"What are you doing?!"
Loki's furious shout came through Stark's communicator:
"Didn't you say you wouldn't intervene?! If you joined in too, there wouldn't be enough Chitauri for you to fight!"
"No, I didn't..." Stark denied it somewhat guiltily. "There was a little accident with the plan. Peter... he might be sleepwalking..."
"I don't care what he's doing. Great, now the battleship's gone. What are you planning to use as a whetstone for Earth?!" Loki snapped.
"Can't you send a few more?"
Loki took a deep breath and said, "What do you think spaceships are? Pebbles you can pick up off a beach? The Chitauri aren't a particularly advanced civilization either. Their ships are important to them too."
"Aren't you supposed to be the God of Trickery? You already tricked three ships into coming over. Can't you trick three more into coming?"
Loki snorted. "Only because I'm doing you a favor... Just wait!"
The other end of the communicator fell silent. Stark pursed his lips in thought, then took out his phone and called Strange.
"Think of a way to get Peter out of there! That Gray Mist... Schiller's there too. I knew it was him! Get both of them out of there, now! Don't ruin my plan!"
"Easy for you to say." Strange looked up at the battleship that had just appeared and exploded into a cloud of fireworks. "You don't expect me to go into low Earth orbit and fight them, do you?"
"Don't you know magic?" Stark said righteously. "Who was it that told me the Sorcerer Supreme could do anything?"
Strange angrily hung up, but angry or not, the job still had to be done.
As the Sorcerer Supreme, he knew well that Kamar-Taj was part of human civilization. If one prospered, so did the other;