Eden Industries was no longer a company. It was an axis.
At the heart of the icy, wind scoured expanse of Greenland, Arx Seraphim had fully emerged. Not a city in the conventional sense, but a declaration carved in obsidian and logic. It rose like a myth finally remembering itself.
Gothic spires pierced the snow covered sky. Each building was designed with sharp lines and cold grandeur: vaulted arches, razor straight corridors, and towers etched with delicate reliefs of winged angels and heavenly scenes. Even the factories were constructed like sanctuaries. Production lines humming beneath cathedral ceilings.
Everything had been moved.
First, Eden's production networks, then its logistics hubs. Underground, R&D complexes came online beneath shielded domes of radiation dampened steel. Management cells followed. AI driven, interconnected, and largely unnecessary. Markus had built a structure that ran itself.
Security was absolute.
The Guardian Angels, once homeless veterans, now formed the spine of Arx Seraphim's defense and security. Their numbers had swelled to over 30,000, and nearly a third had been enhanced, denser bone structures, upgraded reflexive systems, and regenerative resilience, minor telepathy to move as one even in units. They patrolled the city in silence, each movement calculated as clockwork.
And amidst it all, Markus remained unseen.
Outside the borders of Arx Seraphim, the world had begun to bend.
It started small, murky footage of people claiming miracles. Healing. Sudden turns of fate.
A girl in Istanbul, blind since birth, told reporters she had prayed to Markus, whispered his name in reverence, and woke seeing color for the first time.
In Gujarat, a boy burned all over, stunned doctors when his scars healed after the morning he prayed wrote Markus's name across his blanket in crayon.
A theology student in Warsaw was found speaking in tongues he had no academic access to, repeating only one phrase: "He heard me."
The footage made its way online. The hashtags bloomed. The churches followed.
From Rome to Tehran, Jakarta to Lisbon, a strange form of worship began to appear. Unauthorized, unclaimed, untouched by Markus himself. But no one doubted who they were praying to.
Gothic cathedrals bloomed like dark flowers across the world:
In Vienna, a cathedral in black volcanic stone replaced a failed municipal project. Locals reported hearing choir like tones during construction. But no crew was ever seen.
In Tokyo, a once abandoned metro station was reborn as a shrine, old LED panels reprogrammed to display pictures and videos of Markus and people claiming to be healed or helped by him.
In Cairo, a half built mosque was left behind after zoning disputes. People of the area completed it, arches fused with spires, symmetry overtaking tradition, inscriptions too perfect to have been handmade.
Markus never acknowledged any of it.
And somehow, that made it worse.
Religious authorities tried to contain it. At first, Vatican issued a polite statements. Then firmer warnings. Then full condemnations. "False God," one cardinal declared during an open air address.
He was struck dead by lightning.
..On a clear sky.
Another priest, in Seville, died at the exact moment he called the worship heretical. His heart simply stopped.
A bishop in Quebec suffered a stroke while denouncing Arx Seraphim as "a corporate hellmouth."
No formal connection was ever made.
But fear is a fast spreading doctrine.
As nations scrambled to make sense of it, Markus remained unmoved.
Except for his eyes. They were watching.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Research Facility, Location Unknown
In a deep isolated facility, Dr. Selvig and team of researchers were devoted to the Tesseract. That pulsing cube of impossible energy. Scientists circled it constantly, recording quantum fluctuations and modeling its irregular pulses.
And then, space tore itself open.
No warning. No signal.
Just a rip.
A sudden and violent slash across air, light bending, shimmering, twisting as a figure stepped through: clothed in leather and arrogance, armed with a staff, an arrogant smile.
Loki.
The chaos was beginning again.
And Markus, still silent, still seated high above the cold plains of Arx Seraphim opened his eyes.
Loki of Asgard had once been more than a smirk and a blade.
