Gathering fathomless thoughts from the very core of her mind, the daughter of the Hawk and the Widow drifted through the empty streets, slicing through the tendrils of smoggy darkness that filled the chilled night air, the dim flickering streetlight piercing weakly through bits of blackness spilling fine wisps of light into the sidewalk. The young assassin had been walking home after a long day at SHIELD, training her butt off so that she could impress her parents and hopefully earn the full title Agent-Assassin-Spy at last. Unfortunately, it was far more difficult than she anticipated. Fury didn't quite approve of a young woman of only eighteen taking on such an enormous responsibility, and all the mountainous weight of her parents' fame already rested on her shoulders as if she were trying to support the world on them. She sat down hard on the bench, slowly burying her face into the pallid palms of her hands so she could clear her hazy, stressed mind. Honestly, Emily didn't really care whether or not her parents would be angry with her for being out so late at night. It was better than that one time where she went to one of Uncle Tony's parties at Stark Tower when she was sixteen. In fact, every troubled situation she got into was probably better than when she visited Stark Tower during one of his huge late-night celebrations. Her parents never trusted either of them again after that.
Suddenly, after sitting there for quite some time, the subtle, cryptic sound of footsteps filled her ears. They were slow yet deliberate, barely audible but echoing heavily through her eardrums all the same, thick with the prominent crunch of boots. Male, she assumed. Possibly having an ego? Glancing up slowly, her watchful, prismatic eyes identical to those of both her father's and her mother's scanned warily over the ominous figure, sensing the hard, icy, peridot gaze she had become all too fearful of in the first place.
It was Loki.
Her heart caught in her chest before hammering harshly against her ribs, horror flashing in her eyes as every muscle in her body seemed to freeze like a raindrop falling into a snowstorm. He was the very object of her parents' nightmares, the one she'd been told not to go after no matter what, the one she'd been told to run from the minute she laid eyes on him for the first time. The demigod-slash-frost giant was powerful, far more powerful than anything she'd faced before, and she knew he was capable of abhorrent things. And yet she couldn't gather the strength to run, couldn't say a word as he took a step out of the shadows, watching with widened eyes as his lips twisted, contorted into a feral smile. Finally gathering the courage, the agent began to conceal her growing fear with an impassive facade, one she'd used many times when emotion was simply something she couldn't reveal.
As Loki stepped completely out of the shadows and into the light she rose quickly from the bench, her breathing grown rugged and strenuous as she dared a shaky, small step back, palms closing around the hilt of one of her wickedly curved throwing daggers as she gazed, unblinking at the Trickster, eyes locked in a fierce gaze with his. It took all of her strength to hide her overwhelming, growing fear with a relatively empty expression cast over her colorless features on instinct. Perhaps if she could only hide her fearfulness towards him, that one disadvantage, one weakness, then he might possibly leave her alone. This was what she kept telling herself, though she knew how every ounce of it had been nothing but lies.
"What do you want from me?"
The question spilled hastily from her mouth with far more emotion than she had intended to reveal to him, a slight tremble in her voice as she took another gradual step back, her gaze wandering from his cruel smile from his towering stance to his cruelly curved scepter, gleaming sinfully and threateningly in the slightly illuminated blackness as she saw his grin begin to spread through her peripheral vision at the clear dread and panic in her tone.
"What do I want from you? Oh, I believe you already know the answer to that, spiderling." He purred, the words flowing smoothly over his tongue and seeping into her ears, sending cold chills down her spine to jump across her skin in the form of frigid goosebumps. "I simply request information."
As her blood ran cold Emily's vibrantly prismatic eyes shimmered brilliantly against her fiery locks of hair, piercing through the darkness and illuminating everything around her as a light wind swept the autumn leaves off of the ground to drift back down again. As soon as her panic and dread began to bleed through her vacant facade, her mask of fallacious nonchalance, resentment quickly followed suit; her eyes flickered like the avaricious flames of a wildfire with animosity and tempestuousness, her glare icy and piercing as her cadaverous palms curled into tight, white-knuckled fists. "Bite me." She snarled through the tight, clenched set of her jaw, the left side of her nose twitching in pure loathing.
"Oh," He faked a slight pout. "that is so…not what I wanted to hear from you." In a flash he vanished, only to appear just behind her. "I am a god, you insufficient little wench. Your pathetic mortal weapons have no affect on me." He hissed low and menacing into her ear, his raven hair falling around his shoulders as he wrenched her wrist into his grasp, twisting it until her blade slipped between her fingers with a series of sharp clatters against the pavement. "I'm sure you don't want me to have to pry the information from you the hard way." The god threatened grimly, keeping her arm twisted backwards against her upper back as he forced his scepter, glistening with glints of vibrant gold and sapphire to her opaque throat, pressing lightly yet threateningly against the tender pale skin. She gave a shaky, mocking laugh, lifting her chin as the blade dug into the sensitive skin of her neck below it. "You think that's really going to work on me?" Another peal of jeering laughter. "Please. I'll watch hell freeze over before giving in to you." The girl spat fiercely, the sting of blood pricking her skin like tiny needles as it slowly began to run steadily down her throat in a slender ribbon.
