On Earth, Loki's eyes snapped open, a ferocious, angry expression twisting his features. He was meditating, trying to calm the storm in his mind, but the Chitauri Warlord's taunt echoed relentlessly.
"A poor, controlled creature?"
What did he mean by that? Loki replayed his recent past, a chaotic montage of memories: usurping the throne of Asgard, his burning desire to kill Thor, his exile, his enslavement on Sakaar… He had pretended to surrender to Ben Parker, joining his so-called "Plumbers" while secretly plotting his revenge. He had sought out the infamous Thanos, offering his services in exchange for the power to finally deal with the boy who had so thoroughly humiliated him and stolen the Casket of Ancient Winters.
Every memory felt real, every decision his own. I am doing this for revenge, he told himself fiercely. Thanos simply had a need that aligned with his own. It was a partnership, a simple transaction. He would act as a spy, lure Earth's defenders into a trap, and then use the Tesseract to summon the Obsidian Cull to Earth. By then, Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive would have dealt with Princess Looma in Jotunheim, drawing Ben away from Earth at the critical moment.
With Ben gone, no one on Earth could possibly stop the invasion. Loki would present the Tesseract to Thanos, and in return, the Mad Titan would grant him the Earth. He would finally be King.
It was a perfect plan.
Yet, a deep, unsettling feeling persisted, a sense that something was fundamentally wrong. Since his return, his own reactions had felt foreign. The sight of Ben Parker no longer filled him with white-hot rage, and seeing Thor at his lowest had brought him not joy, but a profound, aching sadness.
Was this truly about revenge? If so, why did his own heart betray him? If not, then what was he doing? Why had he bent the knee to Thanos? To truly be a king? But no matter how many times he told himself that, the memory of Thor's hammer, sitting inert and immovable before him, mocked his ambition.
He suddenly found himself wondering, with a strange sense of envy, just how Ben Parker had managed to become the King of Sakaar.
Across the galaxy, Thanos, clad in brilliant golden armor, sat upon his lonely, empty throne. Near him, the telepath Supergiant stood in silence, her face hidden within the cowl of a silver-grey robe. A single, glowing yellow stone—the Mind Stone—floated in the void between her hands, pulsing with a malevolent light.
"He is struggling," Supergiant observed, her voice a soft hiss. She was referring to Loki.
"It seems we underestimated the will of this Asgardian," Thanos said, his eyes slowly opening. A disdainful smile touched his lips. "But no will can compete with the power of an Infinity Stone."
Thanos, more than any being in the universe, understood the fundamental power of the stones. The influence the Mind Stone could exert was magnified exponentially by its wielder, and Supergiant was one of the most powerful psychics in existence. He had no doubt that Loki, for all his struggles, was still firmly under their control.
This time, Thanos's target was the Space Stone. The Tesseract's recent activation had sent out a cosmic ripple, and through the resonance between the stones, he had pinpointed its location. With Loki as his spy, acquiring it would be simple. The human boy, Ben Parker, seemed to trust the God of Mischief implicitly.
But Thanos had no intention of stopping there. He had brought his brand of salvation to countless planets, sacrificing trillions of lives to the eternal silence of Death.
Earth would be no exception.
"What of Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight?" he rumbled, his voice echoing in the cavernous throne room.
Ebony Maw, a hunched figure with long, dry fingers like bamboo shoots, stepped forward. "They will arrive in Jotunheim shortly, my Lord," he said with a respectful bow. "I have every confidence that their combined strength will be sufficient to bring the Tetramand princess to you."
Thanos was pleased. The strength of his two deadliest children was second only to his own. He was intrigued by this "Tetramand" race Loki had spoken of. It was a species he had never encountered, and perhaps a new, exotic life would be more appealing to his mistress, Death. At the very least, he knew the life of this princess was attractive to Ben Parker.
"And Gamora?"
"She continues her search for the Orb, my Lord."
Thanos's eyes closed once more, and he seemed to fall back into a deep slumber. Next to Ebony Maw, the towering Cull Obsidian shifted his weight, looking as though he wanted to speak, but he held his tongue. He often wondered why his great master never had any conversations with him.
