Chapter 8: Mounting Pressure.
(General P.O.V)
Mathew groaned.
Mjolnir was planted square on his chest, heavy as a planet. His fingers dug under the edge, arms straining. It didn't budge.
"Little help here," he called out.
Strange landed beside him, parrying a blast of energy with a casual flick of his wrist. He glanced down.
"Right," he said. "You do know you can't lift that unless you're worthy."
Mathew gritted his teeth. "Who says I'm not worthy?"
Strange raised an eyebrow. "Sure. Worthy of getting flattened. If you don't figure something out fast, you're gonna go from Unworthy One to Unbreathing."
Mathew scowled. "Then go stall them or something."
"Stall the Avengers?" Strange scoffed, already lifting into the air. "Great plan. I'll just tell them to take a number."
He snapped his hands into position, carving precise sigils into the air.
Ahead, Iron Man raised his palm. The repulsor beam flared and fired.
That was the signal.
The Hulk roared and charged forward—ignoring everything in his path, including Black Panther, who got unceremoniously trampled. Hulk leapt toward Strange with enough force to shatter mountains.
Strange drew a circle in the air.
A portal swallowed Hulk mid-leap and dropped him somewhere thousands of miles away.
"Small win," Strange muttered.
Then Iron Man opened up. A stream of repulsor fire followed by Hawkeye's glowing blue trick arrows rained down.
Strange twisted through the air, erecting barriers, warping space just enough to redirect the worst of it.
Behind them, Mathew still strained.
He could hear the chaos—blasts, explosions, the roar of power.
Mjolnir wouldn't move.
He wished, not for the first time, that his reality warping worked here. But Loki's realm was too different. Too alien.
Then he saw her.
Captain Marvel.
She streaked through the air toward him, fist glowing bright as a miniature star.
"Damn it," Mathew cussed.
Green lasers blasted from his eyes just in time.
The shot hit her midair, launching her backward into the sky.
It wouldn't keep her down for long. She could absorb energy. That had just made her stronger.
He slammed his fist into the ground beneath him.
The earth cracked, then gave.
He shifted his body with the crumbling stone, using the movement to twist himself out from under the hammer's hold.
It worked.
Mjolnir slid off and sank deeper into the new crater.
Mathew got to his feet—just as Captain Marvel came back down.
She wasn't throwing punches this time.
She carried a massive spear of energy in both hands, screaming as she fell.
Mathew didn't dodge.
He flew into her.
The spear shattered against his chest like glass on steel.
Then he kept going.
He flew straight through her.
Her body broke apart behind him, torn to pieces. Her blood hit his golden aura and evaporated instantly.
He didn't stop. He didn't look back.
Strange was still in the air, blocking and weaving between Iron Man's beams and Hawkeye's arrows. He held his own.
Mathew was about to join him when something slammed into the back of his skull.
His vision blurred.
He tumbled, spinning through the air, barely pulling up an inch before hitting the ground.
He looked up.
Thor.
Mjolnir spun back into the god's hand like it belonged there.
Mathew touched the back of his head. His supposed invulnerable head. The fingers came back bloody.
He stared.
"Okay," he mused. "Guess that hammer's gotta go."
Thor didn't wait.
He spun the hammer and hurled it at him again.
Mathew raised his hand.
Caught it.
Right by the head.
The impact stopped cold.
Mjolnir vibrated in his grip, lightning crawling up his arm—but he didn't let go.
His eyes flared green.
His vision shifted.
The world turned into strings. Energy. Lattices of power dancing through air and matter. On Mjolnir, he saw the runes. The inscriptions. The core threads that gave it form and function.
They all converged on a single point inside the head of the hammer.
Mathew fired.
Twin green laser beams focused like scalpels.
The point ruptured.
Mjolnir cracked.
The detonation came a second later—cosmic lightning exploded outward, ripping across the battlefield like a living storm.
Then everything pulled inward again.
Imploded.
Not from collapse—but absorption.
Mathew hovered in the middle of it all, his body drinking in the energy. Every last volt.
When the light faded, he was still there.
Shining.
A golden-silver aura wrapped around him. The glow of cosmic lightning fused with solar fire.
The ground beneath him cracked under the weight of power.
He looked up.
And walked forward.
(Mathew's P.O.V)
My hands were glowing. Not just with solar energy now—but something else. It buzzed. Electric. Violent. My hair stood on end. My fingertips ached like overloaded wires.
The cosmic lightning from Mjolnir… it was in me.
I could feel it. The current moving under my skin, through my bones, wrapping around my nerves like molten wire. Enough power to destroy a planet. Maybe two.
