Chapter 9: Stranded

The hairs on Ciara's arms, as well as the back of her neck, stood on end, as for a moment, all she could feel was the power of the Aether emanating from Malekith. It had been unnerving when inside Jane, only showing itself when its host was threatened.

Now that it was inside of its Guardian, the sensation of the Aether was downright terrifying. It was only because of her entire focus on her willpower that Ciara didn't run away. She hadn't felt so scared in a long time. The feeling was forcing her to recall the darkest memories that she'd tried to bury, and it was making her breathing come out in shallow gasps.

When Malekith's eyes, now pure black, moved to her, he paused for a moment, and one eyebrow raised in the smallest flicker of emotion. It was more than Ciara had seen on his face in the time they'd been there. She swallowed, managing to stand her ground and stare back as something in her reacted to his gaze.

He could tell that she was a Guardian, just like she could tell he was.

Without waiting for any kind of reaction, Malekith turned and walked away. He made the smallest gesture with his hand, and his troops started forwards to attack. Thor fought them off, fighting them off easily while Malekith returned to his ship. The Kursed looked around, seeing that their men were no match for Thor, and grabbed a small device from his belt. It lit up blue as he activated it, tossing it lightly.

Sensing the danger behind it, Loki whirled around and shoved Jane into Ciara so suddenly that the pair tripped and fell to the ground in a heap, looking up as the ball exploded in the air, sucking in anything that was too close. Including Loki. Jane and Ciara could only watch as he was lifted off his feet and pulled towards it, and for a moment he was sure he was dead.

Thor collided with him hard enough to knock the air from his lungs, and they crashed to the ground with a groan. The device then evaporated, leaving nothing behind.

"Okay, I've had enough playing around," Ciara stood and pulled on her goggles, cracking her neck. She then jumped through space, appearing beside the Elves. "Hey," Ciara greeted with a grin. She started running as they fired their weapons at her, and she kicked up a cloud of dust that pelted them. Ciara grabbed one of the Elves, vanishing and reappearing high up in the sky. It shrieked as she kicked it away from her before teleporting back to the ground, landing safely as the Dark Elf plummeted to the ground and crashed, lying still.

As Ciara distracted them, Thor flew back in with his hammer, but before he could reach Malekith, the Kursed suddenly turned, swinging his arm hard enough to knock him away. Thor crashed to the ground again, and Ciara squeaked when it turned to her. "Nope!" as the Hulkling beast tried to attack her, she jumped back and vanished in a flash, reappearing by Thor. She helped him back to his feet as he winced.

"I'll handle him," he said as he got back to his feet, bruised but otherwise fine as the beast traipsed towards them. Behind the Kursed Elf, the ship containing Malekith and his remaining Dark Elves had already taken to the sky again, slowly vanishing until they could no longer see it.

"Sounds good, because I don't think there's much I can do against him," Ciara admitted. Thor walked past her, moving towards the Kursed to throw a punch, while Ciara turned and ran back towards the other two. The Dark Elf soldiers that had remained behind were starting to circle Loki and Jane, and looked around as they saw the blurring form of Ciara hurtling towards them. She slammed into one so hard it crashed into another, dragging them both to the ground.

"Must you make such a mess?" Loki complained as he brushed the dust from his clothes. He moved quickly as an Elf took that as a distraction and lunged at him, only to have Loki's dagger embedded in his neck and yanked out just as quickly.

"You really just have to have something to complain about, huh?" Ciara retorted as she drew her own weapon from her side. It had been returned to her by Thor, who'd found it after Ciara had been carried from the room, and at first she didn't want to carry it again. It was a reminder of more than just the Dark Elves she'd killed.

'Beggars can't be choosers,' Ciara reminded herself as she stabbed the long knife into the chest of the Dark Elf that was closest to her. She yanked it out and kicked them in the gut with such speed that they instantly collapsed to the ground. 'And gods know you've been a beggar most of your life, Ellis,' she considered, before Loki's dagger sailed past her head and embedded itself into the head of a Dark Elf behind her. "Great aim," she said dryly.

"I may have been aiming for you," Loki told her, and Ciara stuck her tongue out at him in a childish impulse.

"Then you have terrible aim," she told him, before vanishing. She reappeared behind him, cutting across the stomach of the Elf rushing at Jane. Her eyes went wide as Ciara shoved the creature away from her. "Are you okay?" Ciara asked her, and Jane nodded.

"You really have changed since New Mexico, huh?" she asked, and Ciara grinned.

