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Chapter Forty Seven 

~Thea's POV~

When I wake up, it's in the middle of a scream, having been once again, woken up in the middle of a nightmare, a particularly painful and frightening one. The reason that it's in the middle of the scream is because Loki has clapped his hand over my mouth again, successfully muzzling me. 

"You need to stay quiet," he hisses, a polar opposite of the sarcastically annoying, yet caring Kyle. "Don't make me-"

"Where are we?" I croak, although my voice is muffled from Loki's prohibiting-of-my-speaking-abilities. 

He doesn't answer, but stands up from where he has been crouching next to me, releasing me and letting me fall back down to the ground. 

It's dusk, and the crickets are out already, summoning the darkness. I sit up, even though the movement is painful. 

We are in the forest (I'm getting tired of these tropical rain-forests), in a small clearing, if you can call it that, because the vegetation is so thick around us, I can hardly move my feet for lack of room. It's also very humid; not exactly hot (it's the middle of winter, after all), but the stickiness in the air is so thick, I can hardly breathe. This doesn't help my already weakened lungs. 

I've been lying on the ground, but there is a small basin of water next to me; I gulp it all down immediately. There's also some wood for a nighttime fire that Loki would be foolish to build in this climate, and the carcasses of something that looks like-

I gag. They're monkeys. Spider-monkeys. 

I have too many questions, and I turn my head away from the gruesome scene to glare at Loki, who is doing something with another canister of water. 

"You...you..." I stammer, trying to formulate the right words. 

"Yes?" Loki asks, seemingly amused at my speechlessness. 

I very hesitantly walk forward towards him; he doesn't move, doesn't even recognize my presence. I punch his shoulder, but he doesn't even wince. "You're real."

He raises an eyebrow, still standing next to the tree with the canister of water, clearly trying to sap some water from the plants around him. 

I look up at him, which takes some effort, seeing as he's much, much taller than I am. He has a glimmer of a smile playing at his mouth, but he's concentrating on the hose of the canister, not on me. Or so it seems. I decide to test my theory. 

I throw my arms around his shoulder, because I can't quite reach his neck. 

He seems rather taken aback, which is exactly what I was going for. "Let go of me, Thea, stop being such a child." 

I smirk, but don't slacken my grip. 

I hear him snort from annoyance, but then I feel his arms wrap around me for about one and a half seconds, tops. Then, he shoves me away from him. "Go lie down. You're weak."

"I'm not weak." I put my hands on my hips, dropping all pretenses and letting my anger get the best of me. "Now what are we doing here? You realize that you kidnapped me right, Loki? KIDNAPPED ME?"

"Silence," he hisses through his teeth as my voice carries so far that I see a few colorful birds fly up around us. "You need to stay silent, or this is all for naught."

"Explain. Explain to me right. Now." When he doesn't answer immediately, I say, "I will yell." He raises his eyebrows. I open my mouth. 

Hastily, he says, "I took you to keep you safe."

"Why?" I demand. "Why?"

"They're coming for you." 

*

~Nobody's POV~

"It all... it all makes sense." says Natasha, lying the man back down on the ground. "This is an Imeldi base, built around the convergence point. They had the hopes that, like us, this is where the Mantra is.

"The King Snake is Kafrandi. Why he kills the villagers, I have no clue, except maybe he's just cruel. We know he is. But this isn't making sense. Why would the village purposely bury their dead in a pit of snakes? Why would they bury them somewhere that's haunted?"

Natasha is now thinking out loud, and the men have no words. Natasha strides forward, knocking aside some tree roots and other debris. Finally, she grunts in frustration. "I literally have no idea. No clue whatsoever." 

Thor is watching her silently, one of his hands resting on his chin as he contemplates the situation. He says, "Perhaps-"

"Perhapssssss you are not asssssssss  clever asssssss you thought."

They whirl around. 

Flanked by three Imeldi and two human guards, Kafrandi is slithering out of the archway towards them. 

Tony takes over. "Okay, big guy. If you're so clever, then what do you know that we don't?"

Kafrandi's lips curl in the serpentine equivalent of a smile. "Explain," he hisses to one of the human guards, whose eyes are staring blankly ahead. "Now!"

The human, a young man with a buzz cut, heavy-lidded eyes that accentuate his pouty face begins to speak in a monotonous voice. "This haunted place is home to what we desire. But we cannot get in." 

Thor folds his arms across the other, frowning at the man. "What do you mean?" 

The human gestures to the other side of the room, and Natasha spots what appears to be the pointed end of a spear sticking out of something like a stone bowl. Her sharp eyes take in the pedestal in which it is held. 

"It's a ritual pedestal." 

The man looks at Natasha. "We thought all humans were the same, like the girl. Special. Her powers are, in fact, unusual." He points dully to the half a dozen crypts against the wall. "He killed them. Tried to use their blood to open it."

"Open what?" asks Tony. He points to the door. "That?"

"Yes. It contains what we desire."

"Whoa whoa whoa, back up," says Tony. "I thought you said that the cave had the Mantra."

"Man-"

"That weird stuff you're after. The stuff that Thea has."

Kafrandi hisses joyfully. "You pathetic humans. You don't realize it, do you?"

Tony stares at him. "Oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh oh!" he exclaims, kicking a random rock into the walls. "Oh my god, I can't believe I didn't think of this."

