Hi, everybody! Can you believe it? The final chapter! I will say, though, trigger warnings for this chapter: depression and suicidal thoughts (especially towards the end). I really don't want this to hit too close to home for anybody, so if you get uncomfortable reading this at any point, feel free to close this fanfiction and never pull it up again. I hope you can enjoy it. It's about as joyful as Infinity War. Have fun!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter Fifteen
With Mother gone, I dropped down onto the bed and grabbed a cup from the bedside table. I rolled onto my back and tossed it up into the air, catching it again and again. I had one more book left to read, but I wanted to save it for another month from now. Mother sent new books to me every few months, but I read through them almost as soon as they came. I used to pride myself on being a fast reader, but now that talent was a curse.
Muffled screaming reached me through the filter of the magic barrier. The cup landed in my hand once more as the lights in my cell flickered. I got up from the bed and approached the barrier, watching the inmates of the cell across from mine. The prisoners were banging on the barrier, screaming to be let out as the large man behind them shook rapidly, bluish-black blood dripping onto the floor. A ring of black smoke pushed outward from the trembling prisoner and forced the others against the walls. They slid to the ground and didn't get back up. The remaining prisoner groaned and wailed, his skin becoming lava. He fell to the floor and screamed, more and more black smoke filling his cell until it obscured him entirely.
Guards ran up as the barely-seen morphed prisoner picked up one of his cellmates by the back of the neck. He forced him into the cell's golden barrier until it stretched and whined. He then lifted a hand and struck the barrier. It dissipated instantly, and the smoke spilled into the hall, allowing me to see him clearly.
It reminded me of a Kursed from the tales I heard about the Dark Elves, though that was impossible. The Dark Elves were destroyed by my-by Thor's grandfather, Borg.
The Kursed stepped out, and the two guards ran up to it, swinging their swords. They each struck the Kursed, but the blades got lodged into its armour, doing no harm. The Kursed grabbed both guards around the neck and lifted them up. Its hands glowed a fiery orange until he dropped them to the ground.
The Kursed looked around and knocked the guards' swords out of his armour before stepping over them and continuing down the hall. The Kursed approached barrier after barrier, blowing each of them apart with one hit. The prisoners ran rampant, straining to get free.
The Kursed eventually came to my cell and walked up to the golden barrier. I smirked as it raised its fist. If he let me go, I would take him down, turning in all of the escaped prisoners. I might earn a little favour with Odin and a possible chance at seeing a real sun again.
But the Kursed grumbled before lowering its fist and backing away.
If it really was a Kursed, and it wasn't going to let me win favour, perhaps it would let me take Odin down instead. "You might want to take the stairs to the left," I recommended before the Kursed could join the fray of scrambling prisoners and fighting guards.
The Kursed turned to look at me, weighing its options before turning to the left and taking my suggestion.
As the fighting continued, I lowered myself onto the floor and picked up my last book. Reading something would shut out the noise of the battle enough so that I wouldn't have a migraine tomorrow.
"It's as if they resent being imprisoned!" someone shouted.
"There's just no pleasing some creatures!" another returned. I recognised both voices as belonging to two members of the Warriors Three, and though I tensed, I let out a long, stress-filled breath and ignored them. Someone hit the golden barrier of my cell as I turned the page in the book.
A large thud sounded, almost making me jump. "Return to your cells, and no harm will come to you," a voice commanded as the fighting quieted.
Hearing he sound of Thor's voice again surprised me enough to actually did make me jump. He hadn't been to see me since a few days after I was first put in here. I hadn't heard of him or seen him since then.
"Very well, you do not have my word!" Thor shouted, as the blaring sound of the fight resumed.
As Thor continued to shout, it got harder and harder to ignore the combat and continue reading. I groaned, threw the book down and got up from the floor. I looked through the golden barrier to the hall and spotted Thor as he threw a prisoner to the floor. He looked up to me and held my gaze for a moment until rumbling shook the foundation of the palace, and stones fell from the ceiling in the hall. The lights in my cell flickered, and the rumbling continued for several minutes until its abrupt stop was just as jarring as it sudden start. Muffled shouts and blaster fire came from above. Sounds of stone crumbling and shattering reached us, and with the prisoners' riot quelled and those who remained alive were returned to their cells, the dungeon remained unharmed.
"The throne of Asgard is destroyed! To the king!" a guard yelled, taking several other armoured men with him as he ran up the steps.
The throne was destroyed? Either that Kursed was doing its job or something else was going on entirely.
Thor glanced towards the guards as he reactivated the barrier around another prisoner's cell and ran past without giving me a second glance.
The dungeon was silent other than the shaking and bangs from collapsing stone coming from upstairs. I paced the length of my cell for what seemed like hours until the muffled, rumbling sounds of chaos had silenced, though the quiet was more deafening than the destruction.
Thor had run off into battle head first again, and I couldn't stop him-not that he had ever listened to me when I tried in the past. I couldn't deny that, despite everything, the way he leapt without looking still made me nervous. I should be resentful towards him for locking me up, but I wasn't.
I took a seat at the table with my last book and opened it up again, trying to silence my nerves with the story, but I couldn't focus. I had to read each line twice to understand what it was saying.
"Loki," someone called, hours later. I looked up from the book and found a guard standing in the hall, a smear of blood colouring the breastplate of his dented armour. "There was a battle. The Dark Elves invaded Asgard, and a Kursed along with their leader, Malekith, cornered our Queen Frigga. The Queen was killed in the attack."
