(A/N): Hey ya'll! Hope your weekends are going well and that you're all ready for this week's update!
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This chapter was beta read by Hannbells but not edited so any mistakes are still on me.
Thank you all for reading! Enjoy!
"Dad's been gone for a while," Mia commented, glancing at her mom from the corner of her eye.
Val didn't look up from the book she was flipping through. "I know. I've been trying to get in contact with him, but none of my messages are going through."
"Is he blocking you or is he…" she couldn't finish her sentence, feeling as though, if she said what she was thinking, that would make it come true.
"I honestly can't tell," her mom admitted. "If this goes on any longer, I'm going to go check for myself."
A thought popped into Mia's head then. "What will happen to me?" she asked. "If something is wrong with Dad, what's going to happen here?"
"Nothing's going to happen to your dad," Val insisted, expression calm and sure.
"What if you're wrong? What if whatever you two have been whispering about found Dad?"
Val didn't have an answer to that. "C'mon," she finally said. "Go get changed. We're going to do some more practice using the powers you got from me in a fight."
"Most security cameras don't have audio," Bruce abruptly commented as they watched a sleek, black plane flew into view. A hatch opened up at the bottom of it, a gun descending out to point at Loki and they heard Natasha's voice echoing around the square as she demanded Loki stand down.
"This feed is currently coming from a drone," JARVIS informed him.
"Who's drone?" he asked.
"Does it matter?" Mia muttered. Loki had shot a spell at the jet, narrowly missing the plane and the building behind it, before being hit by Steve's shield.
Steve was throwing everything he had into the fight with Loki, but it was clear to Mia that the serum running through his veins did not match the power that the Asgardian held. While Loki may not actually be the god that the Norse thought him to be, it was easy to see why such a mistake had been made.
Mia's sharp inhale seemed overly loud in the now silent lab as they watched Loki knock Steve down and then kept him in place by pressing the end of his scepter to the top of Steve's head. "Kneel," he snarled.
Pushing the scepter aside, Steve hopped to his feet and spat, "Not today." A spinning jump-kick to the face sent Loki stumbling back and the fight continued.
Tony's voice sounded abruptly. "Coming in now. Ready for the show, Mia dearest?"
"Go on then," she told him, forcing herself to sound calm and collected. "Amaze me."
"I always do. Now, JARVIS, get ready to announce my arrival."
"Already done, Sir."
"Announce his arrival?" Bruce whispered to Mia.
"Who is that?" Tony demanded. "Who's there with you? Is there a boy in there with you?"
"Is that really what you want to focus on right now?" Mia demanded. "Really?"
"Sir," JARVIS interrupted, saving Tony from the scathing set-down that Mia was preparing to deliver. "I am patching you into the quinjet's system's now."
"Guy's all the over the place," came Natasha's voice.
"Agent Romanoff," Tony interrupted. "You miss me?"
Music started blasting through the speakers and the camera feed abruptly shifted so that they were viewing the scene from high up, in Tony's suit. Tony was zooming towards the square and, once he was close enough that they could see Steve lying on the ground with Loki standing near him, he shot a blast at Loki and knocked him to the ground.
Mia heard the whirring of his suit and knew he had engaged all his weapons and was ready to fire at Loki. "Make a move reindeer games."
Finally able to see Loki's face clearly, Mia studied the Asgardian as he allowed his armor to disappear in a golden light. His expression was… odd. It wasn't completely blank, but it also didn't feel like any genuine emotion was there. He looked as though he was pretending to be someone scared that was feigning being stoic.
"That was too easy," Bruce muttered, sounding suspicious.
Leaning back on the balls of her feet, Mia ignored the sounds of Tony and Steve speaking to one another as she thought. "I agree. Tony may have some impressive weapons in his arsenal but, from what I saw of the footage of when he first arrived, Loki is basically bulletproof. I doubt anything Tony keeps in his suit would cause him any serious damage. Which means that, for some reason, he went into this planning to be caught."
