SoA – Part 3 –
Chapter 3 - Does Supergirl ever do that?
Fury just stared after the group of most dangerous people on the planet as they walked away together. Tony, Supergirl and Bruce Banner seemed to be hitting to off well together. For a moment Fury was torn between looking happy they were getting along, and pissed off that they were bonding together. He turned dramatically and left with Hill directly on his heels.
After they left Coulson walked over to Steve, ignoring Widow, who was the only other person in the room. "Can I have a word Captain?"
Steve looked at the plain looking man who had fanboyed at him earlier on the Quinjet. There was no trace of the fanboy now in his demeanor. That helped Steve relax a little. He'd never really known how to handle non-military types who wanted to shake his hand when he'd become a celebrity. It was no different in this day and age. "What can I do for you Agent Coulson?"
Coulson handed him a tablet. "You know how to use this?"
Steve nodded slowly. He wasn't great at technology, but as long as people pulled up what they wanted him to read he was ok with tablets, or computers. He was still getting a handle on the internet, but he couldn't navigate the SHIELD database yet, but he was getting there. He'd only been awake for a little over a month. Less than two weeks ago he'd seen his first computer keyboard.
Coulson nodded with military precision. The familiar mannerism made Steve feel serener than before. "Read that file." He ordered him. "That's my notes and evaluation of Zor El. Not the redacted and edited version you've likely seen." He gave the Captain a stern look. "There are several things you need to keep in mind as you look that over, and when you talk to that young woman."
Steve looked at the stern looking man with some concern. "And what would that be?" He asked curious and anxious to read the file.
"One, I'm her handler. No one in SHIELD has more contact and knows more about her than I do." He told him flatly. Steve nodded, he understood that Agent Coulson was telling him between the lines, next time he had an issue with her ask him about her, not Tony. "Two, she is a warrior, that armor she wears was earned in battle. She might look like a young teenager but she is as much a soldier as you are, and as you heard, she is older than she appears. None of us know how old she is, even her"
Steve looked surprised, but the words rang true with what he had seen of her so far. Coulson continued when Steve gave a wordless nod. "Asgard has its own code of conduct for warriors, and warrior honor. Don't challenge her honor again, or you might end up in an honor fight to the death if you go too far. She's a fair minded girl, but she is a warrior. I heard the tape. She gave you a pass. I suggest you correct your mistake, or she likely will not respect you." He warned the old hero.
Steve looked a little put out by the lecture. "But she respects Tony." His chin lifted not understanding why.
"Tony earned her respect by helping with civilians, on the ground when needed, and putting his money to use helping people." Coulson replied with a shrug. "She is teaching him her code, which is where I got most of the information in the file regarding it." Coulson paused as Steve took that information in, and looked a little more curious again, rather than mulish. Tony's file had painted a very different picture than what Agent Coulson was saying. He had a sinking feeling as he looked at the man once more.
"Is there anything else I should know before I go read this?" Steve asked crisply, his soldier bearing starting to once more come through. He'd never been a good soldier. He was so used to following his own moral compass. That made it difficult to just take orders. It was one of the reasons the Army let him lead the fight against Hydra. If they hadn't, he'd have just done things his way anyway. He'd earned the respect of the men with the single handed rescue of the 107th, and if the generals and majors didn't follow Steve, the Howling Commandos would. That's not to say he didn't try to be a good soldier. He just didn't really fit the profile once he'd undergone the procedure to become Captain America, but he did try.
"Remember that she has lost her whole world, literally." Coulson added sternly, his tone held the tiniest hint of sorrow and protectiveness. "That is not a metaphor. Asgard and Loki are her family and home, period. End of sentence. Do not question it." He paused as Steve took in the warning. "You don't have to trust him, but don't use him as a scapegoat the way Agent Romanoff tried to. Blame him for his actions, not those of others. She will respect that. She might not like it, but she will respect you for the honesty."
Steve couldn't help but flick his eyes over to where the red-headed agent was still seated listening in on their conversation. She wasn't even pretending she wasn't doing it. Her eyes were fixed on Coulson, but there was a curiosity in her eyes that didn't reach the rest of her body. If he didn't watch for that kind of thing Steve would have totally missed it. People watching had been his thing before the transformation. Human reactions were something he knew how to read. Widow was a contradiction, which made her hard to trust and figure out.
"There are very few Zor El loves and trusts. Don't make yourself her enemy. Fury is toeing a line he shouldn't be. If you want the Avengers to work, and her to be an unofficial part of the team, you have to know her limits, and boundaries. In any other circumstance we would likely have more leeway, but with Loki as the focus here, there will be none."
Steve gave him a crisp nod and left to go read the files. Coulson turned to Natasha. "Next time ask me how to play with the others. Start pulling your punches with Zor El, or else she won't pull hers either. You know if you go toe-to-toe with her, you will lose."
