Not fair.
That's not fair, Morgan wanted to scream.
"Vivian, that's not fair! You cheated!"
Exactly. Soul Stone, that's not fair. You cheated.
"The snakes seem to have lost their tongue." Thanos grinned, bringing her back to the present moment.
Morgan could not describe what followed.
Pain. Just pain. That was it. Pain was all that existed and would ever exist.
It took her long seconds to realize what had happened. She was lying on the ground, gasping for air, after a colossal shockwave, most probably from the Power Stone, had propelled her away from Thanos.
"She is still conscious... Can you see me?"
Familiar voice but she had forgotten the name of its owner, the commander of the space cops, with curly hair. Morgan could not hear clearly. Let's not even think about talking. Every breath she was taking was beyond the meaning of excruciating. She had landed on her back, and prayed for not having a broken spine.
Loki, where was Loki?
"Whaaaat the heck?!"
Rocket's voice. Morgan struggled to get up, but only managed to lean on her elbows, still far from having recovered a normal breath. Rocket and Rhomann Dey -that was the name- were standing next to her, but their gazes were focused on someone else, further away.
Suddenly, a terrible scream made her realize what had become of Loki.
When she raised her head towards Thanos, Morgan saw him directing the Gauntlet towards the ground. No, towards Loki. The Power Stone shone again. And he screamed.
Morgan would never have imagined to hear such a cry of pain. She had seen him lost, desperate, enraged, but she had never seen him agonizing.
Because that was the sound of pure agony. Loki was wriggling on the ground, unable to escape the purple energy which was wrapped around his body like a net. Morgan could feel his panic, unable to escape this cloud of pure pain.
"S-stop... L-l-leave h-him..." She stammered, still focusing on her staggering limbs in order to face the Titan once again.
They were going to die. It was a certainty, now. And it was going to be an extremely painful death.
I am sorry, Som. I did the best I could.
Next to her, a groan of pain indicated that Nebula had undergone the same treatment than her. Nebula, had she not hesitated, they could have...
No. No point to think about it, now.
"What is this?! Stop your mind trick!" Thor shouted.
Him and Stark were the ones standing the closest to Thanos. The Titan stopped using the Power Stone to glance at them, and a scornful grin appeared on his face.
Gone was the serenity he displayed when he appeared. The only thing Morgan and Loki had managed to do was to piss him off.
Well done.
"A mind trick, Asgardian? How can you be so sure of that? Doesn't it look real to you?"
At his feet, Loki was not moving. Morgan saw that his green and black battle outfit was torn at many places, revealing burnt skin, as if the Power Stone's energy was eating him alive. Tears of dread and helplessness filled her eyes.
This was NOT FAIR. He had suffered enough.
But nothing was fair in a war. No one suffered too much.
"How... How dare you make use of my brother's memory?!" Thor exclaimed again, choking with anguish.
"That's enough, mind trick or not, you better not carry on this sick show." Stark intervened.
The inventor was standing up, one of his shining blasters directed right at the Titan's face. Who started to snicker, which was everything but good news. He grabbed Loki by the collar and lifted him from the ground, to hold him right in front of Iron Man.
"You are right, Stark. Destroy this illusion."
The picture was gut-wrenching. Slowly but surely, Morgan could witness Thor's realization, soon followed by panic. Loki was barely conscious. His eyes were half-closed, and a thin trickle of blood was running from his lips. Stark was not moving.
"I am waiting." Thanos continued "Why don't you fire? In the worst case, you would only kill the one who tried to murder you and to enslave your people, years ago."
"Who's that?" Steve Rogers exclaimed, carefully standing up "Loki?... How did..."
His gaze was alternating between Morgan and Loki, still maintained by the Titan, who seemed to more than enjoy the situation.
"All of who are wondering what is going on, I see." He observed "I can shed some light on the situation. This..." He brandished Loki in front of them "...pathetic imitation of a god faked his death once again. Which, I have to admit, was quite convincing. Seems to be the only thing he manages to be good at."
Morgan clenched her teeth. No, that was not what happened. A lie. Nothing but a lie.
