Okay, so I've seen a single episode of "Agents of SHIELD", and it happened to be about the Berserker Army and the Berserker Staff from Asgard, and mine you, that's the only episode I've seen and I only saw it once, so really I don't know that much of anything at all about it, but the idea of a weapon that exploited hatred intrigued me enough that I wondered what would happen if Loki used one...

And then this happened.

I think this one is mostly self-explanatory, the only things you need to know in advance probably being that every one of these one-shots will likely be based on the idea of the Ragnarok cycle, meaning that they have lived many lifetimes, and though events are different each time they always end with Ragnarok, and Loki is the only one who has memories of past cycles while nobody else does, so everyone else is oblivious and Loki has memories that as far as all of other characters in each new cycle are concerned, never actually happened.

And that in this story the more hatred one has, the stronger a berserk staff makes them - and I figured that with all the hatred Loki has, and would have accumulated, he would be nigh unstoppable.

Very, very AU. And depressing. You have been warned.

Loki and Frigga had ever been the only beings who could mollify Thor's tempestuous fury.

And never had that been more true than after Thor had used a Berserker Staff, when Thor was still affected enough to go lethally infernal at the smallest insult or disagreement.

And well, Thor and Odin's views on matters of treaty and war had never quite harmonized.

At Odin's pronouncement in the war council about the strategy that was to be taken, Thor's body went rigid, muscles coiled into taught iron knots. His blue eyes turned crazed, churning with the beginnings of Warrior's Madness, as he gripped Mjolnir so hard his knuckles turned white and he he raised himself to stand from his chair and object.

Silently a shadow crept up behind him, and Loki put his hands on Thor's shoulders, causing the thunderer to to flinch, stiffening further, before Loki started massaging his shoulders. Thor emitted a groan as Loki found a tender spot at Thor's neck, at his collar bone, at the edges of his shoulder blades.

Loki leaned in close, whispering into Thor's ear as he felt the thunderer's muscles relax beneath his fingers.

"Close your eyes. Deep breaths. Breathe in. Breathe out. Remember that spot on the river where we used to play when we were younger? How at just the right time of day, the water was like a mirror, and as you bent over it, your hair draped down around your face like a waterfall, you blond tresses touching the reflective surface and sending ripples through your face.

"And how in the summer, the sky that filtered through the dense canopy of broad green leaves was such a brilliant blue it almost rivaled that of your eyes. Remember the sensation of the water over your feet as you waded in, cold, the melted snow all that was left of the battle cry of winter.

"Remember how we would push each other into the river, still clothed in our casual tunics, and the way your lungs burned like they were freezing, about to crack open as you held your breath, before you would kick off the pebbly bottom and shoot to the surface, taking in huge, gasping breaths of leaf-scented air as water streamed into your eyes.

Remember how we used to laugh, splashing water into the sunlight to see the rainbows there like shards of bifrost; and how once, as we lay on the sun-warmed rocks letting our clothes dry out, we whispered truths in each other's ears."

Thor's breathing had evened out as Loki painted the picture in his mind, and when he opened his eyes and looked at his brother, they were clear—calm. He didn't say anything, but he didn't need to.

He still remembered those words they'd whispered.

I love you, Brother, Loki had said.

And Thor had smiled. I love you too.

Loki grabbed Thor's elbow and dragged him out of the hall, servants and guards and warriors alike sending them wary glances.

"I don't think those Berserk Staffs are very healthy," Loki said as they entered a length of deserted hall, pursing his lips slightly as he regarded his now-calm older brother. "You've been prone to such bouts of hatred and anger ever since you had to use one."

"The strength you get when using the staff is worth it," Thor said, shrugging his broad shoulders, before grinning slightly and nudging his little brother. "And you're going to have to use one too, you know."

Loki's lips thinned and he glanced down, looking, if possible, more pale than usual. "I don't think that using a Berserker staff should be part of the trial to become an acknowledged Asgardian warrior. It's dangerous."

"You have to show your aptitude with all matter of weapons," Thor pointed out.

