NOVEL SIMPLE 111 Loki Is No Joke
For two entire weeks, Nick Fury worried about where the incursion was going to happen. He checked over all of the projects SHIELD had going, even the black ones very few knew about, and none of them could be associated with an invasion. He didn't even consider Project Pegasus when Dr. Selvig called him and said that he and his team were ready to try and reactivate the tesseract.
Fury contacted Clint Barton for back-up, because Natasha was out on assignment in Russia, and the pair went to the secret research facility in the Mojave Desert in Nevada where the experiments were to take place. Maria Hill was already there to oversee the facility's security and she watched on the monitors as both Fury and Clint entered the main testing area.
Eric Selvig and his team made some last minute checks and were ready to activate the inducer to try and jumpstart the tesseract to extract its energy. They wanted to charge up the old world war two energy weapons that the Red Skull and Hydra had constructed and SHIELD had confiscated.
They all prepared for the test and Selvig started it up. The tesseract started to glow and energy swirled around the thing before an energy beam shot out across the room and a portal opened up. Before it was fully formed, the portal seemed to explode and the energy flowed up to the ceiling. What remained was a kneeling being where the power receiving receptacle should have been.
“This is the first incursion.” Nick Fury whispered.
Clint stood beside Fury and deployed his Iron Hawk suit. All six of the armed agents around the room readied their automatic weapons as the figure slowly stood with a manic grin on his face.
“Sir.” Fury said and gained the being's attention. “Put down the spear.”
The being looked at the glowing spear in his hand and the smile disappeared as he took aim at Fury and fired a blue energy bolt at him from the spear. Neither Iron Hawk nor Fury tried to jump out of the way as Iron Hawk put an armored hand in front of Fury and caught the bolt right on the repulsor in the palm. The suit lit up with the power boost.
“Fire! Fire, fire, fire!” The head of the security team ordered and everyone opened fire. The bullets seemed to have little effect and only damaged the being's clothing. He jumped from the portal platform towards one of the security team and stabbed with the spear, only for it to deflect off of the auto shield the agent wore.
The being was surprised by that as more bullets hit him in the back of the head. He pulled out two small throwing knives and threw them at both targets, only for both knives to be deflected by the shields those agents wore.
The being was feeling frustrated and charged up the spear again to fire upon the defenseless woman at the controls for the experiment. She let out a scream as the bolt flew towards her and then sighed with relief as Iron Hawk appeared and took it in the chest for her.
“Thank you.” She said.
“No problem, doc.” Iron Hawk said and he deployed his energy powered bow. “Take cover!”
She nodded and ducked down below the console as more bullets hit the being to annoy him, which was perfect, because it distracted him enough for Iron Hawk to fire his supersonic arrow and hit the being square in the chest. The being screamed in pain as he flew backwards and slammed against the wall before he tumbled down to land in a crouch.
“You... pitiful... insect.” The being growled as he pulled the arrow out and the spear glowed brightly.
“Bring it.” Iron Hawk said and put the bow away as his chest symbol glowed just as brightly.
“RAH!” The being yelled and stood as he shot a strong beam of energy at Iron Hawk, who also fired at the same time with his chest beam. The two beams met in the center of the room and it started to form a ball of energy. A very volatile ball of energy.
Fury hit the broadcast button on his earpiece. “EVAC! GO! NOW!” He loudly ordered and everyone in the facility scrambled to leave as he grabbed the tesseract and put it into the prepared briefcase.
Ten seconds later, when the energy ball was two feet wide, Iron Hawk's energy flow started to falter. The chest beam wasn't meant to expel that much energy for that long and that was all the being needed to gain the upper hand. He flicked his hand and a short sword clanged off of Iron Hawk's helmet just as the energy ball exploded.
Everyone still in the room were blown off of their feet, the being included, and silence fell because most of the equipment was destroyed and several people were unconscious. It took several minutes before the being stirred and sat up. His chest was bleeding even more from the explosion and he slowly stood up. He tore open his top and packed some conjured cloth into the torn open wound.
