They brought it at dawn.
Or at sunset. Or at noon — I had no idea. There was no sun in Sanctuary, no stars to measure time by. Only the corpse-pale glow of minerals and endless, crushing darkness. I tried counting heartbeats, but an Asgardian heart beat slower than a human one — about forty beats a minute at rest. After a few thousand I lost track and gave up.
Time here wasn't a line. It was a swamp. You thrash, thinking you're moving forward, then realize you're standing in the same place.
The cell door opened without warning. Not kicked in like last time — it simply slid aside, as if inviting me out. The mechanism was silent, which was unsettling in itself. I'd gotten used to squeaks, clangs, any sound that warned of intrusion. Here, the doors moved like thoughts — sudden and inevitable.
Two Chitauri stood in the doorway, and between them…
The Scepter.
I recognized it instantly. Memory from my former life obligingly supplied the image: a golden shaft, a curved blade, and in the center — a blue glow, pulsing like the heart of a dying star. In the films it looked like a pretty prop. Here, in reality…
Here it made me want to run.
The Mind Stone.
One of the six Infinity Stones. An artifact capable of controlling any mind in the universe. A weapon that would one day create Ultron and give life to Vision. The tool that turned Clint Barton and Erik Selvig into obedient puppets.
And Thanos intended to hand it to me.
Idiot, I thought.
And then: Or he knows something I don't.
More likely the second. Thanos didn't live to his age by handing out Infinity Stones like candy. He had a plan. He always had a plan.
The question was how to fit my plan inside his plan without him noticing.
The Other materialized from shadow as usual. I'd almost grown used to the trick — almost. Each time he appeared, my body reacted before my mind: muscles tightened, my heart sped up, adrenaline flooded my blood. Ancient instincts stitched into DNA long before the first Asgardian ever raised a sword.
Danger. Predator. Run or fight.
I did neither. I stood and waited.
"The Master is pleased with your progress," the Other rasped. His voice was like sandpaper on glass — unpleasant, scraping, crawling under the skin. "You are ready to accept a gift."
I rose from the stone slab, careful not to show how hard my heart was pounding. The mask of the arrogant prince settled onto my face — familiar, comfortable, like old gloves. Over the last days (weeks?) I'd worn it so often it had almost fused to my skin.
"A gift?" I echoed, raising an eyebrow — the gesture the original Loki had polished for centuries. I'd seen it in a mirror (or rather, in the reflection of polished metal). It looked convincing enough. "Or a leash?"
The Other made that grinding sound he used as laughter. If someone recorded it and played it at Halloween, children would scatter screaming.
"You are clever. That is… useful. And dangerous."
"Story of my life," I agreed. "Both of my lives, actually, but who's counting."
He didn't understand the reference. Of course not. Sarcasm was a defense mechanism, not a communication tool with ancient cosmic horrors.
The Chitauri stepped forward. One of them extended the Scepter in outstretched hands — carefully, reverently, as a priest might offer a sacred relic. Its chitinous fingers trembled. Fear? Awe? Were Chitauri even capable of emotions like that?
The blue glow pulsed. Once. Twice. Three times.
In time with my heartbeat.
I didn't notice at first — too much was happening. But when I did, a chill ran down my spine. And that was coming from a being for whom cold was a native element.
This isn't a coincidence, I realized. The Stone already senses me. Already tunes itself to my frequency.
An analogy from my old life surfaced: a Bluetooth device searching for a pair. Only this "device" had been forged at the moment of the Big Bang and contained a fundamental aspect of reality.
And it wanted to connect to my brain.
"Take it," the Other said. "The Master is waiting."
I looked at the Scepter.
The Scepter looked back.
Not metaphorically. I felt its gaze. The Mind Stone had no eyes, but it perceived reality by some other mechanism — and right now all of that perception was focused on me.
Well, I thought, here goes nothing.
I reached out.
The first touch was… strange.
Not painful. Not pleasant. Just — strange. As if someone dragged an icy finger along my spine, from tailbone to the base of my skull. Each vertebra answered with a vibration, like piano keys under the hand of an invisible musician.
The metal of the shaft was warm. That surprised me — I'd expected cold. Infinity Stones, in my imagination, were something… inhuman. Distant. Abstract. But this one warmed my palm like a living creature, like a kitten curled in your hands, purring.
