Hello again, and as always thank you for reviews. :) Today's update had me thinking, as I wrote it as a long one with a small break in the middle, but I decided to split it up into two smaller ones. I may upload part 2 of it today or in a few days I'm not too sure yet. Let me know what you think. I'll give a bit of a gore warning for this chapter, though it is very very small, but I know some people are a bit more affected than others. As always, no beta so all mistakes my own, and I don't own anything.


A huge crash sounded from above him, far too loud for the normal sounds of Asgard's everyday activity. He shot up from his position in his brother and mother's arms and looked around. They were still fast asleep and clearly had not been affected by the towards his door he found it open, leaving his cell would bring consequences but he had to at least take a look, after all, if his family were in danger he had to wake them before it was too late.

As he looked down the small corridor, he found his guards laid flat on the floor, weapons thrown away. There was no blood but Loki knew they were dead, it was in the stillness of their bodies, the paleness in their faces and the distant whites of their eyes. Something was down here, and he was not going to waste another second to find out what. He made the decision to run, along with his family, to some kind of safety, even if he was punished for leaving the confinement of his cell. As he turned to awake his mother and brother a hand found the back of his neck and throat; it was much firmer than even Thor's grasp, taking his breath away in seconds. The hand lifted him off the ground, he found himself struggling and clawing at the fingers as they tightened but to no avail. His breath caught in his throat and he was losing air quickly, a small choked gasp managed to escape only to be followed by an all too familiar evil laugh from behind him- not that he needed any other clue as to who had a hold of him, it was obvious as soon as he awoke. His vision was already blurry, like there was fog in his cell, but he noticed the horrified gazes of his family as they woke to find the scene in front of them. Loki coughed one more time before being thrown against the farthest wall, only to fall into a heap as his back cracked in a way he had never heard before.

"I snapped your neck as I threw you and the wall finished my job on the lower part of your back, you should be paralyzed from head to toe by now." Thanos' rough voice managed to force it's way through the high pitched whistle in his head, like the one you get just before blacking out. And he was right, as Loki lay facing the wall he found nothing would respond, he felt no pain, no aching...well nothing at all, he was, just as Thanos had said, paralyzed.

"Loki." Frigga's voice showed him what he could not see, he could hear the tears on her face, the worry in her words and the way her heart was beating as her breath quickened. She gently moved him so his head was in her lap and he finally got a glimpse of her face, just as he pictured it. He needed to cough, a breath caught in his throat making him wheeze and splutter but his body would not obey him. Thor's hand fell on his chest, gently he could only imagine,as he looked into Loki's wide eyes.

"Do not fight him Thor, I can see it in your eyes, you go nowhere near him." So he still had the ability to talk, that was good, if talking was what you could call it, his voice was harsh showing clear signs he needed to cough and clear his throat, and it was weak.

"He is a mess mother, he needs help." Loki watched as Thor looked up to meet their mother's eyes. She could only respond by nodding, the slight motion causing the tears in her eyes to fall like raindrops onto Loki's face- not that he felt them. His chest was getting tighter and his breathing was worsening- the damn impact must have shattered some ribs too- so he laid there, uselessly, gasping for air like a fish out of water, the wheezing growing worse.

Thor took one more look at Loki before steadily rising, with Mjolnir thrumming in his hand (where had that come from, he hadn't had it before?), as he turned to face the titan who was lazily leaning against the door frame as if watching an evenings entertainment. Loki knew exactly what was going to happen, he could see Frigga tensing up beneath him; Thor would incapacitate Thanos, somehow, as Frigga got Loki out of harms way.

"NO!" Loki managed to shout, he willed his arm to rise to stop Thor but it would not comply. "You cannot. How many times do I have to drill it into your thick skull he cannot be beaten."

His brother did not listen, so instead he was forced to watch as the two great men fought against one another. When Frigga felt the titan was down enough for her to make a quick exit, she scooped up Loki in her arms and ran; although he was a grown man, he was small and Frigga was much stronger than she looked, being able to drag even Thor's body around if she had to. They got as far as the bottom of the stairs leading up into Asgard (yes, he was below ground in the cell) before he heard his mother cry out as she fell, dropping his limp form and leaving him to roll until the bottom step stopped his motion. Thankfully, or not depending on what happened next, he was facing the action, being allowed to see what was taking place instead of leaving it to his imagination. He saw Frigga roll over onto her back as she recovered from whatever it was that had caused her to fall. It took him a few minutes to see her ankle twisted painfully in the wrong direction with a thick golden rope draped around it. He followed the length of the object only to find, to no surprise really, the other end in his ex-masters hand.

