I know I haven't posted in ages, but I swear I am still working on this story. I have had this chapter in the works since January, but I haven't had the will to polish it up enough to post (go figure). It's a transitional chapter, full of narrative and not much else. I find these the least fun to work on, but they are quite necessary. That having been said, there are more interesting things ahead in the near future.
I hope everyone out there is safe and healthy.
Enjoy!
~~Chapter 4~~
A Little Farther Into Time and Pain
The inside of Mephisto's ship was about as Thor had anticipated. He only knew the demon by name and reputation, but one could spend mere moments in his presence and know that this interior suited him perfectly. The fabrics were lush, the surfaces smooth and polished, and the lighting just faint enough that anyone would look enigmatic in its glow. Still, it would be a far better journey than the one that had brought Thor into Sakaar, and he was even slightly less suspicious that he would be robbed by one of his fellow travellers this time. However, just to be sure, he gave Angmo another acerbic glare from across the room.
The Sakaaran did not acknowledge Thor's attempts at animosity; rather, he continued to keep his solemn vigil over Loki's sleeping form. It was curious to consider what manner of creatures displayed such loyalty to his brother. Loki could at times be a vain, imperious, self-centered little snake who would rather play japes on Thor's friends than make small talk with them, and still here were three different beings - all completely disparate in their looks and dispositions - who had done extraordinary things today to save his brother's life (and that wasn't even counting Thor himself). The contradiction in all of this, of course, was that Loki had risked everything to find Thor and bring him home, but the one impulsive sacrifice that had nearly doomed him had been for Brunnhilde.
Peculiar.
Mephisto had remained out of sight, stalking through the deeper sections of the ship where, presumably, he was holding the Grandmaster, and this arrangement suited Thor just fine. There was an air about that powerful and unpredictable creature that made him want to crawl out of his skin, perhaps as a result of his soul trying to keep a safe distance from one so eager to take it. How Loki endured his proximity long enough for Mephisto to grow fond of him was beyond Thor's understanding. Then again, there was so much about his brother that he could not comprehend anymore. He shivered at the notion that there was likely to be much more that he would come to know when (or maybe if) Loki decided to confide in him. They did indeed need to speak as soon as Loki was able, but not about these personal matters. Thor was eager to know about the strange surge of power he had experienced while facing the Grandmaster, the inconceivable swelling of his strength that had actually allowed him to withstand the wrath of an Elder of the Universe, if only for a few moments. He strongly suspected that Loki was the key to whatever had occurred.
Angmo attempted to draw the blanket up to frame Loki's face, and then, as if heeding Thor's unspoken appeal, his brother slapped the Sakaaran's hands away with a resentful hiss. "Get your hooks off of me," Loki growled. "I don't need you hovering over me like a chambermaid!"
"Well, look who's feeling better," Brunnhilde said teasingly. She had imbibed just enough of Mephisto's liquid hospitality that her worry was beginning to cross over into amusement.
"'Better' is relative," Loki said between long breaths. "I do not think I am on the verge of death anymore. I do not know if that is better."
"Oh no?" As keen as Thor was to see his brother recover, he was too physically exhausted to endure Loki's puzzles.
"You have no idea what is awaiting us back in Asgard." Loki surveyed his surroundings, joining all the threads of information quickly into a vague idea of his location and condition. "Plus, I now owe another debt to Mephisto, which is . . . troubling."
"If he ends up possessing your soul," Brunnhilde interjected as she poured another sizable glass of the spirits in which she was indulging, "it will be your own doing." These words were uncharacteristically sharp, probably owing to the chemical numbing of her inhibitions. "You cannot lie with serpents and then curse your luck when you taste their venom."
"Oh, but I can," Loki sneered. "Nothing has ever stopped me before." He gripped the pillow that had been used to prevent him from turning over onto his wounds and heaved it at the wall next to Angmo's head. To his credit, the Sakaaran flicked his eyes toward the impact but did not flinch. Loki had never been the ideal patient, particularly when he had an audience.
"Brother," Thor sighed as if this behavior were not only expected but typical.
Loki's head turned to the voice as if he had forgotten his sibling had even existed and was not particularly pleased to discover that he still did. Yet emotions always shifted quickly with Loki, and his eyes darkened with the memories of all that had transpired with the Grandmaster. The line of his mouth softened a bit. "How long until we are back in Asgard?" A cranky edge remained to this question, but there was far less hostility overall.
"A little less than a day," Thor replied. "So it is best that you tell me now what we will be facing upon our return."