The Loki of Marvel Comics was a being of terrifying intellect and magical supremacy. He had rewritten reality, manipulated cosmic entities, and stood as a legitimate existential threat to entire pantheons. An immortal shapeshifter, sorcerer, and trickster whose cruelty was rarely tempered by sentiment, Loki was chaos made flesh, not simply mischievous, but metaphysical.
In contrast, the Loki of the MCU, while charming and dangerous, had been... 'nerfed'.
His magic muted. His cunning constrained. Reduced to illusions, knives, and theatrics. His grand plans, more often than not, unraveled not by divine countermeasures but by the inconvenient strength of Earth's mortals. His ambition remained, but his power, once nearly limitless, was curiously contained.
Yet even that diminished version had nearly won.
Thanks to 'The Other'.
A gaunt figure, robed in shadow and subservience, The Other served as the emissary of Thanos. A mouthpiece with a face veiled by dark bone and loyalty. It was he who caught Loki in the void. Rescued him as he plummeted from the broken end of the Bifrost, swallowed by nothingness after Thor shattered the Rainbow Bridge in the final act the movie Thor.
In that yawning gulf between realms, where time frays and energy burns cold, The Other reached out.
He saved Loki from annihilation. Reconstructed him. Reconditioned him.
And most importantly, he offered him a weapon.
The Scepter, a gift. Inside it: the Mind Stone, though even Loki did not fully grasp it. To him, it was a tool. To The Other, it was a test.
Now, armed and vengeful, Loki returned to Earth. Not as a prince, nor a son, nor a brother. He returned as an instrument.
When he stepped through the Tesseract's portal into the SHIELD facility, it was not with triumph. It was with precision. An actor on running on foreign power, playing the role of conqueror with borrowed lines.
But far away from that facility, beyond any surveillance satellite two ancient beings watched the turning tides.
In Kamar Taj, the Ancient One sat before the Mirror of Vaishanti, her tea untouched.
She had seen many futures.
But not this one.
Not with this many variables twisted. Loki's return was visible, but not his survival. Not the Tesseract's betrayal. And certainly not the emergence of the one known as Markus Tenebris.
Her brow furrowed as she viewed him.
She saw no beginning. No anchor point. He had entered this reality without introduction.
To the trained eye, Markus appeared not as an event but as a permanent fixture. Even the Time Stone whispered little when asked of him.
And yet, he was shaping the world. Without ever striking it.
"Troubling," she murmured, eyes narrowing.
In Asgard, far above, Odin sat on his throne, eye closed, ravens perched in eerie silence.
He had felt Loki's return.
His traitor son, clinging to ambition like a dying star, wielding a power he did not understand, manipulated by entities he could not name.
But Odin's concern was elsewhere.
Markus Tenebris.
Even the Allfather, whose eye had seen the Nine Realms burn and reborn, could not place him.
There were whispers in the roots of Yggdrasil, hints of a figure sitting outside the weave. Not resisting or defying fate. He was unentangled by it.
Such beings were rare.
Dangerous.
But perhaps, Odin thought, watching the great tree shimmer in his mind, the greatest threat was not a loud conqueror wielding a stones, but the quiet one who never needed to raise his voice.
Below, in a bunker of concrete and confusion, Loki raised his scepter and smiled at men who would become pawns.
And far away, in the black spires of Arx Seraphim, Markus simply tilted his head and whispered:
"So... the game begins again."
The world tilted quietly into chaos.
Loki, god of mischief and fallen prince of Asgard, had returned to Earth not with armies or banners, but with something far more dangerous, conviction. The scepter he wielded hummed with alien energy. It whispered into minds, turned loyalty into obedience, and reason into delusion.
After the SHIELD facility fell, Loki moved swiftly. He next appeared in Stuttgart, Germany, during a high profile gala. He made no effort to conceal himself. He wanted to be seen.
Cameras caught him ordering civilians to kneel.
SHIELD caught more than that.
Captain America intercepted him first. Iron Man followed in full repulsor glory. A brief confrontation, steel and shield against glowing alien power, ended not with a fight, but with Loki surrendering. Smiling. As if this was the plan all along.