The being walked over to Dr. Selvig and pressed the sceptre to the man's chest. Eric took in a deep breath and sat up as his eyes clouded over briefly.
Fury woke and pretended to stay unconscious as he watched the being touch several people with the spear and they all sat up with those briefly clouded eyes. What the hell is he doing to them?
The being went to where Iron Hawk lay on the floor and saw the partially ruined armor. He pressed the tip of the spear to the chest piece with a clank. Nothing happened. He tried again and nothing.
“Bah!” He said and kicked the body out of the way. “How dare you defy Loki of Asgard!”
“Loki, we need to go.” Eric said and looked up at the ceiling. “The energy is destabilized and will explode in a few minutes.”
“Grab the tesseract.” Loki said and wavered slightly as he dropped to a knee. “Assist me.”
Four of the security personnel picked him up and carried him as Eric Selvig grabbed the briefcase that had flown from Fury's grip during the explosion. They left the room at a fast walk and Fury sat up with a groan. He stood and walked over to where Clint was and spoke the override command on the man's suit. It sparked and metal scraped as it compressed back and folded away.
“Barton!” Fury barked and slapped the man's face. “Come on, let's go!”
“Yessir.” Clint slurred and sat up, wobbled a little, then shook his head and stood. They both grabbed the still unconscious woman scientist and carried her out of the room as the energy from the portal surged. They made it to the nearly empty motor pool and hopped into a vehicle. The driver stepped on the gas and they drove down the escape tunnel at a speed that was just below dangerous.
They made it out in plenty of time and met up with Maria Hill and everyone else that had been in the facility. Most of them carried a Flerken kitten, too. The entire group turned and watched as their facility made a thumping sound and then the entire compound seemed to implode and dropped down into the earth to leave nothing but a large crater.
“What do we do now, sir?” Maria asked.
“Now we do what I wanted to do years ago.” Fury said. “Assemble the Avengers.”
*
Despite Fury's immediate order, it still took a week to bring everyone together. Natasha Romanoff had to be extracted from her mission and she had to retrieve Bruce Banner from his humanitarian efforts. Clint Barton had to heal up a bit and get his suit repaired. Tony Stark had to be brought to New York and then told about the tesseract and what he needed to build to track it down.
Steve Rogers had to be convinced to leave his self imposed seclusion by Fury himself. Jennifer Walters had to be politely asked to come in, because she had been working for Agent Parker at the time. Once she knew Bruce would be there, she agreed, as long as she was allowed to be the one to tell her cousin what had happened to her.
What Fury didn't realize was that a certain heavily modified pager had been pilfered from his personal vault in his office and replaced with a fake. Not that he noticed, because he didn't even check it, let alone pushed the button to call for help. Someone else did, though.
The people being assembled arrived at different times as they gathered on the deck of the aircraft carrier that had just left New York Harbour and entered the Atlantic Ocean. As each Quinjet landed, it disgorged its occupants and the first to arrive were Steve Rogers and Phil Coulson. Steve stood on the deck of the ship he had only seen pictures of and he looked over the retreating New York skyline as Phil went inside for his next assignment.
That Quinjet took off and another landed behind Steve. The ramp dropped and Natasha and Bruce walked down the boarding ramp and Steve turned to greet Bruce with a handshake and a nod to Natasha.
“This sure is something, isn't it?” Steve asked and turned back to the view.
“Yes, it's a monumentally bad idea.” Bruce said. “Having the big guy inside a tin can on the water is not going to end well.”
Another Quinjet landed and Jennifer Walters walked down the ramp. She let out a girly squeal and gained all three people's attention as they turned to look at her.
“Jen?” Bruce asked, surprised.
“Bruce!” Jennifer ran over to him and gave him a hug. “It's so nice to see you!”
“What are you doing here?” Bruce asked as he hugged her back.