"How do you know that I wasn't always like this?" Jane managed a small, knowing smile despite the chaos going on. Ciara then shrugged, and zipped away, kicking up even more sand and dirt. In the distance, the Kursed hurled what could only be described as part of a cliff at Thor, who could only brace himself as it crashed at him. The collision rumbled for miles, but the fighting didn't even so much as pause briefly as Ciara appeared on the shoulders of one of the Elves, managing to jab her dagger into its throat as it thrashed, trying to throw her off. It fell forwards as it grunted, and Ciara landed unsteadily.

There was another massive crash as Mjolnir hit the edge of a cliff, having been deflected by the Kursed with a swing of his arm as he approached Thor. Ciara sighed.

"This is definitely going to hurt," she complained to herself, and vanished. The Kursed had grabbed Thor, pulling back a fist to start throwing a punch, when Ciara reappeared on his shoulders, grabbing him by the horns of the helmet fused to his head. Balanced on her knees on his shoulders, Ciara scowled down at Thor. "Thor, you're better than this! If you can stand up to Hulk, you can stand up to this joke!" she shouted as the hulkling thrashed, trying to grab for her as she yanked his head back, trying to lead him.

A burning hot hand then caught Ciara by the wrist, and she cried out as she tumbled forwards off him. The speedster couldn't stop the next cry that escaped her when he stopped her from falling to the ground by yanking her by the arm, lifting her until she was face to face with him.

"Ciara!" Thor shouted as he struggled to try and get up, scared that she'd end up just like Frigga. Despite the pain in her arm where her earlier injury protested the movements, Ciara managed a shaky smirk, and lifted both legs. She kicked out as hard as she could, as fast as she could, slamming her boots into his face. While it seemed to hurt her more than him, sending a jolt of pain up through her legs, it still forced the Kursed's head back. He growled, and threw her hard. She crashed into a rock, and choked as the air was forced from her lungs. The pain that exploded across her back was so severe that she almost blacked out from the pain, and the next thing Ciara knew, she was face down in the dirt and the Kursed was back to punching Thor in the face over and over.

"Shit…" Ciara coughed violently, wheezing. She slowly pushed herself up, agonisingly slow for someone so fast, and managed to stay on her feet. She didn't know exactly what her next move was going to be, but Thor having any kind of coherent thoughts knocked from his head was not part of the plan.

Then a hand was covering her mouth, muffling the yell of indignation that she gave. It was cold and strong; too strong for her to break free. Before Ciara could think of trying to use her powers to escape, something hard collided with her temple, and everything went white before turning black, as Ciara's thoughts faded to nothing.

The first thing Ciara was aware of when she finally came to, was the splitting pain emanating from the side of her head.

"Motherfucker," she cursed, and immediately regretted it as sand got in her mouth. She opened her eyes, which were mercifully still protected by her goggles, and looked up at Thor, who was carrying her. He'd stopped at her curse, but past mild surprise, hadn't reacted to her sudden expletive.

"Ciara!" Jane gasped, relief in her voice as Thor set the speedster down. She was shielding her face from the sandstorm that was whirling around them, for once not caused by Ciara. "You're okay. When we saw you just lying there, I thought…" she trailed off, not wanting to say it.

"I'm fine," Ciara insisted, but it wasn't anywhere near the truth. Her head was splitting, and she couldn't remember why. She could have sworn that she had stayed conscious after the Kursed had thrown her into the cliffside, so what had happened after that? "What happened?" she asked, confused.

"They got away," Jane's words were quiet, and Ciara cursed again, quieter this time. Malekith had gotten away with exactly what he wanted, and had perfect control over it.

"So we need to find a way off this planet and either find some corner of the universe to hide, or I assume figure out how to track down Malekith and stop him," Ciara summed up, trying to stay positive. She then frowned, wondering why there hadn't been even one snarky comment made. Especially considering how poor her lie was. Ciara looked around, seeing Thor's grim expression, and her brow furrowed. "Where's Loki?" she asked slowly. If he'd betrayed them again…

"He died. Saving Thor," Jane's quiet words turned Ciara's insides to ice.

"...Oh," she wasn't quite sure what else to say past that. She wasn't even entirely sure she remembered how to breathe.

"Let's keep moving. We should find shelter and think of our next step," Thor kept walking, and Jane watched him for a moment, worried. Despite everything, she knew he still cared deeply for his brother. And to lose him only days after his mother must have been devastating. She sighed, knowing that for now, Thor was right. They needed to find somewhere to shelter from the storm.

