Chapter Three

Third Person POV

Deep underground, two buff men jogged through the dark and slimy sewers, the clanking of their weapons echoing throughout the corridors. They ran through a tunnel, which expanded into a large square room packed with strange machinery and full of bustling scientists, hypnotized SHIELD agents, and one quiet God of Mischief.

At the far end of the room, the hypnotized Erik Selvig was working carefully, operating a circular device. He nodded to another scientist, before taking a tool from them.

In a different sewer tunnel, Loki was sitting cross-legged, gripping his scepter tightly with an impassive face. He slowly closed his eyes, concentrating. The crystal at the end of his scepter began shining a bright blue, warping the reality around it's wielder.

The brown sewers around the green-robed god faded, slowly being replaced with rocky black terrain, blue crystals occasionally peeking through the stones. Above him there was no sky, only stars and galaxies winking down at the planet.

Standing in front of him was a strange creature that seemed to emanate power. His face was covered by a hood, and he seemed to float in a slightly ethereal manner. Faded golden armor adorned his chest and torso, and dull bronze gauntlets covered his arms.

"The Chitauri grow restless." The figure said to the God of Mischief in a slight mocking fashion, his voice raspy and dead.

"Let them go at themselves." Loki said, still sitting in a pensive fashion.

Unexpectedly, he then slowly faded away, his form rematerializing in a standing form in front of the hooded figure, adorned with golden armor and carrying the scepter in his hand. He walked majestically, with a confident, if not slightly tentative, stride, his green cape trailing behind him.

"I will lead them in the glorious battle."

"Battle!" The figure spat, gripping a rock tightly. "Against the meager might of Earth?"

"Glorious," Loki commented lightly, walking past the figure. "Not lengthy. If your force is as... formidable, as you claim."

"You question us!" The creature rasped, standing behind the rock and staring at Loki with contempt. "You question him? He who put the sceptre in your hand, who gave you ancient knowledge and new purpose when you were cast out, defeated?"

Loki looked up sharply. "I was a king!" He said loudly. "The rightful king of Asgard. Betrayed."

The figure backed away from the rock, a growl building in his throat. "Your ambition is little. All of a childish need. We look beyond the Earth, to greater worlds that the Tesseract will unveil." It said.

Loki looked at him calmly. "But you don't have the tesseract yet." He stated, his voice light.

The creature moved so fast that his figure blurred, till he was standing with his claws barely an inch or two from the god of Mischief's face, who merely looked at him passively.

"I don't threaten." Loki said calmly, lowering the Tesseract till it was right in front of the creature's face.

"But until I open the gates," He said, "Until your force is mine to command," His eyes narrowed slightly. "You have but words."

"You will have your war, Asgardian." The hooded creature sneered, moving closer to Loki. "If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where we can't find you." It hissed, the tone as threatening as it's words.

The alien moved even closer to Loki. "You think you know pain," The creature hissed. " Fail and you will yearn for something as sweet as PAIN!"

The god of Lies felt a piercing pain in his side, and suddenly he was back in the damp, brown sewer, his head jerked to the left. He gritted his teeth and set his jaw, panting slightly, his eyes hardening with a determined resolve.

After the Helicarrier lifted off- which was quite impressive, considering it's size- Percy followed the Russian agent as she led Bruce and a muscular blond guy to a lower floor, looking back with a slight smirk to gauge their reactions. He entered into a massive room, almost a hundred monitors blinking with data and processing information.

It was impressive, but truthfully, Percy had seen a lot more advanced technology within the offices of Chaos during his dreams. Nothing could top a floating pizza producer.

A bunch of random stats were thrown around that he didn't understand, before a woman who looked like a leader spoke to a tall dark-skinned man in a black trench coat. "We're at level, sir."

"Good," Nick Fury said. "Then let's vanish."

Percy felt a powerful source of energy pass over the entire ship, and flinched instinctively. However, nobody else even seemed to notice.

Vanish. Percy thought. So that's what they did. His gaze then turned to the dark-skinned man with an eye patch. So he's the director. It'll probably be best if I explain to him why I'm here.

He wasn't exactly oblivious either. He could feel the confused stares of every one of the people around him. To them, a 17 year old kid in jeans and a t-shirt was clearly out of place in the massive gray room full of monitors and keyboards.

Eh, what the heck. Percy thought. He plopped down into the nearest chair and began cheerfully spinning it, seeing how long he could go without getting dizzy.

I'll just wait until he notices me. Percy thought, tucking his feet in for extra momentum. It'll be more fun that way.

The dark-skinned man turned around, his face in an apparently permanent scowl. "Gentlemen."

As Percy cheerfully whirled around, unnoticed (or ignored) by Fury, Steve walked over to the Director, casually handing him a tenner. The Director inspected it for a moment before pocketing it and turning to Banner.

