Title: A Lane to the Land of the Dead chapter 12/14
Pairing/Characters: Teamfic. No Pairings. Loki, Thor, Avengers, Original Male Character. Brief non graphic mention of OMC/OMC
Tags: Gore, violence, strong language, angst, self harm, torture.
Summary: 5th part of the Teamwork series, but this is written like a standalone fic, so if you haven't read the others you will still be able to understand it.
Loki has been an Avenger for two years, but as a new threat pushes him away from the team, they begin wonder just how much they can trust him.
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CHAPTER 12
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"No!" Loki cried when he saw the Frost Giants burst through the pulsing portal and form a tight battle formation on the other side of the field.
William laughed, and said, "Oh yes, daddy dearest, you are right to be scared, since it is your blood they seek."
"Loki has made amends with the Jotuns," Thor said angrily, pushing Loki behind him. "He made reparations with their realm and Asgard gifted them the Casket in good faith as long as it was never used to attack."
"Peace may have been made with the Frost Giants from the present," William crowed. "To you your actions occurred long ago, but to them? Well, their king was murdered just yesterday and they seek revenge."
"You brought them from the past?" Thor gasped.
"As long as I live this portal will remain open, they will have a way into this realm, and they will take it by force!" William said. "Perhaps now would be a good time to cede to my demands."
The Frost Giants remained, standing still some 200 yards across the meadow, but as William raised his arm they began to advance slowly. Some held their arms out, allowing long spikes of ice to form as they walked, and with the weapons completed they began to run.
"Get back in the jet!" Loki said, desperately grabbing at Clint's shoulder. "The touch of a Frost Giant can wound even an Aesir. It would surely be fatal for you and Natasha."
"OK," Clint said, and he grabbed Natasha arm and yelled, "Come on!"
"I would advise you to arm yourself," Loki said to Steve, who nodded and ran after Clint.
"And you," Loki said to Bruce, but before he could say more the transformation took over, his clothes tore, and the Hulk stood in front of him. "Well… I think you will be all right."
"Don't let them touch you!" Thor bellowed, twisting Mjolnir in his hand as the Frost Giants closed in.
"You better get airborne," Loki said, flashing a look to Iron Man.
"What about you?" Tony asked.
"Their touch cannot hurt me. I'm one of them," Loki said as the Jotuns finally closed the gap between them.
As Tony blasted into the sky he saw the front line of Frost Giants plough into the brothers who stood side by side. Thor raised Mjolnir, smashing the first wave and sending them flying back into those who came after, while Loki moved like a whirlwind, stabbing and slashing at anything that came within reach.
Tony started flying over their heads, firing his repulsors and blasting the giants apart, and Hulk roared with triumph as he rampaged through the Jotuns, breaking them with his bare hands.
Steve ran up the Quinjet ramp as Clint started the engines, grabbed a machine gun from the weapons hold, and shoved magazines of bullets into his belt. He ran back outside and fired off small pulses of ammunition at the Jotuns who approached, and used his shield to smash any who got too close to him.
The Quinjet was finally in the air, flying strafing runs across the heads of the giants, targeting them with their mini gun, while Iron Man concentrated on backing up the fighters on the ground.
Tony blasted a Giant that was behind Steve, reaching out to grab him with its dangerous hands, showering Steve in chunks of ice, and he looked up, giving Tony a nod of the head in thanks.
Hulk ploughed through the lines of the Giants, breaking them apart with punches, slaps and kicks. One of them got a hold on his arm and waited for his skin to turn black under its touch, but Hulk just grinned at the creature's shock when it realised nothing happened. He punched the giant, cracking its skull open, and then ran through the crowd, smashing his fists wildly.
The numbers were thinning; the mob of giants that had poured onto the field was down to almost a quarter of its original total, and Tony allowed himself a moment of hope, and said, "Guys, we can totally do this. We're winning!"
"Don't get too excited," Steve shouted as he threw his shield and cracked open the chest of a Jotun.
William stood by the portal and watched the final few Frost Giants fall.
"Is that the best you can do?" Tony shouted as he hovered in the air.
