Loki and the Siren's Song
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Loki, already a jostled knot of nerves, assessed his stealth team. This such was hilariously terrible idea. There was so much tactically that could go uproariously wrong.
Loki chuckled to himself. How. Ludicrously. Lovely.
Jaken's youki might not be strong enough to negate the scepter magic. The little Demon could also just drop the damn thing! They could be already too late and this was an elaborate trap to lure him to this city literally on the other side of Midgard! He, Thor, and Sesshomaru were separated, and they worked much better together. He recalled the scorpion Demons quite well.
'A great strategy for Thanos would be to separate us, and we are falling for it, especially since Thor is alone. Thor can more than take care of himself but it's bad strategy regardless to let him go alone.' Loki cursed to himself, still infuriated the mortals had not disposed of the cursed scepter. But really, it was just quite funny.
Ideally Sesshomaru, Stark, and Thor would be the best team, with Natasha to even them out. If either Thor or Sesshomaru managed to fall under the scepter control Stark, Natasha and the other could subdue him.
'It took two years to thaw my mind, to break the glass, to recompile my memories, to restructure my emotions. I can't do it a second time. I didn't even fully succeed the first time. There are pockets of time missing. I have no idea how I know how to play billiards. I can't remember how I got Ichival, Odin's bow. I have no idea how two of the crystals Sesshomaru and I treasure quested for came into my possession. I know there are critical moments that Thor and I have shared that I cannot remember. There are some memories that may not have even happened. I still feel irrational anger towards owls, and I don't know why.' Loki accepted long ago his mind was incomplete.
'If I wield the scepter again, if I fall under its control, I won't recover.' Loki had composed himself, he reined in his nervousness to the point where Romanoff seemed convinced he had himself together. He put his hands in his pockets to hide their trembling.
Loki had glamored them all into people who looked ethnically like the mortals who came from this region of Midgard. He glamored Rogers' shield into a parasol. He did not approve of it, but he would have to get over it.
'I had expected Stark to get intoxicated. I had not expected him to not only have such trust in Sho's survival. He has such a strident opinion on him. Stark may just understand him after all.' Loki remembered exactly what he said, it warmed him to speak of his friend so. He knew what it felt like to be always underestimated, and many did the same to Sho.
Stark's opinion on himself also caught him off guard. He had never thought of himself as a healer, or someone who had the capacity to create or mend. The Other had transformed him into a weapon. It perplexed him that their weapons expert had not thought of him as such.
"Shanghai is twelve hours ahead of us, so it's 5:51am Monday the 19th here. Let's try to get in and out before rush hour hits." Natasha informed, Loki didn't need the information. He took in the pink and silver pearl tower, he had seen it before, it was an iconic landmark for the province of China in Midgard. This teleportation spell was far easier than the one he used to take himself, Thor, Rin and Natasha to Asgard, to which he was thankful.
It also didn't stop him from quickly raiding Stark's lab mid teleport for extra youki capsules, and some of Blitzen. He had given Stark the last of that particular poison. Stark had also been wrong about one thing, he had been keeping tabs on what Stark had been up to, more or less.
The capsules would prove useful when he teleported into a Midgardian city outside of Sho's proximity barrier. It wouldn't due that he would be detected on a stealth mission.
Which is why mid-teleport he popped one of the five youki capsules so he hopefully wouldn't be detected. He had to fight his instinct to not immediately nullify the youki with his magic. He feeling oddly dirty dousing himself in his best friend's youki without his permission.
"Nice thinking on the youki capsules. Tony will be pissed you stole from him though." Romanoff's mouth had quirked into a smile he knew well.
"I can't find a single heartstring worth tugging to care." He flashed a thin smile. He had an ominous feeling they were going to need his magic. A lot of it.
"What sort of security are we talking about here Natasha?" Rogers asked. Loki closed his eyes and stretched out his senses, there were too many mortals in this city to make out threats from peasants. He would have to expend more magic to determine who he was truly up against.
It concerned him greatly, who exactly within SHIELD was speaking to the Other. Or someone within the ranks of the Mad Titan. Loki knew Thanos preferred for others to do his dirty work, but he never made deals he intended on keeping. And he never wasted time on deals with anyone with no standing or power.
The scepter was extremely dangerous, but was its importance to Thanos so severe he'd show his hand to retrieve it?
Thanos already had an army, had the power to summon demonic spirits, of what use would he need the scepter?
Unless…
'The mortal spies within SHIELD…could they have made a deal with someone else?' Loki's brow furrowed, but now was not the time to think about this.
For once he had to focus on the problem right in front of him, instead of eight moves ahead.
Even if it cost him his sanity.
"At each location the Scepter is stored; they have hyper-sensitive magic signature detectors for you, Glow Stick. Don't use your magic too much unless the Op goes sideways. I doubt you were able to take more than a handful of those capsules from Tony's lab." Natasha stated and Loki scowled a bit, that would certainly make things a bit less fun. He couldn't promise anything, but he did only have four capsules left.
"I've never been one for self-restraint." Loki joked, but it was a thinly veiled warning.
Natasha shot him a simmering glare.
"Aside from that, Steve, nothing special, just thermal detection, laser grids, retinal scanning locks, electric shock panels, automatic turret guns, oxygen deprivation airlocks, a hundred guards, oh and it's about twenty floors underground." Natasha non-chalantly listed, packing another clip of extra ammunition for her gun. Rogers just shook his head. Jaken, now Jack, stood next to Loki looking up to him with a distrustful gaze.
"We should go over our different definitions of 'special'." Rogers smiled and Natasha smirked back.
None of this mattered to Loki.
"I've advised Asgard through worse." Loki reassured, looking mostly at Jaken. he knew the Water Demon disliked him, and he couldn't exactly disagree with why. However, he had more important things to deal with than what the Water Demon thought of him. He ran a hand through his hair.
It was dark, the sun had not yet risen, which gave them a small advantage.
Loki, suddenly invigorated, itched for this to be begin. Midgard's SHIELD, once a mere nuisance, now demanded his full devastating attention. These people who dared try to kill Clint and Sesshomaru. He would not fail in routing their organization if that is what it took to find who was responsible.
He saw soft brown eyes, a strong jaw, a cocky grin...if he was ever taken from the land of the living…
'No. Keep a lid on it. I cannot show my hand here. There will be a time where I will ruthlessly gut whoever is responsible for this, here is not the place.' Loki struggled to keep his magic low as he grumbled about how he was reduced to skulking about some gaudy tower.
"There are two entrances to get to the level we need to access. One is the elevator, the other is the back stairwell. They are both guarded with motion detecting laser grids. Once we get inside I'll disable the auxiliary power so we can take the elevator shaft down." Natasha explained as they began to circle around to a side entrance to the tower, avoiding the main courtyard entrance. This would be so much easier if he could just do it himself.
"This human city smells worse than the last one! Hurry up let's get out of here!" Jaken's mood mirrored Loki's.
"That's the plan Kermit." Natasha quipped, and they moved to a maintenance access door, only to find it already the door already ajar, lock disabled. Natasha didn't hesitate as she moved through it, palming her tazing discs. Well, at least the treacherous snakes were punctual.
"They're still here. Steve, time to go to work." Natasha announced. Loki allowed the glamour to part on the flowered parasol Rogers had been begrudgingly carrying. Rogers' eyes hardened at Loki, who just grinned as Rogers took his pink flower glamored shield.
Loki looked down at Jake. He had no weapon which would pose a problem.
