— 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 —

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THE LAST PLACE THAT CHARLOTTE BROOKS WANTED TO BE ON A FRIDAY NIGHT WAS DEEP UNDERGROUND STARING AT A GLORIFIED BLUE CUBE. Despite spending decades trying to adapt, the technology that surrounded her was still foreign. It had always been her sister who'd been able to keep up with the times without problem... which explained why she was here and Lorene was nowhere in sight.

And nowhere in sight is exactly where Brooks, née Rogers, wanted to be. About four hours ago, Dr. Selvig had read an energy surge from the cube. An energy surge that shouldn't have existed because the resting phase hadn't even started yet. It was almost like the Tesseract was acting with a kind of its own. As soon as Agent Phil Coulson had been made aware of the development, an evac had been ordered.

"Talk to me, doctor!" Fury shouted to be heard as Phil led him into the room.

"Took you long enough to get here," Charlotte stated, stepping right into the rhythm of their walk as they approached Dr. Selvig, who stood behind one of the CMS machines of the lab.

"Had to kiss the wife goodbye and put the kids to bed," Fury replied without hesitation, but it was in that tone which was impossible to decipher as truth or sarcasm. No additional explanation was offered and Charlotte certainly didn't ask. She had no desire to get tangled up in the man's secrets.

"Director," Selvig greeted him rather than immediately explaining what he knew... perhaps because the science team had actually learned very little in the past four hours.

From the machine just a few more feet ahead of them, the Tesseract glowed brighter. Every couple of minutes a flare would spark away from the cube, hitting something at random.

"Is there anything we know for certain?" Fury asked.

Selvig hesitated as he tried to explain the situation. "The Tesseract is misbehaving."

Fury frowned. "Is that supposed to be funny?"

Selvig quickly shook his head, repeating his prior statement. "No, it's not funny at all. The Tesseract is not only active, she's... misbehaving."

Fury crossed his arms. "How soon until you pull the plug?"

Charlotte and Selvig shook their heads in unison. Charlotte then crossed her arms as her eyes remained trained on the cube. "I asked that two hours ago, and he said—"

"She's an energy source," Selvig interrupted, finishing the sentence with the same information he'd said then. "If we turn off the power, she turns it back on. If she reaches peak level..."

"We've prepared for this doctor." Fury paused to emphasize his point. "Harnessing energy from space."

"We don't have the harness," Selvig contradicted. "Our calculations are far from complete. Now she's throwing off interference, radiation. Nothing harmful, low levels of gamma radiation."

"That can be harmful," Fury scoffed. "Where's Barton?"

"The Hawk?" Maxon Hill questioned, stepping up beside the group as he interrupted their conversation. Despite the scientific malfunctions ongoing around him, he appeared utterly bored. He gestured with his head up toward the rafters. "Up in his nest, as usual."

In unison, the group tilted their heads back toward the balcony where Clint Barton barely poked out from the shadows. The spy's eyes remained trained on every info below, nothing escaping his observant gaze.

Fury touched a hand to his ear piece. "Agent Barton, report."

Within seconds, Barton had rappelled down from the catwalk. Once the spy had joined them, Fury took the three agents on a discreet walk around the facility as Phil Coulson rushed back upstairs to help with the final preparations.

"I gave you this detail so you could keep a close eye on things," Fury said, looking between the three. "So far I've heard Hill's been stirring trouble, Rogers—"

"Brooks," she corrected. "It's Brooks now."

"Right." For a brief second, a look of condolence crossed Fury's face before he returned to his previous statement. "Brooks is older than all of the equipment in this room, comparing only with that cube, and Barton can't be bothered to stay in range, which might be why we're having an issue in the first place."

Clint blinked. "Well, I see better from a distance."

Fury's lips tightened. "Are you seeing anything that might set this thing off?"

Charlotte's eyes wandered back over to the disorganized scientists as they rushed around the lab, clueless as she was for the first time. One of the scientists brought in from NASA called out to Dr. Selvig, "Doctor, it's spiking again."

