Loki had always prided himself on his accuracy.
The cornerstone of his strategies relied on unpredictability. He'd spent years honing his skills, learning different weapons, creating a library of abilities and tactics that were seemingly unrelated and suited to a variety of situations. He'd noticed the tendency of war leaders to favor certain tactics time and time again, poring over old history texts recounting the battle strategies used by famed leaders in wars across Asgard and other realms. One would favor aerial assaults, focusing his armies on flight capabilities that allowed him to reach locations otherwise impossible to navigate to. Another employed attacks in the dark, when the enemy was asleep. Battering forces, seidr battalions, frontal attacks, sniper teams.
An intelligent enough enemy could predict the patterns, guess the type of attack they may be facing if they knew who the director of their forces was. Have an army of archers, looking to the sky; feign sleep while holding their weapons at the ready.
But no one could defend against everything, not truly. Look too much to the sky, and the ground beneath their feet goes neglected. Wait through the night too often, and exhaustion in the day would be the cause of their demise. Divided attention created more openings, because they never knew where to look. What saved them one battle would destroy them the next.
Loki had his preferences, of course. Stealth and magic were his go-to defaults, in part because of their unpredictable nature. But it was hardly his only strength. He knew how to fight with a sword, with a spear, with a bow.
And he knew how to fire a gun and have the bullet land exactly where he intended it to.
Madame Christmas's grip on the gun loosened and it clattered to the ground, but that was the only confirmation Loki had that his shot hadn't missed before he heard a telltale snap and white-hot pain shot up his right hand and arm. Orange and yellow overshadowed his vision. His own gun slipped from his fingers, panic flooding his mind even as he distantly knew it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise. A shout escaped before he could cut it off.
The fire was out as quickly as it had appeared, and the cool air stinging his skin was even worse than the actual burning had been. Loki stumbled back a couple steps, his arm shaking as he tried to force himself to ignore the damage for the time being. Mustang had run to Madame Christmas, but Loki wasn't terribly concerned about either of them right now. She would lose some blood and her hand would likely be unusable for a while (and in a worst-case scenario she'd never fully recover mobility) but a clean shot through the wrist would hardly kill her.
Distracted as he was, he didn't notice the man until he was already right in front of Loki, thrusting a long golden scepter at Loki's chest with an unhinged smile.
It barely broke the skin, the razor tip just resting against his sternum as Loki stared dumbly at it for a second. A bright blue glow radiated from a large gem nestled between its blades.
He could feel tendrils of magic twisting through his body, reaching for his mind. Conflicting emotions overtook him – desperation for magic even if it wasn't his own (it wasn't enough, it couldn't be; the void in his chest reopened like a fresh, gaping wound) and blinding horror as he realized what that stone was and what was about to happen to his mind (twisting, distorting, mutilating his thoughts to bend him to their will).
Nothing happened.
"Who are you?" he demanded, immediately regretting it when he heard the shakiness of his voice. Oh, Hel, he was going to kill Mustang very, very slowly if he ever got the chance. Loki wasn't going to get a damn thing out of his opponent when he sounded so weak. The man's eyebrows knitted together as he looked down at the staff.
"This should have worked by now," he muttered. Loki didn't wait to hear what he'd do next, twisting to the side and sweeping the man's legs out from under him. He clapped his hands together, gritting his teeth at the agonizing sting that caused, before pressing them into the concrete floor and encasing the man in a small dome reminiscent of the earthen one he'd seen when he first landed in Amestris. He didn't want to kill him, not yet; if he could he really wanted to interrogate (read: torture) the man who probably had a lot to do with Madame Christmas's current mental state.
Loki needed to get that scepter away from him, as well. The Stone was right there, mere meters away from Loki, and he'd be damned if he was going to just let it go. Still, he needed a few seconds to regroup. His arm was going numb (and that did not seem like a good sign) and the residual magic dissipating in his body felt like he was losing his seidr all over again. It ached and made his thoughts fuzzy with need.
