Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Final Fantasy, Harry Potter, or anything else that finds its way into these pages. No disrespect intended, only homage, no profit made, only entertainment intended. If you're a fan, read it, if you don't like it, stop reading. Simple as pie.
Rating: M for Mature.
Spoilers: Few but possible throughout the comics and the entire MCU, although I don't know yet whether the MCU will even come into play here. Currently we are long, long before any of that takes place.
Chapter Six: This Is War
It's the moment of truth and the moment to lie,
It's the moment to live and the moment to die.
The moment to fight, to fight, to fight, to fight...
- "This is War" by 30 Seconds to Mars
"I can't believe Father said you could go hunting by yourself. He doesn't let me go hunting by myself!" Thor said.
"That's because you're a danger to yourself and others," Loki said.
"And you're not? You stabbed me!" Thor said. "You owe me, Brother. I'm telling you, you'd better take me hunting with you."
Loki frowned. He didn't want to go hunting with his brother. Thor was only two hundred and thirty-three years older – which meant very little in terms of Asgardian childhood, especially in the lives of Royalty who wouldn't have to join the Army at age five hundred because they couldn't afford to keep going to school. But Thor was already a certified Glory-Hound. It was certain that he would try his best to ensure any glory to be found in the hunt would go to himself and Loki would take none of it. But then again, taking him along would mean he could go after larger game.
"All right. Let's go to the inn and check the hunt board for a bounty," he said. There was no way he was taking Thor along to the hunt club, or even telling him about it, and he hoped Tomaj wouldn't recruit him for it.
Thor and Loki left the palace, headed for the eastern market district where the inn was located. Loki never went out without a guard and felt more than a bit insecure, but Thor was excited to be out without his hulking Ronso Guardian or one of the palace guards.
Thor, at two hundred and thirty-eight, had the appearance of a well-grown ten year old, beefy – almost chunky – blond and blue eyed like an Aesir should be. He was taller than Loki, but only by a little, which was odd as Loki was only five, but Loki was an odd child and tall for his age, which helped to make him seem older than he was. Honestly, when the two were together, an onlooker who did not know them would likely take Loki to be the elder, as he tended to be the more serious and cautious, always trying to keep his brother from doing dangerous, foolish things. His love of pranks and mischief did not often show itself when it was just the two of them together, because he always felt it was his responsibility to keep his older brother's feet on the ground.
Tomaj greeted him cheerily as they entered.
"How are you, young man? And who's this, a friend of yours? Brought some help along to bring down bigger game, eh? Smart."
"Yeah, we're just here to check the bounty postings," Loki said, his voice betraying a touch of nerves. But Tomaj did not bring up the hunt club, nor did he offer Thor one of the primers.
"Here's the hunt board," Loki said, drawing his brother to the back wall of the dining room. "Let's check and see if there's anything here we can handle."
"I can handle anything," Thor said, puffing out his chest. "What's that one there? That looks good."
Loki looked where his brother pointed. The picture on the poster showed a great wolflike creature, yellow with leopard spots, white, zebra-striped hindquarters, blue legs and snout, and red skin folds on its muzzle and belly. It was a cartoonish drawing, but the monster it described must have been hideous.
"Bounty, Thextera," Loki read aloud. "Spotted in the Galtea Downs, attacking trade caravans. Has disrupted trade from the west considerably. Please help. Reward, three hundred silver Borrsons, a headguard, and a teleport stone. See Gatsley in the Sandsea Inn for information."
"Gatsley? Who's that?" Thor asked.
Loki looked around and spotted a man in a green vest seated at a nearby table with his head in his arms. He nodded toward him. "I bet that's him," he said.
"How can you tell?" Thor said.
"He looks like he's been here a long time, and he looks unhappy."
They went over to the man. "Excuse us, Ser, but are you the man the poster speaks of? Gatsley?" Loki said.
The man looked at them with doubt writ large on his face. "I am. Can I help you boys?"
"We'd like to hear about your bounty," Thor said.
"Aren't you kind of young to be hunters?" Gatsley said. "The Thextera is no cactite, it's a sizeable fiend."
