A/N: I know it's been a while, but I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy recently and it's made me realise I need to get on and write this. Of course, this is all still set before Hydra gets unveiled since I started it ages ago, but I intend to work that into the plot.

Chapter Four – Illusion

On the far side of the enclosure, away from where May was currently standing atop the mysterious specimen, Dr. Jaana Kovannen was making her way towards the SHIELD SUVs. With all attention now on the team's latest discovery, she went mostly unnoticed as she walked behind one of the tents to where the vehicles were parked up, slipping a small pronged device out of her pocket as she did so. As it turned out, the vehicle she intended to enter was unlocked, and the lockpick was unneeded. She let herself into the driver's side of the car and reached over to the glove compartment, opening it to find, as expected, a standard issue SHIELD tablet. She switched it on and positioned it on the dashboard as the holographic display flickered into life.

The tablet immediately asked her for a password, which she didn't have, but it wouldn't take long for her to hack as she took yet another small device from her pocket and laid it on the top right of the screen. It latched on like a magnet clinging to metal, glowing a vivid shade of violet as the hardware began to send rapid electrical pulses through the tablet to cycle through all the possible character combinations. It should only take a couple of minutes.

With that set in motion, Jaana then turned to look up into the rear view mirror. The sight that met her showed a woman of about thirty years of age, with raven black hair and green eyes, that were set in a face made of harshly jutting cheekbones and pale skin. She scowled immediately at the reflection. "Bastard," she muttered to herself, bringing her hand up to rub over the narrow point of her jaw and chin, finding it unfamiliarly smooth. Still glowering up at the mirror, she took out yet another device from her pocket, similar to the one she'd just used on the tablet, and attached it to the small sheet of glass. It clung on in a similar manner to the one on the tablet screen, and then too began to glow as it sent a ripple of purple light across the plane of the mirror. The glass shimmered and glowed for a moment, then when the light cleared, Jaana found she was no longer looking up at her reflection. The face staring back however, was still one that was pale, dark haired and green eyed.

"You took your time," Loki said from the other end of the temporary communications link. "I'd expected you to make contact by now."

She ignored his complaints, instead glaring at him as she voiced her first grievance. "You made me look like you." Her tone was irritated and accusatory.

He smirked a little, not even trying to hide the fact that he'd modelled the glamor he placed on her on himself. "I'm afraid I don't see the problem with that."

"Well, it was narcissistic of you, for one."

"It still seems to me to be an improvement on how you looked before."

She bristled at the insult, but bit her tongue. "This is not conducive to our plan," she instead said stiffly, returning her attention to the tablet that had just granted her access. She opened up SHIELD's personnel files and began to cycle through them.

"No, it's not," Loki agreed rather coolly from the other end of the line. "So perhaps we could actually discuss something important and you tell me how much progress you've made?"

Jaana glanced up through the windshield to where the SHIELD team were still crowding round the invisible object in the near distance. "They've found my ship," she relayed to him. "And appear to be inspecting it as planned."

"Good. And you've convinced them that you're human?"

"Yes."

He gave her a somewhat mocking look. "I'm impressed. From everything I've seen from you, I expected you to find that quite a challenge."

She glared back. "It may surprise you to know, Laufeyson, that I know a great deal more about Terran culture than you realise. I'm more than capable of blending in."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "How so? You're just a Chitauri-affiliated hired weapon. I wouldn't have thought that lent itself to knowing much about Midgard."

She didn't answer, returning to the tablet as she started to pick out the files she wanted to modify.

He decided to let the question drop and push forward with what he actually wanted to know. "Have you accessed their data?"

"Yes," she answered bluntly. "The technology is more advanced that last time I was here, but still primitive."

That piqued his curiosity further. "When was the last time you were there if you've been stranded on the opposite side of the galaxy for years?"

Again, she ignored him. Her refusal to answer was only making him more eager to find out, but he decided to relegate that to questions he would get answers to after he got what he wanted out of her. "And you've identified your targets?"

"Yes," she replied again, setting a new process running on the tablet. "The white and blue one. The big green one. The metal one."

He looked a little amused. "Crudely put, but accurate," he observed. "And you're sure you can remove these obstacles?"

She looked up from the tablet to fix him with a glare. "Yes," she said once more, exasperation evident in her tone. "I'm more than capable of carrying out this plan."

He held up his hands to pacify her aggression. "Of course you are," he said none-too-sincerely. "It's just that with you being sent to kill me, and you having done a spectacular job of not doing that, I'm sure you can understand why I want a little reassurance."

Her glare didn't let up. If she'd still had her proper teeth, she would have been baring them. "I agreed to this, Laufeyson, because you made me a better offer in the event of this plan succeeding. Therefore, I assure you that the plan will, in fact, succeed."

"Well, it has to now, doesn't it?" he taunted her, "I don't imagine Thanos would be too happy to learn that you disobeyed him to come and help me. You need it to work."

She scowled and looked down at the tablet again, haughtily hunching her shoulders. "Thanos doesn't scare me."

"Then you're a fool."

"So you're saying he scares you?"

"Well…" He cocked his head to one side. "Again, with him sending you to kill me, and you not doing that…he doesn't scare me as much as he could."

His arrogance infuriated her. "To use a Terran phrase, if you continue to piss me off, I still just might kill you," she snarled. "Don't you have a realm to go govern? And allow me to get on with doing what we agreed."

That, finally, managed to make him look a little disgruntled. "You're right, I do have a realm to govern," he answered petulantly, "What with me being the king. You ought to remember that."

She glanced up briefly from the tablet to give him a final glare of distaste. He really was far too arrogant for his own good. He didn't give her chance to retaliate – not that she much cared to – before shutting off the comms link, allowing Jaana to return to what she was doing with the SHIELD computer system.

On the other side of the enclosure, several agents continued to gather around the invisible ship, completely unaware of what was coming.