Author's Note: Hey guys, girls, and everyone else that I haven't mentioned. Sorry that the updates are slow, I'm going to try to speed them up again. But, this is my longest chapter yet, at 1,787 words! That's more than twice the length of any of the other chapters!

Feedback or suggestions for the story would be greatly appreciated, because this is my first fanfic. Real quick, should I start a new story where Thanos himself leads an invasion, and his lieutenant is the POV of the main characters?

See previous chapters for meanings of italics, etc.

Emphasized words

Original POV

Thor stood alone in a field, praying to his father that everyone else who had not been harmed in the first explosion had not been harmed in the following battle. When he thought of Eira, however, he realized that he had begun to enjoy her visits to Asgard, and perhaps look forward to them.

He remembered what had happened just before Loki had pressed the release button: Coulson (who he joked with by calling him 'Son of Coul') had rushed into the room, holding a rather large weapon similar to the one that the Captain had dropped on the table before the earlier argument.

Suddenly, Thor realized that he was not holding Mjölnar, and turning he saw it laying a few yards away. He reached down, but paused for a moment, wondering if he was still worthy even if he had been part of the reason for Loki's actions. But then, he thought of Coulson, and Stark, and Eira, and everyone else who he had met, and his need to help them overcame his fear.

He lifted Mjölnar.

Loki's POV

It had been weeks, almost months, since he had moved. Yes, his body moved, but not by his own will. He could almost feel the darkness on the other side of the wall in his mind, controlling everything: his body, his voice, his magic, everything.

And the worst part was not the lack of control. He could have taken that for a little while longer. But he could see everything that his body was doing, and do nothing but feel helpless about it. And being helpless was the feeling he loathed and feared the most.

So he watched. And he waited. And slowly, he died a little more each passing moment.

Original POV

She could hear a child's laughter in the background. "Again, daddy!" She giggled. Farbauti smiled, and conjured little butterflies out of ice, and animated them with his magic. She shrieked with laughter, holding out a hand for the little toys to land on.

Suddenly, Eira was jerked out of her memories by pain. Unfiltered, searing pain radiating from her chest. Hissing through clenched teeth, as she feels her ribs grinding against each other, shifting back in place, and the muscle tissue grew and knitting itself back together again. Finally, the upper layer of skin seals and the last clearly visible evidence of her wound disappears except for a faint, thin scar where the hole in her chest had closed last.

Finally able to lay flat and relax her muscles, Eira lay silent, reaching out with her magic to observe the room without giving the appearance of taking in her surroundings. It's a well decorated room, with expensive furnishings. What catches her attention, however, is the other living being in the building with a magical core.

It feels strange, as if someone had weakened the original mind, and inserted a parasite that fed off of the body. Curious, Eira opens her eyes.

A pair of electric blue eyes stares back. "Hello," says the owner of the unnaturally blue eyes. "Who are you?"

The parasite feeds off of the body as the man who she now recognizes as Loki speaks.

"I am no one." Eira knows that her brother would not believe her, and the parasite doesn't either.

"Really." Says the Parasite. "Well then, I suppose I have no use of you," it says, deciding to play along. It raises the staff that glows the same blue as it's eyes, and presses it against Eira's chest.

The Parasite's twisted power flows through her body from her chest, trying to push her mind into a corner. However, it was still the magic of her twin, albeit corrupted by the Parasit and the Tesseract, and so couldn't do anything more than give the appearance of being under the Parasite's control.

Eira, realizing this when the Parasite steps away and gives her the order to defend the Tesseract, decides to play along to find out more about the Parasite. "Yes, my lord." She turned around and quickly strode out of the room into the hallway. From there, she entered the elevator, going to the top floor where she could feel the energy of the Tesseract radiating from.

Once there, she sees the compromised scientist that had been mentioned by the agents on the Helecarrier. "Dr. Selvig?" she calls. He doesn't turn away from his work on the complex portal device, but acknowledges her presence with a nod in her general direction. Suddenly, he jerks his eyes away from his device and turns to her, robotically standing up.