He magicked one of his prized Uru daggers and coated the blade in Blitzen.
If he needed to draw serious arms, he could use his spear.
"Take this, use it wisely and don't screw this up." Loki hissed at Jaken. If he so much nicked himself with that dagger he'd be dead.
He really didn't relish having to have that conversation with Sho.
"Well, it seems like someone's done a lot of the work for us." Rogers joked as they made their way into the dimly lit hall. Loki flicked his wrist and the hall lit up in a soft green light. Two bodies littered the hall, by the blood spatters they were dead, but haven't been for long. The four of them strode ahead unaffected, though Rogers' face was grim.
The hall turned into a narrow spiral stairwell and as they made their way down the spiraling stairwell they heard soft cursing. Loki magicked his daggers. He could begin to feel the tingle of another magic source.
Natasha put her hand up to hold their position as Rogers lifted his shield. Loki pointed down the stairwell and wrote the number six in the air in faintly glowing magic.
Rogers, with precision Clint would be proud of, slung his shield down the stairwell, hitting one man, only to have the shield bounce and hit the other and fling back up. Natasha propelled herself down over the bannister, twisting catching the next railing down, deftly flipping and with a spinning bird kick, worked her legs into a split and kicked the two guards in the head, tazing them shortly after.
Loki spelled Jaken's mouth shut and tossed him down, Natasha caught him by his tunic. Loki and Rogers vaulted over the railing and with a few flicks of his own single dagger the last two were dealt with a bit more permanently than the previous four.
Natasha scoffed and Rogers shot him a dark look at Loki. Loki rolled his eyes. If they had thought he would be doing this without killing a few disloyal mortals they thought wrong.
Jaken struggled to say something. They continued onward.
They spiral staircase descended down into a hall with an elevator, the doors already opened and ropes already dangling down. Loki suspected the six people they just surprised were perhaps going surface level to ready their escape.
He sensed the scepter. It was dauntingly, hauntingly, delectably close. Loki heard its whispers, but no. Those had to only be in his head. No one else had mentioned hearing anything.
"We can use their equipment to repel down the elevator shaft." Natasha jerked the nylon rope, and located her carabiner and harness. Loki was not about to repel down. Jaken also looked uneasily down.
"Natasha, don't you think this has all been a little too easy?" Rogers stated. "I mean you said there were hundreds of guards, the security…."
"All this means is that they either managed to take all of it out. Unlikely. Someone who works here managed to be some of the spies, somewhat likely. More likely… this goes high up and they disabled the security protocols. Nothing has been hacked, it was all turned off from high up." Natasha whispered, not liking it either.
Loki gazed down the elevator shaft, there was a small bit of light at the very bottom, his eyes could catch it. He took one of the youki capsules and threw it down the elevator shaft. At the very bottom, which had to be twenty floors down, the capsule burst open and in a flash he teleported them all down.
"Show off." Rogers sighed Loki smirked but the smirk died when they looked out into the smoking, bloody hallway. SHIELD agents littered the hall, all slaughtered. The linoleum floor had scorch marks, pools of blood, but what was most curious were the large holes scorched through some of the agents' chests. The revolting smell of burnt flesh and hair clogged the hall like a miasma. Loki thinned his lips, the stench coming off the corpses smelled familiar.
The wounds did as well.
Jaken waddled out into the carnage completely unaffected.
"My Lord awaits my return! Hurry up humans!" Jaken scuttled around the blood and Loki couldn't help but laugh through his nose, Jaken may not look like much, but squeamish he was not. Natasha, not to be outdone squatted down to look at the cantaloupe sized hole in one of the agent's chests.
"That is not the Chitauri's magic, of that I can assure you." Loki explained, now standing next to her. Rogers went ahead, presumably to keep Jaken within sight. Loki's mouth went a little dry at the thought of anything happening to the retainer. Sesshomaru may level the city.
At least he made for a small target, being only a foot and a half tall.
"It's not any SHIELD weapon or tech I know of." Natasha pursed her lips, standing looking into Loki's eyes with an unreadable, hard glare with her glamored eyes. "You better not waste those youki bombs you have; this could get ugly." Natasha advised and Loki almost responded before he heard something.
A thread pulled at his mind.
'Broken blade…' Loki snapped his head left and right quickly. He heard it that time. The scepter. It was somewhere nearby. Loki could have sworn Natasha said something but he didn't listen. He had to get to Jaken. Quickly. He stormed up the hallway, hand white knuckling his lone dagger, already wishing he had the second. Again, Natasha said something, but he couldn't hear her.
"Yes…yes I am here forger…" He found himself murmuring. He had to find the scepter. No. Jaken. Yes, he had to find Jaken. Not the scepter. Where were they? Loki increased his speed. Was he running now? Maybe. He heard voices again now. From where?
'Come back, the power you seek is here. Come back, my Broken Blade, we have work to do.' He heard it now! Yes! Loki's mouth split into a sickle of a smile, his eyes lit up in hunger. The call of power! His power! He could almost taste its metallic tang! The blue fragments in Loki's eyes, unbeknownst to him to him, began to cluster together.
"I see you're going to do things the hard way!" Loki burst through a door, hearing Rogers' voice. It had to be the right door. He could hear the scepter behind it. Loki's mind began to harden and smooth, the rough crevices where memories and faces were stored began to erode. Loki found the containment room. The room. The scepter. It was in that mortal's hands.
It was so close, and it called to him. It wanted him! He was uniquely chosen! The only fate that made sense anymore. The scepter. The power. He could belong. The tempting, thirsty draw of respect, fear, dried Loki's mouth.
Loki fell to the ground, a sharp jolt stabbing him in the back. He looked back, eyes wild, lips curled in a snarl.
"Snap out of it!" He squinted at the vaguely familiar woman, holding a crackling baton. What? Snap out of what?
"Keep back mortal. You cannot prevent me from my destiny! It calls to me! I was chosen! Your envy is repugnant!" Loki then heard pops. Gunshots. Loki blipped up a force field, counting the mortals in the room. forty-one mortals, two groups. The smaller group had the scepter, however they had larger guns. Bedclothes, yes, that was his name, now engaged both parties. Oh yes, and Jaken the Water Demon.
Jaken. That name….who was he? Oh yes of course, Sesshomaru's Retainer, he couldn't let anyone harm him. He had to get the scepter after all. He had to protect Midgard.
He had to rule Midgard.
A glimpse of Clint, complete with bedhead and wearing a yellow Kobe Bryant shirt came to his memory, a cherished one.
'No.' Loki paled. The scepter! Clint! he had to resist! He frantically turned to Natasha, eyes pleading. He couldn't find words but she knew what was going on. He had to keep himself together. He couldn't use his magic, if his magic hit the scepter it would act as an instant conduit. He couldn't get any closer, could he?
Loki gritted his teeth and withdrew his dagger and summoned his spear, hurling it at the nearest assailant threatening Rogers, impaling him in the back lethally. He called the spear back. He could do this much. The fight came through as pictures in a slide show. Biting bits of pain pricked his body, but he couldn't really feel them.
Rogers, like a Roman gladiator, took out at least five men in a short combination of mixed martial arts prowess, He dipped, threw out a heavily muscled elbow, then flipped over another agent, disarming him and hitting him in the head with his own gun. Loki was reminded of Thor, of a memory, a fragment of a battle long ago.
