CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE! Wow- almost at the end guys, almost there! I'm thinking maybe 24 chapters, 25 at the most, and holy heck, it's only a few more away! :D Sorry for the delayed update, this baby took a pretty little while to write. In the meantime, I've updated Merlin stories XD speaking of which, I can't wait to start writing Merlin'd after this is finished, you guys have no idea! XD well, I'll let you go on. Kept you waiting long enough.

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Thanks to Guest, JBethH, Novalunni, and Spiritus Rex for their lovely reviews! Thank you all for your continued support, it means a whole lot to me! Since no one really had any pertinent questions or anything, I'll just crack on!

Disclaimer:

I own nothing but Tori Matthews and this plunny! (don't forget to review! there's a convenient little box right at the bottom of the chapter page!)

Avenger'd

Chapter Twenty-One

It seemed like everything had halted. I could barely breathe, barely think, barely speak. The environment around me kept contorting, twisting terribly mirroring the insides of my intestines at that moment. Blood was pounding and crashing in my ears. Raging bouts of booming drums of hemoglobin-filled cells like the peak of a terrible storm created noise that seemed to rise in a dramatic crescendo, deafening anything else that may ever attempt to quell the paranoid symphony. The once quieted mind now overflowed with innumerable thoughts, questions, screams of fragmentations due to the sudden jolt of information received just moments before. Without noticing, I had dropped knees level to a new position, though I didn't give any attention to whether or not I was even touching the ground- whatever the ground was, anyway. My mouth was drier than I could have imagined Death Valley to be, lumps of burning hopelessness clogging my throat. A sudden sensation of touch on my shoulder stirred me for a moment, but then it was the just-as-sudden absence of that feeling which drew my eyes from the blackness of the floor.

Loki Laufeyson was clutching his hand, which was inflamed and smoking a bright blue, and hissing slightly in pain. He regarded me with a wary but extremely intrigued gaze. I saw his lips part and form words, but for the life of me I couldn't hear them, due to the rush of blood to my head. Dizziness overcame me and I shook my head, eyebrows furrowed deeply, to try and dispel it. That seemed to stabilize some things, and the environments churning seemed to subside. Loki's skin returned to normal fleshy color and the animals he had taken to disappeared from his sides. Gathering up as much strength as my muscles would allow, I made an attempt to rise to my feet. Weakly throwing the entity across from me a glare, I took a breath.

"Where am I?" I thought I said, though my ears barely registered the words. It was like listening to music through a set of overused earphones that you had to keep adjusting in order for them to work properly. "Where am I really?" Loki was hesitant in responding, still extremely wary, yet somehow his eyes were swimming with somber undertones.

"You and I are deep inside your own subconscious," he explained slowly and simply, and the words took an extra minute to reach my ears. "This is an expanse ruled by your thoughts and your emotions and your perceptions, which is why the environment is so volatile."

"Why have I been in my subconscious?" I took great care to not use the word we.

"After you saw yourself trapped in the room of the flying hero fortress, you shut yourself as far inside your mind as humanly possible, which ended up being more, since you are no ordinary human," the trickster explained. "Your enormous power has a sort of, self-awareness, or self-defense that possessed your conscious mind which is why you're still here."

I took a moment to process this new information. Furrowing my eyebrows, I looked up at the man, my hazel irises meeting his emerald ones.

"Why did you lie to me?" I asked next, in a softer voice. This seemed to distress Loki only a slight amount, but it was evident in his reaction to the question.

"I did not lie, my dear," he replied smoothly. "I was everything you asked for me to be. I played the role you wished for me. That is not lying, and I would know." His answer struck a chord, but an irritated one.

"Yes, but why?!" I retorted hotly, lashing out. "Why did you do it?! You could have just as easily gotten rid of me or… or something!"

Loki narrowed his eyes and in the most deadpan voice he could use, he said, "I needed to use you. Your powers."

His words his me like a baseball bat to the gut. I didn't say anything in response for a while. His sharp bluntness stung when it hit. I swallowed a thick lump of apprehension.

"I needed to calm your tumultuous sadness and self-degradation so that I could fully access your abilities for my own purposes. If I had not, you would have remained completely passive." I picked up on his last few words, eyes widening a bit.

"What do you mean- you mean I'm not passive now?" I choked out. "Where am I-? What's going on outside?!" Loki took a sharp breath.

"I don't think you want to know that, darling," he warned. I glared at him, thinking for a moment.