"Then, he stumbled upon this..." He pointed Morgan "...hollow shell, forged by the Soul Stone. Together, they tricked you, they lied to every single one of you, just to have a chance to reach me. And they failed."
Morgan suddenly felt the incredulous look of all the people around at her.
"But at least, your brother went for the head." Thanos smirked, turning back to Thor "So, logically, I might as well crush his."
He put his other hand on Loki's skull, and Morgan's breath stopped. She visualized what was about to come. He was going to tear Loki's head apart from his body, only with his brute force, to make sure that the task was done, for good.
"I said... LEAVE HIM!"
She genuinely did not know how she had mustered the strength to stand up and to shout her rage at the Titan. However, she knew that she targeted him with the greatest mental shockwave she had ever triggered.
The pain came, naturally. Her head, all her body hurt, and she could not care less. It did not matter. At the moment, only Loki mattered.
Not expecting such an attack, Thanos had flinched under Morgan's intervention. He had taken a step backward, had dropped Loki, immobile on the ground, and was now looking at her with a very serious and threatening expression.
"Do not expect me to show you mercy." He announced.
"I don't expect anything from you." She hissed.
Her psychic attack had not produced any perceptible sound, nor visible shockwave, yet everyone had seen the Titan reacting to her sudden exclamation. Morgan winced under the pain. Her back still hurt like hell and her brain seemed made of lava. She felt a bit of warm blood running from her nose, sign of a too brutal and intense use of her powers. Added to her still hoarse breath and her now golden eyes, it was probably not giving a very reassuring picture to the people next to her.
"Who are you, exactly?" Rhomann Dey asked, his hand prudently resting on the trigger of his machine-gun.
"Get down!" Rocket suddenly shouted.
The Guardian pushed them both away from the purple deflagration that pulverised the ground on which they were previously standing. Morgan fell on her stomach and gave a dazed look at the racoon, who unlocked the lock screen of his weapon.
"If you wanna fight, you've got to pay attention to whom you're fighting, 'kay?" He angrily added, before firing at Thanos once again.
The Titan protected his head from the burst with his arm, which left a perfect opening for a shield to be thrown at his chin. Thanos gave an even more enraged glance at Rogers, whom Morgan silently thanked for creating a distraction. She got back on her feet, managed not to stumble once again, then ran towards the motionless body a few feet away.
She knew he was not dead. But this was not necessarily good news.
Loki coughed, once, twice, and lost his breath right after he thought that he had found it again. He still did not know if he could move, or if he would ever be able to.
He was trembling in pain and fear. There was no word strong enough to describe how unconceivable the torment caused by the Power Stone was. He felt like his entire body, flesh, bones and organs, had been torn apart.
Progressively, he realized that he was laying on the ground. The Titan was not torturing him anymore. The noises of the battle were becoming clearer.
They were going to lose. It was absolutely certain. As long as he had the Soul Stone with him, Thanos could not die.
"We might die. Painfully. Excruciatingly. And we might not save anyone."
We might die.
We might.
We.
Who was the we, already?
"Loki!"
He weakly opened his eyes. Morgan. She was here, right above him, clenching his arm.
"I want to say an inspiring comment, but nothing crossed my mind." She confessed.
Morgan was shaken by a nervous laughter. Loki thought that it really was a shame not to be able to spend the rest of his life with her. Well, technically, he was going to spend the rest of his life with her, it was just that the latter rest was going to be fiendishly terse.
I am sorry, brother. I truly thought I had a chance.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bright red light. Thanos had used the Reality Stone against the Soldier and Stark. Both had fallen on their knees, and their frantic gestures indicated that they were gasping for air. The Stone must had done something like suppressing every oxygen particle around its wielder. Loki suddenly realized the crucial flaw of quantum energy. Rogers' shield and Stark's blasters could only repel the Stones' energy when it was exclusively directed towards them. Not towards the ground, nor towards the air, not even towards everyone at the same time. Yet, Thanos stopped using the Stone before they could suffocate. The two men remained on the ground, panting.
"You want to die in a glorious battle." Thanos observed "But you were chosen. The Gauntlet did not take your life. I have no wish to take it either. Except... for those two."