Only this "kitten" could erase my mind the way an eraser wipes pencil from paper.
Let me in.
A voice.
Not outside — inside. Right in the center of my skull, where my brain seemed to be. The voice was… nothing. Not male, not female, not young, not old. Just the concept of sound translated directly into neural impulses.
Let me in. I will give you everything.
The Mind Stone was speaking to me.
The films never showed this. There the Scepter was just a weapon — a magic wand you jab into people and they become obedient. No personality. No dialogue. Jab — get a slave. Simple, effective, boring.
But here, in reality…
Here the Stone was alive.
No — not alive in the familiar sense. Not conscious like a human or an Asgardian. It didn't think, didn't plan, didn't dream of a bright tomorrow. But it wasn't dead either. Something in between — like fire reaching for fuel. Like water seeking a path downward. Like a virus looking for a host cell.
The Mind Stone wanted to merge with a mind. Any mind. My mind.
And it was very, very persistent.
Let me in.
The pressure increased. Not like the Other's attacks — crude, breaking, leaving bruises on the psyche. This was subtler. Softer. More seductive. Like a salesman convincing you that you absolutely need the premium package.
Images flowed into my consciousness.
Me on Asgard's throne. A gold horned helmet (which, in reality, was horribly uncomfortable, judging by the body's memory). Odin — dead at my feet. Thor — on his knees, Mjolnir lying uselessly aside.
Me on Midgard's throne. Humanity at my feet. Billions of faces turned up to me in awe. New York, Moscow, Tokyo, Beijing — all bowed before a god.
Me on the throne of the universe. Thanos — dust. The Infinity Gauntlet on my hand. Six Stones shining in unison. Reality — clay in my fingers.
All of this can be yours, the Stone whispered. Just let me in. Just let me help.
Pretty.
Very pretty.
And very, very familiar.
Satan tempted Jesus in the desert, I remembered from some childhood Sunday school my grandmother used to drag me to. "All this I will give you, if you fall down and worship me."
Jesus refused.
I intended to do the same. For different reasons.
I knew how Infinity Stones worked. I knew from films, comics, hundreds of fan theories I'd read on sleepless nights instead of living a normal life. They gave power — and demanded payment.
The Reality Stone nearly killed Jane Foster, turning her into a vessel for the Aether. The Power Stone destroyed anyone who touched it bare-handed — only beings of enormous strength could hold it without consequences. The Soul Stone required sacrifice — soul for soul, life for life.
And the Mind Stone?
The Mind Stone wanted a mind.
Not to destroy it — that would be too easy. Not to break it — a broken mind is useless. To consume it. Integrate it. Make it part of itself.
If I let you in, I thought, what will be left of me?
The Stone didn't answer in words. But the images intensified. Power. Might. Revenge. Everything Loki — the real Loki — wanted was there, an arm's length away.
Odin, who lied for a thousand years — on his knees.
Thor, who received everything without earning anything — in chains.
Asgard, laughing at "women's magic" — in flames.
Tempting?
Hellishly tempting.
A part of me — the part that had inherited the original Loki's memories and emotions — reached for those images like a moth for a flame. A thousand years of resentment, humiliation, disappointment demanded release. Demanded justice.
But I was not the original Loki.
I was a Moscow sysadmin who'd seen too many movies about rogue AIs to trust any talking machine asking for admin privileges.
You only have to let me in, the Stone whispered.
Of course, I thought. And then you'll control me the way I control a computer. Input command — receive result. Very convenient. For you.
I refused.
Not with words — you can't talk to a Stone with words. It didn't understand language in the normal sense. It understood intention. Will. Essence.
I simply… closed the door.
The server room in my mind was solid. I'd built it for weeks, layer by layer, firewall upon firewall. Every session with the Other had been not only a nightmare, but training. He attacked, I defended. He searched for gaps, I patched them.
The Other couldn't break through.
The Mind Stone couldn't either.
Not immediately, anyway.
The pressure rose. The images grew more intrusive, brighter, more detailed. I saw droplets of blood on Asgard's golden floor. Smelled a burning city. Heard a crowd chanting my name.
Loki. Loki. Loki.
Part of me wanted it. Wanted it so badly it hurt.
But another part — cold, calculating, mine — looked at the pictures and saw the trap.