"It doesn't matter what you think now does it?" I hissed at him venomously. "This place is somewhere I can control everything!" I looked determinedly into the distance and gathered up my most powerful voice. "Show me the outside! Show me what my conscious eyes would see!"

I didn't notice it, but Loki flinched beside me. "You're not going to like it," he muttered under his breath.

Out of nowhere, a large rectangular screen, not unlike a movie screen came into view. A blurry video-like feed that I guessed was showing what I could see began to "play." As the image began to focus, a sudden sickness shot through me. The feeling of absolute wrongness when you know something doesn't belong. As the picture cleared, I saw a wide open desert, and the Avengers, though one of them was unfamiliar. A large, green, and muscly beast of a man-creature- though the thought struck me, that must be the Hulk! (As Dr. Banner had described days earlier, duly noted) It wasn't just them, however. Hundreds of Lokis were surrounding them, and they were fighting them off with all of their strength, but with nearby flashes of electric blue light, more appeared! That's when I noticed the Loki standing beside my physical self, who I guessed was the real one, and my close proximity to him. I felt sick at the sight of it.

But that wasn't the end- I watched as Clint aimed an arrow- right at me- and I let out a sharp cry of fear, but I was unable to tear my eyes away from the screen. With unflinching certainty he let go of the string, and the arrow whizzed closer and closer- until suddenly a bright blue force field caught the arrow inches before my eyes- or the "eyes" of the screen I was viewing from- stopping it. With an inhuman cry, I broke the arrow down into energy and shot it back at the heroes, catching most of them off-guard as they were fighting the Loki-duplicates. The explosion knocked both hero and villain alike back a few feet, but that was enough. iT was eNOUGH-

"NO! NOOOOOOO!"

Steve coughed some dirt out of his lungs as he quickly got onto his feet, having been knocked onto the ground by the blast. He helped up Natasha, Clint, and Thor, who all continued to fight, but something, stopped them all. An ear-piercing shriek filled the air, causing all eyes to turn to the new variable. Tori Matthews.

The real Loki beside her was stunned, completely unsure of what was going on with his pawn- the human girl continued to surprise him, and it did not bode well for his plans!

Tori was pulsing, releasing energy waves similar to those of the Tesseract back when it had been held in the facilities that once were standing in their battlefield. Once stoic, the teen now held a countenance of pain and grief, crouching over and hesitantly reaching for her head.

"N-n-NooO!" she yelled in the same possessed voice Clint remembered from the Helicarrier explosion. "n-NO! I-I-I c-can't h-hurT-! I can't hurt th-them! M-My friends!"

Eyes widening behind his helmet, Tony let out a triumphant cry.

"Fight it, maestro!" he called, rising up his armored fists. "You can do it, kid!" Seemingly understanding him, the Hulk joined his teammate and let out a roar. The rest of the heroes caught on and cheered while their struggling wayward friend tried to rise up from her mental prison.

The trickster god growled deeply. He could not let this happen! He was not going to lose her that easily-! He summoned the Tesseract and used its energy symbiosis with the teen to create a bubble-like forcefield around her, which caused her actions to subside. Loki had sealed her powers within itself, which blocked out his access, but also her struggle. She would be trapped within her mind.

"ATTACK!" Loki bellowed to his copies, and they did so, but the Avengers were now inspired even more to win- because they knew their friend was in there, fighting.

The screen went dull, and I let out my rage in a throat-ripping yell.

"LET ME OUT!" I screeched, turning on my heels and practically throttling the figure of Loki. He remained impassive. "Why did it stop?!"

"You've been sealed indefinitely inside your mind. Until I have finished my revenge on those pathetic humans and my oaf of a brother, you will remain this way."

"WHY are you doing this!?"

"Tch, you wouldn't understand, mortal, and there's nothing you can do!"

I narrowed my eyes at him, and I clenched my fists around the black and green leather.

"You made a mistake, Loki," I spat, addressing him by name for the first time. "By sealing my mind, you've also sealed this part of yourself with me! I rule this subconscious still, even if I'm trapped here! If I don't understand, I sure as hell will soon enough in the time I've got!"

His eyes widened. "Wh-what are you saying?!"

"I'm going to find out- from you- why you are doing this- I'm going to rip apart your story like you've done to me!"

I thrust him a few feet away from me and held out my hands threateningly.

"Show me EVERYTHING! Who is Loki Laufeyson?!"