Loki took the tip of his spear away from Barton's chest, moving to another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to do the same thing he did to Barton. While he did that though, Fury reached up to take the Tesseract. But as he moved, the Cube activated once more, but in a much more uncontrolled way. The cube let out a large shockwave of energy, which was directed away from them. Suddenly, there was the sound of glass shattering and then the sound of a body rolling across the floor.
Looking at the source, the 5 men left in the room looked at the sprawled out body of a pitch black equine form, that had a mane and tail which moved like a nebula cloud and shimmered like the night sky. "Go." Loki commanded Barton to investigate as he went back to warping the mind of the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Barton walked over, scanning the body with a quickness and preciseness a normal human wouldn't be able to keep up with.
If Barton looked away now, he would be able to paint a portrait from memory alone with incredible precision. The equine creature was unconscious, with small pieces of armor around its body. But as he looked over the tail, it moved to show the true gender of the horse-like creature. Another thing to note were the wings and horn of the creature.
But as he finished his observations, and Loki finished corrupting the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, there were two simultaneous clicks, alerting them to Nick Fury, who was getting to his legs with a briefcase in hand that held the Tesseract inside. "Please don't," Loki said, turning to Nick Fury. "I still need that." Nick looked over his shoulder to Loki while responding with,
"This doesn't have to get any messier."
"Of course it does, I've come too far for anything else." At this Nick turns fully to look at Loki dead in the eye. "I am Loki, of Asgard," Dr. Selvig looks up from where he is checking on an injured female scientist to Loki with a bit of surprise on his face. "And I am burdened with glorious purpose." Loki says in a way most deranged super villains speak when they speak of their plans. Dr. Selvig stands from where he is while saying with a bit of surprise in his voice.
"Loki, Brother of Thor." Loki looks at Selvig, an intense hatred burning behind his eyes. Nick raises a hand placatingly, trying to defuse the situation.
"We have no quarrel with your people." This made Loki snap back to Nick, with a bit of snark in his voice.
"And an ant has no quarrel with a boot." This set Nick on edge as he asks,
"Are you planning to step on us?" Loki begins to walk over casually to Selvig as Barton returns to stand beside the mind controlled S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.
"I come with glad tidings," Loki then turns back to Nick, "of a world made free." Nick barely cocked his head and made himself sound curious.
"Free from what?"
"Freedom," Loki says with an almost 'priest' like tone. "Freedom is life's great lie." Loki said, planting a foot behind him. "And once you accept that… in your heart," Loki stops, turning to Selvig and pressing the tip of his spear to Selvig's heart. "You will know peace." Barton looks up at the gathering residual energy left over by the Tesseract, and immediately knows what is happening as Nick speaks up once more.
"Yeah you say peace, I think you mean the other thing." Barton walks over to Loki, saying,
"Sir, Director Fury is stalling. This place is about to blow, and drop a hundred feet of rock on us. He means to bury us." Nick smiled and frowned internally. Smiled because he knew Loki didn't take away all of Barton, but frowned that he got found out so quickly.
"Like the Pharaohs of Old."
"He's right," Selvig says as he looks at the readings of a computer screen. "The portals are collapsing in on themselves. We have maybe 2 minutes before this goes critical." Loki immediately looks to Barton and says his name, causing him to whip out a pistol and shoot Fury in the chest. The four then make their way out, completely ignoring the body of the black mare as Loki just passes it off as an odd mix between a pegasus and some weird horned space horse. A few seconds later Nick coughs while pulling out his radio, his other hand pulling a bullet from his ballistic vest. "Hill, Barton's been compromised." Nick coughs again as he lets go of the radio, staggering to his feet as he makes his way over to the black mare.
Picking her up, he slings her over his shoulders with her front legs and back legs in front of his chest. Holding onto them, he then tries to leave as fast as he can, trying to not let either of them be hit by falling debris. As he leaves, he lets go of the mare's bottom legs to hold his communicator. "He's got the Tesseract, shut them down!" He lets go of the radio, and grabs the mare's bottom legs again. Taking as many shortcuts as he knew to get to the surface. Eventually he reached the exit which led him to a heli-pad that already had a helicopter ready for take off.
