POV: Third Person
London, England
Two Months Later
"When I was invited to come to London, I didn't imagine it would be to walk around places like this."
Darcy Lewis expressed her discontent to Jane Foster, who was walking by her side through a practically deserted area of London.
"I was very clear about our objective here."
Jane replied, still focused on her device that is designed to locate dimensional anomalies.
"When you called me saying you needed help to investigate something in London without your boyfriend, I thought it would be a 'Girls' Trip' situation."
"You thought I would pick you up for a 'Girls' Trip' with one of Genosha's jets?"
"I thought you were being pampered by your new son-in-law and boyfriend. Where is he anyway?"
"Thor went to investigate some strange reports that are happening in one of the realms. Baldur then asked me to investigate the events that are happening here, that's why he lent us one of his planes and pilot."
"So that's why you called me? Didn't you have anyone to go with you?"
"I needed a friend to help me, so I called you."
"If you were really my friend, you would introduce me to that hunk who is Thor's brother, then we would stop being friends and become sisters."
Jane tired of Darcy's nonsensical conversations and focused her attention on the readings of her device. They continued walking until they reached an abandoned building, at the entrance, they saw something that left Darcy speechless for the first time since the beginning of this trip.
Several transport containers and trucks turned over in various positions that would be very difficult to replicate due to their weight. After recovering from the shock, the two entered the building and found some children playing inside, they showed that gravity was altered in that place in a random and meaningless way.
Then the group discovered that there was an open portal right between the floors of the building, anything thrown from the stairs would simply disappear and reappear somewhere else. Everyone was playing with the situation except Jane, who felt something nearby and went to investigate, leaving her friend behind. Jane went to a room where she felt an unusual wind for that place, after looking around the whole room, she couldn't see anything different, until the wind started to get so strong that it pulled her towards the wall.
When Jane was about to crash into the wall, she felt a chill all over her body and her vision changed, she was now in a desolate land facing a large cliff.
"Darcy!"
She shouted for her friend. Jane began to walk across what looked like a black stone bridge to a large rock formation in front of her, what caught her attention in this case was the faint red light between two large rocks.
Jane, with her curiosity, approached the rock observing what was between them, she soon saw that the red light was being emitted by something she thought was a red liquid. She tried to get closer to look better, but then she slipped on one of the stones putting her hand too close and as if it was waiting exactly for that, the red liquid entered her body. Jane, frightened, moved away from the rocks rubbing her hands looking and trying to find the place where the liquid made contact with her skin, shortly after, she began to feel dizzy and weak and ended up fainting on the floor.
When she woke up lying on the floor of the same place where she was before being teleported, Jane felt confusion looking all around her trying to find some logic to what happened without much success. She then got up and went towards the exit where she was surprised by the large number of soldiers dressed in armor.
"Jane!"
Darcy then appeared among the soldiers and ran to her friend now more relieved.
"Where the hell were you?" She asked.
"Tell me you didn't call more Genosha soldiers?" Jane said, ignoring Darcy's question.
"What was I supposed to do. I was desperate, it was them or the police."
"I didn't want this to become a circus, Darcy, now with the Genosha soldiers here, it won't be long before S.H.I.E.L.D also shows up."
"Jane. You disappeared for five hours!"
The surprise of having passed so much time was enough to make Jane understand her friend's desperation. Now calmer, they realized that the heavy rain that was falling all over the place was not wetting Jane or her, it seemed that there was a force field around Jane protecting her now.
"Baroom!"
The sound of thunder echoes through the sky, then a lightning bolt falls a few meters from them and from the lightning, Thor appears, wearing his black armor with a red cape and his hammer in his hands.
"Jane!"
Thor runs to Jane and hugs her tightly and his hug is answered by her.
"I came as fast as I could when I received Baldur's message."
He said in Jane's ear while still hugging.
"I didn't mean to worry you, in fact, I didn't even realize that five hours had passed."
This made Thor curious and they separated.
"What happened, Jane?"
Then she told them everything, about how she was pulled and teleported to another realm, after that something red like a liquid entered her body leaving her unconscious.
"After that, I just woke up lying on the ground."
"We have to go to Baldur as soon as possible, I don't know what caused your fainting, but he is the only one who can help in this realm."