If the Stone shows me what I want, I reasoned, then it's reading my desires. Which means it's already inside. Partially.
Panic scratched at the edge of my mind. I crushed it with will.
Easy. Reading isn't controlling. Looking through a window isn't entering a house.
I focused on the server room. On its walls. On the doors that led inward.
And I slammed them shut.
Let me in, the Stone demanded. Let me in. Let me in. LET ME IN.
"No," I said aloud.
My voice sounded strange in the silence of the cell. Hoarse. Fractured. But firm.
The Other flinched. I felt his surprise — sharp as the smell of ozone before a storm.
"What?"
I ignored him. All attention on the Stone. On the link between us, pulsing like an exposed wire.
You will not enter, I projected. Not words — images. The picture of a locked door. The sensation of a wall that cannot be breached. I am not your vessel. I am your user. And you will work on my terms.
A pause.
A long, heavy pause.
The pressure didn't vanish, but it changed. Became… curious? If such a word could even apply to a Stone.
And then the Stone… laughed?
No — Stones don't laugh. But something shifted in its presence. The sharp edges smoothed. Aggression retreated. Something remained that felt like… respect?
Or interest.
Interesting, it whispered inside my head — not a voice, an echo of a voice, the shadow of a thought. It has been a long time since I was… refused.
I did not relax. Relaxing next to an Infinity Stone was like relaxing next to a cobra. It might not bite. You still don't turn your back.
"You… endured," the Other's voice dragged me out of the trance.
I blinked. Reality snapped back — the gray walls, the mineral glow, the two Chitauri frozen at the door with something like fear on their chitinous faces.
And the Other. He stared at me with his empty eyes, and there was something new in him. Surprise? Wariness?
Danger, instinct warned.
I realized I'd been standing motionless for minutes, gripping the Scepter with fingers gone white. My knuckles ached. My jaw cramped from tension. Sweat beaded on my forehead — my first sweat in all of Sanctuary.
"I am a god," I said, forcing my voice to stay level. "We do not surrender so easily."
A lie.
A complete, absolute lie.
I hadn't endured because I was a god. Gods had fallen before Infinity Stones like bowling pins. Thanos collected them into a gauntlet like a child assembling a toy — and the universe didn't protest.
I endured because I was different.
A transmigrator. An outsider. A consciousness from a world where magic didn't exist, where Infinity Stones were fiction, where physics didn't bend under the weight of desire.
My mind didn't fit the patterns the Stone had been tuned to for billions of years. It expected an ambitious Asgardian packed with complexes and hunger for power. It found a Moscow sysadmin with anxiety and a paranoid habit of not trusting any software demanding administrative privileges.
Cognitive dissonance, I thought. Even Infinity Stones aren't immune to bugs in the recognition system.
The Other watched me for a few seconds. Then he turned and glided toward the exit.
"Get used to the tool," he threw over his shoulder. "Soon you will need it."
The Chitauri followed. The door closed — as silently as it had opened.
I was alone.
With the Scepter.
With the Stone.
The next hours I spent in the cell, trying to figure out what to do next.
The Scepter lay on the stone slab beside me. The blue glow pulsed — slow, rhythmic, like the breathing of a sleeping beast. It no longer tried to force its way into my mind. But it hadn't withdrawn completely either.
It waited.
I felt it at the edge of my awareness — the way you feel someone's gaze on the back of your neck. Not threatening. Not friendly. Evaluating.
Fine, I thought. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad…
I carefully took the Scepter in my hands.
Warmth spread through my palms again. This time I was ready — I didn't tense, didn't jerk away. I simply accepted the sensation, the way you accept warm water in a shower.
The Stone responded.
Not with an attack — more like… a question? Curiosity? It brushed the borders of my mind the way a person touches the door of a strange house. Knocking, not breaking in.
Want to talk? I asked mentally.
It was stupid to talk to a stone. Even stupider to expect an answer.
But the answer came.
Not as words — as feelings. As images. The Stone showed me… itself?
Darkness. Endless, all-devouring darkness before time began.
Then — an explosion. Light. Matter flying in every direction.
And in that chaos — six points. Six concentrations of pure force. Six aspects of newborn reality.
Space. Time. Mind. Soul. Power. Reality.
The Infinity Stones.
I saw them forming. Taking on… not consciousness, no. But direction. Purpose. Meaning.