"He did warn you both." Thanos smiled. Loki then saw Thor crawling his way over to his mother, a bloody trail being left behind him. To Loki's pleasure (what little he could muster) the blood was coming out of a wound to his brother's leg, nowhere serious- for now. The two found one another and held on as they began to make their way over to him, but were stopped as hands pulled them back by their ankles. "It is a shame Loki...I promised you they would die in your arms but seen as your in the state you are in, that part of the promise I cannot keep. Nevermind, I will just have to alter it slightly, but I will not make it any less painful for you." The smile Loki saw on the titan's face was far worse than anything he had ever seen, it was even worse than finding out his true parentage and actually showed him that maybe he wasn't as much of a monster as he believed to be, with this terror stood in front of him, a Jotun was nothing more than an annoying, persistent, rat.

"Please...do not do this..." He begged.

"How many times do I have to say I warned you?" It was no question, it was his way of taunting the godling further. Slowly, he bent down, flipped over his brother, pulled out a knife that looked all too familiar and placed it in Thor's shoulder. The thunder god gave a pained grunt but did not yell out, not until the knife was pulled downwards, past his chest and stomach, to end just above his groin, like a hunter gutting a deer. It was not deep enough to see what lied beneath, but it was enough to let the blood flow freely and before long Thor, and Frigga, were lying in a pool of blood. Frigga was screaming, she could do nothing, Thanos had pinned her down, and she could only watch as her son bled to death, still with a defiant look on his face. It did not last long, the mortified wailing, as Thanos moved her so she sat, facing Loki, who was frozen in pure horror, before snapping her neck to one side, making a sound like a branch snapping off Ygdrassil.

"NOOOO." Loki screamed, and he could hear Thor using his last dying breath to do the same. As he looked at his mothers profile, he could see the last evidence of her tears staining her face. Thor's yell soon died out too, leaving a deathly silence in the darkened hall.

Footsteps slowly made their way into Loki's consciousness and he saw Thanos react to them as he turned his smiling face up to the top of the stairs.

"Ahhh, AllFather, how kind of you to join us. Come, sit, listen to the story of how I turned your youngest into my own personal slave." The footsteps grew closer and Loki noticed himself being hauled up to sit on a step as he was supported by the man he had once called father. Odin encircled his arms around Loki's torso and made sure they were back to chest so Loki would not flop down, and although he could not feel it, he sensed the embrace was not actually firm, but affectionate and protective.

"You leave this family alone, can you not see you have done enough."

"I clearly have not, for you still live and Asgard still stands." Thanos walked closer, forming the familiar shaped staff, that had once belonged to Loki, in his hand.

"You will not take Asgard as long as I live." Odin's defiant voice flew past his ears like a proud eagle.

"Well that is a part of the plan, kill you, your family and then destroy the realm." Thanos rolled his eyes as if figuring something out. "You are going to be no fun, I will have to carry you everywhere with me from now on." Loki realised he was talking to him, and it was true, he would be a dead weight for Thanos to have to carry about now if he wanted to continue his scheme of making Loki watch as Asgard fell. "Oh well, bit of a change of plan, but still good all the same."

Loki just had enough feeling left to notice Odin's grip tighten around his son and his head move closer so the breath made strands of black hair flutter in the breeze. Thanos stepped ever closer and raised the sceptre, and Loki barely managed to breath out 'sorry father' before it plunged into his heart, through his chest and into the AllFather's behind him, rendering them both nothing more than pigs on a skewer.


Part 2 preview...

Thor had woken up when the first bout of Loki's latest nightmare took hold. It was not much, but his subconscious mind was now so used to the sound of Loki's peril that it awoke with even the slightest hint of his brother's distress. As he watched, he saw the face of a man who was starting with a particularly bad dream that had not yet manifested itself.