Thor understood the urgency of the situation and quickly went with Jane to one of Genosha's planes, not even Thor can easily enter Genosha's force field.
"Wait. I want to go too."
Darcy, who had been ignored throughout the conversation, ran after them.
POV: Baldur
Royal Castle, Genosha
At the Same Moment.
(The events are still under my control.)
Even repeating this in my mind, it doesn't change what I'm feeling, as if something much bigger than planned is going to happen. So I focused my attention on the events of the nine realms, every small piece of information I picked up I analyzed trying to find some trace of the enemy.
It's been a month since the nine realms have been having strange events happening, people disappearing, items being stolen and sightings of strange beings. All these events don't have a visible connection, but my instincts tell me that these events have something to do with the dark elves, the convergence is a few days away by my calculations. Since the enemy is already here, it means that nothing will be like in the movie. This was expected.
So trying to force my enemies into the light, I asked Thor to investigate the events, he has a special talent for getting into trouble, just by being in other worlds, there's a great chance that fate will throw him against the dark elves, unfortunately we were not successful.
Another thing I did was send Jane to investigate the effects of the convergence in London, I know that this would put her at risk. Unfortunately, I don't know another way for the Ether to be revealed. There is something else of great importance in this event, which was to observe Jane. In the movies, she was dragged to a portal that took her to the Ether, this was certainly a big plot contrivance, imagine the chances of this happening in reality. So I thought of another explanation, what if someone was pulling Jane to that specific portal.
To test this theory, I put several sensors and bugs on her before she left Genosha, a few hours ago, she simply disappeared from the world like in the movie. I immediately warned Thor, I also sent more soldiers to isolate the whole place to avoid attracting attention, after five hours, she returned to Earth and my equipment sent me several readings, and to my shock, there was not one that proved my theory, maybe I'm wrong, or everything was done by someone powerful enough to ignore my equipment, either way, Jane is returning to Genosha right now, and certainly with the Ether.
"Sir, Miss Jane has arrived." Alice informs me.
"Bring them to my personal laboratory."
I go as fast as I can to my personal laboratory which is located below the royal castle and wait for the two, a minute later, Thor, Jane and Darcy enter through the door.
"Wow!"
Jane says looking at my equipment, Darcy, on the other hand, is gaping at me.
"Brother…"
"I am already aware of what happened, Jane please lie down on the table for me to analyze you."
I interrupt Thor who has a worried face, Jane lies down on the silver table that is in front of me.
"Alice, isolate the entire laboratory."
"Initiating isolation…"
An Infinity Stone is not something to be tampered with without being prepared, especially the Reality Stone, which is the most unstable of the stones. I'm already taking a big risk doing this here in Genosha, so to avoid problems, I'm doing something created by me and Amora, literally isolating the entire laboratory from the outside world. In case something goes wrong, it won't affect anything outside, and if the situation becomes critical, the entire laboratory will teleport to a distant location.
"Isolation complete. Sir, I must remind you that while the isolation is activated, I only have control of this room, and I also lose all connection with the city."
"Thank you, Alice, now start analyzing Jane."
Several blue lights began to scan Jane on the table and a holographic screen full of graphs appeared in front of me.
"How is she?" Thor asks, losing patience.
"I was able to detect something inside her body, it's draining her life force." I reply.
"Is there a way to remove it?" Jane asks, keeping calm.
"I will need to create something specific for this, but there's a good chance."
This finally relieved everyone.
"It will take a few hours, so I'll start now, Jane, it's better if you lie down, this will help conserve your life force and assist in our mission."
"Sure, could you let me see the results?"
"Of course."
"So, since everything is fine, I'm going to take a walk around the city, maybe do some shopping." Darcy says, already walking towards the exit.
"I regret to inform you, Miss Darcy, the entire laboratory is sealed, it will only be opened when I remove this from inside Jane."
"So I'm going to stay here doing nothing?"
I ignore Darcy's crisis and focus my attention on the graphs, my goal is to create a device to remove the Ether from Jane's body without killing her and without causing other damage, like cancer, there's a good chance she would get that in this reality because of the Ether.
"Well then, let's get started."
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