Marvel MK: CH 165 – The Puppets and the Stone

The first rays of sunlight were just beginning to pierce the clouds. In the Helicarrier’s main lab, the tension of the long night had given way to a quiet, collaborative energy. Hank McCoy was munching on a blueberry snack that Tony Stark had offered him.

“Blueberries for a blue man,” Tony had said, his tone a perfect mixture of a joke and a genuine offering.

Hank chuckled. “Jack calls me a blue yeti sometimes.”

“I was about to say that,” Tony shot back, “but I’m not trying to get canceled on Twitter… again.”

“Done,” Banner announced, pushing back from the main console. “The tracking algorithm is running. All we have to do now is play the waiting game.”

“See?” Tony said, a triumphant grin on his face. “How much easier is it when we all just do it together?”

“It was a good experience, working with you both,” Hank admitted.

“So, as we’ve established, you have the better lab,” Tony conceded, “which I still argue Banner should not be the judge of.” Banner just shrugged. “Nevertheless,” Tony continued, “wanna do a cooperation with the energy sectors?”

“Oh, that’s not my responsibility,” Hank said. “All of the X-Men’s reactors are Moira’s creation.”

Tony’s jaw dropped. “And here I am, proudly showing off that Stark Tower has a reactor for clean energy, when your mansion had it a year earlier than me.”

Hank chuckled. “We can cooperate after we’re done with this Loki guy.”

Banner pulled up a panel showing the live feed from Loki’s cage. The God of Mischief was standing perfectly still, his back to the camera. Outside the cage, Jack and Xavier were equally motionless.

“Does it usually take this much time?” Banner asked.

“Not this much,” Hank said, his expression turning serious. “But a mind can be complicated to dissect. And the Professor is always careful.”

…

Several hours passed. Then, in the silent observation, Jack and Xavier both gasped, stumbling back from the cage. Inside, Loki slumped to the floor, unconscious.

“We need to tell the others,” Xavier said, his voice strained.

“Let’s go,” Jack replied.

They arrived at the lab to find it in the middle of a full-blown argument.

“Guten Morgen, guys,” Jack said cheerfully.

They ignored him.

“I’d like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is building a weapon of mass destruction using the Tesseract!” Banner’s voice was a low, dangerous thing.

Nick Fury pointed a sharp, accusatory finger at Jack. “Because of him.”

“The fuck did I do?” Jack asked, genuinely confused. “I just got here.”

“These past few years, Earth has been turned upside down by you and all of your antics that I can’t even begin to list out!” Fury shot back.

“Tell the truth, Fury,” Jack said, his tone suddenly sharp. “I know you don’t want to reveal her, but you know damn well you have someone you think is far stronger than me.”

“Oh, now we’ve got secret agents from space?” Tony interjected, his eyes wide with a mixture of sarcasm and genuine interest.

“Well, it was S.W.O.R.D., not S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Hank corrected.

Fury whirled on Scott. “Have the X-Men been probing S.H.I.E.L.D. intelligence?”

“That’s how we survive,” Scott said, his arms crossed. “By being ahead of everyone.”

The room exploded.

“This is exactly what I was afraid of!” Banner roared, his voice shaking. “S.H.I.E.L.D. using my work, using cosmic power, to build weapons! This is what the Hulk was made for!”

“You’re a bigger threat than I am!” Tony shot back at Fury. “Maybe if you hadn’t been playing with things you don’t understand, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

“You lied to us, Fury,” Steve said, his voice a low, disappointed thing. “We were supposed to be a response team, not a weapons lab.”

“We are outgunned!” Natasha countered, her voice sharp and defensive. “The Tesseract is our only deterrent against threats we can’t even imagine!”

“A deterrent?” Scott scoffed. “Or the first shot in a war against people like us?”

“This is what he wants!” Jean cried, trying to cut through the noise. “He’s turning us against each other!”

Xavier’s voice was a low, urgent plea. “The Scepter is influencing you! You must resist it!”

But they were too far gone, their own fears and insecurities now a raging inferno.

And then, a new sound cut through the chaos.

Laughter.

“KEKEKEKEKEKE!”

They all stopped, turning to the source. Jack Hou stood in the center of the room, clapping his hands together.

“Bravo! Bravo!” he cheered, his voice a wild, joyous, and utterly unhinged thing. “Such an amazing performance! Being puppeteered by a fucking stone! Snap out of it!”