Natasha nodded and pulled up her own tablet. She wasn't surprised to find her own tablet had a file in her messages from Coulson for her to read. Coulson rarely rebuked her. This was only the third time since her defection. Even she agreed she'd deserved the others ones; Budapest being the one that still rang in her ears. Coulson had actually yelled at her and Barton over that one. If he was being this active in persuading her, she'd fucked up by listening to Fury, but her own training was warning her Fury had it right. She too took the tablet and left the room to do her research. She needed to see if she was compromised by the relationship with Clint and his family. The file would help clarify a few things for her, hopefully.
The new three science buddies; Bruce, Kara and Tony, had set themselves up in one of the SHIELD labs that had been assigned to Bruce earlier when he originally came aboard before Stuttgart. Bruce felt a little out of the loop as Kara and Tony seamlessly began to work the systems, setting up the programs to begin connecting to the detection devices worldwide via satellite to their command center, and settling into a familiar pattern of splitting the work between themselves.
While they were doing that Bruce was reviewing to Gamma radiation output that SHIELD had detected while the Tesseract was in use. Someone had brought the Scepter into the room and set it on a stand behind him. He'd been told the Scepter was linked to the Tesseract, and it was radiating miniscule amounts of Gamma Radiation. Nothing that was dangerous for small time exposure. The amount was so low it was equal to being in a room with cancer drugs, and not actually taking them. There was no danger, but the presence of it made his skin crawl.
Bruce listened as they set things up and realized immediately that they were actually finishing each other's sentences as they set things up. It was like watching and listening to tennis match. He was startled to realize that while he'd been zoned out, Zor El had changed into jeans and a Disney villains t-shirt. Somehow Maleficent seemed fitted on her, given her connection to Loki, how also seemed to like horns.
"I have the NORAD satellites-"Zor El would start.
"Online and searching for all detection devices within-" Tony would reply.
"Range of all the Eastern Universities, Mid-West coming on line now." She'd continued.
"West Coast is going to take their sweet time." Tony scoffed with a roll of his eyes. "They never move quickly. It'll take an hour before they will be available for scanning."
Bruce just shook his head and kept his head down as they setup the world-wide network. Every major university in the world was placing their Gamma detection devices on the roof of their science buildings. He'd asked SHIELD for the same thing nearly twelve hours earlier, but SHIELD didn't seem to have the right motivational factors, like Tony's money.
Stark and Zor El were footing the bill for each school, or lab that complied with a five thousand dollar grant for moving the detection device to a roof for their search. And an extra five thousand if those same schools and labs got them up and running in less than an hour.
Going over the data he realized that the Gamma Radiation that the Tesseract was putting out was equal to that of a neutron star. Not exactly surprising once Zor El had explained the power of an infinity stone on their way down to the lab, but still it was not something that Bruce had wrapped his mind around yet. Gamma Rays was the shortest wavelength of all energy on Earth. At least that had been experienced and measured so far on Earth (who knew if shorter waves would be found in the future). These wavelengths they would be searching for would be so short it would actually be easy to program the algorithm to ignore hospital's with a Nuclear Medicine departments, and universities that studied Gamma Radiation. The waves they were searching for were much shorter than even those Gamma waves from those places.
The level of Gamma Radiation used by the Tesseract made the rays he'd been looking at when he'd had his 'accident' look long and drawn out. He quickly wrote the level of wavelength into the algorithm, and then uploaded it to Zor El and Stark's search pattern system to upload to the detection devices.
All in all the setup and running of the search only took him about twenty-five minutes once he had the data from the SHEILD experiments. Zor El and Stark took about three hours, but they only had to work hard for that first hour, after that it was a matter of just uploading the algorithm to each new device as it came online.
Between the Stark satellites, NORAD, NASA and whatever detection system Zor El had access to, something she called Brainiac, they were world-wide with only large portions of Asia, Antarctica, and Africa not covered. It was unlikely that Loki would have stashed Selvig in any of those locations, since he'd need a power plant at some point to open the portal. None of the deep dark forests or open plain deserts of those regions had power plants of that magnitude.
He also noticed that both Zor El and Stark seemed to be using more than one algorithm. One was his, and there were two others, Bruce was unsure what they were looking for. He certainly didn't want to get involved or ask. Zor El was a little intense when she had been arguing with both Fury and Thor. She'd been calm and collected since they had been in the lab. Still Banner was wary of the girl or alien, whatever she was, she was too volatile for him to get close to.
"JARVIS and Brainiac have finished their search." She muttered quietly to Tony. "You were right. He's calling it Phase II."
"Who is calling what Phase II?" Steve asked as he walked into the lab to see what they were up to. He'd originally come to talk to Zor El, to see if they could patch things up between them. The file had been eye-opening, and it was obvious that Coulson had known the reports he'd been given were full of inaccuracies, such as the ability to hold a gun with her gauntlets. While she could store a gun wherever her armor was right now for example, but in her armor there was no way she could use one. The fingers of the gauntlet were not designed to hold one.