"Yes, but a normal staff should do the trick. I don't see why they have to test the strength of your hatred as well," Loki protested, his eyes slightly widened as he looked at his older brother in something that almost seemed like fear, except that Thor knew that Loki didn't get scared. Not since he'd been a child anyway and had been afraid of his nightmares.

"It's just another tool to be used in battle," Thor said, frowning in confusion. "The hatred makes you stronger."

"Stronger, and more irrational," Loki countered, voice and eyes hard and steely. "Less likely to listen to reason or to be able to restrain yourself from killing absolutely everybody who gets in your way."

"That's the point."

"No!" Loki growled, "That's not the point! The point is to defeat your enemies—not to kill all your enemies and friends alike. You can't recognize friend from foe, Thor."

Crinkling his brow, Thor asked, "How do you know that?"

"Because you almost killed me!" Loki spat, with a snap worthy of a wolf's gnashing jaws. "Am I your enemy, Brother?"

Thor's blue eyes were wide with alarm. "No, Loki, you're not my enemy. I love you." He hesitated, before he managed nervously, "Did I really try to kill you?"

In answer Loki pulled down the collar of his olive tunic, revealing a large scar that ran across his left collarbone and over his shoulder; a scar that Thor didn't recognize.

Lifting his gaze from the dark red mark to Loki's eyes, Thor found them a harsh, metallic shade in Loki's stony face, and he knew that Loki wasn't lying.

When Loki was lying, his green eyes twinkled and he smiled.

His gaze fell back to the scar, like a ragged bolt of lightning darkness against Loki's pale flesh, and Loki let go of his collar, hiding it once again.

"I... I didn't..." Thor swallowed, his tongue feeling like a dead fish in his mouth. "I didn't mean it... didn't mean to..."

"Exactly," was all Loki said, turning his face to the side so Thor saw his expression only in profile and mostly concealed by his tresses of dark hair that had come unslicked and now fell into his face. Softly, so softly he spoke to himself, "You didn't mean to, and you don't even know what absolute hatred truly feels like. You only have a lifetime's worth..." he closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly.

"I'm sorry," Thor said, hesitantly reaching out to squeeze his brother's bony shoulder, eyes watering as he blinked desperately, realizing that he had hurt his little brother and that likely nobody had known, seeing as that the scar appeared as if Loki had simply healed it himself.

He had hurt his little brother, when had vowed to protect him.

But to his surprise and somewhat pained delight Loki didn't flinch away, instead just looking at him and saying, with a sad smile, "I know you are. And it's okay, Brother. I forgive you."

By the time all the remnants of Thor's feral rage that had been stirred by the Berserk Staff had settled down to Thor's normal thunderous temper, where he would roar and threaten and punch but be careful not to kill anybody, it was time for Loki's initiation into an Asgardian warrior.

The day before the trial Loki was fretting. Actually, he'd been all nerves for a while now, but only that day had they become visible—and even then it was only to Thor, who noticed that Loki hadn't been to any of the meals that day and so went up to his little brother's chamber.

He found Loki pacing, dark hair mussed from his long, slender fingers tugging at it and running through it, and his thin lips were bleeding from where he'd bitten them in his agitation.

"Loki," Thor said, taking his brother's shoulders in his hands and forcing the younger god to cease his pacing and look Thor in the face. "What are you afraid of? You are more than apt with every kind of weapon, not to mention you have magic. It will be no difficulty for you to pass."

"It's not that," Loki said, green eyes falling to Thor's boots. They were very good boots, a dark, weathered brown that never looked very dirty, the leather tough and sturdy, the boots in themselves large, what with the thunderer's huge feet. They were heavy and gave Thor's kick an extra amount of oomph.

Thor tilted his brother's chin up and forced Loki to look at him again. "What is it?" he asked.

"The Berserker Staff," Loki finally admitted, seeming unable to keep his eyes on Thor's virile face.

"Why?" Thor inquired gently.

