Abduction

Chapter 10

Sybil stood against a wall in the training room while the Avengers filed into the room. Valda was already training with Natalia on the other side of the room while Banner and Stark worked on finding Loki once again. They knew she was able to get a handle on her powers after her practice the other day so why were they just talking amongst themselves and wasting time she could spend training? Surely they didn't know she was only here on Loki's orders to be captured, right? She hadn't done anything to make them suspicious of that just yet.

Eventually she cleared her throat so they would turn to look at her. "So... uh, am I training with my powers or my weapon?"

Steve Rogers made his way over while Barton and Thor followed after him. "Your powers are more important to work on at the moment than your weapon skills. We need to make sure you can control them and figure out the extent of what you can do now."

"...I-is S.H.I.E.L.D. going to lock me up for them?" Sybil tried to sound and act scared; still not a hard feat after what Loki had told her they might do.

Thor stepped forward and gave something close to a glare at the others. "No. What Loki did was not your fault, you will not be punished for his doing. We are friends here to help."

"Then... will I ever be able to go home? To my family?" Curiosity at his answer filled the question. Part of her wanted to be able to go home but... after what she had become, after what she was doing to help an Asgardian criminal, would she even feel like she belonged among the normality of life?

No one answered her and Sybil gave a sigh before moving past them and to her own area of the room. She wanted to get her training over with so she didn't have to hold back the power she'd already learned to control; it had been humiliating enough to force herself to fall down like an idiot on the ice she'd made yesterday. What was she going to do now though? Well, she'd managed to convince them her ice skills were under control, perhaps now she should try out her magic; besides getting some of it correct wouldn't be that bad. She had been trained beforehand and had just 'forgotten' after they broke Loki's spell- or she'd let them believe that had been the case. It was the best choice for now.

Sybil gave the three one last glance before relaxing and focusing on tapping into the magic that now resided inside her body. Minutes began passing by as she tried to form more and more illusions of herself. It would've been so easy to create more than the flickering three in front of her but for her purposes they had to look weak. As the training session grew longer Sybil allowed her power to leak out more and more until she was close to the power level she'd held when facing the Avengers. She looked over at where they had been observing her to see Valda standing with them; they looked impressed for the most part but Sybil was aware they also meant they could get suspicious of all she knew.

"Um... how was that?" She let the illusions fade and rested her hands on her knees.

"That was cool!" Valda spoke up and moved closer.

"Good work." Steve agreed before looking over at Thor. "Let's see how you do in a match."

Sybil stared up in intimidation at the Asgardian as he walked out. "A-are you sure?"

"I will go easy, do not worry." Thor promised. "This is just to see how quickly you can react with them."

"Alright..."

Sybil faced off against the larger, trained Avenger and started the fight by creating illusions of herself. These held strong and copied her movements exactly as she moved while ice cracked and hissed from the feet of each illusion. Soon the floor beneath them was coated in slick ice; it would give her a speed boost after learning how to balance and slide around on it the day before.

Thor gave her an approving look at the way she'd started before whirling his hammer above his head. For a split second Sybil thought he'd actually throw it at her, which would probably crush every bone in her body, but it merely was slammed onto the ice with a loud bang while electricity shot through it. The bolts of lightning shot through the ice and hit each of her illusions until one by one they disappeared and she was knocked to the ground with the breath knocked out of her; beneath her the ice was broken apart into pieces.

"Ow..." She muttered before slowly sitting up and glaring at Thor.

"Why did I have to fight him? He'll know all of my tricks if he was raised with Loki... I could destroy him and act like it was an accident bu-"

"Don't be a fool." Loki's voice echoed through her skull until it almost seemed to ring with it. "Stick to the plan."

Great. He could hear her thoughts too. Sybil forced her frustration back down and started another attack; this time sending up spike of ice in an attempt to corner Thor into a point he'd have to surrender. Not that it worked with his hammer constantly knocking them down. Sybil paused to catch her breath and watched as Thor used his weapon to fly to a spot clear of any ice. He was obviously waiting for her before fighting again by she wasn't about to fight as fairly as he was. She gave a smirk before creating an illusion and disappeared within a cloud of ice, which came from the shards one the floor that she'd whipped around into a storm with her magic. It was a risky move to use this much of her power in such a controlled way but she didn't want to give up just yet.

Sybil teleported behind Thor while he was still distracted; too preoccupied with spinning his hammer in front of him to block the sharp ice to notice her. She dropped her illusions and slowed the storm before focusing on creating ice around Thor's legs in an attempt to trap him. It would've worked. He turned around in clear surprise at being trapped. However, she couldn't win. Thor would've broken free eventually of course but not before she could've potentially injured him... Sybil took Loki's orders however and instead released all magic and allowed herself to collapse onto her hands and knees panting; the ice dropping from the dying whirlwind around them.

"Enough." Thor shouted back at the others before easily breaking the ice at his ankles and walking over to her. "Training is over for today."

"... O-okay..." She nodded tiredly and stood up, ignoring his offered hand to help.

Valda ran over to her, still looking a little worn out from her own session with a master assassin. "You're getting better! You want to go see what the kitchen has and find something to watch on TV while we take a break?"

"Yeah... sounds good." She smiled back at her friend and slowly began following her out. Sybil hoped Loki wouldn't harm her; she'd already agreed to work for him in killing the Avengers... Valda was an innocent.

A yank on her arm brought her out of her thoughts to see Valda starting to drag her faster down the hall. "Come on slowpoke! I have stuff to catch you up on still."