Disclaimer: I don't own anything Marvel: Thor: The Dark World, or anything other than Anna.

Chapter 36

Another Lost

It was a good deal later when Jane finally woke up, and while she was unconscious, the three debated over strategies for when they finally got to Malekith. When Jane finally opened her eyes, and from Anna's seat in front of her, nearly had a heart attack. The white of her eyes was no longer that. Instead, it was black, making her blue eyes stand out even more, making her look extremely demented. It was like something out of a horror or possession movie.

"Jane?" Thor called to her.

Jane sat up and turned to look at the horizon. "Malekith," she muttered, her eyes landing and direction all of them to the ship emerging from the clouds out in the distance.

If they went much further in on the skiff, they would've drawn too much attention to themselves. So eventually, the four departed the skiff and made their way to the Dark Elf's skip. They crept over the cliff, watching as Malekith and Kurse, his right hand man, exited out of the Ark and out onto the plans below.

Thor turned to Jane, the one that had the most to lose and the least combat experience out of the four, and asked, "All right. Are you ready?"

Jane just nodded, and Loki jumped in. "I am," he said.

Had one of her companions answered like that, Anna would have patted them on the shoulder, or playfully smacked them in the back of the head and said something along the lines of, "Wasn't talking to you" or "No comments from the Peanut Gallery please." But the thought of touching Loki really did not seem appealing to her. So it all went ignored.

"I made it known how much I disliked this plan, right?" Anna muttered as Thor stepped away from Jane.

"Immensely," Thor answered.

"You know, this plan of yours is going to get us killed?" Loki asked.

"Yes, possibly," Thor said. He took hold of Loki's cuffed wrists and went to unlock them, but he hesitated, and for good reason.

"You still don't trust me, brother?" Loki asked.

Thor smirked. "Would you?" He gave Loki a pointed stare before finally releasing Loki from the cuffs.

"No, I wouldn't," Loki retorted.

Knowing the plan was to trick Malekith with a betrayal, Anna grabbed Jane's arm. She knew that she wouldn't like what was coming, and seeing as Jane didn't know what the plan was, she would most likely react poorly. Anna needed to play along, of course, but she needed to make sure Jane didn't do anything to jeopardize the mission.

Loki turned and stabbed Thor in the stomach with a dagger. Thor made of cry of pain, and Loki pushed him over the ledge of the cliff. Thor rolled all the way down. Loki hopped down and made his way after him. Anna just grabbed Jane as she yelled out, "Thor, no!" She then let go, allowing her to run down, just like they knew she would. Anna, of the other hand, dipped back and started to run so she could flank the group.

I really don't like this plan, Anna thought, rushing down. It gives too much power to Loki. She didn't hate him, but that definitely didn't mean she trusted him.

The two men were further than the she was, and the wind whirling and the rocks sliding under her feet made it hard to hear the conversation going on, but she managed to hear a it as she crept behind the minion elves with Slange in her hands, the staff in solid form.

"You really think I cared about Frigga? About any of you? All I ever wanted was you and Odin, dead at my feet!" Loki spat as he continued to beat his brother. Loki was either a very good liar, or he was telling the truth. Either way, Anna couldn't tell which it was, and it was making her very unnerved. But she was in position, so she was forced to trust in Thor's plan.

Thor reached out his hand to grab Mjolnir, but as it flew towards him, Loki took his dagger and cut off his hand. He screamed out in pain, and as much as Anna wanted to trust in the plan, God, that looked real. And there was no possible way for her to determine if it was fake or not.

Loki grabbed Jane and held he at his side forcefully. "Malekith! I am Loki of Jotunheim, and I bring you a gift!" He then proceeded to throw Jane to the ground at Malekith's feet. "I ask only one thing in return, a good seat from which to watch Asgard burn."

Kurse said something in the Elven language that Anna didn't understand, but it was favorable towards Loki, it seemed. Malekith made his way to Thor, and demanded, "Look at me." When Thor didn't listen, he kicked him onto his back.

It was clear that Malekith wanted Thor to see his following actions, as raised his hand, lifting Jane up into the air with an unseen force. The entire group watched at Malekith drew the Aether out of Jane, which was exactly what they had hoped he'd do. That wasn't the hard part. The hard part would be defeating him and getting out of there once it was out. When it was out, Jane dropped to the ground, the Aether temporarily hovered in the air between them.

"Loki, now!" Thor yelled out, signalling their movement.