"Fury's little secret pet nuclear deterrent program." Tony deadpanned to the Super Soldier. "Weapons more powerful than the strongest atomic bomb the world has ever made and not tested because it could wipe out all life for thousands of miles forever type deal."
Kara sat back and closed her eyes. She was hoping to avoid any dust-ups in the lab. Tony was being a little alpha male for her tastes right now. Steve had managed to sound a little too much like Howard when he had walked in. She knew it was unintentional. Steve did come from the same era as Howard, but that tone was sure to set Tony off when directed at him.
"World killers," She breathed a sigh of disappointment, "Well damn. I'd hoped they had stopped that since it was still pre-production when I was last in the computer system a year ago. I should have kept a closer eye on them obviously." She was seriously angry at herself for not monitoring Fury more closely.
Bruce looked astonished as he stared at them both. "That's the other algorithm you were running? You both were searching SHIELD's databases for Fury's hidden projects?"
"Worse. He made weapons like the ones used by HYDRA back in the day too. Only they are more advanced now and can kill multiple targets with one beam instead of only one at a time." Tony added with disgust. "Nothing like carrying a pistol, or a rifle, that can wipe out entire city blocks of people before needing to reload."
At the name HYDRA Steve's body went into alert mode. Even after seventy plus years in ice the name was enough to make Steve ready to fight and kill his enemies. Most people bought into the whitewashed "boy-next-door" image the Army had painted of him and the Howling Commandos after the war. Most people he had met since waking up had not put together that he had been a 'super SOLDIER', and the display at the Smithsonian never mentioned his kill count. His personal number was in the hundreds, and that was only the official count. That didn't count the bodies that were incinerated to ash when he used HYDRA's own weapons against them. Even he had no idea how many men he had killed in his life, nor did he want to know.
Kara groaned and put her face down mumbling about the stupidity of the human race in Kryptonese as Tony glared at the screen in front of him.
"You shouldn't be going through those files." Fury growled as he came around the corner and shouldered Rogers out of his way as he entered the room. "You are causing a security breach."
"And you are playing with forces that you do not understand." Kara spat at him. "You're lucky it's only Loki and these Chitauri that have attacked so far. Playing with the Tesseract sent a call out to the universe saying 'Hey every power hungry warlord and want-to-be-Warlord in the galaxy, here I am come get me'. You are like a rabbit in a snare screaming to be let go and every hunter in the forest is now looking at the trap and wondering if it's for real or not. One day someone is going to come to poke at the trap and take a good look to see if you are worth the risk."
"We weren't the first to do so." Fury growled back at her. "No one came after World War II, what makes you so sure they will now?"
Kara smirked darkly and laughed in his face. "You are so mistaken if you honestly think that. What makes you think no one responded before?" She asked him with a laugh still in her voice.
"Your brother is the first to attack." Fury answered with his vein in the temple pulsing very fast once more. Kara was again surprised how quickly the man seemed to anger.
"Loki was also handed an army no one in the Nine Realms has heard of before." She told him point-blank, catching everyone off guard. Thor hadn't mentioned that Asgard hadn't known of them before. Kara only knew that because she'd had to memorize all the enemies of Asgard, and all the races as part of her lessons. The Chitauri were not on the list.
"An army that had no quick way of crossing the World Tree to get here until Loki used the Tesseract's call to pull himself here. It would have taken them at least another decade to get here from the outer edges… And why did they stir at all?" Kara taunted the man, "Because suddenly the best concealed of all the infinity stones, was suddenly calling out and making itself known. It makes interstellar travel, almost instantaneous for those with the knowledge and the technology to use it to its full potential."
Fury quickly stormed out of the room without answering her. Everyone else stared at her in astonishment.
"Seriously," Tony glared at her with an intensely thoughtful look on his face. "You think this invasion was in the works since the 1940s?"
Kara shrugged and suddenly looked like a frightened young girl. "Yeah, I do Tony. That army was ready to go, possibly already moving when it found Loki." The more she considered the time frame and what she knew of interstellar war, which thanks to Asgard was very extensive.
It would take decades to produce and collect enough forces, ships and supplies to make such a long journey. This type of invasion was an all or nothing endeavor. There was no going back. No launching zone. No supply lines. This type of plan was suicide, unless your numbers and battle plans were so well executed that there was no cause for concern. The enemy needed to be crushed quickly. There was no hope of reinforcements or resupply. Anyone who had ever played a simple video game could tell you how bad a plan that had to be, unless the target was so soft you expected it to roll over immediately.
She pulled an image up and it showed advanced mathematical equations and a map of their galaxy and other planetoids all superimposed over an image of a tree. There were more planetoids on her map than any map on Earth. Humans just didn't have the power, technology, or ability to see that far into space.