"I..." Loki shook his head, eyes closed, black hair sticking up and falling everywhere in uncharacteristic lack of care. "I don't want to hurt you... I don't want to kill anybody..."

Thor crinkled his brow. "How would you kill anybody?"

"The... more hate someone has, the more affect a Berserk Staff has on them," Loki said, shifting uncomfortably, eyes still closed and teeth puncturing his lower lip as he paused. "The more hate you have, the stronger and more blinded by that rage you become."

The thunder god might be thick and a bit slow sometimes, but he wasn't as stupid as Loki might occasionally give him credit for.

"So much hatred, little brother?" he asked, voice lowering in concern and confusion.

Loki wouldn't open his eyes. "You wouldn't understand," he murmured. "You never understand."

How could Thor be expected to understand, when the only memories he harbored were the ones from this lifetime? When he didn't have any recollections of all the lives upon lives that they had already lived, eternally caught in the Ragnarok cycle, but Loki seemed to be the only one who realized and remember?

Thor might carry the hatred of a lifetime, but Loki carried the hatred of countless lifetimes, dark memories stirring in the crevices and recesses of his ever-expanding mind.

And Loki had always had more hatred than most, after every cycle succumbing to darkness and bringing Ragnarok trying to end the world and his own suffering... all those instances of being cast out, of being chained to rock with a snake dripping poison on him, of Thor holding him down while a dwarf drew needle and thong through his lips.

Yet each life Thor started off loving him, and Loki couldn't help but love him too and forgive him for all those things that he hadn't really done.

But oh, so often, with all those different memories clamoring in his head, Loki got so confused; he couldn't remember what had happened when, if something had happened in his current life or in a previous one.

"Just," Loki said, finally opening his frighteningly green eyes and locking onto his brother's cerulean gaze, "Promise me you'll do whatever it takes to keep me from turning into a monster," he said, voice as close as it ever came to pleading. "If I won't stop, if I don't recognize you, if something happens... just kill me, please."

In the depths of Thor's eyes there was a spark of uncertainty, maybe even fear, but it disappeared as he declared firmly, "I will not kill you, Brother. Nothing is going to happen. Everything will be alright."

It took all Loki's self-control not to snort and smile mockingly.

He knew Thor was going to say something like that, and oh, if only such belief in things going to be alright actually worked.

It didn't. Loki had tried, many times.

He'd always told himself that this time, this time, he would be able to change his fate, and that things for once would work out and he would achieve something close to happiness.

But no—every time, every life, every cycle, the pain became to much to bear and dragged Loki under.

At least, no matter how dark and cold he'd become by the end of his lives, he came back as a child, innocent for a while until he realized what the nightmares were and remembered.

At least he got to live his relatively pleasant childhoods over again, to have some semblance of happiness for a little while, to be able to forgive in the beginning before and not stay darkness always.

In some ways things were all very much the same each cycle, yet each time things happened differently, though always with the same outcome.

Some lifetimes were slightly better or worse than others.

This Berserk Staff being part of the mandatory trial was a new development that Loki didn't remember—though Loki could recall having used a Berserk Staff before, a memory that made him shudder.

And Loki couldn't help but wonder if this was going to be the event that turned everything around and broke him.

"Mother," Loki beseeched, later that night as Frigga sat by the half-light of the fire in her chambers, weaving something on her loom. "Do I have to use a Berserker Staff? Surely there's some exploitable loophole..."

"Oh Loki," Frigga said, smile somewhere between sad, understanding and reassuring. "I know you don't want to use one after Thor went Berserk and nearly killed you when you were able to knock the staff from his hands, and frankly it was stupid to have the weapons rack in the arena with him where he could grab that knife, but that will be changed this time."

"But the Berserk Staff," Loki said, and there was a strange, almost childish desperation in his voice, though he was in his late teens and almost an adult, body long and lean and features sharp almost to a point of ferocity. Yet in that moment all that seemed to soften, and it was like once again she was looking at the young boy who used to ask her in the middle of the night, with tears running down his pallid face, why there was war and why people bullied others and why the world was so cruel.

