Annnddd we're cruising right along! Man, do I love writing Loki. I love his witty-ness. Anywho. Won't keep you too long! Just going to leave you with that quick disclaimer that I have no rights to Marvel or it's characters. I know that. You know that. The world knows that…but you know. Goota do what you gotta do. Now…ONWARD! Enjoy! Xoxo-NickyLynn
Tessa transported herself and Loki out of the cell and up into his room. "Get dressed." She told him as she dropped his hand. "Quickly. We won't have much time before they notice you're gone." She said before turning and walking down into the lower area to give him some privacy. She heard him moving about his room, pulling open drawers, as he gathered what he needed.
"Where did you find it?" she heard Loki ask from behind her after a moment, his words muffled slightly as he pulled his tunic over his head.
"Find what?" she asked over her shoulder, careful to keep her eyes on his door.
"The Aether." Came his response.
"Oh." She said in understanding. "On Midgard. Well, not on Midgard. There was a portal that I was supposed to be investigating. I suppose I became a little too curious." She told him.
"Now, why does that sound familiar." He told her.
"Yes, I've rather a bad history when it comes to those." She agreed with a heavy sigh. "Speaking of portals…you do know where to find one don't you." She called back to him.
"Of course I do." He told her, sounding rather smug.
"Good." She said before a knock sounded on Loki's door. Tessa knew that Thor was meant to meet them here, so figuring the light knock had been from him, she stepped over to the door, pulling it open hesitantly. Sure enough, Thor was standing on the other side.
"Is he here?" he asked, not being able to see beyond the small crack Tessa had her head poked out through.
"Of course, he is." Tessa told him.
"Well, is he ready?" Thor then asked, looking down the hall worriedly.
Tessa looked back over her shoulder at Loki, only to find him standing in a pair of black leather pants, his torso remarkably bare….and rather well-toned despite his time in confinement. Loki raised a brow as he noticed her watching him before he sent her a smirk, having noticed where her eyes had been lingering. Tessa quickly turned back to Thor, trying to ignore his look. "Almost." She told him.
"Well hurry up, we haven't much time." Thor told her.
"What do you want me to do? Help dress him?" she threw at him before realizing how bad that sounded. She spun around and pointed a finger at Loki, who thankfully had something covering his torso now. "Don't answer that." She warned, seeing his mouth hanging open to make some smart-witted quip, she was sure. She turned back to Thor who was watching her with a raised eyebrow. "Are the others ready?" she asked him.
"As far as I'm aware, yes." He said, nodding. "We're just waiting on the star on the show now, so if he could just speed it up a little, that would be wonderful."
"I see our time apart has not granted you with any more patience." Loki's voice said from above Tessa's shoulder, startling her. She let out a scoff and rolled her eyes as he grinned down at her, having found satisfaction in scaring her. She pulled the door open all the way, stepping out into the hall and moving past Thor. As Loki closed his door behind him, Thor suddenly thrust him back up against it, holding him pressed against it by the weight of Mjolnir.
"Listen well brother, it is not my by desire that I must suffice your help. If there were any other option, you would still be in that cell and far from my mind. I am warning you now, if you move to betray us, you will regret it most dearly." He threatened.
"Oh, I've missed you too." Loki breathed out with a laugh before Thor dropped him back to the floor. Loki's eyes then trailed to the door across the hall which led to Tessa's room and was surprised to find it hanging off it's hinges, and beyond it's frame lay nothing but a room of destruction and chaos. He looked back over at Tessa and even though she had noticed where his attention had drifted, she ignored the topic. Instead, she nodded her head over her shoulder, down the hall.
"Shall we?" she asked before taking off in a quick walk. Thor and Loki followed after her and the trio began making their trek through the palace. As they moved deeper into the palace, Loki looked over at Thor with a broad smile.
"This is so unlike you brother." He said happily, finding amusement in the whole situation. "So clandestine. Are you sure you wouldn't rather just punch your way out?"
"If you keep speaking I just might." Thor told him, already regretting Loki's involvement.
"Fine. As you wish." Loki said, casting his hands out in defense. "I'm not even here." He said, casting an illusion on himself, appearing as a common Asgardian soldier. "Is this better?" he asked in the new voice.
"It's better company at least." Thor told him, trying to ignore his antics.
"Still, we could be less conspicuous." Loki said, casting another illusion. He shifted back into his normal form as Thor now took on the appearance of Sif. "My, brother, you look ravishing." Loki toldhim bemusedly. Tessa looked back at the two men and nearly tripped on her own feet when she noticed Thor's peculiar form.