Nine of the planetoids suddenly lit up bright gold, and were circled. Midgard was at the top end of the trunk of the tree. There was one Realm below and the rest were scattered in the 'branches' of the Tree, but in close proximity of Midgard. "These are the Nine Realms." She told them. "These other planets are the other empires, or pockets of civilization outside the Nine." She added, pointing to each of the different colored areas. The Kree Empire was lit up a light blue. The Skrull Empire was green. Nova Core Space was yellow. The unclaimed space of the Void was in grey. Knowhere was also in the grey region near the Nova Core border.
"The further one is from the center of the Tree of Life the harder it is to live." She told them, explaining the other planets outside the Nine in the branches of the tree. "The one directly above Midgard is Asgard herself."
Everyone was in awe of the map. "The Bifröst connects these Realms normally, allowing the same type of transfers as the Tesseract, but with less power output." Rainbow colored lines immediately ran from each Realm back to Asgard. "If one had access to Midgard with the power of the Tesseract, they could connect to all the planets in the Universe, because Midgard is the Nexis Point of the World Tree." She explained, the lines leaving from Earth connected to every Galaxy with a dark blue line.
"That's why they need Earth." Tony snarled with rage and disbelief. "We are the key to everything if they have the Tesseract."
Kara nodded and the lines disappeared. "The reason why I think this has been in the works for a long time is this." Several pinpoints of light started to flare up, all of them along the outer edges of the Tree's branches on the left-hand side of the image. "These are the calculated possible locations that the unstable wormhole Loki fell into could have ended up. There are still several hundred uncheck, and possible locations I had yet to finish calculations for. All of these areas are on the edge of the World Tree. Anything that lived outside would have had to find a way inside the World Tree first. That takes time. Time needed to find a weak spot, and then exploit it to re-enter the sphere of this Tree."
"So what does all this mean?" Steve asked. Banner was quietly trying to calm his pulse, he could feel a little of Hulk's green persona trying to surface because unlike Steve, Banner knew what she was about to say. It took all his control to keep Hulk down.
"That if Fury and Red Skull hadn't started playing with forces they couldn't control, we wouldn't have opened a backdoor for the bad guys to enter from." Tony replied before she could. "They would have been billions of light years away from Earth, unaware of us. Now they will be here in a matter of days rather than possible decades or centuries."
"Pretty much," Kara responded carefully. With jump ship capability they could have been here in a matter of a decade, there were too many points of space without a jump pattern along the rim. They'd have to gone years in Void space before getting close enough to make a Jump. As advanced as Tony's work was, he was nowhere near jump ship capable. If this army was being controlled by someone of a celestial level however, Kara was going to rethink her 'Prime Directive' and just let Tony have full access to Brainiac.
"So that's it then. We are in a war now?" Steve asked somewhat in shock.
Kara sighed and nodded. "To be fair, no one knew better. And this Red Skull you fought likely had no idea beyond the myths of Asgard what he was playing with. He had no idea what he started by adapting the Infinity Stone powers into weapons. And Asgard should have stopped him. No one seemed to notice, which I find very odd… There is some hope. Until that portal is open they are still on the other side of the branches."
Tony snorted. "Don't let any of them off the hook for this Blue. Fury knew better than to play with forces he knew nothing about." Tony shook his head in disgust, running his hands over his face in aggravation.
"Like you wouldn't have if the Tesseract was in your hands?" Steve scoffed. He knew that Howard wouldn't have been able to stop playing with it, and neither would any of the 'technologists' of his own time. He doubted Tony was any different.
Kara snorted because she knew unless she stepped in Tony would do just that if he'd had the Tesseract first. It was always the same story when it came to the Infinity Gems. Someone found them, tried to use them and gained the attention of someone bigger and more powerful. They fell out of use when the people who had them finally knew better than to use them. They then hid them from the rest of the uncivilized portions of the galaxy.
"I certainly wouldn't be feeding the damn thing more power without understanding it fully at resting phases." Tony defended himself. Kara nodded absently. She was quickly calculating just how wide the opening could be with Earth technology and the Iridium.
Steve was aggravated by Tony's answer and Kara's absent acceptance of it. He felt unnaturally on edge. Talking of HYDRA and mass murdering weapons had him feeling as if the world was on the edge of another World War. Only this time people like Tony weren't going to save the world, they were going to destroy it.
"So you'd play hero and pretend that you are helping instead of being part of the problem." Steve spat out, not really sure why or even how those thoughts came to him.
"I don't play hero." Tony snarled back at him. "And I certainly don't prance around on a stage pretending to beat up the bad guys either."
Steve really got angry at that. He might have done that before he got a chance to be in the field, but he had more than earned his stripes in battle, long before Tony was born. "You got that right. You are no hero. You're just an ego-driven narcissist with a god-complex."