Bruce leaned forwards, resting his forearms on the table. "Kind of a bold move, allowing yourself to be caged by your enemy."
"Only if you haven't already made a foolproof exit plan." Mia thought then of Clint and the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that Loki had taken. "I'll have to ask Fury the next time I see him how familiar the missing agents are with this carrier."
"You don't think he took that into account when he chose to make this his home base for this fight?"
"Better to be safe than sorry."
Once everyone was on the quinjet, Tony activated the Bluetooth on his suit shoved an earpiece into the Old Man's ear so they could both speak with Mia and Bruce.
"So, you guys think Rock of Ages gave up too easily?" Tony asked, having overheard Mia and Bruce speaking earlier.
"Don't you?" Mia asked. "Physically, he's stronger than Steve and, as previously shown, he's impervious to bullets. Do you really think you could have subdued him so quickly unless he wanted to be caught?"
"Well, I mean, I am pretty intimidating."
Steve rolled his eyes. "Maybe here on Earth, but I think they're used to seeing more impressive things than you out in space."
"Steve's right," Mia cut in before things dissolved into an argument. "And I'm not saying that you had no chance of subduing him if things turned into a fight. You may have been able to, but you would have received some pretty heavy damage."
Tony glanced back at their prisoner. Loki was staring down at his hands, jaw clenched. "So, he's a man with a plan. Sorry, Capisicle, looks like you're getting replaced."
"When you arrive back, I need one of you to bring the scepter straight to the lab," Mia instructed, and Tony could sense that she was rolling her eyes at the pair of them. "Do not let anyone else touch it, understand? If at all possible, Tony should be the one carrying it- the less bodily contact made with the thing the better until I get a better understanding of how it works."
The sound of thunder roaring rolled through the plane as the interior was lit up by lightning flashes. "Where's this coming from?" Natasha muttered, frowning out at the storm.
Glancing over his shoulder, Steve spotted Loki leaning forward, craning his head to look out the windows. "What's the matter?" Steve taunted. "Scared of a little lightening?"
"That's very mature, Steve, well done," Mia hissed.
"I'm not overly fond of what follows," Loki informed the other occupants, still on alert.
Something hit the roof of the plane and Natasha, Steve, and Tony all glanced upwards for a moment before jumping into action. Steve slipped on his cowl while Tony placed his helmet back on his head and Natasha pushed the plane to fly faster.
Once Tony's helmet was activated, the camera feed was automatically sent to Mia's lab. "Wait!" she shouted before Tony could open the door. "That storm came out of nowhere. Loki's brother Thor is the God of Thunder and Lightning. If he's there and you open that door, he'll take Loki."
"And if I don't open the door, he'll probably just wreck the plane trying to get in," Tony argued, smacking the button that would open the jet ramp.
"What are you doing?" Steve demanded.
A blond man with a cape and a hammer appeared on the ramp. Without hesitation, he moved forward and threw Tony into Steve, knocking both to the floor, before grabbing Loki by the neck and dragging him forward. The binds holding Loki to his seat broke easily and then both men were out of the plane and disappearing into the clouds.
"So, that must be Thor," Tony commented into the now-silent jet.
"Great," Natasha said dryly. "Another Asgardian."
"That guy's a friendly," Steve pointed out.
"Allegedly," Mia broke in, reminding the two men that she was still there. "Also, I told you so."
"Doesn't matter," said Natasha in response to Steve's statement. "If he frees Loki, or kills him, the Tesseract's lost."
Tony strode towards the edge of the ramp.
"Stark!" called Steve. "We need a plan of attack."
"I have a plan," Tony shot back. "Attack." With that, Tony threw himself out of the plane.
With a groan, Steve moved to grab a parachute and hurriedly pulled it on.
"I'd sit this one out, Cap," Natasha warned him. "These guys come from legend, they're basically Gods."