**.**.**
It took nearly an hour for Loki to lay out the entirety of their situation. When he stumbled over the narrative, overcome by either pain or fatigue, Valkyrie would continue for him. When Thor learned the fate of Odin, he was lost to his grief, standing and pacing the room for several minutes until he could steel himself again.
"I do not believe that even Hela could destroy Odin," Loki said as if to comfort him. "He is still alive on Midgard." He paused to cough, and the disturbing rattle that he had recently displayed was almost absent. "Probably," he added quietly.
Loki was healing incredibly quickly, a detail that Thor had noticed increasingly over the last few years. He was hiding something, although that in itself was not unusual. It could be addressed at a later time.
"Tell me again about when Hela banished Father to Midgard," Thor said.
"There is no time," his brother argued.
"Tell me again."
This demand made Loki sit up further in his cot, one hand fisted in the fine material of his bedclothes. "Odin could be anywhere in the realm," he replied, although he knew that not to be entirely true. "And he will still be there when we have stopped Hela and her army. We cannot delay our return just to find him."
"Did you ever stop to think that we might need Father?"
"No," Loki replied. "That is not really something I would ever consider, actually." He dropped himself petulantly backwards onto the bed, arms wrapped around one another in protest. "The last time I spoke to him, he was ordering his guards to kill me for violating my banishment. He is not someone I would count among my allies."
There was an awkward silence while the group considered the truth of the statement.
Valkyrie studied her empty glass as if considering whether or not to refill it, but she eventually decided against it. She would need a clear-ish mind if she was going to talk Loki out of his fractious mood. "You cannot deny that having Odin's powers at our side would be an asset." She used the flat, even tone that Frigga had used when she was countering his dramatics. "Asgard will need all the power it can gather. Without the Allfather at the helm, your people will already have doubts about their chances to succeed. It is a weakness that you could eliminate if you retrieve him first."
"Why should I bother?" Loki replied. "As soon as we are back on Asgardian ground, either Odin remains King or Thor becomes King, and I am merely an outcast with a death warrant. I shall not be lingering to see how this all plays out."
Thor crossed the room to stand over him. "Tell me you are not serious! You came all this way, risked your life - and Brunnhilde's - to bring me back, and then you are going to abandon our people to this fate?" The words were spoken gruffly, but their tone was more hurt and confused than angry.
"Thor," Loki said, "my presence in Asgard is forbidden."
"Asgard is your home."
"No," Loki stated firmly, "it is not."
"How can you - " Thor growled in frustration and turned his back to his brother, struggling with the urge to escalate their exchange.
"Loki," Valkyrie said, "We are in the midst of a war with Helheim and its most powerful allies. No one is going to bother trying to bring you to justice."
"Well, then that just leaves the little matter of Hela." Loki was performing that nervous gesture where he rubbed mindlessly at his hands, a ritual he only performed when he was in serious emotional distress. Their words must be getting through to him, at least a little. "She will be very interested in my return."
"Do I dare ask why?" Thor was facing the opposite wall, his expression hidden.
"Because I spelled the Weapons Vault."
Thor turned back, intrigued. "You did what?"
"I spelled the Weapons Vault. I didn't want Hela to have access to the remainder of the weapons it contains, and so I bound it shut with a Soul Spell. So long as I live, those treasures will be denied to her. Hence, she will be quite eager to make sure that I do not survive the war." Loki sighed as if wrestling with a decision. "It would be best if I were far beyond the borders of Asgard and remained there indefinitely."
Thor rubbed his chin in thought. "Perhaps," he said. "That does present another question, though." His mouth was curved in a knowing smirk not unlike the one that Loki often made. "What were you doing back in Asgard to begin with?"
"I was defying Father's orders. Why, is that not believable enough?"
A silence settled over the room as Loki realized his misstep: by asking about the plausibility of his response, he had uncharacteristically given away the nature of the lie. Thor gave his brother a reasonable amount of time to try to talk himself out of his miscalculation, but Loki did not speak. In fact, his demeanor could almost be described as guilty, and so Thor continued as if it was clear that he had lied. This time he directed the question to Valkyrie.
"So, if he was not defying Father's orders . . ."
Still loose from the alcohol, her answer was a lazy drawl. "Because you needed him."
"I was trying to convince Odin to rescind my exile!" Loki interjected as soon as she had finished speaking. "Because it was ludicrous," he finished, the words quivering with frustration.