'Broken blade, why are you resisting? Isn't it easier to submit? What use are you to anyone else? That Demon I saw wandering on the Astral Plane? Sounga will be mine. The Soul Gem will be whole, you and your Demon friend will be mine, and our army will know no bounds.' The scepter wanted Sho too? What did he mean wandering on the Astral Plane? Seers can only see the Astral Plane not walk it. Wait. His mother, Frigga said the same in Asgard. That Sesshomaru had been wandering the Astral Plane.
Maybe Sho and he could rule Midgard together. No. Sho wouldn't want to.
'He could be convinced, he is not without reason.' Didn't Thor say that? Where? On the battlefield? No in a tower. In a kitchen. Pancakes.
None of this made any sense! What was he doing here?!
Loki threw his spear again, catching a mortal in the chest, almost grazing Jaken. Jaken yelped, his youki level rising slightly. Loki's mind cleared a little.
"Lord Sesshomaru?!" Jaken piped up. 'Is the Demon going insane? Sesshomaru is not here. He abandoned me when I came back from Alfheim!' Anger bloomed in Loki's chest, his black magic began to coil on the floor.
Of course, Sesshomaru wasn't here. Thor wasn't either. They weren't there when he really needed them. He changed the grip on his grand Uru spear and lunged forward and slashed, killing two more. The blood splattered a vivid scarlet. He could do this all day. He twirled his spear, flinging blood from its blade as his eyes laser locked on the scepter.
That welcoming hum of magic. He could get ultimate power now! He could become indomitable; he could have a destiny all of his own! He could be grand!
"Kermit! We need you—" Natasha shouted. Rogers and her fighting the other two groups of mortals, the one with the scepter in the back corner of the room, eyes blue and cackling. What a strange coincidence, he was cackling too! "Stay there, take cover. We need to take more of these guys out." That woman sounded almost anxious?
She should be.
'All I have to do was just kill all these mortals. Simple. Fun even! Oh. This will be great, such a fantastic feeling!' Loki rolled his head on his neck then gnashed his teeth.
Loki then doubled over in laughter. He spliced and copied himself, three more of him appearing around the room, all laughing, all gleaming in mottled black and green magic.
A bullet clipped his shoulder, but what did he care?! Pain didn't matter anymore! The scepter! The scepter is what mattered! Loki continued to laugh, he hugged his sides and his black magic seeped out like tar.
His copies all fuzzed, short circuited and faded away.
Suddenly, the figure in the corner of the room fired the scepter at Loki. The blast hit him straight in the chest and everything suddenly fell into place for him. His forger, he was needed! Someone needed him for his might! Someone wanted his gifts, his skills, and not just for another's destiny! The Other would allow him his own! With Sho! Loki's mind flooded in joy, riding a colossal high. Another bullet bit into him somewhere on his body, but it honestly didn't matter!
"Yes, Forger! I have arrived, your Broken Blade! I'll display for you my full and splendid potential! I have gotten so much stronger! I have a mighty need, an unquenchable thirst! You shall have your realm, your Asgard, and I shall have mine, my Midgard!" Loki shouted cheeks hurting he was smiling so hard. He couldn't wait! He puffed his chest out and arms flung out to his sides, holding his spear point out like a challenge.
'Loki, is that an earnest request?' He recognized that voice, why was he thinking this now? Warm brown eyes and his smile on a bed.
Natasha whipped to face him, her glamored-dark eyes hard, skin pallid. She made a move for her gun. Let her shoot him! It wouldn't stop him! Loki sauntered forth, twirling his spear lazily. With arms like whips, he sliced into an approaching agent like a hot knife through butter.
He hummed a tune, a Midgardian one: 'harder, better, faster, stronger'. The blood sprayed, just like his did in his cell on The Relentless all that time ago. The prize was worth the pain!
He spliced and copied himself again, then retracted the copies almost instantly. Then spliced again, this time there were ten of him! Ten! All smiling and laughing with him!
"Such an opportune time for a such a decadent war!" All the Lokis chorused in unison. His mind began to wash over in blue, his mouth twisted in a nefarious smile. The blue magic spread and washed over his black magic. The call of the scepter sounded so much more luxurious than last time!
"Natasha, we need to get that scepter to Jaken now. Loki is losing it! He is becoming just like was three years ago." Loki heard Rogers' desperation and fired a magic bolt at him. It ricocheted off his flowered shield, hitting an agent in the chest. That will teach him from speaking about him as if he wasn't in the room. Loki, distracted, didn't notice Jaken come upon him, dagger drawn.
What was this weak, little Demon up to?!
"Gods! Such trouble you are! Stop replicating and babbling your nonsense and help me honor my Lord!" Jaken quickly slashed open Loki's pocket with his dagger and the three youki capsules spilled out. How had he gotten so close? Loki jerked his spear back in a reverse style, prepared to eviscerate the little Demon. How dare he take his things?!
Jaken scrambled to pick up one of the capsules and threw it on the floor. Instantly the room filled with a soft blue shimmering youki, scaring away the black, sparkling coils of Loki's magic into navy blue smoke.
The man in the corner stopped cackling, instead now straining to hear something. Loki stopped his spear blow just short of Jaken's glamored face. His green eyes, flecked visibly with blue, shot wide. Loki's mind carved out again, the mission.
Clint. The invasion. The Other. Loki almost dropped his spear. He had been close. Too close.
"Jaken, get over here now!" Rogers ordered, Jaken crossed his arms indignantly, as if to reply he was not to be ordered about by the likes of him.
Loki scanned the room, he recognized the guns some of the agents had. They looked just like the weapon Agent Coulson had almost fired on him in the helicarrier. Did the mortals manage to forge more weapons made from the Destroyer he had sent after Thor? Was that the fate the agents in the hall met? Loki knew that the shimmering youki in the room would not last.
Loki picked up an angry Jaken.
"Corner pocket, Rogers." Loki bit out a bit of humor, if only to signal to them that he wasn't…who or whatever that just was. He tossed Jaken like a sack to Rogers who jumped in the air, catching the foot and a half tall squawking demon.
Loki wasted no more time and struck and killed the remaining agents, Natasha tucked into a roll only to spring up, feet first, with her electrified batons in a nimble flip, electrocuting three agents to the ground in a surprising display of gymnastics.
Loki threw up a force field just in time to shield Natasha from a shot from the Destroyer gun. Expertly, she then used her wire to disarm the offending agent and subdue him with a wire strangulation maneuver.
Loki just noticed the walls of the room had craters, bullet holes and scorch marks all in them. Those hadn't been there before, how did he not notice that? Natasha bled from her left arm, right hip, and brow. She favored her right leg too much. Rogers's suit was torn open, a deep gash of some sort marred his back and soot and sweat marked his brow and he was bleeding from his mouth. How long had they been fighting in this room? How many mortals here were dead or dying?
The shimmering youki began to fade, and Loki heard the whisper. It still wanted him, even after all this time. How disturbing and comforting at the same time….
No. Someone else here wanted him. Clint. He bent down and picked up the remaining two youki capsules.
"Almost there!" Loki heard Rogers fling his shield out knocking the scepter from the agent's hands and the shield bounced back to him, slamming the shield into the agent's head to render him out of the scepter's control. Rogers put Jaken down and he darted to pick up the scepter.
Loki's face split into another severe frown as he powered up a large magic bolt. He was not going to let that Demon get away with his scepter. It belonged to him, his forger gave it to him as a gift, not this Water Demon!
"Aha! Lord Sesshomaru are you pleased?! Jaken your most loyal servant has procured a most powerful weapon!" Jaken waved the scepter in the air with one hand, his staff with the other. The blue glow of the scepter immediately dimmed to nothing. Loki powered down his hand.
