As they kept being forced upwards by the hordes, Thor covered their six, as the humans would say, leading the charge up the stairs.

"Come on, Princess Peach!" he heard Bella yell. He knew that it was directed at Loki, Bella was full of princess puns when it came to him. There was a sickening splat, and a gargantuan blue figure seemed to leap down from the top of the stairwell. However, it was already dead, a massive whole in its head.

Bella stood in the stairwell, breathing heavily, surrounded by corpses of giants, breathing heavily with an empty shotgun in her left hand that she had been using as a club. The artificial skin on her right arm was torn right up to her shoulder, showing the shiny titanium and tungsten carbide alloy underneath. Her Kevlar body armor was completely trashed, and her hair was a mess.

"Did you see what I just saw?"

"Depends . . . What did you see?"

"The midnight monster mash between the Giant Purple People Eater and everybody's favorite would-be dictator."

"Yes." Thor said simply.

She wiped the sweat off her face with a grotty sleeve and caught her breath, "Now- the roof-. Let's go."

Loki stared Utgarda down, trying to look imposing, but knowing he wasn't very imposing when shielding a young child from attack, "why?" he asked simply.

"To create a universe where sorcerers are not shunned, where it is the normals that are shunned," he narrowed his eyes back at Loki, "They find sport in killing those such as you and I, for thousands of years, we have been living in fear from those who claim to protect us."

"Stuff equality," Loki sneered, "instead of taking revenge on those who shunned you in this universe, you choose to make a universe and enact your revenge on innocents? And I thought I was mad," he sighed, "it is not worth killing over. It has already happened, and nothing will change that."

"I can change that, Loki, and I will," Utgarda said grandly, "Kneel before me, and the little girl will be spared, and you may join my army."

Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? The unspoken truth of humanity, you crave subjugation. You were made to be ruled.

Loki sneered, "That sounds like ransom," he stood his ground, "I kneel to no man." And then he was something out of the corner of his eye, a flash of red cape, and he crossed his fingers together to form an X, the message was simple 'I have another idea', "I'll make you a deal. This world, Asgard, my family. You can take the rest."

Utgardaloki looked at him for a moment, wondering the sudden flip, but then he smiled, "deal," Loki faced him and got down on his knees, "you do this for your father, who betrayed you in the worst possible way. You are a fool, Loki."

"Odin wasn't much of a father, but he did teach me one of the most important lessons I have ever learned," he rolled a handful of objects across the ground at Utgarda as he approached, marbles. The mighty sorcerer tripped and fell as Loki moved out of the way, fast, and within moments was back on his feet.

"When outmatched, cheat."

As Thor and the others burst out onto the roof and began to attack Utgardaloki's personal bodyguards, the two sorcerers faced each other. Utgarda held out his hand, and a sword of ice fabricated in his hand. Loki's eyes widened slightly.

"I will gut the little girl and make you watch."

And that's when he got angry, and he could feel his hand getting cold, then freezing, and as Utgarda raised his own sword, ready to splatter him, he raised his arm up, shielding his face.

Clang!

That arm way a strange bluish grey, with a gauntlet of ice running up the forearm, and ending in several jagged points. He concentrated a little and his other hand came up the same. Loki grinned, "oh, yeah."