The Tesseract
Tønsberg, Norway
March 1942
There's explosions in the distance in a city in Norway. The sky is dark and filled with clouds, or smoke, you can't really tell. A man is running towards the local church as fast as he can, so he can meet up with the elder - the man who's guarding what the German's are after. He opens the door, closes and locks it as fast as he can, afraid someone might see him and kill him. The elder comes down the staircase in a frantic manner starting up a conversation in Norwegian, the two talk back and forth. They are stopped by a rumbling noise coming from outside the walls of the church, it's literally shaking the floor, it's so powerful. All of a sudden the rumbling stops, the shaking of objects in the church stops as well. As quick as the rumbling stops, the wall that the two are staring collapses and smashes the younger guy. The elder backs up in time, so he's safe from the debris, but the other guy is dead. The elder lifts a huge brick off of the man's head and confirms that he is dead after all. The man looks outside to see a car pull up, a really fancy car - for that time, at least. It's a black Mercedes Benz 540K. It has a hood ornament that is the logo of the infamous group, Hydra. A man steps out of the driver's seat of the car, he looks to be about 30. He stands in an intimidating manner that would make anyone shrink into themselves, to shy away from him. A couple of guards and soldiers walk into the church and a guard instructs three soldiers to open a stone casket. They try but it's too heavy.
"Open it!" The guard yells, nervous about what the leader will do. "Quickly, before he…" the man is cut off by the man entering with a loud step, Johann Schmidt. All the people in the room, excluding the elder, stand up straight and look at Schmidt. The elder is on the floor, from being knocked over by a soldier, he stares at Schmidt, not letting his emotions play on his face.
"It has taken me a long time to find this place," Schmidt says, his German accent thick, as he walks towards the casket. "You should be commended." He stops in front of the elder. "Help him up," he instructs his guard. A guard helps him up carefully, too carefully. "I think that you are a man of great vision. And, in this way, we are much alike."
"I am nothing like you," the elder interrupts, not missing a beat.
"No, of course, but what others see as superstition, you and I know to be a science," Schmidt says confidently, he knows what he wants is here, he's searched far and wide, high and low for what he wants.
"What you seek is just a legend," the elder says, not letting his guard down.
"Then why make such an effort to conceal it?" Schmidt asks, nodding towards the casket. Schmidt takes off his military cap, to reveal his hair. He walks towards the casket, passing his cap to one of the guards. He easily pushes off the top of the casket, to reveal a skeleton with armor on and a sword laying on him. The hands are clasped together, holding a blue cube. Schmidt isn't interested in the armor, he's interested in the cube. He pries the cube out of the stiff hands and holds it in his palm up to his face. "The Tesseract was the jewel of Odin's treasure room," Schmidt explains, turning to face the elder. He waits a second before he drops it on the floor. It smashes into tiny pieces. The guards stare at him like he's crazy for breaking the Tesseract. "It is not something one buries," he walks up to the elder so he's less than a foot from his face. The elder can smell his breath at this point and see the exact color of his eyes. "But I think it is close, yes?"
"I cannot help you," the elder speaks. The Tesseract is the most powerful object in this world, he cannot give it up to anyone, especially Johann Schmidt.
"No. But maybe you can help your village. You must have some friends out there. Some little grandchildren, perhaps?" Schmidt threatens. He has to get this cube if he wants to complete his plan, if killing people helps then so be it. "I have no need for them to die." The elder's attention is directed to the tank outside that starts to make a whirring noise. The gun on the tank is being redirected towards the village instead of pointing at the church. The elder looks back at Schmidt with a forlorn look on his face. He doesn't want people to die, but he can't give up the Tesseract. Schmidt turns around and looks at a mural made out of metal on the wall. The mural is a large tree, with a bunch of roots and branches. "Yggdrasil. Tree of the world. Guardian of wisdom." Schmidt looks at the tree, at all the details and everything on it. He sees a small snake warped around a lot of the roots. "And fate, also." He looks at the snake closer and sees that it's in a small section that's separate from the rest. He presses the eye of the snake and the section pops out. He grabs it and slides it out, carefully as to not drop it. The elder is staring at Schmidt with wide eyes and a jaw shaking with nerves. Schmidt opens the top of the box and immediately a blue glow fills the room and shines on everyone and everything in it. "And the Fuhrer digs for trinkets in the desert," Schmidt says, talking about Adolf Hitler. He looks at the elder for a second and looks back to the Tesseract. "You have never seen this, have you?"
"It's not for the eyes of ordinary men," the elder says.
"Exactly." Schmidt closes the box, and the blue glow ceases. "Give the order to open fire," he says as he walks towards the door - or what was the door, now a smashed wall.
"Fool!" The elder exclaims, staying where he is as everyone leaves. As he speaks Schmidt turns around and puts his cap back on. "You cannot control the power you hold. You will burn!"
"I already have," Schmidt says as he takes out his gun and shoots the elder in the middle of his chest. He falls to the floor, dead. Schmidt adjusts his jaw as it feels weird from his past experiments. Some blood splattered on the Hydra pin on his jacket.