"There's only one God, ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that." Steve grabbed his shield and prepared to dive.
"Please be careful," Hermione whispered in his ear.
"JARVIS, are there any satellites or drones or anything at all really in the area that could be used to locate Thor and Loki?" Mia asked as soon as the two Asgardians disappeared from the plane.
"I am already working to locate them now," JARVIS told her.
She and Bruce watched as first Tony and then Steve moved to follow their escaped prisoners trail and Mia muted the connection so that they wouldn't be an unnecessary distraction to either man.
"So, what do you think? Is Thor going to be a help or a hindrance here?" Bruce asked.
Mia didn't even need a minute to think it over. "A hinderance. I'm almost positive that he's going to turn out to be an absolute pain."
Bruce smirked faintly at her. "You sound pretty sure without having met the guy."
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files are rather comprehensive. When he first came to Earth, he was the stereotypical spoiled prat- the prince of his world, the apple of his father's eye, living his life however he pleased without consequences. He met a girl, Jane Foster, and their relationship is what set him on this new path of 'just and honorable ruler'. Supposedly." Mia wasn't shy about letting Bruce observe how little faith she had in that idea. Thor and Jane had only spent a few days together, not nearly enough time for Thor's personality to truly shift so greatly.
He may have been a hero at the moment be departed from Earth, but there was no guarantee that he hadn't fallen back into old habits the moment he returned to Asgard.
Bruce seemed to agree with her. "Never a good sign when a person's improved attitude is due to a person they only spent a few days with. The argument could be made that your brother made a similar change but he was held captive for much longer so that doesn't really apply."
The video feed on the screen abruptly changed from Tony's camera to a camera hovering high above a cliff face. Mia could barely make out the two people standing closely together. "I have located both Asgardians," JARVIS announced. "I am activating the long-range listening device now."
It took a moment, but faint audio began to filter to them. "Not here. You give up the Tesseract- you give up this poisonous dream! You come home," one man, Thor she assumed, was saying.
"I don't have it," Loki responded, and Thor reared back. "You need the Cube to bring me home, but I've sent off, I know not where."
"You listen well, Brother-" Thor started to threaten before disappearing, having been hit by a red and gold object.
Loki just stood there for a moment. "I'm listening?"
Mia and Bruce both snorted with laughter. "JARVIS," Mia called once she was sure her voice wouldn't shake. "Would you please split the views so we can watch Loki and still observe what's happening with Tony?"
"Of course, Miss Stark."
"I really need to figure out a way to convince him to call me Mia," she muttered as the view from Tony's suit came up next to the camera still trained on Loki.
Tony was facing off against Thor, who had his hammer clutched in his hand. "Do not touch me again," Thor warned her brother.
"Then don't touch my stuff," Tony fired back.
"You have no idea what you're dealing with," the blond told him seriously.
"Uh… Shakespeare in the park?" her brother guessed. "Doth mother know you wear-th her drapes?"
"This is beyond you, metal man. Loki will face Asgardian justice."
"The same justice that Thor faced when he was first thrown down to Earth?" Mia asked derisively after she'd reconnected the audio line to Tony's suit. "Considering the fact that Thor technically just invaded this world without invitation and absconded with a government prisoner, I'm not sure how effective their justice system actually is when it comes to personal reformation."
Tony snorted before repeating a variation of what she'd said. "Isn't being dumped on Earth to cause problems here basically what Asgardian justice is? After all, that's what daddy did to you."
Thor's hand visibly tightened on his hammer. "You know not what you speak of."
"Whatever you say, Fabio. You can have Loki once he gives up the Cube. Until then, stay out of the way." Tony turned to start walking away but couldn't seem to resist one last jap, much to Mia's exasperation. "Tourist."
That was the moment Thor seemed to snap, throwing his hammer into Tony's chest and then the fight was on.
"Why isn't Loki trying to leave?" Bruce asked, frowning at the screen showing Loki sitting down on the cliff top to watch the two men fight. "This would be the perfect moment to make a break for it."