Thor's lips curved into a subtle but warm smile. "It was ludicrous, indeed," he said.
Loki's look in return was all fury. "Do not think for a minute, brother, that I risked my neck to come back to Asgard for you."
"I would not dream of suggesting it." The hint of a smile remained.
"And he would not dream of admitting it," answered a voice more resonant than Thor's. All heads turned toward it, and the silence lengthened when the identity was determined. "Although I have often suspected that Loki's prickly demeanor hid a softer heart at its core." Mephisto clicked his tongue disparagingly. "So disappointing."
Mephisto lingered in the doorframe, every inch of him impeccably dressed and refined. However, his eyes were weary from all the unspeakable deeds he had just carried out in privacy. He levelled his gaze at Loki, and its fondness was nearly eclipsed by exasperation. "Let's dispense with this charade," he sighed. "If your return was merely meant to end your exile, then you would have done it long ago. Furthermore, you are only just returning from a mission that put your life in direct peril and, indeed, almost killed you - yet again." He slipped into a nearby armchair with a predatory nonchalance. "You are not as mysterious as you might believe."
Although his face showed that he was still fuming, Loki was uncharacteristically speechless.
"Go to Odin," Mephisto said, his words heavy with exhaustion. "He is your father, after all. He may not have been the one that you wanted or even the one you deserved, for that matter. He doesn't understand or appreciate you the way that he should, and he could have made more of an attempt to relate to you in your youth. He doesn't hug you often enough. I get it."
Loki was now sitting upright, his arms wound tightly around him as if he were shielding himself from a cold he could not conceivably feel. His eyes were stormy.
"I will see your Lady Valkyrie and the Sakaaran safely back to Asgard. We will return by way of 'Midgard' so that you and Thor may disembark to find the AllFather. Once you have located him, you can return by way of the Bifrost." The flatness of his tone was unsettling but authoritative. "Then we can settle all of this Ragnarok nonsense once for all."
"I do not feel up to it," Loki protested. "I am convalescing."
"You are unwell but capable," Mephisto growled. "Do what must be done." The demon was through debating the subject, and Loki seemed to finally accept that he had lost.
***.**.***
When the ship was securely and clandestinely in orbit around the Earth, Thor and his brother made their way to the cargo hold with their compatriots in tow. Angmo seemed unsure about continuing his journey to Asgard without Loki, but, as he was unable to return to Sakaar, he had few options. The parting gestures were mostly soundless, consisting of a few embraces for Thor and a few unreadable glances from Loki. Mephisto had disappeared somewhere deeper into the ship hours ago and had not resurfaced.
When the pair were prepared to leave, the others retreated back into the main craft.
"For the record, I hate this idea," Loki stated as the rumbling of the rear doors preparing to open grew louder.
"Noted," Thor replied, his face a mask of resolve.
"I truly, truly hate everything about this," Loki reiterated.
"Noted." His brother pushed out the word again through gritted teeth..
A heavy clang announced that the doors were about to part.
"What if I do not have the power left to transport us?"
Loki's lack of faith in his abilities was not just unusual but also off-putting considering the timing. They had done everything possible to ensure that there would be as little strain as possible on Loki's magic considering his recuperative state, including transporting from the open hold where there would be no solid surfaces to traverse. It was impossible to know how grounded Loki's doubts were in reality, but Thor knew that there was one way to increase their odds of success.
"I mean, if you really think you cannot, I can go tell the others . . ." Thor feigned as if he were going to turn back towards the ship's interior.
"No! Wait."
The hold began to open with a hiss from the change in pressure.
"I'm sure they will not be surpris-," Thor pretended to fumble over the word. "I mean disappointed when I tell them that you were unsuccessful."
Loki's face was flooded with determination. "Get out of my way. " He stepped toward the opening doors, eyes closing and brow taut with focus. The first hint of wind shear swirled around the pair, and the faint glow from the planet beneath them breached the chamber. "You know you are included in that, right? " he snarled. "In the things I hate about this, I mean."
The pull from the decompressing airlock was becoming extreme, and if the spell did not happen almost immediately, they would be sucked into orbit around the planet themselves.
"Loki," Thor pleaded, a hint of panic drawing the sound slightly higher at the end.
"You know, if I do fail, you may be the one who is most disappointed. I just hope you can learn to enjoy life as a satellite, brother." Thor remembered seeing Loki give him a sly wink as he took hold of Thor's forearm and prepared to teleport them.