His mind cleared. He started to breathe. Had he not been breathing this whole time? No, he had to have been. Sweet, fresh air filled his lungs and he ran his bloody fingers through his sweaty hair, when had he dropped his spear? He spotted it on the floor and magicked it away. His body stung with oddly positioned bullet holes. His right shoulder was burnt and the skin beneath his armor was charred and blackened, but not too bloody. His hands shook violently, he needed to calm his heart rate.
Had he almost gotten hit by the Destoyer gun again?
"…Glow stick, what's your status?" Natasha squared her shoulders to him. She was close, her eyes opened him up. He had to convince them, really convince them he was fine. Because he was.
"As SHIELD would put it, uncompromised. I've never been better. Let us be off." Loki thinned his lips, sighing through his nose. Rogers looked his way, looking fifty percent convinced. Loki was about to teleport them back to the tower when he realized things were off. The scepter…the scepter shouldn't have called to him so strongly….unless. Loki looked up at the ceiling.
The scepter wouldn't have called so strongly unless the Chitauri were here.
"What is it Loki?" Rogers asked, voice drained. Loki put a finger up. He had to deal with this himself.
He closed his eyes, he stopped his teleportation magic and palmed the youki capsule. Instead, he magicked his spear. He spiked the last youki capsule on the ground and with a pulse of blooming green magic he healed his comrades' wounds, and his own.
"We have company. Remain here." Loki ordered and in a flash he was on the sidewalk of Shanghai in the throes of dawn. A hazy yellow sun filtered its rays across the glittering Bund of Shanghai, interrupted only by a dark, petrifying shape stalling in the sky above the Oriental Pearl Tower. People all around him stood, chattering to themselves about how now the aliens had now come for them.
The long, sharp angled bottom of the Aethon stretched out across the city, managing to shadow it even with the sun at a low angle. It was a sight. The matte black ship had tracks of glowing violet streaking across it. The Mad Titans' insignia emblazoned on the stern stabilizer fin glowed as the engines output a silent, sinister stall above the city.
Nothing on Midgard matched it.
It loomed like a foot above an anthill. Hadn't he said something similar to that effect before?
A viscous, dark, frenzy surged in him. They had almost had him; they had almost captured him again! They almost had him kill Natasha, Rogers, and Jaken. Inexcusable. He had to show them. He was no longer their little pawn, their pitiful chess piece.
Another image of Clint flashed in his mind, wet and so beautiful in his shower, writing diva on his chest with suds. His heart clenched at his grin, if he could keep him grinning…
Stealth mission be damned. He would defeat them now. He charged up his uru spear, it shown dark and dramatic with thorns of black magic entwined it. His magic amplified into large, fuming petals that unfurled around him, reverberating and undulating slowly.
Loki's eyes, now green flecked with blue, narrowed into slits. He pointed his spear high into the air as the first of the Chitauri chariots flew from the vessel. So, that's how they wanted to play this. He heard people scream and flee, panicked chaos from their beloved tower.
This is where he would make his stand. He magicked his glamour away.
"How marvelous for you to swing by, but I'll have to show you the door." Loki twirled his spear above his head like a helicopter blade and with a definitive thud, slammed the uru spear onto the cement. Countless thorns of black magic shot out of the spearhead, stabbing through the chariots, exploding them in a flashy display of power.
"You see." Loki continued. "I have quite a nice abode here in Midgard, all the lime sherbet and entertainment I could possibly ask for. So please, if you wish to come over uninvited, please do know I will escort you from the premises. You are quite unwelcome." Loki couldn't help himself. He never had the chance, the luxury to tell them to fuck off. To prove to them he was most certainly not going back to being their weapon, but one used against them.
"We are prepared for whatever you have in store!" Loki shouted. The black petals all around him expanded upwards. Not unlike the poisonous oleander flower, the petals sliced out, smoking and dark against the dawn sky as more chariots swarmed out like cicadas.
Gunfire from the Chitauri began to rain down and much to Loki's surprise, some burned through his magic shields. Loki scowled, they must have studied his magic. Too bad for them he was stronger now. He mended most of the holes in his shields to prevent more bolts from raining down on the large city.
With another ornate flourish of a spear he shot more sparkling black thorns of magic at the chariots, the black, oleander like petals shielding the ground below while his spikes of black magic skewered the chariots.
He knew he would win out. He just had to envelope the massive Aethon in his magic. He ratcheted up his magic, the black energy around his spear arced up like giant branches and struck the underside of the Aethon.
Only the black magic branches rebounded off a supremely powerful shield.
The spaceship lurched, but remained unharmed. They indeed had studied his magic to produce a shield like that.
"You have the gall to protect yourself with my own magic?! It won't work. I'll unweave your defenses!" Loki taunted. He would need to draw on more power. Yggdrasil!
Maybe he could taunt the captain of the Aethon out of the ship before they powered up the main artillery.
Just why hadn't they powered up the main cannon?
It was then he saw a special chariot take advantage of his tactical choice and navigate down through a hole that had burnt through one of his petals. He saw the blue figure jump off the chariot high in the sky, graceful like Sesshomaru. With a dexterous flip, the woman landed in front of him, leaving a small crater in the cement.
The blue figure rose, she had eyes as black as pitch and cybernetic accoutrements adorned her body. She had an expression on her face that could make the devil fear her shadow. A Luphomoid, some sort of cybernetic one. She held out two batons, they surged with an otherworldly electricity that felt much different than Thor's Mjolnir could summon, or Natasha's batons could output.
"You." She pointed the weapon at Loki. "Godling. Talk too much. I, Nebula, am in no mood to listen to your fantasies over destroying my father. I didn't expect to run into you here but all the better for me. You can come willingly, or I can cripple you, then deliver you." Loki laughed haughtily. So, was one of many Thanos' kidnapped and enhanced daughters.
'A daughter of Thanos doesn't usually mince words, and usually fights to the death. Thanos has plans for me if she is willing to merely capture me, that is certain.' Loki's eyes lit up with a fierce green energy.
"Oh, I would like to see you try." Loki's spear glowed with black magic and he lunged at her. She immediately coupled her batons together to make a long electroactive staff and the two weapons clashed, sending shockwaves of lightning and magic outwards. Loki's pulse jacked up, she was strong, much stronger than a Luphomoid should be. And fast. She was skilled. Her movements reminded him of a blend of Natasha's and Sho's of which he was thankful. This being, he could fight while keeping his black magic up on the Aethon.
"I don't fail Godling. We will retrieve the scepter, orders are orders and I don't fail. And once we capture you here, we will take back our scepter and destroy your pathetic friends down in that bunker. I'll revel in watching their last nerve endings twitch like you will once the Other has your mind open again!" Nebula feinted left and struck out with her staff right, Loki parried the blow cleanly with his spear.
'We? Who is we? Is she referring to the Chitauri?' Loki eyes widened in realization. 'No.'
They continued to swoop and strike at each other, his sparkling black magic against her blue lightning. His thrusts and dips of a razor-sharp spear point versus the hard, blunt, bone-crunching end of her staff. Nebula's face never betrayed any hint of emotion except sheer determination. He knew, as well as she did, the price of failure against Thanos.
'It is precisely why Thanos wants me back, so he can personally torture me, displaying the horrors that failure reaped. I won't allow that to happen. But Nebula thinks the exact same thing could happen to her if she were to come back empty handed…well the same may await her. Thanos and the Other care not for devotion, only for compliance out of fear.' Loki spun away from her staff, dipping low in a perfect misdirection only to rise up behind her.