William grinned and then another wave of Jotuns poured from the portal, bringing with them giant grey dog like beasts with huge mouths full of jagged teeth.
"What the hell are those things?" Tony cried as one of the beasts leapt into the air, raking its clawed foot through air as it tried to catch him.
Several of the Jotuns knelt on he ground and placed their palms on the grass. A sheet of ice started to spread across the field, and huge pointed spikes grew up towards the sky, trapping the Avengers where they stood. Thor used Mjolnir to smash his way through the spikes, and then Steve let out a yelp of pain as a spike shot up from the ground and pierced his thigh.
Hulk let out a thunderous howl; he raised his hands and brought his palms together letting out a deafening sonic boom that shattered the ice, causing it to explode outwards in a glistening rain of shards.
The Jotuns were pouring onto the field still, several of them moved forward, leaping onto Hulk's back until a pile of them managed to force him to one knee in an effort to remove them.
Steve was forced to retreat, limping on his badly injured leg, blood staining his suit in a bright red stream. He couldn't leave the fight, they were barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth as it was, and he hoped his wound would heal quickly.
A Jotun locked eyes with Steve, and a cruel grin spread across its face as it saw the blood slicking his thigh. Steve raised his gun, letting off a burst of gunfire, and then the shooting stopped as he ran out of bullets. He desperately scrambled at his belt, ripping out another cartridge, and as the Jotun bore down upon him Steve heard a whine of engines above his head.
"Jump in!" Natasha shouted from the open hatch of the Quinjet that hovered just over his head.
Steve crouched, letting the machine gun fall around his waist as it hung from the strap over his shoulder, and pushed up with his good leg, but missed by mere inches.
"We need to go lower!" Natasha shouted.
"All right!" Clint shouted back to her, dropping the craft a few feet.
Steve jumped, this time grabbing the ramp and hauling himself up as Natasha bent to help pull him inside.
There was a loud thump as two grey feet landed next to Steve, and Natasha found herself staring into the grinning face of a Frost Giant.
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Loki fought quickly, striking like a cobra, jabbing his knives into anything that came near him, as Thor stood behind him, whirling Mjolnir like a tornado.
He stabbed right and left, creating clones which distracted the Giants, and then he heard Thor scream his name.
As Loki turned towards the sound he found himself face to face with a leering Jotun that grabbed his left hand and crushed his fingers mercilessly against the hilt of his knife.
The Jotun waited for Loki's hand to turn black with frostbite, just as the Giant on Jotunheim had done so long ago, and Loki watched the familiar look of shock cross it's face as his skin began to turn blue under it's touch. This was different. It did not know what his true form was.
Loki had looked on with equal horror on Jotunheim as his glamour failed, but this time he knew what was happening. As the flush of blue skin bloomed on his neck, and moved across his face, turning his eyes blood red, he used the giants hesitation to his advantage, and smashed the point of the knife in his right hand into it's eye socket.
The Giant fell to the ground, lifeless among the growing pile of corpses, leaking dark blood across the slick grass, and Loki's skin flushed pink.
There was a loud screeching sound from overhead as the engines of the Quinjet roared into overdrive, and Loki watched in horror as Frost Giants leapt into the air, throwing themselves into the open hatch at the back as Natasha and the clearly injured Steve desperately tried to force them out.
Loki felt like he was watching in slow motion as the Jet started to spiral downward, skittering across the grass, and finally came to a halt among the trees.
"We have to help them!" Tony shouted, flying towards the downed jet, and then he was knocked from the sky by a giant Jotun dog that caught him between its teeth.
At first Loki had believed that they could win this battle, but as another wave of Giants appeared through the portal he felt his hope begin to diminish. This could be the end, for the Avengers, for him, for Midgard.
Loki looked across the battlefield and caught sight of his son, still stood calmly by the portal, watching the fight with a wide grin on his face.
Finally William locked eyes with him, and Loki screamed, "You have to end this!"
William held his hand to his ear sarcastically and said, "Sorry, didn't quite catch that, what did you say?"
Loki teleported past the throng of Giants, stood before his son, and said, "End this, now!"