He had turned his head to Morgan and him.
Not that much of a surprise. Loki often had this effect on people.
The Power Stone started to shine. Morgan was looking at him. He felt less afraid.
"We're dead." She smiled.
But he did not feel any pain. Strange. What he actually felt was a much stronger grip on his arms, then the sensation of his feet leaving the ground.
"Maybe not." Morgan added, shortly after.
Thor.
He had protected them from the Power Stone, landing at a fair distance from Thanos.
"Brother..." He painfully articulated "He... He lied... I did not... Fake my death... I did not..."
He was interrupted by Thor's gentle but firm hand on his shoulder.
"No time for us to talk about this."
He immediately swung his axe and came back to face the Titan.
What?
WHAT?!
"Are you kidding me..." Another voice added, which ironically summed up perfectly his state of mind.
Valkyrie's face appeared in his field of vision, as he tried to get up. Her face was a blend of I cannot believe it, with after all this is Loki, and possibly a little bit of I have to admit that was stylish. But Valkyrie was the last of Loki's concerns at the moment.
It was undeniably true that they had not time to talk about this. But Thor's look was...
Thor's look was exactly the one he had when he talked to him on the Asgardian ship. Resigned. Loki could translate it word for word;
"So, you were not dead, and this is what you chose. You chose to hide, and to spy, and to lie. I am still not sure if all of this is real, anyway."
NOTHING HAD CHANGED?!
Brother, sometimes I am a fool, but sometimes you are too.
At least, this intense frustration gave Loki enough energy to stand up. His wounds were slowly but surely healing. He was not done. He was definitely not done.
Although Valkyrie's punch in the face was all it took to knock him down again.
"Seriously?!" Morgan protested.
"You're alive!" The warrior exclaimed, both shocked and exasperated.
Loki groaned, rubbing his cheek. Her reaction made sense, however, if every single person around him wanted to take a similar test to reach this conclusion, it was clearly not going to be possible. But Valkyrie had immediately turned to Morgan, who was getting back on her feet.
"Hey, what's that strange thing you did to Thanos, earlier? That was you, right? Can't you do it again, like, now?"
Morgan did not have the time to reply, as Valkyrie suddenly dropped her sword, to hold her head with both of her hands, screaming out of pain. She fell on her knees, trying to refrain her whimpers.
Several other shouts had resounded around them. Loki turned around to see everyone brought back to the ground, wincing with pain, but without any visible wound. Only Thanos was standing up, with the Soul Stone glowing again.
"Immunity to the Stone's power..." The Titan observed "Traitors and cowards like you two do not deserve the world I made..."
Only Morgan and Loki were standing. The others were still conscious but the mental shockwave created by the Titan continued to torment them. Loki seized his dagger.
"You are going to lose." The god of Mischief provoked.
"What makes you so sure of that, small god?" Thanos grinned.
"You cannot even think about losing. Also, this one hits pretty hard."
He had barely finished his sentence that Stark fired all of his blasters, making their opponent disappear under a splendid explosion. The Asgardian did not know how this human managed to overcome the Soul Stone's influence but the fact was, he was really glad to be on his side. Kind of.
"Half of the Universe disappears and this bastard makes it alive..."
And now, Barton. Brilliant.
The archer was right behind him, struggling to get up, along with the Ant and Banner. Each of them displayed a unique stage of bewilderment, from the scientist's you're alive and that's good, I guess, to Lang's I'm sure I should know this guy. Barton's one was quite close to I would feel better if I could shoot an arrow at your foot, just to be sure.
Maybe defeating Thanos was actually not going to be the hardest part.
"This is what you chose, then. I suppose you will never admit your defeat."
Their enemy had emerged from behind the cloud of smoke. The right side of his face was slightly burnt. But the most worrying part was that the Soul Stone was still shining. What was he up to?
Stark landed right in front of him, putting himself between Thanos and everyone else, and took off his helmet.
"You've already defeated us." He bitterly declared "You won! You've got what you wanted! And what I chose is to make you pay."
