How about them feels, huh? Ugh, I know, I know, but at least we all know there's some good coming! Alright, we're very nearly to the end of this segment in the story, so I won't keep you! Here's that disclaimer that you all love by now. I have no rights whatsoever to anything Marvel, which includes it's characters and scenes you will find familiar. Hope you enjoy! Xoxo-NickyLynn
When Tessa came back to, she found herself blinking up a rock ceiling, surrounded by darkness, hardly any light flowing through the air. She sat up with a groan and looked around to find herself in some type of cavern. Her eyes landed on Thor, who was sitting on the hard ground across from her. He was staring down at the ground, his hands twisting together absently, as he was stuck with nothing but his thoughts in the silence while Tessa slept. He looked over at her when he noticed her moving and she found that his eyes were red and swollen, having been shedding many tears in the solitude.
"Where are we?" Tessa croaked out, looking around in confusion.
Thor's eyes swept around the dark cavern. "There was a storm that came in. It swept over us so quickly and powerfully that I had to seek shelter for us." He told her, his voice sounding hollow. It was then that Tessa registered the sound of the strong gusting wind outside.
"Where is Loki?" Tessa asked, head swiveling around, realizing his body was not in the cavern with them.
Thor's eyes dropped down to the ground again. "I could only carry one of you as the storm pushed us away." He told her.
"What?! We can't-we can't just leave him out there!" Tessa shouted, scrambling up.
"Loki is gone, sister." Thor told her, looking back up at her sadly. "It matters not now."
Tessa could feel tears building in her eyes again as she looked from Thor, over to the opening of the cavern. "We can't…he…" she began, hating the idea of leaving his body in this God-forsaken place, but knowing Thor was right. "Oh God." Tessa breathed out, dropping herself back down on the ground, bringing her head down into her hands.
They had failed. Frigga was dead. Loki was dead. Malekith had the Aether. And now…..now he was going to use it to destroy everything. Tessa had never before felt so much failure and now the entire universe was going to pay the price for her mistake. Tessa drew in a breath as she drug her fingers through her hair, bringing her burning eyes back up to Thor. "Thor, Malekith is going to destroy everything." She told him despondently. "He's not just going to unleash the Aether on Asgard, or even a few realms….the darkness he plans on releasing….it's going to consume everything."
"How do you know this?" Thor asked her, looking over at her worriedly.
"I seen it. When Malekith drew the Aether from me. I…I don't know how, but I had a vision of it. I saw him on Earth. Thor, why would he go to Earth?" she asked him, not understanding out of all the realms, why he would choose the one that mattered most to her.
"The Convergence." Thor said in realization, sitting up straighter.
"The what?" she asked, not knowing what he was talking about.
"The worlds are aligning. It happens once every five thousand years." He explained as simply as he could. "It's a cosmic event of great effect. The portal which you came across on Earth. It happened because the Nine Realms of Yggdrasil are coming into alignment. The boundaries between worlds are thinning more and more as they come closer together."
Tessa let out a breath, shaking her head. "I should have never gone to that place. This is all happening because I found the Aether. If I hadn't, Mother and Loki would-" she said before her throat closed up as she fought the wave of tears that washed over her again. "And now everyone will fall to the darkness…all because of me." She forced out, unable to bring herself to look at Thor.
"No, Tessa." Thor said, sliding over to her and placing his arm around her shoulders. "If you hadn't found the Aether, then Malekith would have only found it that much sooner. He would have been drawn to it no matter where it was. You gave us a chance to stop him."
"And what good did that do?" Tessa asked, swiping at her tears as she tried quelling them, knowing they did no good. "We failed….and now we're stuck in this fucking cave!" she yelled out, her anger bringing on a blue glow from her skin.
"Tessa…" Thor began, not knowing how to comfort her.
Tessa opened her mouth to say something else, but a strange sound began echoing through the cave, stopping her. She looked around in confusion as she registered the sound and peculiarly, it sounded like some terrible hip hop music. Tessa looked over at Thor and the two exchanged a perplexed look. Tessa shot up, trying to find the source of the oddly Midgardian sound. As she drifted further into the cavern, her eyes caught sight of something so familiar, yet Tessa could not comprehend how it was there. There, sitting on the ground, was a cell phone, glowing in the darkness, the ringtone filling the cave.
"Holy shit." Tessa breathed out, running over to it, and sweeping it up into her hand. She looked down at the device as it vibrated in her hand, suddenly wondering if she was still sleeping. She flipped open the device, bringing it up to her ear hesitantly. "H-Hello?" she asked, feeling so unbelievably strange in doing so.
"Oh! Uh, hi Jane! It's, uh, it's Richard." The voice on the other side of the call said.
Tessa's eyebrows furrowed down even more. "Jane?" she asked, before she was struck with an epiphany. "Jane!" she exclaimed, her eyebrows shooting up.
"Oh, um, is this not Jane? I thought….I'm sorry, I thought I had the right number." The voice responded.
