Hello everyone! Here is another chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own Carrie White, the Avengers, or any MCU characters.

Chapter 7: Real Power

Carrie felt it when the spear came in range. The Presence freely reached out to her, getting inside her head with the same ease as before. The only thing that kept her from panicking was the lack of anything insidious, as with their first contact. The girl had a good sense for that kind of intent from enduring Chris and the other students, so she was fairly confident that provided she was careful, she had nothing to fear from the Presence itself.

She tugged on Bruce's sleeve to get his attention, when he looked up, she whispered the news to him. He was still for a moment, then asked her to help him set up a stand for it.

It was quiet for several moments, Carrie had to multitask as the Presence got a feel for her. It didn't actually look into her memories or go deeply in her mind, merely skimmed the surface. There was a pleasant humming in her bones as it did so.

They were able to see Loki as he was escorted past the lab to whatever cell Director Fury had prepared for him. Carrie couldn't help but step closer to Bruce as the man looked up at them. His smile was one of smugness and mockery. He just finished passing them when another group came into view, heading right for the lab and carrying something familiar.

Seeing Iron Man with Captain America and Black Widow was a surprise, Carrie hadn't been sure if he would be part of this when he didn't show up on the Helicarrier. The fourth person was a stranger; a tall, well-built man with blonde hair to his shoulders, the start of a beard, and light blue eyes. Like Loki he was dressed in armor but instead of green and gold the color was blue and silver with a bit of red. His armor was also more militant compared to Loki's stream-like and elegant design.

He was Thor, crown prince of Asgard and Loki's older brother, come to take his younger sibling and the Tesseract back to his home.

Carrie silently hoped to not be in the room when the prince and Director Fury eventually argued over that.

The 'mind scramble Scepter' as Tony put it, was placed in the stand she and Bruce prepared. Once that was done, the billionaire left to store his suit away and assess possible damage. Black Widow was gone before Carrie realized she left.

As Bruce started to hook the Scepter (it sounded better than spear) up to various machines Carrie realized that Thor was looking at her inquisitively. She offered a shy smile and decided to break the ice, "Uh, hello Prince Thor."

The Asgardian smiled. "You may simply call me Thor, my lady." He offered a short, polite bow.

"Oh, uh Thor then." She played with her fingers. "Are you hungry? I can show you where the cafeteria is. If you're tired, I can ask Phil to find you a room though."

"I require neither rest nor nourishment at this time, my lady. However, I thank you for your hospitality." He said. "May I ask your name?"

"It's Carrietta White, but I go by Carrie." She said.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Carrie. If I may be so bold, is it true you were the one to hold Loki back when he tried to enter Midgard?"

Midgard? Did he mean Earth?

"Yes, I held him back as long as I could." Carrie confirmed. "There were others with him, but he was the only one to come through. Loki. . . he looked like was sick. Flushed skin, circles under his eyes, a bit stiff whenever he moved."

"I see." His eyes were dark with worry and anger. "You mentioned others?"

"Yes. I couldn't get a good luck though – one was about the size of Loki but didn't look Asgardian or human. The other. . ." She shivered. "They were huge, from the videos I've seen even larger than the Hulk. I think they were the boss because they sat in this huge throne. It was in shadows, but I could see the eyes, and . . . and they were insane. Dangerous. Terrifying. I felt so helpless."

Thor was quiet.

"I thank you for this knowledge, Lady Carrie. I will have much to deliberate on once Loki is dealt with."

"Guys." The two turned to Bruce. "We have a briefing."

They joined the others in the back of the Helicarrier's control room, at the conference table where Agent Romanoff had already tapped into live feed of Loki's cell, allowing a screen to appear in front of each chair to show to his confrontation with Director Fury. Carrie sat in a chair, Bruce opting to stay standing a little behind her. She rubbed her hands together as she listened. Deputy Hill was looking at her own screen nearby.

The teen couldn't help but notice that the former prince did not look as sick as he did in the faculty. Much like her – Carrie was largely recovered from holding the door shut but that lethargic feeling was still being slow to fade. She wasn't sure if she could do anything like that again soon without risking her heart. The doctors were very strict about her taking care of herself.

