Chapter 10

Sam didn't regain consciousness for hours. Her head hurt and her mouth felt dry as cotton. She took a deep breath as her senses slowly returned. Her fingers grasped the blanket she lay upon as she soon figured she was laying face down and on her belly. She lifted her head and slowly opened her eyes. It took a while for things to come into focus. Slowly she began to see the room she was being held within. The walls were gray like an old military bunker. The single source of light shined down from a lamp above. The room lacked furnishings with the exception of a single chair sitting in the corner with a figure of a man in the shadows.

"Where am I?" she asked.

Loki leaned forward into the light, "You are in my custody."

Sam had no idea who he was for she never seen Loki in the reality before. "Who are you?"

"I am Loki and you will do as I say." he told her.

She pushed herself up and rolled to her side. At that point she realized she was in the dress shirt and her underwear and lacked her trousers and any shoes. She looked at him, "You are Loki."

"I am," he replied.

"Why did you take me?" she wondered.

"There is a mirror that belonged to my…Father…It is damaged and I need you to repair it." he explained.

"Then what?" she asked. "Why do you want it repaired?"

"So I can rule," he admitted as if it was obvious.

"Rule what?" she asked.

"Our realities, Major." he told her. "I shall rule over our realities."

"You can't," she shook her head.

He stood up and screamed, "Do not tell me what I can and cannot do."

She retorted, "Cascade failure will kill you."

Loki paused and asked, "Cascade what?"

"The same matter cannot share the same space. If you come to my reality you will die because there already is a version of you there." she told him.

"No, no…" he held up his hand. "The realities will become one and I will be a god."

"What do you mean become one?" she asked.

"Simple," he bragged. "Your reality and my reality will merge. I will become the ruler of all of Asgard and Earth. Anubis will rule over the Goa'uld…"

"Anubis!" she gasped.

"Yes," he nodded.

She shook her head, "You have no idea what you are getting into. Anubis wants you dead. He wants all the Asgard dead. If you merge two realities together I have no idea what will happen but I know there is a chance the two realities will cancel each other out. What you could do is kill off yourself and all the Asgard in both realities. Anubis isn't helping you."

"Enough," he snorted. He walked closer to her and knelt down to her level. "You will repair the mirror. Do you understand."

"It's my only chance at getting home so I have no choice." she agreed. She reached for an answer and then asked, "Why are you so upset here, Loki? I know you and your people. This isn't you."

"What do you know of me?" he huffed.

"I know you love your people," she told him.

"They betrayed me," he barked.

"How?" she asked.

"How?" he laughed and stood up. "I will tell you how. As a small child my father promised I would one day rule Asgard but that was a lie. You see I am a bastard child of the Frost King, Laufey. I was deceived by Odin and taken as a baby to be used to blackmail his enemies. But that didn't work out so well and then Thor was chosen to rule."

"You were adopted," she figured.

"Yes," he sighed.

"Why do you want to rule people who are not yours?" she wondered.

Loki confessed, "To prove I can."

"Prove yourself to who? The Frost King!" she wondered.

"Of course not," he argued. "To my father."

"You have some serious issues with your father, Loki." she told him.

He sneered, "How would know of any such matters."

"My father's negligence caused my mother death and I blamed him for years." she stated. "Much like you are blaming your father for your situation."

"Did you actually compare yourself to me?" he gasped.

"Do you have the know-how to fix the mirror?" she asked him.

"Of course not," he barked. "That is why I kidnapped you."

Sam smirked, "Then I suppose I'm better than you because other you from my reality wouldn't need my help. The Loki in my reality could have fixed it by now. He makes mistakes now and then but he's way smarter than you."

Loki asked, "I'm smarter in your reality?"

She admitted, "And so is Thor."

"My brother?" he asked.

"Bit of a dullard here," she miffed. "In my reality you and your brother are not confined to Asgard and Odin is not there. Thor is your Supreme Leader and you have you own ship."

"What kind of ship?" he wondered.

"Space ship," she told him. "You can to go to other galaxies at will."

Loki asked, "You sure?" For the that seemed nearly impossible for only Odin wielded such powers.