"If we can't handle it, Ser, we'll run for it," Loki said. "Our father gave us permission to hunt on our own."
Even as he said it, Loki realized it wasn't exactly true. Odin gave him permission to hunt on his own, not Thor. Technically speaking, Thor did not have permission to hunt at all. But Odin said Loki could hunt larger game if he was not alone… so he was not breaking any rules, was he?
"Well… all right… this Thextera is a mutant wolf. It leads a small pack of regular wolves in the Galtea Downs to the west of the city. It's been attacking trade caravans intermittently for a few weeks now. Nobody put an official bounty on it because it hasn't disrupted trade enough to make it worthwhile, but my wife and I have staked our life's savings on a shipment coming in from Cyrodill and if that monster wrecks it we'll be ruined! We can't take the chance, so we ponied up what bounty we could and posted it ourselves."
"We'll let you know what comes of our attempt, Ser," Loki said.
"Well I pray to the Divines you boys come back alive," Gatsley said.
Loki and Thor headed out to the gates of the city. They headed for the western gate and it opened for them. The courtyard beyond was much the same as the one to the east of town, except that the city's Aerodrome was located here, where Airships docked and skiff rentals were handled.
"Let's rent a chocobo!" Thor said, spying the chocobo corral where the big yellow birds were rented out.
"We don't have money, Brother, and it's not like we're going far anyway," Loki said.
"But I wanna ride one!" Thor said.
"Too bad, you can't right now. You'll have to come back and rent one when you've got pocket money," Loki said. "And… Father's permission."
"He treats me like a child," Thor said, pouting.
"You are a child," Loki said.
"In less than three hundred years I'll be old enough to join the army!" Thor said.
"But you won't. Because Father won't let you. Joining the army at age five hundred is for people who have no better option," Loki said.
"I'll do it, you'll see. Father won't be able to stop me. I'll join the army and it will be glorious!" Thor said.
"Shut up and start looking for prints," Loki said as they reached the golden sands. "This thing will be hard to track, this sand doesn't hold prints well, it blows around so easily. I hope the area we have to search isn't too large or we may never find it."
"Look at that!" Thor said, and pointed. Loki looked. A pile of scat the size of his head sat steaming a few feet away.
"Well, I don't know if that came from a wolf or not, but it looks like it came from something big," Loki said. "Good find, Brother."
"Don't fall in it," Thor said, and pushed Loki toward it. Loki barely moved, but he was angered.
"Jerk," he said, or Asgardian words to that effect, and pushed back. "If you're not going to take this hunt seriously you can go back to Odinhall."
"All right, all right," Thor said. "Geez, when did you lose your sense of humor, eh? Something crawled up your butt and died today, it seems like."
Thor did not notice, but Loki's eyes actually turned red for just a moment, but then he remembered his father's words and calmed and they changed back to emerald green. Thor did not know what happened to him. Thor would never be able to understand why he was hurting. It didn't do any good at all to lash out at Thor.
"Although he really, really wanted to sometimes, even when he didn't feel this bad.
Back to the hunt. Focus on tracking, push the pain away. The Thextera was big, and by the looks of it on the poster it was pretty obvious, it should be fairly easy to find. Loki wished for a map so he could get some sense of how big an area they had to search. There were maps at the bookstores in town, he should buy some and study them, get a feel for the local area.
"Did you hear something?" Thor said.
"Hear what? I only hear the wind," Loki said. It howled out here, hot and angry and full of golden sand.
"I heard something other than the wind. Snuffling, it sounded like. Stop for a moment and listen."
Loki stopped and listened. He heard the wind howling like an angry draugr. And then, yes, he heard it, too. Snuffling, moist and nearby – the sound of a large animal breathing swiftly and purposefully, as if searching for a scent.
"I think it's coming from behind that rock formation," Thor said, pointing toward a gully in the wadis. He immediately took off running toward it.
"Wait! Wait, Brother, damn it, don't go running off! We need to strategize!" Loki said, and cursed and ran off after Thor when he realized his brother had no intention of slowing down.