Satisfied that the dome would hold the man for the moment, Loki staggered back a few steps, snatching his gun off the ground with his undamaged hand, careful not to let his guard down. The adrenaline crash was going to be a nightmare later, and the longer he could keep himself going before then the better.
He could hear scuffling behind him, and he turned just in time to see Mustang clap and slam his hands on the ground, the floor shooting up and sealing Madame Christmas's hands. The steady stream of blood spilling from the hole in her wrist increased as she tugged hard, but the makeshift restraints didn't budge at all.
Hold on a moment – Mustang could perform alchemy without a transmutation circle?
He wasn't going to let that go easily. Now wasn't the time, but they would have words later.
"We need to leave," Loki said after a few moments, once he was sure his voice would remain steady. He had no doubt the man with the Stone had backup. It was shocking they hadn't already appeared, and he wasn't sure what that meant. Nothing good, surely.
If he could get Mustang moving with Madame Christmas, then he'd be free to take the Stone. Mustang would undoubtedly stop Loki if he figured out what was in the scepter, and he didn't relish the idea of a repeat performance of the burns on his arm.
He could undo the hypnosis, return the mind of the Madame.
He could take the Stone back to Truth. He could leave.
Mustang stood up, all military precision and straight, rigid lines as he stared down into blue eyes. Blood was seeping from his hairline and into his eye, the wound it originated from too far up on his head to actually see. Loki gritted his teeth. "Mustang, we need to go. We can take her with us, but only if we leave immediately."
"Don't order me around," Mustang snapped, but he clapped again and some of the concrete receded from Madame Christmas's hands, separating them from the ground. Enough was left to keep them encased and unusable. It didn't stop her from immediately swinging the block at Mustang's face.
Mustang jerked back and out of range, failing to retaliate out of what Loki suspected was too much sentiment and not enough understanding that the woman he knew was gone, replaced by an uncanny copy too similar for comfort but different in all the ways that mattered most. He couldn't recall if the books he'd read had explained how to undo the alterations, not after this many years. He'd only remembered the detail on eye colors because of his fascination over such an arbitrary change and why it would even occur.
Before he could make a move to help Mustang there was a loud boom coming from the dome he'd left that strange man with the scepter in, and pieces of concrete went flying as the entire side of it exploded outwards. The man stepped out, looking disgruntled (or, as Edward would have said, 'pissed off').
His first move was to thrust the staff in Loki's direction, which seemed ridiculous considering it was a short-range weapon and he was at least ten feet away. His first attack suggested it needed to make contact to be useful, anyway.
An energy blast of some sort, strong enough to throw the others in the room a little off balance, shot out the front and struck Loki dead-on.
On second thought, Loki could concede that the move wasn't so ridiculous. It was actually quite effective.
He hit the ground hard, skidding in a completely undignified tumble of (fragile, far too weak, too human) limbs. His head cracked against the ground, and for a few moments everything seemed hazy and distant, spinning uncontrollably.
"We should have a contest," Thor said. He was grinning widely, gap-toothed and flushed, blond hair stuck to his forehead as he gripped the bar of the carousel. "You can use your tricks to make it spin, right?"
Loki shifted nervously because he didn't really want to do this, but he'd look weak if he said no. Sif was here too, after all, and maybe, just maybe she'd be impressed if he did well this time, if he could beat Thor for once in his life without resorting to his tricks.
"All right," Loki said, straightening up to hide his apprehension. He was an Asgardian, a future warrior, not a weakling who cowered from a challenge. "Whoever holds on longer wins, correct?"
"And no magic to cheat," Sif added, glaring at Loki through narrowed eyes, hands on her hips as she tilted her head in obvious suspicion. Thor laughed and clapped Loki roughly on the shoulder.
"He wouldn't cheat," he said, such conviction in his voice that Loki wanted to crawl into a hole and wallow in guilt. Because he would cheat, if it meant they'd look at him with even a little of the respect everyone had for Thor. He wouldn't hesitate to.
He murmured the incantation, not yet skilled enough to do it nonverbally, and he didn't cheat.
