief "excuse me" to Loki and turned into a cat to run away unharmed, leaving the four of them shocked and confused.
She panted heavily, not from the run. Her brain ached from overworking and started fighting the control from Ebony somehow.
Her mind was in a battlefield. The battlefield of the Endgame, to be specific. But no one was there apart from herself and Ebony Maw. Her eyes were silver because they were in her mind.
The alien gave an evil smile and moved closer to her, as if telling her to give up. "You will not win in this, Asgardian," he said. She hadn't won against him in the past few times they had come across, but this one felt different because she really had the heart for winning. She had to have her own mind back if she wanted to do things without being known, as well as getting free from these frequent mind battles for once and for all.
"Not until I've tried." She replied and started to attack.
Ebony had the metals flying to attack. She blocked a few with rocks and the rest with repelling charms. She weighed the opportunity of winning if she used the powers and the wand and decided that it was best to use both.
"You've become more powerful." He remarked when Sylvia sent a flash of green - killing curse - at him which he blocked with a piece of rock. The spell was blacked but the rock exploded into dust. She quickly made the dust gather up into a rock again and smashed it into his face.
"Glad you noticed." She sniffed and turned into her Animagus form then back again to move out of a sword's way. It was a technique she had discovered which made it look like she could "Apparate" within a short distance if she has done it quickly enough. As fast as she could, she made fire rushing towards Ebony.
Only in a matter of seconds they had many exchanges of knives and swords made of different kinds of materials. Rocks, ice, and metal clashed together and flew apart to form another wave of attack. She formed a large wave of sharp ice towards Ebony while shifting to his back in a swift turn. She slashed her wand down to cause and explosion then aimed the killing curse at him.
"Get. Out. Of. My. Mind." She growled and the alien exploded with a flash of blinding green. She knew she didn't kill him for real, but at least it put an end to her mind troubles.
She sat up in a sudden and found herself still in the woods. It was already in the morning. Sylvia realized she was really tired from the fight and noticed that she was panting very hard. Leaning against a tree to support herself, she let out a long sigh.
That's one thing done. She thought and slowly recovered. Where's Loki supposed to be now? Or any of the Avengers, for that matter.
They're with SHIELD. A little voice in her head told her. She frowned, thinking about how to get to SHIELD without knowing where on Earth it was. Without her own control – yet again – the air all around her vibrated and the vibration gradually got further. It was the detection which she had used to detect the surroundings back in Thanos' spaceship.
They're in some kind of ship… in the air? Never mind, the muggle things are always strange. She Apparated into the location she had detected and found herself in a huge ship. She made herself invisible with Asgardian magic which Loki and Frigga had taught her
Sneaking through the guards and agents on the ship, she found the lab which the Avengers were in.
"…Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard." Thor was saying to the Avengers. She could guess someone just called Loki a madman or something, "And he is my brother." He added.
"He killed 80 people in two days." Natasha reminded him.
"He's adopted." Thor replied.
"What have I missed?" Sylvia showed herself from behind Thor, scaring him like she did many times when she pranked the god with Loki.
"Hey, have we met before, kid?" Mr. Stark asked.
"Prove that you're Sylvia." Thor picked up his hammer and pointed it at her threateningly.
"I, Sylvia Hoderta – still not yet proven 100% true – princess of Asgard, daughter of Hoder, and known as Sylvia Nyphadora Black in Midgard." She listed, "And witch, if you have to add."
"Fair enough." He grunted, "But that still doesn't explain why you two are still alive and acting unusual."
"It's a long story." She sighed, "We went on a planet and got teleported to a spaceship, and then got controlled by a telepath, and there we are."
"Did you say you were controlled?" Nick Fury, the director of SHIELD, spoke up.
"Technically yes, but I still have my own mind for it, unlike Agent Barton and Doctor Selvig, I believe." She replied.
"Wait, you're a witch?" Thor asked, "A Seider?"
"You lived with me in one palace for about six years and you still don't know, how unsurprising." She sniffed.
"We need to talk, alone." Thor ordered.
"We may have blood relationships, but it does not give you the right to order me." Sylvia narrowed her eyes but still followed him out of the lab.