"Who are you?" He looks perplexed, as if unsure of whether or not he should trust Eira. Perhaps it is his human nature telling him to trust me, she thinks, but the lack of traces of the Tesseract's power in my mind that makes him wary of me. Deciding to take advantage of his confusion, Eira replies.

"My purpose is to guard the Tesseract and anyone working with it." Selvig relaxes, and turns back to the Tesseract, continuing his job.

Twenty Minutes Later:

Dr. Selvig looks up at Eira. "It's ready!" He laughs, but it isn't a laugh of joy. It rings of the desire to hurt and maim and kill. Eira begins walking to her, and is only a couple of steps away when Selvig continues: "It wants to show us something!"

Eira is at Selvig's immediate right when he reaches forward to place the final component in: the energy source, the Tesseract. Before he can get it into place, Eira shoots a blast of ice at the center of the machine, destroying a good hour of work and disabling the device.

Dr. Selvig cries out at the loss of what must be his most complicated piece of work, but Eira ignores his attempts to stop her from causing more destruction to his masterpiece and forces the ice to grow, crushing some parts, punching gaping holes in others, and twisting the remaining hunk of metals into a sculpture of her late parent and mentor, Laufey, to both create a tribute to Laufey and also to attempt to get a hint of her identity to her brother without alerting the Parasite.

As she finishes sculpting the staff in the late King's iron fist, the Parasite in Loki's body steps out onto the rooftop, and stops for a moment, shocked at the scene that was before him. The Aesir, Eira, that had been under his control stood before a metal sculpture of what was clearly Laufey, using magic to warp the portal device's shape, ignoring the man that was punching and kicking and screaming at her.

The Parasite was angry. It raises its staff, determined to destroy the being that dared to interfere with its plans. The sphere of energy barely misses Eira due to the Parasite's anger and hate, but hits a section of floor between Eira and Selvig, launching sharp shards of concrete into the air in a way similar to the pattern on a land mine.

Eira ducks behind the statue of Laufey, which rings with the clanging and screeching of metal on metal, but Selvig isn't as lucky. Eira winces at the sight of Selvig's face, tight with pain even after being knocked out, not because of the red flowing down his face, but for the that fact she cannot heal the jagged slices that mar his face. Quickly, she casts several spells to clean and heal Selvig's face before she turns to find where the Parasite is now.

She spots it aiming its scepter at one of SHIELD's aircraft, and quickly runs to tackle the Parasite. The aim is thrown off, and it hits the building to the right of the aircraft. As it flies closer to Stark Tower, as she had found out the building was called while waiting with Selvig, she sees that it contains Agent Coulson, a muscular man that she recognized from SHIELD files as Agent Barton, and all but two of the Avengers.

It lands a little more than 10 feet away from Eira and Loki, who are now wrestling on the floor, each trying to keep the other from casting any spells. The Parasite, which seems dependent on the staff that is now fifteen feet away, is losing, and Eira sees an opportunity to end this fight. "Forgive me, brother," she whispers.

Eira slams Loki's head into the ground, and his muscles immediately loosen in unconsciousness. Her ability to feel Loki's emotions, which had been almost nonexistent for the past eight months, allows her to feel a sudden flare of joy and relief before his mind fades into darkness.

Reaching out with her magic into Loki's unguarded mind, she discovers that the Parasite's hold on her twin has loosened. Not one to decline a perfect opportunity, she enters his mind and carefully pulls the Parasite out, and feeding her magic to her twin's mind to strengthen it. Pulling away, tells the Avengers and SHIELD agents that she will deal with Loki, but that they will need to guard the Tesseract and take it back to SHIELD for temporary safekeeping, until it could be taken back to Asgard.

After Iron man convinces everyone else to go to the shawarma place down the street, Eira is truly alone with her twin for the first time. She weaves a pattern of healing spells around him, returning his body to almost perfect health in minutes, then cleans up and repairs his armor and clothing to make him look presentable. After making sure that nothing would cause permanent damage to her twin, Eira delves back into Loki's mind to remove any traces of the Parasite and the Tesseract's powers.

When his eyes open by his own command nearly half an hour later, Loki's eyes are a beautiful dark green that flawlessly match his worried twin's tear-filled eyes.