"I told you, he wants to be brought in," Mia repeated, also frowning at the screen.
"Yeah, but now he's making it obvious. There's no subtlety here, no pretending that he was truly captured. Now he's just… waiting to catch a ride. Isn't this guy supposed to be the God of Tricks and Mischief or something? What does he have to gain from being so obvious?"
Mia bit her lip. "Perhaps he's hoping to goad his captors into doing something? If he's obviously unconcerned, even willing, to be here, his guards are likely to be more nervous around him."
The fight between Thor and Tony was almost painful to watch and if it wasn't for the fact that JARVIS was allowing her constant access to Tony's vitals and the suit's operational status then Mia would have been an even larger mess of nerves. Steve's arrival on the scene just made things worse.
Bruce tried to distract her by joking, "Seems like the man really likes his hammer."
"Most men do," Mia automatically shot back. "And they hate when another man tries to interfere with their handling of it."
Choking at the implications of that statement, Bruce's train of thought was derailed at the amount of damage done by Thor's hammer striking Steve's shield.
"If you boys are finally done with your pissing contest," Mia started, tone sharp. "Perhaps you could retrieve Loki and return to the helicarrier. We are still on a bit of time crunch here and it would be nice if you could leave the last bit of forest still undamaged alone."
Flinching slightly at her tone, Tony and Steve moved to do as they were told.
The sounds of multiple footsteps echoing down the hall pulled Bruce and Mia from their respective screens. "Either they're back with Loki or they're coming to arrest me," Bruce said.
"I resent the implication that I have done nothing worth being arrested for," Mia retorted, just as a small brigade began to march by.
"If any Stark is going to be arrested first, it'll be Tony," he said with absolute surety as they caught a glimpse of Loki.
The Asgardian deliberately locked eyes with Bruce as he passed, smirking the whole while, until his gaze flickered over to Mia. The change that came over him would have been obvious to even the most unobservant of guards. His smirk instantly fell and he faced forward so quickly, Mia wondered if it hurt his neck. A weird shuffling happened, where it looked as though Loki was trying to hurry his guards up, rather than it being the other way around.
Bruce looked over at her. "What was that about?"
Still staring out into the hall, she answered, "I have no idea."
"Both of your presences are requested on the bridge," JARVIS announced. "The others are already there waiting for you."
Mia sighed. "Is it just me, or does JARVIS sound a bit like the teacher who would always encourage the readers to 'socialize'?"
He laughed. "God, I hated those teachers."
"Agreed. Children are monsters, especially to other children."
Walking out of the lab and down the hall side-by-side, Mia could see several people staring at them. Well, more at Bruce. Part of her wanted to shout something rude at them like Tony would, but she knew it would just embarrass Bruce.
When they arrived at the bridge, Mia sat down next Steve just as the feed of Fury speaking with Loki popped up. Bruce stood a few seats away from her and Natasha was directly across, completely focused on studying Loki.
"In case it's unclear, you try to escape, you so much as scratch that glass-" Fury paused to press a few buttons, opening up the floor beneath Loki's cage to showing a straight drop to the ground thousands of feet below. "Thirty thousand feet straight down in a steel trap," the Director threatened. "You get how that works?" Closing the floor, Fury gestured to Loki. "Ant." Then he gestured to the panel. "Boot."
"It's an impressive cage," Loki sneered, seemingly unconcerned. "Not built, I think, for me."
"Built for something a lot stronger than you," Fury informed him.
"Oh, I've heard." Loki slowly turned to look straight into the camera in the corner of his cell. "A mindless beast, making play that he's still a man. How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?" Mia clenched her fists, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Bruce. He didn't even look concerned by what Loki was saying, just resigned.
"How desperate am I?" Fury repeated. "You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."