"No! I mean, yes, you do but…look, I'll-I'll have her call you back, Richard!" she said into the receiver before snapping the phone shut and spinning around, new hope filling her. "Thor! There has to be a portal here!" she told him in shock.
"What?" he asked her.
"This is Jane's phone!" she exclaimed, holding the device up for him to see. "If it's here, then-" she began before the pieces clicked into place for him too.
"Then it had to have gotten here somehow." Thor finished for her.
Tessa spun around, looking around the dark cave. "Help me look!" she told him, walking further back into the cavern, looking for any more signs of a portal. Thor joined her in her search as their eyes swept around the cave in hope. "There!" Tessa exclaimed excitedly, eyes landing on an empty soda can. She rushed forward, finding a set of car keys on the ground next to it. She picked them up with a raised eyebrow, looking back around at Thor. "It's got to be close!" she said, letting herself fill with renewed determination. "Come on." She told him as she pressed further into the cavern, stepping over several random shoes as she did. Suddenly, she and Thor hit the portal and in a strange surge of motion, they were transported off the Dark World and back into London. Arriving out at the same spot where this whole mess had started. They came out onto the parking lot of the abandoned warehouse, the car Tessa had seen when she had arrived still sitting there under the glow of the only working utility light. The sky had grown dark, and Tessa assumed it had to have been pretty late.
Tessa looked up at Thor with a bright smile, letting out a breath of amazement over what had just transpired. Her smile dropped though as she realized what they now had to do. "Great. Now what?" Thor asked her, having no idea where to even begin.
"Now I make a call." Tessa said, looking down at the phone in her hand before flipping it open and scrolling through the contacts. She found the one she wanted before pressing down on it and pulling the device up to her ear. The ling rang a few times before someone answered.
"Hello?" came a confused voice.
"Hello Darcy, I need to speak with Jane." Tessa told her, assuming the two would still be together. She could hear shuffling over the line and some voices speaking back and forth in the background for a few seconds before Jane's voice came over the line.
"Who is this?" she asked in a rush.
"Well, I'll give you a hint. I'm currently in the company of your Asgardian boyfriend." She told the woman, looking up at Thor. Thor gave her an unamused look, but remained silent as he listened.
"Tessa?!" Jane shouted in surprise. "Where are you?! What happened?! Why do you have my phone?" she rushed out.
"How about you tell me where you are, and I'll tell you everything. We need your help." She told her. Jane gave her a London address and Tessa told her they were on their way before she snapped the phone shut.
"Jane?" Thor asked, looking down at Tessa in confusion. "How could Jane help?"
"Jane's been studying these portals since she brushed paths with you in New Mexico." Tessa told him. "She was actually already here by the time that I arrived, having picked up the readings for herself. If anyone's going to have proper documentation of these abnormalities, it'll be her. And if you say they're all converging into one place…I mean, that's got to be where Malekith is heading." She explained.
"Then we go see Jane." Thor said, nodding in agreement to her conclusion.
Tessa looked down at the keys still in her hand before looking back up at the abandoned car. "And lucky for us we have a ride." She said, finding in strange that their luck had suddenly shifted so one eighty. "Come on!" she said, taking off in a jog towards the vehicle. As they approached, she noticed that all the windows had been busted in and graffiti painted on the side. It definitely wasn't Tessa's first pick, but it would have to do. "Well, beggars can't be choosers." She sighed, pulling the drivers door open and sitting down on the glass covered seat, slamming the keys into the ignition as Thor opened his door and slid in the other side.
Tessa turned the key as Thor shut his door, looking incredibly too large for the small interior. "Please, please, please." Tessa muttered out, trying to ignite the alternator. It sputtered in effort for a few seconds as it tried rolling over before the engine roared into life and Tessa let out a yell of success. She put the car in reverse, looking over at Thor with a wide smile as she did.
"So, who do you think Richard is?" Thor asked her then, eliciting a roll of Tessa's eyes as only he would have found that particular detail of the strange series of events that had just transpired the most concerning thing in that moment.
"Probably some serious competition." Tessa shot back at him jokingly before slamming down on the gas and speeding them backwards out of the lot.
When Tessa got to the address that Jane had given her, she and Thor got out and hurried into the apartment complex. They found the number they were searching for, and Thor threw his fist against the door three times. The door quickly pulled open, revealing Jane standing in the doorway with wide eyes. "Hi." Tessa said before brushing past her and walking into the apartment without waiting to be invited in. "You dropped something." Tessa told her, tossing the phone over to her as she passed. "Richard called by the way."
Jane fumbled with catching the device, giving her a startled look. "You can't just leave like that!" Jane shouted out at them after Thor was inside as well, slamming the door shut. "We were nearly arrested! I've been freaking the hell out!"
"Did you call Fury?" Tessa asked her, honestly feeling bad for leaving her in such a peculiar situation.