The Midgardian's voice was cold. He was a completely different person than the one Loki had seen, years ago. No beyond irritating self-confidence, not even any sarcastic remark. He had nothing to lose, and he was dashing head-on to the unknown, which did not necessarily mean death, rather fear. Stark had no more hope, but no more fear either, and Thanos respected him for that.
"I have paid a price as well, Stark." Thanos solemnly replied "You cannot undo what I have done, and yet you will not give up. The least I can do is to grant you your wish. I will not let you leave..."
The Soul Stone became even brighter.
"...but I will let you live."
As soon as he ended his sentence, rays of blazing orange light sprung up from the Stone, and rushed towards every single person around the Titan. Loki instinctively protected his head with his arm, but quickly realized that neither Morgan nor himself was targeted by these odd... hands?
Surely, they looked like hands. Long, thin hands hatching out of the Stone, aiming for everyone's eyes. Next to him, Valkyrie tried to repel this unsettling glimmer, but the latter seemed to look for something inside her head, as if it had a mind of its own. Immediately after the light had touched the warrior's eyes, she stumbled on the ground, unconscious.
Everything had happened in a handful of seconds. For some others, it took a little longer. When Loki turned around, he noticed that Lang and Barton had already passed out, whereas Banner, eyes shut, was weakly trying to escape the shining orange hand. Further away, Thanos was not moving, focused on the Gauntlet. The Soul Stone was almost blinding.
Everyone was falling. Loki suddenly spotted Thor. He had dropped Storm-breaker and had closed his eyes as firmly as he could. The hand attacking him strangely reminded Loki of a parasite wanting to eat him alive. He rushed towards his brother.
"Thor! Brother, you stay here!"
Maybe it could be different. Maybe he could help Thor resisting the Soul Stone's power.
The god of Thunder was the last one left, now. Loki stepped across Rogers' inert body, then stubbornly clasped his older brother's neck. Ironically, he had always hated it when Thor did this gesture to him. Now, he would give everything for this to keep happening.
They were surrounded by orange light. Loki did not feel anything, but Thor was obviously suffering. He was only half-conscious. The god of Mischief looked at Thanos, a few feet away, who was directing the Gauntlet right at them, using the Soul Stone at its full power.
"Go away!" Loki shouted, both at the Titan and the light itself, vainly brandishing his dagger.
"You are pitiful." Thanos sighed "You may not be seen by the Stone, but you cannot counter it."
"SHUT UP!"
It was not Loki's scream, but Morgan's. Kneeled with his brother in his arms, the Asgardian could only see her back, as she was facing Thanos, her arms outstretched in front of her, as a barrier between the gods and the light. And it seemed to work. She was tiny, insignificant, compared to the Mad Titan, and yet the gleaming orange hand was slowly coming back towards the Gauntlet, which surely did not please its wielder.
"You are not the Soul Stone's master." Thanos asserted "You are too frightened, little adder!"
He clenched his fist even tighter, and the ray went back towards Thor, who could only wince in pain. His resistance was fading.
"Loki..." The god of Thunder whispered "Brother... You are here."
Of course, I am here, and so are you, so stay with me, Loki wanted to reply. But before he could pronounce anything, the light went for his brother's eyes.
"Thor!" Loki called "THOR!"
Useless. The god of Thunder was not answering. Only the small movements of his chest indicated that he was not dead. But the consequence was the same; one of them was lost. Again.
Again.
The word was repeating on a loop in Loki's mind. He had dropped Thor's shoulders but could not take his eyes off him. They were filled by tears of rage. He had failed. Failed, failed, failed, again, again, again.
"Loki... I am sorry." Morgan suddenly said.
Loki slowly rose his head to look at her. Her eyes were almost white. Blood was running from her nose. She looked like a ghost. Everyone around had been knocked down. Yet, rays of orange light were still circling around Morgan, as if they hesitated to approach her. She was considering them in a mix of wariness and... curiosity. Even more bizarre, Thanos also seemed surprised, as if he did not expect the Soul Stone to keep on glowing.
"I have to see." Morgan whispered, more to herself than to Thanos or to Loki.
