A group of asgardian soldiers escorted Loki in the throne room. The chains that bound him rattled with every step he took. Before they reached the throne, Frigga called out to her son. Loki stopped and turned towards Frigga, his voice was bitter and cold. "Hello mother, did I made you proud?" Her eyes were filled with sadness. "Please, don't make this worse," she said pleading. "Define: worse," he countered her plea.
"Enough!" boomed Odin's voice. "I will speak to the prisoner alone." Frigga shared one last look with Loki before she almost ran from the throne room. For her, he still was her son.
Loki took a couple of steps forward and built himself up before the throne. He gave a small chuckle and didn't seem to take the situation seriously. "I really don't get, what all this fuss is about." "Do you not truly feel the gravity of your crimes?" began Odin. "Wherever you go, there is war, ruin and death."
"I went down to Midgard to rule the people of earth as a benevolent god," explained Loki himself. "Just like you."
"We are not gods. We are born, we live, we die. Just as humans do," reminded Odin him.
"Give or take 5000 years."
"All this, because Loki desires a throne."
"It is my birthright!" Loki voice was filled with spite. He remembered his childhood then Odin used to tell Thor and him, that they were both born to be kings.
"Your birthright was to die!" yelled Odin enraged. "as a child, cast out onto a frozen rock. If I had not taken you in, you would not be here now to hate me."
"If I am for the axe, then for mercy's sake, just swing it. It's not that I don't love our little talks, it's just I don't love them." Loki's hate filled eyes lingered on the man he once called father and waited for the Allfathers answer.
"Frigga is the only reason you are still alive and you will never see her again. You will spend the rest of your days in the dungeons." Odin grabbed Gungnir firmly and rose from the throne. "And to secure the safety whose around you." Odin pointed the golden spear directly at Loki. "I will hereby take away your power, in the name of my father and his father before him."
Loki was hit by a hot beam of light and felt like a part of him was ripped from his body and soul. The light faded away and Loki fell exhausted onto his knees. His whole body was still shaking and he took deep breaths. His powers, his magic, were completely gone. He was only human.
"Look how deep you have fallen."
Loki recognized the voice in his head as the other.
"You failed him, despite all he did for you and now you have face the cconsequences!"
Fear started to wash over Loki. The soldier, which carried the cylinder with the Tesseract in it, trembled, his eyes turned completely black and he smashed the cylinder with all his strength onto the floor. The cylinder broke apart and the impact disturbed the Tesseract enough to send out an energy beam towards Loki.
First Loki felt nothing underneath himself, then he felt cold, harsh waves crashing around him and water started to fill his lungs. With all his strength and filled with panic Loki fought his way to the surface. The moment he broke through the surface, he spat out the salty water and gasped for air, while the waves threw him back and forth.
As much as he could see, Loki only saw the dark and stormy sea in front of him. He scanned his surroundings in hope to spot the coast or at least a ship or a boat. Loki finally spotted a light to his left. He fought against the turbulent sea to reach the light on what seemed like a tower. As he came closer he saw smaller lights at the base of the building that marked the stairs.
Loki finally arrived the stairs and pulled himself out of the sea. He still coughed up water as he collapsed in front of the door. He wondered, why would someone built a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean.
The storm seemed to get stronger and the waves crashed higher and higher against the walls of the lighthouse. Loki rose to his feet and turned towards the door. To his surprise, the door was unlocked.
Cautiously Loki stepped inside the dark lighthouse and took a couple of steps forward. Suddenly the lights turned on by themselves. Over him loomed the golden bust of a man and beneath it hung a red banner that read: No gods or kings. Only man.
"I'm back on Midgard?"
In front of Loki was bronze badge with a quote. "In what country is there a place for people like me? – Andrew Ryan," read Loki out loud and assumed that the golden bust depicted this Andrew Ryan. He wondered in what era the architecture style belonged.
Loki took look around the lighthouse and went down the stairs into the lower level. The lights down there turned on by themselves as well. On the walls he spotted three badges that depicted industry, art and science.
"And what do we have here?" remarked Loki, curious about the bathysphere he found there. He wondered about the function it. Was something beneath the lighthouse only that bathysphere could reach?
He stepped inside the bathysphere to inspect the inside of it. The heavy door of the bathysphere, made from metal and glass, shut behind Loki, trapping him inside. He tried to reopen it, but his attempts were in vain. The option left for him to do, was to pull the bathysphere lever. He hoped that maybe this would open the door.
Loki hesitantly pulled the lever and the bathysphere started moving downwards. "Great, just great."
A screen appeared in front of the door and a projector started to roll.
The first thing he saw was an advertisement for something called Incinerate. "What are plasmids?" he asked himself. Then a man, that Loki recognized from the bust, appeared on screen.
"I am Andrew Ryan and I'm here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? No, says the man in Washington, it belongs to the poor. No, says the man in the Vatican, it belongs to god. No, says the man in Moscow, it belongs to everyone. I rejected those answers. Instead I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose…" The screen disappeared again, revealing something, Loki could have never imagined. "Rapture."
In front of the bathysphere laid a city, a city on the bottom of the ocean. Loki couldn't believe his eyes. High-rise next to high-rise stretched along the ocean floor, glass tunnels connected different buildings with another, billboards on the high-rises advertised a variety of businesses. Loki spotted a whale swimming past illuminated windows.
"A city, where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by pity morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of brow, Rapture can become your city as well."
The bathysphere piloted itself towards one of the many high-rises and entered a tunnel. It finally emerged from the water and the door opened itself.
A/N: I hoped you enjoyed the story so far. English is not my first language but I try my best. Feel free to leave a review.