"It'll hurt no less when I kill you in this form." Came Thor's voice from Sif's body.
"Well, that's fuel for a nightmare." Tessa said, falling back into step with them.
"You're right." Loki said then. "Two Sifs in the world are two too many. Perhaps you'd prefer the company of your actual brothers." He directed at Tessa as the illusion on Thor fell and Loki took on the form of Steve, dressed in his uniform and holding his shield. "Oh, this is much better." Loki said in Steve's voice and Tessa no longer found it as amusing as she once did. "Though, the costume's a bit much. So tight! But the confidence….I can feel the righteousness surging! Hey!" he said, moving to stand in front of Tessa, walking backwards. "Do you want to have a rousing discussion about truth? Honor? Patriotism?" Tessa was trying her hardest to ignore Loki's jab at her brother. Her eyes caught movement around the next corner, and she realized a round of guards were coming their way. "God bless Amer-!" Loki was shouting before she rushed forward, slapping a hand down on his mouth and transporting them into the shadow of one of large pillars.
She shoved him up against the wall, keeping her hand clamped over his mouth as she pressed up against him in the tight area, keeping him silent as the group of guards walked past Thor, exchanging quick words with him. Tessa looked from the group, up to Loki and she suddenly was very aware of how close they were. She let her hand slide from his mouth, figuring he wouldn't be dumb enough to draw attention to them. She could feel Loki's breath upon her skin as he stared down at her, and she was suddenly glad to be in the shadows as she felt a heat rush up to her cheeks.
"You know if we're going to involve me in this dangerous mission, then the least you could do would be to brandish me with a weapon." He whispered to her. "My daggers, something."
"You're right, how inconsiderate of me." She said as the soldiers moved down the hall and around the corner. She pulled the metal cuffs Thor had given her as a precaution out of her pocket before snapping them down on his wrists.
"Finally!" Loki exclaimed, before realizing what she had done. Tessa stepped out from the tight space, pointing a finger up at him.
"That's for taking on the form of my brother!" she told him. "Now stop messing around."
"You know, this is the second time you've put me in cuffs. I'm beginning to think it's a kink for you." Loki said with a smirk.
"Oh, dear Lord." Tessa said with a roll of her eyes, walking back over to Thor, followed by Loki.
"Really?" Loki said, holding up his cuffed hands as they began walking down the hall with Thor again, moving with more haste.
"And here I thought you liked tricks." Tessa told him smugly, eliciting a smile out of Thor and a frown from Loki. They quickly moved through the palace, hearing a large group of men moving through the halls behind them. They made it to the large room where the elven ship had crashed, meeting Volstagg and Sif, who were already waiting for them.
"We will give you as much time as we can." Volstagg told them as they approached.
"Thank you, my friend." Thor told him, reaching forward and shaking his hand.
"We owe you all a great debt." Tessa told Sif, nodding towards her in thanks.
"Just try making it out of this in one piece and we'll call it even." Sif responded, giving her a smile.
Tessa gave her the best smile she could muster, pulling her into a quick hug, before she followed Thor onto the alien ship. They walked into the dark craft, looking around in confusion as Loki entered behind them. Thor stepped up to what looked like the main control panel, before reaching out hesitantly. He smacked down on a few buttons, trying to get the power turned on, yet nothing happened.
"I thought you said you knew how to fly this thing." Loki said from over Thor's shoulder.
"No, I said how heard could it be." Thor corrected. They could hear shouting from outside the walls of the ship, and they knew time was pressing quickly in on them as the soldiers closed in on them.
"Well, whatever you're doing brother, I suggest you do it faster." Loki told him urgently.
"Shut up Loki." Thor told him as he continued to press down on the control panel buttons, trying to figure it out.
"You must have missed something." Loki said, leaning in towards the controls, looking over them for himself.
"No, I didn't." Thor told him, slamming down harder on everything he could come into contact with. "I'm pressing every button on this thing!" Thor told him.
"No. Don't hit it. Just press it gently!" Loki said in admonishment.
"I am pressing it gently!" Thor told him, slapping his hand up and down on the control pad for emphasis. "It's not working!" he yelled out.
Tessa, having grown to her limits with their childish bickering, felt a surge of anger roll out of her as she yelled out at them. "Enough!" she yelled in frustration, sending a blast out around her that seeped into the walls around them and the craft light up, having been activated by the surge of energy. The displays pulled up around them and they all looked around in surprise.