Loki managed to crack Nebula cross the head with the butt of his spear, but she simply managed to heal almost instantly. Her body composition reminded him of Rogers in way, altered and far more powerful than they were meant to be.
"Hmph, even a novice could have seen that attack coming. I still don't see why I can't just kill him. What's so special about him, and this wand anyway? It's all child's play. Boring child's play." Loki heard a voice. It resounded in his head, and he knew it was only due to Allspeak and his magic he could hear it.
There was a Demonic Spirit here. The blood in Loki veins hardened to granite. He had coated all the Blitzen he had left on the dagger Jaken now possessed.
"Can it, runt!" Nebula shouted to the spirit to her right. "You're not as pathetic as I thought, Godling. But be assured, you with your little Terran friends, the Canine Demon, and the Thunder God are not strong enough to defeat Thanos. He will crush you and this pitiful planet." Nebula smiled smugly, now examining Loki like a spider would a fly.
"Your meat-headed father better remember that I get Sesshomaru's body after he is done with him." The voice echoed again in his mind. It sounded sinister and it definitely knew Sesshomaru. If that spirit decided to take up arms against him there wouldn't be much he could do to stop him. If anything, the spirit could slice through them all with no resistance.
'Perhaps the spirits have given Thanos vital information on Sesshomaru on top of what the spies and the Other have gleaned. The Other's voice in the scepter claimed he saw Sesshomaru on the Astral Plane, confirming what Frigga had told me. If the Other had seen him on the Astral Plane it does not bode well.' They both spun and Loki brought out his arm fully parallel to the ground. His spear held horizontal behind his back, shading his arm, hand choked up on the spear joint as he prepared another intricate attack.
"That really shouldn't be a concern of yours, should it?" Loki challenged and Nebula struck first, aggressive and sure. She had long perfected the art of jo-kata and if she were anyone else Loki would have nodded at her technique in approval. With a honed strength she spun the lightning charged staff around her in vertical wheels of blue and Loki barely managed to parry it down before sniping her with a magic bolt, sending her skidding backwards.
Loki took advantage of the slight delay and his black magic far above them began to fully blossom. Loki multi-tasked fighting the assassin in front of him and ensnaring the Aethon fully within his black magic. Nebula's face darkened and her obsidian gaze could challenge Odin's any day.
This had taken long enough. It was just past dawn now. His magic shields would not prevent the other chariots from raining down upon the city for much longer.
"Ok, Loki, you and the dramatic exits have got to stop." Loki heard the familiar commanding voice of Rogers. Loki flashed a coy smile, Jaken had the scepter firmly in his little green hands, blue crystal inert. He was not merely holding it by choice however. Natasha had tied the scepter to Jaken's back using her wire she had used to disarm that one agent.
It didn't look like she was taking any chances.
"Oh, so you delivered the scepter to me instead of escaping. How opportune, you naïve, blundering idiots!" Nebula leapt over Loki and threw her staff like a javelin at feet of Jaken. Rogers darted in front, taking the blow with his shield and it reverberated off at an odd angle, lightning striking out all around them, quite unlike anything Thor would produce.
The lightning burst out in all directions, redirecting and ricocheting and Natasha used her baton as a ground. She certainly knew what she was doing.
"Steve, you're up, I have to babysit Kermit here." Rogers nodded and engaged Nebula, and the look on his face when she blocked one of his punches with her forearm and tilted her head side to side tauntingly almost made Loki snort.
"Who is this Kermit?! I my name is Jaken, you vile woman!" Jaken dodged a blow from Natasha. The dagger he had given Jaken was still held by Jaken, the magic poison had thoroughly absorbed into its blade.
'You look familiar little Demon… Ah. That's right, you're that weak imp that followed Sesshomaru around. Just where is he? Maybe this boring show will turn interesting.' Loki heard the voice again.
"Aaahhh! What are you doing here?! You reek of Naraku! You must be one of his incarnations, no in fact I know I recognize you." Jaken exclaimed, pointing some distance in front of him.
"Kermit who are you talking to?!" Natasha asked and before Loki could respond for him Nebula struck out with a quick crescent kick to bring her heel down on his ear but he evaded it with a fighter's grace. Her black eyes narrowed. Loki used this opportunity to finish enveloping the underside of the Aethon in his magic. If he could not destroy it with his magic, he could contain it until reinforcements could.
He could prevent the wreckage from falling upon the city when they destroyed the Aethon, he certainly wouldn't let it escape.
Rogers threw his shield once more, narrowly clipping Nebula.
"Not bad for a Terran. But you're still miserably underprepared for Thanos' fleet." Nebula bounded backwards in a handspring, picking up her staff while in a handstand and with a glowing blue arc brought it down on the ground in front of her, lightning webbing out.
"Hakudoshi is here! We never fought him directly, but we fought a creation of his which destroyed Tokijin, my Lord's previous sword." Jaken informed and Natasha sharpened her gaze ahead of her.
"A demonic spirit of some kind is here, I can assure you. I can hear his voice in my head." Loki admitted, straining to fully ensconce the Aethon and snipe Chitauri that had ruptured through his shield again.
"You can hear me, Magician? The Other calls you 'Broken Blade'; says that you're special. I don't see what's so special about you. I bet you bleed red, just like everything else." Loki fought panic, this battle would be far easier if he didn't have to worry about the Aethon and the Chitauri.
It was at that time Natasha picked up one of the destroyer guns she must have brought up with her and shot it straight at a shocked Nebula.
The overpowered shot refracted off an invisible barrier. It had to be the spirit's barrier.
"Clumsy Nebula. Kagura never let a human that stupid to shoot her. I'm bored, my turn." Hakudoshi chastised. Loki didn't have time to register what that could mean before a spiking, arc of blistering pain impaled him.
Loki choked on his own blood, gurgling and gasping as he wide-eyed looked down at his invisible foe. He swiped his own spear out but caught nothing but air.
"Loki!" He heard a shout. Natasha?
His blood oozed down what seemed to be a spear, or pole arm. Loki stabbed out this time with verdant green magic vines plunging forward.
Nothing.
"You tiny brat, don't kill him. The Other needs him alive and I will not receive punishment for your slaked bloodlust if you kill him here!" Nebula hissed, dodging another destroyer blast with a deft jump. The invisible weapon was twisted and pulled out ever so slowly only for it to be again sliced deep across his chest. The stench of his own blood filled his nostrils, and the stinging, ripping pain caught Loki off guard.
His sticky blood oozed through his fingers as he reflexively pressed against his chest.
He thought he'd be used to pain by now, but this all seemed so fresh, so visceral. Maybe, he wasn't as dead inside as he thought previously. He had been at peace for a while with Clint hadn't he? He felt more alive in Stark's garish tower than he had in centuries.
Maybe that was why a mere stab and slash caused such visceral, choking torment.
Loki's spine buckled and he doubled over but he refused to kneel. He heavily leaned on his spear as a clutch and forced his up gaze from the blood stained cement. Bullets flew past him at their invisible foe, as well as Rogers' shield but they struck nothing.
"What happens to you, Nebula, is on you. It's tacky to blame others for your failures. As I see it, there is only one being who can kill me a second time, and he isn't here, so I'll have a little fun." Hakudoshi's voice sounded impossibly close, like he was breathing in Loki's ear. This Demon sounded exactly like someone Thanos would think he would like in his ranks, but soon realize it was a mistake. Loki had worked with his kind before, and probably would have again if his life didn't take such a misfortunate turn with him on the Bifrost.
