The Sage of the Mind

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP. 

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 106[May 2012]

Manhattan

–Axle Riddle–

"I have reasons to believe that Thor Odinson will make an attempt to rescue Loki from SHIELD's clutches." 

"But why? According to the reports I have here, Thor is definitely on the morally good category and Loki's actions in the past two days should definitely disgust Thor," Bruce interrupted even as the Stark Jet continued to maintain a safe distance from the Quinjet, but in non Stealth mode so the higher ups at SHIELD probably knew that they were being tailed by the Stark Jet.

"Asgardian Culture is fundamentally different from ours, Dr.Banner. We can't predict Thor's response but what I can predict, with near certainty, is that the Asgardian Royal Pride would never let Thor or Odin keep Loki in someone else's custody," He tried to explain to them that to a normal Asgardian, the lives of a 100 mortal would fall short to a single Asgardian life. Such was their culture and there was not much that could be done to change it, given their warlike ways.

"Okay, if what you are telling us is correct, then we should be seeing the Teleportation device that Asgardians seem to have any time now, right?" Tony asked with glee even as he could see Tony doing something to the Stark Jet.

"Oh," Bruce breathed out in realization. "That is correct, this could be a rare opportunity to monitor the bridge that the Asgardians use to teleport between planets." 

"Guys, please! Focus. We are here to make sure that Loki doesn't succeed in his plans and more importantly, we don't even know his plans. So, why don't we just focus on getting information out of Loki before we try to research something that is so far out of our reach that it might as well be magic?" His pleas fell on deaf ears as even Randall was very much on board with scanning everything in their surroundings to help understand how interplanetary teleportation works. 

Never mind the fact that Odin was not using the Bifrost this time. He was using Dark Energy of some sort to manipulate space itself and send a single emissary, Thor to Earth to retrieve Loki.

"Alright, guys, I have all the sensors exposed. Good thing we don't need stealth mode to be active because it would be impossible as of now. I hacked into the Quinjet and they are headed to a place called the "Hub", which is still hours away so we should have plenty of time to witness an Asgardian alien in action," Tony's voice was tinged with excitement as all of the scientists on board took positions on their battle stations while the other six, less academically inclined Hulks lounged on the lower level, emptying the fridge that Stark had outfitted into the lounge area of the Stark Jet.

It wouldn't be Tony if he didn't do things in style, now would it?

"Alright, then. Since you guys are so focused on that, please do so but Tony, make sure that the Jet is prepped to handle flight in adverse weather conditions," He warned them because realistically there was not much he could do, all the way from Manhattan.

"Huh? What adverse weather conditions? We are clear to go----Uh, Bruce? What's happening?" Tony's words trailed off as the sound of Thunder rang in the background.

He couldn't help but say in a smug voice, "I told you so, Tony. Now, brace for impact,"

"Impact? This ship is built with the latest advances in alloy structures. It is even stronger than my armour. I don't think we need to worry about a little lightning and a man with a Hammeeeeee---" The voice glitched out as a large gong resounded in the background.

"What the hell? Jaaarvis?" he could hear Tony shout for Jarvis as the Jet apparently tumbled out of the sky.

Well, let it not be said that Thor ODinson did not know how to make a thunderous landing.

_______xx_____

--Natasha Romanoff—

Things had not been going well for her the past few days. First Fury had to go and die, and Clint had to go and get mind controlled by an Alien God. Loki stole something important from SHIELD that SHIELD desperately wants back.

Now, she would have thought that those two back to back tragedies would be the worst of it but noooo. Apparently, Secretary Pierce had unilaterally decided that he was going to take charge of SHIELD since his "dear friend" Nick was gone and he didn't trust anyone else to take charge of the behemoth of an organization on such short notice.

The biggest load of bull she had ever heard in recent years.

The first thing she noticed was the fact that she was kept isolated. Isolated in terms of information and isolated in terms of keeping her away from the small group of people that Fury trusted. As far as she had heard, the orders had come straight from Secretary Pierce, ordering the transfer of several high level agents to locations of minute importance. 