"And everything special about you came out of a bottle." Tony snarled back, getting right up into Steve's face. The two were chest to chest in some kind of testosterone battle of wills. Bruce was moving further away and almost out the other door as they battled for some kind of supremacy in the middle of the room.
"What are you without your suit?" Rogers asked sarcastically.
"Stark naked," Kara pipped up suddenly, reminding them all she was still sitting there. Her voice sound strange as it rang with equal amounts of sarcasm and innocence. Before he could start on one of his little rants and gain any steam, her interruption stopped Tony and Steve in their tracks. She had needed to break the tension and it was the first thing that popped into her head. "He's totally Stark Naked… Get it?" She giggled with a scrunched up face and her tongue sticking out with her finger in her mouth pretending to gag.
Everyone turned and stared at her in disbelief. She returned their looks with an innocent smile. She was really using her young girl looks at the moment, twilling a lock of hair around her finger and swinging her crossed legs back and forth. "What? You don't want to see it by the way... scary sight." She told them with mock-seriousness while waving her hands towards Tony's 'assets'.
Tony didn't know if he wanted to strangle her, and laugh himself silly over the comment. Her actions, which he knew were a complete act, were a little too over the top. "You little brat… When have you been peeking at me naked?" He managed to keep a straight and dignified face. Steve was just staring at her in a mix of astonished amusement, and horror. Bruce on the other-hand was trying not to laugh at the suddenness of the interruption and the comedic timing.
Kara gave Tony a bored look as she dropped her act a little. "I looked you up before we met, remember?" She turned a serious look to Steve. "Did you know an image search of 'Tony Stark' is considered an honest to gosh porn search on most search engines?" She glared at him heatedly. "I didn't…"
Tony scoffed and waved her disgust away as if it didn't matter. "They cover the important bits up."
Kara snorted as Steve's head starting swinging back and forth as he watched them argue. "Bull!" Kara cried out. "Not all of them do! I swear, warnings popped up asking if I was sure I wanted the result of 'Tony Stark'. Pepper should have warned me. I was as new to the internet as Captain A over there." Kara pretended to shivered at the memory as she pointed at Steve.
She'd never seen a fully naked man before that image search. Bare to the waist yes, fully bare no. It had been a complete shock to her at the time, and she had stared at the image for several seconds before Brainiac had shut it off. She now knew what human men looked like, and she hoped Asgardian men were similarly built, and not much bigger.
Kara's statement seemed to have derailed whatever was on Steve's mind because he was blushing, and staring at her, as if he was trying to figure out if he should be offended on her behalf or not. "But you're underage, how could you get those kinds of images?" He finally asked when he stopped sputtering.
Kara's fingers whipped over the keyboard and she turned the holoscreen by Steve on. On it was a google search for images of Tony Stark pre 2010. Dozens of pictures with carefully pixelated squares came up on the screen, and a couple that didn't. "Age has nothing to do with it dude." She did her best to mimic Darcy's speech patterns. "You just have to know what you want, or in this case what it type, 'cuz I so do not need to see this, or ever really want to see it again."
Steve blushed even deeper as he got an eyeful of Stark, san clothing or pixels. He turned and stared at Tony in even more horror as she purposefully looked away from the screens. Kara smirked satisfied with her prank. "I warned you that you didn't want to see it." Steve gapped at her a moment before he shook his head, turned and stalked out in a hurry. He realized it was the only way to end the situation and teasing. He had totally forgotten the fight that had started in the first place due to his embarrassment.
Kara smirked like a Cheshire cat and Tony came over and clicked the search off and kissed her on the top of her head. "Nice job, next time let's not use my naked ass to make a man blush, hmmm." He suggested proudly, knowing full well what she had been doing and why.
"But it's such a pretty blush." Kara cackled evilly, "Doesn't it make you feel sexy to have THE Captain America blushing over your package, 'cuz I'll bet you a million bucks it wasn't your butt that had him blushing like a school girl caught looking under a sleeping scot's kilt."
Tony frowned at her. "No, that makes me feel cheap and dirty."
Bruce who had managed to stay out of things so far finally couldn't help it, he chuckled, an honest to goodness manly giggle. Kara and Tony turned to stare at the now mortified scientist. "Sorry, it's just you both are too funny."
"Is my ass big or something?" Tony finally asked slightly aggravated. "Blushing or laughing, not sure which I like less when men are looking at my bare ass."
"Keep it covered and it won't be a problem." Kara muttered as she went back to work looking for the Tesseract with Earth tech. Brainiac had it limited to Eastern Seaboard at this point, but whoever had it, had shielded it. Loki most likely had masked its signal from Brainiac since he knew the system almost as well as Kara did.
That thought reminded her. She breathed into her comm in her ear. "Brainiac does Loki have access to your systems?"