"In case it's unclear, if you try to escape, if you so much as scratch that glass it's 30,000 ft straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works? Director Fury said coolly, demonstrating the hatch he could open and drop the glass prison Loki was contained inside with the push of a button. Carrie doubted he would survive – god or immortal he needed to breathe.

"Ant." Fury gestured to the Asgardian. "Boot" He gestured to the control panel.

"An impressive cage," Loki commented, his smile untroubled. "Not built for me, I think."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you."

"Oh, I've heard. The mindless beast. Makes play he's still a man." Loki was looking directly at the camera, looking directly at them. Black Widow cast a glance at the scientist standing behind Carrie, but the teen herself didn't. Her eyes were glued to the screen, breath tense as Loki continued his taunts.

"How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"

"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 its fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did." Director Fury warned ominously.

"Ooh. It burns you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light, for all mankind to share. And then be reminded what real power is." Loki smirked.

"Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something." Fury snarked as he turned away and left his prisoner to his own company.

Agent Romanoff shut the live feed off, her expression unreadable. It was quiet for a moment.

"He really grows on you, doesn't?" Bruce said mildly.

"Loki's gonna drag this out." Steve said grimly. "So, Thor, what's his play?"

"He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people, they will win him the Earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract." Thor said gravely, expression clouded with worry.

"An army," Steve repeated. "From outer space."

The universe kept getting bigger and bigger. Agent Romanoff had an 'oh perfect' expression cross her face as Bruce's lit up.

"So, he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?" Thor asked.

"He's an astrophysicist." Bruce said.

"He's a friend." The Asgard prince revealed.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours." Agent Romanoff said.

"I wanna know why Loki let us take him, he's not leading an army from here." Steve remarked.

Carrie fiddled with her hands. "He must want something. It must be important if he's letting us get to the Specter."

"Indeed, but what?" Thor mused.

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's a bag full of cats, you can smell crazy on him." Bruce insisted.

"Have care with how you speak. Loki may be beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and my brother." Asgard's prince said sternly.

"He killed eighty people in two days." Romanoff said flatly.

"He's adopted." Thor countered quickly, with no change in expression. Carrie blinked. Okay. . .

"I think it's about mechanics." Bruce mused. "Iridium, what do they need it for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent." Tony said smoothly as he walked in with Phil by his side. He muttered something to the agent about Portland before returning his attention to them. "Means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD." He spotted Thor. "No hard feelings Point Break, you got a mean swing."

The billionaire, dressed in a casual suit tapped Thor's arm as he passed, leaving the prince to stare at him in bewilderment. Almost everyone else in the room immediately looked annoyed. Bruce seemed faintly amused, more than anything.

"Also, it means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants." Tony reached Director Fury's control module and called out to the agents below. "Raise the mizzenmast. Jib the topsail!"

From Carrie's vantage point she could make out many confused and slightly irritated expressions from the agents in hearing range.

"That man is playing Galaga!" Tony abruptly added, pointing to an agent to the far right of the room. "Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."

Phil was close by, Carrie asked lowly, "What's Galaga?"

"A game." The agent answered easily, noting that Steve Rogers was also listening in. "Lots of people like to play it."

Meanwhile, Tony was looking at the screens on the control module and raised a hand to block one eye. He looked to Deputy Hill. "How does Fury see these?"

"He turns." She responded, unamused.

"Sounds exhausting." He started to explain that Agent 'Hawkeye' Barton could get the other raw materials with relative ease and the only major component left would be a power source. As he spoke, Carrie frowned as she noticed his hand brush against the side of the module. She caught a glimpse of something, but the billionaire turned, and his body blocked it.

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Deputy Hill asked.

"Last night." Tony said. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked. His expression was reminiscent of Deputy Hill's.

"He would have to heat the Cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break the Coulomb barrier." Bruce explained.

Tony looked pleased and added, "Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."

"If he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion on any reactor in the planet." Bruce finished.

"Finally! Someone who speaks English!"