Now he sat silently aboard a SHIELD Quinjet, cuffed but relaxed. The wind screamed outside, but inside, only tension reigned.
Steve Rogers sat across from him, arms folded. He didn't trust a word Loki would say. Neither did Stark, who was already reviewing readings from the scepter via his wrist display.
"I don't like it," Rogers muttered. "He gave up too easy."
"Of course he did," Stark replied. "He's Loki. God of 'Please Let Me Monologue'."
Loki sat chained and serene, flanked by Captain America and Tony Stark. Neither of them trusted the silence, and both were too professional to admit how uneasy it made them.
Beside them stood Ororo Munroe, eyes like stormlight. She hadn't said a word since they lifted off. Just stared at Loki like someone listening for a language beneath his breathing.
Then the sky cracked.
"Whoa," said Stark, glancing at the readings. "That's not natural."
A sudden boom rocked the aircraft. Lightning flashed far too close. The pilot shouted something. Wind pressure screamed through the hull as a figure slammed onto the upper fuselage like a meteor.
And then, he was inside.
Thor.
Red cape whipping, hammer in hand, he moved like a force of nature, seized Loki from his restraints, and launched himself back into the open air.
"Damn it!" Stark snapped. "Was that your guy?"
Cap stood. "Let's get him back."
"Right behind you," Ororo said.
They landed hard, Iron Man first in a blast of repulsors, then Steve, shield ready. Ororo touched down last, floating with barely a gust of displaced wind, her cloak rippling in the electric air.
Thor stood across from them in a clearing, Loki held by the collar, Mjolnir low at his side.
"You dare interfere?" he barked.
"We dare when you kidnap a high value prisoner mid flight," Stark snapped. "Also: nice entrance. Could've knocked."
Thor released Loki, who sat himself neatly on a boulder, more amused than threatened.
"I will return him to Asgard to answer for his crimes," Thor said.
"That's not your call to make," Steve answered, stepping forward. "He committed crimes here. On Earth."
"You don't understand," Thor replied.
"Then explain it," Ororo interjected. "Because so far, it looks like you're just making a mess."
Thor's eyes narrowed. He studied her, sensing the power curling beneath her skin. His gaze flicked to the clouds overhead. They stirred slightly,not his doing.
"You command storms," he said cautiously.
"I ask," she corrected. "And they answer."
Iron Man raised a hand. "Hey, weather gods, maybe table the meteorology duel for now?"
Thor growled. "I have no quarrel with you.."
"Then stop acting like a brute and start acting like a prince," Steve interrupted. "Because right now, you're not helping."
Thor's answer came with lightning.
Mjolnir slammed into the ground.
Cap raised his shield.
Iron Man charged his repulsors.
And Ororo, eyes flashing silver, raised a hand to the sky.
The forest lit up.
Thor and Iron Man collided first, hammer against arc reactor, blowing a crater into the trees. Steve dodged falling debris, shield ringing as he deflected a stray bolt. Ororo lifted skyward, dodging branches with ease, directing the lightning, not to attack, but to control Thor's excess discharges, grounding them safely away.
"You summon storms?" Thor shouted mid clash.
"I harmonize them," she replied, redirecting another bolt past Stark's head.
"Can we not fry each other right now!?" Stark snapped.
Eventually, it was Steve, mud streaked and glaring. He stepped between them, shield raised.
"That's enough!" He shouted.
And for a moment, only the rustling trees answered.
Thor exhaled, grounding Mjolnir. "Fine."
The group made their way back toward the Quinjet, Loki trailing behind like a prince on a diplomatic tour.
As they walked, Stark broke the silence.
"So. While we're doing mythology... what exactly is the deal with gods these days?"
Thor said nothing.
Cap looked over. "He means Tenebris right?."
Thor's jaw flexed. "That is not a name to speak lightly."
"Oh, come on," Stark said. "World's already building cathedrals to him. People claiming miracles. Deaths tied to blasphemy. He's trending harder than alien invasions."