She'd never had a satisfactory answer for him.

And now all she can say is, "Oh, I wish there was, I really do. But I'm afraid using a Berserk Staff is compulsory, in order to see how well one wields it, how much power and control one has."

"Thor won't have to use one again, will he?"

"No, he won't," Frigga said, remembering how Thor, though not the worst Berserker by far, had had next to no self-control and had been unable to put the weapon down—and nobody had been able to get it out of his hands up until Loki had crept up on his brother, dodging the silver swings and knocked the weapon away.

And even then, Thor had attacked his own brother, and had to have been knocked out cold.

And how long that anger had stayed with him...

Oh how Frigga had argued with her husband, objecting to the tradition; but Odin and the court had been adamant.

Sometimes she wanted to curse Asgard and its unchanging policies.

"I'm afraid," Loki admitted, so quietly she wasn't sure he had spoken.

In surprise she lifted her gaze from her weaving to look at him, his face an emotionless mask even as he continued, "If I'm worse than Thor... Mother, I'm afraid that after tomorrow at best I won't be allowed out of a cell in the bowels of the castle for at least centuries."

"Why would you worry such a thing?" she asked, aghast.

"Because..." Loki closed his eyes, shaking his head furiously, in his mind crying out for help silently and wondering why nobody could hear him. "Because the hatred, Mother... if it gets let out, it will make a monster of me."

"You're not a monster," Frigga said, putting a gentle hand on his sleeved arm. "It'll all be fine, just you see."

Loki smiled falsely—tightly.

Oh, if only Frigga knew the irony of what she was saying.

Loki didn't sleep, but the next day crawled up anyway, light weak and sickly from the start as the clouds gathered as if preparing for a deluge that would be necessary to wash away all the red...

The first part of the test he got to choose his weapons: a scepter and bow and arrows—one long-distance, one short-distance, demonstrating that he had a variety of skill while still keeping many concealed up his sleeves (like his many throwing knives).

That was the part of the test where Thor had wield Mjolnir.

The second part consisted of usage of mandatory weapons, such as the sword. Rather than the enchanted moving targets used in the first part, the test with the sword was always against Tyr, since he was undoubtably the best Asgardian swordsman; nobody could beat him in a sword match (not even Thor). How it worked instead was that Tyr would see how easy it was for him to beat the trainee, and give them an aptitude evaluation.

And frankly, he'd been surprised by how difficult it was to defeat Loki—the young god ducked and weaved and whirled in a fashion dissimilar to that of any other Asgardian warrior.

Loki certainly hadn't learned such swordsmanship from him.

(In the seats above the training ground, Frigga was smiling to herself.)

And it had been all Loki could do to keep himself from kicking out and knocking Tyr's feet out from under him, knowing that that would be counted as cheating, even though it required no magic. But this was supposed to be a fair fight, and as much as he hated it Tyr would win.

But at least he could make it a challenge for the God of War to overpower him and knock his weapon out of his hand.

A grating voice in Loki's mind pointed out, What of it? None of this will matter anyway—all of this will be forgotten in a few minutes.

A Berserk Staff was brought forth, wrapped all in thick black cloth, which was carefully unwound from the steel weapon.

A shiver wracked Loki's thin frame, more a shudder, or even a tremble, or a shaking, as of sickeningly-tight coiled apprehension budding into the cold black blooms of fear with their suffocating scent of dankness and death like a fog.

"No," Loki said, shaking his fast, like a dog trying to dislodge water that inexplicably remained clinging to him, though his hair was so slicked it barely moved. He took a step back, muttering, "No, please no," under his breath as at the sight of the metal shadows locked in his chest began to manifest and take on scream-eliciting shapes, clawing at the bars of his ribcage with ravenous growls and howls of heralded freedom.

He'd crammed the darkness into a cage, and that darkness wanted out—he wanted to feel that pain, and perhaps that was what scared him more than anything, that if he took the staff not a part of him would want to let go.