"That'll work." Loki commented, as Thor took hold of the controls and began lifting the large craft into the air. He tried spinning them around and the craft shook with large vibrations as they hit column after column as he maneuvered them around. "I think you missed a column." Loki said.
"Shut up!" Thor told him, once again, as he did his best to control the alien technology. He maneuvered them out of the palace walls, sending a lot of the infrastructure crumbling down around them as he did. Once they were free of the palace walls, Thor steered them through the air of Asgard.
"Look, why don't you let me take over." Loki told him, as Thor seemed to struggle with keeping them steady. "I'm clearly the better pilot."
"Is that right?" Thor asked him. "Well, out of the two of us, which one can actually fly?" he shot back.
"As someone who's experienced that flying first hand, I'm not sure I find that reassuring." Tessa told him, finding her guts sloshing around inside of her, the turbulence of the unsteady flight not helping the dizziness she had been fighting. Loki smirked over at her in satisfaction before Thor turned them rather sharply, sending Tessa tumbling into him. Loki brought his still-cuffed hands up to grab onto her and help steady her has Thor righted them back out as he avoided the bullets being fired at him.
"Are you alright?" Loki asked her, noticing her pale pallor.
"I'm fine." She mumbled out, pushing herself onto her own feet. "Just not a very good flyer." She told him. A large blast struck the side of the craft then, sending Tessa and Loki ducking down at the surprise of the loud bang. Thor maneuvered them out of the line of fire again and as he did so, he smashed into one of the guard towers on the out skirts of Asgard, sending it raining down into the water below in several pieces.
"Not a word." Thor said to Loki as Loki opened his mouth to comment on the destroyed structure.
"Could you at least try keeping this bloody thing level!" Tessa asked him, as she fought to keep her feet under her and the contents of her stomach inside her, latching onto Loki's arm to help steady herself.
"I'm trying!" Thor yelled out as three Asgardian fighter crafts pulled up behind them and began trialing closely behind them.
"Now they're following us." Loki commented before bullets began raining down on them, sending out explosions around them. "Now they're firing at us!"
"Yes, thank you Loki! Your commentary is not at all distracting!" Thor yelled out in frustration as he tried keeping them out of the line of bullets coming at them. He steered them towards a tunnel, hoping to lose the pilots in the narrow passageway, and as they entered the mouth of it, the edge of their craft hit one of the carved statues erected on the outside, sheering off its head.
"Congratulations. You've just decapitated your grandfather." Loki deadpanned.
"Oh Loki, please stop talking." Tessa said, rubbing at her head where a headache was beginning to pound in her temples. They pulled out through the tunnel and Thor brought them over the outer edge of Asgard. Another round of bullets began to rain down on them and Thor did his best to avoid them as well.
"You know this is wonderful." Loki said growing increasingly more worried that they would not make it out of Asgard at this rate. "What a tremendous idea! Which one of you thought that stealing the biggest, both of them, moving away from Tessa and coming to a stand on Thor's other side. "Let's fly around the city, smashing into everything in sight, so everyone can see us! It's marvelous scheming the two of you managed!" he yelled out at them, condescendingly. "Brilliant! It's truly brilliant!"
Having seen Fandral move his craft underneath them, Tessa rolled her eyes at his spiteful attitude and sent a blast out at Loki. The blue ball of energy hit him in the chest and sent him falling backwards through the opening behind him with a yelp and falling into the air below. Tessa looked over at Thor who was raising an amused brow at her. "What?" she asked him.
"What happened to teleporting him down?" he asked her with a smile.
"Yeah well, then he opened his mouth." She said, before teleporting herself out of the ship and dropped down onto the small craft below them, followed by Thor who flew himself down. She looked over at Fandral as she landed on the flat surface, smiling over at him. "Good catch." She told him.
Fandral let out a laugh as Loki struggled back onto his feet, having fallen flat on his back. "I see your time in the dungeons has made you no less graceful, Loki." Fandral said amusedly.
Loki looked over at Tessa before looking at the elven craft that continued on without them, followed by the Asgardian ships who continued to fire upon the now empty vessel. "I'm sorry, what were you saying about my brilliant idea?" Tessa asked Loki, crossing her arms at him.
"You lied to me." Loki said, his eyes coming back down onto Tessa.
"I prefer to call it strategically withholding information." She countered with a shrug.
Loki smirked over at her. "I'm impressed."
"I'm glad you're pleased. Now it's time to hold up your end of the bargain." She told him.
"Take us to your secret passageway." Thor added.