"Come on," Jane said, tired. She looked at Ciara, whose expression was blank, and she frowned a little. "Ciara?" she pressed, and Ciara finally blinked under her goggles.

"Shelter, right, yeah," she nodded, forcing a smile that screamed false to Jane. "Let's go," Ciara started walking, a hand around her stomach as she dug her fingers into her side. The pain kept her lucid, refusing to let her stop as they followed Thor, who slowed to help the two through the bad weather. She was grateful for the bad weather and her goggles, as tears stung at Ciara's eyes, and she tried to tell herself they were from the pain. 'Fucking liar,' she thought.

"There!" Jane spotted a cave in the cliff-face they were approaching. Relief filled her as she continued to try and push forwards despite the punishing winds. The parts of her that weren't already sore and bruised stung from the constant assault of the howling winds, and she desperately wanted a bath.

Finally they reached the cave, getting in far enough that the winds couldn't reach them. The back of the cave was pitch-black, and seemed to go on forever, but they stopped as Jane coughed and sat on a rock, exhausted. She no longer felt like she was dying, but she still felt rough from everything that had transpired since they'd arrived on the Dark World.

Ciara sat down as well, still not quite sure what to say. Her chest hurt, and she was forced to stop pressing her side as spots popped into her vision, preventing her from seeing clearly. She kept the goggles on, and tried to focus on keeping her breathing even.

"Ciara," she lifted her head when Thor addressed her. She tilted her head, not trusting herself to speak. "We have no idea how to find a portal off this world. You possess the power of the Tesseract, you've been learning how to control the power to step through space," he stated, having seen for himself just how much she'd learned to control it. She was a far cry from when she'd first used the power in fear, vanishing to somewhere that she'd never specified. Ciara nodded slowly at his words. "The Norns said that you would learn to use that power to travel between worlds. Could you…" he trailed off, hope in his words that only added to the stress and guilt Ciara felt.

"I've been practicing how to use the power, yeah, but...I've never been able to travel between worlds. I don't even know how close this world is to Asgard or Earth or anywhere else. If I don't have enough power left, I don't know what could happen," Ciara admitted, looking down at her hands as she found herself rubbing her wrist again. She could still remember the cold sensation.

"I see," Thor sighed. "Then we are stranded," he summed up, adding to the hopelessness of their situation. Ciara put her hands to her head, running her hands through her tangled silver hair. She had never particularly felt anything about her new power, but right then, she hated it, feeling completely useless, just like she had been during the fight.

Ciara brushed the throbbing side of her face, which was giving her a bruise to match the other side of her face. A wry smile tugged at her face. She hadn't been so battered in quite a long time.

"He's going to unleash it," Jane broke the quiet that had fallen. "Not just on Asgard, or on a star. Malekith is going to destroy everything," Jane warned them, fear making her voice shake.

"How?" Thor asked, turning to her. He focused on the threat instead of the pain in his heart of losing two family members to the Dark Elves. "Jane, how?" he pressed.

"I saw him on Earth," Jane admitted.

"When he was taking the Aether from you?" Ciara asked, a little surprised. Jane nodded, looking grim. "His mind must have linked with yours, shown you his thoughts," she considered.

"Why would he go to Earth?" she asked, looking from Ciara to Thor.

"The Convergence…" Thor considered, looking away as he thought about it. Ciara frowned, having heard vague comments about it from Astrid. Immediately she shoved the thought from her head. She had to keep it together.

"That's when the Realms are all connected for a brief window, right? The Alignment or something?" Ciara asked, trying to focus only on what she'd been told, and not on who had told her about it. Both Thor and Jane nodded.

"It creates portals between the realms. It's how I found the Aether in the first place," Jane explained. Ciara winced, and Jane lowered her head. "None of this would have happened, if I hadn't found the Aether," she muttered, berating herself.

"Then Malekith would have only possessed it that much sooner," Thor soothed, walking over and putting a hand on her arm. Jane was quiet as she looked up at him, offering a smile.

"I only found it 'cause I was looking for you," she admitted. Ciara rolled her eyes, aware that she had practically become invisible to the pair, and walked past them to take a look further in the cave. Thor's sigh was barely audible as Ciara squinted, trying to see in the even poorer light.

"Jane…"

"Now we're trapped here," Jane muttered as Thor gently put a hand on her head, running it along in a soothing motion. They all stopped, confused, when a strange noise started, echoing through the cave.

