When their sentence was up, Loki brought Thor back to Earth, where the blond Asgardian reunited with Jane. Waiting at the exact spot Jane would have been, Loki and Mobius entered the pre-convergence portal, where they pruned the Reality Stone, and thus they prevented the Dark Elves from putting their dark plan into action.
Getting Mind Stone back was more of a hassle, as it had fallen into the hands of HYDRA agents in SHIELD agents' clothing. Inside the SHIELD STATION, Director Fury and Captain America made their way towards the Infinity Stone, which was being studied, along with remnants of Chitauri material, by two scientists.
"Good evening, gentlemen." Captain America got their attention. "We need that stone back."
"But we're so close: just give us another hour or two, and we'll be able to discover the connection between this and the Tesseract!"
"Oh, we know the connection." Fury assured them.
"You do? What is it?"
Fury pulled out Mobius's Time Stick and pruned the stone and its casing, sending it to the Void. "None of your damn business." The two quickly left the building as the bewildered scientists panicked and begged for an explanation, handily knocking out every HYDRA agent that tried to stop them. Fury chuckled, shifting his form to Loki's when they were out of sight. "Ehehehe, did you see the looks on their faces? Oh mY gOoDneSs, wHeRe'D iT gOoOo? OuR reAsErCh- AHAHAHAHA!"
As usual, Captain America didn't share in his amusement. "The main thing is that HYDRA won't be able to use it to harm innocent people."
"Yes yes, Captain Serious, and better yet, neither will Thanos!"
At Mobius's suggestion, Loki also brought Thor to Nidavellir, where the dwarves crafted him the axe Stormbreaker before Thanos had the chance to attack their realm.
After that, the brothers journeyed to Morag to find the Power Stone. Unfortunately, the entire planet was flooded at the time, so they dove deep underwater to reach the temple. Before they entered, a gigantic eel coiled itself around them. Thor promptly squeezed hold of the creature, though Loki adamantly shook his head when his brother's fingertips began to sparkle, wanting very much to avoid being electrocuted with the eel. He froze the tip of its tail with his Jotun abilities, and it quickly sank far beneath them as Thor unwound it.
Inside the temple, Loki pruned the Power Stone after disintegrating the deadly barrier protecting it. Their mission accomplished, Thor harnessed his new axe's ability to summon the Bifrost to bring the duo back to Earth before they couldn't hold their breath any longer.
However, back on the desolate world of Santuary, a servant of the Black Order walked up to his master's levitating throne.
"Lord Thanos, news to report on the Infinity Stones… and the one whom you gifted the scepter."
"Speak." The Mad Titan simply commanded.
"There is recorded evidence of his betrayal." He played a virtual recording, which showed Loki speaking with the Avengers on Earth.
"Let me get this straight." Tony Stark said to Loki. "You want your mind control gem back so you can destroy it? I don't suppose you've picked out a nice lake of lava and sulfur to throw it into?"
"No, nothing as dramatic as that, unfortunately. The Infinity Stones are nigh indestructible, so I doubt even lava could damage one." Loki refuted.
Tony chuckled. "Did he seriously just say 'nigh indestructible?'"
"Sorry, it means 'nearly undestroyable.' Just to be clear, when they call you a 'genius,' are they being ironic, or does that word have a completely different meaning on Earth than it does on Asgard!?" Loki snarked at Stark.
"Yeah, I know what it means, goatbrain, I just can't understand how such a technologically advanced society uses such archaic old English!"
"Not every change made is for the better."
"Can we focus on the Mind Stone here?" Steve Rogers reminded. "And why you suddenly want to destroy all these magical artifacts you could use for own interests?"
"I told you, I'm not who I was under the influence of the Mind Stone! Thanos is the one who desires the stones; even without them, none of us stands a chance against him! He means to bring them together to wipe out half of existence, and with them, he could easily reach a level of power hitherto unfathomable!" Stark rolled his eyes. "We must not allow Thanos to get his hand on those Infinity Stones, at all costs! We have to destroy them all!"
The transmission ended there, and the dark minion spoke again. "He has found a means to vaporize the Infinity Stones with a glowing baton of sorts, and we witnessed him do so with the Mind Stone. We have heard he's done the same to the Space and Reality Stones, and he is targeting the Power Stone as we speak."
Thanos smashed his throne with his fist and growled in a fit of rage. "That traitorous worm will dearly regret this! But… as long as the Time Stone remains, I can undo his foolish actions, and then I will introduce him to a world of such suffering and horror, he will long for the tortures I inflicted on him before!" At that, Thanos led his children and the remaining army to Earth, ready for another war!
"So, that leaves the Time Stone and the Soul Stone." Loki told the others. "Do you happen to know where they're located, Mobius?"
