Loki was always an expert in avoiding death. In faking death. In taking other's death. And in making others die, if he was to be completely honest with himself.
Making it short he was acquistanced with it on quite a high level.
And he actually never thought he was going to die.
At least not until now.
The first thing Darcy has noticed when she opened her eyes was that she wasn't dead.
Yet.
Because the smell she felt was surely going to kill her soon and what's more it definitely meant she was not in heaven.
The other thing she noticed was that something sharp was pinching her back. She winced and reached under herself trying to find the source of pain.
She caught something in a form of hexagon and when she took it she had to blink a few times to make sure its real.
She was holding a Rubik's Cube.
What on earth?
Darcy slowly and carefully sat down. She felt a bit dizzy at first, but it was no pain. She shook her head trying to guess what the heck just happened.
The last thing she remembered was a desert with some modest building in the middle of it and an indistinct view of Jane's car.
"Damn." She murmured to herself. Her friend's studies were always ending like that. She should have known better then to go for some weird device to the trunk alone, just because she didn't want to spend time with Ian.
Though he wouldn't help her much, if she was to be honest.
After all no one can stop a freakin' tornado, which takes you up in one place and throw you down in the other. The only thing would be that she wouldn't be here alone.
Darcy frowned with anxiety.
Maybe she was dead.
But no, it was impossible. She couldn't imagine herself anywhere not in heaven. The only bad thing she ever did was the way she broke up with Ian. And maybe lying. And informing police about her neighbors little, but loud party, despite the fact she had a much bigger and louder party the day before and nobody called the police.
All right. She wasn't saint, but come on! Nobody's perfect and it didn't mean that she shouldn't end up in heaven.
Only then she started sobering up enough to start noticing things that were farer than her own legs.
Just then she actually realize her glasses were gone and she saw nothing except for few closest meters before her.
Though even without them she could definitely say that it looked like one big garbage dump. And she was sitting on the garbage hill made of bottles, paper and other stuff like this.
Well, that would explain this stench.
Darcy checked her iPhone squinting her eyes. She had no idea where was she, but it was always worth trying.
But no.
She didn't have even a little bit of range. She hid her phone and looked around more precisely.
From every side of the hill there were visible the other huge hills of rubbish. Or at least she thought they were rubbish, because she really didn't see much.
Although, when Darcy turned around to check what was behind her, she felt a little spark of hope.
Not so far away from her there was something what just had to be city that is if the huge column in the middle was, as she assumed, a tall colourful skyscraper.
The way seemed to be easy – not so far away from Darcy, rubbish hills became smaller and the area - flat.
She looked on the way for a moment longer and then, she caught the Rubik's Cube - who knew, maybe she will have time to get bored - then slowly moved and went to the edge of the hill.
When she reached it, she immediately slipped off the hill surrounded by enormous amount of rubbish. She stood up gently trying not to wobble.
Darcy took a deep breath getting ready to her way. She wasn't sure enough what had happen to her to start getting worried about it yet.
She took a few steps ahead, when suddenly she heard somebody's indistinct scream behind her.
She jumped and involuntarily reached for her taser. But just then she realized her glasses weren't the only thing that she's lost. She had to let the device go when she fell.
''Look! It is more food in there!" Screamed the voice. This time Darcy heard the words very clearly, though she couldn't see anybody.
"Is she from here?!" Respond the other. Darcy moved back. Were they talking about her?
"Of course she is not from here, just look at her!"
And just then she saw a huge group of people dressed in rags and scary masks.
Darcy felt shivers running down her spine. She didn't waste anymore time - she just turned around and started to run.
She was stumbling over her own legs or some random garbage stuff that were laying directly everywhere.
She was taking random turns and completely ignoring her surroundings, only to not let them eat her.
That would be an awful way to die.
She was not sure for how long was she running, but when she stopped, because she wasn't able to breath anymore, she heard no steps behind her.
It took her a moment to caught her breath and realize that she actually lost the tail. Only then she also noticed that she wasn't among huge garbage hills anymore - now she was standing on more flat area and, when she looked up she saw something what looked like a spaceship flying towards her.
Suddenly she understood it. It wasn't not only heaven, but also earth.
Before she got to shake away from this observation and think about some logical plan she could follow, she felt a wind surrounding her and a moment later a loud 'bum' as the ship landed.
She squinted her eyes as the door from the machine opened and some tall man around forty years old went out of the ship.
He looked really nice smiling at her cheerfully as he was slowly coming closer.
Darcy pursed her lips wondering if she should run to or away from him. Finally she decided she won't know anything unless she asks, so she cleared her throat and started.
"Do you know what is this place, dude?" She questioned trying to sound confidently.
The man smiled even wider now standing just next to her. Maybe even too close for her liking.
"Yes." He answered laconic, his voice ringing with nice, calming nute, but still being not quite right for Darcy. "You're not from here, right?"
The Midgardian took a step away from the man.
"You didn't really answer my…" But before she got to finish she felt as something cold and round is being sticked to her arm and before she got to do anything she felt strong electric impulse coming through her body - just like this one time, when she accidentally tasered herself.
And the last thing she heard before drifting away were the man words, whispered - or maybe shouted, she was to dizzy to tell - over her head.
"Welcome to Sakaar."
The first thing Darcy heard when she started to get her consciousness back were some gibber coming from ahead of her.
It took her a moment to understand the particular words, but when she did, it started to freak her out at once.
"...unconscious again." Said some male voice, which she didn't ever hear before. "We have to find a different way to neutralize them."
She heard somebody clearing their throat before answering.
"But she is one hundred percent alive." Darcy shivered on that voice. It was definitely the man from before. She tried to open her eyes to glare on him, but she couldn't quite bring herself to do that yet. "Midgardians are just not as resistant on that than other species."
The man who spoke first murmured something in a way she couldn't understand him, until saying more clearly after a moment.
"Don't say not existing words when I'm around." He ordered, evidently annoyed.
"But Midgardians are just…" Started the man from the garbage dump, but the other one hushed him.
"No, no, no, no." He threw out. "It doesn't matter anyway. She missed my presentation, that's the whole point." His voice was very firm. "What am I supposed to do now? Tell her everything myself?"
Only then Darcy finally opened her eyes, just to see as the man from the garbage dump is nodding his head shyly.
The other one - old man in yellow robe, sitting on something like a throne and looking like he owned the place - sighed with resignation.
"Topaz." He turned to the guard - or guardian, Darcy wasn't sure from the place she was in - standing behind him with a scepter.
He didn't have to say anything more, cause they immediately understood what he wanted and gave him this huge, yellow stick they've been holding and came back to their previous place.
Darcy frowned and corrected her position only then realising that she was handcuffed to some chair. It didn't make her comfortable anymore than what happened a second later.
Just when she finally started to see everything more clearly - at least as for lack of glasses - the old man leaned towards the one from the garbage dump and stated.
"You were an awful scrapper, number fifty six. I hope you're sorry." And with that directed the scepter on the other man.
"No, Grandmaster pleeasse…." Was the last thing he got to say before changing in the hot, wet spot on the floor.
Darcy felt as panic is raising in her chest as the, as she supposed, Grandmaster turned in her direction next.
"And her." He frowned a bit. "Got her cleaned up and bring to me tomorrow. I want to know what this items scrapper fifty six found in her pocket are."
With that Darcy felt as her chair is moving away from the ruler and out of the room and she heard someone's footsteps behind her.
She had no idea where was she going, but she decided that anything was better than what happened to that man from the garbage dump.