"You have nothing to see." Thanos mocked.
She ignored him. Loki had gotten up and was looking at her with growing apprehension. Suddenly, she extended her left hand towards the Soul Stone's aura, and stretched her right hand towards Loki. He first thought that she wanted him to grab it, but she made an awkward gesture, similar to a wave to say...
"See you!"
Not now. Not like this.
Not her.
But the light went for her eyes as well. Loki caught her in his arms before she hit the ground. Only then did he realize that he was trembling.
The Avengers.
Thor, Odinson, the king of Asgard, the god of Thunder.
Morgan, Dumas, the Adder, the Fay, the Morrigan, the Sea-Born, the Goddess of Names.
He was Loki. He was Loki, who had failed again. Failed to avenge the Universe, failed to help Thor, failed to protect Morgan. God of Failures. That was who he was.
He was on his knees, in front of his brother's body, with Morgan in his arms. He was too desperate to shed any tear.
No Stone was glowing on the Gauntlet. Thanos was standing in front of him, with a look of utter disgust on his face.
"It is over. Run, small god, while I still allow it. Shut yourself away in a remote corner of this universe. Live the miserable life you always cling to."
Words would not come. He could not speak. He had lost. He had lost everything.
And he was nothing.
"What is your name, my son?"
He started with surprise. This voice...
Where was he?
Gone was Thanos, gone was Thor, gone was Morgan, gone were the Avengers and the Scarecrow Planet. He knew this place...
"Indeed, I have rarely seen so many shining stars at the same time." She tranquilly continued.
Loki stood up. He was in the Australian desert, at the very same location where he had emerged from Whatever-its-name. And...
"Mother?"
"You have grown, but you still need to answer a question when you are asked one." Frigga chuckled.
"This is... not important." He painfully articulated.
His throat hurt. Badly.
"Is it?" She questioned "Would it mean that you are not important?"
"What if it is the case?" He bitterly replied "After all, what good have I ever done?"
Frigga came closer to him. She was the same as the last time he had seen her, before she...
"All I do is failing and destroying." He muttered "Even you..."
The moment still haunted him. Rage and humiliation burning in his chest, a few careless words haughtily said to the intruder, then the silence, and then some other words, of completely different nature, revealing what had actually happened...
"Your life is complicated." Frigga smiled, without an ounce of reproach "Full of the most terrible and beautiful deeds. You have failed and destroyed, the same way you have won and saved. Despite of that, and because of that, I am proud of you. You should be proud too."
"Don't go. Please, do not leave me." He begged, as she slowly began to turn around.
"I never left you, my son. I never will. By the way... She has a strange way of saying goodbye, hasn't she?"
Wind on his face. Thor in front of him. Morgan in his arms. Thanos walking away.
A strange way of saying goodbye?
"See you!"
An awkward gesture. Right hand moving forward, two fingers slightly bent.
"We can use it as a code. To prove that we are still ourselves."
He remembered. Sign language. Snake.
Morgan would come back. She had a plan.
He rose up. Alright, let's do that. Time to cheat. Time to trick. Time to fight.
Time to be Loki, the god of Mischief.
Hi everyone! Happy new year!
I tell you right away, I can't keep the weekly update anymore, I wrote a lot last week but still. To be fair, it's getting (and going to get) faster and faster, so hard to manage. By the way, you might begin to think that Thanos becomes a little out of character, but that's the point. He is getting really, really pissed off.
To answer SeaOfSoy, yep, someone can do everything and explain with "it's magic" or "it's quantic". For example, as you told me a while ago, if Loki turns into animals, and thus takes their ability (flying as a bird for example), when he is Taipan-Loki... He should be deaf. But no. 'cause "it's magic". Also, since he can't even imagine how it is to be deaf, I don't think it would even be possible. Likewise, I have absolutely no idea about where quantum computers could lead us, but it's definitely not crafting a shield and blasters. So, let me write my crazy shit ^^ And thank you so much for all your compliments! I hope I keep up well so far.
Again, have a great year, and thank you for reading my story! (and if you haven't found a resolution yet, you can leave a review for the first time. Just suggesting.)