This story is most likely going to be finished in 29 chapters. Chapters, not including the journal entries. (Which we've seen the last of in this story).
Chapter 21: What do we do
Fury stood in front of Loki's cell, watching him. It was like they were having a standoff. "In case it's unclear, you try to escape, you so much as scratch that glass." Fury said, pressing a button which opened up a huge hole underneath Loki's cell. "Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?" He pointed at Loki, "Ant." He pointed at the button, "Boot."
"It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me." He said with a laugh.
"Built for something a lot stronger than you." Fury said, not wanting to say what it was really built for.
"Oh, I've heard." Loki said. He looked dead into the camera, the one we were watching the feed from. "The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man." Dr. Banner looked down.
"How desperate are you? You call on these lost creatures to defend you." We were all watching him from different cameras.
"How desperate am I? 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." Fury said. Loki just seemed to use that as ammunition.
"Ooh. It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what?" He asked, he turned to look at the camera, "A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is." Fury just rolled his…eye.
"Yeah, well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something." He said, before walking off. They closed the screens.
"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Dr. Banner asked, trying to lighten the mood.
"Loki's gonna drag this out." Steve said. Then he turned to Thor, "So, Thor, what's his play?"
"He has an army called the Chitauri, that none of Asgard nor any world know. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth. Return, I suspect, for the Tesseract." Thor said.
"An army, from outer space." Steve stated, clearly not believing it.
"This isn't the most farfetched thing that's happened." I said, "I mean, I watched him use the Tesseract to rip a portal through all the fabric of space, if he can do that, he can amass an army."
"So he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for." Dr. Banner said.
"Selvig?" Thor asked.
"He's an astrophysicist." Dr. Banner said.
"He's a friend." Thor said, sounding shocked that Loki would take him.
"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours." Agent Romanoff said.
"Every scientist working on that project that is not dead or under protection is being controlled by Loki." I said.
"I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here." Steve said.
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki." Dr. Banner said, everybody turned to him to see what his reasoning was, "That guy's brain is a bag of cats, you can smell crazy on him."
"Have care how you speak." Thor said, sounding offended, "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother."
"He killed eighty people in two days." Agent Romanoff pointed out.
"He's adopted."
"Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?" Dr. Banner asked.
"It's a stabilizing agent." Tony said, before turning to say something quietly to Phil.
"Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." I pointed out. He nodded. He walked past Thor, patting him on the arm as he did.
"No hard feelings Point Break, you've got a mean swing." He said. Thor just stared at him.
"Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants." Tony said. "Raise the monitors." He said. They just stared at him. He pointed to one of the agents using a computer, "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." He looked at the computer monitors and covered one eye.
"How does Fury even see these?" He asked.
"He turns." Agent Hill said.
"Sounds exhausting." Tony said, sounding like the spoiled rich guy he was. "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. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube." Then he was back to crazy scientist guy.
"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Agent Hill asked.
"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?" He asked. I raised my hand, so did Dr. Banner. "Well of course you two did."
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked.
"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier." Dr. Banner said.
"Unless?" I prompted, knowing that there had to be something else.
"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect." Tony said.
"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet." Dr. Banner said.
"Finally, people who speak English." He said.
"Is that what just happened?" Steve asked.
"Not exactly." I said, "This is Science Talk. I'd translate, but that would take about 4 days, a calculator, and every single one of Dr. Selvig's papers.
"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. You're work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster." Tony said, shaking his hand.
"Thanks." Dr. Banner said flatly.
"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube." Fury said. He gestured between Dr. Banner and myself, "I was hoping you might join them."
"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon." Steve said.
"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys." Fury said.
"Monkeys? I do not understand." Thor said.
"I do!" Steve said, everybody turned to stare at him, "I understood that reference." He looked proud of himself. Tony rolled his eyes.
"Every human in the 21st century understood that reference." I said.
"Come on kid, we're going to the lab." Tony said, clapping me on the back.
"OW!"
"What the hell happened to you?" He asked.
'Loki. Scepter. Desk. Pain." I said, gritting my teeth, "No amount of pain meds can make this stop hurting." He helped me up and we started walking to the lab.
"I think you might need more pain meds." Dr. Banner said.
"You have no idea how many meds I have in my system right now just to keep me standing." I said seriously.
"It can't be that bad." Tony said.
"I'm not entirely sure I'd pass a steroid test right now." I said.
"Knowing the lengths S.H.I.E.L.D is willing to go to, I don't doubt that." Tony said.
"Yeah."
Please review. Ok, maybe I should stop leaving this here, because it makes me sound like an overexcited dog. Like Buster. Who keeps magically appearing and disappearing because I can't write him into certain scenes.