Loki stepped over to the controls, a wide grin stretching across his face as he grabbed hold of it. He steered them over the water, pressing them along faster. Tessa was so busy watching where Loki was taking them that she didn't notice the ship that had come up behind them. She let out a yell of surprise as a sharp pain tore through her shoulder, sending her falling down to the ground, gripping onto it as another round of bullets came firing down at them.
"TESSA!" Thor yelled sweeping down to check her.
Tessa peeled back her hand enough to look at the wound. The outside of her shoulder was bleeding in a steady flow of red, but luckily the bullet had merely grazed her. She clamped her hand down tightly on the wound again to help stop the flow of blood. "I'm okay." She said, looking from Thor's worried face, up to Fandral's and Loki's. "It was just a graze." She said, pushing herself back onto her feet, aided by Thor. The ship behind them kept raining bullets down on them, Loki doing his best to avoid them, as they buzzed by dangerously close.
Tessa brought her injured arm up, keeping her other hand tight on her wound as she dug into her core and pulled back the door on her powers. She let the energy flow out of her and used it to bring up a shield, blocking the bullets from passing through it. "I can't hold it for long!" Tessa yelled out, already feeling the drain on what little energy she had left.
"Fandral!" Thor yelled out.
"Right." He said, taking hold on the rope below him and stepping up to the side of the boat. "For Asgard!" he called out triumphantly as Loki pulled up on the controls and lifted the ship up into the air. Tessa let her shield fall as they pulled above the other ship before dropping to the floor of the ship on her knees, finding it hard to stay on her feet any longer between the Aether's drain on her energy and the persistent blood loss. Loki brought them back over the other ship as Fandral swung down below the with the rope, landing on the other craft. Fandral took control of the other craft, sending the operators into the water below. He gave a salute over to the others as Loki steered them away and towards the portal, no longer being followed.
Tessa clung to the side of the craft as he made a sharp turn and when she took in the large mountain they were heading towards, a new wave of fear washed over here. "Loki…" she said, looking back at him with wide eyes.
"If it were easy, then everyone would do it." Loki told her, his focus set determinedly ahead of them, not swaying his course. Tessa's head whipped back around to face the rock formation they were heading right for.
"Are you mad?!" Thor shouted back at him.
"Possibly!" Loki shot back with a wicked grin.
Thor dropped down next to Tessa, wrapping an arm around her protectively as they flew closer, ready to fly them out at a moment's notice. They could make out the small opening in the rock that Loki was heading towards, but it was incredibly small. So small that Tessa worried that that would not be able to make it through. She squeezed her eyes shut tight as they approached, but when no crashing occurred, she cracked an eye back open and watched as they flew through the tight passage, sparks and colors filling her vision. The colors around them blurred together and began to pass by so quickly that Tessa squeezed her eyes shut again and kept them shut until she heard Loki say "Ta-da!"
Tessa blinked her eyes open and took in the dark new world they had emerged onto and let out a sigh of relief. Thor pulled back from her as she turned around, using the edge of the ship to hold herself up. She let her head fall back against the metal with a thud and she watched the strange green-hued clouds pass overhead. "I can't believe that worked." She muttered out.
"Your faith in me is overwhelming." She heard Loki call over to her and she brought her eyes back down to him. "Are you okay?" he asked then, nodding towards her shoulder.
Tessa brought her attention over to the wound, letting herself process it fully for the first time. Truthfully, she had begun to lose feeling in her fingers from all the blood-loss and her head swam with dizziness. Blood had been seeping out between her fingertips and she knew she needed to get a proper wrap on it. "I'm fine." She said again. "I just need to bandage it. Thor, tear me off a piece of your cape." She told him, nodding to the red fabric.
"What? No, I like this cape." Thor shot back at her. "Loki tear off a piece of your tunic!"
"Oh, for heaven's sake." Tessa said, rolling her eyes and reaching over to Thor's cloak, tearing off a strip for herself.
"Hey!" Thor exclaimed as she pulled a long piece of fabric off.
"To think you care more for a piece of fabric than you do your own sister." Tessa muttered, doing her best to wrap the fabric around her shoulder tightly. Once she had it wrapped around in a thick, makeshift bandage, she tied it off, using her teeth to help tighten it as best she could. When she was done, she let her head fall back on the edge of the ship again, her eyelids suddenly feeling drastically heavier now that the adrenaline was fading away.
"Are you sure you're alright." Loki asked her, noting her unhealthily pale skin.
"I just need some rest." She said, letting her eyes close. "I just need a moment's rest." She said again as she was quickly swept into the depths of darkness.