Clint shook his head, keeping his replies short and restricted to key details only. "No one's come or gone. And Selvig is clean. No contacts, no I.M.s. If there was any tampering, sir, it wasn't at this end."

Maxon's eyes widened and he leaned closer incredulously. "I'm sorry, I thought you said at this end... y'know, implying there's another."

Fury revealed little emotion, but his following question clearly showed that he agreed with Hill's sentiments—just without as much emotion. "At this end?"

"Yeah, the cube is a doorway to the other end of space, right?" Clint nodded his head, gesturing vaguely to the cube with his eyes. "Doors open from both sides."

"We've already seen that there is something else out there," Charlotte muttered just so that Fury could hear. "Is it that unbelievable that we're the only ones that know about this thing?"

As if to answer her question, the Tesseract thundered, shaking the entire facility. Dr. Selvig rushed to his keyboard as the monitor flashed, alerting them to another anomaly they had no control over. The cube glowed brighter and brighter, emitting a ring of light. Said light collected and gathered into a beam straight outward. Charlotte had only seen something like it once before during her entire life and that was when dealing with the New Mexico incident. She and Barton gave one another a knowing, but clueless look.

The power surge crashed against the edge of the platform, forming a vortex which expanded into a portal. A blue ring pulsed in the open space, only a dark void can be seen through the hole in the center. A burst a blue energy knocked each individual several steps back as a man stepped though to the other side. His green cloak was decorative, emphasizing a high stature, but the armor beneath implied peace was slim. In his hand, a scepter, glowing with the same blue hue as the portal itself, but pulsing with a different kind of energy. Charlotte wasn't sure how she could tell, but the Tesseract felt familiar... this scepter felt hostile. Perhaps it was the golden horns that arched from the man's helmet as he stood to his full height, towering over most in the room.

The man's breath was heavy, but a sinister grin pulled as his lips as he lifted his eyes from the ground. Their hue matched both the scepter and the Tesseract, glowing with the same intensity. His gaze was cold—like ice—and equally as dangerous. However, that grin slowly dissipated into a frown.

Fury took a step forward, using his tone to set the warning. "Sir please put down the spear."

The response he received was less that compliant. The man's arm jerked and simultaneously a blast of blue energy fired from the tip of the scepter. Barton narrowly managed to tackle Fury out of the way while Charlotte and Maxon dove to either side. The rest of the agents within the room began to shoot at the man; however, the bullets were easily deflected as if he were shielded. He then moved around the room, swiftly taking each agent down with ease. He paused, grinning as if it were only a game. Barton rose from the ground, attempting to attack, but was disarmed as the man gripped his wrist.

"You have heart," the man noted, curiously tilting his head before pressing the tip of the scepter against Barton's chest. Barton's eyes were filled with a black liquid. It receded just as quickly, leaving a pair of glowing blue eyes as the spy stopped resisting.

"Oh, hell no," Maxon gaped, sliding back on the ground. "I dealt with some of this creepy shit just a couple months ago. Not doing it again—"

"You talk too much," the man said, interrupting Hill by pressing the scepter against his chest.

The man proceeded to work his way around the room, turning any agents that he'd left alive. Charlotte turned toward Fury, ensuring he was alright, then gestured toward the cube with her head. Implicitly, she agreed to cover him as he recovered the cube before the hostile could get his hands on it. However, it was as if the man could read their silent conversation as he froze, keeping his back to them.

"Please don't," his voice echoed around the chamber. Fury ignored his protest, quickly slipping the cube into his briefcase. Loki sighed, facing Charlotte and Fury. "I still need that."

"A lot of people have made that same claim," Charlotte said, rising from the ground before setting her feet. "And as you can see, none of them have been able to take it."

Fury closed the briefcase, standing behind Charlotte. "This doesn't have to get any messier."

The man scoffed. "Of course it does. I've come too far for anything else. I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose."

"Loki?" Dr. Selvig asked, recognition flashing across his face as he stood from behind some of the machinery. It seemed as if he'd been overlooked and missed. "Brother of Thor?"