“Wouldn't you like to know.” Jennifer said, teasingly.
“Jen.” Bruce said in a stern voice.
Jennifer let him go with a laugh. “I'm here for the same reason as you.”
“What? How can you help?” Bruce asked and saw the SHIELD emblem on her coat. “No, you...”
“It's not quite what you think.” Jennifer said, cryptically.
Bruce opened his mouth to argue with her for joining an organization that was hunting him and Natasha interrupted him.
“We should get inside. It's going to get hard to breathe soon.” Natasha said as several loud whirring sounds started.
“What is that?” Steve asked and walked over to the edge of the upper flight deck to look down. Bruce and Jennifer walked over and looked as well. Moments later, a giant air turbine was revealed.
“Yes, this is a terrible idea.” Bruce said with a shake of his head.
The four of them went inside the tower and up to the main bridge as the helicarrier took off. Clint walked over and greeted Natasha silently with a nod and a look.
“Yay! The rest of the gang are here!” Tony Stark said with some snark and a smile.
“Tony.” Fury said and Tony waved his rebuke away. “Welcome ladies and gentlemen. Please have a seat and we'll get the briefing underway.”
Everyone sat around the table and Maria Hill walked over to hand each of them a file folder. Only two of them opened it to read, Bruce and Jennifer. Clint, Tony, Natasha, and Steve left it on the table.
“If any of you don't know what happened a week ago.” Fury said and tapped the Smart Television behind him and the video of the entire incident played.
“I'm suing you for stealing my tech.” Tony commented when he saw Iron Hawk.
“You can't. It wasn't patented and it also works differently than yours.” Maria said and handed him another folder. “Here are the details. We also used Vanko's arc reactors, created separately from your own, and they were also not patented.”
Tony opened the folder and read the papers, frowned and closed the folder. “That bastard.”
“Who?” Steve asked.
“Benjamin Parker.” Tony almost spat and tossed the folder down.
“Hey! He's not a bastard!” Jennifer almost shouted in Ben's defense and everyone turned to look at her. “Ben's a great guy and he's the best boss I've ever had. As long as you don't try to screw him over...”
Several faces looked guilty at her words.
“...he'll do everything he can to help you.” Jennifer said and blushed a little. “And I mean everything.”
“Ughhh.” Bruce groaned and rubbed his face. “Tell me you didn't sleep with your boss.”
“Not right away.” Jennifer said and Bruce covered his eyes. “He's a real sweetheart and he can kick ass when he needs to. He's also incredibly smart and his ideas...” She paused and smiled. “If it wasn't for his help, I wouldn't have had such an easy time dealing with... ah... I'll tell you later.”
They watched the rest of the encounter and everyone heard the being call himself Loki of Asgard.
“After some extensive research, some of which was provided by Agent Parker, we discovered his name is Loki Odinson, half-brother of Thor, whom we've already encountered before.” Maria said.
“Oh, crap.” Clint said.
“Yes, he really is an Asgardian.” Fury said. “He's also known as the Trickster God and is a powerful sorcerer.”
“Magic. Wonderful.” Tony said, sarcastically.
“The suit actually held up well to whatever blasts that spear sends out.” Clint said.
“It's actually a sceptre.” Jennifer corrected and several raised eyebrows were given to her. “Never mind.”
“It was the explosion and the suit's power systems straining that knocked me out.” Clint added.
“If you had a backup battery system and double the power runs, you wouldn't have that problem.” Tony said, smugly.
“Ben sacrificed that for extra armor and reinforcement, which looks like a great choice, because it saved Clint's life.” Jennifer said and everyone looked at her again. “I'm Ben's lawyer. He's told me pretty much everything about his life.”
Clint couldn't resist making a joke. “How many times does he use the bathroom?”
“Twice a day for number one and once every second day for number two.” Jennifer said without hesitation. “If he drinks more fluids with his meals or after a workout, it's three times a day for number 1.”
