Rise of the Champions - Chapter Thirty-Four

Author: Milady Dragon


"If you would just be patient," Catherine Hale soothed, "there's a plan in place that will bring the Dark One to us, with very little fuss."

Loki did not wish to be patient. Loki wished to play.

He never could recall being quite this vindictive as a child, although he'd always been quite the trickster; however, that had been before he had known the truth of his parentage. Also before he'd been declared officially mad by the man who'd hidden that truth from him.

He crossed his arms over his chest, staring down the woman, feeling his magic rise in response to his irritation. "I believe I have been patient," he said slowly, as if speaking to an imbecile…which he considered her one and felt no need to disguise that fact, although he had learned a long time ago that he would be able to get what he wished with a silver tongue than with a sharp one. It was simply that he'd lost what little patience he usually had. "You have made certain promises to me, Mistress, and none of those promises have been kept. I would be perfectly within my right to feel irritated at this lack of progress in this regard."

Last night he had thought to wait, but with the light of a new day painting the mountains around them, Loki had decided that confrontation was an option he was willing to accept, his patience vanishing with the sun.

Ever had his emotions been quick to change. It was both a fault and a strength, as it made him unpredictable to both loved ones and enemies alike.

The loved ones had become enemies, though, so perhaps it was more of a strength now.

"We can get him to come to us willingly," Mistress Jiaying added, lounging back in her seat as if she had no care in the world.

Perhaps she did not. Loki was of the opinion that she was an odd combination of mother figure and psychopath.

They were in Jiaying's small abode in the village. The home had been set above all the others, on a rise that would give her an unimpeded view of the buildings below, as if she was a benevolent Goddess overlooking her domain. The house itself was a humble dwelling, with three rooms and comfortable furniture that reflected the woman's Eastern Empire heritage.

Mistress Jiaying herself would have been a striking woman, if it was not for the scars that crisscrossed her face and body.

Loki had no wish to know what had caused such scarring. He was an extremely curious soul, but even he had a limit on what information he was willing to seek out.

"Or," he reposted, "I can go to him, challenge him, and then crush him."

Hale rolled her eyes. "The Dark One is the most powerful Void in the world. I very much doubt you'd do much crushing if you faced him in a head to head duel."

Every single word they spoke of the Dark One, the more Loki became intrigued.

He knew for a fact that he had killed the man. One does not simply survive the wound that Loki had dealt. And yet, Hale had insisted that he had, that he was, in truth, a form of Deathless. That notion was one that Loki wanted to test, and they were standing in the way of that.

And now, the Dark One was being touted as the most powerful Void ever to have presented with the magic. He found himself wishing to test that notion, as he found it incomprehensible that someone like that would have been granted such power.

Loki would not, however, mention that his magic had been…reluctant, at times, to come to him ever since their battle. It was another reason to destroy the man he'd long thought killed.

Even back then, the Dark One had been strong. Loki would never have been able to win against him if the duel had been fair. However, he did not fight fair. There was no need to. Loki had won by stealth and illusion, but he had won. It was just that his conquered foe had not stayed dead, if what the Hale woman claimed was true.

"The Dark One has a daughter," Hale added. "If we threaten her, we can get him to do anything for us."

Loki raised a single eyebrow. Now, that was an interesting development.

The Wizard knew that he could have most likely gone and located the Dark One himself, if Hale and Jiaying had not been withholding information. For example, the Dark One's true name, as it was more likely than not that he had not been given that moniker when he'd been a babe in arms. He was aware that they were attempting to keep him under their control, which was something that Loki simply could not abide. No one controlled Loki of Asgard.

"Perhaps there is other information you would wish to share with me about my foe?" he asked waspishly.

Jiaying's dark eyes snapped with power. Loki could sense that odd sort of Deep Ways that she carried about with her coiling within her, as if it was going to attack him. He simply stood there, not afraid of her, a small, sharp smirk now decorating his features.

"She is not his daughter," she snapped angrily. "She is mine."

Ah. Now, that certainly explained the woman's involvement in all this.

"She was stolen from me," Jiaying continued. Her long, black hair began to move as if a wind was blowing through the house. "And I want her back."

It was no wind. It was her magic, uncontrolled and volatile. Loki wondered vaguely if she had ever had any formal training. He could not deny that Jiaying was very powerful, one of the more powerful Cardinals he had yet to meet, and yet it seemed as if she had not had any sort of lessons regarding her magic. Loki suspected that it was for the same reason she had created this sanctuary for lost and exploited children…she had once been one of those sorts of children. Mayhap the scarring had had something to do with her apparent abandonment at the hands of the parents who should have loved her.

Judging from the taste of her magic, it seemed like a valid deduction, if she had been repudiated for how twisted it had become.

Loki could instantly see why Hydra had its proverbial talons hooked into Mistress Jiaying. They had tempted her with her daughter, and the woman had instantly fallen into that trap. He very much doubted that Hydra had this child's best interests at heart, only using the knowledge of her to manipulate Jiaying into agreeing to their plans.

"That man has my daughter, and she doesn't even know who her parents really are." Jiaying was beginning to rant, her uncontrolled magic reacting to her heightened emotions.