He stopped laughing, and his golden eyes, now burning with a cold, hard light, swept over them all.

“The catastrophe you are about to witness is unlike anything you have ever seen.”

The sudden silence was heavy, broken only by the low hum of the Helicarrier's engines. Natasha and Fury instinctively reached for their guns, their training taking over. Steve took a half-step, shielding Tony. Scott did the same, positioning himself slightly in front of Hank.

But Jack’s gaze wasn’t on them. It was on Bruce Banner.

“Put down the damn stick, Bruce,” Jack said, his voice calm, almost casual.

Confused, Bruce looked down. In his hand, he was holding Loki’s Scepter, its blue gem pulsing with a faint, malevolent light. He stared at it, a look of dawning horror on his face, as if seeing it for the very first time. He hadn't even realized he’d picked it up.

Jack reached for his gourd and took a long, slow gulp. “Ahhh,” he sighed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Now, can we show you what we found?”

Xavier nodded. “Hank, if you would help me.”

Hank nodded back, his own apprehension forgotten in the face of a new, more terrifying problem. He opened a panel on the main console. Xavier closed his eyes, and the memories, the image he and Jack had pulled from Loki’s mind, flowed into the system.

Hank’s fingers flew across the keyboard, translating the psychic impressions into a holographic map. As he worked, the air in the center of the room began to shimmer.

“Hey, that’s New York,” Tony said, recognizing the familiar skyline.

“And that is your tower,” Banner added, his voice a low, grim thing.

As the hologram slowly took shape, the sheer, impossible scale of Loki’s plan became clear. A black, suffocating void for a sky. A rain of dark, demonic creatures. And over the distant, serene grounds of the Xavier Mansion, a massive, swirling portal.

“So, New York,” Tony said, his voice tight. “I’ll send my sentry armor to evacuate.”

“No,” Jack said, stepping forward. “It’s not just New York. We took so long because we were trying to see the perimeter of the attack. We found several attack points.”

He walked to the hologram and began to poke at it, trying to move the map, to tweak the projection. It was clear he had no idea what he was doing. “Goddammit,” he grumbled. “This is not intuitive at all.”

“Here,” Tony said, stepping up to the console. “Tell me what you want.”

“Pinpoint these locations,” Jack said, his voice sharp. “New York. London. Hong Kong.”

Tony’s fingers flew across the controls, and the map zoomed out, three red circles appearing on the globe. “Why these specific places?”

Jack’s gaze was fixed on the holographic globe, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his face. “To make a point,” he said, his voice a low, chilling whisper, “to Earth’s guardians.” The room went silent. Every eye turned to look at Jack.

…

The Council of Godheads convened in a space beyond mortal comprehension, a nexus of starlight and shifting realities. The leaders—Zeus, Odin, and Vishnu—manifested as colossal figures, their forms towering like living constellations on pedestals of pure energy, each one the size of a skyscraper.

Yao materialized in the center of the chamber, a small, human-sized figure in the vast, cosmic hall.

“I kind of don’t like you showing yourselves in that form,” he said, his voice a calm, unimpressed thing. He stomped a foot on the ground, and from the floor beneath him, a tall, elegant platform of polished stone rose, a simple tea chair and table materializing upon it. It lifted him until he was slightly taller than the three towering godheads. He sat, poured himself a cup of tea, and took a slow, deliberate sip. “Better. Now, got something to tell me?”

Odin sighed, a sound like the grinding of ancient glaciers. Is this the influence of Jack Hou? he thought, a flicker of annoyance in his one good eye. Zeus, in contrast, was seething, thunder crackling at the edges of his form. Vishnu, ever the balancer, refocused the meeting.

“Amatsu has been attacking Earth,” Vishnu began, his voice a calm, resonant hum. “And Loki will unleash an army from another world to attack Earth. This will signal to the universe that Earth is ready for a higher form of war. Like it or not, Earth needs our divinity. They need to protect themselves. We will help them.”

Yao, still sipping his tea, didn't even look up. “And what makes you think you can’t just sip more of Earth’s energy for yourselves?”

Zeus slammed a fist on his pedestal. “Mind your manners, Vishanti’s disciple!” he roared, his voice a thunderclap that shook the very fabric of the council chamber. “We are here with our benevolence to offer!”

