Prologue

My name is Jessica Attwater.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Marvelverse, I feel inclined to point out that I am not a member of the regular cast. You could go out today and buy every Marvel comic available to you and you wouldn't find a single mention of me. You can go ahead and try if you want, but it would be much cheaper to just take my word for it. In which case, you may be wondering to yourself 'just how did this weirdo end up in the Marvelverse anyway?' An excellent question, gold star for you.

I was working as usual, chatting with Carol about the Iron Man 3 trailer that had been released the night before when it all began. A portal appeared in the middle of the restaurant, a swirling blue mass that garnered no attention until it began to rapidly expand, becoming a writhing loop of snaking energy that opened up into a dark abyss. A view that seemed to swallow up half of the room. The noise and chatter slowly died down and an unsettling silence fell as everyone turned their gaze to the shadowy figure emerging from its depth.

"The portal is remaining open," said the figure, with a heavy Spanish or Latino accent. "It has stabilised of its own accord... Finally, I have found you."

His name was Deylin Laugmack I would later learn. He strode through the portal with all the bearing of a military dictator, dressed in a kind of black leather armour decorated with veins of flowing red energy. It probably would have been quite funny if it weren't for the whole portal thing- it certainly wasn't close to being Halloween. He scanned the gathered crowds with a bored look before his gaze met mine and that boredom turned to success. Evidently he had been looking for me.

He raised his arms up and began to grin at me.

"Did you really think you would be able to hide from me?" he asked with a chuckle, stepping forwards until he stood the other side of the counter that separated us. "Thanks to the generosity of my master, I was able to use the power of the Tesseract to track you down and now... you will give it to me."

I could see from the look in his eyes that he was deadly serious about getting whatever the hell it was he wanted from me, and judging from the way he lapsed into silence he expected me to say something in response to his threat.

"I have no idea what the hell you're talking about," I replied coolly, surprising myself with my own calm under the threat of this incoming storm.

"I should hope not," he said, chuckling again. "That would make this acquisition all the more difficult."

Acquisition of what? What the hell did he want from me? I didn't have anything worth taking. I studied his gaze carefully, trying to figure out what it was he was playing at. Was this all some kind of trick? The portal just some holographic mumbo jumbo-

"It is no trick, I assure you. But perhaps..." He stepped back a few paces and raised his hands once more. "A demonstration would be all the more convincing for you."

He flexed his fingers.

Everything in the room flew away from him, as if hit by an invisible barrier. I felt myself flying through the air, aided by a force that neither felt like push or pull. Tables cracked, dishes shattered and the glass front erupted as debris was thrown everywhere. Everything on top of the counter flew at me with a force. I raised my hands to protect my eyes as shard upon shard of glass flew at me.

"Enough."

I lowered my hands slowly. The glass hung inches away from my face, suspended in the air for a mere moment before falling to ground. Chaos erupted as people, over the shock of having being hurled like rag-dolls, began to scream and panic. They ran out of the doors and shattered windows, ignored by the man whose only focus was me.

My whole body hurt, cuts on the exposed skin of my arms felt as though they were doused in fire and a pounding in my skull accompanied a brief disorientation. Using the wall as a support I pulled myself to my feet and stood wavering as I met the gaze of the man who had done this. The restaurant was now empty apart from us two, and the street outside stood deserted. My chances of living long enough for any sort of help to arrive... slim.

"I do believe I said I wasn't going to kill you." Bathed by the blue glow of the portal, he stood tall and proud. The fact that he had just attacked innocent people for reason other than a demonstration of power lost to him. "I need you alive so that I may acquire it."

"You've done a bit of talking, but you haven't yet told me what it is you want from me." My legs were shaking, I felt as though the energy was being sucked from my body. I took a few shuffling steps forward, leaning now on the counter for support. "How will I know what it is you want unless you tell me."

"If you had already activated it you would know what I was talking about." He was studying his nails now. "But lucky for me you remain ignorant, otherwise this wouldn't be anywhere near as fun."

As he raised his hand once again I felt a tightness around my throat like he had grabbed it himself. The ground fell away as I was lifted into the air, struggling to remove a hand that wasn't there. He watched me struggle for a few moments before making a pushing motion with his hand, sending me back against the wall and there was nothing I could do to stop him. I was powerless to stop him. There was no way I could hope to stop him.

