Chapter 13: Mysterious Magic
The Battle of New York was over when Loki failed to win against the Avengers and Mr. Stark pushed the atomic bomb into the portal that led to Thanos' spaceship just before it had closed.
Like Sylvia had planned, she didn't get on the news. She chose to stay in London after the fight, but things happened again not long after.
Thor came back to Midgard when his girlfriend, Jane Foster, had the Aether in her body. Sylvia went to meet them when she had sensed something wrong, and the Convergence happened between the Nine Realms. Loki helped them to get the Aether out of Jane but got himself "killed" on Svartalfheim. Then, Jane's scientist friends helped them with a fight over nearly all the realms and the Dark Elf Malekith was killed. They gave the Aether – or known as the Power Stone – to the Collector for safe care.
The Avengers was gathered again on Earth when they had the messages that Hydra had been discovered using the scepter to create superhuman – mutants.
They were raiding the Hydra's base for the scepter at the moment. Someone just exclaimed "Shit", but she couldn't make out who it was from the earpiece with all the fights going on.
"Language." Captain warned. Dunno what's gotten into him.
Flying across the forest sky, she shot ice knives at the guards in their way. She approached the circle near the entrance of the building and landed. Iron Man flew above, trying to hack into the system and turn off the protection of it.
Muggles. She rolled her eyes and raised the earth below to make a hole on the invisible wall near the ground and held it there for him to get in. She could hear Mr. Stark sigh dramatically in frustration inside his metal suit.
"Magic beats science, scientist." She chuckled.
"Shut it, magician." He shot back before going inside the building.
"Don't get hurt." She said quietly to his back, knowing what he might meet in there. She felt the shield vanish and she let go of the magical grip on the stones. She has grown into the habit of taking care of her team-mates after working with them for more than a year.
Something moved behind her, but she couldn't make out what. It felt like someone fast – Quick Silver? There it comes again, and she was nearly knocked over by the person who moved faster than he should be.
Before she could stop the air from vibrating to catch the speedy person, a mysterious red light-ball shot towards her from the trees. Ducking to avoid being hit, she sighed for knowing who they were. Wanda and Pietro, the twins, or Scarlet Witch and Quick Silver. Weird that superheroes all have made-up names.
"Avengers… assemble." It was Cap shouting from the new Avengers' base after the Battle of Sokovia, when Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Vision and War Machine joined the team. Pietro had died in the battle, shot by Mr. Stark's creation Ultron. The AI Jarvis had "died" too and now the new AI was called Friday. Hulk went missing in a Jet and they haven't seen him since.
The team was getting better and stronger when the government struck them with the problem with superheroes. Captain America and Iron Man, the once-friends, were turned into enemies with the different thoughts for the Sokovia Accords. However, the accords didn't apply to Sylvia because she was a goddess.
She went to Doctor Strange's place and he knew why she came at once. They were both magical and had learned loads of different kinds of magic from each other. It was great to her to finally find someone else who knew lots. It has been a long time since she has learned anything from Hogwarts.
She has been working on science as well, because she found it was useful when her powers come to use.
They were both in London when they detected something coming. It seemed to be from somewhere far away from Earth and it felt like a place familiar to Sylvia.
Asgard?
"What did you do to him?" She knew it had to be Loki when she saw Doctor Strange doing some magic.
"Mid-air." The answer was short.
"Seriously? He's not that bad -" She paused, knowing Thor was coming anytime. It turned out to be true. The God of Thunder appeared in the room only a few seconds later.
Thor hasn't really changed over the time they were apart. He only became more big-handed. It was pretty obvious when he touched nearly everything in the room he couldn't put back.
"I think you probably should stop." She suggested to Thor.
"Where have you been?" He looked surprised.
"I'll leave him to you if you promise me you won't kill him," she said to Stephen, "but you might as well do that favor." She smirked.
They met again in the hall not long after. Doctor Strange let Loki down from a portal.
"I fell," the God of Mischief swung his messed hair back, "for thirty minutes!"
Too bad, he kind of deserved it.
Stephen sent them to a grassland in Norway when Loki was just about to kill the wizard. He fell onto the grass when the portal closed behind them.
The grassland led to a cliff with a rock near the edge.
And sitting there on the rock, with his back against them, was Odin.
"He never told me." Sylvia murmured.
She was lost in thoughts when the Allfather had his last moments with his sons. But she did hear one thing: Hela, the Goddess of Death, would be back.