Another white-hot lance of pain exploded through his back, cracking a rib or two as the invisible weapon impaled him once more. His blood dripped down to the cement freely. Loki's glimmering black flowering shield faltered, some Chitauri chariots began to pour through the gaps and Loki grimaced and turned towards Jaken.
He instantly copied himself and teleported. He smirked when he saw his copy get skewered through again.
"Crafty trick." The spirit almost sounded amused.
Blitzen. He needed his dagger back.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Nebula engage Rogers once more.
"Dagger. Now." Loki hissed out, becoming visible.
'Oh, you think your cowards' weapon will strike me when your spear cannot?' Hakudoshi taunted. What a pest. He saw Jaken wind up and throw the dagger.
What a terrible throw. But Natasha now had her hands busy with the Chitauri that had escaped his defenses. If he could not make a proper stand here, what use could he be once the Nycteus, Worldslayer, The Relenetless, The Voracious, and even The Umbra finally came?
Loki lifted his head, eyes burning a jet-black ire.
He saw his prized uru dagger, with its shining blade blue from absorbing Blitzen. The same dagger he had almost sacrificed Sho's life to craft. It zipped through the air he knew the spirit had to inhabit. Blitzen would work! He would be able to wound this spirit!
Pause.
The poisoned dagger clattered onto the cement to his right.
Nothing.
'Oh, you thought…you actually thought you could harm me? A spirit with no ties to the physical realm? Didn't that old, weak, Dragon Demon teach you lot anything? Only Sesshomaru can send us back. And your faithful dog isn't here, is he? Pfft that aloof canine couldn't even best my Moyomaru, do you truly think you can defeat the onslaught to come? You are all good as viscera. Sit back and watch as I turn these humans to ribbon and take that stupid magic wand for my infinitely ham-fisted allies.' Hakudoshi's voice almost sounded frustrated, which struck Loki as odd. Loki staggered to a standing stance. He wanted to say the Demon sounded cocky, but really, this was confidence.
His poison, Blitzen, was useless.
Or….was it?
"AHHH! Stay back spawn of Naraku! Lord Sesshomaru help me!" Loki heard Jaken, but instead of listening intently, he was distracted. Something, deep in his memory was pulled forward by the spirits provocation. Dragon. A Dragon. The Uru Dragon. The Uru ate the Uru stone and embodied the Uru itself.
If he….if he did the same with his magic….could he do the same?
Yggdrasil was not of Midgard's physical realm…it only existed in the spiritual realm
'Yggdrasil…If you have any leaf of faith in me. Aid me. Support my triumph. Midgard depends on it. Lend me a branch, a flower, a twig. ANYTHING!' Loki grabbed his dagger from the cement. He gritted his teeth and continued to try to prevent the chitauri's and the Aethon's attacks with his weakening magic.
He was no nurse.
He was no savior.
He was a weapon.
He raked his exceptionally fine dagger across his neck, spilling more of his blood all around him. It reminded him of the cell the Other kept him in, arcs and pools of viscous blood. But that was in the past. The poison he himself created coursed through his circulatory system, ravaging every capillary in his body.
"Loki have you gone mad?!" He heard Natasha accuse. Loki gauged where this 'Hakudoshi' was through Jaken's fear-frozen gaze and summoned a spell he hadn't used in a long time.
"You arrogant, trivial, wastes of time! You are not worthy of judging me! I am LOKI! LOKI GOD OF CHAOS AND YOU WILL RECOGNISE MY POWER." Loki's eyes flooded black and he fisted his blood soaked left hand. All around him black gumtree seed pods shot out in the trajectory he knew that sniveling spirit occupied. It was similar to the spell he used against Sesshomaru, only this time inside each one was some of his own blood.
He usually avoided bloodspells, but this was an exception.
The gumtree pods burst in mists of blood and spikes of sparkling black magic.
"Ack!" Loki's face flourished into a bright smile. It actually worked. For once fortune favored him!
The spirit began to slowly become visible, he had injured his shoulder, gut, and leg with his gumtree bombs.
He was short, and mostly clad in white with long white hair. He turned, he was a boy, no older than Rin, holding a bloody naginata. He gazed back, looking rather puzzled. Loki straightened smugly, even though he had put a hand to his neck to help heal his gushing wound.
"Blast! I knew that cocky, scarlet skinned Demon was wrong about you all being invincible." Nebula announced and Loki fought the jolts of pain and brain foggiest brought on by blood loss to process what she said.
He was right. There were more of these Demon spirits, and there was at least one other Demon alive summoning them.
"Invincible? Everyone I know who thought themselves invincible are now bones and dust." The dead look in Hakudoshi's eyes when he turned to face him would have chilled Loki if he were a lesser Demi-God. Just who was this juvenile Demon?
"What?! He is just a boy, no older than Rin!" Loki turned to Rogers who up until then had been in a fierce fight with Nebula. Nebula, not surprised in the least swung her staff against Rogers' shield which sent him skidding back.
"Watch who you call boy, infant. Loki, maybe you were worth playing with after all. But alas, the time has passed for that. My new allies have decided this…" Hakudoshi turned, leveling his naginata at him. Loki saw the boy's nose scrunch. "Hive of humans needs some humbling. Sounds fun. Nebula and I will annihilate this crawling mound of humans!" Hakudoshi smiled and readied his naginata.
"I concur. This world believes too much in second chances. Ready the pulse cannon! Fire all secondary artillery! We will strike this city and burn it to ashes, then collect the scepter from the frog!" Nebula ordered and Loki paled. The cannon pivoted from the bow of the Aethon. It was massive, and it started to glow a blackened violet with his own magic. It hummed in Loki's sluggish veins.
"Curse you both." Loki spat. They had actually enhanced their weaponry with his magic as well. Dozens of smaller cannons alongside the port and starboard of the Aethon glowed and fired.
Loki leaned heavily on his spear and urged his shields to block the cannon fire and the Chitauri chariots. He would hold on.
"Loki, we need to shut that cannon down now. There are no helicarriers in range to disable it." Natasha commanded. His own vision around the edges began to darken. He had to stay conscious; he was the only one he would stop the Aethon. But how long could he hold out? Could black magic shield this massive city from a cannon that large even if it didn't falter before it fired?
"The Aethon is equipped with a magic shield enhanced with my own magic. It won't be crippled easily." Loki had never been an optimist. This war would always have casualties. If the first blast went through his black Oleander petals, perhaps it would buy them enough time for Thor to assist.
Some places in the blossoming shield began to thin and weaken. Loki, coughed out more blood and urged every tendril of magic out of his body. His feet had spun black roots into the earth, searching for Yggdrasil's power.
If he found Yggdrasil and was able to utilize its power, maybe Clint would be proud of him.
"Quick, throw me into the river! My Lord has a plan!" Loki weakly turned to Jaken who was actually hopping up and down. Hakudoshi tilted his head and lunged at the Water Demon.
"Sesshomaru is here? Maybe if I slay you, toad, he will show his face." Hakudoshi lunged towards Jaken.
"Not so fast." Natasha, suddenly free from battling Chitauri and raised her Destroyer gun and fired it at the Demon Spirit. The shot hit his barrier and resulted in a sonic boom that knocked them both, and some Chitauri back.
Loki vision was dimming, but he had enough magic to levitate something as small as Jaken.
He hoped that whatever the Water Demon had planned was worth it. If anything maybe it would by them some time. Loki used the magic he had been using to heal himself to fling the small Demon a few hundred meters away into the polluted Huangpu river.