"No." Brainiac replied at the same level. "I locked his main access out when you reported his death at the Fortress. I did a final lockdown upon the retirement of his image. Only your and Kal-El's access cannot be revoked upon death."
Kara's brow knitted as she thought about it. "You didn't reinstate it when I found out he wasn't dead."
"I thought it prudent not to since he seems to be working against the interests of Midgard at this time." Brainiac answered matter of factually. "I will continue to deny him access until he can be biometrically scanned by my own scanners to insure he is in fact Loki Odinson of Asgard, and not a clone or any other form of deception."
Kara sighed and looked down at her chest. "That's for the best I guess." She knew he wasn't a clone. His aura was there. She had felt it. That aura was not something that Brainiac had been programed to detect. So a full scan including a check for known injuries would be needed.
"There has been no attempt as of yet to access my systems." Brainiac assured her. "Nor any attempt to access the Fortress; direct, or remotely."
That again made no sense to Kara. Unless he knew she had been in the Fortress when he arrived, which she hadn't been. It would have been the perfect place to make his base of operations. Except he didn't know she had raised the temperature inside to be warm enough for the humans. That meant he needed the humans he'd captured with the scepter's power as much as he needed the Tesseract, which again made no sense. Loki would know how to use the Tesseract with Asgardian technology. He'd also know the Fortress was capable of making any type of device he could possibly want, except a starship. The Fortress just wasn't big enough for producing a Starport, or shipwright for anything bigger than a pod.
Kara pulled up the papers that Tony had read the night before. Like Barry Allen, she needed to read a bit slower than her fastest speeds to retain and assimilate the knowledge in the theses. Research papers where always so boring to read, but at the end of it she agreed with everything Tony and Bruce had said in the conference room. She began to do the calculations and found that for most power plants in the Northern Seaboard of the US they would be able to create a round or oval opening about the size of a football field. He was limited mostly by the amount of Iridium that he'd stolen. Only advanced tech like an Omegahedron could open the portal wider. If he got an Omegahedron, it could be half a mile wide.
"Oh fuck!" She exclaimed as her thoughts caught up with what she was thinking with reality. With Brainiac, and the Fortress, Loki would have been able to produce, and manufacture everything he would have needed to build the portal. A portal that by her rough calculations would have been several miles high and wide and be opened as long as he wanted, with no resistance in coming through since Humans didn't have the technology to fight in extreme arctic conditions that were common in the far north of Norway, even at this time of year.
Tony who had been playing with a pen while he was talking to Bruce dropped his pen and snapped around. Even Banner who didn't know her very well snapped his head up at stared at her open mouthed.
"You never swear… Ever! You are not allowed to swear… you swearing means the world is ending." Tony began to babble.
"Brainiac," She asked in Old Norse, "Are all the Omegahedron's accounted for?"
Brainiac didn't respond for a moment. "All but the one you gave Loki before you left Asgard four years ago."
Kara began to hyperventilate. "Oh Fuck!" Tony paled as Kara looked pale as a sheet. He quickly moved over and kneeled in front of her and took her hands. "Breath slowly Blue."
"He has an Omegahedron Tony." Kara breathed out in shock. Tony hadn't heard the Kryptonian word before so he had no idea what it was. "If he had gone to the Fortress he could have done everything without us ever knowing where and what he was doing!"
"What is an Omegahedron?" He asked her trying to keep her calm. Bruce was also watching her with his eyes blown wide open, his fists tight as he breathed slowly.
"He doesn't need a power source to break the coulomb barrier. He already had one." She explained just as scared as Tony. "An Omegahedron is a Kryptonian power source. One could power a Kryptonian city the same way your arc reactor is going to power Stark Tower, but instead of only a year, it could do so to the entire city for years. With it Loki could open the wormhole to unknown space a mile wide for years!"
"So we are talking one of those ZPM's from Stargate?" Tony asked her trying to get a frame of reference.
"We're talking more like instead of three needed to power the city shields for thousands of years, they'd only need one Omegahedron, and still have power to run everything when they arrived for decades." She explained quietly. "No need for Weir to go back in time to be there to change them out as they died either!" Tony couldn't keep the surprise off his face. He knew Kryptonians were more advanced than Earth, but this was more power than he could imagine. This Omegahedron was basically the equivalent to an unlimited power source for a city the size of New York. "And Loki has one?" Tony asked her quietly.
"I think so." She whispered back, dread spilling out. "It's in his pocket."
"So he could open a portal from anywhere if he had access to this thing?" Bruce finally broke in. "He doesn't need a reactor or anything, he could open it literally anywhere?"
Kara nodded slowly, her mind racing as she tried to put things together. Nothing was adding up! Loki himself would have to link the two devices. Omegahedron's were easy to use, but they were tied to Kryptonian DNA. All of them required her to activate them, except Loki's. She had tied to both of them so he could use it for some experiments he had wanted to try.
"I gave it to him." She whispered softly. "I have to go see him." She said strangely hollow sounding as she stood.
