It was dark. The black emptiness of space gave this sense of helplessness to anyone who saw it, as if they were trapped in an everlasting void that could only slowly chip away their sanity.

Pluto was standing on one. There was no sound, no movement, no colour, only darkness. He was used to this however, the amount of times he dreamt something like this is almost uncountable, but the difference is, now, there are no constructs to accompany him, only his lone self.

He walked forward, curious about what will happen to him in this place. He was not scared, only curious, maybe that old man will appear again? Maybe he has unlocked something in himself that he didn’t discover for millenia, but alas, those thoughts were forgotten when he saw someone, chained in the middle of the void, butt naked.

Pluto walked towards the man that was chained. He stood in front of him, the man was looking below towards the blackness of the void, as if he was giving up on life. Pluto then looked at the chains, it was some sort of construct, a yellow construct.

Pluto then grabbed the head of the man, and forced him to look at him. When he saw the face, he finally recognised who it was. Loki.

“U-Uncle..” he stuttered weakly. “S-Save me.. I-I’ve made a mistake..”

“What did you do?” Pluto frowned.

“I- I’ve made a deal with the devil..” Loki said weakly. “I’ve made a deal.. with your kind..”

“Thanos?” Pluto questioned again.

“Please.. Save me uncle..” Loki murmured once again. “I- I will be forever in your debt..”

“O’ Sweet child of mine..” Pluto muttered. “What happened to you?”

“The sceptre..” Loki spoke. “He speaks to me.. he took control of me.. whispering.. to bring him to his brothers and sisters..”

“Where are you right now?” Pluto asked.

“I do not know uncle.. but I am on Midgard..” said Loki, getting weaker and weaker. “I can only maintain this spell for so long.. I beg of you.. please help me..”

“Well, just be patient.” said Pluto casually as he patted Loki’s shoulder. “Someone will help you either way.”

“W-What?”

“I said just be patient.” Pluto repeated. “Anyway, you can release the spell now.”

Loki looked at Pluto with a bit of disbelief, then stuttered. “I-I’ll be waiting, uncle..”

Loki then disappeared into green dust, and Pluto’s eyes opened, waking up from the dream. He looked around, and saw that Thena was snuggling beside him, he couldn’t feel his right arm as Thena was using it for pillow, snoring away.

He sighed, he stared at the dark ceiling above, and contemplated what he would do.

“Are you alright?” Thena suddenly spoke.

Pluto turned, to see Thena had woken up. “Sorry if I wake you up.”

“Can’t never sleep too deeply, warrior’s habit.” she said, sitting up from the bed. Pluto meanwhile, hopped out of bed, and he poured himself a whiskey while looking outside the window, towards the dark sky of New York.

Pluto drank the whiskey, and leaned on the table near the window. “I think we should take Helios on early leave this year, and bring him to the mansion.”

“But summer vacation’s still around a month away?” Thena questioned.

“Something’s about to happen.” said Pluto, looking at the sky outside. “The chaos at the Expo is one thing, this one’s different.”

“What about Gwen? He said he wants to bring her to train right?”

Pluto chuckled. “You really think George’s going to allow that?”

Thena shook her head in amusement. “No, not really..” She then stood up, and walked towards Pluto to also grab a drink. “Can’t you just deal with the problem?”

Pluto shook his head. “It’s not about us anymore, remember?” Pluto said.? “If we continue to protect humanity, when will they be independent? When we leave this world, who will protect them?”

“Our sons and daughters?” Thena stated. “The sorcerers?”

“Not enough.” Pluto drank his whiskey again. “They need to be aware of the threats from outside their planets, not just organisations, but the whole public. If I deal with it before it even starts, when will they wake up from their false sense of security? From their delusion of superiority?”

Thena sighed. “True..”

“I already told Fury that I’ll help them if there’s a threat beyond their capabilities,” said Pluto. “But right now, it’s not beyond their capability.”

Suddenly, a sound of ringing could be heard from a desk nearby. It was the sound of an old phone ringtone. Pluto opened the desk, revealing a nokia phone that he kept all this time.

“Speak of the devil..” Pluto murmured.

“You’re gonna pick it up?” Thena? questioned.

Pluto shrugged. “Why the hell not?”

Pluto then picked up the phone, only to hear a lot of background noise from the phone call.

“So you called,” said Pluto calmly.

“Mr. Smith..” Fury spoke calmly. “There’s been a situation.. a grave situation..”

“Is it the tesseract?” Pluto questioned softly, surprising Fury. “You played with a dangerous object, Fury, this problem is coming one way or another.”

“We need your help, Mr. Smith.”

“No.” Pluto answered, making Fury clenched the Nokia phone he held tightly. “This is not beyond your capability, you still have more ways to solve this rather than asking me for help, I’m your worst case scenario, remember? Reactivate the Avengers initiative Fury, you know you have to do it.”

Fury sighed. “You know a lot of things, Mr. Smith..”

“I’ll send my boys to you.” Pluto continued. “But they’re not your men, they’ll act independently.”

“We need to have a commanding voice. It’ll destroy the chain of command if we let your ‘boys’ run free.”

“It’s not a request, Director,” said Pluto.

“One of your ‘boys’ is a king, Mr. Smith, I cannot make him act, as he does not have jurisdiction over the United States.”

Pluto frowned. “I thought I told you to not spy on my family, director.”

“It comes with the job, Mr. Smith, nothing personal.” said Fury. “I’m sorry, but I cannot let you have them act independently.”

“I’ll send a representative to SHIELD so you can communicate with them, but they will still act independently.” said Pluto calmly. “I don’t care about the jurisdiction director, you can arrest them if you want, but I doubt you can do that..”

Pluto then hung up the phone, leaving a frustrated Fury at the other end of the phone call.

“Well, New York’s going to get messy from now on.” said Pluto as he grabbed another device, this time, it was a simple smartphone. He turned it on, and there was only one thing displayed on the screen, it was a red button.

Pluto pressed it, a fingerprint then appeared, Pluto pressed his left thumb on the scanner, and it confirmed the identity of him.

The phone then beeped for a few seconds, before the screen turned black. And out of that black screen, appeared a symbol.

The Unseen Ones symbol.