It didn't compare to my full reality warping—nothing did—but here, in Loki's realm, this was more than enough.
"Strange," I shouted. "Get clear."
He didn't argue.
I hovered above the crater and let the charge build. My body radiated light in gold and silver pulses, like a contained storm.
Then they came.
Thor. Iron Man. Hulk.
Thor was first, hammerless but still burning with rage. His fist cocked back, lightning dancing across his knuckles.
Hulk, having returned from the horizon, leapt beside him, jaw clenched, close enough that I could see the veins bulging through his neck.
Iron Man rose above them, chest plate opening wide to reveal a thick pulse-core repulsor, already charging.
I didn't move.
Hulk's face was meters away.
Thor's punch was inches from impact.
Iron Man fired.
I let it all go.
The explosion that followed wasn't just heat—it was light, sound, radiation, plasma, and raw divine current fused into a single tornado of annihilation. It tore outward from me, devouring everything it touched. The corrupted heroes didn't stand a chance. They screamed, but only briefly. Then they were gone.
Burned out.
Shredded apart.
Disintegrated.
I hovered alone in the silence.
Then I turned toward the castle.
It wasn't far.
I moved.
Straight through the air, a streak of blinding force. I hit the side of the Time Castle and didn't stop. I blasted through wall after wall, straight into the throne room.
There he was.
Loki.
Sitting like nothing mattered. Like this was still his play.
He looked up, smiling like I was right on time.
"Took you long enough," he said.
"Nothing was gonna stop me from kicking your ass," I said.
He laughed. Like it was a joke only he understood.
"Mathew, you defeated my puppets. Good for you bud." he said, "Now, let me remind you who's writing the story here."
He snapped his fingers.
I didn't feel anything at first.
Then I did.
Everything inside me drained.
The heat. The light. The lightning. All of it vanished in an instant.
My knees buckled.
I dropped hard, palms slapping the floor. I couldn't breathe. My chest felt hollow. My fingers twitched like they'd been frostbitten.
I looked up at him, trembling.
My voice cracked.
"What… did you do?"
Loki looked down at me, calm and amused, like this was all unfolding exactly how he wanted.
"You know, Matty, can I call you that?" he asked, "the author of a story is a god to its characters. And I am always the author."
He paced in front of me, one hand trailing along the strings that coiled through the throne room.
"So I rewrote your past. Just a few lines. Nothing major. Just enough so that you never turned yourself into a second-rate Superman clone."
He smirked.
"Really. Laser vision? Flight? Invincibility? That's not power, it's plagiarism. And not even subtle."
He leaned in.
"Then again, originality's never been your strong suit."
Red sparks flickered from his fingers. My power. The piece of it he'd stolen. It pulsed around his hand like it belonged to him now.
"You had Absolute Power," Loki said. "You could've been a god. Or a devil. You could've taken the burden of glorious, eternal rule."
His face twisted.
"But instead… you chose to be a whiny little bitch. Chasing after ghosts."
He kicked me in the ribs, not hard enough to kill, but hard enough to humiliate. I rolled, coughing, pain shooting through what was left of my body.
Loki spun on his heel.
"Power is meant to be used," he declared. "Give a donkey a whip, and it won't strike the master. It'll wait to be beaten. Because that's all it's ever known."
He turned back to me.
"You should learn your place, Matty. You're not the writer. You're not the god. You're a prop. Get in where you fit in."
I dragged in a breath. My voice was hoarse. Broken.
"Damn you," I growled. "Where's Jules?"
That made him pause.
Then he laughed. Loud and full of mockery.
"Oh, of course," he said. "This is the part where the so-called hero shows up to save the girl from the villain. You still think you're the main character."
He lifted one hand.
The strings around the throne room came alive.
They slithered toward me like snakes, coiling around my arms, my legs, my throat. I tried to resist but my body was too weak, my power too drained.
The strings pulled me up—suspended in the air, arms outstretched.
Loki approached slowly, one step at a time, until he was right in front of me.
He reached out with one finger, charged with red energy, and plucked a single string.
The vibration shot through my entire body like lightning.
I screamed once—then couldn't anymore.
The Shield clothes I borrowed from Natasha tore apart in an instant. My hair burned away. My skin blackened and blistered under the electric current. I smelled flesh. I tasted smoke.
By the time it stopped, I couldn't recognize myself. A roasted black husk hung from the wires.
Loki leaned in close again.
"Look in a mirror, Mathew," he whispered.
He tapped a string with two fingers, sending another shockwave through me.
"You'll see what I already know."
He smiled.
"I'm the protagonist here. And you—you're just a second rate villain of the week."