Yes this chapter is a lot shorter than the other ones because this is the end of the first part! I have decided that I'll make this a three-part-story! This concludes the first part. You guys will decide when the next chapter comes out: if enough reviews it might come out tomorrow or Tuesday, if not it'll be a regular update or, possibly later because I have a lot of work for school mweh.
Loki is dying, it's as simple as that. If someone would ask him to describe the feeling he would answer him that it sucks. Ever lost all feeling in a limb? Like you're not sure if it's still attached to your body or just randomly fallen off? Imagine that, but with your mind. It feels like his mind, his essence everything that makes him Loki is withering away.
His memories of himself are disappearing, at this moment he isn't even sure who he is anymore, he knows his name but everything else is a haze, who is he? Who was he before this? Before this mind that is slowly disintegrating?
His feeling haven't changed however, his emotions have never been this strong, for a reason, and he cannot fathom why, he feels dread, above all else he feel despair, the haze, the fog that's slowly taking over his mind haven't dulled those emotions yet. He feels regret and pain and fear and he feels lost. He tries to remember why, if he dies he wants to know why, he at least wants to be himself.
Above all else, even above the fog, the slow but steady stream of memories that's disappearing he remembers only one name and when he thinks about it, it fills him with regret and self-loathing but it's the only vast thing he actually remembers.
Thor
And it's that name that engraved in his mind when his world, the world around him, that's trapping him, disappears and suddenly he can feel his body again but he knows, he's still dying.
XxXxXxXxXx
When the Mind Gem shatters everything around him is blown away bit not him, Thor screams in anger and throws Mjolnir to the ground, still holding the handle, effectively anchoring himself.
He knows Odin has done the same with Gugnir and he can feel the All-Father's spear's energy engulf his friends and although he is relieved to know his friends are not among the ones who are ripped apart by the sheer force of the explosion he feels like he cannot think about them now, the only thing he can think about is Loki.
For a moment he had believed the mortal would've killed Loki, would've killed Loki to save the ladyfriend of the Man of Iron but instead, the enchanted arrow has pierced the Gem, incased by the scepter.
When the energy waves finally decrease the Thunder God, brother of Loki doesn't hesitate and swing Mjolnir in the direction that he knows his brother must be, the Mind Taker can only be there, can only work if it has an infinite power supply and with that supply blown up he knows it has lost its power.
When he sees a flash of green he dives toward it, he can see Loki but when Thor grabs his brother to embrace him and tell him that everything is alright he suddenly feels it. Or the lack of it, his brother is half-unconscious and never in his life has Thor seen him so pale, so fragile and broken than he sees him now. And never in his life has he ever held his brother, as enemy or friend, without the shimmering energy in his body that makes Loki, Loki.
Never has he felt his brother without his seidr, without his magic.
XxXxXxXxXx
"Loooookiiiiiiiiii"
"No"
"What? But I haven't even asked you yet!"
Loki doesn't even look up from the book he's reading.
"Answer's still no."
"But-"
"No"
"At least let me finish brother!" Thor exclaims, throwing his hands in the air before using them to grab his brother's book.
"Hey I'm reading that!"
Thor quickly holds the book as far away as possible from his brother.
"Well I know what you can do that's ten thousand times more fun than reading!"
When his desperate attempts to get his book back fail, Loki crosses his arms, and huffs,
"Last time we did something fun Thor, your friends threw me into a river."
Thor's brow furrows and he taps his chin with his finger thoughtfully.
"I do think I remember you put a spell on their clothes that made them very itchy so they had to jump in the river themselves if they didn't want to scratch their skins off their bones."
His brother rolls his eyes.
"It was just a bit of fun Thor you know that."
Another moment passes where Thor taps his chin a little harder but then his face clears up again.
"Whatever I was telling you about this awesome thing we're-"
"-you-"
"-going to do!" Thor finishes like he hasn't been interrupted at all.
"You see, Father said he was going to get me this awesome birthday present 'when I'm ready' and I asked mother and she wouldn't tell me-"
"-Obviously." Loki sighs.
"-But I kept asking-"
"-Obviously." Loki repeats, hoping secretly, or not so secretly, that that's it.
"So she finally said that Father hid it in the Weaponry!"
Loki raises a perfect eyebrow.
"Where we're not allowed in lest Father accompanies us."
Thor waves his brother's remark away quickly and jumps up and down enthusiastically.
"Wouldn't it be so awesome if we took a look?"
Loki doesn't seem impressed.
"No"
His brother pretends like he hasn't heard him, throwing away Loki's book and grabbing his sibling's arm, tugging it insistently.
"Come one brother, whatever happened to your sense of mischief, don't tell you don't want to break the rules!"
"Do you even have a plan?"
The bouncing stops.
"Well I have like a quarter of a plan."
Loki rolls his eyes and quickly sidesteps Thor, grabbing his book and putting it back on his desk.
"I will repeat my answer as it would appear you did not understand: no."