"Loki, look out!" Roger's warned, which was kind of him. Loki bit back a grunt of pain as two Chitauri managed to hit him square in his chest with their ray blasts. He smote them both with dark green magic bolts.
"Loki, you don't look so good, how you holding up?" Roger's actually sounded concerned. He heard more coming, surrounding him, Rogers and Natasha. Did his black shield break this much?
"Never better, now duck." Grimacing, Loki shifted his weight off his spear to spin it above his head sloppily and slam it down. Leaves of magic sliced out in all directions cutting the Chitauri down. Nebula blocked the leaves with her staff and Hakudoshi threw up his barrier once more.
"Losing your strength Godling? Don't worry this will all be over soon." Nebula taunted. They would soon be overwhelmed and the poison in his veins had slowed any regeneration in his magic reserves, as well as the healing properties of his own body.
"Loki, we need you to focus on the Aethon, leave the rest to us. Your magic is barely holding out as is!" Rogers this time sounded a hair commanding. Would he really be captured here? Had he miscalculated this badly? Perhaps if he allowed himself to be captured, he could get his revenge on the other easier.
How much would Clint really miss him? He'd soon see the truth, that he was a monster not worth his time, much less his smiles and laughter.
"Of that, I am aware, Bedclothes. In case you haven't realized they have enhanced all aspects of this ship with my own magic. I am pooling my magic reserves to overpower it, seeing as I can't counter my own magic." Loki hissed, but knew it was futile. He couldn't even fend off a lowly Luphomoid, a Demon child, and the weakest ship of Thanos' fleet.
The cannon on the Aethon, to Loki's horror, had almost reached full capacity. He heard off in the distance the roar of jets. No doubt the paltry defenses of this province.
Too little too late.
Loki body started to feel impossibly heavy, sweat and blood dripped down into his eyes.
Then, an impossibly high screech registered in Loki ears. He gritted his teeth as an instinctual response.
"What is that? Is that Jaken?" Loki heard Rogers while struggling to hold back Nebula with his shield. Loki squinted out towards the river.
What he saw caused him to grin.
A teal, translucent sea serpent complete with large yellow eyes curled up and out of the river. His sleek, armored hide glimmered in the sun and dorsal fin and his smaller fins around his jaw glowed a faint yellow.
Loki allowed a small smile, how ironic he'd be seen with a sea serpent when the mortals believed he fathered Jörmungandr a sea seprent.
"Yes indeed." Loki coughed, blood dribbled down his jaw but he couldn't care less. Jaken opened his mouth which was lined with thousands of small, ivory, sharp teeth. His mouth too began to glow a faint yellow along with his eyes.
"Well, will you look at that. Maybe that frog isn't so useless after all. Amusing!" Hakudoshi flashed a smile that reminded him of one of his own. Loki didn't trust this Demon child, he seemed to be toying with all of them despite claiming the opposite.
The pulse cannon hummed and abruptly fired a breathtakingly overwhelming surge of magic at the heart of the city. It instantly dissolved his flowering black shield and vaporized the top of the Pearl Tower.
The purple beam lit up everything in their vicinity with a violet glow.
"No!" Loki didn't have time to conjure anything! This would be the first city lost to Thanos!
"Go Kermit!" Natasha called in between shots at Hakudoshi and Loki turned his head to see three bright yellow streaks arc across the sky like tremendous comets.
All three struck the violet pulse cannon blast. Loki held his breath.
The magic cannon blast and the youki comets dissolved into an ashen grey shimmering dust.
They negated each other entirely.
"Hmm...he never showed this much backbone against Naraku. This makes things interesting." Hakudoshi murmured and slung his naginata over his shoulder. Bullets ripped through his body, only for his body to immediately regenerate. The statement caught Loki off guard. It almost sounded like the Demon Spirit wasn't merely impressed, but actually pleased with the outcome.
"Prep the cannon for a second volley. Take out the sea creature, he has the scepter!" Nebula ordered as Jaken's pointed mouth glowed yellow again and fired a single comet of youki at the Aethon.
Loki, leaning heavily on his spear, straightened up as the sun bright beam struck the top of the Aethon, avoiding his own shield underneath it. In a flurry of sparkling grey powder, the yellow comet disabled a large swath of the Aethon's bow shield.
Now. Now was the time to strike. He also couldn't let Jaken outshine him.
"Damn. Just what happened? That small blast shouldn't have taken out the bow's primary shield array!" Nebula shoved off Rogers roughly and bounded back towards her chariot.
Above, the Midgardian jets shrieked by, firing a payload of missiles at the Aethon, stinging its smooth, black surface.
"Nebula, I'd say The Other didn't calculate on youki and dark magic canceling each other out. A costly mistake… if this war was to be anything close to a fair fight. Fortunate for us, the miscalculation won't amount to much." Hakudoshi's lip twitched up directed towards Nebula. Loki pursed his lips, Hakudoshi was slowly beginning to fade back to transparency, the poison in his system was fading.
"Natasha keep them busy." Loki strained voice, reluctant to him, sounded more like a plea. She nodded, took out a Chitari with a destroyer blast and pilfered his chariot. He could count on her.
He had to act with haste. The trick he used against Hakudoshi earlier only worked because the poison was fresh in his blood stream and could mix with his magic easily, he couldn't repeat it. Loki closed off all his senses, focusing deep, digging deep. He had to focus everything he had on accessing the full depth of his magic reserves.
He heard the clamor of fighting all around him but instead he enveloped himself deep in a magic shell.
He pushed away the throbbing, hot pain of his injuries, he had sustained far worse. He ignored the doubts in his mind, he could do this. He had trained for this, this was the time to stand firm and rebuff their foe and show them all what savagery he was capable of.
Clint. He had to show Clint what he would do. He had to protect him, and show that he could. He wasn't just some off-kilter lunatic who lost his sanity and self control at the slightest provocation.
'Yggdrasil. You chose me as a vessel, allow me to be of use. Allow me to dispense of the threat that yearns to decimate your prized earth. Allow me to show them your wrath, through my own hatred.' Loki magic cycled through him like loops and streaks of green and black flashes.
Suddenly, his body overheated in an almost boiling, thrashing heat as if his blood itself had become solar rays.
He screamed and his muscles seized, his prized spear fell by the wayside. It was worth it.
A euphoric surge of magic ignited his mind like kindling. He became a physical wick for whatever his emotions, his passions deemed vital.
The tactile satisfaction of palming the Other's severed head in his hands illuminated every nerve ending. The thirst quenching pleasure of scratching his fingernails down Clint's toned back sparked deep in his chest.
Loki cackled lowly, then roared.
"Look upon me and despair!" Loki's throat felt like sandpaper, but it didn't stop the blood curdling bellow from echoing between the buildings.
A massive, sprawling thicket of stems, leaves, and oleander buds unfurled and sprung skyward toward the Aethon. The branches dug and the leaves and petals lacerated through the opening in the Aethon's shield. One petal managed to just nick the pulse cannon, sending sparks and tongues of flame spitting out of the barrel.
Loki was still panting, black magic still smoked out of his eyes, fingertips and the corners of his savage smile.
The Aethon's engines powered up with a guttural thrum. Their thrusters output blew his sweaty, damp hair into his face. Loki's smile faltered.
"All graph, initiate a tactical retreat. We're falling back to point Greyfield!" Nebula, a few scant yards away from him shouted out.