Loki stood back and watched, entertained and yet not showing it, but also wanting to take the measure of this woman, in case he would need to face her in battle at some point. She had not let her magicks free in his presence before, and he was intrigued.

"Why do you not simply go and fetch her?" He was also not above stirring the stew pot in order to see what floated to the surface. And for his own enjoyment, of course.

"Because she knows she can't challenge the Dark One." Hale looked smug.

Jiaying spun on her angrily. "I don't have to challenge him! All my child needs to know is that I'm looking for her, and she'll come to me of her own free will."

"You are delusional," Hale snorted. "She doesn't even know who you are. Do you honestly think she'd give up the home she's had for years simply because someone comes forward and claims to be her birth mother? She could very well hate you for what she sees as being abandoned."

"I did not abandon her!" Jiaying shouted. "She was stolen away from me by her bastard of a father! Until Hydra came to find me, I'd believed that Cal still had her! I searched for her, and was never able to find her, and now you know where she is and won't tell me!"

Magic like a maelstrom was twisting and seething through the living room, sending lamps flying off their tables and even knocking over one of the overstuffed chairs. Loki took a single step back, more to avoid being struck by debris than out of any real fear of the woman losing her grasp of what little control she'd had. Inwardly, he was pleased that she was so easily enraged, as it would make her an easier foe to defeat if and when the time came to do so.

Hale stood at the center of the storm, her hair whipping about her face and tearing at her clothes, and yet she did not move. Loki did not know if that was sheer bravado or that she honestly believed that she could withstand the mad woman's outburst, but he was grudgingly impressed.

"Calm yourself," Hale ordered. "I didn't say that you abandoned her. I said that it might seem that way to her. You can't go rushing in like some sort of mad bull and expect her to react well to it. He's the only family she's known, and you have to take that into consideration once we have her here. You'll need to use your words, Jiaying, and not the blunt force of your magic to get what you want."

Hale had some very valid points. Jiaying must have believed so, as well, as she gradually began to assert some sort of half-control over her rampaging magic.

In that moment, Loki truly understood Hale's plan.

She was going to use the Dark One's own daughter to get him to come to them, which made some sort of sense if he did truly care for her. She was also using that daughter to control Jiaying, to get the woman to do whatever Hale wanted, and it was working.

He was unsure whether he approved of that or not, to be honest.

He, too, had been stolen from his own family. He knew what that felt like. And this daughter of Jiaying only knew the Dark One as her father, it sounded like. How would she respond to knowing where she'd truly come from? Would she react in anger, or would it be as Jiaying so foolishly believed, that the girl would run into her mother's arms without reservation?

He supposed it would depend on what sort of parent the Dark One had been to the child.

Odin had not been the best of fathers, favoring Thor over Loki himself. There was no love lost between them. From what Hale had intimated, that had not been the case with Jiaying's stolen daughter. She had grown up with someone she considered her father, and breaking that bond could be beyond Jiaying's power. Loki had to agree with Hale that Jiaying was delusional in thinking she could simply snap her fingers and her long-lost daughter come running into her arms.

The magic was calming. Jiaying was struggling though to rein it back in, and it was taking longer than it should. Loki observed her fighting to bring the magic back within herself, when it would have been easier for her to simply cut the power off at its source and letting what she had already expended fade away. It had been a lesson that Frigga had taught to him, when his own temper would get the better of him.

Frigga might not have been his mother, but at least she had cared.

He couldn't see Jiaying caring much beyond claiming the child that she had once borne. Loki doubted there was a single maternal bone in her body.

Then he had to pull that assumption back. He had seen what she'd done with the children in the valley. She had gone out and found them all, when their own parents had either been lost or abandoned them simply because they would grow up to be Wizards. He had wondered what her motivation was in doing such a thing, and he had just discovered what that was. She was compensating for the loss of her own child.

And yet, as caring as she seemed, it was obvious that Jiaying did not exactly know what to do as a mother. It was apparent that she cared about her charges, and yet she was not overly motherly in many regards. She had no experience at it, in Loki's opinion, and she had not bothered to learn much beyond giving children shelter and to make certain they had roofs over their heads and a decent education. He had yet to see her hug any of the children under her care, or show them any sort of affection.

At least Frigga had done that with him.

Jiaying was, to his mind, much like the leader of a cult, indoctrinating her followers to her way of thinking. How would these children react once they were out in the world beyond this place?

Well, Loki supposed, it was truly none of his concern. He was there for one reason only: to find the Dark One and see if he truly was as Deathless as Hale had claimed.

"And how do you intend on getting this daughter of the Dark One here?" he inquired once Jiaying had settled down enough that her magic was not threatening violence.

Hale smiled. "Don't worry, I have that well in hand."

Jiaying shot her such a look of anger and hatred that had Loki stepping back for the first time since this confrontation began. He was willing to wager that Hale had done something that Jiaying had not approved of, which meant…

Oh, of course.

It meant that Hale had fallen to using one of the children from the valley in her schemes.

How interesting.

Loki decided that he would stand back and watch the results.

And, if it netted him the Dark One, then he would call the plan a success.

Still, there was a niggling doubt at the back of his mind, that was telling him that using someone the Dark One apparently cared for was a very bad idea indeed.