When he caught up to his brother he found him face to face with three small orange wolves and a gigantic creature the likes of which he'd never seen before. It was taller at the shoulder than Thor in his entirety, and while it did indeed bear the ugly coloration depicted on the poster the cartoonish image did not do it justice. It was so monstrously ugly that it was absolutely magnificent, at least to Loki's eyes. He stood transfixed for a long moment, his brother forgotten, until Thor let out a loud yelp as the Thextera's fangs bit into his arm. Loki shook himself out of his reverie and drew his dagger.
He didn't know what to do. The Thextera was enormous, and with the small wolves fighting alongside it, they were far outmatched. Perhaps he could hold it off just long enough for Thor to run, and then he could run too. They had to get out of here. He bounded to his brother's side and shoved him away from the battle.
"Run!" he shouted, and thrust his dagger forward as the Thextera lunged. The blade went deep into the beast's yellow eye. The creature let out a yelp even higher than Thor's, staggered, and fell. The smaller wolves yelped, scattered, and dispersed.
Loki slumped to his knees, relieved. Then he jumped to his feet, afraid, as the body of the Thextera started to glow brightly, then exploded in a bright burst of light and transformed into a small glowing crystal that floated in the air a few inches off the ground. Thor came up behind him and stared with him.
"Whoa. What the Helheim is that?" Thor said.
"I've… I've heard of this," Loki said, speaking slowly and uncertainly. "Mother told me about this. It's a Summoning crystal. The Thextera is inside it."
He reached out a hand and touched the crystal, withdrawing his fingers instantly as though it were electric, but there was no shock and the crystal was not hot, so he put his hand on it and took it from the air.
"Who says it's yours?" Thor said. "I fought the beast too."
"I killed it," Loki said. "A Summons can only be made when one kills a fiend."
"I thought you had to be a Summoner to make a Summons," Thor said, sensibly enough.
"I must be a Summoner then," Loki said. He held the crystal up, closed his eyes, and concentrated. The Thextera appeared. It sat quietly before them, completely non-threatening, and appeared to await instructions. It bore no wounds from the battle.
"That… is so totally awesome," Thor said. It sounded genuine but his expression was rather cross. Loki knew why. It was awesome, but it wasn't Thor's. "So it will just do whatever you tell it to?"
"That's what Mother said. She said that Summonses take a piece of the Summoner's soul, so they'll do whatever their Summoner wants, forever and forever, and never act against the Summoner's wishes, and the Summoner need not even ask."
"Well I need to kill something. I'm probably a Summoner, too – you just didn't give me a chance to prove it," Thor said, his wounded arm essentially forgotten. "Let's go back to town and find something to kill. Something really good."
"We've got to go back and let Serrah Gatsley know his Thextera problem is solved anyway," Loki said. "We can get your arm healed at the crystal on the way in to town."
"They headed back, and stopped at the isogen crystal in the courtyard along the way for healing. These man-sized crystals stood in each courtyard for travelers to stop and touch and receive healing and rejuvenation. They were very powerful stones, culled from the deepest reaches of Asgard, and contained all the concentrated power that gave her people their great strength and ability. Touching one gave an Asgardian a burst of energy and healed minor wounds, but most foreigners to the realm would either die or be in some unexpected way altered, like Bruce Banner after the gamma explosion.
Walking into the city with the great Thextera at their side drew a lot of attention. The gate guard was the first to say it: "Odds Bodkins!" It became a commonly-heard phrase as they walked through the plaza and on to the inn, spoken by men, women, and children of all races as they caught sight of the beautiful, placid monstrosity in their midst.
Halfway through the plaza they met up with some of Thor's friends, Faendral, Sif, and Volstagg. Faendral was a young boy no older than Thor, Sif a pretty golden-haired girl just a bit younger, and Volstagg a chunky, good-natured brown-haired Vanir boy on the cusp of old enough to join the army.
"Odds Bodkins!" Volstagg said. "Where did you come upon that monster?"/span/p
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"We fought him out in the Westersand," Thor said, bubbling over with excitement as he usually was. "He almost ripped my arm off!"
