Chapter 11: Greenwich

Despite how tired she was, Ciara barely slept, and not just because of Ian's loud snores that Darcy seemed to sleep through. She stared at the paint-chipped ceiling, thinking about what she'd told the two about her motivations.

'They'd never understand if I told them the whole truth,' Ciara thought to herself. 'I don't even understand it. How the hell did I end up liking Loki, of all people? When the hell did it happen?' she wondered, completely baffled by her own feelings. She then swallowed the lump in her throat. 'Like it matters. Probably for the best. If he had ever figured it out I think I'd have to go live in the Dark World where nobody could find me,' she closed her eyes, and questioned how the hell she still had tears left as they started to run down her face, trickling along the bruises that stood out even more as time progressed.

She was scared about what was coming, but like hell she wasn't going to rain down hell on the Dark Elves. She didn't care for the amount of emotions they'd wrangled from her, and they were going to regret it.

It was only around 6am when Selvig woke everyone up, hurrying them to get ready to leave. Jane was already awake and dressed, downing a cup of coffee as Thor did the same. It seemed the God of Thunder had developed a taste for caffeine when he had been exiled to Earth.

"Darcy, wake up," Jane groaned as she fought with her intern for the pillow she was hugging tightly.

"Five more minutes mom, I swear," Darcy pleaded, completely oblivious and refusing to wake as everyone else got ready. Despite the oncoming threat, there was a sluggishness to how they moved, both from the lack of sleep, and fear of what was coming.

Ciara rubbed her eyes before folding up the blanket and pillow, setting them onto the other sofa as she kept quiet, not in the mood to speak with anyone.

"Uh...we are not all gonna fit in the car," Darcy commented, and grimaced when she saw the state of the vehicle outside. The sun was only just starting to come up, trickling over the houses around them.

"Don't worry about me," Ciara said as she walked outside, clipping her cloak over the clothes she'd borrowed from Jane, and pulled the hood up to hide her face. She then lifted the bag of equipment that Jane had thrown together. "I'll meet you there," no sooner had she said the words, did Ciara vanish in a flash of blue and grey.

"How did she do that?" Darcy asked, eyes wide. While Ciara had told her a lot about what had happened, she'd left out the part about becoming a Guardian.

"She used the power of the Tesseract," Erik frowned, recognising the power. He'd researched the Cube himself before Loki had arrived, and had continued to do so under the God's control. He'd never forget it.

"It's a long story," Thor sighed, climbing into the car.

Even so early in the day, Greenwich was bustling with people around. None paid Ciara any heed as she sat in the shadows with a cup of coffee, waiting for the others to arrive. Of course, they didn't even see her sitting there, as she used the relic's magic to keep her hidden from view.

After all, she was still most definitely wanted by SHIELD for a growing number of things. If they detected her, she had no doubt they would be on their way to pick her up, regardless of what she had to say about the Dark Elves that were undoubtedly almost on Earth. Part of Ciara was tempted to lure them in, feeling reckless and wanting to cause some trouble, but the other part of her told her to stay put and keep hidden. She couldn't fight a war on two fronts. Hell, she could barely fight a war on one front. She had no weapon, and her skills included running fast and teleporting. She was in over her head.

Ciara laughed to herself at the thought, taking another drink of her coffee. She'd been in over her head plenty of times, she'd fought a metal being known as the Destroyer. She'd fought aliens and Elves and she had fought a hell of a lot of mutants with power that were a lot more damaging than hers.

"Hell, when am I not in over my head?" she wondered to herself, leaning back and watching as a group of tired looking students made their way into the library. She chuckled a little, wondering what life would have been like if she'd stayed in school and hadn't been expelled from high school. "Boring," she decided, laughing to herself.

Time ticked by, as slow as ever, and Ciara finished one coffee and started on another as she waited in the spot she'd agreed on with Jane. She'd been the one to suggest going ahead with the gear, so there was a tiny bit more space in the car.

As the watch she'd borrowed from Jane ticked over to the next hour, Ciara groaned and let her head fall back. "Even if I didn't have superspeed, I'd be getting impatient," she said to herself, sipping at the milky contents of her cup. Ciara gave a sigh at the sweetened, yet bitter taste. Just like Thor, she loved coffee, and it was one thing she'd missed when stuck on Asgard.

As she took a gulp, she looked up as she saw the battered red car pull up nearby, and everyone clambered out, having been squeezed in close together. Ciara moved from the shadows, letting herself become visible, and smirked as the car teetered dangerously at Thor struggling to climb out.

"Is coffee really a good idea for someone like you?" Jane asked as Ian took the bag from Ciara. He swayed a little from the weight, but corrected himself quickly.

