Artemis (Book 1)

Chapter Three

Thea sat down in the briefing room, avoiding eye contact with anyone. "These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them." Fury threw Coulson's Captain America trading cards on the table. They were stained with Coulson's blood. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming. Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark and Prince know this, called The Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes." Tony got up and walked out. "Well, it's an old-fashioned notion."
"Find Loki." Thea ordered standing up. "Find Loki and I will kill him." Fury and Steve watched Thea walk away.

Thea walked around the helicarrier when she soon found herself at the medic bay, where Clint most likely was. She hesitantly walked in and found Clint talking with Natasha. He looked over Natasha and saw Thea stood at the door. "Thea."
"Are you back?"
"Yeah."
"He's dead." Thea whimpered.
"Come here." Clint held open his arms and Thea instantly threw herself into them. "I got you."
"It hurts so much. I want Loki dead, I'll kill him myself."
"You'll never be able to live with yourself." Clint said.
"I don't care." Thea snapped pulling away. "He killed my dad, he doesn't get to get away with that. I won't let him."
"We'll figure something out." Clint promised but it wasn't what Thea wanted to hear, so she stormed out.

Steve had collected Natasha and Clint from the medic bay and they had all suited up. "Where's Thea?"
"She left." Natasha sighed.
"She left?"
"If we know her, and we do, she's figured out where Loki is and is on her way to kill him." Clint revealed.
"Can you contact her and tell her to wait?" Steve asked.
"You don't Thea like us. She's stubborn and protective. Coulson was a father to her and Loki has ripped that from her. She saying that she wants to kill Loki because of anger." Natasha began.
"She means it. She's out for blood and unless we stop her, she'll succeed." Clint finished.

Thea arrived at Stark tower and sneaked into the penthouse level. She heard Tony talking with Loki. "The Chitauri are coming, nothing will change that." Loki said, causing Thea to glare at him from where she was hiding. "What have I to fear?"
"The Avengers." Tony replied and began to clarify when he saw Loki's confusion. "It's what we call ourselves, sort of like a team. Earth's Mightiest Heroes type of thing."
"Yes, I've met them."
"Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one." Tony said. "But, let's do a head count here. Your brother, the demi-god. A super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend. A man with breath-taking anger management issues. A couple of master assassins. One powerful pissed off Agent. And you, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them."
"That was the plan." Loki said.
"Not a great plan. When they come, and they will, they'll come for you." Thea watched as Tony discretely put on Colantotte Bracelets. "Especially, the last one."
"I have an army."
"We have a Hulk."
"I though the beast had wandered off."
"You're missing the point. There's no throne, there is no version of this, where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes and maybe it's too much for you, but it's all on you. Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it."
"How will your friends have time for me, when they're so busy fighting you?" Loki questioned walking towards Tony. He raised his scepter and touched Tony's chest but nothing happened. Confused, Loki tried again but still nothing happened. "It should work."
"Well, performance issues. You know?" Tony mocked. "It's not uncommon. One out of five." Loki grabbed Tony by the throat and threw him across the room. "Jarvis. Anytime now." Loki grabbed Tony by the throat again.
"You will all fall before me." Loki growled before throwing Tony out the window.
"No." Thea whimpered covering her mouth. She feared that she had lost someone else in her life when the elevator opened and a red pot shot out. "Come on Tony. Come on." Thea whispered. Tony soon appeared in his Iron Man suit.
"And there's one other person you missed off." Tony said referring to his previous speech. "His name was Phil." Loki raised his scepter but Tony was quicker and blasted Loki, knocking him to the floor. Thea watched as Tony looked towards where she was hiding. "He's all yours, Artemis."

Thea stood behind Loki as he got to his feet. "You took my father away from me."
"He was in the way."
"You're pathetic. He was doing his job but you decided that his life meant nothing because you were being a child. There's no wonder Odin chose Thor over you for the throne, not that it was going to be yours anyway."
"Be quiet, child."
"Shut it." Thea notched an arrow and aimed it at Loki. The arrow hit the wall behind him and sparks came out. Loki turned around, Thea took the opportunity to fire an arrow at Loki's leg. "Made you look." Thea saw Thor approaching so decided to let Thor have his turn. Thea walked to the edge and jumped down. She fired a grappling arrow at the building and made her way down to the ground.

Thea was running through the city, helping any citizens who were being attacked by the Chitauri. She found a group of Chitauri terrorising a group of kids. She raised her bow and shot an arrow into each of the Chitauri. Thea walked over and ripped her arrows out of the aliens. She knew the arrows were gonna be damaged slightly but she needed all the ammo she could get. "Are you guys okay?"
"Yeah, we're fine." A boy, who looked in his early teens, replied. "What's going on?"
"It's an alien invasion, kind of. My friends are on their way and we will do what we can to protect everyone. I need you to tell me where your parents are so I can get you back to them."
"We're orphans. Our orphanage was destroyed." The same boy said.
"Okay. I'm going to take you somewhere safe then I'm gonna call someone to come pick you up." Thea led the way to her company building. She walked inside and told them to stay in the lobby with one of her security guards. She pressed her ear piece, praying for a miracle. "Alec, are you there?"
"I'm here. Where are you? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I'm trying to help anyone I can. Listen, there's some kids in my building. I need you to get them somewhere safer. Can you do that?"
"Yeah."
"Thank you. My security guards will recognise you. I have to go." Thea turned off her ear piece needing to concentrate. She took down as many Chitauri as she could and saved as many people she could. She felt something slam into her, knocking her to the floor. She flipped over onto her back and looked up to find a Chitauri pointing its weapon at her. Before it could hit her, a rock was thrown at its head. The Chitauri was distracted and Thea used this as an opportunity to stab it with her knife 'killing' it. Thea turned and saw the same boy from earlier. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I wanted to help." He said.
"It's too dangerous."
"Please."
"Fine, but you are only getting people to safety. What's your name?"
"William."
"Thea, but you can' t tell anyone." Thea reached into her jacket and pulled out one of her spare ear pieces. "Use this to keep in contact with me and call me Artemis when you talk to me." She handed him one of her knives. "This is for if you need it. Stick to alley, any dark areas, try to avoid as many Chitauri as you can. Get as many people as you can to where I took you."
"Okay. Go, I'll be fine."
"Good luck kid."