"And you think you could control it?" asked Loki, smirking at the other man. "Control a power that was never meant to be yours? You know as well as I that the Tesseract was never supposed to be used by you; you were just the guardian until its rightful owner could return for it, and a poor guardian at that."
Fury visibly stiffened. "And just what exactly do you mean by that?"
Loki ignored him, going off on a different tangent. "It burns you to have come so close, to have the Tesseract, to have power- unlimited power. And for what?" Facing the camera again, Loki asked, "A warm light for all mankind to share?" Glancing back at Fury, he finished, "And then to be reminded what real power is."
"Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something," Fury told him dismissively, striding from the room.
The monitors turned off then and the group gather around the table sat quietly for a moment. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce joked.
"Loki's gonna drag this out," Steve said, frowning at the now-blank screen. "So, Thor, what's his play?"
Mia glanced over at Thor, watching carefully as he began to explain. "He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."
"How do you know about them, if they're not from any world known?" Mia asked.
Thor looked at her in confusion for a moment, almost as if he had forgotten that she was there. "They have been used to attack other planets in different areas of the galaxy."
"You mean Loki has attacked other planets before?" Bruce asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"No," Thor shook his head. "The army belongs to another. Their master is allowing Loki use of them."
"In the file on Loki," Mia interrupted. "It said he was attempting to seize the throne on Asgard. How did he go about doing so?"
"Why is that important?" the blond alien asked, folding his arms across his chest.
"We need to know our enemy in order to successfully fight him," she told him, meeting his gaze evenly.
Deliberating for a moment, Thor finally said, "Loki allowed several Frost Giants into Asgard in order to try and start a war. Then, when the Frost Giants once again entered the kingdom with his assistance, he killed the Giant's king in order to make himself out to be a hero. We found out what he was doing though and put a stop to his plan."
Mia stared blankly at the table, brow furrowed in thought.
"What changed?" Natasha asked.
Everyone but Mia looked over at her. "What do you mean?" Steve asked.
"Loki went from working behind the scenes and in the shadows, manipulating people and situations so that he could get what he wanted. Now, he's doing a full-frontal assault."
Nodding in agreement with Natasha, Mia added, "Imagine that you're trying to go somewhere and find a brick wall blocking your path that you need to find a way around. Before, Loki was the kind of person who would try to find a way over the wall that used the least amount of effort. It would be quick, quiet, and efficient. Now, he's barreling at the wall and trying to rip it down with his bare hands."
"So the question is," Natasha started, "what happened over the course of six months to change the way of thinking he's honed for over a thousand years?"
"While I do agree that there's something wrong here," Steve interrupted. "Our first priority needs to be figuring out what to do about this alien army heading our way."
Bruce nodded in agreement. "Since there haven't been alerts of any unidentified objects in our area of space, the army must be somewhere else. So, it's safe to say that Loki's main priority at this moment is building another portal- that's what he needs Erik Selvig for."
"Selvig?" Thor repeated, stiffening.
"He's an astrophysicist," the scientist explained.
Thor frowned. "He's a friend."
"Loki has them under some kind of spell," Natasha told him. "Along with one of ours."
"I wanna know why Loki let us take him," Steve tossed out. "He's not leading an army from here."
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Bruce disagreed. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats- you can smell crazy on him."
"Have care how you speak," Thor warned softly. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard and he is my brother."
Natasha was unimpressed. "He killed eighty people in two days."
Hesitating for a moment, Thor offered, "He's adopted?
Mia huffed. "What a wonderful brother you are. I can't possibly understand why Loki might have any issues with you."
"I think it's about the mechanics," Bruce interjected loudly before Thor, who was glaring at Mia, could respond. "Iridium. What do they need the Iridium for?"
"It's a stabilizing agent." Looking up, Mia felt the tension draining from her frame as Tony strode into the room with Phil. Even though JARVIS had reassured her that he was fine, she hadn't been able to relax until she could see Tony for herself.
Hopping to her feet, she hurried around the table and threw her arms around Tony. "Took you long enough," she muttered into his jacket.