***.**.**
Teleportation is the most complex of all my abilities. It causes small rifts in the fabric of the universe that can lead to metaphysical disturbances in Space-Time. These have been known on infrequent occasions to snowball into tears in the continuum and sometimes even foster a trans-dimensional electromagnetic storm that can rage for centuries. The largest of these once collapsed an entire star system, ending scores of lives over the span of about 500 years. Thankfully, it happened in a dimension that was not our own.
And, to be clear, I did not cause that one.
Since the risks involved are not entirely inconsequential, they are best reserved for moments such as these, when one needs to save the Nine Realms on a short timeline and would rather not gamble that landing a spacecraft in a major metropolitan area will go unnoticed. I had performed this feat a few dozen times over my lifetime, and I was confident that if I had enough power to put behind it, I would land us directly in the one place in Midgard with which I was most recently familiar - the city of New York. I had seen the briefest glance of a familiar skyline when Odin had disappeared from sight, and I assumed that he would not have wandered far in his witless state.
Since the entire metaphysical event happens almost instantly, it is the exit that is most difficult to control. Still, I was almost certain that I had the reserve to pull it off, and, although I was well aware that Thor was baiting me, I was not about to let that smug fool see me fail. When I gripped his arm in preparation for the journey, however, I could not have predicted what would transpire.
I felt a profound surge of energy feeding back into my hand from Thor's skin. It was sharp and fleeting, like the sensation of grasping a scalding object, and yet there was no pain. Actually, it was more like an elation coupled with that horrifying feeling in the pit of your stomach just before you plunge from a great height. I would like to say that it threw off my inner calculations, but in reality it did something quite different: it galvanized my energy so that it all happened far more abruptly than it should have, inner calculations notwithstanding. The result was that we came through the exit portal with extreme prejudice, continuing for at least a hundred yards beyond where I had estimated, and our momentum was roughly terminated by the side of a great stone building.
I regained my wits a few beats after the impact and then had the wherewithal to conceal our presence from the surrounding populace. I heard a horrible retching sound, and, once the world stopped spinning before my eyes, I was treated to the sight of Thor nearly regurgitating onto the asphalt. The journey could be nauseating for those unaccustomed.
"Weren't sure . . . you could . . . manage . . . huh?" he choked out between heaves.
"That was actually not the way that was supposed to go," I gasped.
"What was that?" Thor said, his words nearly overlapping my own.
"You felt it, too?"
Thor shook off the queasiness. I could tell he was holding back his laughter when he saw me still laying in the jumble of limbs in which I had fallen. "I have felt it before," he confessed as he was checking himself over for damage. "When I faced the Grandmaster."
"I'm afraid I cannot help you there," I responded. "I was dying at the time."
"I know." Thor seemed almost wistful at the memory.
"So - how do we find Odin?" I asked, desperate to change the subject. I was on my feet and surveying the surroundings to gain my bearings. I could see the wide expanse of trees and open ground called 'Central Park,' the location from which I had departed when last I visited this eternally charming city. On the street in front of us, three taxis began honking at the stalled traffic.
Manhattan had looked more inviting from 1,000 feet above.
To my surprise the air to my right suddenly began to sizzle. A flaming circle appeared and produced a peculiar figure-Midgardian without question and probably from the city, but dressed as if he were about to begin extolling the virtues of Eastern medicine. He smelled faintly of magic, tainted with an unfamiliar hint of foreign dimensions. At his throat hung an object that pulsed with incredible energy, an amulet of an eye that encased a green light, the aura of which nearly seared me with its power. When he saw me, he raised his left hand, the two longest of its fingers projecting upwards while his right produced a ring of magic, the energy signature encircled with runes of supernatural force.
"Don't move," the stranger exclaimed. The command was directed only at me.
"I wouldn't dream of it," I answered, my words dripping with the palpable intent to immediately do whatever he should command me not to do. "And you are -?" I inquired with inward amusement but outward disinterest.
"Dr. Stephen Strange." The reply was haughty.. "You are a threat to this world, and, therefore, under my jurisdiction as Sorcerer Supreme. Surrender and return with me to the Sanctum Santorum, or face the justice of the Masters of the Mystic Arts."
I gave the man the courtesy of a glancing look before I burst into uncontrollable laughter.
Author's note: I did not originally plan for Dr. Strange to make an appearance in this story, but I feel like after having watched Thor: Ragnarok, there was a score that needed to be settled.
After all, there is absolutely no way Strange is going to get the better of Loki. ;)
This is going to be fun.
Praxidicae