Then came the new faces. She hadn't even known that there were these many Level 7 agents in SHIELD that she did not know about and she was right. These agents, whoever they were, were very new and no one in her contacts had seen half of them.

It was as if they popped up out of nowhere and were inserted into positions of high importance by Pierce.

She was starting to think that Pierce was going to be the biggest of her problems from now on. And she was proven correct when instead of giving her adequate information or setting her on the path to retrieve Clint, she was instead kept in the dark about almost everything.

A communication blackout.

Hell, she hadn't even heard from Coulson despite her blasting a message across all the mediums that she knew of, even the secret ones that Fury had developed and given to Clint, with express orders to never share it with Romanoff, since she was still considered a flight risk back then.

Then, out of the blue, she was told that Loki was spotted in Germany and she was supposed to go with the SHIELD Strike team there, with Rumlow being the leader of the mission, despite her authority vastly surpassing his.

But it would seem that Pierce's words were law because there she was, flying the Quinjet, acting as nothing more than an over glorified pilot.

The fight with Loki, if it could even be called that, was uneventful because of Stark's arrival and for once, he was not in his suit. No, he had arrived in a sleek Jet that managed to output lasers that stopped Loki in his tracks, prompting him to surrender.

She was not given any orders but she had a hunch that the Strike team were given some orders regarding Stark and the shiny new Jet he was hanging in front of SHIELD and more importantly, SHIELd that was under the control of Pierce.

Stark didn't make any moves to detain Loki, instead spending the time to flirt with her, typical of him really, so the STRIKE team moved in and detained Loki with some high tech Cuffs that the boys in the Lab cooked up, designed for high Brute level strength. Despite that, she had doubts about the cuffs holding Loki because his enhanced strength did not seem to be his greatest power.

No, his illusions, teleportation, mind control, and magic seemed to be his signature moves. Despite that, there was not much she could do because Rumlow was not going to listen to her and Stark was not taking a stand in the situation, something that he should have done ages ago, according to the profile she had on hand about him.

The Quinjet was then diverted from its original destination, which was the Helicarrier, to the Hub, where they performed maintenance on the aircraft carriers. She didn't question the new orders, mostly because it was not the time to show her rebellious side.

She was sure that Rumlow was given orders to just eliminate her if the need arose and she was not going to go down without figuring out the truth about Pierce and whatever the hell was going on in SHIELD.

They were only a couple hours away from the Hub when things took a turn for the worse. Thunder rumbled all around them as the sensors in the Quinjet began giving out scrambled readings.

She was about to contact Stark to see if he had any updates through his shiny new Jet but all she got was static and when she used the on board camera to see, she saw one side of the Jet smoking and the Jet spiraling down in a barely controlled manner.

Then her eyes widened as she felt another impact on the Quinjet. She looked back towards the bay which was giving out tortured noise as the bay door was forcibly yanked open.

And through the light of the lightning all around them, she saw him. Thor, the God of Thunder and the strongest alien SHIELD had ever encountered, now that the Invisible Man was confirmed to be human.

She was about to warn Rumlow and the others but they opened fire before Thor could do anything. Of course, the bullets did nothing as Thor simply raised his hand to defend his eyes from the shower of bullets.

"Stop!" She shouted in a vain attempt to stop them from riling up the God of Thunder any further.

Getting such an aggressive response, Thor simply waved his hammer, creating such strong gusts of wind that all the agents were ragdolled within the Jet. One of the agents simply fell out of the Jet, falling to his death.

Thor looked at the fallen agent and then simply ripped Loki out of his restraints and flew out of the Jet.

The damage done to the Jet meant she had to do an emergency landing nearby. Thankfully, the exit of Thor meant that the weather around them went from absurdly bad to somewhat bad, allowing her to barely control the Quinjet to perform a controlled landing.

If you guys would like to support my writing or just read ahead of the public release, you can head to my P*treon or Ko-fi, for upto 5 extra chapters.