Anna ran forward while the illusion that had been placed over Thor by Loki to make it looked like he was injured dissipated, and he sat up, holding his hand to Mjolnir. She threw herself over Jane in a sad attempt to protect the woman. Thor lifted Mjolnir, the hammer sparking to life as he got ready to attempt to destroy the Aether. There was no way that Anna would make it out of it though. She may be able to protect Jane, but even that was a long shot, but she knew there was no way for her to make it out okay when the lightning rain down.

What completely surprised Anna was something Loki did to divert from the plan. He rushed forward and threw himself over Anna and Jane to protect them. They never put that in the plan, and so she glanced back at him in surprise, the green eyes of the man looking at the Aether. He was risking his own life to protect her and Jane, two people he would've gladly taken out on multiple occasions.

The damn man made no sense to her!

The Aether exploded, and as the smoke cleared, Anna glanced around. She didn't see anything, giving her a bit of hope that the mission had succeeded. She glanced back at Loki, who was pressed over-top her, looking for confirmation that he was seeing what she was. And just when she was starting to get happy, red shards lifted off the ground before getting sucked up into Malekith.

"Oh fuck," Anna muttered.

"You can say that again," Loki mumbled back to her.

Malekith turned to retreat to his ship followed by Kurse. Before getting too far away though, Kurse turned and threw what looked like a grenade towards them. Anna found herself on the ground next to Jane. Loki had pushed them to the ground before the grenade went off, opening a black hole in the air. Loki was dragged off the ground and pulled into the air towards the hole of death.

Anna turned in an instant, her actions natural and instinctive, twisting her wrist and sending out the flexible Slange out to Loki. He grabbed ahold of it, but the black hole was too strong, and Anna was pulled off the ground as well. I didn't think this through, she thought, as she used Slange to climb down to Loki.

Loki looked absolutely terrified, an expression she had never even though possible for the cold man. So he was human after all...She grabbed his hand, and then clung to his jacket. She couldn't stop them from going in, but at least he wasn't alone.

Then, out of the clear blue (or dust), Thor flew and grabbed them, sending all three of them to the ground. Thor went right back into fighting, but it took Loki and Anna another moment to catch their breaths.

"You tried to save me," Loki muttered.

"Yeah," Anna said, pushing herself to her feet.

"Why?" he demanded.

"Well, why did you cover me and Jane earlier?" she retorted, offering a hand for him to get up. The act would've never happened otherwise. It had only been more than fifteen minutes prior that she would've rather died than touch the trickster.

Loki cautiously took her hand and got up. The Art started up, and the hatch started to close off with Malekith right there. Thor swung his hammer and flew in that direction, leaving protecting Jane and fighting the others elves to the rest of them.

Slange was firmly grasped in her hands as she swung, ducked and blocked so many attacks from the elven goons. The staff version of Slange was best suited for Anna, she found, but she did appreciate the flexibility she had to change up the pace of a fight with its other forms. It was especially fun and gratifying to wrap it around an elf's foot and pull them out from under them.

However, just as she had done just that, one elf came up behind her and picked her up by her hair. He threw her to the ground and then stomped on her stomach, knocking all the air out of her lungs. She gasped, but no matter how much air she sucked in, it never seemed to fill them. While she was distracted with her need to breathe, the elf raised his blade and was ready to strike Anna down permanently. Before she could even think to swing her feet out and knock them out from under him to reset the fight, a dagger flew through the air and straight into the center of the forehead in the mask.

Anna rolled to her side and looked in the direction in which it had come, only to find Loki nodding to her. Anna scrabbled back to her feet and pulled the dagger out of the elf's face and lightly tossed it back to Loki.

His green eyes weren't on Anna long. They caught something in the distance, and that, in turn, directed Anna's eyes over there. Thor was on the ground, seemingly defeated with Kurse pummeling him into the ground. Loki was the first there with his inhuman speed. It took much longer, and as she ran she watched the black haired man impale Kurse from behind with an enormous blade.

Kurse slowly turned, evidently in pain from the wound, but it hadn't affected him like they had thought it had. He lunged forward and grabbed Loki by his arms, drawing him straight through the blade sticking out of his chest that Loki had just placed there.

Anna skidded to a halt in complete shock. That was definitely not what she had expected to happy today. Sure, she knew the plan was risky, and sure, she didn't exactly think it would work, but that didn't mean she expected any of them to get hurt like that. Let alone an Asgardian. If someone was to get hurt, she figured it would've been her. She's the human fighting, after all.

"No!" Thor screamed out.

Kurse glared at Loki another moment before throwing him away like a ragdoll. Loki groan, obviously in much more pain than Kurse was. He seemed completely unaffected. The Monster stalked towards him, and Anna resumed her run.

"See you in hell. Monster!" Loki threatened.

