Anonymous Review Replies!
Guest: Thanks!
LoneGarurumon: I try not to have coincidences in my stories ;p (I had to check out what Those Lacking Spines is - never played Kingdom Hearts - but it also seems right up my alley XD) Let's see where this leads!
Missing: Eyup, Loki's not having as much fun as Heimdall is, unfortunately^^; As for the Winter King...hah, he could be? Please read on to find out! :D
Megshinkley: Eh, they were alright - I enjoy the gimmick of franchises using Time Travel shenanigans to revisit fan-favourite moments in previous movies, Terminator, Star Trek and of course, Back to the Future also did great with that. Not a huge fan of original!Loki really being killed off in such an unworthy, ooc way (really, *Loki* of all people would rush straight at a Titan? Yeah, no). I guess the parallel-universe Loki is some sort of consolation prize, but it's sad that the character development from Thor 2 and 3 is then completely lost. But what did you think of the last chapter? :)
Chapter: All In the Mind
YOU WILL SEE. The Winter King said as he led their small procession toward the lower level dungeons. HE IS KEPT IN THE WORST PRISON IN THE WORLD.
Well. That did not sound great, but the Doctor suppressed any roiling sensations in his stomach and instead tried to memorize the way they were taking to the cells from the throne room. Because he would get them out of here.
They descended a staircase to the ground level, and then another one, the temperatures, impossibly, dropping even lower than before. The Doctor briefly wondered if it meant that Loki's spell might have a shorter life span if it had to keep him warm in colder surroundings and hoped that it didn't – because while he was fairly certain he could break them out eventually, he wasn't sure how long it would take…
"The worst prison in the world, ey?" he made himself ask. "And by that you don't mean maybe a comfortable suite in the ice palace, maybe with a mini bar…hot chocolate, vending machine…?"
NO, the Winter King replied, just as they came to a stop in a dark corridor, the air so frigid down here that the Doctor wondered whether it would crystallize his lungs on the spot if he breathed it in unprotected. One of the guards let go of his arm and took a key from its belt, opening the door to a cell – where Loki lay motionlessly on the floor.
AS YOU CAN SEE, HE IS TRAPPED IN THE MOST SECURE PLACE POSSIBLE FOR ANY MAGE, the Winter King said, just as the other guard shoved the Doctor and let him stumble into the cell. HIS OWN NIGHTMARES.
The Winter King began to close the door. NOW WATCH YOUR PROTECTOR SUFFER THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT AS YOU FREEZE, HUMAN PET.
The door swung shut with a grind of ice on ice as he spoke, and the Doctor was left alone in the dark and the cold, the only sound he could hear the retreating steps from the animated corpses outside and…a whimpering coming from the frost giant at his feet.
"Oh, Loki," the Doctor murmured as he dropped down and reached into his suit pocket, rummaging a bit before he could produce a box of matches, letting one flare into light. Loki didn't wake to the brightness, merely turning his head to the other side, mumbling something in his sleep, face drawn and pale. There was no warmth at all radiating from him anymore. As the Doctor watched, a single spot of liquid ran from the corner of his eye down the side of his face, freezing into a line of ice on his temple.
The Doctor's lips thinned.
When he was through with this planet and this wizard, he thought, Global Warming would be a joke compared to what he was planning to unleash.
Then he sighed, reaching down to at least upright Loki somewhat against a wall, the frost giant's head lolling to the side but his eyes remaining closed. His skin was still Aesir-pale, but now nearly as white as the snow outside, and through the leather of his robe it felt like he was burning with cold.
"Hey. Loki. Wake up," the Doctor tried, shaking his companion by the shoulder, but, as he had already guessed, it did absolutely nothing to wake him. Instead, the Doctor thought he saw something like a yellowish band of light flit across Loki's body in reaction to the movement. This was obviously no ordinary unconsciousness.
"Alright," the Doctor murmured, "I guess it's a good thing I meant to end up here, but I'm also sorry, because I'm guessing you really won't like the next stage of the plan…"
He carefully lowered himself down against the ice wall next to Loki, exhaling a breath that formed a white cloud in the air. He was starting to get a bit cold now. He just hoped his own body would hold out for this next bit.
Turning his head toward Loki, he angled his torso a little and then reached out for the frost giant's still face.
The Doctor had figured that someone as powerful as Loki probably would not have been able to be kept imprisoned when awake, thus he likely wasn't awake – which meant, if only the Doctor could get a metaphorical alarm clock going here, they'd be out of this cell in a heartbeat.
