"Wait, that's how you found me?" Fury asked, looking at Nightmare in skepticism. Nightmare nodded, and her horn lit up. A holographic diagram of Fury's body appeared between them. Nightmare pointed just below his heart, where a cluster of magic was.
"Yes, it appears all humans have a degree of magic. Your's isn't as strong as a normal unicorn, but I bet with the right training, you could at least use the basic telekinesis spell and even focused magic blasts." Fury looked at himself, intrigued.
"Magic is real. Great, I'm gonna need to open a new branch just to research it, nevermind learning to defend against anything that is magical in nature." Fury said as he rubbed his temples.
"It's not all bad, you do have me after all. Though learning how to bring out your magic side will be quite difficult. As with unicorns each one has a different way of learning. I'm also willing to bet that there are some individuals who have accessed their magic. But I'm quite sure they live in secret." Fury nodded, leaning back in his seat while keeping his gaze on Nightmare.
"That does sound like something that would happen in this day and age of powered individuals. Still, it would be nice to have a branch of S.H.I.E.L.D. dedicated to magic." Nightmare nodded, but wanted to get back on topic.
"We can figure that stuff out later. There are more pressing matters to attend to I'm sure?" Fury nodded, thinking.
"Yeah, but until Captain Rogers and Romanoff get back with Loki, there isn't much we can do." Nightmare nodded, accepting this. "How about we grab some dinner, my treat." Nightmare immediately took advantage of how Fury had worded his question.
"My, my, already trying to seduce me, hm? I'm aware I'm quite beautiful, but have some patience." Fury looked at her as if she had grown a second head, before shaking his head in exasperation. Nightmare cackled at his state, following him out of the interrogation room they had been in. Many agents looked at their dejected commander who was being followed by a laughing Alicorn in confusion as the two passed by. When they got to the mess hall, Fury made himself a sandwich while Nightmare made a salad, also throwing small chunks of cooked fish into the salad bowl.
Fury raised an eyebrow at this action, and seeing the questioning look Nightmare responded. "While my species is mainly herbivores, we do allow ourselves to eat fish. Mainly the Pegasi do this due to the extra protein needed from how much energy flying expends, but Unicorns and Earth Ponies also do so after acquiring the taste." Fury nodded, seeing the logic. After the two ate, they headed back up to the bridge as Fury had gotten word that Tony Stark, Captain Rodgers, and Romanoff had captured Loki and also recaptured him after his brother Thor had taken him from them, who was also going to be joining them.
As they drew closer, Nightmare told Fury she could feel the output of energy coming from the staff, and how it amplified Loki's magic as well. "He calls himself a God of Mischief, well, let's see how well he fairs against the Goddess of the Night." Nightmare grinned, ready to stop and strip apart any spell Loki might cast while in the custody of S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury looked at Nightmare with a raised eyebrow, but let it pass as they waited at the sealed door where Loki was being led to by several armed agents, the other heros close behind. Both Tony and Thor did a double take at Nightmare, but waited to ask questions as Nightmare glared at Loki with a sadistic grin.
Loki saw this, and passed it off as nothing more than a scare tactic. But as Loki was being led past the laboratory Doctor Banner was working in, Loki was surprised to find that his spell had barely left his finger tips before he was face down on the metal floor. "Come now, did you really think I would allow that?" Loki twisted his head to the black Alicorn, and seeing her horn alight with a magic aura, he grew frantic. He hadn't counted on the horse being able to not only use and detect magic, but be so sufficient with it that she could stop any spell he cast or had already. The only thing he had now was a silver tongue. Sure, he was physically stronger and magically stronger than any human, but this horse had surpassed him magically and his brother surpassed him physically. Together, they could beat him into submission.
He tried to break out of the magic aura holding him, but to no avail. Now with both Nightmare and the guards holding him, he was carried deep into the belly of the Helicarrier, where Fury was already waiting. Nightmare none too gently threw Loki into the massive glass container, and Fury used a control panel to shut and lock it. "In case it's unclear." Fury said, as he walked to a different panel farther away from the entrance/exit of the glass prison cell. "You try to escape," Fury pressed a few buttons on the new panel, then flipped up a glass covering that contained a large red button, "you so much as scratch that glass." Fury typed in a code, opening up a large hole beneath the glass prison cell with air being pulled out the hole at high speeds.
Loki stepped to the edge of the prison, and looked down to see almost pure darkness with very distant lights being the only thing disturbing the darkness. He actually felt a shiver of fear run up his spine as he looked down. No amount of magic would save him from such a fall. "30 thousand feet, straight down, in a steel trap. You get how that works?" Fury asked, annoyance and a bit of arrogance in his voice. Fury typed in a different code, closing the hole beneath the cell. Fury almost smugly gestured to Loki, while saying "Ant". Then gestured back to the button. "Boot." Fury flipped the lid that covered the red button back down.