"It's not me…" Thor said as Ciara turned, frowning.

"Jane, is that your phone?" she asked, unable to stop a giggle from slipping free. Jane's eyes widened as she realised the noise was the terrible ringtone that Darcy had set as a joke. Fumbling quickly, she managed to pull it from her pocket.

"Hello?" she answered, confused.

'Hi Jane, it's Richard,' Thor frowned and Ciara's eyebrow rose as they heard a man's voice from the phone.

"Richard?" Jane gasped, unable to believe the voice she was hearing. "Where are you?" she asked, stepping away from Thor as she looked around.

'I'm still at the office,' he told her, Irish accent thick. Thor looked at Ciara, as if hoping she could tell him what was going on. Ciara shrugged, as clueless as he was. 'It's been a crazy day here today,' the voice chuckled, sounding tired. Ciara almost snorted at the complaint.

"This is amazing," Jane breathed as she held her phone up, trying to figure out where the signal was coming from.

'Is it?' The man seemed happy at her words. 'I quite enjoyed our lunch, despite never actually ordering anything,' this time Ciara did actually snort. Now she got it.

"How am I getting service here?" Jane asked, walking past Ciara, seeming oblivious to both Ciara's reaction, and Richard's words.

'Is this a bad time? Do you want me to try you later?' the man asked, sounding a little worried.

"Oof, come on buddy. Try harder," Ciara shook her head, muttering to herself.

"No, no, no!" Jane gasped, not wanting to lose the connection. "Please, whatever you do, do not hang up the phone," she pleaded. Thor's confusion was turning to an unhappy look. Any other time, Ciara would have immediately made a comment about the God of Thunder being jealous.

'Okay then,' Richard sounded pleased by her request, and Ciara tried not to laugh. 'I was just wondering if you want to try again. Uh, maybe dinner next time?' he asked. Thor was growing more and more unhappy by the conversation he was hearing.

"Yeah, yeah, just stay on the phone, okay?" Jane asked, walking further into the cave.

'Yeah, I will,' the man's smile was very obvious.

"Oh my god," Jane breathed, staring at a crushed can of Vimto on the ground, which she had thrown through a portal on Earth. It had vanished, not returning as other things had. A moment later, she spotted a set of keys with a tiny Rubix Cube keyring, and she crouched to scoop them up.

'Am I interrupting something?' Richard asked when she didn't speak for a minute.

"No, no, nothing at all," Jane insisted, and turned to Ciara and Thor. "Come on," she indicated.

'I'm losing you there. Are you in a tunnel?' Richard asked, confused by the very one-sided call he was on, even if he was delighted by Jane's agreement to go on another date with him.

"Where are we going?" Thor asked as Jane grabbed his hand.

"What's with all the shoes?" Ciara asked, seeing the random shoes scattered around. Jane indicated for her to grab Thor's hand, and Ciara did so, despite how confused she was. There was a ripple, and they vanished from the cave.

Ciara stumbled, a little disorientated, and immediately let go of Thor as she looked around at their sudden change of location. "Okay, I'm starting to think I'm the only one who doesn't know a secret portal," she complained as Jane led her and Thor out of the building they'd reappeared in.

"We're in England," Jane said briefly. Ciara's eyes widened, and she almost stopped in her shock. After everything; a year on Asgard, travelling to another world after that, and all of a sudden she was back on Earth. To Jane's relief, she spotted the old car she'd bought, left behind since the keys were lost. She grimaced when she saw the graffiti on the side spray-painted on. "It's because of the Convergence," she added when she saw how lost Ciara looked.

"Ah," Ciara nodded, but it did little to lessen her confusion. She pulled up her hood, hiding her face as they walked towards the car, and gave a little smile. It felt weird, being back on Earth all of a sudden after everything. "Nice car," she couldn't help but say as they reached it. Jane shot her an irritated look. All the windows, save for the windshield, had been smashed. Jane wasn't sure if it was from the explosion she'd caused with the Aether, or the people responsible for the graffiti all over it, but she didn't care. She opened the door, swept aside the broken glass, and got in. Thor moved around to get in beside her, and Ciara climbed into the back. The car chugged to life, but groaned as Thor got in, closing the door hard enough that more glass broke off.

"So who's Richard?" he finally asked. Ciara burst out laughing.

"Really?" Jane asked, glaring at Ciara as Thor tried to look casual. She shook her head, deciding to ignore them both and head back to her lab.