"What?" asks Steve. 

"The Mantra. The mysterious source that nobody can figure out. It's. the. same.thing."

Everyone stares at him. 

"Are you crazy?" demands Natasha. "How can be that...what...?"

"Oh, this, this explains everything." says Tony. "We were thinking that the Mantra, the stuff her parents found was different than what was giving her power. All Imeldi have it inside them, at some point. When the Imeldi poisoned her, they must have injected the Mantra inside her, accidentally. They want to use her to open this vault, where it's stored. But... why can't they use the Imeldi, if they have it in them?" 

"Because," says the monotonous guard. "The Imeldi don't have the... the Mantra as you call it...they only have the Nitri." 

"Then how did Thea get it inside her?" demands Tony. 

"This substance is called the Karien" says buzz-cut man. "In the tongue of humans, anyway. In our language, it is far more beautiful and ornate."
"'Our' language?" scoffs Tony. "You're a slave. A tool."

"A highly regarded soldier." says the man, with the pride of someone that has won the lottery. 

"Yeah, whatever. What do you want her for?"

"It can only be opened by human blood, with a sample of Karien. Ordinarily, the scientists would have taken some of their storage and their own blood. This is what we have discovered."

"So you need Thea to open that hatch." says Tony. "Well hate to break it to you, but she's not here."

Kafrandi hisses again. "We know. But sssssshe will be soon." 

*

~Thea's POV~

I stare at Loki. "So you're telling me that the Mantra is what's actually inside me. And...and...Tony and the rest of them need my blood to get into the...the supply of the Mantra. Oh don't, Loki, please don't!" I wail as, with a slice of an invisible knife, Loki fells another spider monkey and a bird. The colorful parrot twitches and then lies still on the ground, bloodied.

"Why are you crying?" Loki demands as he takes out his dagger and approaches the fallen creature. "We need to eat."

"Because...because..." I'm pretty sure that I'm being a wimp right now, but nonetheless, I have to turn away as Loki guts the creatures. "I'm not eating that."

"Yes, in fact, you are. You're weak, and you need to keep your strength up." 

"NO!" I exclaim. "I won't!" 

Loki kneels back on his heels and looks across the clearing. "Stop being overemotional."

"How...how long am I going to stay here? I want to go back to Kyle. Or Bruce. And Jack. Anywhere but with you."

But Loki is chuckling, as if he knows a secret. 

"Kitten, I saw you when you were sobbing over my dead body. Your emotions are more obvious than I imagined." He resumes gutting the bird without any concern for my presence.

"And then there's that," I say helplessly. "How did you survive? I saw the knife in you...you...you died right in front of me."

He looks over his shoulder at me, grinning madly. "That's my little secret."

I give up, sliding down on the ground, trying to ignore my throbbing head. 

"If you don't eat on your own," says Loki, and I hear something being tossed down next to me with a sickening thump, "Then I'll make you."

"I'm not eating that!" I spit at him, my eyes tightly closed. "I'll eat anything but that."

"Fine. Starve. See if I care, you obstinate child."

I turn away from him and lie down. 

Half an hour later, when it's dark, I am still crying. The pain in my head has gotten worse, and my limbs are shivering, despite the heat. 

"Come with me."

The voice behind me is short and final. It's not a request. But I don't care. I don't care anymore. "No." I snap. 

"Yes." he says firmly.

He hauls me up and pushes me in front of him, despite my protests. We climb uphill for a couple minutes, and then Loki says, "Look up." 

I do. And I gasp. The cosmos are spread before me, swirling across the sky like a painting, in a million different colors. 

"That sky, kitten, is the window of your planet. Look at it now. You have the skies at your hands, Thea, you're not an ordinary human anymore."

"I know that," I say shortly. "I don't need to be reminded."

"Fine." 

And then I shriek, because Loki has swung me up in his arms, and I have to hold onto his neck for balance. "Calm down," he says as I struggle to get away from him. "And watch."

I stare at his hand; it has turned blue, with ribbons of red spread throughout it.

"Loki," I whimper.

Slowly, he reaches out to touch my face. I feel a sting for the slightest of seconds, but then gasp as the pain in my head vanishes. There's something sparkling on my skin, near my neck, near my...scar. 

A beam of moonlight shifts down onto my skin, and I feel a pulse of energy sweep through me. Suddenly, all I can see is light, and the unknown force throws me to the ground. I might've blacked out for half a second.

Cautiously, I sit up. I feel the pulsing energy still pulsing through me. "What..."

"Look at me Thea." he says. 

I refuse, because something feels wrong. He tilts my chin up so that I have to face him. His thumb wipes away my remaining tears, quickly. 

"Look in the river."

It's not a river, but it's a stream gurgling over a mass of ivy, and I stumble over to it. I shriek slightly when I see my reflection wavering at me in the moonlight.

My eyes are red. 

"What have you done to me!?" I cry out, dragging my fingers and my nail down my face.

Loki grabs my hands and pulls them away from my face, effectively keeping them together with one of his hands clamped around my two gaunt wrists. "Calm down."

"TELL ME!" I scream. 

 "You did it to yourself." says Loki patiently. "Your powers are completely formed." 

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Love you all,

Sierra