But, little did he know, Emily had a backup plan.
In that moment she drove her other blade, the one the god hadn't known about, deep into Loki's slender, bony hand where bundles of delicate nerves gathered there, exposed just underneath a thin, sinewy layer of skin stretched intricately over them like parchment. Emily emitted a sharp, strangled cry as a loud crack sounded from her wrist as it snapped suddenly from the force of Loki's reactive blow, contorted at a revolting angle as she swiftly tore herself from his oddly vice-like grip. Both with tight clenched jaws, gritted teeth and pursed lips they circled each other, concealing their pain as each sized up the other, like two animals preparing for a fight to the very death.
Surely this wasn't his intention, nor part of his plan, she figured. He probably wanted to see what she was made of, to see just how skilled and highly trained the daughter of the Hawk the Black Widow really was.
And that was exactly what she wanted to show him; how underestimation could be a killer.
Instantaneously the girl sensed a charge of surging power beginning to emanate gradually from the shining core of Loki's scepter, glowing a deeper, brighter blue as it gradually began to expand. All at once, the force of the blast shook the ground beneath her feet as it was thrust in her direction, advancing towards her center mass like a freight train. As soon as she felt the earthquake-like vibration, it was already piercing through the air, probably sensing the heat she gave off. Luckily her sharp instincts came into play at the right time and the young woman hit the ground hard, dismissing the sharp pain that shot through her nerves as she whipped her body away from him before quickly getting to her feet, drawing her bow and loading an arrow from the quiver splayed across her back. Taking aim at the weak spot in his armour her fingertips released the arrow with a steady hand, watching it slice through the air in a graceful arc towards him. Immediately it was deflected easily by the god, as if effortless. He almost seemed to scoff at her for a moment before drawing his scepter back recurrently, this time advancing on her before she had the chance to grab another arrow. Instead she dropped her bow, grabbing her long, double-sided blade that seemed to match the size of his scepter as she deflected his intended blow, twisting the lethal blade away from her vulnerable flesh before driving it in the direction of his exposed neck. He used his scepter to deflect her attack with a deafening radiance of nonchalance emanating from him in waves as he twisted her own blade from her grasp.
In that moment she drove the heel of her own boot up, knocking the gleaming scepter out of his hands before landing another hard kick, this time to the sensitive lining of his jaw. He caught hold of her foot in the split second that it remained in midair and gripped it tightly, jerking it violently in a half-circle in the hopes that she would fall, or dislocate her knee. Instead she let him whip her into a twisting layout where she landed, shockingly unharmed, before slamming her boot into his jaw with her other foot. She heard a snarling hiss of pain from within Loki's throat and he instead grasped her by the throat with both hands, closing them in tight around her windpipe as he made them vanish, instead reappearing in front of an abandoned warehouse.
Emily clawed frantically at his fingers, the air slowly seeping out of her lungs as a rosy hue due to lack of air slowly spilled over her surprised features. Still grasping her by the throat he slammed her into the wall before conjuring binds from the thin, murky air around them, chaining her to the wall as she struggled for air. "This is not how I wanted the night to go…" His voice carried a bit of a singsongy tone to it, making it all the more fear-inducing as he eventually let go of her neck and paced around the space in front of her, as if contemplating what to do. Air began to fill her lungs once more and she gasped gratefully, greedily sucking in every bit of sweet oxygen she could in a few gulps as the cadaverous sheen that once covered her face started to creep over her features once more.
"How brave the little child of the two killers thinks herself to be…and yet, how foolish is the source of her pride. You weak, pathetic little mortal, think you are strong enough to spit in the face of a god and get away with it." He snarled, anger burning brightly in his eyes, fierce and cruel as his gaze pierced through hers.
"Clearly you must be taught the proper way to treat your king. You must be taught respect." Struggling frantically against the chains she watched him fashion a knife from the thin air, its blade razor sharp and gleaming a bright silver against the moonlight. "And I know just the way to teach you the lesson I intend so insistently to bestow upon you." Loki smiled evilly, his eyes glistening with malice as he slowly slid the tip of the blade of the knife into the soft, sensitive skin of her already injured shoulder, his fingers seeming to twitch with anticipation against the hilt of the knife as torturous, slow pain crept into the nerves of her torso, increasing ever so gradually that it made every ounce of dolor that much more concrete, that much more substantial. Then without warning the blade was driven deep into her torso until all that remained visible was the hilt. A piercing scream of agony escaped her lips and she writhed in pain against the binds, her body shaking violently as Loki began to twist it, curling the blade into her muscles until she felt its metal scrape the very marrow of her shoulder bone.
"Now, let us begin..."