The guard and I stared at each other for a moment as I tried to process what he was saying. I nodded, and he bowed his head and walked off. I gently placed the book down on the ottoman and got up from the chair, turning my back to the golden barrier.
Frigga is dead. I told that Kursed how to get to her. It was my fault. I had blood on my hands already, but this was one I could never wash off.
I shouted in rage, and an uncontrolled wave of magic burst out of me, throwing everything against the walls of the cell.
I destroyed everything. My anger, fear and grief came out in every way possible. My magic shattered the furniture, and I ripped it into even more unrecognizable shards with my bare hands. I screamed and shouted, but my heart only seemed to get heavier. It hurt. My heart physically hurt. There was a thorn in it that dug into me deeper and deeper, and no matter what I did, it only got worse.
The last words I said to her. You are not. The last words I ever spoke to her told her that she was not my mother.
But she was my mother. I knew that with every fiber of my being, but my last words said that I didn't love her.
Hatred boiled inside of me. Hatred towards that Kursed, hatred towards the Other, Thanos, the drug that resided in the scepter. But it was mostly directed towards myself. That scepter might have made me become the writhen version of myself that attacked New York City, but I had kept that version of me intact inside of this cell. The solitary confinement of the cell had kept me trapped not, just in the dungeon, but inside of myself. I killed the blue-eyed version of me that was possessed by the Mind Stone, but he was still inside of me, and he had only festered while I was alone in here. I lashed out at Mother, but she didn't deserve it. She only ever tried to make me comfortable. My anger had fed the part of myself that was still trapped inside the scepter, and my mother had paid the price.
And I had hurt her, saying that she wasn't my real mother. But she was. Nothing could change the fact that I had snapped at her. All I could do was scream and destroy the remaining things in my room.
Odin was right: Everywhere I go there is war, ruin and death.
I grew crushed by the weight of what I felt and slid to the floor with one last scream. My eyes prickled, but no one could see me cry. The other prisoners were already staring at me, though it's not like they would care. The only person who ever truly cared was now dead.
And it's my fault.
I put up and illusion inside the cell with a wave of my hand, making the furniture look new again. I stood pacing the length of the cell, looking like everything was fine, but behind the illusion, I let it all out. Hot tears leaked down my face and I sobbed for who knows how long. Time passed simultaneously slowly and quickly as I sat against the wall, letting everything go, though my heart seemed to only grow heavier.
I wish more than ever to be back at that moment when I let go of the staff in Thor's hand. If Thanos and the other hadn't found me... Why did they have to find me? Why? Why couldn't they just leave me to die?
I glanced down at the glinting shards of broken glass around me and picked one up. I spun it through my fingertips, my skin stinging where the sharp edges cut me. I glanced down at the inside of my wrist.
"Thor," my duplicate harshly greeted, surprising me enough to make me drop the shard of glass. Footsteps sounded in the hall, and my brother appeared moments later, dressed entirely in black with a hard, blank expression. "After all this time and now you come to visit me. Why?" My duplicate leaned down to be eye-level with him, but he didn't react. "Have you come to gloat? To mock?"
Why wouldn't he leave?
"Loki, enough," he muttered. "No more illusions."
He could tell? I sighed as I let the illusion drop. It didn't matter if he could tell or not. Nothing really did. He would see everything I had destroyed sooner or later.
"Now you see me, Brother," I said from the floor.
Thor's emotionless expression didn't falter, but he moved from the golden barrier in front of me to the one by my side.
"Did she suffer?" I asked, pleading for him to say no, despite what the truth might be. I didn't want to have caused her anymore pain than I already had.
"I did not come here to share our grief," Thor denied, massaging his wrist and glancing around. "Instead I offer you a chance of a far richer sacrament."
Whatever it might be, it would be a distraction. Whether he planned to kill me or send me into battle, it would end this pain in my heart. "Go on," I invited.
"I know you seek vengeance as much as I do," Thor acknowledged. "You help me escape Asgard, and I will grant it to you. Vengeance. And afterward, this cell."
He was planning on putting me back in here even after I help him, but escaping Asgard and fighting through all of the well trained guards offered an opportunity to end the pain.
Though I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that he only came to see me because he needed something. "You must be truly desperate to come to me for help." Thor rolled his eyes slightly and took a few steps away from the cell. "What makes you think you can trust me?" I called, getting him to turn back around. Please, don't leave. Not now.
"I don't," he muttered. "Mother did." I was already hurting, but the mention of her pushed the sharp thorn even deeper into my heart. "But you should know that when we fought each other in the past," he explained, walking back up to me, "I did so with a glimmer of hope that my brother was still in there somewhere. That hope no longer exists to protect you. You betray me, and I will kill you."
I stared at him for a moment. All I had to do was betray him? No one was left who cared for me. No one will miss me or cry over the fact that I'll be gone. I doubt I'll see my mother again-I'm not worthy of that-but it will end this pain.
I leaned forward, smirking slightly so he wouldn't suspect anything. "When do we start?"
I would say this ends on a cliffhanger, but it really doesn't. If you keep this fanfiction in mind as you watch the rest of Dark World and all of Ragnarok, Loki's mental state and motivations seem pretty obvious, at least to me. That's why I stopped it here, but if anyone has any questions about the rest of Loki's motivations outside of this fanfiction and want my input, feel free to message me.
Soon this fanfiction will say that there are 16 chapters instead of 15, but I'm gonna say that there is not some secret "end-credits scene." Sorry to disappoint! It's a list of things I have planned for the future if you guys are interested in what else I'm working on.
Thanks to all you guys who have read this fic and supported me with your comments! It means a lot! Thanks for sticking with this new author!