The books is grabbed again and this time Loki doesn't even try to get it back.
"You've been talking about the Weaponry ever since father showed us that box, you cannot fool me!"
The youngest sibling's eyebrows are furrow.
"Blue box?"
"You knowwww the blue one with the black lines on it?"
Again, Loki's eyebrow shoots upright.
"The Casket of Ancient Winters?"
"Yeah that one!"
Loki looks down, he has been wanting to take another look at it, it is a very important artifact that's been the reason for the relative peace between the Aesir and Frost Giants so it indeed has peaked his interest. Of course he can't just relent like that to Thor.
"Fine." He says. "But on one condition."
"Yeah sure, what is it?"
"I create the plan."
"Sure."
"And you do what I say."
"Sure."
Oh, Loki knows this is going to be so much fun!
XxXxXxXxXx
"Loki!"
The voice is annoying, all he wants to do is sleep, just a little longer.
"Loki!"
Why can't it shut up?
"BROTHER!"
Loki wakes up with a start and it feels like a horde of Bilgesnipe has run over him. The light hurts his eyes and he blinks a couple of time, a metallic taste in his mouth makes him want to hurl and his head is pounding like someone is slamming Mjolnir in his head.
"Loki? Say something brother, are you awake?"
"Ugh", Loki grunts out, his body hurts, everything hurts.
"Get off of me."
Suddenly the hand that's holding him disappears as his brother backs away and Loki almost falls but Thor realizes his mistake just in time and the hand quickly returns.
Only now does Loki see what's happening, or rather what's happened around him.
Thanos has been thrown away a few feet by the shock of the blast, Odin has collapsed and the All-Mother lays next to him, Loki can see she's holding the All-Father hand and even from this distance he feels the seidr that's binding the two.
Thor's friends are scattered everywhere but it's obvious they've been protected by Gugnir's force because although some of them are unconscious and other very dazed and some even gravely wounded he can see that the Chitauri around them are ripped apart, their mutilated bodies even stick to the walls.
Suddenly he hears the sound of someone throwing away rubble and he sees Thanos rise from where he laid. The Titan dusts himself off like nothing's happened and then he looks at the unconscious forms of the Avengers and the Thunder God bowed over his broken brother's form and he smiles.
Behind him, far behind, Loki knows, lies the mortal who destroyed the Mind Gem. He can feel his gaze on his back and then Thanos speaks.
He looks at the scattered remains of what was once the Mind Gem end cocks his head, it doesn't fit him.
"A minor setback." His voice makes Loki want to hurl even more.
Suddenly he can feel the seidr moving towards Thanos and without further warning his brother his thrown through the wall with a blast powerful enough to destroy a small planet. The only reason Loki still there is because Thanos allows him to.
"But I'll manage."
And with that Loki can feel the Tesseract power up.
"I'll just destroy Asgard whole and then all of you meddlesome insects will be gone."
XxXxXxXxXx
"I still don't understand why I'm dressed up as a woman."
Loki shakes his head and smiles.
"I thought we agreed that you'd listen to what I told you."
Thor narrows his eyes.
"This is payback because I didn't stop them from throwing you in the river."
Loki just shrugs.
"And for laughing of course." Thor makes an indignant noise from the back of his throat.
"It was funny."
"So is this." Loki says smugly.
"Now, the plan is very simple, the only thing you have to do is put this,"
Loki conjures a small vial up, out of nowhere. The purple liquid sloshes around in the see-through glass.
"in the guard's drinks and voila, by the time that have guard duty they'll be sleeping like maidens."
Thor snatches the bottle out of his brother hands with an angry snarl.
"First of all, why this ridiculous outfit and second of all no one's gonna believe I'm a maide, I'm ten and I don't even look like a girl."
Loki waves away his brother's arguments easily.
"I put a minor illusion on you it's not gonna hold very long but it's going to make them," he points at the two Asgardians witting at the table, "believe you're a maiden and they are gonna drink I promise."
"I don't want to do this, I am Thor, I'm a prince-"
"-and you said you'd do whatever I said if it was beneficial to the plan." Loki finishes his sentence.
"Now hurry up because I'm not going to be able to hold your illusion for much longer."
XxXxXxXxXx
Clint had hoped his arrow would've at least taken out the Other, he had known Thanos would've been too beautiful to be true but seriously how strong is that stupid ugly sidekick anyways?
He knows the Other isn't dead because the moment Thanos had started to power up that stupid Tesseract he had been attacked by him.
It's years of training and doing highly specialized missions that saves him, he recognizes the sound of a gun, alien or not, being powered up and he quickly rolls to his side, narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Other.
"You will not hinder the Master anymore!" it screams, spit flies everywhere as his now mutilated mouth tries to correctly pronounce the words it wants it to, the explosion might not have killed him, it obviously had done some major damage. From everywhere under his cloaks drips a weird substance, glittering and soaking the ground underneath his feet.