Awkwardly standing there, arms raised in the air as if he wasn't totally sure what to do with them, Tony whined, "Why? Why must you do this to me?"
"Don't whine," Mia teased him, hugging him tighter. "Accept your fate."
"You know, if I said something like that, I'd get into trouble." Tony finally hugged her back, still seeming a bit hesitant.
"That's because you have a reputation." Mia finally stepped back, smiling innocently up at her brother. "I, however, am an angel."
Tony barked a laugh but, before he could respond, Natasha interrupted. "You were saying something about a stabilizing agent."
Giving her an unimpressed look, Tony threw his arm around Mia's shoulder and led her back to the group. "Yeah, means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." Waiting for Mia to take her seat next to Steve again, Tony set a black case she hadn't even noticed him holding down in front of her before wandering over to the control panels where Fury had stood when they'd first came aboard the carrier. "Also means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants."
Glancing around the personal working on the floor below, Tony called, "Ah, raise the mizzen mast! Ship the topsails!" When they all stopped working to stare at Tony in confusion, he abruptly pointed at a man and loudly proclaimed, "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."
The others were seemingly starting to get frustrated by Tony's antics, but Mia just sat back in amusement.
Staring around at the command panels, Tony covered one eye. "How does Fury even see these?" he asked the brunette who usually stuck close to Fury's side.
"He turns," she snapped.
"Sounds exhausting," Tony sighed. Turning back to the group, he returned to their original discussion. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source of high energy density. Something to kick start the Cube."
The brunette agent frowned at him. "When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"
"Last night," he answered flippantly. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers- am I the only one who did the reading?"
"Yes," Mia immediately told him.
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked.
"He'd have to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb Barrier," Bruce answered, deep in thought.
"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the Quantum Tunneling effect," Tony retorted, striding over to Bruce.
"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy-ion fusion at any reactor on the planet," the other scientist hypothesized.
"Finally!" crowed Tony. "Someone who speaks English!"
Looking over at Mia, Steve muttered, "Is that what just happened?" Mia shook her head.
As Tony shook hands with Bruce, he said, "It's good to meet you, Doctor Banner. Your work on anti-electronic collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."
"Tony!" Mia reprimanded.
"Thanks," Bruce muttered with a sigh.
"Doctor Banner is only here to track the cube," Fury warned as he entered the room. "I was hoping you might join him."
"I need to start studying the scepter," Mia said, standing up. "I assume that's what in this case, correct?" she asked Tony.
"Sorry I didn't get it to the lab," he told her with a wink.
"I know it's magical, but it works a lot like a HYDRA weapon," Steve said, standing and grabbing the case before Mia could. "You might be able to use it to find the Tesseract."
"I don't know about that, but it powered by the cube," Fury allowed, fixing his good eye on Mia. "And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."
"Monkeys?" Thor repeated. "I do not understand-"
"I do!" Steve interrupted, seeming excited. At the strange looks everyone was giving him, he shrunk back slightly. "I… I understood that reference."
Mia gave him a quick smile before turning to face Fury again. "Why do you think the scepter is being powered by the cube?"
Fury frowned at her. "Because, the blue rays coming from it when Loki casts a spell are the same as the ones the Tesseract releases." When Mia did say anything he asked, "Do you disagree?"
Keeping her expression cool and composed, she told him, "I'll know more once I get a chance to run some tests."
Tony cleared his throat. "So, shall we?" he asked Bruce.
"This way, Sir," Bruce responded, gesturing down the hall and the four quickly strode down to the lab.
Once inside, Tony and Bruce headed straight to computers while Hermione and Steve went over to a table off to the side. "You don't have to stay," she told Steve softly as he set the case down. "I'm sure there are other things you'd rather be doing."
"I don't mind," he reassured her. "Besides, I like watching you do magic." Flushing slightly, he immediately tried to back-track. "I mean… it's just different and I…"
Hermione laughed. "I know what you meant."