“And what do all of you want for the price of this ‘help’?” Yao asked, his voice a quiet, cutting thing.

“Our partial territory,” Zeus declared, his arrogance on full display, “to be fully under our command once again.”

“Dream on,” Yao said simply. “Earth will grow from this battle. It will hurt. But none of you brought your benevolence to Earth when you killed my order’s forebear in the most gruesome way possible.”

“Now, Yao,” Odin began, his tone a placating, political thing. “We are—”

“HANUMAN WAS THE BEST OF US!”

Yao’s voice was a roar, a torrent of pure, unadulterated fury that made the very stars in the chamber tremble. A golden aura flared around him, the raw power of the Sorcerer Supreme unleashed.

“I have been trying to hold myself back to honor his sacrifice!” he screamed, his usual calm shattered. “We have let you puppet the world, shape the legends to your name, enough to make everyone hear your false deeds and bring glorious faith to your pantheons! You have allowed yourselves to expand to other worlds with your divinity! You wretched our Terran gods and replaced them in your name to take their faith and bring you your divinity! So do not bring me your face of cowardice masked in your benevolence! Earth doesn’t need it! We never needed it!”

…

We go back to the Helicarrier.

“The mansion is in danger,” Scott said, his voice a low, urgent thing.

Hank immediately tapped his comms, connecting to the Blackbird hovering just outside the Helicarrier. “Logan.”

Logan’s voice, a gravelly, impatient grumble, crackled through the speakers. “Do you forget your toothbrush?”

“Logan, go back home,” Hank said, his voice sharp, all traces of academic calm gone. “Evacuate the mansion. Now.”

Jean, her eyes closed in concentration, was already reaching out with her mind, a silent, desperate call across the miles. Xavier did the same, his own psychic presence a steady, powerful beacon in the growing storm.

…

At the Xavier Mansion, Ororo was in the middle of a lecture. “Alright,” she said to the assembled younger students, “today’s class is canceled, but that means you should use the time to study. Don’t play any games.”

Then, a voice, calm and familiar, echoed in her mind. Ororo.

She paused, her professional demeanor faltering for a fraction of a second. “Professor?” she whispered.

“Evacuate the mansion,” Xavier’s voice commanded. “Leave everything behind. Go to the safe house. Logan will come to you there.”

…

Back on the Helicarrier, the command center was a flurry of motion.

“We should evacuate New York,” Tony said, his mind already calculating the logistics.

“I’ll make my disciple go to London,” Jack announced.

“Send our China operative,” Nick began, his voice a low, commanding growl, “and tell them to evacuate Hong Kong and its surrounding—”

“I’ll do you one better,” Jack cut him off. He pulled out his phone and dialed.

As he waited for the call to connect, the entire Helicarrier shuddered. Red lights began to flash. Alarms blared, a high-pitched, insistent shriek that cut through the tense atmosphere.

“What’s happening?!” Steve demanded.

Maria Hill’s face appeared on the main screen, her expression a mask of grim urgency. “There’s a sudden storm coming. It’s unnatural. It’s surrounding the Helicarrier.”

Jack’s phone connected. The alarms were still blaring, but he spoke with a casual, almost lover-like tone. “Hello, my sweet, beautiful fox. How are you doing?”

“JACK, BE SERIOUS!” Scott shouted over the noise.

“I am,” Jack replied calmly.

BOOM!

An explosion tore through the side of the command center, showering the room in a spray of sparks and twisted metal. The Helicarrier listed violently.

Jack didn’t even flinch. He just continued his conversation, his voice a cheerful, unconcerned thing against the backdrop of chaos. “Oh, nothing, just my usual Friday noon. So, can you move your forces to Hong Kong?”

A voice, sharp and professional, could be heard from the other end.

“I know, baby, it’s sudden,” Jack said, his tone a perfect imitation of a pleading boyfriend. “But I’ll owe you one.”

Another response from the other end.

“Okay, bye bye, love you.”

He hung up. The Helicarrier was still shaking, alarms were still screaming, and the side of the command center was a gaping, smoking hole. The Avengers and the X-Men were just staring at him, their faces a mixture of pure, unadulterated shock and disbelief.

Jack looked at them, a bright, cheerful, and utterly clueless smile on his face.

“What?”