The Mind Stone was connection. A bridge between minds. It existed to link — not to enslave.
Interesting, I thought. So that's why you want inside so badly. You're not a predator. You're… a symbiote?
The images shifted.
I saw beings who accepted the Stone — willingly, joyfully. They became… more. Their minds expanded, gaining abilities no ordinary mortal could touch. Telepathy. Telekinesis. Emotional control.
But I saw something else too.
Beings the Stone consumed. Who dissolved into it, losing themselves. Their memories, personalities, desires — all became fuel for an endless hunger.
A symbiote that sometimes eats its host, I translated. How sweet.
The Stone didn't object. It simply showed — without judgment, without justification. This is how it was. How it is. How it will be.
You're not offering a choice, I realized. You're offering a wager. Either I'm strong enough to use you, or you use me.
A sensation of agreement. Something like a smile — if stones could smile.
Well, I thought, at least you're honest.
My first attempt to use the Stone consciously was… painful.
I sat on the stone slab with my legs crossed, the Scepter on my knees. Eyes closed. Breathing steady.
Magical reserve, I addressed — myself, the Stone, Loki's body, everything at once.
The answer came as sensation. That pathetic spark I'd felt after the fall still smoldered within. But now, beside it, there was… something.
Imagine a watch battery next to a nuclear reactor.
The Mind Stone pulsed with energy. So much that simply realizing it made my head spin. An ocean of power capable of feeding a planet. Or destroying it.
And my reserve — a small, nearly empty container that could barely manage the simplest illusions.
Logic suggests a solution, I thought.
If the Stone is a generator and I'm a device that needs power…
I reached for the Stone. Carefully, like a sapper reaching for bomb wires. Found the edge of the energy stream — hot, vibrating, alive. Tried to redirect it into myself.
It worked.
For a fraction of a second.
Then the energy detonated inside me like a firecracker in a tin can.
I didn't scream — I didn't have time. I simply fell off the slab, convulsing on the cold stone. Every nerve burned. Every cell shrieked. My vision flooded white, then red, then black.
Somewhere at the edge of consciousness, the Stone watched. With interest. With something like amusement.
Too much, I understood through the agony. Too fast. You tried to drink the ocean in one gulp.
The pain receded after a minute. Or an hour. Hard to say.
I lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling, and quietly swore in Russian. The Stone, judging by the sensation, was satisfied.
Lesson one, I thought. Don't be an idiot.
The second attempt was more cautious.
I imagined plumbing. The Stone — a reservoir the size of the Caspian Sea. My reserve — a glass. Between them I needed a pipe. A thin pipe, with a valve I controlled.
A metaphor, I thought. Magic likes metaphors. Loki knew that. Frigga knew that. Even Odin, for all his pomp, worked with images rather than formulas.
I built the picture in my mind. A pipe. A valve. Drop by drop.
I reached for the Stone again.
This time the energy flowed. Slow, controlled, like water from a nearly closed tap. It filled my reserve — not in a roaring flood, but a thin stream.
And it was… divine.
No, seriously. There were no other words.
Magic returned. Seidr — the art of illusion and deception — spread its wings inside me. I felt connections rebuilding that the Abyss had almost burned to ash. Channels awakening whose existence I'd never suspected. The body remembering what it meant to be a mage, not just a sack of meat with delusions.
More, the inner hunger demanded.
I wanted to open the valve wider. Fill the reserve in minutes, not hours. I wanted power.
But I remembered the pain.
Valve closed. Enough for today.
Greed is the road to failure, I reminded myself. Thanos waited millennia for the Stones. I can wait a few days.
The third hour I spent experimenting.
Not with recharging reserves — with the Stone itself. With its… functions.
The Mind Stone, according to canon — films and comics both — could:
Control minds — turn people into obedient puppets.
Enhance mental abilities — telepathy, empathy, thought projection.
Project consciousness — move beyond the body.
Fire energy beams — pew-pew, like cheap action movies.
The last interested me least. Pew-pew was for idiots who couldn't think three moves ahead. I cared about the first. And the second. And the third.
Especially the third.
I focused on the Scepter. On the link between us — thin, but real. On energy flows I had already learned to sense.
Show me, I asked mentally. Show me what you see.
The world changed.