She sighed, "Apparently there was a plague that wiped out a lot of your people a long time ago and Odin countered it by confining your people to Asgard. I have never heard of the Frost Giants. Are they part of Asgard?"

"Yes," he nodded. "They reside in one of the nine realms."

"I think the people in your realms eventually all combined and become one Asgard over time in my reality. Odin seems to have kept the nine realms here which are gone in my reality. You live on a home planet and have deep space vessels at your disposal. I'm not sure exactly what happened but that is a theory." she looked about, "Can I have some pants?"

"Yes," he replied thinking of the different Asgard. Anubis didn't tell him about cascade failure. He wondered if it were true. "I will have something sent," he marched out of the room leaving Sam alone on the cot.

Meanwhile

Captain Steve Rodgers stepped through the unlocked door of Sam's Colorado Springs apartment. He knew not to touch anything and started to look around. Nothing seemed out of place at first. He went to the bedroom and found her bed was still made and had not been slept in. He then went to the bathroom and found a full tub of water and her clothing on the floor. He found the large open window as cool air blew through the apartment. He found signs of forced entry as he looked about the window frame. He retrieved his phone and made a call to Tony.

"I'm at the apartment," he told him. "She's not here." He looked the room and found her phone on a nearby table. "Her phone is here and it's working. I think someone broke in." He found a business card next to the phone. He picked it up and found the Hydra insignia. "Hydra has her," he gave a heavy sigh.

Tony disconnected the call on his phone and told Jack, Daniel and Teal'c, "Hydra has her. They broke in and took her. Her phone is still there."

Daniel asked, "Why would Hydra take Sam? They wouldn't know who she is."

"She came with us through the mirror," Jack stated. "Maybe they figured her out and want her to fix it."

"It makes no sense," he determined. "If Hydra wants the mirror repaired than they would come after Tony because they don't know that Sam can fix it." He pondered, "Unless…"

"What?" Jack asked.

"Unless someone or something came through the mirror before us and left that mirror so we would find it and rigged it to send us here the minute Sam tried to run a diagnostic. Someone from our reality who came here first." he suggested.

"Like who?" he asked. "Goa'uld can't rig something that advanced. Replicators might…"

"How about a Goa'uld who is half Ascended and would have knowledge on that level?" he asked.

"Anubis!" Jack's eyes grew wide.

"Think about it," Daniel started. "Anubis comes to this reality through the mirror, recruits Loki to do his bidding and Loki recruits Hydra as a private army."

Jack's head rolled back, "Oh god."

Tony asked, "Who is Anubis?"

Daniel told him, "Anubis is a Goa'uld who is half Ascended and has real power."

"Ascended?" he asked him.

"The Ancients discovered Ascension. It's when you can mentally achieve a higher form of existence and leave your physical body behind. There was a plague and it was killing everyone. In my reality the Ancients survived the plague by ascending to a higher form of life. They would be thought of as Angels. They have real power but they don't bother to help lower forms of life because we are like cockroaches to them. Anubis somehow managed to ascend but he wasn't right so the others tried to send him back but that didn't work and he is half ascended. He's limited in power. Anubis would know we came through and would know Sam could fix the mirror. Question is why would he want to mirror fixed? There is nothing for him in our reality."

Tony stated, "Thor said Loki wants to tesserac. Odin had it hidden on Asgard."

Jack wondered, "How do they travel without a working Gate?"

Tony stated, "Odin send them himself over the bifrost bridge."

"The bifrost bridge?" Jack gave a funny look.

"I know how is sounds," he admitted.

Daniel stated, "We need to get this tesserac before Loki and Anubis get it."

"It's somewhere on Asgard." Tony reminded them.

"And Asgard as a Gate," Jack recalled.

Daniel stated, "I'll figure out the dialing address."

Jack stated, "You're SG-1, Stark. I need your big brain on this."

"Should I get my suit?" he asked.

Jack shook his head, "Low key, Stark. Low key."