So, the only thing he had had to do was put up enough of a panicky effort that didn't make it seem like his capture hadn't been part of a plan – the strange wizard had seemed a bit like a testy, mistrustful sorcerer definitely too full of himself at times, and boy, if the doctor hadn't had experience with that during last week, then he didn't know what. And so they had caught him, confirmed that he had approximately zero magical ability, judged him to be Loki's incompetent human sidekick and thrown him in with the frost giant.
(And, to be fair, the sidekick bit had stung a bit, but the Doctor thought he'd live.)
Also, well, the wizard had been right about the doctor having no magical ability.
"Right about that, maybe," the Doctor murmured as he turned Loki's face toward his own, scooting closer to him so that their shoulders were touching now. "But if you think I'm human, then you've made a grave mistake."
Then he sighed, tilting Loki's face toward his own and mentally prepared himself for what he was about to do.
"I guess you don't like it when somebody rummages around in there", the Doctor said softly. "But I'm also guessing that the alternative is worse."
Next, he pressed his forehead against the other's, and within a moment, the Doctor's body had slumped beside Loki's, now both as lifeless as two dolls.
xxx
A split second later, the Doctor was already twisting himself through mindspace, Loki's 1000-year-old consciousness vast, and dark and shining, and alien and familiar at once, knowledge and memory and feelings roaring as a neuron storm around the Doctor, flashing, dissolving into...
Another dungeon. For a moment the Doctor thought Loki's mind had rejected him, but then he immediately realized that no, this wasn't the dungeon they had just been in - this was a prison made of stone and also, the Doctor was outside of any cells, standing in the corridor alone.
"...fine predicament you have landed us in, brother. Again."
The Doctor froze at Loki's voice. It had come from a cell further up ahead, and though his first instinct was to call out to Loki, shake him out of whatever memory this was so he could wake up and do something about their imprisonment in reality, there was a sudden stirring of curiosity that he couldn't immediately shake.
And, well. Curiosity killed the cat, but usually never the Doctor.
He stalked forward as quietly as he could, past the empty cells and keeping to the shadows of the corridor, following where Loki's voice had come from.
"Well, I could not have known that this was such a fiendish trick, could I?" A second voice, this one rich and booming (but at the moment sounding rather plaintive) asked. The next sound was a rather familiar sigh from Loki.
"Thor, one of mother's goats would have been able to tell it was a trick. And now how will we get out of this prison, hm?"
"I suppose I could smash those chains with a mighty blow from Mjolnir-"
"Oh, that same Mjolnir you lost gambling which brought us into this mess in the first place?" Loki's voice asked, laced with almost subtle amusement and the other voice answered with a howl of frustration.
The Doctor paused in his movement. He had advanced along the far wall of the corridor, far enough that he could see into the cell now that held Loki - and who had to be his brother. Thor.
"Please, Loki, can you not think of something?"
The other man in the cell groaned, and the Doctor had to pause for a moment, feeling this was a memory he probably shouldn't watch without asking, but too fascinated to look away. Inside the cell a slightly younger, shorter-haired but already just about adult version of Loki was chained spreadeagled to a wall. Yet his face still looked more at ease, his eyes far less hard than during any time the Doctor had seen him. Indeed, he seemed to look at the other man in the cell even with a bit of well-hidden fondness...
Thor, who had been chained to the wall opposite to him, looked slightly older than Loki, and far heavier and muscular. A blond and bearded warrior who strained against his chains even as he pleaded with his brother to help him. Despite his state, there was something regal and commanding about his presence that let the Doctor's hackles rise on instinct - the man's far more martial-looking armour compared to Loki's familiar robes also didn't endear him to the Time Lord any .
"Well," Loki said at that point languidly, neither of the pair having noticed the Doctor yet (the Doctor also wondering if he even was visible to them if he stepped into view) "The Swartalfar have us locked in unbreakable chains. No magic or weapon in this world could destroy them."
"But...but you have a plan, do you not?" Thor asked, and the look on his face was for a moment so trusting, and expectant as he gazed upon his already freely grinning younger brother, the Doctor for a moment felt as if he definitely had seen something he shouldn't have.
"You know me too well," Loki replied, and then, as the Doctor watched, suddenly started to change shape; his manacled hands and ankles began to shrink, his face to lengthen unnaturally - and before Thor could utter anything but a gasp of surprise, Loki had already changed into a large, gleaming, black and golden snake with brilliant green eyes. The reptile grinned as it dropped lengthwise to the floor, empty manacles dangling loose and uselessly from the stone above.
"Ha-HAH!" Thor gave a roaring and triumphant laugh as Loki transformed back, eyes gleaming as he sketched a bow. Then, with a murmur he placed his hand next to the spot where Thor's chains were embedded in the stone walls.
"I cannot break your chains. But I have a feeling I might be able to break the stone they're bound to."
