Synopsis / Summary / Plot
This issue focuses on Loki and then Hulkling.
We begin with Mother in her dimension where she's captured all the Young Avengers alternates that were sent against her last issue. As I haven't mentioned before they all come from what this series calls mayfly-dimensions. The narrator tells us she's still hoping to catch the Demiurge, the Wiccan of Earth-616. Then she notices the narrator and grabs and eats *him* (or at least his captions).
Meanwhile Kid Loki has come to talk to her in an 'astral' form within a protective pentagram/circle. Mother is displeased with him even though he points out he delivered to her exactly what he promised.
We see him 6 months ago whispering in the ear of sleeping Billy Kaplan that 1 day soon he'd notice that his love Teddy Altman is unhappy and he'll want to help him. With his power he can search the multiverse and find what will make Teddy happy again, and Teddy will love him for it. (So this is why in #1 Billy searched the multiverse for a copy of Teddy's Skrull 'mother' who wasn't dead. But what he got instead was the evil extra-dimensional parasite Mother, which kicked off this whole series.)
Loki reminds her that he gave her Wiccan which is what he promised. Mother complains that he interfered with the spell (#1 again), but Loki points out that he never promised *not* to do that. On the other hand she *did* promise not to tell the YA about his involvement, which she's be bound to honour. And now Loki has Billy under his own wing.
Mother takes the form of Loki's dead Frost Giant mother Farbauti to ask him why he's here. Kid Loki replies that he wants to play the 3 questions game. They each ask 3 questions and the other can't lie. She agrees and takes the form of each of the (not-dead) 3 Asgardian All-Mothers (Gaea, Idunn and Freyja who currently co-rule Asgardia) to ask her questions.
Gaea asks what Loki wants with Billy. It's because he will be the Demiurge who will control the past and future of magic. Loki asks if Mother controlled which dimension he (and the other YAers) escaped to last issue (the dimension where they met Leah). She denies it. Idunn asks how far he's got with stealing Billy's power. He says he doesn't want to steal it but influence the Demiurge when he rewrites magic so that he, Loki, determines the rules and knows all the cheat codes. But if not that then stealing Billy's reality-warping power would be good. In turn he asks if then fake Patriot chose the escape dimension. Again the answer's no. Freyja asks him what he's feeling guilty about and he answers "Everything". His last question is "Who's the Patriot?". She claims not to know.
Mother then claims to have won the game. But Loki asserts that she learned nothing that mattered because nothing he could tell her would alter the fact that she can't do anything unless the YA return to her influence in New York, which they won't. Whereas her answers revealed that she she knew and controlled nothing, and his plan could continue without any hitches. And with that he takes his leave.
Afterwards Patriot appears with Mother. She asks *him* what he's doing and his as-usual enigmatic answer is "Denial". She points out he's here without protection and prepares to eat him. But then hesitates, suspecting a trap. And he does his usual dissolving away trick.
Her next visitor is Leah, like Loki magically protected and not here in flesh. It turns out Mother doesn't know Leah, who says she wants to disrupt Loki's plans. Mother offers to help.
Last issue we learned that Leah is Teddy Altman's therapist (Hulkling wasn't with the others when they met her). Teddy and Billy are having time apart because Teddy (prompted by Loki and David Alleyne (Prodigy)) fears that Billy may have warped reality to make him love him, and Billy worries about that too. Now with Leah watching Teddy's trying to send Billy an email but can't think what to say.
Leah now takes him to a new group therapy session which she refers to as a sacred circle. When he sees that 1 of the circle is 'Patriot' he Hulkling's out and demands to know what he's done with Tommy Shepherd (Wiccan's 'brother' Speed, see #6). Patriot just says "Denial" again. Leah calms him down and says they can fight after they leave the circle.
She tells the group Billy's problem and then her own grudge against Loki who abandoned her at the beginning of time. The others introduce themselves. 3 females have a beef with Noh-Varr (Marvel Boy). Annie befriended him when he was lost on Earth but then he dumped her. 10 years in the future she acquired some Kang-tech and started travelling the timelines where she met Merree. Merree is Noh-Varr's Kree love who has learned from Annie that she will die when their spaceship crashes on Earth. Noh will swear to avenge her but then forget about it. The 3rd woman is Oubliette who's after Marvel Boy because she hunts aliens. Lastly there's the Ultimate Nullifier who was in the Teen Brigade with America Chavez and they had a relationship but then she left - but he denies being dumped. Leah asks Patriot how he feels about Kate Bishop (who had a relationship with the real Young Avenger Patriot and also with Speed who we'll discover later he may have 'absorbed') and he replies "No one escapes". Leah sums it up for Teddy that they've all been wronged by YAers.
Teddy thinks they're all crazy stalkers. Leah claims that he's still under Billy's spell. But he's free to leave if he wants. So he does. But when he exits the room he's not where he came in from. Leah follows and tells him she didn't guarantee where leaving the magic circle would take him. He's back in New York with Mother and her goo-people.