Chapter 66: Be My Dog

"Loki, what's the point of serving Thanos?"

Martin looked down at the glowing yellow gem in his palm, the Mind Stone, pulsing with flickers of terrifying energy, and smiled. He took a calm step forward and spoke with a serenity that chilled the air.

"Be my hound instead."

Loki stood frozen, stunned. His eyes, wide and unblinking, locked onto Martin with a mixture of horror and disbelief. That vacant, shattered gaze, like he was staring at a devil he could never defeat.

Then came the scream, feral and furious.

"No! I will never be enslaved, not by you, not by anyone!"

"You're too late. Not even death will save you now."

Martin activated a fraction of the Mind Stone's power. A brilliant yellow pulse burst forth, just as Loki drew a dagger to end his own life. The light struck him squarely in the chest.

In that instant, Loki's will, his very consciousness, was laid bare.

Martin watched in silence as the God of Mischief's mind was unraveled, twisted strand by strand. The Mind Stone surged, reshaping Loki's thoughts with relentless precision. Every nanosecond, his psyche was scrubbed clean and rewritten, until nothing remained but obedience.

"So this is the might of the Mind Stone…" Martin murmured in awe. "If this alone can reforge a god's will, what kind of horror lies in the Soul Stone, capable of rewriting the soul itself?"

He didn't have long to wonder.

Loki's eyes, once filled with defiance, now radiated boundless zeal. His expression was one of reverence, as if he would die for Martin without hesitation.

But Martin only sighed.

"Pity. You're not truly loyal to me. Your devotion belongs to the Infinity Stone, an illusion, a falsehood."

"No!" Loki knelt, his voice shaking with fervor. "By the name of Odin All-Father, I swear, your will is my command, Lord Martin."

Martin placed a hand gently on Loki's bowed head. The trickster god looked up, a slight smile beginning to form.

It would be his last.

With a simple twist, Martin snapped his neck. The smile froze on Loki's face.

What Martin sought was loyalty to him, and him alone.

Even someone like Starscream, cunning, treacherous, and full of schemes, was welcome in Martin's ranks, as long as he was loyal. Martin had no problem letting his subordinates fight, claw, and manipulate within their domains. But the prerequisite was clear:

Loyalty must be personal. Not to a relic. Not to a dream. To him.

With a final glance at the fallen god, Martin turned and reached into the core of the machine protecting the Tesseract, shattering its housing in an instant. From the wreckage, he pulled forth the artifact, its blue, crystalline surface gleaming with cosmic energy.

Even without the Space Stone inside, the Tesseract itself was a rare and formidable artifact, pulsing with unfathomable power.

"Two Infinity Stones in my grasp," Martin mused. "And if I count the Time Stone with the Ancient One… the Reality Stone nestled in Yggdrasil's root system… that's already four."

His voice held a tinge of regret.

Such overwhelming power. Enough to leapfrog gods. But none of it truly his, not yet. Until the Soul Stone's sentience was extinguished and the Infinity Stones were fully inert, there was always a chance they'd rebel or turn against him.

It wasn't over.

"Time to wrap this farce up."

Martin looked up. The space-time rift, now collapsing without the Tesseract's stabilizing influence, was shrinking fast.

In a blink, he stepped through the dying portal, and into the vacuum of space, right in front of the Chitauri mothership.

"Die."

A whisper. A flick of his hand.

From light-years away, a devastating blast surged forth and struck the mothership dead-on.

The explosion was instantaneous and catastrophic, tearing the vessel apart and vaporizing its surrounding fleet. Within moments, the Black Order and high command, still waiting patiently for news from the Battle of New York, were obliterated in the inferno.

Martin didn't even glance back.

To him, they were just ants, squashed without effort or consequence.

Only Thanos would have warranted his attention… a proper conversation, perhaps. Then he would've snapped the Mad Titan's neck too, just for good measure.

How delightful that would've been.

The shockwave tore through space as Martin's final strike brought an end to the war.

A parting message. A warning.

A declaration of supremacy.

Back on Earth, the skies finally cleared. The portal was gone. The Chitauri were gone.

"Did… did we win?" someone whispered, their voice trembling.

"We won… they're all dead!!"

Tears streamed down the faces of soldiers, civilians, and heroes alike. Many collapsed to their knees, sobbing with relief, eyes turned skyward in gratitude.

They had witnessed gods and monsters… but more terrifying than any of them was the strange peace brought by Martin and his Cybertronian warriors; merciless, implacable, and terrifyingly calm in the face of universal threat.

-------

Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to my Patreon ——— patreon(.)com/PrimalDemon [remove the parentheses ( )]