The spell worked beautifully, crafted just right to slowly increase the speed of the spin until one of them let go. Thor won, of course. He always won. Loki's palms were bleeding where the skin had torn, and his arm hurt terribly where he'd landed awkwardly on it. Nausea overwhelmed him almost as soon as he'd fallen off and he retched, throwing up the little he'd eaten for lunch. He could barely think, his head was spinning so badly. The bile burned his esophagus, but he's pretty sure the lump in his throat was because Thor and Sif were laughing at him.
In a detached way, like he wasn't truly there, Loki could hear the sound of fighting – the snap of fingers and subsequent roar of flames, blasts of air and crackling of some sort of energy, and gunshots. It was a small mercy they'd apparently decided to ignore him for the time being. Maybe they thought he was dead. He didn't feel very alive.
Hands were suddenly grabbing at him and he instinctively lashed out, reaching for the magic he no longer had lying dormant in his fingertips. All it did was remind him of the gaping hole where his seidr used to be, and elicit a sharp curse from his supposed attacker.
"Fuck, you're stronger than you look, even half dead," a familiar voice (Edward?) grouched, arms hooking under Loki's armpits as he started dragging him across the floor. Loki forced his eyes open, staring blankly at the golden hair almost hitting his face before he finally caught up to what exactly Edward was attempting to do.
"Unhand me at once," he growled, except it came mostly unintelligible and more like a groan than anything intimidating. A whole new wave of loathing surged up as he started trying to take stock of his current state. It had taken so little to incapacitate him, even less than he would have expected of his human body.
"Just shut up," Edward said, but without much heat. He seemed distracted and considering the amount of gunshots, yelling and surges of wind and light Loki had a pretty good guess as to why. There were a lot of new voices in the fray.
Why wasn't Edward joining them? From the little he'd pieced together, it was obvious Edward was an extremely skilled alchemist especially in combat use, yet here he was dragging Loki out of the warehouse and to the side like a pawn rather than in the fray like Loki would have expected.
He was too out of it to explore the question much more. He couldn't even work up the normal amount of self-righteous fury at being manhandled in such an undignified manner. They were out of the warehouse before he regained even a trace of control over his limbs. It didn't stop him from shoving Edward away the moment he had enough strength to do so, forcing himself to his feet and ignoring the way his head spun at the movement. Edward scoffed but didn't fight him on it.
"Get out of here for now," Edward said. "Fuery can take you to a hospital."
"I'm fine," Loki snapped. Edward, not surprisingly but still annoyingly, didn't believe him.
"You idiot," Edward hissed. "You're not fine. Your arm looks half-baked, there's blood all over your face and there's a fucking bullet hole in your fucking side. I don't have time to play games with you, so get the fuck out of here right fucking now before I kill you myself."
Loki was pretty sure he would have remembered getting shot. That wasn't something easy to miss, but a quick glance down made him change his mind on arguing that point. It was doubtful it had hit anything important or would even need much more than a couple stitches, but it was still bleeding. His injuries were mere scratches compared to the type he normally sustained in battle, yet he felt like he'd been repeatedly bludgeoned over the head by Mjölnir and then thrown off a building.
"You have no right to speak to me in such a manner," Loki said, and to his pleasure it came out sounding a lot steadier than he was feeling.
"I changed my mind, you're even stupider than an idiot." Edward motioned wildly for someone nearby – Fuery, Loki's mind supplied after a moment – to come over, and the young spectacled man came running over and gaped at Loki.
"Oh my god. Are you okay?" Fuery said, not giving Loki a chance to respond before he turned to Edward and repeated, "Is he okay?"
"Yes," Loki said.
"No," Edward said. He glared at Loki (who was halfway to passing out again, though he was hardly going to admit so), and Loki glared right back.
Edward groaned. "Fucking hell. At least sit down, you're losing even more blood like this."
"I'm fine," Loki growled.
Before Edward could respond, the noise from the warehouse abruptly cut off. Edward immediately took off running and Loki sat down heavily, the lightheadedness keeping him from even thinking of following. A couple more shots rang out, followed by yelling Loki didn't have the energy to parse, and he passed out before he hit the ground.