Opening up the case, Hermione took a moment to study the scepter. The engravings on the staff were unlike anything she had seen before and she wondered what they meant- were they a language or were they just decorative? The jewel gleamed bright and blue. Yes, it was the same color as the Tesseract, but their powers were entirely different. The Tesseract could open portals. This stone controlled minds- she was more sure than ever that it wasn't Loki's magic that was controlling Clint and the others.
"What are you thinking?" Steve asked, watching her closely as she studied the stone.
"The thing about magical objects," Hermione murmured, "especially ones that can be used to play with the mind, is that being the one holding it doesn't necessarily mean that you're the one in control of it."
"What do you mean?"
Still keeping her eyes on the staff, she told him, "When I was in my second year at Hogwarts, a monster was released in our school. No one had any idea what it was or how it had gotten in. In the end, we found out a first-year student had been the one responsible for unleashing the creature on the school. However, it wasn't actually her that did any of those things. It turns out that, at the beginning of the year, she had been given a diary that would respond when you wrote something in it. There was actually a consciousness in the diary and, the more she wrote in it, the more power it took from her until one day, it started being able to control her body. She would lose hours at a time, no recollection of what she had been doing or where she had been. When she would wake up, something terrible would have happened. She may have been holding the diary but, in the end, the diary was actually the one in control."
"You don't think Loki is actually the one in charge here," Steve surmised, leaning on the table. "You think something is controlling him."
Hermione finally looked at him. "He went from cunning and manipulative to obvious and brash in the span of six months. Why?"
"Maybe he decided to try something different since his previous attempt failed?" he offered, but his tone showed how little he actually believed that.
"But it almost worked! If he figured out what went wrong the first time and adjusted his plan, there's a strong chance he wouldn't fail a second time. Loki's intelligent, he would have known that."
"Say someone is controlling Loki, why would they have him doing things like this when you're saying that Loki could achieve the same goal using less obvious means?"
"Time," Hermione instantly responded, the pieces snapping together in her mind. "Loki's plan would take too long. Sending an army to Earth is messy and obvious but quicker. Whoever is actually in charge here wants the Tesseract as soon as possible."
Steve considered her argument. "If that's the case, then why didn't he just send Loki to grab the Tesseract and then immediately return? Why allow him to use the army at all?"
That stumped Hermione. "I… I don't know," she admitted, clearly frustrated. "I don't have all the answers." She turned back to the scepter then, reaching out. "Maybe this will give us a clue." As soon as her hand made contact with the scepter, her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell to the ground, heading bouncing against the ground with a sickening crack.
The last thing she heard were a chorus of voices calling her name.
"You lack resolve," Val stated, frowning down at Mia's collapsed form.
She'd just been put through the most intense training session to date and Mia could tell that Val's worries about what was going on with Richard were causing her to push Mia harder than ever. "What does that even mean?" she grumbled, the memory of Harry trying to teach her how to do a Patronus and his useless advice skittering across her mind. 'Let the happiness of the memory fill you up.' Honestly.
As Mia pushed herself upright, Val came to stand right in front of her. "Every move you make is laced with fear. When you counter my strikes, it's because you fear being hit. When you move to attack me, you fear making contact. When a challenge is set before you, you fear failing. At this moment, your every action screams of senseless fright. The last thing you need in a battle is fear because nothing good will come from it."
Mia flinched, her mother's words striking just a bit too close. "Fear is important- it can help keep you alive."
"Not when you're already fighting for your freedom or your life," Val countered. "What you need then is resolve, the absolute determination that you will be the one to survive. When you are challenged, you win. When you counter an attack, you don't let them touch you. When you attack, you kill. Every battle you engage in will be fought with your full resolve and if you can't do that, then you don't fight. It's just that simple.
"Control your fear. If you don't, then you are nothing more than a liability to those you wish to protect."
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