Before Anna even got over there, Kurse looked down and one of the black hole grenades went off at his hip. Before he could tear it free, it exploded, sucking him into the back hole. Thor for up and rushed to Loki's side, and Anna got there not too long after. She knelt down, and pressed her hand to the round in a pathetic attempt to help. She knew it wasn't going to work, and as Thor pulled him up into his arms, Anna sat back. She needed to let the brothers have their moment.

"No, no, no, no, no," Thor muttered, holding Loki. "Oh, you fool. You didn't listen."

Loki was shaking, and as each second went by, his face grew more pale. "I'm a fool. I'm a fool," he pathetically agreed.

Thor placed his hand on Loki's cheek to keep his eyes directed on him. "Stay with me, okay?"

"I'm sorry," Loki got out. He spoke quick, and to the point. He was scared, and he knew he was going to die. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Shh," Thor hushed. "It's okay. It's alright."

Loki's body grew calmer, and he stopped shaking. His face started to turn an odd mottled soot color.

"I'll tell Father what you did here today," Thor said.

"I didn't do it for him," Loki answered.

It was obvious that right after that, Loki slipped away. His eyes no longer moved, and his breathing stopped altogether. Loki was dead, and there was another one lost in this war with the Dark Elves. Another brother lost.

"No!" Thor screamed.

There were two things that needed to be done. Anna knew Thor needed some time to come to grip with the death of his brother. He need a moment to mourn. The second was that they really needed to get moving. Malekith was gone, and they needed to get a move on in order to try and save the universe.

Save the universe. Two years ago if someone told her she'd need to fight alongside aliens to save the universe she would've had them institutionalized. Now saving the world and now the universe was becoming normal, and that was both exhilarating and totally terrifying all at the same time.

But they really did need to get a move on. There was thunder off in the distance. Anna stood up, painfully dusting herself off as her blue eyes noticed the dust storm quickly approaching them. Moving around in that would be terrible. They needed to really get their asses moving now.
"Thor, we need to go," Anna muttered cautiously to him.

"I can't leave him…"

Anna's heart sank. She knew how he felt. If she had been told to leave her brother, she wouldn't have been able to do it. It was insensitive of Anna to even think of suggesting it, but she had to.

"We can come back," Anna said, placing her hand on Thor's shoulder. "Someone can come back and get him so you can have your proper goodbyes, but if we don't go now, a lot more people could die, Thor. We can't let Loki die for nothing."

Thor just sat there, his eyes on Loki's face, his hands still holding his brother up off the ground in his arms and lap. He cradled him gently, as if that would somehow warm the cooling body of his brother, breathing him back to life. It wouldn't, they all knew, but all rational thinking went out the window when someone was hurting that much.

The storm was getting dangerously close, and each second let Malekith gain more distance between them. She needed to try and talk some sense into the Asgardian Prince. "I know how you feel right now," Anna assured him gently. "I know how broken you are right now; how much you want to scream, and crawl away into a hole, and I know how much you want to make Kurse and Malekith suffer for doing this to you. Trust me, I know," Anna reached over for his hand and squeezed it tightly. "You`'ll have your time to mourn, but right now, we have to go."

Slowly, Thor raised his head to look at Anna, and then Jane behind her. His eyes went back to Loki one last time before he laid him on the ground, and got up from the dirt. "You're right," he agreed.

"We should get some cover," Anna suggested. "We don't want to be caught in that storm."

Thor and Jane glanced in the direction Anna was looking in, and they both agreed. On their way to shelter in the distant cavers, they were caught in part of the dust storm. Luckily, it didn't cove them in it. It was thicker than Earth dirt, and though it hurt more to get pelted with, it was nice not to feel like she had taken a mudbath.

Thor covered Jane with his cape, and Anna was forced to remove the decorative cloth around her waist to wrap around her face to try and shelt her eyes and nose from the dust. Eventually though, after stumbling several times up the mountain, the three managed to get cover inside a cavern.

Just like the rest of the planet, the cave was dark. She's probably have to use the flashlight on her phone to illuminate the way if they went any further than just through the threshold of the cavern. Anna dusted herself off and shook her hair out to get whatever was stuck in it out. Once that was done, she put the cloth back around her waist, as it should have been.

"He's gonna unleash it," Jane spoke up once safely inside so she wouldn't get anything in her mouth. She turned and leaned up against a large waist height rock. "Not just on Asgard, or on a star. Malekith is going to destroy everything.

"How?" Thor demanded. "Jane, how?"

"Where did you get this information? I mean, we've all be together this whole time," Anna muttered, crossing her arms.

"I saw him on Earth," Jane answered.

