The Wrong God [Book 2] *Completed*

Nine

The Quinjet drops Selvig and I at the balcony, and the scientist gets to work patching in the make-shift portal transmitter into the transmitter of Stark tower. I pace around uncomfortably, praying for some delay that will buy me enough time for the team of heroes to arrive, but within minutes the device is online. Selvig looks up to tell me it's ready and I take the Tesseract out of its case and slot it into place. Then, with the glint of red and gold on the horizon, I touch the end of my scepter down.

A beam of blue light blasts up into the air, beginning to peel away at the outer layers of the atmosphere. That should buy me at least five minutes. As the portal begins to open, I can feel The Other's presence in the back of my mind, coming forward to watch my victory. I'm going to need to watch how I move.

"Thank you for your service, Doctor Selvig," I say, walking to him and touching the tip of the scepter against his chest. "I will hold you no longer." As the blue fades from his eyes, he drops to the floor. I bend to check his pulse. Just unconscious.

Stepping away, I look up to see Stark coming in to land, and a device rises out of the floor to unsuit him. I allow myself to smile - if he's here, the others won't be too far behind. And it means they managed to figure out the little clue I gave them.

I walk from the balcony into the penthouse apartment, reaching it as Stark walks down the steps and casually over to a bar at the back of the room.

"Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity," I say to him, as he pours himself a drink.

"Uh...actually, I'm planning to threaten you."

I smirk. "You should have left your armor on for that."

"Yeah, it's seen a bit of mileage. You've got the blue stick of destiny. Would you like a drink?"

If only I could. "Stalling me won't change anything," I warn him.

"No, no, no!" he assures me. "Threatening. No drink? You sure? I'm having one."

"The Chitauri are coming, nothing will change that. What have I to fear?"

"The Avengers," he replies, and I frown. "It's what we call ourselves, sort of like a team. 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' type of thing."

"Yes, I've met them."

Stark smiles. "Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one. But, let's do a head count here. Your brother, the demi-God; a super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend; a man with breath-taking anger management issues; a couple of master assassins, and you, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them." As he talks, I see him slip on a couple of silver bracelets. While I don't recognise the design, I assume they are some kind of weapon or device for summoning his suit.

"That was the plan," I tell him. And what a line-up that is.

"Not a great plan," he replies, and I smile. I wouldn't be too sure about that. "When they come, and they will, they'll come for you." I'm counting on it.

"I have an army."

"We have a Hulk."

"I thought the beast had wandered off," I say, raising my eyebrows in mock surprise. The little nudge Doctor Banner needed seems to have worked. I'm fascinated to see the end result.

"You're missing the point. There's no throne, there is no version of this, where you come out on top." I do hope he's right. "Maybe your army comes and maybe it's too much for us, but it's all on you. Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it."

Use the scepter

The voice sends a painful electrical impluse into my brain, and I move towards Stark, slowly raising the scepter. "How will your friends have time for me, when they're so busy fighting you?" I tap Tony's chest with the scepter, but nothing happens. Well, nothing would - at least, nothing that can be seen. He never said I should use it to convert Stark. The massive energy source that protects his heart fuels up from the energy of the mind stone, one Infinity Stone feeding off another. I tap it again, and again, to appease The Other who growls in frustration. "It should work," I say, sounding put-out.

"Well, performance issues," Stark japes. "Not uncommon. One out of five -"

Stop him!

It takes me all my effort not to strike him with my scepter, as The Other clearly wants me to do, and instead I grab him by the throat and hurl him across the room. Stark says something quietly so I can't hear, but I pull him up by the throat before he can finish.

"You will all fall before me," I say, before throwing him out of the window. I can only hope I'm right about the bracelets.

Sure enough, before Stark can hit the ground, a door opens up behind me and a red pod the size and shape of a suitcase flies out. I move aside just in time as the pod follows Stark's path down the side of the building, and I watch in interest as it opens and starts mapping out Stark's body. The armor fixes itself onto Stark mere seconds before he hits the ground, and he fires up the thrusters to bring it back up. The man truly is a genius. 

"And there's one other person you pissed off!" he says through his mask as he reaches level with me. His name was Phil."

Finish him!

Before I can raise my scepter, Stark fires a blast, sending me flying across the apartment before hitting the floor. As I lay there, I hear the portal open and the Chitauri army begin to rain down hell on New York.