"I'll go with you." Tony told her. He stood and his suit powered up as he walked over it to.
"No," she ordered sharply, turning away from them both, worry etched in her eyes and face as she tried to grapple with the consequences if Loki was planning to use the device. "Stay here and try to trace the damn cube." Her eyes blazed. "I'll get the Omegahedron, or he'll die for real this time."
On the way down to Loki's cell she marched past Thor, Fury and Natasha at different points on her way down to the detention center. All three had decided to follow her for their own reasons as they saw her pass them looking like she was on a mission to execute someone. She didn't expect Loki to give up the Omegahedron easily. Not if his plans revolved around its use. She would not allow her own technology to be used against Midgard.
When Kara entered the cell containment area the others were ushered into the recording room by Coulson. "She needs to talk to him privately." Coulson assured them. He'd been listening in at the lab and knew what the problem was, and what she was going to do.
Unlike some of his subordinates he liked Stargate, and Stargate: Atlantis. He did prefer SG-1 to Atlantis, but that was a personal choice. He knew what she had meant when she was explaining about the power output capabilities of this Krypton power source. He didn't want Fury to ruin her chances of retrieving the device. He would try and take it if he could. Fury was really pushing his limits since they had come on board and it was beginning to make Coulson suspicious.
Kara had just walked into the lighted area and Loki had seemed confused to see her. "I wasn't expecting you so soon… Sister." He hissed the title at her.
Kara glared at him hatefully which was a new thing for Thor to see. "Something isn't right, my sister has never looked at him that way." He muttered softly to the others. "Nor does he call her sister, and certainly never in that tone has he ever hissed at her to my recollection." he mused. He knew Loki had only ever referred to her as sister a handful of times, all before he began to work with her once her powers began to develop. Loki always used her name once he had begun training her. He never titles for those he cared for, or taught, unless it was a formal situation. For Kara it was almost always 'My Kara'. He rarely called her anything else since he learned Kryptonese.
"Where is it Loki?" She snarled, even from the bad camera angle it was easy to see she was furious by her clenched fists and how tight her body was coiled. With the jeans and t-shirt, there really wasn't much hidden.
"I have no idea." He smirked with insincere innocence at her. "I don't have it." Thinking she was discussing the Tesseract. He felt a bit smug for hiding it from even her technology, even though it was biting him in the ass now. He had intended for her to be unable to trace it until it was too late. He'd hoped she would stay out of the fight, but knew it was be inevitable, still he'd hoped to keep her out of it for as long as possible.
"I'm not talking about the useless bloody Tesseract." She spat at him fiercely and Loki sat up and took notice of her ferocity and panic. She was hiding the panic well behind the mask of an avenging Valkyrie.
"I'm talking about the FUCKING Omegahedron. WHERE. IS. IT?" She screamed at him she nearly rushed the cage, remembering only at the last second not to touch the glass. Her fist would go right through the glass and drop them both out of the helicarrier. Loki didn't even blink, though inwardly he was just as stunned as Stark had been. In all the time he'd never known Kara to use a vulgar word with such venom. He'd heard her ask about words before, innocently, never like this however. It was a bit frightening and as ashamed as it made him feel, arousing.
In the control room Thor sucked in a loud startled deep breath. "She is truly angry. I would not send anyone in there, or allow anyone to ask questions if I were you." He advised as he unconsciously moved away from the screen. Everyone else took his advice and stayed where they were just watching through the monitors. Coulson had heard her swear in the lab, but seeing her body language as she did added a level of scary he really didn't need.
"I didn't know she swore." Natasha replied with only a slightly raised brow was the only indication she was uncomfortable with his statement.
"She does not, even when severely provoked." Was all Thor would say, his arms crossed and his feet spread shoulder-width apart showed his reluctance to continue speaking on the matter. Natasha was especially unnerved, though she didn't physically show it. She'd caught enough over the comms to know when Supergirl had bitched Thor out and was about to kill him she hadn't sworn once. 'Bloody' was as close as she'd come to swearing during that fight, and truly only the British considered that word to be a 'swear word'.
In the room Kara and Loki were in a stare off. Loki was projecting an angry image, but inside he was sweating. He'd hidden the Omegahedron, and the Casket of Winters from 'The Other', and his master so far. Now 'The Other' was trying to get access to the memories about the device. Loki was trying to keep him out of the protected section of his mind.
It took his several seconds for Loki to respond. "Both are in my secret rooms on Asgard." He finally said through clenched teeth, answering both Kara and 'The Other'. His use of both was to draw attention away from the Omegahedron if he could. The Casket wasn't useful in this operation, but it could be of use if the Chitauri managed to win only a marginal victory. 'The Other' took the bait and watched the image of the casket and its use, he was unimpressed and let the matter go.
