Inside the Quinjet, the atmosphere was tense.
Loki sat strapped into a reinforced seat in the corner, a specialized metal muzzle locked over his mouth like he was hazardous cargo.
He didn't move.
But his green eyes did—slowly sweeping across every face in the cabin, assessing them like prey.
Tony Stark leaned against the cold bulkhead, arms folded, visibly irritated.
"We should've cracked him open back in Germany," he said, breaking the silence. "A few medieval techniques, I guarantee he'd start talking."
"He's a prisoner of war, Stark," Steve Rogers replied from across the cabin, posture rigid as ever. "Not a lab experiment."
"He killed eighty people in three minutes," Tony shot back. "That's terrorism, not war."
"If we use torture, then we're no better than he is."
"Of course we are," Tony raised a brow. "We win. He loses."
Levi sat with his eyes closed, ignoring them.
His mind felt like it was on fire.
The "Greatest Mage of the Nine Realms" talent was acting like a universal decoder, tearing apart and reanalyzing every power within him—Tesseract energy, Binary form, divine physiology.
What had once been raw, unreadable code was now being translated line by line.
He saw the structure of his own power.
The Tesseract's energy appeared as a three-dimensional matrix composed of countless blue runes—precise, stable, embodying spatial law.
His Binary form was a golden ocean of pure energy—wild and explosive.
And his newly acquired divine physiology was like a golden web of laws binding everything together, elevating it to a higher order.
The Quinjet landed smoothly on the Helicarrier's deck.
Nick Fury was already waiting with a squad of armed agents.
The hatch opened. Cold high-altitude wind rushed in.
Loki was dragged out.
As he passed Levi, he paused slightly and tilted his head. His green eyes locked onto Levi's.
Gone was the earlier arrogance.
Now there was only confusion.
He couldn't understand how a mortal had pierced his illusions so effortlessly.
Levi slowly opened his eyes and met his gaze calmly.
No sparks. Just cold evaluation.
---
Loki was secured inside a reinforced glass cell suspended in the Helicarrier's central shaft. Fury proudly explained that with a push of a button, the entire cage would drop thirty thousand feet.
Levi thought it was a stupid design. Physical gravity meant little to someone like Loki.
He approached the control console alone.
Inside the cell, Loki had removed the muzzle and now sat casually on the bench as if in his own throne room.
"You've come," Loki said with a faint smile. "I am still curious how you saw through my illusions, mortal."
"I came to confirm whether you're actually foolish enough to get captured on purpose," Levi replied evenly.
"Captured?" Loki laughed softly and rose. "No. I merely changed seats. What better entertainment than watching self-righteous heroes tear each other apart through suspicion and pride?"
He stepped closer to the glass.
"You are different from them," Loki murmured, voice dropping into a hypnotic cadence. "You seek knowledge. You crave truth. The foundations of reality."
His pale palm pressed lightly against the barrier.
"Join me. I can teach you true Asgardian magic. Show you vistas no mortal can reach. Power? Immortality? The secrets of the cosmos?"
Levi regarded him like a man watching a stage performer.
With his new talent, Loki's mental manipulation was painfully transparent. He could clearly see the faint thread of psychic energy Loki was extending—trying to plant doubt deep within his consciousness.
"Your magical talent is impressive," Levi said.
Loki's smile stiffened.
"But you've wasted it," Levi continued. "You treat it like a carnival trick instead of a key to truth."
"What did you say?"
"You should study rune structures more. Less time frightening civilians with parlor tricks."
Levi raised his right hand.
Space twisted in his palm—compressed, folded inward. Light bent and vanished into a tiny blue singularity no larger than a marble.
A pure manifestation of spatial law.
Loki's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
He understood what he was seeing.
That level of spatial authority—pure, fundamental—was a realm even Odin sought.
And this mortal wielded it casually.
"Who… are you?" Loki asked for the first time without arrogance.
"A passing collector."
Levi closed his fingers.
The singularity vanished.
He turned and walked away, leaving Loki standing speechless behind the glass.
---
Back in his assigned quarters, Levi sat cross-legged on the floor.
He drew a strand of pure Tesseract energy to his fingertips.
Before, it had been wild fire he could only hurl outward.
Now—
He saw inside it.
An impossibly complex three-dimensional lattice of microscopic blue runes. Each rune a facet of spatial law.
---
Meanwhile, on the bridge.
Fury's interrogation had stalled.
"Who's backing you? What do they want?"
Loki simply smiled.
Natasha's image appeared on a side monitor.
"He's stalling," she said coolly. "Studying us. Cataloging weaknesses."
Fury's eye darkened.
---
In the lower lab.
Tony and Bruce Banner analyzed gamma traces from the Tesseract.
"This radiation pattern is odd," Banner said, pointing at a rhythmic pulse waveform. "It doesn't look like natural decay. More like… a designed signal."
"Exactly." Tony pulled up an encrypted directory. "And S.H.I.E.L.D. has been downloading it nonstop. Look at this folder name—'Phase Two.'"
He opened it.
Weapon schematics filled the screen. Energy rifles. Directed plasma cannons. A prototype super-bomb powered by the Tesseract.
"Son of a—" Tony muttered.
Everything clicked.
Fury hadn't assembled the Avengers purely for defense.
He wanted the cube back to continue weapon development.
"He's building mass-destruction weapons with it," Tony said bitterly.
At that moment, the lab doors slid open.
Steve stepped in.
"Building weapons?" His expression darkened instantly. "Stark, what are you talking about?"
Tony rotated the main display toward him.
"See for yourself, Cap."
The blue energy weapon schematics glowed on-screen.
Steve froze.
The design was unmistakable.
Hydra.
Red Skull.
The memory of comrades disintegrating under energy fire flashed through his mind.
His eyes turned cold.
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