Loki chuckled, reaching into his many decades of his learning of how to use his silver tongue and swav voice. "It's an impressive cage." Loki said, making it seem like he actually wasn't that impressed. "Not built, I think, for me." Loki smiled internally as Fury took the bait.
"Built for something a lot stronger, than you."
"Oh I've heard." Loki said as he spun his head too straight into the dome camera that he knew was pointed straight at him. "The mindless beast, that makes play he's still a man. How desperate are you? You call on such lost creatures to defend you."
"How desperate am I?" Fury began, but was cut off by Nightmare.
"Not desperate at all, little child. We are simply doing what we must to defend our home. You, on the other hand, are but a toddler throwing a tantrum. Oh, poor little Loki, abandoned by his own kind. Then when given a home, he resents it cause his brother is more liked than he." Nightmare said, prowling along the edge of the cell. Loki barely held back the snarl, but his lip did twitch, causing Nightmare to smirk internally. She had gone through his memories while carrying him, and had plenty of ammo to rule him up.
"We are almost similar in that regard. But even if your subjects did like you, accepted you, that would not be enough for such a power hungry brat."
"Shut it." Loki muttered under his breath, his rage clouding his judgement.
"And this will be nothing but another failure in a long line of failures. Because adults will always be there to punish the child." Nightmare said, making Loki explode.
"SHUT IT YOU HORSE!" Loki was seething, and Nightmare appreciated the grin on Fury's face. Though one word had angered her. With a flash of magic she was inside the cell, and she had kicked him to the floor. Fury was startled, but didn't move.
"Call me that again, and we'll see how well you procreate without the use of that tool between your legs you worm." She said, her horn in Loki's face as she ground her hoof none too gently against his genitals. Loki's face was one of pain and intense fear as he looked up at the powerful Alicorn above him. He could feel the immense power inside her, nowhere near as much as his staff, but loads more powerful than he was. She could wipe him from existence without breaking a sweat, and would take great pleasure in doing so, as if he were nothing but a crumb on a dirty piece of cloth. Another flash and Nightmare was standing next to Fury.
Without another word, the two walked away. In another part of the ship, Natasha was grinning. "I like her." She said as she sat back in her seat, the video feed from the prison cell cutting off. Bruce, Steve, and Thor were just moving their legs, feeling very protective of their man parts at that moment. This also went for every male agent who had heard Nightmare. "Loki's gonna drag this out." Steve said, his tactician mind coming to play while trying to push Nightmare's actions and words from his thoughts. Steve thoughts went to the man who knew Loki the best, which was his brother that was standing not too far away. "So, Thor, what's his play?"
"He has an army, called the Chitari." Thor said, focusing on the task at hand. "They're not of Asgard nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people." Thor said as he uncrossed his arms, turning towards the table Steve and Natasha were sat at. "They will win him the Earth." Thor said as if it was an absolute fact if Loki's plan fell through. "In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."
"An army?" Steve said, switching his gaze from Thor to Natasha. "From outer space?"
"So he's building another portal?" Bruce more stated than asked. "That's what he needs Eric Selvig for." This caught Thor's attention.
"Selvig?"
"He's an astrophysicist."
"He's a friend." Thor said, displeased that his brother had taken a friend of his for his scheme.
"Loki has him under some kind of spell." Natasha hesitated with her next words. "Along with one of ours."
"I want to know why Loki let us take him." Steve said as he knew Loki's surrender was way too suspicious. "He's not leading an army from here."
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki, that guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him." Bruce said, taking a small amount of satisfaction from how Nightmare had beaten him into submission.
"Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother." Thor said in defense of his admittedly deranged brother.
"He's killed 80 people in two days." This made Thor back up a bit in his resolute defense.
"He's adopted."
"I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium, what does he need the iridium for?" Bruce spoke up, trying to think about why and how the stolen iridium works into Loki's plan. A new voice spoke up to respond which came from the direction of the set of doors which led into the bridge.
"It's a stabilizing agent." Tony Stark said before turning to talk back to Agent Coulson who was by his side in a quieter voice. "I'm just saying, pick a weekend, I'll fly you to Portland." Coulson nodded, and walked in another direction. "Keep love alive." Tony then turned back to the others while speaking loudly once more. "It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." As Tony walked past though, he paused. "No hard feelings Point Break, you've got a mean swing." Tony tapped Thor's upper arm, making the God of Thunder look at him questioningly.
