Loki awoke from the muddled rest brought on by the barrier's cry of pain by pain in his neck. He winced and slowly stirred. There was a clicking sound and something cold pushed itself against Loki's cheek.

Slowly, Loki blinked open his eyes. He was lying on the grass on his stomach and although there was no pain in his mind anymore, he found himself too groggy to think clearly. The thing pushed Loki's cheek again, and Loki slowly turned his head to see Slítas sitting coiled next to him.

Slítas's muzzle was red from blood, and when Loki touched his neck his fingertips came away red. Now he knew what the pain in his neck had been, but the injury Slítas had inflicted to his throat had healed already. He had no trouble breathing.

Loki brought his arms up under himself, and pushed himself up slightly. "Slítas?"

Slítas clicked and nuzzled his cheek again, crystals a dark yellow from the concern he felt for Loki. When he saw that Loki was fine, some of the yellow faded to light blue in relief.

Loki looked left and right with a dazzled look in his eyes. Tilaria and Angborn were lying unconscious near him and a little further away were Thor and Amora. They must have been rendered senseless from the barrier's lament as he had. It didn't surprise him much since they were mortals and there was only so much power they could take before their body started to reject it. Falling unconscious was a defense mechanism, and apparently the only way to stop the barriers from speaking to them.

"Thanks Slítas," Loki smiled at his companion coiled on the grass. "I guess you woke me up before my body was ready for it."

He touched the blood on his neck again, and stretched as he sat up on his knees. No one else was awake, and things were eerily quiet around him. There was no bustling undercurrent of noise from the people within Gladsheimr, and it made Loki's nerves tingle unpleasantly.

Why was it so quiet? Unless it wasn't just the five of them who had passed out, Loki realized in horror. What if more people had?

Loki reached over and shook Tilaria's shoulder to try and stir her, but there was no response. He hissed softly in frustration and looked around again, becoming more alert.

"Slítas, can you wake them up like you did with me?" Loki asked his snake as he stood and drew his daggers hidden in his bracers, wary of an attack.

The silence was truly deafening. Even the animals were quiet, as if they knew a predator was near as tried not to move so they would not be seen. Loki tried to cast a senseline, but his magic was still recovering from the shock of the barriers attack and did not respond. No matter, unlike most mages Loki knew how to manage without his magic.

Slítas bit Tilaria to try and stir her, but there was no response from her. Loki knelt by her side and reluctantly turned his eyes to her instead of scanning the horizon. Normally he could give Tilaria a dose of his magic to jolt her awake, something akin to a shot of adrenaline, but without his magic there seemed to be no way to wake her up. He didn't know how Slítas had managed to wake him up, but it seemed he was the only one that was going to become conscious.

Slítas jerked his head towards the palace suddenly and snarled like a cat, flaring his cobra hood. His crystals now blazed red in anger from something only he could sense. Loki realized that while his magic was still recovering from the overload the barriers had put it through, Slítas's was fine and untouched.

"Slítas," Loki whispered, wishing he could send out a senseline. "Is something going on somewhere else?"

Slítas turned his head back to him and shook it in a nod, then motioned for him to go inside the palace. Loki hesitated though, and looked back at Thor and the others. If he left then they would be defenseless.

Slítas seemed to realize the reason behind Loki's hesitance, and hissed quietly in an almost gentle manner. Loki looked back at Slítas and when the snake nodded slowly again, set his features and tightened his grip on the daggers' hilts. Until his magic healed itself he would have to rely on Slítas to be his sixth sense. He knelt and Slítas slithered up his jacket sleeve, poking his head out near Loki's collar.

"Where?" Loki asked him seriously.

Slítas jerked his head towards the palace, and Loki nodded and started running. He couldn't teleport, but luckily for him he was a very good runner. Leaving his brother and friends behind unguarded rattled him, but clearly Slítas thought that it was more important to see to the threat in the palace. Loki had learned to trust Slítas's instinct long ago, and often suspected that Slítas was more intelligent than he was.

Loki ran inside, steps light and rhythmic, daggers trailing behind him. He slid to a stop inside, and stared down the hallway at the scene before him. Lying on the ground as unconscious as the children outside were a number of servants, Star Guard, and nobles. Then he clenched his teeth and ran through them. It wasn't just their group that was unconscious after all.

If all these people were also unconscious then it stood to reason that everyone else on Asgard was to. After a few minutes of running Loki realized that Slítas was taking him in the direction of the throne room. Loki's first thought was that his father had to be fine because of how powerful he was, but then Loki realized that he wouldn't be. Odin had Gungnir and it had a very strong connection to the barriers, so he would undoubtedly be unconscious as well.

Was this attack an attempt to kill his father? Anger made Loki run faster and darkened his features. Odin might not care much for him, but he was still Loki's father and no one was hurting his family.

Slítas hissed a warning when Loki saw the doors of the throne room appear in his sight, and Loki heeded it and slowed so he could walk quieter. He approached the doorway, and put his back to the wall to the right of it. There was a nod from Slítas that the threat was indeed inside, and Loki peered around the corner of the doorway while moving his body as little as possible. What he saw made him tense up and take a hissed breath.

Inside there were a number of people unconscious. Odin had evidently been holding court when the barriers had been attacked, and his father was still slumped on the throne with Gungnir lying on the floor at the base of the throne. Walking up the steps to where Odin lay vulnerable was a roughly humanoid shaped figure about five feet tall made out of shadows.

It was a shadow puppet, a shade made by a very powerful shadow mage, and it was heading straight for Odin. There were no known shadow mages on Asgard, and it left Loki with little doubt that whoever was controlling it was likely the same person who had attacked the barriers earlier. Had this been their plan all along?