All around him were smoking craters, some skyscrapers had taken hits as well. It was then Loki realized that the Aethon had peppered the surrounding area with its secondary cannons. His pupils constricted. Had Natasha or that naïve Captain been hit? Had he really allowed his black magic to ensconce his senses so badly? Since when had he fallen from someone who rarely let a single facial twitch slip by him, to being completely oblivious of cannon fire?!
He saw Natasha and Rogers, relatively unharmed. Ok, so he hadn't had missed too much.
"Jaken!" He heard Rogers yell. He whipped his head around to see that Jaken had a few bleeding wounds on his long, sleek frame but nothing that looked too bad. He was still upright and swaying from side to side in the polluted river, charging another yellow blast.
Loki gritted his teeth and willed to stand up straight, against the rhythmic biting pain jolting through his body. He tried to raise both arms but failed to raise his right. Apparently, he had been hit by some form of glancing blow from a cannon blast because his right hip now smoked. His skin charred black just like his shoulder and the acrid stench of his burned flesh stung his nose.
He had a few too many stab and slash wounds, one self-inflicted, to be in top fighting shape but that could not deter him. Suddenly a hand came down on his injured right shoulder and squeezed tight. Sort of. The being, half transparent slid right up beside him, violet, dull eyes peering into his.
Then a blade, an already sullied blade, raised to his already mangled throat.
"I could maim you here, possibly even kill you once I purge this poison." Hakudoshi whispered so quietly he could barely hear him through the pulse in his ears. Loki chuckled. No, this smug Demon child could not. He charged his magic up, from whatever reserves he could find. "But…I won't. It'd make things difficult for me. You're powerful of ability, but you're weak of mind. You're intelligent, yet ignorant to this situations' undercurrents. Why are you even here? Does this wand, this human ant mound mean that much to you?" Hakudoshi sounded almost curious. Loki spat.
"Let me assure you, no one here cares what a cowardly, wayward spirit thinks." Loki could have breathed fire in that instant he was so angry. He teleported a scant distance away from the Demon child who had come too close for his physical comfort.
"The bloodloss must have gotten to your head." Hakudoshi sighed. "You should ask yourself, Loki God of Mischief, why this senile magician and that purple thug desire to capture you or Sesshomaru so badly. Key word: 'or'. He doesn't want both you of you, he just needs the one that is easier to take." Hakudoshi paused letting the information sink in.
"Step away from Glow Stick, Casper. You're fighting a losing battle." Natasha sounded sure but Loki put his left hand out to stop her.
"The reasons Nebula and I are here are firstly to retrieve that wand, second demoralize the peasants here, then to retreat at the first sign of trouble. But if you think about it, does that really make sense?" Hakudoshi continued, undeterred. He had almost faded from view, but he could still hear him.
Loki had figured The Other and Thanos' goal was never the scepter. But whose was?
"You see, one of my allies wants the wand, and one of my allies thought retrieving it would be convenient because you'd be lured by its siren song to be plucked from your allies. Do you think they are the same person?" Hakudoshi's grip had all but faded on his shoulder.
"I don't need you to spell things out for me, brat." Loki grimaced, knowing of course Hakudoshi had to be speaking about two different people.
"Runt! Pack it up, his magic is too unstable to capture!" Nebula called out urgently.
"Going by our reason for being here, for whose cause, for whose sake do you think Nebula and I are fighting for?" Hakudoshi prosed and though Loki couldn't see him, he knew this smug Demon was smirking.
Loki's breath hitched thick and wet. He laughed darkly.
Insurrection. Revolt. Defiance.
"You're outclassed. You won't succeed." Loki murmured and Hakudoshi clicked his tongue.
"Ah, this isn't the first time I've done this, and I've learned from my mistakes. Have you? Doesn't look like it the way you're bleeding out and your magic running rampant and low. Now that I have done this favor for you, you will do one for me. Tell Sesshomaru that Kagura is here and she is even more insufferable as a spirit than she ever was alive." Hakudoshi informed, his voice and Loki could only see a faint outline of the small figure. And Loki tilted his head in thought, vision dimming.
"Now, Hakudo—!" Nebula ordered and in a flash Hakudoshi had vanished, his barely opaque figure now at her side. Could he teleport?
"We will take our leave now." Hakudoshi called out in his mind and Nebula vanished from sight. They were likely aboard the Aethon.
"Did she just disappear?" Rogers half groaned, but before Loki could answer he smelled something, something like Sho's acid whip when it wrangled you.
He saw the purple and green smoke billow out from where Nebula and Hakudoshi had disappeared. Demonic miasma.
"Don't breathe!" Loki warned knowing it may be too late already. He teleported to Rogers who had already begun to cough and wheeze and Natasha who had inhaled too much already, struggling to get some sort of mask for airborne toxins that appeared damaged beyond functionality.
Their veins had begun to turn a purplish black around their necks and their breathing stuttered to a stop.
"The Nines!" Loki couldn't pursue and ensure the departing Aethon and heal the humans, his magic had been basically depleted.
"That's Naraku's miasma! It's deadly against humans! That dreadful Hakudoshi!" Loki noticed Jaken had scrambled his way back to him, scepter in his green hand. His glamour did not hold out, but it hardly mattered now.
"I will attempt to dispel the toxin. Keep back." Loki honestly hadn't the slightest clue if he could do it, or detoxify Natasha's or Rogers' bloodstreams.
But… he in a way owed it to them both. Natasha kept his secret in Asgard and Rogers was one of the first few to trust him by standing next to him on Starks tower rooftop.
"Once more Yggdrasil, lend me your aid. Help me…" Loki trailed off as words failed him. He hadn't even thought how Clint would feel if his closest confidant, Natasha perished here.
"Help me be the healer Stark claims me to be…" as soon as he bubbled his magic out Yggdrasil responded instantly. Immediately a luxurious rush of warmth washed over his body. It was if he drank three chaises of the Asgardian mead Thor loved so.
The emerald green magic flowed true and freely. Effortlessly the green pods broke and the shimmering magic cloud negated the purple miasma.
Natasha and Rogers remained unresponsive.
"…Come back!" Loki urged his magic forth and the green spores expanded, filling the air with the scent of cloves.
"I've never seen anyone get rid of Naraku's miasma before." Loki saw Jaken's wounds were not healed, but he could never heal a Demon anyway. The same was not the same elsewhere. The damage to the infrastructures, roads, and even the top of the Pearl Tower had either built back back up or and repaired themselves.
His own wounds, even the ones inflicted by Hakudoshi had begun to mend at a rapid pace.
A sputtering wheeze escaped Rogers' mouth and a gasp came from Natasha's.
Loki couldn't believe it. He had never taken naturally to Frigga's healing arts. How in the nine realms had Yggdrasil manifested such unbridled restorative magic in him. These healing arts, however, had cost him the capture of the Aethon. The daunting vessel had successfully retreated into the sky.
Loki bent down and helped a still somehow glamoured Natasha and Rogers to their feet and looked around. The mortals of Shanghai had clamored around them, taking photos, videos and the Nines knew what else.
He supposed he would just have to deal with his adoring fans. He vaguely remembered saying something to that effect the night he had the nightmares. Oh yes, No rest for the wicked.
Loki did the only thing he could do. He smiled and waved.
He was the diva was he not?
Oh Hakudoshi. You just had to stir the pot didn't you? I hope I am doing his character justice, its been a while since I've seen the show!
Anyway, thought with all the ghosts and spirits this would be a good Halloween update! :) please drop a review and let me know what you think!