But oh Loki wanted away, he had to get away, but as he turned, perhaps to run, perhaps to flee into the spaces Between, Odin decreed some order that didn't make it through the roaring of his ears, but suddenly he was being grabbed, thrashing and kicking like an animal as the staff was pressed into his hands.

A scream.

It fled his throat with hair-raising bestiality and laced with shiver-inducing pain, high and lilting as a wolf's howl it was so inhuman, but yet not strange in that in his mouth it didn't taste unfamiliar. In fact, it was too familiar—bitter to a point where he was nearly gagging.

Somewhere somebody was saying not to fight it, that he needed to let it in, to embrace it, because otherwise it would tear him apart from the inside out.

The locks and chains and cages in Loki's mind broke with a metallic finality, and suddenly all the demons he'd hidden away where they could only torment him at night were running eagerly rampant.

When his eyes opened, everyone watching saw that they flared a sun-blinding green such that their immediate instinct was to look away and shield their eyes.

But for Loki, everything he saw was in shades of red: red like blood, red like sunsets, red like the glowing heart of a fire, red like plum tree leaves and the juice of blackberries.

Red like anger; red like hatred.

And then he was moving and nothing could touch him.

A burst of raw magic and those around him were blasted back, lying motionless where they lay, and warriors were streaming towards him with their own Berserk Staffs, and were practically swallowed by the whirling tempest they found there; somehow Loki got hold of another of the cursed weapons, and oh how he danced and twirled and laughed and raged and screamed and the thought shot through people's minds that perhaps this was it: this was the end, this was Ragnarok; as then it began to rain and the training arena was running awash with rivers of red, red and silver, and Thor had thrown himself into the mix, begging for Loki to listen, and then Thor was lying on the ground soaked in ruddy water, and there was a silver staff at his neck, and Loki above him staring down, anything but apathetic, face twisted and convoluted as he sneered, eyes blazing and teeth bared, looking every bit the epitome definition of 'monster'.

Loki's voice didn't sound his own as he hissed with the ragged cadence of something that should be growling rather than speaking, "You promised me, Brother. You promised."

And Thor was crying, "Loki! Brother, please!"

And perhaps somewhere there was a snarled, "I'm almost sorry," before the staff was coming down towards Thor's neck.

But then there was a flash of light, so blue it was white, and the rain kept pouring and two figures lay prostrate in the puddling water on the ground.

"How long?" Thor asked, as he and Odin stood in front of the cell.

"You know how many people he killed," the Allfather stated.

"I meant how long till his mind..." Thor hesitated, watching the young god pacing, pacing, pacing, looking at them and smiling and feral, virulent smile, eyes wide and blazing and never, ever blinking, fingers clawing at the magical barrier and dripping with the color of his vision, skin black and burning even so, not a single piece of furniture in the cell for him to abuse.

Whenever anyone tried to talk to him, Loki would growl or scream or snarl the words: "I hate you." It was, "I hate you," over and over and over. Sometimes, "Kill," sometimes, "Die," sometimes it included such vocabulary as: "End," and, "Ragnarok."

Sometimes even: "You hurt me."

But mostly just: "I hate you."

"I don't know," Odin said, shaking his head in absolute consternation. "This has never happened before, to anyone at anytime. There is no knowledge about this sort of case. But..." he hesitated, and Thor waited with eyes on his father widening in growing horror.

"But I doubt he will ever recover," Odin finished. He took one last look at his lost son who was now punching the barrier with all his might, and he didn't look likely to cease until the bones of his fingers and hands were incinerated.

Odin left, then, without looking back.

With his heart so heavy it felt like it had been turned into Mjolnir and he was no longer worthy to hold it, Thor turned to leave as well.

There was a cessation of blows against the magical barrier, and Thor paused as Loki's voice stopped him.

"I told you, so did I not?" Loki whispered brokenly. "But you didn't listen. You never listen. You never..."

I honestly didn't mean for this to get quite that depressing... it just kind of happened ;-;

I hope you enjoyed though, at least on some level...

And do let me know if anything is confusing and requires explanation!