I hope you guys liked the last chapter, and to those of you who have this story on your Alerts, thank you for being so patient for this one. Enjoy!

In retrospect, he should have realized that where he was concerned, the Fates never had been quite that straightforward; and he had never been that lucky.

Just as Loki had begun to grow accustomed to the idea of dying, and the feeling of being suspended for Eternity in the emptiness between the Realms, the space around him shifted. Suddenly, he was falling again; not like he had before, as though in slow motion, but rather as if he had just jumped from atop the tallest spire of the palace towers. He could feel himself dropping fast, the blood pulsing in his ears.

Wait, he could hear?

He could HEAR! The nearly forgotten rush of wind howled as he continued to fall ever faster, the chill of it stinging his face and forcing him to squint to see. His heart was in his throat as the view around him changed, and the darkness was chased away by a near-blinding spectrum of color and light. At first he imagined it to be the Bifrost, before remembering that that was impossible—Thor destroyed it, it can't be—and so was at a loss as to what was happening. All he knew was that as bright as the lights were around him, he could still make out traces of the Dark, beyond.

No, Loki thought, as he felt the icy tendrils of panic begin to clutch at his heart, no, no, nonono!

When he had let go of Gungnir and was supposedly lost to the Void, he had thought at the time that he would finally be free. That death would be peaceful…easy. But as he abruptly began to regain his sensations of sight and sound—things he had assumed were now lost to him for good—and felt himself dropping like a stone into thin air, he came to the conclusion that he did not, in actual fact, want to die. He wasn't ready, as he had previously thought. And the idea that he could still perish, alone in the dark that was still oh so very near, was enough to frighten him witless.

This eye-opening notion occurred to him, of course, a second too late. As quickly as it had come into being, the magnificent display of light that surrounded him—protected him—disappeared altogether, and he was thrust once more into the Dark.

"Nooo!" he found himself screaming, his eyes searching the blackness in vain as pure, unmitigated terror overtook him.

But he could still hear…and somehow, he could still feel himself falling. There was a sudden bite of tiny water drops hitting his face along with the wind that forced him to close his eyes, and quickly turned into a deluge that soaked his clothes and hair and clogged his mouth and nose. Up became down as he tumbled end-over-end through the unexpected storm, struggling to breathe as he wondered what in the Nine was happening. No longer able to take not knowing, Loki opened his eyes as much as he dared, to find that the blackness around him was not quite so impermeable as before. He could vaguely see little pinpricks of light far, far below him…and drawing ever closer by the second. The lights began to grow bigger and brighter, and with their aid he saw the fuzzy outline of a building surrounded by a sprawl of open ground, with what appeared to be woodlands forming an outlying border. Dread filled him at the sight. Oh no…

In the time it took him to blink, several things happened at once.

Leaves and tree branches engulfed his field of vision; he had seconds to raise his arms to cover his face. The rest of him, on the other hand…well, it was all he could do to try and curl into a ball, to shield himself. And then, the pain started. Wooden limbs cracked and splintered to pieces under his weight, pounding him relentlessly while in no way stopping his fall. Sharp branches tore up his clothes and snatched at his hair, yanking his face away from the protection of his hands and ravaging his visage with scrapes and cuts. A gash opened up above his brow; another, on his chin. A ripping sound and vicious jerk of his neck told him his cape had been torn away. The constant clanging of metal on wood echoed around him at his armor took beating after cruel beating in his seemingly never-ending descent.

Please…

A sharp jolt of agony caused him to cry out anew; his left arm was broken. He begged the Norns to end his suffering, but to no avail. Blackness began creeping in along the edges of his vision, and he fought weakly against it. Another branch caught him in the side, and even over the wind, rain, rumbling thunder, and his own screams he heard his ribs make a sickening crack, and a choked gasp left him as he felt his grip on consciousness begin to slip. The pain was too much, the ground was rushing up to meet him and before he could brace himself for the imminent collision, his eyes fell shut with a defeated sigh as the dark he so feared folded around him once more.

Loki finally hit the earth with a crash loud enough to wake the dead, a small crater forming around him from the force of it. The sound reverberated through the trees, shocking frightened birds into flight and sending creatures on the ground scurrying away. The storm carried on, rain pouring down on the broken form lying prone on the forest floor and causing his blood to wash away and mingle with the dirt. And apart from the low rumble of thunder in the distance, not a sound could be heard. Even the animals were silent; once again, as before, the night air was calm and still.

Yet, somehow, three-hundred yards away, the disturbance was enough to cause a man named Charles Xavier to wake with a start.