At that very moment, in the heart of an endless white blizzard, Looma stood surrounded. The icy mountains of Jotunheim and legions of Frost Giants encircled her, but she stood her ground, a single, defiant flame against the encroaching cold. In her four hands, she held a massive, iron-grey war hammer, and beneath her feet, the frozen ground was littered with the bodies of giants who had already fallen.
"I only need one of you!" Looma bellowed, her voice filled with annoyance. "You frozen lumps of ice are being a little too enthusiastic!"
"Release our King!" the Frost Giants roared back in unison.
Looma had only wanted to capture a single Frost Giant, but she figured if she was going to take one, she might as well take the best. Thus, she had set her sights on their king, Laufey, who was currently slung unconscious over her shoulder. He was blissfully unaware that it was his own estranged son who had led this four-armed terror to his doorstep.
"He is my prize!" Looma declared. The thousand-year-old ice at her feet shattered as red lightning, the raw energy of the Old Power, erupted from her body, coiling around her hammer like a living serpent. Someone was trying to steal her prey. Let the war begin.
Like Ben, she had learned to channel the Old Power on Sakaar, and her natural talent for it was immense. Only a genetically optimized Tetramand like Four Arms could defeat her in a fair fight. Now, she unleashed that power, and the sound of thunder rolled across the frozen wastes.
As she fought, the spaceship carrying Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight descended upon Jotunheim.
High in Earth's atmosphere, several twinkling meteors streaked across the night sky. They split apart in mid-air, scattering like fireworks. These were the escape pods of the symbiotes. They had escaped the Chitauri's attack just in time, but the emergency jump had separated them.
One pod, in particular, veered away from the others, as if deliberately leaving the group.
"Screw you, Agents of the Cosmos!" Venom shrieked inside his pod, his non-existent mouth spewing profanity. "I'm done with that! I'm going to find a city with the most people and pick out a few top-shelf brains to eat!" He licked his metaphorical lips, a wave of evil glee washing over him.
He aimed for New York City. Not for any particular reason, other than the fact that his last host—that idiotic, fourth-wall-breaking degenerate in the red suit—had been from there. Venom did not like Deadpool. Even amongst symbiotes, who considered Venom a lunatic, Deadpool was a special kind of crazy. But the bond between host and symbiote was a two-way street. After a brief, chaotic encounter with the Merc with a Mouth in a dimensional rift, Deadpool's madness had imprinted itself on the symbiote, corrupting him and leaving behind a peculiar obsession: an instinctual pull towards Spider-Man.
Of course, Venom didn't consciously know of Spider-Man's existence, but fate, or perhaps the great Spider-Totem itself, seemed to guide every version of Venom from every universe to its arachnid counterpart.
So when Venom's pod crashed and he slithered out, widening his shifting, eyes to look upon the man in the spider suit before him, he felt a profound sense of… wrongness.
This wasn't the one he was looking for.
Venom looked at Ben Parker, clad in his black-and-white Prime suit, and instead of the genetic thrill of finding his destined host, he was struck with a primal, paralyzing fear. This being radiated an energy that made his very substance recoil. He sensed not a partner, but a predator.
"Uh… sorry," the symbiote stammered, its form quivering like a pool of black, nervous snot. "My mistake… I think I've got the wrong guy…"
He began to carefully retreat, trying to ooze back into the shadows and disappear.
However, Ben simply raised a hand and produced a glass containment unit, slamming it down over the terrified creature. To be honest, Ben himself was a little confused. He and the Black Cat had been wrapping up their nightly patrol when he saw the object fall from the sky. Arriving at the crash site, he had found the escape pod and the symbiote flowing out of it.
He raised his wrist, the Omnitrix glowing green as it scanned the alien life form.
A calm, synthesized voice spoke from the watch. "New parasitic DNA sample acquired. Species: Klyntar."
"Let's call this one," he mused aloud, a dangerous glint in his eye, "Overkill."
Ben looked down at the quivering black blob trapped in the container. A living suit, a parasite that wanted to take over bodies and eat brains. He smirked. That's a bit much, isn't it?