'Secret rooms' was code for their storage spaces. Loki would never leave things in rooms on Asgard. He would not have access to his things when he needed them. He preferred to place important items in his interdimensional storage, and have it with him at all times, especially something as powerful as the Omegahedron. Loki was too paranoid to leave something that powerful lying around where almost anyone could take it.
Kara was now confused. Loki had just told her he had it on him, and that it was in Asgard. "Which secret room, the one accessed from your bedroom, or the experimental one?" This question was a test. Depending on his answer it would tell her where the Omegahedron was for certain, and he would be admitting to some mind control, or his memories were scrambled. If they were scrambled it could indicate he was in fact a mind-wiped in some fashion and not the real Loki anymore.
"The experimental one," He admitted softly, as if in pain as he said it, "I can't access it from here."
Kara's eyes widened. Loki always had access to the storage space. If he couldn't access it, it meant he had locked down access to some of the objects in the space, or he was out-of-magic. Being out-of-magic was extremely dangerous for mages to do, and he would not be walking around as he was, if that was the case. He'd be in a coma. Loki, as long as he had enough magic within him to be awake and walking, and could still access his space if he truly wanted to. No one else could force him to open that area though.
Kara didn't have that ability to open his space since she didn't have her own magic. Anyone who was strong enough to overpower Loki's spells could access her storage space as long as they knew she had one. They could access Loki's too, but only if they overpowered him and knew what they were looking for. It wasn't like picking a pocket. The owner had to call the object back from the dimensional pocket. Kara couldn't think of anyone who would be strong enough to overpower a mage as strong as Loki, except maybe Odin. He could only do that with the full power of the Odinforce being used to augment his strength, otherwise even Odin wasn't half as strong as Loki at full power . Either way he'd told her what she needed to know.
"Thank Rao!" She breathed deeply before she turned and began to leave. Hope returned to her as she took a deep breath and relaxed. Loki was being controlled to an extent. Now it was a matter of losing that control. She only had to look for a way to do it.
"Sister," Loki called sounding more like himself, "Surely you wanted to know about more than a little trinket." He teased, but the tone had a slightly menacing cold feel to it. It didn't feel like Loki who was speaking now.
Kara didn't even look back. "My Loki would have known what the Omegahedron meant to me… You are not My Loki, you are a worthless clone." The Loki in the cell looked completely shocked before his eyes flashed a deep dark blue in anger. His fist banged on the glass, shaking the whole cell once in warning. Loki carefully took a step back towards the center, a look of hatred pasted on his face.
"What is an Omegahedron? And why did she call him a clone? Is that not Loki in that cell?" Fury finally asked Thor as they walked in step together back towards the lab once Kara had passed them by on her way back, Coulson bringing up the rear right behind the two men.
Thor gave them a blank look as he tried to formulate his answer. "I have never heard of this Omegahedron, it must be some type of Kryptonian technology. I know not its purpose." He admitted. "As for the clone comment, I do not know." He shrugged as if it did not concern him in the slightest, even though it had been serious enough to get his sister to tear down to the detention cell and scream and curse out their brother.
"I am unsure why she would make such a comment. That is Loki." He confirmed for Fury as they walked. "His godly aura is not something a clone could replicate. It would be missing even if the clone was made of his body. Even identical twins on Asgard have unique auras." He assured him with as much certainty as he could project into his voice. "His mind is far afield, perhaps she does not understand how to read his aura as of yet." He suggested to him. "She is new to being a goddess, and has had no training in her new powers, whatever they may be."
Both Coulson and Fury took mental note of the fact that no one knew what Zor El was the goddess of, and the fact that she could still get even more powerful. It wasn't a comforting thought for the spy, or the handler. Fury closed his eyes for a moment as his stomach dropped at the idea that she could have powers like Loki that he had full use of, or Thor that were still untapped and largely uncontrolled. Considering there was already a goddess of war, according to the legends already, Fury hoped that Supergirl would get something much less destructive, like flowers. He could handle her being a goddess of flowers… maybe.
Fury brushed past the, at present, useless warrior prince, and started to follow after Kara determined to find out if this Kryptonian device was a threat to his ship or not. He took the quicker route to the lab, not realizing Kara had taken a different route back.
Natasha walked into Loki's cell area after Thor had followed Fury down the hall. If he had stayed he might have been able to stop Natasha from misunderstanding the 'monster' comment, because he knew better than anyone how much Loki had feared the Frost Giants as a very young child. It had taken years for Loki to stop having nightmares so severe that he'd cross the hall and jump into Thor's bed to hide from them. Thor had always pretended to not notice when Loki had slip into his bed around midnight, or when he had sneaked out at dawn. Even as a youngling, Loki had been prideful.
The only monster Loki was talking about was the one he believed himself to be. His look of puzzlement when she ran out telling agents over her comm unit to secure Banner was one of confused bemusement, not triumph at besting a fellow trickster.