"Doctor, thank you for coming today." He stated, shaking the doctor's hand firmly.

Dr. Banner looked at him warily for a second before replying. "Thanks for asking nicely. So, how long am I staying?"

"Until we get our hands on the Tesseract," Fury said, looking at him honestly. "After that you're free to go."

"And where are you with that?" Banner asked, facing away from Fury.

Fury gestured to his right-hand man Coulson, who then began to explain to the Doc what they were doing. As they were talking, the Director turned to the teenage boy happily spinning on the chair, ignoring the stares he was receiving.

"I don't mean to be rude, but who the hell are you and what are you doing on my ship?"

"Put it over there," Selvig ordered, waving a screwdriver towards a table. "Where do you get all these people?" He asked boisterously.

"SHIELD has no shortage of enemies, doctor." Clint Barton said, fiddling with a monitor before holding it up. "This the stuff you need?"

"Yeah, Iridium." Dr. Selvig said, holding a piece of metal in his hands. "It's found in meteorites and forms anti-protons. Very hard to get hold of."

"'Specially if SHIELD knows you want it," Agent Barton said, lowering the monitor.

"Well, I didn't know." Selvig said with a hollow laugh. He then saw the banished Asgardian coming towards him. "Hey!"

Selvig smiled. "The Tesseract has shown me so much, it-it's more than knowledge, it's truth." As he said this, his eyes glowed a light muddy blue.

"I know." Loki simply said. "What did it show you, Agent Barton?"

The brainwashed SHIELD agent turned around, his eyes a milky dull turquoise. "My next target."

"Tell me what you need." Loki stated shortly.

In response, the agent walked over to a briefcase and flipped the latches open. He pulled out a pure black baton with a handle and sights in the middle.

"I need a distraction," He said, shaking the baton once. It extended into a heavy-duty composite bow, the string made of powerful weight-supportive string. Barton then turned to the Asgardian of Mischief and Evil.

"And an eyeball."

Percy decided that if they thought of him as an immature idiot, then they wouldn't be too suspicious of him, at least for a while. So that's exactly what he decided to go as.

"Hi! The name's Jackson. Percy Jackson, to be exact." He said, confidently walking up to the scowling director with a happy grin on his face. "You do know how to smile, don't you Director? Also, nice ship you got here. I must say, it goes very well with that eye patch of yours. You know, the king of the seas theme. Consider me jealous." He went to go walk past Fury casually, but the director grabbed his wrist tightly, stopping him from moving.

"This aircraft," Fury said slowly, his eye boring into Percy's. "Is classified intel. Get the message?"

Instead of being intimidated, Percy allowed a lopsided, slightly insane smile to cover his face, causing Fury to frown by the smallest margin. That smile was the smile of a boy who had suffered, of a boy who had faced much more than legal authority. Of someone who had seen something horrible.

That was the smile of a soldier, and more importantly, a fighter.

Percy's smile only widened when he saw the effect it had on the director. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Russian roll her eyes

Banner was still looking away, focused on Coulson and the monitors, not noting the conflict behind him.

"If you really want to know," Percy said in a low voice, so that only Fury could hear. "I'm with Banner. I'm here to stop him from, ah, losing control. We're close friends. So don't mess with me please. You don't want him, or more importantly, me to lose it." With that he broke free of the Director's grip and walked towards the man who hosted the Hulk, not pausing in the slightest as he walked past the Russian Agent.

Fury narrowed his eyes. The kid claimed he was with Banner, and he wouldn't lie with the doctor so close. If SHIELD did anything even remotely aggressive towards him with the doctor around, it could anger Banner, or even just emotionally impact the doctor negatively, both of which could lead to disastrous consequences. Therefore, the boy could not be harmed while Banner was anywhere near him, and at the moment he was. Percy Jackson knew how to play his cards.

Fury also planned to casually interrogate the doctor about the kid, but that could wait. He also didn't miss how Jackson had subtly threatened him.

Fury gestured towards Romanoff, his eyes on the teenagers back. "Scan all of our records, find any trace of a Percy Jackson that you can. I want him monitored around the clock. Make sure that he isn't doing anything or going anywhere suspicious."

The Black Widow nodded. "Yes sir." Truth be told, she had little trust for the boy either, especially with what happened back in Calcutta. The casual glint in his eyes as he pointed the gun at her flashed in her mind. He wasn't a normal teenager, that was for sure.

"We've got a hit," A man with glasses said, gesturing to the computer. "Sixty-seven percent match. Wait, cross-match, seventy-nine percent. Location: Stuttgart, Germany, Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding."

"Captain," Fury called. "You're up." Steve nodded and took a deep breath, leaving the room to suit up.

In the corner, Percy slowly rose from where he was leaning on the wall. He closed his eyes, and spoke to the entity in his head.

Chaos, I need your help.