"What's a carrier?" asked Skye.
"Someone who can handle a stone without it killing them," Esposito explained. "Sometimes it's only taken control of one stone for a being to take over the known universe."
"Which is why my brother has moved the nine realms time and again to try and lay claim to them," Thor finally admitted with a weary sigh. He started to pace the room as other pieces of the mystery started to click into place in his mind. "I had thought that you were possessed by the Aether as a matter of providence," he told Jane.
Castle smiled knowingly. "Maybe the providence was not incidental. Maybe it was divine."
Thor expression soon matched Castle's. "Indeed, Master Sìfāng," he agreed. His face glowed as he stopped and caressed the cheek of his beloved. "Perhaps destiny has been working to bring us together from the very beginning."
Jane was beaming, squeezing Thor's hands as she forced herself to stay focused on the challenge at hand. "What do you need from us, Master Sìfāng?"
"Everyone who's needed for the spell should sit in a circle," he announced to the group. "Javi, if you would place Mjölnir in the middle of the circle before you sit down, please." Skye, Jane, Henry and the Guardians surrounded Mjölnir on the floor.
Castle then drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly to focus and center himself. "Master Mùshī," he instructed Ryan, we all need to be one mind if this is going to have any prayer of happening.
All right, Ryan agreed through the mind-link.
Jane gasped at the sensation of having others in her mind. Wow, she thought. This is...so weird...
Castle couldn't help the smile that crept across his face. Just wait...Master Xiānzhī, would you be so kind as to play Thor's memory of the 'legend' of the infinity stones for us?
Jane gasped a second time as Odin's resounding baritone echoed through her being. Before the birth of the nine realms, the universe was made up of six great singularities. The universe exploded into being...and the singularities collapsed into six stones. Six vibrantly colored gems appeared in the group's collective mind as Odin continued the tale. These stones were the greatest power in all the universe. A power so strong that they could not be kept together if the nine realms were to become what they are today. So the gods took the stones and scattered them to the furthest edges of the universe...
The stones flew out in six directions, leaving streaks of brilliant colored light in their wake as the voice of young Loki asked Odin a question. Then how do we have one of the stones, Father?
The light trails curved and twisted around each other as Odin answered, no one stays at home forever, Loki. As beings spread out across the nine realms, occasionally, they would come across one or more of the stones. And, like all items of great power, some beings used the stones to gain power for themselves...
Odin's voice trailed off once Castle seemed to have the mental picture he needed. Henry tapped into his limitless pool of energy and poured it into Ryan, who sent the energy through the group mind-link. The energy built up slowly, second by second, until everyone in the group was shaking from the collective concentration it took to control that much power.
Mjölnir rose from the ground, slowly spinning as it lifted higher and higher into the air. The hammer's rotated faster as the energy grew, the power arcing between the group and the weapon that was now the focal points of all their efforts.
Castle 'spoke' when the energy reached its apex, his booming call resonating to the core of every being in the circle. "Power to power, I call out to the foundations of the universe. Guide and direct us now that we might shield you from those who would bring about your destruction."
The last thing any of the group would remember was blue, yellow, red, purple, green and orange lights consuming them in one massive explosion.
#
Henry broke the surface of the East River, shaking not just from the temperature of the water, but from where he was and what, most likely, got him there. He had died. Someway, somehow, the spell had killed him. And if the spell had killed him...
A police cutter cruised by, stopping next to him without blowing a siren or shining lights in his direction. An officer reached a hand down to Henry, and he took it, using the leverage to pull himself onto the deck. The immortal was pleasantly surprised to discover that the boat crew not only had left him dry sweats and a generous pile of navy blue towels, but that the crew seemed to be deliberately keeping their backs turned to him in order to afford him a modicum of privacy. "Sir?" one of the officers asked Henry without ever turning to face him, "Is everything all right? Did...did something happen at the warehouse?"
Henry's concerns only increased when he heard the clearly worried edge to the young officer's voice. "Have you heard anything?"
The officer shook his head. "No, sir. Although I was told that if ever we picked you up that something probably went bad and went bad in a hurry."
"You can turn around now, officers," Henry told the men on the deck to indicate that he was now at least somewhat modestly clothed.
The officers turned around but never relaxed from standing at full attention. "Thank you, sir," the men responded in unison.
It was then that Henry noticed that the boat was steaming along in the middle of the river at a brisk clip. "Where are we going, gentlemen?"
The 'spokesman' officer's face paled. "Sir...our orders were that if we picked you up, we were to bring you towels and dry clothes and bring you uptown unless you appeared to be in desperate need of medical attention. Was...was that not correct, sir?"
"No, no," Henry reassured the younger man. "It's quite considerate of you, thank you." The immortal let his mind wander back to his friends and the others who had been part of the spell. A wizard wasn't supposed to be capable of using his powers to kill...and yet the spell killed him. Was he the only one who died? What about the others? Did his death mean that the spell failed? Or worse...did the spell succeed?