Everyone looked surprised, especially Maria and Natasha.
“You wouldn't believe how surprisingly open he is when he accepts someone into his life.” Jennifer said and the slight blush was back on her face. “I mean, we're not dating or anything and I've had supper at his place with his aunt four times since I started working with him.”
“Don't you mean for him?” Natasha asked, as if trying to get a dig in.
Jennifer shook her head. “He's paying me a spectacular salary on top of the ridiculous retainer he's already give me, and he is definitely my boss; but, it feels more like a partnership. It's as if the more we accomplish his goals together, the more we can strive to do, because were in it together.”
Natasha couldn't stop the guilty look from appearing on her face again.
“We're straying far afield from what we are trying to accomplish here.” Fury reminded them and everyone focused on him again. “We need to track down the tesseract.” He said and looked at Bruce. “You're the foremost expert on Gamma radiation, Dr. Banner. We need you to work with Stark to build a gamma detector strong enough to find the energy signature of the tesseract and possibly the sceptre.”
Bruce blinked his eyes several times. “You didn't bring me here because you wanted the big guy?”
“It might come to that later.” Fury said. “Can you handle the job or not?”
“Uh... yeah.” Bruce said and then smiled. “I mean, yes. Yes, I can. I'd be happy to, actually.”
“Is there anything you need before you head to the lab to get started?” Maria asked.
“You can contact the various universities with satellite arrays and have them attach gamma radiation detectors. They won't do much to help individually; but, linked together they can give us a great search grid to use when we build the main detector.” Bruce said and stood. “I just hope you have what we'll need.”
“There's no need to worry about that, doc.” Natasha said and stood. “We've got all the toys.”
No, you don't. Jennifer thought and gave Fury a look. With his nod, she stood as well. “Hey, Bruce!”
“Yeah?” Bruce asked and looked over at his cousin. He was a little confused as she took off her jacket and revealed that she was wearing a quite tight spandex-like outfit that was a mix of white and purple.
Steve Rogers blushed a little. “Um... miss... that outfit is... not leaving a lot to the imagination.”
Jennifer let out a girlish giggle. “You haven't seen anything yet.” She said and took a fighting stance and then... she grew... and grew... and turned green as she reached 7 feet in height.
“OH, MY GOD!” Bruce yelled. “RUN! Run, you fools! SHE'S GOING TO RAMPAGE AND KILL US ALL!”
Dead silence fell as only Tony, Steve and Bruce pushed away from the table, fully prepared to fight or flee... and nothing else happened. The three of them looked completely confused, too.
“Ha. Ha ha. HA HA HAHAHA!” Power Woman laughed and pointed at Bruce's face. She kept laughing loudly, Maria covered her own mouth to hide her smile, and Fury didn't bother stopping the crooked smile that appeared on his own face. Clint and Natasha chuckled.
“What... what the HELL is going on?!?” Bruce asked in a shout.
“Bruce, meet Power Woman.” Fury said as an introduction. “She'll fill you in on what happened as you work.”
Bruce looked stunned as he nodded and let Natasha lead him, Tony, and Power Woman across the bridge towards the hallway at the back.
“That was a good joke.” Tony said and admired her form. “Steve was right, you know. We can pretty much see everything.”
“No, actually. You can't.” Power Woman said and slapped her chest and it didn't move. “Heavily armored padding.” She did the same move to where her crotch was. “Completely covered and safe.”
“Well, damn.” Tony said. “You have to introduce me to your tailor.”
Power Woman let out a rumbling chuckle and didn't respond. She knew Tony would become upset if she told him it was Ben. Reminding Tony of his failures wasn't going to keep her on his good side.
Fury turned to the others when the four people left the bridge. “The rest of you can relax for now. Until we track down where the cube is, we're in a holding pattern.”
The others nodded and Maria handed them sheets of papers with their room assignments, training room locations, and where the cafeteria was.