"How did that end with him here now?" Sif said, skepticism on her pretty face. "He certainly doesn't look vicious."
"Loki killed him and he turned into a Summons!" Thor said. "We're going to the inn to find another hunt so I can find out that I'm a Summoner too!"
Faendral looked at the Thextera. "You know, Thor… if you are going to try and turn something into a Summons, it should be something glorious. I've heard of a wyrm that lives to the west of the city that no one has been able to kill for thousands of years. Even if you didn't tame it, killing it would bring you great renown."
Loki felt a chill go down his spine. A wyrm? That was a type of dragon. The Great Dragons were long gone, but their lesser kin lived on, and they were formidable. A couple of kids had no chance against one, especially one that foiled hunters and heroes for thousands of years. But there was no chance Thor wouldn't want to go for it.
"Let's do it!" Thor said. "Come with us, my friends, and join in the glory!"
"Brother, think for a moment," Loki said. "This wyrm has withstood all who have come for it for Divines know how long. We're just children, with inadequate weapons. We can't do this."
"Then stay behind, Shivershanks," Thor said. "My friends and I will deal with this ourselves."
Thor and the others headed back towards the West Gate. Loki hesitated, torn between the idea of running home to tell someone and running after them and trying again to stop them. Finally he ran after them, thinking it was likely that Father would already know what they were up to if he was on the throne or if Huginn and Muninn were somewhere about.
"Father's going to be so mad!" he shouted as they headed into the desert. "He'll ground you for years!"
Faendral led them to the narrow gully he said the wyrm lived beyond. "Gird yourselves," he said. "They say it's a constant sandstorm in this wadi ever since the wyrm was born."
"So you guys think you're going to fight a full grown dragon… in a howling sandstorm? Think about this, won't you? You're insane if you think you can win!" Loki said.
"I told you, if you're scared, stay behind," Thor said, giving Loki a push. "My friends and I are going to glory."
"You're going to your deaths," Loki said.
"Then we shall go to Sovengard and find Tsun welcomes us."
"Sovengard? Sovengard? Do you hear yourself?" Loki fairly shrieked the words. "You shouldn't be talking about Sovengard at your age. Do you know what Father will say when he hears of this?"
"You're too worried about Father's approval. Worry about the approval of the Divines," Thor said. "We shall find their approval today!"
He charged into the gully. His friends followed. Offering up a prayer to the Nine and Six, Loki closed his eyes and joined them.
At first they could see nothing in the howling winds and blowing sand. Visibility was almost nothing, and the children were afraid to move, feeling as if they would become lost if they ventured a step beyond the mouth of the gully. Then, a dark shadow in the swirling sand, a sound as of rolling thunder, and a bone-chilling roar.
"It comes!" Thor said, arm before his eyes to protect them from the sand. "Now is our time!"
He bounded off into the sand. With little hesitation, his friends joined him. Loki tried to call out after them, but his voice was lost in the howling winds. He had to follow them.
"Please, Father, help!" he said, as he headed into the storm.
He found Thor and his friends engaged in futile battle against a monstrous saurian twice the size of the Wild Saurian in the Stepping with gray skin as hard as stone and two great blunt horns on its massive snout. Not all of it was visible at once in the swirling sand, but it came in and out of visibility as it swung its head or its tail into view. Fortunately it did not seem to take the battle seriously as of yet and did not engage the children except with a few lazy swipes of its tail that did not strike them or the battle would be over.
Loki grabbed Thor by the shoulders and tried to pull him away. Thor did not budge. "Let go, Brother – this is my time for glory!" Thor said.
"You idiot! The only reason you still draw breath is because this dragon thinks you the insignificant fool you are! Get out of here before it changes its mind!"
Thor turned and pushed Loki so hard that he toppled over backwards. When he did, the Thextera moved around and began herding Thor and his friends away from the dragon. But the dragon saw the mutant wolf as a much greater threat than the children. It roared and attacked, and the Thextera vanished into crystal form. Thor let out a roar of his own and ran straight for the beast, and the beast met his charge with open jaws. Loki scrambled to his feet and shouted at the top of his voice.
"No! No one dies today!"