"It's decaf, don't worry," Ciara told her, a little amused by the question. "Who knows what caffeine would do to me after a year without. I might break the sound barrier," she considered, looking interested at the idea, but quickly dropped it as they organised what they had to do.

"Focus! This is important," Darcy scolded Ian as they stood with Ciara, having divided up into different groups. Thor had gone to watch out for Malekith's arrival, while Jane and Erik had gone to the library to handle the main work, leaving Darcy and Ian to set up. At first, Ciara was going to go with Thor, but at his suggestion, stayed with the pair just in case anything happened. "We have to hammer these in, all around the site, and then Jane and Erik will activate them from the tower," she explained.

"They're taped together!" Ian exclaimed, baffled by the equipment that Erik and Jane had amassed for them. The heavy device in his arms beeped loudly.

"Do you even know what these things do?" Darcy demanded. Ian was quiet for a moment.

"No," he admitted. Darcy paused.

"Neither do I," she confessed. They both looked at Ciara, who snorted.

"Don't look at me. I run fast. That's all I got," she shrugged.

"Come on. Let's get this done," Darcy shoved one of the devices into Ciara's hands, and activated the small detector that Jane had given her to determine where exactly to place them. "Come on!" with that, she was off, and Ciara tilted her head before looking up at Ian.

"She's an impatient one, huh?" she chuckled, and Ian smiled, watching Darcy hurry off. The young woman then stopped and whirled around when she realised they hadn't followed.

"Hurry up!" Darcy shouted after them. Ciara was still laughing as they followed her, and Darcy led them to the first spot. Passers-by shot them looks, confused as Darcy urged Ian to hammer the first spike into the grass. As they did, Ciara turned, hearing water splashing violently from the river nearby.

"Oh no," she muttered, seeing the water reacting to something unseen that was flying right for them. "He's here," Ciara warned, and a moment later, Malekith's ship flickered, slowly becoming visible as its camouflage faded, and people ran screaming.

"Holy…" Darcy breathed as the ship kept going, smashing through the ground as it came right towards them.

"I guess that's my cue," Ciara shoved the extra spike into Ian's arms, grabbed him and Darcy, and vanished, moving them out of harm's reach. As soon as she let them go, she started to run, helping people who had fallen or were too slow to get out of the way of the ship that was smashing through everything in its path.

"What?" one woman gasped as she found herself suddenly far out of the way. She looked around, seeing a flash of black and silver, before her savior vanished. The ship then slowed to a stop, towering over the city for miles. Ciara looked up at it as she stopped by the pillars of one of the nearby buildings, watching as a pod slowly descended.

"Here we go," she murmured, watching as the doors shot open and a platform unwound. Malekith strode out into the light, followed by a large number of his followers, all of whom had guns and were ready to shoot anyone who got too close. As if on cue, dark clouds gathered and swirled nearby, revealing a portal to another world, and Malekith looked up at it, satisfied. Before he could order his troops, however, thunder rumbled and Thor landed in front of him, cracking the ground he landed on.

"You needn't have come so far, Asgardian," Malekith told him as the two approached each other. "Death would've come to you soon enough. Same to you, little Guardian!" he called, angling his head to make it clear he knew Ciara was there.

"Thanks for proving me right," Ciara appeared beside Thor, pulling her hood down as she scowled at the Dark Elf. "You know that Guardians aren't supposed to use the Stones they guard to destroy the whole universe, right?" she called over to him. Malekith scoffed.

"Your universe was never meant to be," he told her, disgusted. "Your worlds will all be extinguished!" Malekith threw a hand out, and the Aether flew at the two. Ciara grabbed Thor and the pair teleported out of the way, making Malekith laugh. "You're the Guardian of the Space Stone, girl. There's nothing you can do to stop me," he taunted.

"Go help the others. I will take care of Malekith," Thor told Ciara, who nodded. She ran off, leaving Thor to face Malekith, and tried to ignore the crashes and explosions behind her. Instead, she managed to find Darcy and Ian, who were frantically trying to get the rest of the devices in place.

"Give me that," Ciara snatched the hammer from Ian. "Never send a nerd to do a jock's work," she told him, hammering in the device so it stayed steady. He activated it, and the spike beeped loudly.

"Done," he told Darcy, who had her phone to her ear. She spotted Jane in the distance, watching them from the tower that gave them a view of each spot, and gave a thumbs up. In the sky above, more portals were starting to open up, revealing other worlds.

"Over here," Ciara pushed the pair out of the way, trying to get them to safety as Dark Elves started to spread out, leaving Thor to their leader. However, as they walked past one of the spikes, it beeped, and a pulse exploded out, causing them to vanish.