The lamp posts around the base were shorting out, sparks flying from overloaded circuits, showering Fury and the mare. His com sparked to life once more, the voice coming from it he recognized as Agent Coulson. "All clear upstairs sir, you need to leave." Fury grunted in affirmation as he hefted the mare into the helicopter before jumping in himself. He waved to the pilot to take off, which he did, pulling up on the stick to make the helicopter lift from the ground. Right as the helicopter lifted off the ground, Nick saw the ground bulge and crack right under the helicopter.
As the helicopter got higher, the ground bulged and cracked more. Then, blue light shone from the cracks as a muffled boom came from below the base. Following this, the small bulges became a massive bump the size of a small hill. The ground then began to cave in, buildings and other things like lampposts, benches, shrubbery, were now being swallowed by the expanding sinkhole. Nick Fury could only watch in fascinated horror.
This much destruction was just the byproduct of the Tesseract being used. And what would happen if its true power were to be used? Could an entire city be wiped from the face of the Earth? A whole country? A whole Continent?! As he watched, he heard over the roar of the helicopter rotor of the pilot. Looking towards him, he saw the pilot pointing down. Looking, Nick saw Loki in the back of a jeep, speeding away. Nick was about to tell the pilot to follow them, but paused. Looking back, he gazed upon the unconscious mare.
He wanted to follow, but then he could be potentially putting an alien civilian life at risk. Gritting his teeth, Nick shook his head. The pilot nodded, and began to fly in the direction of the closest SHIELD base. Nick glared at Loki's smug expression as they went different ways. "Director." Nick barely heard coming from his radio. "Director Fury do you copy?" It was Coulson. Grabbing his radio and pressing the receiver, Fury replied.
"The Tesseract is with a hostile force." Looking back, he once more looked at the unconscious alien horse. "And I have one alien in custody. It's unconscious, but unharmed and alive. As soon as we get back to the Tricarrier, I want it analyzed and kept under heavy watch. Hill?" Not even a second later, a new voice replies.
"A lot of men still under, don't know how many survivors." The voice belonged to Commander Maria Hill. Other than Coulson, Hill was his most trusted agent.
"Sound the general call. I want every living soul not working search and rescue looking for that cube."
"Copy that."
"Coulson, get back to base. This is a level seven. As of right now, we are at war." There was a period of silence before Coulson responded with a question.
"What do we do?" Nick stayed silent, knowing he had planned for this ever since Carol. Taking in a breath, he let it out. "We'll talk about it once everyone is on base." Fury put his radio away, and sat back in his seat. There was so much going through his mind, but even with the Tesseract missing and Thor's brother on the loose with said cube of nigh infinite power, his mind still was wrapped up by the mystery right next to him. Now that they weren't in danger, Nick decided to take a closer look himself.
The horse was wearing some kind of sparkling light blue armor, though it looked more ornamental than having any real use. A large horn which was about 7 to 9 inches long jutted out from the helmet it wore. Though how the horse or its owner took it off, he hadn't a clue. Strangely, he found it wore some kind of eye shadow, making her eyelids a light sapphire blue color. Her wings were a very sleek shape, the feathers flat and almost appearing sharp. There were two marks, one on each flank. It was a dark violet miasma around a white crescent moon.
He would have thought it was an ink splotch if it weren't for the perfect crescent of the moon and the fact her fur actually was that color upon closer inspection. The hair was what really threw him off. The mane and tail seemed to have a mind of their own, still moving in a relaxed wave. He could see small sparkles in its hair, like the mane and tail were cut from a cartoon's night sky. He thought cartoon because, instead of the hair also being black like a night sky on Earth is, it was a dark blue, with a more opaque lining at the ends. Similar to a cartoon's night sky where they use dark blues and purples instead of black.
In all, a very beautiful horse, alien as she may be. Nick found himself stroking the horse's neck, wondering what had happened to make this thing appear.
It was almost time. Almost time to take her revenge. The stars slowly moved closer, and she could feel their power fueling her magic. Once they were in the right alignment, she could finally break the seal that had weakened, and she would be free! Glaring at her world, she felt more and more magic fill her. Then, when it reached its zenith, she let it all out on making a portal back to her world. She laughed manically as she dove through.
However, at the last possible moment, her spell was overridden. The surge that changed the location of her spell's portal exit also surged into her body, making it fall limp from sensory overload. In her last bits of consciousness, she saw a metal room that was illuminated by blue light.