Loki's nose wrinkled on the bridge of a snarl. Fury looked between Selig and Loki. "We have no quarrel with your people."

"An ant had no quarrel with a boot," Loki replied.

"You planning to step on us?" Fury asked.

Loki laughed. It was cold and echoed around the chamber's ambience. "I come with glad tidings, of a world made free."

Charlotte frowned, straightening as she clenched her fists. "Free from what?"

"Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart..." Loki whirled on his toes, quickly pressing the scepter against Selvig's chest. No one had seen or heard the scientist move closer, but he hadn't evaded the sight of the Asgardian. Selvig's eyes turned to the color of ink before matching the same shade as Barton's. Loki released a sigh of relief. "You will know peace."

Fury shook his head with a skeptical laugh.  "Yeah, you say peace, I kind of think you mean the other thing."

Overhead, the energy from the Tesseract had collected into a nebulaic cloud. Sparks and streaks arced through the air, concealed by a faint blue mist. However, it had begun to swirl clockwise quicker than before, growing more violent with each passing second. An implosion wouldn't be far behind.

Barton stepped forward, drawing Loki's attention. "Sir, Director Fury is stalling. This place is about to blow. Drop a hundred feet of rock on us. He means to bury us."

"Like the Pharaohs of old," Fury agreed.

Selvig looked over the monitors one last time before nodding as he tried to gather some of his research. "He's right. The portal is collapsing in on itself. You got maybe two minutes before this goes critical."

"Well then—" Loki opened his mouth as if to issue a command, but Charlotte rushed forward. She took the words from his lungs almost as if she were trying to shove them back down his throat. Barton sidestepped, allowing the super-soldier and Asgardian to careen by while simultaneously taking a shot at Fury without hesitation. Maxon walked by, swooping up the case. He handed it off to Barton as the two escorted Dr. Selvig out of the facility.

Charlotte managed to knock the scepter from his hand, pinning the Asgardian against the ground as she wrapped her hands around his throat. Once upon a time, she never would have even considered bringing harm to an individual... alot changed over the years. She'd been fighting the same war for over seventy years, there was turmoil fogging her mind and clouding her once pure sense of morality. It could be said the decline started in 1966, and only got worse in 2001. The world was a dark place, and she only had three little lights left. She had to protect them with every inch of her being, and if that meant the death of one to protect the many... so be it.

"What are you?" Loki choked, trying to pry her hands away from his throat.

"Some say the American Dream," Charlotte replied, tightening her hands. "But now, I'm your dying nightmare."

Loki laughed, teetering between delirious and the edge of madness. She could feel him going limp. His arms fell down to his sides, but instead of watching his eyes roll back into his head, they hardened. His lips curled into a sneer. For a brief moment, she hesitated. A second of hesitation was all it took. She gasped as the cold clutched her heart. Pressed against her chest was the tip of the scepter. She could feel the power overwhelming her mind and breaking her will. Loki pushed her aside. He stood, looming over her to assert his power.

"You cannot kill a god," he spat then grinned.

Her jaw clenched and she seethed, hissing as she tried to fight the ink trying to drown her eyes. The light was beginning to fade but she had too much to lose. A curious look twisted Loki's features into a frown. He bent down so that his face was inches from hers. His eyes drifted toward the scepter before facing her once more. "What are you?"

She'd lost the ability to speak. The cold was too much and the darkness was too inviting. She closed her eyes, finally stopped fighting, and succumbed to the ancient. The world faded and she slowly lost the use of her senses; however, there was a final whisper that echoed around the chasm of her broken mind before she lost the final piece of herself.

"Welcome, Charlotte Grace Brooks-Rogers... Judgment day has arrived."

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𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞 | And so it begins. I realize that while writing this prologue most of the stories that come before it have yet to be finished. Bear with me, I'm impatient and my mind likes to run off in fifty different directions. This books does mark the end of phase one as the characters from the previous books finally get to meet one another. As always don't forget to vote and leave a comment, I'd love some feedback!