"That is awesome!" Darcy shouted into her phone, excited. "How'd you do that?" she demanded.

'Well, the gravitational fields interact with the weak spots between worlds, creating-'

"Oh, get the guy with the sword!" Darcy eagerly interrupted Jane's explanation as more Dark Elves stormed in their direction. There was a pulse from the spike, only instead the three hiding were teleported.

"Okay, I don't like when other people do that to me," Ciara complained as they looked around.

"What the hell just happened?" Darcy demanded. A moment later, there was a loud crash beside them as a Dark Elf landed on a car bonnet, making Ian scream as the car's alarm started to blare. "Move!" Darcy reacted faster than him, grabbing his hand and pulling him away as other Dark Elves swarmed into view.

"Finally," Ciara pulled her goggles over her eyes and turned to the Dark Elves who followed their fallen ally. She started to run, slamming into one and grabbing its sword as it staggered. "I'll take that, thanks," Ciara smirked, and vanished when others fired shots at her. She reappeared behind one, swinging the sword up its back, and kicked it off the car it was standing on. "Urgh, I preferred the knife," she complained, finding herself lamenting the loss of her knife, which had been left on the Dark World after she'd passed out and Thor had had to carry her away.

More of the Dark Elves appeared around her, and she started running, buffeting them with winds like she'd done to the Asgardians. However, while most of the Asgardians were bigger and sturdier, the Elves were skinny and light-footed, and so were knocked back by the winds.

One shrieked as the sword Ciara held plunged through its chest, and it fell to the ground. Ciara tugged at the sword, but it was wedged, and she was forced to drop it and move as more of the Elves rushed at her, some shooting their guns while others lashed out with their swords, far more capable of using them than she was.

Ciara rushed around a corner, only to trip as she vanished from London and found herself tumbling forwards. "What?!" she cried out as the ground vanished from under her feet and she rolled down a hill. As the world spun, she saw herself back in the Dark World, but as she hit the bottom of the hill, she vanished again.

Continuing to tumble through the air as the wind whipped at her, Ciara found herself plummeting towards the ground back in London, and cursed. "Enough of this!" she vanished, and landed back on the ground hard enough to jolt her entire body. "Fuck!" she screamed a curse at the pain that rushed through her bones at the force she'd landed at. Her vision spun, and Ciara shook her head to try and clear it.

"Ciara!" in the distance, she saw Darcy and Ian running towards her.

"Be careful!" Ciara shouted as she straightened, wincing. "There's portals all over the place!" she warned, before letting her super speed kick in to run past them and collide with the Dark Elf chasing them. "Keep going!" she shouted over her shoulder, and the two continued to run as Ciara stabbed through the Elf's chest with its sword.

A loud whooshing sound echoed overhead, and she looked up to see two jets soar through the sky, headed straight for Malekith's ship. However, as she watched them fire a missile at the massive ship, it was sucked up into the portal above them, and the jets soon followed, disappearing to another world.

Ciara sighed loudly, shaking her head. "This is why you leave the crazy other-world shit to the guy from another world," she complained, and cursed again as she ducked out of the way of another shot that narrowly missed her. She ran at the Dark Elves that had spotted her, but as she crashed into one, they fell through another portal, tumbling to the ground. She fell into a rock formation, and groaned, looking around as sweat immediately began to form and run down her face from the sudden spike in heat.

She looked around at her new surroundings, seeing a volcano in the distance, while everything seemed completely barren with ash in the air. "Great, I would have looked at a goddamn map if I'd known I'd be going on a tour of the goddamn Nine Realms," she complained, before hearing a roar in the distance so deep that rumbled through her chest. Looking up, she spotted something flying in the distance, and frowned as she tried to figure out what she was looking at. A moment later, Ciara gasped as she realised what she was looking up at, and she wasn't sure whether her disbelief or her fear was greater. "Are you kidding me?" she cried, falling backwards as the dragon hurtled towards her. As she fell backwards, she tripped through another portal.

Immediately the heat faded, and Ciara shivered from the cold winter weather of London. "I hate these portals," she declared, getting back to her feet and turning around. The fight was far from over, and her anger was only growing. She smirked when another small group of the Dark Elves spotted her. "Oh, I'm going to work out a lot of frustrations," Ciara declared, rushing them before they could react. She kicked out at one as she ran in, and it sailed backwards, hitting another two so they fell to the ground. She then punched another hard enough that her fist sang with pain, which only made her laugh.

As the Dark Elves backed away from Ciara, suddenly seeming to be intimidated by her, Ciara cracked her neck, and her eyes flashed with malice. She was going to have fun.

It's all kicking off now!

Let me know what you think :)