Not visually — the cell remained a cell. Gray walls, gray floor, gray ceiling. But over it all, a new reality overlaid itself.
A network.
A web of glowing threads stretching in every direction. They passed through stone, through metal, through everything. They connected… what?
I looked closer.
Minds.
Each thread — a link to a sentient being. Thin, barely there — for the Chitauri. There were many of them, hundreds, thousands — tiny sparks swarming somewhere deep inside the asteroid. Primitive, uniform, nearly indistinguishable.
Thicker — for stronger beings. I saw several bright points that could have been members of the Black Order. Proxima, Corvus, Cull… each its own node in the web, radiating its own light.
And some…
Some were like cables.
One cable ran deeper into Sanctuary. Thick, pulsing, unpleasantly familiar. I recognized the signature — oily, invasive, leaving the sensation of filth.
The Other, I realized.
A second cable — thicker still — went farther, into the asteroid's very heart. Toward where, by my estimate, the throne hall lay.
Thanos.
His mind was… enormous. Even at a distance, even through the Stone's network, I felt its weight. Like a gravitational anomaly. Like a black hole warping space around it.
Looking at it felt unpleasant. Almost painful.
I looked away.
Impressive, I admitted.
The Stone said nothing. But satisfaction rolled off it in waves.
On the fourth hour I tried something dangerous.
A Chitauri guard stood outside my cell door. One. I felt it through the Scepter — a dull ember of a primitive consciousness performing the order "guard." No thoughts, no doubt, no fear. The perfect soldier.
And the perfect test subject.
Let's see, I thought, how much I can… steer.
Not control. Control was a Scepter pressed to a chest, blue light in the eyes, total loss of will. Too obvious. The Other would sense it, Thanos would suspect.
But steering… nudging…
I reached for the dull ember carefully, barely touching. Like touching the surface of water without wanting to disturb the reflection.
The Chitauri stood outside. It had been on post for hours (days?). Its chitinous legs were tired. Its head buzzed slightly from monotony.
I wasn't reading thoughts — there were none in the human sense. I was reading state.
You're tired, I suggested. Not words — sensation. Heaviness in limbs. The urge to sit. Long shift. You need rest.
The Chitauri shifted outside the door. I felt its hesitation — order versus impulse. Duty versus comfort.
It had no personality in the human sense. No "I" to resist. Only instincts and programming.
And programming could be rewritten.
No one will see, I nudged. Just for a minute. No one will know.
A rustle outside. A heavy exhale — if Chitauri could exhale.
The sound of a chitinous body lowering to the floor.
It worked.
I opened my eyes.
A small victory. Tiny, invisible. One tired guard no one would suspect of betrayal. It wouldn't even understand why it had decided to rest. It would think it was its own choice.
But it was a victory.
My first conscious manipulation using the Mind Stone.
The first step on a very long road.
That night (or what I called night) I lay awake, staring at the Stone's faint glow.
We had reached… an agreement?
No — too strong a word. The Stone was not an ally. The Stone was a tool. But a tool that had to be respected. Like a chainsaw or a high-voltage cable. Or a combat drone with an AI that almost passed a Turing test.
You will give me power, I told it mentally. I will give you… minds.
The Stone responded — faint, barely perceptible. Not words. A sensation.
Hunger.
It wanted minds. Not to destroy — to touch. To influence. To feel. For it, was that food? Entertainment? Purpose?
Hard to parse the motives of a thing born at the universe's creation.
Chitauri were too primitive — like hardtack to a gourmet. The Other was too protected, too cautious, too close to Thanos. Thanos himself was out of reach. His mind was a fortress the Stone could not (or would not) storm.
But soon…
Soon there would be Earth.
Eight billion minds, waiting to be touched. Diverse, complex, interesting. Not primitive Chitauri drones — living beings with hopes, fears, dreams.
The Stone wanted them.
And if I was honest — so did I. For different reasons.
No, I corrected myself. Not all of them. Only the ones I need.
The Stone didn't object.
It didn't care which ones. Only that there were minds.
My last thought before sleep was odd.
We'd make a pretty decent team, I thought toward the Stone. A psychopath artifact and a paranoid transmigrator. What could possibly go wrong?
The Stone didn't answer.
But the blue glow grew a little warmer.
Or maybe I imagined it.
With Infinity Stones, you never really know.