And so saying, he did - the rock under Loki's hand began to dissolve, Thor abruptly yanking his arms free, chains still dangling from his wrist but apparently hardly a hindrance to him.
"Free at last!" Thor shouted, raising a fist in the air. "Now Algrim shall rue the day he took Mjolnir!"
"The day you lost Mjolnir to him in a card game, which was yesterday, you mean?" Loki asked, voice wry but mouth quirked in amusement. Thor deflated a little.
"Well...yes. I admit that was a foolish action. I should have listened to you. I am glad you still came along, though," Thor said, giving Loki a rueful smile that made him seem younger and the Doctor couldn't help but see how the edges of Loki's lips twitched in answer, his mocking expression not vanishing, but turning gentler and fonder -
Which was where everything started to go wrong. The Doctor noticed how a certain line of light suddenly swept over everything, flashing, the surroundings outwardly not changing at all, but still somehow suddenly looking colder, more eerie. In the cell, too, Thor's expression had changed, the smile still on his face, but eyes cold now.
"Mostly I'm glad," he said to Loki now, who suddenly looked faintly unbalanced, confused as if fighting something, "because this is a place where no one will ever find your bastard corpse."
"Loki!" The Doctor cried out before he could stop himself, this wasn't real, but this didn't make it any less horrifying to look at. In the cell, Thor suddenly held a large, silver-gleaming hammer, raising it above Loki's head who had stumbled back in terror and confusion, hands coming up to defend himself that were already turning blue.
"No-no-no-Thor, please-!" Loki stammered, right before the Doctor's cry cut through the dungeon and Loki's eyes locked straight onto him, an even more confused expression flitting across his face for just a second - right until Thor's hammer struck his chest and everything was swallowed up by darkness.
xxx
The Doctor came to himself in their original ice cell with a gasp, just as Loki next to him had screwed his face up as if in pain.
The worst prison in the world.
"Rassilon, psychic aliens are the worst," the Doctor muttered, then grabbed Loki's (so incredibly cold) face again and went right back in.
XXX
It took two more memories for him to reach Loki. None of which the Doctor was pleased to have to see and none of which, he suspected, Loki would have preferred anyone else to be privy to.
The first one seemed harmless enough, two boys who the Doctor assumed had to be Loki and his brother Thor, playing a game of tag, laughing - but then more children arriving and Thor haring off to run off with them, leaving Loki behind, unable to keep up. Then the strange lightning came again, and with it, Thor returning with the horde of other children to hunt Loki with spears.
The Doctor thought that this particular memory likely wouldn't even have needed the distortion to hurt. He was far too familiar with the scenario to think otherwise.
But in this memory he had not been able to help, his place of observation high up behind a window in a palace of some sort, watching the scene in a courtyard below. He cursed himself as everything faded to black and he was back in the cell again, his body heat fading fast. He should have acted more quickly the first time, when he had actually been close to Loki in the memory. He didn't know if he would survive many more trips in the frost giant's mind and how long it might take for the wizard upstairs to have the brilliant idea to look him up and realize that leaving the Doctor unattended in any cell was about the stupidest thing you could do.
"Come on, Loki," the Doctor muttered as he grasped the other's face again. "Take me where I can help you."
XXX
This time, he materialized in a thunderstorm.
(The Doctor briefly wondered if Loki perhaps rather wanted him dead for the intrusion.)
"I never wanted the throne! All I wanted was to be your equal!"
"I will NOT fight you, brother!"
The Doctor whipped around. He was standing on the Bifrost in space, he realized, a thunderstorm raging around him. Beneath his feet the rainbow bridge stretched toward distant Asgard on the one side (still giving off the general impression of being a space organ in the Doctor's opinion) and on the other, about two hundred yards away…
The Observatory, the Doctor's memory of a brief fly-by supplied, a golden, dome-shaped building where Heimdall, Watcher of the Universe controlled the energy of the Bifrost. The energy which was currently shooting out into space…
"I fell because tried to use the Bifrost to erase Jotunheim from the face of Yggdrasil," Loki's bitter, cutting voice commented in his memory "My brother disagreed."
And as if on cue, now there were screams, crashes and lightning emanating from it, and, the Doctor realized, the screaming voices also belonging to Loki and Thor.
"Loki, this is madness!"
The Doctor started running.
