Chapter eighteen

Desperate measures

"So, you have noticed the sceptre."

Darcy turned at the feminine voice to see a young woman with brown hair and wearing red and black clothing walk in alongside a young man the same age, who had white hair overlapping darker hair. They walked in calmly and Darcy wasn't sure whose side they were on, though she had a feeling that it wasn't theirs.

"Who are you?" Darcy asked.

"It doesn't matter. You will not get out of here alive," the woman said.

"Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, they're from Sokovia," Skye said.

The next part happened so quickly; Skye was sent flying with some sort of red mist, Thor attempted to charge her, but Pietro moved her out of the way in a blur of speed. Then Thor was writhing on the ground after Wanda did something to him. Darcy didn't know what to do; even the giants were flummoxed, though they were busy protecting their own. She attempted to shoot them, but Wanda's power blocked it. Fitz shot at them with his Night Night gun and then there was a blur around him, and Darcy could see him clutching his throat.

Darcy was pushed into a wall when she tried to shoot at Wanda and she struggled to get out of its grasp. After what felt like forever, she felt herself drop to the ground and there was a commotion near the twins.

Grant Ward had snuck in and shot Wanda with something that had her gasping on the floor. Pietro stopped and rushed to her side. Ward had something in his hand and Fitz crumpled to the floor unconscious.

"Surrender or she dies," Ward said.

"What have you done?!" Pietro growled.

"That's a heart stopper. I can reverse the effects of the heart attack she is currently experiencing, if you agree to put these cuffs on," Ward said. "I'd say you have…hmmm…a minute to decide, at best."

Ward threw down two silver cuffs and Pietro, after a moment's hesitation and glaring, put them on. They locked around his wrist. Ward then pressed something and Wanda started breathing properly again. Ward clamped two cuffs onto her too.

"What the—How did you get out, Ward?" Skye asked, her gun pointed at him as Ward walked over to Fitz, kneeling down to check his vitals.

Darcy rushed over to Thor as he stood up.

"I have my ways."

"I will shoot you right now if you don't answer my questions. And what of Garrett?" Skye asked. Then she frowned as she must have heard something over the airwaves. "He's dead?"

"Look, Skye, I know you don't trust—" Ward started.

"Of course I don't trust you! You're H.Y.D.R.A.!" Skye yelled.

"I don't want to be part of that anymore," he said.

"Again, how are we supposed to trust you?" Skye asked. "How did you even get out?"

"Will you mortals stop your arguments?" Aurvandil asked.

"What do we do now?" Darcy asked.

"You might want to destroy the sceptre," Pietro piped up.

Darcy frowned at the Sokovian, who was previously going against them…now sounding like he was trying to assist them? This didn't make sense. Before they could do anything, though, a deep and ominous voice sounded all around them. Unknown to them, it also carried onto Asgard too.

"Pathetic…your meagre warriors and so-called defenders will not stop this war, will not stop my plans. You are no match for me."

Who? Darcy could tell the guy was trying to be all intimidating and shit. He scared her, for sure, but she was just a human with no abilities. She stuck close to Thor and noted that the nine females that had been taken were still sat in a circle, alive but unmoving. That was good, at least. The little orb of magic Loki had given her to keep her safe lit up.

"Darcy, be careful. That was—that was Thanos," Loki's voice sounded.

Her insides ran cold; that was Thanos? His little Voldemort announcement was all the more terrifying now that she knew who it was.

"I will," she said softly, unable to make herself say anything else. "You be careful as well; I don't care how much power you have, this guy…"

She didn't need to say anything else because she knew Loki would understand. She clutched the orb closer to her mouth.

"I love you," she whispered.

She heard him sigh. "I love you too. I wish I could have said those words for the first time in a more romantic setting—" He sounded exasperated.

Darcy smiled. "I thought it was pretty romantic. You'll have plenty of time to romance me another time, Mischief," Darcy whispered. "And then some." Oh, she was growing bold.