It did come true. Just a few moments after Odin died, before the two gods even had time to grief, a dark portal appeared and a woman walked out. Thor and Loki both turned into their battle form and faced their elder sister.
"Kneel." The goddess commanded like it was what they were supposed to do.
"I beg your pardon?" Loki asked, thinking of when himself had said that to mortals.
"Kneel," she repeated, "to your queen."
Thor became angry at once and threw his hammer towards her. But it hit nothing. The three of them all stood still, shocked.
Hela was holding Thor's hammer with one hand.
"Impossible." Thor said, half in fear.
"You don't know what's possible, child." Hela smiled and crushed the hammer into pieces with her fingers. The pieces fell to the ground, still cracking with lightning.
What the –
"Bring us back!" Loki called to the sky. Thor tried to stop him but the Rainbow Bridge already came down. Sylvia knew why Thor didn't want to go back in the Bifrost, because Hela followed them.
The Goddess of Death flew in the Bifrost behind them. She shot a huge sword at them but it missed. Sylvia shot an ice knife down but missed as well.
Hela sped up and caught up with Loki to throw him out of the Bifrost. Thor got thrown out too when Hela caught up with him. Sylvia gulped, fearing to be in space again.
Like she had predicted, Hela came to her and started the fight. Luckily Sylvia could handle her for just now with the fighting skills she had learned with the Avengers. They fought all the way to Asgard, where the fake gatekeeper stood there with his jaws nearly on the ground, and ran away for his life.
Sylvia's water was used up for making up too much weapons. She had to burn this place with fire for her own life.
Or…
She could use the earth powers which she hasn't used for some time for it was kind of hard to control.
The floor moved when her mind was on it, making Hela to lose balance. She made the rocks that formed the wall to rearrange and formed a sword on fire in her hands.
Fury burned like fire in her heart. She held the sword and slashed it to Hela, but the attack was blocked by another sword.
Damn. Metal, again.
She couldn't control metal, she knew, and that was why she didn't want to get into a fight with Matilda for the times they were together. Metal was her weak point, and she did well so far to avoid it.
Probably Murphy's Law, the things people don't want to happen would always happen.
She barely escaped the second sword that Hela shot at her, and grabbed hold of the third with a little help from the air, then threw that back to Hela, which she easily stepped aside to avoid.
They continued to fight in circles in the gatekeeper's room. Then, when Sylvia got half a second to get a breath, she was pushed to the wall by the goddess by her neck.
"I see your father in you," Hela said to her, "but yet you refuse to release the powers he gave you as gifts."
She had no idea what she meant, and struggled to breathe. She tried to pull Hela's hand away but found it was no use. The grip was too strong. She gasped for oxygen, knowing that she couldn't live without it for too long.
Without any warning, or any feelings before it, Sylvia felt a strong power going through her body from her heart, and it has kind of got into herself. She felt stronger, and… darker.
She didn't know her eyes had turned deadly purple.
Ghostly blue fire rose from her hands and a great force pushed the Goddess of Death away from her. She found that she could create water and earth instead of just controlling them. The ice swords shooting from her hands looked like they were glowing, and the earth around her seemed to be shifting with dark light underneath. The wind was even stronger and sharper in her control.
Darkness clawed her heart. She couldn't feel any light in her mind.
She didn't know what had happened to her, but she felt familiar with her situation like she has done many times of this before, only she couldn't remember any.
The rhythm of the fight was in her hands now. she made Hela to back onto the Rainbow Bridge and continued to make unlimited attacks with all four elements in their dark forms.
However, the fierce fire didn't burn for long. She soon got tired because she wasn't used to fighting for so long as well as using this much power. Hela saw the chance and pinned her to the wall again.
"That's my girl." The goddess smiled, "I spare your life now, and give you two days to consider whether to remain on your side or return to mine." She let go of Sylvia to let her slide to the floor, panting.
Then, with all the tiredness, her eyes turned back to silver and blackness clawed into her sight before she couldn't feel anything at all.
On the other hand, Matilda Potter found something wrong with Sylvia's time travel. She was supposed to be weakened and lost in a strange time, but now she's found the Avengers and her powers are getting… stronger. The Potter girl knew she needs more time as well. She let the metals of the Time-Turner fly in her sight, knowing what to do.
She touched the golden edges of the Time-Turner that she made herself, then took a breath before she turned the inner circle a few times and vanished into the history.