"You know how to end this," William said, "and you know that you are the only one who can do it. Have I finally given you the incentive you need, or will you truly let them perish?"
Loki's mouth went taut as he looked away and back across the battlefield. The hatch of the downed jet was still open by a foot and Giants were swarming around it, trying to pull it open, while others pounded on the glass canopy. He wasn't sure if the glass would break, but it was likely that the Giants would able to rip open the back hatch, and those trapped inside would stand no chance of survival.
Hulk and Thor were still fighting, desperately trying to fend off the Jotuns, and while the creatures were physically no match for them, they had sheer weight of numbers on their side. The Frost Giants would keep coming, and eventually their strength would fail.
They were going to lose.
Loki turned back, feeling his eyes prickle with tears, he took William by the shoulders and desperately pleaded, "There has to be another way."
"There is not," William said, then he nodded at something across the field and said "I have made my choice, and now you must hurry and make yours."
Loki followed William's gaze until he found Stark, still in the jaws of the snarling creature as he desperately fired his weapons into its face and mouth.
The beast stopped its loping run and threw Stark to the floor, then placed a huge paw on top of him, and Loki wondered how long the suit would last under the crushing weight and intense cold.
"Perhaps this is how it will end?" William asked. "If the beast freezes Stark there will be no heart for you to eat and I will blink out of existence."
"I can't allow that to happen," Loki said. "I will not lose both of you."
"Then do it!" William shouted.
Loki searched William's face for any hint of remorse at his actions, but found nothing but madness in his eyes. Had he birthed a monster again, or was this just the product of the torture that Thanos had inflicted upon him for 300 years? If the torture never happened, if Thanos was dead long before William was even born it would never come to pass, and his child would never become the wicked boy who stood before him now. He knew what he had to do.
Loki let out a sudden cry of frustration and pushed William to the ground. "Give me your hands."
William didn't flinch as Loki conjured a long thin knife and started to carve complicated runes into his left palm, each wound seeping blood, and then closing again. Loki moved onto his right palm, and as he carved the healing slowed, and finally ceased. As he finished the final rune, which stayed open, spilling blood across his palm, and William sighed in relief as the portal collapsed.
William smiled up at his father, and whispered, "Give me a clean death. Don't force me to do it myself."
"I know that one day I will see you born, and I will watch you grow and I will love you more than I ever thought possible," Loki promised as he held the tip of the knife to his son's chest. "I will find a way to put this right. I will kill Thanos before he comes to take you. I swear that this will not be your end."
William made no sound as the blade slipped beneath his ribs and pierced his heart. He smiled and raised his hand to Loki's cheek, smearing it with blood and said, "Oh, father, if only that were possible."
"I promise you, I'll do it," Loki said. "None of this will ever happen."
"It already has," William coughed. "Everything is history. You can't change the future any more than you can change the past. Everything is inevitable."
"But if I kill Thanos you will be safe," Loki said as he pulled him into his arms. "He will not be able to take you if I kill him first."
"You have already failed, and this will always be my end," William whispered as his eyes began to drift shut.
"No, no, no, that's not possible. No!" Loki shouted as he shook his son's limp body.
Loki felt a hand on his shoulder, and heard a voice call his name. He looked up, his eyes wide with horror, and asked, "Thor, what have I done?"
Loki felt Thor kneel next to him, and was sure he spoke again, but he heard no sound. He wanted to scream, his mouth opened but nothing came out.
He heard the shouts of the Frost Giants as the swarmed over the Quinjet and finally tore the back hatch open, but even the sound of the rapid machine fire sounded distant and muted to his ears.
Nothing else mattered; the battle, the Jotuns, the shouts of his friends in the distance as they fought to save their own lives meant nothing in comparison to the weight of his child's dead body that rested in his arms.
He had killed the only child he had left and nothing could ever change that.
He leant forward, gripping his son's body closely to him, threw his head back and screamed, "HEIMDALL!"
A rainbow of light plunged from the sky, plucked them from the ground and carried them back to Asgard, then spread out across the field, moving from Jotun to Jotun, until they had all vanished.
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Last two chapters will be up tomorrow.