Thor turned to them. "He is not of Asgard. Nor of any realm I've walked. He stands apart. When my father, Odin the Allfather, first spoke of him he did so with ..caution."
"That's not reassuring," Steve muttered.
"Not meant to be."
"I know him," Ororo added. "He is powerful, not a mu.. ..enhanced like me. And I don't think he cares if we believe in this new Tenebrism or not."
"He would not," Thor said quietly. "Because belief is not required."
They walked in silence after that.
Until Banner, recently retrieved, appeared with a dry smirk. He looked at Thor, then at Ororo.
"So, let me get this straight. He throws lightning because he's an alien with a magic hammer," he said, pointing at Thor.
"And she does it because... what? Genetics? Attitude?"
Ororo raised a brow. "Yes."
Thor scowled. "My power is not simply.."
"Yeah, yeah, mystic birthright. Abra Cadabra of divine order. Don't worry, I'm just the guy who turns green when annoyed. We all have our quirks."
Steve sighed.
Stark grinned.
And Ororo simply walked past them both, the scent of ozone in her wake.
Behind it all, miles away in his silent sanctuary, Markus watched the Mind Stone flicker in the scepter's core.
He was smiling now.
The Helicarrier groaned under tension.
Above the roaring turbines, inside the labyrinthine structure, the atmosphere was flammable, not from any leak or spark, but from pride and suspicion. Loki's influence worked like a scalpel, slicing between egos with precision.
He sat in his cell, unbothered.
Thor stared from the observation deck, concern blooming behind the stoic front. Steve questioned everything. Stark prodded everyone. Banner was coiled. Ororo watched it all from the shadows, silent as gathering rain.
Then it happened.
The scepter. The argument. The breach.
The cell dropped. Hulk rose and shit hit the fan.
Loki vanished in the chaos, his escape timed too perfectly to be luck. He moved like water between systems, passing through security with a smirk and steps that left no echoes. By the time the bodies were counted, he was already gone.
But only briefly.
In a narrow corridor lit by flickering emergency lights, Loki moved to regroup, scepter in hand, lips curling.
And then, the light bent.
The hallway twisted for a moment and everything stopped.
Froze.
Even Loki.
Mid step. Mid smile. Mid thought.
The air shimmered softly, like a candle flickering inside glass.
And Markus stepped into the stillness.
He walked in silence. No footsteps. Just the echo of presence itself. A long coat framed by frost. Hair perfectly kept. Eyes sharper than the tip of the scepter.
He circled the frozen Loki with disdainful calm.
"So… this is how far you've fallen," Markus murmured, voice almost affectionate in its judgment.
He walked once around Loki, gaze sweeping the form like a critic studying unfinished sculpture.
"I remember your other selves," he mused. "Wielding sorcery that unraveled time. Playing chess with cosmic entities. Leading armies across realms that spoke your name with reverence and dread."
Markus stopped, directly before Loki, who remained frozen in the moment.
"And yet… here you are. A pawn in someone else's theater. A would be king smuggled into a sandbox. I wonder if you feel it, somewhere deep down…"
He leaned in slightly, voice velvet, almost sympathetic.
"You're not the Loki Laufeyson of myth."
His hand reached for the scepter.
"You're the MCU edition."
With a faint hum, the scepter lifted from Loki's hand.
Markus turned it slowly in his palm, examining the Mind Stone buried within.
"Sloppy casing," he murmured. "Overcompensation for a gem you don't even understand."
With a thought, reality folded. Quietly, elegantly, the true scepter dematerialized into his personal subdomain, safely veiled from fate.
In its place, he created a perfect replica, forged with divinity and reality domination, carved with the same quantum imprint. It has enough 'fuel' for an eon. The same level of fuel as the other stone facsimiles.
He took a moment longer to look at Loki.
He placed the false scepter gently back in Loki's hand and vanished.
Time resumed. The hallway snapped back. Loki's foot hit the floor. His smirk resumed, unaware.
He moved forward, scepter in hand, none the wiser.