When Loki hissed the shade stopped walking, and Loki quickly jerked away from the doorway and pressed himself against the wall. He held his breath. How was he supposed to fight a shade? Shadow magic was nearly as rare as blood, and Loki had absolutely no training in it. His best guess was to use light elemental magic to counter the shadow element, but he didn't have any training in that either.

While Loki was trying to figure out what to do he failed to realize that the shadow puppet had noticed him, and its master had directed it to dispose of the child first and then go back and kill Odin. At the same time, two more shades were in the process of completing the secondary objectives as instructed by Daris. The mage smiled as they dissolved their shade in the throne room and rematerialized it in the shadows of the hallway outside where the intruder was hidden.

Loki stared when the shadows in the hall moved and suddenly stepped out of the second dimension. Just as Tilaria had done a month ago when she had used her shadow to kill Arlen, the piece of the shadow of Daris's spy materialized before Loki. He tried to step back but realized he was already against the wall.

The shade was a terrifying construct. Its features of its face were blank as slate, and its limb were disproportionate. All of its body was asymmetrical, and some of its body was as opaque as steel, while other parts like tinted glass. Shadows seemed to cling to it and radiated like searching tentacles or feelers. Black dust hovered around its form like a twisted version of a planet's rings. There was a crescent sized chunks missing from each of its sides so it got narrower and then wider again in a very inhuman way.

Slítas hissed at the construct, and the sound was enough to snap Loki out of his daze. The shade swung one of its hands, the hands being talons instead of fingers, but Loki ducked and danced away from their swing. Its fingers went right through the wall and reformed once they left the solid surface.

Loki grit his teeth when he realized that of course the shadow had the ability to become corporeal or not depending on which was better for the moment. That meant that it naturally had the ability to make itself incorporeal long enough for its hand to cross his blade or a magical ward he raised to defend itself and then corporealize once past the defense to strike directly at him. Although Loki had heard of the transfiguration magic of shimmering, this was his first time to see it in action.

Loki stepped back, easily staying out of reach of its strikes. "Slítas, try and wake someone up. Anyone!"

Slítas dropped from Loki's shoulders while Loki dodged a few more swipes, and slithered into the throne room. He had only managed to wake Loki up because he was used to his senses being overloaded by the barriers and so had managed to recover quickly. It would take longer for the others, but he knew his friend would need some help to defeat the shade.

A little bit of Loki's magic began to hum in his soul again, and he quickly used it. Loki snapped his fingers towards the shadow and a gust of wind sprang from his fingers, the edges razor sharp. It flew towards the shade and it disintegrated into dust from the force behind his blow. He hesitated and stood there, knowing that it couldn't be over so quickly.

Where had it gone? Without his magic there was no way for him to sense its presence and he looked around desperately. The hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end, and Loki whipped around to try and jump aside.

Just as he suspected, the shade had rematerialized behind him but he wasn't fast enough. The shade's taloned fingers sliced through his upper right arm. Loki's arm instantly went numb and his dagger fell from his fingers as he arm stopped working. There was no pain, but that made it all the more frightening to Loki when he saw blood splatter on the wall.

Loki dropped his other dagger and clenched his good hand to the injury as he jumped backwards from another attack. He couldn't use the arm that had been scratched. Despite the injury being a minor one, his flow of magic was halted and his nerves shredded. What an attack this thing had, to merely scratch the flesh and instead shred a person's nerves. This was something he had never heard of.

Loki tried in vain to heal the damage to his arm and hopped a few steps back. How was he supposed to fight something who could kill with a single scratch if it hit the right nerve cluster, and could make itself like a ghost to pass through anything in his way? This thing also could reform the instant he dissipated it. No doubt the only way to stop it was to go for the mage, but he had no idea who or where they were.

The shadow dissipated and then reformed to his right. Loki hopped back only for his foot to slip. There was only so long someone could keep up perfection as Loki had been doing to stay out of the shade's reach, and his time was up. It was a slight stumble, but enough for the shadow to swoop in.

Loki gasped as the shade's hand grabbed him by the throat and slammed him onto the floor. He tried to cast against it, but remembered he didn't have his magic. His eyesight blurred unexpectedly, and the hand Loki rose to try and cast started shaking. Exhaustion suddenly made his limbs feel like lead, and his eyes struggled to stay open.

Why was Loki suddenly feeling tired, unless, was the shade absorbing his lifeforce? How? Was it through touch, as Nira could do?

The hand that gripped his throat was not heavy and did not hamper his breathing, but he couldn't seem to be able to shake it free. His hand passed right through its arm without harming it and he had used up what little magic he had with the wind attack and then trying to heal his arm. There was nothing he could do to break its grip, and no way to stop the drain of his lifeforce as it began to reach critical levels.

Daris's spy smiled, and the jewel on their scepter grew brighter as they drew more magic from it. Although Loki had failed to stop the shade, he had bought some time and that time was all that Odin needed to awaken from the effects of the barriers being overloaded. Even as the spy drank in the lifeforce of Asgard's younger prince that its shade fed to them, Slítas awakened Odin.

Their connection with the shade ended suddenly as a blast from Gungnir incinerated it, doing such total damage that the shade returned to a shadow state. They yelped and dropped the scepter, jumping up and stumbling back. Damn, the boy had managed to buy enough time.

Loki was aware that Gungnir had fired and that the shade was gone, but not much else. His heartbeat had slowed dangerously and he couldn't quite make out the identity of the person who walked over and knelt by his side.

"Fa-ther?" Loki asked quietly in a trembling voice as his lifeforce splintered and he was dragged into the black world of unconsciousness.

Now Loki is fighting a shade. How does he get into these messes? It's really somewhat impressive how insanely chaotic things get around him. Tis little wonder Loki's known as the god of mischief and lies with his demented luck. That Shade is not the nicest thing to go up against, and neither is its master.