She was greeted by laughter. A promise. She felt warm and tingly; she was in love.

And as a woman in love, she was going to survive this.

Then everything just got worse.

Out of nowhere, a large and purple-skinned being materialised and his appearance alone was intimidating, so much so that Darcy had a horrible feeling she knew who he was without him needing to announce himself.

Thanos. As she suspected.

"You are all fools. You will all die here today," Thanos said.

Thor beckoned her to move away and she did. Aurvandil sent ice at the sceptre and froze it before Thor threw his hammer at it and shattered the thing into millions of pieces. She saw Ward pick Fitz up and gestured for Skye to move away, which happened to be where Darcy was. The twins joined them, and Wanda looked at Ward, her wrists out.

"Free us, then we can protect us all," Wanda said. "I promise we won't attack you again; it was him, he controlled us."

Skye looked between the twins and Ward. Then she sighed. "Trust is something we're going to have to deal with; we've trusted Loki, we will trust you two and Ward not to get us killed. I don't know why I'm saying this after everything but—" Skye said.

Ward handed her the heart stopper. "Press that to shoot it, press that to stop it," Ward said.

Skye pushed it back into his hands. "No, I saw what it did, it's—" Skye started.

"You have the Night Night gun, at least," Ward said. "You have weapons, in case you need them."

Thor had started fighting Thanos, who was very quick for a big guy. Darcy could see Wanda was watching intently, frowning. It was tense and she saw the giants ready to defend the nine of the females who still hadn't moved.

"Thor, you need to try and move the fight elsewhere!" Darcy yelled.

She heard a grunt and he smashed through the wall, the one where the sceptre had been, and Thanos followed. It was difficult, watching this fight; Thor was strong, but there was the horrible feeling that he was horribly outmatched. Darcy really hoped she was wrong.

It felt like time had stopped still, yet what happened was too fast for her to really understand what happened. All Darcy knew was that Thor was falling…to his knees…straight down onto his stomach.

It felt like the world had stopped turning.

Loki had a niggling feeling that something wasn't right; of course, Thanos' voice had sent a renewed shiver of terror through him, but luckily Agent May had been there to stop him getting a blow to the face. It wouldn't have done anything, really, but he appreciated the extension of assistance from the stoic agent nevertheless.

But no, this feeling…it came some twenty minutes after the chilling message and he had an awful feeling, but he couldn't decipher what it was. He kept fighting, though, and there was a great whoop of victory, especially from those outside of the Nine Realms as Drax, as he had come to learn, defeated Ronan, killed him. It was a brief victory, however, as he heard Darcy's voice only moments after his horrible feeling.

"Loki!" She screeched, practically hysterical.

"Darcy! What is it? Are you hurt? I knew—"

"Thor's dead," Darcy sobbed.

There was that sinking feeling…but no, Thor had a lifeline. Their mother had asked for two escapes from death, one for each of them. Thor hadn't used his.

"Darcy, calm down, remember that I told you about the free pass Thor and I—"

"How long did it take you to wake from your death and thus use your free pass?" Darcy asked.

"About two minutes," Loki said. "How long has it been? It cannot have—"

"One minute and thirty seconds," Darcy said.

"There is still time, thirty seconds. He will wake up precisely after two minutes," Loki said.

Loki defended an attack from a kree and then a H.Y.D.R.A. agent. Time seemed to stand still as he waited, but he wasn't sure how many seconds there were left. Fighting and listening to Darcy, the battle was going to be a long one. It had already lasted so long, but he'd experienced longer. Just not quite like this.

He hears a sob on the other end.

"Three minutes…he's not coming back, Loki…he was fighting Thanos, and now Thanos is nowhere to be seen," Darcy whispered.

Darcy was knelt next to him, Ward had pushed him onto his back and it was awful. One of the strongest people she had ever met and he was dead. How could this be? Loki had gone quiet, in fact, all she heard now was static. He wouldn't respond to her even though she'd tried to get his attention a few times. Thor couldn't beat Thanos…the only others who stood a chance maybe was the hulk and Loki, but…would he have a good frame of mind to beat him? He'd suffered horribly at the hands of the titan…abuse victims didn't exactly respond well to facing their abusers, from what she knew.