Short Time Later

It was determined that SG-1 would go to Asgard and find the tesserac while Steve and SHIELD would try to find and rescue Sam from Loki. Jack stood in the Gate Room with Tony Stark filling Sam's position on the team. Instead of sporting the Iron Man suit Tony donned green battle dress with a tactical vest and carried a P-90 with Black Talon ammunitions.

Tony sighed, "I should be wearing my suit."

"You look fine," Jack told him.

"I feel naked," he complained.

Daniel told him, "We need to stay low key. Your suit is a bit on the flashy side."

"I can see the tactical advantage to it though," Jack stated. "Just need on that can change colors like a chameleon and blend into the surroundings."

"That's an idea," Tony admitted. "We don't have cloaking capabilities though."

Daniel stated, "I'm sure the Ancients left something behind that you can reverse engineer."

"Huh," he pondered. "Going off world could be profitable."

Jack admitted, "Where do you think the budget comes from?"

Tony stood and watched as the Gate started to dial Asgard. The chevrons locked and coded as a voice came over the load speaker.

"Chevron one locked and coded," the voice announced.

Jack looked at Daniel, "Sounds like Walter."

Daniel looked up and spotted Walter sitting in the control room. Remarkably people he knew in his reality seemed to just fall into place. "It is Walter."

Jack looked up with Teal'c as Walter continued his job. He stated, "It's like everyone is falling into position."

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.

Tony asked, "The Gate guy is in your reality?"

Jack nodded, "Doing the same job."

"That is freaky," he mentioned.

"Chevron seven encoded and locked," Walter announced.

The event horizon then erupted from the center of the Gate. It fell back upon itself and Gate stood like a pool of water on its side. Tony was taken by the sight.

"That's unexpected," he told them.

"That's how it works every time," Daniel stated.

Thor than marched into the room upon hearing of the mission. He called, "O'Neill!"

Jack sighed, "I like our Thor so much better."

"Me too," Daniel quipped.

Jack looked at the displeased Asgard, "What?"

"You are going to Asgard?" he asked.

Jack nodded, "To find the tesseract before Loki."

"The tesseract is safe on Asgard," he assured. "My father has it hidden."

"You think Loki doesn't already know where it is?" he asked.

Thor pondered, "I shall come with you."

"Why?" he asked him. To Jack this Thor was fairly useless.

"No humans are allowed on Asgard," he told him. "You will need my help."

Jack sighed, "Fine."

Thor looked upon the Gate, "So that's what it looks like when it's working."

"Yeah," Jack nodded. How he missed his version of Thor. His version of Thor was so much more tactful. He admitted, "Ya know what I wish would happen?"

"What is that?" Thor asked.

"We find another mirror, you come to our reality and meet our Thor. He could give you a few pointers." he confessed.

Thor smirked at him, "I would love to see your reality but not today."

Tony kidded, "I would like to meet their Thor too. I can see you shaved and in a suit and being diplomatic."

Daniel mentioned as they started up the ramp, "Our Asgard don't wear any clothes."

Thor huffed, "And why not?"

Daniel simply just walked through the Gate without another word as a smile crept across his face.

Thor stood perplexed, "Are Asgard nudist?"

"Kind of," Jack smirked at him.

"Huh," he wondered why Asgard didn't clothes for he found the notion ridiculous. He walked through the Gate behind Daniel. Teal'c walked through next leaving Jack with Tony.

Tony moved the palm of his hand over the smooth surface of the event horizon much like Sam did during her first year. "This is incredible," he admitted.

"You nerds are all alike, aren't you?" he smiled at him.

Tony insisted, "I'm not a nerd!"

"Yes ya are," he told him. "You, Carter and Daniel are the biggest nerds I have had the pleasure of working with. Carter did the exact same thing you are doing."

He countered, "Sam is one of the few who can actually understand what I am talking about and add to it. Most don't do their homework and expect me to know everything."

Jack suggested, "Try to dumb yourself down a bit."

"Why?" he asked him.

"You can have a little fun with it," he admitted. "Go Stark!" He wanted for Tony to walk through the Gate. Jack then walked through after Tony and back into the familiar feeling of the wormhole.