Before he had even taken the first couple of steps, a hole burst from the wall of the Observatory, both Loki and Thor exploding onto the Bifrost, as of yet completely unaware of him, engaged in a fight in Loki's memory that the Doctor didn't dare guess how often it had played out yet. Loki was dressed in the clothes he had worn when he crashed into the TARDIS, so this was definitely the battle that had to have been the immediate precursion to their meeting…
As the Doctor ran, Loki hit the Bifrost hard and tumbled over its edge, only barely caught by Thor's hand. The Doctor's two hearts nearly stopped, if Loki died again before he could reach him -
"Ha-hah!" Loki's laughter rang out as his dangling form suddenly disappeared and reformed behind his kneeling brother, throwing Thor onto the floor and then spreading into an army of laughing illusions of himself like he had during his fight against the Winter King.
"LOKI!" the Doctor yelled, but it was impossible to be heard over the howling of the Bifrost-turned-death-ray, the crashes and screams of Thor and Loki fighting with their strength so far beyond human.
This. This right here is why I prefer Earth and humans over immortal crazy half-gods, the Doctor thought fervently as the laughter of twenty Lokis rang through the air until Thor howled "ENOUGH!" and somehow summoned bloody lightning to his hammer.
The electricity blasted into Loki's illusions and sent him flying backwards, the resulting shockwave also nearly making the Doctor lose his footing. As he steadied himself, Loki once again had landed on his back on the bridge, his brother stepping over him and now placing his magical hammer on Loki's chest.
"Loki! Dammit!" the Doctor shouted, picking up his pace again, the wind still snatching the words from his mouth. He was almost there…almost there…! Thor seemed to be approaching the Observatory, the ray of the rainbow bridge still firing onto Jotunheim, but the energy emanating from the building seemed to be too intense even for him to get close. Loki was laughing now, but it sounded desperate and manic.
Until Thor summoned his hammer from Loki's chest and struck the Bifrost. Again. And again.
"No! What are you doing?!" Loki yelled, leaping to his feet, grabbing his spear and charging toward Thor, just as his brother shouted "Forgive me, Jane!" in what the Doctor was sure was some intense family drama happening here, but right now he was also really concerned with getting to Loki before this memory ended and he was expelled from Loki's head again. This memory had already lasted longer than most without some obvious change in it, indicating it was perhaps the most important one of all…
Thor's final blow struck the Bifrost.
As it did, it created an explosion so bright and searing, the Doctor wasn't sure he would have been able to survive this without regenerating if this hadn't all been in the mind. Light and force washed over him, knocking him off his feet and sending him flying, his body landing hard on the Bifrost, air driven from his lungs. The Doctor barely had time to be grateful Thor's destruction of the rainbow bridge had not knocked him straight into space. As he scrambled to his feet again, his eyes widened as he saw that a new arrival had joined the scene – up ahead, Loki and Thor were now both dangling from the broken end of the Bifrost, Loki barely holding on to the end of his spear Thor was clutching, hanging upside-down above his younger brother. And Thor himself had been caught by his ankle by an old, one-eyed Aesir standing on the edge of the destroyed bridge now, despite his age his strength more than enough to hold both armour-clad men.
There were no ravens. There was no eight-legged Sleipnir rearing next to him, nor hungry wolves Geki and Freki prowling around his heels. But the way he stood, the absolute power he radiated, the way his golden mantle shone even brighter than the golden Bifrost meant that the Doctor couldn't have mistaken Odin if the he tried.
"Loki!" The Doctor finally gasped, stumbling to a stop beside the All-Father, clapping a hand on his shoulder in a gesture that was as much companionable as a needed support to catch his breath. "I'd introduce myself more formally, but right now I really need to get Loki and me out of here, if you don't mind - mind, hah, that's a good one," the Doctor babbled, but then stilled as he realized none of the three Asgardians seemed to be able to see or hear him.
"…Loki?" he tried, but even Loki was looking right past him, staring up at his silent father, and somehow looking so young and desperate for one moment as he had scarcely ever seemed on Lakvit.
"I could have done it, Father!" Loki cried instead, looking up at Odin imploringly. "I could have done it! For you," he added, voice breaking and oh, the Doctor thought, oh.
And when Odin spoke...
"No, Loki."
...the Doctor thought he could basically see something break behind his Loki's eyes.
The way he basked in your praise. On Asgard you are taught they are monsters. The self-hate, the surprise he showed whenever you had a kind word for him…
The Doctor thought he could recognize the last pieces of a very, very dismal puzzle slide into place. This memory had not been modified so far because it had not needed to be. And now, the expression on Loki's face was so clear, because even while Odin seemed oblivious, now Thor was begging "Loki, no," but he couldn't reach him to stop him from letting go, falling-
The Doctor leapt.
To be continued...
Well, nearing the climax here and I hope you enjoyed that, I always like it when the Doctor gets to show off his mental abilities :) Here's to hoping there's no writing blocks as we're hurtling into the final stretch and if you read, please review! Always love hearing what bits people liked!