Tears were already flowing down her face; she thought of Jane, of one of her best friends sobbing over Thor's body, the one man she had ever loved, gone. She knew her friend well enough to know that the woman had never been able to turn away from science before meeting Thor, who was practically a knight in shining armour.

It was like a horror movie, where you watched all those you loved die and came to wonder what the point was at the end.

Then Thanos' voice echoed through the airwaves again. Creepier than before.

"So…now that your precious Prince is dead…what hope do you have now? The fallen Prince, the one who thinks he can ever be accepted again…he will bring Ragnarök, he will bring destruction and you will all lose."

What?

"Loki. Please, what is he saying?" Darcy asked.

"Darcy…the girls are tensing up," Skye called through.

Darcy rushed back into the room and Skye was right, the girls were tensed differently.

They started speaking.

"He cannot be stopped, so long as Thor is dead;

Ragnarök will awaken in his stead.

The powers of great, the powers of old,

The powers of destruction will unfold.

Let the darkness sink in;

You will not win."

Darcy shivered, hating the whole unison thing; it was creepy. And ominous. Fuck fate, she was not giving up. She turned to Skye.

"Is there any way for you to get in contact with anyone on Asgard? What's going on with Loki?" Darcy asked.

She watched the other girl while she contacted Coulson, then waited. Skye's face turned alarmed and Darcy started worrying instantly.

"According to Tony, he's flipped out. All sorts of different colours spiralling around him and it looks like…have you seen Dragon Ball Z? It looks like Super Seiya except like a hundred times worse or something, though I don't know how much exaggeration is in that…" Skye said. She then told Tony about what the girls said. "Oh God…even if Loki doesn't mean to hurt anyone, his powers look like they could be leading down the uncontrollable path…"

Darcy ran a hand through her hair, heart racing as she tried again to contact Loki. On one final attempt, she screamed at him.

"Loki please. Snap out of it! I don't want to lose you…you're better than this, fight it!"

Something strange happened then; Loki appeared in front of her, though a small crackle in its make up told her it was some form of clone.

"…Loki?" Darcy whispered, tears falling again.

"Darcy. I am a proxy, born in a time of need. I am afraid my actual self has lost his mind. He has reached his breaking point."

Darcy's eyes narrowed, pain filling her. "What? No, there must be…there must be a way to get him back. This—this can't be…" She said, her lip actually wobbling. Life was cruel, you just never expected it to happen to you. Or you hoped it wouldn't.

She might have started full-on crying, noises and chest involved. She'd always chastised the cynics who said love hurt.

"There is one way."

Her eyes widened and she went to grab his shirt, but remembered at the last moment.

He gestured for her to raise the orb and she did. She noticed it was swirling with dark and ominous colour, probably reflecting his current emotions. Lightning flashes of green and red also decorated the inside. Proxy Loki tapped the orb and it swirled with an orange light.

"You will need to travel back in time and learn magic. Since I cannot teach you and there is no time to, you will need to go back to a time where you can."

"Wait a minute, what? Why? I can't do magic…" Darcy spluttered. "I'll just mess up time and never be born or something."

"My dear, you have the potential to learn it and be quite a powerful Sorceress, but magic takes time. You will not mess up anything; you will go back to a much younger me, learn magic and he will lose his memories of meeting you until you see the present me again."

"Oh, timey wimey confusing…I've stepped into a Doctor Who episode…wait, how can this help, though?" Darcy asked. "Let me guess: all will become clear in time?"

Proxy Loki chuckled. "You will be told nearer to the time, I promise; the orb will answer all of your questions, but I do not have anymore time. Stand in the circle of the nine maidens."

Darcy did as she was told and suddenly, the nine females started chanting and some weird circles appeared as orange light circled around her.