"Yeah, the Time Stone's here on Earth, protected by the Sorceress Sorcerer, also known as The Ancient One. She's powerful, and she won't give it up without a fight, but it's still a better option than the Soul Stone."
"And why is that?"
"Because to get the Soul Stone, you need to sacrifice a soul in return, and not just any soul: you have to basically murder the person you love the most, throw them off an insanely high cliff to their death, and unlike you, there's no way to ever bring them back."
Loki gulped. "Then once we acquire the Time Stone…" Loki turned to Thor. "Well, you've pushed me plenty of times before, so when the time comes to prune the last stone-"
"Forget it, Loki!"
"Thor, if Thanos gets any of these stones-"
"I CANNOT WATCH YOU FALL TO YOUR DEATH, BROTHER!" Thor huffed and shook his head. "Not again. Push me."
"No! NO, not after all that brotherly bonding fluff and nonsense you put me through, you're NOT making me betray you again!" Loki looked pensive and turned to Mobius.
"Whoa, hey, I don't want to get pushed off a cliff either!"
"Of course not, Mobius, I was just wondering if you had any Reset Charges on you so we could just prune the entire area and the stone along with it."
"Sorry, I don't. Hey, maybe if we wait to prune the Time Stone, we could reverse-"
"Thor, Loki, Thanos is on Earth." Heimdall spoke to them from Asgard. "He was able to cloak his ship from my sight, but I see him attacking the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York right now."
"Crap, he's after the Time Stone!" Mobius figured. Thor and Loki took the Bifrost to the Avengers Tower, gathering his friends and teammates. The Avengers fought off the army of Outriders and surviving Chitauri while Thor and Loki challenged the Black Order. Thor fought Cull Obsidian, Proxima Midnight, and Corvus Glaive with Stormbreaker, Mjolnir, and the full force of his lightning, while Loki matched his sorcery against Ebony Maw's.
"Creatures of Earth, hear me and rejoice, for your short, empty lives will soon come to an end, and you will find true meaning in your existence." Ebony Maw announced to the Avengers. "For in death, you help bring balance to a dying and overpopulated universe, while the ones who survive will prosper, thanks to your noble sacri-"
"Classmate of yours from Hogwarts' School of Wizardry?" Iron Man quipped to Loki. "He could pass for Voldemort. Say Snape, old chap, whatever happened to his nose?"
Loki sassily raised his eyebrows. "Oh, I'm sure it got stuck somewhere deep inside Thanos's a-"
"-As I was saying…" Maw continued. "Once Lord Thanos wields your Infinity Stone, he will bring true peace to all. So I say, rejoice."
"Sorry, the only death I'll be rejoicing in will be yours!" Loki threw telekinetically enhanced daggers at Maw, who halted and returned them with his own telekinesis.
"Once a traitor, always a traitor, it seems." Maw taunted. "And ever the pathetic failure, just as you were when we found you. As you know, our father does not tolerate failure."
"Thanos is not, nor was he ever my father, and what's pathetic is how you revere a madman whose dream is to kill half of every population and who tortures his adopted children for making mistakes. I'm done with abusive father figures myself, thank you very much!" Loki fired a few green blasts of energy, but Maw deflected them with his bare hand.
"Father Thanos only disciplines us to make us stronger, abolishing the weaknesses that hinder us from serving him to our fullest potential. Unfortunately for you, the weakness to be abolished lies within your entire being." Maw shaped the trees around them into thousands of smaller wooden skewers and hurled them at Loki's chest with his telekinesis, but he teleported away in the nick of time.
Maw stilled himself, calmly waiting for his foe to reappear. Loki appeared to the left of him and immediately thrust his fiery sword, Lævateinn, at his head, but Maw had used his telekinesis once more to form an invisible barrier around himself. He made a large piece of Sanctum fly through Loki, but it passed through him too easily, and Loki's form disappeared in another shimmer of green.
Meanwhile, Thor had beheaded Obsidian and was outmatching Midnight and Glaive's combined forces, dual wielding Stormbreaker and Mjolnir to counter their blades. When Loki appeared again, he blasted Maw with his Casket of Ancient Winters, but Maw literally moved the Earth around him to shield him and levitate him upwards. Loki used his telekinesis to slow the chunk of ground Maw stood upon, and Maw retaliated by surrounding Loki with sharp spikes from the fence. Loki then cast a duplicate of himself and teleported his real self right on top of Ebony Maw, and he killed Maw before he could react with one strike to the head.
Loki descended to meet his brother, who had electrocuted the other two children of Thanos with his lightning. They headed inside the Sanctum, but Thanos came out to meet them first, having already taken the Time Stone.
"You are too late, Asgardians. Time is not on your side."