She started noticing the surroundings of this huge ship. It was a huge building, more like, for she couldn't really feel the ship moving. The whole thing was like a building too. The walls were white, unlike the small ships, and the ship was full of high-tech stuff that didn't look like they belong to 2012.
"Where's Loki?" She looked up to Thor. They had about 30 centimeters – even more, to be specific - of height difference and it was a great disgrace for Sylvia, "Still don't trust me enough to tell?"
"You just hit me with rocks and burned most of the forest with fire, and now expect me to tell you where your ally is?" He questioned.
"Well, that was an accident." She said innocently.
Thor sniffed suspiciously, "What's the thing about Seiders?" He changed the subject.
"And why should I tell you about it?" She rolled her eyes.
He growled, as if she was meant to answer all his questions – probably came from him being a king.
"Seiders, non-Seiders, it's the same, really, magic still exists and still can be used by both," she shrugged, "who are clever enough." She added cheekily.
"Loki and I, as I said, were controlled by people of power to do these things." She continued more seriously, "If you tell me where he is, I can tell you how to help him. Did you notice your brother's eyes? They're electronic blue, not green, that means he's controlled by unknown magic."
They came across a corner and then a door on the wall. It led to a storing room after Thor opened it and motioned her to go inside.
"Seriously, Thor, I haven't changed a bit." She hissed and lit up the room with bright fire. The flames lit his face, making him look like a monster instead of a man.
"How did you get out of that control?" He asked demandingly.
"I don't have the need to tell you anything, but I got out by killing the telepath in my mind – which would mean he's still alive but not in my mind. I guess you could try the hammer on Loki since he wants to rule Midgard anyway." She shot back with the same tone, "We're done." She walked out straight away without saying anything else.
Merlin's beard, what the hell has happened to Thor? Walking to nowhere in particular, thoughts stormed in her mind. If Thor's like this right now, what if he's different from the history I lived through in 2023? And then a thought struck her. When Matilda and I came across the Avengers, I would be part of it, then – or even worse, they'll see me in the news after the Battle of Now York and work out the whole thing, then Matilda might do things earlier and the whole timeline would be strangled!
And the solution to that, she thought, would be getting out of the news as much as she could to prevent herself being seen by… herself in this past present.
Dr. Banner got the Time Stone from the Ancient One – Dr. Strange's teacher – in New York, 2012, which meant that the wizards and witches of the mystic arts would be fighting the battle as well, but they didn't get on the news. If she went with them or just somewhere around them, she wouldn't get caught by cameras. That's a nice idea.
She found her legs had brought her to a big, circular room. There was a smaller room in the middle of it – a cage. The cage looked like it could be detached and fall down to who-knows-where from many millions of feet above ground. And inside the transparent cage was Loki, the God of Mischief and Magic.
"Does the avengers send people here to visit me one by one?" He chuckled as he spotted her, "Or are you still on the power's side?"
"Natasha has seen you," She clarified, "and you told her things that hurt."
"True, and you will get yours if you stay."
"I'm happy to hear the truth."
"Well, then." He shrugged, "You're hiding away from the truth."
"What truth?" She narrowed her eyes, "I've had too many lies for one lifetime."
"The fact that you're Hoder's daughter, for example." He walked closer to the wall, "And that you have the power to destroy the universe, Goddess of Nature."
"I'm younger than you, which means you've seen my birth and we had at least met once or twice during our childhood." Observing, she thought this was a chance to get some more information about her real childhood, "`What happened then?"
He shot her a weird look, "You were… more quiet back then… and your eyes were black instead of silver – or purple – and you were grim, as the child of the God of Darkness.
"We've met only once – well, technically, I saw you – in the palace. I saw your powers. They were stunning but dangerous. I had to use an invisible illusion to get a closer look. Your powers were like the ones you had when you still work for him – the flames were purple and blue."
"And that's it?" She pushed, hoping for some more.
"There was a prophecy." He frowned in an effort to remember the past, "I can't remember the details, but it's about a dark girl who would destroy many lives."
"Thus, the Allfather thought it was me, and I chose to exile myself to Midgard without all the memories and save the lives from death." She blurted without going through the words in her mind, surprised that she could remember the bits.
"Things like that."
"Thanks, Loki, no matter what you are right now." She grinned for the first time in months and walked away.
The pieces were getting together, but she still needed more from the past to get the whole story to the surface.