"You could if you activated your ability." He raised his other hand in a shrug-like motion."Hiding it is useless, I can sense the power of the stone within you- how else would the portal remain open? Activate your ability, so that I may take that power away from you."

The invisible grip tightened. Spots appeared in my vision. A strange feeling in my chest, a sense unknown awoken and honing in on two things in the room. The man and the portal. A fiery anger swirling and raging throughout my body.

"Just because I said wasn't going to kill you, doesn't mean I won't make you suffer," he hissed.

The energy continued to build, cascading around inside me as I forced a word through my lips.

He cocked his head to the side. "What was that?"

"I said-" My skin prickled as the energy swirled ever closer to the surface. "Stop!"

The energy burst forth from my body, erupting in a wave of blue light that knocked the psychic man to the ground. I dropped, managing to get to my feet and forcing myself into motion. As he struggled to get to his feet I hopped over the counter at him, tackling him and pushing us both back through the portal.

So there you have it, a crazy guy shows up through a portal and starts parading his powers around without any regard for the damage he's doing. Pretty weird, right? The other side of the portal ended up in some kind of military base, where he and I were both taken down before we had a chance to recover. Turns out the military base we had invaded belonged to S.H.I.E.L.D. and obviously they weren't very happy about that. Especially once they realised he was the one who broke in the first time to use the Tesseract.

I tried to explain my part as best as I could. That I was just a simple woman who had been attacked out of nowhere by Deylin who wanted the power of the Tesseract from me- even though they were the ones who had it- and that S.H.I.E.L.D. was actually the name of a fictional organisation where I came from. Naturally that second part didn't go down so well and I was locked away in my own cosy little cell.

That was over a month ago.

In that time I had seen very few people; aside from Dr Berwin and the occasional visit from Director Fury I was pretty much on my own. It gave me a lot of time to think, and given the circumstances that probably wasn't the greatest thing in the world for me. I was in a fictional world for Christ's sake! This wasn't possible! I can't count how many times I came to having a complete and utter breakdown- and all thanks to Deylin... why did he have to do this to me?

But I eventually worked through it and came out the other side a saner person for it. Well not really, I was still mentally freaking out- but on a more manageable scale. Now I was able to be more cheerful about things, I had worked through the fear to get to the fangirling. I was sitting in a S.H.I.E.L.D. prison cell! How cool was that! I mean, there was no foreseeable end to my incarceration, but still...

S.H.I.E.L.D. had the Tesseract still, which meant that Loki had yet to make his grand appearance and the whole 'Avengers assemble!' thing was nothing more than a pipe dream. I'd told Fury about the threat, only so I could gain his trust. I hadn't told him about the agents being compromised or anything else. If Deylin knew he wasn't likely to say anything...

Deylin had said it was thanks to his master that he was able to use the Tesseract. Was Loki his master? Or perhaps this went higher than that. There were so many questions I had about that guy and what he said that some days I could think of little else. He had been willing to make me suffer to get whatever he wanted to get his hands on- and his hands might not be the only ones who wanted my power. Deylin wasn't likely to give me any answers, so I would have to turn my attention elsewhere.

He maybe the god of mischief, a sorcerer and a hell of a lot more powerful than either Deylin or myself. But I was one severely ticked off woman who had been attacked for no reason and was now locked away in cell in a different dimension because people thought I was a little bit crazy. This all started because I'd been a clueless idiot the last time around.

I let the blue energy collect and swirl around my hands.

This time I would be ready.

A/N: Jessica Attwater is back. I have said before that I was going to rewrite the story but I never did, I struggled with it and I always wondered why. After looking back over the old story with a critic's eyes I realised that (aside from my terrible writing)she didn't have much of an active role in the story, she was an ordinary person in a world of superheroes and her true powers didn't awaken till much later.

So this time around I decided that having her awaken her powers a bit earlier might help in this- as well as introducing a bad guy I never hand chance to in the main series because I kept getting sidetracked. So this time around might go a little differently than before.

I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

~ Quantum Fox