"Another vision?" Anna questioned.

Jane nodded, but there was something else racking her brain. "Why would he go to Earth?"

"The Convergence," Thor stated.

"God, none of this would have happened if I hadn't found the Aether," Jane said.

"You don't know that," Anna said. "It's no use playing the blame game, trust me."

"She's right. Then Malekith would've only possessed it that much sooner," Thor said.

Jane glanced up at Thor, with sad eyes. "I only found it because I was looking for you."

Thor felt guilty about that, but there wasn't anything that could've been done. Thor was an important figure, not only on Asgard, but in the universe. He had things to do, people to save, and relationships to mend. Jane understood that now, but that didn't mean that it still didn't hurt, and Thor knew that. And he elt all the more guilty and saddened because of it. "Jane…"

"Now we're trapped here," Jane added.

"If there was one secret passageway here, there has to be another. We just have to be clever enough to find it," Anna thought, trying to think like Loki. Which was a scary notion...

Before Anna could take another step into the cave, a weird buzzing, and song echoed through the cavern. It definitely wasn't Anna. She had turned her phone off after taking the photo back on Asgard. Anna turned back to look at Jane because Thor most definitely wouldn't have a cell phone playing human music.

"It's not me," thor muttered.

"What the hell kind of music do you listen to…?" Anna muttered unimportantly.

Jane just rolled her eyes and pulled her phone out from the dress and answered it. "Hello?"

What kind of plan does she have to be able to get reception in space? Anna asked. Maybe I need that plan if things like this keep happening...

"Richard! Where are you?" Jane got up and moved passed Anna, going deeper into the caver.

Thor gave Anna and odd look, most definitely asking her what was going on and who Richard was. Anna could only shrug and follow after the woman. But it was curious. Why would anybody want someone else if they already had Thor? The man was a fucking god, and Anna didn't mean in the immortal sense!

Jane removed the phone from her ear, placed it on speaker, and then held it up to look at the screen. "Oh my God, this is amazing!" she explained.

"Is it? I quite enjoyed our lunch despite never actually ordering anything."

Oh, so she did go on a date! Anna thought, glancing cautiously at Thor, who seemed a bit bothered by the news. Oh, the poor baby.

"How am I getting service here?" Jane went on, completely oblivious to what the man on the phone was doing to the man with them.

"Is this a bad time? Do you want me to try you later?"

"No, no, no!" Jane answered frantically. "Whatever you do, do not hand up the phone."

"Okay then." The Richard guy sounded pleased to hear that. "I was just wondering if you wanna try again? Ah, maybe dinner next time?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah. Just stay on the phone, okay?"

Poor guy doesn't know he's being used, Anna thought, but she definitely wasn't going to tell Jane to stop. If she had a plan formulating to get them home, then by all means, use the man. She just kinda wished it didn't have to be on speaker so Thor wasn't getting jealous.

"Yeah, I will."

"Oh my God," Jane muttered, her eyes on the ground.

Anna walked over next to her to see what she was staring at. It was a soda can and a pair of keys (which Jane grabbed and put in her pocket), and so many pairs of shoes. "What the fuck?" Anna muttered, looking around at the ground.

"Am I interrupting something?"

"No, no, no. Nothing at all," Jane said, before standing back up. She put her phone off of speaker and placed it back to her ear. She turned to Thor and Anna and said, "Come on!" Jane lead them further into caver. She grabbed Thor's hand and dragged him.

"Wait, where are we going?" Thor asked. "Why are so many shoes in here?"

The three continued straight on and one second they were in the gave, and the next they were back at the factory warehouse where everything began. Anna stopped, and looked around. "How the hell…"

"Complicated. Too long to explain," Jane said. "We need to go back to my place. You following?"

"Damn straight," Anna answered, heading to her bike which was still in the same place she had left it. Anna connected her phone to the communications link in her helmet, and as she followed after the car Jane and Thor were in, she dialed out.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, Phil?" Anna asked. "We got a problem…"

Boo, Loki is "dead." Yay, they're back to Earth! So, shit really hits the fan next chapter. Only one more chapter for the movie, and only three more chapters to part 2. Hope you guys are all so excited.

Thanks go to the following for their reviews on the previous chapter:

FelixFelicis02 - Malekith, here we come! It's time to take down some evil elves.

Guest- I'm glad yo liked it.

EB1793- Yes, Anna is definitely going to have a love interest, but it's not going to happen until the next book, which like I said, is only three chapters away. I'd love to hear who you think it is, and what the foreshadowing was.

Jedi Jelsa777- I know, and I would be so much less stress on me to have to worry about remembering to post.