His movements are still inhumanly fast though, when he realizes the gun isn't working anymore he suddenly lungs at Clint with all his might and almost slams his head in with the empty gun.
Clint rolls further and jumps up, ignoring the constant ringing in his ears and the obvious pain radiating from his ankle signaling that it's broken.
When he turns around to kick the Other and misses he suddenly sees that Hela and her army-that-would've-been-really-helpful bailed on them and in its stead is a smoking hole in the ground.
"I will kill you and your troublesome friends and-"
That's the moment when the Other is suddenly round-house kicked from behind and when he falls to the ground and scrambles upward gun at the ready even though it's empty Clint's never been more relieved when seeing Natasha standing over him.
XxXxXxXxXx
"See, told you it'd work."
"We are never speaking of this again you hear me?" Thor threatens as they slip past the snoring guards.
"What? But I was-"
Suddenly Loki thrown against a wall and Thor's body almost squashes him.
"Never!"
"Fine fine, let go of me Thor." The 'you're hurting me' is left unspoken for Loki's pride wouldn't allow him to say it but still.
"It wasn't that bad anyways."
Thor just grumbles and lets go, enthusiasm back.
"Well let's go then!"
Loki straitens his clothes with a flick of his wrist and scowls.
"We have five minutes tops."
"I know that!" Thor pouts, quickly running off.
Loki sighs and follows behind be it a little bit more slowly.
His attention is quickly attracted to the Casket at the end of the room but when he's standing over it he cannot suppress the stab of jealousy he suddenly feels. Thor will get this amazing present when he's ready, probably when's he's come of age in a few years and the All-Father has even told him about it already. Odin hadn't said anything about giving Loki anything when he's coming of age.
But at the same moment he feels that stab of jealousy he scolds himself. What is he thinking? Of course Odin will get him something great too, Thor's probably asked about it a million times already so had probably told him already to stop the constant complaining and pestering. Loki on the other hand hadn't even mentioned his coming of age so it's only natural that Odin hasn't said anything about it yet.
At the same moment he's thinking this Thor suddenly yells at him.
"Idiot!" Loki hisses closing his brother's mouth.
"You'll wake up the whole palace!"
Thor pushes his brother's hand away.
"Yeah, yeah I know, sorry." He whispers harshly.
Loki's eye roll is promptly ignored.
"Look at this." He points at the weapon, I bet that's it!"
Loki scrunches his eyes but he can only make out a vague form.
"What is it?" he asks.
"I don't know."
"Then how do you know that's it."
Thor just pouts.
"I just know it is."
"What is it?"
When Thor doesn't answer Loki shrugs.
"It kinda looks like a hammer."
"What? No way it's probably much cooler than that!"
Loki is about to tell his brother off, because he's very certain that is the distinct shape of a hammer when he suddenly feels a shadow looming over them and he hears the All-Father's very, very angry voice.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"
XxXxXxXxXx
Loki hears the fight behind him but he cannot focus, his hearing is failing him and so is his sight, the edges are blurry and the only reason he knows what's going on is because he can feel the seidr around him.
The seidr that he is currently missing, somehow, missing that essential part of his being makes him better at feeling the seidr around him.
Every passing second he feels not only that the Tesseract is becoming stronger, soon strong enough to kill the all but he can also feel the seidr in himself dimming. At first he had though he had none but then, if he doesn't have any he'll die, so he would be dead by now the fact that he's still alive must mean there's still some left.
But even that is slowly disappearing.
Thanos is standing with his back to him and when Loki finally finds the strength to get up and to reach into the small amount of seidr he knows what he has to do.
They say that when you die you can see your life flash by but for some reason when he struggles to get closer to Thanos h doesn't see his whole life, whether it is because he doesn't even remember half of it anymore or because he doesn't really want to he doesn't know but there's only one moment of his life that he can see clearly.
It's after he and Thor had broken into the All-Fathers Weaponry. After Thor had exclaimed that it couldn't have been a hammer he'd seen, after the All-Father had caught them. He remember its so vividly, the anger the All-Father had expressed but also all the other emotion he had had in that incident. When he thinks about it, after hearing about how he lost his mind and ways and tried to kill everyone, how he had hated his brother, he thinks that's the moment when it started.
It must have happened slowly of course but he thinks that moment had been the beginning.
But now, with his life slowly slipping away, it all feels so meaningless.
And then he's reached Thanos' form and the Mad Titan turns around and almost laughs when he sees the weak and pitiful form of the child in front of him, pushing him backwards but that smile quickly vanishes when realization sets in and behind him the Titan can hear the Energy being redirected and a portal opens.
When Loki releases all the energy that is left inside of him, practically throwing away his life in the hope that it will be enough he can only think about that one moment in his life that at the time had seemed so important.
He can only think about the nothingness, about the meaninglessness about it all.
And of course before everything turns black he, thinks about Thor.
Forgive me brother.
Indeed I am leaving you with this. Remember: lots of reviews equals faster update!