"Also, it means the portal can stay open as wide and as long as Loki wants." Tony said as he stood in Fury's spot, looking back at them before turning forwards. "Uh, raise the mizzenmast. Jib the Topsails." Every agent looked at Tony with a bewildered expression. Tony then pointed at the farthest most console to his right and spoke out. "That man is playing Galaga," Steve was confused and tried to look at where Tony was pointing, "he thought we wouldn't notice… but we did." Tony looked down to his left, hesitated, then put his left hand up to his eye. "How does Fury even see these?" He asks, turning his head to look behind him.
"He turns." Agent Hill said, standing a bit behind Thor with her arms crossed, totally not to observe his ass or anything of the sort.
"Sounds exhausting." Tony said, turning to the right 3 screens. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily." Tony said as he swiped on the right most screen, then tapped a few things on the middle screen. "Only major component he still needs is a power source," Tony said as he moved to the left three screens. Tony tapped on the screen, making a trilling sound come from it, "of high energy density." With almost expert ease, Tony planted a bug right underneath one of the screens as he turned back to the others. "Somethin' ta," Tony snapped his right fingers, then his left, before clapping his hands together, "kickstart the cube."
"When did you become an expert on Thermonuclear astrophysics?" Agent Hill asked rehtorically.
"Last night." Now she was surprised/skeptical. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers, am I the only one who did the homework?" Tony asked as he walked up to the table, his arms out as if to ask if any did what he had done.
"It appears you are." Everyone stopped dead as Fury and Nightmare walked into the bridge. "Then again, I was not given such so I would not know." Nightmare shoots Tony a playful smirk. Tony was flabbergasted once more by the sight of the Alicorn, as was Thor.
"Stark, Thor, this is Nightmare Moon. As of now, S.H.I.E.L.D's primary source of intelligence on magic." Fury said, shooting Stark a challenging smirk. If felt good to finally know something that the pompous genius didn't know.
"Magic? She can do magic?" Thor asked, curious. Nightmare's horn lit up and suddenly the whole table, which had been bolted to the floor, was ripped up and held high above their heads. Nightmare blinked, looking at Fury who was looking at her in a scowl.
"I can fix that, just a quick localized time reversal spell." Nightmare said a bit sheepishly, putting the table back and, like time was being reversed, the floor and table returned to how they were before. All were shocked at the display.
"She just made time bend… to fix a table." Agent Hill pointed out, completely baffled.
"Normally I would use a spell that fixes glass or wood in a similar fashion, but metal has always disagreed with that spell, hence why I used the one I did." Nightmare said as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
"Well… she's magic then." Thor said, casting a glance at her hooves and horn, and turned his body slightly so that she wouldn't have direct access to his manhood.
"If I may, I think I have a way to track down the Tesseract, but I need the staff you brought back with Loki." Nightmare said, making Bruce and Tony look at her skeptically.
"How? Wait, let me guess, you're gonna use 'magic'." Tony said skeptically with annoyance creeping into his tone.
"Precisely. The jewel of Loki's staff holds immense power. Channeling that power into myself, I can extend my magic detection reach, quite possibly, to the whole world. You'd have your cube, your prisoner, and we stave off a war. A win-win situation if I do say so." They all just stared at her, bewildered expressions on their faces except for Fury's.
"I believe her, that's how she found me." Fury said, making everyone look at him like he grew a second head.
"Humans, like ponies, apparently have a degree of magic inside them. Some are stronger than others. For example, Thor's magic is quite great, almost on par with my own. And while he has channeled it, he has yet to truly tap into himself." Thor was puzzled, and looked at her questioningly.
"Yeah, well, he's not exactly from Earth." Tony said, staring at her with a deadpan expression. Nightmare nodded, kinda expecting that.
"Understandable, but my statement still stands." Nightmare said, making herself look haughty.
"That doesn't matter, what matters is that Ms. Moon here can potentially pinpoint the location of the Tesseract, short of Barton shaking himself loose of his mind control, we're not gonna get a clear location of where it is." Nightmare paused at Fury's last sentence.
"Wait, one of your agents is under a mind control spell? Well why didn't start with that?! I could have found him ages ago!" Fury and Natasha whirled to look at her in shock.
"What do you mean?" They asked at the same time.
"A mind control spell puts the one it has been cast on into a dream-like state. Think of it as dream walking without actually being asleep. Since I specialize in dream magic…" Nightmare trailed off, seeing if any of them knew where she was going with her explanation.
"You can find his 'dream' and find out where he is." Natasha finished, hope filling her being. Nightmare nodded with a smirk.
"I shouldn't be just a moment." Nightmare said, closing her eyes. Her horn, instead of glowing the same aura it usually does, made the engraved part of her horn glow white, with a white orb at the very tip.