"Is that what happened?" Steve muttered to himself as Tony and Bruce shook hands. The former expressed his respect for the latter's work and how he was able to turn into a 'enormous green rage monster'.

Director Fury stepped in and firmly reminded Tony that Bruce was only here to track down the Cube, and it would be good if he could lend a hand.

"I would start with that magical stick of his. It works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon." Steve said.

"I don't know about that, but its powered by the Cube." Director Fury said. "And -,"

"No, it's not."

Everyone in the briefing turned to look at Carrie, who flushed but kept talking. "No, it can't be. The power is. . . its similar but different too. The Tesseract is all about places, but whatever is in Loki's Scepter is about the mind."

Even now she could feel the Presence. Much like the Tesseract, the Scepter seemed to find her a long-awaited novelty.

Director Fury regarded her for a moment.

"How do you know that?"

"I felt it." Carrie said. "It took me a while to be sure, but with the Scepter here, I'm as positive as I can be. I-I don't know if the Tesseract and whatever powers Loki's Scepter came from the same place or were just created the same way, but they are connected. When I . . . um, communicated with the Tesseract, I felt that it was all on my end that was maintaining the connection – the Cube just latched on. The Scepter – it doesn't need that, it gets inside my head with no effort, because that's what it does. Just like the Tesseract is a doorway, the Scepter is a thing of the mind. It powers itself and doesn't need the Cube, but. . . but I think they can go together."

Carrie's brow was furrowed in thought at the end while the adults were all thoughtful.

Director Fury's expression was unreadable. "If you turn out to be correct, do you think other power sources like them exist?"

There was no way she could give a concrete answer to that, but her instincts told her otherwise. Carrie folded her hands in front of her on the table. "I won't be surprised if there are."

"It is plausible." Thor put in. "There could be a third or even more. A common law of the realms is for powerful artifacts to come in sets."

"That's wonderful." Fury grumbled, he looked annoyed and tired. "White, stay with Banner and Stark. You can shut any portal Loki opens and I want you close to the Scepter. Whatever is powering that thing is interested in you, from what you've said so keep it distracted and behaving. If you can get any information on how to reverse whatever Loki did to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys, that would be better."

"Yes, sir." Carrie hoped she could follow through, then she hesitatingly asked. "Huh, what do you mean by flying monkeys?"

"I am afraid I do not understand either." Thor cut in.

"I do!" Steve said eagerly as Fury sighed. Tony just looked pained and there was a sense of exasperation and awkwardness in the room. "I understood that reference, it's the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie."

Thor looked curious and Carrie could tell he was going to ask some questions. Phil probably did too because he interjected. "Let's get a move on. Go to the lab, Carrie. I'll be around later to check on you."

So, she followed Bruce and Tony, leaving the others behind as Thor approached Steve and Black Widow slipped away from the table.

Hope you all enjoyed this!

Sincerely,

PagesInTheLibrary

P.S - I just wanted to make it clear that at this point SHIELD (Director Fury) is still unsure of the Tesseract and Scepter's full capabilities. Fury wants Carrie close since for all they know, Loki can arrange for someone to connect the Tesseract to the Scepter and open a portal. He will also take Carrie's words into consideration once this is all over and mull on the implications. There is also the fact that she kept the initial portal closed for at least a while and in light of Thor's information, she needs to be kept safe in case they're too late to stop the army. Loki might very well be here to personally assassinate her to nip that problem in the bud after all.

Carrie is also encouraged to stay close to Bruce since she has the raw power to at least stall the Hulk if not his transformation. At least that is what the World Security Council believes, much to Fury and Hill's annoyance (granted her performance in training leaves them inclined to think so as well, but there are risks to consider and the WSC brushes those risks off). They and Phil don't let her out of sight too long because there's already worrying mutters about scary interest in her from terrifying parties. They also don't want the WSC (who is completely willing to launch a missile into a populated city where the Avengers were containing the situation successfully instead of insisting on backup) to get their hands on Carrie either. The morons will not take her trauma as seriously as they should (if they give a damn at all) and just make things worse. The world does not need a telepathic of her raw power going off the deep end.