"Thor fell to the ground. So did Faendral, Sif, and Volstagg. The sandstorm shifted and vision cleared for a brief moment, and even the great beast seemed momentarily stunned. Loki didn't stop to wonder at it, he lunged forward, his dagger drawn, and leaped into the dragon's mouth.
Thor looked up from the sand where he lay just in time to see his little brother's boot disappear into the dragon's maw. "Father's going to kill me," he said. He hadn't a chance to think any further because a giant of a man burst into their midst, carrying a great golden sword, and swung it at the dragon.
"You boys put my oath to the test swiftly," he said, in a remarkably calm voice, as he battled the dragon. Even he did not seem to make much headway with the beast, but something was clearly wrong with it. It staggered, coughed, and a glut of blood splattered on the ground from its hacking breath. Then it reeled, coughed up more blood, and fell over on its side with an earth-rattling crash. The sandstorm died down and the sun shone down.
Thor stepped up to the dead dragon and kicked it. "What happened?" he said.
"It appears to have eaten something that disagreed with it," the strange giant said, still in that same calm voice.
The head moved. Thor tensed. "It's still alive!" he said.
"Still yourself," the giant said. A bit more movement, and a bloody black-haired head carefully crawled out of the dragon's mouth. The rest of Loki followed after.
"Brother! What did you do?" Thor said.
"Its outside was armored..." Loki said, and spit out a mouthful of dark dragon blood. "… I thought perhaps it wasn't so well defended on the inside. I cut its throat from the inside."
"Look at that!" Sif said.
The body of the wyrm glowed with bright light, just as the Thextera's had. It glowed brighter and brighter, then exploded with a burst of energy and condensed into a small floating crystal.
"A fine guardian for a boy foolish enough to leap headfirst into danger's maw," the giant said. "Gather your things and follow me."
Loki did not know this man, and after what happened to him this very day did not feel like following a stranger anywhere, but he took his crystals and plodded along behind him with Thor and his friends. Fortunately the man led them straight to Odin, and the throne of Asgard. He stepped aside without a word and allowed their father to deal with them.
And Odin was clearly angry, as Loki knew he would be.
"You went after the Earth Tyrant, by yourselves. How ungodly stupid can you be?" he said.
"But we killed it, Father!" Thor said.
"Hold your tongue!" Odin snapped. "The only reason you live is by Rig-Heimdall's intervention and your little brother's idiotic actions to save your idiot life, boy. Do you not yet understand the seriousness of this?"
Thor's jaw clicked shut and he looked down at his feet in shame.
"And you, Lodr – I am ashamed of you."
Loki's eyes widened. He tried to stop Thor. Why was Father ashamed of him?
"I realize you are very young, but I thought you had brains enough not to jump down the throat of a dragon. Why didn't you use your powers, boy? Cast an illusion to keep yourselves from its sight! Transform yourself and your friends into something it would not see as worth the effort of attacking! Do anything other than jump into its mouth!"
Now that it was brought to his attention it seemed obvious. It would have been much easier – and much cleaner – to use one of his powers to distract the dragon so they could get away. Loki hung his own head in shame.
Odin gestured to his Royal Steward, and the Steward brought forward a tray with a number of purses on it.
"There was a Royal Bounty on the Earth Tyrant. You all took part in the battle to kill it, you all earned a portion of the bounty. But hear me well, you do not deserve this coin. What you deserve is a good paddling, and I will order it done if you ever do such a thing again, mark me? That goes for all of you, not just my own children. And don't think I don't know who suggested this idea," Odin said, leveling a dark look at Faendral.
"Thor, I want you to go to your room and go to bed. I want you to think about this. Your brother could have died saving you, and it would have been your fault. Loki, you at least tried to do something about the rampant stupidity, so you may go about the rest of your day as you wish, although I want you back here an hour before dinner. I have someone I want you to meet. The rest of you, go home. Be your parents' problems."
The children bowed, took their heavy coin purses, and left the throne room to go where they were sent. Loki left the palace with Thor's friends and headed for the inn, to inform Gatsley that the Thextera would not interrupt his shipment.