"Oh, you mean the world's most scary man ever? Yeah, I called him, and he wasn't happy I'll tell you that." Jane said, crossing her arms.
"Nothing makes that man happy." Tessa responded with a roll of her eyes.
"What happened back there?" Jane exclaimed, looking up at Thor. "What's going on?"
"We need all the data you've collected on this. All the work you've been doing on gravitational abnormalities…everything." Tessa told her as they walked further into the apartment. Tessa noticed the man and other woman from the warehouse watching them before her eyes fell on Dr. Selvig, who was sitting behind a computer, looking entirely focused on the screen.
"Why? What's happening?" Jane asked, moving into the center of the room with Thor.
Erik finally looked up at them then, having just noticed their arrival. "Thor!" he exclaimed as his eyes landed on his friend. He shot up from the desk he had been sitting at and ran around it give Thor a tight hug.
"Yeah, why is Dr. Selvig hugging my brother pantsless?" Tessa asked with a raised brow.
"Oh, uh, he say's it helps him think." The man who had been at the warehouse before said from his seat behind her.
Tessa looked from him over to Jane with furrowed brows. "Yeah, he's kind of gone a little…" Darcy said before whistling and moving her finger in a circle around her temple.
"The whole world has gone crazy! All those things we saw happening at the warehouse are spreading!" Jane said, throwing her hands up in the air in exasperation. "Would one of you please tell us what's going on!"
"The realms are coming together in alignment. It happens every five thousand years. It's called The Convergence." Thor told her.
"When I fell into that portal in that warehouse, I ended up coming across this powerful force called the Aether. It's a very dangerous relic created by the dark elves. Their leader, Malekith, has reclaimed it and now seeks to use it during the convergence to bring the universe into an era of their reigning darkness. If we don't find him and stop him, all the realms will fall." Tessa explained to them all.
"Holy shit, you mean Captain Underwear was right all along?!" Darcy asked in shock, causing Tessa to look over at her in question. "He's been spewing nonsense about trying to save everyone for days! We had to bail him out of jail because he was running around in the nude yelling at people about saving them."
"Erik, are you well?" Thor asked then, looking down at his friend in concern.
"Oh, uh. Yes, yes, of course." Erik said, taking a step back, smiling up at Thor before it dropped again. "Your brother's not coming, is he?" he asked him.
Tessa's chest constricted as she was reminded of Loki, having been trying to keep it in the far recesses of her mind for the moment. "Loki is dead." Thor told him after a moment.
"Oh, thank God." Erik breathed out in relief, causing Tessa to nearly want to slap him. Though, considering the mess that Loki's manipulating seemed to have left his mind in, she supposed she could hardly blame him. Noticing bother Thor and Tessa's hurt expressions, Dr. Selvig backed over his words. "I..I meant, uh, I'm so sorry." He said in amendment.
"Thank you." Thor told him before Erik stepped forward and gave Thor another tight hug.
"What exactually is it you're looking for in my research?" Jane asked, pulling Tessa back out of her spiraling thoughts.
"The Convergence will narrow down at one particular spot. That's where Malekith will unleash the Aether onto all the nine realms." Tessa told them.
"If he fires at that spot, it'll amplify the weapon's impact." Erik said, pulling all eyes on him. "For each additional world, the power will increase exponentially. The effect would be universal."
"But the alignment is only temporary." Thor told them. "Malekith has to be standing in exactually the right place at the right time."
"So, if we can find that place and stop him, or even just distract him long enough, his plan will fail. Tessa explained.
"But how are we even supposed to know where that is?" Jane asked. "The readings I've been picking up are all erratic, there's no pattern in them."
"Yes, but there's a pattern in something else." Erik said then, moving past everyone. "You said this has happened before, thousands of years ago. The ancients were there to see it." He explained, grabbing a rolled-up parchment off the desk he had been sitting at and moving over to a table, throwing everything from the surface off with a sweep of his arm. The items all went tumbling to the floor as he spread the map out across the table, causing everyone to walk over to see what he was going on about. "All the great constructions….the Mayans, the Chinese, the Egyptians….they made use of the gravitational effects of the Convergence. And they left us a map." He said, grabbing hold of a ruler and marker, beginning to plot out all the major constructions in the British isles.
"Holy shit." Tessa breathed out in amazement as she watched Erik lay out the lines. "Erik, that's brilliant!" she told him, the thought having never crossed her mind. He continued marking out the lines, and by the time he was done, they all intersected in one spot.
"Greenwich." Jane said from over his shoulder. "If the walls between worlds really are going to be practically nonexistent, then physics is going to go ballistic. The gravitational increases and decreases…special extrusions…the very fabric of reality is going to be torn apart." She said in worry.
"Well, good thing I'm used to weird." Tessa said, looking back up at Thor. "Are you ready for a second shot at this?" she asked him, raising her eyebrow at him. Thor looked up to meet her hard gaze with a look of determination of his own.
"I'll get my pants." said then.