Far from Earth, in the sanctified stillness of Noctorrius Primus, Master of the eral was sitting in his throne once again.
The Mind Stone shimmered between his palms, defiant and pulsing with ancient thought. Unlike its siblings, it resisted. It was not violence, it was complexity. Consciousness itself seemed embedded in its lattice. It did not simply contain knowledge, it was knowledge. A self aware storm of thoughts, memory, and command.
Markus did not rush it.
He activated Chrono Condensation and time started to bend, break and condense.
The final moment of resistance had come and gone. Markus stood motionless in the vast throne room, the Mind Stone pulsing dimly between his fingers like the final heartbeat of a dying god.
He had waited. Studied. Folding twenty five years into a moment of stillness, peeling the Stone's consciousness layer by layer. It had not surrendered easily. Unlike the Power Stone, which brute forced itself into existence, or the Space Stone, which simply moved to be understood, the Mind Stone had negotiated. It had attempted to reason, then to plead. Then it began to scream.
He absorbed it all.
And when the final thread dissolved into his soul, a new law etched itself into the foundation of his being:
Mind Dominion.
A concept, not just a skill. A sovereign reality.
Mind DominionA conceptual skill granted through full integration of the Mind Stone. Subjugation has been wholly assimilated and evolved into this domain.
Passive Effects:
Infinite Comprehension: Markus now perceives all cognitive systems in their entirety, whether mortal, divine, synthetic, alien, or astral. From the fragmented war songs of Kree combat psionics to the machine thought equations of dying Reaper cores. There is no unknown. A glance suffices.
Absolute Subjugation: With a thought, he may dominate or overwrite any sentient pattern. Kings can be made kind. Betrayers rendered loyal. Angels turned into assassins. From simple emotional suppression to full behavioral rewrites, the will of others is now an editable script.
Ego Seal: Markus is wholly immune to all psychic influence. No god, mind, or soul can bend his thoughts. Not with persuasion, not with compulsion, not with metaphysics.
Mental Plane Authority: He reigns in dreamscapes, astral paths, and inner sanctums of any intellect or mind.
Divine Charisma Field: All sentient life now experiences a natural, growing impulse to trust, obey, or fear him. It cannot be sensed or dismissed. It functions like gravity, subtle, inescapable.
Mass Psi Network: All units under Markus's command are linked through a vast psychic grid. Orders no longer require words. In battle, they move as a single will.
Active Effects:
Synaptic Burn: With a single impulse, he can overload entire planets of minds. Synthetic or organic, they collapse. Neurons cooked, AI cores ruptured, minds turned to silence.
Will Crush: Even beings with divine resistance, anchored by oaths, enchantments, or iron willpower, can be broken. Permanently or briefly, Markus may rewrite command hierarchies. Loyalty becomes servitude.
Soul Split: He can extract replicas of mental structures, creating avatars of others' minds. These can be used for possession, projection, or espionage. He can create a split process to command his avatars or posses other beings.
Cognitive Sculpting: Minds are now matter. He may rewrite personalities, fabricate memories, or alter logic processes in real time.
Mind Veil Dominion: Markus's thoughts, soul, and psychic presence are cloaked absolutely. Even the Celestials, even Death herself, will see a silhouette at most, never the truth.
Divinity Generation:
Stones Absorbed: 4 × 5,000 = 20,000 Divinity/day
Worshippers across three worlds: ~30,000 Divinity/day
Total Daily Yield: ~50,000+ Divinity points/day
This divinity now flows independently, worship is no longer required though he will not object to 'free will' of hiw lovely subjects, after all they are his precious divinity batteries. The Stones generate reverence, as concepts drawn into his dominion continue to feed his power.
And in the depths of his throne chamber, Markus opened his eyes slowly.
No trumpets. No thunder.
Only silence.
And the slow, precise beat of an evolved mind stretching across the fabric of all thought.
Across three worlds, thousands of minds turned toward the same unseen figure. Some in awe, some in terror.